75/2645. Stolen Face (1952)
A mad scientist gives the face of the woman he loves but can't have to a criminal whom he marries and tries to reform. It does not go well. The ending feels very unearned.

76/2646. The Eagle-Shooting Heroes (1993)
A bit like Airplane! for martial arts movies, the further it leans into the absurd the better it is.

77/2647. Stand By for Action (1942)
This war film thinks its a drama, but it's really a comedy. Amazingly, it crams every Hollywood naval cliche into one film.

78/2648. Texas Carnival (1951)
The setting and plot of this Red Skelton musical farce doesn't really have much to do with carnivals, but I think that's pretty standard for most Red Skelton films in which the "plot" is just a loose framework for typical Skelton shenanigans. I thought all the best bits were performed by others (Ann Miller, Ester Williams, Howard Keel, Keenan Wynn).

79/2649. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Not to be confused with The Hitcher, this one is about a hitchhiker who is really a gleeful murderer who seeks to torture the driver. What's that you say? Still confused? This is the one directed by Ida Lupino.

More to come.

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I have recently been wondering if I'm too hard on movies. The public seems to really enjoy some films I just can't stand. Recent examples include Project Hail Mary, Tom Holland's Spider-Man franchise, and anything by Christopher Nolan since Memento. Do I hate them only because they're popular? Am I watching them wrong? Is the problem me?

With that in the back of my mind, I just tried to watch

95/2665. Poor Things (2023)

And I really didn't care for it.

I'm still stinging from the ending of the previous Yorgos Lanthimos/Emma Stone collaboration, 2018's The Favourite, which featured an extended sound ("music" is the wrong word) crafted to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible, so I was never particularly enthusiastic for this. When Poor Things opens to a very similar noise, I knew I was in trouble. It killed any excitement I had mustered toward the 2+ hours in front of me, and from that point forward I was looking for a convenient exit, which I eventually found shortly after the one-hour mark (still several minutes short of halfway) when The Monster watched a sailor strangle a seagull for shitting on him.

Soundtrack aside, my bigger complaint is that Lanthimos and I strongly disagree on what should and should not be shown. Prude that I am, I'm still not talking about that bird or the many, many sex scenes. (They are not designed to titillate, but I did begin to question why so many of them? I would not be surprised if The Monster screwed that seagull killer in the next scene.)

This is self-evidently a cold fairy tale of a naive girl's coming-of-age story in a funhouse mirror society built to turn women into slaves (Frankenstein meets Jane Eyre, if you will). But if the goal is to engage the audience in a philosophical study of autonomy and feminism, take a lesson from, say, Edward Scissorhands and gloss over the details instead of spending the first quarter of the run time grounding The Monster's creation in quasi-science fiction. Like learning how hot dogs are made, the knowledge of pig intestines and rat assholes kills the magic, stripping away the allegorical veneer and leaving only an unresolved uncanny valley of the ethical questions about the nature of consciousness, control, and consent in the sexual behavior of those unable to understand those basic concepts. No, thank you.

Obviously, Ms. Stone had the time of her life acting her heart out in a one-of-a-kind role. Good for her. However, it has become increasingly clear that the parts that interest her to play are no longer the parts I care to watch. (I'd say "Never go full retard," but she did win her second Oscar for this. So you do you, girl.) Stone and Lanthimos have combined for two movies since this one; I have no intention of seeing either. Oh, well. At least I'll always have La La Land.

Sure, I could endure the second half to see if the movie sticks the landing. But this is an adventure story, and all adventure stories are move about the journey than the destination. If I'm not having fun or learning anything along the way, why should I bother going on that trip? Maybe I do just hate everything I see these days. Maybe I need to just get comfortable with that. But I definitely don't need to waste any more of my time on other people's crappy journeys.

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70/2640. Crack in the World (1965)
A mad scientist nukes the Earth's crust in the hopes of breaking it, and he succeeds, unleashing a series of earthquakes that threatens to destroy the whole world. It was dull, but I watched the hole thing.

Intense underground heat, Janette Scott? Have a pause that refreshes!

71/2641. The Crowded Sky (1960)
This airplane disaster film plays backwards, with most of the runtime devoted to introducing the characters who will die in the midair disaster, which comes very late. The many, many inner monologue voiceovers are intended to be dramatic but instead come across plane hilarious.

72/2642. Another Face (1935)
This one is also constructed backwards: it's a farce where the only person who has mistaken an identity is the gangster who has had plastic surgery and is trying to parlay his new beauty into Hollywood stardom. Helped greatly by its short runtime, this film nose not to overstay its welcome.

73/2643. The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The biplane-era aerial action is the only reason to keep watching this episodic story of the frequently unsatisfying life of an early barnstormer. Many of the episodes end with death; it's an a-salt on the nerves.

74/2644. Big Wednesday (1978)
A long time ago, I read that this American Graffiti-wannabe coming-of-age surfing tale from John Milius (screenwriter of Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn) was the film that Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas thought would be better received than Jaws and Star Wars. Goes to show what they know. Despite its killer cast (hello, Reb Brown!), the autobiographical nature of its themes results in a week narrative.

The 1960s changed America, but Coke soldiers on!

More to come.

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85/2655. The Street Fighter's Last Revenge (1974)

I watched the English language dub of this 1974 Sonny Chiba martial arts film released in America by New Line Cinema in 1979. The dub has terrible line reading and worse editing. The plot summary on Wikipedia wasn't helping me make sense of what was going on, so I took the following notes. Read at your own risk.

In Tokyo "one of the largest chemical manufacturing plants in the East" is embroiled in a workers' revolt. The riot squad is called in, and a "known syndicate Boss" calls an answering service for Terry Sugury (pronounced soo-goo-ree), offering to pay 50,000 in exchange for Sugury helping his brother, Owada, escape the plant with an attache case holding two cassette tapes.

Owada is seen shooting through a window at police. The riot squad enters the plant, and one Officer arrests Owada and secures the case. Instead of delivering Owada to the jail with the other rioters, Officer swaps cars. He removes his mask and reveals he is Sugury. ("Some people call me… The Street Fighter.")

Sugury drives Owada to a meeting with the syndicate. Sugury swaps cases with the syndicate representative only to find they have paid him with cut-up newspaper. Sugury grabs Owada by the neck and demands they give him back the tapes. An Enforcer wearing sunglasses and a fedora attacks Sugury while everyone else escapes with the tapes. Sugury wins the fight and reveals the Enforcer to be a woman he recognizes as employed by the District Attorney. (She: "Fool! What I'd like to do right now is cut your goddamn balls off and then send them to you for a birthday present!") He lets her go.

Some days later, Sugury confronts DA about his "girly spy with Owada." DA warns Sugury away from the syndicate. (DA: "I think that they're going to try to kill you." Sugury: "Sure is scary." DA: "Sure is.")

At a private meeting, a Buyer offers Boss a check for ¥1,000,000 for "the tape and the formula." Boss plays Tape A which explains that the two tapes (A and B) must be played together to reveal a formula for the manufacturing of synthetic heroin (for $200/pound).

Sugury runs down a staircase to his car, where he is confronted by the Enforcer. He tells her she isn't going to stop him from getting the tape. She offers to help, but Sugury refuses and leaves. She insults him again.

Back at the meeting, Buyer complains to Boss that he needs Tape B or his money back. Before Boss can produce either, Sugury crashes through a wall, seizes Tape A, tells the syndicate this is their own fault for trying to pay him with newspaper, and flees.

At a different location, Boss and Owada (now wearing a neck brace) discuss how to respond. Their sister, Aya, suggests assassinating Sugury. The siblings watch a televised demonstration of Mr. Black, a Mexican who can cut steel with his "inner power."

An answering service Operator relays to Sugury that Aya wants to meet at a dance club. He is instructed to come in disguise and agrees. ("I don't have a very good costume wardrobe, but I'll try to trick her.") The Operator also goes to the club, and Sugury rescues her from a pushy date. She begs Sugury for one dance before Sugury scares her away with his disguise: a set of vampire teeth.

DA watches as Sugury meets and dances with Aya, who seduces him. They go back to Sugury's apartment for sex and are interrupted when DA calls and threatens to kill the Operator if Sugury doesn't bring Tape A to an immediate meeting at the fair grounds. While Aya tries to get Sugury to stay, Black and his crew attack, revealing his "inner power" to be a laser attached to his belt. Aya tries to steal Tape A, but Sugury grabs it and meets DA, who exchanges the Operator for the tape. The two men fight; DA wins and escapes.

Sugury visits the busy dojo of Matsuoka, a karate master, to learn DA's fighting style. ("That's an old form from Korea named Cosmic Wave.") They fight, Sugury loses, and Matsuoka encourages Sugury to build his spiritual strength. Sugury has a flashback to his traitor father's execution by firing squad. ("Be a number one man!")

Meanwhile, DA tells his Superiors that for three weeks he has made no progress toward recovering the formula. They threaten his job.

Outside an apartment building at night, a Little Boy finds Sugury standing by himself and offers to play, but Sugury leaves to ambush DA in an elevator, knocking him out before carrying him to his apartment and forcing his Mother to turn over Tape A. ("Your son has been playing both sides of the coin. Now he is in trouble with the police. And me.") Sugury calls the police to tell them he has the tape.

Later, DA instigates a meeting with Boss to reveal that the Enforcer has acquired Tape B from Aya. DA wants to form an alliance to get Tape A back from Sugury. ("We can call our partnership Good and Evil Incorporated.")

Aya takes her Mercedes to a car wash. Sugury forces her inside the car where he explains that he heard "from the other girl" what Aya did with Tape B. Sugury claims to have real feelings for Aya and volunteers to sell Tape A back to Boss.

Sugury meets with the syndicate at their compound and sells Tape A for a gym bag of cash. As he leaves, the Enforcer argues that acquiring the tape was supposed to be her job. Despite being told she can keep it, she returns her fee. ("So it doesn't count what I say. You go around doing whatever you please and I get the shaft.") She follows Sugury to warn him that the syndicate is going to try and kill him. Their car is ambushed in a tunnel by syndicate gunmen and Black. The Enforcer charges Black, who shoots her and his own crew. She watches them blow up Sugury's car before dying.

The syndicate collects two large, heavy aluminum suitcases filled with money. A Motorcycle Cop intercepts their car and leads it to an auto wrecking yard where he removes his rubber mask and reveals he is really Sugury in disguise. Sugury proceeds to beat up the couriers while Aya watches from a distance.

Aya arrives to a meeting with Boss and DA just in time for one mortally injured syndicate Bodyguard to deliver the news that Sugury is alive and has stolen the money. DA warns that Sugury might next steal back the tapes, and Boss tasks Aya with recovering the cash.

Aya and Black confront Sugury at a mortuary. Black and Sugury fight. Sugury wins and incinerates Black in the crematorium. Aya begs Sugury for forgiveness, claiming not to know that Black was going to try and kill him. They take the money to a bedroom where Aya and Sugury have sex. The syndicate surreptitiously steals back the suitcases before Aya opens the door to Odawa who ambushes Sugury with a machine gun. Sugury steps on his neck brace, decapitating him. Aya and Boss escape by car, where Boss warns her not to double cross him. ("Why would I do anything to you?")

Boss plans to flee the country immediately by boat with all the money, cutting out the DA. But bad weather prevents departure, and DA arrives and fights the syndicate guards in the rain, ultimately killing Boss. He spares Aya. ("You're really a bitch. I'll give you one more chance.")

Sugury finds the boat and fights its crew. Then he puts something in Boss's car. Inside the mansion, DA and Aya have sex.

The next morning, Aya tries to poison DA but he is wise to her scheme. Just as he tries to make her drink the poison, Sugury breaks in and demands a rematch. They fight outside, down a cliff, across a field, under an airplane, through a wharf, to a pier. Sugury is knocked down, but when DA jumps for the kill, Sugury kills him with fingers to the gut.

Aya shoots Sugury in the shoulder, and he falls into the water. Aya tells him she never loved him. She loads the suitcases inro Boss's car. Sugury swims to shore and yells at her to stop, there's a bomb in the car. She starts the engine and the car blows up. Bits of money fly through the air, and Sugury watches it burn.

The end.

I have to admit that makes more sense than I was expecting.

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65/2635. Best Served Cold: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (2026)
Hallmark Mysteries have never recovered from the pandemic disruption, and maybe they never will. I'm sure many of the decisions behind the scenes about which actors are available and which aren't must significantly hamper development of this series, but at this point, with the films being reduced to completely formulaic exercises in exploitable familiarity, even Mom is losing enthusiasm for this series.

66/2636. International House (1933)
The frame story of this madcap comedy, in which a convention of international buyers assemble in China to compete for rights to an improbable television-like device, is only an excuse for a bunch of famous comedy vaudeville acts to do their thing. It's actually quite amusing.

67/2637. Gumshoe (1971)
Critical guides as a comedy, though it's neither really cynical enough to be a black comedy nor does it exactly match the Shakespearean sense of the word. Though it does begin as a case of mistaken identity, and Albert Finney lends it his usual world-weary humor, the film is executed as a serious neo noir, in a style typical of its era, about a novice hardboiled detective learning on the fly. I liked it a lot.

68/2638. The Last Voyage (1960)
This disaster picture, presented in an almost documentary matter-of-fact style, squeezes a lot of drama out of the real-time sinking of an ocean liner following a boiler accident. Very suspenseful.

69/2639. Target (1952)
Actor Tim Holt plays cowboy Tim Holt, the only competent man in a West populated by misogynists, racists, and murderers. I watched it because John Hamilton, television's Perry White, plays the rancher who hires — and fires — Holt. The best thing I can say about it is that its short run time keeps it from wearing out its welcome.

More to come.

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60/2630. Undercurent (1946)
As much as I typically enjoy Katherine Hepburn, after years of establishing her public persona as an independent spirit, she's just not the right woman for this role of the sheltered ingenue who abruptly falls for and marries someone who from the very beginning is clearly the wrong man. This stunt casting was intentional as Robert Mitchum was also cast against type. Two wrongs don't make a right.

61/2631. The Steel Helmet (1951)
A contemporary anti-Korean War movie in which the protagonist is an unprincipled soldier interested only in his own survival. The small budget makes it all feel like a television show, so it's more like watching a play. I think that abstraction actually works in its favor.

62/2632. Ace of Aces (1933)
During World War I, sculptor Richard Dix works so hard to prove everyone is so wrong about how soft he is that he becomes a flying killing machine. I don't think there's any lesson in here, just standard melodrama.

63/2633. The Naked and the Dead (1958)
During World War II, Cliff Robertson argues to his asshole general that men will fight harder for leaders they respect than for leaders they fear. In this case, Cliff is proven right, but, I mean, he still gets mortally wounded. Was that really a win, Cliffy?

64/2634. Seven Days to Noon (1950)
It's a silly name for a procedural about the frantic search to catch a nuclear scientist planning to detonate a suitcase nuke in downtown London. The movie has enough strong parallels to George Clooney's 1997 Peacemaker (which I have always liked) that I think we can call the latter movie a remake.

More to come.

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The latest Supergirl movie opens today, and while I wish it nothing but the best of luck,* I don't plan on seeing it.

True, I'm in the 1% of people on this planet who didn't care for last summer's Superman, and you're probably right to call me a grumpy old man with no sense of humor. But I just can't get past the fact that James Gunn gave Superboy's dog, Krypto, to Supergirl when she already has her own perfectly close-up ready pet, the adorable Streaky the Super-Cat.

cover blurb and interior art from Action Comics #261, February 1960

They say a lot of things to warn you away from comic books, boys and girls, and some of them are actually true. But they don't tell you that one day your head will be so full of familiar adventures that you'll get actively angry when new storytellers come along and screw up the classics by randomly giving Pegasus to Hercules.

Bah, I say. Bah.

*I do, in fact, want more movies set in the DC Universe. If they make enough, sooner or later, they'll make one I actually like, even if only by accident.

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55/2625. Fackham Hall (2025)
Finally, a movie that answers the question "What if the makers of Airplane! made a film of Downton Abbey?" As a big fan of both Airplane! and Downton Abbey, I'm very happy to report that I found their marriage very amusing.

56/2626. Shoot Out (1971)
Have you ever wondered what True Grit would have been like it if starred Gregory Peck? Wonder no longer! A little less action, a little more conversation... It's fine.

57/2627. Blondie Johnson (1933)
What if Scarface was a woman? Or perhaps more generally, what if any James Cagney gangster film had starred Joan Blondell instead? Blondell, as usual, is great, but all the beats are familiar enough to belie just how formulaic these Warner Bros. gangster films of the 30s could be.

58/2628. Mirage (1965)
What if Gregory Peck had starred in Charade? In fact, both films were written by Peter Stone and both feature Walter Matthau in key roles. Charade came first, and if you're familiar with that performance, it'll make Matthau's role even better here. Still topical and very enjoyable.

59/2629. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
More TCM Star of the Month Gregory Peck in a film that asks "What if Gregory Peck played a philanderer in a version of The Best Years of Our Lives with one-third of the cast and story but the full two-and-a-half hour runtime?" Answer: it's boring. Not every elevator pitch needs to be made into a movie.

More to come.

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48/2618. Miss Pacific Fleet (1935)
There's not a lot of substance to this frivolous film comedy, but its leads are Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell, and that's good enough for me.

49/2619. Whiplash (2014)
There are only two characters of note in Damien Chazelle's star-making study of an abusive relationship. I've thought a lot about it, and I'm still not sure if I enjoyed it. Music's good, though.

50/2620. Honeymoon Hotel (1964)
Following a wedding-day disaster, womanizer Robert Goulet tricks his friend (the jilted groom) into following through on his honeymoon plans to visit a Hawaiian resort strictly for couples so the two men can meet more women. Screwball hijinks ensue. Goulet is good as the cad, but I really watched the whole thing for Jill St. John, who, as usual, is given too little to do.

51/2621. 711 Ocean Drive (1950)
This noir tells the story of the rise of an ambitious telephone technician through a life of crime. The house at 711 Ocean Avenue is one of many locations, from underworld bars to warehouses to penthouses to swimming pools and horse tracks, all of which pale in comparison to the backdrop for the climactic gunfight in the guts of "Boulder Dam." That would have been a better title.

Now that is a well-framed Coke bottle.

53/2623. Lord Love a Duck (1966)
It's a very rare thing in life when I encounter something more cynical than I am. This dark, dark comedy chock full of WTF moments passes that bar easily. It's clearly a takedown of the shallowness of commercially-driven pop culture and the pervasive attitudes of the Swingin' Sixties era, but there's a unique condescending anger at its heart that borders on hatred. I liked it quite a bit. For a taste of its poisoned madness, check out the sweater scene on YouTube.

More to come.

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43/2613. Up Periscope (1959)
A dull WWII movie with James Garner. For what it's worth, the dullness is not Garner's fault; there's just too much dead air masquerading as "suspense."

44/2614. L'Avventura (1960)
This is one of those movies that critics say you should see before you die, but reports say the first audiences to see it walked out on it. And they were right. Sure, it looks great and plays with some cinematic and storytelling structure concepts in unique ways, but the end result is that the audience spends two tense hours with some horrible people who know they are horrible people yet still being being horrible and resolving nothing. The ultimate lesson is don't do any of this. Not an enjoyable experience.

45/2615. Orion and the Dark (2024)
What can only be described as a Charlie Kaufman film for kids (because it is) has plenty of subversive surreality but has softened too much of Kaufman's uniquely signature metatextural navel-gazing for its younger audience. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's just a lesser Kaufman work.

46/2616. Downhill Racer (1969)
Every possible sports cliche is in this action movie which is really a character study of the kind of damaged person who succeeds in the world of cutthroat sport. In hindsight, it's a very interesting counterpoint to The Candidate, which I'm sure is no coincidence as it was made three years later by the same director and star. Personally, I think The Candidate is Redford's best work (leveraging his charisma to make a point about the corrupting force of politics), but I admit that's because I prefer my satires sharp enough to draw blood. Your mileage may vary.

47/2617. T-Men (1947)
This is a crime drama procedural with noirish elements including most notably the beautiful chiaroscuro cinematography. I would argue that it's not quite true noir because the protagonist is a straight cop who walked into his noirish situation with eyes open, but that feels a bit like picking nits. Remember, kids: crime doesn't pay (but neither does being a cop).

More to come.

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