Lizzie (2018)

LIZZIE  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Craig William Macneill
    Chloe Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Jamey Sheridan,
    Fiona Shaw, Kim Dickens, Denis O'Hare
"Lizzie Borden took an axe . . . " and 126 years later, people are still making movies about her. In this tense, claustrophobic speculation on what might've happened back in 1892, Chloe Sevigny plays Lizzie and Kristen Stewart plays Bridget Sullivan, the Irish housemaid who goes to work for the Bordens just as things are about to get bloody. Both actresses are good, even if neither of them looks quite at home in the late 19th century. In the wake of the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing, the systematic abuse of women at the hands of privileged, powerful men has an immediacy the filmmakers might not have anticipated. 

Carry On Follow That Camel (1967)

CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMEL  (1967)  ¢ ¢
    D: Gerald Thomas
    Phil Silvers, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey,
    Jim Dale, Anita Harris, Peter Butterworth,
    Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, John Bluthal
The "Carry On" gang joins the French Foreign Legion, with Kenneth Williams as the commandant, Charles Hawtrey as his adjutant, and vacationing Yank Phil Silvers hamming it up as a lecherous drill sergeant. All of the "Carry On" movies are silly, but this one's more in the range of idiotic, and apart from a few shameless puns, it's not all that funny. Also, it's missing Sid James.

Eulogy (2004)

EULOGY  (2004)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Michael Clancy
    Hank Azaria, Debra Winger, Zooey Deschanel,
    Glenne Headly, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie,
    Rip Torn, Rance Howard, Rene Auberjonois
"The Big Chill" meets "Rocket Gibraltar" in a comedy about the bickering members of a Rhode Island family getting together to mark (but not mourn) the death of their patriarch, played in a video clip by Rip Torn. The humor's as crazy as it is (sometimes) dark, and the Viking funeral that ends it all takes the concept of going out with a bang to its literal extreme.

The Last Gangster (1937)

THE LAST GANGSTER  (1937)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Edward Ludwig
    Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Rose Stradner,
    Lionel Stander, Douglas Scott, John Carradine,
    Sidney Blackmer, Grant Mitchell, Louise Beavers
A bootlegger starts a ten-year stretch on Alcatraz, just as his wife is about to give birth. He's a violent psychopath to begin with, and this sequence of events does not improve his disposition. A fast-paced crime melodrama, predictable but well-played, with a couple of unusual features: a) the shootouts all take place offscreen, and b) Jimmy Stewart with a mustache. Robinson takes a beating in this, and Carradine swipes a scene or two as a fellow inmate who doesn't like him very much.

Dunkirk (2017)

DUNKIRK  (2017)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Christopher Nolan
    Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh,
    Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Glynn-Carney,
    Barry Keoghan, Damien Bonnard, James Bloor
"Dunkirk" is like the Normandy Beach sequence in "Saving Private Ryan", if that sequence was the whole movie and went on for 106 minutes, For viewers who have never been shot at or  bombed, it's probably as close as a movie can get to duplicating that experience. It'a not all bullets and artillery fire, but it sure feels that way. It's intense. The film tells three stories simultaneously, each playing out on a different timeline. In one (a week), a grunt soldier played by Fionn Whitehead tries desperately to get off the beach and onto a boat any way he can. In another (a day), a civilian, played stoically by Mark Rylance, joins a convoy of commandeered boats to help with the evacuation. In the third (an hour), an RAF pilot played by Tom Hardy tries to provide air cover by knocking out as many German planes as he can before he runs out of fuel. Amazingly, the narrative works. Cutting from story to story and back again, you always know exactly where you are. The dialogue is spare. The actors, with a few notable exceptions, are not well known. The scale is both intimate and epic. There's no backstory at all. Not every character behaves heroically, but every character behaves in a believably human way. I watched it on an IMAX screen, which might not be necessary, but to really appreciate "Dunkirk", a big screen of some kind and a good sound system are essential. 

Jailhouse Rock (1957)

JAILHOUSE ROCK  (1957)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Richard Thorpe
    Elvis Presley, Judy Tyler, Vaughn Taylor,
    Dean Jones, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jennifer Holden
Elvis goes to prison for manslaughter, gets a haircut, shovels a little coal, and learns a few guitar chords from his cellmate (Mickey Shaughnessy). Then he gets out, meets a curvy record promoter, cuts a disc and turns into a real asshole, as success goes to his head. Most Elvis fans consider this his best movie, and if nothing else, it's a contrast to the candy-coated fluff he got stuck in later on. The title number is Elvis at his gyrating, hip-swiveling best. 

Ears (2016)

EARS  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Alessandro Aronadio
    Daniele Parisi, Silvia D'Amico, Rocco Papaleo,
    Pamela Villoresi, Ivan Franek, Andrea Purgatori
A man wakes up with ringing in his ears and finds a note on the refrigerator telling him his friend Luigi has died. The man has no idea who Luigi is, and as the day goes on without getting any better, the ringing in is ears does not go away. A deadpan comedy from Italy that plays like a bad dream that you wake up to, and then can't wake up from, because you're no longer asleep. The part with the card-eating ATM could happen to anybody, I suppose. The part where a doctor tells the man that the reason he's got tinnitus is because he's a hermaphrodite and he's pregnant is, well, yeah, more bizarre. Keep an eye on the aspect ratio, if you watch this on a screen that allows for that. 

Kongo (1932)

KONGO  (1932)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: William Cowan
    Walter Huston, Virginia Bruce, Conrad Nagel,
    Lupe Velez, C. Henry Gordon, Forrester Harvey
Walter Huston plays a white witch doctor who controls the natives with sugar cubes and magic tricks, while plotting revenge on the rubber plantation owner who stole his wife and crippled him. Lurid, pre-Code pulp, a batshit exercise in unrelieved sensationalism that would've horrified the moralists of the 1930s. (Not surprisingly, it suggests a lot more than it actually delivers.) Conrad Nagel battles drug addiction. Virginia Bruce goes from convent-bred innocence to sin and degradation. Lupe Velez tempts all the menfolk and shimmers in the heat (and how'd she get to this African jungle?) A remake of the 1928 Lon Chaney vehicle "West of Zanzibar". 

West of Zanzibar (1928)

WEST OF ZANZIBAR  (1928)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Tod Browning
    Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan,
    Warner Baxter, Jacqueline Daly, Roscoe Ward
A typically sick and twisted story from Browning and Chaney, with Chaney as a magician who goes to great (and tragic) lengths to get even with the man who crippled him. Chaney, working without a lot of makeup, gives one of his best performances. A sound remake, called "Kongo", came out in 1932.

The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE  (2000)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Mark Dindal
An absolute monarch, the ruler over everything he sees, learns a few life lessons (but not right away) when he drinks a magic potion and turns into a llama. It's the voice work that distinguishes this animated feature, with David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton all perfectly cast. The studio's Disney. The location's ancient Peru. Some of the music's by Sting.

Quote File / Take 11

Some lines from the movies of Burt Reynolds:

"You don't beat it. You don't beat this river."

  Reynolds in "Deliverance"

"If it looks like shit, and it sounds like shit, then it 
  must be shit."

  Reynolds in "Boogie Nights"

"Celestial roulette. That's what life is all about. 
  Celestial roulette."

  Reynolds in "Big City Blues"

"I made so many mistakes, and now it's time for 
  one last goodbye."

  Reynolds in "The Last Movie Star"

"Now let's make a movie."

  Reynolds in "Frankenstein and Me"

(1936-2018)

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID  (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Carl Reiner
    Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Reni Santoni, 
    Carl Reiner, George Gaynes, Frank McCarthy
Hard-boiled gumshoe Rigby Reardon tries to crack a tough case, but the streets are dark and dangerous, corruption is everywhere, nobody can be trusted, and naturally there's a dame involved. This movie plays off a gimmick, but the gimmick's a good one: editing Steve Martin into scenes with Bogart, Stanwyck, Lancaster and other black-and-white stars from the '40s. It's a safe bet Mel Brooks would've made a film-noir parody eventually, but this time his old pal Carl Reiner beat him to it. 

Logan (2017)

LOGAN  (2017)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: James Mangold
    Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen,
    Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant
This is what it looks like when you're a superhero growing old, when you start needing glasses to read the label on a pill bottle and you walk with a limp and you can't hide the scars anymore. When you can still sometimes stomp the bad guys, but sometimes, now, they stomp you. When you start to realize that time, after all, is limited and you feel mortality closing in. The superhero in question is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and you can bet he's not going down without a fight. And since this battle's R-rated, it's going to be a bloody one. (The language is R-rated, too.) The story's like where a Marvel comic meets "Midnight Special", with Logan/Wolverine and old Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) on the run with a girl who has certain unique gifts not unlike Wolverine's. It would seem to be the last X-Men adventure for Jackman and Stewart, and a potential opening for a whole new series, with the girl (Dafne Keen) and a band of youthful colleagues very much in play. For Jackman as Wolverine, it's a high note to go out on. Every aging superhero should be so lucky. 

Agatha (1979)

AGATHA  (1979)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Michael Apted
    Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman, Timothy Dalton,
    Helen Morse, Celia Gregory, Paul Brooke, Alan Badel
A speculation on what Agatha Christie might've been up to those eleven days in 1926, when she famously disappeared. It has the elegance and polish of one of those BBC productions where the settings are posh, the characters are affluent, and the trains are impossibly clean. Vanessa Redgrave plays Agatha. Dustin Hoffman plays an American journalist who tracks her down. Their star power carries the piece, and their height differential is emphasized rather than mitigated. The ending's a switch. Literally.