The Bad Sister (1931)

 'The Bad Sister' is the screen debut of the ill fated Sidney Fox, dead at 34 from a probable suicide. The Broadway star Fox is second billed behind Conard Nagel and before Bette Davis (also her film debut) and Humphrey Bogart. The diminutive Miss Fox (4'11) is the spoiled (middle?) daughter of a prominent small town Ohio family, whose hottie ways are humbled when she falls for a con man (Bogart). This film is perfectly fine melodrama based on Booth Tarkington's 1913 novel 'The Flirt', which had been filmed twice before as a silent. Fox dominates the film, though the supporting cast is good, especially Davis who I prefer in nice girl parts like this. The ending here is definitely one of its time. ***

I Used to Go Here (2020)

 Living in a small Chicago apartment, her engagement recently broken and her debut novel under performing, Kate Conklin (Gillian Jacobs) accepts an invitation to return to her alma mater Southern Illinois University for a book reading and some student mentoring. A sort of coming of middle age story, the woes of the professional writer is overdone territory, but this low key story sets its sights on the appropriate levels of pathos and humor. Fine central performance from Gillian Jacobs who I'm always happy to see. ***

Tabloid (2010)

 The oddness of Joyce McKinny can not be done justice in a short review, but film maker Errol Morris captures her strangeness in the documentary 'Tabloid'. McKinny was the central figure in a major tabloid story of 1970s England, when with the help of a friend she abducted her Mormon missionary "fiancé" for a weekend of sex in a rented Devon cottage. People seeing things from different perspectives is a major theme of this work, McKinny's narratives can not exactly be trusted, but she seems to really believe them. A decades later development in McKinny's life, also rather strange and unexpected, is perfect coda to the whole surreal buisness of this former beauty queens life. ***

The Children (1980)

 We are back to the Grindhouse DVD set for a film I wasn't expecting much from but was kind of impressed with. In 'The Children' a school bus passes through a toxic cloud accidentally released from a nearby power facility. The result is that the children on board become zombies whose hands burn and disfigure, since most people wouldn't refuse the hug of a lost child they do alot of damage.

So the basic premise is a different enough rif on the zombie cliche to be interesting, but the film really successeds, despite its small budget, in its sense of place and characters. Nice regional flavor here, small town New England but most of the houses seem rather upscale, commuter community to NYC or Hartford perhaps. There is some local color in the form of the general store owner and some middle aged twins who are ultimately deputized. I liked the sheriff, he is rather deferential to the more high income residents, part of his job is keeping them happy and this complicates the investigation for him some. A lot of the films on this DVD set can be kind of hard to sit through, but this one wasn't which was a nice surprise. **1/2

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)

With a $50 million budget 'Civil War' is the most expensive film yet to come out of A24, a production company that has made a name for its self with modestly budgeted art house and horror films. While not so modestly budgeted 'Civil War' is both an art house film and a horror movie, among other things. The British writer/director Alex Garland's take on a worst case scenario of where America's political polarization could take us, a second Civil War. 

In an effort not to alienate half his audience Garland is vauge on the details and the political lines that define the films military conflict. What we do know is that we are in the neighborhood of 14 months into the war which seems to have been triggered by an incumbent president taking a third term. The president is played by Nic Offerman, cast against type he is a tyrant but we never learn what his politics are, if he's a Democrat a Republican or something else. The country has split at least five ways (Alaska's status is murkey), with breakaway confederatesions made out of north westerly states and the deep south, as well as Texas and California seceding individualy, but combing military forces to take on the corrupt federal government.

Our protagonists are a group of four journalists on a roundabout trip from New York City to D.C. for an interview with the president. Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura are respectively a war photographer and reporter working for Reuters, their companions are Stephen McKinley Henderson of The New York Times and Cailee Spaeny as a young freelance photographer. This quartet are our surrogates on a road trip odyssey across a balkanized Ameica. Along the way they find fear, atrocities, refugees and in some places a disconcerting normalcy in the face of it all. 

Reporters and journalism are of course central to our current discourse of polarization, but the ones here seem pretty old school, functionally detached observers, who still struggle at times with their human reactions to what they see around them. Their journy climaxes with (not a spoiler it's in the trailers) a military seige of Washington D.C.

The films succeeds at being unsettling, at times horrifying, it brings what we are used to seeing in other parts of the world home. The central characterizations are reasonably good, the films well shot, well scored and the climatic battle delivers on a number of levels. What the film lacks is much of anything to say about why we are so polarized and what if anything we can do about it. It's content to be a kind of national 'scared straight'video, rather then engage in any substantial analysis. Still this is a very zeitgeisty film that takes a refreshing number of risks. ***

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. **