Teinosuke Kinugasa directs Masao Inoue, Ayako Iijima and Yoshie Nakagawa in this Japanese avant-garde drama about a guilt-stricken man who maintains a job at an asylum with hopes of being near his imprisoned wife.
Japanese silent movies were accompanied by benshi (live narrators) to help explain the plot. The streaming version of this movie had no such accompaniment and was damn near incomprehensible. Some haunting imagery saves it.
Penny Marshall directs Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna in this period sports comedy about the WWII women’s baseball league set up to entertain the folks when the boys went to war.
“There’s no crying in baseball.”
Here’s a sweet movie that’s cultural footprint is improbably bigger than the quality of the actual product itself. That’s no shade towards the sleeper hit of 1992 but its impact on popular culture seems to have outlived that of even the summer’s big hitters (Lethal Weapon 3, Patriot Games etc.) (also, no pun intended). Watching gentle feminism – somewhere between Germaine Greer and Geri Halliwell – was still a pleasant rarity in a studio release back then. Tom Hanks was taking his tentative steps away from comedy into serious romantic leads and even serious-er prestige roles. Hard to believe he wasn’t a fully fledged A-Lister at this point given the consistency of his releases. His shuffles towards mega stardom, post-Big, were subtle and faltering – irascible Jimmy Duggan was the first quantum leap that got him to the rarefied position where he still is today. Madonna also, at last, found another role that played to her strengths. So much stronger in a showy support rather than having to carry the movie. She provides a nice ballad as well in “This Used To Be My Playground.” Overall, it is a lark to watch though never rises above the set course that most sports movies run around. Watchable, afternoon friendly, but you have to wonder what the makers of Boomerang, Far & Away and Unlawful Entry feel about a slightly inferior package standing the test of time over their own 1992 summer releases.
Woody Allen directs Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson and Emily Mortimer in this crime thriller where a tennis pro romances his way into a wealthy family only for his lusts to thwart his ambitions.
One of Woody’s coldest films. It doesn’t really work as a mystery because everyone is such a selfish, grating prick that you don’t care how all the messy bonking and perfect murders pan out. Crime & Punishment for the 1%. There’s definitely a barbed subtext about the rich being less creative / infertile / incestuous that I haven’t the patience to unpack. Having said that… his London location work is splendid, ScarJo looks delectable as fuck in her pure white outfits. A regular Lana Turner. It is a class act with a hot girl, undemanding to watch even though you can tell Woody is straining towards some deeper evaluation of the human race, so bonus points for all that… Still it could do with losing twenty minutes of runtime.
James William Guercio directs Robert Blake, Billy Green Bush and Mitchell Ryan in this counter culture motorcycle cop thriller.
Feels like exactly the kinda movie that Tarantino might have devoted a whole essay chapter in Cinema Speculation too. A movie for us short guys… I would like to think the ultimate take home is because Blake’s ambitious, hardworking runt doesn’t have the natural physique of a fascist bully, and therefore has developed his own morality and emotions, it makes his traffic cop all the better at his job in terms of keeping his cool, engaging with people and giving the local barmaid a good fuck… She, Jeannine Riley, gets a barn storming, game changing scene at the midway point, rarely afforded the T&A of such anti-establishment flicks. The cop stuff / mystery is the least intriguing part. This is a character study, a sign of the times movie, with little dedicated bursts of chase action. Conrad Hall’s interior cinematography is fantastic, memorable framing, unusual angles… the exterior stuff looks epic. Not fully sure about Blake as a leading man (there is something creepy about him… beyond his unusual for a movie star height). Still, his character proves fantastic advertising for us little guys, certainly in terms of destroying the “short man, short temper” myth. The ending elevates the movie to a whole other level… a moment where he breaks his strict code is keenly felt followed by one of the most impressive sustained shots in cinema history. A final dolly that makes you feel all the emotions. Like an empty jug, it allows you to pour everything you’ve been thinking and feeling into a safe space.
Nobuhiko Obayashi directs Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo and Ai Matubara in the Japanese horror comedy where a group of schoolgirls vacation in a possessed house.
Absolutely bonkers. The Evil Dead meets some Saturday morning kids cartoon put on fast forward. Pretty much every trick shot and daft joke is plopped through the meat grinder. Exhausting but hard not to love for its bonafide cult particulars.
“Any old cat can open a door. Only a witch cat can close one.”
William Wyler directs Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson in this adaptation of a Henry James novel where a dowdy young lady of good fortune is romanced by a dashing suitor.
An interiors flick. I can’t be making too many excuses for something that feels very much like a filmed stage play… yet maybe Wyler’s reasoning for not opening the story up is to show the cloistered, choiceless environment of de Havilland’s Catherine Sloper. She is a caged bird. The extended epilogue feels suitably grim and tragic… yet maybe the ultimate message is all of us, no matter how unremarkable, deserve their chance to love, even if said chance is a mercenary expedition, otherwise we harden to romance. Clift’s motivations, whether predatory or genuine, are never revealed… somewhere in between is my interpretation… and because of that mystery, the film sings.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 