The Writer's Poke

Joel (Jim Carrey) isn't impulsive, but as the film begins, he cuts work and writes in his diary about his sudden urge to visit the beach in winter. It's his first entry in two years and he notices ripped out pages. He doesn't remember ripping them out. Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel start chatting on the train to the beach. They're attracted to each other, and she feels like she's seen him before. She has blue hair and starts talking about her hair color obsessions. She doesn't stay one color for long. Joel listens, but there's some sort of awkward tension between them. Clementine almost gives up chatting with Joel, but then maybe she decides to try again. She comes on as aggressive; Joel is more passive. He wants to meet a woman, he writes in his diary, but he can't talk to women. He's better at sharing his thoughts in his diary. She gives him a punch goodbye, but then Joel decides to give her a ride and a second chance. Just an odd way to star...

Probably one of my favorite films: Although I've always liked this movie, this time viewing it, I watched it very closely. How did Phil (Bill Murray) originally act (selfishly), and what was the moment that he changed (selflessly)? We never know "why" he gets stuck or unstuck, but we do know that he's "in love" with Rita, actually able to show it -- when he confesses to being in love with her, his actions towards everyone else changes. Here's what I noticed he did in the first half of the movie (his time being selfish): He decided that there were no consequences. And so, He and his drunk buddies went on a car chase with the police. He punched Ned in the nose. He kissed the old B&B woman. He ate whatever he wanted. He learned about Nancy (while calling her Rita) when the kissed. He watched his favorite film 100 times, dressed up as a cowboy and got a woman to dress up as a barmaid. And after all that, he started to learn what Rita wanted in a man. He ...

Directed by Edgar Ulmer -- People on Sunday (1930) and Detour (1945) -- and starring Bela Lugosi (Vitus) and Boris Karloff (Poelzig). Not to mention featuring a black freakin' cat, a modern castle built on a mass grave filled with war dead and dynamite, and home to a crazed Satanic cult leader... this movie has it all. Maybe a little too much. It's like Peter (David Manners), the self-professed crappy writer, wrote it all in a fever dream. Even the ending makes fun of what we just watched, noting (in a newspaper review of Peter's latest novel) that none of it was believable. None of it was remotely realistic.  When Vitus sees a black cat, it triggers him. In no real way, to be honest, except to be overdramatic. This is another instance of the film jabbing at itself when Poelzig tells Vitus to "stop being so overdramatic." But Vitus and Poelzig have beef. It goes back to the War and to the fact that Virus spent the past 15 years in a prison -- a kind of Hotel Calif...

This movie maybe shouldn't be that good. But here are some of the "little things" that make it pretty special: "Does she bite?" "That costs extra." *** "Profession?" Looks. Laughs. "Yes." *** "Italian!" "Danish!" "German!" *** Camera shot of the woman in the swing. *** What it doesn't do so well -- The shots of the man in an ape suit, which is only slightly better or worse than the enlarged close-ups of the Ape's "chimpanzee face." Stuff like that takes me out of the movie, to be honest. So as much as I enjoyed a lot about this movie, it has a rating ceiling. Rating: 3/5 stars

The Criterion DVD includes a 1991 audio interview with Robert Montgomery's daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery. Dang it, Criterion. These are the sort of extras that Criterion includes that are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because they're usually pretty cool. A curse, because I'm always tempted to skip them so I can watch another movie... especially if it's an audio-only supplement. For every 90-minute film, you need to budget 4 or 5 hours just to go through all the extras. Then the stuff you learn in the extras make you want to follow-up with Google searches. Then you probably have a list of movies and actors that you want to add to your watch list. It just goes on and on.  And that's great, because I will never ever run out of content to watch, read, or listen to.  In the interview, Elizabeth -- what a great, happy voice -- admits that she still didn't know her father's body of work all that well. Keep in mind she was 58 at the time, and she would b...

It's hard to explain it. I grew up in the 1980s, and the previous decade seemed like a lifetime away. When I was seven or eight, I loved watching the A-Team, but I could never wrap my head around those guys being in the Vietnam War. I mean, if they were in their 30s or 40s, I guess that makes perfect sense, but the late 60s might as well have been the 19th century to my little kid brain.  Even when I was in college in the 1990s, I wondered why certain authors were bothering to write about Vietnam -- Tim O'Brien, or for the purposes of this film, Bobbie Ann Mason.  In Country is a movie that shows there was still something to be learned and discovered about the Vietnam War and the people that were still caught in its memory.  Samantha (Emily Lloyd) never knew her father. He was killed in Vietnam while her mom was pregnant with her. For that matter, her mom never really knew her husband. They were married for about four months when he was shipped off to Vietnam.  In th...