What classics did you see last week, July 3 to July 9?

The Neon Bible (1995):
A powerful, heartbreaking story of a teenage boy’s life in the rural south in the 1940s with great performances by everyone, especially Gena Rowlands and Diana Scarwid, and exceptional direction by Terence Davies. He has a powerful, unique personal vision, and I suspect this film will stay with me for a long time.



Sunset Song (2015):

Billy Elliot (2000):
Wonderful script, direction, performances. I loved it! Wish I’d seen it a long time ago. Nominated for three Oscars: best director (Stephen Daldry), best supporting actress (Julie Walters), and best original screenplay (Lee Hall). Highly recommended.



Our Daily Bread (1934):
An unemployed city couple default on their rent in the Great Depression and move to an abandoned family farm where they start a cooperative with many other families who are also out of work. Directed by King Vidor, with a screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it’s flawed film, but it’s also a fascinating and important one, a powerful reminder of what people went through during the Depression in America, especially in rural areas. It’s worth seeing for that -- and its humanity -- alone.



The Westerner (1940):
An excellent William Wyler western, with a superb, Oscar winning performance by Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean. Wyler began his career directing western shorts in the silent era, so he certainly knew what he was doing by the time he made this one.



Where The Red Fern Grows (1974):
Story of a young boy in the Ozark mountains of Oklahoma in the 1920s and his quest for his own coon hound hunting dogs.  James Whitmore, Beverly Garland, Jack Ging, and Stewart Peterson as the boy all give restrained, perfect performances. A moving, meaningful film that offers a lot more than the majority of present day family films, in my opinion.



Free Willy (1993):
A young boy finds redemption through the love of a whale. A very worthwhile film, well directed by Simon Wincer with solid performances by all the cast, especially young Jason James Richter in his debut. A solid reminder of the way humans and animals are connected.  A thoughtful and thought-provoking film for kids, too.


Now or Never (1921):
A delightful 36 minute Harold Lloyd short about a misguided train trip. I forgot how wonderful Lloyd is, so I will be watching more of him from now on. He made me laugh out loud multiple times in this film, no mean feat for me these days.



Re-watches:

The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann) (1924):
The story of an aging doorman at a Berlin hotel who is demoted and the toll that takes on his life. An F. W. Murnau masterwork, not only does it have a great performance by the wonderful, Oscar winning Emil Jannings, it has some of the most brilliant moving camera work in the silent era, before the days of dollies. Also, Murnau was able to convey the entire story without any inter-titles, only introductory and epilogue cards. A must-see for anyone interested in film history and film techniques.


Restored version:


Rio Grande (1950):
One of my favorite John Ford (and John Wayne) movies. There’s an honesty, simplicity and lyrical beauty to it that I’ve always admired. Also, I love Wayne and O’Hara together. And Claud Jarman Jr. is terrific as their son. 

Here are the movies Tele have seen lately:


RED 2010 directed by Robert Schwentke and based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis.
RED = Retired Extremely Dangerous
Something happened in the past so not to destroy a political career, CIA is misused to eliminate those who knows, and maybe it's not for political reasons at all. The plot keeps us guessing.
Fairly entertaining movie, with great actors. Helen Mirren with a machine gun!
Great small roll for a very old Ernest Borgnine too.


Prophecy 1979 directed by John Frankenheimer
Considering that a prominent director directed this it was a huge disappointment that I have to agree had potentials.
Nature strikes back with a big punch in the shape of a very huge abnormal bear, that we hardly see thanks to bad editing.
Takes place in Maine and trouble between Native Americans and a Paper Mill, and something the Mill used in the past to poison waters to create abnormal behavior, not only in bears but trees too.
It fails to create the needed tensions that even a horror movie like this needs.


Closely Watched Trains aka Ostre sledované vlaky 1966 directed by Jirí Menzel and based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal.
It won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and was part of the too short Prague Spring.
The story takes place around a small train station around 1944 when Czechoslovakia was occupied by Nazi Germany, and it's personel, especially young Milos Hrma and his love for a female train conductor, Mása, but also all other strange things happening around that station.
Not really my kind of movie but nice to have seen!


The Railway Station in Lodenice (Czech Republic) that was used in Closely Watched Trains 1966 still stands, and has become a sort of tourist attraction thanks to it's Oscar status.


The 7th Dawn 1964 directed by Lewis Gilbert and based on Michael Keon's novel "The Durian Tree".
This could have been great but somehow misses the mark to be a classic.
Malaysia straight after WWII was kept British, but in the 1950's the Guerrilla that fought the Japs has turned it's eyes towards Moscow (communism isn't mentioned) and keeps being a guerrilla to make Malaysia a communist state (it failed).
Holden plays a once soldier who stayed behind as a rubber plantation owner who tries to keep his nose outside any politics. and yet get's involved.
William Holden is one of my favorite actors.


Part of the plot of the above movie is hiding hand-grenades in a Durian fruit, known as a delicacy to eat but stinks like hell once opened or sliced into. With that in mind nobody could smuggle hand-grenades in a Durian fruit and not smell it, and play innocent.


The Trials of Oscar Wilde 1960 directed by Ken Hughes and based on a book by Montgomery Hyde and the play The Stringed Lute by John Furnell.
Weather things revealed in this movie is truth or not and it has a gay subject I still have to say it was a damn good movie.
The more I see Peter Finch I need to see more, a great actor lost to alcohol.
Since I watched a pristine copy I'm, joyous.
It gives the air when Wilde was on top (Lady Windermere's Fan) filled with champagne and beautiful women and men. Especially the young Lord of Queensberry (John Fraser) loudly opposed by the Marquis of Queensberry (Lionel Jeffries), who in rage writes a not that Wilde commits Sodomy. That little note makes Wilde stoically and foolhardy drag the Marquis to court without thinking of the consequences if he himself answers wrong....
James Mason appears at the first trial, billed as guest star.


Without Warning 1952 directed by Arnold Laven
A sort of CSI before Crime Scene Investigators was interesting. Just for that matter it was interesting to watch.
We follow a serial killer and a CSI team to track down that killer in parallel stories
Whoever sells floral secateurs and garden manure in the same shop minimalises who the killer might be.
The CSI bit was actually interesting, catching the serial killer was a bit too obvious


How much can crime scene detectives read out of those innocent feathers, apparently a damn lot.


Suspense 1946 directed by Frank Tuttle
Said to be Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures first million dollar movie.
Were they spend most of their money must have been in the Ice-skating scenes, and they are impressive if you like figure skating.
Hay I watched my first movie starring Belita! 
Figure-skating and noir, can they mix.
The story is not bad, a man from nowhere takes over Ice-capades revues, have feelings for the star skater before her husbands eyes, who dies at a ski resort, or did he....
Screen farewell of gravel voiced Eugene Pallette.


Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles was used as exteriors in the above movie, you might recognize it from other movies like Funny Lady 1975 and Xanadu 1980. It's a cool art-deco building that was in neglect for many years and burned down in 1989.





A root beer cheer until next week!

So that's why that song has been running through my head for the last hour!

I've never actually seen the film, so I didn't make a try at identifying it, but it must have crossed my mind without my realizing it. Anyway, thanks for solving my earworm mystery.  

“The Phantom of the Open”   Distributed by Entertainment One, 102 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released March 18, 2022:

During a summer ruled by big-ticket movies about jet airplanes and their pilots, dinosaurs walking the earth in modern times, and spaceship pilots flying at the speed of light, a true story about a small man with big dreams will cause hardly a blip on the Box Office Top Ten. But if good feelings translated into big bucks, “The Phantom of the Open” would be sitting at the top of the heap.

The people of Barrow-in-Furness in England mostly don’t chart their futures beyond the area’s coal mines and steelmaking industry. But the studious and unflaggingly optimistic crane operator Maurice Flitcroft tends to dream big. And when he happens to see television coverage of the 1975 British Open golf tournament, Flitcroft is unaccountably galvanized.

In pursuit of a dream, Flitcroft completes an entry form for the following year’s British Open. And through a series of bookkeeping errors and administrative misunderstandings, he’s invited to join the competition’s elimination round. So with his twin sons taking turns as his caddy, Maurice Flitcroft of Barrow-in-Furness finds himself competing among the world’s best golfers in the 1976 British Open…despite never having played golf before in his life.

Sometimes real life is even better than fiction, and British filmmakers seem to have a real flair for turning idiosyncratic true events into compelling motion picture entertainment. With echoes of such recent movies as “Dream Horse” and “The Duke,” “The Phantom of the Open” might be the most whimsically funny movie since the days of Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift. During an age in which humor often translates into slapstick, cruelty, and sarcasm, “The Phantom of the Open” steals the show by aspiring to nothing more than silliness.

Directed by Craig Roberts from a script by Simon Farnaby, adapted from Farnaby’s acclaimed 2010 biography of Maurice Flitcroft, “The Phantom of the Open” allows Academy Award-winning character actor Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) a role tailored to fit him like a custom-made pair of golf shoes. With a film persona that typically combines a scattered and eccentric demeanor with a wily intelligence, Rylance’s Maurice Flitcroft is a man who never allows common sense to stand in the way of his ambitions.

In a sporting competition governed by low numbers, Flitcroft manages to finish the British Open with a record 49-over-par 121, the most miserable score in the history of the tournament. Labeled “the world’s worst golfer” by an amused press, Flitcroft is banned for life from the prestigious Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrew, the home of the British Open. But following his personal credo of “practice is the road to perfection,” Flitcroft actually manages to gain entry to the following year’s tournament, aided by a ludicrous disguise and the pseudonym Gerard Hoppy.

As Flitcroft continues to pursue his unattainable goal of golfing excellence, he’s surprised to find himself becoming a sort of folk hero among golfing enthusiasts, an involuntary patron saint to weekend duffers and frustrated beginners the world over. The indefatigable Flitcroft and his family are actually promised first-class airline tickets and premium accommodations if he enters a golf tournament in the United States named in honor of the bewildered former crane operator--an event that frames the movie.

With an emphasis on Flitcroft’s blunt-force optimism versus the imperious authority and almost existential absurdity of archaic institutions, the picture sometimes resembles a real-life version of “Caddyshack.” The 1976 British Open becomes the opening round in a continuing game of cat and mouse between Rylance’s Flitcroft and the impossibly pompous manager of the St. Andrew Golf Club, played by the shape-shifting Welsh actor Rhys Ifans. The viewer can almost imagine Monty Python’s Michael Palin and John Cleese playing the roles…or even Stan and Ollie.

But in a movie filled with charming details and colorful characters, the most enchanting plotline is the lovingly supportive relationship shared by Flitcroft and his beautician wife Jean, played by the winsome Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”). Two imperfect people who never really fit in with others, Flitcroft and Jean find in each other their ideal mates, and carve out a corner of Happily Ever After that might be the envy of Prince Charming and Cinderella. It’s the kind of wonderfully authentic-feeling relationship that’s rarely found in modern movies.

Along the way, “The Phantom of the Open” provides a gentle sort of encouragement to dreamers everywhere. Even in a world filled with multi-episode galactic fantasies and multimillion-dollar blockbuster films about comic book superheroes, a little movie about a gentle dreamer will always be more than welcome. Despite Maurice Flitcroft’s dismal golf scores, “The Phantom of the Open” is a real winner. Check it out.

Footage of the real-life Maurice Flitcroft is included during the picture’s closing credits. After its premiere at the London Film Festival on October 12, 2021, “The Phantom of the Open” was released in the United States on June 3, and is now playing limited engagements at select theaters. Expect a release to Video On Demand by late July, followed by streaming on the Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ online platforms.

Filmed mostly at the Littlestone Golf Course in Kent, England, “The Phantom of the Open” is rated PG-13 for some strong language and scenes depicting smoking.


“See for Me”   Distributed by IFC Midnight Films, 92 Minutes, Not Rated, Released January 07, 2022:

There’s more than one surprise in store for viewers of “See for Me,” a clever little thriller from Canadian filmmaker Randall Okita and the folks at IFC Midnight Films now streaming on Sling TV. Virtually unseen in American theaters at the time of its original release in January, “See for Me” is a movie that takes the viewer places he’s not expecting to go.

In “See for Me,” former championship skier Sophie Scott (Skyler Davenport) has lived in a funk of self-pity ever since retinitis pigmentosa and visual impairment ended her dreams of Olympic glory. Rejecting the notion of competing in the Paralympics, Sophie lives with her sympathetic mom and scratches out an occasional living as a housesitter for the rich and famous, minding their palatial homes and household pets while the owners are away on business or pleasure.

When Sophie is hired on at the last minute as a temporary cat-sitter for a fabulously wealthy divorcee (Laura Vandervoort) who resides in a dream home in a remote and secluded corner of upstate New York, the last thing the former skier expects is a burglary. Unmindful of the young cat-sitter’s presence, professional thieves hired by the homeowner’s embittered ex-husband (Kim Coates) break into the dream home to rob a hidden safe containing the kind of cash that’s not reported to the IRS.

Sophie manages to quietly dial 911 and alert the police to the crime. But because of the home’s remote location and an unexpected winter storm, the cops might not be able to respond in time to save the day. So while Sophie desperately plays a game of hide and seek with the invaders, she also places a call to See For Me, a new smartphone app that connects a visually-impaired user with a sighted volunteer who uses the phone’s camera to view the caller’s surroundings and guide them along.

The See For Me volunteer answering Sophie’s call (Jessica Parker Kennedy) is uniquely suited to the task at hand: A Florida-based Gulf War veteran, the sighted guide is also a dedicated video game enthusiast who whiles away her spare time finding new ways to defeat online labyrinths. But complicating the See For Me volunteer's mission is an unexpected handicap: The sight-impaired Sophie is not above a bit of larceny herself.

Sometimes a movie sinks a hook into a viewer and reels him in so quickly and efficiently that all he can really do is to smile at the deception and go along with it. With skillful direction, intelligent writing, and persuasive acting, “See for Me” turns out to be a sharp and remarkably well-made little thriller that’ll envelop an audience and draw them in before springing traps they never saw coming. Lean and fast-moving at a spare 92 minutes, this is a movie that’ll literally leave a viewer breathless.

Directed by Canadian filmmaker and visual artist Randall Okita from an imaginative script by Adam Yorke and Tommy Gushue, “See for Me” quickly creates a compelling scenario that places the viewer into the shoes of a character who finds herself in a mortal situation…but is far from helpless. As the imperiled girl reaches out to her new See For Me friend for guidance, her heightened senses combined with her online guide's military cred and gaming smarts create a hybrid of the two, playing a game of cat and mouse in which the viewer's never sure which is which.

The movie’s only deficit is Skyler Davenport’s performance as Sophie. Querulous in her self-pity, sometimes speaking her lines so quickly that the viewer has to strain to understand the words, the young actress makes a character who’s not easy to like even more disagreeable. Visually impaired in real life, Davenport contributes a layer of authenticity to the drama (and the movie's to be lauded for treating Sophie's blindness as a character trait rather than a gimmick). But Davenport the actress sometimes treads a bumpy road before warming to her character in time for the third act.

Making up for Davenport’s shortcomings is Jessica Parker Kennedy as Kelly, the See For Me volunteer who becomes Sophie’s accidental guardian angel. Familiar to television viewers as the character Nora West-Allen on the comic-book-inspired weekly series “The Flash,” Kennedy's performance is the glue that holds the picture’s second half together. Simultaneously excited and terrified, Kennedy can’t quite keep out of her performance a hint of panache that suggests she’s also having more than a little fun with her new online game.

Based in part on Be My Eyes, an actual online app matching visually-impaired users with sighted volunteer guides, “See for Me” didn’t attract much attention in theaters but might just have a second life on online streaming services. Another little gem from IFC Midnight Films, “See for Me” like IFC Midnight’s other recent releases “Watcher” and “Hatching” feels a lot like an unexpected treasure. As exciting as any recent mega-budget star-studded big-screen thriller, “See for Me” is one buried treasure that’s genuinely worth a look. Check it out.

Filmed in Ontario, Canada in 2020 and also available for streaming as a pay-per-view event on Google Play, YouTube, and a handful of other online platforms, “See for Me” is not rated by the MPAA but is R in nature for language, violence, and adult situations.


“The Black Phone”   Distributed by Universal Pictures, 102 Minutes, Rated R, Released June 24, 2022:

The cryptkeepers at Blumhouse Productions score a rare bullseye with “The Black Phone,” a new chiller released across the United States and Canada on June 24. Unlike most of Blumhouse’s other recent pictures, “The Black Phone” relies more on brains than gore to make its point.

A serial killer known only as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) abducts young high school student Finney (Mason Thames) and locks him in the basement of the house he shares with his drug-addicted brother. But the emotionally disturbed killer doesn’t count on the boy’s psychic connection with his sister (Madeleine McGraw)…or the spirits of his past victims, who give young Finney guidance via a disconnected black phone still mounted on the wall of the house’s basement.

With echoes of “The Silence of the Lambs” and Stephen King’s “It,” “The Black Phone” turns out to be an unusually effective little psychological thriller from producer Jason Blum and the ghouls at Blumhouse Productions. With scenes featuring not so much the element of suspense as an almost unbearable strain of tension, the picture after a slow beginning really delivers the goods, moving forward and building momentum as it gallops toward a genuinely satisfying climax.

Directed by Scott Derrickson from a script he adapted with his “Dr. Strange” co-writer C. Robert Cargill from writer Joe Hill’s short story of the same title, despite performances by Jeremy Davies as Finney’s ineffectual dad and a surprisingly creepy Ethan Hawke as the masked serial killer the picture turns into a showcase for 14-year-old Mason Thames as Finney. Much of the film’s second half is essentially a solo turn by the young actor as Finney bargains with both his abductor and the disembodied spirits on the phone in a desperate effort to survive.

Distributed by Universal Pictures to some 3100 movie theaters across North America, “The Black Phone” is a real roller-coaster thrill ride for horror fans who prefer their chills with more brains than blood. With excellent pacing, intelligent writing, and powerful acting, “The Black Phone” is the rare Blumhouse picture that really packs a punch.

The mask worn by serial killer The Grabber was created by the iconic Pittsburgh-based special makeup effects artists Tom Savini and Jason Baker at Pittsburgh’s Callosem Studios. Writer Joe Hill. the author of the original story on which “The Black Phone” is based, is the oldest son of horror icon Stephen King--and it shows.

Filmed in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, “The Black Phone” is rated R for violence, bloody images, language, and some drug use.



“Elvis” Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, 159 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released June 24, 2022:

There’s a scene in “Elvis,” filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s new film biography of legendary American entertainer Elvis Presley, in which the young Elvis (Austin Butler) makes his very first appearance on the nationally broadcast “Louisiana Hayride” radio show in 1954.

As the young singer stalks nervously toward the microphone at the center of the stage, a member of the audience shouts a sexual epithet toward him and suggests he get a haircut. Elvis stares silently into the packed auditorium for a moment, gazing with smoky eyes toward his tormentor. Then he leans forward, strikes a chord on his guitar, opens his mouth to sing, and changes the course of musical history.

“In that moment,” the Dutch-accented Colonel Parker (Tom Hanks) intones portentously in a voice-over narration, “Elvis the man was sacrificed, and Elvis the god was born.”

To many Americans, the story of Elvis Presley--and by association the plot of Baz Luhrmann’s movie “Elvis”--is as familiar as the legend of Johnny Appleseed. Raised in poverty in the American South, a young singer from Tupelo, Mississippi combines the sweaty spirituality of tent-show evangelism with the pungent sensuality of backwoods rural blues joints to produce a hybrid of country music, rock ‘n roll, and soul that sets the entertainment world on fire.

But as his music becomes more and more popular, his legend begins to grow, and an endless stream of money begins to roll into his coffers (and just as quickly out), Elvis Presley learns that success comes with a steep price…a lesson that becomes especially clear when he falls under the influence of carnival sideshow huckster turned show business promoter Colonel Tom Parker.

Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann is a Picasso of modern film. He paints impressionistic cinematic artworks that explode onto the movie screen in a cacophony of colors and images to evoke the emotions or the image he wishes to convey. Like Ken Russell during the 1970s, Luhrmann doesn’t direct straight dramatic narrative pictures so much as he creates colorful visual mosaics to represent lives, stories, and historical events.

In his signature picture, the 2001 musical drama “Moulin Rouge,” Luhrmann included on the music soundtrack a number of contemporary pop tunes--a deliberate stylistic anachronism in a film set in 1900 that somehow fit into the narrative as easily as the lightbulb falling from the sky in Picasso’s primitive “Guernica.” The artistic license was inaccurate to the historical drama of “Moulin Rouge” only in the sense that, say, “The Godfather” was inaccurate because actual murders were not committed during the production.

Luhrmann attempts much the same cinematic legerdemain in “Elvis.” Juxtaposing some of the events in Elvis’ life, omitting others, and fudging a few more outright (in this telling, Elvis enlists in the US Army in 1958 to avoid imprisonment for violating local obscenity statutes with his gyrating hips). Still, the film in its own way might be the most accurate film portrayal yet of the impact the young Elvis generated when he exploded into the national consciousness during the 1950s.

During the scene set in 1954 at the broadcast of “Louisiana Hayride,” director Luhrmann evokes in living, hip-swiveling, gyrating color a little of the cultural explosion the young singer achieved in his early prime among spectators, disciples, detractors, critics, and millions and millions of frenzied, screaming teenage fans. As Elvis performs, we see what the audiences saw during the 1950s: A sneering, sexy devil in a pink silk shirt, unbridled, undiluted sexuality in a burst of pastel colors, especially startling during a repressive age governed by dusty saints in grey flannel suits.

Much of the impact of “Elvis”--the movie--can be attributed to the performance by the 30-year-old Austin Butler. Best known for his role as Manson Family member Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Butler contributes to “Elvis” a portrayal that’s almost, but not quite, uncanny, the result of two years of hard work and endless rehearsal rather than any sort of artistic alchemy. The actor never attempts to recreate Elvis' signature sneer because his entire characterization is an insouciant sneer, particularly during the second half of the picture.

By contrast, Tom Hanks as Elvis’ carnival sideshow-educated Colonel Tom Parker is a wily old fraud, a refugee from “Nightmare Alley,” half W.C. Fields and half Satan. Buried beneath a mountain of prosthetic makeup and a fat suit that makes him resemble The Penguin in a Batman picture and costumed in outfits that look like castoffs from “The Sopranos,” Hanks in some scenes is only recognizable at all by the mischievous twinkle in his eye. It’s a twinkle made startling by his character’s unadorned greed, his lusty relish for exploiting corruption in all its forms.

Unfortunately, when we get past filmmaker Luhrmann’s stylistic flourishes and the film’s colorful central performances, “Elvis” turns out to be little more than a standard motion picture biography. Overlong at 159 minutes, the film lacks a third act because Elvis’ life lacked a third act. Like the singer’s legend, Luhrmann’s film is populated with ifs--if Elvis had only toured overseas, if Elvis had only starred in 1969’s “True Grit” or 1977’s “A Star is Born,” if Luhrmann’s film had only ended with the singer’s 1968 TV special or his 1969 Las Vegas debut.

The movie’s final half-hour is actually painful to watch, as Colonel Parker sells Presley’s soul to Las Vegas’ spanking new International Hotel, practically signing the contract in Elvis’ blood and sweat. Eventually the singer’s spirit dissolves, replaced with an alternating cycle of mad dog rage and narcotic haze until by his final performances he’s a grotesque parody of himself. Porcine, pallid, and perspiring, by the final scenes it’s difficult to tell for sure whether we’re seeing Elvis in actual newsreel footage or actor Butler’s near-astonishing simulation.

“Elvis” is worth seeing for the two performances at the picture’s center--just don’t expect to emerge from a screening with a smile on your face and a song in your heart. For those viewers unfamiliar with the legend, the picture’s a colorful scrapbook of Elvis’ life and times, a portrait of the man and what he meant to American culture. But to the faithful, the movie will probably be little more than a potent reminder of how much we still miss the real thing.

“Elvis” is the movie Tom Hanks was working on in Australia when he contracted Covid-19 in March 2020. Filmed in Queensland, Australia, “Elvis” is rated PG-13 for scenes of substance abuse and smoking, strong language, suggestive material, and adult content.


“Lightyear”   Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 110 Minutes, Rated PG, Released June 17, 2022:

In the new Disney/Pixar release “Lightyear,” there’s a scene in which the title character, Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear, returns from an extended mission into hyperspace to learn that his planet-bound partner and best friend has died in his absence.

As Lightyear is standing in his friend’s vacated office among the packed-up and boxed remains of her life and career, he notices among the mementos a photograph of the two of them standing together during younger and happier days. Lightyear’s friend had apparently kept the photo on her desk while he was gone.

And as the audience is still examining the picture and imagining the circumstances in which it was taken, a single teardrop falls onto the old photograph. The expression on Lightyear’s face is never revealed and his eyes are never shown--just the solitary teardrop falling onto the photograph.

And that’s part of the quality that distinguishes a Disney/Pixar movie from their many imitators: Occasionally a Pixar film will show the audience the tools of a scene and then reveal the aftermath, inviting the audience to imagine what occurred in the narrative to connect the two. In that way, the viewer becomes almost a participant in the picture instead of just a member of the audience, a notion that’s especially attractive to younger audience members.

Framed as the movie the child Andy saw prior to the events of 1995’s “Toy Story” that inspired him to pester his mom for a spanking-new Buzz Lightyear doll to supplant the aging cowboy Woody toy, “Lightyear” details the early adventures of the young Space Ranger.

After being marooned on an inhospitable planet with his commander and crew while on a mission to colonize the galaxy, young Buzz tries to find a means to transport his friends and colleagues back home to Earth. While testing a new mixture of fuel in an attempt to re-enter hyperspace, Buzz is transported some 84 years into the future.

Lightyear discovers to his dismay that the future descendants of his friends and colleagues are being ruled by a force of robots led by the evil Emperor Zurg…who might just have something startling in common with the young Space Ranger.

A sort-of prequel to Disney/Pixar’s four blockbuster “Toy Story” pictures, “Lightyear” borrows a page from the Jay Ward book of animation to craft a feature-length barrel of laughs that’s every bit as funny as any episode of “Rocky and Bullwinkle” or “George of the Jungle”...and in much the same way. Combining an engaging silliness with a joyfully anarchic spirit and a lovably colorful cast of characters, “Lightyear” is not only a worthy addition to the Pixar canon, but also one of the best comedies of this year.

That’s not to say “Lightyear” is short of the sentiment and moral lessons for which both Disney and Pixar are often noted. Those qualities are present too--you’d miss them if they weren't. The movie’s cast of characters is also wonderfully--and refreshingly--rainbow-colored. Still, it's the silliness and gentle satire that take center stage in “Lightyear” rather than the sentiment or the morality. Combined with the peerless animation of the Pixar Studios, the result is a surefire antidote for the blues, a two-hour respite from life’s troubles.

Among the voice cast, Chris Evans (Marvel’s “Captain America”) supplants comic actor Tim Allen as the delightfully obtuse Buzz Lightyear. Keke Palmer is Izzy Hawthorne, Buzz’s sidekick and granddaughter of his former space partner. Dale Soules is sidesplitting as the Joe Pesci-inspired senior citizen career criminal space cadet Darby Steel, while former TV heartthrob James Brolin is warm and folksy as the evil Emperor Zurg. And that’s SNL’s man of a thousand voices Bill Hader as the doltish space program cadet Featheringhamstan.

With warp-speed direction from Angus MacLane and a sharp and surprisingly satiric and even subversive script from MacLane and freshman screenwriter Jason Headley, “Lightyear” might be the first Disney/Pixar feature that’ll be enjoyed more by the adults in the audience than their kids (at the screening I attended, the small kids in the audience were growing noticeably restless at about the 85-minute mark). If you're tuned into its particular wavelength, “Lightyear” is a genuine hoot from start to finish. Check it out.

The rare Disney/Pixar feature that’s not preceded with an animated short subject, “Lightyear” is rated PG for scenes of action and peril.

Watched most of Terence Davies' films earlier this year. Really liked them, especially the truly unique earlier works (Trilogy, Distant Voices Still Lives, and The Long Day Closes). The Neon Bible is one of the ones I've yet to see.