Movies I've seen recently but haven't gotten around to writing about: Antonioni's Il Deserto rosso (1964; Red Desert), which I couldn't be bothered to finish; same goes for Richard Lester's Petulia (1968).

Go Fish (1994), a weak movie about lesbians; there wasn't quite enough to flesh out the time, but at least I could finish it. It was better than the Magical Mystery Tour, which I really wished I could see when it came out in 1967. I can't say I missed much. Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957), which was a little tiresome, showing its roots as a play; I can't remember which movie I've seen Richard Widmark in, but it was odd seeing him as the silly dauphin instead of the criminal. I wonder if Jean Seberg got her short hair from this, her first role.

Then again, Les Enfants terribles (1950), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville from Jean Cocteau's adaptation of his own novel was also so talky it seemed like a play. I found it a little over-wrought. The same goes for Chabrol's Le Boucher (1970; The Butcher). The Coen brothers' Blood Simple (1984) was OK, but again, a little over-wrought.

Frances McDormand sure was striking 20 years ago. Every time I see her I think of the exchange from The Man Who Wasn't There, when they talk about getting married:
The man says, "Maybe we should wait until we know each other better."
McDormand's character says drily, "Does it get any better than this?"

Chaplin's Modern Times (1936); it seemed pretty slight, since I'd seen the poster of his factory worker caught in the machine just about forever. The part of the movie not devoted to the factory just wasn't that good. Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) was OK, but it dragged a little for me. Someone sneered at it for being propaganda. I suppose if it's anti-government, then it's OK. Papillon (1973), with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman was pretty good. To say that it hasn't aged badly is probably to show my age.

Nagisa Oshima's Seishun zankoku monogatari (1960, Cruel story of youth; I saw his Ai no corrida when it came out in 1976; hey, it really does mean "Bullfight of Love", even if we called it Empire of the Senses). As far as I'm concerned, a couple of rebellious teenagers get what they deserve. Even as a teen I never did get all this yearning for freedom/true love stuff. So it's no surprise I didn't think much of Leonardo DiCaprio's Rimbaud or David Thewlis' Verlaine in Agnieszka Holland's Total Eclipse (1995). Even though they were a couple of real turds, it looked like Holland thought they were really something. Still, the film was well-done, if you could get by the horrible way they behaved.