Classic Movie Review The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)

Directed by Terry Gilliam 

Written by Charles McKeown, Terry Gilliam 

Starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Robin Williams 

Release Date March 10th, 1989 

Published January 3rd, 2023 

Terry Gilliam's delirious, chaotic, and fantastic, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, is now part of the Criterion Collection. Released in 1989, this wildly over the top, sensory overload inducing film remains, 34 years after release, as alive and full of imagination as ever. Even as special effects and cinematography have evolved past the somewhat aged looking Munchausen, Gilliam's dedication to practical effects gives his masterpiece a timeless look. 

The story of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen begins on the stage where an acting troupe is acting out the supposedly fictitious adventures of Baron Munchausen. The story kicks into gear when the real Baron Munchausen (John Neville), charges the stage and demands to be allowed to tell the story of his adventures correctly. Thus, the Baron launches into a fantastical story about his conflict with the Grand Turk, one that began with a reasonable wager and ended with the Baron and his men leaving with all of the wealth of the empire. 

The Baron's remarkable and vivid tale is interrupted when that same Grand Turk and his army begin to bombard the English city where this tale had been told. Caught off guard, it appears that the English are to be overrun by the Turks until the Baron makes a big movie, creates for himself an airship on which he will fly across the galaxy to gather his servants to help fight the Turks. Stowing away on the Baron's airship is Sally Salt (Sarah Polley), a plucky youngster who is one of the few who believes that the Baron's fantasies are real. 

And boy are they real as, indeed, the Baron takes Sally to the Moon where The King of the Moon (Robin Williams), imprisons them. There they are able to recover The Baron's top assistant, played by Eric Idle. Naturally, there is an amazing escape that leads to another remarkable adventure that includes a brief bit of romance wherein The Baron is smitten with the wife of a dangerous bandit king. Uma Thurman is luminous as the Queen while the inimitable Oliver Reed chews the very large and practically crafted sets. 

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a wildly imaginative masterwork. It's pure chaos but in the best possible way. The flights of fantasy and the visual delights never rest while the extraordinary cast provides even more color with big, broad, and hilarious performances. Star John Neville grounds the story with elegant dignity and roguish charm, while Sarah Polley never succumbs to the cliches of a plucky child sidekick. Her Sally is an urgent part of the plot as she plays the part of the Baron's conscience. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Women Talking

Women Talking (2022) 

Directed by Sarah Polley 

Written by Sarah Polley 

Starring Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Ben Whishaw 

Release Date December 23rd, 2022 

Published December 22nd, 2022

Women Talking is directed by Sarah Polley with a script Polley adapted from a book by Marion Toews. The story is set inside a cloistered Mennonite community in 2010. After having endured sexual and physical abuse from the men in their colony for years, the newest assault has the women of the community questioning what to do to stop this from happening again. 8 women are assigned the task of determining what must be done, either staying and fighting the men or leaving and never returning, risking what they've been raised to believe would be God's wrath, eternal damnation. 

Regardless of the risks involved, a decision must be made and over the course of Women Talking we here the reasoning behind what must be done, staying and fighting or leaving. Each comes with its own peril. Fighting the men is going to be violent and result in grave harm or perhaps death. Leaving meanwhile, risks losing a place in the kingdom of heaven plus the fact that the women have no idea where they will go if they leave. 

That last bit is critical but you have to think about it for yourself. A less talked about aspect of abuse is economic or circumstantial abuse. This is abuse that occurs when one partner renders another partner helpless via their circumstances, physical, financial, et cetera. Essentially, because these women are cut off from the outside world, cut off from resources, they are left with no choice but to rely on their male partners. Leaving is a possibility but it comes with a grave uncertainty as to where to go and what will happen next. 

Add to that fact that these are women with small children or elderly women who've spent their whole lives in this community and it dawns on you just how massive this decision these women are making truly is. The competing emotions of anger, resentment, fear, uncertainty, the desire to be free of abuse and the years of indoctrinated servitude, these women are doing far more than just talking, they are facing a monolithic challenge. 

Among the eight women chosen to make this impossible decision are Ona (Rooney Mara), a rape survivor who became pregnant from her assault. Salome (Claire Foy), also a recent survivor who is eager to stay and fight. Mariche, a mother of several children who has suffered repeated abuse from her husband. Mariche wants to stay and cope with the problems though her coping seems to involve changing absolutely nothing about their circumstances. 

Click here for my full length review at Viva.Media 

Movie Review: The Weight of Water

The Weight of Water (2002) 

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Written by Alice Arlen, Christopher Kyle 

Starring Sean Penn, Sarah Polley, Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine McCormack,

Release Date November 1st, 2002 

Published February 23rd, 2002 

On the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire, a murder was committed. Two women are killed and a man stands accused of a crime he did not commit. It was 1873 and though nowadays double murders barely make people blink, in New Hampshire in 1873 this was the OJ trial. The so-called Smuttynose murders became the background to a best-selling novel, "The Weight Of Water," which has now been adapted for the screen starring Sean Penn and Catherine McCormack. Like most books to film, it's a safe bet the book was better.

McCormack is the film's lead, Jean, a photographer who is using a weekend visit to the Isles of Shoals to do a work assignment, but also using the romantic surroundings to reconnect with her Pulitzer Prize-winning poet husband, Thomas. Accompanying them on the boat trip is Thomas's brother Rich (Josh Lucas) and his new girlfriend Addeline (Elizabeth Hurley). Jean is on the Isle to get photographs of the place where the area's most famous murders took place.

As the story goes, a Norwegian immigrant named Maren Hontvet (Sarah Polley) and her husband John (Ulrich Thompson) are a fishing family living on the Isle with Maren's sister Karen (Katrin Cartlidge), their brother Evan (Anders W. Berthelsen), and his wife Anethe (Vinessa Shaw). Also living with them is a boarder named Louis Wagner (Ciaran Hinds). According to the official story, Wagner, in a jealous rage, murdered Karen and Anethe while Maren escaped and hid on the shore to await the return of her brother and husband who had gone for a night of fishing. Wagner was convicted of the crime though, to the day he was hanged, he denied his guilt.

For some reason, the official story doesn't sit well with Jean who, though she is just supposed to take pictures, begins investigating the murders. The story she uncovers vaguely resembles the story unfolding on the boat between her husband, his brother and Addeline. Jealousy, suspicion, and questionable behavior all begin to mirror the story of the murder. You can see where this is leading.

It's not the most original setup, but to the credit of director Kathryn Bigelow the film doesn't go in exactly the direction you think it's heading. We saw a similar setup earlier this year in the dramatic romance Possession, where a pair of historians begin a relationship that mirrors the one they are researching. In The Weight of Water, as Jean investigates what really happened in the Smuttynose murder case, she senses a similar pattern evolving amongst her group leading to a moral situation foreshadowed by the true story of the murders. There is a seemingly supernatural element to the film, in what I believed were Jean's visions of what happened in the past. However this hint of the supernatural never truly plays out, it is merely used to connect the two stories.

Here is the problem with this film, the film switches between the past and present so randomly that we lose the connection between them. The links between the two stories are tenuous at best.

The real story of the murders, as uncovered by Jean, is far more lurid and interesting than the rather dull melodrama unfolding on the boat. Yet, the screenwriter and director seem to want to play up the parallels between the two. The only real parallel is jealousy, and by the time that becomes clear, you're left saying, is that it? Jealousy is a common thread in a lot of murders or potential murders; one would hope after sitting through two hours of this film, one would get something a little more interesting than the green eyed monster.

Sarah Polley gives yet another beautifully layered performance, using her big round eyes to communicate her character's conflicted nature. Looking at her sparse surroundings and her extremely dull husband, it's no wonder she would entertain psychotic thoughts, anything to distract from her life must have been welcome.

The Smuttynose Murders are a true story of lust, incest, and ax murders; of lies and deceit; and a cover up that may have sent an innocent man to the gallows. The story would be sensational if it weren't true and should have been an easy fit on the big screen. However, when combined with the dramatized modern story, it doesn't get the treatment it deserved.

Movie Review Splice

Splice (2010) 

Directed by Vincenzo Natali 

Written by Vincenzo Natali, Doug Taylor

Starring Adrian Brody, Sarah Polley

Release Date June 4th, 2010 

Published Published June 4th, 2010 

I have had my share of odd experiences at the movies but the experience of the sci-fi flick “Splice” starring Sarah Polley and Oscar winner Adrien Brody ranks high on the weird meter. What begins as a moody and strangely fascinating sci-fi story about the morality and consequences of gene manipulations becomes, in its third act, a remarkable train wreck of a movie.

Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley) are two of the most brilliant genetic researchers in the country; their work has been featured on the front pages of national magazines. As we meet them they are creating a hybrid animal with no face or body parts but a mix of proteins with almost unlimited potential in the fight against disease.

With the success of the animal hybrid Elsa and Clive believe the next logical step is a human/animal hybrid. The pharmaceutical company funding the research shoots down that idea but if that rejection stopped Clive and Elsa we wouldn't have much of a movie. Clive and Elsa push forward and successfully combine animal and human. The result of this experiment is Dren, played by Abigail Chu as a child and Delphine Cheneac as a grown up. With her unique gene combo the transition from child to grown up is greatly accelerated.

The scenes of Dren's creation and growth are strangely fascinating and oddly humorous as Polley's Elsa becomes a surrogate mommy to Dren and treats it as one would a real human child. Brody's Clive is more reserved and skeptical, keeping a scientific distance. When this dynamic changes in the second half the tension amps up in surprising ways before finally reaching a second act climax that will leave jaws on the floor.

I will not spoil it for you. Really, you have to see it for yourself. The things that happen in the final act of “Splice” are plot wise, somewhat predictable. The outside the plot stuff, the character touches if you will, are where “Splice” goes from sci-fi weird to goofball, off the charts whacked.

The third act and the final moments of “Splice” are so completely idiotic and so easily foretold that on principle I can't recommend “Splice.” That said, there is a big part of me that not only wants you to see “Splice” but to also film your reaction as you see the developments in the final act. For all the problems of “Splice,” there is a ballsy quality that one cannot help but admire and marvel at.

“Splice” is not a good movie; it's far too predictable and the characters far too dopey for it to be any good. It is, however, bad in fun ways and shocking in the most memorable and disturbing ways. The critic in me says skip it but my twisted sense of humor says run to theaters and see this astonishingly odd movie.

Movie Review: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Dawn of the Dead (2004) 

Directed by Zack Snyder

Written by James Gunn 

Starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Webber, Mekhi Pfifer

Release Date March 19th, 2004

Published March 18th, 2004

Top 5 Lessons for Surviving A Zombie Attack from Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide (Three Rivers Press $12.95)

1. Organize Before they rise

2. They feel no fear, Why should you?

3. Use Your Heads: Cut off theirs

4. Blades don't need reloading.

5. No Place is Safe, Only Safer

Sage advice for the cast of the movie Dawn of The Dead, the "reimagining" of director George A. Romero's schlock classic by first time director Zach Tyler and writer James Gunn.

Indie staple Sarah Polley stars in the new Dawn as Ana, a nurse on the run after watching her husband turned into a zombie by a ten-year-old neighbor girl. Ana at first doesn't know they are zombies but after hooking up with a ragtag group of fellow living souls, she soon comes to realize that the dead have indeed risen. Ana is joined by a taciturn cop Kenny (Ving Rhames), a studious businessman Michael (Jake Weber) and a couple with a baby on the way (Mekhi Phifer and Inna Korakoba).

There are others but they are mostly zombie food. Other than Michael Kelly as mall security guard CJ, none of the remaining supporting cast makes much of an impression. Not that they needed to, they just have to run, scream, look scared and be eaten and each does a terrific job with that. Otherwise, the core cast members, Rhames, Polley et. Al, actually infuse a little life into their stock horror characters.

The action is centered in a suburban mall near Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Toronto and Ontario Canada stand in for Milwaukee). This is where our band of heroes hole up and bond over the shared experience of nearly being eaten by zombies. The actors do a terrific job of letting the audience share in the frightened excitement and confusion of this surreal life and death situation.

So how do the zombies come to be zombies? The film never bothers to explain. Like Romero's original, the zombies simply spring up out of nowhere one day and suddenly neighbors are chewing on neighbors and chaos reigns. The film’s teaser says something about there being no more room in hell, and indeed you should book your plans early if you want to get in, but really there is no explanation. Only the most nitpicky viewer will care how the zombies were conceived and nitpickers never make good horror fans anyway.

Director Zach Tyler and schlock veteran James Gunn, a former writer for Troma films, have a terrific sense of classic zombie farce. Though there zombies are the sped up new generation zombies that don't trip at opportune moments or shuffle slow enough to allow easy escapes, they are still a great source of both scares and humor. In one scene, Rhames and company on the roof of the mall play a unique time-killing game with a gun shop owner on a neighboring rooftop, challenging the marksmen to pick off zombies resembling celebrities.

There are also moments of good drama sprinkled between the gore and the humor. Keep an eye on Phifer and Korakoba. Also, the film’s ending, which some may find unsatisfactory, I found it to be fitting regardless of how well it hues to the original film.

This "reimagining" of Dawn of The Dead doesn't have Romero's cockeyed undercurrent of consumerism allegory. Where Romero used the mall setting for his 1979 film as a platform for social satire, this new film is more action oriented and the humor comes from different sources.

I never expected to like Dawn. On general principle, I oppose most, if not all remakes. Even I must admit when they get one right and they get this one right. Scary, funny, gory and surprisingly well-acted, Dawn Of The Dead is one terrific horror movie.

Movie Review No Such Thing

No Such Thing (2002) 

Directed by Hal Hartley

Written by Hal Hartley 

Starring Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Baltasar Kormakur

Release Date March 29th, 2002 

Published July 8th, 2002 

Director Hal Hartley is known for his unusual, free-form style of filmmaking. When Hartley’s style is really on to something  good the result can be brilliant. But when it's wrong it is often massively so. Such was the case of Hartley’s 2001 release, No Such Thing. The film is an absolute catastrophe. It’s a meandering and often pointless feature desperately in search of a purpose. 

The film stars the lovely Sarah Polley as Beatrice, a naive young television intern whose fiancée, a reporter, disappears while doing an investigative report in Iceland. Beatrice's Uber-bitch boss, played by  Helen Mirren, and credited only as ‘The Boss’, wants to exploit the boyfriend’s disappearance based upon the sensationalistic rumor that a real-life monster killed the TV crew.

Is the monster some sort of legend or does he really exist? Beatrice offers to fly to Iceland to investigate and is given the assignment but on the way there she is nearly killed in a plane crash. Once again, The Boss sees a story she can exploit. The one survivor of the plane crash is her intern so she naturally assumes she will have an exclusive. Beatrice however, refuses to be interviewed so The Boss fires her. 

After 2 years under the care of the kindly Dr. Anna (Julie Christie), and with miracle surgery, Beatrice learns to walk again and continues her journey to Iceland where she encounters the Monster. Former Robocop 3 star Robert John Burke is the extremely put-upon monster who would be fine if people would just leave him alone. He isn't as psychotic as he is annoyed, so if killing a couple of people here and there will buy him some peace then he'll kill. 

Arriving in the village where her fiance and his crew disappeared, Beatrice is convinced to drink herself into a stupor by the locals. Then, they strip her and leave her as an offering to The Beast who’d really rather be left alone than have to kill anyone.  From there, Beatrice and the Monster form an unusual bond, which leads them to New York and the media spotlight and inklings of the monster’s origin.

If my plot description is convoluted you should see the movie. I've seen more coherent storylines in untranslated original language anime cartoons. Hal Hartley both wrote and directed No Such Thing and he appears to want to make a statement about our over-saturated media. However, Hartley tells the story in such a way that he is just beating the audience over the head with his own personal dislikes regarding the media. 

The film’s resolution, if you could call it that, is an annoyingly stupid metaphor, a statement about our society that is so obvious I'm stretching to call it a metaphor. The dialogue practically screams what Hartley should be saying much more quietly. Media bad. No subtlety, no thoughtful statement about how consumer society and a 24 hour news cycle have combined to create a poisonous public discourse. No, No Such Thing is basically Hartley shouting in your ear, MEDIA BAD! 

Not even the incredible Sarah Polley can make a dent in the mess that is No Such Thing. In this film she's called upon to dull her best features, her wry intelligence and sharp wit in service of Hartley’s hammer blow approach to metaphor. Would you tell Meryl Streep not to do an accent? Then don't tell Sarah Polley to not be acerbic. Polley, when she was acting, before she moved to the director’s chair, was one of our sharpest actors and seeing her be dull in No Such Thing is a major letdown. 

I will say this for Hal Hartley, when he fails he fails spectacularly. No Such Thing is quite clearly a swing for the fences. Unfortunately, he struck out.