Austen Watch: Emma (2020)

Watched:  05/07/2026

Format:  Disc from Library

Viewing:  First

Director:  Autumn de Wilde

The funny thing about Jane Austen adaptations is that I guess, because I've never read any Jane Austen, is that Austen is the spring from which rom-com tropes flow.  So, even when you're watching a faithful or semi-faithful adaptation of Austen, you may feel the beats or arcs once the many, many moving pieces of an Austen story settle in.  

But that's okay.  It's not like people can't pick out the beats in a Spider-Man movie.

I do recall this one being advertised, but seeing it came out in 2020 means it may have played to empty movie theaters, but I'm also seeing it is not embraced and beloved as other Austen adaptations.  And Jamie's reaction was pretty muted when the movie wrapped up.  That said, while I was goofing off with CB and JAL on Sunday, she watched Clueless,* which is loosely based on the book of Emma, so maybe too soon?

The challenges of these movies are manifold.  You need to adhere largely to the book or the Austen-heads will make sure that if you don't, they can drag you.  Of course, the books do not follow the "wisdom" of modern screenwriting rules, which are intended to serve audiences who can only handle knowing who is good and bad, and when will the final boss show up.There are far more characters than modern screen-writing guidelines usually will say are a good idea.  And that can include characters who are discussed and not seen for quite a while - we're not meeting everyone important in the first five minutes as Modern Screenwriting Law would insist.   And we're certainly not clear on everyone's specific deal.  Communicating the social rules of Regency Era England to modern audiences - especially Americans who bristle at these things - can be hard.  

And yet - we keep making these movies and people tend to like them, because Austen knew how to write/ created a very specific kind of fantasy that's as satisfying in its way as any "male" fantasy story.  And they've already stood the test of time - which means they just already work for a wide audience.

The cast is punctuated with actors who would soon be more familiar.  The eponymous Emma is played by Anya Taylor-Joy - I think very well.  Her pal Harriet is Mia Goth.  Josh O'Connor plays Mr. Elton (and is hysterical, imho).  But there's also Bill Nighy as Emma's father and Miranda Hart as Miss Bates.

This is my first exposure to the story of Emma other than seeing Clueless one time in the theater.   I don't know.  It was a thumbs-up from me.  Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth were solid.  Bill Nighy was terrific (and I guess Emma laid the groundwork for the oft-repeated solo-girl and her daddy sad-house).  It was a good mix of silly and semi-serious - including characters both rich and cartoonish.  The life-lessons imparted were non-bullshit and I didn't roll my eyes, which is not nothing.  It's well shot, and I thought it got honestly better as it went along, versus what too many movies do.  

I have no idea if any of it was historically accurate, but it was pretty to look at.

Weirdly, this was the last IMDB movie credit for director Autumn De Wilde who I *do* know, but only from her many Florence + The Machine videos.  She's super good at those.  Three thumbs-up.  

Anyway, the best uncommented upon gag in the movie is the casting of the 6'1" Miranda Hart with the 5'1" Myra McFadyen as her mother.   

*I am unapologetic in my loathing of Clueless, so it's best I was gone.  If I never have to watch it again, I'm good.  And walking in on the last ten or fifteen minutes did nothing to make m rethink my case.

Thriller Watch: Arabesque (1966)

Watched:  05/02/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stanley Donen 

As a fan of artist Robert McGinnis, I had seen the poster art for Arabesque (1966) for years, but it's also a movie nobody ever really mentions, which I found odd given the star power, director Stanley Donen and a score by Henry Mancini.  

But I did record the film off TCM and so gave it a whirl.  

It becomes immediately clear that in the wake of Charade, Donen and Universal wanted to try to do that again.  But on the second attempt, it just doesn't quite work the same way.  

You can't blame the leads - Gregory Peck is Gregory Peck, and Sophia Loren is Sophia Loren (and maybe even more so.  Good golly.).  Peck is trying on being Cary Grant and for reasons, Loren is playing an Arabian woman.  I mean, it's an entire movie full of Arab characters played by non-Arabs, which isn't entirely a shock when you consider this is five years after West Side Story having some interesting ideas about who Puerto Ricans are.

LA Movie Watch: Under the Silver Lake (2018)

Watched:  05/01/2026

Format:  DVD - library

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Robert Mitchell

Under the Silver Lake (2018) is an interesting movie.  For what it sets out to do, I think it succeeds.  I am not, however, particularly a fan of movies that basically say "you'll get it when you watch it again and everything at the beginning will mean something different now that you know the end".  I mean, it's fun in a way, but I ain't got time for that.

SPOILERS

It's a movie that is having great fun encoding the hidden jokes and meaning in the movie while being about someone who is falling down the well of conspiracy theory and seeing hidden messages in everything.  From an academic exercise - it's no doubt an interesting magic trick, what writer/ director David Robert Mitchell is doing.

I guess I'm kind of caught on the "...and so what?" of it all by the end.  Like, it's a neat trick.  But...  to what end? 

Deciphering what was actually happening and why could absolutely be something one could try.  And maybe the movie even could have spoken to the moment as, in 2018, QAnon was still a force, and America was fully descending into seeing hidden meaning in everything (we just live there now). 

Horror Coppola Watch: Dementia 13 (1963)

Watched: 04/29/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Francis Ford Coppola

The story Ben Mankiewicz and producer Roger Corman shared about why this movie exists sounds like a movie in itself.  

Basically, while filming a motorsports movie in Europe, Corman was running severely *under* budget.  With $20K left in in the bank, a crew and equipment available, and some time before they had to go home - he set  his second unit director loose to go make something for $20K.  That director?  Francis Coppola.

This is Coppola's first movie, and it feels like something between a Gothic mystery - one of those books with women running away from a castle, or Turn of the Screw or some such, and a modern thriller (for 1963).  For a first movie made on the cheap (the final total budget was $40K after selling the rights to the UK to bolster the budget) and written in a rush, and produced on-the-fly.  

60's Indie Watch: The World's Greatest Sinner (1962)

Watched:  04/25/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:   First

Director:  Timothy Carey

I am unclear on the release history of The World's Greatest Sinner (1962).  I'm not even sure it ever did more than a screening or two in Los Angeles and then disappeared.  I don't know how it hit streaming, winding up (til the end of the month) of the Criterion Channel.  

Your mom has probably never heard of Timothy Carey.  And maybe you haven't, but if you're the right kind of film nerd, you may have.  Carey was a bit of a wild card hanging around the movie scene and getting cast as usually an oddball, and I saw him first in The Killing where he plays a gunman who shoots a horse and still botches the job (it's a phenomenal movie and I highly recommend it).

Well, I guess in the 1960's he got his hands on some money and wrote, directed and produced this movie.  And, man, making true low-budget indie movies back in the day was not easy.  You had to coast on vibes and ideas.  And this has both in spades.

Sci-Fi Watch: Predator - Badlands (2025)

Watched:  04/24/2026

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dan Trachtenberg

Well, this was kind of a perfect Friday night movie.  And kind of why they invented PG-13.  

I kind of love that somehow the legacy of Alien has somehow turned into "yes, but limited-autonomy for superhuman AI beings".  I like squicky xenomorphs, too.  But they don't exactly carry a story.  And whatever merging we now have between Blade Runner, Alien and Predator is not the worst thing in the world.  It's allowed for all kinds of paths for exploration.  

I'll just say: if you can give me a movie with a humanoid lead, a robot pal and their murderous space-dog - all against alien landscapes and skies?  Shit, man.  I don't really feel like I need to explore deep themes or what it says about the human condition at that point.  This is raw popcorn entertainment.  And, somehow along the way, this movie is not incredibly stupid, all while admittedly being more than a bit unironically goofy.  Way to thread the needle, movie!

Lawyer Watch: Michael Clayton (2007)

Watched:  04/21/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Tony Gilroy

Well, MBell will be happy not just that I finally watched this movie, but that I agree:  great movie.

It stars George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and muh gurl Tilda Swinton.*  And that's good, because this is a movie that requires that level of performance so it doesn't just melt into cheap melodrama.

Michael Clayton (2007) is the kind of thriller-for-adults I really need to engage in more.  It borders on neo-noir, but doesn't descend enough into the tropes for that, and the movie's focus is elsewhere, even if the lead - the eponymous Michael Clayton (Clooney) sure feels like a noir lead.  

This is a legal thriller, which is not something I dislike, but not something I seek out.  And part of the wave of socially-minded, evils-of-corporations media that was once a big staple of movies.  I'm thinking everything from Erin Brockovich to Thank You For Smoking.  

Do they make those anymore?

Neo-Noir Watch: Gloria (1980)

Watched:  04/19/2026

Format:  Video on Demand/ YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Cassavetes

For some reason the algorithm has been asking me to watch this movie for years.  

I'm not really sure why the algo does this, but my YouTube TV will find a movie that it decides it wants to recommend, and then the movie will follow me around.  First among these has been Gloria (1980), and because I don't think I've ever seen Gena Rowlands be anything less than great and because Cassavetes' movies are, at minimum, interesting, I wanted to check it out eventually.  So, I guess, thanks, data?

On paper, the movie is deceptively simple.  An accountant for the mob (Buck Henry) has been skimming (and maybe doing other things) and is found out.   Knowing the enforcers are coming, he's trying to leave, but everyone in his family of five is scared and doesn't know what to do - his wife, their two kids and his mother-in-law.  All are resorting to their comfort and security measures instead of just getting the f out.

When neighbor Gloria (Gena Rowlands) comes by to return the sugar she borrowed in the middle of all this, they make her take the boy - aged 6 or 7 - back to her apartment.  Almost immediately, the mob shows up and kills the rest of the family.  Gloria tries to flee the scene with the kid, but the press is outside and snaps her picture with the son.  

Disney Watch: The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)

Watched:  04/17/2026

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First (that I can remember)

Director:  Jeremy Kagan

The other day I watched a bit from Colbert where he and Patton Oswalt discussed a dog actor named "Jed".  The connection was that Jed was the dog from the start of John Carpenter's The Thing, and he was a major character in The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) which stars Oswalt's wife, Meredith Salenger, who was in the movie at age 15.  

I've seen The Thing plenty, but had vague memories of seeing The Journey of Natty Gann once, when teachers wheeled in TV's as we prepared for our fifth-grade graduation at Spicewood Elementary in 1986.  My memory of *that* is everyone talking while I wanted them to shut up so I could watch the movie.  But it was not to be - and I don't think we ever finished it.

Anyway, I *did* remember the movie was not exactly a Pollyanna-type story, but it was well produced and Salenger was good.  Plus it had John Cusack, who I knew from comedies at the time.

Disney Watch: Zootopia 2 (2025)

Watched:  04/16/2026

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jared Bush/ Byron Howard

I'm on record as a Zootopia stan.  I watched it initially on a plane to Helsinki and lost my mind when we landed and it cut off the last ten minutes and I couldn't watch the end til I got back home a week later.  I loved the ideas and characters, the world they built and the imagination and thinking that went into the jokes.  And, I liked the character arcs for Judy and Nick and how they played off of each other.  Good stuff.

Do I want to see the Zootopia-land in Shanghai? Yes.  Yes, I do.

Noir Watch: Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

Watched:  04/12/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Arnold Laven

We're just going to slowly make our way through the Ruth Roman filmography, I guess.  

I had no idea what this was about, but it's a bit of 1950's pro-FBI propaganda.  It makes sure we, the citizens and tax-payers, understand how the FBI is working tirelessly on crimes big and small.  

When an FBI agent, a family man, is killed, Broderick Crawford is asked to pick up all three of his open cases to figure out which case was the one that got his pal murdered.  And, much as in real life, things move a lot faster now that one of their own was the victim.

The three cases are:

Noir Watch: T-Men (1947)

Watched:  04/09/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First, surprisingly

Director:  Anthony Mann

When you think of film noir, you may get some evocative images in mind.  Deep shadow, fog, deep focus shots.  There's a few photographers who helped define this style that we're still reeling from (and stealing from) today, and among the top three or so is John Alton.  And, boy howdy, is this movie John Alton. 

So, if you want a movie that's a gritty crime procedural (with a voice-over hellbent on taking me out of the movie) and looks like a million bucks, this is it.   

It is also very much an Anthony Mann movie.  Tough, not afraid to go dark, and not talking down to the audience.  However, it's not a movie about bootleggers or guys running a numbers racket or any of that.  There's no dame manipulating men with a promise of sex.  This is a movie about undercover men of the Treasury department.  Thus, T-Men (1947). 

Hitchcock Watch: Rope (1948)

Watched:  04/02/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Director:  Hitchcock

This was my first time watching Rope (1948).  For some reason I have massive gaps in my Hitchcock viewing, and I do a poor job of just getting over myself and putting the movies on.  

From even back when I was in film school, I came to believe that this movie was mostly just one big technical trick, but that the movie itself wasn't very good - which is why I never bothered watching the film.  The description was always that it was a lesser movie.  But I literally don't know what the @#$% those people are talking about.  Rope slapped.

Yes, it is several long takes stitched together - and a technical trick trying to do something novel where the technology just wasn't there.  Film reels were only so long in 1948, and camera equipment was hefty.  And I'm kind of left to wonder if Hitchcock watched Lady in the Lake and thought "that's not the trick.  The trick is to let the camera be the camera but keep it running - let the audience feel they're in the room."

And, especially in the third act, I found all of that incredibly effective.  

It doesn't hurt that the movie has a few things I like in general:

Totter Noir Watch: Under the Gun (1951)

Watched:  03/29/2026

Format:  Sketchy Russian Site/ Archive.org

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ted Tetzlaff

So, because the studios are dumb and don't make their older movies easily available, I watched this on a sketchy Russian site (link above).  And I wanted to watch this movie. In fact, I would have paid real American dollars to watch this movie.  

"Why watch this one?" you ask.  It has (in order of interest) Audrey Totter, Richard Conte, Sam Jaffe and John McIntire.  And was a crime flick I'd not seen discussed anywhere except for one still I saw go by on social media a couple of months back.

Conte plays a mobster who has gone to Miami from NYC, and while there found singer Audrey Totter,* who he plans to bring back to New York and make a star.  Totter is wary, but knows this could be her big break, and so jumps in a car with Conte and his two heavies.

Apeman Watch: Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953)

Watched:  03/28/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kurt Neumann

I wasn't planning to watch Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), but had it on, and Cheetah the Chimp was carrying a rifle and I was like "yeah, okay...  I'll finish this movie".  

This isn't Johnny Weissmuller, it's Lex Barker* as Tarzan and Joyce MacKenzie as Jane.  It also co-stars Raymond Burr(!) as a Great White Hunter-type, Tom Conway as a cuckold and Monique van Vooren as Lyra, the titular She-Devil.  

Lyra is mostly just a woman of means who knows her own mind and doesn't let men dictate her life, which makes her a She-Devil.  She also would like to be on Tarzan, but that's par for the course in these movies.  

Action Comedy Watch: Novocaine (2025)

Watched:  03/21/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dan Berk/ Robert Olsen

This movie hits that awkward spot of being "fine".  It's more or less what you were expecting from the trailer - a bit better in some spots, and a bit lacking in others, but when you saw the trailer you were like "I know exactly what this will be".  And you were 85% correct, with that remaining 15% not exactly blowing the doors off.

Novocaine (2025) should maybe have been like, one episode of a show.  The concept is both interesting and wildly limiting, and the story here is not really enough to fill the runtime of a whole movie.  And the movie around the concept is just boilerplate action stuff that feels deeply constrained by budget.  

But it's also not bad.  I wouldn't say that.  It's fine.  It's deeply gross at times, maybe a bit hard to watch in a scene or two.  And maybe weirdly should not have named the condition that our lead is supposedly suffering from, as it exists and sounds very rough.  It's kind of like turning epilepsy into a super power for a movie.  Maybe a fictional condition would have sufficed.

Sci-Fi Watch: Project Hail Mary (2026)

Watched:  03/21/2026

Format:  Regal

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Not so long ago, we read the novel of Project Hail Mary, which we discussed here at the ol' interweb log.

I enjoyed the book a great deal - just as I'd enjoyed Weir's first book, The Martian.  And like that book, it received the big screen treatment, which I thoroughly enjoyed and have rewatched in part and in whole.

First:  Go see this in the theater.  It will be fine on your TV or laptop, it is - however - a movie designed for the big screen and benefits from the image size and quality, plus the audio experience.  And maybe even the audience reaction.

Like the novel, the book is told in the present as an amnesiac awakens in a spacecraft with the other two crewmates deceased and, as he discovers, light years from Earth as the craft he's in approaches a nearby star.  Grace recovers his memories in flashbacks that fill in the gaps for himself and the viewer as he progresses, eventually realizing things about himself.

The impetus for the trip is that the sun has seen something called The Petrova Line form between Earth and Venus, and something about that effect means the sun is starting to dim - the predictable effects meaning Earth will become a frozen wasteland within 3 decades.  The star he's heading toward is not fading, and Earth needs to know why.

Noir Watch: Crime of Passion (1956)

Watched:  03/20/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gerd Oswald

I was a bit shocked to learn I'd never seen or heard of a movie co-starring Barbara Stanwyck and Sterling Hayden, with Raymond Burr.  And a noir, nonetheless.  

Look, over the years I've really come to think of Stanwyck as *the best at what she does*, something Eddie Muller discusses in his pre-amble to the movie.  She's just incredible in versatility, range, and believability in everything she does.  And this movie is no exception.  I love Hayden, but Sterling Hayden shows up and is Sterling Hayden in everything he does.  Raymond Burr has three modes I've seen - big brute with a brain, Perry Mason and yelling about Godzilla.  And that's okay.  But Stanwyck is the focus here, and she's fantastic.  

She plays a career-gal reporter - no longer a young woman - stuck doing a sob sister column and asked to get "the woman's angle" on stories.  During a murder investigation she first gets her big break and national attention, and meets a detective played by Sterling Hayden.  

Anti-Western Watch: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

for reasons I don't understand, all of the posters for this movie are bangers

Watched:  03/19/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Altman

A much beloved Robert Altman movie that was part of the new Hollywood movement and a "revisionist" Western, I'd long heard this was one to see.  And as a movie that was part of a specific moment in movie history, and a very watchable movie - glad I did.

We're 55 years out from the release of this movie, and the mythology of the expansion of the West carved out in the pulps, dime novels and movies has been exploded endlessly during my lifetime, with very little made to reinforce the supposed white and black hats of the cowboy movies.*

Warren Beatty plays someone who may or may not be named John McCabe, a gambler who is smarter than the dum-dums out at the mining town he stumbles upon, but nowhere near as smart as he believes himself to be.  McCabe sees an opportunity and starts a saloon and brothel.  Out of nowhere, a Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) appears, offering to run the place for McCabe.  

Safari Watch: Mogambo (1953)

Gable is just gonna take a peek right there on the poster

Watched:  03/15/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Ford

This is a movie where Clark Gable's dilemma is choosing between Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner and I have never felt less sympathy toward any man in a predicament.  

Mogambo (1953) is a lavish spectacle of a picture, shot on location in multiple African countries, and probably John Ford's answer to The African Queen, which was released in 1951 and won all sorts of Oscars.  Clark Gable plays a 1950's Great White Hunter, now catching live animals for zoos, circuses, etc...  He lives in deep bush country and rarely ventures out (he must really stock up on Brylcream during those trips).  He works with an Englishman he calls "Brownie", and a thug of a Russian, as well as a large coterie of local labor.

Ava Gardner is a nice enough girl from the New York club scene who has come to Gable's jungle headquarters to join a maharajah on safari - but her suitor has already left by the time she arrives.  And they're so far out, the next boat isn't due for a week.  

Gardner and Gable spar a little, but it's also obvious they start having sex.  

She's due to leave on the next boat when a British couple arrives, the husband a well-heeled anthropologist, and Grace Kelly his proper wife.  They want to go into the lowlands and find some gorillas and record audio.*