Out To Lunch

 

The Movie Buzzard is out circling, riding the thermals and scanning the landscape for signs of fresh roadkill. He'll be back.

"The heights I'm reaching! I'm flying to Mars 

  tomorrow!"

  Nikolai Batalov in "Aeilita: Queen of Mars"

Lisbon Story (1994)

 

LISBON STORY  (1994)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Wim Wenders

    Rudiger Vogler, Patrick Bauchau, Madredeus

A sound man named Winter travels to Lisbon from Germany to connect with a director tor named Friedrich who wants him to help with a film he's working on. When the sound man gets there, the director has disappeared, and Winter spends the next two weeks waiting for Friedrich and wandering around the city with his microphone and equipment, recording what he hears and sees. The result is part "Heart of Darkness" (only not as dark), part street-level travelogue, and part meditation on the nature of film. Like his protagonist, Wenders feels no special commitment to a tight plot. When he comes on something interesting, he'll hang around for a while, watching and listening in. That's especially true when Winter encounters the lead singer for a group called Madredeus, whose beauty and charisma (and voice) are not lost on Winter, or on Wenders. If you won't be going to Portugal anytime soon, you might want to go to this movie instead. 

The White Gorilla (1945)

THE WHITE GORILLA  (1945)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Harry L. Fraser

    Ray Corrigan, Lorraine Miller, George J. Lewis,

    Francis Ford, Budd Buster, Charles King

Jungle explorers dodge lions, tigers, monkeys, elephants and a hippo while looking for a legendary white gorilla. Incoherent storytelling with stock shots of wild animals and footage lifted from a 1927 silent called "Perils of the Jungle" randomly tossed into the pot. Exactly where it's supposed to take place (tigers in Africa?) is never very clear. Ray "Crash" Corrigan plays both the male lead and the white gorilla.

Bikini (2014)

 

BIKINI  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Óscar Bernàcier

    Sergio Caballero, Carlos Areces, Rosario Pardo

You'd think a movie called "Bikini" would have a bikini in it somewhere, but you don't see one. It's about the mayor of a resort town on the Spanish coast who calls on the country's strongman, Francisco Franco, seeking permission to allow bikinis on the local beach. Also in on the conversation, and threatening to gum up the works, is Franco's straight-laced, music-loving wife. Who knew that a little two-piece swimsuit could be the cause of so much concern? Or that the mere prospect of making money could be enough to bring bikinis to the beach?

White Hunter Black Heart (1990)

 

WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART  (1990)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood, Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza, 

    Marisa Berenson, Charlotte Cornwell, Timothy Spall,

    Boy Matthias Chuma, Alun Armstrong, Richard Vanstone

Clint Eastwood plays a larger-than-life Hollywood director named John Wilson (think John Huston), who goes off to Africa to shoot a picture (think "The African Queen"), but determined to shoot an elephant first. There are layers and layers of artifice in this, a movie based on a novel about the making of a movie based on a novel, and Eastwood, appropriating just enough of Huston's distinctive drawl and lose-limbed body language to make the connection obvious, gives his most expansive performance. It's a departure, both behind the camera and in front of it, and whether or not it entirely works, Clint's never done anything else quite like it. The final shot, a closeup with one spoken word followed by a cut, is a twisted joke, the movie-making equivalent of point-blank nihilism.

Kingdom of Shadows (1998)

 

KINGDOM OF SHADOWS  (1998)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Bret Wood

A documentary on horror in silent cinema, from "Nosferatu" to "Vampyr" to "Witchcraft Through the Ages". An excellent collection of vintage clips. Campy, over-the-top narration by Rod Steiger. Watch out for a brief segment from 1903 titled "Electrocuting an Elephant". It looks like they're actually doing that. 

The Night My Number Came Up (1955)

 

THE NIGHT MY NUMER CAME UP  (1955)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Leslie Norman

    Michael Redgrave, Alexander Knox, Sheila Sim,

    Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern, Ralph Truman,

    Nigel Stock, David Orr, Bill Kerr, Alfie Bass,

    George Rose, Victor Madden, David Yates

A naval commander in Hong Kong has a dream that ends with a plane crash. The next day, a plane takes off for Tokyo, and events start to play out in a way that mirrors the dream. To reveal how it all turns out would spoil the fun. Let's just say the matter of dreams being premonitions is up in the air. 

Playing Unfair (2002)

 

PLAYING UNFAIR: THE MEDIA IMAGE OF THE FEMALE ATHLETE  (2002)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    P: Sut Jhally, Loretta Alper, Kelly Garner, Kenyon King

A documentary about how women in sports are portrayed (i.e. sexualized) in popular culture. Some things haven't changed much since this movie's release, but one thing has: There are out lesbians in the WNBA now. A lot of them. And some of those women are modeling swimsuits, too. Exploitation or empowerment? It depends on who's looking and who you ask. Unfortunately, none of the talking-head witnesses here are female athletes. Maybe it's time for a sequel.

Captive Women (1952)

 

CAPTIVE WOMEN  (1952)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Stuart Gilmore

    Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Gloria Saunders

    Ron Randell, Stuart Randall, William Schallert

In the year 3000, the remaining inhabitants of New York City are divided into three tribes. The Upriver People are thugs. The Mutates are the disfigured descendants of those exposed to deadly radiation during a long-ago nuclear war. The Norms live in civilized harmony in the city's old underground subway system. Let's see, what else? The Mutates have remained true to their Judeo-Christian beliefs, while the Norms have reverted to devil worship. The Upriver People prey on the other tribes and enjoy killing and torture. The Mutates go on raids and kidnap Norm women, so they can mate with them. The Norms don't like that for some reason and treat the Mutates badly. What saves the Mutates is that they apparently live in New Jersey and commute to Manhattan through a tunnel under the Hudson River. Which is actually a pretty interesting setup for a pretty silly movie: a storybook sci-fi adventure for the dawn of the fourth millennium. Somebody involved in writing this must've read "The Time Machine". 

The Columnist (2019)

THE COLUMNIST  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ivo van Aart

    Katja Herbers, Bram van der Kelen, Claire Porro,

    Rein Hofman, Harry van Rijthoven, Genio de Groot

A newspaper columnist faced with a serious case of writer's block and a deadline to turn in a novel finds salvation and fulfillment as a serial killer. Internet bullying, freedom of speech and social-media addiction are key themes here, and it ends with a twisted reference to the Statue of Liberty. Katja Herbers plays the fidgety, nail-chewing protagonist, which is a little like Holly Hunter taking over the Kevin Costner role in "Mr. Brooks". 

Kiss and Make-Up (1934)

 

KISS AND MAKE-UP  (1934)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Harlan Thompson

    Cary Grant, Helen Mack, Genevieve Tobin,

    Edward Everett Horton, Lucien Littlefield

The fast and the frivolous in a pre-Code comedy starring Cary Grant as a plastic surgeon who falls for one of his manufactured creations while ignoring the loyal secretary who thinks he's swell. Grant even has a musical number in this one, but Bing Crosby he's not. Helen Mack and Edward Everett Horton singing "Corned Beef and Cabbage" together are more fun. And speaking of pre-Code, look for the shot of Mack climbing out of the water onto Horton's boat, and see what you think of her swimsuit. 

Strangers In Paradise (1984)

 

STRANGERS IN PARADISE  (1984)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ulli Lommel

    Ulli Lommel, Ken Letner, Thom Jones,

    Cliff Brisbois, Paul Murray, Gloria McCord,

    Ann Price, Bette Chapel, Evakay Favia

A time-travel sci-fi musical about a stage-show hypnotist who gets put on ice in Blitz-era London and thawed out 40 years later in punk-era Los Angeles. Lommel shot this on a shoestring, but he makes the most of that. The songs are catchy and the dance routines, especially the production number set in a bowling alley, are lively and fun. It's where "Cabaret" meets "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" meets early MTV, and a movie that deserves a cult following, at least. See it and see for yourself.

Skin: A History of Nudity In the Movies (2020)

 

SKIN: A HISTORY OF NUDITY IN THE MOVIES 

    D: Danny Wolf                                       (2020)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

Ever since there were movies, people have been getting naked in them. This documentary tracks some of the history of that phenomenon, from "Ecstasy" and "Tarzan and His Mate" to "Caligula" and "I Spit On Your Grave" to "Showgirls", "Basic Instinct" and "Personal Best". It's a good, comprehensive survey, the best part being that it doesn't cut away from the naughty bits. It shows you what its witnesses are talking about. They include Linda Blair, Joe Dante, Camille Keaton, Kevin Smith, Mariel Hemingway, Sean Young, Malcolm McDowell and dozens more. A must for fans of skin on the screen. For puritans, maybe not. 

Spin Me Round (2022)

 

SPIN ME ROUND  (2022)  ¢ ¢

    D: Jeff Baena

    Alison Brie, Alessandro Nivola, Aubrey Plaza,

    Molly Shannon, Zach Woods, Ben Sinclair,

    Tim Heidecker, Fred Armisen, Lauren Weedman

The manager of a franchise restaurant in Bakersfield, California, wins a corporate junket to Italy and has a flirtatious fling, for a day or two, with the company's charming but creepy CEO. There's some real potential for satire in this, but the sleaze factor effectively negates the funny stuff. There's something seriously disturbing in what the characters played by Alessandro Nivola and Aubrey Plaza are up to, and the film never really comes to terms with that. It takes way too long (like the whole movie) for the smart but  credulous heroine, attractively played by Alison Brie, to tell her predatory boss to fuck off. She could've done that in about the second reel and saved herself (and us) a lot of trouble. I wouldn't normally advise anybody in Bakersfield to turn  down a free trip to Italy, but this is one of those times.

Quote File / Take 25

 

"You are who you are. The trick is not getting 

  caught."

  Clea DuVall 

  in "But I'm a Cheerleader"

"The only thing worth believing in, ever, is cash."

  Phoebe Waller-Bridge 

  in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"

"Everything gets old if you do it often enough."

  Ellen Burstyn 

  in "The Last Picture Show"

"Never argue with a truck driver. They're always 

  right."

  Spencer Tracy 

  in "Quick Millions"

"You can't try to have fun. You either have it or you 

  don't."

  Richard Widmark 

  in "Take the High Ground"

"The nicest guys are the most psycho. They're just 

  better at hiding it."

  Addison Rae 

  in "Thanksgiving"

Mare Nostrum (1926)

 

MARE NOSTRUM  (1926)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Rex Ingram

    Antonio Moreno, Alice Terry, Hughie Mack,

    Paquerette, Andrews Engelmann, Fernand Mailly

An epic silent adventure about a Spanish sea captain who falls for a German spy and ends up, for a while at least, on the wrong side during the First World War. Ingram shot this in Europe with financial backing from MGM, and there's some striking location work around the ruins at Pompeii. Michael Powell was a production assistant on the film. Alice Terry was Ingram's wife.

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

 

LOVE LIES BLEEDING  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Rose Glass

    Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brien, Ed Harris,

    Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco

Kristen Stewart takes control in a delirious, neo-noir fantasy as a gym rat who hooks up with a body builder while trying to protect her sister from an abusive husband and steer clear of her gun-running old man, played with predatory menace and unusual hair by Ed Harris. There's a defining scuzziness about the way the movie looks and feels, a run-down, back-roads world where nothing good can happen, and if it does, it won't last long. It's a world Stewart's character knows how to navigate, whether it's dealing with an epically plugged-up toilet or a corpse on the living-room floor. She might not be entirely sure of herself, but like the actress playing her, the one who appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in a jock strap the month of the movie's release, she has a capacity for risk, a sense of humor, and a fuck-you attitude that's iconic. The girl's got balls. 

Morvern Callar (2002)

MORVERN CALLAR  (2002)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Lynne Ramsay

    Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Linda McGuire,

    Paul Popplewell, Dolly Wells, Raife Patrick Burchell

In the wake of her boyfriend's suicide, a grocery-store clerk finds that he's left her some  money and a finished manuscript, a novel dedicated to her. She changes the name in the book's byline to her own and sends it off to a publisher, and she and a friend take the money and leave Scotland for a holiday in Spain. You can't always tell what this is supposed to add up to - it's as random as a road trip can be, and that's a lot of what the movie is - but with Samantha Morton in the lead, you don't want to stop watching, either. Her character might be lost, but she's going somewhere, and she's thinking beyond the grocery store. Morton opens a window on that, while remaining mostly inscrutable, and - something that's not lost on director Lynne Ramsay - she's got a great face.

Faustine (1990)

 

FAUSTINE  (1990)  ¢ ¢

    D: Nigel Wingrove

    Eileen Daly, John Seymour

A man and a woman make out and she recites some poetry in an erotic art film by the director of "Sacred Flesh". It only lasts two minutes, but that's all the time some guys need.

Visions of Ecstasy (1989)

 

VISIONS OF ECSTASY  (1989)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Nigel Wingrove

    Louise Downie, Elisha Scott, Dan Fox

Arty nunsploitation in which Saint Teresa of Avila gives herself the stigmata and gets it on with another woman as well as the crucified Jesus. Apparently, this is the only film ever to be banned for blasphemy in the U.K. The odds of it screening at the next meeting of your Catholic youth group are remote.

Axel (1989)

AXEL  (1989)  ¢ ¢

    D: Nigel Wingrove

    Saskia Brandauer, Sharon Robinson, Rubecca Muhammed

A woman acts out a fantasy that involves a bird, a horse and an angel. (She's the bird.) She finds ecstasy, or something like it, and then death. It takes seven minutes.

When Were You Born? (1938)

WHEN WERE YOU BORN?  (1938)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: William C. McGann

    Margaret Lindsay, Anna May wong, Lola Lane,

    Anthony Averill, Charles C. Wilson, Eric Stanley,

    Jeffrey Lynn, James Stephenson, Maurice Cass

A woman who knows her zodiac reads a man's horoscope and concludes that he hasn't got long to live. When he turns up dead a day or two later, shot in the head, the cops recruit the astrologer to help with the investigation. An astrological whodunit from the B-movie unit at Warner Bros, with silent-era siren Anna May Wong as the omniscient stargazer. The opening credits introduce the actors along with the astrological signs of their characters. 

The Fortune Cookie (1966)

 

THE FORTUNE COOKIE  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Billy Wilder

    Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West,

    Cliff Osmond, Les Tremayne, Ann Shoemaker,

    Sig Ruman, William Christopher, Archie Moore

The first of 11 movies Lemmon and Matthau worked on together, an acid comedy about a shady lawyer who cons his brother-in-law into faking an injury to collect a bogus insurance claim. The movie's never quite as funny as you'd hope or expect, but Matthau's casual misanthropy as the lawyer earned him an Academy Award, and Lemmon handles a motorized wheelchair like a real pro.

The Head (1959)

THE HEAD  (1959)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Victor Trivas

    Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Helmut Schmid,

    Dieter Eppler, Christiane Maybach, Michel Simon

A horror cheapie about a mad doctor who grafts the head of a hunchback onto the body of a stripper. Made in Germany and dubbed in English, with some jagged cutting whenever it's about to become the least bit risqué. Whether those edits were the work of a zealous censor or a projectionist adding to his stash of stolen clips is hard to say, and it's possible there are prints around that don't contain the cuts. Writer/director Victor Trivas got an Oscar nomination for writing Orson Welles' "The Stranger" (1946), and production designer Hermann Warm was the guy behind those weird sets in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919).

Dillinger (1945)

 

DILLINGER  (1945)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Max Nosseck

    Lawrence Tierney, Anne Jeffreys, Edmund Lowe,

    Eduardo Ciannelli, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook Jr.,

    Ralph Lewis, Elsa Janssen, Ludwig Stössel

An efficiently paced gangster movie from Monogram about the rise and fall of John Dillinger, from nickel-and-dime holdups to big-time bank robberies and finally an ill-fated trip to the movies. Lawrence Tierney, who plays Dillinger, would turn up almost 50 years later as the old gang leader in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs".

Habemus Papam (2011)

HABEMUS PAPAM  (2011)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Nanni Moretti

    Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr,

    Roberto Nobile, Renato Scarpa, Franco Graziosi, 

    Camillo Milli, Gianlucca Gobbi, Margharita Buy

A newly elected pope upsets the Vatican apple cart when he cracks up just as he's about to step onto the balcony in Saint Peter's Square. Things get a little more complicated when he slips away and starts wandering around Rome on his own. That's a promising setup and the production values are impressive (all those red hats), but the payoff is limited. Scenes play out and end without really going anywhere, which leaves you wondering what's the point. Michel Piccoli plays the reluctant pontiff. Traipsing around the city in civilian clothes, he almost looks happy. Decked out in papal vestments, he looks like he's carrying the weight of the world. Mostly, he just looks befuddled. 

The Corpse of Anna Fritz (2015)

THE CORPSE OF ANNA FRITZ  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Hector Hernández Vicens

    Alba Ribas, Cristian Valencia, 

    Albert Carbó, Bernat Saumell

When the body of a famous movie star turns up on a gurney in the hospital morgue, the attendant and a couple of pals decide to have a little fun fooling around with the remains. Lessons about the downside of necrophilia are learned (too late) when it turns out the cadaver's not dead. A fairly sick premise, but a gipping, tightly focused horror thriller, and a case study in the perils of dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse.

The Vampire's Ghost (1945)

 

THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST  (1945)  ¢ ¢ 

    D: Lesley Selander

    John Abbott, Charles Gordon, Peggy Stewart,

    Grant Withers, Adele Mara, Emmett Vogan

A 400-year-old vampire running a dive bar somewhere in Africa targets a young couple, hoping to recruit the girl into the ranks of the undead. Can a vampire really escape the deadly effect of sunlight simply by wearing sunglasses? And if this one does, how come all the other movie vampires don't know about it? Think what a little bit of knowledge like that could've done for Max Schreck.

Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993)

 

ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS  (1993)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mel Brooks

    Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Roger Rees, 

    Amy Yasbeck, Tracey Ullmann. Mel Brooks,

    Dom DeLouise, Isaac Hayes, David Chappelle

Robin of Loxley returns from the Crusades to lead a peasant revolt against the evil sheriff of Rottingham and the tyranny of King John. Mel Bro0ks' joyously silly sendup of Robin Hood movies, loaded with Brooks' customary low humor and nonstop references to other films. The grapefruit scene in "The Public Enemy" even gets spoofed in this. Much better - or at least a lot funnier - than its critical reputation might suggest.

Richard Lewis

(1947-2024)

Flashback: The Crest and the Clyde

 

    Two weeks before I saw "Barbie" at the Clyde last summer, I saw "Oppenheimer" at the Crest. So I guess you could say I did the "Barbenheimer" thing, only not on the same day, or even in the same week. 

    The Crest is a fourplex in Shoreline, just north of Seattle, and for a long time it's been everybody's favorite bargain house. Tickets used to be $3, and then they were $4, and now they're up to $9 or more, depending on when you go to the movies. "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie" were both playing there, and when Ms. Applebaum and I came out after "Oppenheimer" ended, the "Barbie" people were lined up out the door, most of them in pink, except for one guy wearing nothing but black. We figured he had to be Goth Ken. 

    So we could've seen both movies right then, assuming "Barbie" wasn't sold out, but after three hours of "Oppenheimer", we decided to get pizza instead. 

    The Clyde is a one-screen cinema in Langley (population 1,150) on the south end of Whidbey Island. It opened in 1937, owned and operated by the Clyde family, who also ran the local garage and gas station. More than 80 years on, the Clyde survives by mixing it up with a diverse selection of revivals, art-house features, documentaries and commercial hits. 

    The manager was standing by the door when we went up to buy our tickets, wearing a pink T-shirt and greeting folks as they came in. He said they no longer bother with a separate senior price because at least half of the people who go to the Clyde are seniors, anyway. Tickets are $10. 

    Before the movie started, he took a couple of minutes to plug the shows that were coming up: "Grease" and "Best In Show" on revival nights, and (or course) "Oppenheimer" and more screenings of "Barbie". He added a brief pitch for a local school bond measure scheduled for the fall ballot, and then the room turned dark and the world turned pink. 

    A couple of things I've noticed going to the movies in and around Seattle since the pandemic. Weekday matinees, there are usually no more than eight or ten people in the theater, and sometimes not that many. It's almost a private screening, though in the last few months, those numbers appear to be picking up again. And at the Crest and the Clyde both, a significant percentage of those watching are old. 

    I imagine the numbers would skew differently for the latest "Transformers" or "Fast and Furious" or Marvel Universe movie, but it suggests that for now, at least, there's still an audience out there of people in their 50s and 60s and 70s, who will pay to see (more or less) grownup movies on a big screen, as long as they don't have to take out a bank loan to do it. 

    Even if the movie's derived from a toy and its primary color is pink.

Gulpilil: One Red Blood (2002)

 

GULPILIL: ONE RED BLOOD  (2002)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Darlene Johnson

A documentary portrait of Australian actor David Gulpilil, whose charismatic presence in dozens of movies had a profound effect on how Aborigines are perceived and depicted in the country's culture, and in particular in its films. For all his fame and stature in the industry, Gulpilil probably lived the least affluent and least glamorous existence of any movie star ever, and the film is about anthropology as much as cinema, with its subject spending most of his time away from movie projects in the primitive outback settlement he called home. That makes this useful for the cultural background it provides - the idea apparently was Gulpilil's own - but a more comprehensive look at his movies would be nice, too. Starting with "Walkabout" in 1970, Gulpilil's career on the screen lasted almost 50 years. He retired in 2019 and died in 2021, age unknown.

The Great Man Votes (1939)

 

THE GREAT MAN VOTES  (1939)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Garson Kanin

    John Barrymore, Virginia Weidler, Peter Holden,

    Katharine Alexander, Donald MacBride, Benny Bartlett, 

    Granville Bates, Luis Alberini, William Demarest

John Barrymore plays an ex-college professor and single dad doing his best to raise a couple of kids while working as a night watchman and putting away significant quantities of bootleg hooch. When a corrupt ward heeler comes around hoping to secure his vote in an upcoming election, he sees a glimmer of hope, or at least a chance to make things better for the kids. Barrymore was having serious memory issues by this time, and apparently read most of his lines off cue cards, but he had the skill to pull that off and appears to be having a good time doing it. It's a funny and affecting late-career performance. The movie's take on how electoral politics works out in the precincts and down in the streets is not reassuring. 

Double Trouble (1915)

 

DOUBLE TROUBLE  (1915)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Christy Cabanne

    Douglas Fairbanks, Margery Wilson, Gladys Brockwell,

    Richard Cummings, Olga Grey, Lillian Langdon

Early Fairbanks, with Doug as an amnesiac who comes to after five years to find he's got a split personality. It's more Mack Sennett than Robin Hood, and while there's barely a trace of Fairbanks the swashbuckler, that would come soon enough.

Dark Crimes (2016)

DARK CRIMES  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alexandros Avranas

    Jim Carrey, Marton Csokas, Charlotte Gainsbourg,

    Kati Outinen, Piotr Głowacki, Robert Wieckiewicz

The frequently manic Jim Carrey gives a tense, understated performance as a police detective obsessed with cracking a cold case that involves a sex club, a murder and a writer whose work suggests he knows more than he should. It's a dirty business all around, and nobody, including the detective, is completely innocent. The story's set in an unnamed Eastern European country (it was shot in Poland), and the transition from communism to what comes next is still going on and hangs over everything. A noirish whodunit with a good international cast playing characters trapped in a maze they can never quite escape, going through the motions because there's nothing else they can do. The plot keeps you guessing, the mood is fatalistic, the colors are muted, and even Charlotte Gainsbourg looks burned out. 

The Creation of the Humanoids

 

THE CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS 

    D: Wesley Barry                      (1962)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Don Megowan, Erica Elliott, Frances McCann,

    Don Doolittle, Dudley Manlove, David Cross

In the aftermath of an atomic war, robots have taken over much of the work that humans used to do. What will happen when a new generation of robots (created by robots) achieve the ability to reproduce? Odd but interesting low-budget 

sci-fi, really just a series of philosophical discussions about the evolving relationship between androids and humans in a society where humans are about to become irrelevant. Its key themes would resurface years later in the "Blade Runner" films. The actors who play the robots look like they're about to crack up.

The Good Liar (2019)

THE GOOD LIAR  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Bill Condon 

    Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Russell Tovey,

    Jim Carter, Phil Dunster, Laurie Davidson

An old guy amed Brian, who claims he doesn't smoke, and an old woman named Estelle, who claims she doesn't drink, meet on a computer date, and you learn fairly quickly that a) he smokes, b) she drinks, and c) their names aren't Brian and Estelle. That's just the beginning of this twisty mystery, and those little deceptions are minor compared to what follows. You may or may not see the switchbacks coming, but either way, you're in good hands. Mirren and McKellen are in control all the way.

Blindman (1971)

 

BLINDMAN  (1971)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ferdinando Baldi

    Tony Anthony, Ringo Starr, Lloyd Batista,

    Raf Baldasarre, Magda Konopka, Agneta Eckmyr, 

    Marisa Solinas, Franz von Treuberg, Shirley Corrigan

Tony Anthony tries to pretend he's Charles Bronson in a pointless (and pointlessly brutal) spaghetti western about a blind gunman who takes on a horde of murderous Mexicans while trying to get 50 mail-order brides to their prospective husbands in Texas. In fact, he spends most of the movie trying to spring the women from captivity at the hands of bandits or the Mexican army, and he's no closer to getting the job done at the end than he was when the story began. Shots and even whole scenes in this are lifted from other, better spaghetti westerns, and Stelvio Cipriani's musical score owes everything to Ennio Morricone. Some bits stand out for their sheer bizarreness. One is the scene where the women, running barefoot through the desert, are chased down by men on horseback, who hunt them like animals. Another is the funeral of a bandit named Candy (played by Ringo Starr), in which all the sets and costumes are black-and-white. Ringo doesn't do much and gets killed off too soon. Anthony had a hand in the screenplay, so he can't blame anybody else for his lame one-liners. One thing he does make clear: He's not Charles Bronson. 

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

 

DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS  (1977)  ¢ 1/2

    D: George Barry

    Demene Hall, Julie Ritter, Rosa Luxemburg,

    Dave Marsh, William Russ, Linda Bond

A silly, artsy horror comedy (and a minor cult item) about an omnivorous bed and the unlucky souls it traps between the sheets. This gets a few points for sheer craziness, but not much else. Sleep tight and bon appetit.

City of Fear (1959)

CITY OF FEAR  (1959)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Irving Lerner

    Vince Edwards, Lyle Talbot, John Archer, 

    Steven Ritch, Patricia Blair, Kelly Thordsen,

    Joseph Mell, Sherwood Price, Cathy Browne

A low-budget variation on "Panic In the Streets", about a murderer who escapes from San Quentin with a canister he believes contains a pound of uncut heroin. What it really contains is enough radioactive cobalt-60 to wipe out Los Angeles. Shoot up a little of that sometime and see what happens. Jerry Goldsmith composed the music and Lucien Ballard did the cinematography.

Cheeseheads (2015)

CHEESEHEADS  (2015)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Mitchell 

A cheesehead returns to Wisconsin after 20 years to find out whether the place he remembers has changed, or whether he has. There's a lot of potential in this - Wisconsin's a place where regional eccentricity has evolved into a statewide cottage industry - but the movie ultimately plays it safe. It's exactly the sort of inoffensive, self-congratulatory promotional piece the Chamber of Commerce would love - a good-parts-only tour of a pastoral paradise where friendly people work hard and drink beer and eat cheese curds and root for the Packers. Which is okay, I suppose, if that's all you want to look at, or all you want people to see. You won't find any dirt on the sidewalk in a movie like this. 

Bullet Train (2022)

 

BULLET TRAIN  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: David Leitch

    Brad Pitt, Joey King, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada,

    Aaron Taylor Johnson,, Brian Tyree Henry, Bad Bunny,

    Michael Shannon, Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum

A funny, fast-paced blast-o-rama shoot-'em-up about a bunch of assassins trying to kill each other on an express train bound for Kyoto from Tokyo. What can you say about a hyperviolent live-action cartoon that borrows equally from Quentin Tarantino and Thomas the Tank Engine? Well, if you can handle the absurd level of mayhem involved, you could say it's a guilty pleasure. And a great popcorn movie.

The Big Premiere (1940)

 

THE BIG PREMIERE  (1940)  ¢ ¢ 

    D: Edward L. Cahn

    George "Spanky" McFarland, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer,

    Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, Robert Blake, Darla Hood,

    Darwood Kaye, Shirley Coates, Eddie Gribbon

The Our Gang kids watch the stars arrive for a Hollywood premiere and stage a backyard premiere of their own. Alfalfa sings in this one. It's painful.

Shooting Captured Insurgents (1898)

SHOOTING CAPTURED INSURGENTS  (1898)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: George S. Fleming,  Edwin S. Porter

A handful of soldiers march some prisoners to a spot by a stone wall, where they shoot them at point-blank range. The action was staged, but it looks real enough, an effect enhanced by the age and decaying condition of the film. It lasts about a minute.

That Little Band of Gold (1915)

 

THAT LITTLE BAND OF GOLD  (1915)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

    Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, 

    Ford Sterling, Alice Davenport, May Emory, 

    Minta Durfee, Charley Chase

Fatty and Mabel tie the knot, but can the marriage survive his philandering? Slapstick off the Keystone assembly line. Artistry trumped by speed.

The 2023 Covie Awards

 

    The Covie Awards were created three years ago to 

    recognize cinematic achievement in various categories 

    during the pandemic. Since then, the virus hasn't 

    entirely gone away, and it looks like the Covies, with 

    ever-evolving variants, will be sticking around, too.

Picture: "The Quiet Girl" (2022)

Director: Emerald Fennell, "Saltburn" (2023)

Actress: Emma Stone in "Poor Things" (2023)

Actor: Barry Keoghan in "Saltburn" (2023)

Supporting Actress: America Ferrera in "Barbie" (2023)

Supporting Actor: Dominic Sessa in "The Holdovers" (2023)

Cameo: Hanna Schygulla in "The Mystery of Henri Pick" (2019) and "Poor Things" (2023)

Ensemble: "That Championship Season" (1982)

Couple: Dale Dickey and Wes Studi in "A Love Song" (2022)

Juvenile Performance: Lola Campbell in "Scrapper" (2023)

Foreign Language Film: "Fallen Leaves" (2023)

Short Film: "Time Traveling Through Time" (2022)

Better With Age: Judy Davis in "Mystery Road" (2018)

Cinematography: Lloyd Ahern  II, "Dead For a Dollar" (2022)

Musical Score: Jeff Grace, "In a Valley of Violence" (2016)

Production Design: "Poor things" (2023)

Title Sequence: "The Lost King" (2023)

Best Title For an Exploitation Movie: "Schoolgirls In Chains" (1973)

Best Musical Performance: "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" (2019)

Best Use of a Kinks Song: "LOLA" (2022)

Beat Mad Scene: Iwona Petry in "Szamanka" (1996)

Best Argument For Sequels: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" (2023)

Beat the Devil: "The Pope's Exorcist" (2023)

Top Hat & Tails: Mary Pickford in "Kiki" (1931)

Back To the Future: "A Time of Roses" (1969)

The World Turned Pink: "Barbie" (2023)

Gone With the Wind: "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)

Wake of the Flood: "Noah's Ark" (1928)

Play Ball: "It Happens Every Spring" (1949)

Blood and Bikinis: "Slaughter Island" (2008)

Once Upon a Time In the West: "Dead For a Dollar" (2022)

Larger Than Life: Peter Dinklage in "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)

Still Crazy After All These Years: Brent Spiner in "Independence Day: Resurgence" (2016)

End of the Line: "Neville Brand in "Evils of the Night" (1985)

Strangers In a Strange Land: Paula Luna and Elina Lowensohn in "After Blue" (20021)

The Eyes Have It: Paul Giamatti in "The Holdovers" (2023)

Drink Up: "Prohibition" (2011)

Bon Appetit: Divine in "Pink Flamingos" (1972)

The Bible On a Budget: "Sins of Jezebel" (1953)

Games People Play: "Cheap Thrills" (2014)

Earth Girls Are Uneasy: Gloria Talbot in "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" (1958)

She Sees Dead People: Shirley Henderson in "Life During Wartime" (2009)

If Only It Was Only a Dream: "Tag" (2015)

Just a Gigolo: William Powell in "Ladies' Man" (1931)

On the Road Again: Clint Eastwood in "Cry Macho" (2021)

Best Performance By a Somnambulist: Sondra Locke in "The Second Coming of Suzanne" (1974)

Grinning From Ear To Ear: Mia Goth in "Pearl" (2022)

Catching a Few Rays: "The Hideous Sun Demon" (1958)

Still Cracking the Whip: Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" (2023)

Building the Bomb: "Oppenheimer" (2023)

Dropping the Soap In the Shower: Anne Heche in "Girls In Prison" (1994)

That Witch Looks Familiar: Donald Sutherland in "The Castle of the Living Dead" (1964)

Dracula Dead and Loving It: Nicolas Cage in "Renfield" (2023)

The Devil Made Her Do It: Madison Stone in "Evil Toons" (1992)

Maynard G. Krebs Award For Beatnik Slang: Peter Brown in "Kitten With a Whip" (1964)

All In the Family: "Byleth: Demon of Incest" (1972)

Most Eye-Catching Nude Scene: Eva Green in "The Dreamers" (2003)

Most Discreet Nude Scene: Charlotte Gainsbourg in "My Dog Stupid" (2019)

Best Performance By an Actor Playing a Walrus: Justin Long in "Tusk" (2014)

Wickedest Lipstick: Jodie Foster in "The Mauritanian" (2021) and Scarlett Johansson in "Asteroid city" (2023)

Scariest Teeth: Morgana Ignis in "Moon Garden" (2022)

Most Depressing Nightclub Routine: "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (1976)

Monsters' Ball: "House of the Wolf Man" (2009)

Scream and Scream Again: Judee Morton in "The Slime People" (1963)

Golden Meat Cleaver Award For Gratuitous Carnage: "The Untold Story" (1993)

Best Animal Performance: The elephant in "Zenobia" (1939)

Weirdest Nicolas Cage Movie: "Prisoners of the Ghostland" (2021)

It Came From Beneath the Sea: "Godzilla Minus One" (2023)

Why Closeups Were Invented: Sally Hawkins in "The Lost King" (2023) and Léa Seydoux in "France" (2021)

Playin' In the Band: "The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir" (2014)

Doin' the Vatican Rag: Jude Law in "The Young Pope" (2016)

Beyond the Green Door: Marilyn Chambers in "Angel of H.E.A.T" (1982)

Herman Scobie Award For Career Achievement: Peter Coyote

Tentacles (1977)

 

TENTACLES  (1977)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Oliver Hellman (Ovidio Assonitis)

    John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins,

    Claude Akins, Henry Fonda, Cesare Danova

"Jaws" with a giant octopus instead of a shark. "Tentacles", get it?

Shadow In the Cloud (2020)

 

SHADOW IN THE CLOUD  (2020)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Roseanne Liang

    Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale,

    Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall

This starts out with a clip from an instructional cartoon about gremlins on an airplane, and goes on to be . . . a live-action movie about gremlins on an airplane. It stars Chloë Grace Moretz as a World War Two aviator who boards a B-17 just before takeoff, carrying a highly classified package that she insists is top priority. The crew - all men - give her shit and confine her to the gun turret under the fuselage, which turns out to be a good thing when they're attacked by a Japanese fighter and she shoots it down. Eventually you find out what's in the package and the movie loses its tenuous grip on anything resembling reality. If the story's not based on a comic book, it should be. Moretz makes an appealing action-figure heroine. 

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum (1966)

 

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY 

TO THE FORUM  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Richard Lester

    Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton,

    Michael Crawford, Michael Hordern, Annette Andre,

    Leon Greene, Roy Kinnear, Peter Butterworth, Alfie Bass

A frantically paced musical farce based on a hit Broadway play based on a comedy by Plautus, about slaves and slave girls, senators and soldiers, virgins and courtesans, all chasing each other around ancient Rome. Farce almost always works better on the stage, where the split-second timing it requires can't be faked. Lester keeps everything moving real fast, but speed alone isn't enough, and gags that might've had a theater audience roaring can seem too broad on the screen, even in something as raucous as this. (The only key player who doesn't overact is Buster Keaton.) Filmed in Spain, on sets left over from "The Fall of the Roman Empire".

Who'll Stop the Rain? (1978)

 

WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN?  (1978)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Karel Reisz

    Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty,

    Anthony Zerbe, Richard Masur, Ray Sharkey,

    Charles Haid, Gail Strickland, David Opatoshu

Three desperate characters, two of them rank amateurs, get in over their heads when they try to move two kilos of uncut heroin. This can't go well for anybody, and guess what? It doesn't. Robert Stone cowrote the script from his novel "Dog Soldiers", a morally shifty reflection on the American psyche in the last years of the Vietnam War. Viewers who are up on their counterculture history can watch for the references to Ken Kesey and Neal Cassady. The ending echoes "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".

The 10 Best Movies of 2023

 

The following list was scraped together from the movies I saw last year, either for the first time ever, or for the first time in years. Some I managed to see on a big screen. Others were on Kanopy, YouTube, or TCM. Some were rentals from Scarecrow, Seattle's only remaining video store.

MOVIES I LIKED A LOT:

"The Quiet Girl" (2022)

"Poor Things" (2023)

"LOLA" (2022)

"Scrapper" (2023)

Saltburn" (2023)

"Oppenheimer" (2023)

"Killers of the Flower Moon" (2023)

"Fallen Leaves" (2o23)

"Pearl" (2022)

"Dead For a Dollar" (2022)

SECRET TREASURES:

"Tag" (2015)

"Breaking Surface" (2020)

"Moon Garden" (2022)

"The Ballad of Lefty Brown" (2017)

GUILTY PLEASURES:

"Renfield" (2023)

"The Pope's Exorcist" (2023)

"Loaded Weapon 1" (1993)

"Lobster Man From Mars" (1989)

MOVIES I MIGHT WATCH AGAIN SOMETIME:

"A Love Song" (2o22)

"Full Time" (2021)

"In a Valley of Violence" (2016)

"The Holdovers" (2023)

"Godzilla Minus One" (2023)

"Asteroid City" (2023)

"Tár" (2022)

"Mystery Road" (2018)

"Living" (2022)

"The Lost King" (2022)

FOUR FROM THE VAULT:

"Blast of Silence" (1961)

"The Last Picture Show" (1971)

"Pink Flamingos"(1972)

"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)

TOXIC WASTE:

"Wet Wilderness" (1975)

Belfast (2021)

 

BELFAST  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Kenneth Branagh

    Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe,

    Ciaran Hinds, Judi Dench, Colin Morgan

Like John Boorman's "Hope and Glory" (1987), Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" is about a kid growing up in a war zone. In Boorman's movie, it was the London Blitz. In Branagh's, it's the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It all plays out in a working-class neighborhood where Catholics and Protestants have been walking the same streets for generations. When Protestant gangs take to those streets, aiming to drive out the Catholics or kill them, along with any Protestants who don't think that's a good idea, things get tense. But the folks who have lived there all their lives don't want to leave, and that includes Buddy, a kid who mostly just wants to play soccer and hang out with his beloved grandfather and maybe get better acquainted with a girl he has a crush on at school. It's shot in black and white in available light, which gives the whole film the same sort of documentary feel as the news footage that turns up on television. There are movie references - "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "Nigh Noon", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "One Million Years B.C." - and the soundtrack is practically wall-to-wall Van Morrison.The Belfast Branagh shows you is a scary place to be, but it's where these people live and always have, so what are you going to do? There's no easy answer, but Branagh's dedication at the end says a lot very simply: "For those who stayed. For those who left. For all those who were lost."