The House of the Devil (2009)

 

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ti West

    Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Greta Gerwig,

    Mary Woronov, AJ Bowen, Dee Wallace

A college student who's low on cash answers an ad for a babysitter in a big house way out of town. The setup seems sketchy, but it'll pay a lot and she needs the money, so she takes the job. The first 30 minutes are mostly the girl exploring the house (as you do in a movie like this), opening doors and peering into dark rooms, her curiosity and fear touched off by the sounds she hears (or doesn't hear when her Walkman's plugged in). Then, as the saying goes, all hell breaks loose. (It's called "The House of the Devil", after all.) An early feature from Ti West, who made "X" and "Pearl" and has a real instinct for how to make this genre stuff work. Greta Gerwig has a scene-stealing supporting role as the heroine's best friend. 

Cops (1922)

 

COPS  (1922)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton

    Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts

Buster Keaton on the run from an army of cops. Favorite bit: Buster takes out a cigarette but can't find a match. An anarchist throws a bomb that practically lands in his lap, so he uses it to light the cigarette and throws the bomb away. It explodes, triggering the chase.

Death On the Nile (1978)

DEATH ON THE NILE  (1978)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: John Guillerman 

    Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Mia Farrow,

    Lois Chiles, Simon MacCorkindale, Jon Finch,

    Olivia Hussey, Jane Birkin, Bette Davis,

    Maggie Smith, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury,

    Jack Warden, Sam Wanamaker, Harry Andrews

A boatload of vaguely suspicious characters sail up the Nile, posing elegantly and taking in some of the world's most famous ruins. When one of them is found dead, shot in the head, it's up to Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to figure out whodunit. The plotting's complicated: As Poirot interviews each suspect in turn, it becomes clear that they all had a reason to hate the victim, any one of them could be the killer, and the detective imagines multiple ways the murder could've played out. The solution is far-fetched, and at 2 hours and 20 minutes, the movie's a little long. It's not hard to look at, though, the actors tear into their roles with relish, and cinematographer Jack Cardiff has a good time with the Egyptian locations. 

Maggie Smith

(1934-2024)

Disappearances (2006)

DISAPPEARANCES  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jay Craven

    Kris Kristofferson, Genevieve Bujold, Charlie McDermott,

    Lothaire Bluteau, Gary Farmer, William Sanderson

The first thing you see in this movie is a 15-year-old boy, played by Charlie McDermott, and his aunt, played by Genevieve Bujold, walking together from their farm to the local school, where she teaches and he's trying to make sense of "Paradise Lost". A horse-drawn coach goes by, carrying two riders on top and a coffin. "Who died?" the boy asks. "Nobody," his aunt replies, and the next thing you see, the two riders on the coach are gone. That's the first of many disappearances in a movie that's haunted by them. Kris Kristofferson plays the kid's dad, a farmer in Prohibition-Era Vermont, who returns to running bootleg whiskey over the Canadian border after a freak fire destroys his barn. It's part ghost story, part shaggy-dog adventure story and part coming-of-age story, with the emphasis not on the customary obsession with getting laid, but on learning to cope with the inevitability of loss. You can't always tell  reality from illusion, and as Bujold's character explains it, you're not supposed to. It's a movie that goes its own way in any case, and with a regional accent, a crooked sense of humor and the north-woods equivalent of magic realism at work, it does the job. "Ain't this the most spectacular trip you ever imagined?" Kristofferson asks at one point. And for the adventures to be had, and the life lessons learned, for a kid of 15, it just might be.

Kris Kristofferson

(1936-2024)

The Hideous Sun Demon (1958)

 

THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON  (1958)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Robert Clarke, Tom Boutross

    Robert Clarke, Patricia Manning, Nan Peterson,

    Patrick Whyte, Fred La Porta, Peter Similuk

Exposure to an atomic isotope causes a scientist to change into a horrible monster when exposed to the sun, which makes him a sort of vampire, half human and half lizard. A thing like that can really put a dent in a guy's personal life, you know? The downside of solar, I guess. 

The Loudest Voice (2019)

 

THE LOUDEST VOICE  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Kari Skogland, Jeremy Podeswa,

         Scott Z. Burns, Stephen Frears

    Russell Crowe, Sienna Miller, Naomi Watts, 

    Seth McFarlane, Annabelle Wallis, Simon McBurney,

    Aleksa Palladino, Josh Stamberg, Susan Pourfar

Russell Crowe, looking convincingly fat and unhealthy, weighs in as Roger Ailes, the cut-throat, right-wing television producer who created Fox News (with Rupert Murdoch's money), turning it into the most watched cable news network in the country, operating on the stated principle that facts don't matter but ratings do. The movie covers the main events in Ailes' rise and fall - it was originally broadcast in seven parts on Showtime - and if you're looking for a handy blueprint to how fascist messaging works, you'll find it here. There's an inkling of charm about Ailes in the beginning - Crowe peering impishly over his wire-framed glasses could be playing Benjamin Franklin - but it recedes quickly, and what you're left with is a monster, equal parts ambition, paranoia, brilliance, rage, sleaze, cunning and (especially once Barack Obama steps onto the stage) bigotry. The last act, the prelude to his downfall, has Ailes using Fox to help orchestrate Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election. Ailes, Trump and millions of suckers out there tuning in and eating up every angry word: Those guys were made for each other.

Her Night of Romance (1924)

 

HER NIGHT OF ROMANCE  (1924)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Sidney Franklin

    Constance Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Jean Hersholt,

    Albert Gran, Sidney Bracey, Robert Rendel, Eric Mayne

Love among the idle rich, with Ronald Colman as an impoverished British lord and Constance Talmadge as an American millionaire's daughter. A series of deceptions cause complications, but true romance wins out in the end. Talmadge is probably best remembered for playing the feisty Mountain Girl in the Babylonian segment of Griffith's 1916 epic "Intolerance", but her specialty was elegant comedy and it made her a star. She continued to work in silent films through the end of the 1920s, and retired with the coming of sound.