I watched just 6 movies this week:
- Fedora felt very old-fashioned when it was made, Billy Wilder trying to recapture something of Sunset Boulevard almost thirty years later, in a new Hollywood that was quickly leaving old studio pros like himself behind. As such, it feels very much like an old man’s film, and not Wilder’s, or star William Holden’s, best. (One was near at the end of his career, the other near the end of his life.) Since then, almost another five decades have passed, making this seem like some kind of weird, albeit occasionally interesting, relic.
- As a “part-talkie,” Lonesome is an interesting film, employing all sorts of film tricks—not least of all sound—to tell a very conventional story. There’s not a lot to the story, or even characters, but it’s an interesting snapshot of 1920s New York and the end of the silent film era.
- Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are charming together, and the movie around them is occasionally as well, but even if I can appreciate a lot of the big, weird swings that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey takes, a lot of them just don’t connect—and at least a couple fail to connect pretty spectacularly. The movie’s heart is in the right place, even if that place is sometimes hard to find in all the mess.
- The quiet, understated pace of Loving is both a strength and, possibly, a weaknesses, but it’s all so well grounded in the performances of Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton.
- On paper, the plot of Phoenix—which I’d actually recommend not knowing much of anything about beforehand—might sound a little contrived, but I found it incredibly powerful and moving, and the end especially devastating.
- Questionable dubbing, overwrought melodrama, a deeply confusing plot—these are all par for the course with 1960s Italian gothic horror, and An Angel for Satan is no exception. Could I explain any of what happens in the movie, or why? Only far enough to give me a headache when my explanation falls apart. And yet the movie looks and (dubbing aside) sounds great, and Barbara Steele, whatever it is that her character is meant to be doing, is a genuinely arresting screen presence.
