Cinematic Distractions...

[dulcedemon]

Russian Doll: Season 02 (2021):
I couldn't imagine how they were going to follow the first season. I was afraid it couldn't be equaled let alone topped. This second season exceeded my expectations in every way. The writing is excellent. The cast is excellent. The music is thoughtfully chosen, and the songs are well placed.
The story...
It's like they are reading from the Bardo Thodol, Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell, and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine all at once.
A few particulars about season two without giving anything away:
--I don't know if the DMT sequence is accurate to the actual experience, but it is 100% accurate to everything I've ever read about it. Also, good choice of song for that scene.
--I really like Horse (Brendan Sexton III). He has a Charon ferryman of Hades quality about him. Nadia's first encounter with him in season two is hilarious.
--The subtle intersectionality of Nadia's and Alan's timelines is a real treat.
I cried more than I expected this season. There were many things that took me by surprise and resonated deeply. I plan to watch it again but starting from season one. It's better than anything else I've seen in a long time. I love it, and I highly recommend it.
At our house, we made a sort of joke theme for the first season, which was:
Whatever you do or don't do --don't fuck Mike.
For season two it's:
Whenever you go --there you are.

The Lunchbox (2013):
This is the story of a very sweet, wholesome, food centric, May-September romance between a woman married to an unfaithful and neglectful spouse and a lonely widower on the verge of retirement, which is touched off by a wayward lunch pail.

Sexo por compasión (2000):

It's a small, dilapidated, slowly dying town. All the color has run out of the lives of its residents --literally. Half of this movie is in black and white. The most recent mayor committed suicide. The only child in the village abruptly stopped speaking on the same day, and no children have been born in the village since. It's an eerie, seemingly cursed atmosphere.
In the opening scene, we meet the middle-aged and saintly Dolores (Elisabeth Margoni) as her husband leaves her due to her virtuous and selfless ways. Manolo (José Sancho) gives her one last chance to give him a reason to forgive her, but sinless Dolores comes up empty. She turns to the church and an intense priest, Padre Anselmo (Juan Carlos Colombo), who clearly has issues of his own, for advice.
She concludes that she needs to sin in order to win back her husband (if he ever comes back). Unless and until he returns, she moves into a room of the town bar run by her friend, Floren (Mariola Fuentes). She helps around the bar and otherwise goes about her normal charitable routine until a distraught and forlorn man inspires her to change.
As she changes, the town changes. Word of her peculiar form of charity spreads far beyond town. Before long, poor devils are coming from all over the place, hoping to experience the miraculous. One day, Manolo returns and unleashes Hell when he decides her sins are unforgivable. The women of the town band together to show him that his wife is the town savior, and her sins are charitable acts.
One of the best things about this movie is that everything and everyone either has or is a unique character. I liked the way it transitioned from black and white to color. I liked that it doesn't explain what happened to the town. I liked how everyone in town would stop to listen to the same radionovela every day, and the way it was used to indirectly narrate parts of the story. I liked the way the overwrought priest made me feel like I was watching an Ingmar Bergman movie. The fact that it's so steeped in Catholicism and religious imagery and themes also contributed to that feeling.
There were also moments when I felt like this could have been a John Waters movie in some alternate universe where Divine is still alive and speaks fluent Spanish. Elisabeth Margoni is marvelous as Dolores AKA: Lolita. She is given so much to do, and all of it is amazing. Mariola Fuentes is also terrific.
No sex is shown is this sexy comedy. It's not graphic at all. Two people go into a room, close the door, then come out sometime later with big grins, rumpled clothes, and messy hair. This is the most unusual movie that I've seen so far this year. It made me want to see more from director Laura Mañá.
Two things I learned in looking up information about this movie:
1. Javier Bardem's mother is in it. Pilar Bardem played Berta.
2. Leticia Huijara, the actress who played the elderly and bedridden Leocadia, was not an old lady at the time. She was only thirty-three. She is two decades younger than the actress in the lead role. She isn't even an old lady now.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957):

I thought the request at the end of the film to keep the plot twists a secret was cute, and I'll do my best to honor it. This is the second film directed by Billy Wilder and the third written by him that I've seen.
My first was The Lost Weekend (1945), which was a hell of a start. Witness for the Prosecution has its own set of strengths.
The greatest of those strengths is Charles Laughton in the role of senior barrister, Sir Wilfrid Robarts. Sir Wilfrid is fresh from the hospital after having had a heart attack. He is under strict orders from his doctors to avoid stress and overexcitement. He is told to limit his law practice to bland civil suits. He is under almost constant supervision by his nurse, Miss Plimsoll, played by the plucky and very funny Elsa Lanchester. No sooner does Sir Wilfrid return to his office than in walks a junior colleague with a soon-to-be charged with homicide client.
That client is a very sweaty but convincing Tyrone Power as Leonard Vole. The junior lawyer representing him is played by Henry Daniell who is famous for portraying villains. It was interesting to see him playing a normal person here. I know him best as Moriarty in The Woman in Green (1945).
Then there is Mrs. Vole, Christine Vole, played by Marlene Dietrich. I found her a bit much, but in a good B-movie way.
There is one more actor who I want to mention, and that's Una O'Connor. In what would be her final role, she plays Janet MacKenzie, the housekeeper of the homicide victim. She most frequently played wacky domestic servants, and spoke with a thick Irish accent.
I adored the pairing of Laughton and Lanchester. They are so good! I keep trying to like Dietrich. It's like watching a space alien impersonating a human working as an actress. It has both good and bad points. She is outshone here though.

Good Morning (Ohayô - 1959):

In an idyllic neighborhood in 1950's Japan, two young brothers badger their parents to buy a television. Tired of their petulant whining, their father orders them to be quiet. They oblige by refusing to talk at all from that point forward. Their parents and aunt are convinced they can wait it out, but the boys' silent treatment causes consternation and generates speculative gossip all over the neighborhood and at school.
The brothers talk to each other but only when no one else is around. They use hand gestures, and... farting.
There is farting before they stop talking, but it takes on a deeper meaning once they do. It starts out as a peculiar form of greeting they have with their friends and classmates as they walk to school every morning. They greet by taking turns pressing a finger to each other's foreheads. The person being pressed must then fart. If they don't, they are rude. It's as if they failed to say, "Good morning."
These kids even have a fart mentor in one of the older men in the neighborhood. He is a top-notch farter. He farts constantly and loudly. He gives them lessons and advice on what to eat. Instead of realistic fart noises, musical euphemisms for farts ranging from tiny balloon squeaks to blasts from a tuba are used. All of this farting is supposed to be social commentary on how so much of what keeps civilization and our lives and relationships going is empty pleasantries and small talk with all the meaning of a fart.
I liked this fart of a movie. It has a good look to it in the way Ozu chose to use color and lighting. I thought it had slight Disney feel to it, specifically anything Disney did with live action in the 1950s. It's a charming slice-of-life set in a rather traditional but reconstructed post-war traditional neighborhood next to some railroad tracks and electrical towers. The houses are right on top of each other and nearly identical. Everyone minds everyone else's business. The ladies have their neighborhood association. The men have the local bar.
The undercurrent among the adult characters in the story is that there are two people in the neighborhood who don't really fit. They are a younger couple that came from the city. They are very flashy and Western in their attire. There is gossip about how the wife was a nightclub performer. It's implied that they are unseemly. They are the first ones in the neighborhood to buy a television. Television here represents the steady creep of Western influence, particularly American influence, in post-war Japan. It's something which can only bring more fart jokes.

Dynasty Warriors (2021):

If you are not a fan of the video game series or the end of the Han/dawn of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, this might not be the most accessible or likeable movie. Lacking one or both of those qualifiers, the story might not make much sense as it drops into the middle of a lot of names, places, and battles without much backstory. The extreme fantastical elements like people running across water and vaulting off their horses and into the sky might seem ridiculous to anyone who isn't familiar with the games. I've played several editions of Dynasty Warriors, and some of the fight sequences were over-the-top and fanciful even by that standard. It was more in keeping with the cinematic intros to the games rather than the actual gameplay.
Many of the characters were spot on with their video game selves. Dong Zhou, Zhang Jiao, Yuan Shao, Lu Bu, and Diao Chan were especially well realized. Cao Cao grew on me as his moustache grew in, seeing him baby-faced for much of the movie was a little weird. I expected both Guan Yu and his beard to be thicker. I also expected the story to advance more than it did. I was hoping for Chibi, and maybe even some Zhuge Liang [Kongming] versus Sima Yi action, but that's so far out that the movie would probably be eight to ten hours long. There needs to be at least one sequel.

Casque d'Or (1952):

This is a slaphappy affair. Men slap women, men slap men, women slap men, men slap men who slap women who slap men... It's French in that way. The women sport helmet-like coiffure. The title makes reference to a particular lady's hairdo. The men sport cummerbunds, neckerchiefs, and waxy mustaches. It's also French in that way. Simone Signoret stars as Marie in this gangster-themed romance set during the Belle Époque.
The story is loosely based on actual events and persons from that period. Though it's not explicitly stated or demonstrated, Marie is a prostitute. She and several other women are part of a ring run by a gang headed by a man named Leca (Claude Dauphin). Marie has a gangster boyfriend, Roland (William Sabatier), who is a perpetual sourpuss, killjoy, and all-around nasty guy. There is not much romance to be had from Roland, unless a lady likes getting slapped around, which Marie does not.
That's where gangster turned convict turned carpenter Manda (Serge Reggiani) enters the picture. Marie and Manda fall in love after one dance together. It brings immediate and long-term retribution from both Roland and his boss Leca, which forces the couple to take their love on the run.
If only they had run farther, I would have liked this movie more. They get out of town, but the place they choose is the hideout house of Leca's gang. They are aware of that going in and they choose to stay there anyway. I had a big problem with that. It takes no time at all for the gang to find out where they are. It takes a little longer for boss Leca to plot and enact his revenge.
It's not bad, maybe even good, but definitely not a great movie. Unwise and unbelievable choices are made. The lack of any effort by the police to preserve a crime scene was unintentionally funny. Just go ahead and move the corpse around. Put it anywhere. Carry it into the bar and put it on a table. It's fine.
I liked the cups the size of soup bowls that Marie and Manda drink their coffee from while hiding out. I liked the old lady who complains to her husband that they can't go out anywhere to have a nice time without running into "tarts". I liked Leca's fancy vest. I liked the cartoon frogs painted on the walls of the bar where the gangsters hang out.