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ohmaker · 3 years

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Favorite movies of 2020: part 2

Microhabitat (2017)

Set during a financial crash, Miso (Esom) works as a housekeeper. Financially suffering, cigarettes and whiskey are the only things that get her through the day. When the prices of cigarettes double, Miso decides to give up her house for cigarettes and whiskey and asks her old friends for a place to temporarily crash. Esom’s quiet, almost dreamy, nature as this character almost enhance the innate kindness she shows.

Criss Cross (1949)

Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns to Los Angeles and rekindles his relationship with his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo), who marries a mobster, despite all better judgement. To avert suspicions of an affair, Thompson leads the mobster into a daylight armored-truck robbery. The closing shot in this film makes me go crazy.

The Heiress (1940)

I watched this one about six times last year. Yes, I was mentally stable, don’t worry about it. Reserved and quiet Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) lives with her emotionally distant father (Ralph Richardson), who is disappointed that his daughter is not more like his deceased wife. Starved for love and affection, Catherine spends most of her days embroidering, that is until the handsome Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), a charming man who has an eye on Catherine’s inheritance, comes in. This role lead to Olivia de Havilland’s second Oscar.

Blonde Crazy (1931)

Watching this made me experience a new form of consciousness. I had previously seen Joan Blondell in movies, and she was always a delightful presence in a film, but I had never seen a Joan Blondell movie. Let me tell you, what a fool I was for not realizing her power. She is a capital-a Actress, a real tour de force, which makes it seem crazy to me that she never became the kind of leading lady that Barbara Stanwyk or Carole Lombard or even Ginger Rogers became. This is one of her iconic collaborations with James Cagney and an absolute banger, like the two of them have such good chemistry together that I’m shocked that Warners didn’t cast them together more often. They play off each other really well, and, as critic Imogen Sara Smith notes, Blondell brings out a softness in Cagney hardly ever seen with any of his other leading ladies. This film follows Anne Roberts (Blondell) who meets cocky con man Bert Harris (Cagney) at her new job in a hotel who convinces her to join him in his schemes.

I am Dragon (2015)

A delightful, gorgeous, romantic fantasy - this masterpiece follows princess Miroslava who is kidnapped by a dragon on her wedding day when an old ritual goes wrong. Carried off to a remote island, she finds herself trapped with only the mysterious young man named Arman there as company.

Pride and Prejudice (1940)

This is my favorite version of Pride and Prejudice. It’s the one that is least faithful to the source material, but I think it stays true to the spirit of it. Also, at least Laurence Oliver is bangable. And Greer Garson is a magnetic actress, an absolute delight to watch.

He Was Her Man (1934)

Another Cagney-Blondell production, this one takes a far darker route despite what the promotional material might suggest. This is one of their most tender and vulnerable collaborations, it is also their darkest. Flicker Hayes (Cagney) is on the run after he double crosses his old “pals” doing a safecracking job. While hiding out at a hotel, he runs into Rose Lawrence (Blondell) who returns to her room to retrieve a wedding dress she had hid. A prostitute hoping to retire and marry a nice man she had met and find some stability in her life, she sets off to travel to him only to have Flicker tag along. This is my favorite of all their collaborations, it really gets to me.

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

I am a Kay Francis girl at heart and I found this movie to be very fun. Thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) and pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins) become partners in crime and in love, the two decide to scam perfume executive Mariette Colet (Kay Francis) with Gaston gaining her trust as her personal secretary. Everything falls apart however when Gaston finds himself actually falling in love with Mariette.

The Big City (1963)

Madhabi Mukherjee is a quiet force in this film, her resilience in this role it subtle yet powerful. She plays a housewife from a conservative family who gets a job as a salesperson when her family fall on hard times, changing her family dynamics.

Humoresque (1946)

This my one favorite Joan Crawford performances during the period of her career where she just suffered on screen. A classical musician from a working class background captures the attention of and becomes entangled with a wealthy, neurotic socialite.

The Servant (1963)

A London aristocrat hires a man-servant to attend to his needs. However, as he grows to depend more and more on him, the balance of power begins to shift. The homoerotic subtext is really something, both parasitic and domineering, Dirk Bogarde skillfully suggests something far more dark than what is depicted and James Fox brilliantly plays his willfully ignorant victim, the frog in the pot that doesn’t realize it until it’s too late.

#movies #🦋

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