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Now Streaming: Sliding Doors

Now Streaming: Sliding Doors

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Sliding Doors
Sliding Doors

Although the 1998 romantic comedy Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, and Jeanne Tripplehorn may not immediately spring to mind as a science fiction film, it is one of the two micro-alternate history films that can be used to really explore the concept of alternate history on the personal level, the other being the 1946 Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life.

Both films focus their attention on how things would have been different if things had worked out differently. In George Bailey’s case, Clarence shows him what Bedford Falls would have been like if he had never been born. Sliding Doors explores two alternatives for Paltrow’s Helen.

The film opens with Helen (Paltrow) heading into her public relations office for a normal day.  When she arrives and learns that she has been fired on trumped up charges, she heads back home.  The film shows her both catching her train and missing the train by moments, setting into motion the branching timelines for Helen’s life.

In the world in which she catches her train, she meets James (Hannah) who tries to jolly her out of her funk. He fails and she returns to her apartment to discover that her boyfriend, Gerry (Lynch) is having an affair with Lydia (Tripplehorn).  Fleeing the apartment, she eventually finds herself staying with her friend Anna (Zara Turner) and bumping into James again in a local restaurant.  Over the next several weeks, she and James become friends, and possibly more, and he encourages her to open her own public relations firm.

In the world in which she misses her train, Helen decides to take a cab home and finds herself on the wrong end of a mugging.  Stopping off at the hospital, by the time she gets him, all evidence of Gerry’s affair is long gone.  While Gerry continues to struggle with his novel, Helen begins working two jobs to try to make ends meet. Gerry continues his affair and also gaslights Helen whenever she begins to question him about things.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The New Zu Review

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The New Zu Review

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Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (Hong Kong, 1983)

The worldwide success of the Star Wars movies, followed by that of Conan the Barbarian, opened the funding floodgates for fantasy films, not just in Hollywood and Europe, but in Asia as well. Of course, Asian cinema had a tradition of making movies of fables and horror stories dating back to the silent era, but the new, hot trend out of Hollywood was combining such themes with heavy special effects support. Filmmakers in Japan, Hong Kong, and even Indonesia were eager to follow that trend, and though they had solid experience with practical effects and models, building the capacity to add sophisticated animation would take time and investment. But Asian filmmakers had no shortage of wild visual ideas to portray with the new special effects, as we’ll see from the early examples below.

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What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

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One of these five doesn’t make it out of the pilot. Cast changes began early!

During my hiatus from Black Gate, I watched a lot of shows, and some movies. And I grabbed a BritBox subscription, so today, we’re going across the pond. I might drop a minor item here and there, but these reviews are mostly spoiler-free.

DEATH IN PARADISE

I had just finished season four of this enjoyable British police show on Netflix, back when the newly-created BritBox snatched this – and many other shows – away. I recently got a ‘two months for $2’ deal through Prime, and lo and behold, I had access to this show again. Season 10 wrapped up in February of 2021, and it just started season eleven last week, over on the BBC. I was pleased when a Christmas episode dropped just a few weeks ago. With a BIG surprise!

The basic premise is that Scotland Yard assigns a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) to duty on the island of Saint Marie (pronounced ‘San Marie’), located in the Lesser Antilles. Saint Marie was turned over to the British by the French roughly forty years before the show starts. So, it still has a French-Caribbean culture.

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Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

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As a lifelong Chicagoan I have always enjoyed stories of my city’s colorful history. From its Blues connection to New Orleans, to the Gilded Age of Marshall Field and Parker Palmer, to the seedier stories like that of the Everleigh Sisters, the building of Chicago reads like a naughty version of Downton Abbey. Of course, as entertaining as its early history can be, Chicago was a tough, crime-ridden place. It was dirty, both literally and figuratively, and violent in every sense of the word. The city was and still is, associated with a lot of unsavory activity that we unsuccessfully try to distance ourselves from. For instance, we’d love for the world to stop thinking of Al Capone every time someone brings up Chicago. Ironically, the one name most people don’t associate with our city is H. H. Holmes, at least up to now.

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Now Streaming: The One I Love

Now Streaming: The One I Love

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The One I Love
The One I Love

The One I Love is the feature film debut of director Charlie McDowell and stars Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss. It was released in 2014. Although the film begins as a reasonably straightforward getaway for Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) at the advice of their therapist (Ted Danson), the story quickly takes a quirky turn, giving it the feel of an episode of The Twilight Zone produced for the big screen.

The first scene makes it clear that at some point prior to the movie, Ethan cheated on his wife, Sophie. Flashbacks show the start of their relationship when everything was fresh and exciting as well as their failed attempts to rekindle those feeling. After listening to them, their therapist offers them access to a country house where they can rediscover each other in a secluded environment, noting that several of his patients have successfully made use of the house.

Upon arriving at the country estate, Sophie and Ethan discover there is a main house and a guest house, both of which they have full access to. After a first night getting used to their surroundings, they begin to explore separately. They also notice some oddities, for instance, Sophie prepares a breakfast of bacon and eggs for Ethan, who comments that she hates it when he eats bacon. Things get even weirder when Sophie mentioned how great the sex was the night before and Ethan has no recollection of having sex with her.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

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The Sword and the Sorcerer (USA, 1982)

The pre-release hype for Conan the Barbarian in 1981, and then its delayed release until the following year, meant that by the time it appeared, there were already plenty of imitations in the pipeline ready to take advantage of its success. As a result, 1982 abounded in barbarian adventures, and if none of these was better than merely good and you couldn’t get quality, you sure as Hyborea got quantity. If you were young and just getting your eyes opened to the sword and sorcery genre, that was good enough. A new fantasy genre was emerging, for both filmmakers and their mass audience.

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Not Streaming: Electric Dreams

Not Streaming: Electric Dreams

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Electric Dreams
Electric Dreams

In 1984, the movie Electric Dreams was released, providing a prescient view of the capabilities computers would eventually have. At the same time, as one of the first films directed by a music video producer, Steve Barron, the film made heavy use of MTV style montages during some of its musical sequences.

The film opens with a montage at the airport as a technophobic Miles Harding (Lenny van Dohlen) tries to catch a flight. The scenes in the airport establish how pervasive technology is in the world, with shots of computers, printers, computerized toy cars, and calculators. Upon arriving at his architectural firm in San Francisco, a friend shows Miles his electronic organizer. The conversation is seen through the lens of a surveillance camera in the company’s elevator. Miles goes to buy one, but is talked into purchasing the latest computer from the store clerk.

Although the computer Miles purchased looks like an Apple available in the early 80s, it had capabilities more in line with a modern Alexa.  Within moments of unboxing the computer, Miles is connecting it to run his blender, coffee machine, stereo, and home security system. When he hacks into his boss’s computer to gain the information he needs so the computer can help him design an earthquake resistant brick, the computer begins to malfunction and he pours champagne on it, resulting in a computer that begins to gain sentience.

While all this is going on, Miles gets a new neighbor, when classical cellist Madeline Robistat (Virginia Madsen) moves into the upstairs apartment.  Despite making a bad first impression on her, when they bump into each other in a grocery store, the strike up a relationship.  Miles is as awkward around women as he is around computers, but Madeline is intrigued when she hears music coming from his apartment, playing a duet as she practices and thinks it is Miles.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Euro Dumas Trio

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Euro Dumas Trio

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The Count of Monte-Cristo (UK, 1975)

Completing our survey of Seventies movies that attempted to recapture the fire (and the box office success) of Richard Lester’s Musketeers films, here are three European productions that are often overlooked, in America at least. All three are adaptations of novels by Alexandre Dumas, but the real gem here is D’Artagnan and Three Musketeers, a Russian adaptation of the master’s greatest novel, presented with Slavic brio and panache. If you’re a fan of cinematic adaptations of The Three Musketeers, you really owe it to yourself to track this one down.

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Now Streaming: The Rocketeer

Now Streaming: The Rocketeer

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The Rocketeer
The Rocketeer

Based on the comic of the same name by Dave Stevens, The Rocketeer was a nostalgic film that looked back, with a nudge and a wink at the thrilling heroics of yesteryear. The film was a loving tribute to the action serials of a much earlier time while it also wasn’t afraid to look at the seamier side of Hollywood.

Set in 1938, Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) is a stunt pilot who only cares about flying a beaten up Seabee to qualify for the national air races and spending what little time and money wasn’t invested in flying on his girl, Jenny (Jennifer Connelly). Working to help Cliff achieve his goal was Peevy (Alan Arkin), a washed up mechanic who had an intrinsic understanding of anything mechanical.

After Cliff’s plane is destroyed upon landing, he and Peevy happen to find an experimental rocket pack that was hidden on the airfield by gangsters trying to get away from the FBI. While Peevy is the voice of reason, suggesting they turn the rocket pack over to the authorities, Cliff begs him for the opportunity to try it out, the ultimate flying experience.

Once he flies, Cliff is completely hooked, finding solid reasons to keep the jetpack, like rescuing a pilot who passed out while flying, but when the gangsters figure out that the guy with the jetpack is somehow connected to Jenny, he needs to use the pack to rescue her.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Weird Samurai

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Weird Samurai

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Lady Snowblood (Japan, 1973)

Japanese chanbara (samurai swordplay) adventure shows and movies had a long history of being adapted from popular manga series. As the Sixties turned into the Seventies, chanbara manga got increasingly bizarre and extreme, and the screen adaptations followed. These historical fantasies drew on the avant-garde film movements of the last Sixties, but also pulled imagery and characters from traditional sources, melding dream-logic with ghostly revenants. Bracing stuff, and if it’s sometimes hard to follow their abrupt 90-degree turns, the stories always sort themselves out in the end.

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