On the television front, I did a lot of work on shorter series including The Queen’s Gambit, which was a darling during lockdown. I went back to Marvel shows as well, getting through Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Echo, which respectively were quite good, good until the last episode, and should have been better. I’ve spent a lot of time with Danny McBride shows in February, finishing The Righteous Gemstones and watching all four seasons of Eastbound and Down.
What I’ve Caught Up With, February 2025
Film: Dark City (1950)
One of Charleton Heston’s first starring roles, this noir puts Heston in the role of a gambler named Danny who helps to scam a man (Don DeFore) who loses $5,000 that isn’t his and commits suicide because of it. Suddenly the man’s brother is out for revenge, and starts picking off the gamblers (Ed Begley and Jack Webb) who lead to his brother’s suicide. Since we need to have a romance, we’re going to have Danny involved with lounge singer Fran (husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott). The cast includes a young (!) Henry Morgan. It’s a decent film noir, even if the ending doesn’t really suit the style. Fun to see Heston this young, and before he became a huge star.
Film: Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
In the heart of the Reagan/Bush era, making a movie about gay romance that includes a tragic hate crime is an act of rebellion. Harvey Fierstein, who is almost inherently camp, plays a drag performer who, despite having a voice made of pure gravel, is a torch singer. It’s easy to take Fierstein’s Arnold lightly because of who Fierstein is, but this would be a mistake, because this is a truly heartfelt performance, and one that uses humor to mask the pain of existence as a gay man pre/early-AIDS New York. We get essentially a trio of stories—a failed romance with a bisexual man (Brian Kerwin), a true and tragic love with a younger man (Matthew Broderick), and a confrontation with Arnold’s disapproving mother (Anne Bancroft). This is surprisingly moving and worth tracking down.
Film: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023)
An American serviceman (Jake Gyllenhaal) is wounded deep in Taliban territory with his interpreter (Dar Salim). The two face a struggle returning back to friendly lines. Our serviceman, rotated back to the States, discovers that the man who saved his life has not been given safe passage to the U.S. as promised, and returns to Afghanistan to rescue the man who saved him. It’s a pretty straightforward military tale, and it’s difficult not to find it compelling. That said, there are moments in it that feel like a video game, as Sergeant Kinley and Ahmed are knocking out Taliban soldiers with single shots and avoiding hails of bullets. Also, why is Guy Ritchie’s name stuck on the front of this? It always seems like such a dumb piece of arrogance to do this, with the exception of when John Carpenter does it.
Film: Murder! (1930)
An early foray of Hitchcock into the talkies, there’s some indication of the director he would become, both in terms of how it was made and the subject matter. An actress (Norah Baring) is found next to a dead body and is easily convicted of the crime. One of the members of the jury that convicted her (Herbert Marshall) later determines that she is actually innocent and decides to see if he can figure out what really happened before the unfortunate woman is hanged for a crime she didn’t commit. This ends up being a bit racist by the end. It also has significant problems with pacing. The film runs 102 minutes, but could judiciously be trimmed down to about 85 without losing a thing. It’s clearly Hitchcock, but it’s Hitch before he fully matured. Interesting, but hard to call required.
Film: Eternals (2021)
It’s been some time since I watched an MCU movie, and Eternals was the next one on the list. I have to say that if this had been the first of the MCU films, it probably wouldn’t have been the cultural phenomenon it became. There’s not a lot to love with this. For the casual fan, none of these characters are household names and there’s a whole bunch of them that we’re thrown into. If you want to watch a movie where ancient warriors do battle, watch The Old Guard, which is also a lot more coherent. I realize I haven’t touched on the plot of this, but I don’t know that I need to. Essentially eternal characters have protected Earth for ages and discover they’ve been kind of duped. They fight back for 2 ½ hours. This seems like the most easily skippable MCU, at least so far.
Film: Finding Forrester (2000)
A young Black teen interested mainly in basketball but with a penchant for writing (Rob Brown) encounters by chance a reclusive author (Sean Connery) who is clearly the film’s stand-in for J.D. Sallinger. The older author decides to mentor the promising writer as he looks to find some direction in his life and grow past the world he was in. It’s a solid cast and a compelling story even if it feels a lot like an extended version of the scene in Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner tracks down James Earl Jones combined with elements of Scent of a Woman. Connery played “curmudgeon” really well, and Rob Brown should be better known. Anna Paquin and F. Murray Abraham round out the cast.
Film: Indiscreet (1958)
Indiscreet is a fairly harmless romance of manners starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as the romantic couple. If you need more of a sell than that, you and I are very different people. Bergman plays an unattached actress and Grant is an economist considering a job for NATO. He’s also a confirmed bachelor, and while he’s taken with Bergman’s Anna, he decides to claim to be married so that he can’t be committed to her. This is literally the entire plot of the film. It’s a harmless piffle, but no one is watching this for intense drama. It’s to see Cary Grant being Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman wearing high fashion. It’s nice to see a romance with someone close to age-appropriate for Grant and I can’t help but wonder what Ernst Lubitsch could have done with this trifle of a story.
Film: Safe in Hell (1931)
Forced into prostitution, Gilda (Dorothy Mackaill) starts a fire and kills the man who ruined her life. Aided by her merchant marine boyfriend Carl (Donald Cook), she escapes the New Orleans police and makes her way to Tortuga, the only place around that has no extradition treaty. She soon discovers that she is the only white woman on the island and is thus the center of attention for the criminals who have resorted to living on Tortuga to avoid the police. She’s decided to be faithful to Carl, but it becomes harder and harder when Mr. Bruno (Morgan Wallace) intercepts her mail to keep her on the edge of destitution. This is a dark pre-Code film, but an interesting one, and Mackaill’s performance as a hardened good-time girl is a banger.
Very sorry to hear about your Mom. That's tough to handle even when you're not dealing with your own health issue. Wishing all the best for your family.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that, but the best is sadly not going to happen. We're kind of day-to-day. Her diagnosis is a terminal one, and we're looking more at months than years. She has an extremely rare blood cancer that is causing her organs to shut down, particularly her kidneys. It's so rare that doctors don't even know to look for it, and by the time they diagnose it, there's not a lot they can do.
DeleteAlso, yes the Eternals is very Meh. Saw it once, would eventually like to see it again, but there's not much there. Almost doesn't feel like the same Universe.
ReplyDeleteToo many new characters, felt entirely unconnected to the MCU. I can't be bothered to care.
DeleteI think the main issue with Eternals for me was that it was overlong and it had too much exposition for my taste. They could've simplified and trim some things out to get things going. At least it's not Quantumania and Secret Invasion and I don't even want to think about Deadpool & Wolverine as I refuse to watch that fucking film because Ryan Reynolds is a cunt. Finding Forrester is a good film by Gus Van Sant though it is one of his weaker films although I have yet to catch up on some of his more recent work. It is still good as the idea of Sean Connery in a scene with Busta Rhymes is shocking but it was still good for how brief it is.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry about your mom as I hope she is going to be OK. Especially with your own health issues as I hope you get that resolved as well.
I appreciate the thoughts. My health is actually pretty good--the blood clot was painful but not at all dangerous. It wasn't a DVT, but man, it hurt to walk for about a week.
DeleteQuantumania was hot garbage, but it did feel connected to the MCU. Eternals felt entirely disconnected.
Sorry to hear about your mother. It’s always very difficult as well as incredibly draining when one of your parents isn’t well.
ReplyDeleteMy average is much, much better this month than last. I have seen all but one of these and two are huge favorites.
To start with those two; The entire cast of Torch Song Trilogy is so wonderful, but the film lives and dies with Harvey Fierstein and he’s inimitable. His writing of and performance of Arnold is so spot on, he’s a fully rounded highly individualistic person. He pulls the audience in and even when he is acting in frustrating ways you are always on his side, vital for the film to work. One of the best things about him is that he’s imperfect and therefore recognizably human, never more so than in the battle with Anne Bancroft at the end when she cuts deep by telling him that he cheated her out of his life regarding Alan’s death and then blamed her for not being there. He interacts well with all the actors, but he and Anne Bancroft are a treat together. It’s a special film that should be better known, apparently when it was being previewed the response from audiences was spectacular, but then the studio mis-marketed the picture, and it did only middling business.
The other fave is “Indiscreet” for all the reasons you mentioned plus two more. Phyllis Calvert and Cecil Parker are a scream as Ingrid’s sister and brother-in-law. They play perfectly off each other and Phyllis particularly seem to be having a great deal of fun playing comedy for a change since her usual venue was drama. It’s really the chemistry of Ingrid and Cary that makes the film the delightful soufflé that it is. They are so simpatico and well matched (and as you said age appropriate to each other) it is regrettable that they only made this and “Notorious” together. The lush surroundings and Ingrid’s marvelous wardrobe and jewels don’t hurt either!!
Dark City was a good introductory vehicle for Heston (in a role that Burt Lancaster refused) and it is interesting to see him as a less morally resolute character than became his standard once Moses and Ben-Hur became attached to his image. I love Lizabeth Scott, even if she was a limited actress she was born for noir and was fortunate to have her brief time in the spotlight correspond with the heyday of the genre. The film isn’t an essential of its type but still a solid entry.
The same can be said of Murder! in the Hitchcock universe. A decent film blessed with having Herbert Marshall in the lead and Una O’Connor in the cast, but as Hitch himself said of his two versions of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” this early film is the work of a talented amateur whereas his later films are the work of a professional who has a mastery of his craft.
Safe in Hell is one tough and, in many ways, ugly picture. A real pity Dorothy Mackaill’s career didn’t sustain itself much after sound came in because she’s electric in the lead. Wellman’s direction is strong and the rest of the cast adequate, but she is the one who brings the film to life.
As for the rest, Finding Forrester was okay but nothing I have ever had any desire to return to and Eternals is something I watched merely because it was on. It didn’t hold my attention, and I have zero intent to look at it again.
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is the one I have not seen. I agree with the pretension of attaching the director’s name to the beginning of the title and despite the presence of Jake Gyllenhaal I cannot say I’m particularly drawn to catch up with the movie.
I enjoyed Torch Song Trilogy a great deal. You're right that it really does come down to Fierstein being someone we can relate to and understand, and so much of that is that he is really human--flawed and imperfect, but real because of it. It's probably not a daring movie today, but then? It certainly felt like a real risk.
DeleteIndiscreet is harmless fluff, but sometimes, that's what you need.
I agree with you on Dark City, Murder! and Safe in Hell. Lizabeth Scott is the best part of Dark City, but she's not enough to make me want to see it again. Murder! has moments, but it's bloated. Safe in Hell is a rough go because of the story, but it's engaging and doesn't overstay its welcome.
There's nothing inherently bad about Eternals; it just doesn't fit with the rest of the MCU in any discernable way. As for The Covenant, it's really just The Killing Fields with more patriotism.