Movies I Watched in March, Part 2

And so, without further ado...

This 1972 sequel to the 1971 blaxploitation classic brings back the crucial elements of the original, including Gordon Parks and star Richard Roundtree, leaving out only Isaac Hayes’ iconic theme song (with a decent but lesser tune from Parks himself). It also takes everything to another level, scale-wise, expanding the plot, expanding the locations and adding some big-budget sequences, including a dangerous-looking helicopter/car/boat chase that had to be a logistical nightmare. The calm center, as before, is Roundtree, reacting with almost supernatural cool to the chaos around him. The rest of the cast is fun, including Moses Gunn as a gangster and Julius Harris (Tee Hee from “Live and Let Die”) as a tough cop, but it’s the distinctive ‘70s settings that steal the show, from a mobster’s very classy, very 1970s luxury apartment to a nightclub with a body-paint-based dance show that has to be seen to be believed. "Shaft's Big Score" lacks some of the grit of the original, but there’s plenty of attitude, style and crazy violence to keep you entertained, trust me.

Amy and I watched this because we’ve been watching FX’s “Feud” miniseries, and because the fine folks at TCM were kind enough to rerun the movie itself one night. I’d seen it before, so this time around I was mostly just watching to see how closely the behind-the-scenes drama and cinema recreations from “Feud” jibed with the original. Pretty close, I’m happy to report, or at least close enough to make a “Baby Jane” rewatch worthwhile. I have to admit, though I’m fascinated by the backstory, I don’t find “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” itself that interesting – or entertaining. Maybe because I grew up seeing Joan Crawford and Bette Davis as older, past-their-prime actresses it wasn’t shocking in the least to see them exploit their aging images in this film. And without that bit of exploitation – excuse me, “hagsploitation” -- the movie itself isn’t much – a sloppily constructed melodrama about characters we don’t care about doing mean things to each other. The black-and-white look is nice, and there are some memorable scenes (the rat on the plate, for example), but the whole thing is so clunky and heavy-handed it’s hard to get into the story.


On the other hand, I will say that, with just a few episodes left, I’m finding “Feud” almost insanely entertaining. I wasn’t excited about watching it in the least, having not been a fan of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story” and figuring this would be an overly campy screamfest between Jessica Lange (as Crawford) and Susan Sarandon (as Davis), but I was completely wrong. Inaccuracies aside, it’s a fascinating, funny, poignant look at two Hollywood legends watching their time in the spotlight come crashing to an end. Plus, the cast is stellar, with Alfred Molina (as director Robert Aldrich), Stanley Tucci (as Jack Warner!), Judy David (as Hedda Hopper), Dominic Burgess (uncanny as Victor Buono), Jackie Hoffman (as Crawford’s put-upon maid, Mamacita) and the great Toby Huss, bringing back his uncanny Frank Sinatra impersonation. As a die-hard old movie fan, I’m obviously the  target audience for this show, but I have a hard time picturing someone who wouldn’t find it entertaining on some level. Check it out – and don’t both watching “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.”


I’ve watched this one more than a few times, mostly chunks of it on HBO whenever it’s being randomly rerun, but after (a) putting it on my best science fiction films list and (b) picking up a blu-ray copy cheap, I decided to give the whole movie another spin – partly convinced to do so by my daughter, who has (surprisingly?) come to love it. And, in what might be odd for a movie that (deliberately) repeats itself so many times, it really holds up to repeat viewings. The screenplay is so clever that it knows exactly how much of the story to replay before jumping to something new, and the rhythm is just right, driving the story to be intriguing and amusing without ever letting it become confusing or boring. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt are just right in their roles, but allow me to praise the work of the soldiers Cruise ends up with, especially the (late) great Bill Paxton, bringing just the right energy and pop to his dedicated, tough-as-nails but oddly upbeat master sergeant. After seeing this several times, I’m tempted to say it’s the equal of that other great Bill Paxton military science fiction action movie, “Aliens.” At the very least, they’d make one hell of a double feature.


I love this movie, but I don’t really have much more to say about it, mostly because I’ve already reviewed multiple times on this blog. I will say that few things make me happier than knowing that, given the choice of any movie ever made, my darling daughter will, more often than not, choose the Marx brothers, which is why we watched it last month. I can’t imagine her devotion to long-dead movie comedians will last, but I sure hope it does.