NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL
#427
every movie ever made, in alphabetical order
(we’re in the I’s, with anti-alphabetical cheats)
I Want to Live on Mars (2022)
Illicit (1931)
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Wendigo (2001)
I Want to Live on Mars (2022)
In the bleak, half-abandoned rural reality of Eastern Pennsylvania, there’s no cell reception, and the nearest restaurant is a cheap pizza place 50 miles away. A young woman who calls herself Pickles works at the pizzeria, but mostly stays home to host tea parties for her dolls, without any tea. But that’s not what the film is about.
Pickles wears no makeup or anything girly, and has little contact with anyone else. When an old guitar-playing hobo wanders along, she adopts him into her ramshackle home. But that’s not what the film is about.
An abrasive, chain-smoking woman with an adult daughter moves into the area, and they both seem to hate living there and wish they were anyplace else, as anyone would. The daughter’s name is Breezy, but she’s the opposite of that, and she’s grumpy until she meets Pickles. After that, Pickles and Breezy are grumpy together, but enjoyably so, and that’s what the movie is about.
I Want to Live on Mars is a charming enigma, a small-scale low-budget film uninterested in the normal rules of moviemaking. There’s not much story, no romance, no violence, no tension. It’s an un-ordinary movie about un-ordinary people, and it’s terrific. Life should be like this, and if you’re lucky maybe it is.
“Where you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I come?”
“Sure.”
Verdict: BIG YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Illicit (1931)
Anne (Barbara Stanwyck) and Dick (James Rennie) are a young couple in love, spending evenings until dawn together. Wearing a a post-coital negligee in the first act, Anne explains to Dick that she doesn’t believe in marriage and certainly won’t be marrying him, for fear it would ruin their relationship. She’s getting enough Dick, without any vows or obligations.
When the whispers of high society start swirling, though, Anne & Dick decide they must conform, so they marry and move in together, which, as she predicted, is the beginning of the end of being in love.
Directed by Archie Mayo (The Petrified Forest), Ms Stanwyck is excellent in her first major role, balancing the character’s sensibilities and extravagances to make Anne a modern, independent woman stranded in 1931. Joan Blondell has a small part, and Charles Butterworth is a recurring chuckle as their best buddy ‘Georgie’, who offers drunken observations, like this toast to Mother’s Day:
It gives me the greatest pleasure that ever was
To say that I love you, so it does,
For today is Mother’s Day, my dear,
and you are my mother, so I hear
As often happens in early-era movies, the newlyweds and everyone they know are rich, with butlers for their chauffeurs and chauffeurs for their butlers, which gets tiresome. If you can see past the mansions and class barriers, though, the story is an enjoyable soap opera about an almost-open marriage. This is the kind of pre-Code movie that led to the Code.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
An old bum in New York City has found a way into an empty mansion owned by the world’s second richest man. The bum lives there alone, every winter, while the billionaire resides at one of his other mansions. Then the bum finds another down-and-outer, and invites him to move in. Then the billionaire’s daughter quits school and comes into the mansion unexpected, bumps into Bum #2 in the kitchen, and they fall in love. After that, the story grows implausible.
“Look, Mike, I like the good old USA, and that ain’t tin. If I can’t make a living here, then I’ll give up.”
It Happened on Fifth Avenue tries to recreate Frank Capra’s style, but Capra had a dark side and the bite of reality, which this simply doesn’t. Everything’s obviously going to work out no matter what, and if there’s even a moment’s doubt the music will swell up to almost shout, “Only happy endings allowed!” If you still have doubts, well, here come’s Santa Claus. And almost all the outdoor New York scenes — sidewalks, Central Park, etc — are fake, poorly greenscereened, which heightens the phoniness.
Overall, it feels like class propaganda by rich people, dealing with a serious topic by not dealing with it, and I hated it… but I didn’t click it off, and caught myself smiling toward the end, damn it.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
“Tell them, tell them all, whoever comes, whoever it is, I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”
In these troubled times, the world needs someone like John Wick, the assassin who never hesitates, never misses, and never runs out of bullets or people who need to be killed. And it’s never not fun.
If you’ve forgotten Mr Wick’s backstory, he’s a hired killer, in a world where hired killers are famous like ball players, and probably have bubble gum cards. They don’t need to worry about police, because the cops only care about little people’s crimes, and assassins are superstars, not little people. Any time you go for a walk there are assassins on every street corner, in any tree, on any park bench. But remember, killing is not allowed in the assassins’ hotel.
Some bad guy has a marker, which is like an I-O-U-an-assassination token, so Wick is required to kill somebody, though he’d rather be retired from this killing business. That’s the story, but it’s all jazzed up with blood and style and snappy dialogue.
As Wick, Keanu Reeves famously does some of the fighting himself, carefully choreographed and rehearsed, but what’s nuts is that the fights don’t look choreographed and rehearsed. At one point, during the 44-way gunfight in a museum, some blood splatters onto the camera, where it stays for a few seconds, adding a touch of surreal realism.
It’s been a couple of years since I saw the first John Wick flick. I will not wait so long before watching the next sequel.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Wendigo (2001)
Dad, Mom, and a little kid are in a Volvo on a remote highway in winter weather, when the car hits a deer. The family is OK, but the deer isn’t. Some hunters come out of the woods, angry that the buck they’ve been tracking all day is dead, when they’d wanted to kill it. And hey, the antlers are cracked!
After that it’s the rednecks against the Volvo family, but just when you think you know the genre and what to expect, it morphs into something you didn’t see coming (unless you read this review), with elements of (presumably bullshit) Native American mythology and (very realistic) childhood fears.
It’s paced slowly, which triples the tension. No clichéd fakery or jump cuts. Excellent performances, especially from Patricia Clarkson.
The kid playing their kid is Erik Per Sullivan, who’s fine, but he played the dopey kid brother on Malcolm in the Middle. His innocent face and elephant ears, along with his sit-com connection, is a mild distraction, especially since the movie mostly unfolds from the kid’s perspective. That’s my only complaint here, though, and it’s not really anyone’s fault.
Wendigo is a slightly subversive family movie, loaded with suspense and tension, and the closing credits offer “Special thanks to Andrew McClaren, who told spooky stories to his first grade class.”
Verdict: YES.
11/14/2025
If you can’t find a movie I’ve mentioned, or you have a recommendation, please drop me a note.
Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.
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