The Writer's Poke

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm currently watching Natalie Wood films, and so I re-watched this one not for James Dean, but for Natalie.  The timeline bothers me. This is a lot to happen in a 24-hour period. If Jim's family just moved to this new location, how does the house already look like they've lived there forever? If this is Jim's (James Dean) first day at school, has he already given Plato (Sal Mineo) his address? For that matter, how exactly did the bad boys know that Jim and Plato and Judy (Natalie Wood) were at the old, abandoned mansion? Anyway, I'd like the timeline to expand a little. Let's see the relationship between Jim and Plato grow. Let's give Judy a chance to move from the "bad kids" to Jim's side. And so on.  Let's unpack the stuff that's implied. I know it's a 1950s movie, but I need some help understanding what's really going on with Judy and her father. I read that it's an "Elektra complex,...

  The story is lean. The run time is only 84 minutes, and the plot is just about the same -- the 84 minutes before the noon train arrives. A lot of clocks everywhere, too, to remind you just how close to noon things are getting...  At the beginning of the story, Kane (Gary Cooper) and Amy (Grace Kelly) get married. It's a Sunday morning, but they just have a small civil ceremony. Their plan is to go to a new town and run a store. That means Kane has resigned being Marshal, but for some reason his replacement won't arrive until Monday.  Then they find out that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is going to be on the noon train, and three of his buddies are already in town waiting for him. The four of them are surely going to kill Kane, because Kane had arrested Miller and Miller had been sentenced to death, only to be pardoned by bureaucrats.  Kane looks for men to help him face Miller and his friends, but no one in town will step up. He seeks help at the saloon, the church...

Although the film begins with a brief written intro and puts names to the Reno boys, from there, it just jumps right into masses of men shooting and riding horses. I mean, I guess that's the popcorn eating "Western action" movie goers in the 1950s were looking for... but I need to care about who's shooting and riding. What's really at stake? What do these people want, but like I said, more importantly, why should I care? Four of the Reno boy are bad hombres. They basically run Seymour, Indiana, with corrupt elected officials providing cover. Special Agent James Barlow (Randolph Scott) is called into stop them. Since Bill Reno is gunned down in the opening sequence, they're down a man. Barlow's plan is to stage a train robbery and then win over the corrupt officials and Renos so he can infiltrate their organization. His plan goes off without a hitch. The Renos also have another, good brother, Clint (Denver Pyle), and a good sister, Laura (Mala Powers). They...

If Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) is noticeably lacking in women, at least Ride Lonesome has Karen Steele. She's pretty prominent in this movie, although I guess her main role is to be a burden for the guys that are trying to ride faster than the people chasing them. She's also someone to stare at and talk about. She's the kind of woman, we're told, that needs a man and can't be happy unless there's a man around to give her what she needs... okay. Funny thing is, I watched this movie last night, went to sleep, and now I'm a little fuzzy already on what happened to her at the end. I can see her quite vividly talking to Brigade (Randolph Scott), but did they go their separate ways? I've honestly already forgotten and need to go back and watch the ending again. In a lot of movies, you'd just expect her and Brigade, as old as he is, to get together at the end. But I don't remember that happening. I just read the Wikipedia summary of the film and even Go...

The most important thing: Does Buchanan (Randolph Scott) leave town with his money? It's funny, because he does get the money from the Sherriff's safe, but it's $250 short. But as far as I can tell, he leaves town with $1750 plus Juan's (Manuel Rojas) amazing horse. Thus, his plan to buy a stake in west Texas is intact.  While Buchanan may ride alone, he does need the help of some friends to avoid hanging. At first, he's just a stranger in town, and since they know he has money, when he's in the wrong place at the wrong time, it seems like the Sheriff decides it's easy to hang him and steal his money. The Sheriff's brother, however, makes sure that Buchanan receives a trial, and Buchanan is found not guilty. Nevertheless, the Sheriff has no intention of giving back the money and sends two men to ride Buchanan out of town. The plan is for them to shoot Buchanan.  However, Buchanan and Pecos (L.Q. Jones) discover that they're both Texas men with the sa...

One way to describe the Ranown Westerns? Minimalist. In a user review for The Tall T, someone wrote that the characters weren't developed enough. I'm not sure I agree. What's definitely true is that both The Tall T and Decision at Sundown focus on a moment in time. These are not stories that tell us much about the moment before, and they may leave us uncertain about the moment after. All we get is the Now. Sundown is the name of the town. The name itself should tell us something. Consider a town that is named Sundown as opposed to Sunrise. Sundown is somehow more foreboding. The "now" of the moment is the Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) wedding. Even though he's been with Ruby (Valerie French), even right up to before the wedding ceremony apparently, he's marrying Lucy (Karen Steele). Why? Because Ruby isn't the marrying kind. She's lowkey made out to be a "salon worker" and all that entails. Why would Lucy put up with this? Ruby even plans...

I came to the Ranown Westerns with no knowledge of who Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher were. I love Westerns, and I've watched about 100 John Wayne films, but beyond that, I haven't studied the genre. Thanks to Letterboxd, I also know that I haven't been watching very many Westerns in 2025-26 -- it's the genre right at the bottom of my list. But I picked up the Ronown Westerns 5-film Criterion collection during the last sale, and I'm now ready to dive in. First impressions: 1. These films are at the tail-end of Scott's career. He did around 100 films, but here he's 59 years old and probably doing his last 10 or so films. He does look a bit old, and I would assume that the parts are really meant for someone younger. His age isn't a big issue. It's just something I thought about. 2. B-Movies. So, the Ranown Westerns are supposed to be B-movies -- the "cheaper" films slapped onto a double-bill. What makes these films B-quality? The run-time...

Maybe Peter Pan (1953) doesn't age well, I don't know. For me, the concern isn't that Peter Pan is racist or that Captain Hook is misogynist... It's more that Wendy is. She's the storyteller, and as an adult viewer, I tend to see her as the "storyteller." Peter Pan and Hook are simply characters in her stories. Or even if we buy into the idea that Peter Pan and the Lost Boys are real, they're all kids. None of them are mature, and obviously even the pirates shouldn't be seen as beacons of maturity and good morals. So does it really matter how the movie depicts Indians or how it thinks about women? None of that is really considered in my rating of the movie. As I watch the entire canon of Disney movies again this year, I find myself wanting to use 4/5 stars as the baseline. Most Disney movies have their flaws or weaknesses, but generally speaking, they are usually good movies, fun to watch. I think I had fun watching Peter Pan, but in terms of stand...

I like the camera work. The camera will just sit there and capture the smokestacks, the powerlines, or children walking to school. Even in the home, if the mother is cleaning, the camera will just sit on the floor and watch her through a door or from down a hallway. At first I thought it was odd that the camera just sat on the ground, but that's also the way Japanese people sit -- on the floor -- so in a sense, it's the same view that a person would have if observing. The parents -- Shukichi (Chishû Ryû) and Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) -- make the train trip to see their children. They're both in their 60s and it's been maybe years since they've seen their Tokyo kids, maybe meeting their grandchildren for the first time. A high level of politeness and ceremony when they arrive, but that doesn't extend to the grandchildren. They don't know their grandparents and one complains about having his desk moved for their visit. Where will he do his homework? It's o...

The messaging of movies. It's not always something you think about, but sometimes it's easy to see when you watch older films. In this one, both the boyfriend and the father give the message: The way for women to be happy is to marry, have kids, and take care of the house. That's it. That's the secret to being content and to being truly happy. There are no alternatives. As the title suggests, the focus is on the girl, Jean (Elizabeth Taylor). She has a boyfriend who loves her and wants to marry her, Vance (Gig Court). He's rich and she's rich. They want for nothing, and yet, even though she loves him, she's worried about settling down. She wants to see what else life has to offer. That's funny to me. She's going to have servants, and she will have the money to do whatever she wants. That's never addressed in the film. There's nothing that marriage will limit her from experiencing, except other men. Does she want to sow her wild oats? It's...

When the movie starts, the animation feels very two-dimensional. It's "layered," and the animation follows simple rules of perspective, but it's still very two-dimensional. As I watched the film, either the animation changed, or I adopted to the style. Maybe both. The story itself is a little odd, with some things not really explained. For example, Maleficent isn't invited. Is the King and Queen really shocked when she shows up anyway? She has her own kingdom, right next door, I gather, but she rules over pigs and other cartoon characters, and that made me wonder why evil is represented so "cartoony." Maleficent is represented as pure evil, and I guess that means she doesn't need a reason to be evil, but I still want to know: Why is she so evil? Did she curse Aurora simply for not being invited to the party? Because she was beautiful? I don't really understand the motive. I was also confused about why Auroa's three fairy godmothers apparently...

This is one of those crime dramas that has the weird feeling of U.S government propaganda. I say that just because, at the beginning of the film, Senator George Smathers (Florida, 1951-1969) sits behind his desk and gives a brief pep talk about how the Government is working hard to stamp out crime. I mean, that's fine and everything, but I've seen other films where a government official says a few words at the beginning of a film, and that just seems odd to me. Like crossing the line between church and state -- in this case, Hollywood and state. Just don't. The narrator, too, has the sound of an old-school documentary film narrator. This is a film. Not a documentary. Not a government-produced film. But those would be minor concerns if I connected more to actual content of the film, but I don't. Basically, the good business leaders of Miami want to take action, and they heavy-handedly force an ex-Chicago gangster (now father and overall good guy -- yes, he was a Chicago ...

  Marta Toren died at 30 in early 1957, and finding the films on DVD that she was able to make before her untimely death isn't the easiest task. But after watching her and Bogart in Sirocco (1951), I realized I had left this DVD sitting unwatched for four years. I guess I left it unwatched because it's a newspaper cold war drama, with no stars who stood out to me... But since I now know Toren, I was anxious to give this a watch.  Overall, pleasant surprise. Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) falls for Jeanne (Toren), and one wonders if a romance will ensue. She seems a little unsure about that, and meanwhile, he needs to go to go to Hungary to follow a story. Unfortunately, he sends back information, gets arrested, suffers torture, and is sentenced to death.  A swap takes place, and Jimmy returns to France. But he's not the same man. He comes back a shell, and we are left wondering if he will be able to recover. That, to me, is the "weird ending" element, because we're...

How could a Bogart/Hurston/Capote/Lorre movie not be an immediate winner?  I'm sure I've seen this one before (I checked, and I did about 10 years ago), but like a lot of movies I've previously watched, if I wasn't writing a review and trying to remember what I thought, I completely forgot almost everything about any previous viewing.  My copy of the film is not restored -- although on the cover it claims to be. That's the first thing I noticed. I put the DVD in, and it just immediately starts to play the movie. I take a quick look at the reviews for the film, and I see that quite a few people comment that it was "made on the fly" without a real script, and that Hurston made it just to have an excuse to drink and smoke with Bogart. All of that seems rather dismissive, and the non-restored quality reinforces the idea that no one on the film side thinks it's a classic worth the effort to maintain.  Then some of Bogart's early lines. He does seem to b...