Miami Blues - George Armitage - 1990

★★★★-Another insane erotic thriller with an improbably beautiful and drug-free prostitute that falls for a john. 

Gist is a criminal gets out of prison and goes on a series of rampages for the entirety of the movie while courting a young prostitute, telling her he has gone legit. It's pretty hilarious. This character is completely out-of-control. He gets so used to playing a cop that when he runs into the guy whose identity he's stolen screams, “Freeze! Police!” He screams back, “Freeze! Police!” Ridiculous, and laugh-out-loud humorous. 

It stars Alec Baldwin, Fred Ward, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nora Dunn, who looks pretty fine, makes a couple of appearances. Based on the novel by Charles Willeford. Directed by George Armitage. He also directed Grosse Pointe Blank and wrote The Late Shift about the Letterman/Leno saga to take of for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show.” Was one of Roger Corman's proteges. Not sure what happened with him, as he hasn't directed anything since 2004. A real shame. 

Dude asks her a little about herself and she starts talking about how she is working as a call-girl to pay her way through college. He says to her, “the first thing they should have taught you in hooker school is not to ask so many fucking questions.”

Opens to Baldwin getting out of prison and going on sort of having a low-key rampage through the airport. Steals a bunch of shit and breaks a Hare Krishna's finger. Homicide comes out. Detective is like WTF? Apparently the guy died of shock, which is weird thing to kick off a movie with. This guy definitely belongs behind bars. Cop investigates him, and he goes to his home, assaults him, and steals his badge. He then impersonates a cop to steal shit. He'll stop a crime, like a purse snatching, and then will take it himself. 

Says he wants a normal life. Lot of red flags. I wouldn't marry him. “Don't want to have kids. This world's a shit-hole.” Couldn't agree more. 

Lot of dark humor in this flick like that. I LOLed a couple of times. For example, Baldwin's character tells JJL that he is done with crime but keeps coming home progressively more physically messed up. Gets run over inside a convenience store after stopping a holdup while playing cop, which was wild. (The kid behind the counter has a killer Miami Heat tank top on. They were a new expansion team when this was made. Pretty cool.) Eventually, he gets his fingers chopped off by a machete. Yet he still tries to keep up the con. 

I vividly remember the cover of this movie in the video store. Had Baldwin shirtless aiming a gun. I assumed it was a serious cop movie and never watched it. Little did I know the insanity that I was in store for. Features on of the most revolting dinners I can imagine that features something called vinegar pie for dessert. Hard to believe I watched this on the Criterion Channel type of flick. However, highly recommend. 

In the Heat of the Night - Norman Jewison - 1967

★★★★★-First ever viewing of this profoundly outstanding film. Skilled direction and compelling performances. Deserves its stop on the AFI Top 100. 

Set in a racially tense small town where a black detective, Virgil Tibbs, from Philadelphia helps solve a murder. That's the gist, but it's deeper than that, going into racial inequity in the deep South while telling a compelling story and not getting preachy. It refrains from contrived inspirational moments, thank fuck, and instead presents complex, flawed characters. Truly masterful filmmaking. 

Stars the Sidney Poitier as the black detective opposite Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) as the racist sheriff. Commanding performances from both of them indeed. I got more impressed with Poitier as the movie went along. He drips poise and dignity. Sort of hard to believe he didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award for this performance. Feels like a glaring omission that he wasn't for a timely film about Southern racism. Though Steiger's performance also really blew me away as well and he definitely earned his Oscar. 

Others you might recognize include Lee Grant (Damien: Omen II, Mulholland Drive) who is a real beauty who holds her own, Warren Oats (Badlands, Stripes, The Wild Bunch), and a young Scott Wilson (he was Herschel in The Walking Dead,one of the killers in In Cold Blood, and had a small but memorable part in one of my favorite horror comedies of all-time in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon).

As much as any movie I can think of, the setting is also a character in the film. Feels like an authentic, hot and grimy small Southern town. Every scene is vivid, gritty, and real. 

The racist stuff can be pretty hard to watch. People in this town just lose their minds seeing a black guy. Pretty disturbing that this is how it was and probably still is in some parts. Multiple attempts are made on Virgil's life. The most powerful scene, for me, was when he goes with the sheriff to question the richest guy in town. Out front there is a racist statue and he employees black people in menial jobs that he obviously doesn't think highly of. He tells Virgil, while in his greenhouse, “Of all the orchids in this place, you should prefer the epiphytics. I wonder if you know why.”

“Maybe it would be helpful if you'd tell me,” Virgil says.

“Because, like the Negro, they need care and feedin' and cultivatin'.”

Uh, yeah, thanks for that insight, bra.

When Virgil questions him about the murder, the guy slaps him. Virgil, without missing a beat, slaps him back. Incredulous, the guy asks the sheriff what he is going to do about it. When it's clear he isn't going to do anything, he says he could have had him shot for that not long ago before crying like a punk. We then get one of the many attempts on Virgil's life, this seemingly unconnected to the slap. 

So, yeah, great film. All this said, however, the end was sort of a letdown. Builds and builds and then it's over. Also, for a hot shot detective, Virgil's police work and theories seem pretty suspect. Still though. Best movie about the South I can think of. Available on the Criterion Channel.

Bad Day at Black Rock is the greatest movie of all time

Bad Day at Black Rock. "This town's wrecked, just as though it was bombed out. Maybe it can come back..." "Some towns do and some towns don't. It depends on the people." Directed by John Sturges in 1955, I loved this proto-neo-western. On my western Mount Rushmore. 

Stars Spencer Tracy as a guy who goes to this tiny desert town of seven or eight buildings and a bunch of assholes. He pulls in on the train which hasn’t stopped there in four years. Shows the whole town buzzing as it travels down the line. It’s a phenomenal opening. As he gets off the train, he tells the conductor “I won’t be here but for a couple of hours.” Guy replies “in a place like this, that can be a lifetime.” 

Gist is Spencer Tracy is looking for a Japanese man whose son saved his life during the war. Wants to give him his purple heart. Takes place in 1945. The townsfolk tell him he went to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. But they obviously murdered him. No big mystery there, but Tracy is stuck there for a day and it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it. Immediately people are threatening his life and so forth. 

Big bad is played by Robert Ryan. The only female in the movie is Anne Francis. Ryan’s goons include Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. Quite an all star duo there. 

Favorite line is when Spencer Tracy is talking to the sheriff. Sheriff is basically like, “I don’t care what you have going on, you made a mistake coming here.” Tracy replies, coming out hot, “The thing I like about Black Rock is everyone is so polite, which really makes for gracious living.” Amazing flick.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is the worst film of all time

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French: Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie). "I really don't like Jesus Christ. Even as a little girl I hated him." All I can say is, "what the fuck was that?"

This was a movie night pick, the first fully vaccinated one I've had with guests. Good food. Good wine and bourbon. It was bougie as fuck. The way we do movie night is I pick ten films. We watch the ten trailers. Everyone picks two. A couple usually get left out. Of the remaining, everyone vetos one. Then we vote on the remaining. This was the movie we chose. My bougie professional and artist friends and I didn't get very far. Light on plot that makes sense, the film is mostly just a shitload of allusions and weird class things. But I came back and rewatched it on my own. No points in heaven for finishing this shit though.

Gist is a group of bourgeoisie frienemies keep trying and failing to have a dinner party while some sort of unexplained war is going down. Woven in there are dream sequences of minor characters and from the bourgeoisie themselves. Directed by the surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, the film won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Watched this on the Criterion Channel. 

The film is a lot of rich people trivial outrage with some shots at organized religion's place among the elite. A lot of not getting what they expect as their right. They end up shitting on each other and being terrible. Once or twice they get really close to eating, but then something happens and then bring on the outrage as they don't really have anything else to talk about, queue a scene of the group dressed to the nines, walking down a country road that goes nowhere, and repeat multiple times. Reminded me of Beckett some change of scenery. But I like Beckett infinitely more. 

Really disliked this movie. I know Buñuel is considered a master of French cinema. Maybe this wasn't a good introduction to his work. Also probably not the best movie to host a group of well-to-does after a pandemic. It was the movie we chose though.  

There were a couple of funny moments, funny in that, "oh, that was sort of funny" way. Like the diplomat's standard-issue diplomat bag that he uses to smuggle cocaine or the dream where everyone gets shot down by the military and the sole survivor gives himself away by grabbing for meat from under the table. But yeah, wouldn't say it was worth it. Didn't enjoy spending time with these people that are indeed the worst. Rich people. Am I right?

The Lady Eve is the worst movie of all time

The Lady Eve. "There's just one thing. I feel it's only fair to tell you. It would never have happened except she looked so exactly like you." ... "They look too much alike to be the same." ... "Positively the same dame!" Fucking idiot. A woman grifts a guy multiple times, and he just thinks she's a look-alike. Insanity. 

Been on a Preston Sturges kick. Added a bunch of flicks on the Criterion Channel recently. I'm not sure if I think he is terrible or not. This movie, though. The fucking audacity of this movie. Considered a classic, both my female companion and I thought otherwise. 

Gist of the flick is that a trio of grifters go to cheat Henry Fonda's character, an adventurous heir to a brewery fortune, but the dame falls in love. So after they take him for some of his money, she decides to do it again, and this fucking dipshit falls for it because he is too dumb to live. 

Movie stars Barbara Stanwyck from the fantastic Billy Wilder flick Double Indemnity as the lady grifter, the "legendary" Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, and William Demarest who is an old guy you might recognize from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Demarest or Stanwyck win the movie. Demarest is a great hard-ass straight man, while Stanwyck more or less carries the movie. 

Not exactly the wokest movie I've ever seen. A lot of stupid women talk. Example: "A girl of sixteen's practically an idiot anyway, so I can't very well blame you for something that was practically done by somebody else." Thank you, oh wise one who can't even recognize the same woman. Of course, Fonda says this to Stanwyck's character, who is grifting the shit out of him. It is insane, really. 

While Fonda does a great Lincoln or Tom Joad or whatever, he is not good at comedy. Dude is stiff as fuck. There were times when I questioned whether his character had a traumatic brain injury or something. Again--sort of hammering this home--Stanwyck comes back into his life as another person... which he believes because he thinks if it was the same woman, she would’ve disguised herself... Are you fucking kidding me, bra? I thought he couldn't fucking believe this because it was so audacious. He had to fucking know, right? But apparently not. He's just insanely dumb. He deserves to be grifted. 

Nor did I find the movie all that funny. A lot of the humor revolves around Fonda having to change his dinner jackets like five or six times. Maybe it is a metaphor or something. Plus, I think, a lot of the humor is based on close talking and the idea that Fonda has an unseen erection (see above photo)--which might actually be kind of funny in retrospect. 

Maybe you should watch this flick just to see this for the sheer bizarreness. I mean, holy shit. I'm sort of still in disbelief. Fonda is such an amazing tool that I may never get over it. 

The Kid is the greatest movie of all time

The Kid. "Please love and care for this orphan child." Fucking classic. Loved, loved, loved. Part drama, part comedy. This was amazing. Even if you aren't into silent films, you should give it a chance. Hell of a film. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Charles Chaplin' irascible Tramp is given able support from Jackie Coogan as The Kid in this slapstick masterpiece, balancing the guffaws with moments of disarming poignancy

A movie that doesn't need sound to tell a hell of a story. From 1921 so is silent. Written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, this guy was, believe it or not, a genius. This Jackie Coogan, who plays the kid, is adorable and great as well. He is considered the first child movie star based on this film. Watched the Criterion Collection version of this. Is indeed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Can confirm. 

Gist of the film is a kid gets abandoned by his mother. She was very poor and her baby daddy is a mother fucker. Don't blame her, she tries to make good later. The Tramp finds him and cares for him. They have a good life. But that comes crashing down when the state gets involved. 

Doing a little half-assed internet research, there is some dark shit surrounding this film. First, something fucked. There is a child named Lita Grey in this film. She is 12 years old. Chaplain, in his 30s, much to my disgust, makes out with her (as does this guy with a total catcher's mitt of a face). When this same girl is 15, Chaplain knocks her up. They get married when she is 16. This nymphet was part of the inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, if that tells you anything. 

Now something incredibly sad. Just before the movie was filmed, Chaplin's first child, an infant son, died. There is a lot of speculation that the depth of the relationship portrayed in the film may have been connected with the death of that child. His care for the kid does indeed seem to be extremely genuine, though dude is a hell of an actor. 

What really makes the movie is Chaplin, who is so the MVP here. Not as much for his acting, which is exceptional, but for his direction. Truly innovative shit here. It was the first full-length silent comedy for christ's sake. Blends comedy and drama. Made me laugh and gave me some feels. Had a few subtitles but it sure as shit didn't need them. You really get everything you need visually. The screen language is fucking sick. Chaplin was a genius. 

Sports Documentary: The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912

Criterion Channel has all the official Olympic Game documentaries going back over 100 years. This is my new thing. I have seen exactly one of these prior. Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia. You know her. She did Triumph of the Will. Considered the great Nazi prapagandist. Technically that was the first official Olympic documentary. But giving this a viddy since it's available and seemed interesting. But it's kind of boring. Just watching people do the same thing, over and over, one after another, with a boring ass opening and closing ceremony.

Not exactly confident I could have won a gold medal if I were transported back in time to 1912, but compared to today's standards, these guys were like high school sectional athletes. The hurdlers were especially trash. Stuff happened like tripping and completely wiping out and still getting up to win the race to qualify for the finals. A guy sets the world record at 15.5 seconds for the 110m after knocking down like half the hurdles. I ran a 16 second in 10th grade and wasn't even the best on my team. I didn't even qualify for the finals in my sectional. The kid who won the sectional would have shattered this world record by over a full second. Men's gymnastics was a complete fucking joke as well. It has to be seen to be believed. It's more what I'd call a warmup than like a competition. 

Speaking of, there were a lot of sports that I know but had a hard time figuring out what the point of them were back then. Diving, for example, appears to be more like the long jump with a dive at the end. No flips or turns. Just swanning 30ft. That shit was done into a lake by the way. 

Picture is restored and looks amazing. I've read like 10 or so times why old timey, silent era film looks so good. Has to do with the size of the film. Can't really explain or understand it though. Just know it looks great. 

Some things of note. A dude dies from exhaustion during the marathon, which is fucked. Researching this race, found that another guy disappeared which is just insane. One Shizo Kanakuri, weak from the long journey from Japan, and having problems with the local food, lost consciousness midway through the race. He was found and cared for by a farming family. Being embarrassed from his "`failure" he silently returned to Japan without notifying race officials. Swedish authorities considered him missing for 50 years before discovering that he was living in Japan and had competed in subsequent Olympic marathons.

Also get to see Jim Thorpe after winning a pair of gold medals. He wins the pentathlon and the decathlon. Looked him up. That dude looks like a contemporary athlete. It's like a bunch of average dudes off the street and then this dude who looks like a damn super hero. Looks amazingly like John Cena. Dude is a stud. Wish there was more video of him in the film. 

One more guy of note that I'd never heard of that was super bad ass. One Duke Kahanamoku, born in 1890 under the Kingdom of Hawaii, just before the overthrow. A native Hawaii swimmer, he wins gold in the 100-meter freestyle. Won a total of five medals over three Olympics. The other two were in 1920 and 1924. Incredibly, was an alternate for the U.S. waterpolo team for the 1932 games. 

Dude's life was incredible. Was part of a landmark Supreme Court case resulting from an arrest he made where a civilian was tried for shoplifting in military court. It's complicated and he just made the arrest. Was an actor, the Sherriff of Honolulu, a Freemason, and a professional beach volleyball player. He basically single handedly popularized surfing in the early part of the century when he saved eight fishermen after a boat had capsized, killing most of the people onboard. He was able to drag the men to safety and get back to wreckage quickly with the use of his board. After that, lifeguards used surfboards as part of their standard rescue equipment. 

Legacy lives on too. Has statues all over the place in Hawaii, is in both the surfing and swimming hall of fames, had a comemorative stamp with his likeness on it issued in the 2000s, and was the subject of a Google Doodle a few years ago. You can read a little about him in the New York Times here. Dude is a total MVP. He knew how to party. 

Season of the Witch (1972) is the worst movie of all time

Your own goddamned daughter, balled in the next room and you go with it. Not to be confused with the Nicholas Cage movie from 2011. I'm talking about the 1972 George A. Romero movie. At 11% on Rotten Tomato, I am sure the Nick Cage (I'm definitely a huge fan of his) movie is more watchable. 

Found this on the Criterion Channel. Romero feminist movie. Sign me up. But this ended up really not being my cup of tea. The movie is a complete mess. It goes off the rails in the first minute of the movie and never recovers. 

The gist of this film is that a neglected, unhappy housewife out of suburban Pittsburgh with gets involved in witchcraft, has an affair with this piece of shit professor that is boning her teenage daughter, and maybe accidentally on purpose kills her abusive husband. I've heard it described as a porno without the nudity or hardcore. It's of that quality, I guess.

The lead actress, one Jan White, is pretty good for an amateur. I'd give her the MVP for sure. This is more or less a film for Romero completists only, though the film was more or less taken from him by the producers. Really not worth watching, in my opinion, though it is a Criterion Collection movie, for god knows what reason.