QUEENS AND CREATURES: Movie reviews. In chronological order.

Operation Petticoat: Aww, this thing convinced me that my guy is actually Tony Curtis rather than Cary Grant. They’re both fun, but Curtis is just… he lights up the screen every moment he’s there. Whereas Grant is kind of Cary-Granting at you a lot, which is lovely, but not as arresting as Curtis.

Having now torched all my credibility, I’ll say that I liked this a lot. Both the sexism and the weirdly random racism are intrinsic to the plot, so if you don’t want that, this movie will pose problems. I was able to growl intermittently at the sexism and be simply baffled by the (infrequent, but plot-crucial at one point) anti-Asian racism, so I could put those things aside and enjoy the movie for what it was.

Fear and Trembling: Belgian chick goes to work at Japanese company and undergoes a series of increasingly-awful humiliations.

I… I don’t know what to do with this thing. It really clings to my memory. I find myself thinking about it a lot. Sylvie Testud is clearly brilliant as the Belgian chick.

If I had to come up with a better plot synopsis than the one above, I think I’d say, “A European conceives a utopian vision of Japan, then revenges herself through narrative when it doesn’t live up to her childhood dreams.” Or, “A white girl wanders around the world looking for a cross to die on.”

So I think you can see the problem. There are also very basic filmmaking problems: intrusive voice-overs, sentimental explication of metaphors that work in novels (this was adapted from a novel) but don’t work in movies. I’m almost grateful for those problems, though, because I’m not sure I could’ve handled the intense humiliation narrative if it had been done better.

In the end… I think this is worth seeing, as long as you keep in mind that the narrator doesn’t understand her situation very well. I’d actually be really, really interested in responses from anyone in my readership who’s seen this movie, since, like I said, it has stuck with me.

The Queen: I hardly know what to say about this other than, SEE IT NOW!

I’ve watched a lot of movies presenting a narrative of decline–from Grand Illusion to Gone with the Wind. I think this is the fairest and most honest I’ve ever seen. If you’ve read “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” you absolutely must see this. It captures both the Burkean insight (the people will love somebody as an embodiment of the nation–better it be the Queen than the Prime Minister [or President!]) and the counterargument (projecting that kind of love onto a particular person both damages the object of love and promotes a sentimental patriotism). I loved the disruption of sex-roles. I loved the intermingling of compassion and humor. I loved everything about this movie.

The Thing: I Netflix’d this because of Sean Collins’s praise, and really, you should read his review rather than mine. We disagree on some aspects (I hated the cast, but am startled that he didn’t mention the phenomenal Ennio Morricone soundtrack, especially w/r/t the first scene, which he justly praises) but if you want to know if you’ll like it, his review is probably better than anything I could say. I didn’t think the mistrust plot linked illuminatingly to deeper issues, despite obvious ways in which it could–the foreigners are the first ones to encounter the alien.

Jeepers Creepers: OK, here I’m a bit more willing to say Sean is just wrong. Not entirely: I wasn’t the audience for this movie, and I’ll try to be clear about that in what follows. SPOILERS FOLLOW, and since Sean notes that he’s really glad he viewed the movie unspoiled, you should read his thing and only then decide if you want to read the rest of my review.

OK… the genre-swerve didn’t work for me at all. I was completely caught by the first segment of the film. I loved Justin Long as the brother, especially (and am sort of surprised that Sean preferred the sister, who struck me as fairly standard-issue). But when the brother discovers the “psycho Sistine Chapel,” the movie swerves from serial-killer movie to creature feature. And those are completely different kinds of fear, for me. As soon as I stopped thinking of the “Creeper” as someone who might actually kill actual me, it stopped being scary.

Both the beginning and the ending were excellent; but in between, the story lost me, because I wasn’t scared anymore. I started noticing all the weird contrivances, which is pretty much the death knell of a horror movie.

I’m more willing to say Jeepers Creepers doesn’t work than I am to say The Thing doesn’t work. The ideas behind The Thing are more coherent (and the music is just on a different planet from the predictable music of Jeepers Creepers). Both are worth seeing if you’re interested in horror movies. I’m not sure I’d recommend either if you’re not.