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)