I watched a half dozen movies the first week of 2023.
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- The Thin Man Goes Home can’t match the earlier films in the series for wit and charm, but William Powell and Myrna Loy are still wonderful together, and this one has a pretty decent mystery.
- Plots don’t come much more threadbare than the one in Girl Crazy. There are brief flashes of some kind of fish-out-of-water, boy-meets-girl, “hey, gang, let’s put on a show!” story around the edges, but it’s a flimsy excuse for some passably entertaining musical numbers and light comedy.
- The Reluctant Astronaut probably wouldn’t be half as much fun and winning if it didn’t have Don Knotts, but it does have Don Knotts, so there we are.
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- There’s a nice little noir with some interesting twists in The House on Telegraph Hill.
- Irene Dunne is charming and fun in Theodora Goes Wild.
- As a satire, The Menu is maybe a little toothless (that’s a pun), but I don’t think it’s really trying to be a satire. What it actually is, is a lot of fun, thanks largely to the performances
I also re-watched The Wizard of Oz—probably the first time I’ve watched it in decades, and certainly the first time, in full, without Pink Floyd accompaniment. It’s still pretty delightful.