[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Amazon Prime, Criterion Channel, Netflix, TCM.]

Four by Todd Haynes Far from Heaven (2002). Sexual identity and the color line are at the center of this brilliant homage to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955), and here, as there, the setting is a suburbia in which family life with children seems incidental (“Go upstairs!”). Outstanding performances from Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, and Patricia Clarkson. Edward Lachman’s cinematography recreates the look of a 1950s color movie, and the Miami swimming-pool scene looks like a 1950s color postcard. Elmer Bernstein’s score adds further authenticity to this simulacrum. ★★★★ (CC)

I’m Not There (2007). I think that even viewers who are generally Bob Dylan-averse will find much to ponder in this depiction of a Dylan-like singer-songwriter as multiple selves. This not-Dylan is the poet Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw), a pint-sized Black Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), a Village folkie (Christian Bale), the actor who plays the folkie in a movie (Heath Ledger), the leader of an electric band (Cate Blanchett), and Billy the Kid (Richard Gere). Yes, the fellow contains multitudes. Best moments: young Marcus Carl Franklin riding the rails as if it’s the 1930s; worst: a journalist’s endless arid interrogation of Cate Blanchett’s Dylan avatar. ★★★ (CC)

Wonderstruck (2017). Two stories of childhood, two odysseys, one beginning in Gunflint, Minnesota, in 1927, told as a silent film in black and white; the other beginning in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1977, told in the grainy color cinematography of the time (all praise to Edward Lachman). The two stories lead to the American Museum of Natural History, and I think that’s all I can safely say about them. There are grownups present (notably Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams), but the movie belongs to the child principals, Millicent Simmonds as Rose, and Oakes Fegley as Ben. Extraordinarily inventive and lovingly made, and now I want to read Brian Selznick’s novel. ★★★★ (A)

May December (2023). Reminiscent, at least in my mind, of All About Eve, with actor Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) visiting married couple Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) in preparation for a movie (modeled on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau) in which Elizabeth will play Gracie. Gracie seems to be genuinely naive (she calls her naiveté a gift); Joe is something of an overgrown teenager, watching TV and raising butterflies; and as Elizabeth stays on, and on, she begins to take over the family’s life, going beyond anything that might be part of an actor’s preparation. Wikipedia calls this movie black comedy, but I found it deeply sinister, far more disturbing than amusing. Strangest scene: makeup. ★★★★ (N)

*

This Could Be the Night (dir. Robert Wise, 1957). Jean Simmons is delightful as a Smith grad and new teacher who takes a second job as a secretary to nightclub owner Rocco (Paul Douglas). Romance improbably blossoms between Anne and Tony (Tony Franciosa), Rocco’s brutish partner. The male characters of the story, even Tony, have a creepy obsession with Anne’s status as a “greenhorn” in need of protection: i.e., she’s a virgin. Fun to see the “Emmanuel Trades” high school from The Blackboard Jungle as a set, and Rafael Campos (Morales in that movie) as a busboy. ★★ (TCM)

*

‌It Happened on Fifth Avenue (dir. Roy Del Ruth, 1947). A zany story of unhoused and unemployed men (Victor Moore, Don DeFore, and others) finding refuge in an unoccupied Fifth Avenue mansion. When the owners’ daughter (Gale Storm) and, later, the owners themselves (Charles Ruggles and Ann Harding) join the crowd without revealing her identities, things get really complicated. The real troubles of post-WWII life are somehow cheerfully present: there’s even a family living out of a car. Don DeFore is a credible leading man, fourteen years before he became stuffy Mr. B. on the television series Hazel. ★★★ (TCM)

*

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More‌ (dir. Wes Anderson, 2024). Short adaptations of four stories by Roald Dahl. I’ve never read a word of Roald Dahl, so I can’t judge these adaptations as adaptations. I can say that they’re imaginatively staged (much fun with sets, props, and narration), and darkly funny. The players — Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, and others — take on multiple roles (Fiennes plays Dahl in his writing hut and characters in two of the stories), which adds to the exceedingly playful atmosphere. ★★★★ (N)

*

Moxie (dir. Amy Poehler, 2021). This one was a chance discovery, an inspiring story of consciousness rising, with a high-school student (Hadley Robinson) inspired by her mom’s (Poehler) grrrl past to create a feminist zine, xeroxed and left in the school bathrooms. The only really odd point, which I probably I should have expected: it’s the blonde girl who’s central, not the Black girl (Alycia Pascual-Peña) whose outspoken moment in English class sets everything off. On a personal note, I am saddened but not surprised to see that the feral boys who tormented a girl in my tenth-grade World History class are alive and well here, with a teacher who (somehow, still) tolerates them. Give that teacher some Moxie. ★★★ (N)

*

Trade Winds (dir. Tay Garnett, 1938). Trés Lubitsch, this one. Kay Kerrigan (Joan Bennett), a woman suspected of murder, is pursued from San Francisco to Hawaii to Japan to Singapore to Shanghai by randy detective Sam Wye (Fredric March) and his fellow detective and chaperone Ben Blodgett (Ralph Bellamy). And Sam is being pursued by his secretary “Doctor” Jean Livingstone (Ann Sothern). Who’ll end up with whom? Lots of smart dialogue (even pronoun jokes) in a screenplay by Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell (Mr. Parker), and Frank R. Adams. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Mank (dir. David Fincher, 2020). A beautifully filmed story about Herman J. Mankiewicz’s (Gary Oldman) effort to finish a screenplay for Citizen Kane. Among the difficulties: alcoholism, a broken leg, the machinations of William Randolph Hearst, studio sabotage of Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign, and Mank’s misgivings about agreeing to receive no credit for his screenplay. Best scenes: Mank and his friend Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), whom he earnestly insists is not the model for Susan Alexander Kane, and the disastrous dinner party. Luminous black-and-white cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt. ★★★★ (N)

*

Secret Mall Apartment (dir. Jeremy Workman, 2024). A documentary about the artists who discovered a barely accessible unused space in a Providence, Rhode Island mall and turned it into a years-long (2003–2007) on-and-off living space, with thrift-store furniture, a television, and electricity via long, long extension cords. The whimsical (and dangerous) effort runs on alongside their public, deeply serious art projects: in a children’s hospital, in a school, and in memorials for the dead of the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks. “Are you allowed to be here?” “Technically, no.” ★★★★ (N)

*

Beetlejuice (dir. Tim Burton, 1988). We watched it for Catherine O’Hara, but we were thoroughly disappointed. The premise: a New England cottagecore couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) die in a bizarre accident on a covered bridge and live on as ghosts in their house, which is now inhabited by a family of unbearable urbanites (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara, Winona Ryder). So the ghosts employ the services of a bio-exorcist named Betelgeuse, or Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), to drive out the living. Beetlejuice himself is rather unbearable (Jim Carreyesque), and whatever possibilities might have been available to show a funny clash of life-and-deathstyles disappear under the weight of costumes, makeup and special effects. ★★ (A)

[Schitt’s Creek or Waiting for Guffman gives a better idea of O’Hara’s ability.]

Related reading All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)