Last week, I watched 8 movies:

• Like the previous two films in the series, Wake Up Dead Man is a fun murder mystery full of outsized characters, but I think what I liked most about it was its honest examination of faith and service, what a life actually dedicated to god’s love and compassion would look like.
• Keeper is underbaked in its story and characters, and it feels more like an excuse for Osgood Perkins to work again with Tatiana Maslany than a fully formed movie. But you can’t exactly fault him for that, because she’s good again here, in a committed performance that makes the whole thing work better than it should. There also a lot of very surreal and creepy imagery, and even if the movie isn’t anywhere near the equal of some of Perkins’ other horror films, it’s not uninteresting.
• Roofman takes an odd tonal shift late in the film, which is probably necessary—given the real man it’s about—and which I think lends it a little more depth than the goofy comedy it’s been up until then. But it can’t help but feel like a tonal shift.
• Your mileage may vary with F1, depending on how much you love, or understand, Formula 1 as a sport. (Personally, I couldn’t really track more than “fast cars go fast,” even if it does seem oddly more complicated than that.) A lot of the racing is undeniably kinetic, even thrilling, even on a small screen, and there’s a lot of easygoing charm to the performances. But you can see where the story is headed from a mile lap away, the racial politics (which the movie doesn’t really acknowledge) are tired, and the fast cars aren’t nearly enough to carry the day.

• Man Finds Tape does some creepy and interesting things, making not altogether unfamiliar ground feel like strange and unknown territory. It doesn’t necessarily do a lot with its premise, but it’s an interesting use of the found-footage genre.
• One Battle After Another is a lot of fun, not afraid to take some very silly, and then some very serious, swings. It has the feel of a movie I want to see again to fully appreciate, but I liked it a lot on this first viewing.
• The Long Walk is a very good adaptation of Stephen King’s original novel, which means it’s an exceptionally bleak, and not particularly subtle, experience. But what King’s, and the movie’s, metaphor perhaps lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in its gut-punch simplicity, and the very compelling performances byCooper Hoffman and David Jonsson.
• Megadoc doesn’t necessarily explain why Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is such a bad movie, but it maybe offers some insight into why it’s the kind of bad movie it is. (It would be shocking, after seeing Mike Figgis’ behind-the-scenes footage, to discover that a good movie had come out of any of this.) Figgis’ documentary obviously calls to mind the earlier Hearts of Darkness about Coppola’s difficulties shooting Apocalypse Now, but here seems much more at a distance, admittedly focusing on only the handful of actors and crew who gave him the most access. (Which probably means too much Shia LaBeouf, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how candid and owning up to past bad behavior he was, even if I still very much dislike his performance and he still seems a little like a method ass.) Figgis also stops short of the reaction to the film, ending as the curtain rises on its premiere at Cannes as if everything that came after was another crowning achievement for Coppola. It’s an interesting look at what might have been, but it’s not a redemption for Coppola’s last film. I’m glad both exist—one as a crazy passion project, the other a testament to why sometimes passion alone isn’t enough—but I’m not sure I’d ever find reason to rewatch either.

However, I did rewatch Eyes Without a Face, which I did not remember well, and certainly did not remember being this hauntingly sad. As – Guillermo del Toro told the Criterion Channel about the film, “At the core of every horror that film I’ve ever loved, there’s a poem in it.”

I watched another 6 movies last week:

• I’m not sure Map to the Stars is particularly insightful as a satire, or has anything to say beyond “aren’t celebrities weird and awful?” But they are particularly weird and awful here, in some interesting ways, with good performances, so it’s worth a quick tour.
• George Washington maybe felt like more of a groundbreaking indie upon its release in 2000—Roger Ebert called it “such a lovely film” full of “voluptuous languor—but there is still something to be said for its sad and quiet beauty, the understated performances by largely non-actors.
• La Llorona is devastating and scary.

• I don’t know that 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma is any better than the 1957 version, but it’s helped enormously by the two lead performances.
• There are probably better, or least more important, blaxploitation movies that came after Cotton Comes to Harlem, but it’s a fun ride nonetheless.
• The King and I certainly isn’t non-problematic in its casting and its dated lack of racial sensitivity, but I don’t think it’s ever intentionally dismissive or insulting to the culture it’s trying to portray. Both Brynner and Kerr are good in the roles, and there are some lovely songs.

I also rewatched the lovely and heartbreaking Rachel Getting Married, which was one of Jonathan Demme’s best films. And I say that knowing he made The Silence of the Lambs.

I watched just 6 movies this week:

• Fedora felt very old-fashioned when it was made, Billy Wilder trying to recapture something of Sunset Boulevard almost thirty years later, in a new Hollywood that was quickly leaving old studio pros like himself behind. As such, it feels very much like an old man’s film, and not Wilder’s, or star William Holden’s, best. (One was near at the end of his career, the other near the end of his life.) Since then, almost another five decades have passed, making this seem like some kind of weird, albeit occasionally interesting, relic.
• As a “part-talkie,” Lonesome is an interesting film, employing all sorts of film tricks—not least of all sound—to tell a very conventional story. There’s not a lot to the story, or even characters, but it’s an interesting snapshot of 1920s New York and the end of the silent film era.
• Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are charming together, and the movie around them is occasionally as well, but even if I can appreciate a lot of the big, weird swings that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey takes, a lot of them just don’t connect—and at least a couple fail to connect pretty spectacularly. The movie’s heart is in the right place, even if that place is sometimes hard to find in all the mess.

• The quiet, understated pace of Loving is both a strength and, possibly, a weaknesses, but it’s all so well grounded in the performances of Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton.
• On paper, the plot of Phoenix—which I’d actually recommend not knowing much of anything about beforehand—might sound a little contrived, but I found it incredibly powerful and moving, and the end especially devastating.
• Questionable dubbing, overwrought melodrama, a deeply confusing plot—these are all par for the course with 1960s Italian gothic horror, and An Angel for Satan is no exception. Could I explain any of what happens in the movie, or why? Only far enough to give me a headache when my explanation falls apart. And yet the movie looks and (dubbing aside) sounds great, and Barbara Steele, whatever it is that her character is meant to be doing, is a genuinely arresting screen presence.

Last week, I watched 24 movies. That’s maybe a lot—some might argue too many.

• Your mileage may vary depending on your fondness for ’90s trash, but that’s really all The Gingerbread Man is. A little late to the game for John Grisham adaptations, this one isn’t even based on a book, but a discarded manuscript, and it kind of shows. The movie presses over-qualified actors into a lazy plot and not altogether convincing Southern accents, and while Altman’s considerable skill as a director is evident—if only because it’s easy to imagine this going completely off the rails with a less competent lead—his trademark overlapping dialogue seems ill-suited to a suspense thriller like this.
• Ganja & Hess isn’t necessarily a coherent narrative, or even an expertly made film, but there is something compelling about it—not least for its representation in horror of black filmmakers and characters.
• Train Dreams may not appeal to anyone looking for a tidier or more straightforward narrative, or wanting something to connect all its loose threads, beyond the fact that a life largely is loose threads. But I found it genuinely beautiful, sad and elegiac, anchored in a wonderful performance from Joel Edgerton.
• I heard Patton Oswalt describe While the City Sleeps as a “rough draft of what Hitchcock did with Psycho,” in that it explores some of the luridly psychological themes, but maybe not quite as well. It’s an interesting movie, with a strong cast, maybe leaning closer to film noir than the proto-slasher Hitchcock delivered, but it doesn’t necessarily hang together well.

• “Is Verhoeven’s explicit sexualization of religion [in Benedetta] a shallow provocation,” asked critic Brian Tallerico, “or a deep analysis of how implicit gender bias within institutions of faith only leads to violence and abuse? I’m honestly not entirely sure.” Honestly, me neither. It’s a compelling movie, and probably one that only Paul Verhoeven could have made, but what it’s trying to say isn’t always very clear.
• Blue Chips, wrote Roger Ebert, “projects a certain cynicism even in the midst of its bedrock morality. The message seems to be that although one man can take a stand, the system has been too corrupt for too long to change.” That maybe makes the movie sound less fun than it can sometimes be, or undersells the strength of Nolte’s performance as that one man.
• Black Angel isn’t a terrific film noir, but it does have a devilishly fun turn by Peter Lorre and a legitimately interesting twist.
• Descendent is a little disappointing in the end, not quite landing the thematic connections it’s aiming for, but it’s very creepy and unsettling all along the way, with a really strong performance from Ross Marquand.

• I don’t know why I expected—or maybe just hoped for—more from Jurassic World: Rebirth, given how little I enjoy most of the series, especially these late legacy sequels. (Even Spielberg’s original isn’t much of a touchstone for me.) But I was kind of amazed at how much of a nothingraptor the whole experience is—competently directed, full of over-qualified actors, but with such a paper-thin script and barely there characters. And if you’re just going to lazily remake one of the earlier sequels, why would you choose The Lost World, one of the worst ones?
• Vernon, Florida is interesting, full of philosophizing eccentrics, but I’m not sure what it has to say beyond a nonjudgmental “here are some interesting oddballs.”
• Curse of the Crimson Altar (alternately known as The Crimson Cult) isn’t a very good movie, but occasionally Boris Karloff and/or Christopher Lee are in, which elevates it momentarily.
• There’s probably more style than substance in Romeo Is Bleeding, but there’s a lot of style, as we watch a rapidly unraveling Gary Oldman collide with the feral force of nature that is Lena Olin.

• Quentin Tarantino once selected Pretty Maids All in a Row as one of his choices for Sight & Sound magazine’s top 10 greatest films of all time. He had to be trolling them, because the movie is just awful. It’s also deeply odd—a high school sexploitation/slasher movie comedy from the director of Barbarella, written by Gene Roddenberry, starring Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas, and Roddy McDowall—and if your brain didn’t explode halfway into that description, you’re made of stronger stuff than me. The movie is exceptionally icky, confused in its tone, and interesting only as a glimpse into 1970s cringe and the embarrassing depths to which Rock Hudson’s later career sunk.
• The Toxic Avenger is a lot of silly fun, but maybe has a little too much affection for the original, or is made with more craft and skill than this kind of movie deserves.
• William Powell is, unsurprisingly, very charming in the otherwise kind of slight Private Detective 62.
• The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is colorful and quaintly charming—and in 1962 the widescreen Cinerama might have seemed genuinely thrilling—but it also drags in almost all of its segments, and that widescreen format feels more like a gimmick whose time has come and gone.

• La Antena is interesting, often striking and playful in its imagery, even if I’m not entirely sure what that imagery is in service of, beyond a winking replication of silent movie aesthetics.
• This is an interesting time to remake Good Night, and Good Luck, and it’s interesting to cast Clooney in a different role than the one he played in the movie. But I’m not entirely convinced the stage production adds anything to the original version, and more likely detracts, despite good staging and a very talented cast.
• The New York Times wrote at the time that The Oblong Box “illustrate[s] once again that horror can be made to be quaint, laughable and unconvincing at modest prices.” It’s an altogether disappointing and muddled concoction, maybe because it draws little from Edgar Allan Poe besides a title, which even Vincent Price and Christopher Lee—never together—can’t save.
• Everyone else around her is also good, but Dead of Winter really rests on Emma Thompson’s shoulders, and she really carries it as the aw-shucks Barb.

• You don’t see a lot of movies as smart and as dumb as Flight from Destiny, which has poses some interesting philosophical questions but then tackles them in some of the silliest ways. It helps that Thomas Mitchell’s performance is so engaging.
• Caught Stealing has a nastier streak than I was expecting, and even when the violence is cartoonish it’s very bloody, at times even brutal. Still, I had more fun than not with it.
• Bring Her Back can be a tough watch—and I imagine would be more so if I had children of my own. But it’s also genuinely creepy and scary, and there’s a lot to really like about it.
• At the time The Rounders came out, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “The plot is thin, the comedy rather forced and the casting is unbelievable but at least it’s a pleasant change from all those psychological westerns and attempted satires on same.” And yeah…the central, maybe only, joke in the movie seems to be “Glenn Ford and Peter Fonda get thrown off of horses,” and yet it’s not an altogether unpleasant diversion.

I also rewatched three movies:

• The Social Network
• It Happened One Night
• Sphere

I think The Social Network continues to work because it doesn’t pretend Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a destructive asshole. It’s kind of a strange rewatch given what we now know about some of the people involved—Armie Hammer on screen, Kevin Spacey behind it, for instance—and I jokingly wondered while watching it if we don’t need a legacy sequel about how much more terrible Facebook has gotten in the 15 years since. But it’s snappily written, well acted, and very well directed.

It Happened One Night is just a charming delight, with such fantastic on-screen chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

When I saw Sphere in theaters in my 20s, I was mostly just disappointed in the ending. I think maybe it’s a sign of personal growth that I’m now disappointed in the whole thing. I don’t think it’s a terrible movie, though it is largely derivative of other, better ones, and this was not a particularly rewarding rewatch.

I watched 9 movies last week:

Copyright HAG ©2009

• Roger Ebert called The Life of Oharu “the saddest film I have ever seen about the life of a woman.” And he isn’t wrong. The movie arguably lays that sadness on a little strong, visits a melodramatic amount of suffering on Kinuyo Tanaka’s Oharu, but as Ebert notes, it’s “all told as a sad memory of fate,” and is incredibly affecting because of that.
• There is a sort of confused dreaminess to Roger Corman’s The Terror that isn’t uninteresting, but that’s probably just an artifact of its incredibly stitched-together production. It started out as a movie to be made in two days. It eventually took nine months and only feels like a movie made in a weekend.
• Not everything about Omen works, much less works together, but it’s bold and exciting filmmaking telling stories I haven’t seen before.

• Brian Tallerico argued that Little Woods “could have been a truly great movie” if only it “had trusted its two leading ladies just a little bit more.” It’s a strong enough debut film, but with performances that are even stronger.
• I’d heard History of the Occult described as the movie that Late Night With the Devil was trying to be. I do think this earlier Argentinian version plays with the similar format in more interesting ways, and does a lot more than just get the period detail right, but I’m not sure it’s a better (or worse) movie because of it.
• The Woman in Cabin 10 is a passable suspense thriller, at best. Keira Knightley is good, but she deserves a lot better, as does the audience.

• The Creeping Flesh describes itself as “More frightening than Frankenstein! More dreaded than Dracula!” Which is, of course, not even close to being true. It’s an interesting, well-acted, but muddled and slightly cheap-looking horror diversion.
• Call Northside 777 is surprisingly compelling for a movie that’s just Jimmy Stewart’s newspaper reporter following up leads on a cold case.
• He is, it has to be said, a very Good Boy. Of course, the movie around him isn’t perfect. Its story and characters are thin, and it doesn’t resolve in anything like a satisfying way—though, spoiler warning, the thing you’re maybe worried about happening doesn’t happen—but it’s a clever and effectively scary experiment in perspective. And Indy the dog is, no lie, absolutely incredible.

I also rewatched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which I think I liked a lot more on this second viewing. Of the six vignettes, I think my favorites are “The Gal Who Got Rattled” and “Meal Ticket,” but there’s a case to be made for all of them.