The Servant (1963)

Released the same year as the film of The Balcony, Losey's film is a Harold Pinter film through and through, and in many ways is a great example of Pinter's work. For one, it is unclear from the jump what people's motivations are and how they manage to exert power over others, but The Servant is undeniably a Pinter power game. I found this intriguing and pleasurable, although I'm not sure it ever manages to be sexy, and I did want it to be (I think it wants to be, too).

Dirk Bogarde is obviously wonderful – he's just so good in everything.

Inside Moves (1980)

Inside Moves is so weird. Also, quite oddly, this is the second Richard Donner movie I've watched within a week. This film has been on my list to see for years because Diana Scarwid was nominated for an Oscar for her part in the movie and because this is David Morse's first film. I am finally watching it because HBOmax is kicking it off at the end of the month.

But this movie is strange. I think the reason it's weird is because the lead role is played by John Savage, who just doesn't do a very good job here. He's strange and doesn't seem to get the character. He just always feels like a total fuckin' weirdo. I don't really get it, honestly. The entire movie revolves around this strange performance, and for me it just never made sense.

The plot of the thing is a disability narrative – a group of disabled folks, mostly veterans, all hang out at this bar and become a kind of family. And then one of their own makes gets reconstructive surgery and joins the Golden State Warriors (like you do) but ignores his old family back at the bar. Leading us to the truly outrageous line: "I'm the only real cripple in this bar". Oh shut up.

Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH

The Secret of NIMH is playing as part of the art-house animation series running on the Criterion Channel, and it's a really lovely, delightfully dark and mysterious film. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before now. It's sort of nuts that this came out in the same year as The Last Unicorn! Both are really great, and neither is a Disney film.

Hands across the Table

Another Mitchell Leisen gem. Perhaps it's because I've just seen a terrible 1935 "romantic comedy" by George Cukor, but Hands across the Table is completely delightful, very funny, and totally charming. I enjoyed every moment of this, and Carole Lombard is just perfection. I was in love with her and Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy by the end of this one.

I want to say, too, that Mitchell Leisen was and remains terribly underappreciated. I am especially fond of his moral sense of things. He has an approach that I find very appealing and totally at odds with what I'm used to seeing under the PCA.

Oh one more thing: I don't really think this is a "screwball" comedy, as every description seems to say. I know Carole Lombard was known for screwball, but this is a true romantic comedy – good jokes, real feelings, smart thinking, clever script, witty repartee. It's much more about language than physical hijinks, and the kinds of mistaken identities we're used to seeing in the screwball genre don't really appear here. It's MacMurray who is the screwball comic here, not Lombard.

This was part of a series of Leisen films on the Criterion Channel, and I'm grateful to them for bringing so many of his wonderful films to my attention.

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers 1937

Well, it was time for another Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers film. They're all being kicked off of HBOmax at the end of the month, and I hadn't seen very many of them, so here we are. Tonight it was their 1937 offering, Shall We Dance. This film is definitely better than Swing Time (1936) and Carefree (1938), the two films that sandwich it, but, like both of those films, Shall We Dance is preciously short on musical numbers. This is the thing that I really do not understand about these Astaire–Rogers movies. Why is there so much plot and why is there so little song and dance? They are singer-dancers. Why aren't they doing that for most of the movie?

What makes Shall We Dance much better than the others is that this film stars the brilliant comedians Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore in supporting roles, and they're both absolutely hilarious. But Rogers – as she does in the other two films – sort of glowers her way through the movie. I know that she really wanted to be acting in more serious roles instead of doing this kind of hoofing, but making these parts more dramatic makes them much less entertaining. 

Shall We Dance's music is by the Gershwins and it's excellent, of course. Shall We Dance introduced the world to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", and if that weren't enough, it also introduced the world to "They Can't Take That Away from Me". Both songs are obviously now standards, although "They Can't Take That Away from Me" somehow lost the Oscar to "Sweet Leilani" from Waikiki Wedding (a song to which I couldn't sing you a single note).

Anyway, I think these films all have the same problems, honestly. They're weirdly directed. Their timing is off. And more importantly, they just don't have enough music in them. The Astaire–Rogers films behave as if the plot is important, when it doesn't matter one bit. I know this is not a popular opinion, but I'd opt for an Astaire–Hayworth picture or an Astaire–Charisse picture over an Astaire–Rogers picture any day of the week.

Scrooged

I'm afraid my takeaway from Scrooged is that Bill Murray is really quite a bad actor in this. Apparently Murray hated working with that king of holiday movies (The Omen, Die Hard), Richard Donner, and has said that almost none of what we see is Murray's own material. But I just kinda wished this film starred Eddie Murphy the whole time. It's a fine movie, I guess. It got some good laughs out of me when the Ghost of Christmas Present was hitting Scrooge in the face with a toaster. But mostly this was just sort of obvious, sentimental nonsense. I liked Bobcat Goldthwait a lot. And Alfre Woodard. But... meh.

I watched this on Hulu. It isn't exactly the season for such a film, but it's leaving at the end of August.

Sisters of the Gion (1936)

Sisters of the Gion (祇園の姉妹) is one of Mizoguchi's early films about prostitution, and although it doesn't possess the high dramatics or suicidal tendencies of the famous bunraku plays (the songs of which one of the characters is constantly singing), Sisters of the Gion is, in many ways indebted to those stories of desperation and loneliness.

Still, I didn't love the filmmaking here – it's early Mizoguchi, and this is a film from 1936, so I shouldn't judge it the same as I would his later work, but it moves awkwardly, without really gaining a good flow – although the storytelling is excellent.

I watched this on the Criterion Channel. It's been a movie on my list to see for a very long time, since I saw my first Mizoguchi film back in the summer of 2007!

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

Much has been said about Katharine Hepburn's triumphant return to stardom in 1940's The Philadelphia Story – her great bounce back from being "box office poison". This story has been repeated so frequently that one begins to believe that she never was box office poison in the first place and that everyone had been wrong.

Well Sylvia Scarlett is one of the reasons Hepburn was given that moniker, and I'm here to tell you, she earned it. This movie is absolutely ridiculous; it jumps from character to character without any focus; and it stars an absurd-looking Katharine Hepburn as a boy called Sylvester who couldn't have fooled a ten-year-old child, much less a world-wise hustler and a Russian socialite.

Why Miss Sylvia Scarlett is dressed like a boy in the first place is completely unclear, and let me just say that it doesn't matter a bit, and it is totally unnecessary.

I watched Sylvia Scarlett as part of a series of early queer films that was playing on the Criterion Channel. Tales of this film's queerness have been wildly exaggerated. Hepburn does kiss a woman – or rather, the woman kisses her – a couple of times, but this is a film deeply invested in the character's "correct" gender performance, to which she duly returns by act three.

I did like Cary Grant in this, I must confess, and though his accent is abysmal, he is charming and his character has real depth.

But this movie is terrible.

Dzi Croquettes (2009)

This is a documentary about the Dzi Croquettes, an extraordinarily innovative Brazilian theatre troupe working in the 1970s. It's made rather strangely, with a rapid-fire editing style that is relentless, but the content of the work is pretty amazing. All of the archival footage of Dzi Croquettes performing is absolutely stunning.
 

Tom of Finland #1

Daddy and the Muscle Academy is neither a deep nor a particularly interesting documentary about the life and work of Tom of Finland. I haven't seen the narrative film yet (it's called Tom of Finland), but I plan to soon. This documentary just did not cut it.

Matewan (1987)

Matewan is a beautiful communist western. And it involves the kind of group dynamic that Sayles is so excellent at portraying. Chris Cooper and Mary McDonnell are wonderful, but a special shout-out is surely due to James Earl Jones and David Strathairn who are exquisite in this.

Bells Are Ringing (1960)

Judy Holliday was honestly a genius. I don't know how she does it, but the comedic timing, the physical comedy, the hilarious faces. She's just amazing and lovable all at the same time. This is a very cute musical with music by Jule Styne, and some of the songs are simply sublime. Having them sung by Dean Martin also makes these songs really wonderful, but the draw here is Holliday – in her last film – playing a role she made famous on Broadway.

I watched Bells Are Ringing on the Criterion Channel, which was showing a bunch of Judy Holliday's movies.

Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1982)

The Return of Martin Guerre is pretty wonderful. First, it's beautifully acted by Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye, and it's gorgeously designed. The costumes and the production design are both exquisite. Let me just say again, Nathalie Baye is fabulous in this. It's a nuanced, gentle, surprising performance.

The plot is well known, since it is a sort of famous fable of a sixteenth-century man who comes back after a very long time away. And this retelling of the story must surely be the most accomplished there is. It's just excellent.

I watched this on DVD, but I think it is available to stream on TUBI.

Pirates de Roman Polanski (1986)

This movie is quite funny at times, but it sure does wear out its welcome. At a full two hours this is a pirate comedy that just doesn't have enough steam to justify itself. And the plot, though nihilistic and duly critical of everyone's greed, just doesn't resolve enough to make Pirates feel like it was worth one's while. I enjoyed myself for the first hour or so, and then I wondered why it kept dawdling. Anthony Powell's costumes are gorgeous, of course, but this movie has problems.

I gotta say, it's sort of funny to watch a movie like this that was such s huge flop but that cost $30,000,000. Not funny, I mean, but just a curiosity. What a weird film. It is actually an enormous, expensive movie, but no one has seen it.

I watched Pirates de Roman Polanski on YouTube.

Blaxploitation but Make It Revolutionary

The Spook Who Sat by the Door is one of the coolest movies I've seen in a while. It's a 1973 film about a revolutionary who is trained by the CIA and then uses his training to bring down the United States. It's made in the style of a blaxploitation movie, but it's based on a novel, and it's incendiary and pleasurable to watch. I loved this.

Jacob's Ladder

The script for Jacob's Ladder is kind of great, and of course Adrian Lyne's filmmaking is scary and strange and enjoyable. It's unfortunate that this movie stars the inexpressive Tim Robbins, whose breakdown just never materializes onscreen. He's so deer-in-the-headlights at all times, that one seems to see no change at all.

Pig (2021)

I really enjoyed Pig. The direction isn't always as sure footed as I would have liked – Pig's tone is wryly ironic for most of its running time, and then when it wants to be serious it can't quite manage. Still, the script is excellent – it's wonderfully weird and compelling – and I enjoyed this very much.

Son of the White Mare (1981)

Son of the White Mare (Fehérlófia) is a trippy, psychedelic, beautiful 1980s animation fantasy based on Hungarian folktales. The opening is jaw-droppingly extraordinary, and if the rest of it isn't quite as exciting as the incredible first ten minutes, it's still pretty amazing.

I watched Son of the White Mare as part of the awesome Art-House Animation series right now on the Criterion Channel.

Carefree

I didn't like Swing Time, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' 1936 pairing (their sixth) and, although I guess I liked Carefree from 1938 a bit more, it has all the same problems. In the first place, it's obsessed with plot, with so much writing that it can't seem to squeeze in musical numbers – there are only four in this film and one of them is in slow motion. I don't understand this, although I suppose Ginger Rogers really must have seen herself as an actress, and she imbues this character with lots of feeling – the character she's created is actually quite sensitive and deep.

But this sort of goes directly against what I understand the point of a movie like this to be. I would like dance numbers and I would like singing. Instead Carefree gives us plot twists. It does have comedy, don't get me wrong. And some of it is actually funny. Hattie McDaniel gets two excellent laughs, and Luella Gear and Jack Carson have some good bits. I'm wondering, now that I think about it, if this change in the way the movie musical is working is related at all to the new and more serious ("integrated") book musicals that were happening at the Princess Theatre. It seems to me like Carefree and Swing Time are trying something – and it might make sense to look at them as part of similar attempts at the Princess.

And although this movie is directed by Mark Sandrich and not George Stevens, Carefree contains the same kind of weird fade-outs that Swing Time has. We stay in a scene just a bit too long and we fade out on this bit of plot in order to further complicate something that isn't the least bit complicated.

Carefree's weirdness is compounded by the basic smarminess of Astaire's character in this film. When we first meet him he's a sexist doctor. And then as the film progresses he hypnotizes the woman who loves him and then betrays his very good friend. When Astaire and Rogers walked down the aisle at the end (because of course they did), I wasn't sure this is what I wanted to happen at all.

I watched this on HBOmax, and I'm going to see another one – Shall We Dance – before it leaves at the end of this month. Maybe I'll like that one.

Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942)

It's always great to see Paul Muni, and I am totally invested in WWII movies that were made during the war. But this movie just isn't that interesting. It's about a Norwegian dude who is living a peaceable life but is driven to rebellion when the Nazis arrive in Norway and start killing people. Some of the battle scenes are good, but I think I was expecting something a bit more emotionally engaging considering Paul Muni was the lead.

Dumbstruck (2010)

Oof. Dumbstruck is so awkward and sad. The filmmaking is also pretty terrible, which doesn't help the enterprise. Most cringeworthy, perhaps, is the thirteen-year-old white Ohio kid who has a black ventriloquist dummy called Reggie. It's painfully awkward, and even weirder, it goes strangely unremarked in this movie. No one seems to think this might be blackface. 

Even worse, perhaps, Comedian Willie Brown, the Black puppeteer on the poster – and on the cover of the DVD – does not even appear in the film; it looks like he was intended to be one of the film's subjects but was edited out of it. 

The most interesting figure, perhaps, is the intersex puppeteer Wilma Swartz, who has been completely abandoned by her family for living her life as a woman but has been embraced by her ventriloquist family.

The Mitchells vs the Machines

I wanted to like The Mitchells vs the Machines. I did. And the animation is sometimes really fun. It's quirky, and it incorporates drawings in a different style on top of its regular style of animation. But this has the most hokey family-is-everything narrative that it begins with and just never releases. This film really believes that family is everything. I just can't handle this kind of ideological approach to family. 

I liked all the robots. They all made me laugh. And I liked the small boy in this movie – his name is Aaron. But the whole "family' bit is just not for me.

You can watch The Mitchells vs the Machines on Netflix.

Adam's Rib (1949)

Adam's Rib is mostly charming and mostly politically intriguing. Katharine Hepburn is very, very good. But the movie falls apart by the end. It ties itself up in just a few too many knots and it doesn't know how to pull itself loose reasonably. 

I also feel like it attempted to undermine its own political positions – it didn't manage this successfully, but it sure felt like it made an effort.

I watched this on HBOmax.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

I enjoyed An American Werewolf in London so much. It's quirky and amusing and campy, but it's also very violent and rather merciless in its gaze. The direction is pretty great, and it's a pleasure to be looking at a naked David Naughton as much as this movie wants me to.

Weirdly enough I just watched John Landis's 1983 movie Trading Places and really liked that too. This is a director to whom I have definitely paid no attention, but he really knew what he was doing.

The Longest Yard (1974)

Burt Reynolds was at the top of his game in the mid-1970s. He made so many good movies. The Longest Yard is a really brutal film about prison violence. It is, however, a raucous comedy in the style of film Reynolds excelled at making. I absolutely enjoyed the hell out of this. Burt wears an incredible pair of pants in his first scene, and look out for Bernadette Peters in a small role as a horny secretary. The other true, brilliant highlight of The Longest Yard is the cheerleading squad during the big game, which consists of a total of nine beautiful prison queens who all take their wigs off at the end of the game. It's fabulous.

El Ángel (2018)

El Ángel is the true story of a pretty teenage sociopath in Argentina. It's really slickly made, and very fun to watch. I had a great time. I also found the film shallow, to be honest, but I didn't really mind that so much. It's a fun, queer ride. So much so that at some point late in the film he kills some people and I had to remind myself that he is a sociopath. I also wanted a little more weird sexuality. There are lots of explanations for this killer's behavior that cite deviant sexual attraction, but there honestly isn't too much of that in El Ángel.

Something Useful (2017)

İşe Yarar Bir Şey (Something Useful) is poetic, and it has some very good scenes, but I was impatient with it, and it is very talky, and I found it frustrating. I really liked every scene with Yiğit Özşener. He was really excellent, and of course Başak Köklükaya is stunning and wonderful. This was good, but it was overwritten, to my taste.

I saw Something Useful with my movie club, though, and almost everyone else was quite taken with this.