The Wizard of Oz

Not Judy Garland but Dorothy Dwan. Not Ray Bolger but Larry Semon. Not Jack Haley but Oliver Hardy. And not Bert Lahr but … G. Howe Black? That was the credit name for Spencer Bell, who played a character called “Snowball,” before he became the Cowardly Lion. Bell specialized in bug-eyed, eye-rolling, knee-knocking, “feets do yo’ stuff!” darkies, often opposite Larry Semon, who was a big ... Read more »

The Wolf of Wall Street

It didn’t take me long to start comparing this to Scorsese’s Goodfellas. That one was narrated by Ray Liotta, detailing his life of petty gangsterism. This one is narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, detailing his life as the Wall Street version of gangsterism. Both are fast-paced, and amoral, and celebrate the good things that can come to those with no scruples, until ... Read more »

A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop

Wow! This is not quite on the level of Gus Van Sant’s infamous shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (for one thing, I mostly liked this one), but it’s close. The famous director Zhang Yimou, who has done a lot of good movies and who put together the gigantic Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, decided to remake Blood Simple, and set ... Read more »

A Woman in Berlin

In the early spring of 1945 the Russians had fought their way into Berlin. The Nazis were still fighting in some parts of the city; nerves were on edge. The Russian troops set about doing what soldiers have been doing since long before the Sabine women: looting, pillaging, and most of all, raping. In 1959 a book was published anonymously by a woman who had lived through it. The book caused ... Read more »

Woman in Gold

We feel a special connection with this movie. It involves the legal fight to return five Gustav Klimpt paintings to the woman whose family they were stolen from by the fucking Nazis. For fifty years they were in the possession of a long-time receiver of stolen goods, namely the government of Austria. It’s no secret that, after a long and nasty legal fight (by the Austrians), they were ... Read more »

Woman Walks Ahead

Caroline Weldon was an artist who, in 1889, traveled to the Dakota Territory with the intention of painting portraits of the Lakota people and working for Indian rights. As usual, the government was in the process of fucking the red man once more by taking most of the reservation to give to white settlers. She became friends with Sitting Bull. You know it will end badly.

I don’t ... Read more »

The Women

We get a kick out of watching remakes and original versions of movies close together, so they’re easier to compare. We watched all four versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers within a month. (The first one is still the best.) Every once in a while a remake (Sorcerer, 1977) is as good as or better than the original (Read more »

The Women

The reviews for this were so abysmal I almost didn’t rent it, But the cast was so wonderful I didn’t see how I could pass it up. But … 13% at Rotten Tomatoes? That’s just about as low as it goes. Then I took a closer look. RT and Metacritic use some sort of weighting system that can be thrown considerably out of whack if, say, a whole lot of critics give the movie 2 stars, or 40%, or ... Read more »

Women in Love

Here is the film that really put Ken Russell on the map. Adapted from a story by D.H. Lawrence. It’s a powerful ensemble of Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, and Jenny Linden, the only one who did not go on to a major career. (She bore a surprising resemblance to Julie Christie. I wonder if that was a factor?) They are two middle class sisters who manage to hobnob with the upper ... Read more »

Wonder Boys

Curtis Hanson seems to be one of the better directors I have not really taken note of. (It’s too late now. He died of some horrible strain of dementia in late 2016) His credits include small but heartfelt films like The Big Year, which we loved, and big ones, like L.A. Confidential, which in addition to being an outstanding noir ... Read more »