Movies Watched -- Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

90 minute running time … Paramount 1941 … cute movie, charming, made before America went to world war (the second time) … Veronica Lake is something else … it’s worth seeing for her alone .. W.D. By Preston Sturges … unfortunately Criterion had Noah Baumbach (?!?) do the commentary instead of someone qualified and learned, so I couldn’t listen to it … this is a green-go, recommended. John Farr liked it too.

Don’t get ritzy.

Don’t get ritzy.

Movies Watched -- The Cocoanuts (1929)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

93 minute running time … Marx Brothers movie from 1929 making fun of the Florida land boom and bust … “You can have any kind of a home you want to. You can even get stucco -- Oh, how you can get stuck-o!“ The usual word play, slapstick humor, and general zaniness interspersed with musical numbers … it was a charming formula and I had quite a few laughs. This was their first big-screen comedy.

Groucho’s dinner speech:

In behalf of the Rotary Club of Minneapolis, I wanted to take this occasion of welcoming you to Waukegan ... No, no, I, er, I mean, in recognition of my many years of service with the railroad, you have presented me with these ties. Now, that, of course, reminds me of the story of the Irishman. It's so funny. I wish I could think of it. Oft in the stilly night, the trembling of a leaf can be heard, sighing through the trees, and the babbling brook as it wends its way onward, babbling and ...
Why a duck?

Why a duck?

Movies Watched -- Police Beat (2005)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

81 minute running time … this was a W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same guy), had sort of a Trust Fund Kid feel … it was bizarre, not a mainstream movie… a new immigrant from Senegal joins the Seattle Police Department and has to deal with all the usual “incidents” that police officers face, but he has an interesting perspective on them since he’s African … he also has a flighty white girlfriend who has left him (temporarily?) for an ex-boyfriend, and a lot of his internal dialogue is about how this tortures him. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s also not good enough to recommend … it could have been much better done.

Farr recommended it, which I appreciate, and he wrote, “Devor's trippy, melancholy procedural is a unique film whose haunting after-effects will linger.” Yes, the capital A.R.T. crowd would go for it, see it if you qualify as an A.R.T. artist.

  • Discovers dead body

  • Retrieves wino from hedge

  • Confronts man with machete at property line dispute

  • Confronts girl offering blowjobs for a dollar a pop

  • Investigates assault by tree branch

  • Retrieves mentally ill man swimming in channel

  • Investigates man who asks to use couple’s home phone and later disappears

  • Investigates bloody suicide

  • Tickets reckless biker who is obnoxious and threatens president’s life

  • Investigates bullet holes in mail van

  • Ejects man from porn shop

  • Investigates mugging of woman

  • Investigates naked lady running through park

  • Discovers another drunk (or dying?) man in park

  • Investigates destruction of property by crazy girlfriend

  • Investigates burned man (from freebasing?)

  • Investigates intruder who masturbates in elderly woman’s house

  • Investigates man wearing bulletproof vest in backyard dollhouse

I confronted the bully tree

I confronted the bully tree

Movies Watched -- Desert Hearts (1985)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

96 minute running time .. a lesbian love story set in 1959, made in 1985, you know, the Dark Ages… both of the women are hot, but the story wasn’t very well done, you couldn’t really understand how or why they fell in love … I guess it’s just remarkable that this movie was made in 1985 (the Reagan years after all), so it has some lesbian movie cred, er, respectability (based on age). You can give it a miss.

Because she reached in and put a string of barbed wire right around my heart.

Because she reached in and put a string of barbed wire right around my heart.

Movies Watched -- Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Spanish. 98 minute running time. Sort of an interesting look at post-revolution Cuba from the vantage point of a gorgeous layabout named Sergio … his wife and parents have fled to Miami but he stays in Havana loafing around … I like when the Party people come to “register” his apartment and list his job as “ex-landlord.” After he’s accused of rape, his trial is amusing (“Once I would've been the respectable person and they the offenders.”) … he’s just so disconnected from reality. If you’re interested in Cuban history you should see it, otherwise skip it.

Did you take her to your apartment and have sexual intercourse with her?

Did you take her to your apartment and have sexual intercourse with her?