Fighting Caravans. Otto Brower and David Burton. 1931.

Oh, Gary Cooper… He’s fine, I guess, but he’s no Cary Grant.

Not that he tries to be.

My internet went away, bit I’m going to go ahead and guess that this isn’t the most well-regarded movie in anybody’s career. It’s a kinda cheap-looking early-30s western with a pretty janky plot.

It just doesn’t seem to movie, even though it’s a road I mean prairie movie . And the jokes are all lame.

This is true::

It is a bit fascinating to see how an early 1930’s filmmaker portrayed the 1860’s. I’d say pass on this movie unless you are a Gary Cooper fan or a hard core fan of early westerns. 61/100.

The time period depicted here was just 70 years away when then movie was made. That’s less of a time span between when this movie was made and when I’m watching it. And another thing: If I didn’t know that this was made in 1931, I would have guessed it was from the early 50s. It doesn’t look like an early talkie at all: It’s dynamic and huge and confident.

But it’s unfortunately a bad movie.

Godzilla. Roland Emmerich. 1998.

Oops. I thought this was a new Godzilla movie, but instead it’s a 4K version of the Emmerich extravaganza from 1998.

Well let’s see.

Emmerich made this on the heels of the mega-super-duper-success Independence Day, and… it’s another catastrophe movie where New York gets flattened. It’s weird how Emmerich has removed all the Japanese bits from the Godzilla phenomenon. I mean, that’s what people liked about the thing, but here it’s all Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria and er it doesn’t really work.

But I guess Broderick is a pretty good choice if you want to substitute one American actor for a gaggle of Japanese children.

And instead of Godjira being a warning to us, it’s an invasion (laying 200 eggs) that’s going to take over the world. It’s more like a Jurassic Park On Broadway than a Godzilla movie.

It’s very 90s. I mean, teens.

There’s so many scenes of guys in small rooms talking while looking at screens. I mean, the CGI is good. For its time, it’s excellent; I’m almost starting to wondering whether they’ve redone bits for this 4K version, but probably not. They’ve wisely rendered everything at night or under water, so you can’t see what it looks like, rally.

It’s just hard to care what happens here. I mean, we’re all rooting for Godjira, right?

It ends with a THERE”S DOING TO BE A SEQUEL ending, but there wasn’t. Because this is a pretty joyless version of the Godzilla concept.

Sånger från andra våningen. Roy Andersson. 2000.

Andersson is so brilliant at presenting these ugly/beautiful tableaux that it doesn’t really matter what else is going on.

The performers are so wonderful. They embody whatever is going on, and do their bits perfectly. It’s not naturalistic acting, but in the context they’re in, they’re prefect. This sort of thing could have gone into schtick so fast if the performances hadn’t been this great.

It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, it’s riveting.

But some of the bits in the second half don’t quite resolve, which is disappointing after a solid first half. Some of the later scenes seem like random ideas instead of being vital. Is starts feeling more like a short film compilation than a movie.