The only one of your choices I have seen is "Paper Moon" - seen many years ago. I learned later that Tatum (who won an Oscar for this film) was a terrible actor and the director Peter Bogdanovich made many many takes of each of her scenes and created her winning performance in the editing room. Other than "Paper Moon," Tatum's later movie career, like her father's (Ryan O'Neal) has lasted but not to much value. Ryan, for example, appeared in 2012's slasher remake "The Slumber Party Massacre" and Tatum's most recent movie was the "God's Not Dead" sequel.
MINE
The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes / Alfred L. Werker (1939). The second of the 14 Rathbone/Bruce films and, perhaps, the best. The opening credits say that this is based on the William Gillette’s 1899 play but having seen the 1916 silent film of the play (with Gillette himself in his only film appearance), the John Barrymore 1922 (also silent) version, and the early sound edition from 1932, I can say definitively that Gillette’s play is nowhere to be found in this movie. George Zucco, wonderful as the evil Dr. Moriarty, has a plan to pull off the crime of the century and ruin Sherlock Holmes at the same time. His devious scheme involves not one, but two, distractions to put Holmes off the scent. The first is the threat to the life of Ann Brandon (Ida Lupino) whose father and brother had been murdered by a flying instrument that both strangles and beats the head of the victim. The revelation of this mysterious murder weapon is a great moment in the whole series. But Holmes has to dig much deeper to discover Moriarty’s real plan. Is this the best Sherlock Holmes film ever made? Could be.
Sherlock Holmes And The Voice Of Terror / John Rawlins (1942). Only the 3rd of the Rathbone/Bruce films and Holmes has already moved from the 19th century to the present day of the film’s release. A note at the beginning explains: “Sherlock Holmes…is ageless, invincible, and unchanging. In solving significant problems of the present day, he remains – as ever – the supreme master of deductive reasoning.” Holmes is called in by the high council of England to uncover the identity of the Voice Of Terror, a radio broadcaster for Nazi Germany who calls German sabotage and bombing as it is happening. Although the themes of “Voice Of Terror” are not
noir (but rather war propaganda), director John Rawlins uses many
noir techniques such as skewed camera angles, shadows on faces, and extreme close-ups. Universal Studio’s scream queen Evelyn Ankers co-stars as Kitty, whose husband – an informant of Holmes’ – was killed by Nazi spies. She goes undercover to learn the plans of Mead (Thomas Gomez, Key Largo), head of the spy ring. A pretty good entry even though at the end Holmes pulls quite a huge rabbit out of his hat with information withheld from the audience until then. Also, near the start look for the train wreck scene from “The Invisible Man” (1933) even to the track controls moving by themselves. NOTE: “Voice Of Terror” introduces the strange haircut with curls that Holmes will sport for the next few films.
Basil Rathbone and Evelyn Ankers
King Lear / Peter Brook (1971). Peter Brook was a stage and film director who was never known to take a traditional approach to his material. His film of “King Lear” is an example. His setting is a cold, snowy wasteland of a kingdom where travel is difficult and people are all wrapped in heavy clothing. It even makes speech sluggish as he has instructed his actors to, mostly, stick to a monotone without much variation or inflection. The great Paul Scofield plays the aging and deluded King and who almost convinces in this approach just by letting his audience get used to the delivery. This is a good and interesting “Lear” and I recommend it as long as it is not your first Lear. I would suggest other films or videos before this one. The clip below demonstrates my point and, as a bonus, it ends with an FSQ (Famous Shakespearian Quotation).
60 sec clip from Brook’s King Lear
Ye Yan (The Banquet, aka Legend Of The Black Scorpion) / Xiaogang Feng (2006). Sumptuous and lush historical epic with flying-through-the-air martial arts à la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) and starring Ziyi Zhang, who rose to stardom in that earlier picture. “The Banquet” claims to be based on “Hamlet” but really it just uses some of that play’s plot points. It begins in a familiar way: the Emperor dies suddenly. Instead of his heir, the Emperor’s brother not only takes the throne but marries the Empress, his brother’s wife (Ziyi Zhang). Meanwhile, the crown prince (U.S. born actor Daniel Wu) is elsewhere. After an attempt is made on his life, he returns to court suspecting his uncle of the murder of his father. Everything leads to the title banquet. Beautiful to look at but with a lot less action and fight choreography than you would expect to see.
Bad Times At The El Royale / Drew Goddard (2018). Tarantino’s earliest two films from the 1990s still strongly influence movies in 2018. The current example is this one. We first get a prologue set in 1959 or thereabouts. A man checks into a motel room, pushes all the furniture to one side, rolls up the rug and pries up the floorboards. He drops a handbag into the hole in the floor and puts everything back the way it was. Later, some one knocks on his door. When he opens it he is killed by a shotgun blast. Jump ahead 10 years. The El Royale outside of Reno, Nevada has seen better days. There is only one employee, Miles (Lewis Pullman), who is only able to repeat a memorized history of the place and collect quarters for the coffee. But four people show up at the same time to register: a Catholic priest (Jeff Bridges), a talkative traveling salesman (John Hamm), a lounge singer (Cynthia Erivo), and a hippie girl (Dakota Johnson). Who are they – really? Are they looking for the hidden handbag or do they have an agenda of their own? The movie is divided into chapters in which we learn about the four. There is some time shifting, for example, one shocking scene is observed three times from different perspective as we go back in time to see how each participant came to be where the event happened. Director/writer Goddard keeps things moving without allowing the movie audience to guess what’s going to happen next. He keeps it fun and twisty…until the final half hour when the cult leader Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) shows up. When that happens, Goddard has run out of ideas and the stretched out coda taxes one’s patience. However, even though Bridges is great as usual, the movie is worth seeing for Erivo and Pullman. This is just Cynthia Erivo’s second feature film release but she gives an astonishing dramatic performance. Her face-to-face with Billy Lee would win her an Oscar if the universe were fair (it isn’t). Lewis Pullman is the son of Bill but about 8x more talented than dad. I really look forward to seeing more of both of these incredibly talented young actors.
John Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo
Lewis Pullman
Annihilation / Alex Garland (2018). Another recent thriller (this one in the science fiction realm) which begins with a great premise but whose resolution cannot - and doesn’t – match the set-up and has to be a let down. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a former military combat veteran and a grieving widow. Her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), who is still on duty, has failed to return from his last assignment. One year after his disappearance, he shows up back home but doesn’t know how he got there or where he has been. Lena soon learns of a mysterious phenomenon that the government calls The Shimmer. It covers part of a national forest but is growing and threatening the world. They know they can’t keep it secret much longer. All expeditions into the Shimmer have disappeared. Only Kane has returned. To help find a cure for Kane, Lena volunteers for the next mission to try to penetrate the Shimmer. Her mates on the mission are played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny. There are a few creepy episodes and explosions of violence but it turns mainly into a standard soldiers-behind-enemy-lines adventure. There are some good parts here and sincere acting, but I can’t give a recommendation.