All Hat (2007)

 

ALL HAT  (2007)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Leonard Farlinger

    Luke Kirby, Keith Carradine, Carmine Cangialosi,

    Lisa Ray, Rachael Leigh Cook, David Alpay,

    Ernie Hudson, Gary Farmer, Graham Greene

Struggling farmers try to hold off greedy developers, and there's a horse race. Bill Frisell's music weaves in and out on the soundtrack, and Keith Carradine strums a guitar, downs a shot, takes a gun off the bad guy and once again makes movie acting look easy. 

American Fiction (2023)

 

AMERICAN FICTION  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Cord Jefferson

    Jeffrey Wright, Leslie Uggams, Sterling K. Brown,

    Erika Alexander, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz,

    Issa Rae, Keith David, Myra Lucretia Taylor

A variation on Spike Lee's "Bamboozled", with the story centered around book publishing rather than television. Jeffrey Wright plays a novelist whose books are admired by critics but ignored by readers. Faced with mounting financial obligations and appalled by what passes for "black" literature on the bestseller lists, he dashes off a scurrilous piece of junk and passes the manuscript on to his dubious agent. In no time at all, a publisher has picked it up with a $750,000 advance, movie deals worth millions are in the works, and life has become infinitely more complicated. A brilliant first feature from writer/director Cord Jefferson. If you've seen "Bamboozled", you'll know the track it's on. The satire hits  home - in your face and all the way to your funny bone.

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

 

EVIL UNDER THE SUN  (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Guy Hamilton

    Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin,

    Roddy McDowall, Diana Rigg, James Mason,

    Denis Quilley, Colin Blakely, Nicholas Clay

Belgian (not French) detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) finds himself on a small island in the Adriatic where the center of activity is a luxury hotel run by Maggie Smith. There are other affluent guests, and it takes about half the movie before one of them gets bumped off and Poirot can put his sleuthing skills to work. A murder mystery that gets by on its cast and locations as much as its whodunit plot. The music is Cole Porter, and Ustinov mangles English and French with equal abandon. Other standouts among the suspects: Roddy McDowall as a flaming gossip writer, and Smith and Diana Ring as old theater colleagues who don't much like each other. Filmed in Majorca.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

 

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE (2024) ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gil Kenan

    McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Kumail Nanjiani,

    Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim,

    Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, Annie Potts,

    Emily Ann Lind, James Acaster, William Atherton

Recycled ectoplasm.

Black Tuesday (1954)

 

BLACK TUESDAY  (1954)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Hugo Fregonese

    Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves, Jean Parker,

    Milburn Stone, Sylvia Findley, Jack Kelly

Edward G. Robinson at his most vicious plays a gangster who breaks out of prison on the day he's scheduled to die in the electric chair. Peter Graves plays a fellow con who has some stolen loot stashed away, and Robinson wants that money real bad. Some of this plays like "Key Largo", with Robinson snarling abuse at a handful of hostages as the cops close in. Robinson's career was on the margins at the time, after his run-ins with the HUAC committee. Pacing his prison cell, he's literally a caged animal. It's an angry, haunted performance. 

4:44 Last Day On Earth (2011)

 

4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH  (2011)  ¢ ¢

    D: Abel Ferrara

    Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Natasha Lyonne,

    Trung Nguyen, Pat Kiernan, Anita Pallenberg 

Two people sharing a Manhattan loft wait for the end of the world. One's an artist, one's a recovering junkie, and the end is not far off. Al Gore makes a televised appearance, which makes you wonder: Why didn't we listen to Al Gore when it still would've made a difference? 

Beau Is Afraid (2023)

 

BEAU IS AFRAID  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ari Aster

    Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuP0ne, Amy Ryan,

    Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Kylie Rogers,

    Bill Hader, Stephen McKinley Henderson

Beau is also deeply fucked-up and racked with a truckload of crippling guilt. Beau is in a nightmare he can't escape, because the nightmare is his life. Beau is played by Joaquin Phoenix in an ambitious, surreal psychodrama that might be more compelling if it had a running time shorter than 179 minutes. The pure nightmare stuff is the best. (The first couple of reels are truly frightening.) It loses something the more it tries to explain itself. And then there's Beau's mother. And the monster in the attic. (Don't ask.) Psych majors will want to take a look.