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. 

Four Frightened People (1934)

 

FOUR FRIGHTENED PEOPLE  (1934)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Cecil B. DeMille

    Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, William Gargan,

    Mary Boland, Leo Carillo, Nella Walker, Ethel Griffies

This is where DeMille makes a Tarzan movie, but without Tarzan. It's about four passengers who escape a plague ship by stealing a lifeboat and find themselves lost in the jungle after they wash up on land. Claudette Colbert gets top billing as a mousy schoolteacher who becomes more assertive as she loses her glasses and civilized wardrobe. The credibility quotient is not high, but it's offset by the movie's casual attitude to its own silliness. Colbert would appear in DeMille's "Cleopatra" and Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night" the same year. 

Maigret (1988)

 

MAIGRET  (1988)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Paul Lynch

    Richard Harris, Patrick O'Neal, Victoria Tennant,

    Ian Ogilvy, Barbara Shelley, Dominique Barnes

Paris Police Inspector Maigret (Richard Harris) takes on an investigation in which all the suspects appear to be connected to a family of greedy industrialists. Harris is the whole show in this, with a shuffling gait, a slouch hat, a pair of wire-framed specs and an unmistakable Irish accent. He might not be quite what Georges Simenon had in mind, but he's never not fun to watch. Made for TV.

Joe (2013)

 

JOE  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: David Gordon Green

    Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter,

    Ronnie Gene Blevins, Adrienne Mishler,

    Sue Rock, Heather Kafka, AJ Wilson McPhaul

Nicolas Cage plays the title role, a middle-aged guy living in a backwater hellhole where he makes a living running a crew of day laborers, killing trees for a company that wants them dead so they can be cut down. He's estranged from his family, he drinks and smokes too much, he's a regular at the local whorehouse, and he's subject to bouts of uncontrollable rage. Despite all that, he's a basically decent guy. He's not looking for trouble, but trouble always finds him. What you've got here is a Southern Gothic twist on "Nobody's Fool", with Cage as a more damaged and volatile version of Paul Newman's Donald Sullivan. Tye  Sheridan plays a kid who goes to work on Joe's crew, and there's a scary performance by Gary Poulter as the boy's abusive, alcoholic father. Poulter was literally cast off the street, and there's a real sense that he's not so much acting his role as living it. He died two months after shooting ended. Director David Gordon Green and cinematographer Tim Orr conjure up a dimly lit world you'll be glad you're not living in, a place you'd just drive on through, no matter how bad you needed a coke or a pack of smokes, and Cage gives one of his most compelling performances.

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

 

LAUREL AND HARDY'S LAUGHING 20's  

    D: Robert Youngson                    (1965)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

A collection of clips from the Hal Roach studio, featuring Laurel and Hardy and numerous (more obscure) silent comedy stars. Robert Youngson made a series of these compilation films, which helped keep silent movies in the public eye at a time when the public's memory of them was fading. Highlight: Extended footage of the pie fight in "The Battle of the Century" (1927).

Naked Edge / Take 10

 

Anya Taylor-Joy and some Vikings 

  in "The Northman"

Maria Ford and some dancing rat women 

  in "Burial of the Rats"

Milla Jovovich, Moira Kelly and some chorus girls 

  in "Chaplin"

Some beach girls 

  in "Evils of the Night"

Some of the nuns 

  in "The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine"

The cheerleaders 

  in "Satan's Cheerleaders"

The wives 

  in "Satan's Wife"

The tableau girls and stagehands 

  in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"

The inmates 

  of "Love Camp 7"

F1 (2025)

 

F1  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Joseph Kosinski 

    Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem,

    Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia

When my Uncle Barney was driving stock cars on dirt tracks around southern Wisconsin back in the 1950s, the strategy for racing was simple: foot to the floor and turn left. When Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is asked how he plans to compete in a Formula One race in "F1", his answer is equally succinct: drive fast. Hayes is a barnstormer, a guy living out of a van who will race anything anywhere, and he's been off the Formula One circuit for 30 years when an old colleague (Javier Bardem) coaxes him back, to drive one of his cars and mentor a new young driver (Damson Idris) who has all the tools but still needs to learn a few things if he wants to get to the top. It's a formula Formula One script, but as a piece of summertime escape, it gets the job done. The cars fly like bullets, powered by space-age technology, and the camerawork in the racing scenes could have you bracing yourself and holding your breath. (IMAX theaters should be equipped with seat belts for movies like this.) Sonny Hayes is the kind of role Paul Newman or Steve McQueen would've played a few decades ago (and did), and Pitt's performance is a throwback to that: a movie star at the top of his game and so at ease in front of the camera, he can command the screen without even seeming to try.

Grand Prix (1966)

 

GRAND PRIX  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Frankenheimer

    James Garner, Yves Montand, Eva Marie Saint, 

    Toshiro Mifune, Jessica Walter, Brian Bedford,

    Antonio Sabato, Adolfo Celi, Françoise Hardy

Drivers and owners, wives and girlfriends follow the Grand Prix circuit in a movie that thunders and roars in its pulse-pounding racing scenes but runs low on gas when it's not on the track. There was  no CGI back then, so Frankenheimer mounted cameras on the cars and had guys drive them real fast, something he'd do again more than 30 years later when he made "Ronin". (He didn't speed up the film. The cars really are going that fast.) Garner apparently did his own driving. The split-screen montage sequences were the work of legendary title designer Saul Bass. Several of the drivers who worked on this would die racing over the next few years. 

Never Let Me Go (2010)

 

NEVER LET ME GO  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Romanek

    Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley,

    Charlotte Rampling, Sally Hawkins, Izzy Meikle-Small,

    Charlie Rowe, Ella Purnell, Domhnall Gleeson,

    Andrea Riseborough, Nathalie Richard, Hannah Sharp

British boarding-school students form a contentious three-way friendship while being groomed for their mandated mission in life: to donate their organs in a series of surgeries, up to the point where they flatline and are declared "completed." There are elements of sci-fi and horror in this, but it's so low-key and beautifully done, you might not notice. As creep shows go, it's uncommonly smart and quiet, and the story, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, does a nice job of subverting expectations. The colors are muted, the sets and costumes are from another time, and the young actors who play the Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley characters as 12-year-olds are nicely cast. It's a movie that finds eeriness in restraint.

Duel of Champions (1961)

 

DUEL OF CHAMPIONS  (1961)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ferdinando Baldi, Terence Young

    Alan Ladd, Franca Bettoja, Jacques Sernas,

    Robert Keith, Andrea Aurel, Jacqueline Derval, 

    Violette Marceau, Franco Fabrizi, Luciano Marin

Who knew that once upon a time, the fate of the Roman Empire was in the hands of Alan Ladd?

I'm Still Here (2024)

 

I'M STILL HERE  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Walter Salles

    Fernanda Torres, Luyiza Kosovski, Selton Mello,

    Cora Mora, Augusto Trainotti, Fernanda Montenegro

"I'm Still Here" is about a woman trying to find out what happened to her husband who's disappeared in Brazil during the dictatorship. The husband's a former senator who's been abducted by agents working for the police or the army but who look and act more like regular kidnappers. The woman's forceful in a way that somebody with less affluence and status might not be, but that's not enough to prevent her from being taken into custody and interrogated herself. A harrowing look at a political system where dissent is silenced, resistance is crushed, and the key to power is stoking pervasive fear. Think that can't happen here? We'll see. An Oscar winner for best foreign language film, with a commanding performance by Fernanda Torres in the lead. Fernanda Montenegro (Torres' mother) has a quietly moving cameo late in the film. 

Mermaids of Tiburon (1962)

 

MERMAIDS OF TIBURON  (1962)  ¢ ¢

    D: John Lamb

    George Rowe, Diane Webber, Timothy Carey,

    Jose Gonzales-Gonzales, Gaby Martone,

    Judy Edwards, Jean Carroll, Diana Cook

Two divers - a ruthless scumbag looking for pearls and a marine biologist studying marine lifeforms - take off in separate boats to explore the waters around a mysterious island. They find exactly what you'e expect them to find in a movie called "Mermaids of Tiburon". Much of the film takes place underwater, and the amount of screen time devoted to bare-breasted women is unusual for 1962. Apparently, the picture was released in a G-rated version that died a quick box office death, while an uncut version that played in military theaters got a much more enthusiastic reception. Hmmm. Go figure. 

Monte Walsh (1970)

 

MONTE WALSH  (1970)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: William A. Fraker

    Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Jeanne Moreau,

    Jim Davis, Mitchell Ryan, G.D. Spradlin,

    Matt Clark, Bo Hopkins, Allyn Ann McLerie

Marvin and Palance play aging cowpokes in a changing West, where accountants are taking over the cattle industry, jobs are becoming scarce, and the open range is being fenced in. A western that manages to be both playful and meloncholy, a celebration and an elegy for a vanishing way of life. Marvin's at his tight-lipped best, and Palance, in a rare sympathetic role, gives one of his most affecting and least mannered performances. 

Nitram (2021)

 

NITRAM  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Justin Kurzel

    Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Essie Davis,

    Anthony LaPaglia, Sean Keenan, Phoebe Taylor

I went into this movie without knowing the story behind it. It's set in Australia and its main character is a guy in his 20s living at home with his parents and subject to bouts of erratic behavior thanks to some significant mental health issues. He has the look of a surfer and, in fact, he longs to be one, though he's never surfed and doesn't even swim anymore. He's all impulse and no filter and there's a vaguely blank look about him that tells you the circuits don't all connect. There's a real sense that without mum and dad to keep a watchful eye on him, he'd be institutionalized, and that maybe he should be. You just hope he doesn't hurt anybody, and you really hope he's taking his meds. It's when he walks into a gun shop and starts putting together an arsenal that you start to think, oh no, this is not going to end well, and that's where the backstory comes in. Caleb Landry Jones in the lead gives the kind of performance that could make you feel real uncomfortable. Judy Davis (looking old) and Anthony LaPaglia (looking heavy) play his caring but beleaguered parents. 

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

 

MIGHTY JOE YOUNG  (1949)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ernest B. Schoedsack

    Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong,

    Frank McHugh, Douglas Fowley, Nestor Paiva,

    Regis Toomey, Paul Guilfoyle, Lora Lee Michel

A young girl living in the African jungle takes in a baby gorilla that grows up to be real big. A hustling showman who looks just like the guy who brought you King Kong persuades the girl to bring the ape to America, which (spoiler alert!) turns out to be a bad idea. A knockoff script, but it's fun to see Ben Johnson in a rare early lead, and the effects, by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, look real good. 

Paperback Hero (1999)

 

PAPERBACK HERO  (1999)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Anthony J. Bowman

    Claudia Karvan, Hugh Jackman, Angie Milliken,

    Andrew S. Gilbert, Jeanie Drynan, Barry Rugless

A truck driver writes a romance novel and gets it published under the name of a woman who knows nothing about what he's up to. When the book takes off and the publishers want the author to start doing publicity, things get complicated. A good-natured, off-road comedy from Down Under. Hugh Jackman's first theatrical film.

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

 

NOUVELLE VAGUE  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Richard Linklater 

    Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin,

    Bruno Dreyfürst, Benjamin Clery, Matthieu Penchinat,

    Thom Novembre, Laurent Mothe, Jodie Ruth Forest

Richard Linklater's funny, affectionate homage to the French New Wave, set in 1959, with Jean-Luc Goddard, Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in the streets making "Breathless", and everybody else who was involved in the French film scene at the time passing through or dropping by. A real movie-lover's movie, in French and black and white, with scenes from Godard's iconic first feature scrupulously recreated. You don't have to be a fan of the New Wave to appreciate what Linklater's up to, but it doesn't hurt. Watching it on a double bill with "Breathless" wouldn't be a bad idea, either. 

Raiders of the Lost Shark (2015)

 

RAIDERS OF THE LOST SHARK  (2015)   ¢ ¢

    D: Brett Kelly

    Candice Lidstone, Jessica Huether, Catherine Mary Clark,

    Richard Gruen, John Migliore, Lawrence Evenchick,

    Angela Parent, Kitty Kamieniecki, Faith Rayah

Dopey regional horror from Ontario (eh?) about some people being munched on by a giant prehistoric flying monster shark. By my count, eleven characters are killed by the shark and seven-and-a-half women strip down to their swimsuits but only one of them gets topless. Now that you know what's important, it's up to you whether you actually want to watch. 

Otley (1969)

 

OTLEY  (1969)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Dick Clement

    Tom Courtenay, Romy Schneider, Alan Badel,

    James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, James Bolam,

    Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey

With all the spy movies that came out in the mid-to-late '60s, a few were bound to be underappreciated, and one of those was this one. Tom Courtenay plays Gerald Arthur Otley, a petty thief and overall layabout who's hijacked into an espionage caper and finds that his talent for bluffing and conniving could be his ticket to survival. A slim chance, to be sure, but it's all he's got. It's one of Courtenay's best roles, and arguably his funniest performance: a working-class idler who's in way over his head but won't admit that to anybody, least of all himself. Highlight: a high-speed car chase that coincides with Otley's behind-the-wheel driving test. 

The Love Statue (1965)

 

THE LOVE STATUE  (1965)  ¢ ¢

    D: David E. Durston

    Peter Ratray, Ondine Lisé, Harvey Goldenberg,

    Nancy Norman, Hisako Tsukuba, Coleman Younger

An avant-garde beatnik drug exposé about what happens when a struggling artist takes LSD and a statue comes to life. This looks like something an improv theater group might've done as an experiment on their days off between shows. There's even a sign that reads "LOFT PLAYERS" on one of the apartment doors in the building where there artist hangs out. The writing, acting and sound are all pretty rough, but some of the black-and-white camerawork isn't bad, and the movie makes effective use of a well-timed snowstorm and its New York City locations. 

A House of Dynamite (2025)

 

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Kathryn Bigelow

    Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Jared Harris,

    Tracy Letts, Gabriel Basso, Anthony Ramos,

    Moses Ingram, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Greta Lee

"Fail-Safe" for the 21st century.

Movie Star Moment: Lillian Gish

 

Lillian Gish as The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle

in "Intolerance" (1916)

    Lillian Gish is generally considered to be the silent era's greatest dramatic actress. On screen starting in 1912 (and active into her 90s), she played a series of beleaguered heroines in films like "Broken Blossoms", "Way Down East", "Orphans of the Storm" and "The Wind". She did some of her best work for D.W. Griffith, who cast her in a pivotal cameo in his groundbreaking epic "Intolerance". 

    With a narrative of unprecedented scope and ambition, "Intolerance" tells four different stories from four different centuries simultaneously, cutting constantly between them. The connection is a recurring shot of Gish as a woman rocking a cradle, providing Griffith with a transition device and the film with something like transcendence. 

    Why Gish took such a small role in such an ambitious project when she was arguably Griffith's biggest star is a matter of some speculation, but there she is, never on the screen for more than a few seconds, endlessly rocking the cradle, an image of simple humanity linking the bloodthirsty ages, the eternal cinematic mother of us all.

Misunderstood (2014)

 

MISUNDERSTOOD  (2014)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Asia Argento 

    Giulia Salerno, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Gabriel Garko,

    Carolina Poccioni, Anna Lou Castoldi, Alice Pea

The protagonist in this movie is a smart, inquisitive nine-year-old girl named Aria, traipsing around Rome between the two broken poles in an affluent but dysfunctional family. He mom's a concert pianist and borderline out-of-control diva plowing her way through a series of sketchy boyfriends. Her dad's a superstitious movie actor whose tenuous stability is severely tested when the girl brings home her best and newest friend, a black cat. It's a rough, ragged piece of work, reflecting the girl's view of her world, or Argento's approach to filmmaking, and possibly both. Charlotte Gainsbourg disappears into her role as the mother. I kept watching her, thinking, okay , when's Charlotte Gainsbourg going to show up, and then realized, oh, that's her. Giulia Salerno, who plays Aria, is remarkable, and the image of her walking the streets alone with a duffel bag and a cat in a carrier could stay in your head long after the rest of the movie slips away. 

Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle For the Arab World (2003)

 

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: THE BATTLE FOR THE 

ARAB WORLD  (2003)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: James Hawes  

It's no accident that the original ad art for David Lean's 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia" was an ink-drawn head shot of a man whose face was completely obscured. More than 100 years since he helped lead the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War One, T.E. Lawrence remains one of the 20th century's most elusive historical figures. This documentary covers the basics and gets at some of the politics involved in Lawrence's wartime adventures and the disastrous impact of the post-war settlement that carved up the Middle East. The filmmakers spent a lot of time and money on reenactments, which look real good but aren't at all convincing when viewed side-by-side with archival footage, and especially with multiple actors playing Lawrence. As for Lawrence himself, the warrior/scholar/ 

spy/recluse/exhibitionist who alternately relished his time in the spotlight and shrank away from it, he continues to be what he always was and seems likely to remain: an enigma.

Jacky In the Kingdom of Women (2014)

 

JACKY IN THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN 

    D: Riad Sattouf                        (2014)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Vincent Lacoste, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Didier Bourdon,

    Anémone, Michel Hazenavicius, Valérie Bonneton

An upside-down Cinderella story set in a society where women wield absolute power and men are sheep. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays the Prince Charming figure, faced with choosing a mate from thousands of groveling, submissive men. There's a reveal - a literal one - at the end that's both a shock and somehow not much of a surprise. As satire, this is a little too on-the-nose, and as comedy it's a little too silly, but . . . Charlotte Gainsbourg. The odds of it ever playing in Iran or Afghanistan are zero. 

Memphis Belle (1990)

 

MEMPHIS BELLE  (1990)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michael Caton-Jones

    Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Tate Donovan,

    D.B.Sweeney, Billy Zane, Sean Astin,

    Harry Connick Jr., Reed Diamond, Neil Giuntoli,

    David Strathairn, John Lithgow, Jane Horrocks

The eight members of a B-17 bomber crew take off on their 25th combat mission, their last before they go home. Things do not go according to plan. This movie gets a couple of things right that a lot of World War Two movies don't. The haircuts fit the period and the flyers are young - barely older than kids - and the bickering banter between them sounds real. Once they get in the air, it's a white-knuckle flight all the way. Buckle up. 

Pennies From Heaven (1936)

 

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN  (1936)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Z. McLeod

    Bing Crosby, Edith Fellows, Madge Evans,

    Louis Armstrong, Donald Meek, George Chandler

A wandering minstrel from Mukilteo, Washington, finds his carefree life being disrupted by a young girl, her grandfather and the caseworker who could have the girl sent to an orphanage. Louis Armstrong gets a song and Bing gets several, in what's either not much of a movie, or just enough, depending on your point of view. 

Violated (1953)

 

VIOLATED  (1953)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Walter Strate

    William Holland, Lili Dawn, Vicki Carlson,

    Mitchell Kowell, Fred Lambert, Jason Niles

A maniac is going around stabbing women with a pair of scissors and cutting off their hair. A pretty young model gets a job posing for a fashion photographer. A psychiatrist has a conversation with a guy who has a habit of stalking and molesting young women but says he won't do that anymore. The photographer comes on to a stripper who gives him the brush, but that might not be a good idea. The cops are questioning the usual suspects, and the psychiatrist will share his patients' confidential files with just about anybody. Connect the dots. 

Yesterday (2019)

YESTERDAY  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Danny Boyle

    Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon,

    Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Robert Carlyle

A tuneful musical fantasy about a struggling singer/songwriter named Jack Malik (Himesh Partel) who gets knocked cold in a traffic accident at the moment the power goes out all over the world. He comes to in a world where nobody's heard of cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Harry Potter, or (most significantly) the Beatles. Seizing an opportunity, he cribs the Beatles' music and lyrics and soon finds himself being hailed as the greatest rock-&-roll artist of all time. There are complications. Another reminder of how amazing and timeless the Beatles' songs are, and a good choice to go on a double bill with Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe". Robert Carlyle has an uncredited cameo, delivering some sage advice that helps Jack navigate a tricky situation toward the end of the film. You won't recognize Carlyle, but you'll know who he's playing immediately. 

They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

 

THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL  (1939)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Busby Berkeley

    John Garfield, Gloria Dickson, Claude Rains, 

    Ann Sheridan, May Robson, Billy Halop,

    Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall,

    Frank Riggi, John Ridgley, Ward Bond

In his second feature film, John Garfield plays a prizefighter who goes on the lam when he's framed for a murder and ends up on an Arizona date farm where the Dead End Kids are cracking wise and cooling their heels. Claude Rains steps out of character as a hard-boiled police detective determined to track Garfield down. The studio was Warner Bros. (of course). 

Trapped Ashes (2006)

 

TRAPPED ASHES  (2006)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Ken Russell,

    John Gaeta, Sean S. Cunningham

    C: Henry Gibson, Rachel Veltri, Lara Harris,

    John Saxon, Scott Lowell, Joyce Bartok,

    Michèle Barbara Pelletier, Dick Miller

When six people on an exclusive studio tour find themselves trapped in a backlot haunted house, the tour guide suggests they follow the plot of a famous movie that was shot there and try to escape by telling each other horror stories. In one of the stories, a woman has a sexual encounter with a Japanese ghoul. In another, a screenwriter's life takes a twisted turn when a friend sets him up with his girlfriend. In a third, a woman's twin is a tapeworm. In the fourth (actually the first), an actress faces dire consequences when she has breast enhancement surgery (yuck!) and her boobs turn into vampires. And there's still the matter of how these people are going to get out of that house. Nothing that happens in this is all that exciting, and the movie's too goofy to be really scary - or maybe it's not goofy enough - but you could do worse than to put yourself in the hands of these filmmakers. Flash back to an earlier time, and it wouldn't be hard to imagine Boris Karloff or Vincent Price in the Henry Gibson role. 

Rampage (1963)

RAMPAGE  (1963)  ¢ ¢

    D: Phil Karlson

    Robert Mitchum, Jack Hawkins, Elsa Martinelli, Sabu

Robert Mitchum plays a guy who traps wild animals for zoos. Jack Hawkins plays a guy who shoots wild animals for his trophy room. Machismo boils over when Elsa Martinelli comes between them. Also, some real big cats.

Womb (2010)

 

WOMB  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Benedek Fliegauf

    Eva Green, Matt Smith, Tristan Christopher,

    Lesley Manville, Peter Wight, Ruby O. Fee,

    Hannah Murray, Natalia Tena, Gina Stiebitz

A boy and a girl meet up on an isolated beach and become best friends. They separate when she moves away, but 12 years later, they reconnect and become lovers. Then there's an accident and things get strange. Cloning and incest are involved. This is an odd one, and a movie you could watch just for how it looks. It's beautifully shot, and director Benedek Fliegauf holds shots several beats longer than you'd expect, so you get plenty of time to take the images in. There's a stillness and slowness to the movie that's almost hypnotic, and a lot of those images feature Eva Green. Take a look.

The Virginian (1929)

 

THE VIRGINIAN  (1929)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Victor Fleming

    Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Mary Brian,

    Richard Arlen, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette

In his first all-talking movie, a lean, young Gary Cooper plays Owen Wister's nameless cowboy, who stands up to a rustler played by Walter Huston, romances a schoolmarm played by Mary Brian, and rolls and lights a cigarette using just one hand. Movies were still figuring out what to do with sound at that point, and Cooper was still figuring out how to act in them. They'd both improve a lot in the next few years. According to IMDb, Randolph Scott was Cooper's dialect coach, resulting in what may or may not pass for a Virginia accent. 

Two Moon Junction (1988)

TWO MOON JUNCTION  (1988)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Zalman King

    Sherilyn Fenn, Richard Tyson, Kristy McNichol,

    Louise Fletcher, Burl Ives, Martin Hewitt,

    Juanita Moore, Millie Perkins, Don Galloway,

    Dabbs Greer, Milla Jovovich, Hervé Villechaize

Softcore, soft-focus erotica about a society princess who falls for a carnival hunk. The sex scenes - the whole point of something like this - aren't nearly enough to make up for the dullness of the romance-novel plot. Kristy McNichol does a lively bit as a fun-loving truck driver, but appears too briefly and disappears way too soon. 

Utopia (1951)

 

UTOPIA  (1951)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Léo Joannon, John Berry

    Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Suzy Delair, Max Elloy,

    Adriano Rimaldi, Luigi Tosi, Claude May

Laurel and Hardy's last movie, in which Stan and Ollie inherit a topical island and a boat to take them there, isn't quite as bad s its reputation suggests. Some of the gags land, especially early on, but overall, it's hit-and-miss, and it drags toward the end, with a detour into political satire. Stan was visibly ill during filming, and while his performance is fine, his emaciated appearance undercuts some of the funny stuff. "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into," Ollie says just before the end title rolls. They're the last words he'd ever say onscreen. "I couldn't help it," Stan says, crying, just as he had in other films many times before. And with that, Laurel and Hardy's movie career was over. Original title: "Atoll K". 

Naked Edge / Take 9

 

Kate Winslet in "Iris"

Stella Stevens in "Slaughter"

Marion Cotillard in "Ismael's Ghosts" 

Sienna Miller in "Factory Girl"

Emma Stone in "Poor Things"

Molly Parker in "Suspicious River"

Neve Campbell in "I Really Hate My Job"

Eva Green in "Proxima"

Sean Young in "Blue Ice"

Melora Walters in "20 Bucks"

An Angel For Satan (1966)

 

AN ANGEL FOR SATAN  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Camillo Mastrocinque

    Barbara Steele. Anthony Steffen, Claudio Gora,

    Mario Brega, Marina Berti, Ursula Davis,

    Vassili Karis, Aldo Berti, Antonia Corevi

A sculptor accepts a commission to restore a 200-year-old statue that's been dredged from a lake and which the local villagers believe to be cursed. Also, Barbara Steele plays a witch. Or does she? Nicely shot Italian horror with black-and-white images of men and boats on the water that look like something out of Bergman. (Director Camillo Mastrocinque was making movies as early as 1937, so maybe Bergman learned something from him.)

Satan's Wife (1979)

 

SATAN'S WIFE  (1979)  ¢ ¢

    D: Pier Carpi

    Anne Heywood, Lara Wendel, Valentina Cortese,

    Frank Finlay, Marisa Mell, John Phillip Law,

    Irene Papas, Paola Tedesco, Ian Bannen, Enzio Miani

The devil takes possession of a 13-year-old girl, which is kind of what happens to 13-year-old girls, but usually not like this. 

Satan's Slave (1976)

 

SATAN'S SLAVE  (1976)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Norman J. Warren

    Michael Gough, Martin Potter, Candace Glendenning,

    Barbara Kellerman, Michael Craze, Gloria Maley

A young woman named Catherine goes to spend a few days with an uncle at his house in the county. Her holiday starts out badly when, as soon as they reach the estate, her dad drives the car into a tree, and while she runs to get help, the car explodes and her parents are burned to death. Then she has these dreams - she calls them premonitions - that involve devil worship. But are they really dreams? And will she survive, or will she, you know, become Satan's slave? A little skin, a little blood, and a veteran horror star (Michael Gough) playing the uncle, but way too much talk and not enough Satan. (In a movie called "Satan's Slave", you'd better give the devil his due.) Side note: The naked blonde woman being tortured by Satanists in one of Catherine's dreams is Moira Young, one of the film's producers. Apparently, as the time to shoot the scene approached, it turned out the actress hired to play the part was in jail, so Young stepped in as a replacement, and that's her by the tree, being whipped and branded.

Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)

SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS  (1977)  ¢ ¢

    D: Greydon Clark

    John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, Jack Kruschen,

    John Carradine, Sydney Chaplin, Jacquilin Cole,

    Ketty Sherman, Alisa Powell, Hillary Horan,

    Sherry Marks, Lane Cordell, Joseph Carlo

Bargain-shelf horror about a carload of high-school cheerleaders who get sidetracked on their way to a football game when they meet up with a coven of Satanists. John Ireland and Yvonne De Carlo take time to wonder where their careers went, while John Carradine, who knew all about pictures like this, simply makes himself at home. The movie's just goofy enough and dumb enough to be fun. I'd recommend watching it late at night and smoking something first. 

The Room Next Door (2024)

 

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Pedro Almodóvar

    Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro

Tilda Swinton, looking skeletal, plays a woman who's dying, knows she's dying, and wants to die. Deciding against any more treatment, she gets a euthanasia pill off the dark web and asks an old friend (Julianne Moore), not to help with the act itself, but to be around, in the next room, when it happens. Almodóvar's color-coded reflection on end-of-life issues is beautifully composed and formal to the point of being a little stiff. Its characters are attractive, smart, accomplished and affluent enough not to have to worry too much about paying the rent and hospital bills, or whether they can afford to fix the brakes or replace the bald tires on the family car. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a fact that most folks don't get to die so neatly or in such elegant surroundings. On the other hand, most people who are dying in movies aren't played by Tilda Swinton, whose character, a veteran war correspondent, has lived life on her own terms, feels it slipping away, and doesn't see the point of hanging around much longer. It's the kind of performance you can't look away from, whether it's the almost imperceptible way her lower lip trembles with an involuntary twinge of pain, or the way her eyes light up when she opens the door and (literally) catches a breath of fresh air. It's Almodóvar's first feature in English, set in New York state, but partly filmed in Spain.

Wilde Salomé (2011)

 

WILDE SALOMÉ  (2011)  ¢ ¢

    D: Al Pacino

Al Pacino directed this documentary about Al Pacino making a movie about Al Pacino directing a stage production of Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" starring Al Pacino. That's an awful lot of Al Pacino. Maybe too much. See for yourself. 

The Thicket (2024)

 

THE THICKET  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Elliott Lester

    Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis, Esme Creed Miles,

    Levon Hawke, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Leslie Grace,

    Ned Dennehy, Derek Gilfoy, Arliss Howard

A brutal, snowbound western shot in Alberta, about a makeshift posse on the trail of a kidnapped girl and a notorious outlaw named Cutthroat Bill. If Peter Dinklage isn't the first actor you'd think to cast a a deadshot frontier bounty hunter, wait till you see Juliette Lewis as Cutthroat Bill. 

Tornado! (1996)

 

TORNADO!  (1996)  ¢ ¢

    D: Noel Nosseck

    Bruce Campbell, Shannon Sturges, Ernie Hudson,

    L.Q. Jones, Bo Eason, Carrie Boren, Charles Homet

A TV movie released more or less simultaneously with "Twister", about a daring gang of storm chasers tearing around the Texas Panhandle, hoping to catch up with a big one. The vain, publicity-savvy bad guy's a TV weatherman, not a rival storm chaser, and there's even a nifty little invention that could help track tornadoes better, if the team can just set it down in the middle of one. In "Twister", the device was called "Dorothy". In  this movie, it's called "Patti". I guess that makes all the difference. Not surprisingly, the tornado effects aren't nearly as hair-raising or cool-looking as the ones Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton had to deal with. No flying cows in this one. 

Variety Girl (1947)

 

VARIETY GIRL  (1947)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: George Marshall

    Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, DeForest Kelley, 

    Frank Ferguson, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, 

    Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Diana Lynn,

    Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Veronica Lake,

    Dorothy Lamour, Sterling Hayden, Gail Russell,

    Burt Lancaster, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard,

    Barry Fitzgerald, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Preston,

    Pearl Bailey, Mona Freeman, William Demarest,

    Frank Faylen, Cecil Kellaway, Spike Jones

A sort of Hollywood home movie in which a girl turns up in the land of dreams hoping for an audition and lots of stars wander in and out, some of them on screen no more than a few seconds. Pearl Bailey's the highlight. Alan Ladd sings a duet with Dorothy Lamour, and he's not bad. Paulette Goddard takes a bubble bath. Hope and Crosby trade a few good-natured barbs and do a little soft-shoe dance routine. In a demonstration of erratic marksmanship, Burt Lancaster aims a gun at the cigarette in Lizabeth Scott's mouth and shoots her instead. William Bendix shoves a grapefruit in Olga San Juan's face. It's silly and inconsequential, but when the stakes are this low, it doesn't really matter very much.

Driving Madeleine (2022)

 

DRIVING MADELEINE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Christian Carion

    Line Renaud, Dany Boon, Alice Isaaz,

    Jérémie Lahuerte, Gwendoline Hamon,

    Julie Delarme, Thomas Alden

Dr. Sporgersi,

I saw a good French movie yesterday called "Driving Madeleine", about a Paris cab driver who takes an old woman from her home to the assisted-living facility she's moving into. He ends up driving her all over the city, to places where key events in her life took place. It's very well done, with some dark stuff I didn't expect, and a fairy-tale ending that only works because after spending two hours in the car with these people, it's exactly what you want to see happen. You see a lot of Paris, too. That's my recommendation for today. If you see it sometime, let me know what you think. 

                                                                                                 Nick

The Lords of Salem (2012)

 

THE LORDS OF SALEM  (2012)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Rob Zombie

    Sheri Moon Zombie, Meg Foster, Bruce Davison,

    Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn,

    Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Maria Conchita Alonso,

    Andrew Prine, Sid Haig, Brynn Horrocks, Lisa Marie

A 17th-century witch's curse starts to manifest itself 300 years later, targeting a radio DJ in (where else?) Salem, Massachusetts. The movie starts out with a colonial coven dancing naked in the woods, and before you know it, the witches are all being burned to death. (Historical footnote: The real Salem witches were hanged, not burned, and probably weren't even witches.) So, anyway, it's all coming down on this radio girl with the dreads and the tattoos and the attitude and the retro-hippie wardrobe, but there's nothing very original or even all that interesting in the story. We've seen these witches before, or witches just like them, in other movies, but the movie's not bad to look at (Rob Zombie shot it without digital effects), and Meg Foster and Judy Geeson, checking in as two of the witches, are effectively unnerving.

Freud's Last Session (2023)

 

FREUD'S LAST SESSION  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Matt Brown

    Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode, Liv Lisa Fries,

    Jodi Balfour, Orla Brady, Jeremy Northam

In September of 1939, Sigmund Freud, exiled from Vienna, entertains a guest in his London apartment - the Oxford professor and future author of "The Chronicles of Narnia", C.S. Lewis. Much of what follows is a philosophical debate between the prickly, combative atheist Freud, played by Anthony Hopkins, and the more defensive but no less emphatic Christian apologist Lewis, played by Matthew Goode. Other elements play into the discussion. Freud is dying of cancer, hooked on morphine and in pain. His daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) has become his primary caregiver, and his incessant demands are exhausting her. Germany has invaded Poland and the Blitz is about to begin, and Lewis has lingering PTSD from his time in the infantry during the Great War. It's a lively intellectual joust and a spirited workout for Hopkins and Goode. Sir Anthony overdoes it a little - when you're alone a quiet room with just one other person, you don't have to project that much - and Goode, like Lewis, more than holds his own. No matter what side of the argument you come down on, it might be worth your while to listen in.

A Trip To Mars (1918)

 

A TRIP TO MARS  (1918)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Holger-Madsen

    Gunnar Tolnaes, Zanny Petersen, Nicolai Neiiendam,

    Frederic Jacobsen, Alf Blütecher, Svend Kornbeck

Silent Danish sci-fi about a crew of daring adventurers who fly off to Mars, where white-robed pacifists live in blissful tranquility, subsisting on an all-fruit diet. That's a stark contrast to life on Earth, where World War One was still going on, but it seems a bit boring, just the same, like the old harps-and-angels vision  of heaven. The version I saw on YouTube was colorized and looked pretty good. 

The Caller

 

THE CALLER  (1987)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Arthur Alan Seidelman

    Malcolm McDowell, Madolyn Smith

A woman's cooking dinner by herself in a house out in the woods when a guy shows up at the door asking to use the phone because he's had car trouble out on the road. What follows is a two-person psychodrama that keeps you guessing to the end. The woman seems a little unstable, and the man could be a manifestation of that, or he could be the devil, it's hard to say. What's going on here, anyway? And what kind of game is this? Will the woman win on points, or will somebody end up dead? It's a mystery, but if you feel like giving it a shot, here's a tip: Never trust Malcolm McDowell.