Dead Reckoning (1947)

 Humphrey Bogart puts war buddy William Prince up for the Congressional Medal of Honor. At first Prince's reticencse seems born of (false?) humility, but when he learns he is to recieve the award the man takes a powder. Turns out the guy had enlisted under an assumed name, and the trouble he had been running away from three years previous is again close on his heals. Bogart sets out to solve the mystery and encounters Prince's old love Lizabeth Scott and learns Prince was suspected of murder. Some fun supporting characters, I particularly liked the safe cracker. Didn't love the ending. Set largely on the Gulf cost.  **1/2

Lurkers (1987)

 This is going for something of a 'Carnival of Souls' vibe. Cathy, victim of a traumatic childhood event, finds herself 15 years later engaged to an unfaithful man and repeatedly visited by creepy dead eyed ghosts. Her character is even a musician. My favorite scene has got to be two models talking the stock market while undressing for a shoot (leads fiance is a photographer). Cheaply made, poorly acted, and while it has a sense of humor it's still really bad. *

Paid in Full (1950)

 Love triangle between Robert Cummings and sisters Lizabeth Scott and Diana Lynn (who of course gets to play the piano). A little unexpectedly it's Scott whose the nice girl and Lynn whose the B. Lots of baby envy, lots of melodrama, very much a 'cult of motherhood' movie.

 Eve Ardin plays the Eve Ardin part, the sensible friend who offers Scott sound advice. Produced by the Scott obsessive Hal B. Walls, movie was filmed in 1948 but for some reason held back for release until 1950. Based on a Reader's digest story. Carol Channing makes her film debut in small uncredited part. **1/2

Horse Feathers (1933)

 Marx Brothers (four at this time) take over a colloge with a struggling football program. It writes its self. Fun songs, wacky antics. Forgotten trope: "The Colloge Widow." ***

Korengal (2014)

 Sequel to the more famous documentary 'Restpo', both films follow the same group of U.S. solders in the Korengal Valley area of Afghanistan in the late oughts. While I have not seen the first film, which was about their first tour in the area, it is not necessary to understanding this one. A slice of life look at a small part of our ill fated war, at first I wasn't too thrilled to be watching, I respect military service but have a hard time relating to it. However this film grew on me as I got to know it's subjects personalities more and gained a better sense of the situation there. ***

Do You Believe? (2015)

 Twelve lives intersect over the course of several nights in Chicago. This is basically the 'Crash' of Christian movies, and like 'Crash' it is eager to hit you over the head with its message. Saintly Christian characters help F'd up non Christians (and a couple of luke warm Christians) find Christianity. Melodrama climaxes with an actual car crash sequence. Surprisingly good cast includes Cyball Shepard, Sean Astin, Lee Majors, Mira Sorvino, DeLroy Lindo, and Alexa PenaVega. **

Too Late for Tears (1949)

 Los Angeles couple Lizabeth Scott and Arthur Kennedy accidently receive an attache case full of $60,000 (around $729,000 in today's money). When the intended recipient comes looking for it things don't end well. Vehicle for noir fatale Scott is one of her better remebered. About half way through Don Defoe and his lighter tone wander in as if from a different movie, and to my surprise it pays off. This was really good, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Big grin. ***1/2

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

 Stanley Kubrick's penultimate film is the story of conflicted Marine Matthew Modine's basic training experince, followed by his gradual disillusionment in Vietnam. Based on the semi autobiographical novel 'The Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford, Kubrick is famous for his lose adapations so I do wonder how much the movie resembles the book.

 This film is most famous for the performance of R. Lee Ermy as the drill sargent, after the opening sequence the film is around 12 to 15 minutes of him yelling, which is honestly great entertainment. 

 The opening basic training sequence runs around 40 minutes, it is so good that it really overshadows the actual Vietnam stuff, and the Vietnam stuff is still some of the best ever put to film. Glad I finally saw this. ****

The Extreme Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

 Meta action comedy has the famiously eccentric Nicholas Cage playing a slightly unhinged version of himself. At a career impasse Cage travels to Spain where he is to be paid one million dollars to attend the birthday part of a rich olive oil magnet with possible mob ties (Pedro Pascal in a fun performance). While there he is recruited by Tiffany Hadish of the CIA to help with the investigation of a politically motivated kidnapping.

At one point Cage and Pascal's characters are working on writing a screenplay together, they decide that it will start as a character study and slowly morph into an action film, "so there will be something for everybody", which is exactly what this film does. So again, meta. This is actually a rather fun film, though as of this writing it has yet to recoup its production cost. Film has the makings of a cult movie about it. ***

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

 The third movie in this 'Harry Potter' prequel franchise is thankfully less cluterd then the second, though still lacks the charm of the first. A component and well balanced film. Katherine Waterson, who had been the female lead in the previous two films is here noticeably underused, appearing in maybe two scenes. Mads Mikkelson proves he should have been cast as the villain from the start, he brings some real menice to the role. ***

Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

 A real WTF of a movie. How to even describe this, the animated sequences of early Seaseme Street meets the Danish silent witchcraft documentary Haxen? At times a real visual achivment and at times little more then a film strip, this trippy 1970's anime is based on a 19th Century French history of Witchcraft. A doomed love story set in medieval Europe, this is also one of the most disturbingly sexual movies I have ever seen. Cartoon features, in stylized form, gang rap and orgies and rather phallic demons. Yet there is a certain fairytale quality to the whole presentation. A film of much juxtopostion that I'm a little flummoxed on how to rate. It's both a real artistic achievement and rather juvinale, hard to look away from and hard to watch. I'm gonna compromise and give it ***

Ben (1972)

 'Ben' is the sequel to lonely man controls a rat army movie 'Willard'. Now Willard is dead and the rats under command of their rat leader Ben have allied with another lonley young man, only this man is a 10 year old boy with a heart condition and love of marionettes. He's kind of hard to take. The film lacks the surrealness and menace of the first movie, but is still strange and boasts a song performed by  Micheal Jackson. Featuring a young Meredith Baxter and an old Arthur O'Connell. It would be hard to describe the movie as something other then bad. *

Downton Abby: A New Era (2022)

 This second Downton Abby movie feels like more of a movie then the first one. Or rather it feels like one of those Holiday specials they sometimes do on British television, only this one doesn't have to do with Christmas. Or it feels like a couple episodes of the show back to back. It has a valedictory, closure element to the ending but dosen't feel so built around it the way the first movie did. 

I think what helps it more the anything is spliting up the large cast for most of the movie, as nice as it is to see everyone together, like in the wedding sequence that opens the film. Most of the movie is split between the shooting of a film at Downton, with major plot elements taken from 'Singing in the Rain', and something of a mystery concerning another convienient inheratince, this one a villa in the south of France. Anyway I enjoyed the film, as did the largerly older and female audiance I saw it with. ***1/2 for the initated, and probably a confused ** for people who see it blind with no knowledge of the character inter relationships.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)

Now most remembered for its lush Alfred Newman theme, 'Love is a Many-Splendored Thing' really isn't that good. There is not much substance here to begin with and it hasn't aged well. Set in a 1949 Hong Kong overrun with refugees from the communists, it's an ill fated romance between American reporter William Holden and a half Chinese doctor played by Jennifer Jones in yellowface. This is supposed to be a great love story but I didn't think they had much chemistry. Plus so little happens it feels long at 101 minutes. Blah. *1/2

Sheba, Baby (1975)

 'Sheba, Baby' may be the worst "Pam Grier movie". I am referring here to the sub genra of 1970's explotation films staring miss Grier as a badass. In this one she is a Chicago P.I. who returns to Kentucky when her fathers buisness is threatended by organized crime. The movie is a going through the motions retread of better films, lacking creativity, energy, chemistry, and memorable characters, though it does have a couple of workable action sequences and off the beaten path locations. Less sleazy and violent then Ms. Grier's earlier films. On the whole very forgettable. *

I Passed for White (1960)

 The title says it all, 'I Passed for White' is part of a sub genra of mid century films in which a lite skinned black woman attracts a white lover who is unaware of her racial background. I think this is the 5th such movie I have personally seen so the plot is less interesting then the star. This is Sonya Wilde's only film role, the young actress had been the original Maria in West Side Story on Broadway. She ended her career early in 1962 to marry prominate East Tennesse banker Jake Butcher, later credited as the man who brought the Worlds Fair to Knoxville in 1982. Jake would go to prison in the mid 80's for fraud. The couple would have 4 children, Sonya is still with us at 85. The male lead Anthony Franciscus would later play the lead astronaut in the second Planet of the Apes film. This movie is awkward, highly wrought melodrama, just how long does she think she can realistically bluff this whole thing out post marraige? *1/2                                                      

Saunkan Saunkne (2022)

Nice young Indian couple Nirmal and Nasseeb have been married eight years, they live with Nirmal's mother on a prosperus little farm, Nirmal's even on the Villiage Council. However Nasseeb just can't get pregnant, they've seen witch doctors and regular doctors and nothing is working. So Nasseeb suggests Nirmal take her younger sister Korna as a second wife so they can have children. Nirmal is reluctant at first, but him and Korna end up getting along so they get married. However the pragmatic approach under which the marriage was entered, dosen't take into account the emotional realities of the situation. Insecurities and jealousy abound, the elder sister tries to cock block the younger, the honeymoon period comes and goes, various people try meddling, there's a scooter accident, and exiling either wife is floated before the end of the picture. Fascinating as cultural artifact and a little hard to pin down tonally, this romance/comedy/drama is a real peak into a different world for the American viewer. One of the things I found interesting is that while legal plural marriage has become less common and culturally acceptable in India, so the three party arrangement make the leads the target of local gossip. ***

The Enemy Below (1957)

 Captian's Robert Mitchum and Curd Jurgens of a U.S. battleship and German sub respectively, have a stand off in the mid Atlantic. I found the movie mostly boaring, though I liked the ending and the sub sing along scene. **

Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

 "The multiverse" is very much in vogue right now, a great gift to fan service and marketing synergy, but not always to story. Dr. Strange 2 is fine, though I found myself liking it less and less the longer it went on. Plot contravinces towards the end become self parody, and the character arcs are getting reptative. Film boats the second giant one eyed monster attack I've seen in a super hero movie in the last year. **1/2

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' is a notorious flop, grossing $15 million on a $47 million budget. Based on Tom Wolfe's decade defining 1987 novel of moral rot in New York, and directed by Brian De Palma. Tom Hank's is miscast as a millionaire Wall Street hedge fund manager whose car accidently runs over a black man in the Bronx while avoiding a potential robbery. Bruce Willis is a tabloid reporter who latches onto the story in an attempt to relaunch his failing career. Nothing lands here, it's plodding, fails to reach the depth it aspires for. While the source material is well regarded, the movie feels pretty trashy. Melanie Griffith's southern bell freeloader seems a relic of another time. This really is a bad, pretentious movie. *

Space Jam (1996)

 I think it is generally under appricated just how strange a movie this is. Born of a series of early 90's Superbowl adds that teamed Micheal Jordan and the Loony Toons to sell Nike's, 'Space Jam' starts as a soft touch quesi biopic of the sports legend, that then intersects with a story about an alien amusement park attempting to enslave classic Warner Brother cartoon characters who live under the surface of the Earth. At times charmingly strange, it's still an exercise in synergy over substance. **

The Outfit (2022)

In 'The Outfit' Mark Rylance is a English "cutter" making suites in 1956 Chicago. His shop is being used as a payment drop off point by the mob. His female assistent, to whom he is protective, is having a secret daliance with the mob bosses son. One night that son is shot and his bodyguard brings him to the shop so Rylance can literally sow him up. Also someone is a mole. Every scene in this movie takes place at the shop so this is basically a stage play. It is well acted all around, though the thing it does best I won't spoil save to say that it does it arguably too much. Still I found this a very satisfying watch. ***