I’ve been following this Twitter account over the past few months. She posts about movies all the time, and it’s mostly older movies, with an emphasis on deep cut screwball comedies and the like, so that’s like catnip to me.

So I’ve been buying movies, but haven’t watched any of them yet — this is the first, and it better be good!

I think he likes her!

This is indeed pretty amusing, and the plot is very original — James Cagney works for United Fruit and keeps the banana plantation running, being all hyper competent and everything. But on the other hand, it’s not totally unsympathetic towards the revolutionaries either? And the guy who runs United Fruit is a total asshole, so…

But it’s a pretty odd movie.

Ann Sheridan is fantastic as the hard nosed quick witted card shark.

I like the movie — it’s satisfyingly weird — and there’s some really good jokes in there. But there could have been more jokes? More hi-jinx?

Torrid Zone. William Keighley. 1940. ⚃

This has gotten quite a lot of attention, but I just found it to be boring and annoying. Spoilers! Don’t read anything after this if you intend to watch this movie, because in the very next sentence I’m going to spoil the entire thing!

When Paul Mescal arrived I said “oh, right, Mescal is going to be the Magic Pixiel Dream Boy who’s going to die so that Andrew Scott is going to learn an important lesson. I’ve seen a movie before, you know.” (From memory, but I did say something like that.) I was just half joking, though, but it turned out that I was even more literally correct than I knew!

And yes, indeed, this movie is about a guy who writes movies. But he’s got a writer’s block. I.e., the entire thing is a Mary Sue, but with Mommy Issues. (Which makes a change from Daddy Issues.)

See, he’s learning a lesson about his life.

One thing I have to say, though, is that the movie is quite nice to look at. It’s shot well, and it has actual proper lighting instead of just fixing everything in post. Props to the cinematographer and the lighting people.

And all the actors do solid performances.

But it’s fucking tedious. I guess there’s supposed to be a Big Twist Reveal at the end, but it was signalled with Big Huge Whopping Neon Sign Sized Letters, so I was just impatient to get to the end.

I’ll give it a ⚁, because it looks good, but it’s really a ⚀. One of the most annoying movies I’ve watched in a while.

So of course it has a 96% tomatometer with reviews like:

Everybody likes it:

But I’m right.

All Of Us Strangers. Andrew Haigh. 2023. ⚁

I think I’ve probably seen this before? But there was a remake last year, and… I’m not sure I bought this bluray because I wanted to see that one or this one?

Anyway, I’m watching this again, and I’m kinda thinking that it’s not as good as I remember it being?

The soundtrack is insane. Missy Elliott, Peaches, Orbital…

There’s so many funny and memorable things here, but I wasn’t quite sure? Until the final bits and it totally stakes the landing. It’s cute.

This is a 4K version, and some of the bits are perhaps a bit too clear? Like some of the people wear this weird green-looking make-up (probably to make people less blushing), but it looks pretty disturbing in some scenes.

Anyway!

Mean Girls . Mark Waters. 2004. ⚄