Mystery, Alaska (1999)

MYSTERY, ALASKA  (1999)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jay Roach

    Russell Crowe, Hank Azaria, Burt Reynolds,

    Mary McCormack, Colm Meany, Maury Chaykin,

    Michael Buie, Adam Beach, Michael McKean

Mystery, Alaska, is a small town in the middle of nowhere that in the absence of anything else to do, lives and breathes hockey. The town's too remote to play other teams, so the guys play "pond hockey" against each other in a weekly civic event called the "Saturday Game". They're fast and they know how to skate, but do they really stand a chance when the New York Rangers come to town? A formula, feel-good sports movie that comes down to the inevitable, climactic match between the unbeatable major leaguers and the scrappy amateur underdogs - a setup that's as predictable as it is foolproof. There are enough small-town subplots to suggest the potential for a decent television series. (Think "Northern Exposure" with sticks and skates.) The mystery is why it didn't become one.

711 Ocean Drive (1950)

711 OCEAN DRIVE  (1950)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Joseph M. Newman

    Edmond O'Brien,  Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger,

    Don Porter, Dorothy Patrick, Robert Osterloh,

    Barry Kelley, Howard St. John, Sammy White

Edmond O'Brien plays a phone-company technician who breaks into the bookmaking racket and ends up running the whole California operation. When the big boys back East decide they want a cut of the action, he thinks he can take them on, too, but he forgets he's in a film noir and his luck has to run out, which it does. The climax was shot on location at Boulder Dam, but the movie's kind of slow getting there, and feels longer than its one hour and 42 minutes.

River Queen (2005)

 

RIVER QUEEN  (2005)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Vincent Ward

    Samantha Morton, Cliff Curtis, Kiefer Sutherland,

    David Rawiri Pene, Tremuera Morrison, Stephen Rea

This takes place around 1860 in New Zealand, where Maori tribesmen are staging a last-ditch rebellion against the British who are taking their land. Samantha Morton plays a woman named Sarah, caught between warring cultures as she tries to find and protect her mixed-race son. It'a like "The Last of the Mohicans" Down Under, with riverscapes you could get lost in, an exciting and sometimes brutal adventure romance. The soundtrack features a haunting version of "Danny Boy" sung in Maori, something you probably won't find in any other film.

Airplane! (1980)

 

AIRPLANE!  (1980)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

    Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen,

    Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,

    Robert Stack, Kenneth Tobey, Stephen Stucker, 

    Maureen McGovern, Ethel Merman, Jill Whelan

Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

And Merry Christmas

Untamed Women (1952)

 

UNTAMED WOMEN  (1952)  ¢ 1/2

    D: W. Merle Connell

    Mikel Conrad, Doris Merrick, Richard Monahan,

    Mark Lowell, Morgan Jones, Midge Ware,

    Judy Brubaker, Carol Brewster, Lyle Talbot

A stilted, plodding adventure in which a bomber crew washes up on a Pacific island inhabited by a tribe of primitive but fashion-savvy women. The women dance and pose like '50s swimsuit models (which they probably were), and speaketh English in words not heard in everyday speech since the 17th century. Shakespeare it ain't, and the flyboys sport some of the worst-looking ten-day-old beards ever, but at least the untamed women are cute.

The Way West (1967)

 

THE WAY WEST  (1967)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Andrew V. McLaglen

    Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark,

    Lola Albright, Jack Elam, Sally Field, Stubby Kaye,

    Michael McGreevey, Roy Glenn, Harry Carey Jr.

Widmark, Mitchum and Douglas point the wagons west and lead a bunch of settlers across the plains to Oregon. This plays like an offshoot of "How the West Was Won", with impressive production values, spectacular landscapes, a rousing musical score and a clunky script. Mitchum, as a scout who's going blind, comes off the best. Sally Field, in her first big-screen role, plays an impetuous teenager named Mercy - Gidget out on the prairie.

Desert Island Women / Take 3

 

Movies become more interesting 

when these women show up in them:

Rosamund Pike

Eva Green

Saoirse Ronan

Emma Stone

Kristen Stewart

Samantha Morton

Michelle Rodriguez

Amy Adams

Carey Mulligan

Noomi Rapace

The Ref (1994)

 

THE REF  (1994)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ted Demme

    Denis Leary, Judy Davis, Kevin Spacey,

    Raymond J. Barry, Richard Bright, Christine Baranski,

    J.K. Simmons, Adam Lefevre, Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.

A funny, profanity-laced comedy about a burglar who takes a bickering suburban couple hostage and finds his getaway plans going haywire in ways he could never imagine. A holiday movie, more or less, that's pretty much devoid of the usual holiday-movie sweetness. Any picture in which Judy Davis can cast a withering glance at Kevin Spacey and deliver a line like "Why don't you eat me?" has got to be worth looking at.

Colleen (1936)

 

COLLEEN  (1936)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Alfred E. Green

    Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell,

    Jack Oakie, Hugh Herbert, Louise Fazenda,

    Marie Wilson, Berton Churchill, Hobart Cavanaugh

Dick's charming, Ruby's cute, Jack's obnoxious and Joan's nobody's fool in a mostly disposable Warner Bros musical about, well, the story doesn't really matter. Busby Berkeley wasn't involved, but his influence on the production numbers is obvious. Oakie and Blondell hoofing it through "Boulevardier From the Bronx" is the unexpected highlight.

Escape From L.A. (1996)

 

ESCAPE FROM L.A.  (1996)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Carpenter

    Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach,

    A.J. Langer, George Corraface, Michelle Forbes,

    Pam Grier, Cliff Robertson, Peter Fonda

In the sequel to "Escape From New York", snarlin', one-eyed rogue warrior Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) finds himself in a dystopian Los Angeles on a mission to rescue or kill the president's runaway daughter and maybe save the United States from a hostile invasion. Escapist action with plenty of attitude and Russell at his bad-ass best. The depiction of the American president (Cliff Robertson) as a venal, fear-mongering asshole might've seemed a little far-fetched back then. After the 2016 election, not so much.

Mon Oncle (1958)

MON ONCLE  (1958)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    Jacques Tati

    Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie,

    Alain Bécourt, Yvonne Arnaud, Betty Schneider

Jacques Tati's average-looking Everyman, Mr. Hulot, rides a bicycle between two worlds. There's the world he lives in - noisy, chaotic and full of life, defined by its bars, shops, horsecarts, wild packs of boys and dogs, and trash in the streets. And there's the world of the Arpel family, Hulot's sister and brother-in-law - modern, clean, orderly, quiet and sterile, defined by its compulsive neatness, a ridiculous gurgling fountain, the latest gadgets and conveniences, and a lot of empty, unused space. Tati finds comic absurdity in both worlds, but it's no secret which one he prefers. 

These Amazing Shadows (2011)

 

THESE AMAZING SHADOWS  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Paul Mariano, Kurt Norton

A lively collection of film clips highlight this documentary look at the movies the Library of Congress has named to the National Film Registry. The list includes everything from home movies to "2001", "The Birth of a Nation" to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Rob Reiner, John Waters, Caleb Deschanel, Christopher Nolan and Peter Coyote are among those weighing in with their insights and observations. If you miss the ubiquitous cartoon concessions ad that used to play in the middle of double features, the one that started with the jingle, "Let's all go to the lobby," relax. That's in the National Film Registry, too.

Love Birds (2011)

 

LOVE BIRDS  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Paul Murphy 

    Rhys Darby, Sally Hawkins, Bryan Brown,

    Faye Smythe, Wesley Dowdell, Alvin Maharaj

    Emily Barclay, Craig Hall, David Fane

A romantic comedy about a man, a woman  and a duck. You'd expect a movie like this to choke on its own cuteness, but it's just quirky enough to counter that. Sally Hawkins and the music of Queen are a big plus. Made in New Zealand. The duck's name is Pierre. 

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

 

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Martin McDonagh

    Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon,

    Barry Keoghan, Pat Shortt, David Pearse

This all takes place in 1923 on an island off the Irish coast. The Civil War's going on, and from the island you can hear the gunshots and see the smoke from the explosions across the water. The island is a place of suffocating closeness, the sort of place where there are no secrets and everybody knows everybody else way too well. Two of those islanders are Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), old friends who meet up most afternoons to walk down to the pub and drink a pint together. Then one day, out of nowhere, Colm tells Padraic he doesn't like him anymore and wants nothing to do with him. Padraic is crushed. Colm is adamant. And the movie proceeds from there. There's no easy sentiment in Martin McDonagh's script, but a lot of emotional depth, and it's brilliantly acted by everybody, with especially fine work by Farrell as the "dull" but good-natured Padraic and Barry Keoghan as an abused (and damaged) kid named Dominic, who's more perceptive than he first appears. In a scene late in the film, Dominic and Padraic's sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) are standing together looking out at the lake when Dominic, twisting himself into physical and emotional knots, works up the courage to ask Siobhan if she'd like to be something more than just neighbors and friends. She tells him no in the nicest way possible, and he tries to shrug it off, but there's no hiding the fact that he's devastated. The exchange is as achingly honest as it is inevitable, and the whole movie's like that. It cuts to the bone.