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Suna no onna (1964)
Enigmatic and Unsettling
An enigmatic and unsettling film about an entomologist who becomes the fly when he's trapped in a metaphorical web in the middle of a desert with a mysterious lone woman.
"Woman in the Dunes" is one of those movies that will be about whatever the viewer brings to it. You can watch it literally, though I wouldn't recommend it, or you can see in it an allegory for the human condition and the constant struggle for survival against oppressive and indifferent forces. You can find a little bit of everything in this film, where story is secondary to visual and sensory detail.
This is a movie that could be used like a personality test. Are you an optimist or a pessimist, and how does that impact how you read the film's ending?
"Woman in the Dunes" was a Best Foreign Language Film nominee at the 1964 Oscars, and then the following year Hiroshi Teshigahara was nominated for Best Director. He should easily have won, but there was no way he was going to against juggernauts "The Sound of Music" and "Doctor Zhivago."
Grade: A.
Toys in the Attic (1963)
Sisterly Love Taken a Bit Too Far
Geraldine Page adds another notch to her kook character bedpost in this bit of Southern claptrap that also stars Dean Martin and Wendy Hiller.
Dean is the baby brother who both spinster sisters dither over. Both are worried about the vices that keep him embroiled in money troubles and neither are thrilled with the cute young thing he introduces to them as his new bride. But Geraldine's resistance to Dean's new found happiness goes to a whole other level, and because this is Southern Gothic territory, it has to hint at incestuous tendencies.
Geraldine dithers and flutters and acts up a storm her mannered way and is as mesmerizing as ever. British actress Wendy Hiller pulls off an American accent very convincingly but has not choice but to fade into the background. And Gene Tierney gets a small but memorable role as an imperious society lady.
I saw this film on TCM, and though the opening credits were formatted to showcase the film's widescreen Cinemascope photography, for some reason the rest of it was cropped to have a square aspect ratio. The framing didn't seem to suffer too much for it, but I would have preferred to see it as it was originally intended.
Bill Thomas snagged a puzzling Oscar nomination for the film's black and white costume design.
Grade: B-
Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray (1962)
Unconventional Love Story That Stops Just Shy of Being Ick
A damaged soldier and a little orphan girl strike up a relationship when he pretends to be her dad so he can spend every Sunday with her outside of the orphanage where she lives.
The two characters develop a romance of sorts, one that bumps up uncomfortably close to the boundaries of appropriateness but which never quite crosses the line over into ick. This is mostly because of the sensitive direction, writing, and acting of everyone involved, but it's also something baked into the premise itself. These people, not really through anything they've done, have been thrust into situations that exist outside of the normal conventions, and they're both desperate for a human connection they're not getting from anyone else in their lives, so rules don't resonate with them the way they might with others.
But rules, of course, do exist for others if not them, and it's the protagonists' perceived breaking of them that leads the film to its tragic conclusion. The ending is depressing as hell, but also bracing in its way. The heartache in this movie feels justly earned.
"Sundays and Cybele" won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1962, and then went on to earn nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Scoring Adaptation the following year.
Grade: A.
Zielona granica (2023)
Multiple Perspectives on Refugee Crisis
Movies like "Green Border" are tricky. If you're watching it in the first place, you likely already have some awareness of and empathy for the plight of refugees and migrants who are being demonized around the world. If you need to be convinced that they are deserving of empathy, you're probably not ever going to watch this movie. So the onslaught of suffering we are subjected to feels like punishment, like we're being lectured on something we already believe.
I thought I might bail on this movie at about the 30-minute mark. That first half hour is misery porn about a Syrian family trying to make its way across the Belarus/Poland border and the inhumanity they face. I felt for them, but didn't want to watch a movie that was just going to throw in my face misery that I already feel bad about. But veteran director Agnieska Holland had something more varied in mind for this film, and the perspective switches multiple times to show events from the perspective of a Polish border guard, a group of activists trying to help the refugees, and a psychotherapist who turns her outrage into action and joins the cause.
"Green Border" is a well made movie, and it's pretty engrossing. But there's something a little too narratively slick about it. I've seen documentaries about the refugee crisis, and though it tries, this movie doesn't capture the visceral, life or death desperation of those films. Maybe it's not fair to ask it to, but it's hard to feel completely satisfied by this movie's fictional version of what's happening in the world when the real thing is being documented and made available. If this had been my first exposure to the refugee crisis, I might have found it to be more searing than I did. And there's something a little naive about it too. It's very simple in its ideology. All of the refugees and anyone on their side is good, anyone working against the refugees is bad, and there's no nuance or attempt to address the complicated social impact of large masses of people entering countries without the resources to support them. In this movie's version, if we all just open our borders and welcome whoever wants to come in, we'll all live together in a utopian society and won't that be wonderful. But that's not the way the world works. I'm one of the first to wish it did, but I'm more realistic than that. I wish this movie had been more realistic about it too.
But all that aside, it is still a very effective movie, and I found myself more enraged than depressed by it. I'm afraid I might be one of the ineffectual liberals criticized in the movie, people who feel bad about what's happening but don't actually do anything about it. To be fair to myself, I'm not sure exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing, but still, movies like this make me want to just go out in the world and help someone, anyone, so I guess this film serves a valuable purpose in that regard.
Grade: A.
A Different Man (2024)
Overstays Its Welcome
Kudos to Sebastian Stan for committing 100% to a deeply flawed character living through a very complex situation, and for giving an intensely physical performance.
I wish I could say I liked the movie more than I did. It's a compelling premise and gets even more so once the actor Adam Pearson makes his appearance (Pearson also gives a wonderful performance, by the way). But I felt every minute of this film. It's not long, but it feels like it is. It overstayed its welcome for me by a good fifteen minutes or so.
But I liked the central question the movie asks of its main character -- where's the line between being unfairly held back by societal constructs because of our disadvantages vs. Voluntarily opting in to being a victim? Stan's character does some pretty reprehensible things by the time the movie is over, but your heart can't help but go out to the guy.
Grade: B.
My Old Ass (2024)
Where Was Aubrey Plaza?
Ok, I feel totally snowed.
I liked "My Old Ass" well enough, and there were a couple of sweet moments that had me teary eyed. But I went to this film largely because of my like of Aubrey Plaza, only to find that she is barely in this movie. She seriously might have...I don't know....ten minutes?....of screen time, so I guess if you're also a fan, just be aware that you won't get much of her in this movie.
Otherwise, this is a gentle rumination on the bittersweet passage of time (as one character says, the fact that time passes so quickly is both the best and worst thing about it) and the lessons we learn as we get older. We talk a lot about what we would say to our younger selves if we were able, and what mistakes we would help ourselves avoid making if we could. But this movie suggests that maybe we should get out of our own way and let ourselves feel all there is to feel, even the bad stuff.
Grade: A-
Emma. (2020)
Adequate Adaptation
This umpteenth version of the famous Jane Austen story is serviceable and perfectly enjoyable, though it doesn't really bring much that's new to the telling or completely justify the need for yet another adaptation. It mostly distinguishes itself from other versions by inexplicably putting a period at the end of its title.
Any "Emma" (or "Emma." for that matter) sinks or swims based on the qualities of its titular actress. Anya Taylor Joy is......fine?......but I don't really care for her as an actress, so I had trouble warming to her Emma, which is crucial to the story working. Emma is a pain in the ass, but you have to like her. My dislike of Taylor Joy is my problem that not everyone else will have, so if you like her, you might like this movie much more than I did.
The film looks handsome in that way period films based on Jane Austen books usually do. It predictably received an Oscar nomination for its costume design (has any Austen adaptation ever not been nominated in that category?) and another for its makeup and hairstyling, which consists mostly of giving all the men whiskers.
Really "Clueless" and Alicia Silverstone set the bar against which all screen versions of "Emma" will be judged by me, and no other has yet come close.
Grade: B+
The Alamo (1960)
About What You'd Expect from John Wayne
About what you'd expect as a passion project from someone like John Wayne.
Not terrible, but far from really good, the movie is way too long and talky. It could have been a brisk 90-minute action film, but Wayne clearly wanted it to stink of prestige, which worked, because it got itself nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But let's face it -- we all know how the Oscars work, and the love shown for this movie was more likely a nod to Wayne and what he'd done for the industry rather than any passion for the film itself.
And how the heck did Chill Wills get nominated for his performance in this? I could write a book about the number of head-scratching Oscar nominations that have gone to various actors over the years. It's not like Wills is bad, it's just that he's barely in the movie and doesn't play a remotely important role or have much of anything except comic relief to offer when he is.
The only Oscar "The Alamo" actually won was for Sound Recording, though it was nominated for cinematography, editing, scoring, and song in addition to its nods for Wills and Best Picture.
Grade: B-
The Bikeriders (2023)
Scorsese Lite
Not sure I ever felt fully vested in this film about bike culture that felt like something Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola would have made in the 1970s, only better.
In fact, the movie's narrative arc feels reminiscent of "The Godfather" in its portrayal of a criminal yet weirdly principled group of men -- more club than gang -- giving way to an outright criminal and not at all principled way of taking care of business -- total gang. And to top off the comparison, we have Tom Hardy doing his best Marlon Brando impersonation, though uncharacteristically for Hardy, he mostly fades into the background.
The MVP of the movie, and the most compelling reason for watching it, is Jodie Comer and her ridiculously adorable accent. She's the heart and soul of the movie, and you can feel the whole thing just begging to let her be the focus, but there's too much macho posturing to get through to ever let that happen.
I mostly just don't care that much about bike culture, and while a better movie maybe could have made me, this isn't that movie. But there's enough here -- Comer's performance, a terrific soundtrack, a gritty period vibe -- to make it worth watching.
Grade: B.
The Hanging Tree (1959)
Eerie Western
A unique and rather eerie western that finds Gary Cooper playing a doctor in a small gold mining town trying to live a life of decency in a culture of mob rule.
One of the things that makes "The Hanging Tree" different from other, more rosy screen versions of the American West is the tone of barely suppressed violence that runs through the film. These townspeople have a tree they use specifically for the purpose of hanging people, for god's sake, and it's like they're just itching for an excuse to use it. I think this movie struck me because that's what America feels like right now in this moment in time -- a place where everyone is angry and on edge and just looking for the slightest excuse to lose it.
Cooper and Maria Schell are really good in this movie, and Karl Malden is loathsome.
The title song, which I love, was nominated for an Oscar.
Grade: A.
The Sheepman (1958)
Strikes a Tricky Balance
"The Sheepman" manages to strike a tricky balance between western comedy and western suspense film. Glenn Ford coasts on oodles of screen charisma to play the film's protagonist, and he has a lot of chemistry with Shirley MacLaine, though she doesn't have a whole lot to do. Leslie Nielsen is fun as the villain, and though we know Ford is probably going to win the day, there is genuine suspense in finding out how he's going to do it.
"The Sheepman" was nominated in the category of Best Original Story and Screenplay at the 1958 Academy Awards.
Glenn Ford had never been one of my go-to actors, but in recent years, after seeing more of his films, I'm starting to grow a real fondness for him.
Grade: B+
The Brave One (1956)
Kind of a Dopey Movie
This kind of dopey movie is like one of those family-friendly live action Disney movies from the 1960s. There's certainly an audience for it, but I'm not it.
The biggest appeal this movie had for me was the curiosity factor in seeing the movie that consternated Hollywood in 1956 when Dalton Trumbo won an Oscar for its motion picture story under the pseudonym Robert Rich and no one had any clue who that was. I don't really even understand that particular award category -- I don't know how anyone could differentiate a movie's original story from its screenplay, or what a motion picture story even is. Apparently the Academy decided it couldn't either, because this film also has the distinction of being the last one to win that award. The following year the motion picture story and original screenplay categories would be merged into one award.
"The Brave One" brought bargain basement studio King Bros. Two additional Oscar noms, for its editing and sound recording. Despite being released by a low-budget studio, the film had some heavy hitters in its credits, like cinematographer Jack Cardiff and composer Victor Young.
And can I also say that I already hated the idea of bullfighting and this movie made me hate it even more. I would totally root for the bull.
Grade: B-
The Country Girl (1954)
Showcase for Bing Crosby
Grace Kelly won the Best Actress Oscar for this movie, but it's Bing Crosby who made the biggest impression on me.
Crosby plays an alcoholic actor who's been hired to star in a new Broadway show. The movie chronicles his crisis of confidence and the lure of the bottle while the man who's staked his success on him, played by William Holden, hopes that he can hold himself together, and his beleaguered wife tries to decide whether she wants to stick by him or bail. It's not surprisingly kind of a downer, and late in the movie it veers into unengaging melodrama as the story tries to foist a love story on us that doesn't feel like it belongs. But it's worth it to see Crosby doing really fine dramatic work playing against type.
The first scene featuring Crosby is one where he is auditioning for Holden and a skeptical producer of the show. He performs a number that he had performed in a show earlier in his career. Crosby is absolutely magnetic. Watching this scene, it's easy to see that intangible thing called star power that made him such an enduring and endearing entertainer.
And while I don't begrudge Kelly her Oscar, if they were going to give her one, they should have given it to her for "Rear Window," released in the same year.
"The Country Girl" scored big at the 1954 Oscars, nominated for seven awards and winning two. Director George Seaton won the Best Screenplay award in addition to Kelly's Best Actress win. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Seaton again), Best Actor (Crosby) Best B&W Art Direction, and Best B&W Cinematography.
Grade: A-
Víctimas del pecado (1951)
A Woman Scorned
I saw "Victims of Sin" as part of the annual Noir City festival at Chicago's Music Box Theater. TCM's Eddie Muller was on hand to introduce the film, and he spent a good while talking about the magnetism of the film's star, Ninon Sevilla. And boy was he not kidding. She is a dynamo in this film, a hard-edged noirish tale about a nightclub performer who takes an abandoned baby under her protection and spends the rest of the film protecting it and herself from a thuggish gangster.
This film has some content that an American film would never have gotten away with, and there are a few moments in it so rousing that the audience I saw it with burst into cheers and applause. There are a lot of musical moments in the film, quite a few showcasing Sevilla's talents as dancer. But even in the non-musical moments, there's something about this movie that feels like a musical. It moves like one, as if a choreographer had a hand in blocking out all of the scenes.
It's not a long film, but yet I did feel like it overstayed its welcome by a hair. The end teeters into the kind of melodrama that for me gets tiring pretty quickly. But that's a small complaint -- mostly this film is a blast.
Grade: A.
The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023)
Quick and Dirty Thriller
This quick and dirty little crime thriller has a sensational first act, bringing together a bunch of characters in a middle-of-nowhere diner being held hostage by a couple of bank robbers on the lam. It's really suspenseful, but it's also really playful, and I was pleased that the film opted for fun rather than grimness. The second half of the movie, which takes place after things in the diner have come to a head, deflates a bit. It's like the story climaxes too quickly but then has to stick around for a while longer just to meet the requirements of a feature length running time. I wonder how this would have done as a short film.
But flaws aside, it's still a fiendishly entertaining movie. It doesn't really have much of a point, which is fine by me.
And it's got a kick-ass soundtrack.
Grade: A-
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Grossest Movie of the Year?
The last 20 minutes or so of "Love Lies Bleeding" goes off the rails in the most delightfully bonkers way. Even more to its credit, it gets funny. It wasn't until the last few scenes with Ed Harris that I realized I was supposed to be laughing at his haircut. And I thought, "was I supposed to be finding this movie funny the whole time?"
If I had, I would have liked this movie much more. But everything leading up to that last goofy little bit abused my goodwill too much for my opinion of it to rebound. God almighty this has to be the grossest movie that has yet or will yet come out this year. It's full of gross people doing gross things. Everyone looks like they would smell terrible and have bad breath. It's set somewhere in New Mexico I guess, or at least that's where it was filmed, but wherever it is it's a horror show goon parade of everything that's most terrible about America. It's the kind of place people fly over to get somewhere better. The actors try, especially Kristen Stewart, but the director is so determined to turn us off that no one really had a chance to make much of this surly, grumpy weirdo fest.
And I have never seen a bigger collection of unacceptable haircuts in my life. It was almost like a contest to see who could look most ridiculous.
Grade: C-
La passion de Dodin Bouffant (2023)
Food Therapy
I'm not a foodie and I hate cooking. But even I was mesmerized by all of the detailed scenes of food preparation in this film. It's the food equivalent of that guy who used to paint landscapes in real time on PBS. So relaxing.
The film built around all of these cooking scenes is ok. It's very slow and very long, and it comes close to wasting an acting talent as formidable as Juliette Binoche. It's also overly formal and stilted, and always feels like a bunch of contemporary actors and artists guessing at how people from a long-ago time period would act and sound rather than ever believably capturing it.
But it's a pretty film, and all that cooking! The highlight of the film is a long scene where Binoche's husband serves her a multi-course dinner while she's recovering from a bout of illness. The movie takes the homily "food is the language of love" and makes it literal.
I would be exhausted if I lived like the people in this movie. Every meal has to be three hours long, every bite has to be a profound experience, every conversation has to be intellectually rigorous, every time anyone opens his mouth he begins by saying something like "It was the so and so philosopher who said....." or speaks in metaphor. Wasn't there an early 20th century version of popping in a frozen pizza and getting on with your evening?
Grade: B.
Cry Wolf (1947)
Spooky Mansion Noir
Barbara Stanwyck has Errol Flynn's number in this spooky mansion noir with a twist ending that had me tipping my hat at the film and saying, "Well played, sir."
Stanwyck and Flynn have a lot of chemistry together, and the film is dripping with atmosphere. There's lots of scenes of Stanwyck slinking around the house at night, prowling through the shadows and shimmying up dumb waiters. The whole film is a classic example of misdirection. At one point, my wife said, "Wouldn't it be hilarious if Flynn wasn't the bad guy at all and Stanwyck's been wrong the entire time?" Well, guess what?
Richard Baseheart appears late in the film as Stanwyck's dead but not dead husband.
Grade: A-
A Double Life (1947)
Ronald Colman Acts the Hell Out of This Movie
Ronald Colman acts the hell out of this movie and justifies the Oscar he won for it.
"A Double Life" has a really cool premise. It's a noirish thriller that finds Colman playing a method actor who has trouble distinguishing between reality and the part he's playing when he's cast in his dream role, that of "Othello." The whole thing is very meta, and even kind of funny in a dark, twisted way, as it lampoons actors who take themselves too seriously. Long before method acting was really even a thing, it was remarkable to me that this movie based its entire premise on it.
George Cukor does some really terrific directorial work here. Okay, so his use of reflective surfaces is a bit heavy handed and overdone, but dig that shot at the end when a character moves over to where Colman is dying, blocks the light, and throws shadow over Colman's face so that he looks like he's got his Othello stage makeup on.
A young Shelley Winters plays a buxom, sexy waitress who meets a grim end.
In addition to Colman's Oscar win for Best Actor, "A Double Life" brought Miklos Rozsa his second Oscar for composing the film's score. Cukor was nominated for his directing, and the writing team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin were nominated for their tight and brisk original screenplay.
Grade: A.
San Antonio (1945)
Errol Flynn As a Wild West Outlaw?
It's mighty hard to suspend the disbelief needed to accept Errol Flynn as a sun-weathered western outlaw, what with his aristocratic diction and all, but here we are. He has some nice chemistry with Alexis Smith, but somehow this movie never really takes off. There's a pretty satisfying shootout at the film's finale and a memorable final scene, but a lot of the rest of the film is draggy. S. Z. Sakall is on hand to be the comic relief, and he's really tiresome. Smith gets a chance to warble out a song or two, one of them the Oscar-nominated ditty "Some Sunday Morning." The film also copped a nod for its color art direction, though there's nothing overly impressive about it.
A not very memorable western from a decade that produced a gazillion of them.
Grade: B-
Experiment Perilous (1944)
Watched a Few Days Ago and I Barely Remember It
I watched "Experiment Perilous" just a few days ago, and it left such little impression on me that I barely remember enough about it to write a review. I found it ridiculously hard to follow for a movie of its type, but that's probably because I was bored and only paying half attention. George Brent is a drippy leading man, and Hedy Lamarr is lovely but not much of an actress. The plot brings to mind "Gaslight" from the year prior, mostly due to the controlling rich dude who has a vested interest in making his wife think she's crazy.
This film received an Oscar nomination for its black and white art direction at the 1945 Oscars. It consists mostly of lavish drawing rooms.
Grade: C.
Desperate Journey (1942)
Has a Buddy Comedy Vibe
"Desperate Journey" follows a group of WWII soldiers who find themselves shot down behind enemy lines and trying to get to safety. Errol Flynn is the Aussie leader of the group, while Ronald Reagan is the wisecracking American who's just so over those pesky Nazis. Alan Hale is unfortunately on hand to be comic relief, which means he mentions something about being hungry every five minutes or so. The movie has a buddy comedy vibe more than a serious men-in-peril one, which you'll either like or not depending on your mood.
"Desperate Journey" received an Oscar nomination or its special effects in 1942.
Grade: B.
Dive Bomber (1941)
Dry and Way Too Long
A weirdly specific movie about the men who came up with ideas to address blackouts that fighter pilots during WWII would experience when diving. The first part of the movie is a contest between the pilots, let by Fred MacMurray, who know all about flying, and the doctor (Errol Flynn) who wants to approach everything from a scientific perspective. Then in the second part of the film they all make peace and team up to try some new ideas.
"Dive Bomber" is pretty dry and it's way too long. I appreciated that it tried to be more than just a morale boosting bit of patriotic fluff, but I can't say I was ever very engaged by it.
Nominated for a Best Color Cinematography Oscar in 1941, for some admittedly striking aerial work.
Grade: B.
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
Run for Your Life
Joel McCrea washes up on a mysterious island, meets the no-talent Fay Wray, and then runs off with her into the jungle in a survival game engineered by the crazy rich dude who lives there. I swear, those crazy rich dudes are always up to something sketch. The winner gets to bang Fay Wray, because as crazy rich dude says in so many words at one point, sex is way better after you've had the experience of killing someone first.
Can we just let that sentiment sink in for a moment? That's a really disturbing blend of sex and violence that more than anything brands this film as pre-code. "The Most Dangerous Game" is probably worth seeing for an example of what pre-code films were allowed to get away with, but as a movie it's nothing special or memorable. It's done on the cheap, and Wray is terrible. McCrea isn't great either, but that's not so much his fault as it is the material, as we know that we was quite good in lots of other things.
Grade: B.
Crazylegs (1953)
Hokey But Enjoyable
Hokey film in which famed football player Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch plays himself in the story of his own life. The tone of the whole thing is that cheesy rah-rah Americana popular in those post-WWII years, but there's something sort of endearing about the film and it goes down easy enough. A large part of that is due to Hirsch himself, who wasn't a professional actor but who exudes a genuine earnestness that's disarming.
The film is full of footage from Hirsch's actual games spliced in amongst the fictional scenes, which probably accounts for the film editing Oscar that Cotton Warburton received for this otherwise obscure movie.
Grade: B.