92 minute running time … political satire from the late 1960s, it can’t have gotten much play-time at the time, just too incendiary, but it is funny. The big handsome palooka (John Abbey) playing Mr. Freedom was good. This has to be a cult movie now, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
Movies Watched -- The Caine Mutiny (1954)
125 minute running time so 25 minutes too long … I’ve mentioned I don’t like Humphrey Bogart, he was such an odd Hollywood star since he was short and scrawny and funny-looking and couldn’t really act … anyway, this was a strange movie, interesting in a way because you didn’t see mental illness movies in the 50s, especially when the sick man was an officer in the military … I liked the class angle in this movie, with the rich-kid Princeton guy and how the others related to him … I can’t recommend it because it was overly long, but it is a unique movie for the time.
No more backtalk
When All Your Children Start To Resent You
Hot mom from Oz covers a Bob Zimmerman song … remember that the best thing that can happen to a Bob song is someone else sings it:
Movies Watched -- Zabriskie Point (1970)
110 minute running time … dusty, hippie group sex in the desert and blowing up the squares … Daria Halprin was a great beauty, but this movie didn’t have much more going for it… hard pass.
Movies Watched -- Invisible Girlfriend (2009)
74 minute running time … David Redmon made one good documentary (Girl Model) … I tried to watch Kamp Katrina but it was so depressing I quit five minutes in and I should have known better than to get Invisible Girlfriend since it tracks the life of one mentally ill guy who I guess was in Kamp Katrina … equally depressing and boring, who watches stuff like this?!? Ugh!
Movies Watched -- High Sierra (1941)
99 minute running time … I never liked Humphrey Bogart or saw his appeal, he often played a tough, but he always struck me as a little, weasel-like, weird guy … this was an unusual movie though (thanks to David Lehman for the reco), I didn’t hate it, but it also wasn’t good enough to recommend. “Look, she’s a cripple too!” Interesting class commentary from 40s America: “What’s an outfit like that doing in Tropico anyhow?” And the cop sniveling around the rich guy.
Excerpts from Imogen Sara Smith’s essay: High Sierra: Crashing Out
“The film is many things: a hybrid of gangster movie, western, and proto-noir; an elegy for the Depression-era archetype of the noble outlaw … America’s perverse love affair with violent men … Nostalgia pervades the film, for both a lost world of agrarian innocence and a vanished age of outlaw glory [well said!] … Roy’s foolish reverence for middle-class respectability and ‘decency’ inspires a grotesque fantasy of marrying the daughter of the family, Velma, who is happy to accept his charity but repelled by him as a suitor. [right, good ] … outlaws are romanticized, demonized, and commodified, packaged as entertainment and edifying moral lessons … The big shot’s downfall is a kind of ritual, a collective reminder not just that crime does not pay but that ‘crashing out’ is only a fantasy that keeps you going as you serve your time.”
Joan Leslie and Ida Lupino Face-off
Movies Watched -- Young Man with a Horn (1950)
112 minute running time so about 15 minutes too long … Kirk Douglas plays a good fake trumpet … Harry James played the trumpet parts and that really is Doris Day singing … I liked this one, Lauren Bacall plays a great crazy hot rich girl … the only drugs you see are alcohol, none of the cocaine and heroin and other hard stuff that drove the jazz scene… this is a green-go, recommended movie… this was a David Lehman recommendation and I thank him for it.
Jazz is purely African … it’s a sort of cheap mass-produced narcotic
Movies Watched -- Real Life (1979)
99 minute running time … Albert Brooks had kind of a cute idea, but the execution isn’t great … ahead of his time with the reality TV show angle … some of the bits are very funny, but as a whole, I wasn’t thrilled with it… Charles Grodin plays early Charles Grodin.
Movies Watched -- Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
116 minute running time with very long end credits so maybe only 10 minutes too long … Jim Carrey madcap and lewd comedy (Farrelly Bros.), it’s funny but you have to be in the mood for it … I’ve always loved Renée Zellweger, I wonder if there are guys who aren’t attracted to her? Probably not. This is over 20 years old now, sheesh, time flies…
The supplies
Movies Watched -- Murder By Contract (1958)
81 minute running time … unusual movie, B picture from Columbia, super low-budget but that doesn’t mean it’s bad ... the politics of it were interesting to me, Irving Lerner directed and you can quickly see why he was blacklisted … it’s not a green-go because the story and writing and acting aren’t great, but there is something special about it, so if you’re a true 50s film buff, you should see it. This was a Jonathan Rosenbaum recommendation, and I’m not sorry I saw it. There’s a short blurb on the DVD by Martin Scorsese talking about how much the movie influenced him.
And what do they do to the guy that throws a grenade, fires a mortar shell, aims a navy gun, drops the airplane bomb, or presses a button that sends a missile 5,000 miles with a hydrogen warhead?