leighton Reviews

Frogs (1972)

Frogs! They sort of *think* about killing.

[1/10 · 19 December 2000]

I would say that there were spoilers ahead, but you couldn't spoil this film, and I think it's better that you're forewarned...

'Starring' Sam Elliott (The Big Lebowski's Western dude), it features the usual array of MST-able characters. There is the crippled patriarch with a tendency to hold impromptu parties on the lawn, while listening to 78s of marching bands. There is his 'ward' of somewhat ambivalent sexuality. Sam Elliott himself must have been instructed to stand side-on to the sun wherever possible so that his batch would stand gnomon-like and tell the time. There is the alcoholic 'wayward son' with a penchant for fast vehicles, and some badly-explained backstory concerning Sam's character. Did I mention that Sam's character is an ecological researcher with a camera but no note-pad? There is the highly-sexed 'daughter', and the traditional black servant family. Did I also forget to mention that this is set on an island in the middle of the Bayou in the Southern US?

Anyhow, amidst this group of alternately unlikable and unbelievable characters, a plague of frogs arrives. They hop over some cake, but are no more than a minor irritation. Minor, perhaps, but it is enough to stir our crippled patriarch to employ someone to poison the bayou in the hopes of killing them off. Our stoic 'hero', who spends far too long sans shirt, disapproves. As does the local reptile population, who begin to pick off the island's inhabitants one-by-one in pretty unlikely ways. Our hapless louche 'personal assistant', for example, wanders into a greenhouse. Lizards lock the door, before smashing two bottles of brightly-coloured chemicals on the floor. Unsurprisingly, these mix to produce an almost instantly fatal toxic smoke, from which the only feasible escape would have been for our victim to feebly tear his way through the polyurethane walls. But he didn't think of this, so he died.

Oddly, for a film called 'Frogs', that features so much stock footage of frogs, the frogs don't actually do any killing. I think it's meant to be implied that they are somehow co-ordinating their scaly cohorts, but it's not really clear. I don't see how they could get their message through to the turtle who chases down (yes, the world's least exciting chase scene) one of the victims. And speaking of message, the whole 'Nature fights back' message is risible. Anyway, the frogs look like they might be killing towards the end where two of them leap on the patriarch after he falls out of his wheelchair. He dies, but I can't see how two frogs leaping on his back kill him. They're not big frogs. They weren't holding knives. And anyway, the 'invasion' is just a bunch of frogs. Keep your doors and ground-floor windows closed, they'll go away when they need to spawn.

Halliwell's film guide gave this a star - the same rating it gave Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil'. Halliwell was dead wrong.

Private Parts (1997)

If I got a chance to whitewash my life on film , I'd do it like this

[5/10 · 22 March 2000]

This is an intermittently hilarious, but completely self-serving autohagiography of Howard Stern. It would be easier to digest if it was a work of fiction, but as it stands there is always the nagging doubt that events truly occurred as played out here, and the tone of humiliating his enemies mars the film somewhat.

All said, the funny bits are hilarious, but the rest smacks of triumphalism.

Scum (1979)

The film the BBC couldn't stop you seeing.

[6 May 1999]

Scum (the screenplay) was originally banned in 1977 - the year it was made - on the instructions of the BBC who had commissioned it. This was on the grounds of it being both too realistic in its presentation and simultaneously a work of fiction. The film follows the progression of three boys at borstal (prison for males ages 11-16) from arrival to the social dominance of one of them. It's a blackly humorous and scathing study of the (physical *and* mental) violence inherent in any social system, and particularly in the 'justice' system.

The screenplay was remade as a feature film in 1979, starring most of the original cast and featuring most of the original script, although a couple of scenes (featuring sexual abuse, though physical and racial abuse were deemed acceptable...) were presumably cut from the script because they wouldn't pass even the BBFC censor.

The original screenplay has subsequently been shown on UK television once. I happened to have the video running. With a high-quality tape in it. Lucky, that! It compares very favourably to the film, though the film format appears inferior (lower budget at the BBC), the quality of the performances is possibly better.

Scum is one of the most important screenplays to have been made, and shown, on British television, because it reveals the changing attitudes of the censors, and the nature of political censorship in the UK.

The film itself does not reveal this history.

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

Reduces an epic story to epic visuals. Disappointing.

[6/10 · 8 January 1999]

The Prince of Egypt uses the story of Moses as written in Exodus to serve as an epic backdrop. Sadly, it is used as the backdrop for a very mundane tale about a young man who doesn't quite fit in with his 'family' and rediscovers his roots. Leaving aside the impressive visual spectacle this is a film that has little more to say than the sitcom 'Different Strokes', and much less to say than Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing', about social circumstances and justice. And it virtually ignores religion - presumably for the sake of Middle East sales...

It must be said, though, that the vocal cast do a creditable job with a particularly polite, unconvincing and unsurprising script.

It is arguable that animation works best to represent events that cannot be reproduced naturally. Disney's doe-eyed characters work well because they are obviously unreal and can portray a range of distorted expressions to communicate mood. This film's more realistic human-like portrayals unfortunately limit the expressive range of the characters, so for some of the more intimate scenes (such as Moses' first adult encounter with Miriam) the viewer is left staring at an unmoving cartoon human head with little or no nuance of emotion. Such stories are best told with live actors, especially when the music is little help.

The film is, to be sure, mighty impressive when it works. Barring one or two shortcuts the art direction is excellent. Key scenes such as the hieroglyphic dream sequence, the parting of the Red Sea and the death of the firstborn are handled as well as anyone could hope to expect, and the crew deserve merit for these great achievements. Strangely though, they have chosen to take glaring computer animation shortcuts in odd places and the clash of computer precision with cell animation fuzziness is sometimes painful (as it is in recent Disney products).

Unfortunately, the well-placed symbolism and visual opulence have to provide nearly all the entertainment because, with the exception of the Court Priest's song-and-dance routine, the music is tedious and the lyrics banal.

The Prince of Egypt is, I think, worth watching for its merits - which are entirely visual. This is not the film to shake Disney's world, but DreamWorks certainly have potential in spades.