The Crop Duster has two goals. One is to organize links to my critical work: reviews written for The Herald (Everett, Washington) and Seattle Weekly; and public appearances and TV jobs. Selected past work for Film Comment and elsewhere is also linkified. You may also link to my website of 1980s reviews and learn more about my book on Frankenstein and my graphic novel, ROTTEN.
The second goal is to keep a daily record of films watched, annotated with brisk, brief comments. It's a slightly more advanced version of the movie list I kept, in Flair pen, thumbtacked next to my bed when I was twelve.
You do the translation: "Robert Horton en un infatigable crítico residente en Seattle y colaborador habitual de Film Comment. Su espacio en la red está en The Crop Duster acaso el mejor blog de un cinecrítico profesional americano después del de Roger Ebert." --Ernesto DiezMartinez Guzmán, editor of Vértigo
Taking a week off for travel, so no new piece for the Scarecrow blog this week. Here’s one thing:
A new episode of “The Music and the Movies,” produced by Voice of Vashon. In this installment, I think about the road (this is not a coincidence with the travel note), and come up with musical selections from films about moving around. We run the gamut here, from Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas score to classic road songs by Roger Miller and The Band to a tune from a Jean-Luc Godard picture. Listen here, and we’ll see you down the line.
I.S.S. (Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2023). I’m not going to make a great case for this movie, but I will say that it is easy enough to take as an on-plane movie, which is how I took it. The setting is the space station, which becomes touched by “the headlines of the day” when something dire happens on Earth. Some cracked casting here; the Americans are played by Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, and John Gallagher Jr., none of whom comes across as ideal company for a sustained stay in space.
Arab Blues (Manele Labidi, 2019). Also on the plane. A good vehicle for Golshifteh Farahani (from Paterson), as a psychoanalyst returning to Tunisia after spending years in Paris. The culture shocks are not exactly surprising, but skillfully rendered. The original French title, which translates to A Couch in Tunis, is a much better title than the generic English one. It means to be crowd-pleasing, and is, although Labidi manages a bittersweet gray note in the final moments.
The Marriage Circle (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924). Saw this last night at the Paramount Theatre with the live organ music. Very nice to be in an audience that vocally savored each comic beat and facial expression. This movie is clear proof of how Lubitsch “played” actors like musical instruments as part of his design, because everybody here is performing in exactly the same key. And the timing! Unerring.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, 2000). Minute for minute, one of the funniest of the brothers’ films, but then you knew that. Even over the top, it finds strange and eerie moments amid the carnival.
My piece for the Scarecrow blog this week, and etc.
The Crazies. Watching the movie feels like picking up a newspaper from the early 1970s and scanning the downbeat headlines. (Truffaut said that The Night of the Hunter was like “A horrifying news item retold by small children”; The Crazies is a newscast delivered by the insane.)
I’ve got a new episode of my radio show “The Music and the Movies,” after a bit of a layoff. This one is about the Hollywood blacklist, with music that relates to some of the people from that world, including blacklisted composers Jerry Fielding and Sol Kaplan. That’s produced by Voice of Vashon, posted here for the next couple of weeks.
Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). My third viewing of this movie over the years, and I guess it’s now official that I like it just fine – and can’t really remember what my lukewarm response was all about. I thought it was overpraised at its original release, which maybe it was. Certainly has a nice flow, and the undercutting of the sleuth character (Stephen Fry) is very much in line with Altman’s attitude about genre.
Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974). This one remains just silly, though. I’m giving a free online Scarecrow Zeitgeist talk about the return of the whodunit on Thursday night. Thus the re-visiting.
My piece for the Scarecrow blog this week, and etc.
Time Out. (A revival of a review of a film by the late Laurent Cantet.)
Tomorrow, April 27, we wrap up our current semester of Scarecrow Academy, “Election Year: Politics on Film,” with a free online conversation about Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln, with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. Join us for that at 2 pm Pacific Time, and register here.
Tonight at 7 pm I’ll be giving a talk at the Camano Island Library, “Time of the Zombie: Why the Living Dead Keep Returning in Movies.” It’s free, so if you’re in the island vicinity, come on by.
And I have another Zeitgeist ’24! talk coming up, on Thursday May 2. This is “Whodunit? And Why Now?”, a look at the recent resurgence of the whodunit, thanks to the likes of Kenneth Branagh and Rian Johnson. But I’ll also be talking about some classic mysteries of the past. It’s free and online, at 7 pm Pacific Time; you can register here.
Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012). Here’s the final title in the current semester of Scarecrow Academy, “Election Year: Politics on Film.” We will meet on Saturday April 27 at 2 pm Pacific Time for a free online conversation about this one; register here, and see you there?
Clue (Jonathan Lynn, 1985). Board game whodunit with a spirited cast. I liked it when it came out (review here), although it’s not exactly a movie that holds up for repeat viewings.
And Then There Were None (René Clair, 1945). Skillfully paced and charmingly directed, by way of Agatha Christie. There’s something nasty in the backstories of the characters, which lends the soufflé a little bit of mustard.
Death on the Nile (John Guillerman, 1978). I’m doing an upcoming talk about why whodunits have come back, and wasn’t sure I ever watched this one. It’s not great. One thing: You would think, based on Peter Ustinov’s usual screen presence and overall puckish personality, that he would do more doodling with the role of Poirot – in fact, you want him to – but he comes across as generally tame. There are six Oscar-winning actors in the thing (if you count Angela Lansbury’s honorary prize), so the film doesn’t stint on that score, but the screenplay (Anthony Shaffer) is surprisingly flat, and Jack Cardiff’s photography is maddening – gorgeous in the location exteriors, appallingly over-lit in the studio interiors. Nice to see Jon Finch in something. Mia Farrow convincingly plays a woman who goes nuts when scorned.
The Witness for the Prosecution (Julian Jarrold, 2016). A British-TV adaptation of the Agatha Christie fooler, with Toby Jones as the barrister and Kim Cattrall as the murder victim. The material has been changed around considerably, and it basically plays as a gloomy TV movie, but Andrea Riseborough is in it (the Marlene Dietrich role, from Billy Wilder’s version), and that justifies sticking around.
Tomorrow, Saturday April 20th, I’ll be leading another free online session in Scarecrow Academy’s “Politics on Film” series, this time a conversation about Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. That’s 2 pm Pacific Time. Register here for that.
Twice next week, for the Sno-Isle Library System, I’ll be delivering “Time of the Zombie: Why the Living Dead Keep Returning in Movies,” a little audio-visual take on that subject. We gather at the Mukilteo Library on April 23rd at 6 pm; and at the Camano Island Library on April 26th at 7 pm. The talks are free, so join us if you’re in the vicinity.
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992). Here’s the next topic in Scarecrow Academy’s “Politics on Film” series, which meets on Saturday, April 19, at 2 pm Pacific Time. The session is free and online, and you can sign up here; join us for this one, won’t you?
HATEFUL DEEDS is a novel of political satire and suspense. Read more and download it here!
FRANKENSTEIN
FRANKENSTEIN is my take on the 1931 film's making and legacy, plus some old-school film criticism. From Columbia University Press's "Cultographies" series. Click the image to order.
The long-suppressed 1877 diary of a ROTTEN agent, now available for the first time!
Rotten
Be More Rotten
Learn more about the blood-soaked yet critically-acclaimed graphic novel, and order the trade paperbacks and the “lost diary” right now.
Rotten Diary
Get the long-suppressed diary of a ROTTEN agent! From Moonstone Books
What a Feeling!
What a Feeling!
My other website: a you-are-there journey through the flabbergasting world of 1980s movies.
The Crop Duster 