Scanners (David Cronenberg, 1981)

Michael Ironside in Scanners

Cast: Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, Jennifer O'Neill, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, Robert A. Silverman, Screenplay: David Cronenberg. Cinematography: Mark Irwin. Art direction: Carol Spier. Film editing: Ronald Sanders. Music: Howard Shore. 

David Cronenberg's Scanners is remembered today for its exploding head and the literal face-off of its conclusion, and probably for making splatter into a genre. But so many heads have been exploded and so much gore has been spilled since then that today it looks a little tired and slow. It's not helped by the woodenness of much of its acting. A lot of the criticism has been leveled at its leading man, Stephen Lack, but nobody is up to par. In contrast to Lack, Michael Ironside goes full ham as the film's villain. It also has a dialogue track that lacks ambience -- I don't know if it was post-synched, but it has the deadness characteristic of films that were. Cronenberg's script was reportedly being written while the shooting proceeded, which may explain some of the flatness of the performances, the confusion about where the movie's headed between its action sequences, and why the ending seems so perfunctory. Still, it's worth a watch for its pioneer bloodletting and for being the film that launched an important director's career.   

Finishing School (Wanda Tuchock, George Nicholls Jr., 1934)

Frances Dee and Bruce Cabot in Finishing School

Cast: Frances Dee, Bruce Cabot, Ginger Rogers, Billie Burker, Beulah Bondi, John Halliday, Sara Haden, Helen Freeman, Marjorie Lytell, Adalyn Doyle, Anne Shirley, Irene Franklin, Jane Darwell. Screenplay: Wanda Tuchock, Laird Doyle. Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt. Art direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Van Nest Polglase. Film editing: Arthur P. Schmidt. 

Finishing School is a reverse Cinderella story in which poor little rich girl Virginia Radcliff (Frances Dee) finds her prince in Ralph "Mac" McFarland (Bruce Cabot), an unpaid intern at a children's hospital who supports himself by working as a waiter in a Manhattan hotel. Virginia has two wicked stepmothers: her real mother, the snobbish socialite Helen Radcliff (Billie Burke), and the headmistress of the finishing school Helen sends her off to, Miss Van Alstyne (Beulah Bondi). If there's a fairy godmother in the film, it's Virginia's wisecracking roommate, known as Pony (Ginger Rogers), who helps turn the shy and proper Virginia into something of a rebel. The movie is one of those Depression-era fables in which the tables are turned on the wealthy, and also one of the last movies to be released before the Production Code clamped down on the depiction of premarital sex. It earned a condemnation from the Catholic Legend of Decency for just that. Virginia and Mac do it in one of those pan-to-the-window scenes in which we see the snow outside filling up their footprints. And from what follows, including Virginia's refusal to see the school physician, we know the consequences even though nobody ever says "pregnant" out loud. The denouement is precipitated by a literature teacher who tells Virginia and her class that Anna Karenina's suicide was the only possible response to her breach of proper behavior, which is all that the school really teaches. It's a not-unwatchable little film that gets a nice boost occasionally from Rogers's snappy delivery of her lines, but otherwise is mainly a document of the era in which it was made.   

The GoodTimesKid (Azazel Jacobs, 2005)

Sara Diaz in The GoodTimesKid

Cast: Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo, Sara Diaz, Lucy Dodd, Pat Reynolds, Gill Dennis, Melissa Paul. Screenplay: Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo. Cinematography: Eric Curtis, Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo. Film editing: Azazel Jacobs, Diaz Jacobs. Music: Mandy Hoffman. 

In The GoodTimesKid Azazel Jacobs gives a millennial spin on the two-guys-and-a-girl trope popularized by French New Wave directors in films like Les Cousins (Claude Chabrol, 1959), Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962), and Bande à part (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964). The girl in this case is Diaz (Sara Diaz), who lives with one of the guys, Rodolfo Cano (Jacobs). But when the antsy Rodolfo gets fed up with their relationship, he decides to join the army. Somehow the letter telling him to report for duty gets sent to another Rodolfo Cano (Gerardo Naranjo), who goes to set the record straight, and winds up following the other Ricardo home. Diaz is there, preparing a birthday party for her Ricardo, who doesn't want one and storms off. So the other Ricardo decides to hang around with her. If none of this makes much sense so far, you have a choice: either stick around to watch this low-key wackiness develop, or find another film to watch. In its defense, the film has some lovely moments, as when Diaz does a loosey-goosey dance to "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." But if you have no affection for grungy slackers or existential ennui, not to mention low-budget independent filmmaking, this isn't for you. I liked Diaz, who reminded me of Shelley Duvall, and Naranjo gives his Rodolfo a sweetly lost melancholy that contrasts nicely with Jacobs's self-destructive ferocity, but as a movie it's really kind of trifling. 

Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024)

Kirsten Dunst in Civil War

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai, Jesse Plemons. Screenplay: Alex Garland. Cinematography: Rob Hardy. Production design: Caty Maxey. Film editing: Jake Roberts. Music: Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury. 

Alex Garland's Civil War grows out of our current political tensions, which means that it's either too timely or not timely enough to be entirely successful. At least Garland has the wisdom not to give his his fable too much direct correspondence to political actuality: There's no way, of course, that Texas and California would be allied secessionist states. What it does have is a kind of physical actuality, meaning a lot of bloody conflict. It also has some terrific performances, starting with Kirsten Dunst's tough photojournalist, Lee, a long way from Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002) or the title role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006). She's matched well by Wagner Moura as her reporter partner, Joel. I knew I had seen Moura before but I couldn't quite place him until I was reminded that, 40 pounds heavier, he was Pablo Escobar in the series Narcos. Aside from unlikely alliances, the story stretches credulity that the intensely focused Joel would choose to bring along on a perilous journey an aging, overweight reporter like Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a callow young photographer like Jessie (Cailee Spaeny). But as I said, it's a fable, a story meant to make a point -- or rather several points. One of them is that journalism depends on a sometimes cold-hearted pursuit of the truth. Another is that political stability is a fragile thing. And that both are in perpetual danger. If Civil War fails in making those points effectively, and I think it does, it's because the medium, an action movie, is inadequate to deliver the message. 

French Wedding, Caribbean Style (Julius-Amédée Laou, 2002)

Nicole Dogué in French Wedding, Caribbean Style

Cast: Dieudonné, Loulou Boislaville, Nicole Dogué, Daniel Njo Lobé, Lucien Thérésin, Emile Abossolo M'bo, Ériq Ebouaney, Emilie Benoît. Screenplay: Julius-Amédée Laou. 

You can't count on much help from the internet if you want to know more after watching Julius-Amédée Laou's French Wedding, Caribbean Style. There's precious little about the film on the usual sources like IMDb and Letterboxd. But it's a refreshing, noisy, chaotic treat that takes on all sorts of subjects: racism, colonialism, sexism, and any number of cultural conflicts in an amusing but bittersweet, insightful, provocative way. The setup is simple: a young white Frenchman and a young woman whose grandparents immigrated to France from Martinique in the 1930s arrive at the reception after their wedding, which is being held at the home of her parents. The event is being recorded by her younger brother on a video camera, and we see everything through that lens. There are the usual family tensions on display -- get any large family, no matter the ethnicity, together and you'll witness them. The groom's parents, an uptight couple, are not terribly happy with the marriage, but even among the bride's relatives there's some conflict. Still, everything proceeds noisily as the young videographer pokes his camera's nose into what's going on. But midway through the film, an uninvited guest arrives: the bride's old boyfriend, who throws a bombshell into the occasion. His "wedding gift" is another videotape, and a shocking one. At this point, as the reception turns into an uproar, the camera falls into the hands of the bride's younger sister, who has an entirely different attitude toward what's going on. That shift in point of view opens up a new perspective on the proceedings. I have to say that I found the ending of the movie a little more didactic and conventional than I'm entirely happy with, but I still admire the huge ensemble cast and the energy and artistry with which Laou has put together this boisterous film. If you subscribe to the Criterion Channel (and you should), you owe it to yourself to check it out.  

We All Loved Each Other So Much (Ettore Scola, 1974)

Stefano Satta Flores, Vittorio Gassman, and Nino Manfredi in We All Loved Each Other So Much

Cast: Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrinelli, Stefano Satta Flores, Giovanna Ralli, Aldo Fabrizi. Screenplay: Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Ettore Scola. Cinematography: Claudio Cirillo. Production design: Luciano Ricceri. Film editing: Raimondo Crociani. Music: Armando Trovajoli. 

Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975)

Cast: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, Eros Pagni, Giuliana Calandri, Piero Mazzinghi, Glauco Mauri, Clara Calamai. Screenplay: Dario Argenti, Bernardino Zapponi. Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller. Production design: Giuseppe Bassan. Film editing: Franco Fraticelli. Music: Giorgio Gaslini, Goblin. 

Dario Argenti likes his protagonists to keep sticking their noses in places where they shouldn't. In The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, for example, it's an American writer who witnesses something that he should have left to the Italian police to investigate, but he persists in trying to solve the crime, putting himself and his girlfriend in peril. And in Deep Red it's a British jazz pianist, Marcus Daly (David Hemmings), who witnesses something that he should have left to the Italian police to investigate, but he persists in trying to solve the crime, putting himself and his girlfriend, journalist Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi), in peril. Well, if a formula works, use it. And it does work, though largely because Argenti has such delight in flinging the most improbable situations and the most colorful (not to say bloody) images at the viewer. He also likes to load his films with a variety of eccentric characters, some of whom are red herrings, but most of which are just there to keep the protagonist on his toes. (There's a touch of homophobia in Argenti's treatment of some of them, like the antiques dealer in The Bird who keeps hitting on the writer, and the androgynous lover of Marcus's friend Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) who elicits a puzzled response from Marcus.) It's best not to try to solve the mysteries along with Argento's amateur detectives, mainly because nothing in his elaborate plots makes sense, like the mechanical doll that spooks one of the victims, or even the identity of the killer. Hemmings, who was usually cast as somewhat creepy, is instead a likable and intrepid protagonist, and Nicolodi is more the entertainingly spunky sidekick than the romantic interest.   

The Lovers (Azazel Jacobs, 2017)

Debra Winger and Tracy Letts in The Lovers

Cast: Debra Winger, Tracy Letts, Aidan Gillen, Melora Walters, Tyler Ross, Jessica Sula. Screenplay: Azazel Jacobs. Cinematography: Tobias Datum. Production design: Sue Tebbutt. Film editing: Darrin Navarro. Music: Mandy Hoffman. 

Azazel Jacobs's The Lovers has a premise that sounds very French: A middle-aged married couple, each of whom has a lover, has decided to separate. But all of a sudden they discover that their old passion for each other has flared up again. As a result, they begin lying to their lovers to cover up their reheated marriage. But these are not Parisian sophisticates, they're American suburbanites. The couple, Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts), are cubicle-dwellers in tedious office jobs; their respective lovers, Robert (Aidan Gillen) and Lucy (Melora Walters), bring a little artsy glamour to their lives -- Robert is a writer and Lucy a dancer. Mary and Michael have promised their lovers that they will separate after their  college-age son, Joel (Tyler Ross), comes for a visit with his girlfriend, Erin (Jessica Sula). Joel has been witness to the tension in his parents' marriage, which he blames on his father, and he warns Erin that it will not be a pleasant visit. But Erin finds them to be warmly affectionate, which in its turn causes tension between her and Joel. Meanwhile, Robert and Lucy, both frustrated by the delay in the separation of Mary and Michael, begin to act out: Robert confronts Michael in a supermarket, and the volatile Lucy actually hisses at Mary when she sees her -- an event witnessed by Erin. Unfortunately, Jacobs can't find an easy way to resolve this crisis and the very promising film begins to fall apart. From the outset, in fact, the film feels a little off in tone, as if it's not quite sure when or whether we're supposed to laugh at the situations the characters fall into. For one thing, it's overlaid with and sometimes smothered by a lush, romantic, symphonic score by Mandy Hoffman that often seems at odds with what's happening on screen. Defenders of the film say that these are directorial choices designed to be unsettling, but I have to wonder why Jacobs chose this particular story to unsettle us with. 

The Old Sorceress and the Valet (Julius-Amédée Laou, 1987)

Robert Liensol and Jenny Alpha in The Old Sorceress and the Valet

Cast: Jenny Alpha, Robert Liensol, Christine Amat, Jean-François Perrier, Jean-Claude Fal, Sophie Pal, Jacques Martial, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Roger Lemus, Jean-Marie Retby. Screenplay: Julius-Amédée Laou. Cinematography: Jean-Paul Miotto. Film editing: Sophie Chailley, Tamara Pappe. Music: Leona Gabrielle, Ernest Léardée, Jean-Claude Mejstelman, Stellio. 

Julius-Amédée Laou's The Old Sorceress and the Valet is not a particularly obscure film: Enough people have seen it for it to have a page on Letterboxd, though not on Wikipedia. But it deserves to be better-known, if only for the performances of Jenny Alpha and Robert Liensol, who play the title couple, an elderly husband and wife reflecting on their life together. We first see Armand at the breakfast table waiting for his wife, Eugénie, to join him. When she rises from the bed, she calls out for him to bring her robe, but he doesn't respond, even when she joins him, grumbling and scolding. And then he disappears from the apartment and we see Eugénie in her nightgown at a window, calling out for him, a moment that recurs throughout the movie. We then concentrate on Eugénie herself, as she deals with a variety of clients who have come to her for her aid as a sorceress: One woman wants help in murdering her husband, a man wants another man to fall in love with him, and so on. In addition to potions, Eugénie offers advice, much of it sensible. Then the major thread of the film begins: Eugénie and Armand take a walk through Paris, reflecting -- usually bitterly and angrily, but sometimes with tenderness -- on their life together. As the film proceeds, we notice some discontinuities: Eugénie, for example, sometimes walks with a cane or carries a purse, but not always. We see them trapped on a traffic island as they try to cross a busy thoroughfare, and then we see Eugénie alone, being rescued from the island by two policemen. We gather that there has been discord throughout their life in Paris ever since they came there, many decades ago, from Martinique. Alpha, the actress who plays her, was a celebrated performer in nightclubs and on stage, and Eugénie was a showgirl until age reduced her to her current job, dealing with a mostly white clientele. Armand was a valet to a man they refer to as "Master," with whom Eugénie had an affair. The film builds to a revelation that probably doesn't surprise many who see it, and in fact feels a little clumsily handled. But what matters are the haunting insights into the lives of the characters, superbly embodied by their performers. 

Teorema (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968)

Terence Stamp in Teorema

Cast: Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky, Laura Betti, Andréa José Cruz Soublette, Ninetto Davoli, Carlo De Mejo, Adele Cambria, Luigi Barbini, Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia, Alfonso Gatto. Screenplay: Pier Paolo Pasolino. Cinematography: Giuseppe Ruzzolini. Production design: Luciano Puccini. Film editing: Nino Baragli. Music: Ennio Morricone. 

Is Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema artsy fiddle-faddle or a trenchant satire of the bourgeoisie? Yes. It's both. It's a heavy-footed Marxist diatribe and a beautiful display of cinematic technique. If ever a film was caviar to the general, it's Teorema. At this point, I want to recommend that anyone who subscribes to the Criterion Channel go watch Rachel Kushner's commentary on Teorema in her "Adventures in Moviegoing" collection. And if you don't (and even if you do), then read James Quant's essay on the film at the Criterion Collection site. Both of them suggest why Pasolini's film continues to awe and/or annoy viewers. There's a fine line between the pretentious and the provocative, and Teorema has continued to straddle it more than 60 years. For myself, I find it an immensely amusing film, which may be enough for me to recommend it to anyone who has a taste for caviar.