Today marks the opening of Funny Games, writer-director Michael Haneke’s English-language remake of his own 1997 German-language film. I’d never seen the original, and I was quite hesitant about checking out the updated version — as much as I love horror movies, I’m really not into overly explicit violence and watching people suffer. Given that, going to watch a movie about a bourgeois family brutalized as a pair of psychopaths keep them captive in their summer home is something on my "to do" list that falls ... oh, somewhere between “scrub the floor” and “punch yourself in the face.” Earlier this week, though, I caught a screening. The “You really need to see it” urgings I received from a few trusted sources got me thinking about it, but in the end what got me to the theater was the fact that Funny Games stars Naomi Watts.

I’ll readily admit it — Watts is like kryptonite for me. My roommate is a film journalist and just this week had the opportunity to interview Naomi on the Funny Games press junket. While I was all cool as a cucumber on the outside with my “Wow, you’re so lucky I’m so jealous tell me if she’s really pretty I wonder how tall she is man you are soooo lucky,” on the inside I was ... well, let’s just say that I briefly considered buying some chloroform and a wig that looks like my roommate’s hair and going to the press conference in her stead. What? I didn’t DO it, sheesh. And I would have, like, done all the dishes for a week to make up for it. C’mon, man, it’s Naomi Watts!

I’ll see anything she’s in, just to see her. She’s displayed remarkable range in her career, and I honestly believe she’s one of the greatest working actresses today. Oh, and some people might kind of find her maybe a little bit attractive. … continue reading

Not surprisingly, Halloween week gets people talking about horror movies. Dorothy Snarker recounted the horror background of various actresses this week. And recently, Jamie Lynn got hoards of you reminiscing about the horror films of yesteryear. I'm not a big horror aficionado — I blame a babysitter who, in an ill-advised move, allowed me to watch Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. However, I stumbled across a horror movie “best of” list this week that intrigued me.

Time.com counted the 25 Best Horror Movies from 1896 to the present. I was surprised to note that I had seen 10 of the movies. I was even more surprised to note that Bambi was one of them. Not Bambi Meets Godzilla. Bambi. You know, “You can call me Flower if you want to.”

I'm pretty sure Bambi's inclusion was the result of a double dog dare, but here's what the list-maker had to say:

“Amazing that the first movies parents took their tots to in the '30s and '40s were the early Disney features. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo all exploited childhood traumas. Parents disappear or die; stepmothers plot the murder of their charges; a boy skips school and turns into a donkey. Kids were so frightened by these films that they wet themselves in terror. Bambi, directed by David Hand, has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters who saw it 40, 50, 65 years ago.”

While I don't buy that Bambi is legitimately a horror movie, I do agree that elements of it are horrifying — and haunting. The movie certainly gets at some primal childhood fears: loss of a parent, violence, fire, etc…. And the images stay with kids long after they leave the theater. So that got me thinking about other movies that are haunting without actually being horror movies. (And, yes, I could, but will not, delve in a discussion of how the supernatural or over-the-top dangers in horror movies symbolize real dangers, blah, blah…) So I conducted a thoroughly unscientific poll and asked some friends and colleagues what movies haunted — or still haunt them.

Here are the results, plus a little glimpse of some of my neuroses. Some of these are deliberately creepy or contain intentionally scary elements, but none are traditional horror films.

1. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) … continue reading

Have you finished Deathly Hallows yet? Had a good cry? (And if so, for the love of Hagrid, don’t tell me why! Still reading!) How about taking a step back and getting some casting news for Harry Potter film No. 6 instead. Naomi Watts has signed on to play Narcissa Malfoy in the upcoming film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due out next year.

Narcissa is one nasty piece of work. The wife of Lucius Malfoy and mother of Draco Malfoy (Harry’s Hogwarts nemesis), she is also sister of Bellatrix LeStrange and Andromeda Tonks and the cousin of Sirius Black. Wow, that’s a lot of familial connections; do I need to break out the flow chart? Readers first met Narcissa briefly in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but her character was left out of the film. … continue reading