Why Beat the Devil despite its strengths may have been a flop

I cut out (as did our power) shortly before the conclusion of the John Huston 1944 crime caper, Beat the Devil, but stayed w/ the film long enough to see that it was a very funny movie with an intentionally ridiculous plot (various rival groups en route by boat to Africa where they each hope to gain access to a rich trove of uranium) that doesn't bear much scrutiny but that has many fine comic moments - thanks largely to a screenplay by Huston himself and what must have been a very young Truman Capote - and some fine performances from Bogart, Gina Lollabridgida in a surprisingly rich comic role, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, and others. Lots of films since then have tried to mix comedy w/ high-jinx crime, with usually limited success. The comedy works, however, in this film because of rich variety of accents, a self-mockery throughout, a fast pace, and a tight adherence to the 90-minute schedule that I wish more movies would honor. It holds up quite well over time, and I would guess it's probably been remade and updated though I'm not sure of that. Bro-in-law J believes the movie was a flop on its release, which seems probable as it was way out of synch of the mood of the world in the shadow of WWII, when a crime comedy set variously in Italy and Morocco, with some sporting on the high seas, would seem to many viewers insensitive and out of touch, at best - most were looking for patriotic and inspirational movies or pure escapism, not subtlety and cosmopolitan wit.

First Reformed has many strengths - but why not give credit where it's due?

Paul Schrader's First Reformed (2018), starring Ethan Hawke as a middle-aged minister in an under-attended, conservative protestant (Dutch Reformed) church in upstate New York, is beautifully written, far more literary than almost any other recent American film, with particularly fine passages of long dialog, notably Hawke's long discussion with the husband of a parishioner who is clinically depressed and obsessed with the damage being done to the environment, a tense confrontation between Hawke and a major donor to the church who runs a huge factory complex perhaps reminiscent in a smaller scale of the Koch Bros enterprises, and Hawke's several discussions with a fellow minister played really well by Cedric (the Entertainer). The film really explores, in a dramatic fashion, the decisions Hawke has to make regarding prayer and faith v. direct action, even of a violent nature. The film is a rare examination of a mature adult in midlife crisis - however, a big caveat here, the end of the film, which I will not divulge, is ridiculous, over-the-top, and needlessly disturbing. How Schrader let his film get so off the rails and why he concludes on such an unearned high note is beyond my comprehension. And, despite the many strengths of this film - not the least of which is the beautifully lighted cinematography - there's another major caveat: At the very least this film should include in its opening of closing credits "inspired by Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light." Those who know that film will recognize numerous similarities in plot, design, and even dialog. There's nothing to even approach the level of plagiarism and there's nothing wrong w/ adapting a classic into a different time and place, but give credit where it's due, please. Most of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of this film come directly from Bergman's movie.

Now I know what "gaslight" means - see Cukor's 1944 film

Well, at least now I know what "gaslight, v." means, having watched George Cukor's 1944 b/w movie of the same name (based on a play - and at times quite evidently so, w/ very stagy dialog between the insidious Gregory - Charles Boyer - and the victimized Paula - Ingrid Bergman). Bergman, tricked by Boyer into thinking that she's losing her mind, is the main reason to watch this movie, especially her really weird "mad" scenes (in particular, at when she's pushed to burst into tears and hysterics at the piano recital) and her, at last!, rising up in power at the end of the movie. The plot is absurd, not believable for a minute, but thanks to the fine performances that Cukor elicits not only from the two leads but even from some of the comical minor characters - Angela Lansbury's portrayal of a snide and cocky house servant and the hilarious small part of the nosy London neighbor - the film will hold your attention start to finish - more than you can say for most Hollywood studio films from 75 years back.

My Beautiful Laundrette - still holds up though some aspects feel dated

Stephen Frears's 1985 movie, My Beautiful Laundrette, holds up quite well after 30 years and, sadly, still seems somewhat contemporary: A young man in London of Pakistani descent, living pretty much as a caretaker for his invalid, alcoholic, highly education father, gets taken in by his wealthy uncle - who runs a suite of parking garages and the eponymous laundrettes (there's money in muck, he says) and possibly some less savory enterprises and gets his uncle's blessing to modernize one of the rundown laundrettes. The young man, Omar, takes in as a partner a tough native Brit he's known since youth (Johnny, played by the young Daniel Day Lewis) - and the 2 develop a love relationship. Meanwhile, Johnny's friends, a group of white nativist thugs, target the Omar and his beautiful laundrette. Omar's homosexuality remains a dark secret, all the more awkward as his uncle tries to set him up to marry a cousin. Some of the great strengths of the film are the terrific evocations of urban squalor and some fine passages of dialog by the now well-known author Hanif Kureishi. In contrast, the group of thugs seem pretty tame and inept by today's standard, not do we get a sense that they're part of any larger and more threatening movement, and the homosexual subplot seems almost archaic, though probably groundbreaking in its time and setting.

The unsuccessful follow-up to Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Everyone knows Jacques Demy's breakthrough movie musical from the mid-60s (1964), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but, I think have watched is follow up, also starring Catherine Deneuve (plus Deneuve's sister, Francoise Dorleac, as CD's twin), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) - and there's a reason for this. It's probably unfair to judge the follow-up except on its own terms and merits, but suffice it to say that while Umbrellas told a sweet love story, has moments of operatic beauty, and made is feel that we were immersed in a real, vibrant Norman coastal city with a working harbor, yet had its own vivid pallet of tropical colors and eccentric interior decor - well, Rochefort has none of that except for an equally daring use of all shades of blue throughout, which is not enough to justify this 2+ hour film. Clearly, Demy was trying more for musical theater here than opera, with more spoken dialog and many supposedly show-stopping #s, but all the songs sound the same, none stands out as a breakout moment. The plot is utterly ridiculous, even by movie-musical standards - full of absurd behavior and impossible coincidences; none of the characters is especially vivid, even the Deneuve "girls." There are lots of dance #s but the choreography in all of them looks identical. Gene Kelley has a small role; fine, though he's far too old for the part. And most of the dancing is led y George (Barnard) Chakiris, very athletic but also very monotonous. I did like the way the film is built around an annual Festival of the Sea that apparently really takes place on a large public square in Rochefort - so throughout the film we see in the background workers setting up the scaffolding for the big event (and we also see life in the city going along on its pace - cars, trucks, pedestrians passing through the background, so that the film feels much more open and connected to real daily life than most scrubbed-clear so-called urban settings - just wish Demy had made more of the city locale, as he did w/ Cherbourg). The film has it's moments, especially at the outset, but these moments go nowhere and the film fall flat.

A curious and weird journey to the moon in Fritz Lang's 1929 silent

Fritz Lang's 1929 scifi silent film The Woman in the Moon (he's much better known for some of his early German films, M and Metropolis, e.g.) is kind of a kick to watch, despite the obvious difficulties in watching a silent film with all the exaggerated hand waving and embraces. The plot is silly and ridiculous, of course: A "mad" scientist has devoted his life to developing plans for a lunar expedition, in search of what he believes to be lunar mountains rich in gold ore(!); a former coleague, Helius, wants to help, but they run afoul of a gang that steals the mission plans - also hoping to get access to lunar gold. Eventually, the scientist, Helius, the evil rival, plus a young man and woman (Frieda) who'd also worked for the scientist (plus a young boy stowaway!) make the journey. As it happens, H. has been in love w/ F., who has just announced her engagement to the young man - we we have a romantic subplot. All of this is by the by; what's cool about the film today is to see how they envisioned space travel a century ago, what they got wrong (gold on the moon!) and, surpringly right! The rocket itself looks not too different from the Apollo rockets, although in this case it's supposed to be feather-light. But they did foresee the use of a three-rocket booster system, and it also looks as if they got right the "slingshot" approach to leaving the pull of the Earth. On the other hand, they had no sense of life in space once the crew breaks through the G-forces (they got that right, though they didn't have a term for it); the spaces inside the ship look like a modest, four bedroom apartment, with some funny straps to enable walking in zero-gravity (they got that right, too). What they got way, way wrong however, or at least altogether ignored, is the engineering - it appears as if they launched by aiming at a full moon!, and from that point on everything - including a lunar landing and later take off - just more or less happened, w/out any human intervention. The scenes on the moon are fantastic, largely because of the great Expressionist backdrop of lunar peeks and a starry sky (they seem to think it's always night on the dark side of the moon; wrong!) and the dusty surface requiring the use of moon boots, much like those actually used by the astronauts. There's an excellent fight scene toward the end, and a much anticipated cornball ending - but the quirkiness and weirdness of the lunar scenes make this curiosity worth a look,

Veep final season, hilarious and too close to the truth for comfort

My only concern w/ the great HBO series, Veep (starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus), especially the final season (7) is: Couldn't you guys speak more slowly? Of course they can't and don't, and that, too, is part of the fun of this hilarious and frighteningly on point and contemporary series - you have to listen to every word, as the humor, the quips, and the quirks are constant and hilarious, with some of the best lines delivered as just throw-aways. JLD is perfect once again as the egotistical, tempestuous presidential candidate Selena Meyer, and we see her maneuver her way through minefields on her way to the nomination, supported by a her loyal staff members whom she rebukes and abuses and on whom she depends completely. Of course everything is over the top, this is TV, but anyone who's worked in a political office or on a campaign will recognize the types and the personalities and, in particular, the mercurial nature of the boss or candidate, needing fawning and support, screaming like a termagant at the office and making nice with all the important people when in public (street angel, house devil, as one of my friends puts it). All of the supporting players are credible and rich - a true ensemble production - and most of the secondary characters are as well, most notably Timothy Simons as the odious candidate Jonah Ryan - many of whose racist and homophobic and sexist campaign speeches and opportunistic stances would in other eras have played as over-reaching and beyond the pale but which, sadly, today seem way too close to the truth.

A film that's extremely topical about one young immigrant and his quest for sanctuary: Icebox

Daniel Sawka's excellent feature movie on HBO, Icebox (2018), is not only relevant but even prescient - Sawka anticipated current events in the government move to suppress immigration from Latin America with such acute insight that a photo, literally, in today's newspaper could be a still from this movie. Sawka (full disclosure: He was referred to me by my friend/his grad-school prof, and Sawka and I had a phone conversation about possible adaptation of my novel) tells the story of a 12-year-old from Honduras, Anthony Gonzalez (terrific!, and amusing that his name is Oscar), fleeing a criminal gang that has tried to entrap him (not entirely clear why they have targeted this young boy) crosses the U.S/Mexico border and is picked up by Border Patrol. The film is not so much about the living conditions and hundreds of detained youths as it's about the ridiculous so-called judicial system designed to send even these unaccompanied children back into the hell and danger from which they've fled. The hearing that Oscar finally is able to schedule is a terrific scene, in which Oscar is completely baffled and frustrated and in no way capable of stating his case for sanctuary. As in most fine films, there's no obvious villain, although there are many acts of villainy, and no saint or savior, either. All told, it's an incredibly sad film from start to finish, and one can only hope that eventually this system of detention and biased hearings will be refermed or eradicated.

City as star: Los Angeles Plays Itself

It's totally enjoyable to watch Thom Andersen's 2004 documentary/essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself, which is all one can reasonably ask, though I do have some quibbles w/ this otherwise excellent project. Over the 2.5 movie, Andersen (his voiceover narration read by an actor) reflects on the numerous, literally countless, films that are set in or depict Los Angeles (he mocks and moniker LA, though I will resort to using it) from the days of silent films to the present (i.e., 2004 in this case), with particular attention to LA landmarks and neighborhoods. As expected, many LA landmarks and iconic dwellings (garden apartments, houses in the hills, beach houses in Malibu) are used as standins for films supposedly set elsewhere; some play entirely different roles in a # of films, doubling as hospitals, office complexes, etc. What's most interesting is his sense of how filmmakers misunderstand LA, assuming that it's entirely a place of glitz and glamour without any recognition of the many neighborhoods where most Angelinos live - particularly notable in some pretentious contemporary directors who have no idea how others live in their city and whose films are amazingly all-white. Some of the best material concerns the few black filmmakers, and I think he could have made more of two of the great black LA films, The Exiles and Killer of Sheep. The only significant flaw, to me, was his fascination with copy stories - from Dragnet to Schwarzenegger and beyond - that are only nominally set in LA; it seems to me that this was a long, needless digression that was really about depiction of the police in movies and not any depiction of LA in particular. Throughout the film, we see clips of tons of motels, disasters (the end of the world seems often to begin w/ the destruction of LA!), car chases, glizty offices and condos, bars, airplanes; sometimes we see LA playing not-itself, elsewhere supposed LA scenes that look nothing like what we expect of LA. All told, fun to watch, even over several sittings, and informative about filmmaking and about sprawling American cities evolving over time.