The Goonies (1985)

THE GOONIES  (1985)  ¢ ¢

    D: Richard Donner

    Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton,

    Corey Feldman, Kerri Green, Jeff Cohen,

    Joe Pantoliano, Robert Davi, Anne Ramsey

To begin with, the Goonies aren't some little gremlin-like creatures out to terrify some nice American kids. They are the kids, the offspring of working-class families about to be evicted from their homes to make way for a country-club golf course in this scenic spot on the Oregon coast. On their way to saving the day and the neighborhood, the gang comes across a map in an attic that sends them off in search of a legendary pirate treasure. Many predictable, theme-park-style adventures follow. It's a shrill, frantic, repetitive movie, likely to appeal to kids of a certain age. Grownups can decide for themselves what to make of a pirate captain named One-Eyed Willie, and a camera that can't stop playing peek-a-boo with Kerri Green's tennis dress. Highlights include Robert Davi, who almost tries to keep a straight face as an opera-singing villain, and Martha Plimpton in an early role as a girl whose sexual ambiguity the others seem to accept without much thought. Don't ask, don't tell, don't really care.

Revanche (2008)

REVANCHE  (2008)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Götz Spielmann

    Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko,

    Andreas Lust, Ursula Strauss

An Oscar-nominated movie from Austria, about a handful of characters whose lives intersect in the aftermath of a small-town bank robbery. There's the thief, an ex-con working as a janitor in a Viennese brothel. His girlfriend, a hooker from the Ukraine. A cop they encounter by accident during the getaway. The cop's emotionally frustrated wife. And the thief's aging grandfather. The story plays out at its own pace, mostly in long takes with a stationary camera. It's a celebration of stillness, a thoughtful and somewhat somber reflection on guilt and loss. Viewers with short attention spans should probably stay away.

Hula (1927)

HULA  (1927)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Victor Fleming

    Clara Bow, Clive Brook, Arlette Marchal,

    Arnold Kent, Patricia Dupont, Albert Gran

Clara Bow might be the screen's most naked actress, not literally, but in terms of technique. You never have to guess at what she's up to. It's transparent in every frame. In "Hula", she plays the daughter of a Hawaiian plantation owner, which gives the irrepressible flapper a chance to go skinny-dipping, eat with her fingers, dance in a grass skirt, and bat her eyes at a British engineer played by Clive Brook. It's about as frivolous as it sounds, but it's not a bad showcase for Bow, who was then at her career peak. "It", the movie that made her a silent film legend, was released the same year.

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michael Moore

Look out, corporate America. Puck is at it again. With his shambling bulk, baggy clothes and baseball cap, Michael Moore more closely resembles a working-class Falstaff, but if he could somehow magically turn the chairman of Goldman Sachs into a jackass, there's no doubt he'd do it. He does the next best thing, indicting those at the top of our financial system on broad-based charges of greed and corruption at the expense of everybody else. As usual, Moore's weapon of choice is a scattergun, not a laser, but also as usual, his sense of purpose is unwavering. He doesn't just want to make you laugh or piss you off. He wants you to think and act. So he takes aim at the mortgage debacle and the bank bailout, but his most provocative finding here is a policy practiced by Wal-Mart and other big corporations, to take out life insurance policies on their employees (referred to, in writing, as "dead peasants"), and collect huge payoffs - the money going to the company, not the survivors - when the "peasants" pass. To suggest that Moore loads the dice, stacks the deck and engages in what might be called grandstanding is to overstate the obvious. He does that stuff, sure. But he also makes the point, emphatically, over and over, that the real face of our free-market economy doesn't belong to the crooks in the glass towers, but the dispossessed. He's mischievous, that Puck.

Abilene Town (1946)

ABILENE TOWN  (1946)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Edwin L Marin

    Randolph Scott, Ann Dvorak, Lloyd Bridges,

    Edgar Buchanan, Rhonda Fleming

Abilene, Kansas, 1870, a dusty, noisy, wide-open town, home to settlers, saloon keepers, cattlemen, dance-hall girls, merchants, churchgoers, killers, scoundrels and Marshall Randolph Scott. An old-fashioned, two-fisted western in which the heroic farmers face down the villainous cowboys (villainous cowboys?) with grit, a few pitchforks, and a chorus or two from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Oh, and Randolph Scott.

Beeswax (2009)

BEESWAX  (2009)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Andrew Bujalski

    Tilly Hatcher, Maggie Hatcher, Alex Karpovsky,

    Katy O'Connor, David Zellner, Kyle Henry

A boring, low-budget, slice-of-life movie about twin sisters (played by twin sisters) and the personal issues they confront (or don't) over a few days in and around Austin, Texas. Jeannie (Tilly Hatcher) rides around in a wheelchair and runs a clothing boutique. Lauren (Maggie Hatcher) is unemployed and haphazardly looking for work. Both are uncomfortably needy, but that's something that applies to just about everybody in this film. So they talk. A lot. And talk. And talk. It's not that Bujalski and the actors don't succeed in making the characters real. They just don't succeed in making them very interesting. It ends without resolving anything, either, but that's okay. By then, you're just glad it's finally over.

The Horse's Mouth (1958)

THE HORSE'S MOUTH  (1958)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ronald Neame

    Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Renee Houston,

    Mike Morgan, Michael Gough, Ernest Thesiger

Eccentric comedy starring Alec Guinness as a misanthropic artist who gets out of prison and immediately returns to a life of conning and painting. Guinness wrote the script, based on a novel by Joyce Cary, and his performance makes the movie - a shabby, gravel-voiced curmudgeon whose casual disregard for social convention goes hand in hand with an obsession to make art.

Ronald Neame

(1911-2010)