Go, Johnny, Go (1959)

 

GO, JOHNNY, GO  (1959)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Paul Landres

    Jimmy Clanton, Chuck Berry, Alan Freed,

    Sandy Stewart, Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran,

    The Cadillacs, The Flamingos, Jackie Wilson

Vintage '50s musical acts punctuate a perfunctory story about a kid named Johnny who's determined to make it big in the world of rock & roll. All of the songs are lip-synched. None of the guitars are plugged in. Chuck Berry plays a couple if tunes, but never really gets to cut loose. Richie Valens went to rock-&-roll heaven four months before the movie's release.

Jane By Charlotte (2021)

 

JANE BY CHARLOTTE  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Charlotte Gainsbourg

A home movie done as a series of conversations between singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and her mother, singer/actress Jane Birkin. The locations range from Paris to Tokyo, New York City to the South of France, and their exchanges cover everything from dogs and children to loss and regret to aging, pain and death. They know they're being filmed - they're doing the filming - but they're both so comfortable in front of the camera that it doesn't matter very much, and the act of making the movie becomes a part of the process that draws them closer together. Neither wears much makeup, and Birkin, in her 70s, actually seems to grow older as the film goes on. You get a real sense watching it that both women know their time together is limited, and that Charlotte's determined to capture as much of her mother as she can before it's too late. It turned out to be Birkin's final screen appearance. 

Hoosiers (1986)

 

HOOSIERS  (1986)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: David Anspaugh

    Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper, 

    Sheb Wooley, Fern Persons, Chelcie Ross

Gene Hackman plays a hard-nosed basketball coach who's been banned from college ball for hitting a player. After ten years in the Navy - he's still wearing his peacoat - he lands at a high school in a small Indiana town where he's not warmly received by the locals, or (at first) by his scrappy, short-handed team. Will he and the boys win the town over? Will the coach and the bad-ass vice principal played by Barbara Hershey hit it off? Will the team of underdogs start to win? Put it this way: Have you ever seen a Hollywood sports movie? Unabashed, feel-good Americana with real-looking Midwest locations and effective supporting work from Hershey and a visibly rehabbing Dennis Hopper.

Girl Gang (1954)

 

GIRL GANG  (1954)  ¢

    D: Robert C. Dertano

    Joanne Arnold, Timothy Farrell, Harry Keaton,

    Mary Lou O'Connor, Mildred Kalke, Lou Monson

Here are some things you should know, if you don't know them already. Don't steal cars. Don't take the payment you get for them in joints. Don't smoke pot because it'll make you want to shoot heroin right away. Don't shoot heroin. Don't get your drugs from a pusher named Joe, even if everybody tells you he's a "regular guy." Don't loan money to a junkie who says she'll pay you back, because she won't. Don't keep fighting that other heroin addict on the floor in the hallway when the cops are coming up the stairs to arrest you both. Don't leave the safe open after you open it to get the money to pay a junkie for sex. Don't pay a junkie for sex. Don't get shot robbing a gas stati0n to get money for dope, and don't die on the kitchen table while the quack doctor is digging the bullet out of your gut. Don't do any of that stuff. And definitely don't do it in a movie called "Girl Gang". Just don't. That's all.

Frankenstein (2025)

 

FRANKENSTEIN  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Guillermo del Toro

    Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, 

    Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance,

    David Bradley, Lars Mikkelsen, Christian Convery

Financed by his brother's prospective father-in-law, Victor Frankenstein goes to work in a vast steampunk laboratory, hoping to create life from death. To his infinite horror, he succeeds. Oscar Isaac goes for the throat playing Victor. If he'd scaled it back even a little, his performance might be more effective. But "Frankenstein" always belongs to the Monster, and Jacob Elordi's deformed giant is both horrifying and pathetic: a self-loathing abomination who didn't ask to exist (and doesn't want to), but finds himself cursed with immortality. Del Toro takes on more of the book than the James Whale/Boris Karloff version did , and the production is more elaborate. (Keep an eye out for the color red.) But I wouldn't necessarily take one version over the other. It's good to have both. 

The Green Man (1956)

 

THE GREEN MAN  (1956)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Robert Day

    Alistair Sim, George Cole, Terry-Thomas,

    Jill Adams, Raymond Huntley, Colin Gordon, 

    Avril Angers, Eileen Moore, Dora Bryan

Alistair Sim plays an assassin who cooks up a plot to be carried out at a seaside inn. Among those involved are a cabinet minister (the intended target), his secretary, his mistress, a BBC newscaster and his wife, a trio of classical musicians and a vacuum cleaner salesman. The studio's not Ealing, but it could be. Sim's pained expressions as his carefully laid plans go haywire are hilarious. 

Glass Onion (2022)

 

GLASS ONION  (2022)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Rian Johnson

    Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson,

    Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, 

    Leslie Odom Jr.  Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline

An obnoxious billionaire invites a handful of suspicious characters to his private Greek island, where a murder will be committed and it's up to the guests to figure out whodunit. Fortunately (or not), one of those on the scene is Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who solves the crime before it even takes place, but that turns out to be just the beginning. A sequel to "Knives Out" that owes a lot to "The Last of Sheila" and a formula that's maybe wearing a little thin. It's a couple of reels too long, besides, but it's a passable murder mystery with  high-end production values, and Blanc's gumbo-and-cornpone accent is out in full force.