As usual, a rundown on the short reviews I posted to Letterboxd in the past few months.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
After watching the film, I was confused by the title. Thankfully, Criterion had my back with a primer on the UK political cartoon which inspires this much more complex movie.
The aging on the main actor is (literally) incredible. I kept looking for the name of the other actor who must have played the older Col. But no! Shows these CGI-obsessed technicians of today what can be done with practical effects, makeup, and sheer acting! Likewise, I was trying throughout to identify which of the three redheads was Deborah Kerr, not believing they could all be! (They are.)
Powell and Pressburger always get me expecting shallow characters and simple plots because of the lush colors and dramatic, heightened design…but they always prove me wrong. A very interesting picture to put into the canon of war films.
There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A musical film that spends time writing individual characters and revealing them through thought-out dialogue! And still manages to be almost all production numbers. And those numbers! So creatively staged! “A Boy Chases a Girl” is near-perfect, “Lazy” is refreshingly unexpected, and “Tattooed” is eternal!
Love this film every time!
The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Really hard to quantify. Some elements (Moira Shearer) are amazing, while others (her “father”) seem like camp. How to decide on a rating? I agree that the Antonia sequence is tiresome, but it gives the satanic character some of his best material in Dr. Miracle. So, three stars and a shrug? A real mixed bag.
Close-Up Long Shot (1996) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I don’t admire the filmmaking here, but Sabzian is so relatable for me and says some amazing things. It’s a perfect companion to Close-Up. If you watch Kiarostami’s film, please watch this follow-up doc, too.
Novocaine (2001) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A wonderfully offbeat film that manages to walk the line between comedy and drama without ever taking itself too seriously.
The Producers (1967) ⭐️⭐️1/2
As much as I want to dismiss this as overly broad porridge, there's no denying the strange charm of the insanity. I hate Zero Mostel, but most of this works. Somehow.
Black and White Sylva (1962) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The greatest strength of Czechoslovak New Wave movies is their ability to dream up wonderfully simple premises that hold vast and complex groups of ideas comfortably within.
Here, a character from a Socialist movie musical falls out of the screen and interacts with “real” workers and filmmakers and theorists in 1961 Prague. Her dogmatic and fatally can-do nature contrasts sharply with the reality of the world she was created to represent. It (and she) is an ideal—and an outdated and embarrassing one at that.
So many thoughts about Socialism and art and the convergence of the twain are subtly packed into this brief film. Sadly, it ends far too quickly. But it was a film school project, after all, and they managed to do a lot with the small budget they must have had.
A charming and elegant springboard for conversation, Sylva is decades ahead of more famous film-exiting characters like Jeff Daniels’s hero from The Purple Rose of Cairo. I continue to be amazed by the brief explosion of brilliant creativity that was the Czechoslovak New Wave!
The Artist (2011) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wow! Two or three times better than I remembered! My knowledge of film history has grown so much in the past 14 years!
Not only is it a smart homage and not some gimmick, but it is masterfully directed, AND it has something to say about speaking and listening that necessitates the form!
Brilliant! Joyous! Beautiful!
It’s going back on the Top 200, folks!
The Underneath (1995) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Solid. Slick. Everything it needs to be. Soderbergh keeps a tight control of the atmosphere and tone. For those trying to source this movie, it is a bonus feature on the Criterion blu-ray of King of the Hill.
King of the Hill (1993) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Soderbergh doesn't like how pretty this film is, but I do. The story is true, but it just seems more and more unbelievable. The downward slide is painful and excessive.
But, look at this kid cast: Jesse Bradford, Lauryn Hill, Adrien Brody, Amber Benson (playing the same character she always does), and Katherine Heigl (her prowess has not changed)!
Hair (1979) 1/2
Wow, this really is as terrible as I've always assumed! And they changed Claude and Sheila into non-hippies... The show is awful, but this can't even do that well enough.
All hail Cheryl Barnes for giving this movie one good number!
Oh, Miloš Forman...why?
Goya’s Ghosts (2006) 1/2
I just started this, but I already have so much to say. How far you have fallen, Miloš. The man who made the beautiful subtlety of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Black Peter...directing this heavy-handed mess? After such complexity...these caricatures?
It's Spain. So, yes, Javier Bardem. But if one Spaniard, why not all? Natalie Portman (before she became a brilliant actress) is Israeli and has an American accent. Goya himself is a Swede. The Inquisition is largely British. The (French) king of Spain is...Randy Quaid?
[It did not get better.]
Angel (1937) ⭐️⭐️
Where is the Lubitsch touch? This was as heavy and slow as lead. The climax and end was the best of it, but it was too little too late.
The Emperor Waltz (1948) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This film is basically a 1950s Disney animated fairytale. It makes no pretense of seriousness or import. With sets and costumes in the brightest storybook colors and a background of the Alps (actually the Canadian Rockies), it sees Bing Crosby crooning to a countess amid almost absurd complications. Musical numbers are always at hand: the piano and strings conveniently sitting in a hotel hallway, the entire village recreationally playing violins and celli in unison… And the real plot is not even Crosby and Joan Fontaine’s love affair but that of their dogs! Shameless fun that consistently contrives toward a happy ending for all.
Quintet (1979) ⭐️
I was really hoping to like this since it is so widely despised. But, nope, this one deserves it. What am I supposed to come away with, Altman? Aside from the fact that you shot the entire film within a circle of soft focus? That got old fast.
The Tale of the Bunny Picnic (1986) ⭐️⭐️1/2
This did not stand the test of time the way other Henson productions do. But I do love Bean! And there are some easy funny jokes.
Buddy Buddy (1981) ⭐️⭐️
It's a great idea for Billy Wilder to end his career with a Matthau-Lemmon comedy. Unfortunately, he wasn't at his best anymore. This would be fine if it didn't try to include bad language and sexual images. They never feel right. It's one of those bump-up-the-rating schemes that are supposed to bring in more people. Get rid of everything with Paula Prentiss and Klaus Kinski. Find some other way to affect the main plot. And drop the f-bombs. They sound so silly. Perhaps Billy Wilder was one director Tarantino thought of when swearing to stop with ten movies.
Damage (1992) ⭐️1/2
Ah, the early nineties, era of the erotic thriller. One of the stupidest fads in film. Male sexual obsession collides with female sexual insanity (really, the women in these films—are they all written by men?) and creates a series of sex scenes. That’s that.
I begin to worry about Jeremy Irons’s choice of roles. So many sexual obsessives.
Another case of middle-aged-virgin-is-baffled-by-sex-film. What is the allure here? Is Anna enjoying these necro-rape quickies? I don’t think I buy either character.
Hooray for Leslie Caron, though!
After the Storm (2016) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Kore-eda is the perfect heir to Ozu. Such mastery. Utterly real and yet perfectly crafted.
Boy, this made me miss typhoons more than ever!
You, the Living (2007) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Finally! After years of searching, I found a Region 1 DVD of this film! Now I have seen the entire Living Trilogy, and I love it so much!! This is the weakest of the three, but that’s a high bar. Some alternate titles I made up:
A Streetcar Named Forgetting
The End of the Beautiful Unheeded World
We, Who Bear Witness
The Forgotten Present
An Unforgiveness
Belated Reassessments from a Former Nazi Nation
The City. The Clouds. The Sky.
The Blindfold March
Missing the Miracle (stole that one from Alanis)
The Dreaming Strategy
Portrait of a Dragging Dog (Funded by the Fleas)
Broker (2022) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This is a tough one to rate. The first act is too full of “let’s discuss the complications of this societal problem.” And the editing did not give me enough information to ever feel like I was sure of what was happening. But towards the end, there are several amazing scenes. And the denouement confused me so much. So.
I really want to pay homage to the ferris wheel scene and the last time they are all together in the hotel. I love the van. I loved this little de facto family. The acting was great. But it was too much of a problem play when it wanted to be an ensemble piece, I was often trying to catch up to what was happening, and I did not like the ending.
Star 80 (1983)⭐️⭐️1/2
Fosse’s career is fascinating. His films delved ever more deeply into his most repulsive traits. He made this film (based on true events) because he identified so much with the exploiter/rapist/murderer at its center, who is never portrayed as sympathetic. Was this Fosse struggling to understand his demons or an elaborate self-flagellation?
This film isn’t bad. It’s trashy, which it knows. The characters and real events were trashy.
The final scene was filmed in the actual location of the murder. That must have been a cheerful shoot. While we will never know exactly what happened there or how it all happened, just the fact that it is fact is astounding.
I Wish (2011) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Surprisingly sweet and light for Kore-eda. I had to suspend my worrying about all these kids’ parents, but when I managed to stay in the children’s world, it was a heartwarming adventure. But all the adults had full lives and stuff going on, too. It didn’t all take place in the kids’ world. A very Japanese coming-of-age tale.
Blow Out (1981) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I'm not completely convinced that De Palma has good reasons for all of his camera tricks. But in the end, with the fireworks, I don't care. The whole last act is brilliantly conceived and worth waiting for. (The middle sags.) This is now my (only?) favorite John Lithgow character. Karen Allen--she convinces you that she has nothing going on in that head of hers and no acting training. And then, she pulls back the curtain. Even John Travolta turns in a darn good performance.
Again, I don't think De Palma is as on top of things as he wants us to think, but with obvious echoes of Blow-Up and a new angle on the genre, it's a ride I'm glad I took.
Murder à la Mod (1968) ⭐️⭐️
It’s like someone has curated the last four films I’ve watched: Peeping Tom, Blow Out, Blow-Up, and then this. Ha.
Only two stars because of the slapstick. I kind of dug the rest.
Maborosi (1995) ⭐️1/2
Everyone has to start somewhere. This is that for Kore-eda.
I don’t know if it was just the copy I watched, but the image quality was bad: very dark and grainy.
Most of the scenes didn’t seem substantial enough to justify the following pillow shots. The very beginning and very end are good.
Captain America: Brave New World (2025) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This is a solid film. I liked it as much the second time around.
Julius Caesar (1953) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ve always loved this play. It has a beautiful and appropriate simplicity to it that matches the classical aesthetic. So many fantastic lines and speeches. I love the gothic influences in the night scene full of portends. The only problem is that after the funeral oration, the rest can never match that pitch, making the center the climax.
I also love this production. For all the play’s simplicity, it needs a huge cast of extras, because the Romans are a mob. You can’t convey a mob with twenty people very well. The black and white cinematography also rhymes with the line and verticality of the classical architecture. However, the text mentions blood so much that it is a shame to lose the startling red of the gore, which I think is necessary to back up the script.
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Now, that’s what I call an erotic thriller. A seething piece of Southern Gothic that invokes Tennessee Williams and Equus, this film about homosexuality and the army crackles until the last frame (although putting the epigraph up again is too much).
Huston’s manipulation of color creates an astounding effect. Not only does it make things unnaturally beautiful, but it creates unease and a crooked sepia nostalgia that is at the heart of all Southern Gothic stories.
Wonderful film.
High Flying Bird (2019) ⭐️⭐️
Sure it would help if I knew anything about basketball.
Vermiglio (2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beautifully crafted, but I didn’t connect to it.
The Formula (1980) ⭐️1/2
A seventies conspiracy drama a year too late. A Hitchcock blonde. A mediocre director.
I love George C. Scott. The blatant use of Marlon Brando in the marketing makes it seem like he’s in more than two scenes. It’s even in my Marlin Brando boxset! With Brando on the cover! And—get this—Brando gave his character a “hearing aide” so that his lines could be piped into his ear without him memorizing anything. A piece of work, that guy!
Always love the final scene exposition that attempts to explain the two previous hours. Subtle.
Finally, I have deduced that Beatrice Straight has a clause in her contract that she will not act for more than five minutes per film.
Mean Girls (2004) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Man, this movie is perfectly written! The more I develop as a writer, the more I recognize the craft Tina Fey put into this script!
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) ⭐️⭐️1/2
Marlon Brando does the Tom Hardy thing of always inventing a ridiculous accent for each character. I prefer my Fletcher Christian played by Clark Cable. Which is more accurate? No idea.
This is certainly a gigantic spectacle. No doubt a costly one, too. It’s a bit rough to spend this long with a story you know is ultimately tragic.
Happy Go Lovely (1951) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Charming and fun. This is the era when American cinema was producing the steadiest outflow of good movies.
Far from Vietnam (1967) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
When I was an editor for a Christian newspaper, I was told over and over that my editorials needed to see only one side of an issue. (It led to my leaving.) This film is very much committed to one side—and it can be very hard to watch, but we need to grow the muscles of hearing out those we dislike or disagree with. Much here I am behind, but some of it I am not. That’s why we watch and make art. To see through other eyes. What is the use of watching a documentary that simply restates your beliefs? It seems that it could only be to gather ammunition in the fight against the other side. (Is any ammunition an act of love?)
By far, the best part of the film is the speech by author Claude Ridder. I was completely unsurprised to later find that it was directed by Alain Resnais. (And, boy, my patience for Godard is long long gone!)
Swing High, Swing Low (1937) ⭐️⭐️1/2
I really enjoy these old Fred MacMurray romantic comedies when he showed off his musical talents. I also love that back then you could just move to Panama without a visa or anything.
The sound and image quality on my copy are terrible, sadly.
Butterflies Are Free (1972) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Movies based on plays, man! The perfect joining of two worlds. This is another great one. All three leads are wonderful in their parts. Could it be that I've become a fan of early Goldie Hawn? Or is it worse: am just a fan of Goldie Hawn? Everyone Says I Love You, Death Becomes Her...maybe I am.
Eddie Albert's son--the confusingly named Edward Albert--makes his debut here, and it's so deeply felt. Of course, it was the seventies, so blind people could do anything but play themselves in movies. But I bought it. And what a pleasant surprise to see Eileen Heckert chart such a great character arc in her Oscar-winning role! You think you know these people instantly. And you're wrong.
It's also great to see a film that celebrates the fallout of 1969 while keenly critiquing it. THAT is what you get from a play script but seldom in a film.
Private Fears in Public Places (2006) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beautifully put together, the editing and music giving huge assists, but held together by some of the subtlest acting Resnais has asked of his troupe.
This film (closely adapted from a play, as is the way with the second half of Resnais’s career) is tender and suffused with melancholy, but it spikes that formula with enough comedy and drama to create a smoothly textured whole.
The cast is superb. I have been won over by Sabine Azéma through Resnais’s work, and her character here is perhaps the most mysterious, but perhaps the most relatable. I especially felt affectionate kinship with all three male characters. (That may seem obvious, but in life and art, many men baffle me.)
The film wears its metaphors on its sleeve, slicing every set with semi-permeable barriers which the characters are constantly trying to breach. It is probably no surprise that they do not succeed. Modern urban life: we carry our cubicles with us.
This leaves only two features from Resnais that I have not seen. It would be so interesting to watch them chronologically, to see his styles and bête noirs shift. A master, to be sure, who found many different things to say about his constantly repeated subjects of memory and artifice.
St. Vincent (2014) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Surprisingly moving. It definitely felt like a film from another era. Maybe that was just seeing Bob Weinstein was the producer. Naomi Watts is particularly good.
Marriage Italian Style (1964) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I could watch Marcello and Sophia in anything. They are such powerhouses on their own, but together--! Marcello doesn't get a lot to do in this one (except be a thorough ass), but Sophia plays 19-40s with complete believability. The moment when they first meet during the bombing: she's terrified and then looks at him, and her face transmogrifies in front of our eyes from urchin to the most beautiful woman in the world!
I admit that I highly prefer the first half, and I want furious justice at the end...but when does life give us that in the here and now?
Prêt-à-Porter (1994) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I saw this in my twenties, and it was lost on me. Watching it today at 45, I think it is kind of amazing.
The Day of the Locust (1975) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I love everything that is unconventional about this film. It conjures a world that is both recognizable and an absurd grotesquerie. Powerful stuff. The expressionist and impressionist hazes, Jackie Earle Haley as a child drag queen, the distortions of perception, the fact that the top-billed actor doesn't appear until 45 minutes in, the rose in the crack in the wall, the cockfighting (no PETA on set there), the times that the real and the artificial seem to trade places... I didn't know what to expect of this one, but I was blown away!
Is this what Damien Chazelle thought Babylon was going to be? Another example of how the implicit is far more powerful than the explicit. (Though there are exceptions, such as Eyes Wide Shut, where the overdose is the desired effect.)
Day of Wrath (1943) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
You can’t get more Scandinavian than the work of Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer. He’s like a starker, less agnostic Ingmar Bergman. While reports of Dreyer’s personal religious devotion are at odds with each other, I feel that his films (if not him) were certainly Christian. And so, where I feel markedly unsafe in Bergman’s hands, I trust Dreyer.
Made during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, with its Jewish “witch-hunts,” Day of Wrath is a literal witch-hunt drama. It may be alone in both asserting the reality of witches and condemning the atrocities of the witch-hunters. (Their mode of burning witches is much more … dare I say “in your face” than the familiar stake treatment, and it puts forth a proof of the practice’s evil in a couple quick seconds that I may never forget.)
But there is so much more going on than a witch-hunt. Faith, conviction, and repentance are shown in their true forms as well as their inquisitional travesties. To borrow from Sondheim, “Witches can be right; giants can be good.” (Even mother-in-laws can be right.) The film’s true thesis statement comes very early, though: “There is power in Evil.” Viewers may disagree on what parts of the plot they find that evil in, however.
In Day of Wrath, evil is incredibly real but appropriately under the radar of not only those obsessed with rooting it out but those in the process of forming a pact with it themselves.
Really religious parables, Dreyer’s films are simple, uncluttered, and somewhat fantastical. They remind me of Au Hasard Balthazar, Diary of a Country Priest, and The Phantom Carriage. In a world of melodramas, these are medieval mystery plays. Watching them is easy, but working through them is difficult—and, like all parables, I suspect that their “meaning” to each viewer shifts over time.
I am on a Dreyer marathon right now, so stay tuned for more on one of cinema’s most spiritually important directors.
P.S. a great line from the short Criterion essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum: “[S]ome works of art ultimately know and say more than their makers.”
Ordet (1955) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dreyer again. Such a rich text! I would love to do the play. I think this is one of those stories that never fully gives up its secrets and is the richer for it.
I’d like to know what the theological difference is between the families. Is it so vague because all theological schisms are ultimately unimportant?
Gertrud (1964) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
What a very odd film! Dreyer #3. It reminds me of a symbolist play, all dreamlike and orated with a flat aspect. Completely unmotivated movement through the sets creates one careful tableau after another, as men beg for Gertrud, and she plops out dispassionate platitudes about Amor Omnia. It’s absurd, and it’s strangely lovely. The title character is intensely unlikable, and she doesn’t even like herself. But she continues to excoriate her men for not being wholly swallowed by love. While she barely registers an emotion. Washed out flashbacks and an out-of-nowhere coda shatter the pure theatrical spirit of the rest of the film. Words repeat and recycle. It is a very Scandinavian cousin to Last Year at Marienbad. And that beautiful, fleeting speech about “I am the dew, I am the sky…” So much detachment from so much passion. Hmm.
Amores Perros (2000) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I didn’t know if I would get through it, but after the first section, I was able to enjoy it. The final act is what makes the entire movie work. Still, I don’t think I will be watching it again too soon…
Sunflower (1970) ⭐️⭐️1/2
Great score, great acting, but I don’t really understand the need to tell this story. Maybe it was very real for people in that place and time.
Blood Simple (1984) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This time through, I saw all the bits that became callbacks in Fargo.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) ⭐️⭐️
I don’t know when I first watched this, but I couldn’t remember a thing about it, so I watched it again tonight.
Oh, the eighties! The key word for films then was “erotic.” It disgusts me to see all these movies that don’t just force the male gaze on all their female characters, but force it into them as well. Because apparently men just want to see naked women together. Sigh. So so much female nudity. On the male side? Daniel Day-Lewis’s gaunt chest and a glimpse of Stellan Skarsgard’s butt. Total equality.
Speaking of Stellan, he’s playing his son Alexander’s part in this. And compare pictures of him and Juliette Binoche in 2025. It’s not just that she was young and aged in French—it’s that she had to stay “sexy” to get work. Ugh.
I was so distracted by how thoroughly eighties the characters looked (supposedly in 1968). Lewis’s giant pouf of hair? I have watched every film I can get my hands on from The Prague Spring, and none of the main characters in this film could blend in with the real deal.
As for the film… What’s the significance of a pig named Mephisto and a (female) dog named Karenin? Why all the mirrors? Why start with title cards and then abandon them after ten minutes? Why does the male character get off so lightly for his sex addiction? Is that what “the lightness of being” is? I appreciated seeing the dramatization (and real footage) from the Soviet crackdown in Czechoslovakia, but isn’t the novel supposed to be of philosophical significance? No wonder the author refused to support this movie.
The Jazz Singer (1927) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that used blackface for thematic narrative purposes: his deracination and “black sheep” status.
That said, I think Al Jolson is awful…and not much of what he sings is what I would call jazz. The love interest is a very good dancer, though.
Not being Jewish, I thought that the title cards did a good job of recreating the Jewish banter I’ve heard in a million movies.
The crisis lasted way too long, though. Really, the movie used the crisis the way most use the climax. But, the man was never a practicing Jew, so it all seemed dumb to me. Also: the synagogue has No Other cantors, and the jazz singer has No Understudy? Right.
“You’ll queer yourself on Broadway.”
That, Jolson, is something I have heard before.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
4K restoration with Jeff Beal soundtrack. Wonderful! One of the truly important movies in film history.
Written on the Wind (1956) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This film predicates in the belief that Lucy could fall in love with Kyle—so quickly, and under those circumstances—with Rock Hudson right there the whole time. Why would she? She’s a smart, successful businesswoman when we meet her. She immediately bonds with Hudson’s Mick (Mick Wayne is the most Rock Hudson name ever.), and then, with disgust written all over her face, falls for Kyle after he makes such an indecent assumption, followed immediately by the proposal.
I never buy it. But I echo Mick’s resolution: “to hell with the Hadleys!”
Lonelyhearts (1958) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I have always maintained that Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard was the most despicable man in fiction. That mantle clearly belongs to the aptly named William Shrike.
Despite the ridiculous and contrived ending, this film is so bleak and pessimistic that it makes me feel sick.
Kameradschaft (1931) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wow.
Charade (1963) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I forgot just how excellent this movie is! It’s going on the Top 200!
Providence (1977) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Alain Resnais does not disappoint! Still in the first half of his career—the memory play stage—he pulls out all the Resnais stops. He manages to bring it all together (I find Muriel unsatisfying on that front) without sacrificing the inscrutability that is typical of his works and our memories. People turning into animals, painted unmoving waves, lines that skip from one character to another, characters who become (or at least signify) different people at different times, static costuming, roving bands of military police, the elderly rounded up with clear concentration camp vibes, an endless display of beautiful strange buildings, bombs exploding in the background, wine and more wine and more wine, scene do-overs, sets that change shape during scenes, unstable blocking and mise en scene, rhetorical dialogue, shifting acting styles, and “an allegedly famous footballer” randomly jogging through the action…all to ask a hundred questions about family dynamics, the relationship of art to reality, “the development of a moral language,” and more. And did he make two versions: with a French cast and with an English cast?
It was worth the effort to get hold of this DVD, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait much longer for a Criterion release. This checks all the boxes in their mission statement.
Sleuth (1972) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I saw the remake first, and was not impressed. I knew the original would be better, but it took me fifteen years to watch it. Initially, I was skeptical. But it’s the performances that carry it off, with a big assist from a screenplay much more interesting than Pinter’s was in the remake. This version is actually about something, and it is perfectly cast to drive its point in savagely. (Also fun: the posters all have the “EU” in the title enlarged. It was long before the EU, but its messages about England and its neighbors make it seem like a prophetic touch.) Yes, in both films, the entrance of Doppler is a moment requiring supreme suspension of disbelief. But, forcing myself to look past it, I enjoyed watching these two actors have the time of their life. 100% Olivier’s best. Maybe Caine’s, as well? Both are doing a lot more than mumbling behind a big desk, which got Brando the Oscar over both of them. The Oscars that took place in 1973 made some big mistakes, and they all involved giving awards to The Godfather.
I Saw What You Did (1965) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This film is dying to be remade. (Which it was in 1988, but just the poster and the date tell me that version can’t be too good.)
The plot is simple and has a great hook: two unsupervised teen girls crank call people. Their luck runs out when they ominously whisper “I saw what you did” to a freshly-minted murderer.
There’s so much potential there, and it explores some of it but pulls back from giving us a great third act. (And at 1 hour, 23 minutes, it could have given us more.) It’s a kind of Cape Fear Jr.
Get some new or rising teen stars and a few character actors, and this is a cheap thriller with real potential.
As always, Joan Crawford is hilarious. Listed as the star and the only person pictured or named on the poster, she tries to make up for her tiny part by demanding a necklace so huge and opulent that it actually steals all the attention in her few scenes.