March Films Update 2

Ten more films I watched in 2024.

1. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

A couple of years have passed since Ghostbusters: Afterlife and the Ghostbusters are back in business. Callie and her partner Gary (a running joke is the awkwardness of his exact relationship to the family) along with Callie’s children Phoebe and Trevor are in New York in the old firehouse, with the old Ecto-1 Ghostbuster car. They’re being funded by OG Ghostbuster Winston and are in business busting ghosts.

Meanwhile OG Ghostbuster Ray and Phoebe’s friend Podcast run an occult shop, where they buy cursed and haunted artefacts. Nadeem comes in to sell some of his grandmother’s old artefacts; one is a brass orb covered in writing that Ray thinks might be a magic trap for a demon. When they test the orb, a wave of cold escapes that also damages the ecto-containment unit (the ghost prison) at the firehouse.

The Ghostbusters recurring nemesis, one time environmental agency bureaucrat Walter Peck, is now mayor of New York, so they have to clean up their act, banning Phoebe from ghostbusting due to child labour laws or some such. She’s furious at this and goes out at night, where she meets a ghost, Melody, and plays chess with her.

With the ecto-containment unit almost full and damaged, Winston reveals he’s been working on this and has another facility in another bit of New York, maybe Brooklyn, I don’t know, not on Manhattan anyway. Working there is Lucky, Trevor’s friend from Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Dr Lars Pinfield, who is doing paranormal research. The orb is mysterious and they go to see Nadeem about it; he turns out to have minor pyrokinetic powers.

So we have ice, and we have fire, we have an evil ancient Mesopotamian demon trying to manifest in New York, we’ve got the old Ghostbusters, and the new Ghostbusters. We’ve got the old firehouse, the old car, and even the old enemy Walter Peck. Is it… possible to have too much nostalgia?

After a desultory sequel and a much later and flawed reboot, Ghostbusters: Afterlife brought something new to the series. But this film seems to want to coast on that. With original characters, Afterlife characters and a couple more, each having to do their jokes, their plot, their interaction with others, their action scene and their character progression, it feels crowded, the film flitting between them. The new monster isn’t that interesting, his promises to other ghosts taking place off screen. If we were not excited by the firehouse entering the 21^st century or Egon’s proton pack being enhanced with brass, is there anything here?

I mean the mini-pufts, they’re pretty cute.

Watch This: Ghostbusters, keeping what was good about the old while bringing the new
Don’t Watch This: It’s more Ghostbusters, with diminishing returns

2. The File Of The Golden Goose

Counterfeit dollar bills are being discovered across Europe, with murders following. The United States Secret Service put their top man Pete Novak (Yul Brenner) on the case. Because of the danger he splits up with his girlfriend, and at that very moment they are attacked by gunmen and she’s killed*.

In the UK he joins up with Scotland Yard, where he’s partnered with Arthur Thompson (Edward Woodward). Novak is disturbed to learn that Thompson is married, as he continues to believe this is not an assignment for a married man. The two go undercover in Liverpool where they get hold of one end of the distribution. Eventually they learn that a figure known as “The Owl” (Charles Grey), a notorious homosexual, is a source of the counterfeit dollars.

Novak tries out variously themed bathhouses to try and find The Owl, eventually tracking him down in the most heterosexual of them, the Cathay Baths, in which Asian women give massages. Novak follows him to a casino, and then later to his flat where he’s having a party – with lots of much younger people taking drugs and dancing to drums.  

There’s some twists and turns, the difficulty in communicating securely is important, especially when Novak doesn’t know who to trust. At one point Thompson is almost given away when a friend of his wife spots him while he’s talking to gangsters. The film shifts location, milieu and even style several times.

Watch This: Fast paced, twisty thriller with both grime and the swinging 60s
Don’t Watch This: Moves from place to place, forgetting about the previous one as it goes

* He briefly notes that this must mean there’s a leak somewhere in the Secret Service before forgetting about it and going to the UK to go undercover. Surely this would make him a poor choice for this assignment, and more, he’s the one man in the Secret Service they know isn’t the leak and so should be put in charge of finding the leak. But no, apparently not.

3. The Thing (1982)

In Antarctica a helicopter from the Norwegian base flies after a dog shooting at it. Arriving at the American base to the confusion of the Americans, the helicopter is accidentally blown up and the last Norwegian, shooting wildly, is shot by the base commander.

The doctor and pilot (Kurt Russell) fly to the Norwegian base where they discover it has burned down and there is a strange body; when dissected it appears to have normal human organs. They kennel the dog with the others, only for it to metamorphosize and absorb the other dogs.

The men in the station, cut off and unable to communicate with the outside world, try and figure out what is going on. They learn that the creature, the Thing, can absorb other creatures, including people, and look and act like them. They become paranoid, trying to survive, aware that if the Thing gets away it could become unstoppable.

A simple but clever film, about doubt, about trust, and about weird monstrous transformations. If it keeps turning towards manly heroics, it also refuses to let the horror of the situation be overwhelmed by them.

Watch This: Classic horror, combining suffocatingly tense quiet scenes with gore, monsters and action
Don’t Watch This: Quite horrid, also quite pessimistic

4. Carry On Cabby

Charlie Hawkins (Sid James) runs a cab firm, SpeedeeCabs. He takes on some new drivers, including Pintpot (Charles Hawtrey) who keeps getting into trouble but he’s kept on because he’s an old army comrade. Hawkins is neglecting his wife Peggy (Hattie Jakes) forgetting their wedding anniversary; for tax reasons all their money is in her name.

Sick of coming second to cabs she declares she’s getting a job, but actually opens up her own cab firm Glamcabs. With smart new cars and attractive young women as drivers they quickly become favourites. Hawkins tries dirty tricks but it doesn’t work partly because Peggy hears everything from Sally who works in SpeedeeCabs canteen; eventually he goes to see “Mrs Glam” to negotiate a merger. Outraged to discover it’s his wife they split and he turns to drink, letting the business collapse.

In the climax, robbers hijack Peggy and Sally from the bank. Peggy says out loud what’s happening and where they’re going; SpeedeeCabs hears them over the radio. All the bit part cabbies get to take part in a chase.

As is often the case the film’s at it’s best and funniest when it meanders away from the plot and finds humorous and interesting side stories. Cabbies having eccentric or difficult customers, breakdowns, making unlikely plans to sabotage. GlamCab drivers having to deal with handsy passengers gets mentioned more than once. Ted (Kenneth Connor) gets the traditional cross-dressing segment when he attempts to infiltrate GlamCabs, but he’s immediately spotted and made to flee when they insist that everyone change out of their uniforms.

Watch This: Carry On film from the time when they were more about the situation comedy than the smut
Don’t Watch This: Doesn’t have much to say about taxi drivers, or relationships for that matter

5. Women Of The Prehistoric Planet

A flotilla of starships named Cosmos I through IV is travelling through space; on board are humans (played by white actors) and Centaurans (played by Asian actors) who have been rescued from their world which has had a catastrophe. Cosmos III is hijacked by mutinying Centaurans and diverts to the mysterious planet Solaris 3. Cosmos I, three months ahead turns back; due to them travelling at relativistic speeds twenty years pass on Solaris 3. (There is a brief and quite bad explanation of this).

The planet is deadly, filled with dangerous animals (an iguana filmed as though it’s big) and terrain. Linda, a Centauran on Cosmos I, gets separated and is rescued by Tang, the grown Centauran child of some of the marooned people (he spies on her swimming in a pool). The admiral, for reasons not explained until later, refuses to leave without her. The rescue party and Tang are attacked by the mutineers.

Sadly the whole film feels like it’s been shot by sub-par actors on a recycled Star Trek set. The print was murky, the action unclear. The moral of the racially divided cast is admirable – we’re not so different and we should all get along. Rather unfortunately the Centauran men are non-technical (science was unadvanced on Centaurus even before the catastrophe), paranoid and impulsive; the women are also non-technical and eager to please. Meanwhile the human crew are serious, thoughtful and determined.

Watch This: A fairly standard 1960s science fiction B-Movie with gestures towards both science and tolerance
Don’t Watch This: The gestures are bad, maybe worse than not making them

6. Time Bandits

Kevin is a young boy who likes history and Greek myth. His parents like electrical household goods. One night a horseman crashes through Kevin’s bedroom, and out again without leaving a trace. The next night he’s prepared with his flashlight and polaroid camera and six dwarfs come in. They then leave through a portal, pursued by the Supreme Being, taking Kevin with them.

So they begin travelling through time and space, trying to steal valuable items. They used to work for the Supreme Being, fixing holes in time. Then they realised that the map of holes could be used to move about, steal stuff and avoid the Supreme Being so they went on the run. Kevin stays with them for a while before getting separated in ancient Greece where he helps Agamemnon (Sean Connery) slay the Minotaur and is adopted by him; then the dwarfs try a heist there and kidnap him.

Unfortunately Evil, the personification of evil, has spotted this and uses his powers to convince the dwarfs to travel to the Time Of Legends where he is imprisoned. There they are imprisoned, break out, there’s a couple of clever bits, some time shenanigans and then the film comes to rather an awkward though suitably absurd ending.

What is to be made of this? It plays fast and loose with history, with the idea of good and evil and the nature of the universe. On the one hand each individual segment is pretty good. On the other they add up to nothing much. Still this is a deliberately absurdist all-ages adventure film, rather than one that just kind of staggers oddly. And this makes some sense of the disappointing ending, it’s an ending that leaves us wanting more rather than one where we nod and go “well I suppose that wraps things up I guess”.

Watch This: Entertaining adventures in time and space
Don’t Watch This: Incoherent and not all that family-friendly to be honest

7. True Lies

Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a secret agent of the James Bond type, working for Omega Sector the last line of defence for US counterterrorism. His wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana believe he’s a computer salesman. Tasker and his team travel to Switzerland and he infiltrates a weapon dealer’s party, encountering art dealer Juno Skinner (Tia Carrera).

Returning home to the US Harry meets Skinner, is attacked by terrorists and so misses his birthday party. They link the attack to Crimson Jihad a terrorist splinter faction led by Salim Abu Aziz, the “Sand Spider”. Harry goes to surprise his wife at work to make up for missing the party, only to discover she has a lunch date. This is with Simon (Bill Paxton) who claims to be a secret agent.

They investigate and discover that Simon’s not a secret agent, he’s a car dealer who claims to be a secret agent to seduce women. Harry and his pal Gibson misuse agency resources to raid Simon and Helen, scaring off Simon and convincing Helen to go undercover as a prostitute called Michelle, intending to reveal himself in a rather unlikely rom com style reconciliation. Terrorists attack and kidnap them.

Captured by Aziz and Skinner they attempt to interrogate Harry with truth serum, which lets Helen and Harry have a truthful conversation. Then they escape though not before the Crimson Jihad set off a nuclear bomb and get away with another one, leading to a final confrontation.

This was a comedy action thriller, and perhaps better at the comedy than the thriller. Why is Aziz known as the “Sand Spider” asks briefly appearing Omega Sector Chief Spencer Trilby (Charlton Heston). Probably because it sounds scary. Why does Crimson Jihad want to strike at the US? No one asks this. The comic setpieces, with layers of dramatic irony work well; a spy is lying to the people around him and also to himself as it turns out. This contrasts rather starkly with the brutal fight scenes. As the film reaches it’s climax and all the pretence is stripped away the jokes become broader and the action more slapstick, losing any of the tension that we might have felt.

Watch This: Fun, exciting, occasionally clever comedy action thriller
Don’t Watch This: Comedy deflates the thriller’s tension, which in turn makes the jokes flat

8. The Ghost Camera (1933)

John Gray, a chemist, returns to London after driving his car in the country, to discover a camera has appeared in his luggage. He develops the photos and one appears to show a man being killed. Distracted by a caller he leaves the room and it is stolen with no trace, leaving him puzzled.

One of the photos shows an address; going there he meets Mary Elton (Ida Lupino). It was her brother’s camera and he’s missing, and the shop he works in has been robbed. The two team up and try to follow his trail from the photographs. However this is more difficult than might be expected (it’s 1933, even trying to find an address is fraught with difficulty). This before Mary hides things to protect her brother, and the murderous robbers are involved.

Both silly and grim, Gray speaks in a very mannered comic fashion, they visit a country inn whose owner is a weird country character. Meanwhile the crime itself is quite dark! The gimmick of the camera mysteriously appearing in the car and following the photos isn’t bad but padded with a lot of nonsense.

Watch This: Curious 1930s crime drama with an early appearance of Ida Lupino
Don’t Watch This: Strangely paced, implausible, neither very funny nor very tense

9. Burlesque

Ali (Christina Aguilera) a waitress from Iowa moves to Los Angeles to try and become a singer and/or dancer. Despite having Christina Aguilera’s skills she doesn’t get anywhere; then she spots Burlesque, a burlesque club run by Tess Scali (Cher). She goes in and reacts to the opening number like someone from Iowa who has never seen burlesque but wants to get involved. Jack (Cam Gigandent), a bartender and aspiring songwriter suggests she try out; Scali tells her to clear off but she starts waiting tables as they’re short of staff and gets that job. She also crashes at Jack’s apartment

One of the dancers is pregnant so they have auditions and Ali tries out. Tess, her assistant Sean (Stanley Tucci) and Nikki (Kristen Bell) are all sceptical and set her a very hard number but she nails it. Ali then asks to sing, but they don’t sing, they just mime and dance. Nikki’s a star and been with Tess the longest but is now drinking too much; one night she turns up late and drunk and Tess won’t let her on stage. When Ali comes out she cuts the sound, but Ali can sing like Christina Aguilera and goes down a treat. The club becomes even more successful.

The other plotline is that the club is losing money, and half of it is owned by Tess’s ex. Marcus (Eric Dane) wants to buy the club. He also tries to woo Ali. Ali and Jack keep avoiding their attraction to each other, as Jack has a girlfriend in New York. Then, after drinking too much at the pregnant dancer’s wedding Jack dumps his girlfriend by phone and he and Ali start going out. Then the girlfriend turns up to sort things out and Ali discovers Marcus wants to demolish the club and build a skyscraper. She and Tess figure out a plan to save the club, which bizarrely for a film mostly about singing and dancing, does not involve singing and dancing.

Indeed if the film has a flaw, it’s that the singing and dancing become secondary to the plot as the film enters it’s second half and Ali becomes a hit. If you’re here for the singing and dancing then great, but the personal and financial plot lines keep getting in the way. And if you’re following the plot then it keeps pausing for extended song and dance routines. The eternal problem of the musical.

Watch This: Singing, dancing, racy costumes
Don’t Watch This: Very lightweight story of talent and cunning overcoming money

10. Dead Of Night

Walter Craig, an architect, arrives at the country home of Elliot Foley to consult on some renovations. When he enters the house and meets Foley’s guests in the sitting room he claims to have seen them in his dreams, which include premonitions of awful events. Some of the things he says about the guests and things that happen are true.

Psychologist Dr von Straaten attempts to explain this away. Other guests are not so sceptical and test Craig while also recounting unexplained events in their own life. This then is a portmanteau horror film, with each story making it’s own section of the film.

Hugh Grainger, a race car driver has a vision while in hospital of a hearse and the undertaker saying “Just room for one inside,”; when he leaves hospital and hears the same words while catching a bus he doesn’t get on and it crashes. Sally O’Hara played hide and seek in a mansion and meets a weeping boy; when she returns to the party she’s told he was murdered by his sister. Joan Cortland bought a mirror for her husband; previously owned by a man who killed his wife and himself the husband becomes paranoid and violent until she breaks the mirror. Foley tells of two golfer he knew, who discovered the one thing they liked more than golf was a woman, Mary, who can’t decide so they play golf for her; one wins by cheating, the other drowns himself in the water hazard and haunts the other in the comic interlude. And finally von Straaten tells a story of a ventriloquist who is taken over by his dummy to the extent of committing murder.

As is ever the case, the individual stories are of variable quality, the golfer one (based on a short story by H G Wells and featuring a pair of actors who did the comic sportsmen bit in several films) being very slight, despite the dark parts, while the ventriloquist tale is long, complex and genuinely creepy. The final twist in the frame story ought to be obvious a mile off, but by the time we get there – straight after the dummy – it’s been long and weird enough it’s a fun surprise.

Watch This: Chilling British portmanteau horror from a period when they weren’t being made
Don’t Watch This: Somewhat stilted and mannered and highly variable in quality and tone of the component films