AVEDON (2026)

For photography connoisseurs, the top artistic achievements of Richard Avedon will always be suspect.  Not because of his commercial & fashion work, but from his success in those fields.  While for the cinematically inclined, he’ll always be held in youthful suspension as the elfin fashion snapper who stood to the side of that enormous VistaVision camera with Stanley Donen, Fred Astaire & Audrey Hepburn to help create the heightened verisimilitude that gave FUNNY FACE/’57 an honest glamour & gloss on the fashion industry rarely caught on film, let alone a Hollywood Musical.  This Ron Howard documentary, coming two decades after his death at 81, is a largely successful attempt to pull down the arbitrary barriers isolating his broad view on the art, emphasizing work while letting biographical detail filter into place without pushing forced connections between life, labor and art.  Yep, Ron Howard, the most anodyne of big-time/middle-of-the-road Hollywood producer/directors.  After decades of landing dead-center in the Mid-Cult Zeitgeist, he’s recently developed cultural lacunae.  Perhaps the occasional failure did more to improve his work than success ever did.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Generally letting the work speak for itself, the film makes a neat point connecting Avedon’s WWII service taking thousands of starkly plain photo I.D.s (headshots in front of blank backgrounds) as prefiguring his late signature portrait style.

HEART OF THE BEAST (2026)

This Brad Pitt film, destined to be his ‘other’ film of 2026*, simultaneously appeared off-the-radar  and became reasonably successful commercially.  A welcome result in the current feast or famine movie economy.  (If only its budget weren’t three times what was needed.)  Pretty effective on screen, too: an Alaskan wilderness survival adventure: beasts & elements nipping at the heels of two joined-at-the-hip Special Ops vets whose two-seater plane goes down 50 miles from civilization during a fly-fishing trip.  Retired, but with chronic health issues: Middle-East PTSD nightmares as well as physical wounds (one has a prosthetic limb; one with a weakened heart), each unabashedly touchy-feely in comforting their BFF thru the  occasional med crisis or horror flashback.  Did we mention that the pilot is Brad Pitt and the passenger is Odin, a German Shepherd?  Egads!  Pitt’s Plan B production house has found Jack London’s long-lost script for that 2-part LASSIE! special event.  Brad, of course, plays Timmy, and Odin is a male German shepherd Lassie!  Think we’re kidding . . . think again.  With the exception of a couple of meant-to-be threatening CGI wildebeests (one grizzly; one pack of wolves), director David Ayer, working from Camero Alexander’s Jack London inflected script, hits the right buttons and tugs at your leash.  (Which is also how Odin sets Pitt’s broken radius arm-bone.)  But you’ll feel a little embarrassed as you flick away a few manly tears.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Also out 2026, PROJECT HAIL MARY which plays with similar ideas on an interplanetary level, and all but confirms Ryan Gosling as his generation’s Brad Pitt.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/07/project-hail-mary-2026.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *As opposed to THE FURTHER MIS-ADVENTURES OF CLIFF BOOTH/’26.

THE ODYSSEY (2026)

An epic hit with the hoi polloi, Christopher Nolan’s square-shouldered literalism was less embraced by academia, a bit sniffy at finding more prose than poetry in his Homer; beloved  dactylic hexameter flattened to Mid-Atlantic Conversational.*  No doubt, the only choice considering the big budget, and largely brought off in a style not far off the Oscar-bait Biblical & Historical RoadShow spectaculars of the late-‘50s/early ‘60s.  Think Wyler, Kubrick, Anthony Mann.  A bit grandiose for impatient modern tastes, those films purposefully padded to assure program-clutching customers their premium advance tickets were worth the price.  (You thought the writers & directors wanted to put in those dancing girls interludes?)  Under Nolan, cult ceremonies instead of metaphoric orgies add to the running time, with the men generally coming off better than the women.  A seriously buff Matt Damon effectively plays Odysseus on his post-war voyage home from Troy, as more straight-man than trickster to friends, foes & monsters.  But that daily exercise routine on his abs didn’t do a thing for that unheroic snub nose.  (Back in the day, Olivier & Welles filled out their inadequate ones with putty.)  Standouts among the men include Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page and John Leguizamo while on the female front, only Anne Hathaway & Zendaya seriously miss the mark.  Debits to Nolan for some poorly staged action, undercooked meme moments and subpar fly-wire work.  But nothing dishonorable here.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *For a bit more of the poetry, try THE RETURN/’24    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-return-2024.html

THE FALCON IN SAN FRANCISCO (1945)

Another Hollywood detective series that finesses the business side of things.  Who employs this suave crime solver?  Is he paid for his services?  And what of his classless/clueless assistant?  Awfully charitable fellows, no?  This late entry in the enjoyable R.K.O. FALCON series (seventh of nine with Tom Conway*) standard-issue doings in spite of having Joseph H. Lewis at the helm.  An outstanding director of B-pics, Lewis’s next, MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS/’45, ought to have led to A-list gigs.  And while films like GUN CRAZY/’50 and THE BIG COMBO/’55 followed, rote 'B’s and tv series his only reward.  Here, there’s just so much Lewis can do as Conway’s Falcon and rough-edged partner Edward Brophy, while traveling by train to San Francisco, stumble onto a smuggling conspiracy thanks to a little dog and a little girl they try to help.  All they want to do is get the rich tyke safely home, but murder, abduction, ‘reformed’ crime boss Robert Armstrong, arrest and mob enforcers keep getting in the way.  But with its polished look, clunk-free cast and explosive finale, FALCON on the high end as these little programmers go.  Though, after witnessing so much mayhem & murder, that little girl will be traumatized for life and need her inheritance for med bills.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *George Sanders was the first ‘Falcon,’ but passed the baton on to real-life brother Tom Conway who co-starred with Sanders as the original character’s brother in the fourth title,  FALCON’S BROTHER/’42, then nine more times on his own.

THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (2016)

With a long and fertile history of adaptation, top-tier Agatha Christie titles are no longer simply remade, but must be re-imagined.  Or so film producers think.  (YOUNG POIROT in the pipeline.)  WITNESS, which started as an early short story before Christie turned it into a play in 1953; Billy Wilder a film in 1957*; along with multiple outings on tv and radio, here gets refreshed right from title, gaining an article: THE.  On the whole, it does better than most Christie rethinks, but errs fatally in putting too much dramatic weight on her construct.  Christie can support murder, but not tragedy.  The basic story’s there: handsome drifter charged with killing a rich older woman for her fortune is screwed in court by his common-law wife’s testimony, only to see the outcome go topsy-turvy.  Wilder’s version famously added an extra twist-and-a-half to the fun right at the end.  But fun is exactly what this latest version lacks.  Trying for real tragedy with two different twists of fate that overplay their hand.  Christie believed in evil (it’s what made Miss Marple so insightful), but tragedy  not in her range.  As the accused, Billy Howle makes the most of things, with a tricky restrained/yet anything goes sexual vibe not much seen since Michael York’s heyday.  Everyone else gets their points  across: Toby Jones’ coughing solicitor (not TB, just bronchitis), Kim Cattrall’s wanton lover; Andrea Riseborough’s cunning vixen.  But like the choking, yellow-filtered atmosphere of 1920s London, it’s laid on too thick.  The Christie narrative DNA still works its magic, but cutting thru the fog is more work than need be.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *Wilder, at his most impersonal, sticks to the play and let’s Christie’s clever narrative mechanics do the heavy lifting.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/09/witness-for-prosecution-1957.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Not 100% sure, but I think this is the only version that has the solicitor (here Jones) rather than the barrister (Charles Laughton for Wilder) as lead.

L’AVVENTURA (1961)

Michelangelo Antonioni was nearing 50, with a handful of impressive features behind him, when he found his true subject and broke thru internationally with this enigmatic classic.  A contrarian in the midst of Italy’s successful Il Boom economy, his reaction might be summed up as ‘is that all there is?’  Rejecting the notion that No Man Is An Island, Antonioni tells us EACH man (or woman) is an island unto themself.  It’s his only theme.  Following films like a portrait studio offering to roll down different backdrops (identity, environment, class, murder), but with main subject unchanged.  So choose your first Antonioni carefully; you can only get that big initial reaction once.  As first in the series, L’AVVENTURA is a good choice, though BLOW-UP/’66, with London Mod Era trimmings and a half-hour shorter the better intro.  L’AVVENTURA, first of four with Monica Vitti, is the one where a small yacht’s-worth of difficult/unpleasant Euro-Trash types (lots of LA DOLCE VITA/’60 in here) lose (misplace?) one of their own on an island stop.  The point less how they react to the missing friend than how they don’t react.  Three days later, affairs and business back to normal; as if she’d never been.  Chilly stuff , chic & elegant as haute couture.  And possibly as unnecessary.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Check out the young painter one of the yachters picks up once she's back on dry land.  In hair and pictures, the kid's a ringer for young Picasso.  And you thought Antonioni didn't have sense of humor.

DOUBLE-BILL:  Though it has its modern-day defenders, Antonioni never recovered his Prince of Disconnected Modernism & Existential Ennui rep after he fell flat on his Counter-Culture face in the hapless ZABRISKIE POINT/’70.  He knew it, too.  Barely one feature per decade after it.  But THE PASSENGER/’74 does at least manage to get into gear.

DAVID HARUM (1915; 1934)

Small-town Americana from Edward Noyes Wescott’s best-selling (semi-autobiographical?) book about a curmudgeonly banker who secretly acts as Fairy Godfather to half the town.  Filmed twice: Allan Dwan/1915; James Cruze/1934; the earlier version mainly of interest as a prime example of the ‘Famous Players in Famous Plays’ philosophy soon dropped when fresh-minted movie personalities proved far more popular than established stage vets by the company that became Paramount.  Here, our ‘Famous Player’ is William H. Crane, Harum three times on B’way and on tour (1900 - 1904).  Dwan establishes strong rural atmosphere from the start with a striking tracking shot (cinematographer Harold Rosson*) that runs up the town’s main street to the Harum bank.  But with character bits instead of plot, the film never builds.  Harum sets up a local romance; Harum trades horses with townies; Harum takes over a poor widow’s mortgage.  Worse, Dwan lets stage action & (inaudible) dialogue play intact, with 70-yr-old Crane demonstrating little camera rapport.  All improved in 1934 with Will Rogers able to take advantage of his quasi-improvistory manner, adding subtle jabs & jokes delivered at a walking pace while retaining the same moving pieces (marriage, ‘mudders,’ mortgage) and adding a real horse-race in the third act.  Cruze, who never lived up to the promise of his mega-hit THE COVERED WAGON/’23, lets Rogers be Rogers (all you really need to do on his films*), keeps controversial Black icon Stepin Fetchit reasonably understandable, and is blessed with tasty supporting players.  It also helps that whereas the silent version plays as 1915 contemporary, the remake helpfully distances the story back to the 1890s.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Rogers best seen in his John Ford films, especially STEAMBOAT ‘ROUND THE BEND/’35, and in Henry King’s STATE FAIR/’33.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/steamboat-round-bend-1935.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/06/state-fair.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *HARUM Rosson’s debut.  51 years on, Howard Hawks’ EL DORADO/’66 his last.

LADY IN A JAM (1942)

Starting in early silent animation, but mostly celebrated for two best-of-their-kind mid-‘30s ensemble comedies: ‘screwball’ MY MAN GODFREY and drama-tinged STAGE DOOR; you’ll look in vain to find their equal in other Gregory La Cava directed films.  Not that there aren’t worthwhile candidates, but nothing anywhere near that level.  (Lost silents and hard-to-find sound titles might prove otherwise.)  This, his penultimate release, shows him at half staff, riffing off GODFREY to reasonable effect, especially if you hang around till everyone goes west to reopen a ‘played out’ family gold mine.  Irene Dunne is remarkably committed to her rather unpleasant entitled character, a broke/mentally flighty heiress who can’t adjust to reduced circumstances.  Lucky for her, the sanatarium funded by her family in better times feels they owe her special treatment, so she’s followed by staff psychoanalyst Patric Knowles (charming at his most Errol Flynn-like), convinced he can fix her up in an afternoon; then tagging along to the depleted mine where the rest of the family live a threadbare existence.  Watch for Jane Garland, great in her only film role as a chubby young niece who knows the score.  Ralph Bellamy also there, reimagining the same third-wheel hayseed he’d tried out against Dunne in THE AWFUL TRUTH/’37.  But now, as extroverted as he’d previously been introverted.  Undoubtedly derivative, but La Cava makes it swing in spite of a scrappy script.  The truth is, screwball tropes without the Great Depression to anchor the craziness in real desperation rarely work even as well as they do here.*  Just don’t expect too much.  (Except for Hal Mohr’s lensing which is pretty phenomenal.  Especially out of Universal.)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Book-ended by La Cava to finish his career on two more flawed comedies with Dunne (UNFINISHED BUSINESS/’41; LIVING IN A BIG WAY/’47).  Together, they showed better form with straight drama in  SYMPHONY OF SIX MILLION/’32.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/07/symphony-of-six-million-1932.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *But what about Preston Sturges at the same time, I hear you ask.  Well, that’s one reason Sturges ain’t screwball.  He’s Sturges; a category of one.

THE BIG EASY (1986)

Many a nit might be picked in this New Orleans set policier that’s really about the sexed up relationship between showboating Police Detective Dennis Quaid and Incorruptible Assistant D.A. Ellen Barkin as they fuck & feud their way thru court battles and a drug-fueled gang war (or is it?).  But the end product is too entertaining to bother about shortcomings.  At their physical peak (Barkin’s cock-eyed looks a match for Quaid’s shredded physique, each with movie star smiles that could melt asbestos), they overcome director Jim McBride’s tourist’s view of New Orleans, careless plotting, and some unconvincing vowels in the local patois to make the case & their relationship mean something.  Though McBride’s painfully sloppy work can stop you in your tracks; the poor editor can barely match shots  while four or five action set pieces are downright painful.  And the big ‘reveals’ wouldn’t surprise a police intern.  On the other hand: no one pronounces New Orleans as ‘Naw-lins’ (hurrah!) or makes a late-night pit stop for Beignets at  Café Du Monde.*   Best of all is simply being reminded of what a naturally gifted/shamefully under-valued, actor Quaid was/is.  Still making it look too easy to land on the awards merry-go-round. 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *They couldn’t avoid all the local clichés: Chef Paul Prudhomme comes tableside to serve his Étouffée and Barkin gets stood up at Antoines.