Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Darkness In the Sunshine

Kicked off the morning with breakfast and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. "Mickey's Silly Problem" is that the Clubhouse's silly switch gets stuck, and now everything inside is extremely weird. Even Toodles is affected, with all of the tools being blanked-out "Mystery Mouse-ketools." The others first have to figure out which tools are used where, and then how to get in when the Clubhouse just keeps making doors. 

Headed off to work after the cartoon ended. We were even quieter today than yesterday. It was sunny, breezy, cloudless, and very hot, into the lower 90's. This was no day for shopping. I swept, pushed the carts, and put cold items away. Once again, no trouble whatsoever.

Went home, changed, and relaxed while watching Let's Make a Deal. Only one woman did well in the opening deal, which involved taking three wallets that might have money or a door. The first two doors turned out to have zonks and the wallets had money. The lady rightly deduced that there would be something better behind the third door...and she was right. Another woman insisted on keeping her 500 dollar bill, not even trading it for a car. Her mother-in-law got the Door 4 wheel and didn't trade her money in, either...which proved to be smart. The Big Deal of the Day went to a nurse in a brief red outfit and her goofy patient husband. They traded in money and got gorgeous kitchen appliances and furniture and a fur that looked great on her.

Switched to the considerably darker Leave Her to Heaven next. Novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) is traveling by train to New Mexico when he encounters gorgeous Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) on her way to her father's funeral. Sparks fly almost immediately...maybe a little too hard for Ellen. She breaks it off with her current fiancee, lawyer Russell Quinton (Vincent Price), to suddenly announce that she and Richard are engaged. They're happy for a time after their marriage, but Richard is never alone. First his crippled brother Danny (Daryl Hickman) visits, then her mother (Mary Philips) and adopted sister Ruth (Jeanne Crain), and then she learns she's going to have a child. Ellen won't let anyone stand in her way of having Richard all to herself. She will do anything, including kill, to have her man truly to herself.

Stunning cinematography, a tense screenplay, and Tierney's performance as the ultimate controlling wife are the thing here. Technicolor never looked more vibrant...or more terrifying. The scene where Ellen lets Danny drown is a perfect contrast between a lovely, sunny lake, and beautiful Ellen all in white, with those scarlet lips, and the scary things she's doing. Melodrama normally isn't my thing, but the excellent screenplay and tense direction helps make this a lot more palatable. Highly recommended for fans of Tierney, psychological thrillers, or those who wonder if anyone could pull off film noir in color. 

Did some job hunting and reading online, then had dinner while watching Match Game Syndicated. We skip ahead to the week with David Doyle, Debralee Scott, and Patty Duke. David attempts imitations towards the end of the first episode, but Brett and Charles just can't figure out whom he's supposed to be. The second brings in a very funny older woman with a charming British accent who apparently wrote poetry and "dirt," as she put it.

Finished the night online with Treasure Planet at Disney Plus. I just started reading the original Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island yesterday and wanted to watch at least one version, but I just did the more traditional 1950 film recently. Here, Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a troubled teen who saw his father walk away as a child. After a spaceship crashes near their inn and a dying pirate gives him a sphere, he learns it's the map to Treasure Planet, the world where old Captain Flint buried his fabled loot. Traveling onboard the flying galleon RSL Legacy with dog-man Dr. Doppler (David Hyde-Pierce) and tough feline Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson), he initial bonds with the ship's cook Long John Silver (Brian Murray) before learning that Silver has his own plans for the treasure. Now Jim has to get that map and figure out what it leads to, before Silver and his band of cutthroats shiver his timbers for good.

This is one of the many action films Disney made in the 2000's that bombed or underperformed at the box office. I think they were just too associated with musical princess fantasies at the time. This is possibly their most unique film, a blend of traditional animation, CGI, swashbuckling action and sci-fi opera that works pretty well most of the time. Gordon-Levitt and Murray anchor the film as a slightly darker Jim and more sympathetic Silver than usual for this story. Hyde-Pierce and Thompson are also hilarious as the seemingly mismatched canine doctor and tough feline air captain. 

Sometimes, though, the movie can get a little too weird for its own good. There are places where the CGI and 2 D animation just don't mix (like in space), and Martin Short as the broken-down navigational robot B.E.N gets annoying after a while. Still, there's enough of interest here for fans of pirate yarns, the original  books, or for families looking for really cool animated movies for older elementary and pre-teen boys. 

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