Review

From Hilde, with Love aka In Liebe, Eure Hilde

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Hilde in the bath

Hitler without the histrionics, From Hilde, with Love (In Liebe, Eure Hilde in German) sets out to do something unusual for a film set during the Nazi era – to lay it all out for us, the everyday normality of it all, the “banality of evil”, to misuse Hannah Arendt’s phrase. But can you make a film about the commonplace without it becoming just a bit commonplace itself? It’s the true story of a resistance group, a handful of young people who spend their nights sticking up bill posters denouncing the regime, and focuses on a young woman, Hilde, who joins it almost by accident – she has typing skills and understands carbon … Read more

The Wing or the Thigh

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Charles and Gérard Duchemin

So here’s the best performing domestic film at the French box office in 1976. The Wing or the Thigh (L’aile ou la cuisse) also did well against foreign competition, coming in second overall to Les Dents de la mer (Teeth of the Sea, literally), as Jaws was called in France. It’s a lively farce set in the world of the restaurant, more specifically the world of the restaurant guide, with Louis de Funès playing Charles Duchemin, the big noise behind the Guide Duchemin, the bible that hands out stars to the aspiring and the established and can make or break a reputation. The Michelin is the obvious idea – the colours and the … Read more

Trading Paint

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Sam with a smiling Becca

John Travolta won a Worst Actor Razzie for his turns in Trading Paint (aka Burning Rubber) and The Fanatic (a joy for another day) so you might expect this film to be terrible and Travolta’s acting ditto. But acting awards good and bad often go to the undeserving, which is the case here. Travolta is not bad, nor is anyone in this film, nor is the film itself. It just doesn’t have much in the way of sizzle. It’s a drama about car racing so I’m probably contractually obliged to say “low octane” at some point. That was that point. Travolta plays Sam Munroe, a guy who runs a smalltime veteran race-car outfit. … Read more

Cut Bank

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Derby Milton

Look at the talent in Cut Bank – John Malkovich, Bruce Dern, Michael Stuhlbarg, Oliver Platt, Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer. And Billy Bob Thornton. Clearly great things were intended. But maybe 2014 was just too early for a revival of the gonzo Tarantino movie of yore. Ten years later movies like Cut Bank were all over the place. Worth checking out, it’s likeable, well done and showcases Malkovich acting for a change, rather than turning in an “and featuring John Malkovich” performance, as a backwoods sheriff trying to get to the bottom of the murder of universally loved mailman Georgie Wits (Dern). The incident was captured on camera, just by chance, by two … Read more

Superboys of Malegaon

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Shafique as Superman

It’s pronounced “maa.lay.gao”, a screen note informs us, before Superboys of Malegaon gets properly underway. And that’s the tone of the entire film – nothing left to chance, a narrative that is laid out with one logical piece following another, nothing fancy, nothing tricksy, just the age-old “let’s do the show right here” tale, of an Indian guy in the small town of Malegaon in Maharashtra State, India, who decides to make movies – no money, no clue, just make them. It’s brilliant. Feelgood, funny, dramatic, tear-jerking, a feast of emotional manipulation by director Reema Kagti and co, who retell the true story first told in the 2008 documentary Supermen of Malegaon, which … Read more

The Philadelphia Experiment

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A ship re-appears

As any proper conspiracy theorist will tell you, 2012’s The Philadelphia Experiment is a movie based on a true incident, when the US government, at the conclusion of some weird research in 1943, disappeared destroyer escort the USS Eldridge in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. According to whichever version of the story you go for, the ship either simply stopping being visible as light waves were bent around it, or it teleported completely to Norfolk, Virginia, before re-appearing in Philadelphia. According to this second version of the story, when the ship re-appeared some unfortunate sailors had by that point become fused with the ship itself, a detail this retelling of the story leaves in. … Read more

American Refugee

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Winter patrols with a rifle

The IMDb plot resumé for American Refugee says it’s a film about race in America. There is a black family and a white family in it, and they come into conflict, that’s true. Race, however, is not mentioned once. In fact class and cultural politics, plus masculinity – toxic and otherwise – seem to be more of a concern for its writers, Allison and Nicolas Buckmelter. Maybe, being a white couple, the Buckmelters thought it best to stay away from overt references to race. Maybe, this being America in the 21st century, it doesn’t even need to be said. Here’s the situation. Things are bad out there in the USA. The stock market is … Read more

100 Years of… The Big Parade

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Melisande and James share some chewing gum

King Vidor’s first name really was King. It suited him. The master of the big Hollywood movie, here he is in 1925 with The Big Parade, laying down the template for all the war movies of the future. The Big Parade is the highest-grossing silent film of all time so it would be nice if we still had the original version. But it’s been lost. Instead there’s the 1930 re-issue – same movie but with sound effects and a score added. It’s the basis of the restoration done in the 1980s, which replaced the original score with one by Carl Davis. How good the film looks. It’s fabulously sharp, in fact, apart from the … Read more

Tarot

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Haley with her hand over her mouth

Tarot is a horror film for people who don’t like horror films. Or a horror film for people who like to shout at the screen, possibly after a couple of drinks. Or that’s the initial impression at any rate. It starts out in territory so familiar it feels like a large language model wrote it. A small language model even. A group of guys and gals staying at a big old house. The girls are hot; the guys have personalities. There is a room the visitors have been warned not to enter. And so they do. There they find a deck of tarot cards, distinctively designed, and one of the hot girls, who’s … Read more

The Unseen

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Close up of Gail Russell

Either a hopeless genre mishmash or a brilliant psychological thriller gone a bit wrong – probably both – 1945’s The Unseen was sold as a follow-up of sorts to the spooky thriller from the previous year, The Uninvited. In fact they have little to do with each other beyond the same director (Lewis Allen), one actor (Gail Russell) and that negative “Un” modifier. Russell had an “Introducing” credit in The Uninvited but she’s really the star here, though first-billed Joel McCrea would probably have disagreed. She plays a nanny brought in to tame the two children of widower David Fielding (McCrea) after their original nanny, Maxine, is mysteriously suddenly let go. There’s an aspect … Read more