Bodacious!

Seeing Michael DeLorenzo pop up for a minute in the Whoopi Goldberg-Sam Elliott movie "Fatal Beauty" reminded me of his role on "Head of the Class" and of course "New York Undercover."

Slow But Intriguing

Jean Yu (Gong Li) is an actress who is also a spy. The two professions suit each other surprisingly well.

The transfixing "Saturday Fiction" transports viewers to another time and place: the rain-soaked streets of Shanghai, China, in the first week of December 1941, during the days leading up to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

A perpetual state of discomfort and distress lines Jean Yu's face as she is constantly treated like a commodity and pulled in every direction.

Note: I appreciate that the English portions are also subtitled, which isn't always the case for films that are primarily in another language.

"My Heart Is That Eternal Rose" uniquely combines gangster shootouts with romantic melodrama.

Plots that would normally take an entire movie to resolve are burned through in one scene. For example: An aging hitman comes out of retirement to transport a former associate's son. The next time we see the old man, the boy is already in the car and they're on their way back from the job. Then everything, of course, goes awry...

This film is a sumptuous visual feast with its bright and bold color palate. Therefore, it's no surprise that the director, Patrick Tam, influenced Wong Kar Wai, and the cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, worked with WKW on several projects.

The main character's name is Rick - like in "Casablanca" - which doesn't feel like an accident.

"Bacurau" co-director Kleber Mendonça Filho's documentary "Picture of Ghosts" is a love letter and swan song to the Recife, Brazil of his youth. 

This is a relaxing meditation on the people, places, and politics of his childhood and a look back at the ghosts of his past and Recife's past. 

Filho focuses on the majestic movie theaters he grew up going to. Most of them no longer exist. They've become yet another ghost.

Selected by u/bwolfs081

I've tried it on multiple browsers and devices. Same issue. Nothing happens when I click the "Report" button.

This is the problem movie:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/sputnik

The link goes to a different movie with the same name.

https://www.amcplus.com/movies/sputnik--1051485

Thanks.

The meaning of the title "Two Minutes Late" is revealed - appropriately enough - in the final two minutes of the film.

This Danish murder mystery - also known as "2 Minutes Late" and "2 Minutes Too Late" - revolves around the victim (played by Jeanne Darville) and four potential suspects: a "beautiful" husband with a roving eye (Poul Reichhardt), his paranoid and skittish wife (Grethe Thordahl), her sister (Astrid Villaume), and a clockmaker (Erik Mørk) with a hunchback, which isn't obvious at all - I wouldn't have known if I hadn't looked up information about the movie.

It's always interesting seeing how other countries approach film noir. Denmark's contribution to the form is smart and stylish.

Note: I also plan on watching Sweden's "Hidden in the Fog" before it leaves, but not in time to post anything. I'm mentioning it because it caught my eye.

Jacques Tourneur has become one of my favorite directors because he never wasted any time. His longest movie is 97 minutes!

Out of the Past (1947)

"Out of the Past" starts off on the wrong foot - for me - by introducing the stereotypical and tired "deaf and dumb" character. Maybe that's just a way to establish the other person as a real heel. This, after all, is the dark and shadowy world of film noir. Everyone else treats the kid nicely enough, at least. It's a weird plot device to use (the actor, Dickie Moore, was not deaf or mute in real life) and it never seems to pay much dividends. Thankfully, the rest of the movie recovers quickly.

Jeff (the great Robert Mitchum) runs a gas station and has a solid dame (Virginia Huston). He's the everyday, ordinary, dependable working man. Or is he? A man can't outrun the past forever, especially in noir, and it comes barreling back to him in the form of an old associate roaming into town. An unsavory character from Jeff's past, his previous boss Whit (Kirk Douglas, playing oily sleaze to perfection), wants them to do - you guessed it - one more job.

The next half of the film flashes back to exactly what led Jeff to his current reclusive life as a gas station operator. It involves another dame (Jane Greer), because of course it does. In film noir, it almost always does. It also involves cigarette after cigarette, including one funny scene where Kirk Douglas offers Robert Mitchum a smoke, but Mitchum already has one in his hands (apparently an ad-libbed accident because they smoked so much throughout the film).

"Out of the Past" is effortlessly entertaining, even if it does get a bit convoluted at times.

Without spoiling anything, the stunning final scene - yes, involving the deaf-mute character - really strikes at the Heart of Darkness that is film noir.

Berlin Express (1948)

Narration that sounds like it's from a documentary with a little bit of pulp added for flavor, a large international cast (headlined by Merle Oberon and Robert Ryan), inventive camerawork, incredible location footage of a bombed-out Germany, a somewhat convoluted but still mostly coherent plot, and clowns. 

Yes, clowns.

In typical Jacques Tourneur fashion, he jam-packs a ton and still brings "Berlin Express" to its destination in less than 90 minutes. 

While "Berlin" is one of Tourneur's weaker efforts, even "lesser" Tourneur is still a ride - in this case, both literally and figuratively.

Nightfall (1956)

Economical.

That's the best way to describe Jacques Tourneur's filmography. 

Tourneur is the master of doing more with less. He packs so much into a short amount of time. "Nightfall" - clocking in at only 78 minutes - is no exception.

Right away, we're introduced to an insurance investigator (James Gregory), the person he's tailing (Aldo Ray), a babe at a bar (a stunning Anne Bancroft), and two murdering mugs who are after a large sum of money (Brian Keith and Rudy Bond).

This superb noir takes its characters - and us - from city lights to snowy fields on a breakneck hunt for lost loot.

Subtitles/Captions: Yes for all three!