Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

I had seen only two Charlie Chaplin movies that were not even partly silent: The Great Dictator and Limelight. They were about on par with his silents, so I wanted to see a hit that came out in between them. Well, sort of a hit. It bombed at the box office and got little U.S. appreciation when new, but it enjoys high marks across rating sites now. Chaplin himself had an extra high opinion of it.

In what I take to be 1930s France, albeit with 1940s fashions and only the star attempting a French accent, Henri Verdoux (Chaplin), a laid-off banker, cannot find similar work. His solution is to travel frequently, assume several aliases, court several women, and mooch off or steal from them -- and murder them one way or another when he thinks it'll help him get away with theft. He's not above offing anyone else who stands in his way, either. But he weaves a tangled web and can sustain only so much luck....

Mary and the Witch's Flower (2017)

This is the first and more popular of only two productions by Studio Ponoc, a breakaway from Studio Ghibli. The company was not yet trying to distinguish itself from its predecessor; MatWF presents a lot of the same trope patterns (e.g., goo monsters) and even a similar logo, giving thanks to Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. I suppose if it weren't for the likenesses, I might not have checked this movie out.

It's not clear what decade the story takes place in; the only TV we see operates by dials, but it is in an old woman's (Lynda Baron) rural British house. Judging from the literary source material, Mary Stewart's The Little Broomstick, it might be around 1971. In any event, the woman's tween great-niece, Mary (Ruby Barnhill), has just moved in because her parents are too busy to take care of her. Between summer boredom and concern for a missing local cat, Mary ignores a rule against entering the misty forest and discovers both an old broom and a fly-by-night, a rare flower that blooms once every seven years. Unwittingly breaking a bulb, she gains a day of magical powers and the half-sentient broom flies her to Endor College, a secret school of magic. Headmistress Madam Mumblechook (Kate Winslet) and chemistry professor Dr. Dee (Jim Broadbent) congratulate her on being a prodigy, but when she tells them how she got her powers, they lose their friendly air and become determined to acquire the rest of the fly-by-night at any cost for their unethical pet experiment.

Dogville (2003)

Had I paid more attention, I would not have chased the weirdest David Lynch movie I've seen with a Lars von Trier piece. Still, this was one of those culturally significant pictures I'd been putting off for some time.

In what might be the '30s, a stranger named Grace (Nicole Kidman) comes to a remote Colorado town, planning to cross the nearby mountain until local would-be writer Tom (Paul Bettany) sees her and advises against it. Not knowing a better way to elude a gang looking for her, she begs sanctuary. Tom talks all his skeptical neighbors into keeping mum for a period and then deciding whether to send her away. Grace endears herself to them with chores, and for a while, she and the town brighten up each other. But when authorities under the gang's sway announce that she's wanted for crimes, although she couldn't possibly have committed them, the townsfolk become less content with lying to the law and subsequently make life increasingly hard for Grace.

Lost Highway (1997)

My previous familiarity with David Lynch was actually pretty diverse: The Elephant Man (very good), Blue Velvet (gruesome but admirable), The Straight Story (surprisingly tame and a bit dull), and Dune (bad enough to delay my reading of the book as well as further viewings of Lynch). Lost Highway sounded more bizarre than any of those, more along the lines of another David. Thus, I was both intimidated and intrigued to try it.

The plot is hard to summarize without spoilers, because it takes a while for things to get underway, but I'll go as far as the Netflix jacket: In L.A., night club saxophonist Fred (Bill Pullman) starts to receive strange messages by intercom, phone, or videotape, some of them quite creepy if not seemingly impossible. Then his likely adulterous wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette), gets brutally murdered. Fred doesn't see who did it, but all available evidence points to him, and he gets convicted. Then his story really takes a turn: He metamorphoses into young mechanic Pete (Balthazar Getty).

Reversal of Fortune (1990)

The case depicted herein was before my time. I wasn't even sure at first that the movie was based on a true story. Fortunately, I've since found no indication that it plays fast and loose with the truth, apart from one unimportant detail and one obvious factor I'll go into in a bit.

It starts in 1982, with former oil company consultant Claus von Bülow (Jeremy Irons in his Oscar-winning role) getting convicted of attempting to murder aristocratic wife Sunny (Glenn Close) with insulin shots that left her persistently comatose. Claus hires lawyer and law school professor Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) to represent him for an appeal. Alan persuades his students to aid in research. Neither he nor they really think Claus innocent, but Alan (1) understands the value of defense in the justice system and (2) could use the pay for a different case he's on the verge losing. That said, he knows it's an uphill battle; only the complete destruction of the prosecution's case, not a mere technicality, will allow victory.

I'll just get this out of the way now: Alan's other defendants, who are never shown or named on screen, are based on the Tison brothers but said to be Black. I can only guess that the race shift meant to increase viewer sympathy, but it seems gratuitous.

Far more awkward to my mind is the framing device of narration...by Sunny. Now, I could easily accept dead first-person narrators in Sunset Boulevard and American Beauty, but are we to believe that the soul departs when the body is merely vegetative? (The real Sunny still was until 2008.) Plus, we hear her only at the beginning, the end, and a brief part of the middle, so it doesn't add much. She even declines to tell the audience whether Claus did the deed, saying, "When you get where I am, you will know the rest." What kind of sense does that make? On the plus side, the rarity made the problem easy to ignore most of the time.

A more common device, naturally, is the flashback. Prepare for a lot of jumping around in time, albeit generally to late in the von Bülows' marriage. Only a handful of flashbacks are putative or of questioned authenticity.

You may have to shed your present associations with the name "Alan Dershowitz," which has been relevant even this year. At the time, he had had only one previous high-profile client, Harry Reems of Deep Throat, so nobody treated him like a celebrity or a villain. Here he comes across as a pretty regular guy, if a little prone to not dealing with stress well.

Claus, meanwhile, seems far from regular. His stiff, dry demeanor makes it hard to tell how serious or humorous he means to be. He openly cheated on Sunny while she was awake and still sees his paramour. His stepchildren distrust him. I doubt if anyone, even among those who come to believe in his innocence, would care to befriend him. One may suspect that his prior conviction stemmed in part from the jury getting rubbed the wrong way.

Nevertheless, going by the evidence uncovered by the legal team, I would have voted to acquit. I won't sum it all up, but Sunny's history of drug overuse certainly hints at the possibility of a self-administered OD. And personally, I don't get the impression she's a much better person than Claus, not least when she gets angry at him for wanting a job despite their riches.

I hesitate to call this a courtroom drama, because I doubt we see more than three minutes in a courtroom all told. The vast majority of the non-flashback action consists of conversations and digging. If that sounds under-engaging -- maybe even low-stakes, considering you probably wouldn't be heartbroken if Claus lost -- know that Alan eventually faces a credible threat to his career. But that arc doesn't last long either.

The plot was hardly tailor-made for Hollywood, but overall, I think it works rather nicely. It serves as an important reminder if not a mental exercise regarding the sticky nuances of reality. And again, it's apparently faithful to that reality.

The Horse Soldiers (1959)

It had been a while since my last John Wayne picture and longer since my last John Ford picture. As you may have guessed, this gets labeled a western in part, at least on IMDb and Wikipedia. That said, it's set in Mississippi. I'm not even sure that any characters are supposed to be from out west. It just...kinda has that feel to it.

Wayne plays Col. Marlowe of the Union Army, leading a raid deep enough into Confederate territory to worry his men. That does not provide as much internal conflict as his philosophical differences with appointed surgeon Maj. Kendall (William Holden) and would-be leader Col. Secord (William Bouchey). The plot thickens when the brigade seeks hospitality from plantation mistress Hannah (Constance Towers) and slave Lukey (Althea Gibson -- yes, that one), only to find that they would gladly spy on Yankees. Wanting as few kills as possible, Marlowe opts to take both women along.

Shanghai Express (1932)

I hadn't seen a '30s picture in more than half a year. Incidentally, that one also depicted East Asians in a way that wouldn't fly today. But this one was far more esteemed in the West back in the day, nominated for Academy Best Picture, awarded Best Cinematography, and remade twice, with neither remake as successful.

Most of the story does indeed take place on a Chinese train, where more than half the shown passengers are international. Captain Harvey (Clive Brook), British military surgeon, is on his way to operate on the governor-general of Shanghai when he discovers his old flame on board: Madeline (Marlene Dietrich), who's since made a name for herself as "Shanghai Lily." This being pre-Code Dietrich, you can guess her reputation. They're still sorting out how to feel about each other when things go wrong for the train as a whole, thanks to the Chinese Civil War....