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Absolutely terrible film in which absolutely nothing happens. Tilda Swinton stars as both the annoying mother and daughter in this stupid ghost story. It's obvious from the moment they appears what the "hook" is.

Annoying pretentious "filmmaker" goes to an ugly country hotel with her "mother" and has a mental breakdown. They spend most of their time lying in bed or laboring over ordering meals from a menu with four items on it. A dripping faucet is more interesting.

The hotel receptionist is rude and would be fired in an instance. It's no wonder the dog gets second billing.

How does crap like this get financed?

After the original movie in 2000 and a short-lived TV series in 2008, we get another installment and catch up on the loony characters in Winters, TX.

Many of the original stars are back and some are not. Coming off best is Leslie Jordan as the Tammy Wynette-obsessed drag queen who returns home for a wedding.

The plot centers on gay marriage and the hypocrisy of bible thumpers and ends in a double wedding. Very good are Bonnie Bedelia, Ann Walker, Carole Cook, Dale Dickey, and Newell Alexander.

The big surprise is Scott Presley as Roger the local hairdresser, who brings a touch of sad wistfulness as he finally fights back against the hateful christians who try to ban gays from their stores. It's a fine moment when he kicks a bunch of hateful women out of his salon. Another sad note is that Sharon Hunley (who plays the funny/dippy Juanita) didn't live to see the film released.

Emerson Collins plays the get-away serial killer. Rosemary Newell returns as the evil psychiatrist. Kirk Geiger also returns as the gay son about to be married. There's also a special guest star in the finale.

Leslie Jordan is always a joy to watch, but Scott Presley steals the show.

Another of the Vitagraph films shot in Maine during the summer of 1911 and starring Florence Turner, Leo Delaney, and Jean the Vitagraph Dog.

Plot has Turner engaged to nasty old William Humphrey. He and Jean dislike each other. What to do? Then one day Jean runs into Delaney on the beach and they play with each other. But Humphrey wants no part of either one them.

Later, when Delaney goes swimming, he develops a cramp and is drowning. As spectators gather on the beach, only Jean is brave enough to go into the ocean to save him.

The trio of Jean, Florence, and Leo were hugely popular in the early years of film, and audiences especially loved these series of seaside comedies and dramas they made in Maine in 1910 and 1911.

A rare show where just about every cop therein is unlikable. Here we have a collection of drunks, drug addicts, racists, woman haters, homophobes. Sex addicts ... not to mention the liars and vicious beasts and the female who made sex tapes.

They go unchecked by the law or by superiors in their department.

And are we supposed to see them as victims? The cops played by Scott, Vanderham, Elliot and in season 1 Sives should have all been fired and decertified to keep them from EVER being on a police force anywhere.

And the scenes with Scott and his "therapist" are downright insulting.

The only character who comes off as human and believable is the one played by Ken Stott.

Blithe Spirit (1945) has been beautifully restored (a few years back) to all its Technicolor glory.

It's a witty drawing room comedy about ghosts by Noel Coward and while it was a hit on London and New York stages it apparently didn't score well with 1945 moviegoers. Anyway, Coward's snappy witty dialog remains intact in this film directed by David Lean.

It stars Rex Harrison as the callow husband who's married to his second wife (Constance Cummings) but still fondly recalls his first wife (Kay Hammond) who died some years before. At a supper at their country home, they have invited a local eccentric called Madame Arcati (a glorious Margaret Rutherford) and another couple (Joyce Carey, Hugh Wakefield) to perform a seance which they think will be jolly fun.

But they get more than they bargained for when old Arcati summons the ghost of the first wife who instantly starts nagging Harrison and makes Cummings jealous. Seems she's also lonely on "the other side" and wants some company and so sets about to get some. For most the story, Hammond is present on stage, wearing greenish make-up (rather than being special effects or being superimposed).

The stars are in top form but Rutherford steals the show. Jacqueline Clarke co-stars as the dim maid.

Ludicrous casting of Gene Kelly as the one-armed drifter Triplet (Shiftlet in Flannery O'Connor's story) has him hopelessly out of his depth in this watered down drivel.

Agnes Moorehead as the devious mother and Janice Rule as the bride try hard but can't overcome the silly script.

Plot has the drifter conning the mother into letting him take her car and child-like daughter whom he promptly dumps at a roadhouse diner. But the script misses O'Conner's wicked wit and the fact that the mother actually cons him into taking the daughter off her hands.

Kelly was never much of an actor and this kind of complex character is so far over his head it's not funny. Even worse than Kelly is the altered ending which makes the whole story pointless.

O'Connor hooted and howled over how bad this tv production was and never sold another thing to tv or the movies in her lifetime.

The film is a melding of Flannery O'Connor's life with several of her stories as she labors to write after a diagnosis of Lupus. She's living on her mother's Georgia farm but corresponding with her editor in New York. While she writes her novel "Wise Blood" she also churns out a bunch of short stories.

Maya Hawke is excellent as O'Connor and several of the characters in the stories as is Laura Linney as the mother and several characters in the stories. The film is directed and co-written by Ethan Hawke.

When I was still teaching American Short Stories classes I would always xerox off a few O'Connor stories and Robert McAlmon's "The Jack Rabbit Drive" to add to the book we had to use. The film recreates a few scenes from O'Connor's story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," and I remembered from reading biographical material that she had sold this story and a TV adaptation was made and how she howled in disbelief that they miscast Gene Kelly as the main character.

Well, good old Youtube sports this 26-minute horror with Gene Kelly as Tom Triplett (it's Shiftlet in the story) the one-armed handyman who comes upon the dirt farm of Mrs Crater and her daughter Lucy Nell. Agnes Moorehead and Janice Rule play the women. The ending is totally changed (and ruined) by the Schlitz Playhouse adaptation. The role is totally out of Kelly's depth (Kelly was never a very good actor). O'Connor never sold another story to be filmed in her lifetime.

Anyway, Wildcat is well worth tracking down even if you're not familiar with O'Connor's singular world view.

Annoying show that makes little sense. A pack of dubious "renovators" compete by dismantling beach houses and re-designing them. They work in teams and get judged by "experts" on their work.

The main problem is that the work they do is TERRIBLE. Bad carpentry, bad tiling, horrible designs, etc. The goal is to add value to the house but they spend their budget on design crap that is irrelevant to the value of the home.

Hanging pictures on a wall and buying floor lamps adds ZERO to the appraised value of the home.

On top of this the contestants themselves do nothing but whine and complain about having to do the work.

WIDE PASS ON THIS ONE.

Summer Camp (2024) is the latest dreadful film from Diane Keaton. This one is a total mess.

Yet another one of the old lady reunions, this time it's a reunion at a summer camp where, 60 years before, three gawky girls became friends. Wow. Over the next century they've grown apart. Wow. They all come back to camp and become friends again. Wow.

Keaton plays a PhD head of a research company ... but of course she's still the usual Keaton ditz. Kathy Bates plays a tough self-help guru with no private life, and Alfre Woodard plays a head nurse in a dead marriage. None of this really matters because at camp they flirt with the boys they knew 60 years before and have food fights and obsess about what they're going to wear. Written and directed by a 30-year-old female, these characters are totally stupid and unbelievable.

Bates and Woodard try but the material stinks. Keaton is especially irritating with all the same schtick from her Annie Hall days. There's also Eugene Levy and Dennis Haysbert and Beverly D'Angelo. By the book and boring.

Hideously amateurish rip off of Only Murders in the Building.

A Hollywood writer out of work for over a year and his actress wife ... also unemployed --- live in a high-rise condo. They hit upon the idea of live streaming their time in their living room (she calls it a lounge) so they can make some money. Luckily, a neighbor on their floor gets shot dead so they decide to invite each neighbor over for cocktails so they can question them about the killing. Of course each neighbor is a bizarro eccentric so each one can seem a potential killer. I never heard of any of these actors. The leading man looks about 45 but claims to be 29 .... How LA!

To add insult to injury, the film is dedicated to Nick and Nora Charles.

Leatrice Joy stars in this drama directed by Donald Crisp and produced by Cecil B. DeMille.

Joy plays an incredibly spoiled San Francisco heiress whose days are filled with being pampered by her staff, shopping, partying. World War I is raging and her boyfriend (Charles Ray) is about to go to war. She feels she should "do her bit," so she joins a sort of USO and puts on shows. Here's where she meets Dan Morgan (Alan Hale).

Time passes and Ray returns from war wounded. He wants to get married and Joy agrees, but after she accidentally runs into Morgan again, she stupidly agrees to meet him on this boat on the eve of her wedding. She knows it'll be her last chance at a fling.

She gets more than she bargained for when Morgan tries to attack her and his crazed cook (Noble Johnson) tries to join in.

The film co-stars Mayme Kelso as the mother and Helen Lee Worthing as the maid with sticky fingers.

A very enjoyable almost completely comic (that turns dramatic) film about an aging Mariette Hartley who decides to try computer dating and after a few duds meets Jerry Sroka (also an actor). Apparently it's loosely based on their own lives and they play themselves, as do most of the characters in the film.

Hartley plays an actress still plugging along in Hollywood but pretty must at the end of her career, while Sroka plays a small-part actor who's never really made it, gets a job here and there. They are totally mismatched and totally destined for one another (and married in real life).

A few others show up as themselves. Morgan Fairchild and Tess Harper show up for an audition. Bernie Kopell is a friend as are Don Scardino (who directs the film) and Lloyd Bremseth (who now owns a bird store). The story takes a sharp turns after Hartley experiences a medical emergency.

Written by Hartley and Sroka. Very enjoyable.

Not to Forget (2021) is a really bad film about a "millennial" who gets sentenced to a month with his grandmother in Kentucky. The old lady is suffering from alzheimer's disease. When he discovers she is rich and owns land, he summons his dumb friends and they try to cook up a scheme to grab her money and property. Easily one of the worst films I've ever seen. The low point may be when the grandson dresses up in jesus drag to try to get the old lady to say where the key to the safe is. And no it's not supposed to be funny.

Five, count them, five Oscar winners appear in this mess. Lou Gossett plays a local minister who spouts bible passages at the drop of a hat. Olympia Dukakis plays the judge. Cloris Leachman plays a hair salon customer. Tatum O'Neal plays the local doctor. George Chakiris plays the ancient banker. Career lows for all of them. Aside from Gossett, this is the final film appearance for the others.

Karen Grassle plays the old grandma. Never heard of any of the young actors and they are all terrible.

RKO 281 (1999) started life as a planned grand film with a mega-star cast but eventually dwindled to a TV movie made in England. As such it was a critical hit in its day, wracking up Emmy and Golden Globes nominations and wins. I pretty much hated it.

It's the story of the making of CITIZEN KANE from Orson Welles' viewpoint. So of course Welles is the driven but innocent genius (played by Liev Schreiber) who rescues Herman Mankiewicz (John Malkovich) and bravely insists he get co-writing credit after a secretary or someone carelessly omitted his name from the front page of the script. That sounds like Welles, who had a track record of always blaming someone or something for his own ego.

The studio heads, from Mayer to Disney (?) are portrayed as a bunch of dopes. William Randolph Hearst (James Cromwell) is played as a tinpot despot (despot maybe, tinpot never) who reigns over MGM's Mayer (David Suchet) and badgers Louella Parsons (Brenda Blethyn) as though she were a scullery maid. And then there's the worst portrayal of Marion Davies I've ever seen.

Here we have Melanie Griffith playing Davies as Judy Holliday played Billie Dawn ... a voice that Davies never had. Here we have Davies as a caged animal held captive in a castle, bemoaning to Carole Lombard all she ever wanted to do was comedy but Hearst never let her do comedy (hence the many great comedy performances). This Davies is a powerless cluck. The irony here is that while the movie bemoans Welles' assassination of Davies' reputation as a woman and actress via Susan Alexander, the movie itself portrays Davies as a brainless pawn in a king's castle.

Others in the film include Roy Scheider as RKO's George Schaefer, Fiona Shaw as Hedda Hopper, Liam Cunningham as Gregg Toland. And while I didn't like the film much I will say that Cromwell and Malkovich gave good performances.

The film re-hashes the old baloney (now debunked) about Thomas Ince's death, perpetuates the "rosebud" myth (which I for one don't buy since it was a snide joke initiated by drunks), shows Hearst and Davies screening KANE (highly doubtful, Davies always insisted she never saw it), has them dancing in an empty castle after Hearst is forced to liquidate (never happened, he sold off stuff from his warehouses), and has Parsons fleeing a screening of the film halfway thru only to report to Hearst what the ending of the film was (was she clairvoyant?). This version also has Welles as a dinner guest at San Simeon in 1939 or 40 which never happened. Welles himself claimed he only ever met Hearst once ... in an elevator.

Stick with the 2020 film MANK.

Unfrosted (2024) is a kitschy, fun comedy from Jerry Seinfeld (director and star) about the rivalry between cereal giants Kellogg and Post and the creation of the pop tart.

Being a Seinfeld project, almost everything gets lampooned including corporate culture, American eating habits, politics, advertising, television, news and everything else. Breezy and watchable but don't expect a classic. Everyone involved seems to be having a ball. Co-stars include Melissa McCarthy, Hugh Grant, Amy Shumer, Jim Gaffigan, Christian Slater and many familiar faces.

I wonder if all those vintage cars are from Jerry's private collection? Especially the Imperial and the Corvair station wagon.

This had potential but the pacing kills it right off the bat. They talk and talk and talk and nothing happens. And then they repeat the talking and plot points ad nauseum.

Whole episodes go by and nothing happens.

The characters are annoying and unlikable. And what's with the CGI faces of these old actors?

Kristine Whig seems to be in every scene. There's no relief from her. The acting in general is lousy, and the entire whale scene is stupid and disgusting.

The women are a bunch of parasites and we're supposed to find them amusing? And what's with the group of frumps in the book store?

Total waste of time.

Wallace Reid stars as a wealthy ne'er-do-well who wants to marry Wanda Hawley, but her big shot father (Theodore Roberts) won't have an idler as a son-in-law. So he makes Reid a bet. If Reid can get a job and not be fired for 30 days, he'll agree to the marriage. Sounds easy, huh? A subplot has fellow suitor (Henry Woodward) in league against Roberts' big upcoming business merger and so hires some thugs to break into his safe and steal some important papers.

Anyway, the thrust of the story has Reid getting a series of jobs. First up he's hired on as a typist and given a stack of letters to respond to. Of course he can't type but he bails before he can be fired. Next up he's hired as a xylophone player in night-club band ... he causes mayhem and and again bails before he can be fired.

Finally he gets a job wearing a suit of armor at a snooty restaurant where Hawley, Roberts, and Woodward are dining. Somehow Reid gets the papers from the thugs and saves the day after causing mayhem in the restaurant. But just as he is about to be fired, a grateful Roberts stalls the owner for 30 seconds until the bet is off and Reid succeeds in not being fired before midnight of the 30th day.

Running 40 minutes, it seems that at least 10 minutes is missing, maybe a chunk of the opening reel and bits and pieces here and there. The Russian intertitles don't help.

Co-stars Lillian Mason as the society matron, Raymond Hatton as the band leader, William Lesta as the restaurant owner. Directed by James Cruze. Reid is breezy and funny and Hawley is a very pretty leading lady.

This British quota quickie stars Jimmy Hanley as a young guy who turns to boxing to make some money. Of course he doesn't realize he's signed a contract with a crooked manager.

He's trying to help his parents (Mary Clare, Edward Rigby) and his sister (Phyllis Stanley) who's desperate to get married (to Michael Wilding) but needs money to set up housekeeping. But Hanley is so green he doesn't understand the crookedness and that he's being set up to make a name for himself only to be forced (by contract) to take a fall in a big match while the manager places bets on the other boxer. The fix is in.

The manager has also set his floozie (Nan Hopkins) on Hanley to lead him astray and get him away from his girlfriend (Jill Furse). But the heat is really turned up when Wilding steals the payroll where Phyllis Stanley works and so Hanley decides to accept the big match he's supposed to throw .... but he ain't gonna throw it.

A real slam bang finale is a highlight as Hanley determines to win the bout while the manager brings in a gang of thugs to break up the arena and stop the fight. Hanley is terrific. He was a major juvenile star in British films of the 1930s and 40s. Too bad he seems to be largely forgotten now.

Say It with Diamonds (1927) is a fun marital comedy mix-up starring the great Betty Compson as a wife who suspects her husband (Earle Williams) is cheating on her because of a mix-up in gifts.

He's bought her a Spanish comb studded with diamonds but when playboy Armand (Armand Kaliz) explains that Betty has bobbed hair and the comb won't work, he buys it off Williams to give to HIS girlfriend (Jocelyn Lee). Unfortunately Betty has already seen the comb. So when Williams presents her with a "tiara" she thinks something's up. And when they all meet in a restaurant and Lee is wearing the comb, she's REALLY suspecting something is up.

The mix-up goes on from there. Compson and Lee are just plain stunning in this film, dressed in the latest flapper fashions and showing off their legs. Kaliz is surprisingly funny as the playboy who gets trapped in his own trap. Williams (in his last role) has the boring part of the dull husband.

The Broken Silence (1922) is another of the Pine Tree Pictures productions filmed in Maine 1921-23. Based on a story by James Oliver Curwood and directed by Dell Henderson, it's a complicated plot about murder and revenge in the Canadian wilderness.

Zena Keefe stars as Jeanne Marat, a young woman living with her husband (Jack Hopkins) in a remote and wintry Canadian location. A local Mounty (Robert Elliott) has a crush on her. She's visited daily by an old priest and an old Cree Indian named Joe who's always snooping around. At the local Mounty base, the Inspector (J. Barney Sherry) calls for the priest to confess an old crime he committed and in flashback we get the story.

Twenty-five years before he lusted after a woman (Gypsy O'Brien) who was married and had two kids. In a blind rage of jealousy he kills her husband so she can be free to marry him but she commits suicide instead. After he tells the story to the priest he's shot dead and someone sees Keefe running away.

When confronted, Hopkins claims he did the shooting, but Keefe claims she did it. Then the truth comes out that they are mot married ... they are brother and sister and that Indian Joe has been watching over them all these years and that the Inspector was indeed the man responsible for their parents' deaths.

A review in the Portland Evening Express recalls that a sequence was filmed during the "famous freak blizzard of April 1" and that the film captures its "awe-inspiring fury."

The story is too much for a 52-minute film. I suspect there may be some missing bits. Zena Keefe is an attractive leading lady.

Sanitized and trivial look at a group of friends in LA who moan about their sex lives while they party and go to the gym and you know, hang out.

There's not a whisper of AIDS, homophobes, right-winger politics, or gay bashers. The sun shines every day and their worst problems seem to be picking out what clothes to wear with their baggy old-man jeans. And they talk and talk and talk.

The acting is right out of a TV movie and has as much dramatic depth as an episode of "The Love Boat" or a Lifetime TV movie.

There's also a horrible music track with some women mangling Karen Carpenter hits.

Bleh!

Edgar Jones stars as a district attorney who's come back from his honeymoon with Louise Huff (his real-life wife at the time). He's about to prosecute a group of crooks. But he gets a letter threatening he'll go to his grave if he goes through with the trial.

After the men are convicted, the rest of the gang goes into action. One crook gets Jones' chauffeur drunk and another takes his place. When Jones boards his car, he's kidnapped off to a shack in the country where he's bound and gagged. The crooks delight in showing him the bomb they've made connected to a clock. They give him 20 minutes to live.

But outside the rowdy crooks begin to fight and a rifle is discharged. We see the shack window it has smashed and Jones is slumped over in his chair. Alas! Eventually the cops have a shootout with the crooks and get Jones' location from the one wounded survivor. But but they get there, they find Jones alive. The bullet smashed the clock. A cop hands Jones the bullet and tells him to wear it as a charm.

Slick little 1-reeler is packed with action.

Sprawling but superficial mini about an unlikable family at the verge of WW II. They live on an estate on the Cornish coast and are impacted by the war.

Despite top billing for Peter O'Toole, the main characters are the daughters plated by Emily Mortimer and the unlikable Katie Ryder Richardson. As the gals maneuver thru the war, we also get the stories of the other family member and the men in their lives.

Despite some good production values, the story just seems flat. There's not much detail. We just glide along like an ocean breeze while the characters live their lives. The three star actresses mentioned above just don't get much to do and we wallow in the daily doings of the uninteresting younger set.

Co-stars include Paul Bettany, Patrick Ryecart, David McCallum, Susan Hampshire, and Charles Edwards.

Arthur's Whisky (2024) is a mess of movie despite the cast. Badly written and directed and with that annoying non-stop Disney pixie music.

Yet another story where three old friends meet at a funeral (apparently older women only meet at funerals, at school reunions, or when they go on road trips) to bury Joan's eccentric husband. Joan (Patricia Hodge) has never been especially happy. There's also Linda (Diane Keaton) and Susan (Lulu) who are also alone. When they decide to clean out the husband's shed (where he invented things) they come upon a bottle of whisky and of course quickly drink it.

The plot starts way to fast. We have no real idea who these women are. So with virtually no backstory, we learn that the whisky turns them into 20-year-olds. Off to the clubs we go. But the transformation only lasts 6 hours.

From there on we get a bunch of disjointed narratives about wasted lives and lost youth and then we end up in Vegas at a Boy George drag show. Nothing flows. Nothing makes much sense. We never know who these women are except at the end when the Hodge character meets up with an old friend (Hayley Mills).

Wasted talent in a film that was never developed.

The name actors in the 2-part miniseries that you might tune in to see are hardly in it at all and play tangential characters to the main plot.

If you're hot to see Douglas Henshall, Mark Bonnar, and Penelope Wilton, blink and you'll miss them. What you WILL see is a lumbering adaptation that has been "updated" to allow for odd casting.

A Nigerian (David Jonsson) comes to England in the 1950s (?) to work for the government but gets sidetracked into investigating a series of murders in a small village. There's also a post-Colonial plotline that clumsily ties into this racial narrative.

Otherwise it's the usual Christie stuff. The rest of the cast is blah (and with bad teeth to boot) and we get some outlandishly bright costumes and the usual impeccably clean cars driving on dirt roads. There's also some ugly statuary added for no reason to the entrance of the country manor.

Not the worst, but it's not very compelling.