Megalopolis (2024)

 

MEGALOPOLIS  (2024)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Francis Ford Coppola 

    Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel,

    Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Talia Shire,

    Jason Schwartzman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney,

    Chloe Fineman, Balthazar Getty, Dustin Hoffman

Francis Ford Coppola's grandiose hallucination about fashion, architecture, politics, love, time, greed, arrogance, power and just about everything else is a monument to epic ambition and narrative incoherence. Five minutes in, I was hopelessly lost, and nothing happened in the next two hours to change that. My colleague Ms. Applebaum thought drugs might help. I'm not sure about that. 

Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

 

ZIEGFELD GIRL  (1941)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Robert Z. Leonard

    James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr,

    Lana Turner, Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, 

    Edward Everett Horton, Charles Winninger,

    Ian Hunter, Philip Dorn, Paul Kelly, Eve Arden,

    Dan Dailey, Felix Bressart, Fay Holden, Al Sheen

Three young women break into the Ziegfeld Follies. Romance and melodrama follow. Busby Berkeley staged the production numbers, but the pre-Code stuff he did back in the early '30s was more fun. Judy singing "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" is a highlight. The costumes are over-the-top. 

Raggedy Man (1981)

 

RAGGEDY MAN  (1981)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jack Fisk

    Sissy Spacek, Eric Roberts, Sam Shepard,

    William Sanderson, Tracey Walter, R.G. Armstrong,

    Henry Thomas, Carey Hollis Jr., Bill Thurman

There's a lot of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in this movie, which stars Sissy Spacek as a small-town telephone operator in World War Two Texas, stuck in a job she longs to escape and doing her best to raise two active young boys. There's a Boo Radley character, the scarred, mysterious "raggedy man," keeping a watchful eye on the woman and her kids and pushing a lawn mower around. There's a fleeting shot at romance with a sailor (Eric Roberts) that doesn't last long, and a threat in the form of two menacing cretins played by Tracey Walter and William Sanderson. Director Jack Fisk (Spacek's husband) has worked mostly as a production designer and knows how to make a period piece look good. Jerry Goldsmith composed the music, and if you remember Elmer Bernstein's score for "To Kill a Mockingbird", that'll feel just right, too.

Philo Vance Returns (1947)

PHILO VANCE RETURNS  (1947)  ¢ 1/2

    D: William Beaudine 

    William Wright, Vivian Austin, Leon Belasco,

    Clara Glandick, Damian O'Flynn, Iris Adrian

When the ex-wives of a wealthy playboy start turning up dead (along with the playboy himself), it's up to Philo Vance to crack the case before everybody lands in the morgue. A poverty-row whodunit with a solution  you could probably figure out on your own without the help of a B-movie private eye. William Powell had played Vance a few times in the early sound era, but this is a long way from those films, and Wright is a long way from William Powell. 

On the Rocks (2020)

 

ON THE ROCKS  (2020)  ¢ ¢

    D: Sofia Coppola

    Rashida Jones, Bill Murray, Marlon Wayans,

    Jessica Henwick, Jenny Slate, Barbara Bain

With Woody Allen's career tailing off at this point, I guess somebody has to make movies about the kinds of people who can still afford to live in Manhattan. So here's Sofia Coppola with a story about a 39-year-old writer and mother of two (Rashida Jones) who, aided and abetted by her meddling father (Bill Murray), starts to suspect her husband is having an affair. The affluent have their problems, too, it seems, and they're not any better at solving them than the rest of us. Murray and Jones are both good, but the setup feels flimsy, and Murray's casual misanthropy has an unpleasant edge. 

Platinum Blonde (1931)

PLATINUM BLONDE  (1931)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Frank Capra

    Jean Harlow, Loretta Young, Robert Williams,

    Halliwell Hobbes, Reginald Owen, Edmund Breese

    Walter Catlett, Claud Allister, Louise Closser Hale

A newspaper reporter played by Robert Williams marries a society dame, which only confirms what he already knew: He doesn't like wearing garters or living in a gilded cage. Jean Harlow plays the rich girl (the "platinum blonde"). Loretta Young plays a fellow reporter the newsman didn't realize he was crazy about all along. Frank Capra keeps things moving, and there's some pre-Code wit in the script. Young and Harlow are the names everybody's heard of, but the real standout is Williams, who has the nonchalant manner of Bing Crosby and an easy way with a line that makes you wonder what he might've done if he hadn't died of peritonitis four days after the picture's release. 

Women Behind Bars (1974)

WOMEN BEHIND BARS  (1974)  ¢

    D: Rick Deconnink (Jess Franco)

    Lina Romay, Martine Steed, Roger Darton,

    Ronald Weiss, Nathalie Chape, Clifford Brown

A woman goes to prison for shooting her boyfriend, and there's some junk plot about a diamond heist. There's a lesbian enounter and a girl being whipped and a bitch matron and a lot of tough talk, because these women won't take shit from nobody. The sex scenes look like bad '70s porn, which they are, and the nudity is the definition of gratuitous. Jess Franco strikes again.