Category Archives: Movies

Back in 2011, I began (re)watching all of Woody Allen’s movies, in order, starting with 1966’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? For some arcane reason, a number of his 1990s films weren’t available unless I shelled out for a DVD. When I discovered 1997’s DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was available on Netflix, I plugged one gap. While Allen is a hideous human being — friend of Jeffrey Epstein, married to his former partner’s adoptive daughter, allegedly assaulted underage Dylan Farrow (I include “allegedly” not because I doubt it but I sometimes worry about saying something libelous) — I do like his movies. Not so much his 1990s output so I was surprised how much I liked this one.

Harry (Allen) is a brilliant (of course) writer with a penchant for mining his personal life for thinly veiled roman a clef stories, complete with versions of the people involved (including Billy Crystal as a romantic rival and Julia Louise-Dreyfuss and Amy Irving as past relationships). They’re recognizable enough that many of them are pissed about it; others are pissed that he’s been an uncontrollable lecher since his teenage years (“We don’t know if there’s a god, but there are women.”), never faithful and now in a snit that his very young ex Fay (Elizabeth Shue) is marrying someone else.

Why yes, it does seem to be a confession of sorts, though nothing Harry does as bad as the worst Allen’s been accused of. Then again, his comment about using writing to settle scores reminds me of the vindictive streak in some of his 21st century films such as Blue Jasmine and An Irrational Man. “Boy, you must really love onions.”

TURA (2024) is a documentary on Tura Satana, the mixed-race Asian American/Native American burlesque dancer turned actor who found fame with Faster Pussycat, Kill … Kill! This follows her from a gang rape when she was nine into burlesque, acting, martial arts, parenthood, revenge on her rapists (“Over the news few years she tracked them down and beat them to a pulp.”), a list of lovers include Forrest Tucker, Tony Bennett and Elvis Presley and then a late-in-life revival when her movies became big on videotape.

While Ms. Satana is a fascinating figure, the documentary is flawed. As one friend of mine pointed out online, you’d think Faster Pussycat was something in the spirit of Thelma and Louise when Satana’s character is a violent killer, more villain than anti-hero. There are other puzzles too — the film says Satana has no Japanese ancestry (her kids did a DNA checkup) but my friend says her Japanese/Filipino ancestry is well documented. Interesting but not definitive. “In our day men beat the fuck out of women — no woman beat the fuck out of men.”

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Every year, the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham hosts the Nevermore Film Festival showcasing horror movies. Typically since the pandemic we manage to catch one film or stream a couple; it’s a lot harder to go hang out there for a weekend when we have to walk dogs. This year, our pick was It’s Only A Nightmare Charlie Brown, the festival’s name for the animated shorts block.

In The Creature of the Deep a lesbian college student grudgingly endures her parents dragging her to her uncle’s home on spring break. Then it turns out she’s there to be her generation’s sacrifice to the underwater horror the family worships …

113 Words for You Today is set on a mining planet where speech is tightly rationed, and one miner is doing his best to save al his words for an evening phone call.

Dungeon Crawler has a woman pick up an old Atari adventure game (the director said in the Q&A that it’s not the only Haunted Atari film out there), somehow connect it up to her computer but hmm, some of the warnings and instructions seem … ominous. Striking, partly because the director uses the voice actor’s real eyes in the animated body to create an uncanny valley effect.

In the extremely creepy The Other, a woman goes looking for her husband and finds him under the bed, hiding — but from what?

The Paper Ghost has Edgar Allan Poe literally pouring his heart out to bring him closer to the dead spirit of his lost love.

Elvira pits a killer in a farming community against a psychic crime-solving rooster.

Foreign Bodies has a woman scratch her skin. Her skin peels back and things crawl out …

The Last Bell is a relatively straight horror story: a vampire hunter warns his wife if he returns after the midnight chimes ring out, he’s been turned. He arrives exactly as the bells finish — should she let him in?

In Lights, kindly little aliens help out an inventor; I liked this, though TYG is right that it’s not at all horror.

The thought of Moving from his home outrages a tween to the point he turns to stone; what’s his family to do?

In Hellwriting, a teacher discovers bad handwriting is the least of her problems with the dark things the students are writing. This was the weakest — it needed some sort of explanation or rationalization to work.

And in A Voice in the Mist, an old woman and her plucky dog protect a young girl from the local sirens.

Links to some past Nevermore viewing here and here (I know there’s more but I haven’t time to find the links).

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After reading Vera Caspary’s novel Laura last year, inevitably I wanted to rewatch the 1944 adaptation. It took me longer than I expected.

LAURA (1944) stars Dana Andrews as McPherson, a homicide detective investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who got a shotgun blast to the face when she answered her door one night. Was the killer Laura’s effete Southern fiancee Shelby (Vincent Price)? Ann (Judith Anderson) who knows Shelby’s no good but wants him anyway? Perhaps Laura’s closest friend, the snide, sneering columnist Lydecker (Clifton Webb)? Complicating things, the more he learns about Laura, the more McPherson finds himself falling for a dead woman …

This is an excellent movie and I definitely prefer it to the source novel. Which is not to say it’s a perfect adaptation: we lose Laura’s strong, independent spirit and McPherson’s surprising education (he’s way smarter than he looks). Still, a terrific film. “Let me put it this way — I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor’s children devoured by wolves.”

After the recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights I went back and rewatched the 1939 WUTHERING HEIGHTS with Laurence Olivier as a brooding, angry Heathcliffe, Merle Oberon as Cathy and David Niven as Edgar (the impeccably British supporting cast includes Flora Robson, Donald Crips, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Leo G. Carroll, Cecil Kellaway and Miles Mander). We open on a new tenant of the Grainge arriving at Wuthering Heights on a freezing winter night, meeting an aged Heathcliffe — and when the tenant mentions seeing a woman out in the snow, Heathcliffe has a meltdown. One of the servants takes it on herself to explain and we begin a flashback to when Cathy’s father brought Heathcliffe home …

My first thought was that this was more Tragic Romance where the recent movie was Doomed Obsession; then again, Heathcliffe here comes off more obsessed, particularly after Cathy’s death. Either way it works for me; I know from LeAnn’s discussion that it includes elements the new film drops (Cathy’s mean brother, for instance) though it drops others in its turn. Worth a look. “Haunt me then — haunt your murderer!”

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Classics of the Horror Film listed THE MAGICIAN (1926) not as a classic but one with really good visuals. They have a point: director Rex Ingram gives this silent film, based on W.S. Maugham’s novel (based loosely on the life of notorious Satanist libertine Alistair Crowley) a good look, whether it’s the sinister Haddo’s ancient castle or a snake-charming ceremony. I still can’t recommend it.

Paul Wegener has a strong screen presence as Haddo, who needs the heart-blood of a virginal young woman for his plan to create a homonculus. His solution is to entrance young, beautiful Alice Terry away from her fiancee and marry her, though he doesn’t lay hands on her. Can her sweetheart rescue her before the fatal hour? There isn’t enough of a story here to work for me and the fight over Terry comes off less like a struggle with evil and more like a domestic melodrama. “This is the song of the wheel that spins — who loses today, tomorrow wins!”

While I thoroughly disliked Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, TYG caught her WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2026) Valentine’s Day weekend and liked it so much she wanted to see it again, with me. Good call on her part — this is a much better film.

Catherine (Margot Robbie) is the child of a drunken, wastrel, living on their slowly decaying estate with her companion Nelly (Hong Chau — her ethnicity is explained by being a byblow of Cathy’s father in his younger days, IIRC). When dad brings home an abused boy he rescued to serve as a pet for her, Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) becomes instead Cathy’s soulmate, leading to obsessive love, insane jealousy and ultimately tragedy (it’s a 200 year old book, I don’t think that’s a spoiler).

I’ve never read the novel, though TYG says they softened the edges of the characters some; even so they still come across as awful people. The performances are excellent and as TYG told me, the look of the film is breathtaking — Fennell and her cinematographers manage to make every scene look cool. “If I thought you meant that, I’d slit my own throat.”

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