Physical humor and tomfoolery abound in this romp through the first week of married bliss and pitfalls, but there’s also something really sweet about the love between Keaton and his new bride here (they share a kiss every two minutes, or at least it feels that frequent). The stunts are pretty awesome, especially an opening act involving the straddling of two cars, and watching Keaton attempt to *put together* his home—way to go, Uncle Mike: now that’s a generous wedding gift!—is a hoot, especially as a rejected beau mischievously switches labels, causing the house to look like a reflection in a carnival mirror once it’s assembled. There’s also some fun experimenting with cinema as a medium—a hand blocks the camera as the naked wife emerges from the bathtub; a panicked Keaton spirals through the spinning house during a storm in a long tracking shot. And the final scene, which finds the lovebirds in search of a new home but just as smitten with one another, is terrific. Add on the obligatory Keaton dramatic scene moment, and you have my current favorite of his films (though I owe The General a revisit), a fine combination of humor and heart.

73/100

Early short that showcases Chaplin on a power trip as a tramp-turned-cop who takes down the slums’ (Easy Street) biggest bully (a beast of a man who’s impervious to batons and boasts devil-like eyebrows). The slapstick is plentiful, similar to 1921′s The Kid—though it’s nowhere near as funny as that one—and of course, there’s the obligatory damsel in distress. It’s really about image, and how a strong one, even if obtained by luck, can breed self-confidence and, subsequently, social clout. There’s also some religious allegory at work: Easy Street opens in a church, where Chaplin humorously plays with a baby but, more seriously, finds his way after leaving and noticing a “help wanted” sign on the local police station’s door. Though Easy Street is more charming than laugh-out-loud funny, seeing policeman Chaplin doff his cap to the twice-vanquished bully on a cleaned-up Easy Street at the end is worth the price of admission, and it’s a great warm-up act for his truly great work of the next two decades, particularly The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931), but also The Gold Rush (1925) and Modern Times (1936), as well as the aforementioned & underrated The Kid.

63/100

Though thoroughly average as a movie, Emmanuel Laurent’s Two in the Wave is absolutely must-see cinema for film buffs and cultural historians. A workmanlike-yet-somewhat-fawning documentary about the careers of New Wave pioneers Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, Two in the Wave is chock-full of interesting tidbits about their careers, ranging from their writing for Cahiers du Cinema, to their infighting over the precocious Jean-Pierre Leaud (the star of Truffaut’s masterpiece The 400 Blows), to their eventual deep falling out over political differences (Godard found Truffaut’s aversion to using the power of cinema to express disgust with the right wing to be reprehensible; Truffaut, meanwhile, considered Godard’s leftist politics over-the-top, and felt more comfortable using the camera as an escape from reality anyway). The entire documentary is a serious jolt of nostalgia and wistfulness—how can any cinephile watch Two in the Wave and not wish to be smoking cigarettes and drinking red wine at a café in Paris, having just seen the sexy Breathless or the tantalizing Jules and Jim, chatting with a beautiful young girl who may or may not bear an eerie resemblance to Anna Karina? That’s what I left the film yearning for, anyway! It’s also cool seeing Godard speak to Fritz Lang around the time of Contempt: for such a self-confident director who frequently bordered on complete arrogance and obnoxiousness, Godard clearly idolized Lang (for good reason, of course). All that keeps Two in the Wave from being great is that it has little dramatic flair of its own, despite the easy pickings the topic matter should provide. A random woman who periodically pops up turning pages seems to be meant to represent the present, looking back at the past with the same lust that we do, but she just seems superfluous and pointless. It’s easy to think that any director could take the stories of Godard, Truffaut, and the French New Wave and churn out an enjoyable finished product, so it’s tough to give Laurent much credit for his lackluster contributions, but the strength of subject ultimately won’t be defeated here: Godard, Truffaut, Leaud, and 60′s Paris supply enough pizazz to beat back the flaws and make Two in the Wave well worth seeing.

65/100

Exceptionally hard to track down until its recent appearance on Netflix Instant, Norma Taurog’s Skippy (based on a popular comic strip of the era) is notable for claiming the fourth ever Best Director Oscar back in 1931. That seems like a bit of stretch, but after the first 10 minutes, I expected my response to be much harsher: Skippy‘s first section is cloying, dated in the worst possible way, and awkwardly written. Thankfully, it smooths itself out when Skippy (Jackie Cooper)—the son of wealthy local health supervisor Dr. Skinner (Willard Robinson)—meets Sooky (Robert Coogan), a dirt-poor boy from the “other side of the tracks” (literally and figuratively: he lives in Shantytown). Sooky wants nothing more than three dollars to get his stray dog a proper license, and the kind-hearted-if-mischievous Skippy quickly becomes attached to his new friend and does what he can to help, including sacrificing his dreams of a new bicycle. Unfortunately, Dr. Skinner believes Shantytown should be shut down for sanitary reasons, and Skippy begins to learn that the idealistic way he looks at life isn’t compatible with either adulthood or his family. Skippy is very effective at showing the world through a child’s eyes: issues like class divides, deep pockets and public perceptions are meaningless. All that matters is your friends, no matter where they’re from, and doing the right thing without viewing it through a wider scope. Inasmuch as it’s a good teaching tool, Skippy has some traces of Capra’s masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life, though it’s nowhere near as rich a film, nor as expertly executed: Skippy‘s ending, while heartwarming, is difficult to buy, and the aforementioned hokum does pop up again from time to time. All in all, though, Skippy slowly won me over as it progressed, and at just 86 minutes, it’s nicely paced and a worthy viewing, both from a historical and a charming perspective. There’s also a very sad moment midway through that captures both the resilience and surviving emotional depth of young children in a tender, believable way, and Cooper’s superb performance in the title role also shouldn’t be overlooked.

64/100

My first feature-length W.C. Fields film was a pleasant surprise (I’d been bored silly by his short The Dentist), even if It’s a Gift wasn’t really a laugh-out-loud experience for me. In Fields’ Harold Bissonette, we have a man who just wants to break free from his stuffy, run-of-the-mill, existence and follow his dreams (i.e. buying an orange grove) for once in his life, and here he is getting lambasted by all forces imagineable—his wife Amelia (Kathleen Howard), whose indignant facial expressions recall Mary Boland’s Effie Floud in Ruggles of Red Gap; random strangers; acquaintances (such as the little boy who spills molasses all over the floor of Harold’s shop), and even inanimate objects such as a porch bench and his car! It’s impossible not to root for the resolute Fields as he gives common wisdom the finger,  and bumbles & stumbles towards fulfilling his fantasy. Towards the end, when it looks like Harold’s finally going to have some luck go his way, you’re just sure he’ll find some way to blow it, but you hope & pray that he doesn’t…and that’s the sign of an endearing protagonist! As mentioned, I didn’t actually guffaw much at It’s a Gift, but your mileage may vary: I guess I’m more of a Chaplin humor sort of fellow. Still, there’s plenty to enjoy here, and little to dislike.

68/100

A rare film from a mostly unknown director—Sadao Yamanaka directed 20 films, and all but three are presumed completely lost—Humanity and Paper Balloons is a somber, moving work, one that hints at a sublime understanding of poverty, pride, and what shame & misery can lead to. Set in a dirt-poor village where most of the country lives day-to-day, aside from a select few merchants who get carted around, the tragic Humanity and Paper Balloons focuses on the masterless samurai Matajuro Unno (Chojuro Kawarasaki) and the struggling barber Shinza (Kan’emon Nakamura), both lonely men fighting to keep their difficult life from consuming them. Unno’s a quiet, noble man who wants nothing more than to provide for his wife—who makes paper balloons at home—but his requests for help are repeatedly shunned by a local merchant who was once helped out by Unno’s father, and now has nothing but contempt for the peasants beneath him. Slowly, Unno’s drinking problem begins to overpower his self-worth. Meanwhile, Shinza, who’s a bit more boisterous and difficult to read, eventually resorts to kidnapping in an attempt to extract some revenge upon the rich who exploit their power…but his goal is to earn back some dignity, not the money that’s thrust at him. Yamanaka’s depiction of classes, and how the poor are hamstrung by a complete lack of opportunities—even a business loan of 2 ryo is rejected due to insufficient collateral—is quiet and impressive: only a first half that somewhat meanders keeps the film from earning a higher rating. Humanity and Paper Balloons is bookended by suicides, indicative of a world where the disparities in quality of living breeds a helplessness that has no end in sight.

69/100

Having been absolutely blown away by Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life (1959), I was really eager to give Written on the Wind a second look (and first in a very long time), given that many consider it to be his very finest work. It’s certainly his most visually sumptuous that I’ve seen, with extraordinarily bright color schemes mirroring the ever-changing moods of its leads: an aging but still sexy Lauren Bacall as Lucy Moore Hadley, Robert Stack (Unsolved Mysteries!) as the alcoholic-and-possibly-sterile womanizer-turned-doting-husband Kyle Hadley, and Rock Hudson as Mitch Wayne, the loyal friend and business partner who can never quite nudge his way into prominence or the spotlight. Where it can’t measure up to the previous two works is emotionally: those were powerhouses, tearing me to shreds with their social commentary and unforgettable characters. The melodrama is laid on just right. In Written on the Wind, it’s almost too much, like Sirk couldn’t help himself: as such, while it’s still touching at times and boasts plenty of impressive scenes, it’s also occasionally so over-the-top as to inspire giggles, and while those moments aren’t that prevalent, they do keep this sweeping tragedy from consistently yanking us into the trio’s passionate worlds. Far more strengths than weaknesses, but I can’t put it close to his aforementioned twin masterpieces. Next up on the Sirk agenda: some rare goodies from the 40′s and 50′s!

67/100

Far and away the worst of George A. Romero’s horror six-pack, Survival of the Dead plays like a campy, pseudo-Western mocking of the esteemed director’s previous work. I’ll give Romero enough credit to buy that the terrible script—full of unintentional (intentional?) laughs—and abysmal acting chock-full of stilted deliveries are all part of some vague attempt at self-deprecation, but the problem here is that Survival of the Dead wants to have its cake and eat it too. There’s some vague attempts at social commentary, but it feels terribly recycled, treading the same ground of the vastly superior Day of the Dead (1985)—i.e., can the living dead be taught/trained to think and act at all consciously? This is the first entry of the franchise (I’ve liked-to-loved the previous five) that really feels like Romero’s run out of ideas: it’s as if he decided that poking fun at his own style—the trademark bright-red guts being pulled out by zombie teeth, the hodge-podge of characters, here ranging from a lesbian commando to identical twin Irish sisters—was the only way to milk a bit more life out of the series, but wasn’t willing to go the whole nine yards and make Survival of the Dead a balls-to-the-wall satire, like Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. As such, Survival of the Dead scores points only on the bad movie scale. The interactions and soliloquies are so wretched, they should evoke howls-a-plenty, and the homages to classic Westerns—two heads of rival island families, loyal underlings in tow, battling for respect and the top spot, complete with an uproarious closing shot of Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) and Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick) drawing empty guns, framed against the moon— is respectful, but ultimately little more than corny. Sad as it is to say, Survival of the Dead is closer to the cult classic The Room than Night of the Living Dead, best used as late night, drinking game fodder (O’Flynn handing a zombie a lit TNT stick should lead to multiple whiskey shots). I’ve got plenty of love for Romero, but the writing’s on the wall: it’s time for him to move on to something fresh, or hang up the cleats.

28/100