Movies I Watched in March, Part 1

Hey, April has just begun and the first part of the recap is already posted. Enjoy the punctuality while it lasts, because believe me, it won't. 

As Amy and I expected, this documentary about the "underground world of competitive tickling" was pretty strange, though admittedly not as strange (and fascinating) as it might be if it actually was about an underground world of competitive tickling. Instead, it focuses on an online empire devoted to tricking desperate young men in need of money into appearing in vaguely creepy videos in which they are tickled by other man. At first, it sounds like just another creepy corner of the internet, but the movie's big twist is that this is all part of a very (very very) elaborate scam concocted by a rich weirdo who really (really really) likes watching young men tickle each other. In the end the mystery is solved (sort of), but nothing is changed, and that rich weirdo apparently is continuing his bizarro tickling scheme. It's not a bad movie by any means, and there's definitely nothing else like it out there, but in the end, it left me wanting a little more. 

In our current age of gender fluidity and changing ideas about male-female relations, it's interesting to watch a movie from 35 years ago where a man dresses as a woman and learns to be a better man as a result. I'm sure there are a million ways to attack this movie for its gender politics, but I'll leave it to someone more in touch with that angle than myself. As for me, a movie fan who last saw "Tootsie" back in high school, I thought it held up very well. The plot is nicely complex, the jokes are solid and the cast -- Dustin Hoffman, Sydney Pollack (who also directed), Teri Garr, Jessica Lange, Charles Durning, Geena Davis, Dabney Coleman, Lynne Thigpen and George Gaines, plus an uncredited Bill Murray -- is one for the ages. Only two things about the movie bug me: One, that terrible "Go, Tootsie, Go" song during the montage is awful, and two, Hoffman has plucked eyebrows from frame one, which just looks ... weird. By the way, back in high school, I had a teacher who claimed that "Police Academy," which arrived two years later and also co-starred George Gaynes, was the better movie. Even way back then, I knew this was an insane opinion.

Now this, this is why I love Turner Classic Movies. Where else are you going to see "Snow Gets in Your Eyes," a 1938 short about a sausage salesman at a department store who wins the heart of the girl of his dreams by winning a ski jump contest that takes place on the store's indoor (!) ski slope. The plot is, obviously, wonderfully goofy, and the leads have a certain oddball charm, but the movie (which clocks in at a whopping 20 minutes) really takes off when the boring white folks step aside and a pair of African American acts take center stage. A group called Cats and the Fiddle and the Dandridge Sisters -- screen legend Dorothy, her real-life sister Vivian and Etta Jones -- team up for a crazy, catchy tune called, believe it or not, "The Harlem Yodel." It's a lot of fun, but almost indescribable. Thankfully, I don't have to describe it -- you can watch it right here:



Interesting little thriller/mood piece, though maybe not quite as interesting as it thinks it is -- or as it could be. Amy Adams plays a cold-as-ice art gallery owner with an equally chilly husband (Armie Hammer) who is (a) cheating on her and (b) losing the fortune she married him for. Suddenly, a manuscript arrives written by her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal), and at that point the movie diverges into two tracks: one devoted to her current troubles and her reading of the book, and one that shows the story of the manuscript -- or, to be more precise, her picturing the story of the manuscript in which she assigns visuals to the characters, with the lead played by Gyllenhaal, the wife played by Adams lookalike Isla Fisher and the daughter a dead-ringer for her own college-age daughter. (We also see flashbacks to her more innocent days with Gyllenhaal in a sort of third track.) The story of the novel is compelling and violent, with Michael Shannon delivering a great (and Oscar-nominated performance) as a dying cop. It's so compelling, in fact, that after a while I was wishing the movie would forget about poor little rich girl Amy Adams and focus entirely on the noir nightmare of the manuscript. Still, having that framing sequence does add some elements that are fun to ponder after the credits roll, and with Tom Ford directing, the whole thing looks gorgeous, from the Los Angeles homes to the grime and grit of the desert. 
Coming up next: A Shaft sequel, a "Feud" tie-in, one of the best sci-fi movies in years and yes, of course, more Marx Brothers.