March is always a little chaotic. I think the weather here has something to do with that - we started with some of the warmest days on record and finished with blizzards. Perhaps it was in response to that turbulence that I did some re-watching over the past month. Amongst other things, I revisited The Godfather parts 1 & 2, some later chapters of Lone Wolf and Cub, both Lady Snowblood films, and a series of high profile 90s crime flicks: Lone Star, Pulp Fiction, Bad Lieutenant and Cop Land. Rewatches are at odds with my drive to see more movies and find new and exciting titles. I don't watch five movies a day and I don't multi-task while watching movies so there's forever some opportunity cost with what I choose to put on. It's always worth reminding myself that this is ultimately a leisure time pursuit though the lists, writing drafts, and even spreadsheets I have put together might lead normal people to think otherwise. Sometimes you just need to revisit an old favorite or even refresh why you remember something a certain way. Despite my wallowing in nostalgia, I still found ample opportunity to watch new films and here are my favorites from March:
Deadly Circuit (1983) - The first Claude Miller film I watched was The Inquisitor where he worked with Bruno Nuytten who also shot Possession that same year. In his following film, Deadly Circuit, Miller works with Isabelle Adjani herself as an irresistible, mercurial, and lethal femme fatale in a genuinely weird take on the neo-noir/thriller. It's a gorgeous film filled with gnarly violence and (I think) absurdist black humor in a very French mode. Michel Serrault gives an excellent performance as a PI obsessed with Adjani's beautiful murderess, but I'm not sure how much sense any of it makes. I loved it, but I can see it failing to land with some people. If extensive European location footage, Adjani rocking an insane amount of amazing 80s looks, and rich dopes getting the living shit killed out of them seems sufficient for you, I would look into this one immediately.
Yakuza Graveyard (1976) - I watched a fair amount of yakuza films last month and Yakuza Graveyard is not the best of them or even the best Fukusaku film I watched, but it's still incredibly solid. It's predictably grim and chaotic but also features some nice character touches and Meiko Kaji so definitely worth a look if you like these films.
Crazy Joe (1974) - A movie that should probably be better known than it is. In the wake of success following both The Godfather films and John G. Avildsen's Joe, Dino De Laurentiis produced this mafia story starring Peter Boyle as the titular "Crazy Joe" Gallo. Boyle channels his very best Jimmy Cagney for the duration and he's flanked by an insane cast including Fred Williamson, Paula Prentiss, Rip Torn, and Henry Winkler. Much like De Laurentiis' earlier not-quite-Godfather effort, The Valachi Papers, Crazy Joe is not a revelation of cinematic technique but it's still a terrific lower budget, gritty crime story. It makes me wish there had been a lot more of these Italian/American co-productions
The Unknown (1927) - I picked up Criterion's Tod Browning set in their flash sale and finally watched both The Unknown and The Mystic in addition to Freaks. The set itself is fantastic with some great essays and features that really do help contextualize the films. Despite having some favorites and some films that were highly influential for me, I'm not the most dedicated silent film watcher. However, I've wanted to watch The Unknown for a long time now and I'm happy to say it doesn't disappoint. Lon Chaney's performance is just a marvel - the expressiveness he employs doesn't really work in a modern film milieu but it's so powerful in the silent era. Joan Crawford commands the screen in nearly everything I've seen her in and this is no exception, she looks absolutely stunning as well. I don't want to give away any spoilers but The Unknown starts in the relatively strange territory of a love triangle (of sorts) between an armless knife thrower, a dazzling gypsy girl, and a circus strongman and it gets weirder from there. Secrets, schemes, and black market surgery follows! I also loved The Mystic which starts stronger than it ends but is satisfyingly bizarre and offers a riff on Nightmare Alley decades before the book or the first film were released.
Attention, the Kids are Watching (1978) - An interesting take on the creepy/killer kids movie. Alain Delon is mostly secondary to the group of affluent children largely left to their own devices during a summer holiday. There's no doubt we are supposed to understand the kids as corrupted by modern society - absentee parents, junk food, popular culture (including Sege Leroy's previous films which get some small cameos). However, Delon's criminal drifter is also the antagonist that the kids rally against. Leroy's "thriller" manages a weird vibe but I found it compelling nonetheless. I don't think Leroy is particularly well known in the US and I'm definitely curious to check out more of his films.
Legitimate Violence (1982) - Speaking of more Serge Leroy films - I (understandably) thought this would play out like a French Death Wish after reading the synopsis. Instead, I found something much more nuanced in its depiction of violence, justice, and failed systems. Violence ties together a few threads but the main thrust of the story is Claude Brasseur as an aggrieved man who's family is slaughtered in heist gone wrong. His pursuit of justice drives things forward but there are detours into right-wing politics, police corruption, the 80s nightclub scene, as well as more straightforward thriller beats. There's little glorification of vigilantism in Leroy's film and easy answers aren't being offered. Brasseur's character is desperate for justice but doesn't readily accept vengeance as an alternative, the justice system isn't overburdened with bureaucracy as much as it's rotten at its heart, and the public is depicted either as a violent mob or innocents caught in the mayhem. It's an interesting film and a counterbalance to American and Italian films that cover similar territory. I'd love to see this get a physical media release stateside.
Street Mobster (1972) - Along with Sympathy for the Underdog, Fukusaku offers a preview of his breakneck yakuza nihilism that would erupt into the seminal Yakuza Papers series. Street Mobster features Battles' Bunta Sugawara as an utterly irredeemable street tough who still manages to exude a combustible magnetism that's hard to deny. Mobster is an unrelenting salvo of chaos and violence (sexual and otherwise) delivered with vertigo inducing handheld camerawork. The audience is hurtled down alleyways and cramped urban interiors while being subjected to street brawls as if a participant. It is impossible to empathize with these violent psychos but their tragic self-destruction makes for a thrilling ride.
Exterior Night (1980) - I'll be the first to admit that this wandering story of young, aimless people following their impulses didn't fully hold my attention for the duration. I could still appreciate the approach that I think Jacques Bral was going for. It's an atmospheric, moody piece where the drama comes in from the margins. The important aspect is to exist in the twilight spaces, these city streets, these dark corridors of Paris and maybe of our own minds. I would see this theatrically in a heartbeat. Christine Boisson has a tremendous screen presence here and her character is the most interesting of the three principals. I've seen a few films with Boisson but she never made quite this impression on me and I'm very much looking forward to seeing her in Rue Barbare coming out from FCE later this year.
The Great Okinawa Yakuza War (1976) - The 70s Yakuza genre is filled with so many ferocious films that it's impossible for me to rank them according to hardboiled grit. However, if I was to make the attempt - The Great Okinawa Yakuza War would rate towards the top. Absolute ripper of bloody action and meanspirited violence couched against a fascinating backdrop of Okinawan cultural identity. Sonny Chiba is both charmingly outrageous and terrifyingly brutal. Hiroki Matsukata provides a grounded counterbalance of a man who has learned patience but still has his limits. The island setting, the sweltering heat, and the push/pull between the local gangs and outside forces (primarily mainland yakuza but the specter of US occupation looms over everything as well) dials up the pressure until it finally erupts in the finale of chaos. The ultraviolent gore is wild but somehow Okinawa Yakuza War never feels like a living comic book the way some hyper-stylized entries into the genre do. This needs a blu-ray, immediately.
A Murder Is a Murder (1972) - An absolutely tremendous cast in an entertaining mystery/thriller. It's hard not to throw around words like "Chabrol-ian" considering the films set up - possible murder, upper-class intrigue, provincial setting, and the master himself even turns up as a bumbling train car attendant. The premise unfolds in interesting ways but the ending lands weirdly and is lacking the sharp societal critique Chabrol likely would have delivered with similar material. Still totally worthwhile to see some doppelganger strangeness from Stephane Audrane and a cool Michel Serrault turn as the local police commissioner.
The Sunday Woman (1975) - This is a long time watchlist denizen that I finally made time for. Luigi Comencini's whodunit is a breezy affair that borders on slight. However, the killer cast - Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Louis Trintignant - gorgeous footage of Turin, and Ennio Morricone score do a lot to elevate this. Besides being totally entertaining, there a far more stone phalluses in Sunday Woman than I would have guessed going into it. There's a homosexual relationship featured prominently in the plot and while it has some major issues seen within a modern lens, it's handled pretty well for 1975 (which still seems startlingly progressive considering the 80s backsliding that would happen on that front).
Starting Over (1979) - There are more than a few reviews describing how middling this Alan J. Pakula/James L. Brooks romantic comedy is and I'm willing to concede that it's an imperfect film. However (and maybe a month filled with shootouts and street brawls softened me up a bit) I found Starting Over to be a cool discovery and one that should be in front of more eyeballs. For better or for worse, the film focuses on Burt Reynolds, newly divorced from Candice Bergen, trying to manage his broken heart and his loneliness which leads to him kindling a relationship with Jill Clayburgh's pre-school teacher, Marilyn. I actually thought Reynolds was knocking it out of the park for the first two thirds of the film - wounded, guarded, and believably confused culminating in a marvelous panic attack scene in Bloomingdales. Unfortunately, as the drama intensifies, Reynolds clings to a kind of detachment that really ought to be shed as his character supposedly opens up. Clayburgh is predictably wonderful playing the kind of smart, funny character that she had so expertly nailed in An Unmarried Woman the year before. Marilyn does get emotionally knocked around a bit but she also asserts her independence and accounts well for herself and her needs. I'm no stranger to the comedic gifts of Candice Bergen but she absolutely floored me in this and is easily the most inspired bit of casting. Charles Durning and Francis Sternhagen also provide some stellar supporting roles. Easy recommendation if you go for this brand of late 70s/early 80s funny/sad story featuring bad weather and lots of earth tones.
Theatrical Screenings!
We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974) - I have been trying to watch Scola's C'eravamo tanto amati/We All Loved Each Other So Much for a few years now so I was absolutely ecstatic that it was going to be screened as part of our local Italian Film Festival. I'm not entirely sure how if first came upon my radar but it might have come down to looking through Stefania Sandrelli's filmography and the striking poster graphic drawing me in. It's supposedly extremely influential in Italy and it's an overwhelming marriage of popular entertainment with some genuine artistic chops. An expansive story of friendship between three men and one woman (who they all wind up loving in some fashion) during the thirty years following the end of WWII. C'eravamo tanto amati is ostensibly a comedy and an extremely funny one but the overarching themes are those of loss, melancholy, and even betrayal. The friends betray each other, they betray their families, and they betray their ideals - intellectualism fails, the bravest of them becomes a corrupt capitalist, and leftist reform politics do little to change the circumstances of working people. It's also a film obsessed with postwar film - De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, and Rosselini all get their due and there are some excellent cameos throughout the picture.
For whatever reason I didn't realize this until after having seen the film (not mad that my first time was in a theater) but this is available on Cave of Forgotten Films under the Italian title and I recommend you check it out.
Dune: Part Two (2024) - I found this to be fairly entertaining even if I was left with many questions regarding the logistics of sandworm travel. I don't hate Villeneuve's Dune films but I don't think they're masterpieces either. I'm also not particularly territorial about Hebert's works. I loved the first few books when I was a kid, I have an outsized affection for Lynch's imperfectly baroque vision of the story, and I am especially fond of the old board game from 1979. I preferred Part Two to the previous film and no doubt will go see a third movie if it happens. I do wish these were a little weirder but otherwise I'm happy to sit in my fancy reclining theater chair and let it wash over me.
Perfect Days (2023) - No holds barred absolute love for Wim Wenders' new narrative film. Odes to a simpler life are not inherently profound but this one did resonate strongly with me. Shot in a mere 16 days (!), Wenders delivers a striking, poetic look at urban life in Tokyo and Koji Yakusho provides a beautifully subtle performance as a man who has built a life of intricate daily rituals. We come to understand Koji's character both through those rituals as well as his incidental interactions with the other lives he briefly coincides with. The musical choices can feel a little obvious at times, but I like them so I can hardly complain. Weirdly, Wenders' film was initially conceived as promotional material for the Tokyo Toilet project and it both works in that respect, but isn't less impactful for it. Any Americans watching this will be reduced to tears as they recall the last public toilet they were subjected to (if they could even find one).
Loves Lies Bleeding (2024) - I couldn't have been more hyped going into this one - new sexy crime/neo-noir thriller in a desert setting with an LGBTQ+ focus - and left a little deflated. I thought it looked and sounded great and I very much appreciated some dark humor and pervasive grossness. I just wish the writing had been a bit stronger and I had a hard time coming along as the film dipped into pure fantasy territory. Kristen Stewart continues to be a supremely compelling performer who seems to have fantastic instincts, and I was also impressed with Katy O'Brian who I hope gets to do more dark genre stuff. I would easily watch another half-dozen of these without complaint but I wish it would have either gone completely gonzo or stayed grounded.
Immaculate (2024) - My bummer parade continues undaunted as I found this newly beloved partial nod to Italian horror to be pretty okay. Again, the writing was a weak element here but I also didn't think Immaculate was particularly interesting from an aesthetic standpoint either. I found a lot of it to be murky and then bolstered by the kind of dull drone shots and jump scares that permeate everything these days. I commend the filmmakers for resisting the urge to add an A24 inverted camera zoom. I am not super familiar with Sydney Sweeney's work but I though she was very good here and her face is made for emotionally gut-wrenching performances. I also dug the practical gore and particularly enjoyed when my row of companions unanimously chortled as blood sprayed out of some unlucky neck while the rest of the theater stayed silent. I love the horror fans out there, but I do need to take their unbridled enthusiasm with a grain of salt sometimes.
