THE DANMAN CAN

Each Dawn I Die (1939) is kind of a "message picture" but message pictures from this era somehow still feel less spoon-fed than they do now. Perhaps it's because the Academy Awards were still fairly new and the term " Oscar bait " hadn't been thrown around yet. 1939 remains of the greatest years in cinematic history, with Gone With The Wind being the highest grossing film and the one with the most Oscar nominations and wins (and can arguably be considered one of the earliest Oscar bait films). But EDID  is unmistakably a B movie. However, Warner Bros. B movies from the 30s hold up incredibly well—due to the casts, crews and craft on display. EDID is no exception. William Keighley  ( The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938)) was no stranger to gangster films, having previously made 1935's 'G' Men  with James Cagney and 1936's Bullets Or Ballots  with genre heavies  Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart .  Here Keighley again directs Cagney ...

As I mentioned in my recent review of  Death Becomes Her   (1992) ( here ), Quick Change (1990) was another 1990s film which I clearly remember seeing the trailer and marketing materials for numerous times when it was released but didn't get around to seeing until now.  I'm glad I finally did—this is a really fun little comedy with a sardonic appeal. It's breezy and has lots of "movie logic" but it falls squarely into the category of films that aren't challenging but also aren't dumb. Bill Murray is his customarily great self and here he also co-directs (alongside Howard Franklin ). I can only speculate that Murray didn't enjoy the directorial process, as this remains his sole credit in that role.  The co-leads ( Geena Davis , Randy Quaid and Jason Robards ) are also uniformly great, and supporting roles from Tony Shalhoub , Phil Hartman , Stanley Tucci , and Kurtwood Smith  are memorable as well. Legendary cinematographer Michael Chapman keeps thi...

Even though Clockers  (1995) is unmistakably a Spike Lee film, it's clearly evident that Martin Scorsese (who served as a producer) was originally attached to direct. Scorsese's influence on Lee is easy to spot and it's also easy to see why the former was attracted to Richard Price 's ( The Wire (2002–2008)) 1992 novel and screenplay. Clockers  is an uneven film, but it has strong central performances and plenty of Lee's visual, editing and emotional flair. The unfiltered way that the film explores drugs, crime, race, law enforcement, community, socioeconomic status, passions, hopes/dreams, and how all these elements affect one another is mostly satisfactory. Spike Lee Joints Ranked

For some reason when I sat down for this viewing of  Avanti! (1972), I thought that I hadn't seen the film before. As it began to play, it all felt very familiar and then I realized (and confirmed via my log) that I had  watched the film back in 2009. Once that was established and the familiarity set in, I recalled really enjoying it and this was confirmed by the end of "Take 2".  Billy Wilder 's infidelity comedy, while a bit outdated in some regards, is a really wonderful late era film from the director. Despite the runtime being just under 2 1/2 hours, it doesn't feel long and it's constantly pleasing throughout. Jack Lemmon plays a jerk who you really end up warming up to and Juliet Mills is just sweet, beautiful and an absolute joy. The two have a great chemistry.  Clive Revill as hotel manager Carlo Carlucci is simply perfection.  Avanti! playfully jabs at stereotypes and has some good zingers. It's not a laugh riot however, more of a charmer, bu...

I remember first seeing Amélie  (aka  Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain ) (2001) at a nearby (now defunct) $2 movie theater in either late 2001 or early 2002. I was already a fan of  Jean-Pierre Jeunet , via his previous three films (two with Marc Caro ), but  Amélie  was the one that garnered real attention in the States. After a mixed reception to his first solo outing,  Alien: Resurrection (1997), Jeunet came back four years later with this gem of a movie. Amélie  is definitely a film where you have to buy into the fantasy and the hyperrealism. If you're a fan of that approach, it's an absolute delight. The cinematography, production and art design, the heavy green and red color manipulation, Yann Tiersen 's playful score, and all the characters—including the smallest of roles—all blend together to create an indelible experience. Jeunet   seems to make even misery look beautiful. Audrey Tautou  is, of course, infectiously adorable....

Much like last year's  Bill & Ted Face The Music  (my review here ), this year another sequel arrived over 30 years after the previous film. While I only saw its predecessor,  Coming To America   (1988) (my review here ), for the first time a few days prior, the sequel, Coming 2 America (2021), left me with the same mixed emotions I had for  B&TFTM . Eddie Murphy  and  Arsenio Hall  are back of course and they are both mostly funny (particularly in their heavily made-up roles). In fact, almost every recognizable character from the first film returns, so there's definitely plenty of nostalgia and nods. N ewcomer  Jermaine Fowler  is likable enough and the addition of Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Wesley Snipes was a lot of fun. Some of the humor in C2A  is updated for the times, and this being a PG-13 outing, it's a bit tamer than its forebear. There's also a strong pro-femme message ru...

Unequivocally Harry Dean Stanton ’s greatest performance. A snapshot of a simpler time, with a style somewhere between David Byrne and David Lynch . Nastassja Kinski is impossibly beautiful and achingly heartbreaking.  Robby Müller 's cinematography is gorgeous—virtually every shot could be a painting. Ry Cooder ’s twangy score perfectly compliments the southern landscapes and  Wim Wenders ’ leisurely pace wonderfully suits Sam Shepard 's intimate story. Paris, Texas (1984) is essential viewing—a tender, existential journey of love, loss, and family. You can find my  Wim Wenders Films Ranked  list  here . You can find my Top 100 Films list here . Cabazon Dinosaurs  (their first appearance in film; also featured in  Pee-wee's Big Adventure  (1985) and briefly in the video for " Everybody Wants To Rule The World " by  Tears For Fears )

Fritz Lang 's  M ( 1931) is a powerful, pondering film concerning morality, the vindictiveness of human beings, the measures they are willing to take, and the nature of crime. M  is a technically brilliant blueprint for the procedural drama featuring a fascinating dual search conducted by both law enforcement and criminals for a child murderer (an expressive, impressive, and somehow sympathy-inducing performance by Peter Lorre ). Lang's use of sound and silence, the choice of shots, the camerawork, the narrative focus, the characters and their interactions all meld together to create an indelible masterpiece. You can find my Fritz Lang Films Ranked list here .

I remember seeing the trailer for  Death Becomes Her   (1992) many times around the time it was released and I was familiar with much of the imagery, but I somehow never got around to seeing it until now. At the time I didn't know (and even until recently I always seemed to forget) that it was made by the same director as the Back To The Future trilogy  (reviews  here , here , and here ) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit  (1988) ( review ). Wow, what a fun movie! This is so up my alley in so many ways. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are perfect as catty but clever rivals, Bruce Willis  is brilliant in the rare straight-up comedic role, Isabella Rossellini is deliciously wicked, and the at-the-time pioneering CG effects largely hold up really well (save a few scenes). Dean Cundey 's cinematography is gorgeous, as usual, perfectly complimenting the gothic/Art Deco production design. The body horror in DBH finds director Robert Zemeckis  at his most gruesome a...

As I've written before in my reviews of  Trading Places  (1983) ( here ) and  Spies Like Us   (1985) ( here ), there were a number of  John Landis  films that passed me by, which I only saw in the past couple of years (I still  haven't seen  ¡Three Amigos!   (1986) in its entirety).  Coming To America (1988) was one of those and I suppose the timing is good for my finally having viewed it, if I want to watch the sequel soon. What can I say?  Eddie Murphy  and  Arsenio Hall  are mostly comedy gold in their multiple roles. Some stuff hasn't aged well and the story is fairly predictable, but it's a funny movie with its heart in the right place. I greatly enjoyed CTA —h ere's hoping the sequel isn't terrible. You can find my  John Landis Feature Films Ranked  list  here .

The last of the four  John Brabourne  and  Richard Goodwin -produced  Agatha's Christie  adaptations, Evil Under The Sun (1982) saw frequent  Bond  director  Guy Hamilton  returning to deliver a stronger film than both 1980's  The Mirror Crack'd   (which he also directed) (my review  here ) and  Death On The Nile  (1978) (my review here ). Though not quite as good as Murder On The Orient Express (1974) (my review here ), which had the benefit of the best director ( Sidney Lumet ) and (in my opinion) the best Hercule Poirot  on film ( Albert Finney ), EUTS  is undoubtedly my second favorite of the four Brabourne/Goodwin Christie films.  I liked  Peter Ustinov  as Poirot more this time around than in DOTN  and Hamilton's direction is better. The locations, production design and costumes are all simply wonderful. The ensemble is a joy. Aside from Ustinov, a number of actors ...

But I'm A Cheerleader   (1999) is a cute and campy conversion comedy that playfully satirizes gender roles and heteronormativity. It's got a great cast, a cool score, and fun, vibrant production design to reflect the themes. It's fairly predictable, a little sappy (not terribly so), and I didn't flat-out love it, but I understand its appeal and why it's a cult film. I did really enjoy it and I would definitely watch it again. Recommended for fans of John Waters  and  Psycho Beach Party   (2000) (my review here ).

Billy Wilder 's  Fedora (1978) has many parallels to his earlier  Sunset Boulevard (1950). Both films star  William Holden  and both films are about Hollywood "has-beens." Whereas SB  focused on an aging silent film star, here   the lament is surrounding the Golden Age of Hollywood  (with a Vertigo -like twist thrown in for good measure). Fedora is an old-fashioned, melodramatic story—befitting its subject matter—but it comes off a bit campy at times (though in more of a lackluster rather than wildly pleasing or hilarious way). A solid penultimate film from a master director, but no masterpiece itself. You can find my  Billy Wilder Films Ranked  list  here . You can find my  Top 20 Directors  list  here .

Cop Out (2010) has a reputation for being mostly reviled, but despite that, despite  Kevin Smith  and Bruce Willis having beef  on set, and despite it being a fairly generic buddy cop outing, I still enjoyed it and I laughed a bunch. I realize that might be damning it with faint praise, but I was honestly expecting CO to be much worse and I'm not really sure I quite understand the hate toward the film. I'm not saying it's a film I would revisit often, but as a Smith (a director I don't expect masterpieces from) version of  48 Hrs.   (1982) or  Lethal Weapon (1987), it works just fine. You can find my  Kevin Smith Feature Films Ranked  list  here .

Doctor X (1932) is an odd little film (once thought to be lost), a strange blend of horror and humor, but immensely entertaining. DX  was made right in the middle of Pre-Code Hollywood , so it can be quite deliciously gruesome and risqué at times for a film of its era. Michael Curtiz  directs,  Lionel Atwill ,  Fay Wray  and Lee Tracy star,  Ray Rennahan  and  Anton Grot  provide cinematography and art direction, respectively. All of their contributions blended wonderfully to make this interesting serial killer mystery. DX used the  two-color Technicolor  process—one of only three releases (of six planned) from Warner Bros. using the improved Process 3 —to provide that signature  phantasmagorically lime green look. Warner Archive's new Blu-ray of this historical film uses a transfer restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation to gorgeous results. The following year, Curtiz r eteamed w...

More of a dramatic mystery than a horror film, Isle Of The Dead (1945) was the second to last (of eleven) features that  Val Lewton  produced at RKO and the fourth (of five) of those directed by Mark Robson . While I mostly prefer the films that  Jacques Tourneur  and  Robert Wise  made for Lewton, Robson evokes  a similar mood thanks to some atmospheric cinematography and a strong lead performance by  Boris Karloff .  It's   a slow picture, especially for one that's only 71 minutes long, but it builds to a tense finale.  IOTD serves as an entertaining tale of paranoia, folklore, and control where science vs. superstition is front and center. With the themes of quarantining, hand washing and avoiding contact, it's hard not to draw parallels to the current pandemic . You can find my Mark Robson Feature Films Ranked here . You can find my  Val Lewton RKO Feature Films Ranked  list  here .

As I feared—as was the case with  Knight Of Cups   (2015) (my review here )— Song To Song   (2017) is more of what the former film consisted of: rich people wandering aimlessly in mostly extravagant settings in mostly expensive clothing with seemingly little of the hardships that the average person faces.  Even as a musician and music lover, that aspect of the film did nothing for me. I liked STS slightly more than KOC , as I actually felt some emotions from Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling 's performances, but this era of Terrence Malick is just not my thing. Fortunately, I did like  A Hidden Life   (2019) (my review here ) quite a bit more, so I haven't given up on Malick altogether. You can find my  Terrence Malick Feature Films Ranked  list  here .

The Specialists   (aka The Specialist ) (1969) is a solid Italian Western from genre staple  Sergio Corbucci . Neither as exciting or influential as the other two films in his unofficial "Mud and Blood" trilogy, which includes  Django  (1966) (my review here ) and  The Great Silence  (1968) (my review here ), it feels a bit like Corbucci a repeating himself. French singer Johnny Hallyday is a strange lead, lacking the charisma and magnetism of a Clint Eastwood , a Franco Nero  or a  Jean-Louis Trintignant . Still, there are a few surprises to be found, it's well-made, and enjoyable for fans of the genre. You can find my Sergio Corbucci Feature Films Ranked list here . 

Billy Wilder 's One, Two, Three  (1961) is a breakneck Cold War screwball rollercoaster. It tanked at the box office (the Berlin Wall was built after principle photography began), it's full of stereotypes (some of which feel playful), and at times it plays like a big ol' ad for Coca-Cola. It's also occasionally hilarious and has some great zingers (including callbacks to earlier classic films).  James Cagney  carries the bulk of the rapid-fire pace and dialogue and does so commendably. Divorced from the events as current, some (but not all) of the political aspects are pretty pointed and funny. The performances are really broad and LARGE . As key as it is to the film, and as catchy and appropriate as the tune is to the scenes in which it soundtracks, Aram Khachaturian 's " Sabre Dance " does grate on the nerves a bit after the first few times it's used. O,T,T is a loud, fast, and silly film but not a dumb one. It's no comedy classic like Wilder...

I've been both revisiting and first-time watching  Kevin Smith 's filmography in the last several months. His "sacrilegious," "profane" religious satire  Dogma  (1999) holds up about the same as his other most-beloved works for me—meaning sometimes I find him too clever for his own good, sometimes his dialogue is really great, and sometimes his staging, action, pacing, and editing are pretty average. All of that applies to Dogma , which caused the most controversy of his career (even leading to death threats), but I still have a soft spot of sorts for the director and this film. You can find my  Kevin Smith Feature Films Ranked  list  here .

I don't tend to review short films but what with Simon Of The Desert   (1965) being 45 minutes long and one of  Luis Buñuel 's key works, I thought it deserved a blogpost. SOTD was the last of three films that Buñuel made with  Silvia Pinal  and Claudio Brook , the first being  Viridiana  (1961) (my review here ), the second being The  Exterminating Angel (1962) (which I have yet to see). Brook plays the overly pious Simón—considered a saint (based on  Simeon Stylites ) by his devotees—who has lived atop a tall pillar, praying, in the desert for 6 years, 6 weeks and 6 days. Pinal plays the devil (deliciously), who attempts to seduce him down to earth three times in three different forms.  SOTD finds Buñuel in full-on surrealist, controversy-courting, mode and tapping into (and satirizing) religious themes, which caused scandal (not the first or last time for the director) with the Vatican and government. The performances, atmo...

I have never been a big anime watcher but  Vampire Hunter D (1985), along with  Fist Of The North Star   (1986) (my review here ), and  Akira   (1988) (my review here ), were the three that I watched the most as a teenager. I only just realized that VHD and FOTNS  were made by the same director,  Toyoo Ashida . While the animation in VHD  is a bit less refined, it's still enjoyable, and the genre/folklore mashup (gothic horror, post-apocalyptic sci-fi, western/ chanbara ) satisfies a very specific need.  As with FOTNS , I've never read any of the novels  that VHD  is based on, but I love the story and the characters—though Doris' outfit is perhaps a bit of an outdated, eye-roll-inducing, male teenage fantasy and it's irksome how strong she is in the opening scene, only to become progressively weaker as the film goes on (save her holding her ground against the creeper Greco). The titular D is of the stoic western lead variety and th...