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Movie reviews 1/23/16
Saturday, 23 January 2016 10:47 amThe week in movies
Last year I dumped Netflix because they don't have enough old movies. Amazon Prime is better for old movies, but our library system has them beat, and they're free. So when my membership was about to expire, I just let it.
I'm on a serious movie kick because when I dumped Netflix, I copied all the movies I'd rated to move the ratings to imdb. The ratings don't mean anything to me; what I like—and prefer imdb to Netflix for—is being able to keep a list of the movies I've seen in a place that's readily available and won't get stolen. (The last list I made was on my last laptop, and God knows where that is.) The reason I prefer imdb—besides not being able to access Netflix unless I subscribe—is that they have everything. Netflix quite reasonably only has what they have, or expect to have.
Anyway, transferring all these movies over has gotten me thinking about things. Like Shirley Temple movies. I've seen a lot of Shirley Temple movies—I might have seen all of them. I really don't remember, because I'm nearly fifty-seven years old, and I saw these movies when I was in grade school. So how do I rate movies I don't even remember? I know, I said the ratings don't mean anything to me. And they don't. If I could just input a list without ratings, that would be fine, but I can't. And if I'm going to do them, I want to do them right, I want consistency.
So I'm watching movies "again" to be sure I've really seen them. Here's what I watched this week
The Wheeler Dealers (1963) A sixties comedy with Lee Remick and James Garner. James Garner is a guy who buys and sells stuff—a wheeler dealer. Lee Remick is a (female!) stockbroker trying to hang onto her job in the face of being a woman doing a "man's" job. They meet, make some money, and fall in love. It was predictable and fun. I gave it seven out of ten stars. It would have gotten six, but Phil Harris was in it, and I like Phil Harris.
Pocket Money (1972) Lee Marvin and Paul Newman are the perfect informed idiot and uninformed idiot, trying to make some money buying cattle in Mexico. Paul Newman's character is utterly stupid and insanely likable. Lee Marvin's seems like he could maybe be dangerous if he had fifty more IQ points, and he's almost as much fun. Since it's a Paul Newman movie, Strother Martin was also in it. I gave it nine stars.
Boys' Night Out (1962) A sixties sex comedy. Four business men (James Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, Howard Morris) rent an apartment for the purposes of extramarital hanky panky. They think they've also rented a girl (Kim Novak), but she's really doing a post graduate thesis on men's sex fantasies. What she finds out is that they're looking for a woman to do something their wives have stopped: being nice and paying attention to them. Except, of course, for James Garner, who isn't married. Fun, clever, genuinely witty, and with an ending you might not expect from this kind of movie. Both this and Wheeler Dealers were written by Ira Wallach, a man who clearly didn't believe women should be kept in the kitchen or the bedroom. I gave it nine stars.
The Invisible Man collection
The original The Invisible Man (1933) stars Claude Rains. What else could you possibly need to know? I gave it six stars because I know the story so well, there's just nothing intriguing about it, beyond Claude Raines. The next one, The Invisible Man Returns, (1940) and the final one, The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944), were nothing special, though The Invisible Man Returns does have Vincent Price, and therefore got six stars. The Invisible Man's Revenge got four.
But in between were The Invisible Woman (1940) and Invisible Agent (1942).
The Invisible Woman is a delightful comedy. How could it not be, with John Barrymore and Charles Ruggles as backup? The leads, Virginia Bruce and John Howard, are both charming. (John Howard is probably best not-remembered as Katharine Hepburn's not-good-enough-for-her fiance in The Philadelphia Story.) Nine stars.
Invisible Agent is nothing special—a WWII spy movie with Claude Raines's grandson using his formula to become invisible, and Axis forces trying to capture him/get the formula. But Peter Lorre is in it, and I love Peter Lorre. If you want to see the real genius of Peter Lorre, don't watch Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon. Watch one of the mediocre or lousy movies he made. He doesn't just shine in these movies, he sparkles, and since he's usually the only bright part of the movie, he's like a sparkler on a pitch black night. He's always the strangest person in the room, and usually seems to be talking to himself. (And it just occurred to me that Jeff Goldblum's manner in Transylvania 6-5000 is very similar to Lorre's. It's a terrible movie, except for the very beginning, which I think I need to watch again.)
And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) is a documentary about Spalding Gray. I like Spalding Gray very much, and I know I've seen one of his monologue movies, but for the life of me I cannot remember which one. I was also unaware that he had committed suicide. (I did know he was dead.) It's a very interesting and enjoyable movie. Nine stars.
Isn't It Shocking? (1973, TV movie) Oh, my God, I love this movie. Alan Alda is a small-town sheriff who has just been offered a job in a slightly larger town. But then the old people started having fatal heart attacks, and he gets suspicious. Lloyd Nolan plays a deputy, Louise Lasser is the strange secretary, plus you've got Will Geer and Ruth Gordon and Liam Neeson and Edmond O'Brien. But mostly what you have is Alan Alda being young and cute and witty. I hadn't seen it since probably whenever it was repeated after the first time it was shown, but I found it on youtube and really enjoyed it again. Ten stars!
The Return of Frank James (1940) Henry Fonda did not annoy me in this movie. That may sound like faint praise, but after the last two movies of his I watched, it was a real relief. It's an OK movie, nothing unexpected. Gene Tierney was playing awfully young—I was half-expecting her to wind up as Jackie Cooper's love interest. Six stars.
Last year I dumped Netflix because they don't have enough old movies. Amazon Prime is better for old movies, but our library system has them beat, and they're free. So when my membership was about to expire, I just let it.
I'm on a serious movie kick because when I dumped Netflix, I copied all the movies I'd rated to move the ratings to imdb. The ratings don't mean anything to me; what I like—and prefer imdb to Netflix for—is being able to keep a list of the movies I've seen in a place that's readily available and won't get stolen. (The last list I made was on my last laptop, and God knows where that is.) The reason I prefer imdb—besides not being able to access Netflix unless I subscribe—is that they have everything. Netflix quite reasonably only has what they have, or expect to have.
Anyway, transferring all these movies over has gotten me thinking about things. Like Shirley Temple movies. I've seen a lot of Shirley Temple movies—I might have seen all of them. I really don't remember, because I'm nearly fifty-seven years old, and I saw these movies when I was in grade school. So how do I rate movies I don't even remember? I know, I said the ratings don't mean anything to me. And they don't. If I could just input a list without ratings, that would be fine, but I can't. And if I'm going to do them, I want to do them right, I want consistency.
So I'm watching movies "again" to be sure I've really seen them. Here's what I watched this week
The Wheeler Dealers (1963) A sixties comedy with Lee Remick and James Garner. James Garner is a guy who buys and sells stuff—a wheeler dealer. Lee Remick is a (female!) stockbroker trying to hang onto her job in the face of being a woman doing a "man's" job. They meet, make some money, and fall in love. It was predictable and fun. I gave it seven out of ten stars. It would have gotten six, but Phil Harris was in it, and I like Phil Harris.
Pocket Money (1972) Lee Marvin and Paul Newman are the perfect informed idiot and uninformed idiot, trying to make some money buying cattle in Mexico. Paul Newman's character is utterly stupid and insanely likable. Lee Marvin's seems like he could maybe be dangerous if he had fifty more IQ points, and he's almost as much fun. Since it's a Paul Newman movie, Strother Martin was also in it. I gave it nine stars.
Boys' Night Out (1962) A sixties sex comedy. Four business men (James Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, Howard Morris) rent an apartment for the purposes of extramarital hanky panky. They think they've also rented a girl (Kim Novak), but she's really doing a post graduate thesis on men's sex fantasies. What she finds out is that they're looking for a woman to do something their wives have stopped: being nice and paying attention to them. Except, of course, for James Garner, who isn't married. Fun, clever, genuinely witty, and with an ending you might not expect from this kind of movie. Both this and Wheeler Dealers were written by Ira Wallach, a man who clearly didn't believe women should be kept in the kitchen or the bedroom. I gave it nine stars.
The Invisible Man collection
The original The Invisible Man (1933) stars Claude Rains. What else could you possibly need to know? I gave it six stars because I know the story so well, there's just nothing intriguing about it, beyond Claude Raines. The next one, The Invisible Man Returns, (1940) and the final one, The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944), were nothing special, though The Invisible Man Returns does have Vincent Price, and therefore got six stars. The Invisible Man's Revenge got four.
But in between were The Invisible Woman (1940) and Invisible Agent (1942).
The Invisible Woman is a delightful comedy. How could it not be, with John Barrymore and Charles Ruggles as backup? The leads, Virginia Bruce and John Howard, are both charming. (John Howard is probably best not-remembered as Katharine Hepburn's not-good-enough-for-her fiance in The Philadelphia Story.) Nine stars.
Invisible Agent is nothing special—a WWII spy movie with Claude Raines's grandson using his formula to become invisible, and Axis forces trying to capture him/get the formula. But Peter Lorre is in it, and I love Peter Lorre. If you want to see the real genius of Peter Lorre, don't watch Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon. Watch one of the mediocre or lousy movies he made. He doesn't just shine in these movies, he sparkles, and since he's usually the only bright part of the movie, he's like a sparkler on a pitch black night. He's always the strangest person in the room, and usually seems to be talking to himself. (And it just occurred to me that Jeff Goldblum's manner in Transylvania 6-5000 is very similar to Lorre's. It's a terrible movie, except for the very beginning, which I think I need to watch again.)
And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) is a documentary about Spalding Gray. I like Spalding Gray very much, and I know I've seen one of his monologue movies, but for the life of me I cannot remember which one. I was also unaware that he had committed suicide. (I did know he was dead.) It's a very interesting and enjoyable movie. Nine stars.
Isn't It Shocking? (1973, TV movie) Oh, my God, I love this movie. Alan Alda is a small-town sheriff who has just been offered a job in a slightly larger town. But then the old people started having fatal heart attacks, and he gets suspicious. Lloyd Nolan plays a deputy, Louise Lasser is the strange secretary, plus you've got Will Geer and Ruth Gordon and Liam Neeson and Edmond O'Brien. But mostly what you have is Alan Alda being young and cute and witty. I hadn't seen it since probably whenever it was repeated after the first time it was shown, but I found it on youtube and really enjoyed it again. Ten stars!
The Return of Frank James (1940) Henry Fonda did not annoy me in this movie. That may sound like faint praise, but after the last two movies of his I watched, it was a real relief. It's an OK movie, nothing unexpected. Gene Tierney was playing awfully young—I was half-expecting her to wind up as Jackie Cooper's love interest. Six stars.