The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ADAM AND EVE  (1960)  ¢
    D: Albert Zugsmith, Mickey Rooney
    Mamie Van Doren, Martin Milner, Mickey Rooney, 
    Fay Spain, Cecil Kellaway, Tuesday Weld,
    Mel Tormé, Paul Anka, June Wilkinson
An idiotic sex farce with Marty and Mamie as stranded bus passengers who dream themselves back to the Garden of Eden. Mickey Rooney's the Devil and Fay Spain plays Lilith. (Who knew there were leotards in the Stone Age?) Milner gamely gives it a shot, but the script won't give him (or anybody) a break. Van Doren's platinum tresses keep her golden globes strategically covered, and Rooney gives the kind of performance that suggests directing himself was probably not a good idea.

The Bad Batch (2016)

THE BAD BATCH  (2016)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Ana Lily Amirpour
    Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves,
    Jim Carrey, Diego Luna, Giovanni Ribisi
A woman named Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) gets dropped off on the far side of a chain-link  border fence, where a sign lets her know she's not in Texas anymore. She's got a sandwich and a gallon of water and nothing to guide her through what appears to be a million square miles of desert except a cryptic instruction: FIND COMFORT. Which she does, eventually, but not before being captured by cannibals who relieve her of an arm and a leg. This is a little like a Mad Max movie, but without the vroom vroom. It's alternately strange, unsettling, hallucinatory, and whenever Keanu Reeves is saying anything at all, ridiculous. Reeves plays a Jim Jones-style cult leader with a harem of visibly pregnant young women. ("Mad Max: Fury Road" had a similar thing going on.) Jim Carey's a ragged hermit. Giovanni Ribisi plays a crazy person. Jason Momoa's the musclebound Miami Man, whose relationship with Arlen is complicated, starting with the fact that he's dined on her missing limbs. Thankfully, motor scooters, disco, LSD, copy machines and spaghetti are all available in this wasteland. There's some comfort in that, I guess. 

Rosebud (1975)

ROSEBUD  (1975)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Otto Preminger
    Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough, Cliff Gorman,
    Claude Dauphin, Raf Vallone, Peter Lawford,
    Isabelle Huppert, Kim Cattrall, John V. Lindsay
Palestinian terrorists abduct five women, all of them young and beautiful, the daughters of influential business and political leaders in Europe and the United States. Recruited to get them back is a rakish, chain-smoking agent named Larry Martin (Peter O'Toole), a Brit working for American intelligence while posing as a correspondent for Newsweek. Otto Preminger's next-to-last film isn't aiming for greatness, but it's not a bad piece of escapist cloak-and-dagger work, more European art film than James Bond. O'Toole's larky manner and movie-star looks make him an improbable spy, but he's never not fun to watch. The script is by Erik Lee Preminger, Otto's son by Gypsy Rose Lee, and the ending is borderline biblical, an eye for an eye, never-ending. 

Lion (2016)

LION  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Garth Davis
    Dev Patel, Sunny Powar, Rooney Mara,
    Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Divian Ladwa
Somewhere in the vast expanse of India, a five-year-old boy named Saroo stows away in a decommissioned railroad car and falls asleep. By the time he wakes up, the car is locked and the train is moving, and when he finally gets out, two days and 1600 kilometers later, he's in Calcutta, with a legion of other lost children. Saroo's lot is luckier than most. After some hard time on the streets and a brief stint in a hellish orphanage, he's adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and grows up to be played by Dev Patel. But he never stops feeling lost, or longing to get back home. The movie's about his search for a place he can barely remember and a mother he can never forget. It's a heroic journey, and a deeply compassionate look at what it's like to be displaced. Sunny Powar, who plays the young Saroo, is remarkable, and much of his story is told without words. Most of us have had a much less perilous time of it than Saroo. We don't even think about it all that much, but a significant part of our time on the planet, from where we start out to where we end up, is a matter of luck. A movie like this one can make you appreciate that. 

Listomania/Take 8

Multiple generations on the screen:

         
                       Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow

                       Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson

                       Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli

                       Maureen O'Sullivan and Mia Farrow

                       Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher

                       Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith

                       Ingrid Bergman and Isabella Rossellini

                       Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg

                       Tony  Curtis & Janet Leigh

                           and Jamie Lee Curtis

                       Bruce Dern & Diane Ladd

                           and Laura Dern

History of the World: Part I (1981)

HISTORY OF THE WORLD: PART I  (1981)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Mel Brooks
    Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Gregory Hines,
    Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Sid Caesar,
    Dom DeLuise, Ron Carey, Pamela Stephenson,
    Shecky Greene, Mary-Margaret Hughes, John Hurt,
    Leigh French, Hugh Hefner, Henny Youngman,
    Jackie Mason, Spike Milligan, Jack Carter,
    John Hillerman, Barry Levinson, Nigel Hawthorne,
    Rudy De Luca, Howard Morris, Michele Drake
Mel Brooks takes on the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition and the French Revolution, with mixed comic results. When I first saw this during its original release, I didn't like it very much. Too many piss jokes maybe, or maybe I wasn't in the mood. Viewing it again a few decades later, it seems a lot funnier. Keep an eye out for the cameos, and remember, it's good to be the king. Orson Welles narrates.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

BLADE RUNNER 2049  (2017)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Denis Villeneuve
    Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford. Robin Wright,
    Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Edward James Olmos,
    Dave Bautista, Sylvia Hoeks, Karla Juri, Sean Young
By the time the end credits rolled in "Blade Runner" back in 1982, hard-boiled L.A. cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) was about to go on the run with a replicant named Rachel (Sean Young), leaving behind four "retired" replicants and a clue to his own identity. The year (now closing in on us) was 2019. This sequel starts out 30 years after that, and the setting again is a teeming, grimy, dystopian Los Angeles. There's a newer, younger cop on the job and replicants are still being hunted, but the situation has gotten more complicated. The newer replicants are more advanced and self-aware, and may even be capable of reproduction. The key to the story again involves Deckard, now holed up by himself in an empty Las Vegas casino, his only companions a friendly black dog, a prodigious booze supply and holographic images of Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe. His mood and outlook have not improved. Another thing that's different this time around is that Deckard's de facto replacement, a blade runner called "K", is a replicant himself and knows it. He's played by Ryan Gosling, who fits the role as perfectly as Ford did, and it's only a matter of time before the old blade runner and the new one meet up. The underlying theme again is what does it mean to be human, and when artificially engineered entities can think and do and feel everything that humans can, what's the difference? The movie is longer than the earlier one and the plotting is more complex - possibly a little too long and too complex. And like the original, it's moody and deliberate when most sci-fi movies are going for flashy and fast. It looks and sounds great - Hans Zimmer's musical score picks up where Vangelis left off - and the script doesn't underestimate (or insult) a viewer's intelligence. Could there be another sequel? The conclusion leaves enough elements in play to make a third chapter possible. But probably not with Harrison Ford, if they're going to wait another 30 years.