Movies I Watched in November, Part 1

What's this? The first part of the November recap already arriving in the first week of December? Must be one of those Christmas miracles you hear about at this time of year...


Very good, very grim 1952 film noir that aired recently on (where else?) TCM. I’d heard great things about this one but never managed to catch it – and I’m glad I did. It’s excellent and feels decades ahead of its time. Though the story of a troubled loner (Arthur Franz) eventually shifts to offer equal time to the cops pursuing him, for most of its running time, “The Sniper” plays like a proto-“Taxi Driver,” with Franz becoming more and more desperately tense as the pressures of fifties-era male/female dynamics continue to frustrate him. The scenes of him stalking his victims from the rooftops of San Francisco are startling (the whole film was shot on location to spectacular effect), and poor Marie Windsor, legendary star of such classic noirs as “The Killing” and “Narrow Margin” is his first victim. Don’t miss this one the next time it shows up on TCM’s Noir Alley.


I’m a big fan of Jack Webb, both his legendary cop show “Dragnet” and his films, from his wacky role in “Sunset Blvd” to “-30-,” one of my favorite newspaper movies. Sure, that love is partly ironic – given Webb’s notoriously mannered (wooden?) onscreen persona, how could it not be – but it’s partly sincere, too. I’m genuinely fascinating and entertained by his work both in front of and behind the camera, and this 1957 drama is no exception. Following a group of raw Marine recruits and their demanding drill instructor (Webb, of course), it manages to be compelling, corny, amusing and downright mystifying. The scenes with the recruits are the most mundane sections of the film, though Webb’s instructional style borders on obsessive. For instance, Webb forces the whole squad to find the sand flea that bit one of the recruits on patrol, causing him to slap the bug and alert the hypothetical enemy – the specific flea, that is. It’s not exactly “Full Metal Jacket,” but it’s along the same lines, minus R. Lee Emery’s profanity and application of physical violence. (Plus Kubrick's grim view of the USMC – this is definitely not a movie about turning healthy young men into soulless killing machines.) The bizarre sections of “The D.I.” are the ones that feature Webb awkwardly (as if he could do it any other way) romancing a woman at the local tavern/supper club/whatever the hell that place is. The banter is borderline surreal, especially with Webb wearing a smug smile and his ever-present dress blues. The relationship is never even slightly believable, despite the fact that he and the actress (Jackie Loughery) were actually husband and wife. By the way, the end credits reveal that many of the movie Marines were, in fact, actual Marines. They bring a nice slice of authenticity, but they don’t exactly raise the acting level of the film.


I’ve been a dedicated Coen brothers guy since my college buddy Eric and I stumbled into a theater in 1987 to watch “Raising Arizona” and stumbled back out wondering what the heck that was we just watched. (We definitely knew we loved it.) So who would think that one day, 31 years later, I’d be watching their brand-new movie on my big-screen, hi-def, internet-connected TV? I wouldn’t put “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” on the level of “Raising Arizona,” but it’s a solid effort from Joel and Ethan, and as is the case with their best movies, one that reveals more levels of depth the more you think about it. Like all anthologies, some segments are more successful than others, but “Buster” has a remarkably high batting average. Things start off with a literal bang with Tim Blake Nelson playing a jolly singing cowboy who also happens to be a very skilled murderer, and the dark comedy continues with a short but effective bit where James Franco is hung by the neck – twice. These shorts both rely heavily on cartoony characters and outrageous violence, but Franco’s story ends on an odd but effective grace note of the sort that the Coens do especially well. After those short bursts of grim fun, “Buster Scruggs” slows down and gets serious with more somber stories about an armless/legless entertainer (played by Dudley Dursley himself, Harry Melling) and his manager (Liam Neeson); a very dedicated prospector (Tom Waits, proving he should’ve been cast by the Coens years ago); a young woman (Zoe Kazan) in a wagon train; and a group of travelers in a stage coach who slowly but surely realize what their actual destination is. They all work beautifully on an individual basis, but they work as a group even better, and by the end, when the realization dawns on those passengers, I was right there with them. If you have Netflix (and being that this isn’t 1987, I’m guessing you do), then by all means skip those $100 million "Friends" reruns and watch this instead.

Coming up: A brand-new/decades old movie from a certain legendary director, a documentary about that movie, one of the strangest films I’ve seen in years (which is saying something) and, last but not least, another documentary, this one revealing the Third Reich roots of Douglas Sirk and (gasp!) Ingrid Bergman.