Movies I Watched in January, Part 2

Well, obviously I wasn't going to keep that sort of pace up forever -- or even for two consecutive posts. So here, way behind schedule, is the next recap of the next few movies I watched last month...


Obviously this one has appeared on the blog more than a few times, but like the other recent viewings of the Marx Brothers movies, this came courtesy of the new Blu-ray set collecting their first five (and, in this reviewer's humble opinion, five best) movies, the ones they made for Paramount. I go back and fourth as to whether this or "Horse Feathers" is my favorite Marx movie, but they're both truly great, and this one goes so far it's hard to see how they could top it. (As proven by the movies they made at next MGM, they didn't even try.) One thing that struck me this time around is that every time a scene in a comic book or cartoon has a character call for help followed by rapid cuts/images of increasingly ridiculous aid coming their way (cops, army, monkeys, lions, dolphins, etc.), the result was taken straight from "Duck Soup." Trust me on this.


One of Amy's favorites. Not normally my cup of tea, but we watched it (on VHS!) after she'd had a long day at work and just wanted to unwind. (Can you possibly imagine the unholy number of insane movies I force her to sit through?) The story, in case you don't now, involves a modern guy (well, modern for 1980) played by Christopher Reed, who hypnotizes himself to time travel back to the early 1900s to romance an actress (Jane Seymour) he's become obsessed with. Though it has the low-budget blandness of a TV movie, the two leads are appealing, and Christopher Plummer makes a great, hissable villain. Plus, there's a nice twist at the end -- though it's not spoiling anything to let you know that, yes, through fate or magic or just plain death, our lovers do wind up together.


Another Marx Blu-ray, this one was the first Marx Brothers movie I ever saw, back when the rights isues got straightened out in the mid 1970s and it could finally be screened and shown on TV, which is where I caught it. It's not one of the greatest Marx Brothers movies, too stagebound (it was based on a hit play) to reach the insane heights of, say, "Duck Soup," but as I've probably mentioned here before, seeing it on TV was one of those landmark moments in my life when I could feel the world shift under my feet. I'd never seen anything like it before, and had no idea movies -- much less old, black-and-white movies -- could be so outrageous. I still think the moment when Groucho tells Margaret Dumont and the other society dame that he has to have a "strange interlude," then excuses himself to walk up to the camera and spout a bunch of gibberish is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. (And back then, I didn't know it was a spoof of a Eugene O'Neill play.) This Blu-ray, by the way, besides looking better than it has in more than 85 years, also has some restored jokes. They're sprinkled in here and there, and having seen the movie a dozen or more times, it feels weird to experience a different rhythm, even if I can't pinpoint exactly which jokes are "new."

Coming up: Two actual theatrical releases, plus a genuinely scary documentary