Hey! It’s not a Walkman, but it’s a Schlepman!

This starts off as a 30s screwball comedy, but then…

Suddenly it’s a horror movie!

Oo, that’s a nice balcony. I want one of those.

This has some great lines, but I don’t think it’s quite gelling? The tone is just off.

I love matte paintings like this. It’s better than the real thing.

Well, I don’t agree. Myrna Loy and William Powell are indeed perfection, but the movie isn’t. And it’s so weird — it’s got some really, really funny gags, and really good performances, but it just doesn’t quite cohere. There’s bits that are more nightmarish than funny, and things don’t zip as they should. It’s like… they needed to turn the zany up 20%? But this is a 1941 movie, so this is like a holdover from a previous era, and they’ve made things more serious and less frantic than it would have been in 1935.

In 1935 they would have made this movie perfectly.

Love Crazy. Jack Conway. 1941. ⚃

CGI!!!

I wonder where this is going — it’s about three German friends after The Great War. It could either go pacifist or a warning against Hitler’s Germany, I guess? Or some other way!

OK, I was totally wrong about what this was going to be about. I think.

Borzage does a lot of fun little visual things… But the story is a bit confused, because one of the three friends are apparently mixed up with a Communist cell or something, but of course they can’t say that, so instead there are demonstrations where the head guy says non-specific things, and then they get beat up by other people who are carrying non-specific banners.

This is from 1938, though, so Germany-related politics were Verboten in Hollywood, I guess.

The performances are great, and the movie looks really nice (and this 2K restoration has been done very sensitively). But… the movie doesn’t quite work for me. The storylines are very moving and stuff, but it just feels a bit mannered.

Oh, they haven’t actually said the word “tuberculosis” either — or any other diagnosis, really. Was that another taboo? They couldn’t use the word “pregnant” in Hollywood for a while, but instead go through the “‘I have something to tell you darling!’ ‘You mean…?’ ‘Yes!!’ ‘Oh darling!'” thing instead. But tuberculosis!?

Three Comrades. Frank Borzage. 1938. ⚃

Huh — this looks so odd. It’s a 4K bluray from Criterion, and it looks very… I mean, there’s no scratches or anything, so it’s been restored a lot. But was it originally filmed on 16mm or something? Or even video? No, that’s not possible, but it just looks very… Not exactly lo fi, but there’s chromatic aberrations.

But not in a bad way. Just unexpected for a movie from the 80s.

Heh heh that’s a cute meet cute. Starts with him negging her.

X-Men!

Another meet cute!

Those are short chairs.

The Scarf To End All Scarves!

This is kinda my favourite genre: New York movies.

I wonder whether the director was inspired by Chantal Akerman — the way some of these shots are framed are very Akermanish. But on the other hand, when you’re filming in a Manhattan apartment, perhaps this is what happens naturally.

Computer: Enhance.

See? That’s just odd! It doesn’t look like a normal out-of-focus/too small detail — it looks like it’s been through an algorithm. Is Criterion upscaling things now instead of scanning film in 4K!?

Well, that’s a weird way of phrasing it — “4K restoration was created from” instead of “scanned from”. Is that the way it’s normally phrased? Could be!

Nice headboard.

I’m really enjoying this movie… but I find parts of it a bit confusing. I mean, the Peter Riegert character seems nice and goodlooking and all, so the Amy Irving character is supposed to choose him over that asshole of a writer — which I’m all aboard on, of course! But here’s my problem: The Peter Riegert character seems like such a blank canvas. He doesn’t really have much character beyond being nice?

NOOOO!!!!

Heh heh heh

OK, now they gave him character! I retract all my objections!

As opposed to most movies I’ve watched lately, I didn’t buy this because Hazel Flagg recommended it — I’d already bought it. But the reason I watched it today is this recommendation yesterday.

It’s really a very, very sweet movie. I like how they cast a smarmy not very good looking guy as the author (and had her neg her immediately), and cast someone much better looking as the nice guy. Very unusual.

It putters along in a very satisfactory way, without any annoying detours into drama or unnecessary backstory — a lesser director would have expanded this into a twenty minute longer movie.

And all those shots of 80s Manhattan is just catnip to me, so I can’t really give this a different rating than this:

Crossing Delancey. Joan Micklin Silver. 1988. ⚅