Frank's Movie Log

Disappointing sequel sees perennial doofuses Bill and Ted still struggling to fulfill their destiny while facing crumbling marriages and their college-age children’s expectations. I wanted to like this more. The script strives to recapture the first entry’s sense of whimsy by recreating the original film while telling a new story, but the result feels too self-conscious. The cast commits but can’t overcome the material. Ted wearing a button-up and slacks proves you can’t go home again.

A reform school drama buoyed by early charismatic performances from Pat O’Brien and Bette Davis. Junior Durkin plays Jimmy, a fourteen-year-old who travels to the big city to live with his aunt and uncle. He soon becomes enraptured by their smooth-talking boarder, played by O’Brien, who takes a shine to Jimmy and hires him to watch his office and take messages. Continue reading...

How to describe The Greasy Strangler? It’s part father-son relationship drama, part schlock monster movie, and part 70s sleaze, all staged with the precision of a Wes Anderson film, and seeped in British-style absurdist humor. You will either love it or hate it. I can’t imagine a middle ground. Continue reading...

Lewis Tan plays Cole Young, a once-promising mixed martial artist reduced to last-minute bouts staged in sweaty auditoriums. An attack from a mysterious assailant with supernatural powers thrusts him into a centuries old conflict between worlds. Continue reading...

William Powell plays New York City’s best “promoter.” If you’ve got an idea for a business, he’ll mastermind drumming up investment dollars. His one catch: the deal must be legit. As he says, anyone can put over a swindle, but promoting a real deal takes skill. George Sidney brings him a proposition involving synthetic rubber and soon Powell has an army of salesmen pressing the hard sell on scores of potential investors. Think a tamer Wolf of Wall Street. Things take a turn when the Attorney General demands they prove their ability to produce rubber. Not a standout, but I enjoyed it. Powell’s charming as ever and director Mervyn LeRoy keeps his foot on the gas. Only the romantic angle between Powell and Evelyn Brent underwhelmed. Frank McHugh turns up early as Powell’s right-hand man.

Peter Cushing’s debut. Fitting it should come in a film directed by James Whale, who had—eight years prior—directed Frankenstein. This loose adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s novel boasts a winning double-role from Louis Hayward. The lavish sets scream for Technicolor, but the optical effects involved in Hayward playing opposite himself may have prevented it. I’d have preferred more swashbuckling and less melodrama, but it’s still an entertaining ride. The climactic chase reminded me of a western. Our heroes on horseback pursing the villain across the California landscape as he shoots back at them. It also drove home that we weren’t in France. Cushing has one scene as the vice-goon of a band of soldiers sent to arrest d’Artagnan.

Ingmar Bergman’s slow-build drama focuses on two women. Susanne owns a successful modeling agency but yearns for her former lover, a married man. Younger Doris models for Susanne, has split with her fiancé, and yearns for a more attentive partner. We watch both women realize their dreams in a meandering but uneasy manner. Then Bergman strikes. He punctuates both storylines with profound moments of icy, acerbic cruelty that disabuse both women of their fantasies. The reductive epilogue disappointed, but there’s a through-line here to Neil LaBute’s best work.

A romantic comedy starring Gloria Swanson as a prima donna criticized for her passionless performances because she’s never made time for a man. To remedy this, she falls for convenient handsome stranger Melvyn Douglas, but an idiot plot causes her to believe him a gigolo. Putting aside the plot’s overt sexism, I struggled with Swanson’s petulant, egomaniacal character. Boris Karloff appears in a single scene as a hotel waiter.

A disappointing sequel that manifests its bigger budget via more effects and product placement, but lacks the first entry’s amiable tone. The heightened narrative stakes involve a future revolutionary, evil robots, and the afterlife. The abundant night shots point to a rushed production. Only the scenes with William Sadler as the Grim Reaper recapture the first entry’s goofy sense of fun.

Brian De Palma’s first Hitchcockian thriller. I won’t discuss plot and have redacted spoilers. Continue reading...