[At the end of every month I post a rundown of the movies I saw that month, tallying them according to how much I did or didn't like them. You can always see my recent watches here and my ongoing list of bests for the whole year here.]

What. I actually got a monthly recap type post in on time? Even early (which is okay, I’m not planning to watch a movie tonight)! This has never happened, to my remembrance, in the history of my blog. Don’t get used to it, though I’m going to try to stay on task. A decent variety this month. Incidentally, in other postings about the two silent films, people have asked me where they can see them. I wish I had a better answer, but as of right now, both these films can only be seen if a repertory cinema in your area screens them. They’re not on DVD, and both of them are rare enough, I think, that they can’t be found online. I’ll see if I can find out more next time I see the archivists who run The Silent Treatment shows; a web archive of some of these harder-to-find movies would be fantastic, but either the archives that own the prints aren’t interested in doing that or they simply don’t have the funding.

What I Loved

Changing Husbands

I always love the Silent Treatment nights at Cinefamily, where a couple of UCLA and Academy archivists bring in rare silents, but I have to admit (as do they) that a lot of the films are more historically/academically interesting than actually good. But this one is genuinely charming and entertaining, and I pretty much loved every second of it. Leatrice Joy plays two roles – one a bored wife of a rich man who only wants to be a stage actress despite her husband’s wishes to live a quiet life, the other a struggling actress who just wants to be out of the spotlight. Yep, you guessed it, these women meet, realize their resemblance, and switch places – supposedly just for a few days, but the rich husband turns up and takes the actress home for the holidays, never suspecting the switcheroo. Joy does great in both roles, and the two men who confuse the women are charmingly hapless. There’s quite a bit of wonderful innuendo, giving pre-Code fans a lot to enjoy in the film.
1924 USA. Directors: Paul Iribe and Frank Urson (supervised by Cecil B. DeMille). Starring: Leatrice Joy, Victor Varconi, Raymond Griffith.
Seen September 7 at Cinefamily.

Night Train to Munich

A recent addition to the Criterion library, but I recorded it from TCM a few months ago and just now got around to watching it. Well, that’s not QUITE true. I started watching it a while back, but my mood wasn’t right and I wasn’t paying close enough attention and I was missing stuff…so I held off until I could concentrate on it. And I’m really glad I did, because though it’s not a particularly complicated film, it does have a number of plot turns, as befits a WWII spy thriller. Margaret Lockwood’s dad is a Czech scientist who needs to escape before Prague is taken over by the Nazis; he does, but she gets intercepted by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp, where she meets Paul Henreid, a freedom fighter who manages to help her escape. But is he what he seems, and what of the dashing British agent played by a very young Rex Harrison? Double-crosses abound, and it all leads to a tense cross-continent train trip where precarious identities may be uncovered at any second, and a final action scene that prefigures whichever Bond film had the gondola setpiece. It starts off a little slow, but man does it pay off by the end, and they know just when to stop it, too. No awkward overlong coda, just DONE. Love it.
1940 UK. Director: Carol Reed. Starring: Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood, Paul Henreid.
Seen September 19, on TCM (via DVR)

What I Liked

Contagion

I wasn’t too interested in the plot of this film when I first heard about it, but with Soderbergh directing and a cast like THIS? I mean, look at it. Yeah. In an all-too-possible scenario, a deadly virus quickly spreads across the whole world, involving the CDC, the WHO, bloggers and media, ordinary citizens, scientists, government officials, etc. as they try to stop the spread of both the virus and the growing panic of the population. There’s a LOT going on here, and the pace is brisk, but steady. The balance between micro and macro is held quite well throughout, though the connections of the Marion Cotillard story and to some extent the Jude Law story were a bit tenuous. Overall, though, it’s a tremendous achievement of pure craft, and the use of major stars allow quick identification with characters that otherwise have little time to develop. Full review here.
2011 USA. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle.
Seen September 10 at an AMC multiplex.

My Winnipeg

There aren’t any other filmmakers quite like Guy Maddin. Not that I’ve seen anyway. A Canadian filmmaker working somewhere on the fringe of experimental, Maddin uses styles and techniques from early cinema that have all but faded from use by pretty much everybody else. It’s as if in some alternate universe, German Expressionism and Soviet montage live side by side, accompanied by classic Hollywood tinting and iris fades, with voiceovers, dialogue, and title cards all working together for maximum effect. This is one of the more accessible Maddin films I’ve seen, a sort of documentary, sort of memoir, sort of fantasy about his home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating.
2007 Canada. Director: Guy Maddin. Starring: Darcy Fehr, Ann Savage.
Seen September 22 and 23 on Netflix Instant.

Hard Boiled

I’ve been meaning to see this for quite some time, but my desire got stronger after seeing the film name-checked in Matthias Stork’s video on chaos cinema, as a stellar example of action setpieces. He was talking about the final shoot-out, which unfolds in a few very long traveling shots that manage to never lose spatial orientation no matter how hectic the action gets. And that sequence is for sure incredible, the standout in the film. The rest of it is good, too, but I have to admit to zoning out a bit here and there during some of the “plot” parts due to tiredness – thankfully it didn’t seem to matter too much, but I would like to go back sometime and fill in the gaps. It gets a little ridiculous what with the baby and all (pretty sure this was a major influence on the goofy Shoot ‘Em Up), but Chow Yun-Fat is earnest enough in his role to make it work.
1992 Hong Kong. Director: John Woo. Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai.
Seen September 2 on DVD.

Falling Down

My boyfriend Jonathan and I have been taking turns showing each other films that mean a lot to us, and this was one of his for me. I’d never ever heard of it before he started talking about it, but since then I’ve come across a lot of other people who think pretty highly of it, too – a good sign that Schumacher can’t be simply written off based on his involvement in Batman & Robin. When he does smaller things or more indie things, he’s got quite a good eye and sensibility. This film has Michael Douglas basically in “I can’t take this anymore” mode as he leaves his car in a huge traffic jam and heads across Los Angeles on foot to see his daughter on her birthday – sounds like a great idea, except his ex-wife has taken out a restraining order against him, our first sign that maybe not all is quite right with Mr. Douglas. It’s kind of fascinating though, how the script and Douglas’s performance paint this character – he’s psychotic to some degree, but at the same time, you kind of totally understand where he’s coming from, and a good bit of the financial angst it is certainly still relevant. And it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t even realize how his actions come across to others – when he invades a pool party with a machine gun he’s picked up along the way, it doesn’t occur to him why the people are scared of him. I didn’t love it as much as Jonathan does, but it’s certainly solid, and I’d rewatch it at some point.
1993 USA. Director: Joel Schumacher. Starring: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall.
Seen September 17 on DVD.

The White Shadow

In a way, it’s tough to review this one, since only three reels of it exist. But on the other hand, it’s not like I’ll ever get to see the rest of it. Unless by some miracle the rest of it pops up somewhere. This film was discovered among the New Zealand Film Archive silents by an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archivist working to catalog the American films being held there. You may recall the big “discovery” of these films a couple of years ago – a lot was made of finding John Ford’s Upstream and some others. More are being identified all the time, and this one turns out to be one of the earliest films Alfred Hitchcock worked on, as assistant director to Graham Cutts. The story involves a pair of sisters played by Betty Compson, one sweet and demure, the other wild and “soulless”. The rather convoluted plot involves mistaken identity, the wild daughter running away, the repentent father trying to find her, and the sweet girl marrying a man who was attracted to the wild daughter and never realized she had a double. Yeah. It’s pretty crazy, and the ending (read to us at the screening by Eva Marie Saint based on the copyright documents, since the last two reels of the film are still lost) sounds even crazier. But the opportunity to see films like this is such a treat – it’s both a saddening reminder of the state of silent film preservation (some 50-80% of all silent films are lost) and a hopeful indication that perhaps some films long thought lost actually do exist somewhere, in some form.
1924 UK. Director: Graham Cutts. Assistant Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Betty Compson.
Seen September 22 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

A Foreign Affair

I’m a big fan of Billy Wilder and have seen most of his films, but I put this one off for quite a while because I’d heard mixed things about it, and that’s pretty close to right. Jean Arthur as a stuffed-up congresswoman investigating the unseemly conduct of American servicemen in post-WWII Berlin doesn’t quite fly, and her transformation into someone with actual emotions thanks to the attentions of a not-quite-on-the-level John Lund is a bit unbelievable. I frankly found her character so irritating in the beginning I didn’t care much about the turn, which says a lot, because I LOVE Jean Arthur. That said, all the parts with Marlene Dietrich are ace, especially the two nightclub numbers she does in her inimitable way. Arthur has some good isolated scenes, like when she breaks down telling about a past failed love affair, but they’re not enough. There’s also a Nazi spy subplot that’s intriguing but doesn’t quite go anywhere. When the ending came, it felt pretty opposite what I wanted to happen. Some really good parts, fairly unsatisfying whole.
1948 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell.
Seen September 26 on TCM (via DVR)

What I Didn’t Like

Stone

I mostly watched this so I could have another film to add to my Milla Jovovich post on Row Three, but I did think I’d like it more than I did. Edward Norton is a guy in jail about to come up for parole, Robert De Niro is the case officer who will decide whether he’s fit to leave or not, and Milla Jovovich is Norton’s wife who tries to get De Niro to look favorably on her husband. Which she does by seducing him. It looks like a cat-and-mouse thriller, but it’s a lot more about De Niro’s own demons and how the situation with Norton and Jovovich affects him. Meanwhile, Norton has a whole religious experience that didn’t work for me at all, and while Jovovich gives a really good performance, I couldn’t ever really grasp her character’s motivations. Plus the whole thing has this dour, broody feel going on – and not in a good way.
2010 USA. Director: John Curran. Starring: Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Milla Jovovich.
Seen September 5 on Netflix Instant Watch.

Rewatches – Love

Drive

I saw this back at the LA Film Festival (my review) and promptly declared my love for it. I was curious whether a second viewing would diminish my love, as festival screenings carry their own high with them that sometimes fades under normal moviewatching conditions, but no. If anything, I liked it BETTER the second time, because I could just sit back and enjoy the leisurely pacing, the gorgeous cinematography, the bursts of violence, and the whole dreamy/brutal tone of it all without worrying about what I thought about it or what to write about it. It will almost certainly be near the top of my Best of 2011 list.
2011 USA. Director: Nicholas Winding Refn. Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks.
Second viewing September 17 at an AMC multiplex. First seen June 2011 at the LA Film Festival.

Bringing Up Baby

It’s been a long, long time since I saw this movie, and I was really glad Jonathan picked it out of my collection to watch. It’s still among the zaniest movies ever made, and I can’t help but get caught up in its breakneck pacing. I don’t care if Hepburn’s character is a manipulative, conniving piece of work, or that Grant’s 180 degree turn towards loving her is totally unbelievable. She’s a force of nature in this film, and it somehow seems natural that everything else gets caught up in her wake. And as utter farce, it’s jaw-achingly funny.
1938 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Dame May Whitty, Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald.
Umpteenth viewing September 25 on DVD. First seen many, many years ago, probably on VHS.

Marie Antoinette

Can I just say how much I love that Jonathan chose this himself as one to watch, because he wanted to get more familiar with Sofia Coppola’s films? I figured he would like it, because its pop-art take on history is a flavor that both of us like, and he did. I did, too…I actually haven’t seen it since it first came out on DVD, so I was glad of the rewatch on it to confirm that it really is as surprisingly good as I thought it was.
2006 USA. Director: Sofia Coppola. Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn.
Second viewing September 18 on DVD. First seen soon after DVD release on DVD.

Totals:

Films seen for the first time in September: 9
Rewatches in September: 3
Films seen in theatres in September: 4
List of Shame films seen in September: 0
2011 films seen in September: 2 (1 rewatch)
2000s films seen in September: 5 (2 rewatches)
1990s films seen in September: 2
1940s films seen in September: 2
1930s films seen in September: 1 (1 rewatch)
1920s films seen in September: 2
American films seen in September: 8 (3 rewatches)
British films seen in September: 2
Canadian films seen in September: 1
Hong Kong films seen in September: 1

There’s not too much on the new release front (I mean, I had to put Transformers in there to have a big studio release), but some interesting stuff elsewhere, from silent Expressionism to Buster Keaton to British spy dramas to Beatles satires.

New Release Picks of the Week

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Slim pickings on the new release front; I guess no one wanted to release their DVDs opposite the robotic juggernaut? About the best I heard of this (from people I trust) is “it wasn’t as bad as all that.” Fair enough.
2011 USA. Director: Michael Bay. Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Tyrese Gibson.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Neflix

OTHER NEW RELEASES
Carlos: Criterion Collection (2010 France, dir Olivier Assayas, stars Edgar Ramirez, Alexander Scheer; Blu-ray/Netflix)
Good Neighbors (2010 USA, dir Jacob Tierney, stars Jay Baruchel, Scott Speedman; Netflix)
L’Amour Fou (2011 France, dir Pierre Thoretton, stars Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Berge; Netflix)
The Ledge (2011 USA, dir Matthew Chapman, stars Liv Tyler, Charlie Hunnam; Blu-ray/Netflix)
The Lost Future (2010 USA, dir Mikael Salomon, stars Sean Bean, Sam Claflin; Netflix)
Viva Riva! (2010 Congo, dir Djo Tunda Wa Munga, stars Patsha Bay, Manie Malone; Netflix)
Without Men (2011 USA, dir Gabriela Tagliavini, stars Eva Longoria, Christian Slater; Blu-ray/Netflix)

Classic / Older Picks of the Week

Ben-Hur: 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition
One of the most lasting sword-and-sandal epics (and long-time holder of the record for most Academy Award wins), now in a new DVD and Blu-ray collector’s edition. If you don’t already own it ten times over and want it.
1959 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

The Phantom Carriage: Criterion Collection
This is the release that’s most intriguing me this week, an Expressionist film about Death handing over the scythe to the next one to hold his office. Predictably, Netflix doesn’t have it at all, but HuluPlus has it streaming, so I’m including that link below.
1920 Sweden. Director: Victor Sjöström. Starring: Hilda Borgström, Arne Mattsson.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix | Hulu Plus

Buster Keaton: Go West and Battling Bulter
Two more Keaton films join Kino’s growing exceptional library of DVDs and Blu-rays. I actually haven’t seen either of these, but Keaton never puts a foot wrong.
1925 USA. Director: Buster Keaton. Starring: Buster Keaton, Sally O’Neil.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix (Go West) / Netflix (Battling Butler)

OTHER CLASSIC / OLDER RELEASES
Cry Terror (1958 USA, dir Andrew L. Stone, stars James Mason, Rod Steiger)
Footloose: Deluxe Edition (1984 USA, dir Herbert Ross, stars Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer; Blu-ray/Netflix)
Julie (1956 USA, dir Andrew L. Stone, stars Doris Day, Louis Jourdan)
Ma & Pa Kettle Complete Comedy Collection (1947-1955 USA, stars Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, etc.)
Treasure Island (1990 USA, dir Fraser Clarke Heston, stars Charlton Heston, Julian Glover; Netflix)

The Constant Nymph, playing Wednesday on TCM

A few new ones this week, notably for classic film buffs, the long-out-of-circulation The Constant Nymph makes its TCM debut, after a very successful screening at this year’s TCM Film Festival. This movie garnered an Oscar nom for Joan Fontaine in 1943, but hasn’t been seen since right issues began plaguing it in the late 1940s. Also check out pre-Code classic Baby Face playing right after it. Plus the first Tracy-Hepburn collaboration, Woman of the Year, plays earlier in the day. Finally, don’t miss the Buster Keaton marathon on Sunday night, starting with The General and moving on into some of the best silent shorts ever made.

Monday, September 26

6:00am – MGM – Witness for the Prosecution
This courtroom drama/thriller is among the last great films for all three of its stars, as Charles Laughton plays the crotchety judge overseeing the murder trial of Tyrone Power, with the major witness in the case being Power’s wife Marlene Dietrich. But not everyone is playing on the level here, and as the trial goes on, loyalties shift and double-crosses are revealed right and left.
1957 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power.

7:00pm – IFC – Hard Candy
Ellen Page burst onto the scene as a teenage girl getting involved with an older guy she met on the internet – initially looks like a cautionary tale about internet chat relationships, but goes into even more twisted realms than that, with Ellen owning the screen every second.
2005 USA. Director: David Slade. Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh.
(repeats at 3:00am on the 27th)

8:00pm – Fox Movie – The Panic in Needle Park
A harrowing tale of NYC heroin addicts, exemplifying the dark side of youth culture that New Hollywood does so well. A star-making turn for Al Pacino, just a year prior to The Godfather.
1971 USA. Director: Jerry Schatzberg. Starring: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint.
(repeats at 10:00pm)

9:15pm – IFC – American Psycho
A virtuoso performance from Christian Bale leads this controversial thriller about an affluent Wall Street investment banker leading a double life as a psychopath carrying out his amoral and misanthropic fantasies through sex and murder.
2000 USA. Director: Mary Herron. Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Chloe Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon.
(repeats at 12:30am on the 27th)

2:00am (27th) – TCM – Shanghai Express
Marlene Dietrich is Shanghai Lil, a woman of somewhat ill repute traveling up and down on the Shanghai Express, surviving by her “wits” alone – until a former lover shows up and gets captured by Chinese guerrillas. An iconic role for Dietrich, one of several for director Josef von Sternberg.
1932 USA. Director: Josef von Sternberg. Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette.

Tuesday, September 27

11:15am – IFC – Paranoid Park
I go back and forth on whether I think Gus Van Sant is brilliant or a pretentious bore – maybe some of both. But I really quite liked the slow, oblique approach in this film about a wanna-be skateboarder kid who relishes hanging out with the bigger skateboarders at the titular skate park – but there’s a death not far from there, and it takes the rest of the movie to slowly reveal what exactly happened that one night near Paranoid Park. Gets by on mood and cinematography.
2007 USA Director: Gus Van Sant. Starring: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Lu, Jake Miller, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney.

8:00pm – TCM – Spartacus
An historical epic of a Greek slave rebellion brought to the screen by the passion and personal investment of Kirk Douglas, but with some of the stylistic flair of director Stanley Kubrick (still relatively early in his career). Lots of great actors fill out the supporting parts with scenery-chewing glee, making every scene a whole lot of fun to watch – but there are a whole lot of scenes, and it does kind of drag by the end.
1960 USA. Director: Stanley Kubrick. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Nina Foch.

2:30am (28th) – IFC – Shadow of the Vampire
What if actor Max Schreck, who played the vampire in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu, actually WAS a vampire and kept eating various members of the cast and crew? That’s the premise set forth by this slight but entertaining film, with John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as the eccentric Schreck.
2000 USA. Director: E. Elias Merhige. Starring: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack.

4:00am (28th) – TCM – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Barbara Stanwyck is a domineering woman with a dark past, whose secret is only known by her alcoholic husband (Kirk Douglas in his first film), who’s also the city’s D.A., but completely controlled by Stanwyck. How I’ve managed to never see this film, with as much as I love Stanwyck and film noir, I can’t explain, but hopefully this dire situation will be fixed soon.
1946 USA. Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas.

Wednesday, September 28

9:35am – Sundance – Wendy & Lucy
This is a favorite among Row Three writers, following a young woman on the verge of financial collapse as she’s about to lose a major job opportunity as well as her beloved dog.
2008 USA. Director: Kelly Reichardt. Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Oldham, Michell Worthey, John Robinson.
(repeats at 2:35pm)

12:00N – TCM – Woman of the Year
The first of eight films costarring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, an onscreen collaboration that led to a long-term offscreen affair. As many of their films did, this one deals with the ramifications of Hepburn’s career-driven and feminist ideals on the pair’s marriage.
1942 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen.
Newly Featured!

12:20pm – MGM – The Party
It may not be quite politically correct to cast Peter Sellers as an Indian movie extra who accidentally gets invited to a big Hollywood party instead of being fired for bunglling a major stunt, but the movie certainly is hilarious, largely made up of a series of sight gags as Sellers bumbles his way around a swinging ’60s party.
1968 USA. Director: Blake Edwards. Starring: Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Natalie Borisova, Jean Carson, Marge Champion.

7:00pm – IFC – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Easily one of the most absurd, random, hilarious, and quotable comedies of all time. A more hapless bunch of Round Table knights couldn’t be found, and Monty Python has never been better than they are here.
1975 UK. Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.
Must See
(repeats at 2:15am on the 29th)

8:00pm – TCM – The Constant Nymph
One of TCM’s most highly-requested films finally makes its debut – it’s been caught up in rights issues for decades, but those are finally resolved, and having seen the film at this year’s TCM Film Festival, I can definitely recommend it. It tends a bit toward the melodramatic front, but a lot of the film is pretty unique in the way Joan Fontaine’s child-woman is written, especially in the pastoral first half of the film.
1943 USA. Director: Edmund Goulding. Starring: Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine, Alexis Smith, Brenda Marshall, Charles Coburn, Dame May Whitty, Peter Lorre.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – Baby Face
A classic of the pre-Code era, with Barbara Stanwyck literally sleeping her way to the top of a high-rise inhabiting firm, using men until she can move up to the next level. It’s a film that couldn’t have been made only a couple of years later, plus you get an uncomfortable John Wayne in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role as a businessman.
1933 USA. Director: Alfred E. Green. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Gorge Brent, Donald Cook.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – MGM – Hannah and Her Sisters
Though I love Manhattan and Annie Hall to bits, sometimes I’m tempted to throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.
1986 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen.
Must See

12:45am (29th) – TCM – All Quiet on the Western Front
One of the great anti-war films, showing the horrors of WWI from the German point of view, though the message is universal. The film does a great job of contrasting the “war is glory” viewpoint of the older generation with the reality of modern warfare realized in the trenches WWI, and the shift from bright-eyed schoolboy to soldier who can no longer relate to anything but war is perfectly captured by Ayres and Milestone. A devastating film still, 80 years later, but with a great deal of wistful beauty.
1930 USA. Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim.
Must See

Only one major new release this week, but there’s some good classic stuff and a ton of procedural TV shows on DVD this week. Plus a few new Instant Watches, but look out for the month-turnover expirations. There are a bunch of them, including all the Bond films (yes, I know they just got added…grrr), a bunch of Miramax films, and a smattering of Kubrick films.

New Release Pick of the Week

Bridesmaids
I personally avoided Bridesmaids because of its Apatow association, but I was clearly a minority, as the film was embraced by critics and moviegoers alike. Maybe I’ll give it a try one of these days.
2011 USA. Director: Paul Feig. Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

OTHER NEW RELEASES
Bride Flight (2008 Netherlands, dir Ben Sombogaart, stars Karina Smulders, Anna Drijver; Blu-ray/Netflix)
The Kennedys (2011 USA, dir Jon Cassar, stars Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper; Blu-ray/Netflix)
The River Murders (2011 USA, dir Rich Cowan, stars Ray Liotta, Ving Rhames; Netflix)
Secrets in the Walls (2010 USA, dir Christopher Leitch, stars Jeri Ryan, Marianne Jean-Baptiste; Netflix)
Set Up (2011 USA, dir Mike Gunther, stars Bruce Willis, Ryan Phillippe; Blu-ray/Netflix)
The Sword with No Name (2009 South Korea, dir Kim Yong-Gyun, stars Soo-Ae, Cho Seung-Woo; Netflix)
Tajomaru: Avenging Blade (2009 Japan, dir Hiroyuki Nakano, stars Hiroki Matsukata, Shun Oguri; Netflix)

Classic / Older Picks of the Week

Dumbo
One of Disney’s most slight and charming features (racist crows aside), hitting special edition DVD and Blu-ray this week.
1941 USA. Director: Ben Sharpsteen. Starring: Sterling Holloway, Edward Brophy.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray/DVD | Netflix

Le beau serge and Les cousins Criterion
Claude Chabrol’s first two films, neither of which I’ve seen, both of which I unsurprisingly want to. Based on the little I’ve read, sounds like he hadn’t quite settled into his tendency toward suspense thrillers yet with these two.
1958/59 France. Director: Claude Chabrol. Starring: Gerard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy.
Le beau serge DVD / Blu-ray / Netflix | Les cousins DVD / Blu-ray / Netflix

Landmarks of Early Soviet Film
Ooh, now this looks interesting. A collection of several features by major Soviet filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov (and many others) that aren’t as well known as, well, their well-known works. I’d love to check out this set.
1920-1930 USSR. Directed by Eisenstein, Vertov, Barnet, Kuleshov, etc.
Amazon DVD

OTHER CLASSIC / OLDER RELEASES
The Black Tent (1956 USA, dir Brian Desmond Hurst, stars Anthony Steel, Donald Sinden; Netflix)
The Devil Within Her (1976 USA, dir Peter Sasdy, stars Joan Collins, Donald Pleasence; Netflix)
The Inspector General: Collector’s Edition (1949 USA, dir Henry Koster, stars Danny Kaye; Netflix)
Vamp (1986 USA, dir Richard Wnk, stars Grace Jones, DeDee Pfieffer; Blu-ray/Netflix)

Paths of Glory, playing Tuesday on TCM

Some of the new ones this week are very good indeed, from Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (on Tuesday) to Chaplin’s The Circus to Tarkovsky’s Solaris (both late Sunday night), along with a handful of others. Also look out for TCM’s James Dean triple feature on Wednesday – that is, all three of Dean’s films back to back.

Monday, September 19

6:35pm – Sundance – Wendy & Lucy
This is a favorite among Row Three writers, following a young woman on the verge of financial collapse as she’s about to lose a major job opportunity as well as her beloved dog.
2008 USA. Director: Kelly Reichardt. Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Oldham, Michell Worthey, John Robinson.
(repeats at 3:35am on the 20th)

9:45pm – TCM – The Red Shoes
Almost all of the films Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger made together are incredibly good, but The Red Shoes might just be the best. In the film, a mix of the tale of Svengali and of Hans Christian Anderson’s story about a ballerina who couldn’t remove the red shoes and was doomed to dance to her death, actual ballerina Moira Shearer is the dancer made successful by a jealous ballet impresario, though she loves a poor composer. The centerpiece of the film is a Technicolor extravaganza performance of the titular ballet, still one of the greatest ballet sequences on film.
1948 UK. Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Starring: Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook.
Must See

12:15am (20th) – TCM – Invitation to the Dance
Gene Kelly really pushed the envelope when it came to long-form balletic sequences in movies, including them in On the Town, An American in Paris, and Singin’ in the Rain. With Invitation to the Dance, he carried that to its logical conclusion – a film made up of three stories told entirely in dance. I haven’t seen this myself yet, but I’m very interested to check it out.
1956 USA. Director: Gene Kelly. Starring: Gene Kelly, Igor Youskevitch, Claire Sombert, Tamara Toumanova.
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, September 20

6:00am – IFC – My Life as a Dog
Lasse Hallstrom gives us this simple but effective coming-of-age story, focusing on the every day life of a young boy as he’s sent to live in a provincial village after acting out at home.
1985 Sweden. Director: Lasse Hallstrom. Starring: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman.
(repeats at 1:30pm)

8:15am – MGM – The Party
It may not be quite politically correct to cast Peter Sellers as an Indian movie extra who accidentally gets invited to a big Hollywood party instead of being fired for bunglling a major stunt, but the movie certainly is hilarious, largely made up of a series of sight gags as Sellers bumbles his way around a swinging ’60s party.
1968 USA. Director: Blake Edwards. Starring: Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Natalie Borisova, Jean Carson, Marge Champion.

10:00am – Fox Movie – Call Northside 777
One of Jimmy Stewart’s first films after spending the war as a fighter pilot; he plays a reporter compelled to reopen an eleven-year-old murder case, coming to believe the wrong man was sentenced to life in prison. A good combo of film noir and mystery.
1948 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb.

10:30am – TCM – Two Women
Sophia Loren was the first person to win an acting Oscar in a foreign language film, and it hasn’t happened very often since then. I haven’t seen it, but with DeSica at the helm and Belmondo along for the ride, I’m definitely intrigued.
1960 Italy. Director: Vittorio DeSica. Starring: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleanora Brown.

11:30am – IFC – Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is likely my all-time favorite book or very close to it, and it’s a book that you’d never expect could be made into a good film. It depends an awful lot on stream of consciousness, internal monologue and memory, and a subjective experience of time – all stylistic and narrative elements that don’t translate well to film. However, this 1997 version of the novel with Vanessa Redgrave perfectly cast as the older Clarissa Dalloway and Natascha McElhone as flashback-Clarissa comes about as close as I think is cinematically possible. It doesn’t come close to matching the book for me, but it is a solid film and captures a lot of Woolf’s spirit.
1997 USA/UK. Director: Marleen Gorris. Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone, Michael Kitchen, Alan Cox, Sarah Badel, Lena Headey, John Standing.

5:50pm – Sundance – Wild at Heart
One of David Lynch’s most over the top films, and that’s saying something, but I love it anyway (or perhaps because it is). It’s a romance interrupted by crime, with Nic Cage and Laura Dern (not to the outrageous supporting cast) going for it every second.
1990 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe.

7:55pm – MGM – Hannah and Her Sisters
Though I love Manhattan and Annie Hall to bits, I throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.
1986 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen.
Must See
(repeats at 2:00am on the 25th)

8:00pm – TCM – Lust for Life
Vincente Minnelli and Kirk Douglas take on the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh, struggling through mental illness and a lack of artistic support throughout his life. With Minnelli’s way with melodrama and color, this should be a lovely biopic to look at. Anthony Quinn also won an Oscar for his supporting role as Paul Gauguin, the one artist who admired Van Gogh’s work.
1956 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – IFC – Carrie
There aren’t that many movies that you can say are equally loved by horror fans and feminist academics, but Carrie is one of them – Carrie’s physical coming-of-age sparks telekinetic abilities, allowing her to take bloody revenge on the schoolkids who mistreated her. And who can’t relate to that, really?
1976 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving.
(repeats at 2:00am on the 21st)

10:15pm – TCM – Paths of Glory
A relatively early Kubrick film, with Kirk Douglas as a WWI army officer who defends his soldiers’ decsion to refuse an order to attack in an impossible situation, leading to court martial back at home. The combination of war and courtroom drama is very solid, as is the evocation of WWI and the almost complete disconnect between superiors planning attacks from safe bunkers and soldiers carrying them out in the trenches.
1957 USA. Director: Stanley Kubrick. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Richard Anderson.
Newly Featured!

Wednesday, September 21

7:00pm – IFC – Valhalla Rising
Nicholas Winding Refn’s nearly wordless take on the Viking action film, privileging visual storytelling and a somewhat surreal and philosophical feel.
2009 Denmark. Director: Nicholas Winding Refn. Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Alexander Morton.
(repeats at 1:35am on the 22nd)

9:45pm – TCM – East of Eden
The first of James Dean’s three films, playing Steinbeck’s Cal Trask – a WWI-era youth struggling against frustrations at his relationship with his family, the war, his future, and life in general. Jo Van Fleet won an Oscar for playing Trask’s estranged mother, and Dean of course became an overnight sensation.
1956 USA. Director: Elia Kazan. Starring: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives, Jo Van Fleet, Richard Davalos.

12:00M – TCM – Rebel Without a Cause
Nicholas Ray’s best-known movie (though not, I’d argue, his best), likely because it’s one of James Dean’s three films. Dean is a rebellious teen, hanging out with the wrong crowd, whose parents don’t understand him. It all seems a little overwrought these days, but there’s an intensity to Dean and the film that manages to make it still relatable.
1955 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo.

12:00M – Fox Movie – Naked Lunch
This is a wacked out movie, more of an exploration of beat author William S. Burrough’s life and writing process than an adaptation of his novel of the same name, with addictive bug powder, murders, hallucinogenic trips, typewriters that turn into cockroaches, and espionage plots. I saw it ages ago when I probably wasn’t ready for it; ought to try it again sometime.
1991 Canada. Director: David Cronenberg. Starring: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm.

2:00am (22nd) – TCM – Giant
The saga of a Texas cattle rancher and two generations of his family’s rivalry with a nearby rancher and oil tycoon. A bit sprawling and overlong for my tastes, but certainly has its moments, and is one of only three films James Dean made before his death.
1956 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Carroll Baker, Mercedes McCambridge.

2:00am (22nd) – Fox Movie – The Name of the Rose
A fine adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel of medieval mystery and religion, with two monks tasked with finding a murderer in their midst. Not as esoteric as the novel, which is probably just as well for a film, but more thoughtful and deep than many mystery films.
1986 France/Italy. Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud. Starring: Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger.

In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) by Jim Emerson at scanners::blog

Jim Emerson has been writing about his distaste for Christopher Nolan’s action scenes for years now (if you dig through his archives, there are a whole bunch of posts niggling at The Dark Knight), and now he’s put up a series of video essays talking about incoherence in action scenes, taking them apart shot by shot to show what he means when he says an action scene is incoherent. He starts with a chase sequence in The Dark Knight, but moves on to Salt and others in subsequent chapters. I tend to agree with him; when scenes are edited the way this one is, I check out pretty quickly and just wait for it to be over before paying attention again. Not only do I find them confusing because of the lack of master shots and adherence to conventions like the 180 degree and eyeline rules, but they get pretty boring for me, too. For the counterpoint, here’s a response that argues, just as technically, that Nolan’s choices make perfect sense and are, in fact, forging a new style of editing that uses cues other than the 180 degree and eyeline rules to establish space.

TIFF Coverage by Ryan McNeil at The Matinee

There’s a lot of TIFF coverage going on right now, of course, but I’ve really been enjoying Ryan’s – he’s not only got reviews that focus nicely on the experience of the film, but recaps of the festival-going in general (meet-ups, hangouts, etc.) that give a good feel for what it would be like to be there, and also episodes of his podcast going up covering the festival. I’m jealous, but I’m grateful for people like Ryan who bring a bit of the fest to us.

The Story State of Orson Welles on DVD by Jeffrey M. Anderson at Movies.com

As canonized as Orson Welles is in the history of cinema, it’s mostly based on Citizen Kane, and to a lesser extent Touch of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons. At least part of his lionization is certainly his legendary problems with studio intervention, having nearly all of his post-Kane films taken out of his hands to one degree or another. But the fact is that most of his films aren’t easily available to see at all. Even Ambersons had never been on DVD until last week, when it was released ONLY as part of a set with the Citizen Kane re-release. Jeffrey M. Anderson runs through all of Welles’ filmography and discusses the DVD availability or lack thereof of each film.

DC’s New 52, Week 1 by Ed Howard at Thinking in Panels

Ed Howard of Only the Cinema, one of the most considered and erudite film blogs around, posted a piece last week that wasn’t about cinema at all, but about comic books – DC is rebooting their entire line, and Ed is starting out reading every issue (some 13 a week!) to get into the series. I’ve never been a serial comic book reader, but I’m thinking about jumping into these. Ed has since moved the comic book talk over to a new blog, Thinking in Panels, and has the second week’s post up as well.

Fashion in Film: All About Eve by Angela at Hollywood Revue

Angela’s gearing up a little early for her September 24th Fashion in Film blogathon with this absolutely wonderful piece on the costuming in All About Eve and how the very clothes that the characters are wearing play into character development and story progression. I’m admittedly very fashion backwards, so I rarely notice this stuff beyond “hey, that’s a really pretty dress” (if that, even!). This is a thoughtful and very helpful analysis. And she’s done one on Top Hat now, as well.

Pre-Code Gams and Damsels by Carly at the Kitty Packard Pictorial

A glorious picspam post with tons of screencap and glamour shots of lovely 1930s ladies…and their legs. A shapely gam is pre-Code heaven, and these ladies are the top of the heap. Thanks to Carly for putting this post together! Sometimes a good set of pictures is all you really need, and she excels at that at the aptly named Pictorial.

Anita Loos at the Mythical Monkey Talks About Film

This week the Mythical Monkey looked back on one of the best screenwriters of the silent and early sound eras – Anita Loos. With a bright wit and a way of making title cards not just informative but fun to read, Loos was one of several female screenwriters who formed the backbone of silent Hollywood writing. She made the jump into sound perfectly well, too – her screenplay adaptation of Clare Booth Luce’s The Women is one of my all-time favorites (I even chose it as the best-scripted movie I’ve seen in the 50 Day Movie Challenge). I learned more about her from this post and now respect her even more, for which I thank the Monkey once again. :)

Towards a New Film Criticism by Willie Osterweil at The New Inquiry

This article calling for the end of auteurism and the end of criticism has been making the blogosphere rounds for a few weeks now, even to the point that Kevin B. Lee interviewed the author on the Keyframe blog for further details on his position. Well, I finally got around to reading it myself, and I have to agree with Glenn Kenny, this is a load of bull. I’m certainly interested in discussing the value of auterism in modern film production, and I certainly agree that discounting the work of thousands of people who work on films to solely credit the director is invalid. But here’s the thing – no film critic worth their salt does that, and Osterweil has very little understanding of the auteur theory in general, historical film production, or the history of critical thought. He’s a reactionary Marxist using the film industry as a scapegoat in his call for the end of capitalism (he says exactly that in the Lee interview). He quotes only one critic in his entire diatribe – David Edelstein, who, as Kenny and his commenters point out, is a disciple of Pauline Kael, an outspoken attacker of auterism, and thus quoting Edelstein as an auteurist is disingenous at best and outright ignorant at worst. To his main point, there’s nothing wrong with analyzing the means of production and applying Marxist theory to film – you can get some really salient readings that way. But you don’t have to eliminite every other approach, especially when you don’t even understand what they mean.

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s your favorite sequel?

This one’s too easy and obvious, but it’s true. It’s pretty commonly believed that The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the Star Wars films, and I subscribe to that wholeheartedly. When I first watched Star Wars (as a jaded teenager), I was not suitably impressed, but I went on and watched Empire anyway. I’m a completionist, you know. Empire FLOORED me. I mean, Han and Leia, Imperial walkers, Yoda, I am your father, our heroes losing over and over, the ending that leaves them at their lowest point – it upped the ante at every turn. I loved it, and that caused me to go back and reevaluate the first one, and loved it too. So yeah. Empire not only bettered Star Wars for me, it actually helped me see what everyone else did in it and made me a fan for life.

Here’s the climax of the film:

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?

The worst-made movie I’ve ever seen is probably Troll 2, but that movie is awesome in its badness. When it comes to my absolute least favorite, suck-my-soul-out bad movies, they’re ones that are not only crappy, but dull and lifeless also. There are a few that could fill that role – Batman & Robin, Harvard Man, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and more – but I decided to go with the 1998 version of The Avengers, with Ralph Fiennes as John Steed and Uma Thurman as Emma Peel, because not only is it a terrible movie, it mangles source material I love very much. This SHOULD HAVE BEEN a good time. And it was awful. I’ve eliminated most of it from my memory, I just remember hating it.