Hey Look Everybody! It's Time Again For....Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I Loved Greatly

Paul Robeson in Show Boat (1936)

Show Boat (1936) Whale. I liked this movie a lot. I would have loved it a lot had it not been for one thing: Alan Jones. Yes, the blandest most uninteresting actor/singer of his or any other generation. He did similar damage to the great Marx’s Brother film, A Night at the Opera. Fortunately the cast also includes the great Paul Robeson, though if we could have switched Jones and Robeson’s screen time, well what a picture. It’s actually Charlies Winninger who steals every scene he’s in. Winninger was a fantastic performer who came up in vaudeville (boy does it show) and was in the original production of Show Boat. Directed by James Whale, better known for some classics of the horror genre, particularly Bride of Frankenstein as well as The Old Dark House, Invisible Man and the original Frankenstein. The insipid Jones aside (and oh yes, and that awful blackface scene with Irene Dunne) this is a terrific film. 

Tony (2026) Johnson. In theaters now. The story of the nineteen-year old Anthony Bourdain and how he got his start in the culinary world. It stars Dominic Sessa who made such a memorable debut a few years ago in The Holdovers. Sessa again shines along with his veteran co-star, Antonio Banderas. It’s a fun film about a lying, cheating (albeit talented) young man learning lessons at the school of hard knocks. I related to a lot of it — I was young and arrogant in 1975 too. But it’s not a film with staying power. Perfectly entertaining and worth the price of admission but nothing that you will be pondering for long after.

Hamnet (2025) Zhao. I decided to watch this for the second time in twelve months because I had recently bought the novel upon which it is based. (Have since started reading the book by Maggie O’Farrell and it’s bloody brilliant.) I was amazed after the film to see that I had given the movie a six on IMDb last year. I changed that to an eight. Who was the version of me that couldn’t appreciate this amazing film? I was particularly enamored of the last part of the picture in which Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes (an Oscar winning role for Jessie Buckley) goes to see Hamlet performed. No, I wasn’t enamored, I was mesmerized. That’s cinema right there. 

Radio Days (1987) Allen. I believe it impossible for me to overstate my love for this film. It's amazing how much Allen packed into under ninety minutes. I love everything about the film. It's masterful at telling you so much about a group of people, a time and a place, much of it through or supplemented by music. Meet an extended Brooklyn family during the early 1940s, their lives touched by a foreign war. Meet the world of radio back when it reigned supreme. Meet radio personalities and hear some of their unique stories. In particular meet a kid growing up amid the wonders of family and radio. Among Woody Allen’s greatest works. I could watch it again tonight.

No Down Payment (1957) Ritt. God love ‘em they were making an effort to develop a social conscience in Hollywood back in the fifties and early sixties. There were brave attempts at social message films. Pictures like Separate Tables, The Defiant Ones, Days of Wine and Roses. Important issues of the day honestly examined in cinema. Today these efforts seem quaint and though well-intended are terribly dated. To their credit you can draw a direct line from these films to the stronger offerings of the late Sixties and the Seventies. One such film — which I watched for the first time — was No Down Payment. Look here folks, we got your racism, alcoholism, infidelity, the dark side of the American dream and right smack in the middle of suburbia. This is not a terribly good film but it’s an honest effort and a mirror into how Hollywood was changing. Interesting here is seeing the great comic actor Tony Randall in a serious role. Does he pull it off? Of course. Comedy is easier.

The Long Goodbye (1973) Altman. I’ve seen this a bunch of times (technical term) and always go in wide-eyed thinking, “goodness me, Robert Altman putting Phillip Marlowe into the Seventies with Elliot Gould as the great detective. Can it really work?” It does — every time. Gould is as different a Marlow as you can get considering he’d previously been played by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum. Former baseball player and author Jim Bouton was an odd choice to play Terry Lennox. Fact is, the man couldn’t act but he pulled off his small, but vital, role all the same. Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade certainly can act but here he chews the scenery. He and the constantly barking dog (why?) are the only blights on the film. The director Mark Rydell — who only recently died — plays gangster Marty Augustine and is excellent. But it is Gould as a mumbling Marlowe who stars and makes this one of the best cinematic versions of a Raymond Chandler novel.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Gondry. A film that deserves an A+++ for originality alone. But more than that it is one of cinema’s greatest love stories. You heard me right (or should I say, read me right?). It is at heart a love story, a really honest one that portrays love as something that is inherently flawed and difficult. It also shows that romances turn into long-term marriage when couples manage to outlast finding out about each other's imperfections and what a struggle it can be to really mesh with another human being. The best thing I can say about the film is that it makes me appreciate the love I share with my own wife. Most romantic movies seem foreign to the real experience of being in love with someone for decades. This film gets it.

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949) Ford. Okay the portrayal of the Native Americans (hostiles) is problematic to say the least, but my god what a gorgeous picture to look at. Monument Valley’s variously reddish brown or burnt orange soil, the mountains, the buttes, the sunsets all rendered in loving technicolor. John Wayne gives one of his few really strong performances as the retiring cavalry officer. Many more of director John Ford’s regular actors are on board, highlighted by a wonderful turn from Victor McLaglen. There are about eight Ford films that are absolute classics. This is in the tier just below them. One more complaint: There is one line that Wayne’s character repeats that is beyond stupid: “don’t apologize, it’s a sign of weakness.” Bullshit, for a grown up to offer a sincere apology after doing wrong is a sign of strength. Anyway, SWAYR is a fun watch — assuming you can get past the stereotypes.