Susan and God (George Cukor, 1940)

Susan and God (George Cukor, 1940)

Cast: Joan Crawford, Fredric March, Ruth Hussey, John Carroll, Rita Hayworth, Nigel Bruce, Bruce Cabot, Rose Hobart, Rita Quigley, Constance Collier, Richard Crane, Norma Mitchell, Marjorie Main, Aldrich Bowker. Screenplay: Anita Loos, based on a play by Rachel Crothers. Cinematography: Robert H. Planck. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell. Film editing: William H. Terhune. Music: Herbert Stothart.

I have no hesitation in calling Joan Crawford one of the greatest film actresses of the studio era, and there's a moment in Susan and God that fully justifies my opinion. It comes at the turning point when Crawford's character, Susan Trexel, realizes how much harm her giddy self-absorption has done to her husband and daughter. In only a few seconds, surprise, guilt, and shame cross her face, and without mugging or emoting, Crawford gives each thought and emotion its due. But the moment also reveals how out of place in this sentimental comedy Crawford is: She was made for melodrama, not for frivolity, which is what the role chiefly calls upon her for. Through much of the movie, Crawford seems to be copying Rosalind Russell's performance in The Women, the movie she made with Russell and director George Cukor a year before Susan and God. In The Women, Russell played the nitwit socialite that Crawford is expected to play in Susan and God. But Susan Trexel lies outside of Crawford's established tough-as-nails persona -- which she played on to perfection in The Women -- and the later film suffers from it. It also suffers from a rather scattered script, too stuffed with secondary characters, and from a general confusion about exactly what kind of "god" Susan has found -- apparently a kind of self-help feel-good cult. Cukor keeps things moving nicely, and there are good moments from supporting players like Ruth Hussey and Marjorie Main, but it's easy to see why the film was a flop at the box office.

Cold Water (Olivier Assayas, 1994)

Cyprien Fouquet and Virginie Ledoyen in Cold Water

Cast: Virginie Ledoyen, Cyprien Fouquet, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Darrousin, Dominique Faysse, Smaïl Mekki, Jackie Berroyer, Jean-Christophe Bouvet. Screenplay: Olivier Assayas. Cinematography: Denis Lenoir. Production design: Gilbert Gagneux. Film editing: Luc Barnier.

Olivier Assayas's semi-autobiographical film is set in the 1970s and follows two teenagers, Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) and Christine (Virginie Ledoyen), as they split from their messed-up families and set out to join a commune. They filch things from stores, experiment with drugs, and attend a wild party with other teenagers in an abandoned house that they eventually set fire to. It's a flashback to the rebellious youth movies of the 1960s and '70s, but given freshness by the performances and by the contemporary awareness of how sourly the freewheeling era of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll ended.

My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan, 1989)

Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Benda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Ruth McCabe, Hugh O'Conor, Cyril Cusack. Screenplay: Shane Connaughton, Jim Sheridan, based on a book by Christy Brown. Cinematography: Jack Conroy. Production design: Austen Spriggs. Film editing: J. Patrick Duffner. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

Daniel Day-Lewis won his first Oscar for My Left Foot, with a tour-de-force performance that almost guaranteed him the award. As Christy Brown, limited by cerebral palsy to the creative and expressive use of only his left foot, he struggles for the kind of acceptance by the outer world that he finds in his large working-class Irish family, finding it finally through painting and writing. It's the kind of film that's usually called "inspiring," but Day-Lewis makes it clear that Brown was something of a handful to deal with -- a human figure, not an object of sentimental concern or pity. It's easy to overlook, in all the attention given to Day-Lewis, the performance of Hugh O'Conor as the young Christy.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, 2018)

Cast: voices of Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoë Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicolas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine. Screenplay: Phil Lord, Rodney Rothman. Production design: Justin K. Thompson. Film editing: Robert Fisher Jr. Music: Daniel Pemberton.

The theory in physics that there are multiple universes has also entered the realm of works derived from the imagination. So far, it's largely used in talking about science fiction and comic books -- that is, we haven't yet begun to talk about the Shakespeareverse, the Dickensverse, or the Faulknerverse, among other potential realms of fiction -- but it's now commonplace to refer to shared fictional universes like the "Marvel Universe" or DC's "Arrowverse," in which all the various comics, TV shows, and movies are assumed to coexist. Hence the emergence of a "Spider-Verse" in the Oscar-winning animated movie in which various avatars of the webslinger created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko appear together. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a colorful, hyperactive movie that may cause some of us not steeped in the lore of comic books confusion and headaches. But it's pulled off with a good deal of verve and wit.

Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán, Joanna Gleason, Ricky Jay, Philip Baker Hall, Alfred Molina, Thomas Jane, Michael Penn. Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson. Cinematography: Robert Elswit. Production design: Bob Ziembicki. Film editing: Dylan Tichenor. Music: Michael Penn.

Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough film is a reworking at feature length of a short film he made in 1988, and it has the earmarks of what was to come from him as writer-director: complex narratives with large casts, featuring some of the same actors from film to film. It also launched Mark Wahlberg out of his career as a rapper and underwear model into success as a film actor and producer. Wahlberg plays a naïve layabout who gets into the porn business under the screen name Dirk Diggler. He is mentored by the filmmaker Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and by the actress Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), who acts as a kind of den mother for the various porn stars under Horner's aegis. The camaraderie of this little company is tested by the passage of time, as the feel-good 1970s turn into the anxious 1980s.

I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942)

Cast: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Robert Benchley, Cecil Kellaway, Susan Hayward, Elizabeth Patterson, Robert Warwick. Screenplay: Robert Pirosh, Marc Connelly, based on a novel by Thorne Smith and Norman Matson. Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff. Art direction: Hans Dreier, Ernst Fegté. Film editing: Eda Warren. Music: Roy Webb.

This somewhat over-frantic supernatural romantic comedy was the product of much friction during its preparation and filming, and it shows. At various points, Preston Sturges (as producer), Dalton Trumbo (as screenwriter), and Joel McCrea (as the male lead) were involved with it and left because of conflicts with director René Clair and actress Veronica Lake (who also fought with Fredric March after he took over the lead from McCrea, who had hated working with her a year earlier on Sturges's Sullivan's Travels). The premise is that two witches, Jennifer (Lake) and her father, Daniel (Cecil Kellaway), burned at the stake in 17th century Salem, have returned from the dead to haunt the descendant of the man who had them burned. He happens to be a gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts, Wallace Wooley (March), who is also on the verge of marrying a shrewish snob played by Susan Hayward. Daniel casts a spell to give Jennifer a mortal form, whereupon she puts an end to the wedding but also falls in love with Wallace. Complications ensue in a brittle and occasionally rather cruel comedy in which no one either in front of or behind the camera seems to be working at top form.

The Virginian (Victor Fleming, 1929)

Mary Brian and Gary Cooper in The Virginian (Victor Fleming, 1929)

Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Mary Brian, Richard Arlen, Helen Ware, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette, Victor Potel, E.H. Calvert. Screenplay: Howard Estabrook, Grover Jones, Keene Thompson, Edward E. Paramore Jr., based on a novel by Owen Wister and the play adapted from it by Wister and Keene Thompson. Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt, Edward Cronjager. Film editing: William Shea. Music: Karl Hajos.

This early talkie is most famous for the response of the Virginian (Gary Cooper) to an insult from Trampas (Walter Huston): "If you wanna call me that, smile," and for the crisis that comes when the Virginian (the only name by which he is known, at least in the film) is forced to hang his best friend, Steve (Richard Arlen), who falls in with Trampas's gang of cattle rustlers. But much of it is taken up with the on-again, off-again romance of the Virginian and the new shoolmarm, Molly (Mary Brian). Owen Wister's 1901 novel and subsequent stage play were so popular that it had been filmed twice as a silent, and this version established Cooper as a major star and a Western icon. It also spawned a 1960s TV series.  

Adua and Her Friends (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1960)

Cast: Simone Signoret, Sandra Milo, Emmanuelle Riva, Gina Rovere, Marcello Mastroianni, Claudio Gora, Ivo Garrani, Gianrico Tedeschi, Antonio Rais, Duilio D'Amore. Screenplay: Ruggero Maccari, Tullio Pinelli, Ettore Scola, Antonio Pietrangeli. Cinematography: Armando Nannuzzi. Production design: Luigi Scaccianoce. Film editing: Eraldo Da Roma. Music: Piero Piccioni.

A 1958 law passed in Italy shut down all the houses of prostitution, putting many of the women on the streets. But Adua (Simone Signoret) and three of her fellow sex workers decide to go semi-legit: They find a rundown property on the edge of Roman and with their savings and the help of Ercoli (Claudio Gora), one of Adua's wealthy former clients, they open a restaurant which they plan to use as a front for an illegal brothel. But the restaurant proves to be so popular that they decide they can get out of the sex trade entirely. Adua even strikes up a promising relationship with the slick car salesman Pietro (Marcello Mastroianni). But tension between Adua and Ercoli eventually undoes the whole plan. Adua and Her Friends is a well-made, mostly comic film with a downer ending.

Faithless (Harry Beaumont, 1932)

Robert Montgomery and Tallulah Bankhead in Faithless

Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Hugh Herbert, Maurice Murphy, Louise Closser Hale, Anna Appel, Lawrence Grant, Henry Kolker. Screenplay: Carey Wilson, based on a novel by Mildred Cram. Cinematography: Oliver T. Marsh. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Film editing: Hugh Wynn. Costume design: Adrian.

Faithless is a pretty good demonstration of why Tallulah Bankhead failed to become a major Hollywood star. It has a standard weepie plot: Rich girl loses her money in the Depression, becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, breaks with him when a former boyfriend discovers their relationship, reconciles with the boyfriend and marries him, but when he's injured in an accident finds that prostitution is the only way she can pay his medical bills; rescued from a life on the streets by a kindly cop, she confesses to her husband, who forgives her. The trouble is that Bankhead is not a sufferer; she's too tough and clever to play a role that should have gone to the likes of Janet Gaynor or Ruth Chatterton. The film is chiefly of interest as an example of what Hollywood could get away with before the Production Code. It's also interesting to see comic actor Hugh Herbert cast (wrongly) in a serious role as the man whose mistress Bankhead becomes.

Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)

Cast: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Lucien Frégis, Betty Schneider, Jean-François Martial, Dominique Marie, Yvonne Arnaud, Adelaide Danieli, Alain Bécourt. Screenplay: Jacques Tati, Jacques Lagrange, Jean L'Hôte. Cinematography: Jean Bourgoin. Production design: Henri Schmitt. Film editing: Suzanne Baron. Music: Franck Barcellini, Alain Romans, Norbert Glanzberg.

Jacques Tati's M. Hulot confronts the modern world and almost leaves it in ruins. I think this is probably the funniest of Tati's films, with superb slapstick setups in the hideous modern house owned by his sister and brother-in-law and in the plastics factory where Hulot gets a job. It's filled with Tati's nostalgia for the antique and shabby as it fades into the future.