The movies we've seen over the past couple of weeks:

Matchmaker (1997) was pretty awful; Janeane Garofalo was miscast, but the real problem was the dumb script. Yet we had to watch it to the end.

Eugene O'Neill's Desire under the elms (1958) wasn't bad. It was interesting to see Sophia Loren so young, and Burl Ives not as his usual avuncular self. We didn't have a TV when Bonanza was on, so although Pernell Roberts looked really familiar, I couldn't place him. Somehow Anthony Perkins seemed to be getting ready for Psycho. Loving his mother figure too much, ya know. But the behavior of Sophia Loren's character seemed too unlikely.

I never think of myself as a fan of Spike Lee, but his She's gotta have it (1986) was like the other movies of his that I've seen so far, really watchable. It was odd to see S. Epatha Merkerson looking pretty good. It's funny to realize that a minor character on a TV show can have a big career elsewhere. Not to be cruel, but she should lose a little weight.

I think I refused to watch Coming home (1978) when it came out, because I had somehow contracted a dislike of Bruce Dern. I don't know why now; he was OK. It's easy to see how Hanoi Jane in particular wanted to teach that the war destroyed every American who went. Although that indeed became the mythology, I don't think that's actually true, so that was annoying. Still, it's not a bad movie.

We just watched a little of D.W. Griffith's Broken blossoms or, the yellow man and the girl (1919). I had forgotten that it actually has some Chinese actors in it. We watched up until the part where Lillian Gish tries to force a smile.

Before sunrise (1995) was pretty dumb; we watched about 2/3 of it and then looked for something else, which turned out to be Eric Rohmer's Le Genou de Claire (Claire's knee; 1970), which I may have actually seen when it came out; at least the title made a big impression on me. In our library collection, it's next in line after Before sunrise, which seemed like a poor imitation of it, but we didn't feel like watching the whole thing.

The first videocassette of Gone with the wind had something wrong with it, so I still haven't seen that.

I believed someone who once dismissed Orson Welles as over-rated, but The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) was probably my favorite among all of these, even if there was a little missing. (Of course I knew that because the video had to tell me that). I've got to mention Agnes Moorehead . Even though I didn't watch that much TV, I seem to remember an awful lot of it.

Update I don't think much of the pronouncements of either Janeane Garofalo or Jane Fonda, but I like to watch them act, even if Janeane's range is pretty narrow.

And I also forgot to mention Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Shirley Booth's pathetic "Are you mad at me, Daddy?" echoes my mother's relationship with my father (not that he's an alcoholic). And TV again: Shirley Booth wasn't much different from her annoying Hazel. It was OK, but the symbolism of the lost dog was a little heavy-handed. I seem to remember the character in some hard-boiled novel sneering "Come Back, Little Sheba" in some forgotten context. I've got a feeling it's Raymond Chandler, who I did not realize had serious alcohol problems. Hey, I've got an idea! Let's make it illegal!