Joe (2013)

 

JOE  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: David Gordon Green

    Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter,

    Ronnie Gene Blevins, Adrienne Mishler,

    Sue Rock, Heather Kafka, AJ Wilson McPhaul

Nicolas Cage plays the title role, a middle-aged guy living in a backwater hellhole where he makes a living running a crew of day laborers, killing trees for a company that wants them dead so they can be cut down. He's estranged from his family, he drinks and smokes too much, he's a regular at the local whorehouse, and he's subject to bouts of uncontrollable rage. Despite all that, he's a basically decent guy. He's not looking for trouble, but trouble always finds him. What you've got here is a Southern gothic twist on "Nobody's Fool", with Cage as a more damaged and volatile version of Paul Newman's Donald Sullivan. Tye  Sheridan plays a kid who goes to work on Joe's crew, and there's a scary performance by Gary Poulter as the boy's abusive, alcoholic father. Poulter was literally cast off the street, and there's a real sense that he's not so much acting his role as living it. He died two months after shooting ended. Director David Gordon Green and cinematographer Tim Orr conjure up a dimly lit world you'll be glad you're not living in, a place you'd just drive on through, no matter how bad you needed a coke or a pack of smokes, and Cage gives one of his most compelling performances.

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

 

LAUREL AND HARDY'S LAUGHING 20's  

    D: Robert Youngson                    (1965)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

A collection of clips from the Hal Roach studio, featuring Laurel and Hardy and numerous (more obscure) silent comedy stars. Robert Youngson made a series of these compilation films, which helped keep silent movies in the public eye at a time when the public's memory of them was fading. Highlight: Extended footage of the pie fight in "The Battle of the Century" (1927).

Naked Edge / Take 10

 

Anya Taylor-Joy and some Vikings 

  in "The Northman"

Maria Ford and some dancing rat women 

  in "Burial of the Rats"

Milla Jovovich, Moira Kelly and some chorus girls 

  in "Chaplin"

Some beach girls 

  in "Evils of the Night"

Some of the nuns 

  in "The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine"

The cheerleaders 

  in "Satan's Cheerleaders"

The wives 

  in "Satan's Wife"

The tableau girls and stagehands 

  in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"

The inmates 

  of "Love Camp 7"

F1 (2025)

 

F1  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Joseph Kosinski 

    Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem,

    Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia

When my Uncle Barney was driving stock cars on dirt tracks around southern Wisconsin back in the 1950s, the strategy for racing was simple: foot to the floor and turn left. When Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is asked how he plans to compete in a Formula One race in "F1", his answer is equally succinct: drive fast. Hayes is a barnstormer, a guy living out of a van who will race anything anywhere, and he's been off the Formula One circuit for 30 years when an old colleague (Javier Bardem) coaxes him back, to drive one of his cars and mentor a new young driver (Damson Idris) who has all the tools but still needs to learn a few things if he wants to get to the top. It's a formula Formula One script, but as a piece of summertime escape, it gets the job done. The cars fly like bullets, powered by space-age technology, and the camerawork in the racing scenes could have you bracing yourself and holding your breath. (IMAX theaters should be equipped with seat belts for movies like this.) Sonny Hayes is the kind of role Paul Newman or Steve McQueen would've played a few decades ago (and did), and Pitt's performance is a throwback to that: a movie star at the top of his game and so at ease in front of the camera, he can command the screen without even seeming to try.

Grand Prix (1966)

 

GRAND PRIX  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Frankenheimer

    James Garner, Yves Montand, Eva Marie Saint, 

    Toshiro Mifune, Jessica Walter, Brian Bedford,

    Antonio Sabato, Adolfo Celi, Françoise Hardy

Drivers and owners, wives and girlfriends follow the Grand Prix circuit in a movie that thunders and roars in its pulse-pounding racing scenes but runs low on gas when it's not on the track. There was  no CGI back then, so Frankenheimer mounted cameras on the cars and had guys drive them real fast, something he'd do again more than 30 years later when he made "Ronin". (He didn't speed up the film. The cars really are going that fast.) Garner apparently did his own driving. The split-screen montage sequences were the work of legendary title designer Saul Bass. Several of the drivers who worked on this would die racing over the next few years. 

Never Let Me Go (2010)

 

NEVER LET ME GO  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Romanek

    Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley,

    Charlotte Rampling, Sally Hawkins, Izzy Meikle-Small,

    Charlie Rowe, Ella Purnell, Domhnall Gleeson,

    Andrea Riseborough, Nathalie Richard, Hannah Sharp

British boarding-school students form a contentious three-way friendship while being groomed for their mandated mission in life: to donate their organs in a series of surgeries, up to the point where they flatline and are declared "completed." There are elements of sci-fi and horror in this, but it's so low-key and beautifully done, you might not notice. As creep shows go, it's uncommonly smart and quiet, and the story, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, does a nice job of subverting expectations. The colors are muted, the sets and costumes are from another time, and the young actors who play the Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley characters as 12-year-olds are nicely cast. It's a movie that finds eeriness in restraint.

Duel of Champions (1961)

 

DUEL OF CHAMPIONS  (1961)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ferdinando Baldi, Terence Young

    Alan Ladd, Franca Bettoja, Jacques Sernas,

    Robert Keith, Andrea Aurel, Jacqueline Derval, 

    Violette Marceau, Franco Fabrizi, Luciano Marin

Who knew that once upon a time, the fate of the Roman Empire was in the hands of Alan Ladd?