He seems like a nice guy…

This is unusual in that it’s about a guy that’s not a Cassavetes stand-in (apparently) — instead it’s about an insufferable guy with a handlebar stache.

And unusually for a Cassavetes film, Criterion hasn’t done a release, so I had to get a Spanish DVD of this.

Gena Rowlands!

This movie seems even more improvised than Cassavetes’ movies usually are?

The first bit was *yawn* but once the film shifted to Rowlands, I’m totally riveted.

Nice bookcase!

That’s a colour scheme…

This alternates between being fascinating and being frustrating, so it’s very this.

Oh, imdb.

Exactly. This movie just isn’t that convincing. I mean… all the drama? Rowland’s quirkiness just doesn’t make sense, and Seymour Cassel is just wrong for the part of the Love Interest. (Being wrong here is part of the plot, but he just feels wrong for being the wrong Love Interest, if that makes any sense.)

One third into this movie, I thought this was some kinda genius movie, and then it’s kept on disappointing me for an hour.

It’s… interesting, though? And Rowlands is great. But…

Katherine Cassavetes is great as Moskowitz’s mother, though. Hm… Oh! Gena Rowland’s mother plays her character’s mother here? This is very meta. So Moskowitz is a standin for John Cassavetes? He sees himself like that?

So that was Cassavetes’ mother’s advice to Gena Rowlands?

Well, that makes things a lot funnier, of course.

But… I alternated between adoring this movie and being bored by it. So, er, uhm, like, let’s throw the die this way:

Minnie & Moskowitz. John Cassavetes. 1971. ⚄

Man, this is so 2012. Everything’s been colour-graded to a desaturated teal.

Oh, that’s Cillian Murphy?

And, of course, Sigourney, which is why I got this movie.

OK, here comes the orange after the teal…

This is ridiculous. Is this movie really supposed to be this teal and desaturated or is there something wrong with this bluray?

It’s like… the person in change of the white balance button was colour blind or something? This is the most ridiculously teal movie I’ve ever seen.

Yes, that is Robert de Niro playing a Uri Geller character. Indeed.

See? When it’s not teal, it’s orange. They did this on purpose.

NOOOOES NOT THE SPOOOONS

This movie is somewhat compelling when they’re not talking. If it hadn’t been for the absurd colour grading, a lot of these moody shots would have been quite nice. But when they have to infodump on us what this silly movie is about, it’s like

This movie is such a car crash. And even though car crashes are easy to look away from, this is almost fascinatingly awful.

Yes, this is a movie from 2012, and somebody is walking for several minutes to go to a pay phone. Inside a school.

The imdb rating is just about a perfect score (if it’s higher, it usually something “popular”, and if it’s lower, it genuinely bad).

But on Rottentomatoes, it’s what you’d expect, because this is an awful movie. Just offal.

That looks like a very real street.

Anyway, after they kill off Sigourney (OOPS SPOILERS), the movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

But the first part is kinda fun, so:

Red Lights. Rodrigo Cortés. 2012. ⚁

This is most amusing. It’s a screwball comedy about a bunch of perfessers writing an encyclopedia, and it’s really really screwy.

Gary Cooper is the perfessor in charge of grammer, so he’s out doing research for slang, see?

Hey, that’s Gene Krupa?

And Babs!

Stanwyck, that is.

This is amazing! It’s like Bringing Up Baby II or something! Have I been living under a rock or something? Because I can’t recall seeing this film mentioned like ever.

*gasp*

This is totally delightful. It’s not quite perfect the way Bringing Up Baby is (it’s a bit flabby in the last third), but it’s wonderful anyway.

It’s shocking that no Howard Hawks movies are in the S&S Top 100, but on the other hand, perhaps not? If you’re listing the ten “best movies”, you’re going to go for something that had an emotional impact, not a screwball comedy. But watching this movie, I want to watch everything Howard Hawks has done, because this is pure genius.

Looking at his imdb, I’ve watched more than half a dozen of his films, but there’s so much I haven’t seen. I should get shopping.

Ball of Fire. Howard Hawks. 1941. ⚅