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I watched 5 movies last week:

• It’s not hard to see the promise in Stereo, especially when you’ve already seen that promise realized in later Cronenberg movies. But taken on its own terms, as a feature, as a narrative, it’s exceedingly dull and disappointing—full of intriguing images and compositions, but none that are put to any real use, with its slow stretches of silence broken up only by underbaked ideas expressed in often near-incomprehensible voiceover.
• Despite its overly generic, and not terribly descriptive, title, Kansas City Confidential is a fun, occasionally inventive, certainly surprisingly twisty little noir.
• The Haunted Strangler is helped enormously by Boris Karloff’s…well, let’s be charitable and call this a performance, although it’s far from his best work and—minor spoiler warning, only if you fail to see the movie poster—mostly just involves him contorting his face. A “ludicrously improbable plot,” in the words of the Monthly Film Bulletin, “which peters out into a series of tediously repetitive chases…”

• Monolith doesn’t resolve in a completely satisfying way, but that seems at least partly by design. What the movie is, is terrifically creepy, very effective given its small budget, limited space, and single on-screen actor.
• The Watchers isn’t what I would call an especially well directed movie, but it’s more than competent. It’s in the writing, however, where Ishana Shyamalan’s weaknesses as a filmmaker really emerge. Because the script is simply terrible. By turns both a rush and a slog, both under- and over-explained, it’s a deeply unscary, uninteresting, and unsatisfying mess.

I also enjoyed re-watching Five Easy Pieces.

• Two-Lane Blacktop, wrote Roger Ebert, “is intended, I suppose, to be a metaphor. But unless I missed the point, it doesn’t have much of anything new to tell us.” It’s hard to disagree with that.
• A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia doesn’t even attempt to recreate the grandeur and spectacle of its predecessor. It’s very much a quiet 1992 British television movie. Yet it’s incredibly compelling, thanks to some genuinely terrific performances, particularly from the two leads, Ralph Fiennes and Alexander Siddig.
• It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, but Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is not a very good movie. It’s bad in some very strange ways, definitely, but none that are particularly interesting or worth revisiting.
• It’s the two leads, particularly a terrific Cailee Spaeny, that really makes Priscilla work. Though the film’s willingness to actually interrogate the creepy power dynamic between Elvis and his bride is another mark in its favor.

• Hobson’s Choice is smart and funny, with lovely performances throughout.
• Something Big is amiable enough, and there are some amusing moments scattered throughout, but more than anything else it’s kind of boring.
• Where the Devil Roams is a lot heavier on vibes than narrative than some of the Adams family’s previous movies—but oh man, what vibes! The movie is a lot to take in, and it makes some very deliberate choices I’m not entirely convinced work, but it is never short of fascinating.

I also really enjoyed re-watched David Cronenberg’s The Fly.

• The Fall Guy is a fun, laid-back, largely forgettable love letter to practical stunt work.
• Walker is confused as satire, and the deliberate anachronisms, which ramp up to a feverish pitch as the movie progresses, aren’t especially effective at conveying anything. And yet there’s something in the unhinged intensity of Ed Harris’ performance that holds the interest.
• Janet Planet is maybe too slow and quiet for its own good, and arguably nothing much happens in it—and, when it does, that leaves more questions than it answers and somewhat breaks the film’s realism. But still, the mother-daughter dynamic between Julianne Nicholson and newcomer Zoe Ziegler has plenty of charm.

• I can only imagine how shattering and raw Cassavetes’ New Life runs out of momentum and ideas at the end, but it’s a surprisingly effective little thriller, considering it’s obvious shoestring budget. A simple, scary premise and good performances go a long way.
• The Boy and the Heron was a lot stranger than I expected, and while it’s rightly been seen as the culmination of Miyazaki’s career (if not his swan song), I’m not sure I enjoyed it quite as much as some of those earlier films. It was maybe just too big and personal for me to really get a handle on it, or to keep up with the many odd turns the film took. At the same time, though, it’s gorgeous and captivating, and there are some truly spectacular moments of animation in it.

I also thoroughly enjoyed a rewatch of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

• There’s a lot that works about Lisa Frankenstein, from the vibrant ’80s visual design to the equally colorful performances, but the stuff that doesn’t work? Oof. The movie can’t ever figure out its tone, and it really falters because of that.
• Immaculate feels very old-fashioned, almost threadbare, like a throwback to the kind of late-’70s religious conspiracy thrillers made in the wake of The Exorcist and The Omen. It’s helped enormously, though, by some good direction and a strong performance by Sydney Sweeney.
• The Unknown

• Reckless has its charms, but it’s also kind of a mess. Jean Harlow, who was reportedly reluctant to join the picture at the last minute, gives what I think is an uneven performance, and the whole thing feels like it’s stuck somewhere between stage musical comedy and drama.
• The Mephisto Waltz is mostly just disappointing, not without a handful of interesting moments, but ultimately confused and maybe best described (as TV Guide once did) as “a made-for-TV-ish Rosemary’s Baby rip-off.”
• The Deep House is an interesting idea for a movie…and that, sadly, is about all that it is. The two leads, particularly Camille Rowe, try their best to inject some actual personality into their characters early on, but once the movie actually descends to the bottom it’s clear it has nowhere left to go. It’s not terrible, just very slow, not especially frightening, and disappointing in its ending.

• The Palm Beach Story is maybe a little less screwball than I like my screwball comedies, but there are a lot of really funny moments throughout.
• There are a lot of good performances in Lonelyhearts, but I think I was most taken with Robert Ryan’s nasty cynicism.
• The Instigators is a surprising amount of fun, with a pretty tight (if not overly clever) script.

Three Days of the Condor and The House That Dripped Blood, both of which really held up. Condor has some really good performances, along with that cynicism of ’70s political thrillers, while House is just silly horror fun.

I watched just five movies last week:

• For 1931, the realistic effects and sets in Kameradschaft are phenomenal, but the movie is also (as the Criterion Collection puts it “an arresting disaster film and a stirring plea for international cooperation.”
• While Challengers can be a bit much at times, it’s thoroughly entertaining, and Zendaya is never less than captivating on screen.
• The characters in Jack Goes Boating go a little off-the-rails near the end—more than you might expect, even given where they are emotionally—but for most of it’s run, it’s very nice, well-acted character study.

• Is the ending of I Saw the TV Glow disappointing? Maybe, from a certain point of view, but that sort of seems to be the movie’s point. It’s strange and heartbreaking and haunting, and it manages to capture the feeling of ’90s YA horror TV perfectly.
• You can definitely see why Gene Tierney was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Leave Her to Heaven.