Movie review - "Backrooms" (2026) ***1/2

 Solid horror. Creepy setting (rooms adjacent to furniture store), excellent actors, logically developed. Slow burn but big bang in the middle. Very confident. 

Movie review - "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986) ****1/2 (re-watching)

 Fun. So Howard Hawks. Wonderful teams. Engaging. Can't believe it wasn't a hit. Kim Catrall so funny. Ditto Kurt Russell. Everyone.

Movie review - "Let's Make Love" (1960) **

 The dud credit for Marilyn Monroe among her latter movies - this actually had some decent people on it, like Norman Krasna and George Cukor, not to mention marilyn, but it's a vehicle for Yves Montand, who struggles with English.

I don't like this movie. Don't believe Yves Montand as a millionaire, don't enjoy him, or his deception - a Frenchman in America is fish out of water enough. In Norman Krasna's defence he said he wrote the script for someone like Charlton Heston or Gregory Peck. There's no sense of Montand's world - Wilfrid Hyde White and Tony Randall don't feel like they come from it.

It's not a bad idea but there's not much development. No sense of why doing this deception will help make him a better person. Or why he likes Marilyn. Montand doesn't deserve his money.

I remember the awkwardness of scenes like a gag writer attacking Montand. 

It has studio production values, and Marilyn, who clearly doesn't want to be there but it the best thing about it. There's novelty of an off Broadway musical but too much Frankie Vaughan.  

The film is packed with people having an off day - Montand, Monroe, Krasna, Cukor. 

Maybe it would've worked had Montand be surrounded by French and it had been about the French falling in love with America. That would've worked. 

Movie review - "Letter from an Unknown Woman" (1948) ****1/2

 Beautifully made by Max Ophuls and producer John Houseman and writer Howard Koch. Joan Fontaine just gets in under the wire age-wise as a young girl infatuated with pianist Louis Jourdan (the quintessential Louis Jourdan role).

I'm not always wild about old Vienna tales but it's done very well. Heartbreaking in that the kid dies of typhus and she dies, having wasted a lot of potential. I like the husband character who avenges the woman.  

Gene Wilder Top Ten

 

1) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

2) The Producers (1967)

3) Blazing Saddles (1974)

4) Young Frankenstein (1974)

5) Silver Streak (1976)

6) Stir Crazy (1976)

7) Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (1972)

8 ) Thursday's Game (1974) (TV movoe)

9) The Woman in Red (1984)

10) okay, alright... Willy Wonka (1971)

Movie review - "An American Werewolf in London" (1981) ****

 John Landis' classic? A fresh, energetic take on werewolf movies, where the horror is straight but it loves the legacy, and has plenty of humour. David Naughton is so likeable in the lead it's a wonder he didn't have a bigger career - Griffin Dunne also very winning, and Jenny Agutter is magical as the perfect fantasy nurse.

I enjoy how Landis keeps the tension and pace going via violent dream sequences. Transformation is extraordinarily well done. 

Movie review - "Female Trouble" (1974) ***1/2

 John Waters' got his Pink Flamingo gang back for his hugely enjoyable spoof of crime pictures. Divine has the time of her life in the lead role. Plenty of shock and nudity, Divine in a dual role. Hits all the beats - origin story, trial, electric chair.