Recreation (1914)

RECREATION  (1914)  ¢ ¢
    D: Charles Chaplin
    Charles Chaplin, Charles Bennett, Helen Carruthers
Charlie Chaplin, a girl, a park bench, a sailor on shore leave and a brick-throwing contest.

The Birth of the Tramp (2013)

THE BIRTH OF THE TRAMP  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange
A documentary on Charlie Chaplin's early years, specifically the time he spent making two-reel comedies at Keystone, Essanay and Mutual between 1914 and 1917. The film clips look great and include outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage of Chaplin on and off the set. David Robinson and Kevin Brownlow are the principal witnesses. Required viewing for Chaplin fans.

The Rounders (1914)

THE ROUNDERS  (1914)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Charles Chaplin
    Charles Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, 
    Minta Durfee, Phyllis Allen, Al St. John
Chaplin and Arbuckle come home drunk to their respective wives. Fighting ensues and they go out again. The wives go after them, and there's a chase.

Time Out of Mind (2014)

TIME OUT OF MIND  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Oren Moverman
    Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone,
    Kyra Sedgwick, Steve Buscemi, Jeremy Strong
There's not much of a story here. It's just a few days in the life of a homeless old man scuffling around the city, trying to find a warm place to sleep at night and pawning his coat for a six-pack of beer. Richard Gere plays the guy, and it's some of the best acting he's ever done. He doesn't disappear completely - he's still Richard Gere - but when you see him panhandling out on a crowded sidewalk, a watch cap pulled down over his eyes and an indifferent world scurrying by all around him, darned if he doesn't look like the real thing. More often, he's photographed at a distance, through windows and doorways. Sometimes you barely see him. Sometimes he's not in the frame at all. He's invisible, and that's the point. He's got alcohol issues and mental health issues, not severe enough to keep him from scraping by on the street, but debilitating enough to prevent him from getting any real help. In one of the film's most frustrating scenes, he goes to a social-service agency where he's told that to qualify for assistance, he'll need to furnish a picture ID. He hasn't got one. He's asked for his social security number. He can't remember it. He's told that to get a new social security card he'll need a copy of his birth certificate. And at that point he gives up. It's more than he can process or handle. So he's back on the street, another shabby old man trying to score some beer money and hoping that when he shows up at the shelter he'll still have a bed for the night. Ignored. Forgotten. Invisible.

Merry Christmas

The Son of Kong (1933)

THE SON OF KONG  (1933)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Ernest B. Schoedsack
    Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack, Victor Wong,
    John Marston, Frank Reicher, Lee Kohlmar
Cute nonsense in which the same daring explorer who captured King Kong meets up with the big guy's offspring. The opening's straight out of the Depression, with every character either broke or scraping by, and the leads end up back on Skull Island when the ship they're on is seized by its Bolshevik crew. Willis O'Brien's effects again are the highlight. Not to throw a monkey wrench into all of this, but whatever happened to Mrs. Kong?

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)

HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Mike Disa
Red, Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and Twitchy the hyper-caffeinated squirrel team up again when some evil characters try to steal the magic secret recipe for Norwegian Black Forest Feather Cake Truffle Divine. It's the second time around for the animated franchise, and it's still plenty of fun, even if it lacks the zip and originality of the first "Hoodwinked" movie. It got mostly terrible reviews, but I liked it, and so did the eight-year-old I watched it with. We might not have been laughing at the same things always, but we were both laughing. Hayden Panettiere replaces Anne Hathaway as Red. Joan Cusack shrieks and cackles as Verushka the Witch. My favorite character this time was the Wolf, followed by the Squirrel. The mean, moon-faced Hansel and Gretel figures are just plain creepy.

Desert Island Partners / Take 2

            Actor/director combinations that clicked:

                 Humphrey Bogart and John Huston
                 John Wayne and John Ford
                 Katharine Hepburn and George Cukor
                 Burt Lancaster and John Frankenheimer
                 Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel
                 Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith
                 Vincent Price and Roger Corman
                 Johnny Depp and Tim Burton
                 Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg
                 James Stewart and Anthony Mann