Thief's Monthly Movie Loot - 2021 Edition

That part of the quote was about Devil Times Five, which I think is still on Tubi.

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Not currently.

Sorry I got it mixed up. But when I enter Devil Times Five in the search box, The Playground pops up.

I just looked for it on both my work laptop and my mobile, and found it by that title. However, the film did goes by numerous titles (People Toys, The Horrible House on the Hill, Tantrums) so maybe one of those would work?

Well, you didn't go wrong here, Duck Soup is awesome. It looks like most of the Marx Bros. movie that are on Criterion will be leaving at the end of the month so I'm going to try to catch the ones I haven't seen yet.

For your Peter Lorre film, my first two recs would be Arsenic and Old Lace or Mad Love, but I don't think you can stream either of them.
So I'll throw in a good word for The Comedy of Terrors on Prime. Written by Richard Matheson and directed by Jacques Tourneur, it stars Vincent Price as an alcoholic undertaker and Lorre as his assistant. (Also Karloff and Basil Rathbone) It's certainly not Lorre in his prime, but I think it's a legitimately funny bit of 60s silliness.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

You know what? In addition of trying the other titles I mentioned, try going through JustWatch. I think that's how I've always gotten to the film.

Arsenic and Old Lace and Mad Love are both extremely awesome (especially Arsenic for me). For those who have Criterion Channel, it has both M and the original The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Haven't seen any of the ones that Cap mentioned, but for anybody that wants to join in, I very much second these two recs. M, in particular, is an absolutely excellent film and Peter Lorre is a huge reason why.

A film from the 1960s: L'Avventura (1960) Review here. Its revolutionary style is not so obvious now, but it still has considerable force.

Yeah, M should be everyone's first Peter Lorre film. I happened to know you've already seen it otherwise that would have been my recommendation.
Watch M, everybody!

Also, if anyone's on a Hitchcock binge, I fully recommend Secret Agent, with Lorre, John Gielgud, and Madeleine Carroll. It's a pretty solid spy thriller in a similar vein to The 39 Steps. Lot of fun.

I should probably consider that, since I haven't seen any Antonioni.

Red Desert would be my top recommendation for Antonioni. So far, I've enjoyed everything I've seen from him so far to varying degrees.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Blow-Up is still my favorite Antonioni film (though not streaming as far as I can tell, alas), but yeah, this is a seminal work. I do believe this was my first Monica Vitti film, though.

Here is the link for Episode 38 of Thief's Monthly Movie Loot, which dropped Friday night. I talk about the best films I saw in May as well as some brief reviews of everything else I saw.

Thief's Monthly Movie Loot 38- The May Loot

As usual, it's also available on Spotify here.

For those that listen often, Episode 39 is already recorded although not edited yet. Had a great guest so wait for it by mid-June.

That is one of the advices that Junpei (Eiji Okada) gives the titular "woman in the dunes" (Kyōko Kishida) as they ponder about the possibilities given their current situation. You see, they are both trapped in a sand pit and forced by local villagers to work by shoveling sand so the village can survive. The woman, who has been there longer than Junpei, has already accepted her fate, but Junpei holds on to "hope... that things will change tomorrow". But will things change? can things change? or is it us that have to change?

That seems to be one of the statements made by this 1964 Japanese New Wave film; not that it offers any concrete conclusion, but it does put forth that clash between freedom and free will, "rigid thinking" and adaptation, and also complacency. The film puts the lead characters in a situation that seems hopeless, as their respective prospects of life clash. Junpei doesn't want this change as he longs to return to civilization, but in rejecting it, isn't he as "trapped" as his companion?

In the opening scene, Junpei, who is a schoolteacher and entomologist, visits the desert looking for insects, which in turn leads him to his capture. There's an interesting juxtaposition as we see him trap insects that he puts in a bottle, only to have him being trapped and "put into a bottle" himself. The difference being perhaps in the practicality of one vs. the other. The former, he does more as a "hobby", while the latter is done to maintain the village's lifeline. One could certainly argue the ethical and moral implications of both, but as time passes, Junpei rejects his past hobby in favor of practicality (see the scene where he gets rid of his insects in order to please/help the woman).

Having just finished this film a couple of hours ago, I certainly have a dozen thoughts in my head about both its raw story as well as all its symbolisms, and it certainly seems like a film that will stick in my mind for a long time. The way it balances a story that's mysterious, intriguing, tragic and sad, with messages of isolation, identity, life purpose, sexuality, and primal instincts is simply marvelous.

But it doesn't stop with the story. The film is also impressive from pretty much every other aspect. The performances from Okada and Kishida are pretty much flawless, as we see them shift and change like the sand; the score by Toru Takemitsu goes from subtle to harsh in a fluid, seamless way; director Hiroshi Teshigahara and cinematographer Hiroshi Segawa make great use of the camera, using both wide shots and closeups to convey different emotions. The nature shots of the dunes and their shifting sands also add a lot to what the film is trying to tell us: much like that sand, things in life can change slowly or they can change suddenly. The key is how we react and adapt to whatever change comes, and make the sand work for us.

Grade:

That is how this 1981 early slasher opens, with a sorrowful contemplation of the effects of war on veterans, called "psychological victims", for which recovery will be "a long road back". But that's about the extent to which this film delves into, well, the psychological effects of war. At the end of the day, it is all background for what can be said now is a conventional slasher, but one that certainly helped to pave the way of that sub-genre.

The Prowler opens in 1945 with a soldier being dumped via a "Dear John" letter by her girlfriend. This leads to someone, presumably her boyfriend, murdering her and her new boyfriend during the graduation dance three months later. Fast forward to 1981 and, for some reason, the "prowler" is back again targeting young women during the graduation dance, the first to be held since 1945.

The plot revolves around Pam (Vicky Dawson), a senior that is trying to figure out what's happening, along with her boyfriend, Deputy Mark London (Christopher Goutman). The Prowler features most of the typical tropes of the sub-genre, which is why some might dismiss it as "just another slasher", but one can give it some leeway considering it's one of the first to try the formula. Another thing that kinda sets it apart is that the characters don't feel inherently "dumb", or at least not as much as the genre would lean to in other films that followed.

The issues I have with the film are mostly two. First, there are a bunch of subplots that are hinted but end up leading nowhere. I could understand some of them being thrown out there as "red herrings" (the drunk store owner? the old mayor?) but there are a couple that take up 15-20 minutes and are eventually useless (the nerdy couple in the basement? the old, peeping teacher?). The former I don't think were executed properly anyway, and the latter was completely useless.

My second issue, even though the film teases a more complex reasoning for these killings (PTSD?) it doesn't really do anything with it, nor with the character that ends up being the killer. Even though it opens with this notion of veterans coming home psychologically scarred and damaged, there's nothing drawn out of that to the point that the opening it's not even necessary. Ultimately, the reveal is pretty much a Scooby-Doo moment that gets more of a shrug than an "Aha!"

But those issues aside, the film does work to some extent. The main girl is competent and well used, the chases are well staged, and the kills are pretty raw, thanks to Tom Savini's "killer" effects which look pretty seamless. So even though the film suffers from many of the issues of the slasher subgenre, those traits manage to kinda separate the film from the bunch a bit, but not by far.

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JUNE 2021:

A film with the number 6 (Six, Sixth, etc.) in its title:
A film with a title that starts with the letters K or L:*
L’Avventura
A film from the Criterion Collection whose number includes the #6 (i.e. 16, 506, 761):
A film from the 1960s:
A horror film:
A film with the word "Summer" in its title:
A film about LGBTQ+ lifestyles (Pride Month):*
Rent
A film with a repeated word in its title (Repeat Day, June 3):
A film from Sweden (National Day, June 6): *
Show Me Love
A film with Peter Lorre (born June 26):

A film with a title that starts with the letters K or L: Legally Blonde (2001) Review here. I wanted to like it more!