Peter Pan (1953) and Robin Hood (1973)

I just re-watched two Disney takes on classic stories: “Robin Hood,” from 1973, with foxes, lions, chickens, and badgers in the lead roles, and “Peter Pan,” the classic take that … well, defines everything I knew about Peter Pan growing up, and even now.

Fact: This “Robin Hood” is one of the first films I ever saw, and it’s still a bit of a gem, perfectly pitched to the preschool set with cute, fun lyrics from a narrator rooster and wonderful sight gags. Dig the way the animators let us see Robin Hood dress in ridiculously easy disguises, and yet still fools the villainous Prince John. It puts young viewers in the know, and I love that. Ditto the animation, even though much of it is reused from “Jungle Book,” et al in a cheap-o move. (That I notice means points off.) Pen and ink rocks, and the bits with Prince John sucking his thumb would never work in CGI. B+

“Pan,” now, is so brilliant, so -– it *is* Peter Pan to me, and it’s wonderfully geared to both the awe of children and whimsy of adults. Honestly, this film is 60 years old and it feels eternal even if the costumes suggest we’re talking pre-1900. Everything in this movie is my point of reference for every character, and I cannot hold it against Disney. Why did I never pick up on the singing gay pirate bit before? That’s a treat, that I can pick up on new stuff on a 12^th viewing. I love that Tinker Ball is quite an ass here, not heroic, and Hook is just awesome, especially with Smee. That Peter Pan is both hero and a brat, and Disney never pushes or preaches, he lets it play out, and lets kids in the audience realize, you need your parents. Yes, the whole Red Skin thing smacks a dumb move, a holdover from the classic book. But every image here -– flying over London, the alligator –- is a marvel, it gooses a 40-year-old’s dreams. A

Sisters (1973)

During the finale of Brian De Palma’s “Sisters,” a bloody schizoid mind fuck love letter to Hitchcock, my jaw hung open. This riffs on Siamese sisters -- one alive, the other not quite, and both played by Margot Kidder –- and doesn’t just drive off the cliff. It launches off the road at rocket speed and explodes in a splatter of gore and brain pulp. We follow, as with any good Hitchcock film, a guy (Lisle Wilson) and a gal (Kidder) attracted to each other after a bizarre appearance on a TV game show that has unsuspecting men watching woman strip bare, with the latter in on the gag. The couple’s date goes bad fast: Her ex-husband (William Finley) prowls crazy and stalks the couple to her apartment, where things get icky and –- no spoiler –- bloody. De Palma then switches gears to a writer (Jennifer Salt) who sees the crazy deeds, before slamming back into drive, then reverse, then circles, burning out the engine for a finale that hit me far different than any plot synopsis I read. I loved every whacked red-soaked second. I still don’t know how to grasp it all, but obsess nonetheless. That’s addictive filmmaking. A 

Badlands (1973)

In love with Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” on my first viewing years back, I sought out his earlier effort, “Badlands.” Its brilliance knocked me off guard. Fictionalizing a true killing spree, “Badlands” has Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as lovers on the run in 1950s Midwest America, he a smooth, detached murderer, and she a teen who is more shockingly indifferent than innocent. Kit (Sheen) is late 20s and collects trash for a job until he no longer wants to, and he falls for high school teen Holly (Spacek). Her father objects and coldly kills the family pet as punishment, and that prompts Kit to kill him. Many more bodies pile up as the duo head from South Dakota to Montana, back roads and dirt. The killing of the dog hit hard this time: Holly has no reaction, and as Kit murders, she barely lodges a gasp, talking up pet birds with a gut-shot man who is bleeding out. Beyond all the romance, music and desert beauty on display, Malick has made a genius film about an America that stares unblinking and not a little amused at death. Forty years on, we’ve reached this stark reality every single day. A+

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Donald Sutherland plays John Baxter, an academic and artist/restorer, obsessing to the point of tedium over the exact size and shade of colored squares for bas relief sculptures on his latest facelift project, a centuries old church in a dreary, wintry Venice. The work is good, it keeps him distracted from thinking about the soul-crushing drowning death of his young daughter back home in England, the brokenness pooling inside his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), and the fact that he foresaw the girl’s death moments before it occurred.

When a small gesture – the closing of a restaurant window – brings Baxter and his wife into contact with two sisters (Clelia Matania and Hilary Mason), one of whom is blind and psychic, lives will unravel. For the blind woman can see the dead daughter, and the girl has a message for daddy: Flee Venice or die.

That is the premise of Nicolas Roeg’s justifiably famous psychological horror/thriller “Don’t Look Now.” There is a serial killer here, yes, but the suspect is off to the side, a secondary plot tangent, whereas the real onscreen horror is about a couple desperately trying to come to terms with unfathomable loss and guilt, and further losing their paths – mentally and physically – along the way to recovery. The latter part is literal, as the streets and alleys of Venice can be an endless puzzle box, where light often is absent and unreachable. Even during daylight.

I have been there, to Venice, and I have never seen its dark side – and it has a dark side, no lie – put to better use than here. This is a city where walking around a corner can bring you to the safety of a market square or a pitch black dead end. Dread follows this couple.

Roeg’s story, loosely based on a short story, and his editing and camera work, and the refusal to use subtitles for spoken Italian, constantly keep the viewer off balance. Some scenes play out mysteriously and suddenly, and it is not until the end credits roll that one realizes their significance. A second viewing is a must. Also our heroes are not so lovable: They abandon their surviving child to a boarding school back in England after he watched his sister drown. Who does that? One pauses at their parenting skills, and ponders the meaning of such a send-off.

Absolutely among the most terrifyingly real films I’ve ever seen, and winced through twice in a row. Sutherland I don’t think has ever been better, or Christie more lovely and hurt, and as the blind woman with a special sense all her own, Mason nearly steals the film in the final freakish minutes.

Not for all tastes that’s for sure, it contains one of the most notorious sex films ever put in a film. The drowning of the child, at the opening of the film, is also startling, leaving one cold and uneasy. Emotions throughout the film, including the climax, cling to you. Or they dd to me, even writing this blog piece days after viewing the film.

Incidentally, or not, “Now” has one of the most layered depictions of a Catholic priest I have ever seen. The bishop (Massimo Serato) overseeing the renovations dismisses the detailed work by Baxter. Having suffered his own tragedies, he shrugs off stucco choices and the shapes of gargoyles, and all the brick and mortar worry. Baxter foams and protests, “This is important!” It’s just a building, the priest says, looking with grave concern at his troubled and grieving employee and friend, “God has more important priorities.” A+

The Wicker Man (1973 and 2006)

A police officer arrives at a remote island, searching for a missing tween girl and finds himself a bit lost and well out-numbered amongst pagan followers of an isolated, almost deranged cult. Nothing goes well, at least for the noble policeman.

The 1973 original is a true cult film – insanely weird and scratchy, especially during a musical scene where actress Britt Ekland sings a seductive tune while throwing herself against walls of a bedroom, whilst naked, as the chaste, self-proclaimed Christian police officer Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) practically flagellates himself in the next room. Seriously demented stuff. Howie huffs and puffs, and tears the small Scottish isle apart, looking for the lost girl, and screaming phlegm at the sexually provocative, Earth-worshipping cultists, saving his deepest ire for the group’s kilt-wearing leader, played by Christopher Lee. As Howie digs into his investigation, he digs his own grave: The man never seems to recognize that he essentially is alone on the island. With no help. The ending is horrific, ironic and strangely – against the grain of the rest of the movie – heroic. It’s a shame this “Wicker Man” seems to have been slashed in the editing room, as we know nothing about Howie’s mainland life. Director Robin Hardy has made a doozey of a film, for sure, where even the cherub-faced grade school girls and smiling old ladies can’t be trusted. A wonderfully offensive trip of a film. A-

What can we say about the remake? It stars Nicolas Cage as the policeman, this time on a hunt for the missing daughter of his ex-fiancée (Kate Beahan) who returned to the cultish island where she was born. This is filmmaking made on a dare: How dumb can we go? The answer is deep. Let’s skip over how inept Cage’s cop is -- the man seems not to know where babies come from -- and how ineptly Cage plays him. No, the real brain killer here is how director Neil Labute (“In the Company of Men”) miraculously makes a cinematic island of all-powerful women and enslaved, tongue-less men a place of utter sexless boredom. How hard does one work to pull off such a feat of … limp drama? As well, religion isn't even mentioned here. So no sex, no teeth. Zero reason to exist. If you’ve never seen Cage running around in a bear suit sucker-punching women in the face, then … count yourself lucky. Ellen Burstn's smirk is nice to watch. D-

Serpico (1973)

The ultimate police corruption drama, “Serpico” is another winner from the late Sidney Lumet, a director who never let flashy camera angles and high-jinks get in the way of an amazing story. And this tale, based of fact, is amazing. Newly minted NYC patrolman Frank Serpico quickly learns that Blue Blood is thicker than the red kind, and that an honest cop is the least trust worthy man on the job. Serpico is that honest cop. The film opens with Serpico being rushed to a hospital after being shot in the face at point-blank range. Fellow policeman relish the chance to see this guy six feet under. The rest of the film is a flashback as Serpico goes from joyful cop to a man hunted by his own brothers. The film’s pitch is not perfect: Early scenes with Frank’s family are scored to a painfully maudlin piece of music, but it’s a small sin in a deep and exciting flick. The once great Al Pacino plays Serpico, and his performance is among his greatest output – “The Godfather” films and “Dog Day Afternoon.” A

The Crazies (1973 and 2009)

Remakes are shadows of their originals, right? Every once in a while, though, an exception appears. Such is the case of “The Crazies.” Both follow the same outline: A military plane crashes in a small town’s main water source (Pennsylvania in 1973, Iowa in 2009) and unleashes a chemical weapon. The insidious agent turns the locals into mad killers, and the Army steps in for control. Then extermination. The ’73 version is spearheaded by Zombie King George A. Romero, who also has a co-writer/producer credit on the remake (directed by Breck Eisner).

Version 1 is a herky-jerky K-Mart cheapie that bounces between two firefighters and one’s girlfriend, stiff military honchos and a desperate scientist. Way too many people. There’s precious little suspense and no ending. I dug the scenes with normal regular folk fighting for their lives when they are mistaken for zombie-like killers, but the commentary push on Kent State falls flat. C+

Version 2 is a grisly violent flick that focuses only on two lawmen and one’s wife, skipping the larger picture. A total lack of outside information and the fine actors drive the suspense. Several lapses in logic and a lack of satire hurt the film, but it’s wildly entertaining. Two scenes rock: A deranged principal with a pitchfork and an equally mad coroner with a bone saw. The violence is nasty, but emotional, too. B