Movies in 2026 232

 

Pepe le moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)

The Criterion Channel is currently featuring a Julien Duvivier collection right now, which gave me a chance to rewatch his brilliant and highly influential 1937 film Pepe le moko, one of the highlights of the French poetic realism movement (several other examples of which were featured earlier this year). It stars the immortal Jean Gabin, which is really all you'd ever need to know if you're deciding whether to watch a film or not. He's a French criminal who would really love to get back to Paris, but he's trapped in the winding backstreets of the Algiers casbah. As long as he's ensconced there he's safe, but if he's drawn out then things get much more dangerous. His life is made much more difficult by Inspector Slimane (Lucas Gridoux), who lives in the casbah, and who Pepe knows he should kill, but who he lets live because of his peculiar code of honor - and also because of the two women competing for his attention, Gaby (played by Mireille Balin, whose real life story would make a great novel about France's complicated relationship to World War II) and Ines (Line Noro). Highly recommended.

Movies in 2026 231

 

Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007)

The other night I was finally able to convince Janet to watch Craig Gillespie's wonderful 2007 film Lars and the Real Girl. I had been pushing it for a while, but after Janet and her friend Jana watched Project Hail Mary the other night she was in the mood for another Ryan Gosling movie. I am always wont to opine that it was Lars and the Real Girl that convinced me that Ryan Gosling is actually a very good actor, and I'll stick with that. It really is a great movie, and one that I didn't bother to watch in the theaters because I, thankfully incorrectly, thought that it looked like a one note sex comedy. It's actually a layered film about loss and love and community. It's also a film that makes me cry every time. Gosling gives a wonderful performance, totally against type, as the bumbling and painfully introverted Lars. Patricia Clarkson (who I believe knows a good script better than any actor alive today) gives a lovely performance as Dr. Dagmar Berman, who helps hold everything together. Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider play Lars's sister-in-law Karin and her husband Gus (and in many ways the film is as much about Gus's story arc as it is about Lars's). Kelli Garner is funny and heartbreaking as Lars's would-be girlfriend Margo, and my students (I routinely showed this film in class when we discussed Feminist and Queer theory) rooted for Lars and Margo so hard. It's only sad when I think that Gillespie never came even remotely close to directing a film this good ever again. Highly recommended.

Movies in 2026 230

 

Carita de Cielo (Jose Diaz Morales, 1947)

I blew through the Criterion Channel's Rumberas collection (again, that odd, but utterly enjoyable, mishmash of film noir, social commentary, and off the chart musical) when I watched Jose Diaz Morales's 1947 movie Carita de Cielo. It starred Maria Elena Marques and Antonio Badu, although it's mainly, and rightly, known for being Ninon Sevilla's (the greatest star of Rumberas films) first movie. She has two illogical in regards to the plot - but amazing - dance routines. It's amazing how sexually charged her performances were, utterly unlike anything you would have seen in US films at the same time (or for years to come). Beyond her performance the film is forgettable, and it doesn't have any of the social commentary which sparks the other Rumberas films in the collection. Still, it's Ninon Sevilla, FFS, so you might give it a watch.