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June 27 movie: One, Two, Three. Middle aged Coca-cola executive in Germany (James Cagney) reluctantly agrees to host the teenage daughter of the company president, then discovers to his horror that she's gotten secretly married to an East German fanatical Communist. Hilarity ensues!

Billy Wilder was able to do zany slapstick comedy to perfection (Some Like It Hot). And he was able to do excellent, funny movies with political topics (Stalag 17). But here? Not so much. The wackiness at times took on a tone of frantic desperation -- like watching an amateur comic who knows his act is bombing, but has to keep going -- that was literally cringe-inducing. Yes, literally: I physically cringed a couple of times.

Also, I don't know if One, Two, Three was based on a play or not, but it had a stagey feel to it that got on my nerves a bit. By which I mean, the movie almost entirely takes place in one room, and most of the actors seem to be projecting to the balcony all the time.

Not that it was all bad. The Cold War humor was sometimes funny precisely because it was so unfunny -- like Cagney's assistant snapping his heels together everytime he speaks, but insisting that he worked as a subway conductor during the war, then eventually admitting (at a particularly madcap moment) that he was in the SS. Because Nazis are funny! Unintentional comedy gold, people.

I guess it just goes to show that no matter how good the director, with such sheer volume of output, they can't all be brilliant.

June 15 movie: Super Size Me. There's been a lot of talk about this movie. I enjoyed it, although I found it a bit preachy. Well actually a lot preachy. Also I felt there was a mean-spirited "ha ha look at the fatties" tone to the constant images of large people. That really put me off.

That said, I did really enjoy the movie. It made me extremely glad that I haven't eaten at McDonald's in years. (I just hope no one ever does a documentary about eating Bojangles for thirty days!) The part about nutrition in schools was really upsetting. And I have to give his girlfriend credit. Not many vegan chefs would support their boyfriend through a project like this!

June 14 movie: Elizabeth R. The end of the miniseries: Part 5, dealing with the attack of the Spanish Armada, and part 6, dealing with Elizabeth's relationship with the Earl of Essex, and the end of her life. Essex comes off really badly. He's no Errol Flynn in this version!

The Elizabeth movies I've seen before, Young Bess and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, portray Tom Seymour (here shown as a ruthlessly ambitious sleaze who nearly gets ER killed) and Essex (here a sniveling weasel who kisses ER's ass then plots her overthrow) as the loves of Elizabeth's life. In Elizabeth R, the love of her life is definitely Robert Dudley, though they portray her as never consummating the relationship. I haven't yet seen the one with Cate Blanchett but I heard that Dudley is the love interest there too. I don't know whether Blanchett's ER is a virgin queen or not.

I'm amazed at Glenda Jackson's ability to portray the stages of Elizabeth's life, from youth, to middle age, to old age and death. (Trivia note: in that photo of ER's death scene, I noticed that her hands were extremely smooth and thought that was a make-up error. But then the historical commentary mentioned that just before she died, her fingers had swollen so much that her coronation ring had to be cut off her finger. So I guess that was actually extreme attention to detail with the makeup.) The makeup in the final episode is amazing, because she has to play "old Elizabeth wearing bright red wig and heavy white makeup" and "old Elizabeth without makeup or wig." The effect is shocking.

The special features DVD was kind of disappointing. Not surprising, considering that the miniseries was made in the early 70s, when no one thought of filming "making of" specials for the DVD.

It did include an interview with Glenda Jackson, who gave up acting in 1992 to become a member of Parliament. (And who also looks nothing like the "older Elizabeth" they made her up to be in the movie.) It was a good interview although she does get off on a lengthy rant about Margaret Thatcher at one point. I guess the interviewer must have asked her to compare Thatcher to Elizabeth I. Which didn't sit so well with a member of the Labour Party.

There's also a nice interview with the historian who did the commentary for the miniseries.

June 16 movie: Man Proof. Myrna Loy loves Walter Pidgeon, even though he's a lowlife fortune hunter who sneaks off and marries rich Rosalind Russell. Loy pursues Pidgeon despite his married state, but eventually realizes she's better off with coworker Franchote Tone.

This was a silly bit of fluff, but fun. Myrna Loy and Franchote Tone have some good scenes together. Rosalind Russell doesn't often play the victim but she did it with class.

June 10 movie: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I really enjoyed this. They took a bit more latitude than in earlier films, dropping plot elements here and there. I guess there will be more of that as the series continues, since the books keep getting longer. The only place where I thought they missed something that should have been there was right at the end, there's no explanation for the shape Harry's Patronus takes. That was a really nice scene in the book and I'm sorry it didn't make it into the movie.

The only change that I actually found a bit jarring was that the three main kids spend most of their time in street clothes, not in their uniforms. Am I remembering it wrong, or did they wear their robes all the time in the first two movies? I'm going to have to read the third book again and see if she mentions the clothes they wear.

The new actors are great: David Thewlis, Gary Oldman and particularly Emma Thompson. Michael Gambon was okay -- he didn't make me forget Richard Harris but he wasn't bad. With all that makeup and the beard, he looked about the same. The dementors weren't as scary as the ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings, though they'll probably scare children plenty.

The kids are definitely aging. Harry, Hermione and Ron haven't grown that much since the second film (though I think Hermione and Ron both aged a lot between the first and second) but some of the supporting cast looked really different. Neville got a lot taller and a lot thinner, and I wasn't 100% sure that Draco Malfoy and his henchmen Crabbe and Goyle were even the same actors. They're going to have to start making these movies faster if they don't want to recast.

I think Alfonso Cuarón as director was wonderful choice. I loved his earlier film A Little Princess. Although I don't want to add to the dogpile on Chris Columbus (Salon.com's calling him "doggedly faithful ... but singularly graceless" is typical). Mainly because it's too easy. I mean, the guy's such a hack! Okay, I guess I couldn't resist taking a potshot. But he is a hack.

June 9 movie: Elizabeth R. Continuing this fascinating miniseries which stars Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth. Part 3 deals with the lengthy but eventually futile negotiations to marry Elizabeth to the Duke of Alençon of France. Part 4 is all about Mary Queen of Scots' time under Elizabeth's "protection" (actually under house arrest) in England, her involvement in a plot to kill Elizabeth, and her execution.

Of these two episodes I think I more enjoyed part 4, mainly because I found the Duke of Alençon annoying and Mary Stewart interesting. The historical commentary suggested that Mary's portrayal here was too sympathetic, but it seems to me that there are conflicting opinions on that.

I've gotten into the habit of watching the first bit of historical commentary, then turning off the commentary, rewinding and watching the whole episode. Then turning the commentary back on and watching the last few scenes again. I'm probably still missing a lot but at least this way I get some of the historical context, without having to watch every episode twice.

June 5 movie: Down With Love. I watched this with my folks while I was in Delaware. I've already written about it, so I'll just add that it was still funny, but this time I noticed how much the last half-hour drags. Basically everything after the big "I'm not really Zip Martin -- I'm not really Barbara Novak" reveal is anticlimactic. I seem to recall feeling the same way about Pillow Talk but they wrap it up more quickly there. Or at least it seems that way.

My dad and I had fun pointing out anachronisms in the fashion and interior design. The biggests oopses we noticed were the offices for Barbara's new magazine at the end (very late 60s design) and the nightclub near the beginning, with the girls wearing space-age outfits and hats that look like space helmets. Both fun designs, but totally out of place in a movie set in 1962.

The crazy thing is that I've seen a photo somewhere of actual models from the late 60s wearing space helmet hats just like the ones in that nightclub in the movie. But I can't remember where! I'm thinking Rudi Gernreich but I haven't been able to find it online. How frustrating.

May 31 movie: 36 Hours. James Garner plays an Air Force major who is captured by the Germans and told that the war's been over for 6 years, the Allies won, and he's had amnesia all that time. They trick him into revealing critical information about the invasion of Normandy, but then he realizes he's been duped and convinces them the info was a red herring. Great supporting work by Eva Marie Saint as a concentration camp survivor and Rod Taylor as the German expert on amnesia. Also a small part for John Banner (Sgt. Shultz of Hogan's Heroes) as a pleasantly venal German Home Guard who helps them escape. Alas, he doesn't get to say "I know nothing!"

The major plot detail I had a problem with was the idea that anyone who knew so much about the Normandy landing (the code names of all the troops and where exactly they were going to land) would ever be put in a position where he might be captured. Unfortunately I missed the first few minutes so I don't know how the capture supposedly took place.

Other than that, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Mainly a psychological thriller, it's unusual as war movies go. I loved Rod Taylor in The Time Machine and he's excellent here as well. Like Operation Crossbow, this movie also has some very dark moments. For instance at one point Eva Marie Saint asks Garner not to touch her because she had been raped repeatedly in the concentration camp. I've been thinking about why these movies (both made in 1965) would be more brutal than earlier WWII films. Of course people die in most all war movies, but the overall picture usually isn't as grim. Maybe war movies made during or just after the war wanted to inspire people and give them courage, not remind them of the horrors of war.

May 31 movie: Operation Crossbow. How remiss am I about posting? I'm just now writing up the war movies I watched during All! War! Movies! Memorial! Day! Weekend! on TCM. That's how remiss I am. Memorial Day Weekend is probably my favorite annual movie event on TCM. They always show a lot of great movies. But this year it was a bit of a disappointment. No 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, no Stalag 17, no Since You Went Away. Still, there were a couple of good ones, including this.

George Peppard stars in a pretty decent spy thriller about the Allied attempts to sabotage German bomb development. It drags a bit in the middle, but the final sequence is really exciting. And there were a lot of excellent actors in supporting roles as the British officers planning the mission, the Dutch resistance, the evil Nazis, etc.

This is no Guns of Navarone (another favorite that TCM didn't show) but it's pretty good. The impression I got from my dad is that they portrayed the V1 flying bomb and V2 rocket fairly realistically, but the stuff about the Allies destroying the super-rocket in production was total fiction. Actually the Nazis simply didn't get it to work before the war ended.

There are some interesting details about this movie: for one, everyone speaks the language they should be speaking, with subtitles when necessary. No scenes with the Nazis talking to each other in English with German accents. (This linguistic convention drives me crazy, and used to happen in all war movies. Some still do it even now.) Even Peppard speaks German when he poses as a German rocket scientist to infiltrate the rocket production facility. His German isn't that bad, although he speaks as little as possible. I guess he was the silent type of rocket scientist spy.

Also, Sophia Loren got top billing even though she was only in the movie for about 20 minutes. At the time they didn't think Peppard could open a movie of this size. Loren's husband was one of the producers so they wrote in a small, fairly pointless role for her and promoted her as the star of the movie.

This film is a lot darker than most earlier (and even many later) war movies I've seen. For instance [spoiler] just about all the principals get killed. The impossible getaway is usually a key element of WWII capers like this, but Peppard doesn't even try to escape after fulfilling his mission. The rest of his team is already dead, and he just sits down and waits to be bombed along with the Nazis. [end spoiler]