Thursday Movie Picks - Cold War

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing about them!

I've been not feeling well and waited too long to do this this week, so let's dispense with the formalities and get down to business, shall we?

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) One of the most enjoyable of all Hitchcock's films, with a winning leading performance by Cary Grant, a sultry, never-more-beautiful Eva Marie Saint, and a deliciously evil James Mason and Martin Landau. With special appearances by Mt. Rushmore and one PERSISTENT plane. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, because it's seemingly always showing on TV and I can't stop watching no matter when I start.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) Kubrick's funniest, most enjoyable film, with indelible performances from Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, and Slim Pickens - not to mention BABY JAMES EARL JONES! The satire is black as pitch and absolutely hysterical, and like the best satires, only seems more prescient as the years go by.

White Nights (Taylor Hackford, 1985) It's been many years since I've seen this movie, about two dancers played by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, one who has defected from the Soviet Union and one who has defected TO the Soviet Union (unthinkable, right?), but I still remember how incredible the dancing is. It's also remembered as the film where director Hackford first met his wife, one Dame Helen Mirren.

Thursday Movie Picks - Starring Real Life Couples

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I'm getting to this VERY late in the day, so I'll make this short and sweet: I know there are lots of other movie stars who have been in movies together while they've been dating/married, but when I think of couples who shared the screen together, there's really only one that matters. All the rest are pale imitations.

I speak, of course, of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Cleopatra (Joseph L. Makiewicz, 1963) Yes, it's Cleopatra! Life Magazine's "Most Talked-About Movie Ever Made!" The film that nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox! And the film that everybody wanted to see, for the scandal of Burton and Taylor's affair, which began during shooting. Cleopatra was the biggest box office hit of the year in America, and won four Oscars from nine nominations, but talk of the stars' extramarital affair so dominated the headlines that Fox tried to sue them for causing damage to the film with their actions. And, well... there's a lot wrong with Cleopatra, but it's not necessary Burton and Taylor's fault (although Taylor is FAR from her best). It's a slog of an epic that buckles under the weight of its beyond-opulent sets and costumes. It looks fantastic, but the story and the telling of it leave a whole hell of a lot to be desired.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) I know it's almost impossible to believe, but this MASTERPIECE was director Mike Nichols's FIRST MOVIE. You'd never know it from watching this, though. Of course, the source material of Edward Albee's Tony Award-winning play offers a pretty great starting point, but Nichols effortlessly transfers the thing to film, helped in no small part by Burton and Taylor, each doing the best work of their careers. Supporting players George Segal and Sandy Dennis are no slouches either, but perhaps Nichols owes his biggest debt to cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who provides some of the most stunning black & white cinematography in the history of the medium.

The Taming of the Shrew (Franco Zefferelli, 1967) Yes, it's true. Burton and Taylor were indeed made to fight onscreen. Indeed, their aggression was usually more compelling than their love! Taylor had never done Shakespeare before, and it shows a bit, but there's no denying that this slapstick-heavy version of one of The Bard's most controversial plays is still super entertaining. And Burton is a hoot as Petruchio, the Man's Man set to the task of subduing the fiery "shrew" Katherine as he makes her his bride. Yes, the ending lacks all but the slightest trace of irony that has become the standard - and that was even present in the silent version from 1929 starring Mary Pickford - but the sumptuous look and fun staging make this an enjoyable romp until that point.

Thursday Movie Picks - Romantic Comedies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

So, the last time we talked Romantic Comedies on Thursday Movie Picks, I picked three terrible movies that, for whatever absurd reason, I love anyway. I know I can't possibly top that, so I'm gonna play it a bit safer this time around and just pick three of the All-Time Best.

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) Socialite divorcée Tracy Lord (the unbeatable Katharine Hepburn) is getting married again! But, sadly for her poor husband-to-be George Kittredge, not only is her lush of a former husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) back, but he has brought with him an incognito reporter and photographer from Spy Magazine. As the wedding approaches, Tracy finds herself still nursing an attraction to Dexter, and finds a growing affection for the journalist Mike Connor (Jimmy Stewart). What a dilemma! Adapted from the stage play by Philip Barry, the dialogue sparkles, and the three stars form an irresistible love triangle through their considerable chemistry with each other (although originally, it was meant to be Clark Gable as Dexter and Spencer Tracy as Mike, which would have been just as delicious). Hepburn originated the role of Tracy Lord in the Broadway production, and bought the film rights for herself as a way to overcome her reputation as "box office poison". It worked: The Philadelphia Story was an instant classic, the fifth highest-grossing film of the year, and earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actress. It won two Oscars, for Best Screenplay and Best Actor, for Jimmy Stewart (in what is CLEARLY a Supporting role).

The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) "Did you hear me, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you." "Shut up and deal." Perfection. Billy Wilder's depressive romantic comedy works almost in spite of itself, solely because of the star power of its leads. Shirley Maclaine is magical as elevator operator Fran Kubelik, in a relationship with married man Fred MacMurray, who uses employee Jack Lemmon's apartment for his extra-marital assignations. I've never found Jack Lemmon attractive EXCEPT for in this movie, in which he is downright swoon-worthy as he cares for Fran's broken heart. Nominated for 10 Oscars, The Apartment actually won Best Picture, as well as Best Director and Original Screenplay.

When Harry Met Sally... (Rob Reiner, 1989) One of the greatest screenplays ever written. When Sally drives Harry to New York from Chicago after they graduate from college, Harry asserts that men and women cannot be friends, because sex always gets in the way. Sally disagrees. Over the course of the next decade, they randomly run into each other a few times, and eventually settle into a kind of friendship... that eventually turns into a kind of attraction. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan have a wholly surprising chemistry as the leads, and Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby are even better as their best friends who fall in love at first sight.

Thursday Movie Picks - Revenge

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Something horrible has happened to you. Someone has betrayed you, double-crossed you, committed an act of unspeakable violence against you and/or your family. You drag yourself out of the mud, effortfully pull yourself to your feet, raise your fists to the sky, and devote the rest of your waking hours in the pursuit of the one thing you yell to the heavens:

REVENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or, at least, that's what characters in these movies did. I don't know anything about it myself. I SWEAR.

Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003-2004) In the words of Uma Thurman's Bride: "Looked dead, didn't I? But I wasn't. But it wasn't from lack of trying, I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last bullet put me in a coma. A coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a 'roaring rampage of revenge.' I roared. And I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction. I've killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna KILL BILL." Very few movies make me as giddy from sheer movie-making bravura as Part One of Tarantino's revenge fantasia. If Part Two suffers a bit in comparison, that's only because it focuses more on the characters involved than the action. I still long to see the "Whole Bloody Affair" cut that fuses the two parts into one whole, but it looks like we'll never get it.

Irréversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002) A tale of revenge spun backward: We first see a man getting arrested for killing the wrong man, then watch him brutally beat that man to death, and then slowly learn why. Irréversible is a notoriously difficult film to watch, partially because of the sickening camera swoops and swirls that send the film careening backward in time, and partially because of one particular scene that occurs at the midway point of the film, wherein the murderer's girlfriend (played by the gorgeous Monica Bellucci) gets brutally raped and beaten to within an inch of her life in one unbroken nine-minute shot. This is sick-making cinema, and very much on purpose: There is a background noise with a frequency of 28 Hz (low frequency, almost inaudible), which causes nausea, sickness and vertigo, playing for the first thirty minutes of the film. If you can make it through, Irréversible is a unforgettable cinematic experience with fantastic performances and stunning, inventive camera work.

The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960) Adapted from a 13th Century Swedish ballad, Bergman's masterpiece was the basis for Wes Craven's notorious The Last House on the Left, although the two films couldn't be more different. Bergman's film is, unsurprisingly, focused on the spiritual aspects of the story, and the revenge-seeker's quest not just for revenge, but acceptance in the eyes of God. Max von Sydow gives a typically brilliant performance, but in some ways, this film is almost as difficult to watch as Irréversible - just in a very different, internalized way.

31 Days of Horror: Week 1

I'll be honest: I'm not really a horror guy. I've never done well with blood and guts and gore, and when I was a highly nightmare-prone kid I had MAJOR issues with anything even remotely scary.

So I stayed away from horror films for a long time. Creepy, I could deal with okay, but anything really scary was a hard pass, especially if it was a slasher movie. But eventually, I grew up and got smarter about movies and started to enjoy the ones that were good at scaring you. I appreciated the roller coaster ride those films can take you on, the way they build and release tension. I started to "get" the idea of watching them and enjoying the adrenaline rush and the catharsis good horror films can bring about. And I've been trying to watch more of them.

This year, I finally decided to try to commit to the whole "31 Days of Horror" thing that many in the film blogosphere do. My schedule makes it a bit tough, but I'm doing okay so far, and I plan to, if not watch exactly one film a day, then to at least get very close to it. And I plan on doing weekly round-ups of the films I watch, since I REALLY don't have the time for full-length reviews.

Here's what I've been watching in the first week of my 2018 31 Days of Horror, in order of my watching them (titles are linked to trailers where I could find them).

The House With a Clock in its Walls (Eli Roth, 2018) I remember really enjoying this book (illustrated by the famous Edward Gorey) when I was a kid, and this doesn't quite capture the gothic grandeur of it, but it seems to be going for more of the magic/fantasy angle than the horror one. The story takes place in the '50s, where young orphan Lewis Barnavelt is moving in with his estranged uncle, Jonathan. Turns out, Jonathan and his neighbor Florence Zimmerman, are magic users, and Lewis's new home used to belong to a very, very bad warlock, who magically placed a clock somewhere in the walls of the house. That clock is counting down to something not good, and Lewis, Jonathan, and Ms. Zimmerman may be the only ones who can stop it. Aside from the delicious production design, and genial approximation of the feel of great kiddie horror flicks from the '80s, the main reason to see this is the chemistry between Jack Black and Cate Blanchett, who are having an infectious good time with this. It's enjoyable, and has some good kiddie-sized scares, but that's about as far as it goes.

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2016) Eden and her husband David are having a dinner party. Among the invitees are her ex Will and his girlfriend Kira, and their whole former friend group, none of whom have seen much of Eden or Will in the two years since their son died and they split up. Long-simmering resentments and private hang-ups eventually explode as two new people show up, who are Eden and David's friends from some retreat called "The Invitation". And from there, things just get weirder and weirder. The tension simmers for the first three-quarters and boils over spectacularly in the last fifteen minutes or so. The careful character work of the actors (and the vicious screenplay) twists our allegiances to different characters every few minutes, never knowing who is more reasonable or trustworthy. It's not even really horror for most of it, just a taut, twisted character study. But when that last act hits... MAN does it deliver the goods.

Creep (Patrick Brice, 2015) Aaron, in desperate need of cash, answers an online ad for a day-long filming job that only requires him to drive a long way and bring his camera. But when he meets Josef, the man who placed the ad, it slowly becomes clear that something isn't right. Another one where for the majority of the running time it's more of a character study than anything else, Bryce effectively weaponizes the first-person camera to stage some terrific jump scares, and he and Mark Duplass have a great dynamic together. The end is truly horrifying, but the film doesn't utilize the cat-and-mouse games that are its best asset nearly enough. More of that and this would have been truly amazing. As it is, it's just a pretty neat idea, pretty well-executed.

Dressed to Kill (Brian DePalma, 1980) NOW we're talking! The opening sequence of this, featuring Angie Dickinson in a museum, is just stellar - a nearly nine-minute sequence with almost no dialogue. And then that woman with the razor shows up and slashes the movie into high gear. It's all a pretty overt Hitchcock homage (so overt that Hitch himself called it "fromage" instead), but it's a damn good one, updating Hitch's pet themes and tricks to a current setting and going even more dark and twisted. I don't want to give away too much of the film's plot, because it's a really fun ride that is best experienced as cold as possible. It's a nasty piece of work, and isn't exactly good for LGBTQ issues (especially at the time), but as with most of DePalma's films, it's super stylish and a hell of a ride.

Boo! A Madea Halloween (Tyler Perry, 2016) In case it wasn't already clear, yes, I'm working my way up to the scarier stuff. This one is MUCH more of a comedy than I was expecting, focusing mainly on putting the core group of old people together and letting them bounce off of each other. And I'll admit: I laughed. I laughed more than I probably should have. There's more than a hint of minstrelsy to Perry's Madea, but... when they have an extended conversation about literally beating some sense into today's teenagers, their commitment to the bit and how far they go over the top is HILARIOUS. The basic story is that one Halloween night, Madea has been called upon by her nephew to keep an eye on his seventeen year-old daughter Tiffany, to make sure she doesn't go to a local frat party. Naturally, Madea brings along her best friend Bam, her brother Joe, and their friend Hattie. Tiffany sneaks out, but when Madea calls the cops on the frat party, Tiffany enlists her friends and the fraternity brothers to play some good old-fashioned Halloween fright pranks on the old folks. It's not great. The horror elements are well-done but bland, and Madea freaking out and punching the thing that scares her in the face can only save it so many times (although to be fair, it works FAR more often than it should). It's nice to have a horror-comedy that leans more on the comedy side, but a few more legit scares would have gone a long way.

House of Usher (Roger Corman, 1960) The first of eight films Roger Corman made adapting the works of Edgar Allen Poe, this one based on the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher". It is about a brother and sister who are the last of the Usher family. Brother Roderick believes the family bloodline to be cursed, and will not let sister Madeline marry her betrothed, who has come to the Usher estate to bring her home with him. I love a good Gothic, and HOO BOY this is one. Heavy with atmosphere, gorgeous production and costume design, with lies and secrets as thick as the fog that chokes the crumbling house where the action takes place. It's never more deliriously over the top than in a mid-film dream sequence that just knocks everything out of the park. This is the most subdued I've ever seen Vincent Price, and the thing often does feel as airless as that house surely must, but this sort of thing is so right up my alley that I didn't much care.

Thursday Movie Picks - Legend/Mythology

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the gang by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing about them. It's fun!

I've always been obsessed with the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. These twin obsessions come from different places - the first from the Broadway Cast Recording of Camelot, which I had a strange love for even at an early age (I would put on my parents' record of it, get up on a chair, and sing King Arthur's opening song to a non-existent audience... A LOT), and the second I think from a movie I saw when I was young... although that last bit could apply to the first, as well. Which is perfect, because this week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're talking about Legends and Mythology!

The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1963) For my money, one of the most underrated of Disney Animated Classics, although I can understand why. The episodic nature of this telling of King Arthur's young adventures under the tutelage of Merlin the Wizard (based on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, EXTREMELY loosely) means that it's mostly plotless and meandering, and there isn't a true antagonist until three-quarters of the way through, when Mad Madam Mim shows up out of nowhere. But Merlin and his owl Archimedes are such delightful comic creations (as is Mim, honestly) that I can't help but love it, and the songs by the Sherman Brothers are similarly delightful. I've always loved it.

Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) I've heard that this one doesn't hold up very well as an adult, but nostalgia goes a long way, and the idea of telling this story using land animals of all sorts is kind of brilliant in and of itself. And then the animals chosen for each specific character are just perfect - OF COURSE Robin would be a fox, and Little John a bear, and the Sheriff of Nottingham a wolf, and of course the king's guard would be crocodiles... and of course Prince John would be a somewhat cowardly lion with a snake for an advisor. The voice casting is similarly inspired, although none are better than Peter Ustinov as the crybaby Prince John and Terry-Thomas as the simpering serpent Sir Hiss, as great a villainous comic duo as there ever was in a Disney film.

Both of these stories have also been adapted as live action films too, numerous times over. The following are my favorite of those.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975) Inspired, divine silliness. This comic telling of the quest for the Holy Grail by King Arthur and his legendary Knights of the Round Table skewers no less than... well, pretty much everything about British history. It is an historical epic as only the Pythons could do it, and I love it something fierce, despite the fact that it's been quoted so much over the years that it should have stopped being funny decades ago.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1939) Errol Flynn's signature role, and with good reason. His swashbuckler charisma was built for this, one of the most endlessly entertaining films Hollywood has ever produced, and for my money the crown jewel of 1938 (You Can't Take It With You, Academy? REALLY?!?). The casting is flawless (Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone as Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Olivia de Havilland and Una O'Connor as Maid Marian and her trusted lady-in-waiting Bess, Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck...), the Technicolor cinematography is gorgeous, the costumes are to die for, the score is alternately thrilling and romantic... This is Old Hollywood at the absolute peak of its powers. This story has never been told better.

Thursday Movie Picks - Monologues

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

This week, on Thursday Movie Picks, we're looking at speeches AKA soliloquies AKA monologues. AKA one character talking at length, just by themselves. In the spirit of that, I'm going to get out of their way and let these great monologues speak for themselves.

Also, I'm going a little overboard this week, because I just couldn't help myself.

THE ROMANTIC

Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996) It's become a cliché for a reason.

Chasing Amy (Kevin Smith, 1997) If you've ever fallen for a friend, you'll know how perfect this is. 

Romeo & Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968) Has any romance ever topped this scene?

THE POLITICAL

The American President (Rob Reiner, 1995) If only we had a real President who said these things. And a public who listened.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939) The climax of this is a series of brilliant, impassioned monologues by Jimmy Stewart to an unfeeling political machine. Should be required viewing for every American of voting age... but long before they reach that age and become too cynical. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) Another one that is sadly still relevant today, more than 50 years later.

THE ONE SCENE WONDERS

Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) In which Beatrice Straight shows how to win an Academy Award in less than five minutes.

Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) In which Christopher Walken delivers the best performance of his career.

Doubt (John Patrick Shanley, 2008) In which Viola Davis steals a whole damn movie from Meryl Freakin' Streep, and becomes a star in the process.

THE COMEDIC

Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) Every single goddamn second of this is perfection.

Animal Crackers (Victor Heerman, 1930) Everything that makes Groucho Marx great in one perfect monologue.

Addams Family Values (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1993) In which Joan Cusack puts all other monologuing villains to shame.

Thursday Movie Picks - Character Name in Title

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Make joining us one of your New Year's Resolutions! All you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme. That's it! It's fun!

A new year, a new round of Thursday Movie Picks categories! I'm very excited to see what this series has in store for us this year. I have to say, I think we're starting off with a pretty good category - movies that have a character name in the title. Sometimes, naming a movie after your main character is the simplest, best thing to do. Especially if your movie is about an historical figure (think Frida, Wilde, The Glenn Miller Story). But I decided to go with movies NOT about real people.

Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007) Michael Clayton is a fixer at a corporate law firm. But when of the senior partners develops a conscience and goes rogue, Michael starts to develop a conscience as well. Which is a bit of a problem for anxiety-prone corporate counsel Karen Crowder. George Clooney gives a great performance in the title role, but the real revelation here is Tilda Swinton, who deservedly won an Oscar for her tremendous performance as Karen. Gilroy, good a director as he is, owes most of the film's tremendous tension to her and her alone.

Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003-2004) Bill likes to train his lovers to be assassins. Or he likes to take his trained assassins as lovers. One of the two. But one of them got away, so he takes his assassins to her wedding to kill her. Except that she only ended up in a coma. And when she wakes up, there's hell to pay. Uma Thurman gives the performance of her career as The Bride, whose mission it is to kill Bill, in what is, for my money, the best film of Tarantino's career (Part One). What I wouldn't give to see the unseparated "The Whole Bloody Affair" cut that Tarantino sometimes brings out.

Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) Dr. Strangelove is the strangest of Peter Sellers's creations in this darkest of pitch-black comedies - a wheelchair-bound former Nazi scientist who can't quite keep his Nazi sympathies in check. If you've somehow never heard of this, the basic idea is that we're going to nuclear war with Russia, but the reason is trumped-up by crazy General Jack Ripper. So it's the war hawks (led by General Buck Turgidson) versus the diplomats (President Merkin Muffley) fighting over the fate of the world. One of my all-time favorite movies, Dr. Strangelove is political satire at its absolute finest. There are few casts more stacked than this - George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, James Earl Hones, Keenan Wynn - and even though director Stanley Kubrick may not have liked the idea, Sellers is BRILLIANT in his three parts here, absolutely nailing each one and, in Strangelove, creating a comic character for the ages.

Thursday Movie Picks - A Stranger

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme, and writing a bit about them.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Thursday programming.

October was a crazy month for me. I'm glad it's all over and that my life and schedule is back to normal. I look forward to talking more movies with everybody!

SO. To the matter at hand! Strangers can be mysterious or friendly, but generally speaking, in movies they're bad news. Whether as harbingers of things to come or an interloper who completely upends everything around them, you pretty much don't want to run into anyone unknown if you're in a movie.

Teorema (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968) Terence Stamp is the living embodiment of desire as a character known only as "The Visitor", who comes to a bourgeois Italian household and disrupts their lives. Mostly by having sex with them, and then leaving. But even that description doesn't really do a good job of describing this movie, which is much stranger and more alienating than it sounds. It's a completely singular experience.

10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg, 2016) A young woman has broken up with her fiancée on the eve of a massive, near-extinction-level event. While driving away, she gets into a car accident, and when she wakes up, she finds herself chained up in an underground bunker. The man who has chained her up, Howard, insists that he's saved her from whatever happened outside, but she's not so sure. Who's the real bad guy here? Why can't we all just get along? Billed as a "spiritual sequel" to the "found footage" monster flick Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane starts out as a great littler thriller/character study, but the last act throws that all out the window in favor of positioning itself as the second film in a franchise. It ALMOST completely ruins the movie, but thanks to the terrific performances of Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman, this is still plenty of fun. BUT SERIOUSLY, if you didn't see that ending coming from the second you saw the trailer for this, I don't even know what to do with you.

Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962) Pop singer Cléo has had a cancer scare, and is waiting for the results of a test to tell her whether or not she has it. That's it. That's the whole movie. But, oh, what a movie Agnes Varda spins from such a simple premise! It's a beautiful, lyrical piece on how to appreciate every little thing around you. But why do I include it here, you may ask? Well, that would be because Cléo isn't truly able to process her feelings about her pending diagnosis until she meets a stranger, a soldier on leave from the Algerian War. It is only in meeting this man that she is able to appreciate life for what it truly is. Sometimes, a stranger comes along right when we need them - an impartial observer who can force us to see ourselves from a different, life-changing perspective.

Thursday Movie Picks - Financial World

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can participate too - just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!

Drive by, quick-and-dirty style this week.

Something tells me the financial sector would approve.

Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964) Don't let the magical nanny and Dick Van Dyke's broader than broad cockney accent fool you. This movie is really about one banker's slow realization that there are more important things than money and business. Watch it again and tell me I'm wrong.

American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000) One of the decade's defining movies, so of course it's a psychological thriller about the '80s starring Christian Bale and directed by a woman who puts most men to shame for how far she's willing to go and for sheer filmmaking prowess.

The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015) Zippy, quippy, star-studded jaunt through the 2008 financial meltdown that is probably more fun than it has any right to be. But afterwards, I remember the flashy sequences for their flashiness more than the information they were actually trying to impart.

Thursday Movie Picks - Double Features

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Last summer, Film Forum in NYC ran a series called "Return of the Double Feature!" (exclamation point included, as in Moulin Rouge!) that I had a LOT of fun attending. What was great was that it wasn't always immediately clear why two movies were paired together until you really thought about it, or even until you sat down and watched them. It made me think about programming a series like that and how much fun it would be.

Well thankfully, our lovely wandering host has given us that opportunity this week, as the theme for Thursday Movie Picks is DOUBLE FEATURES!

Naturally, I came up with far more ideas than I have time to write up, but here are three of my favorites.

GHOSTLY CHILDREN DOUBLE FEATURE!

The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)/The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001) Creepy old English manor houses haunted by ghostly children.... except the children aren't the ghosts! The Others is as close to a spiritual sequel to The Innocents as we're ever likely to get. Both films have a chilly formalism that doesn't make them any less scary or give them any less emotional impact, and their twists and turns will keep you guessing about what's REALLY going on all the way through in the best possible way. Plus, each possesses one of the greatest performances from a great actress: Deborah Kerr is utter perfection in The Innocents, while The Others gives Nicole Kidman a role that encapsulates all the best things about her screen persona. Both are perfection.

SEXUAL MORES DOUBLE FEATURE!

Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)/Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johonson, 2015) Basically, watch Bunuel's semi-surrealist masterpiece of sexual desire, and then watch Taylor-Johnson's slightly-better-than-expected erotic romance/coming-of-age drama and marvel at how far we haven't come in depicting sex on screen. In the former, Catherine Deneuve's frigid, bored housewife becomes a prostitute in a high-class brothel during her days, acting out her "depraved" sexual fantasies while leading a supposedly perfect life with her doctor husband. In the latter, Dakota Johnson's mousy college student becomes entranced by the local handsome billionaire, only to be repulsed by/attracted to his kinky sexual proclivities. Both depict women taking ownership of their bodies and sexual desires in ways women are rarely allowed to do in film, but for all the hype, Fifty Shades is barely more explicit and FAR less provocative than a film released fifty years ago with a major star.

TEENAGE 80S BANDS DOUBLE FEATURE!

We Are The Best (Lukas Moodyson, 2014)/Sing Street (John Carney, 2016) Two of the most adorable movies you will ever see, these films really get what it feels like to be a teenager and needing to express yourself in ways that no one else understands - and how music can unlock something special inside of you. Even if it's terrible music. Wonderful performances from debuting leads, great songs, and fantastic costumes/makeup fill both of these films, which couldn't be more different, but are also wonderfully similar. They will both leave you walking on clouds of joy by the end.

BONUS PICK

Grindhouse (Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino, 2007) This pre-packaged double feature from two hotshot directors is quite the tribute to the questionable-quality cheapie B-movies from the 70s, and has all the hallmarks of a late night double feature picture show: explosions, hookers, flat acting, fast cars, and FANTASTIC fake trailers in between the two halves. Rodriguez's zombie flick Planet Terror is more fun, but Tarantino's car chase/serial killer shot Death Proof has one of the greatest car chases ever filmed. All the actors are clearly having a blast, and most of them have never, ever been better.

Thursday Movie Picks - A Disappearance

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them - we won't disappear on you!

Fear not, my friends! I haven't disappeared, I'm just CRAZY busy and tried to do this on my lunch break at work but that didn't work because I haven't really had a lunch break all week. Anyway, this week's theme is disappearances, which can be traumatic - for the disappeared as well as the ones they left behind.

The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2016) A Puritan family is exiled from their village after their views are deemed too extreme (which, since we're talking about Puritans, must have been pretty damn extreme!). They settle on the edge of a wood and before long, when teenage Thomasin (a star-is-born performance from Anya Taylor-Joy) is playing peek-a-boo with her baby brother, the baby disappears. As it turns out, he was stolen by a witch who lives in the wood, and the young twins insist that the family goat, Black Phillip, is talking to them. One of the best films of last year, The Witch (or, if you prefer, The VVitch) is supremely chilly, a tense, beautifully shot freakout that never feels anything less than completely authentic, and features outstanding performances from Kate Dickie and Ralph Ineson as the heads of the household.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) On Valentine's Day in the year 1900, three schoolgirls and their teacher disappeared during an outing at Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia. This didn't actually happen, but after watching Peter Weir's gorgeous masterpiece, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was based on a true story. The film knows that not knowing what happened is scarier than giving a definitive answer, and it accumulates a lot of power in its depiction of the disappearance and its aftermath.

L'Avventura (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960) A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip, and her fiancée and best friend become attracted to each other during the course of the investigation into her disappearance. Because of the ennui of the Italian socialite set. Or the landscape. Or something. I don't know. I just don't like this movie. No one is likable and the pace is too slow. I'm sure it all MEANS SOMETHING, but I could care less about these poor sad beautiful rich people.

Thursday Movie Picks - Cars/Racing

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Come along for the ride by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

If there's one thing I really miss now that I've been living in New York City for the past two and a half years, it's driving. I miss getting into my car, revving up the engine, putting my foot on the gas, and just GOING. There's such a feeling of power and freedom that comes from being behind the wheel, and I love it and miss it.

But thankfully, I have these movies to watch whenever I miss driving too much.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963) One of the greatest, funniest, and largest casts ever assembled drives their way through this madcap comedy on their way to find buried treasure. Yes, it's schticky, but so what? Schtick is what you watch these greats for, and they are GREAT at it. As a bonus, the car chases are GREAT, and super funny to boot.

The Love Bug (Robert Stevenson, 1968) I mean... if you didn't love this as a kid, I'm not sure there's anything I can do for you. Yes, it's all formula and it's all very easy comedy, but... it works, dammit, because everyone on screen really believes in the ridiculousness they're selling, and commits like it was an adaptation of classic literature destined for Oscar glory. It's all just perfectly right, not over- or underdone. (Okay, fine, maybe a little overdone. But it still works!) That's Disney magic for you!

Trafic (Jacques Tati, 1971) After satirizing vacationers in Les vacances de M. Hulot, modern technology in Mon Oncle, and popular culture in Playtime, French clown extraordinaire Jacques Tati turned his infallible eye (and obliviously accident-prone character, M. Hulot) to the modern automobile in Trafic, and the result is a sublime, gag-after-gag treat of a film. It's not as strong overall as his previous films, but it's still damn funny, and it's centerpiece car accident is one for the ages.

Thursday Movie Picks - Ancient World

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can be a part of it, too! Just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them - couldn't be easier!

We've been under siege by snow here in NYC recently, to the point where I had Tuesday off from work, which has thrown my whole sense of time off. Yes, that's a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I forgot today was Thursday so I'm doing this at work now (SHHHH - don't tell!). But that's okay, because we're time-travelling this week, back to the Ancient World. Now, this leaves a bit of leeway, but I'm taking it as a B.C. sort of thing. Biblical epics and dinosaurs, y'all!

The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1954) If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: This is the most entertaining biblical epic ever devised, and there is simply no topping it. You've got Heston at his staunchest, Yul Brenner at his most intense, Vincent Price and Edward G. Robinson being themselves for some reason, and, above all, MISS Anne Baxter, wrapping her moist red lips around every juicy line like watermelon in a desert, making a meal out of the single word "Moses". Add to that the truly biblical narration by the Voice of God, Mr. DeMille himself, and of course, the greatest special effect in movie history, the parting of the red sea. It may be four hours long, but damn if it doesn't keep me involved for every single second, no matter how many times I've seen it.

Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) From the sublime to the ridiculous, we have one of history's most notorious flops, but not because it wasn't a bit of a box office sensation. No, audiences flocked to see Elizabeth Taylor as the famous Egyptian ruler, but the film was so expensive that it never recouped its costs. Every bit of its massive budget shows onscreen, but unfortunately the film is kind of a snooze, despite its beauty. Oh, it's always entertaining to watch Taylor and Richard Burton, but when they're not sharing the screen, Cleopatra is a bore, not engrossing enough to be a Serious Historical Drama, not camp enough to be an Entertaining Biblical Epic.

Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979) "He's NOT the Messiah; he's a VERY NAUGHTY boy!" Every film Monty Python ever made is hilarious, but for me it's a close race between this and Holy Grail as their funniest. Taking the biblical epic and giving it an even more satirical twist than Mel Brooks's very funny History of the World, Part I, Life of Brian imagines the story of Jesus Christ through the life of a boy born next door on the same night, culminating in a famous scene of the crucified singing their advice to "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life". The film has been accused of blasphemy ever since it was released, but in my opinion, you can make fun of ANYTHING as long as it's funny. And dear God, Life of Brian is FUNNY.

Thursday Movie Picks - On The Run

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us each week as we pick three movies that fit the week's theme and tell each other about them. It's fun!

Uh oh.

You've just done something bad. Something wrong. Something you weren't supposed to. And the wrong person found out.

What do you do?

You go on the run.

Just like the people in this week's Thursday Movie Picks!

No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007) Poor Llewelyn Moss. He happens across the aftermath of a violent shootout with no apparent survivors and a briefcase full of money. He thinks it's his lucky day. Unfortunately for him, there's a tracking device in the briefcase, and both sides want it back. As do the police, naturally. And even more unfortunately, one of the men after the briefcase is one Anton Chigurh, a quiet, possibly insane, deadly force. The Coen Brothers' thriller won the Best Picture Oscar and it's a tense, brutal film with killer performances and beautifully bleak cinematography. It's too bleak for me to enjoy, but I do respect the hell out of it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) Butch Cassidy runs the Hole in the Wall Gang of outlaws. The Sundance Kid is his right hand man. After a train robbery goes awry, the two of them find themselves on the run without the gang and with Sundance's lady. I probably don't need to tell you what happens from there in this American classic with two devastatingly handsome star turns from Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but if you don't know, you should see this. The final standoff may feel a little tame after Bonnie & Clyde, but the film builds it up into a pretty emotional climax.

North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Roger Thornhill is having a VERY bad time of things. First he gets kidnapped by some nattily-dressed thugs thinking he's someone named George Kaplan, then they drug him and send him home behind the wheel of a car after he fails to convince them of his true identity. Then his mother has to get him from prison, no one at the house the kidnappers took him to admits to recognizing him, and when he finds the man who owns the house, that man is stabbed in the back while in Roger's arms. Yeah, you'd run in that situation, too! Writer Ernest Lehman wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures," and by George, he just might have done it. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, and it's just as entertaining every time - probably the most purely entertaining film he ever made. Cary Grant is perfect as Thornhill, James Mason a deliciously suave villain, Eva Marie Saint the perfect Hitchcock blonde, and the entire supporting cast is chock full of great turns. An All-Time Favorite of mine, for sure!

Thursday Movie Picks - Movies Featuring an Actor/Actress that Passed Away in 2016

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them. It's fun... promise!

Well, we all know 2016 was a bit of a downer on the whole "celebrities dying" front. So let's start celebrating them!

I'll be honest, I kind of want to make this just a celebration of mother-daughter duo Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, but that would be somewhat unfair to everyone else who passed away last year. And there were some great talents among them.

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006) I ask you: Is there an actor better suited to play Nikola Tesla than David Bowie? He has the perfect presence for the enigmatic mad scientist, and he perks up Nolan's dour tale of dueling magicians something fierce. This is probably my favorite Christopher Nolan film, a perfectly realized vision of the male psyche and the way jealousy can consume your life and fester into something ugly. Top of the line performances from Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine in addition to absolutely gorgeous cinematography make this one of the best, most memorable films of the '00s, with one of the most brilliant endings.

Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999) Honest to God, this may be my favorite Alan Rickman performance. As the sardonic, exasperated, perpetually soused angel Metatron, he is an absolute riot in Smith's assault against all things holy. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are perfectly cast "against type" as bad-boy fallen angels trying to get back into heaven, Chris Rock is a hoot as the forgotten thirteenth apostle, and honestly, Alanis Morissettte gives what is perhaps my favorite portrayal of God ever put on screen. Dogma is a sick dirty joke of a film, but it's one that makes me laugh EVERY TIME.

The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1967) One of my All-Time Favorite movies, with one of my favorite performances. That performance being, of course, Gene Wilder's as the unbelievably neurotic accountant Leo Bloom, who offhandedly comes up with the perfect idea to make money on a flop Broadway show, which faded producer Max Bialystock (a brilliant Zero Mostel) takes completely seriously. The problem? Well, in their effort to make all the wrong choices, they inadvertently make all the right choices to create a camp classic: Springtime for Hitler. I just CAN'T with how funny this movie is.

Thursday Movie Picks - Parties

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the weekly party by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Are you a party animal? I'm not, generally speaking. I mostly prefer my own couch, a mug of hot tea, and Netflix, but this time of year there are so many parties around that I get out and about more than usual. And I will admit, I usually have a pretty good time. So it's fitting that this week on Thursday Movie Picks the topic is parties. I've picked three movies that center around three very different types of parties. Party on!

The Party (Blake Edwards, 1968) Maybe not the funniest collaboration between director Blake Edwards and star Peter Sellers, The Party is still manic fun. Largely improvised, Edwards just lets Sellers's Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi loose at a lavish, over-the-top Hollywood party and watches the insanity that ensues. Something is going on in every square inch of every frame, and watching people react to Sellers is a large part of the fun.

Can't Hardly Wait (Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, 1998) The ur-90s teen movie, with a cast of just about everyone who was anyone in that decade, taking place at the graduation party to end all graduation parties. Ethan Embry is in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt, recently back on the market after ending things with jock Peter Facinelli, only she doesn't know who he is. Seth Green is determined to have sex, but he's affected a white gangsta persona so off-putting it's made him a joke. And everyone else just wants to have a rager. I never went to a party anywhere to close to this in high school, and maybe that's why I like this movie so much.

Bachelorette (Leslye Headland, 2012) Three friends from high school get asked to be a fourth's bridesmaids for her upcoming wedding. The only problem is, the bride is no longer the party girl the other three still are... and they're also kinda mean girls. But they're played by Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, and Lizzy Caplan, so they're VERY fun to watch, even while ruining the titular party for the very sweet Rebel Wilson. The movie's mean streak goes a long way to making it more fun than your average female-led comedy, actually, and it's a much better movie than any of the similar Hangover movies.

Thursday Movie Picks - Comfort Movies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing about them; it's fun and easy!

Happy December everyone! It is now officially okay for you to start putting up Christmas decorations and playing Christmas music. I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving. I had the pleasure of having not one, not two, but THREE Thanksgivings between Wednesday and Sunday, which is why I was MIA for Thursday Movie Picks last week (for those of you who may be wondering, my three Western picks would have been Johnny Guitar, High Noon, and A Million Ways To Die in the West, with the huge caveat that I don't particularly like Westerns). They were all delicious, but very different levels of enjoyable (ah, family - can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!)

Anyway, this week, it's the movies that we play whenever we're feeling down - the cinematic equivalent of chicken soup. So this week was pretty easy.

Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) Is there a nicer movie than Amelie? I honestly don't think there is. The story of a lonely French girl (Audrey Tautou, utter perfection) who discovers great joy in devising elaborate schemes to give other people joy - but cannot work up the courage to give herself the greatest joy, a man who loves her - Amelie is just a perfectly playful delight from start to finish, and has so many moments that just make me sigh with contentment. Plus many more that thrill me, make me laugh, and maybe even make me cry a little. Aside: When I had a car, Yann Tiersen's buoyant score was always in the CD player, and quite often soundtracked my drives. I highly recommend this; it adds a certain je ne sais quoi that makes the journey that much more enjoyable.

Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998) I just... I can't even talk about this movie anymore. That perfect script, those luminous performances, that swooningly, achingly romantic score. This is romantic comedy done so, so right, and if people can't see that it's just as well-crafted, and thus just as deserving of Oscar's love, as any serious-minded war film, then I would almost go so far as to argue that they don't truly love movies, they only love certain types of movies. Which is fine, but just be honest and open about it! Anyway, the pleasures of this are so many, and so great, that I may even like it MORE each time I watch it.

Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964) I mean, insert pretty much any Disney Classic into this slot, but today my pick is this one. When I was young, we had a VHS tape of this that was taped off the TV. My sister and I wore it out fast-forwarding through all the commercials. Thankfully, the constant stopping and starting didn't have any impact whatsoever on the film's joyousness. Easily the best live action film Disney has ever done, and with one of the studio's best original scores, this one really is as close to cinematic chicken soup as I have ever experienced - it never fails to make me feel better when I'm sick.

Thursday Movie Picks - Single Location Movies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're always here, every Thursday, picking three movies that fit the week's theme - join us! The water's fine!

People talk a lot about the need to "open up" plays when they transfer to the big screen, their thinking being that because a film does not have to be confined to one set and can go anywhere, audiences do not want to sit for a couple of hours and watch something that takes place in only one location, unlike in the theatre, where you are somewhat bound by the constraints of the stage.

The following films, my picks for this week, are just three examples of films that put the lie to this idea. All that matters is that the film is made well, no matter where it takes place.

Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) I could just as easily have made these picks only Alfred Hitchcock movies, but I decided against it. I've talked about him a lot recently. Rope isn't one of his best movies, but it's an interesting experiment that works more often than it doesn't. Famously ironing almost all the gay out of the stage play based on the Leopold & Loeb murder case (memorably brought to the screen several times, by lesser filmmakers than Hitchcock, but both Compulsion and Swoon have things to recommend them) and filming the whole thing so that it looks like it was done in one take, Hitchcock succeeds at the very least in putting us in the middle of the action of a stage play that also happens to be a locked-room murder mystery. In it's best moments, it's thrilling, but there's too much philosophizing from Jimmy Stewart, playing a character whose darker side he can't ably portray yet, and thus it drags for long stretches. But don't get me wrong: Mediocre Hitchcock is still better than the best films of many other directors!

Wait Until Dark (Terence Young, 1967) Now THIS is how you do a single-room thriller. Audrey Hepburn, Oscar-nominated for one of her best performances, is Suzy, a blind woman living in a basement apartment. Her husband has just returned from a trip, bringing with him a doll, taken as a favor to a woman he met at the airport. Unbeknownst to them, the doll is full of drugs, and some very bad men soon come to the apartment looking for them. What follows is one of the most tense, edge-of-your-seat, dig-your-nails-into-your-armrest-or-companion movies ever made, as Suzy must match wits against Alan Arkin's evil head baddie.

Carnage (Roman Polanski, 2011) Oh, dear lord, this one. Look, Polanski is very damn close to the top of his game here, but I will never for the life of me understand why they didn't just go with the original Broadway cast (Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, and Hope Davis) instead of the cast they did, nearly all of whom are miscast and most of whom don't really pull it off. Don't get me wrong, for the most part Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet are good, but.... when they're not, they're AWFUL. The story couldn't be any more basic: Two sets of parents meet to have a civil discussion about an incident where one of their kids attacked the other at school, and slowly things start to devolve until the adults end up acting just as much like children as their kids. But Polanski finds every possible angle from which to shoot in this cramped apartment, maximizing the set like no other.