Please, Not Now! (1961)

 French love quadrangle comedy stars Brigitte Bardot and was directed by her then ex husband Roger Vadim. Shades of 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' here. A fun and free kinda film, a sort of screw ball comedy, and damn sexy. ***

The Girl in Black Stockings (1957)

 A series of murders rock the resort community of Knab, Utah. A pretty solid B picture with a good cast of characters. The resolutions a little on the silly side, thought the most unrealistic thing about the picture might be that the sheriff drinks coffee and beer. Ann Bancroft and Mamie Van Doren are it's least forgotten cast members. **1/2

Russ Meyer's Supervixens (1975)

 When corrupt cop Charles Napier murders  young mechanic Clint's (Charles Pitt) hypersexual girlfriend Shari Eubank and then frames him for it, our hero is forced to go on the lamb in rural Arizona. Sex comedy/action flick, is over the top but largely good humored. While on the run Clint finds himself repeatedly and aggressively sexually persued by extremely busty women, then violently persued by the men in their life. Still Clint finds love with a look alike (same actress) of his dead girlfriend  before a final confrontation with Charles Napier. Russ Meyer writing and directing at the top of his game, the man loved his work. This movie made $17 million at the box office off a budget of $100,000, a 17 fold return on investment. ***

Cecil is Dead (1944)

This is another Jules Maigret mystery staring Albert Préjean. The body of a headless woman is found in a cheap hotel and a families long held secrets are in danger of exposure. I liked this one alot more then the other of these that I watched, consistently engaging. ***

Compliance (2012)

 A critical examination of deference to authority; a true squirmfest. Inspired by real events, a fast food manager (Ann Dowd) subjects a young employee (Dreama Walker) to increasing levels of harassment, invasions of privacy and worse, because a man on the phone claiming to be a police officer tells her to. Solid, effective, unpleasant. ***

A Teacher (2013)

 A high school English teacher (Lindsey Burge) becomes increasingly obsessed with the student (Will Brittain) she is having an affair with. The film is done largely sans backstory (though some things are implied), and without any internal monologe, or even intimations of the same. So we only know what we see, we can observe the teachers gradual mental unwinding, but we never learn the reasons behind it. It's a kind of story telling some will find frustrating, but here, for me, it really worked. The kid is good, but it's Burge's very committed performance that makes this a engaging watch. ***

The Forbiden Room (2015)

 'The Forbiden Room' is a Guy Maddin film, so it's done in that oldie timey, 'Soviet montage' style that is his signature. This particular film employes a kind of Russian doll structure, where we see stories within stories, in essence a series of short films cut in pieces and presented in parts. This is really to the films benefit, it allows more diversity of visual and story text, and no one narrative goes on too long. The main stories concern a crew trapped in a downed submarine and lumberjacks out to save a beloved local damsel from a gang of wolves. But also, as summed up by Wikipedia: "Other sub-stories involve: a surgeon kidnapped by a team of "women skeletons" who work as insurance defrauders; a madman on a train under the charge of a womanizing psychiatrist; a mustache that seeks to comfort the widow of the man whose face it used to adorn; and a doctor cursed by a bust of Janus. "  I really enjoyed this, it might also make good on boarding for those new to Maddin. ***

Picpus (1943)

 This is an Inspector Mairgret story, my first exposure to one. Mairgret must solve the mystery of an unknown body which is found in a wardrobe of a woman moving apartments; it wasn't there when she moved out of her old place, but somehow got in there during the moving process. This was pretty good, Mairgret is likeable but a pretty standard detective character, the supporting characters are pretty much types as well. This was filmed in France during the Nazi occupation, though no references to this exists in the film its self.**1/2

Asphalt (1929)

 An earnest young police officer and a felonious woman fall for each other, resulting in life threating complications. There isn't much to this story, but it's very capabily pulled off in large part do to the charisma of the leads. This is a late German silent, so I couldn't help but be mildly distracted wondering which characters and actors would become Nazi's. ***

Witness in the City (1959)

 French noir. A wealthy industrialist who killed his mistress is in turn killed by the woman's husband. He stages things to make it look like a suicide, but is unexpectedly seen by a cab driver leaving the scene of the crime. The murderer then must quickly improvise an alibi so he can track down and kill the cabie. However this tax driver proves to be a very social person who is always around people, most notably his girlfriend, a dispatcher at the cab company who is the first to figure out her boyfriend may be an indirect witness to a murder. This was a really solid movie, I'm a little surprised it didn't get an American remake. Great tension. ***

Kamikaze (1986)

French movie; grumpy scientist Michel Galabru is fired from his job, he takes to exploding the heads of television presenters from his nephews attic with an ultrasonic weapon he invented and can fire from his TV. Much of the movie involves the investigation into the murder spree and it is all treated very matter of fact and realistic. I couldn't help but think of the implications to the world of the movie from the madman's invention; live broadcasting would essentially have to end, in fact it would be so dangerous that it would probably become a crime. Unique and compelling feature. ***1/2

Anora (2024)

 I saw 'Anora' about a week before it won all those Oscar's. Deserved. I'll watch anything Sean Baker does, I've seen three of his films so far and they were all excellent. 'Anora' is his most commercial film so far, bit still very much an indie. The movie starts as a slice of life character piece, then becomes a whirl wind romance before morphing into an extended comedy of errors, and then becomes something else, which I won't spoil save to say I was very satisfied with it. ****