Recent Viewings, Part 2

[HappyGilmore]

KILL THE JOCKEY (2024): A ketamine-addicted jockey in Buenos Aires awakens from a coma as a new man (maybe), but his crime boss employer now wants him dead. Legitimately Lynchian stuff from Argentina with identity shifts and lots of strangeness (and some humor); great fun, assuming you know what to expect, and you're into this kind of thing. Some trans/LGBTQ themes. 3.5/5.

Initially I misread the title as Kill The Joker and immediately thought "If only Batman would but there'd still be a bunch of crime in Gotham" but continued forward.

This sounds good though.

[Dr. Whom]

Yeah, Shatner really delivers the goods in AP2!

Alien vs Predator 2? 😳😉😉🐢

If anyone could've redeemed AVP2, it would've been the Shat!

Damn Right!

[lester1/2jr]

Il Demonio (1963) - I clicked on this because the lady on the cover was hot and actually thought it was going to be in Spanish. In reality, it's Italian and isn't a Bava esque horror movie but is an excellent, basic but brilliant film that reminded me of Pasolini or something. The IMDB description of it being about a "sexually uninhibited woman" or something is not accurate. It's pretty much a combination of fancy pants high art Italian film and horror Italian film, leaning towards the former.

A hot but crazy seeming lady in a Italian rural peasant existence tries to use a hex of some kind to retain a lover who is going to get arranged married. It's never clear whether she actually possesses any powers or anything. This starts a serious of events which leads to her becoming public enemy number one in the superstitious village. At one point they take burning sticks and attempt to "burn the air" where she walked to purify it against Satan. That's pretty superstitious! It's not to say there was some massive "twist", but I just had no idea how it was going to end leading up to it, which impressed me.

5/5 I will certainly revisit this one

[M.10rda]

IL DEMONIO is truly great. POSSESSION is still my 3rd favorite film of all time, but IL DEMONIO shambled through pastoral settings so POSSESSION could run (amok) through a subway.

Okay, gimme a do-over. Dahlia Lavi spider-crawled in order for Linda Blair to spider-walk? No, that isn't it either - 'cause Lavi is doin' laps upside-down on all fours!     

[M.10rda]

MIDNIGHT LACE (1960):
This seemingly forgotten mystery/thriller rolled out in the year of PSYCHO but was pretty clearly (directly) inspired by Hitch's DIAL M FOR MURDER - with a phone-centered damsel-in-distress plot plus two of DMFM's supporting actors, Anthony Dawson and John Williams (not the composer). It's also got the major/twin drawbacks of DMFM (as well as many other Hitchcock films): a lead female character who mostly behaves foolishly or helplessly played by a vacuous blonde mannequin with meager acting ability. In MIDNIGHT LACE it's Doris Day (taking a rare break from fluffy romcoms) instead of Grace (bleh) Kelly, yet as often is the case in Hitchcock there are plentiful enough ancillary pleasures to make the film worth watching.

In an instantly gripping credits sequence, Day walks home through a dense London fog and is stalked/threatneed by an unseen high-pitched voice, which then begins making daily phone calls to her flat, promising her impending demise. Her wealthy businessman hubby (Rex Harrison) seems sympathetic and supportive enough, but almost everyone else that enters the frame sends off Prime Suspect klaxons: John Gavin as a dashing construction foreman with some admitted psychological problems, Roddy McDowell as a slimy young grifter, Harrison's gambling-addicted embezzling partner, an overly involved PYT neighbor, and creepy-looking Dawson as a gun-toting weirdo who's constantly hanging around the neighborhood. Even stiff-upper lipped Scotland Yard chief inspector Williams (yes, the exactly same role he played in DMFM) is awfully eager to cast doubts on Day's accounts - is he helping to gaslight her?

At last Day's "Aunt Bea" arrives from the States to comfort her. Yes, her name is "Aunt Bea"      and she's played by 55-year old Myrna Loy, who looks younger and foxier than Doris Day (and of course, being Myrna Loy, can really act). Surely Loy will take up Day's defense and save her from danger, right? Alas, by this point Day's character is acting like such an unreliable dingbat that the viewer can't blame her aunt or her husband or Scotland Yard for wondering if the whole affair is contrived purely out of Day's feverish imagination. Okay, Day's performance for much of the film doesn't help - she's flailing and rolling her eyes one scene, staring dully into the middle-distance the next, and so on. It's a good thing she's surrounded with so many pros: Loy, Harrison (clearly having a ball in a non-musical dramatic role), Williams, McDowell are all great... and how 'bout that John Gavin? In one year he does PSYCHO, SPARTACUS, and this movie, where once again he's got Elvis Presley good looks with Shatneresque intensity and gravitas. What happened to that guy's career???

I digress. The good news is, Day pulls it together just enough in the
authentically suspenseful and exciting finale to leave one's final impression of MIDNIGHT LACE a mostly positive one. The identity of Day's stalker isn't a shock when it's revealed, but my chief suspicions had been sufficiently misdirected to another character so at least the twist doesn't land w/ a complete thud. Also, MIDNIGHT LACE looks great in technicolor and particularly the lighting is extremely creative and moody. Actually, I thought this was at least as strong or stronger than most Hitchcocks I've seen. 

3.5/5
Admittedly I'm only a moderate Hitchcock guy.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse" (2024)
Cartoonist and illustrator Art Spiegelman got his start in the underground comix scene of the 70s and created the Garbage Pail Kids in the 80s, but he's best known for Maus, his Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel which used cats and mice to tell the story of his parents' experience during the Holocaust. An engrossing documentary that made me want to investigate more of the man's work

[lester1/2jr]

IL DEMONIO is truly great. POSSESSION is still my 3rd favorite film of all time, but IL DEMONIO shambled through pastoral settings so POSSESSION could run (amok) through a subway.

Okay, gimme a do-over. Dahlia Lavi spider-crawled in order for Linda Blair to spider-walk? No, that isn't it either - 'cause Lavi is doin' laps upside-down on all fours!     

I can't believe I forgot to mention the spider walk.