The Monkey (Ozgood Perkins, 2025): 2.5/5

The family drama makes zero sense, so we’re left with the zany comedy of violent death. Which, amazingly, is nearly enough.  

 

The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949): 3.5/5

A very unusual experience. Startling framing and composition, including during a scene where, under Patricia Neal’s drooling gaze, Gary Cooper drills into a wall of granite, arm muscles bursting—a scene that is nakedly sexual enough to embarrass Freud himself. All the characters are just philosophical positions, but the ideas remain bracing. 

 

Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920): 3/5

Not strong dramatically, but full of violent and agit-prop images and harrowing situations, especially for its time. Equally amazing to see regular, normal black life in America, 1919. “The earliest movie from an African-American director known to still exist.”

 

Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1925): 3/5

Paul Robeson plays an itinerant preacher who is a baaaaaad man. Has the same penchant for flash-back that Within Our Gates has, sapping dramatic power but allowing Micheaux to present and explain late revelations. Paul Robeson played football at Rutger’s College, where he was the only black student, graduated from law school, played football in the NFL, served as a civil rights activist, and as a popular singer released 276 songs. Other than that, he did nothing with his life.

 

Garbo Screen Test, 6m (Joseph Valentine, 1949): 4/5

A screen test for a potential comeback. She starts by smiling broadly and warmly, and she’s a stranger. Then she closes her mouth and looks forlorn and toward the ceiling, and boom there’s Garbo. An incredible testament to her persona, and certainly what Warhol was intending to do with his own screen tests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDErHzxZnSY

 

Angels Have Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938): 4/5

Tough but warmly emotional Cagney is perfect in this entertaining YA gangster picture, the emotional conclusion of which hinges on whether Cagney cries while walking to the electric chair. 

 

Empire of the Sun, rw (Steven Spielberg, 1987): 3/5

Half Spielberg magic, energy and wonder—and half bogged-down hunger, sickness, misery and death. This kind of suffering is normally dished out to people of color (looking at you Ritwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star). Here Spielberg makes a warm-up for Schindler’s List but only dares to depict real-life war camps with nice WASPs as the victims. Rated 3.8 on Letterboxd, same as fucking Close Encounters. 

 

Always, rw (Steven Spielberg, 1989): 2/5

In the first 10 minutes we get strong Only Angels Have Wings vibes and a three-person simultaneous three-way conversation that is a fine steal from His Girl Friday. But as the film cycles into a dumb supernatural Cyrano story, we discover that Dreyfuss is no Cary Grant. I actually usually like Dreyfuss, but he’s terribly miscast here and his anxiety brings out the most grating aspects of this character.

 

The First Slam Dunk (Takehiko Inoue, 2022): 4/5

As close a movie can come to the actual feeling of watching a good sports event, where you know and care about the players. 11-year-old Jack was as fully engaged as I was. The first time I’ve dipped into the surprisingly robust “sports anime” genre, but not the last. 

 

 

Frank Borzage Film Fest

“For Borzage, love was not a plot device; it was everything.”

 

Street Angel (Frank Borzage, 1928): 3/5

Borzage has a thing for tall, slim, male, gormless, sweet, naive, dumb, emotional, direct male protagonists, and I’m here for it (and him: Charles Farrell, also so fuckable …ahem …good… in Borzage’s 7^th Heaven, Lucky Star, and The River (not to mention Murnau’s City Girl.)

 

Bad Girl (Frank Borzage, 1931): 3/5

Despite the salacious title, this is the most straightforward drama-free possible romance where boy meets girl, woos her, they get married, she gets pregnant, he’s happy about it, she has the baby, and they live happily ever after. 

 

A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932): 3.5/5

Although it’s kind of a war picture, what really matters is the love connection between casual Hemingway Gary Cooper and innocent but good-to-go nurse Helen Hayes—lounging in gauzy, dappled shadow and light. After a shockingly frank pre- and post-sex sequence in the first act, Cooper is even permitted to mention that he has just taken her virginity. I love Adolphe Menjou as Cooper’s surgeon friend who constantly calls him “Baby,” with great affection. 

 

Man’s Castle (Frank Borzage, 1933): 3/5

A sweet love story among the Depression-era poor, where the main obstacle to the romance is that Spencer Tracy (while charming) is a negging asshole. I really like Loretta Young. She was 20 at the time, and this was her 50th film. 

 

Desire (Frank Borzage, 1935): 3.5/5

A funny, action packed, and clever second act makes up for an OK beginning and end. I’ve come to really love Gary Cooper. He’s naïve and handsome, and I prefer both him and Marlene Dietrich in this movie’s comedic, parodic mode. It’s her first film after her split from Von Sternberg, and she seems happy to let loose.

 

The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940): 3/5

Clearly displays the whole Nazi thing in 1940–a contemporary protest document, of the (relevant) rise of the racist assholes. Also features Jimmy Stewart and a romance. As in The Sound of Music, the downbeat third act shifts into a long action sequence and an ultra-nationalistic evocation of god and country. 

 

 

Late Works Film Fest

I’m hit and miss on Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This podcast, but I’m loving her most recent season, which focuses on the late careers of Hawks, Stevens, Minnelli, Preminger, and Wilder among others. It’s easy to find someone talking about Rio Bravo, but who is talking about the production and qualities of Red Line 7000 and King of the Pharaohs? No one!

 

Red Line 7000 (Howard Hawks, 1965): 3.5/5

In the tradition of Hawks movies where a company of men (and, more incidentally, women) competently ply their dangerous trade with bravery and a casual and cool stoicism—Only Angels Have Wings, Rio Bravo, Hatari, and Red River. This has a large cast of characters, all playing it cool while pairing off and falling in love, including at least four strong and distinct women (Longworth calls it the only Hawks movie from a woman’s point of view). It’s interesting to see Hawks’ trope updated to a sexually adventurous and explicit 1960s. Some excellent, real racing sequences, which were filmed first and then the drama was built around the footage. Also known for its prescient use of product placement and indeed the characters drink Pepsi from a huge lighted soda dispenser while hanging out in the courtyard of a Holiday Inn. 

 

King of the Pharaohs (Howard Hawks, 1955): 2/5

Lots of pageantry and a cast of thousands—these are not what I look for in a Hawks movie, but I suppose he succumbed to the widescreen blockbuster demands of the time. Dramatically turgid, and with horrible sexual politics and a protagonist who uh, owns tons of slaves. Worst sin of all: the costumes are incredibly ugly. Terrible script co-written by William Faulkner.

 

Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, 1965): 2/5

Jaw-dropping landscapes (all shot in the American West) and some delicious Stevens ultra-slow crossfades. But Jesus, even portrayed by a typecast Max von Sydow, is a stiff—and the by-the-numbers retelling moves glacially. 

 

The Only Game in Town (George Stevens, 1968): 3.5/5

The only reason to watch this cracked romance between a Vegas showgirl and a piano player with a gambling addiction, adapted (barely) from a play, is for Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor—and indeed that’s plenty. They are both excellent, and it’s a pleasure to watch them. Beatty’s first movie after Bonnie and Clyde; he wanted to work with Stevens. 

 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Vincente Minnelli, 1962): 3/5

I always like it when a character changes in the middle of a work, and here Glenn Ford is a feckless cad for half the film and the main actor in a cool spy thriller in the other half. Studio-bound and artificial, but not really in a bad way. Ingrid Thulin, so great in Bergman films like Cries and Whispers and The Silence, reportedly had a hard time on the set (her lawyer wrote a memo to Minnelli telling him he was not permitted to touch and move her body to demonstrate how to stand)—and eventually her voice was dubbed over by Angela Lansbury (of all people). These big epics demand expressive body language and gestural movements, the opposite of Bergman, where battles are all internal.

 

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, 1970): 2/5

Dull, hazy, self-satisfied, and tainted by a first act full of gay panic. I can’t imagine how unwatchable Wilder’s beloved three-hour cut would be. 

 

Fedora (Billy Wilder, 1978): 3/5

An interesting pair with Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, as William Holden deals with yet another reclusive and insane female movie star. This is one is, if anything, more cynical and despairing: “Monroe and Harlow. Those were the lucky ones.” The last hour (!) is a series of gonzo flashbacks that invoke both The Substance and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane—but that unfortunately don’t involve Holden at all. 

 

Skidoo (Otto Preminger, 1968): 3.5/5

Despite its horrendous reputation, I found this to be a pretty even-handed, funny, and LSD positive comment on the clash between the (naive, confused and hypocritical) youth-culture and the squares (here represented by not only “the man,” but also by those who are forced to participated in the movie’s “gangster drama.”). Any movie where the head of a crime family is named “God” and is played by Groucho Marx (the ultimate Little Dickens) is too complex and fun to dismiss as a mere failure.

 

 

Hong Sang-Soo Film Fest

The modern director whose works feel the most like those of (my beloved) Ozu to me. Interested in repetition and variation. Serene and full of forgiveness for his characters. 

 

List, 29m (Hong Sang-Soo, 2011): 3/5

A sweet romance where the irony comes both from the romantic formula (made bare in the form of a literal list) as well as from what we know Hong Sang-Soo’s director characters are always ultimately like. 

 

Our Sunhi (Hong Sang-Soo, 2013): 3/5

A young woman has three very very similar conversations with three men who like her, with the same phrases popping up again and again and passed around among the four of them. 

 

Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (Hong Sang-Soo, 2013): 2.5/5

One of HSS’s least playful, formally, although there is some twinning and looping of situations, which for once feels redundant rather than additive. Also, for once, our lead actress (who HSS only used in a small part in one other film) is amateurish—something that reminds me that the acting is always excellent in his films.

 

Hotel by the River (Hong Sang-soo, 2018): 3.5/5

A uniquely somber tone, emphasized by the wintery setting and cinematography. Searching, philosophical, and open-ended. contrasts a father and his estranged sons with two women in the same hotel. The men are separated from one another and their own emotions and the women have a close and emotional bond. “People have two minds. One that walks on the street and the other that communes with the eternal.”

 

In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-Soo, 2021): 3.5/5

Performs a kind of magic trick two-thirds of the way through—where something so real and out of character for Hong Sang-soo happens that I was sent scurrying to IMDB to check on the real-life health of Lee Hye-young, the main actress.

 

Introduction, 1h6m (Hong Sang-Soo, 2021): 2.5/5

This one is not well liked on Letterboxd, so I was sure I was going to find something about it that everyone was missing, but nay not so. Just some disconnected scenes from the life of a young man who seems intent to have a deep conversation with someone, but never manages to.

 

Walk Up (Hong Sang-Soo, 2022): 3/5

Tells the story of 5 or 10 years in a director’s (typically self-centered and blithe) life, as he moves from the ground floor, to the second floor, to the top floor of an apartment building. No real formal trickery unless you count non-signposted temporal leaps.