October 7 movie: Paris is Burning. I was going to say that everyone who would be interested in this movie has already seen it, but then I found out that Georg hadn't seen it before last night. So I will just say that this movie is a fascinating documentary about gay drag/dance contests in New York in the mid-80s. I remember the first time I saw this movie, I was amazed at how vibrant and fluid voguing was. The Madonna video pales in comparison to Paris is Burning.
October 3 movie: The Cup. Another one of those "can't believe I hadn't seen this" movies. Young Tibetan monks in a monestary in India love soccer, and convince the abbot to allow them to rent a TV and satellite dish so they can watch the World Cup. Very sweet movie; not a lot of subtlety but watching it made me feel good.
October 3 movie: Love Me Tonight. Sweet, silly 1932 musical starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. Robert Osbourne said that this was the first musical to integrate the musical numbers into the movie, instead of isolated set pieces. He also said that "Mimi" (sung in the movie) is Chevalier's signature song, but for me it will always be "You've Brought a New Kind of Love to Me," as sung by the Marx Brothers. ("If the nightingales could sing like you, they'd sing much sweeter than they do!") Myrna Loy has a supporting part as a man-crazy aristocrat.
October 3 movie: Shaolin Soccer. This is another one of those "I can't believe I didn't see this until now" and oh lordie, it was fun! A loving, hysterically funny tribute to classic HK martial arts movies, it was styled just like one of the old historical kung fu movies: film style (especially the close-ups) the way people talked, everyone having a goofy name for their superhero powers, even a Bruce Lee-style yellow jumpsuit on one character (also seen on Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Part 1.) But set in the present day, with soccer as the ultimate test of skill.
This is a must-see if you have any love for Chinese martial arts movies, and probably still very funny if you're not that into them. My favorite thing was the toss-off gags, like the Shaolin Soccer team's penultimate opponents being a team of women wearing fake moustaches. The movie never explains whether everyone else knows the team are women, and if so why the moustaches. They're just there, making ominous threats ("the only way you will see the finals is if we let you!") and getting their asses righteously kicked by Shaolin Soccer. And if you think that's a spoiler, you haven't seen many martial arts movies.
My only minor quibbles were 1. wishing the CGI was a bit better, but then again cheesy effects are part and parcel of the genre they're paying tribute to; 2. they indulge in a plot device I hate, namely the female love interest having a serious flaw in her appearance (in this case very bad acne) which magically disappears when she falls in love with the male hero. Just for once I'd like to see a movie where the hero falls for the ugly duckling girl, and instead of immediately transforming into a swan, she still looks the same. That would mean that he really did love her for who she was, instead of hinting that he was simply the first to see her potential as a fixer-upper.
On the other hand, the ugly duckling in Shaolin Soccer did have her own martial arts superpower and she also showed up with a shaved head for the grand finale, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Sept ? movie: Green Fields. This was a 1937 movie all in Yiddish. It was filmed in the US but set in, well they never say exactly, but I'd guess somewhere in Eastern Europe. A yeshiva student goes out into the world and into a rural community. Two peasant familes fight over who gets to host him and their daughters both fall for him. Eventually everything works out in a romantic comedy sort of way.
I never heard of Yiddish movies from the early 20th century before. I looked for more information online, but unfortunately I didn't find out whether Green Fields was unique, or part of a whole Jewish film community outside of Hollywood, similar to the African American film industry. Honestly, it wasn't a triumph of great moviemaking. But it was a sweet film, heartfelt and simple. The most interesting thing was the cultural details, like the peasant mother teaching her daughter how to act properly so she'll attract the scholar.
(Also I was a bit amused that the film was shown as TCM's "Friday Night Import," even though it was made in the US with an American cast and crew. I guess they called it an import since it wasn't in English.)
Sept ? movie: Thirteen Women. From this movie I learned that before the studios discovered her talent for comedy, Myrna Loy often played exotic vamps. (Yes, this is the third Myrna Loy movie in a row. They must have been running a special on her on TCM last month.) Here she plays one of those vaguely ethnic exercises in Hollywood xenophonia: she looks somewhat Chinese, has an unplaceable accent, hangs out with an Indian swami, is described as "half-Asian," but has a sort of Russian name (Ursula Georgi).
Anyway, the movie. There are these twelve white women who all went to school together, and now they've all had their horoscopes done by the swami. Who predicts death and doom for all of them. Except that really Loy is forging the horoscopes as her revenge on the women. She was at their school too, but they were racist and drove her out, thus depriving her of a better life. And somehow she's hypnotizing them from afar into doing whatever the bogus horoscopes say they will do. It's actually much less interesting than this description might lead you to believe. I was hoping for a sort of Abominable Dr. Phibes with Myrna Loy as Vincent Price, but no such luck. Thirteen Women was actually more about Irene Dunne (one of the intended victims). Still, it was worth watching just to see Myrna Loy vamping it up.
Sept ? movie: Libeled Lady. Another William Powell/Myrna Loy romantic comedy, this was made after the first Thin Man movie but before Nick & Nora became a franchise. Spencer Tracy runs a newspaper which has libeled spoiled heiress Loy, so he hires degenerate reporter Powell to seduce her so they can blackmail her into dropping the suit. Or something like that. It's been a while, I mainly remember that it was funny, and Powell and Loy had great chemistry (of course). The odd thing about this movie was Spencer Tracy. His character wasn't exactly a villain, but still the closest thing to it I've ever seen him play. Jean Harlow plays Tracy's oft-neglected (and loudly complaining) girlfriend.
Sept ? movie: The Thin Man. It's been so long since I wrote up a movie that I can't remember when I watched The Thin Man. But I did, and enjoyed it immensely. William Powell and Myrna Loy are so much fun. Did you know that in this, the first Thin Man movie, the title does not refer to Nick Charles, William Powell's character? Nope, the thin man was another character. All the other Nick & Nora movies have "Thin Man" in the title, so I guess they decided the thin man was Nick after all.