Children (1980)

High School Hellcats (1958)

 I'm developing a bit of a theme apparently. 'High School Hellcats' is another female juvenile delinquent movie from the 50's, more professionally made then 'The Violent Years' but lacking the same crazy energy (though Susanne Sidney is pretty crazy). Yvonne Lime (like Jean Moorehead before her also still alive at 89) is the new girl in town. Aggressively recruited by her schools female "gang" "The Hellcats", Yvonne's a good girl at heart but susceptible to peir pressure and experiencing problems at home. The romantic interest of a coffee shop employee and night school student (Brett Halsey, also still alive and 90), may be her salvation from the troubles beseting her. A lean 70 minutes. **

Civil War (2024)

The Violent Years (1956)

Knoxville, Tennesse native and playboy centerfold (still kicking at 89) Jean Moorehead plays the leader of a quartet of delinquent high school girls who run amuke in 'The Violent Years'. They rob gas stations, make out with guys, deface school property for communist agitators, steal a sweater, kill a few people, stay out past curfew and Jean rapes a guy. All this because busy and overindulgence parents don't spend enough time with her. Low budget explotation film that pretends to be redeemed by a tough love message for parents (who aren't exactly the target audiance) was written by an uncredited Ed Wood, this might actually be his best script. Rather bad, but also pretty watchable. **

Wicked Little Letters (2023)

 Recently I went to the theater with plans to see a movie I wasn't entirely in the mood for. When I got there I noticed another movie that was starting sooner, one I know practically nothing about. After glancing at it online and finding it contained several actors I liked and had a 79% Rotten Tomatoes score, I decided to take a risk and see it. That I was the only person in the theater wasn't the best of signs, but I found 'Wicked Little Letters' to be nicely low key and reasonably pleasant. 

Based on a true story that happened in England circa 1920. A devout Methodist spinster (Olivia Coleman) living with her aged parents (Timothy Spall plays her dad) begins receiving vile and profane anonymous letters. The chief suspect is her neighbor, an Irish single mother with a notoriously foul mouth (Jessie Buckley). The Irish woman is arrested and spends some time in prison before being bailed out by friends prior to her trial. After her release more and more locals begin receiving similar vile and insulting letters and the whole thing becomes a national news story. A female police officer (Anjana Vasan), whose superiors don't take her seriously, dosen't believe Jessie Buckley wrote the letters and sets out to prove her innocence.

You probably get where this is going, but it has a lite charm in getting there and a real cozy mystery vibe to it. But also alot of swearing.

 This is a movie with some post racial casting, for example actress Anjana Vasan is Singaporian ethnically, but her being a racial minority is not relevant to the plot; this is an alternate version of 1920 where racism isn't a thing, but sexism is. I don't have a problem with this except that it throws off my subtext radar, when in a period piece film you don't immediately know if a characters race is a plot point you need to pay contextual attention to, or if it's not relevant.

'Wicked Little Letters' feels more like something that would be on Masterpiece Theater then a theatrical feature, but it's an interesting enough obscure historical story with good performances from the four principle leads. **1/2

Hitler's Hollywood (2017)

 During the years of the Third Reich (1933-1945) approximately 1,200 feature films were made in Nazi Germany. 'Hitler's Hollywood' is a survey course documentary on that output. Only around a hundred or so of these films were overt propaganda in nature, German studios, principly UFA, made comedies, musicals, historical epics, melodramas, detective pictures, even science fiction. The production quality of these, for the most part, was quite high, Hollywood levels.

Unlike Hollywood German cinema of this period lacked much in the way of autore filmmakers, men of distinctive vision and style, whose work had subtext, most of these figures like Fritz Lang and Douglas Sirk fled the Nazi's. What German cinema did have was a star system, and like Hollywood many of these players were foreign born. Kristina Soderbaum was one of the most popular actresses in Germany, a Swede she fit the blond, blue eyed, Aryan ideal and stared in all of the films made by her director husband Viet Harlan during the war, these were mostly melodrama's. In one film, I don't believe Harlan directed this one, Soderbaum's character is raped by a Jew, thus promoting anti semitism to German audiences.

This is a fascinating documentary, a look at a weird, parallel Hollywood. Many of these films look to be pretty good. I had only seen two of the movies featured, 'Triump of the Will' and a version of the Titanic story, but I'd be honestly intrigued to see more. German actor Udo Kier's English language narration is solid, though the white subtitle text was sometimes hard to read against black and white film. An impressive and informative documentary. ***1/2

Left Behind III: World at War (2005)

 'Left Behind III' concludes the Kirk Cameron trilogy with a depiction of the last 50 pages of the second book... in a 16 book saga. Kirk really isn't the principle character here, instead the focus is chiefly on a new character, the President of the United States played by Oscar winner (and recently deceased as of this posting) Lou Gossett Jr. Gossett aided anti Christ Nicoli Carpathia's rise to power and he's none to pleased when he realizes what he's done. Kirk manages to lead the nation's chief executive to Christ just as World War III is starting, shortly after this the President acts as essentially a suicide bomber in an unsuccessful effort to eliminate Nicoli. 

Other plot points include a double wedding and the bad guys spreading a deadly plauge through infected Bible's, the cure turns out to be communion wine. Again, silly and cheap looking, but at least things happen in this one as opposed to the snore feast of part 2, plus Gossett adds suitable gravatous to the times he's on screen. This might be the best of these three, but that's still only *1/2