Movies I watched in August, Part 1

For some unexplained reason I managed to see a lot of movies last month, so this recap is going to split into a whopping three parts. Here's part one...


Classic, proto-film noir from 1941. It’s both the movie that made Humphrey Bogart a major movie star and the movie on which John Huston made his directing debut. (And, come to think of it, it also gave character actor Sydney Greenstreet his screen debut at the ripe old age of 62.) I’ve seen it a dozen or so times, but I’m always happy to watch it again because I can never keep the plot straight from one viewing to another. Watched it this time for an episode of our podcast, Out of Theaters. You can read more about the movie here – and while you’re there, why not click on that little arrow and listen to the episode? It’s a good one – I promise.


People who think “Saturday Night Fever” was a cheap, shallow cash-in on the disco craze (it's not) have never witnessed an actual cheap, shallow cash-in on the disco craze. Like, say, for instance, this movie. Taking place on a single night at a hot (and fictional) new nightclub, The Zoo, “Thank God It’s Friday” weaves together several storylines like some sort of low-rent “Nashville.” There’s the wife looking for excitement and the husband looking for the door; the two teens who sneak in to enter the dance contest (one of them future Berlin singer Terri Nunn); the cheery guy dressed in leather also interested in said contest; the young women looking for love in vague, forgettable ways (one of them played by a young Debra Winger); the young men looking for love in vague, forgettable ways; ; the mismatched couple who met via computer; the equipment manager of the Commodores who is late for the gig; the DJ whose show is going out over the airwaves; the vaguely evil club (a young Jeff Goldblum) trying to seduce the wife looking for excitement; and, at the center of it all, the struggling singer (Diana Ross) trying to perform her big song (“Last Dance”) and become a star (she already was, obviously). Despite some mild language and a lot of drug references (it was 1978, after all), “Thank God It’s Friday” plays like a TV movie, with clean-cut actors and an astonishingly brightly lit disco. (It’s no surprise that director Robert Klane spent most of his time helming TV shows.) As a movie, it’s not much. As an artifact of the era, it’s fascinating, if not actually good.


This one has a great cast – Michael Shannon, Kristen Dunst, Adam Driver, Sam Shepard and Bill Camp (Detective Box on “The Night Of”) – and a creepy premise, but it just didn’t add up to what I was hoping for. Shannon plays the father of a boy with special powers who has inspired a creepy, Warren Jeffs-like cult and aroused the interest of various clandestine government agencies. As the movie starts, Shannon has kidnapped the boy (well-played by Jaeden Lieberher) and is on the run. Those are the best parts of the movie, when you’re not sure exactly what has happened or why everyone wants this kid. Then that kid crashes a spy satellite into a gas station, and you get a pretty good idea. “Midnight Special” is full of great moments, wonderful visuals and flights of imagination, but the ending reminded me of a cross between “The Abyss” and “Tomorrowland,” of all things, and it just didn’t live up to its potential. Worth a watch, for sure, but don’t go in thinking it’s one of the year’s best movies.


A classic, obviously. And one of my all-time favorites. Watched it again for the podcast, and since the episode drops on Sept. 12, I’ll save my comments for then. (And I’ll update the link, too.) But, in the meantime, let me point this out: It's a Stanley Kubrick movie that jumps back and forth among three locations, involves several characters and climaxes (pretty much literally) with the end of the world, and it still manages to sneak in at a mere 95 minutes. Now that, my friends, is efficient storytelling.

I’ve seen this before, but it aired on TCM recently, so I decided to give it another look, mostly because film critic J. Hoberman devotes some space to it in his history of postwar movies, “Army of Phantoms.” The movie is a ham-handed fable about what happens when the voice of God (yes, that voice of that God) begins making regularly scheduled radio broadcasts. Because we never hear the voice (mostly thanks to some semi-clever editing), we’re left to gauge its impact by observing an all-American family consisting of dad (James Whitmore), mom (Nancy Reagan) and son (Gary Gray), all unpleasant in their own special, boring way. You can tell this is a fable because their names are actually Joseph and Mary (and Johnny) Smith, but the movie never does anything imaginative with its admittedly outlandish premise except to reassure us that God’s looking out for the good ol’ U.S. of A after all. The single memorable scene in the whole movie comes when Joe gets drunk with a doubting buddy at a sleazy bar, but soon enough he regains his moral equilibrium and then it’s back to life on the straight and narrow. Too bad.

Coming next: Hitchcock, Truffaut, Gremlins, Star Trek and a dirty presidential campaign. No, not this one.