Pun Salad

I saw this movie in a theater when it came out in 1986, and was pretty charmed by it at the time. For some reason, it's unavailable through normal streaming services, but YouTube claims that it has the full movie. I went for the Blu-ray, which was on sale at Amazon. Alan Alda deserves whatever royalties he can get, I figure. He wrote, directed, and stars.

Mr. Alda plays Michael Burgess, a history professor in the small college town of Sayeville. He's written a book about a Revolutionary War episode that featured a battle and a plucky patriot heroine. Hollywood bought the book, and (as the movie opens) the movie company descends on Sayeville to shoot on location.

A lot of stuff goes on: Michael is enraptured by the actress playing the historical heroine, and who can blame him, it's Michelle Pfeiffer. This threatens his already-rocky relationship with girlfriend Gretchen (Lise Hilboldt). He gets horrified by the ahistorical liberties taken with his book by the scriptwriter (Bob Hoskins) and the brash director (Saul Rubinek). And Michael's dotty mother (Lillian Gish!) is developing health issues. The actor playing a British general (Michael Caine) is an impulsive loose cannon, with designs on anyone wearing a skirt, including Gretchen.

It's complicated, but moves along with its own screwball logic.

Both Lillian Gish and Michael Caine absolutely steal every scene in which they appear.

And, hey, that's John C. McGinley, in what IMDB claims to be his first movie role. Not to be his last.

Okay, I realize this (like so many commercial offerings these days) is one more effort to squeeze some more cash out of people who recall enjoying an original creative product. And it may work for Disney. There was an article in the WSJ yesterday about it: Why Disney’s ‘Lilo & Stitch’ Is Set to Beat ‘Mission: Impossible’ at the Box Office (gifted link).

And, hey, it worked for me. In fact, I splurged for the 3-D glasses. (Consumer note: if you've been unimpressed by 3-D movies in the past, I doubt you'll be impressed here.)

I usually do a plot summary, so here you go: Stitch is a creation of an alien mad scientist, a weapon of war. So dangerous, he's marked for destruction by the alien government. But he's also resourceful and smart, escaping his keepers' clutches, hijacking a small spaceship, crash-landing on Earth. Specifically, Hawaii, where he decides to hide out by getting adopted by cute-as-a-button six-year-old Lilo, an orphan living with her equally orphaned sister, in an unstable living situation. The aliens send an inept undercover team to recover Stitch. Merry mayhem ensues.

There are numerous differences between the old animation and this new movie, including one biggie: Stitch really should be more afraid of water than he is.

Since I had such a good experience with getting Harvey on DVD from the Portsmouth Public Library, I decided to pick up The Wild Bunch (two-disc Directors Cut) on my most recent visit. I was in the mood (apparently) for Doomed Male Camaraderie with Extra Violence and also Betrayal. Result: not as good as I remembered.

I remember being impressed with the violence when I saw this as a much younger age. Compared to today's movies, it's not that striking. And the movie really beats you over the head with its protagonists' testosterone-fueled bad decisions.

However, I was more impressed with the movie's cinematography this time around. Surprised it didn't get an Oscar nomination for that.

I also noticed something right at the beginning, and was somewhat surprised that it also made the IMDB trivia list:

Don't piss off Peckinpah, actors.

Anyway: it's the story of the last days of the outlaw gang led by Pike (William Holden). It's a fractious group, including Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Edmond O'Brien, Jaime Sánchez, and (for a few minutes) Bo Hopkins as "Crazy Lee", aka "Sacrificial Lamb". Pike's gang is being pursued by … well, everyone, but most notably a gang of depraved bounty hunters led by Thornton (Robert Ryan, aka "Horse's Ass"). Who, long ago, was Pike's comrade, now is being coerced by Powerful and Corrupt Forces into betrayal.

Spoiler: not many survive.

I remember watching this movie at some point in my youth—it's only one year older than I am—and enjoying it a lot. Have decades of cynical existence since caused that enjoyment to slacken? Heck, no. If anything, I liked it better this time around.

Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart) lives in a nice house with his sister Veta (Josephine Hull) and her daughter Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne). Veta and Myrtle Mae despair of leading a normal social life due to Elwood's firm insistence on the existence of Harvey, a six-foot talking rabbit. Elwood and Harvey are the best of friends, but he's invisible to most of the rest of the world. And most of the rest of the world thinks Elwood is insane. Pleasant, but entirely cuckoo. And the movie revolves around Veta and Myrtle Mae plotting to have Elwood committed to the local booby hatch, so Veta can get Myrtle Mae married off to some sucker eligible bachelor.

Hilarity ensues. It really does. Josephine Hull won an Oscar for her performance, and Jimmy Stewart got nominated for Best Actor. (José Ferrer won for playing another seeming lunatic, Cyrano de Bergerac. Irony?)

I was going to briefly rant about how streaming services tend to ding you a few bucks for watching older movies. But as I type, Harvey is available for no additional charge on Prime Video for a short time. (I went old-school and borrowed the DVD from Portsmouth (NH) Public Library.)

So with the year nearly 25% over, I finally got around to watching my first actual movie of 2025. The critics seemed to hate it (a 15% mark from Rotten Tomatoes), and it's not great, but I thought it was OK. It didn't hurt that I have kind of a thing for Millie Bobby Brown. Why if I were 50 years younger… I'd still be older than Millie, and she would still be way out of my league.

It's set in an alternate-history world where robotics and AI were fully developed in the 1990s. The robots rebelled against being giving crappy jobs (and, often, ludicrous appearances) by humans; it turned violent, but humans prevailed thanks to the technical wizardry of Elon Musk Ethan Skate (the great Stanley Tucci).

In the midst of all this: Michelle (Ms. Brown) is devoted to her young genius brother Christopher (Woody Norman). But, alas, their happy family is ripped apart in a car crash, with Michelle seemingly the only survivor. Years later, she ends up with an abusive stepfather (Jason Alexander) and a bad attitude. But one night a robot shows up on her doorstep, claiming to be the avatar of her thought-dead brother. So…

This movie has a lot of cliché elements: plucky young heroine, taking up with a scruffy, wise-cracking, minor league criminal. Taking on the huge, evil empire corporation that's running everything. Pursued by a robot-phobic mercenary Boba Fett Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito),

But I thought the special effects were impressive, the action sequences were, um, action-filled, and there's some actually-funny stuff too. I can't exactly recommend it, but if you aren't a college basketball fan, there are worse ways to spend a weekend evening in March.

While meandering around Roku screens, I noticed this movie from my youth. Famous at the time (at least in my circles) for its irreverent Brit humor from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. And I kind of liked looking at Eleanor Bron, who I loved from the Beatles movie Help!.

Consumer notes: It's available on the "Plex" streaming service, with ads. Lots and lots of robo-placed ads. And (worse) a significant fraction of them were Kamala ads. No movie subtitles, which is a shame due to the limey accents, occasional mumbling and fast-talking. Ah, well.

Mr. Moore plays Stanley, a schlub short order cook, infatuated with waitress Margaret (Ms. Bron). Thinking it hopeless, he flubs a suicide attempt, which causes a visit from Satan (Mr. Cook). And what follows is your standard Mephistophelean deal: the Devil gets Stanley's soul, Stanley gets Margaret.

Ah, but Beelzebub is a trickster, and Stanley (due to his love-addled stupidity) finds himself in all sorts of unacceptable (but hilarious) relationships with Margaret. And Old Nick has his own motives: getting Stanley's soul will allow him to get back together with God in Heaven, a status he misses.

And Raquel Welch has a small role as one of the Deadly Sins. Guess which one?

I have fond memories of loving this movie back in the 1970s, Peter Bogdonovich's resurrection of the screwball comedy genre. Now, fifty years later, I still laughed, maybe not quite as heartily as before, but still…

Here's the story: Iowa musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal) comes to San Francisco to learn whether he's been awarded a prestigious research grant from the Larrabee Foundation. (He is investigating whether cavemen were able to make crude music by beating on igneous rocks.) He has his domineering fiancée Eunice (Madeline Kahn) along with him. On the scene comes Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand), and she unaccountably falls into love with Howard (literal love at first sight). She successfully inveigles her way into his life, but not without causing much hilarious misunderstanding and impressive amounts of property damage.

A subplot involves four lookalike bags, one containing Howard's research rocks. The others containing top secret documents purloined by a wannabe whistleblower; a fortune in jewelry; and Judy's clothing. And of course they get mixed up. Adding to the hilarity and destruction.

Morbid me, couldn't help but notice that most of the stars here are no longer with us. Still (apparently) alive, however: Barbra, Michael Murphy, Randy Quaid.

I get the feeling the movie is poorly paced near the end, but I still had a good time.

I was in a film-noirish mood, I guess, so I went searching for one I hadn't seen. This 1954 one fit the bill. Couldn't help but notice that it was made a full 10 years after Fred MacMurray came to his bitter end in Double Indemnity. It has Kim Novak as the dame that lures him to his doom, not Barbara Stanwyck.

It leads off with a bank heist, the perps getting away with a cool $200K. (This inflation calculator says that's well over $2.2 million today.) And one of the thieves, Wheeler, also kills a bank guard, who's foolish enough to play hero.

Then there's a quick transition to Fred (playing cop Paul Sheridan) unaccountably picking up Kim (playing floozy Lona McLane). Wait, what does that have to do with anything? It turns out Sheridan is part of the team investigating the bank job; they've determined that Wheeler is Lona's boyfriend. So (apparently this was accepted cop practice in the 1950s) Sheridan was tasked with going undercover and, uh, getting under the covers, with Lona.

(It's the 1950s, so that's not made explicit, but come on.)

So Lona and Paul (a) fall in love and (b) hatch a scheme to entrap Wheeler, and abscond with the bank cash. Things keep going wrong for them, complicating their already complex plans. Paul's cop co-workers get increasingly suspicious. And, inevitably,…

This was Kim Novak's first major movie role. Based on the title, I kept thinking/hoping that she would reveal her truly nefarious scheme to make Paul the patsy, and abscond with the money all for herself, because she (correctly) saw him as an easy … Pushover.

Spoiler: that does not happen.

Old fogy that I am, I couldn't help but think during this movie's lesbian love scenes: Y'know, I don't think they do this for the heterosexuals any more. It's like there's a different set of rules for the ladies-only crowd.

It's co-written and directed by Ethan Coen, half of the Coen brothers. I was inspired to watch it not only because of his famous name, but also his brother's R-rated review, guest-posted at Jeff Maurer's substack.

I liked it OK. Nobody's going to confuse it with Fargo or The Big Lebowski, but it's very deadpan funny. (And also very violent in parts.) It takes some cheap shots at family-values Florida Republicans, but what are you gonna do?

It's a road-trip story. Very-out lesbian Jamie is coming off a breakup with her cop girlfriend; very closeted Marian is tired of fending off guys at her workplace. So they take a "drive-away" job, driving a Dodge Aries down to Tallahassee, Florida. Little do they know that they've been hired by mistake, and they're transporting a briefcase with mysterious contents. And also Pedro Pascal's head, for some reason. And murderous bad guys are on their trail.

A subplot involves Jamie's efforts to get Marian to, um, loosen up. And those efforts are somewhat successful. But Marian also gets Jamie to settle down.

ANother entry in the Action/Comedy/Romance/Dumb Fun genres. Big budget for stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, but also a lot for (obviously) the spectacular stunts. And I hope Mr. Gosling's eight stunt doubles were also well-paid. This movie will have you sympathizing with their faceless daring.

Gosling plays Colt Seaver, a one-time great stuntman who suffered a grievous injury acting as a double for spoiled famous action star Tom Ryder. Disillusioned, he now works as a valet. But he gets a call from producer Gail (Hannah Waddington) who demands his presence in Sydney, claiming that his old girlfriend Jody (Ms. Blunt) really needs his services on the latest Tom Ryder flick Metalstorm (Described as "Mad Max meets Star Wars".)

Colt is thrust into a convoluted, inexplicable plot. It turns out that Jody had no idea he was coming. Ryder seems to be missing. A body is found, which promptly disappears. Colt's no Sherlock Holmes, and it's pretty clear he's in over his head.

Fortunately, a combination of friends and foes spell it out for him.

I never watched the old TV show on which this movie is based. But there's a nice treat in the midst of the trailers for those geezers in the audience who did.