The Hidden Fortress, The Hideous Sun Demon, and a few more movies

My pledge to you:
Only the basics of a movie's premise,
with no spoilers after that.

 Hester Street (1975)
Streaming free at Tubi

It's the late 19th century, and we're among Jewish immigrants in New York City. Jake is married, but left his wife and son behind in the old country, so he's frolicking with Mamie.

When he finally sends for the wife, Gitl, she's Carol Kane, which makes it even more annoying that he continues frollicking with Mamie, and treats Gitl shabby. She takes a shine to Jake's co-worker and boarder, no-first-name Bernstein, whose idea of a good time is staying at home and reading the Talmud.

Complications result, but are not particularly interesting. My great internal debate was click-it-off or don't, and don't-click-it-off won, but my overall response is, "Meh," and full disclosure, I was surfing the internet on a second screen through most of the second half.

Verdict: MAYBE. 

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hey, You! (1976; Hungary)
Streaming free at YouTube

This is seven minutes of genuine art — a cartoon with great visuals, colorful surprises, and funky music. It's super-surreal all the way, and when it's over you can wonder for the rest of your life what it meant. Thumbs up, definitely. 

It's written, directed, and animated by Péter Szoboszlay, who certainly has a future ahead of him, though I'm 50 years late so his future is behind him by now, like mine is.

#331  [archive]
SEPT. 4, 2024

The only dialogue is the shouted word "Hey!" several times, so leave the closed-captions off. Being AI-generated, they're stupid, and incorrectly say "[applause]" whenever there's a crackling noise.

Hey, You! is marred by a modern logo superimposed in the corner through all of it, courtesy of Hungary's National Film Institute, where the mission must be to vandalize the films they archive.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦       

The Hidden Fortress (1958; Japan)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

George Lucas has admitted, and it's obvious anyway, that The Hidden Fortress inspired much of what made the original Star Wars so enjoyable.

When I first saw it in the late 1970s, that's what I was looking for — the bickering, bumbling peasants who became R2D2 and C3PO, the princess who became Leia, and Obi-Wanism from the wise samurai played by Toshiro Mifune.

But that was a long time ago. This time I tried to shove Star Wars far, far away, and watched this simply to see a dang fine movie, which it absolutely is.

It's the tale of two cowardly peasants, Matashichi and Tahei, on the run from an ongoing tribal war. They find the samurai Rokurota and Princess Yuki hidden in a mountaintop fortress, and after much cowardly derring-do, accompany them to safety, hoping to be rewarded with great wealth.

How much wealth? Well, more than you can imagine!

I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.

The story is sweeping, completely involving, and like the best foreign flicks you'll soon forget you're reading it. It's from Akira Kurosawa and it's an art house classic, yes, but not the kind that involves heavy thinking. Instead there's fabulous action sequences, a slave revolt, cliffhanging escapes, Toshiro gallore, laughs, surprises, and a heroic symphonic score.

The Hidden Fortress is a masterpiece, but beware of 'edited' versions. You want the full two hours, 18 and a half minutes.

Verdict: BIG YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hide and Seek (2005)
Streaming free at Tubi

A creepy man's wife kills herself, and to deal with the grief he and his little kid move to a remote semi-mansion.

Most of what happens is familiar from a hundred horror movies, including plenty that aren't very good, like this one.

Robert De Niro plays the lead, the grieving husband, but despite two Oscars he's incapable of playing a normal character. I noticed it in Guilty by Suspicion, and he's worse at it here.

Several times when the character is supposed to be frightened or contemplative, he's wearing the familiar De Niro mean face. In a scene before his wife's death, he's trying to project "Gosh, I love her," but what comes across is "I'm dangerous."

Toward the end there's a plot twist which is not a twist at all, because the name De Niro gave it away in the opening credits.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hide 'n' Seek (2019; Czech Republic)
Streaming free at Vimeo

You won't regret spending seven minutes hiding in this kid's head, while he's playing hide and seek.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦    

The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)
Streaming free at YouTube

Scientists are messing with stuff they shouldn't mess with, and one of them gets contaminated with a previously undiscovered "radiation from space."

"It's a new isotope that never existed in nature before. What its effect will be is anybody's guess." 

That's the bad news, but the good news is, the scientist seems to be AOK.

That's the good news, but the bad news is, soon as Dr AOK steps into the sunlight, he becomes a super-ugly reptilian thing.

Which makes for a raucous old-time schlocky sci-fi flick. It's helped by pseudo-scientific scenes explaining stuff that ain't science at all, and helped even more by the presence of a pretty blonde with jumbo hooters, wearing a low-cut dress.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Hideouser and Hideouser (2019)
Streaming free at Libre Vidéo

Remember zines? And specifically, do you remember zines with cut-and-paste imagery and scrapbooked presentation?

This is the video equivalent, and it's quite well-done. The visuals look like clip art, and the sounds are mostly movie excerpts, from Vincent Price and others. It lasts about eight minutes, and you'll be surprised your fingers aren't smudged.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

High and Dizzy (1920)
Streaming free at YouTube

Harold Lloyd plays a young doctor whose patient is a sleepwalker. She's cute, so he gives her the kind of attention a doc probably shouldn't give a patient. When her father harrumphs and takes the sleepwalker away, Doc Lloyd gets drunk on patent medicine, opens and trashes strangers' mail, then wanders around drunk for the rest of this 25-minute short.

There'll be some acrobatics on a skyscraper ledge, a briefly amusing bit where another man's jacket is ensnared by a post, and the last line of the intertitles is clever, but it's all surprisingly unfunny.

Verdict: NO. 

♦ ♦ ♦     

High and Dry (1954)
a/k/a The Maggie
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Britain's Ealing Studios is remembered for their enjoyable comedies, and this is one of them.

The story concerns an American millionaire (Paul Douglas) who's rented a cargo vessel to haul his expensive furniture to a vacation home he's purchased on a Scottish island. The boat, though, is leaky and rickety, and the skipper and mate are wily and up to something.

The accents are heavy but they're authentic, and so are the laughs. Click the subtitles on, and enjoy this.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

And with that I must be off — today's going to be a busy day of gloriously retired life. First, a late breakfast for one at Mrs Rigby's Diner, then an excursion on the #2 bus, and then there'll be a picnic with some quality book-reading time at Freeway Park.

When I return home, I might even write about it!

Gotta do it today, though. No procratinatin', because the great out-of-doors will be pushing 90° tomorrow and the day after, and when it's hot out I gotta stay in.

  9/4/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

High and Low (1963)
High Desert Kill (1989)
High Fidelity (2000)
High Noon (1952)
High School Hellcats (1958)
    ... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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