Terrible host segments as usual, misguided efforts at diversity, then it settles down into a clip show of dance scenes from classic movies and all is well. Happy to see Bojangles Robinson, whose statue I drive past on the way to the movie theater.
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024, David Hinton)
Feels like more of a Scorsese movie than some other docs he supposedly directed, but the main appeal here is to watch lovely HD clips of the best P&P movies you’ve seen before and learn about all the others. I wanted Marty to tell me that the little-seen post-Hoffman movies were masterpieces waiting for rediscovery, but he did not.
Love in the Time of Twilight (1995, Tsui Hark)
Yan is Charlie Yeung (crazy chick of Fallen Angels the same year), an actress in a theater run by Wong Fei-hung’s dad, until she meets bank clerk Nicky Wu (her costar in Tsui’s The Lovers). Nicky was an unwitting helper in a robbery, killed by a power line, now a time-traveling Lawnmower Man trying to set things right. Movie gets crazy, then excellent, and finally exhausting.
Inside the electricity, a clear Twin Peaks s3 influence:
Union (2024, Stephen Maing & Brett Story)
The Temple Woods Gang (2022, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche)
Local gang carjacks some valuables from a Saudi prince who likes to dance incognito at grungy clubs. The gang is friendly with Mr. Pons, whose mom just died, and they seem like good-natured dudes, hanging out feeding the pigeons, but the prince’s guy hires Elite Jim, who suspects these guys straight away, and quickly hunts/kills them all. Mr. Pons is an ex-army sniper, which means he’s got a long gun wrapped in a carpet hidden in a storage locker somewhere, and out it comes for some fast revenge. I wouldn’t have started watching if I’d remembered Rabah made the decently forgettable South Terminal, but this one’s better: a grounded version of the crime/revenge movie.
Totally Fucked Up (1993, Gregg Araki)
Sketch movie of disaffected gay youths, told “in 15 random celluloid fragments.” One guy is a videographer so we get TV interview segments cut between epic 90’s-indie-looking episodes blanketed with heavy music and concert posters/shirts and advertising billboards. Relationship dramas within James Duval’s friend group: the nice guy he starts dating ghosts him, Tommy’s dad kicks him out, Deric gets beat up by randos and doesn’t want to see video-Steven who’s hung up on him. Not as apocalyptic as Doom Generation, though it is bookended by suicides, ending with Duval drinking a Reverend Toller cocktail.
Plus Coil, J&MC, Ride, Kozelek, Unrest, Thrill Kill Kult, etc:
The Lodger (1927, Alfred Hitchcock)
There’s a serial killer murdering the blondes of London, but the movie is more concerned with showing us all the media technologies of the time (telegraph, newspaper, radio, electric billboards). Meanwhile after a performance of “Golden Curls,” the few performers who weren’t wearing wigs are worried about their walk home. Good music by Neil Brand, and I love the construction paper graphics on the intertitles.
Ivor Novello arrives, pale and scarved, at a boarding house, acting like a dramatic ghost while renting a room, and is assumed to be the killer so everything he picks up is implied to be a possible murder weapon. He likes local girl Daisy, which annoys her hanger-on Joe. First the landlady then the cops go snooping through Ivor’s stuff, then the real killer is caught off-camera but not before jealous Joe gets an angry mob to beat Ivor half to death.
Killer calling card:
British people must spend 15% of their day standing in shocked silence after something mildly disagreeable happened. Novello’s legacy: he would be portrayed ninety-some years later by the guy who also played young Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia 2.
POV: Ivor Novello wants to kiss you
Demon Pond (1979, Masahiro Shinoda)
Thirsty traveler (star of Tampopo) enters dusty village, finds a stream and nearby house, meets Yuri (a female impersonator, also of Yumeji) and coincidentally his long-missing friend Akira (of Samurai Rebellion), who has become Yuri’s reclusive boyfriend and the town bell-ringer who keeps away evil spirits. The traveler would like to see the local Demon Pond before returning to work in the morning and his friend offers to guide him. Seems like a restrained, traditional Japanese folk story so far, but I was underestimating it.
As soon as the girl is alone, a carp poacher spies on her until he’s bitten by a crab, then the movie turns suddenly goofy, the carp and crab transforming into costumed characters off to see the undersea princess (same actre(ss) as Yuri), the eerie score mutated into crazy electro music. The princess wants to see her lover at another lake but is trapped here as long as the bell is faithfully rung. Back in town the poacher gets an angry mob after Yuri, insisting the bell not be rung, realizing their mistake too late as the lake destroys the town. I enjoyed this more than Shinoda’s Silence. Carp also starred in Pitfall, and Crab was in The Eel (heh).
Boy (1969, Nagisa Oshima)
Boy lives with an adoptive family of scam artists, the parents both Oshima regulars (she’s the criminal’s wife in Violence at Noon, he’s an officer in Death by Hanging). They earn money by having the kid and mom Curly-Sue passing cars then shaking down the drivers. This life doesn’t bring Boy happiness so he’s hoarding his allowance to afford a train ticket out of town, but the others catch up, and carry on until one of their crashes proves fatal and a suspicious driver reports them. Kind of a true-crime story, adapted from news stories, and predicting a bunch of Kore-eda films. The Boy is really good but his lines are so post-dubbed that it sounds like he’s a talking doll having his string pulled.
Boy didn’t act again, but grew up to be Morrissey:
