Cinema Wellman: November Screenings
Total Films Screened in November: 56
Current 2022 Total: 802
Current All-Time Total: 7,919
Race to #10,000: 2,081 to go!
List of all 56 films screened in November:
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Hello, and welcome back for our monthly breakdown of what was screened here at Cinema Wellman! A bit of a lean month with only 56 films screened, but there was a lot of World Cup soccer being watched!
We have The Top 10. We have The Bottom 5. And we have no regrets! Not even the animated “Acorn Heist” double feature that ended the month!
Let’s begin where we usually do…with the worst of the worst of the month!
#5: Deadly Friend (1986)
Always a red flag when the poster tells you about something ELSE the director is famous for. Remember when Wes Craven made good movies like The Last House on the Left and A Nightmare on Elm Street? Well….he also made THIS!
This features pre-Buffy Kristy Swanson and post-Little House on the Prairie Matthew Labyorteaux in a Reanimator type horror sci-fi movie that is not worth its 91 minute run time.
IMDb: “After his friend is killed by her abusive father, the new kid in town attempts to save her by implanting a robotic microchip into her brain.” What could go wrong?
A lot. Quite a lot.
#4: Obsession (1976)
Take a look at that poster!!!! Do you know how many words are crammed into that poster? There are over 200 words on that poster!!! I counted them! I’ve read shorter essays when I was teaching! This poster is an abomination! It repeats itself all over the place!
Gene Shalit’s review is just like Eugene Levy’s impersonation of him on SCTV! “Go see Sea of Love! You’ll love it!” Garbage.
And go straight to hell Rex Reed for even suggesting that this crap is “as good and often better than anything Hitchcock has ever done.” What did you just say?!?! Which Hitchcock are we talking about Rex? Is it NHL coach Ken Hitchcock? Russell Hitchcock, the vocalist from Air Supply? English singer/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock? You can’t be referring to acclaimed film director Sir Alfred Hitchcock. You know more about film than to make that stupid comment.
Don’t you?
#3: Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
If you dislike Billy Crystal like I do, this movie is a nightmare. It’s absolutely everything annoying about Billy Crystal crammed into an unfunny washed up borscht belt comedian named Buddy Young. He’s obnoxious to his friends and family and his act is atrocious.
This is two hours of Billy Crystal directing Billy Crystal as a crap comedian. I wish I stocked up on fresh produce to hurl at the screen like people did in the old days. They threw produce in the Catskills, didn’t they?
If not for David Paymer’s Best Supporting Actor nomination, I would have steered clear of this by a wide margin.
#2: The Munsters (2022)
Do you remember the old TV show from the mid 60s called “The Munsters?” It ran for three seasons and made a small mark on the TV landscape due to memorable characters played by Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis, and Yvonne De Carlo. It was a nice little piece of TV history that should have been left alone.
For some reason Rob Zombie resurrected it and turned it into a colorful but ultimately super weak reboot. When I watched it I couldn’t help thinking that it was exactly like watching an episode of the old show. It’s because the show wasn’t that interesting either.
See this only if you’re a huge fan of the original series. If not…skip!
#1: Faces of Death (1978)
I finally saw Faces of Death. I finally saw the infamous film that was banned in 46 countries and was the “unicorn” of movies when I was in high school. The warning on the poster helps explain why there was so much buzz about this compilation film. And I quote; “Warning! This feature contains graphic depictions of autopsies, dismemberment, physical cruelty, human combustion, and electrocution. It should not be viewed by children, the elderly, or the squeamish.” Love that! No notes!
This is horrific nonsense from the start. A supposed “shockumentary” of “found footage” it shows scene after scene of grotesque deaths, all reportedly real.
While the scenes are gross and disgusting, most of them weren’t even close to being real. One of the more infamous scenes in which a group of four sit at a table and crack open the skull of a live monkey and dine on its brains was completely staged. Those weren’t monkey brains; that was cauliflower covered in stage blood.
It being fake didn’t make it any easier to watch. I had been chasing this film for decades and it certainly wasn’t worth the wait by any stretch of the imagination.
Well, not every film can feature monkey brains being eaten, and that is a very good thing. Let’s take a look at 10 actually good films screened in November that do not feature monkey brains in any way, shape, or form.
#10: DC League of Super Pets (2022)
No surprise that a movie featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart makes a Top 10. I find both to be enjoyable, and I’ve already proven that I’ll watch Johnson in anything he makes, even San Andreas!
This was a cute animated adventure about the pets of super heroes. They can have pets, can’t they? Why not? Some of them are people.
Joining Johnson and Hart are Kate McKinnon, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Schwartz, and Diego Luna. Marc Maron is Lex Luthor, John Krasinski is Superman, and Keanu Reeves is Batman! A stellar cast as many of these animated adventures tend to have.
The story follows Krypto the Super-Dog as he enlists the help of other assorted super-pets when Superman is kidnapped.
This was a fun animated action movie that’s certainly worth a look, especially if you’re into the DC Universe.
The credits feature the names of the pets of the cast and crew. I absolutely love when movies do things like that. Like a “baby roll” of babies born to cast and crew during production. Good stuff!
#9: Suicide by Sunlight (2019)
Suicide by Sunlight is a short (17 min) film about a character named Valentina. Valentina is a black vampire who is protected from the sun by her melanin, so she can walk around by day. She is estranged from her husband and twin daughters who have welcomed a new woman into their lives.
This is moody and atmospheric and it will keep you guessing until the very end. The final line is really creepy!
And don’t forget the rule about vampires…you have to invite them in.
#8: Best Boy (1979)
Best Boy is an Oscar winning documentary about three years in the life of Phillip “Philly” Wohl, an intellectually disabled 52 year old man who is preparing for a self-reliant future.
Filmmaker Ira Wohl was Philly’s cousin and he made this film to chronicle the process of Philly doing more and more things on his own and preparing for the time that his elderly parents would no longer be around to care for him.
The subject is dealt with in a very caring and loving way, and Philly is an absolute delight.
Even though it was made 43 years ago and some of the vocabulary used to describe people like Philly has changed, I still think this would be a wonderful film to show young people who may have a classmate who is also intellectually disabled. It’s a very positive film.
And I’m pleased to report that Philly did move out and on his own at 52 and lived another 40 years. Philly passed away in 2020 at the age of 92.
#7: Winged Migration (2001)
Birds, birds, all kinds of birds! I have to admit that I go back and forth with birds. I can sometimes be a bit of a bird snob. I only enjoy the birds of prey (I’d love to have a falcon!) and I like cardinals for their nice color, but that’s about it. More often than not I find birds annoying. Especially if they’re singing when I’m trying to sleep.
This documentary changed some of that, and I now have a new appreciation for the entire bunch. Winged Migration was shot over a three year period on all seven continents and it tells amazing stories of the migratory patterns of birds.
Sometimes it takes a breathtakingly visual nature documentary to remind you of the beauty of this planet and its inhabitants. This was a lot of fun to watch, bird fan or not.
#6: Phantom of the Opera (1943)
I’m a big fan of Claude Rains, so I was surprised I had never seen this version of the classic tale of unrequited love. This 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera won two Oscars (cinematography-color, art direction-interior decoration-color), and both were well deserved. This is a visually impressive musical with a dark center.
The day after I watched this I watched the 2004 version. I liked that as well, but this was better. I’m still in awe of that chandelier falling from the rafters onto the audience. Extremely well done for the 40s!
#5: South (1919)
I’m a huge fan of everything Sir Ernest Shackleton and his ship, the Endurance. I’ve read several books on the topic, and I’ve seen more than a couple documentaries (including one in IMAX that made me nauseous).
What makes South stand out is that it was made in 1919, just three years after the expedition. It’s a silent movie shot by crew member Frank Hurley that documents the entire experience.
From IMDb: “The story of the 1914-1916 Antarctic exploration mission of Sir Ernest Shackleton. The ship sails south, breaking the ice, and ultimately getting trapped by the fast-changing weather. The ship breaks up in the ice, and while 22 men and 70 dogs wait on Elephant Island, Shackleton and a crew of five take a 20-foot lifeboat 800 miles to South Georgia Island to mount a rescue mission.”
I still think this is one of the most amazing tales of courage and survival ever. It took Shackleton and those five men 17 days to reach South Georgia Island over the open, icy, waters. When Shackleton returned to rescue his men four months later, none of them were surprised he came back for them. They were that confident in him and his leadership.
I’m still waiting for someone to give this the blockbuster film treatment it deserves. An absolutely amazing story.
#4: Eyes on the Prize (1987)
This six hour comprehensive documentary about the American Civil Rights Movement from 1952-1965 was a TV series on PBS. It ends up on this list because one of those episodes, Bridge to Freedom: 1965, was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar.
I decided to watch all six hours since I had never seen it, and I’m glad I did. I taught quite a bit about Civil Rights while I was a teacher, so there really wasn’t that much here that I wasn’t aware of. That didn’t make it any less powerful.
This should be required viewing for all school children in this country along with the 2016 documentary 13th. I know that will never happen since too many politicians and school boards in this country are gutless and would find issue with teaching our kids about the topic. The same thing goes for Holocaust education. There’s not enough study of either in my opinion.
Children in this country deserve to know the truth about our racist past. Hiding it from them doesn’t do anyone any good. Educate about it, and maybe we can start to eliminate it.
#3: See How They Run (2022)
Knives Out came out in 2019. I loved it and I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which will be released next week. With that sequel and the release of See How They Run, I’m hoping there’s a resurgence in the whodunit genre. There’s nothing better than a good murder mystery with an all-star cast.
Once popular in early cinema, the murder mystery had grown out of favor before Knives Out. Possibly because you need a very strong script to pull it off correctly. Good, original ideas are as scarce as hen’s teeth in Hollywood. I’m hoping that changes.
Two of my favorite actors (Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan) lead a stellar cast (Adrian Brody is a standout) in a fun comedy-mystery set in London’s West End circa 1950s.
The story involves plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play that gets derailed when a key member of the crew is murdered.
I love the movie within a movie angle (possible upcoming episode!) and Rockwell and Ronan have great chemistry together. If this is well received (and makes money) we may see a sequel in the future.
For a change, I’m all for that!
#2: Mister 880 (1950)
I’ve mentioned before that one of the signs that I really like a movie is when I don’t shut up about it. I watched this on the Monday after Thanksgiving while I was still visiting with family, so anybody I could corner heard all about Mister 880.
It’s based on the true story of a junkman/counterfeiter whose bill of choice to counterfeit was the $1 bill! He only did it to make ends meet and never meant to cheat anyone. His fakes were perfect except for the fact that he misspelled “Wahsington D.C.” on the seal of his bills.
The charming old counterfeiter is played by Edmund Gwenn, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role. You may know Gwenn from his Oscar winning role as Santa Claus in 1947’s holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street.
Burt Lancaster plays the frustrated Secret Service agent on Mister 880’s trail. Dorothy McGuire is Lancaster’s love interest and a link between the two men.
This is a delight!
#1: Prater (2007)
When I watched Prater, I sometimes had no idea what I was looking at. It’s a documentary (5/10 were docs this month!) about the world’s oldest amusement park located in Vienna, Austria. It’s part historical retrospective, part watching regular people enjoying the park’s rides, amusements and attractions, and part head-scratching lunacy.
I took close to half a dozen short videos with my phone to send to friends and family since I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The responses were mostly, “What the hell are you watching?!?!” and “No thank you!”
It reminded me a lot of the documentary Coney Island from earlier this summer. There were many similarities because it seems like Prater was the model to follow when it came to amusement parks back in the day. Prater was the site of the first silent movie theater in the world in 1905, setting trends for others to follow.
There were human zoos a la Coney Island where foreign peoples were put on display in their natural “habitat.” Yikes!
There was a “ride” that the only purpose seemed to be to turn women upside down to see if they were wearing undergarments or not. Double yikes!
There were freak shows, there were super dangerous rides, there were puppets. There were so many freaking puppets at this place. Horrific dancing clowns and puppets and marionettes doing the St. Vitus Dance! There was a monkey puppet smoking a real cigarette! Nightmare fuel!
One of my favorite sequences showed a guy punching one of those mechanical punching bags. You’ve seen them at the boardwalk. They’re big punching bags and you hit it hard to make it retract. You then bring it down to reset and you hit it again. This one guy hit it over a dozen straight times. Punching, kicking, patiently resetting. This goes on for almost a minute of screen time with no narration or music, just natural sound. He caps it off by running into the bag and headbutting it! I’m still laughing about that.
The best interview was with an elderly man who recalled visiting the park as a child. He told a story about being on a ride that felt like it was coming apart and collapsing. He thought the entire park was being destroyed and he was going to die. You cannot beat that! What a great memory to have!
The song playing over the closing credits was an old-timey tune titled, “Merry Go Rounds are Lovely.”
This was pure GOLD!
Well, that’s that for our monthly recap of what got screened at Cinema Wellman! Hopefully you found something of interest, or I steered you away from something you should miss and added two hours to your life.
Stay tuned for our monthly Top 10/Bottom 5 for the best and worst films screened at Cinema Wellman!
Platforms
Here are the platforms on which I screened this months selected 15:
Deadly Friend - TCM
The Munsters - Netflix
Obsession - Tubi
Faces of Death - YouTube
Mr. Saturday Night - Plex
See How They Run - HBO
Eyes on the Prize - Netflix
Phantom of the Opera (1943) - Tubi
Winged Migration - Criterion
Mister 880 - Plex
South - kanopy
DC League of Super Pets - HBO
Best Boy - kanopy
Suicide by Sunlight - Criterion
Prater - Criterion
If you have any questions about any of these films, drop me an email: cinemawellman@gmail.com
Keep up with everything Cinema Wellman!
Upcoming Blogs/Podcast Episodes:
Available on Sunday, December 18th:
A Special Episode I Thought up at 4:00 in the Morning!
The World Cup of Cinema!
Until then…take care!
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