Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[Sabin]

No other place to really put this but my journey through 70's comedies continues with Blake Edwards' 10.

I think I mistakenly thought this was one of Damien's favorites but I found his old Top 100 list and I think it wasn't. He was more a fan of Skin Deep (which I still haven't seen). I checked this one out and I instantly latched onto it because George Weber is celebrating his 42nd birthday which is (checks watch) a mere six months away from me. He has a mansion, he's married to a woman who is a mother, and he's beyond famous. Despite the fact that we are both greying in the temples, I am lightyears behind this man with one exception: I've largely given up drinking. The hangovers are just too much for me and I have to be able to function and force a smile every day. I expect that my experience of watching George Weber was similar to a moment growing up when my family sat around the television watching The Simpsons (our Sunday tradition) and an episode revealed that Homer is astonishingly supposed to be just 37. My father just shouted "37???" and my response was "So what? That's old." Anyway, I couldn't remotely relate to George Weber's 42nd year mid-life crisis because nobody I know experiences anything resembling that sort of mid-life crisis in Los Angeles today. Sad-sacks have Sideways adventures, but for everyone else, it's getting difficult to find a couple not in a quasi-open relationship. That being said, I don't see any male-centered mid-life crisis films that dare to tackle this kind of horndog obsession so I found that varietal sort of refreshing, although I find very little redemptive in George Weber.

Anyway, I found it to be a pretty interesting balance of tones. It's a mix of philosophizing, fantasy, and scenes that find their comedy in random wacky characters or explosions of physical comedy. The story itself is resolutely low-key, almost episodic at times. My favorite thing about it is that it feels like the kind of movie that shouldn't work and yet it does in spite of itself, almost like a James L. Brooks film. This is due to the casting of Dudley Moore. He's very good at the spastic explosions required of him as well as the moments of calm and the calm hiding his torment. I've only seen Moore in this film and Arthur, and he's more credible in this human performance. I was a little put off by the way Moore treated Julie Andrews. I mean, there's no way around it. He's a cheater. I don't know if it's a 70's thing to say he didn't cheat because he couldn't get it up or because he stopped with Bo Derek. He's a straight up cheater. The film is at its strongest when it views him as pathetic and I think probably could've stood to take him to task a little bit more. I have to be a little charitable with this film because what Bo Derek tells Moore at the end of the film doesn't quite land a punch these days, but it's also worth noting that Moore's idealization of Bo Derek never quite transcends surface level horndog. If he thinks she's something more, it doesn't quite come across.

I'm struggling to find more to say about it. Generally, I was impressed in the balance of tones and enjoyed it on that level. Also, very interesting that it was released the same year as Manhattan. They feel like twin souls a bit, although obviously I enjoyed the latter quite a bit more. So odd that Manhattan received one Golden Globe (Drama) while this got six (Comedy). None of that is right.

[Reza]

The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931) 4/10

Broadway Serenade (Robert Z. Leonard, 1939) 4/10

Fantasic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (David Yates, 2022) 4/10

Memory (Martin Campbell, 2022) 5/10

Futures vedettes / School For Love (Marc Allégret, 1955) 4/10

Silly film set in a Vienna conservatory where the teenage girls fall for their vocal teacher (Jean Marais) who is going through a turbulent marriage. The crisis involves his relationship with a nubile teen (Brigitte Bardot) which causes another student (Isabelle Pia) to throw a jealous fit. Marais - looking very old (at 42), stiff and bored also has the creep factor. Why is this old man preying on teenage girl students? Lila Kedrova has a small bit as one of the mothers but its Bardot, a year away from international stardom, who stands out as the vivacious young girl very willing to get seduced. Based on the novel by Vicki Baum with screenplay by Allégret and Roger Vadim who was then married to Bardot.

Lili Marleen (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981) 8/10

Fassbinder, who was inspired by Hollywood melodramas, for the longest while could never make a movie that did justice to his dream because of his films' low budgets - until his series of films during the 1980s where he chose to make elaborate female centric films. Here Hanna Schygulla is presented like a goddess harking back to early Hollywood and the days of Garbo and Dietrich. Taking a cue from the latter the plot here revolves around the famous German love song that became popular during World War II throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem, the song which became a desperate cry of hope for people during WWII, was first sung by Lale Andersen who in this fictionalized version of her life is played by Schygulla. An aspiring German singer called Willie (Hanna Schygulla) is in love with a Swiss jewish trainee composer-conductor (Giancarlo Giannini) who, unbeknownst to her, works for the underground using money of his rich father (Mel Ferrer) to smuggle jews and their assets to neutral Switzerland. Since she is German his father thinks she could be dangerous to their cause and has her deported. While the lovers are apart she, using the influence of a high Nazi official, becomes rich and famous for singing the song "Lili Marleen" written by her lover. As her fame spreads far and wide he secretly returns to Berlin to see her but the gestapo are suspicious and have her followed. Highly melodramatic film is exactly how Fassbinder - a fan of Douglas Sirk films - envisioned his story with Schygulla a true vision of beauty as the singer.

Persuasion (Adrian Shergold, 2007) 8/10

Exquisite adaptation of Jane Austen's last novel with her protagonist, twenty-seven year old Anne Elliot (Sally Hawkins), on the verge of spinsterhood as the story begins. Eight years before she had been persuaded by her father and a family friend (Alice Krige) to break her engagement to Captain Wentworth (Rupert Penny-Jones), a naval captain with not much future prospect. When her family is forced to move from their estate due to financial difficulties the house is rented to an Admiral whose wife happens to be her former fiancé's sister who now happens to be a very wealthy man and an eligible bachelor. Will Anne manage to change the Captain's resentful mind about her or will she instead accept a proposal from a distant cousin (Tobias Menzies)? Hawkins brings a tremulous vulnerability to her character - believed to be Austen herself - with the screenplay playing a form of dreadful hide and seek in keeping her apart from the man she once lost but has reappeared in her life. When that kiss finally comes, after various misunderstandings and heartaches, it is hilariously staged to linger endlessly before their lips finally connect. Handsome Penny-Jones makes a dashing lover for the gauche and rather plain Hawkins.

Mirage (Edward Dmytryk, 1965) 8/10

Clever, twisty thriller, with noir overtones, has Gregory Peck suddenly discovering after two years that he has amnesia and cannot recall his past life. The catalyst is a mysterious woman (Diane Baker) who claims to know him although he has never met her before. When he is accosted by a slimy man (Jack Weston) aiming a pistol at him, is threatened by another heavy (George Kennedy) who ends up in a tub for his troubles, and a psychiatrist who does not believe him, he decides to hire a private detective (Walter Matthau) in order to resolve the mystery surrounding his life. Slick Hitchcock-like film has the appealing but wooden Peck team up with brunette Baker who resembles none of the Master's heroines. Accompanied by a jazzy Quincy Jones score, stark black and white cinematography by Joseph MacDonald, a suspenseful screenplay by Peter Stone (who also wrote the thriller "Charade") and rapid fire editing with flashbacks, flash forwards and time shifts. The New York location filming adds to the realism in contrast to many films then still being shot in the studio. Peck's wooden countenance - Robert Mitchum famously (if rather unkindly) referred to Peck as "the dullest actor in motion pictures" - actually helps him here as the confused character who feels persecuted. Matthau, on the verge of big screen stardom, shines in a small part along with the other supporting actors all playing vividly eccentric characters.

Johnny Concho (Don McGuire, 1956) 7/10

Sinatra is cast against type in his first Western - as a coward who terrorizes a town because everyone fears his brother who is a notorious gunfighter. A stranger (William Conrad in full-on sleazy mode) arrives in town, announces he has killed the gunfighter and starts treating the townfolk like dirt. It is up to the coward to prove he's in fighting mode in order to save his town from the intruder but instead he is run out of town. B-film has atmosphere, is crisply shot in black and white by William C. Mellor and has a good score by Nelson Riddle. The film has a static pace - it feels like a talky stage play - but Sinatra's interesting performance keeps it moving along. Striking bits by Keenan Wynn as a gun-toting priest and Phyllis Kirk as the girl who loves the coward.

[gunnar]

Portrait of Chieko (1967) - 9/10 - Kotaro Takamura is a Japanese sculptor and poet. In 1911, he meets Chieko, a fellow artist, and takes her on as an apprentice, though the two fall in love and marry. The two have a nice supportive marriage, but problems eventually arise after Chieko starts showing signs of mental illness. It's an excellent picture with very nice performances from Shima Iwashita as Chieko and Tetsuro Tanba as her husband, Kotaro. The cinematography and use of music are also very well done. Decades pass during the course of the film and it isn't always obvious at first when a time jump has occurred, though you can figure it out. I'd been looking for this film for a long time and am glad that I finally found a copy with English subtitles. I would have voted for Chieko over Closely Watched Trains in the Foreign Film category that year, though that is also a good film.

[Big Magilla]

That kind of patter still exists between couples, married or otherwise.

I'd say Sandy's character wasn't very sophisticated. She wouldn't have known what it would have meant to be liberated. It wasn't something that anyone thought about at the time.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Neil Simon originally intended it as part of California Suite which would suggest that it was originally supposed to have been a skit about an out-of-town couple having problems visiting L.A. rather than NYC. He rewrote it as a screenplay after it was rejected as part of the earlier play.

I think a smaller dose might have been more successful.

Big Magilla wrote
I don't remember Sandy Dennis asking her husband for permission to have a cup of coffee. Maybe she was asking him if there was time for that. It would have had nothing to do with it being before women's liberation which began in 1971. Women were free to have a cup of coffee on their own long before then!

It's near the end of the film. They're in the airplane. Sandy Dennis orders a cup of coffee. Jack Lemmon politely shoos away the waitress, saying they won't have dinner or coffee because there's dinner waiting. Sandy Dennis then responds a moment later by saying something along the lines of "Don't we have time for a cup of coffee" and (I believe) saying something along the lines of how it won't ruin her dinner. Then Jack Lemmon acquiesces. Maybe it wasn't asking permission per se, but it's awfully deferential to his authority. More so, she is clearly not a liberated figure.

[Big Magilla]

Don't remember much about The Out-of-Towners except that I didn't like it.

Neil Simon originally intended it as part of California Suite which would suggest that it was originally supposed to have been a skit about an out-of-town couple having problems visiting L.A. rather than NYC. He rewrote it as a screenplay after it was rejected as part of the earlier play.

I don't remember Sandy Dennis asking her husband for permission to have a cup of coffee. Maybe she was asking him if there was time for that. It would have had nothing to do with it being before women's liberation which began in 1971. Women were free to have a cup of coffee on their own long before then!

[Sabin]

No other place to put this but I watched the original The Out-of-Towners last night. This is pretty funny! I don't know if I'd call its construction daring, but staging an entire feature over the course of a rushed, real-time-ish trip is an good idea. The pace is frantic which gives Jack Lemmon a good outlet for all of his energy as well as a good assist for Neil Simon's dialogue. The biggest problem with the film is it really is just a series of random occurrence sketches and as it goes on it can't help but become a bit exhausting, especially because the series of random occurrences are only surface deep rather than a personal nightmare. I suppose the other big issue is that we're supposed to see Jack Lemmon as a resident of Twin Falls, but he seems like he was born high-strung not someone who is propelled into this state by circumstance. New York isn't a big contrast for him. I honestly wonder if they chose the wrong Odd Couple. I also found myself thinking quite a bit about George and Gwen's relationship. They don't really make sense as a married couple to me. It's hard to imagine Gwen falling for this guy, but then we kept seeing little moments here and there like Gwen asking George for permission to have a cup of coffee and I was reminded that we were in a very different time in 1970. This must have been a pre-women's liberation film.

Anyway, it's mostly a funny film. Something interesting about watching these films years after the fact is that I have no idea how it or Lemmon's performance was received at the time coming after The Odd Couple and The April Fools and before The War Between Men and Women and Avanti!. Was it greeted as a tonic or more of the same? I think it's schtick but at least it's energetic schtick. Sandy Dennis' presence in the film was baffling to me at first because I just couldn't quite make out what she was doing, but her dingbat line readings got more enjoyable as the film went along.

[gunnar]

Ikiru (1952) - 8.5/10 - A civil servant has lived a very dull life in the 20 or so years since his wife died. When he learns that he has stomach cancer and will die soon, he tries to find out how to live and to leave something worthwhile behind, but the bureaucracy that he has long been a part of stands in the way. It takes a while for the film to really get going, but it gets better as it goes along. Miki Odagiri really livened things up when she was in the film as one of his employees.

Ordet (1955) - 8.5/10 - An aging widower on a Danish farm in 1925 has his three sons living with him. The oldest is an agnostic with a pregnant wife and two daughters. The middle son thinks he is Jesus Christ. The youngest son is in love with the tailor's daughter, but faith may separate them. In some ways, it is a fairly simple tale of faith and belief, but it is crafted very well and there are good performances throughout.

Sansho the Bailiff (1954) - 9/10 - A provincial governor during the Heian Period is separated from his family and exiled. Years later, his wife and two children travel to rejoin him only to run afoul of people who want to sell the mother into prostitution and the children into slavery. It's very well done.

[Mister Tee]

I haven't seen Next Stop, Greenwich Village since Spring of 1976, and I'd be interested in looking at it again, if only because someone who's been a friend since I met my wife is in it, and I'd love to see what she did in it (also, what she looked like all those years ago).

I remember at the time going to it because Pauline Kael was enthusiastic over it (as she often was about Mazursky films), but finding it kind of middling -- lots of interesting color, but a pretty wobbly super-structure.

Lenny Baker might have been part of that -- he had a kind of fuzzy presence. He did, as Magilla notes, win a Tony a year later, but never had a shot at a wider career, because he was one of the earliest AIDS casualties.

1976 supporting actress was pretty much a wasteland, once Talia Shire was promoted to lead. Straight and Alexander had miniscule roles and were carriedin by their films. Many at the time thought Foster would win, since she had by far the most substantial/critically-praised role, but the culturally-conservative Academy found Taxi Driver (and her character) way too over-the-edge; Straight's win was a product of extremely lucky timing.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Shelley Winters' over-the-top Jewish mother was widely praised at the time. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was widely expected to land a fifth Oscar nomination for the role.

A nomination would have been fine. Shelley Winters is fun in the role. I wish that the film gave her more to do besides being an overbearing Jewish mother, like perhaps creating more contrast between her and Larry's girlfriend.

Looking at the eventual lineup of 1976, it's pretty clear that voters back then do what they do now with supporting categories. They generally watch a handful of movies, some performances are lucky enough to benefit from coattails, while others suffer from voters just not seeing their films. Alexander, Foster, and Straight were in Best Picture nominees, Lee Grant was a previous winner in a big epic that was widely seen to my understanding, not especially beloved, but at least seen. And voters saw Sissy Spacek in Carrie so they saw Piper Laurie.

[Big Magilla]

You could have put Next Stop, Greenwich Village into the Best Supporting Actress of 1976 forum.

Shelley Winters' over-the-top Jewish mother was widely praised at the time. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was widely expected to land a fifth Oscar nomination for the role.

Lenny Baker's breakout role was supposed to make him a star but didn't, although it did lead to Broadway's I Love My Wife for which he won a Tony in the featured actor category in 1977 even though he was the show's star. He continued in guest starring roles on TV until he died of AIDS at 37 in 1982 the year Ellen Greene finally broke through in the off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors.

[Sabin]

I spent the last week watching a few Oscar-ish blindspots like Save the Tiger, Joe, and Klute. I've written about the former in two other forums. I haven't written about Klute yet. I wish I had seen it on the big screen as it's just such a beautiful-looking film. I've been trying to figure out why it reminds me of a Soderbergh film in some ways on a structural level.

I can't put Next Stop, Greenwich Village in any of those forums because it doesn't have any nominations to its credit. I've always been intrigued by the titles due to the warmness of its VHS cover image, its title, and the hopes of what it might be. I think Damien was a fan of it. Last night, I watched it on my television from YouTube, and found it to be a generally rewarding experience but not one that lived up to my expectations. Had I seen it on the big screen, its time and place might have done a little more heavy-lifting. The biggest problem that I had with this vignette-ish film is the main character of Larry Lapinski. How was he supposed to change, especially once he's within this group of actors? We're introduced to him on his way out the door on his quest to be an actor and meets up with a girlfriend that he already has, is either introduced to new friends or he already knows them (I don't recall), and sort of bullshits around while waiting for something to happen. The closest reason I can think of to wanting Larry to succeed is because in theory he's funny... except I didn't quite find him to be a charming presence. In theory I admire the decision not to make him too wide-eyed or likable, but if Larry Lipinski isn't in over his head then I don't quite know what journey we're supposed to be watching. At one point, his group of actors inform him that he overthinks and over-intellectualizes everything. As played by Baker, that's not quite apparent. He's pretty arrogant and not always charming, although that quality might be enhanced by Lenny Baker who lends Larry a delusional quality that occasionally seems perhaps a bit more manic than Mazursky intended, and instantly as eccentric as his group of friends. I wonder if Richard Dreyfus might have been more appropriate? But if Larry's problem is supposed to be his arrogance (also workable) then shouldn't he be confronted by it more? I don't know how Larry is supposed to be changed over the course of the film or what we're supposed to learn about this scene.

Also, a movie like this kind of lives and dies on its portrait of Greenwich Village and it's not a very memorable portrait. I wish Larry's friends demonstrated a bit more eccentricity than we were privy to beyond just hanging around. I don't know if these people aren't doers for reasons of laziness, budgetary restrictions, or lack of imagination on Mazursky's part but I think there's a reason none of them are terribly fondly remembered beyond "Did you know that Christopher Walken was in this?" By the end as he goes off for Hollywood, I know he's earned his mother's respect and that matters but I don't know what change she's seen in him beyond the fact that her husband has yelled at him.

There's a better movie in this material, I know it. It fails some basic fish out of water questions. That said, I think it demonstrates that at a certain point, fish out of water stories have to become something else. Look at Breakfast at Tiffany's. It eventually becomes about Holly's past and her relationship with Paul. Look at Mistress America, a weird film. Tracy is out of her element at school until she finds Brooke and has a compass, but eventually Brooke overtakes the story. The closest I can think of to a story in Next Stop, Greenwich Village is Larry's relationship with Sarah but she's such a downer that it doesn't work. They're already established as knowing each other in the beginning of the film to the point where much of the first half of the second act is devoted to her abortion.

6/10 but grateful for the education.

[gunnar]

Andrei Rublev (1966) - 8/10 - The movie is based loosely on the life of a Russian icon painter. Life in the early 1400s could be pretty brutal.

Manon of the Spring (1986) - 8/10 - This sequel to Jean de Florette takes place about a decade later. Manon was a young girl in the first film, but is all grown up and beautiful now. She has an admirer in Ugolin, but she wants nothing to do with him after what Ugolin and his uncle did to Manon's father. Manon discovers a way to take vengeance on the men and follows through with it, disrupting life in the town as a consequence.

Napoleon (1927) - 8.5/10 - Gance's film is epic in scope and yet only covers until 1796 and films about the rest of his life didn't get made. There are a lot of cool techniques employed in the film and I liked both actors who played Napoleon (as a youth and as an adult).

[Reza]

Jurassic World: Dominion (Colin Trevorrow, 2022) 5/10

The set up of the story is long, tedious, talky and a bore. Fatal mistake as the franchise comes alive when humans become food fodder for the mighty dinosaurs. Both man and beast are trying to co-exist as the film begins. Familiar faces from the first film turn up - the paleobotanist (Laura Dern), the mathematician (Jeff Goldblum) and the paleontologist (Sam Neill). From the second part of this trilogy returns the clone created by the original scientist who first leashed dinosaurs onto the world. Keeping her hidden from the government (and other assorted rogues) are the enthologist (Chris Pratt) and his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) - the star duo in this second JP trilogy - who now play Daddy and Mommy to the resentful teenager. And then the kid is kidnapped by the CEO (Campbell Scott) of a Genetics company and one hour into this film we get the first action packed set-piece involving a chase through the narrow streets in Malta as a number of velociraptors are unleashed. And then arrives the mighty T-Rex. A number of them - leading to moments repeated from previous episodes of the franchise as they roar, chase and bite. I believe the producers (Spielberg?) have plans to come up with yet another film although the franchise is finally beginning to creak and groan under its repetitious weight.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin, 2020) 4/10

This thing just lies there like dead meat. None of the jokes land and like the main character - an Icelandic singer - this film is mostly embarrassing. Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams), friends since childhood, make music together as the band Fire Saga with a dream to enter the Eurovision Song Contest. He is a complete moron and gets ridiculed by his "handsome" father (Pierce Brosnan) who feels his son should be doing something constructive with his life. Sheer luck gets them chosen to perform as the band from Iceland and the duo land in Edinburgh where both form alliances with the opposite sex while they rehearse, argue and feel jealous of each other. Dan Stevens is amusing as he lays it on thick as a sleazy-suave Swedish singing sensation who wants to jump McAdams. Lifeless film just goes on and on with its only saving grace being the appearance by a number of actual song contestants from past Eurovision contests. Some of the song sequences are also good with the lovely ballad - "Husavik" - nominated for the Academy Award. McAdams' singing is dubbed by Molly Sandén under the stage name "My Marianne".

RRR (S. S. Rajamouli, 2022) 4/10

This film HAS to be taken as pure fantasy in order to digest the images on screen. Nothing on screen has an iota of realism. Action-packed story is set in 1920 India during the British Raj with the kidnapping of a little village girl - courtesy of the sadistic wife (Alison Doody) of the Governor (Ray Stevenson) - acting as the catalyst to bring two revolutionaries in direct conflict with each other. A hefty villager (N. T. Rama Rao Jr) sneaks into town to rescue the girl and ends up enchanting a British lady who invites him to a party at the Governor's mansion. THIS plot point REALLY takes the cake, as in reality the British had a fixed rule - dogs and Indians not allowed anywhere near the "club". Meanwhile a senior Indian cop (Ram Charan), in the pay of the British, is tasked with finding the rebel who he ends up befriending instead after a death-defying set piece involving a child who they save. Then it gets more absurd as the two Indians get to do a song and dance number amongst the British at a party where later the villager attacks with a truck load of ferocious CGI infested animals. We get a long flashback showing the cop as a child who was urged by his patriot father (Ajay Devgn) to keep up the fight against the white man. The two men are either fighting each other or involved in a bromance as they are beaten, tortured and imprisoned with the hilarious moment where the cop with broken knees is rescued by his friend from solitary confinement, sits on his shoulder and they rampage through the guards who get blown to bits via two shotguns. The film has broken boxoffice records and it was a chore to sit through - took me three days to finish it. Bollywood star Alia Bhatt cameos in this Tollywood production as the saintly amour of the cop, who like Christ, comes to the villager's rescue. The film gets 4 points for the audacity of some of the scenes. Both lead actors are treated like gods in South India and like most actors from that region the acting tends to be over the top matching the action they get to perform.

Interceptor (Matthew Reilly, 2022) 4/10

When terrorists take over a remote interceptor station in the Pacific - the place is used to intercept any nuclear warhead launches - a plucky US Army officer (Elsa Pataky) takes on the leader (Luke Bracey) head-on with human casualties on both sides. Tired plot done to death many times over with the added bonus of gender politics and social issues trying to make it seem fresh. Pataky, who is the wife of Chris Hemsworth (who cameos as a salesman in a store), gives a very physical performance usually reserved for the likes of such B-movie heroes like Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Last Seen Alive (Brian Goodman, 2022) 5/10

Familiar plot allows king of the B-films - Gerard Butler - to do his thing. A couple, on the verge of a divorce, are driving to her parents' home when she disappears when they stop for gas. He searches frantically, calls in the cops and finds himself to be a suspect in his wife's disappearance. On his own he begins to investigate and via closed circuit camera footage discovers his wife talking to a man she is familiar with. The hunt is on. Will he find her alive? Who is the man she was seen talking to? Despite all the potholes in the screenplay the film maintains suspense until the slightly confused ending. A disheveled Butler follows in the footsteps of Harrison Ford (Frantic), Kiefer Sutherland (The Vanishing), Kurt Russell (Breakdown), and Liam Neeson (Taken) in playing a man who has a wife go missing.

The Firefly (Robert Z. Leonard, 1937) 5/10

For a change Jeannette MacDonald plays an ordinary woman and not a "lady" so comes off looking very real. She plays "Firefly", an undercover spy, for the King of Spain during the Napoleonic era and tries to fool the french Captain (Allan Jones) she loves into convincing his General (Henry Daniell) of false information so the Duke of Wellington gets the edge over Napoleon during the war. The film is an adaptation of the operetta of the same name by composer Rudolf Friml and librettist Otto A. Harbach that premiered on Broadway in 1912. So we get MacDonald and Jones in high voice which they were famous for. The famous "Donkey Serenade" is sung by Jones. Superb MGM production values accompany the two stars.

The Strange One (Jack Garfein, 1957) 8/10

The entire acting and technical staff on the film are alumini from the famed Acting Studio in New York with Ben Gazzara, George Peppard and Julie Wilson (as a prostitute) making their film debuts. The theme of the story, based on the novel and play - "End as a Man" - by Calder Willingham, revolves around the dehumanization associated with the tradition of hazing at a Southern military college. A young cocky sergeant (Ben Gazzara) uses his family influence, his own senior rank and the institution's tradition to viciously bully junior students and hold them in a vice-like grip. When he gets the son of a staff member drunk and who is then expelled the other students finally decide to pull him down once and for all. The film famously got censored due to homoerotic content although the film version was not as sensational as the play. Gazzara gives a mesmerizing performance as the sadist harboring homosexual tendencies which he hides under a macho exterior. Extremely dark film is heavy going but extremely well acted by Pat Hingle, Peppard, and the entire cast playing assorted cadets.

Hit the Deck (Roy Rowland, 1955) 7/10

Not a very original plot which like " Anchors Aweigh" and "On the Town" is about sailors on shore leave and their romantic shenanigans in San Francisco. Chief Mate (Tony Martin) is marriage-shy much to the annoyance of his tap-dancing girlfriend (Ann Miller). Junior sailor (Russ Tamblyn), secretly the son of an Admiral (Walter Pudgeon), gets into trouble defending his sister (Jane Powell) from a lecherous married man (Gene Raymond) with whom she is auditioning for a show. Meanwhile he is in love with a dancer (Debbie Reynolds) and his sister hooks up with his sailor buddy (Vic Damone). Second-tier MGM musical is bouncy upbeat fun with lots of singing and dancing, comic moments with Raymond and the sensational Ann Miller who steams it up in "The Lady From the Bayou" dance number before joining the entire cast in the finale, "Hallelujah", where she tap dances with the troops. Filmed in cinemascope and stunningly shot in color by George Folsey.

Father of the Bride (Gary Alazraki, 2022) 7/10

After "Crazy Rich Asians" we get its equivalent with Crazy Rich Hispanics doing their thing at an ostentatious wedding. Vulgar rich? Yes, but with deep-rooted Hispanic culture coming through just as it did with the Asians. The story is that old chestnut - based on the 1949 novel by Edward Streeter - dragged out yet again after the successful versions in 1950 where Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennet gave away their daughter Elizabeth Taylor in marriage and in 1991 where Steve Martin and Diane Keaton similarly gave away Kimberly Williams. The father's angst at the thought of his baby girl getting married and leaving home is the story's main plot with the comic moments set around the wedding's planning. Here we get a slight twist as the bride's parents ( Andy Garcia & Gloria Estefan) are planning to get divorced when their daughter (Adria Arjona) suddenly announces her engagement and plans of an immediate wedding. Chaos ensues as the wedding plans go awry - a storm brews up threatening total disaster, the families do not see eye-to-eye, assorted colorful relatives pipe in, the disastrous attempts of the wedding planner - flamboyant Martin Short from the 1991 version is sorely missed. There is catchy Latin infused music and dancing and many tear-inducing sentimental moments which all add to a delightful romantic comedy. Garcia and Estefan lead an outstanding hispanic cast in this fun remake.

Downton Abbey: A New Era (Simon Curtis, 2022) 7/10

The film is a happy excuse to bring back these characters who are familiar and feel like family. The tone at the start is rightly set by the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) who summons her family and announces she has inherited a villa in the South of France bequeathed to her by a former paramour 60-years before. Invited by the villa owner's son for a visit some members of the family accompany Lord (Hugh Bonville) and Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) to France to inspect the palatial estate. The owner's wife (Nathalie Baye) is not pleased at giving up her seaside home but her son wants to honour his late father's wishes. Lord Grantham is put in an awkward situation wondering if he is the product of his mother's liaison with the french count. Meanwhile back home their house is invaded by a movie company which arrives to shoot a film on the premises against a huge sum of money which is needed for the estate's repairs. The downstairs staff get to play extras in the film, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) finds herself smitten with the director (Hugh Dancy), Barrow the butler (Robert James-Collier) finds the possibility of a life partner in the film's silent star (Dominic West), possible cancer rears its ugly head for Lady Grantham), Carson (Jim Carter) the former butler gets summoned back to his old job and the movie ends with a funeral and a lot of tears. Like the previous big screen film it all seems rushed with the characters getting very brief moments to shine. Breezy, innocuous but charming little film has outstanding production values and is strictly for fans of the show who are willing to get pulled by the heart strings.

Music in My Heart (Joseph Santley, 1940) 5/10

Rita Hayworth's first musical is more a vehicle for the popular singer Tony Martin who didn't quite make it big on the screen. Actor-Crooner (Tony Martin), about to be deported, meets up with a gorgeous girl (Rita Hayworth) when their taxis collide. Both miss their boat - he was being sent back home while she was joining her rich fiancé (Alan Mowbray) for the voyage and marriage. As in all such old fashioned romances the two immediately click and fall in love. Innocuous little film did nothing for either star - Hayworth would finally make a dent the following year - but it has amusing bits by the three character actors in the cast - Mowbray as the jilted older lover, Eric Blore as his valet-butler and George Tobias as a phony Russian chef. Martin sings the Oscar nominated song, "It's a Blue World".

The Ski Bum (Bruce D. Clark, 1971) 2/10

A guest relations manager (Charlotte Rampling) at a ski resort gets her boyfriend (Zalman King) a job to teach hotel guests how to ski. He soon finds that everyone finds him interesting - some want to jump into his bed (including a 12-year old girl which comes off creepy and forced) while some want him to run errands for them or supply them drugs. King sleep walks through the entire film and is not helped by a vapid screenplay. One of numerous trippy films made during that period. Lovely Rampling is stoic throughout but has really nothing much to do as the story revolves around the boring ski bum. King later gained fame as director of a number of soft-porn movies. Superbly shot by Vilmos Zsigmond on Colorado lications.

[gunnar]

Shoah (1985) - 8/10 - A powerful 9.5 hour long documentary about the Holocaust with interviews of numerous survivors and also some of the Germans and others involved with the camps or trains.

Paris, Texas (1984) - 8/10 - A man walks out of the desert in Texas, seemingly mute and with memory loss. His brother starts bringing him back to himself and the reasons for his four year absence eventually come out. The film is kind of a slow burn, but is pretty good.

The World of Apu (1959) - 8/10 - Apu has graduated and dreams of being a writer, but has no job or money. He gets talked into marrying a girl and things go well for a while until the don't. I think certain things could have been developed more, but I did like this one a bit more than the earlier parts of the trilogy.

The Ascent (1977) - 8/10 - Two soldiers are sent out into a bleak winter landscape to search for food and supplies for a group of partisans and refugees from the Germans during WWII. Their journey will cause them to discover what type of person they are inside. I liked the first half of the film more than the second half when it became more philosophical.