What classics did you see last week, August 15 to August 21?

The Long Goodbye / Robert Altman (1973). Any list of the essential films of the 1970s should include Altman’s tribute to the film noir era, not so long past. Eliott Gould plays Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe as an out-of-sync with the times private eye. While everyone else is in SoCal casual or, in the case of the apartment full of hippie girls near his own, almost no clothes at all, Marlowe is never out of his blue suit and tie. Director Altman has said that, anticipating Austin Powers by 24 years, Marlowe was called Rip Van Marlowe by the production staff as a person who had slept for 20 years and had awakened in 1973 Los Angeles. Indeed, when we first see him, he is being woken up from sleep by his cat (Morris). Marlowe is approached by old friend Terry Lennox (former major league pitcher and author Jim Bouton) to drive him to Tijuana after an argument with his wife. Later, Marlowe is hired by rich Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) to find her husband, an alcoholic, Hemingway brawler sort of author named Roger Wade (an excellent Sterling Hayden). Marlowe thinks it curious that the Wades live in the same gated housing development as Terry Lennox. He is doubly curious in that Lennox’s wife has been murdered and the cops are after Terry. Also, vicious crook Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell) is somehow involved. The ending is still controversial (I don’t like it) but is part of the film’s continuing appeal. Look for former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a wordless, uncredited part as one of Augustine’s muscle men.



Ah-nold to Eliott Gould’s right





L.A. Confidential / Curtis Hanson (1997). A richly detailed period (post-war Los Angeles) crime drama which put two Australian actors on the radar. They are Guy Pearce as Ed Exley, a straight-arrow, fast-raising police officer son of a cop father killed on duty and Russell Crowe as Bud White, a take-justice-in-his-own-hands cop that Exley thinks is a thug (and he is). Exley is called to a shocking mass murder that looks gangland related at the Night Owl Diner. One of the eight victims was White’s former partner. Even though four African-Americans get blamed, Exley knows there is a power vacuum at the top of the criminal rackets and competition is fierce and deadly. His investigation leads him to a slimy pornographer and high-class pimp (David Strathairn) who runs a string of call girls who have had plastic surgery to make them look like movie stars. When one of them is a victim of the Night Owl killings, White begins to think in terms of a criminal conspiracy. Also in the mix is Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacy), a celebrity cop who is technical advisor on a Dragnet-like TV show and who works closely with the editor of Hush-Hush magazine (Danny DeVito), who exposes affairs and drug use of movie actors and whose catchphrase is “Off The Record, On The QT, And Very Hush-Hush.” All these strands come together very carefully and clearly as layer after layer of corruption is peeled back. Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her Veronica Lake look-a-like prostitute who falls in love with Bud White.






Bonhoeffer / Martin Doblmeier (2003). I saw a letter to the editor in my local newspaper recommending the documentary film “Bonhoeffer” as an alternative to Mel Gibson’s “Passion.” The next Saturday, a small story showed up in the Arts section pointing out that “Bonhoeffer” has been playing at the local art theater for three and a half months despite zero hype and advertising. It has become, the article said, a true example of success by word of mouth. For example, My Lovely Wife and I saw it the second week in, she told her pastor the next Sunday, then he saw it and told the entire congregation on Sunday a week later, and so on. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who spoke against the rise of Hitler and especially the deportation of Jewish citizens. He was arrested and executed in 1945, near the end of the war. Still an important figure in religious opposition to war and authoritarian rule. The opposite of today’s American evangelical movement. Highly recommended.





Gunpowder Milkshake / Navot Papushado (2021). The female assassin, revenger, spy has become a profitable industry in the new century and that’s fine with me. I have greatly enjoyed many of them, something of a guilty pleasure. “Gunpowder Milkshake,” however, relies heavily on a male assassin franchise, namely the John Wick movies. So, we have the underground society of criminals with their special places, rules, and codes. In GM there is an office building, a diner, and a library. (Don’t forget the famous scene where Wick kills an opponent with a library book.) Strict rules apply in all of them. There is considerable gunplay and one against many. They even include the bus load of thugs sent against the highly outnumbered protags. So why see this movie? Two words: Karen Gillan. And Lena Headey. And Angela Basset, Michelle Yeoh, and Carla Gugino. Well, more than two words. Gillan plays Sam, a pro-killer for The Firm, an assassin for hire business. Her Control is Nathan (Paul Giamatti, who has put on a lot of weight since I last saw him). Sam’s mother, Scarlet (Headey), has been gone for 15 years and Sam is bitter about it. On one assignment, she encounters a young girl (8 and three quarters years old), some kind of instinct kicks in making her abandon her mission. So The Firm betrays her to a violent mob leader who wants revenge after an earlier encounter. Sam, reunited with Scarlet, go to their “Aunts” (Basset, Yeoh, Gugino) at the Library for help leading to several bloody but stylized shoot-outs. In spite of the plot’s derivative nature, the new female star and the four veterans are worth the price of the ticket.