Movies Seen Recently: That Guy Dick Miller, Alice, Old Fashioned

That Guy Dick Miller (2014) – In honor of the dearly departed Dick Miller, who died January 30 at the age of 90, I watched this loving documentary of a man who became a definite Hollywood presence while never being a star.  In a career of supporting characters and one-day roles, he became beloved and instantly recognizable.  The most astounding and laudable part of his life, in my eyes:  He met his wife-to-be Lainie in May of 1967, the got married in October of that year, and they spent over 50 years as best friends. In Hollywood, THAT’S a true success story.

Alice (aka Neco z Alenky) (1988) – Any honest adaptation of Alice in Wonderland is going to have a dreamlike mood to it: scattered, fourth-dimensional logic linking disparate images that make sense only in their own unstated context.  When that adaptation is made by Czech surrealist stop-motion animator Jan Svankmajer, we go from “dreamlike” to full-on fever dream.  Blending Alice, the only live-action character (when she’s not been shrunk into an animated porcelain doll), with an odd assortment of antiques, taxidermist rubbish, and working-class antiques, Svankmajer’s sideways adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s narrative and images is entrancing and hypnotic, Nowhere else are you going to see the White Rabbit portrayed as a stuffed specimen escaped from a glass case, constantly eating sawdust to replace the stuffing falling from the rip down its midsection. Be prepared for an odd night’s sleep after watching this one.

Old Fashioned (2014) – Although it wasn’t specifically written and produced as a response to Fifty Shades of Grey, the production schedule fortuitously put this indie movie’s release into the same season as the big-screen adaptation of the smut-gone-mainstream novel, so the production team and distributor went all out, opening it on the same weekend as the Fifty Shades premiere and explicitly positioning it as an alternative in trailers and posters.

It’s truly the opposite: about chivalry instead of domination, boundaries instead of transgression, conscience instead of abandon, courtship instead of hookups.  It’s a movie I can wholeheartedly recommend; that doesn’t happen often.

It also serves as a good litmus test in movie critics.  There were many (mostly on the conservative/Christian end of the spectrum) who praised it, and a number who, while fairly citing some problems or weak spots, respected the effort.  And then there were those who ridiculed or condemned it, calling it “delusional” and “creepy” and damning it as a worse expression of Teh Patriarchy than Fifty Shades.  I appreciate those reviewers publishing their unvarnished reactions, as I can now safely ignore all of their other opinions about culture, conscience, and Things That Matter.