One Way Pendulum

Here’s one for my list of extremely odd movies. It’s not a long list. It’s from a stage play by N.F. Simpson, who was an absurdist, like Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. It was influenced by the famous “Goon Show,” and in turn influenced Monty Python. It was made a year before one of my favorite films, Richard Lester’s The Knack … and How to Get It, and there is ... Read more »

One Week

Buster Keaton two-reeler. This is one of the well-known ones. Buster is a newlywed, and the couple has received a build-it-yourself house in a lot of boxes. But Buster’s rival has switched the numbers on the boxes. When the house is completed, it is all out of whack. This provides endless opportunities for pratfalls, and Buster finds every one of them. When a storm comes, the wind blows ... Read more »

The Onion Movie

Filmed in 2003 and put on the shelf when the test screenings didn’t go well, then released direct to DVD. Sketch comedy movies are just about always hit and miss, so what you want is a good ratio of stuff you laughed at to stuff you just sat there and watched. I’d give this one a ratio of about 80%, which is pretty good for this kind of thing. And it gets even better when you realize, as I ... Read more »

Only Angels Have Wings

Here’s a nice little film set in the mountains of Columbia, telling the story of the men who fly planes over the Andes … and sometimes even make it. Cary Grant is the tough-as-nails head of the operation. Jean Arthur shows up on her way to somewhere else, and stays, and—who would have guessed it?—falls in love. Rita Hayworth and Richard Barthelmess provide complications, he being a pilot ... Read more »

Only the Brave

Sadly and ironically, as I write this most of the citizens of the little town of Redding, California, pop. 89,861, are being evacuated before what is known as the Carr fire, which has already obliterated several neighborhoods. One of those evacuees is Valerie, one of our friend Dean Ing’s daughters. Dean has been writing about how to survive catastrophes for a long, long time, and now some ... Read more »

Onward

COVID-19 has killed more than people in America. (Though it’s killed a lot of people: 154,442 as of today, 8/2/20.) It has killed businesses, small and large: Hertz, Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney, etc. Most movies have been postponed, understandably, until the theaters open again. Just yesterday I saw that The Empire Strikes Back is the ... Read more »

Open Range

Opens okay, but degenerates into stupidity pretty quickly.

Open Water

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Get me out of the water!

This is the best thriller I’ve seen in years. Maybe it’s because I have two strong phobias: being underwater, and being in the water with sharks. The first is because I can’t swim, and I can’t swim because the evil Coach S., during my first swimming lesson when I was about 12, thought holding my head ... Read more »

Operation Crossbow

This one was directed by my friend Michael Anderson. So far as Wiki knows, Michael is still alive at age 93! I wish him many more happy years.

The opening scene is worth commenting about. It’s in an ornate office of the fucking Nazi in charge of the German rocket program, and after two men speak to each other the camera moves in and focuses on two steel things on his desk. One is a ... Read more »

Operation Mad Ball

This is from early in Jack Lemmon’s career. He had made three or four movies, including Mr. Roberts and It Should Happen to You (co-starring with Judy Holliday), but he hadn’t really arrived as a big-time box office draw. The Apartment and Some Like it Hot were in his near future. ... Read more »