Category Archives: Poetry

The Gorge (2025)

20 Sunday Apr 2025

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(Happy Easter to all! For Day 20 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for “a poem informed by musical phrasing or melody,” with the suggestion of rewriting a song’s lyrics. I’ve done that plenty of times before, so I considered the theme of long-distance relationships and rewrote the irregular lyrics of “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Perfume Genius, which was prominently used in this film.)

Distance, not too far
To meet your eyes.
Though I know where you are,
And you likewise,
Must, must wishes on a star
Be squandered on this expanse
That spans our hearts?
I’ll never mind the gap in between
Your heart and mine.
Standing on a cliff,
I see your sign.
I’ll never mind the gap in between
Earth and its star.
Never mind what if;
It’s not so far.

Lover, I wait and watch
With bated breath.
If you shoot, I won’t dodge
A welcome death,
But if you can stand the thirst,
That suffering deserves quite a dance,
Our favorite parts.
I’ll never mind the gap in between
Your heart and mine.
Standing on a cliff,
I see your sign.
I’ll never mind the gap in between
Earth and its star.
Never mind what if;
It’s not so far.
I’ll never mind the gap in between
Souls biding time,
Standing on a cliff
That’s worth the climb.
___________________________

MPA rating: PG-13

It’s unfortunate that films deserving of a theater release can easily be overlooked when only available behind the walls of a particular streaming service. Luckily, Apple TV+ is among my subscriptions, allowing me to watch The Gorge, which caught my interest just from the trailer (which gives way too much away, in my opinion; don’t watch it first). Directed by Scott Derrickson of Sinister and Doctor Strange fame, the film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as a pair of world-weary snipers, one American and one Lithuanian, who are tasked with guarding remote outposts on either side of a deep and mysterious gorge. Despite the pit between them and orders not to communicate, they gradually develop a relationship, even as the secrets at the bottom of the gorge threaten to emerge.

I’ll say up front, as many critics have complained, that the premise of The Gorge does take a massive amount of suspension of disbelief. The secrecy around the giant hidden trench begs a lot of logistical questions (like how many giant pieces of paper did the eastern side keep in stock?), and the action of the latter half, often putting Derrickson’s horror roots to good use, does strain credulity. Yet this is one of those cases where I just didn’t mind, thanks in large part to Teller and Taylor-Joy, who share a remarkable chemistry and one of the steamiest dance scenes in recent memory (set to that wonderfully atmospheric Yeah Yeah Yeahs song). Taylor-Joy especially has never looked better, so maybe I just have a new celebrity crush. The Gorge is popcorn entertainment sadly relegated to small-screen streaming, a far-fetched but very watchable mashup of genres that I highly recommend.

Best line: (actually quoting T.S. Eliot) “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
806 Followers and Counting

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

19 Saturday Apr 2025

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(For Day 19 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a story poem “in the style of a blues song or ballad,” and the mention of crimes and murder ballads brought to mind this classic.)

The money could run and the tellers could hide,
But that meant fun for Bonnie and Clyde.
Never was a danger from which they shied.
Ride or die were Bonnie and Clyde.

The banks would quail at the loss of pride,
Left in the trail of Bonnie and Clyde.
Withdrawals like theirs couldn’t be denied;
Ride or die were Bonnie and Clyde.

Warn all the wimps and stay inside
If you get a glimpse of Bonnie and Clyde.
Quick with a trigger and wild-eyed,
Ride or die were Bonnie and Clyde.

Gotta get caught to be cuffed and tried,
And they were not, not Bonnie and Clyde.
Famed and feared both far and wide,
Ride or die were Bonnie and Clyde.

King and queen of the homicide,
None came between ol’ Bonnie and Clyde.
Couldn’t last long till they lost their stride;
Ride and die did Bonnie and Clyde.
_______________________

MPA rating: R (for violence, though closer to PG-13 by today’s standards)

I saw Bonnie and Clyde more out of deference for its reputation than personal interest, since I’m not typically a fan of crime films known for their violence. (This was before the passing of Gene Hackman that made the recent watch even more worthwhile.) But I was very pleasantly surprised.

Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie Parker and Warren Beatty’s Clyde Barrow are quintessential anti-heroes, earning sympathy with their romantic chemistry and Depression-relevant targeting of banks yet allowing their bad choices to spiral further and further into infamy. They eventually form a gang with Clyde’s brother Buck (Hackman), Buck’s excitable wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and a mechanic accomplice C. W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), terrorizing the countryside and evading the law, for a while at least.

The film is full of little moments that make the characters more than one-dimensional villains, like the head-butting between Bonnie and Blanche or the brief kidnapping of a young couple (including Gene Wilder in his film debut) that reveals Bonnie’s aversion to any reminder of death. Bonnie’s brief reunion with her mother (Mabel Cavitt, a local extra chosen for the role) especially brings home how much their crime spree has ruined a chance at a normal life, something with which they may never have been satisfied anyway. I also quite liked the inclusion of a poem the real Bonnie Parker wrote about themselves, which would have made my Poems in Movies list had I known about it then.

Bonnie and Clyde is famous for its taboo-breaking depiction of violence, though it’s quite tame compared with even TV shows these days, and it serves the story well, especially in the famous final scene. The film is also beautifully shot, and all the major performances excel and were Oscar-nominated, though Estelle Parsons (probably the weakest link) was the only one to win, along with the cinematography. Combining history, romance, and tragedy, Bonnie and Clyde certainly deserves its status as a classic.

Best line: (Clyde, responding to Bonnie’s poem) “You know what you done there? You told my story, you told my whole story right there, right there. One time, I told you I was gonna make you somebody. That’s what you done for me. You made me somebody they’re gonna remember.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
806 Followers and Counting

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

19 Saturday Apr 2025

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(For Day 18 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem about singing in a car, incorporating a song lyric. Well, I went the simpler, time-saving route of a couple haikus. Doesn’t everyone do this at some point in NaPoWriMo?)

Friendship only lasts
As long as the unforked road.
After that, farewell.

The West was not won;
It was lost, shot by dead shot.
Its carcass is home.
________________________

MPA rating: R (for violence and nudity)

There’s something to be said for the clear black-and-white heroics of the old-fashioned western, with the likes of John Wayne and Gary Cooper, but I can appreciate the grayer areas represented by films like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, the film dramatizes two big names of the Old West, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) and his former friend-turned-sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn). After Garrett becomes a lawman, he warns the unperturbed Billy that he’ll have to bring him to justice, and so he does, with many deaths, escapes, and betrayals along the way.

Coburn and Kristofferson make a great pair of leads, the former sporting an icy glare confirming when he means business and the latter full of smirking charisma even when he’s being threatened. They’re surrounded by a who’s who of excellent character actors of the time, most notably Bob Dylan in a self-insert kind of role on the sidelines, owing to the fact that he also wrote the score and the anachronistic but strangely fitting song “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” used to haunting effect during several death scenes. The shootouts are often the best parts, particularly Billy’s escape from custody, where he shoots and drops a one-liner straight out of a Home Alone gangster movie.

While Garrett’s pursuit of Billy is clearly driven by justice, there are several reminders of the blurred morality of the West, from Garrett’s visit with prostitutes (one of the more unnecessary R-rated scenes) to Billy’s defense of a Mexican family being raped by men working under a local cattle baron. By the end, both men have killed enough to be guilty, and neither is pleased with the prospect of felling a friend. Though bloodier than I like in its violence, as was Peckinpah’s trademark, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is quite an engrossing western, fueled by the excellent performances of its dual antiheroes.

Best line: (Billy) “Ol’ Pat… Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Santa Fe ring. How does it feel?”
(Pat) “It feels like… times have changed.”
(Billy) “Times, maybe. Not me.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

Look Back (2024)

18 Friday Apr 2025

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(For Day 17 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem about friendship, drawing inspiration from the works of surrealist painters and friends Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington, like this one perhaps. And what better to pair it with than a film about two female artist friends.)

It’s wonderful and harrowing,
Widening and narrowing,
To know that someone better
Is looking o’er your shoulder,

Better at your chosen art,
Finishing the things you start,
Being there to urge you better,
Fire from a smolder.

Admiration in their eyes,
Even as you fantasize
How to match their passion better
Eye-to-eye beholder.
____________________

Rating: 13+ (about a PG)

Imagine if Quentin Tarantino directed Terms of Endearment or David Cronenberg produced Brian’s Song. That’s the kind of bewildering tonal shift reflected by manga artist Tatsuki Fujimoto, best known for the dark and gory Chainsaw Man, also creating Look Back, a one-shot manga volume adapted into this hour-long tearjerker with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Grade-schooler Ayumu Fujino (Yuumi Kawai) revels in the praise she gets as her class’s resident artist, drawing short manga strips for the school paper, so she is shocked when another girl named Kyomoto seems more talented than her. This spurs her to improve her drawing even more, and eventually the two girls form a collaborative friendship, working together on mangas throughout high school and driving each other to improve. That drive eventually breaks apart their partnership and leads to unforeseen tragedy.

No doubt pulling in personal experience and sorrow over the 2019 Kyoto Animation attack, Look Back certainly proves Fujimoto’s range as a writer. The story may be short and simple, but that only makes its mastery of emotional and visual storytelling even more impressive. Set to a moving score by Haruka Nakamura, a flurry of gorgeously drawn montages manage to depict so much in such little time: the obsession of practicing to fend off fears of inferiority, a growing friendship as Fujino helps the shy Kyomoto out of her shell, the glow of passion and success yielding to business as usual. By the time the story shifts into a brief what-if scenario, every reminder of the early scenes becomes a reason to sob, as well as be inspired. Despite its limited runtime, it’s a touching masterpiece.

Best line: (Fujino) “Keep your eyes on my back, and you’ll grow too.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

Marty (1955)

17 Thursday Apr 2025

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(Yes, I missed yesterday’s post, but I have the poem and will catch up when I have a little extra time for the review. Meanwhile, for Day 16 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem pairing a place with a particular song, so I went with “Unchained Melody,” a favorite of my parents, which came out the same year as this film.)

Out on the sidewalk outside a dance hall,
A man and a woman were side by side,
Lonely surrounded by strangers.
Romance was on the minds of all,
But these two were done, undanced, untried,
Fated to stay as mere strangers.

A slow dance was drifting outside to the street,
“Unchained Melody,” and the mood was set,
The cars and dogwalkers be damned.
And somehow shared bitterness came to be sweet,
Though little had changed in their lives as yet.
The morning could still leave them damned.

But streetlamps were candlelight under that tune;
The concrete gave way to a dance floor below,
And they didn’t mind being passed over.
Their loneliness withering under the moon,
They would have been happy to bask in its glow
And play that song over and over and over.
_________________________

MPA rating: Approved (G)

Modern dating is rough, as many will acknowledge who have been burnt out by dating apps, ghosting, and a general feeling of being unwanted. I know people who feel hopeless when it comes to finding love and scoff at encouragement, and I’ve had moments of despair myself. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that such feelings are not a new phenomenon and were represented quite poignantly in the Best Picture winner of 1955 Marty. Ernest Borgnine plays the title character, a homely butcher who has resigned himself to the single life. At the urging of his very Italian mother (Esther Minciotti), Marty reluctantly agrees to go to a local ballroom and connects with a woman named Clara (Betsy Blair), shy and similarly despondent as she is consistently regarded as a “dog” by her dates. Against all expectations, these two “dogs” wonder if they have found the person for whom they’ve been waiting.

Known to me previously as the answer Herb Stempel was forced to get wrong in Quiz Show, Marty is such a short and simple romance. It has no clever twists or enemies-to-lovers tension, just a sweet and meaningful date between two people close to giving up. Borgnine is a perfect lead here, his workaday looks and expressive face serving the character well and deservedly winning him a Best Actor Oscar, while Blair shares a cutely understated chemistry with him, reflective of the fact these two just met yet are hoping that their hopes have been answered. From the unexpected finding of love to the need to defend it when others scorn it, Marty is that welcome reminder that even old films can be utterly relatable.

Best line (though I really love the final scene): (Marty, to Clara) “See, dogs like us, we ain’t such dogs as we think we are.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

The Wild Robot (2024)

15 Tuesday Apr 2025

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(For Day 14 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem describing a place in terms of the animals and natural sounds, so I thought of a certain humanless island from a recent animated film.)

The island was peaceful, no humans as kings,
Serene with the sounds of dying things.
Nature was spinning the circle of life
That ends with a cry and then silence.
The ocean was beating its breast on the rocks,
As the yelp of a whelp and the laugh of a fox
Echoed through trees as indifferent as death,
So soothing (ignoring the violence).

The geese were declaring their edge over ducks,
The does were all teases outrunning the bucks,
The woodpeckers gifted headaches to the squirrels,
And nothing was likely to change.
But then a new creature came, bringing new noises,
The whirring of servos, the shock that a voice is,
No fur and no feathers, just a fool metal jacket,
A new kind of racket, exciting and strange.
________________________

MPA rating: PG

My favorite film of 2024, The Wild Robot is further proof that DreamWorks can match and even surpass Disney at its best. Based on a 2016 children’s novel by Peter Brown, the first in a trilogy, this animated adventure set in the future sees an unprogrammed robot, ROZZUM Unit 7134 or “Roz” (Lupita Nyong’o), wash up on an unpopulated island full of unfriendly wildlife. Seeking some meaningful service to offer, Roz stumbles into the care of a baby gosling eventually named Brightbill (Kit Connor), raising it with the aid of a crafty fox (Pedro Pascal) and gradually weaving herself into the ecosystem in a way none would have guessed.

The early scenes of Roz exploring the island, before she is able to communicate with the animals, bring to mind the beginning of WALL-E, near-wordless storytelling at its finest. And once she does make contact, the film is surprisingly candid about the dog-eat-dog nature of nature, slipping in some darker-than-expected humor for a kids movie. The film’s emotional core lies in Roz’s connection to Brightbill, a poignant bond of adoptive motherhood that is likely to draw out tears from the tenderhearted, especially when backed by Kris Bowers’ moving, instantly iconic score.

The animation is also a sheer joy to behold, a gorgeous watercolor style that puts other 3D animation to shame with its warmth and natural detail, and, although I quite enjoyed Flow too, it’s a crime that this didn’t win the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Nyong’o brings an excellent balance of robotic coolness and burgeoning emotion as the voice of Roz, while Pascal is a special delight as the wise-cracking fox she befriends. And did I mention the score? It still gives me goosebumps.

It’s true there’s nothing particularly new about The Wild Robot’s themes, borrowing from the likes of The Iron Giant and Wolf Children, and the latter half has some holes (the exciting climax feels a bit pointless by the end). But this fable of a robot learning humanity even without humans around is exceptionally well-crafted otherwise and will always hold a special place in my heart. I’m skeptical whether the planned sequel can match it, but I hope so.

Best line: (Roz) “Sometimes, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be.”

Rank: List-Worthy

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

A Real Pain (2024)

13 Sunday Apr 2025

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(For Day 13 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem in the same unique stanza/rhyme form as Donald Justice’s “There is a gold light in certain old paintings.”)

Truth is beauty and beauty is truth, said Keats,
Yet beauty is beloved and truth is hard.
If truths were as easy on the eyes as beauty,
They wouldn’t be hidden and hated and hard,
            Veiled under changing subjects and yelling and smiles.
            Truth is pain, and nothing hides pain as well as smiles.

Horrors happen, in countries and eras far-flung
And houses next door, just out of earshot.
Tragedies are nothing new, so must they all hurt?
Every life snuffed, innocence scarred, or errant shot?
            If I don’t care when strangers shed their distant tears,
            Why would anyone share my own predestined tears?

There’s something rare in a tragedy endured,
Like insight begotten by blindness run amok.
A lack of tragedy is apathy’s recipe,
And the world hates apathy running amok.
            Pain cycles, cloaked in smiles and history lessons,
            Wondering when there will be no need for lessons.
__________________________

MPA rating: R (for frequent language)

The sophomore directorial effort of Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain doesn’t live up to its name, in that it’s actually quite a pleasure. This familial dramedy pairs Eisenberg as David Kaplan with Kieran Culkin as his maverick of a cousin Benji, both of whom join a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to see where their late grandmother once lived before the Holocaust. While David is reserved and slightly neurotic, Benji is an unfiltered free spirit bordering on bipolar, attentive to strangers yet generally inconsiderate, the life of the party yet quick to complain if something rubs him the wrong way. (Having just been on a European tour several months ago, I’m grateful that my group didn’t include a Benji.) 

With good reason, Culkin received universal acclaim for his layered performance, though I think Eisenberg deserved some of that love as well, more than just for the Oscar-nominated screenplay he also wrote. Benji is easily the most memorable character, both of the film and in the minds of his fellow tourgoers, but I found Eisenberg’s more understated role to be more relatable, always trying to keep up and apologize for his cousin’s eccentricities yet loving him despite it, a dichotomy that bubbles to the surface in an especially emotional dinner scene.

As a writer-director, Eisenberg also handles the tone with skilled sensitivity. The banter between David and Benji is frequently funny yet can easily segue to latent grief or lingering anxiety, and the visit to the Majdanek concentration camp plays out in near silence, as their tour guide (Will Sharpe) says, letting the haunting location speak for itself. Realistic in its open-ended return to “normal life,” A Real Pain is a testament to generational trauma and strained family dynamics, both of which are sadly all too common.

Best line: (Marcia, on their tour) “David, we numb ourselves to avoid thinking about our impact.”
(Eloge, another tourist) “Ignoring the proverbial slaughterhouse to enjoy the steak, as it were.”
(Benji) “Yes, Eloge! Damn, that’s a good analogy.”
(David) “No, and I get that, I get all that. It just seems like maybe there’s, like, a time and a place to grieve, and maybe it’s not…”
(Benji) “Yo, Dave.”
(David) “What?”
(Benji) “We’re on a f***ing Holocaust tour. If now is not the time and place to grieve, to open up, I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

13 Sunday Apr 2025

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(For Day 12 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was a doozy: a multi-section poem drawing from myths and legends featuring rhyme and mixed formal and informal language. So, with this film in mind, I mused on what to do if offered three wishes by a genie.)

Wish 1

To access wishes, surely I
Must be in dire straits myself.
Trapped within a tomb of stone
Or stranded on an icy shelf,
Marooned upon an isle alone
Or chained in jail, condemned to die.

For my first wish, therefore, I must
Escape the fate that brought me here,
Wish myself above the ground
Or make what threatens disappear,
Unstuck, unbound, uncooked, undrowned,
Ideally somewhere I can trust.

Wish 2

My second wish
Depends on much.

Has the djinn at least been kind,
Or left half of me behind?

Am I truly free from harm,
Or acquired a new alarm?

Am I not falling from the sky
With no faculty to fly?

Is my friend in peril somewhere?
Do I like them enough to care?

Does the djinn insist on rules,
Like no death or love or ghouls?

And, unlike the foolish herds,
Am I careful with my words?

If yes to all above,
Then I guess I’ll side with love
For my friend who’s so in need
And ensure they’re also freed.
Aren’t I nice? I am indeed.

Wish 3

Assuming both my prior wishes
Haven’t spiraled far awry,
Now that I’m not about to die,
I have an epic choice ahead.

The world is mine to seize and form.
With but a wish, I’d gain renown,
A merry harem, a sultan’s crown,
A sorcerer or god instead.

In place of a dark lord or queen,
The world will love me and despair!
I’m kidding, no, I wouldn’t dare,
But I have to end this with a bang.

Hypnosis, health, wisdom, wealth?
Would they be subject to some twist?
I wish I knew the perfect wish
To satisfy me… dang.
_________________________

MPA rating: Approved (a likely G)

Having grown up with The Wizard of Oz, I’ve loved it from the start, viewing its dated or hokey elements as charming rather than a detraction, and I suspect the same would be true for The Thief of Bagdad, had it been an old childhood favorite as well. Boasting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, this fantasy adventure draws elements from the One Thousand and One Nights to tell a partially non-linear tale of the betrayed Prince Ahmad of Bagdad (John Justin) and his wily friend/thief Abu (young Indian actor Sabu) as they fight against the evil vizier Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) and save a princess (June Duprez).

It was especially amusing to see how many aspects of Disney’s Aladdin were borrowed directly from this film. Sharing a name with Aladdin’s monkey, Abu flees a crowd with stolen food in an early scene, instantly bringing to mind the opening number from the animated film. In addition, you have a vizier named Jaffar/Jafar, a weak-minded sultan (Miles Malleson) who loves toys and is looking to give his daughter in marriage, a sheltered royal sneaking out of the palace to mingle with the common folk, and a genie and magic carpet aiding the heroes. The Djinn/genie (Rex Ingram) is quite different, though, more malevolent and helping Abu grudgingly, and there are plenty of other differences to set it apart.

Sabu and Justin make an appealing heroic team, while Veidt has an excellent Vincent Price-like coldness that made him a popular villain actor at the time. Of course, it’s a bit odd that most of the main roles (save for Sabu) are clearly white actors surrounded by Middle Eastern extras and settings, but I suppose that’s just due to the time period. The sets and props really add to the world-building, and the film is known for pioneering the first use of bluescreen/greenscreen to place Sabu within the extravagant special effects sequences of the latter half. While The Thief of Bagdad starts off a bit awkwardly before the plot gets rolling, it’s a genre classic that deserves wider appreciation as an entertaining fantasy of Old Hollywood.

Best line: (the Djinn, to Abu) “You’re a clever little man, little master of the universe, but mortals are weak and frail. If their stomach speaks, they forget their brain. If their brain speaks, they forget their heart. And if their heart speaks [laughing], they forget everything.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

Camelot (1967)

12 Saturday Apr 2025

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(I may be late, but not defeated! For yesterday’s Day 11 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that incorporates song lyrics as a refrain, so I drew from a certain musical and went with the suggested example of a villanelle.)

King and kingdom may yet fall,
But my fealty shall remain.
No, never could I leave you at all.

Laughter may yet leave this hall,
Pleasured memories turned pain.
King and kingdom may yet fall.

Our first meeting, I recall,
Was joy God only could ordain.
No, never could I leave you at all.

Peter may yet pillage Paul,
Men and what they stood for slain.
King and kingdom may yet fall.

How’d we get here, warts and all?
Is our love a common bain?
No, never could I leave you at all.

Trapped in adoration’s thrall,
Let the legends mourn the reign.
King and kingdom may yet fall.
No, never could I leave you at all.
_____________________________

MPA rating: G

I love musicals, even long musicals like Les Misérables. Yet even I have a limit, and somehow Camelot was too much even for me. Based on the 1960 Lerner and Loewe stage musical, Camelot adapts the King Arthur legend, particularly the creation of the Knights of the Round Table and the doomed love triangle between Arthur (Richard Harris), Guenevere (Vanessa Redgrave), and Lancelot (Franco Nero, with Gene Merlino dubbing his singing voice). 

All the events of the legendary scandal are well-portrayed: Lancelot’s boastful self-regard with the skill to back it up, the gradual transition of Guenevere disdaining and then falling for him, Arthur’s exasperation as he tries to overlook the uncomfortable rumor that everyone but he acknowledges, the corruptive role of Mordred (David Hemmings) in bringing Arthur’s idealistic kingdom low. Much of it is laudable, particularly an insightful script and the Oscar-winning score, production design, and costumes bringing Arthurian myth to life, yet it’s also dully self-indulgent at three hours long, in stark need of a skillful editor yet still leaving out songs from the stage version.

While Redgrave is a bewitching Guenevere and her eventual real-life husband Nero is dashing (if a bit insufferable) as Lancelot, Richard Harris is a strangely mixed bag as Arthur: sometimes, he’s excellent at embodying the king’s charm and deepening desperation while other times have him feeling too frivolous and unregal. It’s funny to think of him growing up to play the more Merlin-like role of Dumbledore, but he was indeed a singer too, known for the original version of “MacArthur Park.” His first number “I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight” is a good representative of the film’s lack of imaginative staging, as Arthur just dips around some tree branches; Lerner’s lyrics are delightful, yet there’s little in the way of visual interest for the songs. As a poet, I certainly enjoyed the wordplay of “The Lusty Month of May” and “Take Me to the Fair,” but the film around the musical numbers, from its stolid pacing to the strain at an inspiring ending, sadly doesn’t rise above its flaws in my book.

Best lines: (Arthur) “I can’t quite remember all that Merlyn taught me, but I do remember this. That happiness is a virtue. No one can be happy and wicked. Triumphant, perhaps, but not happy.”
and
(young Arthur) “What’s the best thing for being sad?”  (Merlin) “The best thing for being sad is to learn something.”

Rank: Honorable Mention

© 2025 S.G. Liput
805 Followers and Counting

Freaks (1932)

10 Thursday Apr 2025

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(For Day 10 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that incorporates alliteration and wordplay, two of my favorite devices.)

The freaks reek (it’s in the name),
Reek of pity, guilt, and shame,
Of all those shattered might-have-beens
Their parents might have held for them.

Anomalies aren’t animals,
Just popular improbables,
While others claim it isn’t cruel
To void for them the Golden Rule.

Abnormalcy (abnormal, see?)
Says, hey, how great can normal be
When normal people tend to hate
The things to which they can’t relate?

Unusual, peculiar, odd,
Yet don’t all share the image of God?
Suggesting human value might
Be more than limbs or average height.

Normalcy can’t stand the thought
That there are lives it fathoms not,
Chained to common, standard, same…
But freaks are free (it’s in the name).
________________________

MPA rating: Not Rated (a strong PG)

I was familiar with Tod Browning’s pre-Hays Code horror classic Freaks, if only for its immortal chant of “one of us,” but I never sat through the short one-hour film until recently. It was notorious from the start for its portrayal of circus freaks played by actual sideshow performers with real disabilities, from a pair of little people (siblings Harry and Daisy Earles of the Doll family, who also played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz) to conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton) to a legless “Half-Boy” (Johnny Eck) walking with his arms. In the film, one of the dwarfs Hans is targeted by the scheming trapeze artist Cleopatra, who seduces him for his money, fooling the circus freaks until it’s made clear that she is not “one of them.”

While the film doesn’t shy from depicting the grotesquerie of sideshow oddities and wringing horror from it, it’s surprisingly empathetic for its time, presenting them as actual people with hopes, relationships, and emotions, living life despite their limitations. It’s Cleopatra, the beautiful but undeniable villain of the tale, that voices disgust toward her fellow circus members, so her comeuppance feels more like a cautionary tale than mere exploitation. It was odd for me watching the climax of the film since I really thought I had seen clips of it but didn’t remember that it all happened in a driving rain storm, making it even more memorable, one would think. Owing to its pre-Code daring, Freaks is more notable than the typical product of its time, both creepy and compassionate in equal measure.

Best line: (the celebrating freaks) “We accept you, one of us! Gooble Gobble!”

Rank: List Runner-Up

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