The Misfits (1961)

 'The Misfits' is the final completed film for both Clarke Gable and Marilyn Monroe. A recent divorcee falls in with three aging cowboys in rural Nevada. Directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Monroe's soon to be ex Arthur Miller. A little uneven but Monroe's never been more sympathetic and Gable's still in good form. Thelma Ritter and Ellie Wallach both solid in typed roles. Montgomery Clift a little haggard but comes through. 

A fittingly melancholy film for the two to go out on. Monroe is always sexy but I've never seen her play vulnerability like this before, its serious acting and she's just beguiling. Performances elevate a mediocre story, but sadly never transcend it. ***

The Fly (1986)

 David Cronenberg's reimaging of the 1958 Vincent Price horror movie 'The Fly' was the directors biggest main stream success ($60 million box office, off around a $7 million budget). Jeff Goldblum is a scientist working on teleportation, Geena Davis a reporter who becomes his girlfriend (the two stars would have a roughly three year marriage after this). A fly gets into the electronic ointment as it were, and it and the scientist merge, the resultant creature getting more grotesque with time, some fine Cronenbergian effects and images, ahh the body horror. 

This is an efficient, trim and effective little film, it touches on a few interesting ethical issues, and has some intriguing sci-fi conceits. It's all played pretty straight, these are solid committed performances. The third (human) wheel in this triangle John Getz comes off as a real creep at first, but he gets to largely redeem himself. I'd say 'The Fly' is certainly worth seeing, but probably not while your eating. ***

LLamageddon (2015)

 My viewing of 'Llamageddon' is related to an ongoing dispute between me and my podcast co-host Rob about if this or 'VelociPastor' is the better movie, Rob contends for the former and I the latter. Rob is quite simply wrong, 'VelociPastor', whose praises I sing elsewhere, is by far the better movie. 

In saying a little about 'Llamageddon' I have to do so in relation to the superior dinosaur priest movie. Where 'VelociPastor' cast comic aspiration for scope and a budget beyond its means, 'Llamageddon' goes much more small scale, it is basically a 'bottle movie.' The action is set mostly at a little farm house, it makes illusions to 'Night of the Living Dead' and more overtly to 'Critters' and 'Evil Dead', the latter being referenced by name. 

Where 'VelociPastor' is largely made by some committed central performances, the cast of 'Llamageddon' is goofing off, they are horrible actors, a bunch of collage age kids who seem to be having some fun, but aren't so much committing to their performances. I am of the opinion of, and it is the correct opinion, that satire is at its best the closer to straight the actors are playing it. 

Where I laughed fairly regularly during 'VelociPastor' I think I laughed once during 'Llamageddon'. The first movies pun based conceit was inspired, where the forced gage of the latter is simply forced. Crashed space ship, red eyed alien, laser blasting, green mutagen blowing Llama is released. What does he want? That is simply never clear. 

There's a few witty lines, and once or twice the film does something unexpected and odd enough to warrant a proto chuckle, but on the whole its dull, repetitive, plays long, and is uninspired. It would be hard to justify giving it anymore then *

Sayonara (1957)

 In 'Sayonara' Marlon Brando is a southerner, he's third generation West Point, it's 1951 and he's stationed in Japan. Though informally engaged to a generals daughter he's known since childhood, and whose the gorgeous Patricia Owens, he has no passion for her, she's pretty and smart and knows the ropes of military life and that's what he thinks he wants. However the moment he sets eyes on beautiful Japanese actress Miko Taka, he's struck love dumb. 

There are things in this film that a quite dated, but it's also pretty bold, there's real tragedy here. Based on one of James Michener's shorter novels and featuring an original song by Irving Berlin. Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki won Oscar's for their supporting performances as an ill fated married couple. Features reasonably adult discussions of racial issues for a main stream period film.  ***1/2 

Lilies of the Field (1963)

 For his part in 'Lilies of the Field' Sidney Poitier becomes the first person of color to win an Oscar for a lead acting performance. Based on William Edmund Barrett's 1962 novella 'The Lilies of the Field', the film is about a black Baptist handy man who helps a group of Germanic nuns build a small chapel in Arizona. Though the subjects of religion and race are there in the foreground, they are never gotten at too deeply. This is not a probing examination, it is intended to uplift. It is the film on these matters that audiences in early 1960's America were ready to accept, pretty well down the line, it reportedly did quite good business in at least the metropolitan centers of the old South. Pleasant, likable, with just enough heart, and just enough to say, to not be forgettable. *** 

Blue Jasmin (2013)

 Cate Blanchett won an Oscar playing a Mrs. Bernie Madoff type in this Woody Allen dramady, more weighted towards the drama. It's not necessarily a fun film to watch, Blanchett's character is not a pleasant person, but you grow to better understand her, and in a few ways admire her as the film goes on. Which is not to say she's not a wreak, she is, and a largely thoughtless, selfish, unemphatic person, who almost beyond her control repeatedly engineers her own downfall. 

But almost is a key word, one feels she may actually have it within her to transcend her old self, she demonstrates a drive and commitment midway through the film that you wouldn't have expected at the beginning. But then she succumbs to old habits, and makes obvious mistakes in trying to take the easy way out. 

A large, strong supporting cast as one would expect from Mr. Allen. This is the first of Mr. Allen's films that I have seen for the first time since the old troubling allegations about him started to re-emerge around 2015. It's perhaps best to try not to think too much about him when watching his work, and it helps here that he is never on screen. ***

Ride The High Country (1962)

'Ride the High Country' is early Sam Peckinpah. Set 1905ish, two philosophical former lawmen and a cocky kid take a job transporting gold for a bank through dangerous territory. Along the way they pick up a woman torn between a religiously domineering father and a shady fiancé. Smart, ruminative, funny, even a little scary. Final film of Randolph Scott and screen debut of Mariette Hartly. Also staring Joel McCrea.  

The film feel like it takes a long digression or two in the middle, but it's wonderful slice of life stuff. and ties in nicely to the overall plot. You can feel some of 'The Westerner', the TV series that Peckinpah had made a few years before this film, really imbedded in the pictures DNA, tone, tempo, and story wise. Contains what may be the best wedding speech in film history. ***

Gorky Park (1983)

 Based on a novel 'Gorky Park' is a police procedural in the old Soviet Union, though filmed by necessity in Scandinavia. Three bodies are found near the skating rink at Moscow's Gorky Park, their faces and finger tips cut clean off. William Hurt is the lead Russian detective, Brian Dennehy his American counter part, Joanna Pacula a fem fatal, Alexander Knox an old Russian general, and Lee Marvin still a badass at 60. A little too dry, a little too slow, and I did not buy the love story. Mostly interesting for its depictions of period Soviet domestic life. **1/2

Heaven's Gate (1980)

 'Heaven's Gate' is one of the most notorious flops in Hollywood history. Michael Cimino just had a big hit and won multiple Oscar's for 'The Deer Hunter', so the studio gave him a free hand. It's a  western that wants to be 'The Godfather', set against the backdrop of the 1890 Johnson County range war in Wyoming. 

The film went four times its planed budget, savaged by critics it made $3.5 million off of $44 million spent. In fact this movie faired so poorly that it shuttered a major studio. TransAmerica sold United Artists to MGM which folded it into their existing operations. This is particularly ironic given that UA was founded by artist attempting to escape the level of control exerted by a big studio like Metro Goldwyn Meyer. Cimino, who died in 2016, would be black listed in the industry and never direct another film.

To top that off the movie is really bad, a confused rambley mess with an an oppressive run time of 3 hrs and 39 minutes. Even Christopher Walken as a hired gun doesn't help. 

This film has just two settings, boring and ridiculous. Some nice scenery (filmed in Idaho and Montana), and the occasional WTF moment, including a roller skating party and three over the top shoot outs. But if 'Heaven's Gate' isn't a bad movie then there are no bad movies. *

The Good German (2006)

 In 'The Good German', an inconsequential mystery set in Allied occupied Berlin in the summer of 1945, director Steven Soderbergh imitates the look and style of director Michael Curtiz. Other then some language and a sex scene this black and white film looks like a Hollywood production from the era in which it is set, even down to imperfections in the lighting. Unfortunately that is all this movie is, an imitation, and not even a very interesting one. George Clooney is bland, Cate Blanchet plays Marlana Dietrich, and Toby McGuire plays an asshole. *  

The Power of the Dog (2021)

 Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, 'The Power of the Dog' is set in 1920's Montana, though it was filmed in New Zealand, which looks more then passably like eastern Montana. Watching this film it had a taste to it, like when your having a food you haven't had in a long time and it just tastes so good, the old familiar flavor is just so satisfying, that's how this movie felt. This is a smart, serious, subtle film which says so much even while it says so little. The movie doesn't spell things out for you, much is implied while little is out right spoken. When I finally made a mental connection regarding the twist, it was near thrilling. 

Solid performances all around, with particular stand out work from Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Though I must says that Jesse Plemons spoken word to character development ratio is off the charts, he does so much with so little. After 'Licorice Pizza' I think this is my second favorite of the best picture nominees this year. ****

Seven Men from Now (1956)

'Seven Men from Now' is a solid revenge western, beautifully shot in color. A former sheriff hunts down the seven men responsible for the hold up that killed his wife. The lead part was written for John Wayne, whose Batjack Pictures produced it. However come shooting time Wayne was busy making 'The Searchers', so his part went to an aging Randolph Scott. Scott got his best notices in some time for this, and it lead to a mini career revival making B+ Westerns for director Budd Boetticher. 

Gail Russell, reputedly a former mistress of Wayne's plays the female lead. This was the alcoholic actresses first film in five years, but it's a fine performance, you'd never know what a wreck her personal life was by what shows up on screen. Russell would appear in three more films before being found dead in her in apartment, an empty vodka bottle at her side, at the age 36. Lee Marvin plays Scott's frienemie. 

This is what I will sometimes call a 'four star, three star movie', there is nothing deep or original to it, but it's just executed so finely that there is a deep satisfaction to watching it. I was so pleased with the ending I had a big grin on my face. ***

 

Finger of Guilt (1956)

 'Finger of Guilt' or by its original British title 'The Intimate Stranger' stars Richard Basehart as an American executive working at an English studio who is being stalked by or has amnesia about an affair with a young actress (Mary Murphey). Faith Brook plays Basehart's wife, whose father played by Roger Livesey is the melancholy studio head. A puzzle film,  I didn't know what was really happening until very near the end. I liked the smooth score by Trevor Duncan, which is rather different from other film scores of the time. The guy who plays Basehart's assistant looks like a young Thomas S. Monson. **1/2

If This Be Sin (1949)

 'If This Be Sin' or by it's original British title 'The Dangerous Age' is a melodrama based on the 1937 play 'Autumn' by Margaret Kennedy (best known for her novel 'The Constant Nymph'). It is a love quadrangle between a prominent English lawyer (Roger Livesey), his wife (Myrna Loy), his law partner (Richard Green, best known for playing Robin Hood for a 143 episode on British TV in the 1950's) and his daughter (Peggy Cummins, the year before her best remembered role in the 1950 noir 'Gun Crazy'). Movie get's surprisingly raw. The best line in the thing is when Loy is querying Cummins on how long she's loved Green and is answered "Since I first met him, before Dunkirk". *** 

Vice Versa (1948)

 I've decided to do a mini-marathon on the films of Roger Livesey, a distinguished English actor of theater background. Till this point I had known him purely from his appearance in three Powell/Pressberger movies ('The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', 'I Know Where I'm Going', and 'A Matter of Life and Death'), I loved him in each of these. 

I'm starting with the 1948 film 'Vice Versa', which while I recognized the title was surprised to find has the same plot as the 1988 film 'Vice Versa' staring Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage. Both movies are based on an 1882 novel of the same name by Thomas Anstey Guthrie. This is a body swap story where a strict father and a mildly rebellious son switch places, via a magic stone, and learn that each other don't have it as easy in their lives as they had previously supposed. 

The story is adapted and directed by Peter Ustinov, rather playfully, the opening titles which riff on the old music hall is a delight. It's mock imperious British, a bit racist in an early sequence, some goofy visual sensibilities, and an absurdist air throughout.  

Livesey's having a good time, he does this kind of part well, pompous, but aware of and a little above his own pomposity, all in an amused way. The younger of the two is played by Anthony Newley, who would go on to be a successful composer and lyricist, penning hits for the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Shirley Bassey, as well as writing the songs for 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', and marrying for a time Joan Collins. Kay Walsh is the adult female lead, and the junior one a 15 year old Petula Clark, who would go on to be a big pop star in the 60's with hits like 'Downtown' and 'A Sign of the Times'. 

This is simply better then the remake made 40 years after, and is a great example of the looney school of British comedy. **1/2

The Batman (2022)

 'The Batman' is the 9th theatrically released, live action film to feature Batman as it's principle character since 1966. Some things it does well is to treat it's fantastic villain's, The Penguin, The Riddler, more realistically then we've seen before, they are not wildly costumed cartoon characters. The return to The Dark Knight's detective roots is also apricated, as well as the general noir feel of the thing. Otherwise I find little to recommend in this movie.

If Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Night' was a riff on Michael Mann's ' Heat', then Matt Reeves 'The Batman' is a riff on David Fincher's 'Seven'. This a 'hunt the serial killer' film that happens to have Batman in it as the lead detective, with Jeffery Wright ably assisting as Jim Gordon by way of Felix Leiter. 'The Riddles' presented throughout are not particularly challenging, 'the revelations' often feel forced, contrived clichés, such as the identity of 'Cat Woman's' father. 

Of the large cast everybody does a decent enough job but they aren't straining any muscles, the paths they follow are well worn, as will be the muscles of your rear after it's exhausting three hour run time. 'The Batman' not only wants to be 'The Dark Knight', it want's to be Nolan's entire Batman trilogy in one dose. The numbness extended to the entire theater experience, it was very quite, there are very few jokes so very few giggles, and the set pieces produced nary an ohh or aww. I was surprised when a few people clapped at the end. Had Nolan not made his movies this film would probably have felt innovative, but because he did it feels imitative. The illusions to hurricane Katrina at the end comes 3 presidencies too late, though I did kind of like the idea of the Riddler as head of a Q-Anon type group. 

'The Batman' is simply an extra long retread of things we've seen before, there is nothing really exceptional about it. **

Demolition (2015)

 Financer Jake Gyllenhaal's wife Heather Lind is killed in a car accident and he falls apart. Between dismantling his house, battling the father in law who never liked him (Chris Cooper), and becoming obsessed with a customer service worker (Naomi Watts) and her son (Judah Lewis), Jake learns she had been cheating on him. Cliché and mock profound, this movie enjoys hitting you over the head with a figurative sledge hammer, much as Jake might tear apart his kitchen with a real one. *1/2 

Gregory's Two Girls (1999)

 'Gregory's Two Girls' is the belated  sequel to director Bill Forsyth's career making 1981 comedy 'Gregory's Girl', about an eccentric Scottish high school student named Gregory Underwood (John Gordon Sinclair), think of it as a kind of droll proto-'Napoleon Dynamite'. It's nearly twenty years later and Gregory is now a high school English teacher with decidedly left wing political sympathies. The beliefs he extolls in the classroom inspire two students to get involved in an amateurish case of vigilantism against a local computer manufacture, into which they drag Mr. Underwood. 

Things get complicated on several fronts, the owner of the computer company is an old high school friend of Gregory's, turns out there are actual national security secrets related to the work the company is doing, a romantic relationship with the schools music teacher is on the verge of happing for Gregory, and he's been having wet dreams about one of the activist students he's now spending a lot of time alone with. 

I had some real interest in seeing what Gregory would have gotten up to after many years, and John Gordon Sinclair has some genuinely funny comic moments throughout the film, but what a weird plot to put him into. This project must have sounded better on paper then it ended up being on the screen. At times this is a cringingly awkward comedy, uncomfortable. Though the scene in which Gregory is trying to explain why he was found alone in the park with a teenage girl, to her father, headmaster, and some police officers, is worthy of Rickie Gervais. The political stuff feels random. 

Bill Forsyth the director is always interested in taking his stories down unusual paths, though maybe this one would have been better left untrod, though I do admire his guts. This turned out to be the last film he ever made. *1/2 

Sapphire (1959)

 I more or less stumbled onto this movie. 'Sapphire' is a 1959 British feature, filmed in that bold, unique kind of color that I associate with the works of Michael Powell. The body of a young woman, a music school student, is found in a public park. In time it is discovered that she was pregnant. In time it is discovered that, despite outward appearances, she was black. 

A weird mixture of things, this movie is exploitation, police procedural, melodrama, and a social issues picture. Two detectives, Nigel Patrick (who is fair), and Michael Craig (who is kind of racist) work the case. They discover that the dead girl, whose name is Sapphire was passing for white, that she seemed to have two lives, one amongst the jazz clubs frequented by Britain's Caribbean ex pat population, and one at school. She also had a white fiancé, a promising architecture student whose family and home life are emitting decidedly stressed out vibes. 

Casual racism is addressed in an open and matter of fact way that would have been foreign to American pictures of the time. It can be an uncomfortable watch, there is a lot of hate, indifference, and self justification on screen. The acting can be uneven at times, the picture sometimes feels like it's just wandering, and despite taking on the subject of racism the black characters in this all feel more like types then real people. So while surely risk taking then, the movie feels disappointingly retrograde now. Even the heroic black doctor character feels like a lesser version of someone Sidney Poitier would have played around the same time. **1/2

Death on the Nile (2022)

 In 'Death on the Nile' Kenneth Branagh reprises the lead role of detective Hercule Poirot and also directs the picture, as he had previously done in his tremendously successful ($352.8 million box office off a $55 million budget) version of 'Murder on the Orient Express' back in 2017. This film has been less finically successful then its predecessor (so far $115.1 million off a $90 million budget), but in other ways feels more successful, though on the whole still a mixed bag.

Less clunky then its predecessor, the visual and action flourishes that felt so forced on a train in the snow feel more natural on a boat on the Nile. Both films have large star studded ensemble casts and take a bit to get going. While boasting a multi racial cast and set largely amongst the upper classes in 1937, this movie almost entirely avoids dealing with the obvious topic of racism, which felt more then a little off. 

The film also tries to arc the hell out of Poirot which the more I reflect on it the less I liked, perhaps by giving the central character 'closure' Branagh was trying to free himself from the expectation of making more of these. Chrisite's story is solid though and succeeds at being what it sets out to be, enjoyable diversion of some intelligence, though of no great depth. This is probably the last time we will see Armie Hammer on screen, because of cannibalism, which makes him sound like his own Agathe Christi story. ***

The House of Rothschild (1934)

 'The House of Rothschild' tells the story of the famous German Jewish banking family, the great financers of 19th century Europe. George Arliss plays several generations of Rothschild patriarchs. Loretta Young and Robert Young have a Jew/Gentile romance. The screenplay is by Nunnally Johnson, who would later adapt 'The Grapes of Wrath', among other fine films. 

It is notable that this movie, which directly addresses anti Semitism on screen even as Hitler was in ascendency in Europe, was made by 20th Century Fox, the only major Hollywood studio at the time without a Jewish studio head. Darryl F. Zanuck was a protestant of Swiss extraction from Wahoo Nebraska, however his name and position no doubt caused many people to assume he was Jewish. So Zanuck would have been familiar with anti-Semitism but also at a certain distance from it, that may have been what emboldened him to address the issue on screen so early and so openly. 

This is a handsomely mounted film and Arliss is great it in it. He really was an odd looking man, yet a consistent money maker for 20th Century and they used him well. George's wife Florence also appears in the film and it's fun to see the easy chemistry the two have with each other. ***

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

 'Evil Under the Sun' is an adaptation of the 1941 Agatha Christie novel of the same name. The story concerns a murder at an Adriatic island resort in the 1930's. Peter Ustinov plays the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, a role he would play around a half dozen times on both film and television, his take on the character is a little different from the now better known David Suchet and Kenneth Branagh versions and it took me a while to warm to it. To warm to the whole thing really, at first it felt very small scale BBC, but the film eventually opens up and becomes quite fun. It even has a sequence, establishing where all the characters are at a given time, which is perhaps my favorite in any Poirot film I've seen. The movies Cole Porter score really serves to elevate and enliven the whole thing. ***

Doctor Syn (1937)

 In watching 'Doctor Syn' (1937) I quickly realized that I had encountered this story before. There is a Hammer Film version from 1962 alternately known as 'Captain Clegg' and 'Night Creatures'. Dr. Syn was the creation of English novelist Russell Thorndike (1885-1972), who over the course of seven novels chronicled the adventures of his title character, a reformed pirate who reinvented himself as a clergyman and uses the profits of his smuggling to do good in the world. 

The story here deals with Captain Collyer (Roy Emerton) of the Royal Navy, come to the village of Dymchurch on the south east English coast to hunt for smugglers (turns out Dymchurch is a real place). Collyer comes to suspect that the notorious pirate Captain Clegg isn't dead, but operating a smuggling ring in the tiny community. Dr. Syn must try and keep Collyer off his tail, protect his co-conspirators, fend off the murderous intentions of a mute former colleague dubbed simply 'Mulatto' (this part hasn't aged well), and of course find time to help two young lovers get together. 

This was Arliss's last film role and he is rather enjoyable in it. The movie is hampered most by night shots that are simply not clear, and some other rather 30's trappings. Margret Lockwood (the female lead in on of my favorite films, 'Night Train to Munich') plays the young orphan unaware that the kindly vicar is really her father. John Loder plays her love interest. 

Also of note are the spectral 'Marsh Riders', a 'Scooby-Doo' villain type cover for the smuggling operation. Peter Cushing played the lead character in the Hammer version, while Patrick McGoohan had that part in a Disney 'Wonderful World of Color' TV production in 1963, which I think I might have seen at least part of when I was a kid. The Arliss version I give **1/2