Quickie Critical Commentaries

On this, our 19th day of self-isolation (with the exception of doctor visits and trips to the grocery store), I offer for your consideration, three movies and a novel......

"Snowpiercer" (2013).  This movie was directed by  Korean filmmaker  Bong Joon Ho.  After he swept the Oscars this year with his movie "Parasite" (which I enjoyed, btw), and upon the high recommendation of my pal Alan, I sought this one out on Amazon Prime, and watched it last night.  

After a cataclysmic event causes the earth to freeze and all life to become extinct, only a handful of humans survive and do so while residing on some sort of super train that endlessly circles the now frozen earth.  While I can appreciate the filmmaking - depiction of the train and the apocalyptic remains of Planet Earth are pretty neat - this just isn't my kind of movie.  I watched it on our downstairs TV while Mrs. Grandstander remained upstairs.  When it was over and I came back upstairs, she said "From what I could hear that sounded awful."  Pretty much so, I had to agree.

There were some names in the cast - Octavia Spencer and Ed Harris to name two, and the star was Chris Evans, who has gone on to make a name for himself in all those Captain America / Avengers movies.  In this one, he seemed to be trying to do nothing more than make himself a look-alike for U2's The Edge.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

The next two movies are oldies and came to me courtesy of Turner Classic Movies and my DVR.

Based on and Agatha Christie play and novelette, "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) was directed by the great Billy Wilder and starred Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power, and Elsa Lanchester.  Laughton plays distinguished English barrister Sir Wilfred Roberts who is being urged to retire for health reasons. Lanchester is the nurse who is constantly nagging him to slow down, take a nap, get his shots, and stop smoking cigars and drinking brandy, all of which Laughton delightfully ignores.  He is drawn into one last case defending American ex-GI Power against a murder charge, and Dietrich plays his wife, who may or may not be devoted to him.  It's a terrific courtroom drama with a fabulous Christie twist.  Its as nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director (Wilder), Best Actor (Laughton), and Best Sporting Actress (Lanchester).  It did not win any Oscars, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable and fun to watch.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

Based on a novel by John Godey, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974) was directed by Joseph Sargent and starred Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, and Jerry Stiller.  It is the story of a ruthless gang of four bandits, led by Shaw, who hijack a New York City subway train and hold it and seventeen passengers for $1 million ransom, and, oh yeah, if the money isn't delivered in one hour, they're going to start killing the hostages.   Matthau is great as the Transit Authority police lieutenant  who must negotiate with head hijacker Shaw.  Matthau plays the dramatic tough guy cop while still being, well, Walter Matthau, and he's great.  He even wears an Irish tweed hat similar to the one I bought for myself when we were in Ireland last year!  Also great in small parts of this movie were actors Lee Wallace, Doris Roberts, and Tony Roberts as the Mayor of New York, his wife, and the Deputy Mayor.

This is always a movie that is brought up when the subject of Remakes of Movies is discussed.  In 2009, someone in Hollywood thought that this movie should be redone, and it was, with Denzel Washington and John Travolta in the Matthau and Shaw roles.  Some remakes of movies are good ("Murder on the Orient Express" comes to mind), some put a different twist on a story that makes it delightful ("His Girl Friday" and "The Front Page), and others are flat out awful.  The 2009 version of Pelham One Two Three was one of them.  My own memory of the remake was the constant and incessant cursing that took place it.  It was terrible.

Stick with the 1974 Walter Matthau version.  It gets Four Stars from The Grandstander.

And for you readers out there....

Alison Thomas is the gorgeous, somewhat snotty, and affluent 18 year old daughter of a Westchester, NY family on a Christmas vacation on the Caribbean island of Saint X (a fictional place for the purposes of this recently released novel).  On the last night of the trip, Alison goes missing, and a few days later, her dead body is recovered.  Two Saint X natives who worked for the high end resort where the Thomases stayed are held and then released for lack of evidence.  

How does such an event affect the lives of those upon whom it touches?  That is the story of this novel. 

The story quickly flashes forward eighteen years, when Claire Thomas, the younger sister who was seven years old when Alison was killed, is now 25, lives and works in New York, and goes by her middle name, Emily, hops into a NYC cab and sees that her driver is Clive, one of the then young men who was arrested for and then released after the death of Alison.  Thus begins the crux of the story as Emily tracks down and develops a relationship of sorts with Clive in an effort to find out THE TRUTH behind her older sister's death.  She also needs to learn just exactly who her sister Alison was, and why her death has shaped who she, Emily, has become.

The story is then told through both Emily's and, to a lesser extent, Clive's point of view, and author Alexis Schaitkin also offers snippets of points of view from some of the people who are a part of this story....the Saint X police chief, a news reporter, other vacationers at the resort at the time of the death,  and a host of others.  It's as really clever device, I thought.  I also thought that the opening chapters, where Schaitkin describes the island and the people who inhabit it, both natives and vacationers, and what lies just below the shiny veneers of these tropical paradises, we're brilliant.  It was what hooked me from the get-go on this book.

The story also touches upon other topics - white privilege and  tabloid journalism, among others - but the most intriguing is the existential question of timing of little events in a person's life when a seemingly minor decision can effect the entire course not only of that person's life, but the lives of countless others with whom they come in contact.  It was those little moments that caused this book to stay with me after I finished it.

There were parts of the story that dragged on a bit too long for me, and might have been a bit superfluous, but I still liked the book and would recommend "Saint X"  to anyone.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.