Reaction Shots

  I haven’t seen Tim Burton’s follow-up to “Batman” since it came out and I am remiss that it’s taken this long, but as impressed with it as I was then, I think I’m even more so now. It’s a darker movie and/but it’s pure Burton. The macabre goes hand in hand with questions of identity, themes of fetishism and being a misfit, and Burton’s retooling and reusing the film iconography and techniques of an earlier era (or two; he ticks off Weimar era expressionism through 1930s Warner Brothers and it’s glorious). It helps that his collaborators are all top-shelf and that they are working from a script by Daniel Waters whose “Heathers” set the template for dark comedy in the 80s. Burton’s best cinematographer, Stefan Czapsky, is back with those rich shadows and crane shots to die for. It adds up to one of those sequels that outdoes its predecessor. The cast is, of course, legendary across the board; Keaton is back and his scene partners are nothing to sneeze at. It’s hard to understan...

Of course, it’s the holiday that almost every American looks forward to. The day of gift giving and receiving, the attendant stress of all that entails, the meals with family, and the eventual flick. This can flip, of course. The attendant stress of shopping for people you don’t like, the meals with people who are bound to say something to set you off (particularly, after a shot of something festive…Goldschlager, for instance…or heroin), and this year, this is all combined with COVID-19. This latter may come as a boon to many; the smart people who didn’t travel to endure the tortures of the damned (and who want to live without a possibly fatal pathogen.) In either case, there is the wonder of film to kill a few hours. I don’t really think too much about what I’m going to watch on any given holiday, but you can be sure that I’ll watch “The Thin Man” on or around New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Sadly, I don’t drink anymore, so I can’t match Nick and Norah martini for martini…oh, go...

  Hitchcock’s first talkie is referred to by – among others – Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol – as not being a true Hitchcock film. Even Hitchcock seemed to feel that way about it, and although it was not a director-for-hire work, many seem to approach it as though it were. The film is an adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s play of the same name and a pretty faithful adaptation, at that. Nevertheless, I agree with William Bass in his PhD thesis that Hitchcock as adapter is not so easily dismissed and demands more attention and greater care. Admittedly, the present piece under discussion start out feeling like merely a matter of “let’s point the camera and shoot a play”. However, this is deceptive as we will examine the film a little more closely. I’m hesitant to ignore or downplay “Juno and the Paycock” for several reasons. One, it is a Hitchcock film, even considered stylistically. As much as the action is mostly confined to one set, the long shots, and the stillness of the camera ar...

  Always, always, always listen to your friends when they keep on about a film. It doesn’t mean you have to love it as much as they will, nor does it mean that you will, even. But it generally means that there’s something worthwhile somewhere in there. This is particularly so when your friend is as big a movie buff (or bigger) than you. My pal Tim Kozlowski has been, over years I might add, gently suggesting “Dodsworth”, William Wyler’s adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s novel about an older couple growing apart and the various forces that strain and pull at them. That encapsulation does a disservice to a remarkable film. As I hope to make clear, I owe Tim a garland of thanks for keeping at me over this gap in my filmic education. “Dodsworth” is on Amazon Prime, so go watch it. Now. This post isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be here when you get back. Done? Good. Regrettably, I’m not familiar with the source material, though I’m well aware of Lewis’s fine eye for socioeconomic facto...