Green Hell (1940)

From marvelous moviemaker James Whale (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Man in the Iron Mask, etc), this is a passable but sometimes laughable safari flick, filmed entirely on studio lots.We’re on an expedition to the Amazon jungles, searching for and hoping to steal some Inca treasures. The natives attack, killing a junior archaeologist (Vincent Price, so young his voice sounds different than in his famous roles), and that’s about it for the movie’s action. The rest of the drama is about the dead Price character’s wife (Joan Bennett), who drops in on the raiding party and quickly becomes the object of every man’s drooling.Some of the dialogue is a hoot, oddly and un-really written, and what can be said about the story? Buncha manly men and one beautiful woman, what would you expect to happen? The movie’s not awful, but it’s not much.With Douglas Fairbanks Jr, John Howard, George Sanders, and Alan Hale Sr.Verdict: upper MAYBE, or lower YES. ♦ ♦ ♦   The Green Room (1978)
a/k/a The Vanishing Fiancée

François Truffaut wrote, directs, and stars as Julien Davenne, a lonely, introverted man who writes obituaries for a failing magazine, and loves the dead more than the living.Davenne’s wife died some years earlier, and he’s never gotten over it, never will get over it, and doesn’t want to get over it. Moving on after the death of a loved one, he believes, is an insult to the dead. Remembering his dead wife is the only thing Davenne is passionate about, which is both sad and honestly understandable. Maybe even admirable. He has so much love for the dead, and no love left for anyone who’s alive.In one scene he buys his dead wife a fancy ring, and tells her about it — though she, of course, isn’t there — as he slips the ring onto a mannequin’s hand in her honor. Everything his late wife owned in kept in a green room in Davenne’s house. When fire damages the room and its contents, he buys and restores a church ruined and shuttered after WWI, to rebuild and restore it as a bigger, better shrine, not only for his wife, but for every person he’s known who’s died.”If you agree to be a member of society, be ready to feel a deep sense of disgust.”
This is a real wow, a movie that made me say “Holy crap!” at the end, and a few times along the way. You’ll have no notion where it’s headed. Is it a love story, a character study, a horror movie? Whatever it is, it’s French, and it’s very, very good.Based on “The Altar of the Dead,” a short story by Henry James.Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Green Screen (2021)
Streaming free at YouTube

NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #307  [archive] JULY 7, 2024

This is a 14-minute short, about an Indian boy whose life isn’t Dickens-awful, but isn’t good. He works as delivery boy for a restaurant run by grumpy man who may or may not be the boy’s father, but doesn’t show him any affection. There’s no mother or other family in the kid’s life, and his only friend is another street waif.Then the kid makes a delivery to a computer graphics classroom on the college campus, where they’re filming a scene against a green screen — the technology that allows special effects to be superimposed across the background. How green screens work is explained by the only smiling person in the film, but the boy misunderstands it as magic, which leads to the film’s gently terrific climax.Written and directed by Mangesh Sapkal, this is too good for IMDB — it’s not in their giant database. Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Greetings from Africa (1995)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a clever romantic comedy, barely ten minutes long, about a lonely young lesbian looking for love. I’ll say nothing more, except that it delivers the laughs, and captures well the kookiness of humans, and especially of humans looking for other humans to connect with. What a species.Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦  Gregory’s Girl (1980)
Streaming free at Tubi

Gregory is a dorky teenage boy trying to be cool, the star striker on the soccer team, but he’s not particularly good at the game and isn’t trying very hard.On open tryouts day, a pretty girl named Dorothy tries out for the team, and she’s more skilled than any of the boys.Suddenly Dorothy is the new striker, Gregory is switched to goalkeeper, and he’s OK with it. All he wants is to make Dorothy his girl, but he’s all knees and nerves, and never quite knows what to say, which makes for an agreeable light comedy. “If women were meant to play football, they’d have their tits somewhere else!” Written and directed by Bill Forsythe (Local Hero), this is an original — its own thing, not much reminiscent of other “coming of age” movies.Thinking about it afterward, I’d compare this to John Hughes’ widely beloved teen comedies, not because they’re similar but because they’re kinda opposites. In a Hughes flick, the teenagers have wisecracks and embarrassing moments, and it’s funny — sure, I like Hughes, same as most movie watchers do — but you never watch a Hughes movie thinking his teenagers are like real teenagers. All the kids in Gregory’s Girl look like kids, sound and act like kids. It feels for reals.I will only slightly complain about a turn to the plot that’s never explained. I’m confident that my guess at what happened and why is correct, but I would’ve liked at least one line sorta ‘splaining it.Or hell, I’m old, maybe the line is there but I missed it.
Clare Grogan of the band Altered Images has a featured role. Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Gretel & Hansel (2020) 

This is the Brothers Grimm’s legend of Hansel & Gretel, told from the girl’s perspective, with the fright factor ratcheted up for a non-kiddie audience. I wanted to like it, and it’s somewhat successful, creepy and visually striking. Alice Krige (Star Trek‘s Borg Queen) plays the witch. The movie makes big mistakes, though, that keep derailing everything.A good scary movie involves the use of darkness and shadows, but most of this is so under-lit that you’re never quite sure what’s going on, and it’s dark for the length of the film. I overcame the moviemakers’ mistake by starting the movie all over again, with my media player’s brightness set to 150%.The dialogue is very soft-spoken through most of the film, and same as the darkness, talking quietly can be an effective tool in building tension, but it becomes frustrating when nobody speaks in a normal tone until the film’s final scenes.And also, the story falls apart at the end.Verdict: MAYBE. ♦ ♦ ♦ Grey Gardens (1976)
Streaming free at Watch Documentaries

Edith and Little Edie were Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin, two eccentric old ladies who shared a mansion on Long Island. According to news clippings shown at the film’s start, they lived in “a garbage-ridden, filthy 28-room house with eight cats, fleas, cobwebs, and no running water,” until the Health Department ordered the place cleaned up under threat of eviction.When that made headlines, Mrs Onassis sent a clean-up crew and pitched in herself, getting the house habitable again. After that, filmmakers Albert & David Maysles became interested, and dropped by to film Edith and Little Edie’s home life.The resulting documentary, Grey Gardens, is widely considered a masterpiece, and I ain’t arguing. It’s fascinating to watch these two batty dames interact. Thumbs up, definitely.
I’d only say, as I often think while watching movies, why does it have to be rich people? There are far, far more poor people than rich people living in squalor and mental illness. When I was the “I’ll do anything” guy, I worked in a dozen different households with people as squabbly and fascinating as Edith and Little Edie, or more so. But poor folks don’t have Jackie Onassis to drop by and help tidy up the place. Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Grey Gardens (2009)

30+ years after the true events of the original Grey Gardens, Hollywood took these two wacky characters, Edith and Little Edie — both of them long since dead — and fictionalized and scripted them. Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore star, with Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.Before clicking ‘play’, I’ll confess to misgivings about the whole idea. It’s one thing to bring in cameras and show real people to the world, as the documentary did — at least the ladies gave informed consent. But I’m pretty sure this film is gonna be mocking them, which seems more distasteful.OK, ‘play’, and let’s see…Wearing old-age makeup, Lange and Barrymore do a credible job capturing the essence of Edith and Little Edie in their Grey Gardens era, but most of the story is a flashback to their younger years, to see the beginnings of their nuttiness. It feels faithful to their real characters, and heck, maybe it’s even true to their lives, but — who cares? Nobody needs Edith and Little Edie’s origin stories.Verdict: NO.♦ ♦ ♦ James Whale: Father of Fear Werner Herzog has a dictum: “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” But he does not want to explain it any further.7/7/2024   • • • Coming attractions • • •     The Grifters (1990)
A Grin Without a Cat (1978)
Grindhouse (2007)
Grizzly Man (2005)
Grizzly Rage (2007)
… plus schlock, shorts, and surprises