Naza (2026)

 

NAZA  (2026)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Yuvak Abraham, Rachel Szor

The movie - or one of the movies - Benjamin Netanyahu would like you not to see, a sobering documentary in which 24 members of Israel's intelligence service speak matter-of-factly about the methodical extermination of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. You could start with the Hamas attack on October 7 - a horrific atrocity - and throw in the way its operatives mix with the general population, and still be appalled at the speed with which Israel's response morphed from a quest for justice to a campaign of retribution to a calculated exercise in mass murder. The witnesses, assigned to plan, execute and even photograph Israeli strikes on civilian targets, call themselves technicians who are told to "trust the system" and not think too much about the moral implications and consequences. They describe the exhilaration that comes with a mission accomplished, and compare their remote-controlled assaults to a video game. They talk candidly about leveling whole neighborhoods, with casualty counts in the hundreds and even thousands. They kill hungry people running to get food. They kill children. Some express remorse and some don't. In the end, you're left with an unsettling question, briefly brought up in the film: What's the difference between what the Nazis did during World War Two  and what Bibi and the IDF are doing in Gaza? The answer seems to be, not much. 

Major League II (1994)

 

MAJOR LEAGUE II  (1994)  ¢ ¢

    D: David S. Ward

    Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen,

    Dennis Haysbert, James Gammon, Omar Epps,

    Eric Bruskotter, Takashi Ishibashi, Bob Uecker,

    Michelle Burke, Margaret Whitton, David Keith

The outcasts and misfits who made a surprise run to the playoffs in the first "Major League" movie are back to try again in this tired, recycled sequel. Everybody goes through the motions, but nobody comes up with anything original. Maybe they needed more batting practice. 

Go Brewers!

Hour of the Gun (1967)

 

HOUR OF THE GUN  (1967)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Sturges

    James Garner, Jason Robards, Robert Ryan,

    Albert Salmi, Steve Ihnat, William Windom,

    William Schallert, Michael Tolan, Frank Converse

Most movies about Wyatt Earp end with the gunfight at the OK Corral. This one starts there and proceeds to tell a somewhat fictionalized account of what happened to Wyatt, Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton after the gunfight was over. Wyatt's played by a no-nonsense James Garner. Doc's played by Jason Robards, and as usual, it's Doc who has the most fun and gets the best lines. Ike's played by Robert Ryan, at about the midpoint between his roles in "The Professionals" and "The Wild Bunch". Director John Sturges lets the story play out in its own time. (The opening gunfight lasts less than a minute, about what the actual gunfight did.) Coincidentally, Sturges also made "Gunfight At the OK Corral" in 1956, and Garner would play Wyatt Earp again in Blake Edwards' "Sunset" in 1988. 

Go, Johnny, Go (1959)

 

GO, JOHNNY, GO  (1959)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Paul Landres

    Jimmy Clanton, Chuck Berry, Alan Freed,

    Sandy Stewart, Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran,

    The Cadillacs, The Flamingos, Jackie Wilson

Vintage '50s musical acts punctuate a perfunctory story about a kid named Johnny who's determined to make it big in the world of rock & roll. All of the songs are lip-synched. None of the guitars are plugged in. Chuck Berry plays a couple if tunes, but never really gets to cut loose. Richie Valens went to rock-&-roll heaven four months before the movie's release.

Jane By Charlotte (2021)

 

JANE BY CHARLOTTE  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Charlotte Gainsbourg

A home movie done as a series of conversations between singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and her mother, singer/actress Jane Birkin. The locations range from Paris to Tokyo, New York City to the South of France, and their exchanges cover everything from dogs and children to loss and regret to aging, pain and death. They know they're being filmed - they're doing the filming - but they're both so comfortable in front of the camera that it doesn't matter very much, and the act of making the movie becomes a part of the process that draws them closer together. Neither wears much makeup, and Birkin, in her 70s, actually seems to grow older as the film goes on. You get a real sense watching it that both women know their time together is limited, and that Charlotte's determined to capture as much of her mother as she can before it's too late. It was Birkin's final screen appearance. 

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.