Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is an ordinary man living a good life with his wife Louisa (Randy Stuart). One day aboard his brother’s boat Scott is the only one on deck when they pass through a glittering radioactive mist. Six months later, Scott begins to shrink, which he finds both unusual and more than a little irritating.
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A 1930s circus has amongst its attractions a selection of people known as “Freaks” who are looked down upon by some of the other acts. Amongst these people is Hans (Harry Earles), an adult man trapped in the body of a boy. Despite being engaged to fellow “Freak” Frieda (Harry’s real-life sister, Daisy Earles), Hans is in love with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a beautiful trapeze artist. To begin with Cleopatra leads Hans on, mocking him behind his back but accepting his gifts and favours, all the while carrying on with the strong man, Hercules (Henry Victor), but when they discover Hans is the heir to a fortune, Cleopatra plans to marry then immediately kill him, leaving her his wealthy widow. Meanwhile, Hercules’ former lover Venus (Leila Hyams), who is amongst the few circus-folk who are actually kind and accepting of the “Freaks”, begins a relationship with Phroso the Clown (Wallace Ford).
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Louise (Danielle Darrieux) is a General’s wife who lives a lifestyle she cannot afford. We begin the film with her trying to decide which of her possessions she should sell to pay off her debts, and she opts for a pair of earrings her husband (Charles Boyer) bought her as a wedding gift. She sells them to the jeweller he originally bought them from, but to prevent her husband from knowing Louise pretends they have been lost or stolen. When the news of the supposed theft hits the jeweller, he soon returns the earrings to the General to save his own reputation, which sets in motion a long and eventful series of journeys, transactions and ludicrous coincidences that these earrings will take.
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On a mission to re-do aerial photographs over a German base during the First World War, the plane is shot down and the two Frenchmen on board are captured by the German army and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. There, along with the men sharing their quarters, they attempt to tunnel out, but before they are able to they are shipped to an escape-proof stronghold, run by the same German officer who was the cause of them being shot down in the first place.
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A field trip from an Australian girls’ school to the nearby geographical landmark of Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day in the year 1900 goes awry when four students separate from the rest of their class to go exploring the rock. Whilst everyone else is asleep, one of their teachers heads off in search of them, but only one of the original girls returns, forcing the rest of the class to abandon those missing, including the teacher, in order to return home before nightfall. The school and town becomes obsessed with finding the vanished girls, as does a young Englishman who happened to see them heading into the rocks.
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Two couples move into the same small tenement building in 1960s Hong Kong on the same day. Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) is a secretary and personal assistant at a travel company, working under her adulterous boss and literally keeping his affairs in order, whilst her husband is often away on business for longs periods of time. Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) is a writer whose dreams of writing martial arts serials have floundered due to lack of inspiration. His wife often works late too. When Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow begin to suspect that their respective partners are having an affair with one another, the two become close, and the chance to follow in their partner’s footsteps becomes a tentative possibility.
This film was nominated for me to watch by Mette Kowalski of French Toast Sunday and the Across the Universe podcast. Some day I may forgive here for this.
When I put the call out for people to recommend films for me to review this year, I did so expecting to have differing opinions with some of the people who suggested the films. I know there’s a lot of people out there who don’t necessarily think the same way I do, which is what makes the world an endlessly wonderful/frustrating place to live in. Mette suggested two films for me, and they both came with warnings. The other suggestion (2000’s In the Mood For Love) arrived in disc form today, so I’ll be covering that soon, and apparently I’ll suffer through it, whereas The Tree of Life came with the claim that I’d either love it or hate it, but that I shouldn’t dare hate it. Sorry Mette, I’m feeling rather daring today.
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It’s never a good sign when I begin my notes to a film with an exclamation of my distaste at what I’m seeing on screen, so the fact that the first scrawling for Tetsuo is “Gah!” should be viewed as a sign for bad things to come. This expression of shock and mild gagging was to a man, who apparently is named the Metal Fetishist (Shin’ya Tsukamoto, who also wrote and directed this), cutting a gouge down his leg and inserting a metal rod into it, parallel to the bone. Bear in mind last week I suffered a mild leg injury via bicycle accident (slamming on my brakes when a car turned without indicating led me to rake my leg down the metal grip-studs on my pedal, leaving me looking like I’ve survived a mild velociraptor attack), this visual did not go down well with me. Nor did the wound being filled with maggots. Delightful. The man who inserted the bar into his leg – which by no means impedes his ability to walk or run on it – seems to be turning into a man made entirely of scrap metal. Whether he is intending to or it is happening beyond his control is just one of the many questions Tetsuo throws up that I’m more than OK not receiving an answer to.
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This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.
Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is a troubled child. His inability to get along with others, multitude of secrets and general oddness cause his single mother (Toni Collette) to despair. Things start to look up however when Cole starts seeing noted child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who, after being shot recently by a former patient Crowe evidently failed to help, is now wary of the similar symptoms Cole is showing. Eventually, Cole and Malcolm grow close enough for the youngster to reveal his big secret, which might just help Malcolm overcome some problems of his own.
Back in 1987, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) was an ambitious up-and-coming stock broker on Wall Street but, on the day he received his broker’s license, h also lost his job to the infamous Black Monday. Starting from the bottom, he discovered the wonder of penny stocks, which were much cheaper but garnered the broker a far larger share of the profits, allowing Jordan to quickly create his own company – later named Stratton Oakmont – and rise up the ranks to becoming a ludicrously wealthy hedonist with a penchant for every kind of narcotic available, and many that aren’t. However, Jordan’s wealth and the corrupt manners in which it has been accrued soon come to the attention of the FBI.
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Life Vs Film 