I watched just four movies last week:
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- Contemporary reviews of The Outfit largely seem to agree that the movie doesn’t do anything especially new, but they seem divided on whether or not that’s a bad thing. Roger Ebert, for one, acknowledged “the same things are always happening in action movies,” but he argued that “the people in this movie are uncommonly interesting.” I think there are good performances here, particularly from Duvall, and some nicely observed detail. I’m just not entirely convinced it’s enough to elevate what’s otherwise a very pedestrian story, much less uncommonly so.
- Blue Moon is a lot, but largely because you get the sense that Lorenz Hart himself was a lot. Ethan Hawke plays him, in a terrific performance, as a man almost terrified of ever shutting up, of not having some opinion on which to hold court, of being left behind and devoured by his own worst impulses and fears. It’s a moment in time of a sad life cut short by the man’s own excesses, observed with great humor and kindness.
- Mr. Vampire II has its ramshackle charms, but holy hell did I like it a lot less than the first movie in the series. Not really a sequel, despite several actors reappearing as different characters in the modern day, it’s more properly three very loosely connected movies. Two of them are basically well-staged but very repetitive and over-extended fight scenes, while the other is a kid-friendly but underbaked E.T. knockoff, of the sort the 1980s were lousy with. Like the first film, this leans heavily into the silly humor—it’s just never nearly as funny.
- Eternity is sweet and funny but a little unfocused. Its vision of a bureaucratic afterlife is quirky but not exactly novel, and the movie might have been more successful if it had focused just one character’s journey. Still, it sets up an interesting conflict, and has both very endearing performances and its heart in the right place.
I also rewatched a couple of movies. First was David Cronenberg’s Shivers, which I would probably classify as creepily interesting more than good, similar to a lot of very early Cronenberg. Second was The Tomb of Ligeia, which was an enjoyable rewatch, but which felt slow and more than a little padded, a mishmash of Poe tropes more than a satisfying story of its own.