Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

 

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE  (1951)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: King Vidor

    Richard Todd, Ruth Roman, Mercedes McCambridge,

    Zachary Scott, Rhys Williams, Darryl Hickman

Nourish mystery melodrama about a guy who's convicted and then acquitted of killing his wife, and a woman who falls for him while trying to figure out whether or not he actually done it. Movie-stealing performance by Mercedes McCambridge as a girl who looks right at home in jeans and a flannel shirt and can spin a yarn without missing a beat while rolling and lighting a cigarette one-handed.

Aadan (2004)

 

AADAN  (2004)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 

    D: Ruba Nadda

    Fadia Nadda, Laila Nadda, Anthony Brancati, 

    Kristina Pesic, Melissa Shack, James Lukie 

A young Muslim woman lays out her rug in a city park and begins to pray. Her fellow citizens react with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, skepticism and indifference. The woman quietly persists, and little by little, the park and its people are transformed. The world could use some transformation, too, I guess. Not that everybody will heed the call to prayer, or should. But it can't hurt to tolerate those who do.

The Golf Course That Dripped Blood (1984)

 

THE GOLF COURSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD 

    D: Paul Miller                                           (1984)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    John Candy, John Carradine

Four guys on a golf outing decide to play a round on a course designed and maintained by John Carradine. Ghastly things happen, as you might expect. A horror spoof originally broadcast as a segment in the pilot for a sketch-comedy series called "Welcome To the Fun Zone". It's no worse (and no less amusing) than some of the horrors Carradine was actually starring in back then, and the old ghoul looks like he's having a wonderful time.

The Incredible Jewel Robbery (1959)

 

THE INCREDIBLE JEWEL ROBBERY  (1959)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mitchell Leisen

    Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Benny Rubin

Two familiar-looking characters stage a series of burglaries in the lead-up to a jewelry-store heist. The Marx Brothers' last appearance together, a 26-minute short originally broadcast on television's "General Electric Theater", where it was introduced by a future president of the United States. Chico and Harpo star, and it's all done without words, right up to the last minute, when Groucho comes on to deliver the only spoken line. It's a long way from "Animal Crackers" and "Monkey Business", and the laugh track is an annoyance, but Marx Brothers completists will want to check it out.

Horse Feathers (1932)

 

HORSE FEATHERS  (1932)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Z. McLeod

    The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, David Landau

The Marx Brothers go to college. Higher education will never be the same.

Monkey Business (1931)

 

MONKEY BUSINESS  (1931)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Z. McLeod

    The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, Harry Woods,

    Rockliffe Fellowes, Ruth Hall, Tom Kennedy

The Marx Brothers stow away on an ocean liner. The rest is pure anarchy.

Animal Crackers (1930)

 

ANIMAL CRACKERS  (1930)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Victor Heerman

    The Marx Brothers, Lillian Roth, Margaret Dumont,

    Louis Sorin, Margaret Irving, Robert Grieg

The Marx Brothers crash a society event. Hooray for Captain Spaulding.

The Comfort Of Strangers (1990)

 

THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS  (1990)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Paul Schrader

    Rupert Everett, Natasha Richardson,

    Christopher Walken, Helen Mirren

What is it that makes Venice, one of the world's most beautiful and romantic cities, such a creepy backdrop for movies? Not movies like "Italian For Beginners", or "Bread and Chocolate", or even "The Italian Job", but movies like this one and "Don't Look Now"? Everett and Richardson play a couple on a holiday, trying to work out a few relationship issues, who are just out looking for a late-night bite to eat when they find themselves accepting the hospitality of a white-suited restauranteur (Christopher Walken) and his shut-in wife (Helen Mirren). Maybe there's something in the water. Or maybe those canals and bridges and narrow, dark alleys are haunted. Who knows? Personally, I think anybody who would walk out into a strange city late at night and put themselves in the care of Christopher Walken could stand to learn a thing or two about what constitutes an acceptable risk. They're in Venice, though, and they're in this creepy movie. Maybe it goes with the territory.

The Freshman (1925)

 

THE FRESHMAN  (1925)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Sam Taylor, Fred Newmeyer

    Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Brooks Benedict,

    James Anderson, Hazel Keener, Pat Harmon

Harold Lloyd goes off to college, hoping to be the most popular man on campus. Instead, he becomes the campus joke and the waterboy on the football team. But the girl who works at the boarding house believes in him, and the big game's coming up. Harold might be down, but he won't be down for long. One of Lloyd's most popular comedies, with the gridiron climax shot in the Rose Bowl and the crowd scenes at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, during an actual football game. In his last film, "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (1947), Lloyd played the same character in middle age. 

The Reflecting Skin (1990)

 

THE REFLECTING SKIN  (1990)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Philip Ridley

    Viggo Mortensen, Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Cooper,

    Sheila Moore, Duncan Fraser, David Longworth

It looks like harvest time in the wheat fields of the Midwest, but nobody seems to be harvesting any wheat. It'a the late 1940s or thereabouts, and a boy named Seth (Jeremy Cooper) is just doing the kinds of things boys do - catching frogs, playing practical jokes, snooping around where he's not supposed to be, and wondering whether the widow in the next house over is a vampire. But there's something weird going on here, too, something you can't quite pin down, and neither can he. This is what it's like to grow up in an irrational universe, where the grownups make less sense than the kids, and the kids have to try to make sense of it all. An unsettling little coming-of-age movie made in Canada, beautifully scored and shot, with Viggo in an early role as the boy's much-admired older brother. 

Swedish Gas Pump Girls (1980)

 

SWEDISH GAS PUMP GIRLS  (1980)  ¢ ¢

    D: Michael Thomas (Erwin C. Dietrich)

    Brigitte Lahaie, Jane Baker, Nadine Pascal,

    Francette Maillol, Ella Rose, Élodie Delage,

    Karl Gyslin, Eric Falk, Barbara Moose

Six Swedish girls run a filling station where the service covers more than pumping gas. A predictably silly softcore feature from Switzerland, more casually explicit than a lot of nudie flicks, with camerawork that's not always terrible and some good-looking bodies on display. The nicest bit is a segment in which the girls run naked through a forest in slow motion. That comes at about the 48-minute mark. You know what to do. You can thank me later.

The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (2002)

 

THE SUBCONSCIOUS ART OF GRAFFITI REMOVAL  (2002)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Matt McCormick

A 17-minute, tongue-in-cheek documentary about the unintentional art that gets created when some other art gets painted over. It's a goof (I think), but darned if some of those drab, abstract squares and rectangles don't look kind of cool. Miranda July narrates. 

To Catch a Thief (1955)

 

TO CATCH A THIEF  (1955)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alfred Hitchcock 

    Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, John Williams,

    Jessie Royce Landis, Charles Vanel, Brigitte Auber

This movie looks like something Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly tossed off while they were on vacation together in the South of France. It's a lark, starring Grant as a retired cat burglar (the notorious "Cat"), who has to clear his name when another thief commits a series of heists, framing him for them by copying his methods. Famous fireworks go off when Grant and Kelly are together, but she's all ice. Brigitte Auber, as the daughter of an old Resistance colleague, looks like she'd be more fun to run into on the Riviera. 

Decision At Sundown (1957)

DECISION AT SUNDOWN  (1957)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Budd Boetticher

    Randolph Scott, John Carroll, Karen Steele, 

    Noah Beery Jr., Valerie French, John Archer,

    Andrew Duggan, Vaughn Taylor, Richard Deacon

Randolph Scott rides into the frightened town of Sundown to get revenge on the man who caused the death of  his wife. From that point on - from the very start, really - nothing turns out the way you expect. A great B western, an exercise in obsession, delusion and fear, that, like Scott's performance, is both off its hinges and rigorously controlled. See it and decide for yourself who comes out ahead in the end, and who rides out of town defeated.