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.

Love and Other Drugs (2010)

 

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS  (2010)  ¢ ¢

    D: Edward Zwick

    Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt,

    Hank Azaria, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht,

    Jill Clayburgh, George Segal, Judy Greer

A hustling pharmaceutical salesman finds himself falling for an artist who's battling Parkinson's, when it turns out she has even less interest in emotional commitment than he does. Highlight: Anne Hathaway gets topless for a second or two. Downside: any scene with Josh Gad. Part romantic comedy and part disease-of-the-week melodrama, some if it sentimental and some of it just crass. The actors who play the Parkinson's patients at the convention in Chicago are real. 

Giallo (2009)

 

GIALLO  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Dario Argento

    Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky,

    Valentina Izumi, Robert Miano, Silvia Spross

Leave it to Dario Argento to make a giallo and call it "Giallo". It's a stylish (and bloody) suspense thriller starring Adrien Brody as a police inspector hunting a serial killer who's stalking and cutting up beautiful women. The killer, also played by Brody, is a real ghoul. He might be damaged and deeply disturbed, but you'd still like to see him dead. Brody's low-key performance as the detective anchors the piece and acts as a counterpoint to everything else. Filmed in Turin.

Flashback: "Plan 9 From Outer Space"

 

"One is always considered mad when one perfects 

  something that others cannot grasp."

  Edward D. Wood Jr.

    I remember the first time I saw "Plan 9 From Outer Space". It was 1961 and I was in 8th grade and I remember going into school on a Monday, and all anybody could talk about, at least all the guys, was this movie we'd all seen on Channel 27 on Saturday night: "Grave Robbers From Outer Space". ("Grave Robbers From Outer Space" was the movie's original title.) We were all critics, at least when it came to the kinds of movies that turned up on Channel 27 on Saturday night. And even at 13 or 14, we knew we had viewed something that was both uniquely terrible and unlike anything else. 

    "Plan 9", as millions of former 14-year-olds know, was the creation of Edward D. Wood Jr., a World War Two veteran and cross-dressing auteur whose ambition to make great movies was matched only by his spectacular inability to do that. Wood had completed at least three ultra-low-budget features by the time he started shooting "Plan 9" in November of 1956. He had also befriended Bela Lugosi at a low point in Lugosi's life and career, and had shot a couple minutes of silent footage of Lugosi for a project called "The Vampire's Tomb". When Lugosi died not long after that, Wood decided to incorporate those two minutes into a whole other film that could then be promoted as Bela Lugosi's last movie. Which he did.

    On the surface, at least, the movie's plot has some parallels to "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the Robert Wise sci-fi classic from 1951. Aliens in flying saucers touch down on Earth with a warning that humans are close to developing the solaronite, a bomb that could blow up the universe by igniting the rays of the sun. To prevent this, they have a plan (Plan 9), which involves resurrectiong the dead and unleashing a zombie army to destroy the human race. They start by reviving three recently deceased humans: an old man (the Lugosi character, played for most of the movie by an actor who looks nothing like him), the old man's wife (witchy TV horror star Vampira), and a police inspector (professional wrestler and lumbering giant Tor Johnson). Will Earth survive this deadly threat? Spoiler Alert: The suspense won't kill you.

    For years, ever since the Golden Turkey Awards came out in 1980, the film's status has rested on its reputation as the worst movie ever made. It's not, but you can see how the case could be made. You've got Vampira and Tor Johnson skulking around a graveyard in which the grave markers visibly wobble when the actors walk too close to them. You've got the set for the cockpit of an airplane that's not much more than a few pieces of plywood and a plastic shower curtain. You've got the alien ruler (John "Bunny" Breckinridge) and the spaceship commander (Dudley Manlove) trying to outdo each other in the don't-ask-don't-tell sweepstakes. You've got flying saucers that look like little silver nipples dangling from invisible wires, and pyrotechnics that look like they were produced with matches and lighter fluid. You've got actors like Lyle Talbot and Gregory Walcott, who had long Hollywood careers, struggling to save themselves from Wood's hopelessly overwrought script. And more. And yet . . . 

    "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is never dull. You might watch it wondering how this thing ever got made, but you end up being glad it did. Because what stands out, apart from its colossal unplanned silliness, is its total (and painful) sincerity. Wood absolutely believed he could achieve something close to greatness. It's apparent in every awkward frame. And against prohibitive odds, he got the movie made, and got his cast and crew to go along with it. 

   For a double feature some night, try watching "Plan 9" together with "Ed Wood", Tim Burton's biopic starring Johnny Depp. And if day turns to night and back again at unexpected moments, or Tor Johnson almost falls back into the grave he's supposed to be climbing out of, try not to be too critical. 

    As Depp says, playing Wood in the Tim Burton movie, "Cut! Perfect! Print it!" Ed couldn't have said it any better himself.

Slattery's Hurricane (1949)

SLATTERY'S HURRICANE  (1949)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Andre De Toth

    Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Veronica Lake, 

    John Russell, Gary Merrill, Walter Kingsford

Richard Widmark plays an ex-Navy pilot who flies into the eye of a hurricane in an apparent attempt to rise above an otherwise earthbound plot. Linda Darnell and Veronica Lake play the women in  his life, and John Russell, looking like a stand-in for Randolph Scott, plays an old buddy from the war. The airplane-against-the-storm stuff is okay, but the movie spends way too much time on the ground.

Juror #2 (2024)

 

JUROR #2  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons,

    Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough

    Amy Aquino, Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Bibb

Clint Eastwood's latest (and possibly last) movie is a riff on "12 Angry Men", about a murder trial, an ambitious prosecuting attorney, a defendant who seems guilty but might not be, and a  juror (Juror #2) who knows more about the case than he should. I'm not sure it all adds up, but it's an effective piece of cinematic storytelling, a reflection on the imperfect nature of justice, and the scenes in the jury room, for anybody who's ever sat on a jury, are right on the mark. Clint fans will note that some key flashback scenes take place in and around a roadhouse - a signature Eastwood location - and that the place is called Rowdy's Hideaway. A coincidence? Probably not. 

Way For a Sailor (1930)

 

WAY FOR A SAILOR  (1930)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Sam Wood

    John Gilbert, Wallace Beery, Leila Hyams,

    Jim Tully, Polly Moran, Doris Lloyd

A broadly played, early sound comedy starring John Gilbert and Wallace Beery as merchant seamen on shore leave. Various factors contributed to the collapse of Gilbert's career in the 1930s. His voice, his alcoholism and the wrath of Louis B. Mayer were all part of it, and so were movies like this. He made a couple of decent talkies, but "Way For a Sailor" wasn't one of them. The boys shoulda stayed on the boat. 

Hard Luck (1921)

 

HARD LUCK  (1921)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline

    Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts

Buster Keaton spends the first few minutes of this two-reeler trying to commit suicide.  Then other stuff happens. The gags involve a fish, a bear and a horse.

Lake Michigan Monster (2018)

 

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER  (2018)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews

    Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Beulah Peters,

    Erick West, Daniel Long, Wayne Tews

A crackpot comedy, shot cheaply (in Milwaukee and Muskegon), about a sea captain obsessed with hunting and killing a monster lurking offshore in Lake Michigan. It's the kind of thing the Marx Brothers and Monty Python excelled at, but pure zaniness can be hard to pull off. I watched it with a receptive crowd at Seattle's Grand Illusion, and beyond about the half-way point, the laughter really died away. (It loses something when the captain's "band of rowdy cutthroats" leave the scene and the captain takes over the story.) It's in black and white, and there are some imaginative, low-grade effects. 

His Majesty O'Keefe (1954)

 

HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE  (1954)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Byron Haskin

    Burt Lancaster, Joan Rice, André Morell,

    Benson Fong, Abraham Sofaer, Archie Savage,

    Philip Ahn, Charles Horvath, Tessa Prendergast

Cast adrift by a mutinous crew, a dashing sea captain washes up on a tropical island and immediately sees that there's a fortune to be made in coconut oil. Now all he has to do is secure some financing, find a boat and a crew, and coax the islanders into harvesting their coconuts. A colorful South Seas adventure, more leisurely than Lancaster's other swashbucklers, but still a passable showcase for Burt's distinctive brand of derring-do. If the '20s had Douglas Fairbanks, and the '30s and '40s had Errol Flynn, the '50s most emphatically had Burt Lancaster. 

Bikini Bloodbath (2006)

 

BIKINI BLOODBATH  (2006)  ¢

    D: Jonathan Gorman, Thomas Edward Seymour

    Debbie Rochon, Leah Ford, Robert Cosgrove,

    Sheri Bomb, Katie Gil, Anna-Karin Eskilsson,

    Natasha Nielsen, Olja Hrustic, Russ Russo,

    Dana Fay Ensalata, Margaret Rose Champagne

An empty-headed slasher flick about a bunch of bikini girls being stalked and chopped up by a killer wielding a meat cleaver and wearing a chef's hat. This movie tests the notion that there's any limit at all to how dumb 72 minutes of video footage can be. References to "Citizen Kane" and "Dazed and Confused" notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that there's not. 

The Accountant (2016)

 

THE ACCOUNTANT  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gavin O'Connor

    Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons,

    Jon Bernthal, Jean Smart, Cynthia Addai-Robinson,

    Jeffrey Tambor, Allison Wright, John Lithgow

A good, tricky thriller in which Ben Affleck plays a guy on the spectrum with two extraordinary skills: crunching numbers and killing people. That has  made him a lot of money, but his sense of perfection and obsession with leaving no mission incomplete have consequences. Ben and Anna Kendrick are the stars, but the standouts are J.K. Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson as the federal agents working the case. A sequel was released in 2025.

Gideon's Daughter (2005)

 

GIDEON'S DAUGHTER  (2005)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Stephen Poliakov

    Bill Nighy, Miranda Richardson, Emily Blunt,

    Robert Lindsay, David Westhead, Tom Hardy,

    Ronni Ancona, Samantha Whittaker, Joanna Page

Bill Nighy plays a public relations guru estranged from his college-bound daughter. Miranda Richardson plays a convenience-store clerk whose son has died in a bicycle accident. They're an odd couple, but they hit it off in a low-key character study produced by the BBC. The death of Princess Diana and the lead-up to the new millennium provide historical context and subplots. Emily Blunt plays Nighy's daughter. 

Project Moon Base (1953)

 

PROJECT MOON BASE  (1953)  ¢ ¢

    D: Richard Talmadge

    Donna Martell, Ross Ford, Larry Johns, 

    Hayden Rorke, Herb Jacobs, Barbara Morrison

Astronauts on a mission to take pictures in the lead-up to a moon landing are forced to land on the moon themselves when something goes wrong. Unexciting Cold War sci-fi with the accent on low-budget technology more than high-concept storytelling. (For a movie released more than 15 years before the actual event, the lunar landing vehicle looks a lot like the real thing.) Robert Heinlein wrote the script, and the sporty shorts and helmets the astronauts wear are cute. 

Battle Circus (1953)

 

BATTLE CIRCUS  (1953)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Richard Brooks

    Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn,

    Robert Keith, William Campbell, Philip Ahn,

    Patricia Tiernan, Adele Longmire, Steve Forrest

Major Humphrey Bogart and Lieutenant June Allyson find they're falling for each other while patching up the wounded in Korea. The love story's formulaic, but there's some tension in  the battle scenes. The makers of "M*A*S*H" took a few cues from this. 

Meteor (1979)

 

METEOR  (1979)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ronald Neame

    Sean Connery, Karl Malden, Natalie Wood,

    Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Joseph Campanella,

    Henry Fonda, Trevor Howard, Richard Dysart

A space rock five miles wide is hurtling toward Earth at 30,000 miles an hour, and could cause a new ice age if it hits us. The Yanks and the Russkies have the weapons out there to save the planet, but only if they combine forces and sync their systems to blow the thing out of the sky. A '70s disaster thriller from American International, with the mandatory all-star cast and some cheesy-looking special effects. Favorite bad-movie bit: Toward the end, the main players and a couple dozen other rocket scientists are making their way through an old subway tunnel under the Hudson River when the walls give way the the river floods in. They emerge completely covered in mud, except for two hookers who look like they're just getting ready to go to work. Henry Fonda, who's not down there in the subway tunnel, plays "The President." 

Made In England (2024)

 

MADE IN ENGLAND  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: David Hinton

Martin Scorsese plays tour guide on a journey through the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who teamed up in the 1940s on a series of movies that combined a groundbreaking use of Technicolor with undercurrents of mysticism. Clips from "A Matter of Life and Death", "Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes", intercut with shots from "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", show the direct influence the Powell & Pressburger films had on Scorsese, who first started watching them as a kid on a black-and-white TV. He's been watching them ever since. 

Telefon (1977)

 

TELEFON  (1977)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Don Siegel

    Charles Bronson, Lee Remick, Donald Pleasance

    Tyne Daly, Alan Badel, Patrick Magee, Sheree North,

    Frank Marth, Helen Page Camp, Iggie Wolfington

Passable pulp spy stuff with Charles Bronson as a Russian agent dispatched to the States to stop a rogue KBG official from starting World War Three. The credibility quotient is not high, but Don Siegel brings it off with his usual efficiency, and Tyne Daly steals a scene or two as a computer analyst with the CIA. Stirling Siliphant worked on the script. 

The Crime Is Mine (2023)

 

THE CRIME IS MINE  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: François Ozon

    Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert,

    Fabric Luchini, Dany Boon, André Dussollier

When a starving actress is accused of murder, her flatmate, an equally hungry lawyer, defends her in court. Which is just the beginning of this screwball comedy, a period social satire with a distinctly feminist edge. It can't quite sustain the pace it starts out with, but the actors pull you along. If you aren't completely fluent in French, be ready to read subtitles real fast.