The Writer's Poke

This movie is iconic. This movie is pretty bad. Both things can be true. As I scroll through some of the other reviews on Letterboxd, I quickly come to the conclusion that no one is reviewing/rating the movie on its merits. They're rating it from nostalgia, or they're saying that it somehow changed the face of slasher movies. Well, I'm just going to assess it like any other movie. I've watched it a few times, and every time it's bad, just in different ways.  I don't think the special effects are bad. I like them. When Freddy (Robert Englund) licks Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) through the phone, I laugh at how corny is looks, but it's still a cool effect.  What I guess I don't like about the film is never being able to tell when Nancy is dreaming and when she's awake. At some point, I just assume she's always dreaming, and then, when there's supposed to be some "unforeseen" twist, I yawn, because I already assumed that something would ...

With Saboteur, I mentioned that a little sound might have helped. Shadow of a Doubt opens with a waltz, and that waltz is later hummed by different members of the family. So we get sound right from the start of this film, and then a soundtrack, too, that captures the emotions of the characters. The sound helps. I did start to wonder if the plot was too simplistic. We more or less know who's guilty. We don't know from the start of what, but he's guilty. What we don't know, I guess, is what Charlie (Teresa Wright) will do about it. She's weak. First agreeing to help the Detective (Macdonald Carey). Then agreeing to help Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton). (Her mom/Uncle Charlie's sister comes across as weak, too. The men in the film aren't weak... just quirky and not necessarily all that smart.) Meanwhile, I like the banter between Charlie's dad (Henry Travers) and the neighbor (Hume Cronyn). They're always discussing the best way to kill each other without...

When I watched this the first time in 2017, I ended up giving it a 2 out 5-star rating. I didn't write down any notes to explain my rationale, and so as I was re-watching the film now, I found myself trying to piece together how I might have rated it so poorly then. This time around, I appreciated the set pieces, especially the State of Liberty ending. But the film had other "set pieces," and by that, I simply mean, Hitchcock clearly took some time to figure out how to best shoot the factory, the cabin in the woods, the dockyard, the dance floor, and so on. Good camera work. Good set up of scenes. Good lighting. Just a lot of "good stuff" that a 2-star film wouldn't have.  Did the movie lack anything, then? Well, it's a quiet film. When I think of Hitchcock, I think of the dramatic score. Try watching Psycho without the soundtrack. It wouldn't be nearly the same, right? I just wonder what a good musical score would add to Saboteur.  That might, in fa...

What a pleasant surprise. Robert (Rock Hudson) has exactly what he wants. Lisa (Gina Lollobrigida) is his September girl. Every September, he leaves Rome for his villa in the country, and he spends the whole month with Lisa. When the month is up, he says goodbye and goes back to Rome.  He's happy with that arrangement. I guess we're to assume that he thinks she's happy with that arrangement, too. Does he have other girls in Rome, or other girls for different months? Not that we know of. In his own way, he might be "faithful" to Lisa. But do they ever talk the other eleven months of the year? The last time Robert left for Rome, Lisa ended up meeting another man. It's July, and she's set to marry this other guy, but as luck would have it, Robert decides to go to his villa a couple months early. But how had Lisa been seeing this other guy for seven months without Robert ever knowing? This is when he learns the servant that takes care of his villa has started ...

The premise of this one: Samuel (Charles Coburn) is getting older, and he regrets that the love of his life got away. Before he dies, he's interested in leaving his fortune to the family of that woman's children. But he first wants to vet them to make sure they're worthy of his money.  So he goes undercover as John Smith and manages to live with the family as a boarder. They seem like a nice enough bunch, but with two kids in college, a mortgage to pay, as well as drugstore business to run, they're broke. The $8 a week he's going to pay them as a boarder will go a long way...  Meanwhile, Samuel becomes closer to the family, and he decides to give them, anonymously, $100,000 -- just to see how they'll handle the money. Harriet (Lynn Bari), the mother, goes nuts. But everyone else in the family just goes along with it? They sell the drugstore, sell the house, buy a mansion, and somehow make $100,000 feel like a billion dollars... and everyone in town believes, rig...

This is the second DVD I found in a Litte Library, and I'm glad I did, because somehow -- how? -- it completely went under my radar. Think about all the great stars in this one -- John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, George Cloney, Frances McDormand -- how could this ensemble cast not make a banger of a film? Well, it is a banger. Yes, it's a comedy, but it works because everyone plays it straight. All of the characters are "quirky," but somehow, they are all playing it straight. Not once does the film go for a laugh. It's not like, say, The Big Lebowski or Fargo. I mean, those are also movies that more or less play it straight, too, but the places to laugh are more obvious, and the quirky characters in those films cross some sort of "quirky/laugh line." I have a feeling that some viewers think this movie is "second tier" Coen Brothers, because the laughs aren't as obvious. I actually don't hold that against it. No, I don't quite think it...

Last month I was doing a tour of Little Libraries -- I visited maybe 150 -- and this was one of two DVDs that I found. As a Cary Grant fan, I had actually never heard of this film, but I was curious to give it a watch Betsy Drake, as it turns out, is his co-star, and she was also his wife at the time -- his 3rd of 5. Drake doesn't seem to have had a very robust film career, and she didn't stay married long to Grant. There's nothing wrong with her, although it's difficult to say that she had any real star power.  That said, she was probably perfectly cast for this role -- the role of a mother with three kids of her own, but still someone caring enough to want to take on additional "problem children." it's a rather odd film, coming across almost as a propaganda film --promoting the idea that people should consider fostering/adopting older "problem" children. The Roses never actually adapt the two children that enter their family, but Anna (Drake) e...