365 Films in 365 Days

#18 Evil Under the Sun

January 18, 2021
Evil Under the Sun (1982) *** 1/2
TCM
Free
Wildcard

I am so behind on these posts, but not on the movies! I have seen one a day, every day, without fail, I just am slacking on writing down my thoughts.

Evil Under the Sun is the second Agatha Christie Poirot mystery that starred Peter Ustinov, and this one I saw multiple times, far more than Death on the Nile. And why? Because this all-star cast included Roddy McDowall, my favourite actor from when I was 10 until I was 30 or so, and who still has a special place in my heart.

Diana Rigg plays the terrible woman whom everyone wants to murder in this one. A selfish, bitchy actress, hated by the producers of her last show (Sylvia Miles and James Mason) that she dropped out of to run off with a rich guy (Colin Blakely), whom she dumps instantly for a very sweet man with a daughter, both of whom she walks all over, while having an affair with another guy, who has a dreary wife (Jane Birkin). They all are staying at an island vacation hotel owned by Maggie Smith, who both used to be a chorus girl with Diana Rigg in their youth, and also has a thing for the nice man she married and is mean to. Also, Roddy McDowall wrote a biography of her that she won’t sign off on. So nearly the whole cast has a motive to kill her, and Poirot must solve the case and save the day.

This is a much lighter, frothier movie than Death on the Nile, possibly due to the fact that there is only one murder as part of the main plot, and the score is made up of Cole Porter ditties. It’s very funny, and the cast appears to be having a ball. Maggie Smith and Jane Birkin repeat from Death on the Nile, but in completely different characters, so you get a kind of repertory theatre vibe.

I love this movie, it is a gem from start to finish.

#17 War

January 17, 2021
War (2019) ****
Prime
Free
Bollywood

I had never seen a Bollywood movie before last October, beyond one I saw part of and hated it so much, I had to bail. But my friend Amber is a big fan, so she invited her friends to do an online group watch of Rab Ni Bana Di Jodi for her birthday, and I was like, why not?

I’m pretty sure that all of the watchers besides Amber were Bollywood noobs, and all of us freaked out at how sooper awesome the movie and the star, Shah Rukh Khan, were, so we all decided to have Bollywood Club and watch a movie once a month together. Amber gives us a few movies to choose from, and whatever gets the most votes, we watch.

This month we moved off of SRK movies, because there are apparently other Bollywood leading men, and moved onto Hrithik Roshan. I don’t think I voted for War, but I will thank forever in my prayers whoever did, because this movie is SO AWESOME!

It is Plot Twist: The Movie! It is Smoldering Looks: The Movie! It is the gayest thing that ever gayed, with Hritik and Tiger Shroff as two government agents, first working together, then against each other, and with the longing gazes and the fight sequences that are literally dances with guns, I have rarely enjoyed myself so much at a movie, and I may watch it every day.

And, because it’s Bollywood, there are two big production numbers even in this film about running and shooting, and when the film was over, we rewound back to watch the first one again. Rab Ni Bana Di Jodi is still my favourite Bollywood film, but War is so close on its heels as to basically be a tie.

#16 Tenet

January 16, 2021
Tenet (2020) **
Secret Movie Club Drive- In
$31
Movies From 2020

The Secret Movie Club Drive-In, after taking some time off for the holidays, is back, baby! It is my greatest joy, to see a movie in public, safely, once a week, and to see my friend, Blake, masked, in the car, with the windows open. The best! Well, obviously the best would be no pandemic and armchair seating, but we take what we get in 2021.

There are usually three or four movies to choose from, and this week, one of them was Tenet, which sold out almost immediately, as everyone is super excited to see a new-ish movie on the big screen. I had heard some mixed things about it, but I was really looking forward to it.

Back in 2010, Blake and I were roommates in NJ and ran a theatre company together in NY, and when Inception opened, we were so excited to see it, that we went to a 9a or 10a screening at the AMC on 42nd St. after having been up all night, building a set. Literally awake for 24 hours, we saw Inception. I wondered if it would make sense, but I thought it did, and when I saw it again a few days later, after a good night’s sleep, I found that I did. It was so well-constructed that one could follow that twisty plot even under those circumstances.

You might guess where I’m going with this. I not only slept very well, I even had a nap before seeing Tenet. The conditions were perfect. About 15 minutes in, I said to Blake, “Do you have any idea what is going on?” “Nope!” he answered. Thank goodness we were in a car and not at a movie theatre, because I kept wondering aloud what the hell was happening, or saying aloud where we were in the plot in order to orient myself.

Also, this would have been much better to watch at home, if only to have the subtitles on. Everyone was clearly directed to speak in a monotone, and then half the time, the dialogue was buried in the sound mix. Why don’t you want us to hear what they are saying, Christopher Nolan?

And then, when we did hear what was going on, over and over again the characters would just be explaining the plot to each other. The same exchange happened about ten times, “Do you know what such and such is?” “Yes, it’s the thing with the something and the something else.” “And also the other thing and the whatsit.” One time someone said, “Do you know what such and such is?” and the answer was no! I practically fell over in shock.

At one point I just started laughing hysterically at my own confusion, “Why are they going to Oslo?” I howled, “And how is there 45 minutes left of this movie?” I was pretty sure that not only were the people in the movie going backwards in time, but us in the audience were, too.

I kept saying that what the movie needed was Tom Hardy in Inception, a burst of energy and delight, and I wasn’t until the end of the movie that I realized that that was the Robert Pattinson character, if only Nolan had let him be that way.

Not good. So not good.

#15 Stop Making Sense

January 15, 2021
Stop Making Sense (1984) ****
Tubi
Free
Wildcard

So, on Friday I was not feeling well. I had an upset tummy, and I thought maybe I had a fever, but when I took my temperature it turned out actually my temperature was too low! So that was new. And with all that happening, I figured I had better just put on a movie that I know really well, that doesn’t have a plot, and then if I happened to fall asleep while watching it it’s okay because I know the movie by heart.

Stop Making Sense fits all those criteria. I was at NYU when it came out, and it was playing in a movie theater around the corner. Theatre 80? St. Marks? I don’t remember, dinosaurs were roaming the earth back then. Maybe the Waverly? Someone will know, I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Anyway, I saw that movie like eight or ten times, including every screening on the day it closed. So it doesn’t really matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen it, it is gouged into my consciousness.

So there I was, not feeling very well, ready to pass out, and the second that movie started I felt immediately better and watched the whole thing with great joy. There is no better tonic than Talking Heads in 1984. They were such babies!

Don’t wait until you don’t feel well, watch it now, it is everything.

Edited to add: I remembered! It was the wonderful 8th Street Playhouse where I saw this movie multiple times. You are much missed, 8th Street Playhouse. Pouring one out for you, and by one, I mean a large soda.

#14 The Mystery of the 13th Guest

January 14, 2021
The Mystery of the 13th Guest (1941) **
TCM
Free
Wildcard

So, I spent the day thinking I was going to watch The Point, one of my favorite movies from childhood, but when I saw it streaming it was called “The Point (Ultimate Edition)” and I was like, the what, now? Turns out, it was just recently restored and put out onto a fabulous Blu-ray with loads of extras, so I immediately bought it, and also got a portable Blu-ray player so as to possibly mitigate the issue of only watching movies when I get home at night. Sometimes I have a big break in the middle of the day and don’t bother to go home, and don’t really want to watch a movie on my tablet using my cellular data. Also, I have loads of DVDs and Blu-rays, and this way, maybe I’ll watch them.

Anyway, back to yesterday. So, if I was going to get the Blu-ray of The Point, I didn’t want to watch it last night, which means that I again was stuck in the spiral of choosing a movie at midnight, and trust me, I’m as bored with the repetition as you are.

I ended up choosing The Mystery of the 13th Guest on TCM because, all together now, it is only an hour long! I have a feeling that by the time this year is up, I will have seen every movie in the TCM library with an under 80 minute runtime.

The Mystery of the 13th Guest is no hidden gem, it is a reasonably middling B picture with actors who can’t act so good, a director best known for making Bowery Boys movies, and a script with a super dumb plot.

A young woman goes to an empty house in the middle of the night in order to read a will left thirteen years before by her grandfather. Suddenly! She is killed! Or is she? A couple of cops (one, the comic relief, played by Ernie the cab driver from It’s a Wonderful Life) and a private detective try to find out which of the other potential heirs is also a killer.

I recommend this to zero people, but I didn’t not enjoy it. There’s a pull-quote for the poster!

January – the mid-way point

It’s suddenly occurred to me I should do weekly wrap-ups, but since I missed doing it after the first week, let’s do the first two weeks at once and then do it weekly from now on.

Jan 1-7

In my first week I started out spinning the wheel and chose films from Movies From 2001, Disney Other, and Movies From 2000, but then rapidly fell down the rabbit hole of Its the Middle of the Night, What is Short? I discovered the joys of the TCM app, and finally watched something on Criterion after being a charter member.

Of the seven films I watched, only one was a rewatch, The Thin Man, the other six were new to me. Said Thin Man, The Secret of Kells, and Onward I gave four stars, the other four, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Fun and Fancy Free, Hollywood Party, and She Done Him Wrong were three stars.

Probably my favourite of the week was The Secret of Kells, but the other two four star films were right on its heels, and my least Favourite was She Done Him Wrong, though I liked it a lot! The most random one that I’m totally glad I watched was Hollywood Party, and there are none that I’m sorry I saw.

Jan 8-14

Week two was when I really leaned into short movies while I was sleepy, which hopefully will not continue to be a theme during the upcoming 50 weeks of the year. No wheel-spinning at all.

This was a much less all around good set of films. I saw one film from the Disney Animation category, Dumbo, which I managed to fall asleep during, and the other six were all Wildcards. Three were re-watches, The Maltese Falcon, Evil Under the Sun, and Dumbo, the other four were new.

The only four star film was The Maltese Falcon, with Evil Under the Sun right behind with three and a half stars. Then were The Tune and Dumbo at three stars, Echo in the Canyon had two and a half, and Pop Gear (aka Go Go Mania) and The Mystery of the 13th Guest bringing up the rear at two stars.

The film of the week was definitely The Maltese Falcon, a pretty much perfect film, and the worst was Pop Gear, not only for the Jimmy Saville situation.

#13 Pop Gear

January 13, 2021
Pop Gear (1965) **
Kanopy
Free
Wildcard

Again, and I know this is just the same old refrain, I was tired, it was late, I could not find anything I wanted to watch. I started watching a couple of things for a few minutes but just turned them off. I was really at a loss. And when you just keep scrolling and scrolling and then an hour goes by, that doesn’t help!

I finally chose this music compilation, Pop Gear, (Go Go Mania for US release), from Kanopy. It is a weird little film, performances by British Invasion groups of their songs from 1964 and 1965.

It starts and ends with footage of the Beatles, singing and playing live for an audience of screaming teens, and that is the best part of the film. The rest of it is made up not of live performances, but of mostly dudes in matching suits, mostly wandering around in a desultory manner, lip syncing. That’s not mostly, that’s entirely.

The first half are the songs from ’64, introduced by a host, then he leaves, and the ’65 songs are just a mystery, though there are some interesting sets and a couple of dance numbers to make up for it.

The host is this super creepy guy, very peculiar-looking, and I looked him up to see what his deal is, and it was Jimmy Saville. Now, I didn’t know what he looked like, but I definitely had heard of him. He was a very popular presenter on the BBC for many decades, and then he died, and then it came out that he was a hugely monstrous sex predator and rapist, worse than Cosby, worse than Harvey Weinstein, worse than you could even imagine. So that kind of put a pall on the movie.

Here’s the thing, though. I literally took one look at him and thought, wow, what a total creep! You get a very weird vibe off of him back in 1964, so I have no idea at all as to how nobody guessed, he practically has “I will rape you in a hospital” tattooed on his forehead.

So yeah. The Beatles footage is great, the rest is an interesting historical record, Jimmy Saville makes it kind of weird to watch, whether you do know about him or you don’t.

#12 The Maltese Falcon

January 12, 2021
The Maltese Falcon (1941) ****
TCM
Free
Wildcard

Amazingly enough, last night I was not overly tired! So, even though I was starting on the late side, I wasn’t desperately scrolling through the TCM app trying to find something barely over an hour long, there was the good old Maltese Falcon, one of my favourites, at 1h 40m and I was not at all daunted! Also, I had some cross-stitching that I really wanted to finish, and thought that, because I know the movie so well, it would be very easy to listen and watch with one eye while getting some work done.

Turns out, the reason it’s one of my favourite movies is because it’s very engaging! I did get some stitching done, but not as much as I wanted to, but I’m not complaining.

It doesn’t matter how many times I watch this movie, I am just entirely taken in by the story, the acting, the atmosphere, all of it.

Here’s my favorite bit of trivia, that I only discovered in the past decade or so. Do you know how Bogart keeps calling Elisha Cook Jr. a gunsel, and how we totally think that means young man with a gun? Well, it means that now, because of this movie, but at the time, it only meant one thing: butt boy. So, every time he says it, he is calling him Sydney Greenstreet’s bottom, which is one of the reasons Cook Jr. is so pissed at him. Notice how Greenstreet doesn’t care a bit!

What I didn’t know before yesterday, was the reason Dashiell Hammett used that particular slang, was because the story was originally serialized in a magazine called The Black Mask, whose editor didn’t allow vulgarities, and Hammett snuck it in because he wouldn’t understand the true meaning of the term.

But the thing I didn’t notice until I watched it last night, was at the end, when Greenstreet asks Peter Lorre to come with him to Istanbul, he’s really asking him to be his new gunsel! Cook Jr. has run off, Peter Lorre has already been firmly established as gay in more than one scene, why should the Fat Man have to go on a search when he has a perfectly good replacement right there in front of him. And look how happy Lorre is! So, Bogart and Mary Astor don’t go off into the sunset together, but Greenstreet and Lorre do, instead.

#11 Dumbo

January 11, 2021
Dumbo (1941) ***
Disney+
Free
Disney Animation

So, January 11th was the first day that I came really close to messing up this whole project not even two full weeks into January, but I did not! Mostly. I did follow the letter of the law, but I feel like I just kind of skated by.

I was beyond exhausted, and it was getting later and later and later, and I could not find a film to watch. I scrolled and scrolled through all these different apps and nothing was speaking to me, and time just kept moving forward in a very annoying manner!

Finally, I decided on Dumbo, because it was the next film in the Disney animation list, and it’s only slightly over an hour long, and of course I had seen it before. Perfect! However, while I was searching I was having a lot of problems with the Internet, and when it was time to start watching it I ended up having to watch it on my phone because the Wi-Fi was just being a poop.

So, let me paint you a picture. I’m exhausted, it’s after midnight, I can barely think, and I am lying in bed watching Dumbo on my phone. What do you think happens next? Yeah, I fell asleep. I think I saw about half an hour of it, I got to the part where he was a clown and did his act with them playing the baby at the top of the burning building, but if I were to describe the plot just from what I saw, it would not include anything about flying elephants.

It would, however, include a lot about what a terrible circus this is, where a baby elephant is taken away from his mother and nobody takes care of him AT ALL, so a MOUSE has to do it! These people should not be in charge of baby elephants!

Anyway, so I did watch part of a movie, and it’s not as though I didn’t fall asleep in movies plenty in theatres in the before times, so it does count as being watched on 1/11/21, the eleventh movie on the eleventh day of the year, but I think I’ll watch it again anyway. When I do, it will NOT count as the film of the day, of course. I just want to see an elephant fly.

#10 Death on the Nile

January 10, 2021
Death in the Nile (1978) *** 1/2
TCM
Free
Wildcard

I am an Agatha Christie fan from way back. I love all the detectives, I’ll watch anyone play Poirot or Miss Marple. My first Poirot was Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, obviously the longest lasting Poirot was David Suchet in the television series, but the main Poirot of my childhood was Peter Ustinov, and thus he is the one I love best.

I watched this movie on Sunday, and I had no evening dog walks, so I was able to watch a 2h 20m movie without whining of exhaustion because I started at midnight.

I saw it when it was first released in 1978, when I was 14, and I loved it. I believe I’ve seen it on TV a couple of times since, but not for many years, so I remembered the beginning and the end, the inciting incident and the denouement, but none of the middle. I had utterly forgotten Angela Lansbury as the kooky romance novelist, or Bette Davis as the rich old bag. Amusingly, her bitter companion is played by Maggie Smith, who would totally play the Davis part today.

An aside: I just looked up the as yet unreleased remake cast, and the Davis role is played by Jennifer Saunders, with Dawn French as the companion. I get it, but I think they really missed a trick.

Back to 1978, Mia Farrow is dear friends with a very rich, very beautiful, very terrible heiress, to whom she introduces her fiancé. Of course, the heiress steals him, marries him, and goes on the honeymoon to Egypt that he was going to go on with Mia. Mia follows them on their honeymoon, and then they all end up on a trip down the Nile, where every single passenger on the boat, besides Poirot and his old friend David Niven, has an excellent reason for killing that very heiress. I won’t spoil what happens, but not everyone lives through that boat ride. It is Agatha Christie, so no-one should be particularly shocked.

It’s a fun movie, grisly murders aside, and, as a person of Belgian descent, I particularly enjoy Poirot doggedly correcting everyone accusing him of being French throughout the entire film. Such as, “You perfectly foul French upstart!” “Belgian upstart, please, Madame.” Or, “You damn froggy eavesdropper!” “Belgian! Belgian eavesdropper!” Poirot knows where the real insult lies.