Movie Diary 2/21/2011

Crashout (Lewis J. Foster, 1955). Jailbreak with good people: more here.

Loophole (Harold D. Schuster, 1954). Sometimes these “undiscovered noirs” turn out to be justifiably undiscovered, but this is actually pretty swell, with a straightforward line of action and a splendid antagonist – not really a villain – in the form of Charles McGraw. He’s the insurance investigator hounding accused bank teller Barry Sullivan.

Kaboom (Gregg Araki, 2010). At this point Araki is old guard, and it shows in his command of rhythm and story-teasing-out, however zany the subject matter gets. (full review 2/25)

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974). Certain movies keep showing up in a working life as a critic, for a whole variety of reasons; and here’s this one yet again. And there’s Fassbinder, dismantling the status quo – the status quo of society and filmstyle – because the status quo is an impediment to human happiness. The more you watch this director, the more human happiness keeps coming into view as his true subject.

Over at my other website, What a Feeling!, we keep turning up more impediments to human happiness – like Police Academy 6: City Under Siege.