Citizen Ruth (1996)

CITIZEN RUTH  (1996)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alexander Payne

    Laura Dern, Swoozie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place,

    Kurtwood Smith, Kelly Preston, M.C. Galney,

    Kenneth Mars, David Graf, Burt Reynolds

Laura Dern gives a fierce performance as Ruth Stoops, a chronically strung-out waste case who's already had four kids and finds out she's pregnant. About to be sentenced to jail for endangering the fetus through drug abuse - she'll huff anything she thinks will get her high - she becomes the focal point in a tug-of-war between an anti-abortion outfit called the Baby Savers and a pro-choice group. The Baby Savers claim to be all about love, except, of course, when anybody disagrees with them. The pro-choice folks are just as dogmatic, and conspicuously lacking in anything resembling a sense of humor. Ruth, who has a long history of making really bad decisions, doesn't see much hope either way. She'd rather be getting drunk or sniffing airplane glue. There's a bombs-away bluntness to a lot of this, and it'd be funnier if it didn't feel so true, but Ruth isn't a character you'll quickly forget. Like Paul Giamatti's forlorn schoolteacher in Payne's "The Holdovers", she makes a getaway at the end, and you'd like to think she'll move on to something better, even though you know the odds are against it. 

 

Bad Times At the El Royale (2018)

 

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Drew Goddard

    Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson,

    Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Lewis Pullman,

    Cailee Spaeny, Nick Offerman, Shea Whigham

A handful of strangers check into a curiously empty hotel that literally straddles the Nevada/California state line. They've all got stories, but are any of them who they say they are, and will anybody live long enough to check out in the morning? That last question could go either way in a crooked, new-noir nightmare that, like the hotel of the title, doesn't really exist anywhere except in its own dreamworld universe. You can't tell what will happen there, ever, except that it'll be nothing you expect. "What is this? Some sort of pervert hotel?" a character asks, and it is, but that's just a side effect. The El Royale is really about its guests. The bugs and concealed cameras and two-way mirrors aren't the half of it. 

The Burning Sea (2021)

THE BURNING SEA  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Andreas Anderson 

    Kristine Kujath Thorp, Henrik Bjelland, Bjorn Floberg,

    Rolf Kristian Larsen, Anders Baasmo, Nils Elias Olsen,

    Anneke von der Lippe, Ane Skumsvoll, Christoffer Staib

A pulse-pounding eco-thriller from Norway, about a massive oil-rig disaster in the North Sea. More evidence that the Norwegians know how to do this stuff as well as anybody. The storytelling's efficient, the effects look good, and the human element never gets lost. Some of the same people who worked on "The Quake" and "The Wave" were responsible for this. 

Love and Science (1912)

 

LOVE AND SCIENCE  (1912)  ¢ ¢

    D: M.J. Roche

    Èmile Dehelly, Renée Sylvaire

An inventor has a falling out with his fiancée 

while trying to set up what looks like the world's 

first Zoom call. Cinematography saves the day. 

St. Ives (1976)

 

ST. IVES  (1976)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: J. Lee Thompson

    Charles Bronson, Jacqueline Bisset, John Houseman,

    Maximilian Schell, Harry Guardino, Harris Yulin,

    Dana Elcar, Michael Lerner, Elisha Cook Jr.,

    Daniel J. Travanti, Robert Englund, Jeff Goldblum

Charles Bronson plays a crime-reporter-turned-would-be-novelist whose book's not going anywhere, so he takes a job as go-between in a payoff involving some stolen journals. It gets way more complicated than that - the narrative lost me completely after an hour or so - but by then you kind of want to stick around just to find out what the hell is going on. The Los Angeles locations look appropriately gritty, and Bronson, as usual, is bulletproof.

Harris Yulin

(1937-2025)

Carry On Don't Lose Your Head (1967)

 

CARRY ON DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD  (1967)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Gerald Thomas

    Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey,

    Joan Sims, Jim Dale, Peter Butterworth, Dany Robin

In late 18th-century France, the mob is screaming for blood, heads are rolling off the guillotine, and a rogue agent called the Black Fingernail is giving the revolutionary authorities a lot of trouble. Frantically paced silliness, with the Carry On Gang cutting up all over the place. True to form, the characters have names like Citizen Bidet, Citizen Camembert, the Duc de Pommefrit and Sir Rodney Effing (with two "f"s). Also, Sid James with a lisp. That's Carry On.

Central Airport (1933)

 

CENTRAL AIRPORT  (1933)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: William Wellman

    Richard Barthelmess, Sally Ellers, Tom Brown,

    James Murray, Grant Mitchell, Claire McDowell

Pre-code melodrama about two brothers, both flyboys and both in love with the same girl. You won't lose any sleep over who she ends up with, but the plot's just an excuse to get the planes in the air. Director William Wellman, the World War One aviator who made "Wings", knows what to do after that.

Something Weird (1967)

 

SOMETHING WEIRD  (1967)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Herschell Gordon Lewis

    Tony McCabe, Elizabeth Lee, William Brooker,

    Mudite Arums, Ted Heil, Lawrence Wood

A psychic, a witch and a federal agent with LSD in his pocket all turn up in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where some murders are taking place. Jefferson, Wisconsin? Something weird, for sure. 

Blitz (2024)

 

BLITZ  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Steve McQueen

    Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson,

    Benjamin Clémentine, Paul Weller, Stephen Graham

In 1940, with Hitler's bombs exploding all over London, a single mother sends her mixed-race son away from the city, hoping to keep him safe, and returns to her job in a munitions plant. The boy, played with watchful resilience by Elliott Heffernan, escapes into the countryside by jumping off a train, and embarks on a perilous journey, trying to get back home. Saoirse Ronan plays his mum. It's a look at wartime Britain you don't normally see, part "Hope and Glory" and part "Oliver Twist", casting a lens on street-level crime and racism that's ugly, to say the least. There are some stylish visual flourishes in McQueen's direction, and the pyrotechnics are some of the best ever. (The footage of firefighters struggling to corral a runaway hose while fighting an inferno is hair-raising.) The music's by Hans Zimmer.

Blind (2014)

 

BLIND  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Eskil Vogt

    Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen,

    Vera Vitali, Marius Kolbenstvedt

A woman who's lost her eyesight slips into a world of fantasy, and the lines between what's real and what she imagines get blurry. Some of this is comical. Some is disturbing. Some is a little of both. It's a case of paralyzing fear - agoraphobia and the nightmare of being suddenly blind, compounded by the fact that the woman's fantasy alter ego, who's dealing with the same issues, is way more happy and resilient than she is. Or she could just be crazy. Blind in more ways than one.

The Black Castle (1952)

 

THE BLACK CASTLE  (1952)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D:  Nathan Juran

    Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally,

    Paula Corday, Lon Chaney, John Hoyt

This isn't exactly a horror movie. It's more like a suspense thriller with elements of horror, starring Richard Greene as a Brit who goes to the castle of a German count, hoping to track down a couple of old comrades who disappeared there. Greene gets to try out his Robin Hood skills in a swordfight. Stephen McNally hams it up as the evil, one-eyed count. Boris Karloff plays the castle physician, whose potions can cause narcolepsy or death. Chaney lumbers around as a mute henchman. A little talky, but worth a look.

Beverly of Graustark (1926)

 

BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK  (1926)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Sidney Franklin

    Marion Davies, Antonio Moreno, Roy D'Arcy,

    Creighton Hale, Albert Gran, Paulette Duval

William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend plays a fun-loving college kid who returns  home just as her cousin's about to become the prince of one of those European countries that only exist in fairy tales and movies like this one. When he gets hurt in a skiing accident, falling off a cliff, she assumes his identity to keep him from losing the crown. So for most of the movie, y0u've got Marion posing as a boy in a gender-bent comedy that's tailor-made for what she could do on the screen. You can see why old man Hearst was crazy about her. The last few minutes were shot in two-strip Technicolor.

Screen Test / Take 21

 

Match the following movies with 

the actors who appeared in them:

                                      1. "Blue Chips"

                                      2. "Blue Ice"

                                      3. "Blue Jasmine"

                                      4. "Blue Hawaii"

                                      5. "Blue Collar"

                                      6. "Blue Steel"

                                      7. "Blue Thunder"

                                      8. "The Blue Dahlia"

                                      9. "The Blue Angel"

                                    10. "Kid Blue"

                                      a. Roy Scheider

                                      b. Michael Caine

                                      c. Marlene Dietrich

                                      d. Elvis Presley

                                      e. Jamie Lee Curtis

                                      f.  Alan Ladd

                                      g. Dennis Hopper

                                      h. Richard Pryor

                                      i.  Nick Nolte

                                      j.  Cate Blanchett

         Answers:

1-i / 2-b / 3-j / 4-d / 5-h / 6-e / 7-a / 8-f / 9-c / 10-g

Beat (2000)

 

BEAT  (2000)  ¢ ¢

    D: Gary Walkow

    Courtney Love, Kiefer Sutherland, Ron Livingston,

    Norman Reedus, Sam Trammell, Kyle Secor

In New York in 1944, a Columbia University student named Lucien Carr stabbed an obsessive, would-be lover named David Kammerer, killing him. In Mexico City in 1951, the writer William S. Burroughs shot his wife, Joan Vollmer, in the head with a pistol, playing a game of William Tell. She died. These two incidents became a part of the history and legend of the Beats, and "Beat" is a movie about them. At least, it's partly about them. A lot of it focuses on the dodgy, flirtatious relationship between Carr and Vollmer in Mexico (with Allen Ginsberg tagging along behind), while Bill's off with a boyfriend in Guatemala. It's mostly bits of conversation between smart, pretentious characters who might care more about each other if they didn't care so much about themselves. Kiefer Sutherland appropriates Burroughs' distinctive drawl but doesn't look anything like Burroughs, and Courtney Love looks even less like Joan Vollmer. Ron Livingston does look like a young Allen Ginsberg, but Allen doesn't get to do much here except mope around and gaze longingly at Joan and (especially) Lucien, played by Norman Reedus. Critical reaction to the Beats has always been mixed, but their impact on American culture in the years after the war can't be entirely dismissed, their art drawn directly from their drug-fueled, bohemian lives. Not much of that comes through in this movie. They don't even seem all that interesting.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

 

ANATOMY OF A FALL  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Justine Triet

    Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner,

    Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, 

    Anne Rotger, Camille Rutherford, Sophie Fillières

A man falls to his death from the upper level of a chalet in the French Alps. Was it suicide, or something else? Circumstantial evidence implicates the man's wife, and there's an inquest and an indictment and a trial. In fact, it's never entirely clear what happened, and the movie, which puts the viewer in the position of being a juror, hinges not so much on want you know as what you decide to believe. You can see where its sympathies lie, but the film never overplays its hand. There's always an element of doubt. Sandra Hüller, with no makeup and often in tight closeup, is devastating in the lead and got an Oscar nomination for her performance. Swann Arlaud as her attorney, Milo Machado-Graner as her visually impaired son (a key witness) and the entire supporting cast combine to convey a sense that if justice isn't arbitrary, it's at least ambiguous. The movie's two and a half hours long, and you don't want to miss any of it. Considering the subject matter, the similarity between its title and Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" can't be accidental.

American Dresser (2018)

 

AMERICAN DRESSER  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Carmine Cangialosi

    Tom Berenger, Keith David, Carmine Cangialosi,

    Penelope Ann Miller, Bruce Dern, Gina Gershon

    Jeff Fahey, Becky O'Donohue, Scott Shilstone

For a lot of us, Tom Berenger will always be Sam Webber, the hotshot television action star in "The Big Chill" (1983). There's something faintly sardonic about Berenger's performance in that film, an intelligent guy who accepts the fact that he's selling out because he likes the payoff and knows he can't really help himself. So here's Berenger 35 years later, older and wearier, but still with that playful, knowing edge. He's playing a Vietnam vet living on Long Island, drinking too much and grieving over the death of his wife. A letter he finds in the sleeve of an old vinyl album induces him to take off on a cross-country journey by motorcycle, bound for the Pacific Northwest. Along for the ride are an old Army buddy (Keith David), and eventually a young drifter (Carmine Cangialosi) they meet along the way. There are diversions in the form of Penelope Ann Miller as a woman who connects with Berenger and gets a ride on his bike, and Bruce Dern as an old coot who needs help with a flat tire. It's a pleasantly laid-back road movie up to the last reel or two, when it kind of skids onto the gravel. And there's Berenger, who won't attempt a stuntman's leap into a Porsche convertible ever again (see "The Big Chill"), but retains the trace of a twinkle in his eye.

Lady Godiva (1911)

 

LADY GODIVA  (1911)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: J Stuart Blackton

    Julia Swayne Gordon, Robert Gaillard, Hal Wilson,

    Kate Price, Harry Ward, Clara Kimball Young

History's most famous exhibitionist rides through town on a horse. One unlucky voyeur sneaks a peek and lives to regret it. The nudity is notably discreet. 

Alam (2022)

 

ALAM  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Firas Khoury

    Mahmood Bakri, Sereen Khass, Mohammad Karaki,

    Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Amer Hichel, Saleh Bakri

Somewhere in Israel, a small group of Palestinian students plan an act of rebellion: replacing the Israeli flag that flies from the roof of their high school with one of their own. They're the opposite of organized, their motives and levels of enthusiasm are diverse, and the movie reflects that, opening a window on life in a place and a political environment where existence means humiliation and resistance means boots and clubs, prison or death. The movie's a little rough. The actors who play the students look way older than high school, and some of the messaging is blunt, like the shots of people hugging trees in a forest that's been planted over what was once a Palestinian village. It's part of what the Palestinians call the Nakba, "The Catastrophe", going back to 1948. It's about being a prisoner in your own land. There's no relief and no way out. It never ends. 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

 

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE  

    D: John Huston                              (1948)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, 

    Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane, Alfonso Bedoya

Three down-and-out gringos pool their resources on a grubstake and head out into the Mexican wilderness to look for gold. This being a John Huston movie, they find what they're looking for, or seem to, but there's a cost. Huston won Oscars for writing and directing it, and his old man got one for best supporting actor, minus his upper teeth. Bogart slips into paranoia and madness after taking a blow to the head, and a bandit claiming to be a lawman famously insists he don't need no stinking badge. Based on a novel by the enigmatic B. Traven. Some of it prefigures "The Wild Bunch". 

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

 

PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND  (2021)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Sion Sono

    Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes,

    Bill Moseley, Tak Sakaguchi, Takato Yonemoto

A screwed-up, mixed-up "Mad Max" knockoff starring Nicolas Cage as a bank robber who's released from prison and sent into a place called the Ghostland to rescue a woman who's disappeared out there. He has three days to bring her back - or maybe five - before the black leather jumpsuit he's wearing explodes. There's some cool set decoration (the Ghostland stuff), but Cage looks old and tired, and the script's a real mess. Also, Nic gets one of his balls blown off. Sound like fun?

Female Trouble (1974)

FEMALE TROUBLE  (1974)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Waters

    Divine, Mink St0le, David Lochary, Edith Massey,

    Mary Vivian Pearce, Cookie Mueller Susan Walsh,

    Michael Potter, Margie Skidmore, Susan Lowe

John Waters' followup to "Pink Flamingos" stars Divine in a story that tracks a woman's life from high school to motherhood to strip joints to pop stardom to murder and the electric chair. Nobody could top Divine in a movie like this, but just for the fun of it, keep an eye on Mink Stole.

The Hollywood Review on 1929 (1929)

 

THE HOLLYWOOD REVIEW OF 1929  (1929)   ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Charles Reisner

    Jack Benny, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer,

    Joan Crawford, Bessie Love, Marion Davies,

    Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Buster Keaton,

    Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Ukelele Ike

MGM's entry in the early sound musical sweepstakes looks pretty stiff, with a stationary camera planted in front of a stage where the studio's stars perform a series of variety acts. Jack Benny's the host. Highlights include a comedy routine with Laurel and Hardy playing magicians, and a song-and-dance number featuring a chorus of tall royal guards and a tiny but lively Marion Davies.

Fragments of Paradise (2022)

 

FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: K.D. Davidson

The long, eventful life of avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who escaped from Lithuania toward the end of World War Two, having pissed off both the Germans and the Russians, spent four years in a displaced persons camp, and eventually landed in New York City, where he picked up a 16mm movie camera and spent the next 60  years shooting film. Mekas never cared about technique and his movies show it, but he took his camera everywhere, and whenever something he found interesting passed in front of his lens, he filmed it. John Waters, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch are among those he influenced and inspired, and they all turn up here as witnesses. Viewers with a minimal interest in the movies Mekas made might still want to take a look at this one. 

The Ice Rink (1998)

 

THE ICE RINK  (1998)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jean-Philippe Toussaint

    Tom Novembre, Mireille Perrier, Dolores Chaplin,

    Marie-France Pisier, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Bruce Campbell

A French comedy about a film crew trying to shoot a movie on an ice rink. Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter, the "Evil Dead" guy and the Lithuanian National Hockey Team are among those who appear. Amusing but slight. 

Jimi Plays Monterey (1986)

 

JIMI PLAYS MONTEREY  (1986)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus

Concert footage of Jimi Hendrix at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. John Phillips does the sparse narration, and Janis Joplin, Grace Slick and the Mamas & the Papas appear just long enough to be recognized. 

Life During Wartme (2009)

 

LIFE DURING WARTIME  (2009)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Todd Solondz

    Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy,

    Michael Kenneth Williams, Michael Lerner, 

    Ciarán Hinds, Paul Reubens, Renée Taylor, 

    Charlotte Rampling, Gaby Hoffman, Emma Hinz

Massive dysfunction and a generous supply of guilt in a movie about three sisters (Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney and Ally Sheedy) in an apparent competition to see who's in more dire need of therapy. It's smart and well-acted, but, boy, are these people fucked-up. Especially nice work by Shirley Henderson as the mousy sister (the one who sees dead people) and Charlotte Rampling as a cold-eyed monster who comes on to Ciarán Hinds.

Listomania / Take 15

 

Movies directed by Peter Fonda:

"The Hired Hand"

"Idaho Transfer"

 "Wanda Nevada"

Movies directed by Jack Nicholson:

"Drive, He Said"

"Goin' South"

"The Two Jakes"

Movies directed by Dennis Hopper:

"Easy rider"

"The Last Movie"

"Out of the Blue"

"Colors"

"Backtrack"

"The Hot spot"

"Chasers"

Lobster Man From Mars (1989)

 

LOBSTER MAN FROM MARS  (1989)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Stanley Sheff

    Deborah Foreman, Anthony Hickox, S.D. Nemeth,

    Tony Curtis, Dean Jacobsen, Patrick MacNee,

    Tommy Sledge, Billy Barty, Bobby Pickett,

    Fred Holliday, Ava Fabian, Erica Evans

In the framing device for this film-within-a-film, Tony Curtis plays a movie producer who owes the IRS more money than he can ever pay back, unless he can come up with a sure-fire flop. (Yeah, like "The Producers".) In the nick of time, a kid named Stevie Horowitz shows up with a film canister containing his masterpiece, a loony sci-fi thriller called - you guessed it - "Lobster Man From Mars", and the producer and the filmmaker head off to the screening room to watch the kid's film, which is no more silly than most of the low-budget space-monster pictures it's sending up, and a lot more entertaining. Highlight: standup comic Tommy Sledge in his persona as detective Tommy Sledge, who has nothing to do with the story, but materializes now and then to deliver wacky, hard-boiled commentary. Keep an eye out for the references to "Alien", "Jaws", "Patton", the Three Stooges, Rod Serling and "Little Caesar". A guilty pleasure.

Conclave (2024)

 

CONCLAVE  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Edward Berger

    Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow,

    Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, Carlos Diehz,

    Isabella Rossellini, Brian F. O'Byrne, Jacek Koman

The pope is dead, the seal is broken, the red-robed cardinals are gathered in the Vatican to choose a new pontiff, and skullduggery is afoot. Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, whose job is to see that the election goes smoothly, which, of course, it doesn't. Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow play two of the key candidates, and there are a couple of others, plus a new cardinal nobody's heard of, because he was appointed by the late pope in secret. So there's politicking and jockeying for votes, and a debate over whether a progressive or a reactionary should be the next head of the Church. Some of this is far-fetched, but it's a good piece of storytelling with a whopper of a surprise at the end for those who don't know the outcome going in. (Spoiler Alert: It's something that would definitely shake up the Church.) And with that, Cardinal Lawrence, tense and troubled throughout the conclave, allows himself the barest hint of a smile.

Intolerance (1916)

 

INTOLERANCE  (1916)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: D.W. Griffith

    Mae Marsh, Constance Talmadge, Robert Harron,

    Lillian Gish, Miriam Cooper, Bessie Love, 

    Margery Wilson, Eugene Pallette, Alfred Paget,

    Josephine Crowell, Elmer Clifton, Seena Owen

Griffith's monumental silent epic chronicles human bigotry through four different historical eras - ancient Babylon, Palestine at the time of Christ, 16th-century France and contemporary America. Incredibly, all four stories are told simultaneously, intercut to show the dramatic and moral parallels between them. One of the great pioneer works in the history of movies, it looks archaic now, partly because of the director's unrestrained romanticism, but more because of Griffith's primal influence on every other filmmaker who followed. No other filmmaker ever made a movie like this.

Let's Rock (1958)

LET'S ROCK  (1958)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Harry Foster

    Julius La Rosa, Phyllis Newman, Conrad Janis,

    Joy Harmon, Harold Gary, Fred Kareman

Does anybody remember Julius La Rosa? For those who don't, Julius La Rosa was a moderately successful 1950s crooner and a protege of Arthur Godfrey, who had a television show on which La Rosa frequently appeared. In this 1950s movie, La Rosa plays a crooner who hits a career crisis when he finds he's being edged off the charts by this new thing called rock-&-roll. La Rosa's not much of an actor, affable and a little bland, but he has a couple of nice scenes with Phyllis Newman that look partly improvised, shot on location in New York. He sings three ballads in his smooth crooner's voice, before caving to Phyllis and trying a rock number. Others in the musical lineup include Della Reese, Paul Anka and the late Wink Martindale. Apparently, this film marks the only screen appearance of both The Royal Teens ("Short Shorts") and Danny and the Juniors ("At the Hop"). It's worth watching just for that. 

Wink Martindale

(1933-2025)

Black Snake Moan (2006)

 

BLACK SNAKE MOAN  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Craig Brewer

    Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Timberlake,

    S. Epatha Merkerson, Michael Raymond-James

    John Cothran, David Banner, Kim Richards

A dramatized blues riff shot in and around Memphis, about an old black farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) and a troubled nymphomaniac (Christina Ricci) who turns up beaten and half-naked on the road that goes by his house. Thinking she won't be around long, he takes her in, cleans up her bruises and gets some medicine for her cough. When he finds out the true nature of her affliction, he chains her to the radiator, still in her underwear, and that's where she spends a good part of the picture. On the surface, this is pure, over-the-top exploitation, and if that's all you're looking for, you'll probably get your money's worth. When producer John Singleton remarks on the DVD that if they'd made the same movie in the South 15 years earlier, they all would've gotten  lynched, he's not entirely kidding. But it works as blues, too, the sexually charged story providing a metaphor for a deeper, painful truth about human relationships. Ricci attacks her role with such ferocity, you wonder whether any other name actress would even attempt such a thing, much less pull it off. Another thing you wonder about is how she keeps her panties so clean, with all the time she spends being dragged, both literally and figuratively, through the dirt. Maybe she did her laundry late at night, when nobody else was looking.

Tragic Ceremony (1972)

TRAGIC CEREMONY  (1972)  ¢ ¢

    D: Riccardo Freda

    Camille Keaton, Tony Isbert, Máximo Valverde

    Giovanni Petrucci, Luciana Paluzzi, Irina Demick

On a dark and stormy night, four people find shelter in a country mansion where a satanic ritual is taking place. Semi-coherent European horror with a few bloody moments and one topless scene, set in the U.K., but obviously not shot there. Camille Keaton would make her mark on exploitation cinema a few years later as the abused and vengeful protagonist in "I Spit On Your Grave".

A Time For Roses (1969)

A TIME FOR ROSES  (1969)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Risto Jarva

    Arto Tuominen, Ritva Vepsä, Tarja Markus,

    Eero Keskitalo, Eila Pahkonen, Matti Lehtela

In a cryptic twist on "Vertigo", a documentary filmmaker becomes obsessed with a woman who's dead and a woman he meets who looks just like her. It's a vision of the 21st century from the late 1960s, well ordered and arty and kind of cold, with mod fashions, reel-to-reel technology and inflatable furniture, which suggests that the future ain't what it used to be, and maybe never was. According to IMDb, it's the first feature-length science-fiction movie made in Finland. In Finnish. In black and white. With subtitles.

Billy Two Hats (1974)

 

BILLY TWO HATS  (1974)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ted Kotcheff

    Gregory Peck, Desi Arnaz Jr., Jack Warden,

    Sian Barbara Allen, David Huddleston, John Pearce

A spare western tale shot in Israel, about a couple of outlaws on the run from a sheriff who pursues them across an apparently endless desert. As the chase goes on and characters pair off in various combinations, the movie becomes a reflection on loyalty, and the subversive notion (in a western, at least) that two people together can be a lot stronger than a man alone. Peck's feisty performance as an old Scottish bandit is a departure from the more stoic western characters he usually portrayed. 

Ted Kotcheff

(1931-2025)

In a Valley of Violence (2016)

 

IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ti West

    Ethan Hawke, John Travolta, Taissa Farmiga,

    James Ransone, Karen Gillan, Tommy Nohilly,

    Toby Huss, Burn Gorman, Larry Fessenden

A stranger rides into a town called Denton, accompanied by his best (and only) friend, a dog. In the saloon, a punk confronts him and challenges him to a fight out in the street, an encounter that does not end well for the punk. It turns out the punk is both the deputy and the son of the town marshall, who tells the stranger to get out of town, which he does. So the stranger's camping out on the range somewhere when the punk and his gang ambush him and throw him off a cliff and kill his dog. They don't check to make sure he's dead, though, which is a mistake, on top of the mistake they made by killing the dog. You can guess the rest. Ethan Hawke plays the stranger. John Travolta plays the marshall. It's a spaghetti western, or a riff on spaghetti westerns, enhanced by West's affection for the genre and a musical score by Jeff Grace that owes a lot to Ennio Morricone. There's a rule in movies like this that the punk should've paid more attention to: No matter how tough you think you are, if you want to be breathing when the end credits roll, you'd better not kill no dog.

World For Ransom (1954)

 

WORLD FOR RANSOM  (1954)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Robert Aldrich

    Dan Duryea, Patric Knowles, Marian Carr,

    Reginald Denny, Gene Lockhart, Nigel Bruce,

    Arthur Shields, Douglass Dumbrille, Keye Luke

Dan Duryea plays a private eye in Singapore, caught up in a plot that involves shady characters, a kidnapped nuclear scientist, British intelligence and (of course) a dame. A Cold War film noir, notable for the direction of Robert Aldrich (uncredited), but not so much for its script. Duryea looks a little haggard, which for this film and this character, kind of makes sense.

Warlock (1959)

 

WARLOCK  (1959)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Edward Dmytryk

    Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn,

    Dorothy Malone, Dolores Michaels, Tom Drake,

    Wallace Ford, Richard Arlen, DeForest Kelley,

    Regis Toomey, Vaughn Taylor, Whit Bissell

Shifty morals and shifting alliances in a western starring Richard Widmark as an outlaw cowboy-turned-lawman, Henry Fonda as a gunman hired to keep the peace, and Anthony Quinn as a gambler whose main job seems to be watching Fonda's back. Director Edward Dmytryk had been blacklisted, and it's one of those '50s westerns in which the metaphorical implications are up for grabs. If you watch it, see if you don't think there's a little Dean Martin in Quinn's performance. 

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)

 

JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT  (2019)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Kevin Smith

    Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Harley Quinn Smith,

    Fred Armison, Jason Lee, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck,

    Brian O'Halloran, Kate Micucci, Joey Lauren Adams,

    Tommy Chong, Shannon Elizabeth, Chris Hemsworth, 

    Val Kilmer, Molly Shannon, Lilith Fury, Justin Long,

    Rosario Dawson, Craig Robinson, Jennifer Schwalbach

Jay and Silent Bob recycled, with the boys heading out to Hollywood (again), when somebody decides to make a movie about them (again). Smith takes some well-aimed shots at the movie industry and his place in it, self parody and self-promotion going hand-in-hand. But there are whole episodes, like the one with Fred Armison, that die and don't go anywhere at all. Lots of familiar faces from earlier Smith movies turn up, and fans of the View Askew universe should get a kick out of that. Like a lot of Smith's films, it's all kind of an agreeable mess. Maybe a joint would help. 

Val Kilmer

(1959-2025)

The Naked Witch (1961)

 

THE NAKED WITCH  (1961)  ¢

    D: Claude Alexander, Larry Buchanan

    Libby Hall, Robert Short, Jo Maryman,

    Charles West, Jack Herman, Howard Ware

Cheaply made regional horror about a college kid who accidentally resurrects a vengeful witch. An introductory lesson in art history and witchcraft, and a documentary-style look at German traditions in Texas, add to the movie's length but do nothing  to enhance the story. Produced for $8,000 by a drive-in operator who wanted a movie with lots of nudity, but except for a modest skinny-dipping scene, you don't see that much of the witch.

Take the High Ground (1953)

 

TAKE THE HIGH GROUND  (1953)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Richard Brooks

    Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Elaine Stewart, 

    Russ Tamblyn, Carleton Carpenter, Steve Forrest,

    Robert Arthur, Jerome Courtland, Bert Freed

Widmark and Malden play Army drill sergeants whipping a platoon of new recruits into shape. That's the movie, really, except for a melodramatic subplot that's off-base in more ways than one. Anybody who's survived basic training will see something they recognize in Widmark's Sgt. Ryan. Straighten up, soldier. Inspection at 06:00.

They Call Her One Eye (1973)

THEY CALL HER ONE EYE  (1973)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alex Fridolinski (Bo Arne Vibenius)

    Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf, Gunnar Palm,

    Despina Tomazani, Solveig Andersson 

Still mute and traumatized 15 years after a childhood rape, a young woman gets a lift from a pimp who introduces her to heroin and prostitution. When she resists, he puts out her eye in a scene reminiscent of "Un Chien Andalou", so she goes along, turning tricks, shooting up, hoarding her money and plotting revenge. A creepy, disturbing exploitation piece from Sweden, with moments of blood-spewing, slow-motion violence, striking (and sometimes distracting) point-of-view shots, and gratuitous, hardcore inserts punctuating the sex scenes. It's like "I Spit On Your Grave", but with a touch of artistry in the direction and an impassive, blank-slate performance by Christina Lindberg as the victim-turned-angel-of-death. Alternate titles: "Thriller", "Hooker's Revenge". 

Mystery Road (2018)

 

MYSTERY ROAD  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Rachel Perkins

    Aaron Pederson, Judy Davis, Tasia Zalar,

    Tasma Walton, Wayne Blair, Deborah Mailman,

    Colin Friels, Anthony Hayes, Aaron L. McGrath

When two young men - a white backpacker and an Aboriginal football star - go missing on a vast outback cattle station , a white cop and an Aboriginal detective team up to try to find them. A six-part Australian miniseries that ends up being about a lot more than a missing persons case. The narrative has some loose ends - subplots and characters that seem to be going somewhere and then just kind of vanish - but Davis and Pederson command your attention, and the aerial shots of the landscape are spectacular. (The role the land plays in the story is crucial.) More visual evidence that no place on earth looks anything like Australia.

Betty In Blunderland (1934)

 

BETTY IN BLUNDERLAND  (1934)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Dave Fleischer

Betty Boop falls asleep while working on a jigsaw puzzle and follows a white rabbit through a mirror and into  strange and sometimes terrifying universe. Ed Wynn makes a brief animated appearance. Boop-boop-a-doop. 

You the Living (2007)

 

YOU THE LIVING  (2007)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Roy Andersson

    Elisabet Helander, Jörgen Norhall, Björn Englund,

    Jessika Lundberg, Eric Bäckman, Pär Fredriksson

Fifty-odd little deadpan vignettes, some vaguely connected and some not so much. Some are amusing. Some are surreal. A lot of them feature a tuba, for some reason. It's like where Wes Anderson, Jacques Tati, Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki all meet up. Favorite bit: An old man pushing a walker along the sidewalk and dragging a distinctly unhappy dog on a leash behind him. I'm not sure why that struck me as funny, but it did. Made in Sweden.

Tusk (2014)

 

TUSK  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Kevin Smith

    Justin Long, Michael Parks, Genesis Rodriguez,

    Haley Joel Osment, Guy Lapointe, Harley Morgenstern,

    Ralph Garman, Harley Quinn Smith, Lily Rose Depp

Kevin Smith goes for maximum weirdness with this crazed horror movie about a reclusive nutcase who turns an obnoxious podcaster into a walrus. How he does that has drawn comparisons to "The Human Centipede", so you get the idea. The clerks from "Yoga Hosers" make a cameo appearance, and if the guy chewing the scenery as Guy Lapointe seems familiar, he's Johnny Depp.

Quote File / Take 26

 

Some lines from the movies of Gene Hackman:

"I don't deserve this . . . to die like this. I was 

  building a house."

  Hackman in "Unforgiven"

"Hit first if you can. And when you do hit, hit 

  to kill."

  Hackman in "Wyatt Earp"

"I hate Baptists almost as much as I hate 

  Democrats."

  Hackman in "Runaway Jury"

"I don't care what they're talking about. All I want 

  is a nice, fat recording."

  Hackman in "The Conversation"

"Wait! Where are you going? I was going to make

  espresso!"

  Hackman in "Young Frankenstein"

(1930-2025)

That Championship Season (1982)

THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON  (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jason Miller 

    Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach, Robert Mitchum, 

    Martin Sheen, Paul Sorvino, Arthur Franz

Four of the five starters and the coach from the team that won the 1958 Pennsylvania state high-school basketball title get together years later to relive old times and open up new wounds. Jason Miller's film adaptation of his award-winning play is like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" for aging jocks. The resolution feels a little too easy to fit with what's preceded it, but the movie's a real good workout for its ensemble cast. Also, there's an elephant. Miller's probably best known on screen for playing the troubled young priest in "The Exorcist".

Richard Burton: In From the Cold? (1988)

 

RICHARD BURTON: IN FROM THE COLD?

    D: Tony Palmer                                (1988)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

A documentary on the acting career and tabloid life of Richard Burton, from a coal-mining town in Wales to Hollywood, "Cleopatra", seven Oscar nominations and marriage to what's-'er-name. The witnesses are mostly relatives and admirers (plus a refreshingly candid Lauren Bacall), and if the movie doesn't quite capture what drove Burton, it does get at some of his contradictions. Clips from his films help tell the story, but titles letting you know what movies you're looking at would've helped.

The Untold Story (1993)

 

THE UNTOLD STORY  (1993)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Danny Lee, Herman Yau

    Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Danny Lee, Emily Kwan,

    Julie Lee, Erik Kei, King-Kong Lam, Parkman Wong

Extreme exploitation from Hong Kong about a serial killer whose victims end up as a key ingredient in the pork dumplings he then serves to (among others) the cops investigating the case. It's mostly played for laughs, but any time this guy reaches for a meat cleaver, brace yourself. The blood-and-guts quotient is sick.

The Play House (1921)

 

THE PLAY HOUSE  (1921)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton

    Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts

In a sort of prelude to "Sherlock Jr.", Buster Keaton plays a stagehand who dreams about a concert in which all the musicians and members of the audience are played by Buster Keaton. The gag was reprised in "An American In Paris" (1951), with all the parts played by Oscar Levant.

Tower of Evil (1972)

 

TOWER OF EVIL  (1972)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jim O'Connolly

    Bryant Haliday, Jill Haworth, Jack Watson

    Anna Palk, Mark Edwards, Candace Glendenning,

    Derek Fowlds, Seretta Wilson, Gary Hamilton,

    Dennis Price, Robin Askwith, George Coulouris,

    John Hamill, Anthony Valentine, Marianne Stone

When some young backpackers are brutally murdered on an island the locals won't go near, a team of mod archeologists go there to investigate and look for an ancient Phoenician treasure. A kind of proto-slasher movie that starts out in the fog and ends with some decent pyrotechnics. Notable for its blatantly suggestive language, a fair amount of nudity and costumes that look like vintage Carnaby Street. Alternate titles: "Horror of Snape Island", "Beyond the Fog".

Street of Chance (1930)

 

STREET OF CHANCE  (1930)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: John Cromwell

    William Powell, Kay Francis, Regis Toomey,

    Jean Arthur, Bruce Benedict, Stanley Fields

William Powell plays a gambler whose wife (Kay Francis) wants him to go straight, which he promises to do, as soon as he settles some unfinished business. She's heard that before, and says so, but he says he means it this time, he just has one more thing to take care of and they'll get out of town. Will he really be back in time to catch the noon train? Will she be waiting when he gets there? Two things you can take away from this movie: 1) Don't gamble, and 2) If you do, bet the percentages. 

Sundown (2021)

SUNDOWN  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Michel Franco 

    Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios,

    Samuel Bottomley, Albertine Kotting McMillan

Tim Roth, looking a bit weathered, plays a Brit on vacation at a luxury resort in Mexico with his sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her two grown children. When a family emergency calls them back to London, he decides not to go, claims he's lost his passport, and checks into a hotel in a part of Acapulco where wealthy gringos don't normally go. He seems out of it - a functioning zombie - and you don't really find out why till close to the end. More puzzling is why he's being such an asshole. He's rich - the family owns slaughterhouses - so maybe that's part of it, like, if you've got enough pesos and you're feeling disaffected, the rules don't apply. Keep an eye out for the pigs.

When Knighthood Was In Flower (1922)

WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER 

    D: Robert G. Vignola                   (1922)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Marion Davies, Lyn Harding, William Norris,

    William Powell, Forrest Stanley, Flora Finch

A silent costume adventure starring William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend as Mary Queen of Scots. In this account of her early life, Mary's just turned 16 and her big brother, Henry VIII, wants to marry her off to the doddering king of France, when Mary breaks with royal protocol by falling in love with a commoner. Hearst liked seeing Davies in period pieces, and this is one of them. It looks like a million bucks, and it should: It cost a million and a half to produce. There are swordfights and chases on horseback, treachery and romance, daring rescues and narrow escapes, but at two hours, it feels kind of long. Skinny, young William H. Powell, in his second film and still more than a decade away from "The Thin Man", plays a knave who wants to deflower the queen.