B.J. W's Reviews

I got this one for the rare "The Reflecting Skin" but it's a pretty terrible low-res 4x3 transfer, so...mailer beware.
Review Date: 6/25/2022

Today I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film "The 39 Steps" starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll who spend a good chunk of the movie handcuffed together. Hitchcock made a *lot* of movies between 1925 and 1976, so you can consider this an "early" Hitchcock but it still shows surprising maturity for an "old movie."

It's got all the classic elements - spies, murder, cops, sexual tension, one or two pretty good chase sequences, a healthy dose of comedy, and a happy ending for our protagonist. I won't go into the details of the plot - they're largely incidental anyway - the real point of the movie is the interplay between Donat and Carroll. They're no Nick & Nora Charles, but they're enjoyable enough to watch.

I define an "old movie" as anything made from the dawn of cinema through the end of the Hays Code (1934-1968). The limitations placed on filmmakers forced them to approach certain aspects of real life from artificial angles, but I appreciate the creativity this required. I would imagine 39 Steps was somewhat shocking to audiences of the day - in the opening sequence, a woman straight-up asks a man she does not know if she can go home with him. I'm not sure how common that was in those days (in reel life or real life), but I'm curious how the Hays Code enforcers responded to that scene. (The fact that the film was produced in Scotland may have been a factor.)

The only real downside to old movies, for me, is the sound. I'll watch a movie that's grainy or out of focus, but if the sound is bad I'll bail out. Some of these old movies...oof, they're hard on the ears. I wonder if there's a way to clean up the audio tracks, but I'm not holding my breath.

Grade: straight B.
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Edward Berger's 2022 film "All Quiet on the Western Front," the third major adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 book of the same name, is a highly-regarded film about World War 1. It was lauded with numerous Oscar and BAFTA awards, among many others.

So why did it leave me feeling a little hollow?

Warning: major spoilers.

The film follows German teenager Paul Bäumer and his friends who, in the third year of the war, decide to enlist despite being underage. In a time when nationalism exuded an irresistible force on the young, they see it as their patriotic duty as well as, perhaps, fun.

Their rose-tinted view of the war is quickly corrected upon arrival at the trenches of the western front. The reality of trench warfare is quickly and brutally brought home and the boys immediately question their choices. It's also implied that the boys received no basic training whatsoever - they learn what they can on the way to the trenches, and after that it's pure on-the-job training. "Shoot, move, cover! Shoot, move, cover! Got it??"

The boys, of course, are picked off one by one (hard to tell who's who when their faces are caked in mud from the No Man's Land between German and French trenches). There's a lull in the middle of the film where the survivors, after 18 months of battle, enjoy a little R&R. We're also informed that the Armistice is being negotiated and signed - but one psychotic German general decides to launch one final attack before the 11am cutoff time. At that time, hostilities cease, Bäumer is dead, and the film ends.

Here's the thing. The German title of Remarque's book and Berger's film is "Im Westen nichts Neues," which literally translated means "Nothing New in the West." There is a 30-screen cinema full of excellent war movies, and All Quiet certainly belongs in that pantheon for purely its technical achievements and unique perspective if nothing else. But we've seen this story before - young boys go to war for dubious reasons, learn firsthand the absolute pointless hell that war is, and either die in the process or come home physically and psychologically damaged. All Quiet, aside from being a story told from the German perspective, doesn't bring a whole lot new to the table. Bäumer forms bonds with brothers-in-arms, and their deaths affect him...up until he is killed himself. There's no chance to explore his life after the war. No survivor's guilt, no PTSD, and in the case of the German perspective specifically, no examination of how the Treaty of Versailles set up the Germans to launch World War 2. Bäumer dies, and...movie's over.
This version of All Quiet is...just kinda pointless. Technically competent, but I'm not sure why they made it in the first place. Almost like war itself. Nothing new.

Grade: B-minus

(I will admit that I'm curious to see the 1930 version and compare/contrast the two.)
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Tonight I had the pleasure of watching "Bad Moms Christmas," a touching exploration of the highs and lows of mother/daughter relationships. The ample cast, consisting of Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, and Susan Sarandon, brings the viewer on an emotional journey as they gather to celebrate the holiday and reconnect with fam--

Nah I'm just fuckin' with you. This movie's trash. D minus.
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Well, I finally did it. I sat down and watched all three hours of writer/director Ari Aster's latest opus, "Beau is Afraid." Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? No. Should you do it? Also no.

Generational trauma is Aster's bread and butter. His previous two features addressed the issue from straightforward horror (Hereditary) and creepy cult (Midsommar) perspectives, and were both very well-made and enjoyable films (although your definition of "enjoyable" may differ from mine).

The titular Beau grows up hearing the story of how his grandfather and his father both died in the process of conceiving the subsequent generation, and this is what he is afraid of. He lives an insular life until he's essentially forced to leave his apartment in his rough neighborhood, and embarks on a road trip to attend the funeral of his mother.

The second of Beau's three hours is the most enjoyable. Once he gets out of his stress-inducing neighborhood and meets up with other characters, the film becomes enjoyable to watch, but the first 40 minutes are pretty rough - I confess I watched the first act at 2x speed because I couldn't see myself sitting through three hours of *that* but still wanted to see where the story was going.

Aster plays with Beau's perception of reality and I didn't mind it at first...there's some hints that Beau's father isn't really dead but that thread isn't resolved to any sort of satisfying conclusion. Nor are the closing surreal scenes involving a giant penis monster living in the attic of his mother's home, or Beau's "trial" in a water-logged arena. Water is a recurring theme in the film; Beau's last name is Wassermann, "wasser" being the German word for "water." It's always a negative force in Beau's life, though, and provides his ultimate demise.
Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Parker Posey, and Patti LuPone make up the rest of the cast and provide some relief from the oppressive tone of the film.

I'm honestly looking forward to whatever Aster does next, but you can safely skip Beau is Afraid. It's just...too much.
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Luca Guadagnino's 2015 film "A Bigger Splash" is a four-hander starring Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson, and Matthias Schoenaerts. I'm not very familiar with Guadagnino's work, but he did a very well-received remake of Dario Argento's "Suspiria" which, by some accounts, surpasses the original. He's got a new one coming out called "Challengers" starring Zendaya as an injured tennis player which I'm interested in seeing, and in 2022 he released the little-known but incredibly effective "Bones and All" with current wunderkind Timothee Chalamet.

"Splash," however, left me a little cold. Swinton plays Marianne, a David Bowie-esque rocker who's currently nursing a severe case of laryngitis on Pantelleria Island (halfway between Sicily and Tunis, if you're wondering). With her is her younger lover Paul (Schoenaerts), a photographer who she met via her former lover and producer, Harry (Fiennes). Well wouldn't you know it, Harry shows up to try to rekindle things with Marianne, but brings along his teenage daughter Penelope (Johnson), of whose existence Harry only recently learned.

Got all that?

So like a chess game, this character makes a play for that one, this other character rebuffs, there are verbal and physical feints and dodges, and a few flashbacks and lingering shots of Italian cuisine thrown in for good measure. Turns out Harry intentionally got Marianne and Paul together when he felt their relationship was on the wane, and he regrets his decision immensely.
One of the biggest letdowns of the film is that Swinton spends most of it either silent or hoarsely whispering. Swinton's voice is not meant for silent film, dammit! There's not enough meat on the bones of this script for us to really engage with Swinton's character otherwise, so you're left with the brooding Paul, the mysterious but underwritten Penelope, and Harry who talks enough for all four of them and you just can't wait for him to shut up.

There's a murder, of course, and the last act of the film centers around the police investigation. The final scene is meant to be tense but just comes across as goofy and completely unrealistic, and I was once again just waiting for the credits to roll.
But, this is what I get for wanting to make sure I see eeeeeevery Tilda Swinton film...I know there's gonna be a stinker or two in there. But two in one week...goddamn. I need to go rewatch Orlando just to reassure myself.

Grade: B-minus.

(One last note: these super-white people are out in the Mediterranean sun for hours and hours, not a hat to be seen, and never a slathering of suntan lotion. How are they not all burned to a crisp by the final act??)
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Edmond Rostand wrote "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1897. Since then there have been literally dozens of film adaptations, notably the 1950 adaptation starring Jose Ferrer which was very faithful to the source material, and the 1987 adaptation starring Steve Martin which deviated wildly from the source material, namely by not killing off any of the major characters.

In 2021, writer Erica Schmidt adapted her stage production of Cyrano for film, and in the lead role cast her husband - Peter Dinklage. Instead of having a gargantuan proboscis, this Cyrano is simply...Peter Dinklage.

Oh, and - it's a musical!

This was actually a wonderful little film. Nothing too flashy, some parts are I think intentionally under-developed - which country is this in and who are they at war with and why? It doesn't matter. The story concerns the diminutive Cyrano and his unspoken love for his lifelong friend Roxanne, who in this production comes across as a little vain and shallow - I preferred Daryl Hannah's portrayal as Roxanne Kowalski the astronomer to this Roxanne being just "the woman in the story."

Roxanne, oblivious to Cyrano's love for her, has eyes for Christian, a newcomer to town and a new recruit in Cyrano's military regiment. Unfortunately, Christian is pretty dim-witted and cannot possibly live up to Roxanne's sapiosexual nature. Christian needs Cyrano to make him look intelligent; Cyrano needs Christian to make him look handsome.

Of course war breaks out and divides up our love triangle. Does Christian survive? Does Cyrano? I won't say.

I will say that I really enjoyed director Joe Wright's even hand. There are two shots in particular at the beginning which grabbed my attention: a lingering back-and-forth series of cuts between Roxanne and Christian when they first lock eyes which lasts for longer than you might expect, and another lingering shot on the face of a man Cyrano has stabbed in a swordfight. Cyrano gently holds him as he dies, and the viewer is able to sit in the moment instead of quickly cutting away.

The music as well isn't over-engineered - it's almost blank verse in its approach, with some songs that are just a few lines while others are more fully-developed. When they first started singing I had PTSD flashbacks to Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera, but fortunately this movie was actually *good*. Both Dinklage and Haley Bennett (Roxanne) do their own singing, and Bennett sounds a lot like Laura Brannigan.

So yeah, a little more character development for Roxanne and Christian would've improved the film, but as it stands it's a pretty enjoyable watch.

Grade: B+
Review Date: 4/12/2024

"Disobedience" is a 2017 film about three childhood friends in a London Orthodox Jewish community: Esti (Rachel McAdams), a closeted lesbian who in the past has had a clandestine relationship with Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a bisexual woman who is shunned for said relationship and has made her way to New York to become a successful photographer, and Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), an up-and-coming rabbi who has married Esti.

The film opens following the death of Ronit's father, the head rabbi in the community. Ronit has been gone for so long that people are shocked when she comes back for the funeral - even her father's official obituary lists him as "childless."

Her surprise return rekindles feelings that Esti has long been suppressing. It's a fairly straightforward story: desires burn, kisses are stolen, vows are tested, ambitions are threatened, frustrations mount, hotel rooms are rented.

A lesbian friend of mine once complained that movies about lesbians rarely have happy endings, and she's probably right (Cate Blanchett's "Carol" and the recent "Love Lies Bleeding" being two notable examples to the contrary). I wouldn't call the end of Disobedience "happy," but it's realistic - everyone comes to terms with the decisions they've made, and there is mutual understanding and acceptance between all three main characters. The women understand that their choices weren't made in a vacuum, and all three experience the consequences and repercussions thereof. The ending is also left open to a wide degree of interpretation - is the state of things at the end of the film the way things will be later in time? Perhaps, perhaps not.

A pretty good movie overall, enjoyable, nothing Earth-shattering. Oh and Robert Smith makes a cameo appearance.

Grade: B
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Have you ever seen those videos that contrast a gold medal-winning performance at the Olympics in the 30s/40s/50s versus today? It's like night and day - the feats humans perform today would blow the minds of competitors back in those days. It's understandable given improvements in factors like training, nutrition, equipment, safety, you name it.

In 1971, William Friedkin's "The French Connection" swept the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Actor (Gene Hackman). But does it hold up given the evolution of buddy cop movies over the decades?

I'm going to admit right off the bat that I typically can't "follow" cop movies. Bad guy does crime thing, cop knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, shakedowns happen, threats are made, covers are gone under (in more ways than one), maybe a car chase or two, maybe some gunplay, and...okay, cool, I'm glad the writer understands this stuff because I sure as hell don't.

There's a lot of "tailing" going on in French Connection. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman) and his partner Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider) spend the bulk of the movie following a group of French ne'er-do-wells around New York as they deal drugs and I think buy junker cars to launder their money? or something? The endless tailing sequences must've really wow'd 'em in 1971, but I personally didn't get much out of them. The stakes just aren't that high. (Another bias: I'm big into the idea of legalization and I can't help but think these cops are just creating more problems than they're solving.)

I will say that the somewhat-plodding pace makes the film more realistic than "modern" cop films, and I do like that Doyle is a flawed character in more ways than just his blatant racism. He's kind of a dumbass (except on the rare occasion that he's right), and it's endearing in a way.
The third act is pretty enjoyable and Friedkin obviously is no slouch. Two years after French Connection he made the absolutely horrifying "The Exorcist," so I'm in no position to question his talents.

I'm also convinced that the production of this film is what caused the US fuel crisis in the early 70s. Those tank-sized cars, good lord....

Grade: B-minus
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Cinema lost a hurricane-caliber force in 2014 with the untimely death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. I haven't seen everything he did, but everything he did was stellar - I can't think of a bad PSH performance, nor do I believe it exists.

"God's Pocket," one of Hoffman's last films, is a small, quiet, short, sad film that's elevated by not only his presence, but also by the talents of Christina Hendricks, Richard Jenkins, and John Turturro. Hoffman plays Mickey Scarpato, a low-level but professional thief inexplicably married to Jeanie (Hendricks), whose pill-popping son dies on a job site under questionable circumstances. Jeanie convinces Mickey that the official story of a "freak accident" is a lie, and pressures Mickey to use whatever means necessary to uncover the truth.

Meanwhile, Mickey has to plan a funeral with an unscrupulous funeral parlor owner, deal with a nosey reporter who's getting a little too close to the story, and keep the money coming in.
The script is based on a novel by Peter Dexter, with some additional writing credits by director John Slattery, who is primarily an actor with 88 acting credits and four directing credits, mostly television. The film suffers from tonal inconsistency which is its biggest problem - some scenes are inappropriately (but at least intentionally) comedic. There are also too many ambiguous morals - why does the journalist's arc conclude the way it does? Why does Mickey's? I suspect the original novel is much smoother in its flow than this film is.

In summary, tonal problems and moral ambiguity are just barely rescued by the cast and their performances. And who knew Joyce Van Patten could handle herself so confidently in a gun fight??

Grade: straight C
Review Date: 4/12/2024

Terrible movie, not worthy of its association with The Big Lebowski.
Review Date: 12/17/2024

Please note, this version is 4x3, not the original aspect ratio.
Review Date: 6/5/2025

This is hysterical.
Review Date: 9/4/2023

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