It Happens Every Spring (1949)

IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2 

    D: Lloyd Bacon

    Ray Milland, Jean Peters, Paul Douglas,

    Ed Begley, Ted de Corsia, Ray Collins,

    Jessie Royce Landis, Alan Hale Jr.

A chemistry professor (Ray Milland) creates a substance that prevents baseballs from coming in contact with bats, and soon finds himself in cleats and a uniform, pitching and winning in the major leagues. A pleasant, unpretentious baseball fantasy with nice work by Milland in a role that seems tailor-made for Jimmy Stewart. 

I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

 

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE  (1978)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Meir Zarchi

    Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace,

    Anthony Nichols, Gunter Kleemann 

A notorious exploitation piece in which a young woman played by Camille Keaton spends roughly half the movie being assaulted and the other half getting even. You can decide for yourself which half is more painful to watch. The rape sequences are brutal and degrading, a human being reduced to a quivering piece of meat. The revenge segments are kind of ridiculous, but there's lots of blood. Roger Ebert found the movie despicable. (He was as revolted by the audience he watched it with as he was by the picture itself.) Like it or hate it, it's a rough, uncompromising film, as hard to defend as it is to dismiss. 

Vaudeville (1997)

 

VAUDEVILLE  (1997)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    W: Greg Palmer

When I was a kid, there was a guy who used to show up on television from time to time called the Banana Man. The Banana Man would come out wearing a long, bulky overcoat and he'd pull stuff out of his overcoat - bananas, hundreds of them, but lots of other stuff, too. It was amazing what he could pull out of his overcoat. That was it. That was what he did. The Banana Man had been a novelty act in Vaudeville, and he turns up briefly in this American Masters documentary with more than a hundred other performers, some of them famous and a lot of them (these days) obscure. Starting in the 19th century, Vaudeville, with its comics, dancers, jugglers, musicians, plate-spinners, regurgitators, magicians, contortionists and acrobats, was massively popular at a time when live entertainment was the only entertainment there was. What killed it was technology, specifically radio and film. The irony, watching a movie like this, is that film is the sole reason most of these performances still exist, an art form preserved by the medium that brought it to an end. Immortality, of sorts, for the Banana Man.

Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist (2004)

 

JESUS CHRIST: SERIAL RAPIST  (2004)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Bill Zebub

    Alexandra Voskobnikov, Kerri Taylor, Debbie Dee,

    Yelena Sabel, Rocco Martone, Bill Zebub

Cheaply shot, dimly lit sexploitation in which women are tied up, tortured and killed to a death-metal soundtrack. Then, for a change of pace, the camera moves outside and the light gets better and some women are crucified. (The opening credits and the bonus features on the DVD reveal a singular preoccupation with crucified women.) I'm thinking "Bill Zebub" could be an alias, what about you? (For the record, Bill's other screen credits include "Dumb and Dahmer", "Sicko, the Bloodclown" and "Boogers of the Antichrist".) Some movies you watch just to see how bad a movie with a title like that could be. Then you find out.

The Movie Buzzard 100

 

    Undaunted - well, maybe a little bit daunted - by the fact that subjective lists of anything are arbitrary, here's an arbitrary list of the Movie Buzzard's top 100 films, subject to change at any time. 

    Some of these titles are iconic. Some are idiosyncratic choices that probably wouldn't turn up on any other list. All are movies I wouldn't want to head into the future without. 

"A Trip To the Moon" (1902/Georges Méliès)

"Intolerance" (1916/D.W. Griffith)

"Nosferatu" (1922/F.W. Murnau)

"Sherlock Jr." (1924/Buster Keaton)

"Metropolis" (1927/Fritz Lang)

"Napoleon" (1927/Abel Gance)

"The Passion of Joan of Arc" 

  (1928/Carl Theodor Dreyer)

"Dracula" (1931/Tod Browning)

"The Mummy" (1932/Karl Freund)

"Duck Soup" (1933/Leo McCarey)

"Tarzan and His Mate" (1934/Cedric Gibbons)

"Bride of Frankenstein" (1935/James Whale)

"Modern Times" (1936/Charlie Chaplin)

"Way Out West" (1937/James W. Horne)

"Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" (1939/Frank Capra)

"The Wizard of Oz" (1939/Victor Fleming)

"Citizen Kane" (1941/Orson Welles)

"The Wolf Man" (1941/George Waggner)

"Casablanca" (1942/Michael Curtiz)

"The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943/William Wellman)

"My Darling Clementine" (1946/John Ford)

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951/Robert Wise)

"The African Queen" 1951/John Huston)

"High Noon" (1952/Fred Zinnemann)

"Singin' In the Rain" 

  (1952/Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen)

"The Crimson Pirate" (1952/Robert Siodmak)

"Roman Holiday" (1953/William Wyler)

"Pickup On South Street" (1953/Samuel Fuller)

"Sabrina" (1954/Billy Wilder)

"Plan 9 From Outer Space" (1959/Ed Wood)

"The Mouse That Roared" (1959/Jack Arnold)

"Psycho" (1960/Alfred Hitchcock)

"Charade"  (1963/Stanley Donen)

"Dr. Strangelove" (1964/Stanley Kubrick)

"The Train" (1964/John Frankenheimer)

"A Fistful of Dollars" (1964/Sergio Leone)

"The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965/Robert Aldrich)

"Blow-Up" (1966/Michelangelo Antonioni)

"The Professionals" (1966/Richard Brooks)

"Where Eagles Dare" (1968/Brian G. Hutton)

"The Wild Bunch" (1969/Sam Peckinpah)

"Easy Rider" (1969/Dennis Hopper)

"The Magic Christian" (1969/Joseph McGrath)

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" 

  (1969/George Roy Hill)

"M*A*S*H" (1970/Robert Altman)

"The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1971/Sam Peckinpah)

"The Godfather" (1972/Francis Ford Coppola)

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (1973/Peter Yates)

"The Taking of Pelham 123" (1974/Joseph Sargent)

"Young Frankenstein" (1974/Mel Brooks)

"Chinatown" (1974/Roman Polanski)

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" 

  (1975/Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)

"Nashville" (1975/Robert Altman)

"All the President's Men" (1976/Alan Pakula)

"Sorcerer" (1977/William Friedkin)

"Animal House" (1978/John Landis)

"Days of Heaven" (1978/Terrence Malick)

"Alien" (1979/Ridley Scott)

"All That Jazz" (1979/Bob Fosse)

"Apocalypse Now" (1979/Francis Ford Coppola)

"Airplane!" (1980/Jim Abrahams, David Zucker 

  and Jerry Zucker)

"Stripes" (1981/Ivan Reitman)

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981/Steven Spielberg)

"Blade Runner" (1982/Ridley Scott)

"The Big Chill" (1983/Lawrence Kasdan)

"The Right Stuff" (1983/Philip Kaufman)

"Trouble In Mind" (1985/Alan Rudolph)

"The Princess Bride" (1986/Rob Reiner)

"Wings of Desire" (1987/Wim Wenders)

"Radio Days" (1987/Woody Allen)

"The Navigator" (1988/Vincent Ward)

"Field of Dreams" (1989/Phil Alden Robinson)

"The Civil War" (1990)/Ken Burns)

"Life Is Sweet" (1990/Mike Leigh)

"Thelma & Louise" (1991/Ridley Scott)

"Pulp Fiction" (1994/Quentin Tarantino)

"The Usual Suspects" (1995/Bryan Singer)

"Fargo" (1996/Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)

"Lone Star" (1996/John Sayles)

"Bandits" (1997/Katja von Garnier)

"Run Lola Run" (1998/Tom Tykwer)

"Dogma" (1999/Kevin Smith)

"Divine Intervention" (2002/Elia Suleiman)

"Mystic River" (2003/Clint Eastwood)

"A History of Violence" (2005/David Cronenberg)

"Good Night, and Good Luck" (2005/George Clooney)

"V For Vendetta" (2005/James McTeigue)

"Linda Linda Linda" (2005/Nobuhiro Yamashita)

"The Brave One" (2007/Neil Jordan)

"Rumba" (2008/Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon 

  and Bruno Romy)

"Hugo" (2011/Martin Scorsese)

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014/Wes Anderson)

"The Dressmaker" (2015/Jocelyn Moorhouse)

"Spotlight" (2015/Tom McCarthy)

"La La Land" (2016/Damien Chazelle)

"The Shape of Water" (2017/Guillermo del Toro)

"They Shall Not Grow Old" (2018/Peter Jackson)

"The Old Man and the Gun" (2018/David Lowery)

"1917" (2019/Sam Mendes)

"Poor Things" (2023/Yorgos Lanthimos)

Infamous (2006)

INFAMOUS  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Douglas McGrath 

    Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig,

    Sigourney Weaver, Peter Bogdanovich, Hope Davis,

    Jeff Daniels, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini

The second of two movies, released within a year of each other, covering the time Truman Capote spent researching and writing "In Cold Blood". In "Capote" (2005), Philip Seymour Hoffman played Capote. In this film, it's Toby Jones. Both portray Capote as a devious, self-serving prick, and Hoffman got the Oscar at least partly by getting there first. Sandra Bullock plays Harper Lee, the part Catherine Keener played in the Hoffman version, but the revelation here is Daniel Craig as Perry Smith, a lost soul on a one-way ticket to hell, and the key figure in Capote's nonfiction novel. It's a compelling performance, and you don't see much of James Bond in it anywhere. You barely even see Daniel Craig.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE  (2016)  ¢ ¢

    D: Roland Emmerich

    Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman,

    Charlotte Gainsbourg, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward,

    William Fichtner, Jessie T. Usher, Judd Hirsch,

    Brent Spiner, Vivica A. Fox, Angelbaby, Chin Han

Twenty years after President Bill Pullman climbed into the cockpit to lead the world in its war against the aliens, the aliens are back, bigger and badder than ever. Can the grizzled ex-president, alien experts Jeff Goldblum and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and crazy Brent Spiner defeat the aliens this time? Can crotchety Judd Hirsch outrun the aliens in a schoolbus full of kids? And will Brent Spiner ever get out of that hospital gown and put on a pair of pants? The effects are apocalyptic (again), but you can't help wondering if AI had a hand in the recycled script.

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.