Another batch of older flicks…
1933 – 42nd Street – Surely one of the originators of this exact story about people trying to put on a big Broadway show. It was only just ok… but the actual final act show was pretty good.
1949 – All the King’s Men – probably not the best movie to have watched during this stupid election year and shortly after Debate Apocalypse 2024. But it was a good watch, even if the politician in question went from earnest to corrupt in .5 seconds and stayed there the rest of the flick.
1956 – Giant – Was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this one… not universally… 3+ hours is a lot of time to fill and sometimes they didn’t do a great job. But I liked the message about race, especially for the 1950s.
1961 – The Day The Earth Caught Fire – A surprisingly intellectual and mature take on an anti-nuke film from the 50/60s. No giant mantises or Godzillas… just a lot of newspaper editors trying to decipher the official story… before all those nukes cause a climate disaster.
1964 – A Hard Day’s Night – an utterly pointless bit of Beatles PR that probably worked like gangbusters with its squealing teenage girl target market back in the day. But what purpose does it serve all these decades later? Besides some good tunes.
1964 – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – a French musical where all the dialog is sung… experimental for its day but not really my vibe. But I eventually kinda got into it even if I felt the story everyone was singing about was not much to sing about.
1968 – Once Upon a Time in the West – did not like. WAY too long and way too dusty and gritty and sweaty. Exactly the kind of Western that made me think I hated Westerns back in the day.
1969 – Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice – a movie of its time about free love and the gender divide. Didn’t bowl me over… was more interesting as an archive of the late 60s.
1970 – The Dunwich Horror – A “not bad” early Lovecraft film with all the standard stuff from his horror short stories. Not a great film… has pacing issues and does what it can with its FX for the budget and time.
1972 – Solaris – a well-regarded (but personally lacking) overly long sci-fi flick from Soviet Russia. Not as good as I’d hoped, but kind of as sluggish as I expected.
1978 – I Wanna Hold Your Hand – a pretty amusing, if dated, Robert Zemeckis comedy about four girls trying to sneak into the hotel where the Beatles are staying right before their American debut.
1979 – Breaking Away – a movie I heard a lot about as a kid but hadn’t seen. Not a bad sports flick mixed with a townies vs. preps story. Pretty good bicycle race at the end, I suppose.
1981 – The French Lieutenant’s Woman – I’m not sure I got the point of this fourth-wall breaking romance where we see the actors making the film within a film about a fallen woman. It was big when it was big in the 80s among art house folks but seems suitably forgotten now.
1982 – Liquid Sky – a bonkers recommendation from an online friend. This movie is nuts and all about that New Age 80s vibe full of Ziggy Stardust wannabes and aliens looking for heroine in New York. Not for everyone… but a cool photograph of a long lost scene.
1985 – Police Story – a classic Jackie Chan kung-fu movie damaged by some real dumb as hell comedy (note: the Jackie Chan fight scenes are great and funny… it’s the general, non-action comedy that didn’t work for me).
1992 – Newsies – a musical about singing and dancing newspaper delivery boys? Don’t sign me up! I avoided this for years but, hey, it’s got a young Christian Bale and it’s on Disney+ so whatevs!
1994 – North – a notoriously bad kids adventure from the 90s. It has a certain cheeky brightness but is full of stereotypes and slowly gets worse and worse. It lives up to its rep.
1996 – Hard Eight – Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature length film feels like the 90s… a time when Gwyneth Paltrow was just another rising star and John C. Reilly could be a dramatic leading man. It’s pretty solid work and not at all like the art house films Anderson would go on to make.