Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 10/16/22

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega, 1993)

Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega, 1993)

Cast: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, Thora Birch, Vinessa Shaw, Amanda Shepherd, Larry Bagby, Tobias Jelinek, Stephanie Faracy, Charles Rocket, Doug Jones, Sean Murray. Screenplay: David Kirschner, Mick Garris, Neil Cuthbert. Cinematography: Hiro Narita. Production design: William Sandell. Film editing: Peter E. Berger. Music: John Debney.

I come late to the Hocus Pocus party, but then so did almost everyone else. It was a critical and commercial flop when it made its debut in theaters in 1993, and only over the years, as Disney marketing shrewdly took advantage of Halloween hype, did it become a small phenomenon. Parents wanting something for kids to watch other than gory horror films during the Halloween season snapped up the videos and Disney rolled it out on TV along with merchandise like dolls and bedspreads. And now, almost 30 years later, comes a sequel. Disney never butters its bread thinly. You can also thank (or blame, as your inclination may be) the gay community, since the film features two actresses, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, who have become iconic for many gays. I finally succumbed to the hype last night and sat through the movie that Gene Siskel called “dreadful” and Roger Ebert squished under his thumb. It’s not as awful as that. Midler, Parker, and Kathy Najimy, the trio of witches, seem to be having fun behaving like drag queens, there’s some wit in making the teenage hero (Omri Katz) the “virgin” who lights the candle with the black flame, and the precocious Thora Birch makes the ideal spunky kid sister. It’s too noisy and too frantic, but we do get to hear Midler’s version of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins classic “I Put a Spell on You.” Still, I think I’ll wait another 30 years before watching Hocus Pocus 2 (Anne Fletcher, 2022).