M.R. James Times Two

Montague Rhodes James, better known as M.R. James (1862-1936), was a celebrated author and medievalist scholar from the U.K. who is best known today for his many ghost stories. Horror film buffs in the U.S. were first exposed to his work when director Jacques Tourneur adapted his short story “Casting the Runes” for the 1957 film Curse of the Demon (it was titled Night of the Demon in the U.K.). To date, that still reminds the most famous M.R. James theatrical feature but that doesn’t mean the author’s work hasn’t been adapted in other memorable renditions, most of them as made-for-television productions from England. One of the most famous is James’s short story, “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” from 1904, which has been filmed twice by the BBC, one in 1968 entitled Whistle and I’ll Come to You starring Michael Horden and a remake from 2010 with the same title that featured John Hurt.

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Phantom Playmates

The Spanish film poster for THE ORPHANAGE (2007).

After opening in Spain in the Fall of 2007, Juan Antonio Bayona’s elegant ghost story El Orfanato (English title: The Orphanage) went on to generate enthusiastic word of mouth responses from its many festival showings at Cannes, Toronto, Sitges, Austin and New York while picking up various honors such as Best New Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Goya Awards (Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards) and a nominee for the Golden Camera award at Cannes. I was lucky enough to see the movie during a visit to Girona, Spain where it was playing at a multiplex just a few blocks away from the wonderful Museu del Cinema which houses the Tomas Mallol collection (an amazing repository devoted to the beginnings and earlier origins of the medium known as the cinema). 

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Down the Rabbit Hole

“Curiouser and curiouser,” the famous phrase from the Lewis Carroll classic Alice in Wonderland spoken by the heroine, could easily apply to Sérail aka Surreal Estate (1976), the directorial debut of Argentinian screenwriter Eduardo de Gregorio, who is better known as the co-writer of such films as Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) and several other movies by Rivette. The English title Surreal Estate gives you the impression that this movie (filmed in France) is not going to be a reality-based narrative but that depends on the viewer’s interpretation of what they are seeing. To be clear, Sérail functions on several levels. It might be a ghost story or an unsolved mystery or a writer’s fanciful account of an actual event that occurred during his house hunt for a second home in the French countryside.

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A Quarantine Calamity in the Making

The Covid-19 epidemic of 2020 will always be remembered as the medical crisis that abruptly changed daily life for everyone in the 21st century. It also sparked a renewed interest in movies dealing with deadly pandemics. Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) starring Matt Damon and Outbreak (1995) with Dustin Hoffman were both box office successes during their initial releases but they suddenly began trending as highly popular titles again on streaming services everywhere. Terry Gilliam’s Oscar-nominated 12 Monkeys (1995) and The Andromeda Strain (1971), based on Michael Crichton’s novel, were also attracting first time and repeat viewers while other, equally worthy movies in the same genre have been forgotten or overlooked. One of these is 80,000 Suspects (1963), a compelling thriller from Val Guest, an often underrated British director.  

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