Recent Films
Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar (Josh Greenbaum, 2021): 4/5
I honestly can’t tell you whether you will like this movie. It is the polar opposite of a broad comedy. In the vein of Anchorman or Lubowski or even Airplane, it demands you get onto its stupid wavelength. I was definitely there more than not and laughed a lot. So crazy and dumb. I think it’ll be even funnier on the fifth watch.
Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa, 2020): 4/5
Unlike the priests in Diary of a Country Priest and First Reformed, this priest earns his imposter syndrome by actually being a fake. Also unlike those two, he turns out to be a great priest. It has an especially good second act (difficult and rare!). It also helps that our protagonist looks so much like Renée (Maria? Melle?) Falconetti.
One night in Miami (Regina King, 2021): 2/5
The movie just farts around for the first hour, then has some sub-Breakfast Club chat about jocks duct taping guys butts (I assume). Then a great Sam Cooke song carries all the emotional baggage of the end.
Hunter Hunter (Shawn Linden, 2020): 2/5
Quite slow and muddled. Many minutes burned up showing people crouching in a forest with a rifle, looking terrified.
Saint Maud (Rose Glass, 2021): 2/5
Taxi Driver but for end-of-life nurses.
Let Him Go (Thomas Bezucha, 2020): 3.5/5
Lane and Costner are both great fun to watch In a script that certainly puts them through the paces. Surprising tension and horror!! Mid-career Eastwood is one touch point for sure. Expert middle-brow.
After Midnight (Jeremy Gardner, 2020): 2/5
Anxiety over a relationship on the rocks manifests as a monster. Rural setting and droll tone. Exceedingly minor.
Alone (John Hyams, 2020): 3/5
Efficient, driving and effective thriller/horror, with pretty much zero hand-wringing social commentary or backstory/psychological depth for its characters. I recommend it.
Soul (Pete Doctor, 2020): 2/5
I found it Impossible to parse on a spiritual and abstract level, and the movie never settles on a coherent objective correlative to follow more literally through the pretty parts. Fail.
Save Yourselves! (Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson, 2020): 3/5
A couple going through a bump in their relationship decide to go to a remote cabin and unplug for a week—and they end up missing an alien invasion. Amusing and suitable for date night.
Scare Me (Josh Ruben, 2020): 2.5/5
The first 2/3, where the characters just tell one another stories and act them out, is fun. Didn’t need the more literal third act.
News of the World (Paul Greengrass, 2020): 2.5/5
Very routine. Hanks attempts to single-handedly redeem both the genocide of the Native Americans and the excesses of The Greatest Generation (“We took the horrors of war we saw and made a country out of it barf barf barf.”)
Underwater (William Eubank, 2020): 2/5
Kristen Stewart so, so hot. I think there might have been monster or something as well.
An Easy Girl (Rebecca Zlotowski, 2020): 2/5
Beautiful setting and horny young people. Unfortunately, our object of desire and freedom is a grotesque monster, and our protagonist never convincingly changes. Still: actual sex scenes and goddamn let’s all vacation on a yacht in the south of France soon. Expert use of sea urchins.
Other Random Stuff
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956): 2/5
Stultifyingly deliberate. Could a person manufacture enough circumstantial evidence to send himself to the chair for a murder he didn’t commit? It doesn’t work out any better for him than for the writer in Shock Corridor. A last-minute twist is almost beside the point dramatically—too little too late.
Testament of Dr Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933): 3.5/5
A witty thriller to rival Hitchcock, with a smart police detective and romance. Deftly handles multiple scenes of tension happening at the same time. The use of sound still seems innovative.
The Lusty Men (Nicolas Ray, 1952): 3.5/5
Are all rodeo movies End of the West movies? As the title indicates, this movie is about men who fuck. No but seriously it’s about rodeo men. Who fuck. Some great documentary rodeo action. Every brand of toxic masculinity you could require is fully on display, roiling with pride and self-loathing. Makes a great double bill with Junior Bonner, made 20 years later by another self-loathing he-man. Sample dialogue: “Men. I’d like to fry them all in deep fat [slamming her utensil down on the word fat].”
Frownland (Ronald Bronstein, 2007): 3/5
A Man Under the Influence. From the writer of the Safdie’s Uncut Gems, Good Time, etc. Frownland has a complete idiosyncratic and compelling central performance and much stinky nervousness. It’s also boring as fuck.
Klute, rw (Alan J. Pakula, 1971): 3/5
A hazy, horny hash brownie of a detective thriller. Is Jane Fonda great here? She is certainly auditioning for a great performance.
Ode, (Kelly Reichardt, 1999): 2/5
50-minute, super 8-adaptation of the novel (!!) Ode to Billy Joe. The song is famously ambiguous, but—spoiler—Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the bridge because he had had a gay experience, and he couldn’t handle the feelings afterwards. Does Reichardt’s Old Joy also explore difficult gay feelings? I honestly can’t quite tell. For super fans, which apparently I am.
Sing Street, rw (John Carney, 2016): 5/5
What do you care? Just let me like it.
I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan, 2009): 3.5/5
Although he’s a Montreal-type Canadian, Dolan often comes up when young French people talk about contemporary French-language film (along with Blue is my Favorite Colour). Anyway it’s a heartfelt, soulful and stylish portrait of a gay lad’s complicated relationship with his self-centered mother, and I could relate. She loves him and is selfish and awful — and the same could be said for him.
Unwatched Hitchcock Film Fest
These particular “leftovers from great directors” are so much better than those of Spielberg, Scorsese or Linklater. On the level of skillful and efficient storyteller, he is peerlessly consistent. Elemental grasp of the power of the medium blah blah blah. Rather cold and ironic: fuck you.
Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock, 1976): 3/5
Light and comic. A stoned, woozy LA vibe permeates. William Devane looks so much like my Dad that I almost hated to see him caught. Barbara Harris is a rather screwball protagonist.
Topaz (Alfred Hitchcock, 1969): 2/5
Did you know Hitchcock made a spy movie about the Russians moving missiles into Cuba that also has a Notorious-ish love story, followed by the couple solving/fixing the Cuban Missile Crisis? Subverted by a total stiff of a diplomat/spy protagonist with an impenetrable French accent. A couple of really good sequences and quite a lot of talking and draperies. Michael Piccoli (who should have starred) rocks a red velvet robe, purple cravat and nine-inch cigar.
To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955): 3.5/5
A fantasia, existing mostly on sets, plus some strategic sprinkling of actual, dreamy footage of 1954 Monoco. Grace Kelly is dazzling—so refined, golden and perfect. She was 26. He was 50. She seduces the reluctant ex-thief. They demonstrably fuck, and she falls to sleep immediately after. Hot. Admittedly a lot of the mystery/crime drama is unnecessary.
Sabateur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942): 4/5
I know this is going to shock you, but the police think the wrong man committed a crime and he has to solve the crime himself as the police close in. Back to the 39 Steps well, but this is almost equally swift and full of wit, irony, rich characters (including the human skeleton and a bearded lady) and well-cut action.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941): 3.5/5
A Hitchcock screwball and literal comedy of remarriage. Lombard (blonde, not icy) is beautiful, graceful, intensely present and really funny in her second-to-last role (last being the great To Be or Not to Be.) Lots of great drinking.
Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936): 3.5/5
Hitchcock establishes a semi-light tone with some good comic bits and a kindly and charismatic Scotland Yard officer. Introduces a 10-year-old boy. Gives him all kinds of dialogue and character beats. Good kid, kind of goofy. At minute 45, gives him a package of dynamite, must get it to Piccadilly Circus before it blows up. There follows, as he crosses London, a Tarantino movie in miniature where banal scenes are played slowly out, all with a bomb under the table so to speak. Tram is delayed. A woman with a really cute puppy sits next to him. Of course, the kid will be saved cleverly in at the last moment, right? Kid blows up. Hard cut to a room full of people laughing.
Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929): 3.5/5
Another corker. A young woman is bored of her Scotland Yard boyfriend, goes on a date that goes wrong and she kills him in self-defense. This murder is handled powerfully and with great use of (of all things) silence. The blackmail part isn’t as interesting, but Hitchcock makes great use of a painting of a guy pointing at the viewer/characters and laughing, which adds a Gods-eye irony to all the characters’ self-inflicted predicaments.
(Mostly) Unwatched Don Siegel Film Fest
Riot in Cell block 11 (Don Siegel, 1954): 3/5
Relatively sober argument for prison reform (really!) also extremely skillful, exploitative and intelligent, with at least seven characters you actually care about.
Flaming Star (Don Siegel, 1960): 2.5/5
Did you know that Don Siegel made a fatalistic and joyless Western with Elvis Presley about the social cost of “othering”? Elvis gives a decent, physical performance as half-Kiowa guy mistrusted by both sides. White people kill his Kiowa mother, then Kiowa kill his father. Elvis only sings one song (besides the title track over the credits) but strips to the waist twice.
Hell is for Heroes (Don Siegel, 1962): 3/5
A band of misfits on a doomed mission. A balance of comic and sadistic tones. Bob Newhart gets a full on Buttoned-Down-Mind bit in the saggy second act. Certainly, a dry run for The Magnificent Seven, with both Coburn and a brooding, method-y McQueen.
Two Mules for Sister Sarah (Don Siegel, 1970): 3/5
Siegel does Leone in a slightly lighter tone, complete with Morricone score and Eastwood, complete with flattop hat, vest, cigarillo and dynamite. He’s well-paired with Shirley MacLaine as a nun, and there is more than a whiff of African Queen.
The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971): 3/5
If Hell is for Heroes is Siegel’s Kurosawa, then this is his Bergman (although it also owes much to Teorema and Black Narcissus). Was “Donald” Siegel the right person for this internal, interior, dreamy picture, filled to over spilling with lust, memory and fantasy?
Dirty Harry, rw (Don Siegel, 1971): 3.5/5
Having somewhat grown up with this movie on TV, I can remember strongly identifying with Harry, who was confident, competent and incorruptible—like a virile Archie Bunker with skillz. And contrary to Kael, the movie contains strong criticism of Harry throughout—from both the weak and strong. Some liberal straw men that are poned, but Harry in the end, himself, in a Searchers moment, throws away his badge. His rigidity was necessary for a time, but no longer tolerated. Also: another great Schifrin soundtrack and, man oh man, that first 20 minutes is a master class in action filmmaking.
Charley Varrick, rw (Don Siegel, 1973): 3.5/5
Matthau makes the most of his relaxed confidence and charisma, as does Joe Don Baker as an easygoing and cheery sadist—in this casually tense semi-remake of Becker’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi. Also, you can always just kick back and groove on the Lalo Schifrin soundtrack.
Escape from Alcatraz (Don Siegel, 1979): 3/5
My favorite part was when Eastwood’s character realizes that to truly escape, he must make a literal leap of faith—no who am I kidding, this is just another expertly paced, subtext free action movie. It’s a return to prison for Siegel, and he wastes no time on literal prison reform rhetoric this time. However, he makes a similar argument just the same by populating this prison with crazy artists and lovable fruitcakes— brought to life by some amazing character actors.
