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Parent Teacher is a 17 minute short from Jim Cummings and Dustin Hahn. It follows a parent/teacher meeting at a school classroom led by Mr. Zahn (Hahn). As he tries to go through the different topics of the meeting, he realizes that the parents aren't really much different than their kids.

Cummings and Hahn do a great job transmitting the seriousness of the situation in a way that feels real, without losing the funny edge. But as great as the dialogue, script, and performances are, the quality of the short is elevated by their decision of doing it all in one continuous shot, something that has become some sort of a trademark from Cummings. 18 takes, Cummings told me via Twitter. It is quite an impressive feat.

Grade:
You know my feelings about Jim Cummings. The parent-teacher conversation in Thunder Road is probably one of my favorite things he's put on screen.





The Face at the Window, 1939

A town is experiencing a series of murders in which people are terrified by a gruesome face that appears at their window before they are brutally stabbed to death. When the mysterious monster attacks a bank and kills a worker there, banker Brisson (Aubrey Mallalieu) must turn to the wealthy del Gardo (Tod Slaughter) to save the bank with a large deposit. But the lecherous del Gardo has his eye on Brisson’s daughter, Cecile (Marjorie Taylor), who herself is already in love with the dashing Lucien (John Warwick). Del Gardo will stop at nothing to implicate Lucien in the killings and take Cecile for himself.

Benefitting strongly from a scenery-chewing central performance, this film doesn’t quite have the pace or overt weirdness to be a winning so-bad-it’s-good film.



FULL REVIEW



You know my feelings about Jim Cummings. The parent-teacher conversation in Thunder Road is probably one of my favorite things he's put on screen.
For a moment I had forgotten about that scene, but yeah! Such a good moment, and now I wonder if this short was the reason why he included it.
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BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
(1986, Carpenter)



"I'm a reasonable guy. But, I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."

Big Trouble in Little China follows trucker Jack Burton (Jack Russell) as he tries to help his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) rescue his fiancée from an underworld gang led by an evil sorcerer named Lo Pan (James Hong). Joining them in this journey full of unreasonable things is an assorted group of allies, which include Wang's businessman friend, a friend of Wang's fiancée, and an old magician.

This is a film I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of times when I was a teen. However, for some reason, it had been easily 25-30 years since I last saw it; which is a shame cause the film is a ton of fun. Even if things doesn't make much sense and seem "unreasonable", like Lo Pan himself said, we are "not brought upon this world to get it!". Especially since the film is carried by Russell's charisma and the great chemistry between the cast, as well as the fantastic setpieces and colorful villains.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot







5th Rewatch...This lavishly prodfuced but long and lumbering musical was definitely a departure for director Martm Scorses that, for the most part, audiences stayed away from in droves, but for hardcore Minnelli and DeNiro fans, there is a lot to like here.





Oh, Susanna, 1936

While on a train, Gene Autry (as himself) is accosted by the villainous Wolf Benson (Boothe Howard), who trades outfits with the singing cowboy and throws him off of the train. Arrested as Wolf, Autry must find a way to escape the hangman’s rope, with the help of friends Frog (Smiley Burnette) and Ezeckial (Earle Hodgins).

The substance of the film is pretty much all in the musical numbers, which are all perfectly fine, and in the case of the bicycle number pretty funny. This is nothing grand, but it’s sweet and unpretentious.



FULL REVIEW



Invincible (2001)

Semi-factual drama by Werner Herzog (though the timelines are well off), of Zishe Breitbart, a Polish Jewish strongman. He goes to Berlin and is manipulated by the con-man Hanussen to first start out as an Aryan spectacle of strength in his mystical cabaret show (best scenes of the film) and then as "Samson" when he announces his Judaism. This is entertaining and both (separate) stories of the protagonists are just as interesting in real life. I can forgive Herzog because he melds both stories together and never claimed it was the truth (the wily old fox).





Robot Monster

There's not a lot that can be said for a sci-fi movie where the main monster is a gorilla with a diving helmet!
A real curio from the 1950s, it deserves to be seen in 3D, even if the 3D really isn't all that great (and of course there's no 3D effects at all in the dinosaur footage borrowed from some other movie).





The Man Who Wasn't There (1983)

Somebody should have told the producers the only thing that's invisible in this comedy is... the comedy.
This Steve Guttenberg vehicle is definitely among the very worst of the early-80s 3D fad, and perhaps the quality of some of these 3D efforts is part of the reason it was such a short-lived fad.
And obviously the 3D effects in this one aren't anything to write home about, either - especially the very fake-looking ones of people falling from a great height.
One is almost sorry for Lisa Langlois, who was asked to take her clothes off for this movie several times, for no good reason. Guttenberg, on the other hand, definitely should have stayed fully clothed throughout.
Look quickly for Miguel Ferrer in one of his earliest film appearances (he plays a waiter).



The Wolf's Call




A really dope little French submarine thriller. Great use of visual storytelling and creating tension and action without relying on typical hero/villain tropes. I was very impressed, especially since I never heard of it except for a quick mention on the Blank Check podcast. It's on Amazon Prime.



Branching Out (2024) A Hallmark tv movie about a single mom who tracks down her daughter's biological father. This was cute and sweet, one of the better Hallmark films.





Wer - (2013)

The ending was kinda meh, but overall, a solid spin on the werewolf trope. 7/10
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The Merry Widow, 1934

Madame Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald) is a wealthy widow who owns a large portion of the kingdom of Marshovia. When she decides to leave the country for Paris, the panicked King Achmet (George Barbier) and Ambassador Popoff (Edward Horton) order ladies man Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) to woo her so that she will return.

Charming and cheeky, just like its main characters.



FULL REVIEW







SF = Zzz

Viewed: BBC iPlayer.




The music...





[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Longlegs





"Today I wore my long legs..." shudder.

Longlegs is the creepy brother to Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs. On the surface it looks like any other crime thriller procedural involving a young detective trying to identify a serial killer, but early on you get this uneasy sense of dread...and it never lets up the entire film.

Perkins' direction is extremely confident with how he frames his shots, I found myself scanning the background of dozens of scenes just waiting for something to appear in a doorframe or hallway. How he lingers on things, slow zooms, aspect ratio changes, everything is crafted to make you squirm just a bit.

I don't even know how to describe Nic Cage's character. Just when you think the man couldn't be anymore unhinged, he goes and does something like this. Perkins' is smart enough to not let Cage take over the film, his scenes are restrained in terms of screentime and he cuts away from revealing too much of his face for a good amount as well. That act of cutting away everytime we're about to see him also gives you this uneasy feeling. The man looked unrecognizable to me and I was onboard with his performances from the get-go. Maika Monroe is again, a star waiting to really explode onto the scene. She has carved out great performances in genre films and this is one of her best.

Don't let the hype ruin this movie for you. It's not the scariest thing put to celluoid. Some directions in the story might take some people out of the experience, but overall, this is a great horror film that knows exactly what tone is wants.

More like this please.
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