Huk! (1956)

 Stirling Silliphant adapted his own novel about white plantation owners battling communist gurillas (the titular Huk) in the early 1950's Phillipines. Movie has an intriguing enough premise and the benefit of being filmed on the locations depicted, but its just so bland. There are a couple of okay action set pieces but the film lacked characters to care about. In regards to Mona Freeman's love triangle between George Montgomery and John Baer, I would advise her to go back to the States and find herself some better options. *

Cassandra's Dream (2008)

'Cassandra's Dream' is a dark-ish drama from Woody Allen's "British period". Brothers Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are in desperate need of money for their own reasons, their wealthy uncle Tom Wilkinson offers to set them up, but in exchange they've got to kill a man for him. Morality tale lays it on rather thick and never quite hits what its aiming for, do they? Allen does this basic idea better in 'Match Point' and 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'. **

Killer's Kiss (1955)

 The last Stanley Kubrick film I had yet to see, 'Killer's Kiss' is the directors second feature. While the story is kind of cliche the visual sense is strong with lots of cinema verite shooting around New York City; for a long time TCM used some clips from this movie in their night time programing bumpers, something I didn't know until I watched the movie and recognized the shots.

Jamie Smith is a boxer who early in the film loses what could have been a career making fight. In the aftermath he befriends a neighbor (the striking Irene Kane) whose boss (Frank Silvera) is causing her problems. Someone ends up murderd.

Lean, low budget film is better then it has a realistic right to be, given the humble circumstances of the production. The black Silvera's obsession with the white Kane is rather daring for the time. *** (This would have been a ** film if not for its artistry in presentation.)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

 In middle school (in the mid 90's) I had a friend who claimed that 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' was his favorite movie. It seemed an unusual choice for a 14 year old boy, so I've been meaning to see it for nearly 3 decades but just hadn't gotten around to it. I was expecting to see Hugh Grant persue Andie MacDowell over the course of the titular five social gatherings, though the film has more gravity then just that. It's charming, but not quite as good as I was hoping for. ***

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

 Based losely on a 1926 Austrian novella (translated title is 'Dream Story', by Arthur Schnitzler), 'Eyes Wide Shut' holds the Guiness certified record for the longest continous film shoot at an even 400 days. Director Stanley Kubrick submitted his final cut of the film six days before dying of a heart attack in his sleep.

 Staring Tom Cruse and Nicole Kidman as their real marriage was deteroting and famous for an operatic orgey scene, the contoversal film attracted a curious audience and made $162.1 million at the box office off a $65 million budget. Critics were genrally positive, it has a 76% on Rotton Tomatoes.

"I don't know what this is", is the phrase that kept coming to my mind as I watched the film, trying to figure out how to pin it down, what lense to use on it, how to process what I was seeing. In hind sight the answer is obvious, an unusually artistic erotic thriller. It's a film very interested in lines, there being crossed or headed. It's extremely sexual in focus, most scenes are either people having sex, or have just had sex, trying to get sex, or considering having sex. 

The orgey scene, built up in reputation over all these years, wasn't nearly as debauched as I'd been expecting. The film is artifical in sets, often (intentionaly) stilted in language. It goes from flat to intense, it has a dreamy quality, I'd describe the film as being high. 

The plot is fairly simple, after a longish pre amble at a Christmas party (this is a Christmas movie), doctor Tom Cruse has a fight with wife Nicole Kidman, there are mutual charges of adultery. Dr. Tom gets summoned to a night time house call, then decides to take his time coming home, makes a number of stops along the way, one of which leads him to the aforementioned operatic orgey; a decadent, ritualistic, masked affair, his attendance has consequences that play out over roughly the last third of the movie. 

It's very well made, it's surreal, it has a number of things to say. The secret society aspect, that's a puzzler. What does it mean? Why is it there? It's a comment on the larger themes, but why this particular device? I didn't love this movie, but it is rather mysterious and very intriguing. I think I'll have to watch it again and see what more I can sift out. ***1/2

Variety (1983)

 Michigan transplant Sandy McLeod gets a job taking tickets at a 42nd Street porn theater called Variety. There she becomes increasingly obsessed with this new seemy world and a regular patron with possible mob connections (Richard N. Davidson), all to the growing concern of her investigative journalist boyfriend Will Patton. A young Luis Guzman has a supporting role, Spaulding Gray a voice cameo.

Probably the best known film by indie director Bette Gordan, the screenplay is by Kathy Acker, a former sex worker who became a Pushcart Award winning novelist. This film loves its long takes, which along with all of the shots of period New York City gives it a quasi documentary feel. This thing gets pretty tense. ***

White Reindeer (2013)

 Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is a DC area realtor in her early 30's, whose meteorologist husband (Nathan Williams) is killed in a home invasion robbery 24 days before Christmas. After the funeral her late husband's best friend tells her that her spouse had an affair with a stripper for several months about a year ago. Suzanne tracks the woman (Laura Lemar-Goldsborough) down and the two actually become friends.

 This friendship is the start of a series of out of character behavioral changes Suzanne adopts in an attempt to deal with her situation; behaviors that include giving up meat, snorting Cocaine, spending sprees and attending her neighbors orgey, an awkwardly funny sequence that ends with the participants playing the Rock Band video game. 

Despite everything that happens to her Suzanne remains a fundamentally good person, who through the course of several unusual nights realizes the need to get herself together for the good of others as well as herself.

Low budget, independent film never fully realizes the promise of its premise, but it comes damn close. Uneven, characters sometimes seem like they are in different movies (I'm thinking of her boss in particular), but the dark comedy sometimes works and there are a couple of scenes I found downright moving, one even borderline profound. A movie I'd like to digest for a while and then revisit. ***

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

 'Tokoyo Godfathers' is a Christmas anime movie, perhaps the only one. Inspired by the 1948 American film '3 Godfathers', which in turn was a comic riff on the three wise men from the Nativity story, and probably also the inspiration for 'Three Men and a Baby'. 

Three unhoused persons, a drunken bum of a man, a theatrical trans woman and a reticent run away teen girl, find an abandoned new born baby in some garbage. The trio debate options ranging from keeping the child to turning her into the police, but ultimately decided to try tracking down the baby's parents. 

The trio thus embark on an epic journey across Tokoyo, using some pictures and a key left with the child as clues to her origin. The baby is seemingly endowed with serendipitous powers, our hero's surving things they shouldn't and encountering providential people along the way. We slowly learn each characters backstory and how they ended up on the street, with all being forced into personal growth as they attempt to help the baby find its proper home. A sweet tail of grit, a tragic and heartwarming adventure. ***1/2

8-Bit Christmas (2021)

 '8-Bit Christmas' is essentially a remake of 'A Christmas Story', updating the setting from the 40's to the 80's and the object of the young leads Christmas desire from a BB gun to a Nintendo. "You'll shoot your eye out" becomes 'you'll rot your brain'. The film employes a 'Princess Bride' style framing story, borrows a little from 'The Goonies' and has plenty of John Hughes references. 

Another movie that leans overwhelmingly on 80's nostalgia, so over done. Plodding, dull, lazy, I found it a slog to sit through and would not have finished it had I not been watching it with someone else. I liked the parents, especially June Diane Raphael, but also Steve Zahn, their characterizations are hardly deeply drawn but everyone else is so paper thin I simply could not care about them. Film tries to redeem its self with a sentimental ending, but I ain't falling for it, I sat through too much to get there. I hated this. *1/2 (the half star is for the parents performances)

Eileen (2023)

It's circa 1965 and Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie) is 24 years old. Four years previous she left college and moved back to her small Massachusetts town to help take care of her sick mother. In time mother died and with her sister married and living some distance away, Eileen stayed in town to take care of their father, a (forcibly) retired Sheriff whose an alcoholic and verbally abusive (Shea Whigham, whose good in these kind of parts). Eileen drives a smoke prone car to her job at what appears to be the towns major employer, the state juvenile detention facility,  where she is a kind of junior secretary whose chief responsibility is checking in visitors. Eileen is naive, melancholy, very lonely and starved for physical affection.

It's December and the facilities psychologist has just retired, replaced by a glamorous and unconventional lady doctor from out of town named Rebecca (Ann Hathaway). Rebecca takes an interest in Eileen, who quickly becomes enamored by her. They share an interest in the mystery of a quite young inmate who brutality murdered his father, there also seems to be some forbidden romantic sparks generating between the two women. Rebecca invites Eileen over to her house on Christmas eve and... well as much as I'd like to talk about it, I'm going to leave the narrative here.

'Eileen' is the biggest surprise I've had at the movies this year. A grey, understated, slow burn of a film with nods to Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. A character study and sort of unconventional mystery. 'Eileen' is a near under the radar film that deserves a bigger audiance. ***1/2

All is Bright (2013)

 Turns out there is a Paul Giamatti Christmas movie between 'Fred Claus' and 'The Holdovers', it's called 'All is Bright' and is from Phil Morrison the director of 'Juneberg'. Two Canadian ex cons and semi-estranged friends (Giamatti and Paul Rudd) try to go legitimate by selling Christmas trees in a New York City neighborhood. Good performances from the two leads and Sally Hawkins as a Russian woman who befriends Giamatti. Drull, sour story slow burns its way to some charm. **1/2

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

 'Ghost in the Shell' is a real classic in the anime genra, a big name title there and one that had a large enough impact to become semi well known outside of anime circles; also there was a white washed live action remake with Scarlett Johanson that attracted some controversy and a genrally blah reception back in 2017.

Set in 2029 the film concerns Mj. Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg security agent who along with her team go up against a powerful hacker out to disrupt important diplomatic talks. This is a reasonably good action sci-fi movie with a couple of interesting ideas in it. Motoko is naked a lot in this, starting two minutes in, she has a camouflage/ invisibility power that apparently she has to be mostly nude to use, this no doubt helped the film with its target demographic. Motoko's voice sounds so much like Alexa that's got to be intentional. **1/2

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

 In this first sequel to the 1984 original, Ricky takes over his dead brother Billy's calling to punish the "naughty". Movie makes extensive use of footage from the first film, retelling the story of the original movie in flashback for about the first 40 minutes! This greatly pads the pictures 88 minute run time. 

The movie proper has young Ricky being adopted by a nice Jewish couple, the better to avoid further Christmas related trauma. Things go well for years, but eventually an 18 year old Billy stumbles upon an attempted rape, which is when his killing spree starts

Even sillier then its predecessor, lead Eric Freeman is a real ham, and he's not the only one. The "garbage day scene" is internet famous, but there are wilder deaths on display here. The film gets rather meta when Ricky goes and sees a movie about a guy in a Santa suit killing people and they use clips from the first movie in that as well.

Mother superior finally gets her comeuppance,  that and the overall weirdness of the film make it watchable despite the repetitive first half. *1/2

The Boy and the Heron (2023)

 'The Boy and The Heron' is to be the last film from Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, who came out of retirement to make it and turns 83 in January. Mahoto Maski is an adolescent boy whose mother dies in a Tokyo fire about mid way through World War II. A year later and Mahoto's father Shoichi has married his late wifes younger sister (who is now pregnant), as well as relocated the family and his aircraft factory to his wives ancestral estate.

There a large gray heron takes an unusual interest in Mahoto, who finds this threatening and tries to kill the bird. When Mahoto's pregnant step-mother / aunt goes missing the heron revels its self to be a kind of anthropromorphizing spirit guide tasked with helping him find lost family.

The heron takes Mahoto on an 'Alice in Wonderland'/'Wizard of Oz' type journey into another world populated by the dead, unborn spirits, versions of people he knew in life, soul eating pelicans, fascistic parakeets and a mysterious wizard. There is a lot going on in this movie.

Imaginative and with moments of real beauty, this took a while to get going and I found that I had a harder time connecting with it then is usually case for me with Miyazaki movies. However even lower tear Miyazaki is of greater quality then most anything else out their in terms of contemporary animated film making. This one just wasn't one of my favorites of his. ***

True Believer (1989)

 Eddie Dodd (James Woods) was a legendary, crusading hippie lawyer in the New York of 60's and 70's, but for the last 10 years or so he's been making a living principally by getting drug pushers off. Roger Baron (Robert Downey Jr.) is a recent University of Michigan law graduate, who travels to New York with the dream of working with his idol. Eddie hires Roger but the latter's evident disappointment in him, prompts his taking of the case of a Korean American man who killed someone in self defense in prison.

 Roger quickly comes to the conclusion that his client Shu Kai Kim (Yuji Okumoto) shouldn't be in prison at all, that he didn't commit that China Town gang murder 10 years before. The more Eddie and Roger dig, the more opposition they encounter, from everyone from the D.A.'s office to Neo Nazi's. Reinvigorated by again fighting injustice, Roger finds his life in danger and uncovers a conspiracy with larger frightening implications.

This is good. This is what I some times call "the 4 star 3 star movie." It does what it does exceptionally well, but without breaking any new ground or doing anything standout stylistically. James Woods, while kind of a creep in real life, is a great actor, it's also fun to see Robert Downey in the young whipper snapper role. The likable Margret Colin plays Dodd's chief investigator and Kurtwood Smith the imposing D.A. Capable direction from Jospeh Reuben from a pretty smart script by Wesley Strick, who would have a big hit the next year with 'Arachnophobia'. ***

Raising Buchanan (2019)

 Two women desperate for money (Amanda Melby and Cathy Shim) take advantage of a highly unusual situation to abduct the body of former president James Buchanan and hold it ransom. They are disappointed when no one is willing to pay for the corpse of arguably America's worst president. Rene Auberjonois plays a sort of vision of Buchanan who appears to Melby and they needle each other. M. Emmet Walsh plays a hospace patient who refuses to die, much like M. Emmett Walsh, while Andy Dick's part was recast due to sexual battery allegations. Comedy is very nitch, and it's a nitch I'm in. **1/2 

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

In 1880's Nevada, a diverse assemblage of citizens must decide if they are a proper posse or a lynch mob, when they encounter 3 men with possibly stolen cattle in the aftermath of a local ranchers shooting. Rumination on ideas of justice and mercy, vengeance and order. Large cast includes Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Jane Darwell, Harry Davenport, Anthony Quinn and Colonel Potter. William Wellman's short and sleek morality tale from the novel by Walter van Tilburg Clark was nominated for best picture. When the lone black man in the group  stands up for the acussed I cried a little. ***1/2

My Five Wives (2000)

 Rodney Dangerfield cracking sex jokes at nearly eighty. Real-estate developer Rodney aquires five improbably hot wives as part of buisness transactions in Utah. Trouble is mobster Andrew Dice Clay wants the land and wouldn't mind some of the wives. Blah comedy is not very funny, but at times nice to look at. *1/2

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

 I have a suspision that the title 'Godzilla Minus One' loses something in the translation, but what it intends to convey is that this is a Godzilla movie set before the 1953 original; not that we should take any kind of continuity with that or other Godzilla movies to be implied, this is a reboot.

Ryunosuke Kamiki is a fighter pilot in the waining days of the Second World War, he first encounters Godzilla on a small Japanese island, he freezes up, fails to act and as a result only he and one of his companions survive the attack. When rescue finally arrives they assume the Americans are responsible for the devastation, the two survivors opt not to correct them. 

Shortly after the war ends, Ryunosuke returns home in disgrace to a largely ruined Tokyo, he finds that all his family has died in the firebombings. He takes in Minami Hamabe, a young woman similarly devoid of kin and the baby girl she rescued from a dying mother's arms. The three orphans gradually become a kind of family. 

Ryunosuke takes work detonating discarded mines left in Japanse waters, two years pass. Godzilla, now mutated from American nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll, re-emerges, attacks shipping and heads for Tokyo. When the monster arrives those scenes look great on an IMAX screen. 

The movie plays things rather straight, it consciously avoids camp though occasionally veers into melodrama. It makes clear early on that it is to be an extended rumination on survivors guilt, but it's more then that. The filmmakers use Godzilla as a means of exploring the ambivalent feelings of the Japanese people to the then recently concluded war. It uses the giant lizard monster as a kind of catharsis, giving its many emotionally wounded characters an unambiguous evil to fight and save their homeland from. In doing this it's kind of beautiful, Godzilla meets Dunkirk. 

The movie pulls its unusual blend off admirably, what few things I might have tweaked in it don't matter much. American Godzilla movies, even the good one, don't seem to have much to say, it's a Japanese monster best suited to a Japanese psyche, about which it has alot to tell us. ***1/2

High Voltage (1929)

 Stiff early talky. Passengers on a bus in the High Sierras get stranded, take refuge in an abandoned church, harp on each other and encounter criminals before being rescued. Carole Lombard's talking debut. **

The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)

 'The Night They Raided Minsky's' is one of the film titles on a marquee in the background of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood', which is how I became aware of it. The movie is now pretty obscure, but there is actually a lot of talent behind it. 

The 1960 novel 'The Night They Raided Minsky's' is losely based on a true story. There really was a burlesque house called Minsky's in New York in the 1920's, it really was raided (multiple times) and is allegedly the birth place of the strip tease. The allegedly true story is that one night a performer began undressing as she came off stage, hearing a positive response from the audiance she came back on stage to continue undressing. The novel changes details of the story and greatly expands on them.

The novel was the subject of a bidding war, Debbie Reynolds was interested in the project as were some Broadway producers, ultimately those projects came to naught and the property ended up in the hands of United Artists. A pre sitcom era Norman Lear (interestingly I watched this the day he died at 101, but didn't learn of his death until the next day) decided to make this a follow up project to his successful 1967 picture 'Divorce American Style'.

Lear produced and co-wrote the picture, but brought in a young William Frediken to direct. The music and songs were done by the team of Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, who had done the same on 'Bye Bye Birdy', remarkably as of this writting both are still alive and in their late 90's. Andrew Laszlo, who would later do the cinematography on projects as different as 'First Blood' and 'Newsies' would shoot the thing.

On the screen you have Elliot Gould in his first speaking part and Bert Lehr in his final screen appearance. Lehr, best known as The Cowerdly Lion in 'The Wizard of Oz', had actually worked in burlesque houses early in his career, he died during filming from a cancer he apparently didn't know he had, most of his scenes had already been shot so they edited around him.

A scene stealing Norman Wisdom and Jason Robards play the comedy team at the center of the story. Robards was a last minute replacement after Tony Curtis left for creative differences and Alan Alda had a scheduling conflict, I think the film is better for his presence. Britt Ekland plays the naive Amish girl who accidentally invents the strip tease. She appears nude very briefly in the film, later in 'The Wicker Man' she would use a body double. Ekland would file for divorce from husband Peter Sellers four days before the films release. In interviews she has stated this is her favorite of the films she appeared in.

Shot in late 1967, the initial rough cut of the film was deemed by studio exec David V. Picker as being the worst he had ever seen. Deciding that the film would need to be saved in the editing (director Frediken would acknowledge not knowing what he was doing on this project) an entire nine months was ultimately alloted for that process. Editor Ralph Rossenblum, who would later become Woody Allen's preferred film cutter, would state that he initially took the job because he figured a musical comedy would be a quick edit. Splicing in clips from period newsreels for effect, there are 1,440 cuts in the finished film.

Released in December of 1968 'Minsky's' got generally positive notices from critics, and while I couldn't find exact figures it apparently did better then the studio had anticipated. A charmingly grubby film, it's sadly mostly forgotten. If the concept of the film isn't a turn off, I would recommend. ***

Samson and Delilah (1949)

 'Samson and Delilah' is the film that Cecile B. DeMille is shown making during his cameo in 'Sunset Boulevard', that brief snippet is principally what I knew of the movie, that and the Bible story on which it is based. Upon reading that narrative in Judges 13 - 16 on my current read through of the Old Testament, I decided that was a good excuse to finally see the film. I was also mildly surprised to read that 'Samson and Delilah', which was released in December of 1949, went on to be the highest grossing film of 1950, $25.6 million off a $3 million budget.

This movie is not very good, a silly, corny Biblical epic with brightly-colored costumes and sets. The story is tweaked to make Samson's two Philistine love interests, Semader (Angela Lansbury) and Delilah (Hedy Lamar) sisters, to give the latter a more personal motivation for her betrayal, blaming Samson for the death of her sister and father. Samson's strength is said to come from his never cutting his hair, which aside from a not very convincing braid is hardly long. The acting also isn't very impressive, the dialogue about the same, it's honestly a pretty bad movie. George Sanders "I'm better then this" performance as the Philistine King, the occasional moment of spectical, and Hedy Lamar with her sexy outfits are about all that make this watchable. *1/2