Mystery Watch: A Haunting In Venice (2023)

Watched:  01/06/2024

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kenneth Branagh

Selection:  Me

At first, a third Poirot movie directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh was something I looked at with perhaps a bit of a jaundiced eye.  I'd enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express well enough, but Death on the Nile felt a bit self-indulgent and just didn't manage to ever keep me terribly engaged.  But, this installment had at two members of the cast who were a sell (Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey) and that was enough to get me to not dismiss the movie.

A Haunting in Venice (2023) received stunningly little promotion (Jamie reminds me that this was released during the strike, but even for that, seemed it barely got a whisper) and was dropped in the busy horror Halloween season, where I think it was immediately lost in the shuffle.  While I understand the thinking - the movie takes place on Halloween night and is about a seance and ghosts - the trailers didn't really make *anything* particularly clear or compelling.  And Poirot, a character folks know from PBS spots, is not famous as a ghost chaser or breaker.  So one could assume before even starting the movie that this detective, who is the consummate deductive genius, would be disproving ghosts and ghouls, and it all felt a bit ill-conceived as a Halloween flick.*

The title itself seems an attempt to tie the movie into the "A Haunting" series of films and trick the youths into watching it, and while there are worse fates, it's kind of odd.  But it also loses the tie to the actual novel, moves it to Venice from England, and can make you wonder what tax incentives Italy was offering for filming there?  Or if this was a "postcard picture" for all involved.  And, btw, from a quick glance, this story is about 65% new, using only the raw materials of the novel, Hallowe'en Party.

But, I'd heard from Simon that the movie was pretty solid, and then two more folks (hi Mike and Laura) watched it within a day of each other and said that, yes, it was worth a watch.  And, with the promise of Michelle Yeoh, we found it on Hulu.

Friday Night Watch: Confess, Fletch (2022)

I saw both of the Chevy Chase Fletch films in the theater, and was part of a generation of people who wanted desperately to be able to quip somewhere between Fletch and Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters, making for a bunch of horrible kids who said the worst thing at the worst time all the time.

But those Chevy Chase movies were both pretty solid, even if the first is definitely better than the second.  That said, I also remember my seventh grade Language Arts teacher informing us that the movies weren't a patch on the novels, and that Fletch was fundamentally different in the movies than what a coked-up Chevy Chase was delivering.  This did not convince me to check out the books because I was a fan of the movies and felt comfortable in my ignorance.  I have not lifted one of the 11 novels.

In the intervening years, I have no idea if anyone else attempted to make a Fletch movie.  Just wasn't on my radar.  And then in late 2022, I recall ads for a John Hamm movie that was, in fact a new Fletch installment.  

Hamm made his bones as Don Draper on Mad Men, but in subsequent years has shown great talent as a comedic actor as well as dramatic.  He's puzzlingly not quite caught on as a leading man in giant movies, but he has found a happy home in mid-budget films that wind up on streaming fairly quickly.  That said, his brand of comedy has rarely felt much like the persona Chase had made famous, so when I saw he was taking on Fletch, I had no idea how this would go.  

The movie itself completely flopped at the box office.  I have no idea what the plan was, but the domestic gross was about $540,000.  It wasn't a critical darling, but did have a decent RT and Metacritic score.  Still, it's telling that this just isn't the sort of thing people will leave the house to go see in 2023.

The first two Fletch films manage to have intensely convoluted plots, but it doesn't matter, because the plots are there as a vehicle for Chase to do his thing, and if he resolves the mystery, that's terrific.  He wears disguises and is constantly in motion, and that's enough.  This film has a similar and deeply convoluted plot, but Hamm's Fletch doesn't wear disguises, he barely puts on an act when he needs to and he adopts a name (if he can remember it), and I assume it's closer to the books.  But you do start to look at the seams of the mystery a lot more, and I'm not sure I entirely get why the murder occurs that Fletch was supposed to confess to that sets up the movie, or why the cops think Fletch knows the victim or would want to kill her (motive, means, etc...).  It's entirely random and circumstantial to outside eyes.

But the movie moves along at a good clip, Hamm is actually very funny and stays not quite a step ahead of everyone else unlike Chase's Fletch you thought was 5 steps ahead.  

The movie is helped along by a solid cast, including Kyle MacLachlan as an art broker, Marcia Gay Harden playing an Italian Contessa to the hilt, Roy Wood Jr. as a detective/ new father, Ayden Mayeri as Wood Jr's partner, and Annie Mumolo as a wacky neighbor.  And John Slattery briefly as Fletch's old boss, now in Boston.

It's kind of an ideal end-of-the-week movie that's not too much of anything, but also not... dumb.  

Mostly, I kind of think this should have been just a movie straight to Apple+ or Paramount (where I watched it), and it's fine.  It's the sort of thing we all paid to see a lot of in the 1990's.  But the fact the movie didn't make any money is probably much more of an indicator now of what people will just wait for than genuine disinterest in the movie.  I, for one, blocked time on my calendar to watch it when I saw it was on Paramount.  

Would I watch more installments on Hamm as Fletch?  I think I would.  He's enjoyable, the movie is light and fun, and his version of Fletch's persona in the face of chaos is actually pretty enjoyable.  But it's far less broad.  That's left to pretty much all the supporting characters.  So seeing them do this Knives Out style every two years or so would be welcome.  But, I suspect, that ain't happening.

Watch Party Watch: The Amazing Mr. X (1948)

Watched:  01/27/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bernard Vorhaus (sp?)

This is "moral relativism, the movie".  Not often do you see a movie where you're straight up unclear why you should care about anyone in the film, but this is it.  If you believe women should be helpless dummies, I guess you can pick the two rich, guileless sisters who are shown to mostly be cotton-brained marks through 90 minutes of film, and who discuss their long history of what easy targets they've been, but when your hero of the third reel is the guy who has been outmaneuvered by the even shittier guy in the movie... woof.

These characters kind of all deserve each other.  

I dunno.  The version we watched for free on Amazon Prime was a very, very rough, dark print that hadn't been touched since being put away probably in 1949.  John Alton was the DP, and there's some gorgeous John Alton stuff in this movie that was unfortunately dimmed by time.  I will pay to see this again in a restored version just for the photography.

I was willing to see this movie immediately because it co-starred Cathy O'Donnell, who is fantastic in They Live By Night, Side Street and The Best Years of Our Lives, but here she's mostly asked to be a simp and whine a lot, and...  it's fine, but it's thankless.  Playing a gullible dummy isn't a good look for anyone.

I know Lynn Bari less.  She's in Nocturne, which is a fine film, but that's the only place I've seen her.  And while the picture was blurry and dark, she's, how does one say?  fun to watch.  

The plot is that two rich sisters live in a Manderlay like mansion on an ocean cliff.  Two years prior, Lynn Bari's husband died in a fiery car crash.  She's both mourning him and about to be engaged to a too-practical attorney.  Her sister, O'Donnell, is a character type we'd start seeing a lot in this era- the teen or young woman who is certain in her belief she's smarter and wiser than everyone around them.  

Well, Lynn is being set up by her housekeeper (who is playing a Swedish maid) and her partner, the shady Alexis (the titular Mr. X, I guess), and they basically do the spiritualism bit on her, convincing her he's magic and there are ghosts.  

The movie goes to great pains to show us how the shenanigans of a seance work, and do the job of showing us how a complex spook show convinces both sisters (O'Donnell's character predictably wants to be on Mr. X).  But, lo, and behold, the dead husband shows up as NOT dead, and begins blackmailing our scammer into partnering.  

And, honestly, the pragmatic attorney does kind of blow.  Mr. X is played by character actor Turhan Bey, who was a wildly prolific talent, but who didn't really star in much other than this movie and The Mummy's Tomb.  The film's third-reel decision to have him grow a conscience seems... iffy.  He's dedicated his whole life to scamming.  And I think there's probably a good movie in that idea, but this isn't it.

Anyway, I actually enjoyed watching the film in part due to Alton, the two female leads, and because it's completely bonkers.  Is it a good movie?  Not particularly.  But it's a great late-late-show kind of movie that deserves a better print than what we saw.

Holmes Watch: Enola Holmes 2 (2022)

Watched:  11/14/2022

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Harry Bradbeer

One of the side-effects of streaming 99% of what I see is that movies are far less of an event.  There is no comparison between what I would do and think about en route to see Avengers: Endgame and choosing Enola Holmes 2 (2022) as prime time viewing on a Monday night.  

It is unlikely I would see a spin-off Sherlock Holmes movie on my own dime, but I did watch the first Enola Holmes, enjoyed it enough, and was game for the sequel.  Had I returned to the original and were my memories of it particularly intact?  Absolutely not.

But it is interesting to have a 2-hour option with a considerable budget, a solid cast and whatnot when the movie was never released theatrically.  It's not merely content - it is a movie into which care and love was poured.  It could have been released to screens and drawn some small box office (and I wonder sometimes if Netflix will one day partner with AMC or something and just make releases like this a thing they do as a matter of course to earn a few extra bucks).  It has actual stars.  Henry Cavill probably should have been a bigger big screen star than the DC movies and pandemic allowed, and it's time for Millie Bobby Brown to be tested as a young woman on screen. 

But those theatrical models may now be completely exploded and irrelevant.  So this is sort of the face of what movies are now.

Courtroom Watch: Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Watched:  01/10/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Billy Wilder

Look, I refuse to talk about the contents of this film.  Go into it knowing nothing as Jamie and I did, and you won't be sorry.  

Here's something fun - I've had this movie on my DVR for years, one way or another.  I've been meaning to watch it, and somehow it just never made it to be the next thing I watched.  Which is crazy.  But every once in a while I'd be reminded of the talent in the movie, all of whom I like, and after a recent convo with Laura, thought "man, I just need to watch this at long last."  And then TCM played it around Christmas and I recorded it again!

Directed by Billy Wilder from an Agatha Christie play.  Starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Elsa Lanchester, Una O'Connor, and the always impossibly old Ian Wolfe.  

It's basically a murder mystery starting with a suspect (Power) being brought to Laughton, a barrister, so he can defend him when he gets arrested.  Marlene Dietrich plays Powers' wife.  

There's 10,000 words to write about Dietrich, but plenty of others have already done it.  So, go find them. She earned them.  

But, also, delight in Lanchester and O'Connor in a film together again, where, once again, they share no scenes.

Murder Watch: The Last of Sheila (1973)

Watched:  07/20/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Herbert Ross

What a weird combo of talent on this film.

I recorded this on my DVR when Rian Johnson indicated it had helped inspire the sequel to Knives Out, recently filming in the French Riviera, where this film, The Last of Sheila (1973), takes place.  

I did not know that it was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins - two guys not known for Hollywood movie scripts.  Then, it was directed by Herbert Ross, who you may know as the director of The Secret of My Success or Footloose.  The cast is small, but as in Agatha Christie style, everyone has to carry their weight.  

But what a cast:  James Coburn as a movie producer, Dyan Cannon as a talent agent, James Mason as a director past his prime, Raquel Welch as a starlet with a past, Ian McShane as her iffy boyfriend, Richard Benjamin as a screenwriter seeing his career fail, and Joan Hackett as his heiress wife.

The titular Sheila dies in the opening scene, the victim of a hit-and-run as she drunkenly leaves a party to walk her Bel-Air neighborhood.  A year later, Coburn invites a handful of the attendees to his yacht in the South of France for a week of games, one of which is a game of his own making.

I won't say anything else.  No spoilers.  But the movie is a murder mystery with more twists than an industrial drill.

Go check it out sometime.