POSSE (1975)

Tasty little Western, produced, directed & starring Kirk Douglas, about to hit 60 and making a proactive career move.  A Texas Marshall with lots of ambition and close connections to the railroad companies, he’s got his eye on the U.S. Senate and figures to seal the deal by taking down Bruce Dern and his gang of cutthroats & robbers.  But that Dern is one slippery character, even after he’s been captured.  Douglas, not a director who knows how to make two mill pass for ten, but he turns in clear-eyed action and doesn’t hold the reins so tight the actors can’t breath some life into the old tropes.  And just barely 'sells' the clever twist ending.  Douglas deserved the credit he got for casting double amputee James Stacy in his first role since his injury (Stacy is excellent), but he should have gotten just as much for letting Dern steal the picture playing the sort of wily, likable badass Kirk would have taken on twenty-five years ago.  And in doing so, likely did himself a favor as it allows him to lay back for a change instead of pushing to prove he’s still got what it takes.  (He seems constantly delighted in what Dern is doing all thru the pic.)  Keeping his head low, Douglas turns in one of his best late turns.  Good tech for the bucks spent, too.  Or is with the exception of Maurice Jarre’s oddball score.  Perhaps his attention was already on his next assignment, one of his best, John Huston’s THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING/’75.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID;  There are two pretty horrific horse stunts in the film (see poster).  I'm assuming they were safely accomplished but just be aware.

DOUBLE-BILL:  Douglas made more Westerns than you may recall.  And all thru his career, not only toward the end when fading Golden Age Hollywood stars used the genre as a safety net.  Try one of the early ones, but perhaps skip Raoul Walsh’s ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE/’51 for Howard Hawks’ bromatically revealing THE BIG SKY/’ 52 where Kirk and Dewey Martin are the real couple.

THE MARRIAGE-GO-ROUND (1961)

Before Leslie Stevens created tv’s OUTER LIMITS (’63 - ‘65), he made his name with this ‘sophisticated’ B’way sex farce.  A big hit for Claudette Colbert & Charles Boyer, it ran a year and half before being filmed with Susan Hayward and James Mason.  Slightly smutty in the popular manner of the day (THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH a paradigm of the form), it’s deliciously dated in content, attitude and style.  Dated in its style of filmmaking, too.  That's the main attraction.  Elsewise, the lame doings have little to offer.  This one proposes a modern take on insemination: use the best man to get the best results.  Enter Julie Newmar (repeating from B ‘way), Amazonian Swede, daughter of Mason’s Nobel Prize winning pal, needing the perfect mate to do the deed; no love, no marriage, no financial or parental responsibilities.  Stevens cheats structurally using a flashback framework with parallel public talks on the experience from Hayward & Mason (both college lecturers), then spoils his argument by having brainy Newmar start to grow feelings.*  Trying hard to be adult & unembarrassed about the facts of life, there’s a fascination to the thing; a grim one, not what they were aiming at.*  And what’s with director Walter Lang?  Effectively his last film (there was a Three Stooges ahead), he’d long been a competent, even Oscar® nom’d journeyman director, mostly of lighter things and musicals.  But he really fell for the laisser-faire less-is-more filming techniques of early CinemaScope.  A slow ‘dolly in’ shot big news here.  Oof.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK:  Nothing wrong with the idea of a comedy focused on social issues and sex without love; then caving.  Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder did it in NINOTCHKA/’39.  But, oh!, what a difference talent makes.  (BTW - Wilder fell for the smutty B’way sex farce tone directing the film version of SEVEN YEAR ITCH/’55, then doubling down with KISS ME, STUPID/’64.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/12/ninotchka-1939.html

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Another ‘smart’ sex comedy of the day titled THE FACTS OF LIFE/’60 stars Lucille Ball & Bob Hope who together just might have made this one work.  Meanwhile, Mason blasted the whole formula to smithereens in next year’s LOLITA/’62.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-facts-of-life-1960.html

AMERICAN STAR (2024)

At least commercially, this slow-burn thriller from Spanish-born director Gonzalo López-Gallego, with a typically fine Ian McShane, died of false expectations.*  Sold, to whatever extent it was sold, as one more Last Hit by an Aging Hitman story (tropes don’t come any tropier), it’s nothing of the sort.  Indeed, McShane’s nephew/occasional partner is already in talks for the next job.  And action mavens should be aware that any ‘hit’ action merely book-ends a character study of McShane, forced to wait a few days after his target fails to show on a first attempt at the man’s isolated home in Fuerteventura, a Spanish controlled Canary Island.  And it’s the island’s strange, haunting landscape that sets off a sort of inner existential journey of the soul for McShane.  (Fuerteventura the sort of beautifully baleful resort spot Michelangelo Antonioni might have booked for a summer.)  While McShane waits, a casual encounter with young local Nora Arnezeder leads to an afternoon of sightseeing and island history.  No pick up, more a surrogate father/daughter vibe though the girl is actually on the hunt for date material for her eccentric/lonely mom (Fanny Ardant).  Yet there’s something wary between these two; especially when McShane’s nephew butts in.  Do these two have a past?  Is something being hidden?  As a few lazy days play out, McShane is more comfortable bumping into Max, the tyke down the hall with disinterested parents.  Max the only person in the film who’s transparent, everyone else more layers than an onion.  And when the brief finale starts to run off course, López-Gallego shows his hand technically in clear narrative & kinetic action.  Stylish stuff; even a moral: No man is an island . . . except when you’re on Fuerteventura.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Just bear in mind, false expectations is a two-way street.

NOCTURAMA (2016)

French writer/director Bertrand Bonello brings focus and finesse to an extended prologue individually following eight (or is it nine?) 20-somethings moving thru Paris streets, shops & The Metro on some unexplained, tightly organized, yet apparently random path to a nearly deserted office building where they will stealthily meet in a conference room to finalize their plans for a terrorist attack on the city.  The bombs will go off perfectly; the rest of the film less so.  Using an upscale department store as overnight hideaway, political motives stubbornly remain left in doubt for generic anarchy, Bonello unwillingly to point fingers or be specific.  Such abstraction often meant to add universality to a subject (it doesn’t; being specific fosters universality), but here it just feels like a dodge, reducing the group from political agitators or sentimental sociopaths (your choice) to chumps.  Bonello does no better on logistics inside the store as pressure within the group on tactics break them into factions once their safe haven starts looking more like a trap of their own making.  In the end, government forces couldn’t care less about motive.  At last, something you can believe.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  Pulling an overnighter at a closed department store or mall shows up in a lot of films including Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES/’36.  Or try a classic Pre-Code department store sleepover in EMPLOYEES’ ENTRANCE/’33.  It should also be noted that any Security Staff that missed their hourly phone-in during the night, would automatically trigger some response, non?    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/02/employees-entrance-1933.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE  DAY:  The terrorists come off as arrogant, entitled pricks with undigested sophomoronic ideas on people & world politics (or is it trust fund baby syndrome?) with the exception of the token Black (no kiddin', a token Black!) who might have come out of a film or tv episode of fifty years ago.

SEBASTIAN (1968)

Larky Cold War espionager (home office division), not quite a spoof, but certainly not serious, earns points for late-‘60s ‘Mod’ trimmings, an all-gal encryption decoding center (run by Dirk Bogarde - he's Sebastian), D.P. Gerry Fischer’s unfoggy London Town in primary colors, and for Jerry Goldsmith’s ‘Swingle Singers’ stylings on the soundtrack.  But debits for a motorless narrative that doesn’t set up a big Cold War crisis for its decoding staff to tackle till the third act.  (A young Donald Sutherland shows up briefly to explain it all.)  Pretty good fun all the same as Bogarde runs around town (literally) hunting up savvy puzzle-solving ‘birds’ to replace departing staffers.  That’s how he crashes (again, literally) into Susannah York (whom he’ll also bed) while fighting off MI6 bureaucrats worried about inside ‘Lefties’ leaking State secrets.  (Like longtime aide Lilli Palmer.)  Not a bad cast there, plus John Gielgud as their boss and Michael Powell (yes, the Michael Powell) one of the producers, but not directing.  Instead, we get journeyman tv megger David Greene in a rare feature outing.  Who wants genius when you can settle for competence?

DOUBLE-BILL:  Near spoofs of the spy racket are tricky to pull off, asking to be laughed with and taken seriously enough to generate real emotion & suspense.  Typical examples from the two years immediately before this are James Coburn’s OUR MAN FLINT/’66 and IN LIKE FLINT/’67.  Both now looking pretty lame with half the cast all but winking at the camera to signal intent.

ARÁBIA / ARABY (2017)

Haunting in presentation and story, this Brazilian film from co-writer/directors João Dumans and Affonso Uchoa begins with a feint.  We track thru mountainous countryside following a teenage boy as he bikes home (a quietly stunning uninterrupted take) where his kid brother is sick enough to be home from school.  A check-in from their aunt (she’s the rural visiting nurse; Mom’s working in the city) is followed by a couple of stops with the teen in tow and an emergency stop at a big industrial factory where a man has collapsed.  And it’s that man, not the teen, not the sick kid, not the aunt, who takes focus for the rest of the film after the boy finds a spiral pad where the factory worker (who unexpectedly died overnight) kept a journal.  We never get back to the brothers or the aunt, as if we changed partners mid-dance to follow the short, itinerant life as set down in ‘Christiano’s’ diary.  It should feel like a structural gimmick, but doesn’t.  We begin with a reckless event that puts ‘Cristiano’ in jail long enough to learn some important lessons from a fellow inmate.  Once out, it’s a series of short-lived/smalltime jobs; most hard labor, some decent enough, others taking advantage of him (tangerine picking leaves him paid in tangerines).  For a while, a steady factory job leads to a romantic relationship that might have altered the course of his life, but it peters out after a miscarriage.  Events, and a life, come and go with a circle of life quality sans goals or milestones.  Yet 30-ish non-pro Aristides de Sousa is overwhelmingly moving doing the most ordinary things, and the directing team have a knack for lining up one artlessly artful composition after another.  (They tend to place large blocky buildings to one side of the screen and keep movement on the other.)  If Edward Hopper had lived in rural Brazil, his paintings might have looked like this film.

ROBIN ROBIN (2021)

Like a featherweight boxer who can’t compete with heavyweights in the ring, but just may be (as the tv announcers like to say) pound-for-pound the best fighter around, so too little Aardman Animations if you count product minute-by-minute.  For three-and-a-half decades, they’ve produced more joy, more whimsical laughs and sheer pleasure than any animator out there . . . per released minute.  This delightful half-hour short, released on NetFlix without enough fanfare four years back*, a typical example of their consistent excellence.  Aimed a bit more toward the little ones than the divine WALLACE AND GROMIT films, it follows a family of field mice (Dad & children, no Mom) whose new adopted member is a just hatched robin.  An event seen from the robin’s POV inside the shell.  Getting his mice family in and out of trouble as they forage for leftover crumbs, Robin dreams of bringing home an entire sandwich.  Bumping into a ‘winged’ magpie, something of a hoarder that one, Robin is encouraged to fly and, with this added skill, is able to be a provider as well as a troublemaker.  Lots of singing in this one while mercifully skipping the oversell & push found in so many other family-marketed rivals.  A big relief from the Dreamworks/Illumination model; Aardman thriving on grins and chuckles, avoiding the hunt for the canned laughs others prize.  And how well it weathers!  Note that the ‘stop-motionographers’ have swapped out Plasticine for articulated figures covered with needle felting.  Goodbye tell-tale fingerprints, alas.  But if it helps save costs to give us more Aardman product, I’m okay with it.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *You’ll have to wait a while, but Aardman has just signed to make this a series to join their SHAUN THE SHEEP shorts.  Of the SHAUN spin-off features, FARMAGEDDON/’19 especially fine.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-shaun-sheep-movie-farmageddon-2019.html

THE FOUR POSTER (1952)

Jan de Hartog’s popular stage piece, a true two-hander and a perfect vehicle for a married acting couple to inexpensively tour with, was a major B’way hit for married acting couple Hume Cronym & Jessica Tandy (José Ferrer directing) while this film version had starrier married acting couple Rex Harrison & Lilli Palmer under stage-stuck film director Irving Reis.  (Harrison & Palmer with three B’way appearances around this time, including a huge hit in BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE, which they were still playing together in London in 1954 after Rex had taken up with Kay Kendall!  Talk about troopers!)  The play, a middlebrow Scenes From A Marriage, plays like an elegant series of alternately witty/wise/obvious/sentimental Black-Out sketches: Wedding Night; Labor Pains; 12 Year Itch; Children; Loss; Empty Nesters; Search for Youth; Till Death...; Survivor Blues.  Tougher-minded than you’d imagine, in addition to the expected charm & sentiment, with witty pen & ink styled animated interludes from the great John Hubley.  Pleasant, but these things can be awkward on film without an imaginative rethink.  (It has a better chance on the small screen.)  If only a decent print were available, perhaps it might come closer to its potential.*

DOUBLE-BILL:  *Touching on similar ideas, an earlier Rex Harrison film, from his initial Hollywood sojourn at 20th/Fox, shows what’s missing here.  Co-starring Gene Tierney, it's Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s still undersung THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR/’47.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Likely lost on today’s audience is that the very title of this film is a thumb to the nose of the Hollywood Production Code still forcing even married couples to sleep in separate beds.  A fourposter indeed!  Shocking.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Note the stage play is THE FOURPOSTER while the film is THE FOUR (space) POSTER.  Now you know what Hollywood producers do.

TWO GIRLS ON BROADWAY (1940)

Top-billed for the second time after moving from Warners, M-G-M was still figuring out what to do with a very young Lana Turner, not yet 20.  Musicals?  Not how we think of Lana now, but she made her share.  Did her own singing, too.  This backstager, a programmer from megger S. Sylvan Simon (say it three times fast), skimps on connective tissue to squeeze in pots of plot along with a few numbers in just 73 minutes.  Turner’s kid sister to Joan Blondell, small-town dance tutor engaged to hoofer George Murphy.  Going on an amateurs radio show, Murphy scores a big break in the Big Apple, then parlays his win into a gig in a revue and an invite to bring out the girls.  (Not the most believable moment in the pic.)  Only problem, longtime fiancée Blondell is strictly smalltime while Turner outshines her professionally (Blondell okay with that) and personally (tougher to swallow).  For Blondell, this offers an orgy of self-effacing renunciation; for Murphy, two neat dance routines and an orgy of apologies; for Turner, a chance to show off some nice moves on-stage and the buoyant looks and personality she had before M-G-M lacquered on the hard-shell surface.  Blondell, as so often, managing to layer in a bit of real sentiment between the formula moves.  Plus, standout lighting from DP George Folsey.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  The big turntable stage set that shows up for this little film’s one big number is yet another outing for the mammoth circular staircase set originally built for THE GREAT ZIEGFELD/’36.  It was next seen on screen, again with Turner, in next year’s ZIEGFELD GIRL/’41 where Turner had to share it with Hedy Lamarr and Judy Garland.  Worse yet, dropping down to fourth-billed on that A-list pic.

BLOW (2001)

It’s fitting that Ray Liotta, playing understanding Dad to Johnny Depp’s drug dealing mogul, gives the defining (and best) perf in what proved to be Ted Demme’s last feature.  (A drug related death at only 38.)  Liotta having made his name in Uncle Jonathan Demme’s SOMETHING WILD/’86 and whose signature role was in Martin Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS/’90.  You expect Demme influence, but instead get lots of Scorsese; specifically GOODFELLAS which is nearly a template for this highly personalized story of how Depp’s character (the real life George Jung) became a key figure in upping the ante in Stateside drug consumption from weed to blow.  And it’s a great subject, one that this Demme isn’t quite up to, try as he might.  As the film would have it, Jung is more or less accidentally hooked into trafficking cocaine as a competent fellow who Columbian kingpin Pablo Escobar trusts to deliver across the border.  But in Demme’s hands the trip thru ‘70s fashion in clothes, grooming and preferred substance abuse skates on the surface.  Entertaining, and with lots of surprising turns from Paul Reubens (excellent!) and Penelope Cruz among many others.  But the sentimental turns and case pleading, all from the Jung/Depp’s POV, desperately needs counterweight from another (probably legally opposing) force while Demme only piles on more swag.  It makes a nice contrast to the barren walls of Jung's many prison layaways, but is missing any nuance.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The real Jung, as seen in a still at the end of the pic, certainly no looker . . . unlike Depp!  So the way Depp enjoys all the outre ‘70s clothes (those pointy collars!), long hair styles and cosmetic trappings, plays very differently on him than it must have on the real guy.  The difference between a natural peacock and a squab who can only dress like one.

THE SECRET OF MONTE CRISTO (1961)

With film profits stuck in the U.K. under post-WWII financial protection policies, Hollywood used the embargoed cash to make more movies there.  It’s why you find M-G-M turning to a series of British historicals starting with IVANHOE/’52 or Disney making a series of family-suitable/live-action Classics like TREASURE ISLAND/’50, the one with Robert Newton.  The Disney run uniformly successful.  So when they wound down production, a little company like Mid-Century stepped into the breach.  (Too late for Mid-Century who disappeared after this.)  In spite of its title, look not for Alexandre Dumas' COUNT*, instead, an ‘original’ 1800s treasure map adventure, the old saw about four strangers, each holding one part of a map promising millions, forced to come together to find out where X Marks the Spot.  (That joining up a mid-point climax all but missed in Leon Griffiths' script.)  Rory Calhoun is pleasant company, but hopelessly American as an honorable Brit stepping in to help a Lady-in-distress whose father was just killed over his piece of the map.  Three others join them while two villains (and a lady adventuress) await up ahead.  All second-rate actors to be sure, but the production (by Robert S. Baker & Monty Berman who produce, direct and photograph per the opening credits) is quite handsomely shot and believably mounted.  (Though one exterior courtyard seems to get reused once or twice.)  And, of course, there’s a loyal servant for lame comic relief before he turns into a courageous ace-in-the-hole.  No great shakes, but not so far off the Disney model.

DOUBLE-BILL:  *From France, two new versions of the Dumas CRISTO just out: one a feature film/one a mini-series.  Both well received but neither yet showing up with English subtitles.

THE APPALOOSA (1966)

‘There’s never been a picture like THE APPALOOSA . . . There will never be another.’  That’s the Universal ad copy, overselling this rather conventional Western from director Sidney J. Furie, briefly ‘hot’ after THE IPCRESS FILE/’65, and star Marlon Brando, in his chilly career peregranation between a catastrophic MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY/’64 remake and his GODFATHER/TANGO/‘72 resurrection.  Not that Brando didn't have good outings over the break, it’s just that he didn’t matter as he once did.  It’s 1870 and Brando, 'the Gringo,’ is heading to the poor home of his son & family near the border to start a horse farm with his fabulous Appaloosa stallion.  But unknowingly, along the way he’s made an enemy of Mexican John Saxon.  Brando & Saxon wear the same Mex-makeup and use the same accent (though Brando drops his for a bit after he shaves), so why he’s named The Gringo something of a mystery.  Most of the film merely a chase to get back the horse that’s been stolen by Saxon.  Furie seasons with still new Spaghetti Western stylings (note the use of thrifty two-perforation TechniScope stock), but mostly sticks, like a one-trick pony, to his favored trick of framing within the frame by placing objects or silhouettes in the foreground to alter the picture ratio.  Vet cinematographer Russell Metty couldn’t have been happy.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Brando’s self-directed Western, ONE-EYED JACKS/’61, much like this film, tries for profound/settles for ponderous.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/01/one-eyed-jacks-1961.html

BISBEE ‘17 (2017)

In its centennial year, a forgotten American tragedy, centered on the long closed copper mines of Bisbee, Arizona, is brought to light by descendants of the real participants in the form of reenactments of events replayed on the actual locations.  It makes for a historically compelling, but only partially satisfying documentary from Robert Greene.  The conflict stemmed from increased copper production as America prepped to enter WWI.  In spite of making money hand over fist, the mine owners refused to bargain with the largely immigrant-worker demands on hours, pay & safety conditions and their union, the most radical of major American unions, the IWW (slogan: One Big Union!) called Strike!  Over a thousand walked; answered by violent enforcement and cattle car deportation to be left in the middle of the desert by a mostly White/mostly armed force acting under the made-up principle of ‘The Law of Necessity.’  Shocking as the act was, the general ignorance of the events from recent generations of the decimated Bisbee townspeople may be even greater.  (The town shrinking two-thirds after the last copper mine shut down in 1975.)  Greene spends most of his time mining for memories, mainly from sons & daughters of the players on both sides.  And it’s disheartening to listen to many of them not so much defend indefensible acts as stand their ground because Dad or Granddad couldn’t have done something wrong.  Greene misjudging the line between letting someone hang by their own rope and false equivalency.  And the reenactment, when it does come, unable to tell the story clearly.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK:  One of the more thoughtful participants notes how the union had a song for every occasion; or wrote one.  And it’s true!  Think of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union/ILGWU (the ‘Look for the Union Label’ people) who went so far as to turn one of their musical pep rally shows into the hit late-‘30s B’way musical PINS AND NEEDLES.  A complete studio cast recording of the Harold Rome score made in the ‘60s can be found on various services, and excerpts from it sung by guest star Barbra Streisand are on youtube.    https://open.spotify.com/album/11wkhjI7iSqiaefVNGRJ1q

CURTAIN UP (1952)

This little theatrical farce is a lot like those ‘veddy’ British Ealing Comedies so popular at the time.  Often LOL funny, it has enough of a following in England for a colorized edition.*  Set in a mid-sized British industrial town, we join the local theatrical rep company, a landing spot for professional also-rans, as they start rehearsal for next week’s play . . . or will once everyone shows up.  A new play, written by local amateur with connections Margaret Rutherford, is being put on its feet by Robert Morley’s very reluctant producer/director with the usual talent-challenged cast and skeleton crew.  Easy to see the comic possibilities here, Michael Frayn’s NOISES OFF is the G.O.A.T. of these things, but this more modest insider look works thanks to a cast kept on the move by journeyman director Ralph Smart, a looking-fabulous turn from Kay Kendall just before she broke thru in GENEVIEVE/’53 (more or less what happens to her character here), but mostly from doughty, fusty Rutherford and from some of the most outstanding quick comic reverses ever caught on film from Morley who gets to run the show and not simply support less funny, less talented people.

DOUBLE-BILL:  *Less Double-Bill suggestion than Warning:  Like so many attempts at transferring farce from stage to screen, Peter Bogdanovich’s try at NOISE OFF/’92 is a mere shadow of its stage self.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *It should go without saying: avoid all colorized editions.  It’s like talking a kid to a Children’s Museum when the real deal is just across the street.

LINDA LINDA LINDA (2005)

From Japan, locally popular last-year-of-high-school comedy (girl BFF division) has acquired enough of a Stateside cult following over 20 years to warrant restoration/re-release.  Its straightforward story condensed into the final week of school when multiple food & cultural festivals take over from schooling & tests.  (Really, in Japan?)  We focus on a 4-girl pop/rock band that loses its vocalist shortly before a school concert and needs a replacement pronto.  Enter ‘Son,’ a South Korean exchange student with imperfect Japanese and even more imperfect pitch.  Not really a problem between the insipid/repetitive lyrics and the short vocal range of these ‘J-Pop’ faves.  Designed for group sing-a-longs &  karaoke bars, they hardly call for verbal or vocal virtuosity.  Ah, but beware of the eponymous title track!  Ear worm gold with a music hook you can’t get away from.  (A double LINDA followed by a triple.  Yikes it’s catchy!)  For non-locals, probably more interest in its depiction of Japanese high school culture and the positively weird passivity of our girl group.  Lethargic?  Sleep deprived?  Id challenged?  Do they have the energy for rock & roll, even on those Eurovision style songs, while going thru all the expected crises (all-night practice, on-and-off boyfriends, family stress, loss of the school cocoon lifestyle)?  Reticent rock & roll?  Director Nobuhiro Yamashita favors single-shots to cover scenes when possible, placing his camera as carefully distanced as a vase of flowers in a sparsely furnished room.  Even still-life ‘pillow shots’ of the school exterior in various weather conditions between scenes like something out of Yasujirô Ozu. (Though Ozu was a lot funnier about young people in many of his films, like those late family comedies with fart jokes!  Nothing that rude here.)

THE NATURAL (1984)

Barry Levinson has given his fabulist baseball yarn a Director’s Cut that significantly improves on a problematic film.  (At least, I think it does.  It’s been a while.)  Not that the film has lost its tone of mythic self-regard and sentimental claptrap, just that it’s now better mythic self-regard and claptrap.  Per Levinson, an expanded/rearranged first act has led him to tighten the rest of the film so it only runs a few minutes longer than before while feeling shorter since we’re more quickly involved.  (Fans of the Bernard Malamud novel shouldn’t get their hopes up.)  Robert Redford, all but perfectly cast*, stars as the young phenom, cut down before he can begin his pro career, returning as a mystery man without a past 16 years later.  But will he be cut down again?  The simple story arc embroidered behind the camera with layered atmosphere in Robert Towne’s script, 1940s period detail, sun-kissed cinematography by Caleb Deschanel and composer Randy Newman’s stirring ‘Fanfare for the Common Ballplayer’ score.  Even better in front of the camera, where a veritable pile-up of outstanding character actors in their late prime (Wilford Brimley, Richard Farnsworth, Darren McGavin, et al.) and a like sum of standout younger ones all get turns at the plate.  Alas, the women get the short end of the bat, two devil’s helpers/one lesser angel (Barbara Hershey, Kim Basinger, Glenn Close playing accordingly) lending a misanthropic or condescending note.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *That’s almost perfectly cast since Redford’s throws are so slow they make Levinson’s frequent use of slo-mo camera tricks largely unnecessary.  (A college player, Redford can swing a bat.)  On the other hand, what a missed opportunity not casting the 21-yr-old Brad Pitt as Redford’s secret son.  Pitt debuting three years later.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Similar ideas, without the mystical mumbo-jumbo, but with even more mush, found in Dennis Quaid’s THE ROOKIE/’02    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-rookie-2002.html

MY FAIR LADY (1964)

Between 1957 and 1964, Jack Warner, last standing Warner Brother, green lit five B'way musical hits for stage-to-screen transfer (PAJAMA GAME/'57, DAMN YANKEES/'58, GYPSY/'62, THE MUSIC MAN/'62; MY FAIR LADY) that had two things in common: Each almost slavishly faithful to its stage source; All but one replacing their B'way leading lady with a well-established movie star.  The exception, DAMN YANKEES, retaining B'way sensation Gwen Verdon, the only one to flop.  So, the cause célèbre that erupted when Julie Andrews lost out to a non-singing Audrey Hepburn to play Eliza Doolittle on screen was no hard call for Jack Warner, merely Standard Operating Procedure.  Originally, JW also hoped to replace Rex Harrison & Stanley Holloway with Cary Grant & James Cagney in this Lerner & Loewe musical of PYGMALION, G.B. Shaws classy class comedy about a flower peddler who 'hires' a wealthy phonetics professor to teach her 'proper' speech.  So, how'd it turn out?  How's it hold up?  At the time, an enormous success with all but the growing auteurist/academic cinema scene, who were a bit sniffy, it now seems to have also won over that crowd; especially since an in-the-nick-of-time '90s restoration.  Deservedly so, particularly in the first half which plays with old Golden Age Hollywood confidence in its long-view pacing and solid construction.  The playing lightly elevated so that the move into song feels perfectly natural.  What masterful simplicity director George Cukor brings into play on a stand alone song like 'On the Street Where You Live,' basically shot in two static shots, stunningly lit, as is the whole film, by Harry Stradling.  (He shot three of the five musicals listed at the top.)  Cukor might have been more stylized here & there, and things go droopy a few times in the second half (look for Eliza pulling out a watering can), but it quickly gets back up.  With Harrison & Holloway captured in signature roles and Hepburn earning her place beside them with real laughs at Ascot and touching melancholy returning to her old Covent Garden flower market.  After falling a bit out of favor, it now looks fairer than ever.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The original Shaw, neatly trimmed by G.B. himself (or at least approved by him) was triumphantly filmed in 1938.  Leslie Howard a more sweet-natured Professor Higgins against Wendy Hiller's nonpareil Eliza.  Old tv footage shows Julie Andrews at twenty, during the original run playing the part with striking similarities, as if Hiller could sing like a lark learning to pray.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/09/pygmalion-1938.html

GHOST IN THE SHELL / KÔKAKU KIDÔTAI (1995)

You can date the international rise of anme (the Japanese style animation largely derived from 'Manga' comic books) from two 1988 films: Hayao Miyazki's MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO and Katsuhiro Ôtomo's AKIRA.  Seven years on, Mamoru Oshii sealed the deal with this futuristic semi-cyborg police thriller.  And while some of the technical aspects inevitably show their age, the ideas & characters certainly hold up/hold their interest.  Plus, feeling the sense of discovery and out-of-the-box strides of everyone involved in making this remain potent.  Heck, you can even more-or-less follow the story, no guaranteed thing in the 'Manga' world, as semi-cyborg policewoman Tanaka and her mostly still-human partner track down the mysterious 'Puppet Master' who may be hacking into everyone's operational system . . . or something like that.  Most endearing touch: Tanaka asking everyone she meets what percentage of cyborg-to-human they are.  (She's like a house guest rudely wanting to know what your rent is.)  But of course, you're not here for plot or character, or even some pretty interesting ideas*, but for the graphic design, city-scape, street signage and computer generated action.  None of which disappoint.  (NOTE:  Re our Family Friendly label, prudish parents should be aware there's a fair amount of female cyborg nudity.  Also, with so much info on screen, dubbed rather than Japanese w/subtitles is the way to go.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT/LINK:  With cool graphic trimmings, here's a nifty overview on the Rise of ANIME from a recent NYTimes article.    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/03/magazine/anime-manga-pokemon-demon-slayer-dragon-ball-z.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Look very closely at the lower-left corner of your screen, and you just might spot the Wachowskis furiously taking notes for THE MATRIX/'99.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (2017)

While unlikely to match TEN LITTLE INDIANS in Agatha Christie adaptation supremacy, this full-rigged iteration of her train-set whodunit must be the fourth or fifth try.  The first of a series for actor/director Kenneth Branagh’s to play eccentric Belgium detective Hercules Poirot, two followed (DEATH ON THE NILE/’22; A HAUNTING IN VENICE/’23), each doing a mere third the business.  (neither seen here)  A first try at watching never got past Branagh’s whopper of a moustache (Yikes!), nor beyond the pointless over-produced Jerusalem prologue.  But knowing what was coming got us over the hump and into Christie’s interlaced murder puzzle; helped by the generally strong cast.  Unlike the far more sophisticated Sidney Lumet all-star version of 1974, Branagh’s grows progressively dark, even serious.  With a flattened color palette on interiors to set a serious mood while also adding action, unconvincing CGI spectacle, melodrama and his usual disruptive, showy camera moves & angles.  It also replaces the earlier film’s line-up of delectable one-on-one post-murder interviews (they’re like vaudeville turns for the cast to out do each other) with splintered questioning of suspects after vicious businessman Johnny Depp is murdered in his compartment.  It still works, Christie almost always does, but you’re often settling for mild little ‘in’ jokes from the cast.  Michelle Pfeiffer channeling a bit of Lauren Bacall; Josh Gad finding his inner Jack Weston for a vocal model.  Then Branagh lectures us on morality in the modern world for an ending.  Does Branagh really think absence of fun equals serious?

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The obvious choice is 1974's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.  But which to watch first?  You only get one shot at not knowing whodunit.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/murder-on-orient-express-1974.html

ABOUT FACE (1952)

A year-and-a-half run on B’way, a quick film adaptation (with follow-up sequel), no doubt musicalizing BROTHER RAT/’38 (a service comedy where three Virginia Military Institute cadets cover for the one who’s illicitly married) sounded like a sure thing for Warners in a hard to read post-war marketplace.  Hadn’t Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin recently scored on a couple of service comedies over @ Paramount?  But where those were comedies with a couple of tunes tossed in for Dean, this one tries (halfheartedly) to be a legit ‘integrated’ musical right from its Get-Out-Of-Bed ensemble opening number.  No breakout stars above or below the title; no hit tunes getting radio play; corny old gags; it’s hardly worth the effort . . . and it shows on the actors’ faces.  (Even our poster seems to say, unnecessary.)  Three instantly forgettable girlfriends for the three pals: Gordon MacRae, Dick Wesson and Eddie Bracken - at 37 the world’s oldest cadet.  Plus a baby cadet for comic relief.  Extra comic relief?  When you’ve already got Eddie Bracken in the lead?  Not exactly a vote of confidence.  And yet it’s that comic relief who oddly makes this essential viewing.  It’s 20-yr-old Joel Grey making like Jerry Lewis (and you can’t look away!) in a debut that pretty much kept him off the big screen for the next twenty years.  Till CABARET/’72 made him briefly essential.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Right at the end, journeyman director Roy Del Ruth gives the leash to dance director LeRoy Prinz who promptly comes thru with a lollapalooza of a finish.  Kudos for noticing that Cliff Ferre, hiding in plain sight as the film’s comic butt, was one heck of a dancer.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Seeing shrimpy Joel Grey (5'5") trying on Jerry Lewis for size helps show just how Jerry got away with his Looney Tunes act.  It was playing rather than being the scrawny kid that made the difference.  Lewis, at 5'10½”, a bit taller than straight-man Dean Martin, and with a far more athletic build.  Ever wonder why he wore that ridiculous haircut?  Without it, in a proper suit, he’d look at least as good as Dean.  (Or would if he didn’t take care to slouch.)  Mind you, Jerry remains nearly unwatchable, but dumb he wasn’t.  On the other hand, compare Lewis in ROCK-A-BYE-BABY/’58, a semi-remake of Eddie Bracken’s classic Preston Sturges film THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK/’44, to see the difference between Bracken’s wildly underused humane comic genius and . . . Jerry Lewis.

LIFE AND NOTHING MORE (2017)

Ultra-naturalistic Black nuclear family drama, both granular and quotidian*, watches passively, mostly in short single-shot scenes, thru some tough times.  With Dad serving a long jail term, Mom holds the family together with a decent waitressing job (later she’ll try to add another for more hours), her teenage boy leans toward the wrong crowd at school, and her little girl stays happy and oblivious to the narrow safety margin they tread.  The son is the main focus of change, teetering on the cusp of either adulthood or thug-hood and feeling pushed by anyone who tries to step in and help.  Including Mom’s new boyfriend.  A charmer in some ways, his main attraction is sheer persistence (also the biggest turnoff).  The positives and negatives only heightened when Mom gets pregnant by him, and the kid's absent father suddenly starts writing to his son, trying, from jail, to be a role model of what not to do.  Not a good time for the son to take off after another fight with Mom, wandering in silent despair and landing in a gated community park where he feels threatened by an uncomfortable white family who basically tell him to get lost, provoking a quick overreaction which threatens to decide his future for him.  Writer/director Antonio Méndez Esparza’s slow-burn approach takes a while to pull us in, but eventually gets the job done.  (A home video release with subtitles might help.  The largely improvised dialogue from a non-professional cast as tough to decipher as a North British police procedural.)  But the film grows only more affecting as it goes along.  And Regina Williams, who plays Mom, something of a real find; with a sideways glance lethal at 40 yards.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Long hoped to use ‘granular’ and ‘quotidian’ in the same sentence . . . and I promise never to do it again.

GREEN LIGHT (1937)

After hitting Hollywood top-tier on his first two leads (CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35; CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE/’36), Warner Bros. let Errol Flynn skip action to play sacrificial surgeon in this adaptation of a Lloyd C. Douglas novel.  Even without swash & buckle, Flynn’s fine; everything else the problem.  (The film, BTW, commercially very successful.)  Retracing a similar path between medicine & religion he’d walked in MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1935; ‘54),  Douglas has rising young surgeon Flynn needlessly take the blame for an operation gone wrong, before meeting-cute with grieving daughter Anita Louise.  A get-together arranged by nurse Margaret Lindsay (long in love with the good doctor) and by the expired patient’s favored radio pastor Cedric Hardwicke.  (He’s really Norman Vincent Peale . . . with polio.  Yikes!*)  Meantime, Flynn’s hospital pal Walter Abel has gone West in search of a cure or vaccine for deadly ‘Spotted Fever,’ his lonely posting a perfect hideaway for Flynn to lick his wounds after resigning his post rather than tell on another doctor.  (And if you think Flynn doesn’t nobly test his new vaccine on himself, you’ve got another think coming.)   Warners laid on decent production value and top talent in cast & crew, but director Frank Borzage, a seriously religious Catholic, probably believed this stuff a little too well to pull the melodrama out of the fire.  Flynn would have better straight dramatic innings ahead, especially in the latter part of his short career*, and of course, was nonpareil in the swashbucklers that kept so many from noting just how damn good he was in just about anything thrown his way.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *ROCKY MOUNTAIN/’50 is a fine example of Flynn’s unexpected dramatic heft toward the end of his Warners contract days.   So too, his run of timely  WWII pics.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/06/rocky-mountain-1950.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Peale famous for ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’; for decades of weekly sermons broadcast  from NYC’s Marble Collegiate Church (29 th & Fifth); and most beloved for taking down Milton Berle when he went on early television against him.  Oh, and for campaigning against Adlai Stevenson as a divorced man and against Kennedy for being Catholic.