I had the week off from work, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday (but also a dentist appointment right before that), so I ended up watching 9 movies:

• It’s a little strange, watching Love Affair without ever having seen the much better known remake An Affair to Remember. Still, Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer are charming enough together.
• The Last Dragon is cheesy but fun.
• Invaders from Mars is pure ’50s-era science fiction: more than a little corny, bordering on camp but never aware that it’s doing so, but still pretty fun.

• The first twenty minutes of Alien: Romulus, before the movie really lets on that it’s a legacy sequel, are kind of interesting, suggesting an originality that the rest of the movie seems to be actively fighting against. But if the remainder was just another stale Alien knockoff, I think I could have still handled that—even after the unnecessary AI deepfake of Ian Holm shows up, and even after the movie starts directly (and nonsensically) quoting previous films in the franchise. But when the movie reveals itself to be a Prometheus sequel as well, and insists on unconvincingly tying every last bit of continuity together, that’s when my waning interest turned into active annoyance. There are still some things to like about the film, some able direction and a couple of decent performances, but it feels more like a wasted opportunity to bring anything new or interesting to the table.
• You won’t learn much from Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show if you weren’t already familiar with its history. But it’s also hard to imagine why you would watch it if you weren’t already familiar with it. There are some interesting, if not revelatory, interviews with nearly all of the principals involved—head writer Louis CK being the notable exception. (It’s easy to imagine interviews with him having been filmed, but then scrapped in the wake of the allegations around him.) This soft doc doesn’t necessarily make a case that the show should have lasted, or that there’s even something to learn from its failure, but it’s an entertaining enough.
• Almost everything that works about Drive-Away Dolls is thanks to the actors, who give every weird line reading and wink-wink-isn’t-this-kooky plot twist their all. (Margaret Qualley in particular is a lot of fun.) But it’s all a bit too much, really. Even if you didn’t already know this was directed and co-written by one of the Coen Brothers, the movie would feel like one of their collaborations but warmed over and therefore half-baked. There’s a lot going on here—too much, honestly—and it never comes together in a particularly satisfying way.

• Sorry, Wrong Number is a little convoluted, and Stanwyck’s performance teeters almost constantly on the edge of silly hysteria, but there’s a lot to like here.
• They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is no In the Heat of the Night. I appreciate the attempt to give Poitier’s character more life, and both he and Landau are pretty good, but the movie itself is a little dull.
• Troll Hunter does exactly what it says on the tin. Unfortunately, that’s kind of all it does. The workmanlike CGI has aged well enough, likely because it’s mostly hidden in shadow, but the truth is the movie just doesn’t do a whole lot and then kind of peters out. A late attempt at a surprise reveal can’t really change the fact that this feels like a short film padded unnecessarily. There’s a good short film inside it, but that’s kind of all there is.

I also re-watched Double Indemnity, which I hadn’t seen since my college film class, and which is just a pitch-perfect film noir.

• My Old Ass is an often very touching and very funny.
• The very strong performances in A Thousand and One—particularly from Teyana Taylor, Aven Courtney, and William Catlett—really elevate the movie’s very simple story.
• If you loved Inside Out…well, Inside Out 2 is also a movie. It’s not without its moments of cleverness and sweetness, and there is something to be said for taking seriously the complicated emotions of growing up, especially as a young girl, but the movie feels a lot less essential than the first one.

• Magic Mike’s Last Dance has a lot of charm and several very good dance performances—which is good, because you’ll arguably see too much of those.
• Son of Frankenstein doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table (or, er, slab), but with Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi around, it’s good fun.
• Things Will Be Different doesn’t quite stick the landing or do enough with its intriguing time-travel premise, but it’s a tense ride while it’s happening.

I also re-watched Private Benjamin, which is like three or four movies tacked on to each other, not just the funny boot camp comedy I remember. It is funny, thanks largely to Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan, but it’s also a little patchwork.

• Monday “crackles with energy and stings with honesty” (to quote Screen Daily, with terrific performances by both Denise Gough and Sebastian Stan.
• Tuesday feels very strange and personal, but it’s also a deeply moving meditation on death and grief.
• Any Wednesday is surprisingly unpleasant. Audiences in 1966 could be forgiven for thinking its premise ought to be funny, but less so for thinking that it was funny. The movie is backward and dated in its gender politics, but it also feels weirdly miscast (particularly in Fonda’s role), and none of its characters are especially likable.

• A Thursday has a premise that’s interesting until you learn what the movie plans to do with it, until you notice the cheapness of the production, the overly melodramatic music and direction, and the didactic points the movie is trying to make. I could absolutely stand to watch more foregin films, Hindi films in particular—and I do think some of what didn’t work for me here was just my own cultural disconnect—but this didn’t seem like a great place to start.
• Next Friday lacks the heart and charm of the first movie, and it’s mostly crass, intentionally offensive, mildly racist, stoner half-jokes, but it has its amusing moments.
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a remarkably frank kitchen sink drama, with a very compelling (if frequently unlikable) performance by a young Albert Finney.

I also rewatched The Fisher King, which feels very much of its time, but also still very much a fable outside of time.

• There’s nothing about Young Dr. Kildare that isn’t more than a little dated, but it’s also pleasantly entertaining.
• Gena Rowlands is very good in Gloria, but I am inclined to agree with Roger Ebert, who wrote, “Rowlands propels the action with such appealing nervous energy that we don’t have the heart to stop and think how silly everything is.”
• 1970’s Count Dracula is fun enough, especially when watched with a group, what with a mustachioed grand vampire. And it’s often faithful to the original book. But it does lack the gothic atmosphere and bloody heart of something like the Hammer Dracula films.
• Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx is a lot of fun.

I also re-watched David Lynch’s The Straight Story, which is as simple and effecting as I remember it.

I watched 7 movies last week:

• All the Colors of the Dark—also, and much less interestingly, known as They’re Coming to Get You!—isn’t necessarily a good movie, but it is a lot, with the giallo really cranked up to eleven in some very entertaining ways.
• Headcount is a lot more effective when it’s content to be quietly unsettling, leans into awkwardness and uncertainty and finds the unnerving terrors there. It’s a lot less effective when it tries to resolve things, introduces lore, starts behaving like any of a dozen other forgettable horror movies.
• Night Creatures is fun enough, thanks largely to its cast, and even then largely to Peter Cushing.

• Vincent Price gives it a good try, but Cry of the Banshee feels cheap and shoddy, making up for what it lacks in a coherent plot with gratuitous nudity and sexual assault.
• V/H/S/85 has some good horror stories running throughout it, and if none of those stories are more than half-formed, the movie gets a lot of mileage out of its creepy aesthetics.
• ‘Salem’s Lot is bad. I’m not sure it’s “bury for two years in movie release purgatory” bad, but it does seem to fundamentally misunderstand what made King’s original novel so effective, that slow and quiet creep of a small 1970s American town dying off. It doesn’t matter that the movie very clumsily speaks those themes aloud at one point late in the game, it moves at too fast a clip to generate any real scares, much less dread. It’s not difficult to see why the previous two adaptations, whatever their own faults, were miniseries, or why Gary Dauberman, the director of this one, reportedly first turned in a three-hour cut. But it is difficult to see how one extra hour would make up for some of the dumb plot changes the movie makes, the misguided decision to combine some characters, change motivations, and re-stage the final confrontation. That the movie doesn’t take its time is only the greatest of its numerous problems. All that said, there are some nice, mostly visual, touches to the film—very creepy uses of light and color, fog and shadow. It seems well enough directed, and most of the actors at least acquit themselves well. But it’s a fundamentally bad adaptation of the source material and not very entertaining because of that.
• The Substance is not subtle, nor are the things it has to say about women and beauty and aging especially revelatory. But it’s bold and audacious and features a fearless performance by Demi Moore, which I am certainly not the first to suggest might be a career best.

I also re-watched the thoroughly enjoyable House on Haunted Hill.