1.
James Mason was a wonder, wasn’t he? Alternately pugnacious and charming, he really occupied his role perfectly. It’s remarkable how sympathetic I found myself, really, because he’s more than a bit of a bastard.

2.
Sue Lyon. Golly, is that uncomfortable or what? Even with her having 2 years on the novel’s version of the character, she’s so very charming and sweet and real and boy I feel creepy just typing that.

3.
Oswald Morris’s photography takes all the cinematic tropes of the time and uses all of its tricks to his advantage. I love how subversive this film feels in this aspect, something that reminds me very much of the much-more-modern Burn After Reading.

4.
I genuinely forgot how funny the movie was, and not just in the uncomfortable, black manner. The scene with the cot builds to a comedic crescendo that rivals Some Like It Hot for slapstick comedy, even as it reinforced our protagonist’s predicament.

5.
Every year I get closer to inevitable death, I appreciate Peter Sellers more. Can we retroactively give him all the Oscars? Please?

6.
Let’s not ever discuss the Adrian Lyne version. Ever.

MARTY (1953)
It’s startling how fresh the original version of Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty feels, even if it’s been over a half-century since it aired, likely because we live in an era when Hollywood vomits a stream of by-the-numbers “romantic comedies” featuring beautiful people with beautiful people problems. Rod Steiger’s performance as the title character, a lumbering guy in his late 30s who’s tired of familial and societal pressure to get married, is restrained and heartfelt at the same time. Avoiding the clichés of romance on the screen, Chayefsky’s choice to show love in its realest, rawest form is enthralling.

RESCUE DAWN (2006)
I don’t think I’ve ever felt a more intense sense of joy at the end of a movie before. Survival stories are nothing new, but Werner Herzog’s spare style, when combined with engaging performances (even from Steve Zahn) makes this well worth watching, even if you’ve already seen the documentary that recounts much of the same story. Cinephiles are likely already familiar with the German auteur’s willingness to pit cast and crew against nature (see Fitzcarraldo,) to get what he wants, but the game is notably upped by Christian Bale, a man who’s proven that he’ll work hard for his paychecks.

SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963)
Written and directed by Sam Fuller based on a story idea he’d had kicking around since the 1940s (and had pitched to Fritz Lang,) this look at America’s mental health industry couched in a murder mystery is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the chest, but I couldn’t help but love it. It uses its low budget to great effect with a cast of wooden b-listers (including James Best) inhabiting a spare but fully-realized world. Darren Aronofsky should probably send checks to Fuller’s estate for basically creating the template for his entire filmography decades before the fact.

(Yes, I know the whole story about how Starz executives took too long to renew the show and Adam Scott and several others went to go find new jobs because they have to work sometime, but let me just blame the whole fiasco on them being on Starz instead of HBO or even Showtime, home of A Show About David Duchovny’s Dick.)

This man can wear a damn hat.

If you’re not familiar with the show — and that’s perfectly normal as it’s on FX — Justified is about Federal Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant,) sent back to the town he grew up in by a law enforcement agency that is understandably embarrassed by his shooting of a criminal over brunch at a Miami hotel. Raylan finds his past life colliding with the man he’s become in the form of old flames, an embarrassing family history, and a clan of racist hillbillies who fancy themselves the mafia in their neck of the woods, and it’s been interesting to watch how an entire TV show has evolved out of a short story by Elmore Leonard.

Justified had a shaky beginning: a terrific pilot segued into into a more-episodic-than-expected setup with several installments from the first half of the season being pretty good TV that fell far short of the benchmarks set by the first episode. I won’t lie; I watched those episodes and enjoyed them well enough but it was mostly due to Olyphant’s exquisite manliness and charm overpowering some weak plots (the trip to LA was completely unneccessary and felt like it came from another series’ writer’s room entirely.) However, even in those weakest starting salvos, groundwork was laid for what I suspect is the series’ core theme. Raylan’s cowboy attitude and affectations run contrary to how his job should be done in the modern era; watching them bite him in the ass and seeing him try to make things right within the boundaries of the law is both entertaining and satisfying. It’s a classic redemption arc, acted well by Olyphant and his supporting cast (particularly Natalie Zea as Raylan’s ex wife and Walton Goggins’ tightly wound psychopath) and writing that has gelled nicely as the series progresses.  Between this and Treme (which I can’t even start to talk about without becoming a foaming zealot,) I’m in a really good place with dramas on TV right now.

(As an aside: you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better-looking TV show, particularly in HD.  Naturalistic lighting, great composition, and depth of focus used at just the right moments all work spectacularly with the muted color palette)

Loved:

1.
Don Cheadle as Rhodey is a huge improvement over Terrence Howard’s oddly soft-spoken performance. Just enough bravado and charisma without taking the spotlight away from Robert Downey Jr, who I’m not even going to talk about because let’s face it, he’s doing the thing he does very well with a character that suits him. I wish there’d been more non-armored scenes with the two of them, honestly.

2.
The first act of the movie is hits the ground running, is funny, and has a very steady control of its storytelling. It seems like the least-tampered with, most-thought out portion of the film, moving pieces into place for later effortlessly.

3.
Sam Rockwell is hilarious and slightly sad at the same time as Stark wannabe that takes corporate warfare to the next level. He knows how to eat enough scenery that the audience loves it but he never gets in the way of anyone else.

Didn’t Love, Didn’t Hate:

1.
The SHIELD stuff. I really don’t know how it’s going to play to the average moviegoer who probably doesn’t give as much of a damn about Marvel’s next fifty-three movies as people like myself do. Samuel Jackson’s fine and Scarlett Johannson is hunky dory, but I felt that a little bit goes a long way with the worldbuilding. That said, Black Widow’s fight sequence (yes, only one, spoiler) is terrific, even if it ends with her doing little more than cheerleading.

2.
The second act and the third, which are pretty close to the first movie in thematic and structural composition, seemed pretty sloppy to me. There’s some oddly fatty bits here and there that could have been cut down to make room for more material related to the story. There’s also a plot-related bit involving Tony and the suit’s relationship that is resolved with some jumping-through-hoops that diminishes Stark’s genius by turning him into a tool that finishes someone else’s plans. (I am trying to be intentionally vague here.  Come back and read this after the movie and we’ll talk.)

3.
Like Downey and Cheadle, Mickey Rourke seemed to be having a nice enough time and there were quite a few moments where I enjoyed his off-the-wall, slightly bonkers…wait, he wasn’t acting, was he? Shame that he didn’t have material that forced him to flex a bit.

Hated:

1.
Just like the first film, the big climax takes place at night and while you can make out what’s going on most of the time, a lot of the action just seemed way too samey-samey to me. I understand the practical need for dimly lit action when it’s basically CGI Robot Men pummeling each other, but I wasn’t thrilled at all, really. There’s a few good bits and a very nice “fuck yeah!” moment, but most of it was jump cuts, cameras moving around madly, and close-ups of Downey and Cheadle talking into HUDs.

2.
Pepper Potts is downright bitchy and whiny in this and basically useless in the last act. What starts as a character arc about someone taking on huge responsibilities and stepping out on her own fizzles out disappointingly.

All in all: several really great moments and good performances buoy up a lackluster, pretty-tired-already plot that needed a bit more connective tissue and a bit less thigh-stroking and nerdy talk.

It’s a movie that’s easy to overpraise because when it works, it sings, but there’s still significant problems in how it enforces storytelling cliché and laziness on the part of movies that attempt social relevance, even if it is highly entertaining to watch Michael Caine wreak Old Testament havoc on his inferiors one more time.

Observe and Report is to Paul Blart: Mall Cop as Butch Cassiday And The Sundance Kid is to Young Guns 2. Jody Hill works some very black comic territory, using Seth Rogan’s finely-tuned performance as an unhinged rent-a-cop to remarkable ends. The movie isn’t a traditional comedy by any stretch — Aziz Ansari’s brief bits as a cart vendor harassed by Rogan provided some of the few actual laughs I had — but I was very impressed with how thoughtful and sad the movie managed to be even as it was tweaking expectations and leaving the audience wondering how much deeper down the rabbit hole it’d go.

The ending may be just a bit too pat, but Observe And Report is a very interesting take on the classic redemption comedy formula and it’s heartening how much control Hill obviously had over his production. One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about Hill’s recent strides in comedy is how he combines small-town ennui, Southern gothic tropes, and a disdain for the “American Dream” into biting satire that never goes for cheap “shocks” or and avoids gags that are just pumped-up versions of what The Daily Show‘s writing staff do on a nightly basis. It’s rare to see comedy that’s as smart as his that doesn’t genuflect before its own intelligence and edginess constantly. Like Lumet, it’s Hill’s lack of pandering and a deep trust in his audience that makes me appreciate his work even more.