Quick takes and double features

Re-energizing a Substack

Yes, this thing is still on. I have a new idea that I hope will result in more for you to read. But before I get to that new idea, I’d like to recap briefly new movies I’ve seen since the last entry. I’m going back to the grade scale, because darn it all, EW just made that stick in my head, and it won’t leave. In more or less chronological order:

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER - Better than many people say it is, and it’s good to see Natalie Portman in particular having fun. That said, it’s nowhere near the highs - quality or strangeness-wise - of Ragnarok. B

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING: Daisy Edgar-Jones is a star, and she deserves a lot better than this gloppy mishmash of Harper Lee and Nicholas Sparks. Catch her in Fresh on Hulu instead. C

MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS: One of the most delightful surprises of the year. Fashion and haute couture usually don’t interest me much, but a winning personality sure does, and Lesley Manville’s title character has that in spades. She’s the very embodiment of that old proverb, “The smile you send out returns to you.” A

GABBY GIFFORDS WON’T BACK DOWN: Fairly pedestrian, as these CNN bio-docs too often are, but Giffords’ dramatic story can’t help but be impactful. B

NOPE: Jordan Peele’s third feature just might be his best, at least in terms of sheer film-making prowess. It has been argued that the visuals paper over narrative shortcomings, but these visuals are so creative, and such a piercing comment on the very acts of watching and filmmaking, that I was carried away all the same. A

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON : Definitely charming, but it’s a little too twee to be the transcendent journey that some viewers have found here. B

VENGEANCE: This social satire aims to say something about the divides between city dwellers who imagine themselves to be smarter than everyone else, and jus’ plain folks who imagine themselves to have more heart than everyone else, but it’s too self-consciously clever to bridge that gap. It scores some points without being as smart as it thinks it is. B-

PLAYING THE MATCH GAME

Now, as for that new idea, it’s it’s time time to to see see double double.

For me, being a film buff isn’t just about seeing a bunch of movies. As one of my favorite Ebert sayings goes, “It’s not what it’s about, it’s how it’s about it.” So it’s not just what I choose to watch, it’s why I choose to watch it.

I often try to theme my movie watching, especially of older titles. I’ll see one movie, and that’ll give me an idea to watch a different one. Who needs algorithms when you ARE one?

For example, TCM is running their annual Summer Under the Stars lineup, in which they take a specific movie star and play their movies all day. Sometimes it’s one of their really well-known vehicles in which they’re the lead, and sometimes it’s a movie in which they had a blink-and-you-miss-it part.

Such was the case with Jean Arthur, the brilliant comedienne best known for her turns in Frank Capra classics, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. One of the movies in the TCM lineup was Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances.

Wow! Buster Keaton and Jean Arthur in the same movie? I had no idea! (I’m not as familiar with Keaton as I’d like to be.) As it turns out, Jean is barely in this silent movie - she has a tiny uncredited part as an office receptionist. I might have not recognized her if I didn’t know to look for her.

So, alas, not the ideal vehicle for the divine Miss Arthur. But it was a great reason to check out the movie, which is the one that has Keaton fleeing from hundreds of would be-brides and outrunning an avalanche in the process. It’s hilarious, and it might be my second favorite Keaton, after the still astounding and brilliant Sherlock Jr.

Now - how do you theme that? I could easily opt for any other Keaton feature, but I like not to go for the obvious. I decided to re-watch the documentary The Great Buster, ideally directed by the recently departed Peter Bogdanovich, available on the free-with-a-library-card streamer Kanopy, as are several of the Keaton features. Granted, it’s not at all difficult to make the case for Keaton’s greatness, but Bogdanovich doesn’t just resort to a clip chronology or trot out reductive Chaplin vs. Keaton debates. (Why does it always have to be a Sophie’s choice where you can only have one? They’re both awesome in different ways!)

Instead, Bogdanovich goes out of order, starting with Keaton’s early success, but then he skips over Keaton’s glory period in the 1920s and chronicles his long, sad decline, starting with his fateful MGM signing. After that, it was all downhill, and it wasn’t funny at all.

But then Bogdanovich circles back to Keaton’s phenomenal run in the 20s, with gag after gag that still astonish a century later. Just look at some of these.

He actually broke his neck when he was deluged by water on top of the train about 1:15 in - and he had no idea until a medical exam YEARS later.

So in future posts here, I hope to explore more intriguing double features such as these. Not every review here will be a connected double feature, but I’ll be doing more of them to goose this Substack. So here’s a double I have in the offing: I discover the talents of the up and coming Joey King via two very different action movies: The Princess on Hulu and Bullet Train in theaters.