Movies in 2026 9

 

Scarface (Howard Hawkes, 1932)

"There's only one rule: 'Do it first, do it yourself, and keep doing it!'" Such is the advice from Paul Muni's Tony Camonte, aka Scarface, in Howard Hawkes's classic gangster film, Scarface. Camonte is talking about rubbing our your enemies, but I suppose it's not bad advice for most things (this is probably how I built my Global Modules network). Muni is such an interesting character, and an underrated actor. I think he only made twenty-two films, but was nominated for an Academy Award five times (winning for The Story of Louis Pasteur). When I think of greatest American directors I tend to forget Howard Hawkes, but if you line up his films over the decades you could make a very compelling argument for him. I loved the note at the beginning which makes it clear that organized crime is a great threat, and asking the audience what they were going to do about it (we should start every story about Donald Trump with the same message). The message is re-enforced by the travel sign reading The World Is Yours, which Camonte always reads as a message for him in his rise to power, but the it's the last image in the film, reminding the audience the world is theirs and they shouldn't accept the criminals. It was also great to see Boris Karloff not playing a monster.  Highly recommended - one of the great crime films.

My Other Netherlands Picture

 The other day I was discussing my utter mystification at my lack of pictures from the Netherlands. I went back through my phone - and my camera - and Facebook - and nothing. I know that I shared pictures of Amsterdam with people, but I can't imagine digging back through the thousands of texts that I've sent Janet or Mike or Cyndi or Kevin or Marcelle to track them down. Bizarre. Anyway, this is the other one I found. We're sitting in a two hour security line at the Amsterdam airport, caused by some computer glitch and made worse by lingering work shortages caused by COVID. 

This is it? Weird. I know I should have more pictures from the Netherlands, but I simply don't. It's like someone tapped into my camera and phone and deleted them - or hypnotized me and made me delete them. I'm blaming the Belgians.

Movies in 2026 8

 

Two Minutes Late (Torben Anton Svendsen, 1952)

Janet and I are continuing to work our way through the Nordic Noir collection on Criterion. She will often take a pass on my more esoteric film deep dives, but she's always an enthusiastic participant for any and all films noir. The other night we watched Torben Anton Svendsen's Two Minutes Late. This was a worthy edition to the collection (sadly, only four films are featured). There was some relatively surprising brief nudity (although, well, it's Scandinavia, and there was nudity in Bergman's 1953 Summer with Monika - and Girl with Hyacinths had a clear lesbian subtext - so they were, as always, simply years ahead of the idiotic American film industry) and a very dark plot (featuring not one but two murders which might have been prevented if something had happened a couple minutes earlier). Definitely recommended. 

Movies in 2026 7

 

Trust (Hal Hartley, 1990)

The other day I made the point that Hal Hartley's Long Island trilogy makes me as consistently happy as about any trilogy I could image (yes, The Human Condition trilogy is the great trilogy in film history, but it's not an experience that would - or should - leave one giddy). With that in mind, I watched Hartley's Trust a couple days ago. I think this may have been the first Hal Hartley film I ever saw. It stars Adrienne Shelly (who was in The Unbelievable Truth) and Martin Donovan (a long-time Hartley collaborator), and features other Hartley regulars such as Edie Falco and Karen Sillas and John MacKay. It's classic Hartley, featuring quirky misguided malcontents, some level of crime activity, people fainting, several genuinely funny moments, and yet a deeper truth. A lovely, lovely film, and, yes, highly recommended. I'm looking forward to completing the trilogy with Simple Men (my favorite Hal Hartley film). 

The Last Game

 Yesterday, after our latest Unofficial Book Club meeting I decided that I wanted to head down to the Langdon Street Tavern to watch the last Vikings game of the year. I tried to convince my son to join me by texting that "I was heading down to Langdon to catch the 1:00 game of the team I no longer follow," with him, and most of the western world, knowing that I meant that Vikings. I told my friend Andy (another long-suffering Vikings fan) that if I were going to spend the winter complaining bitterly about how much J.J. McCarthy sucks I needed more evidence. Either way, I sat by myself, happily, relatively, (seriously, if you're 4-8 and out of the playoffs why not just lose the last five games and get a decent draft pick - as compared to winning the last five so that you can pick in the middle of the first round and draft another cornerback?), watching a win. So, why did I go? Beyond the pleasure of beers and wings and a game, I suspect there was something else going on. Here at the end of my career, and in these early stages of the inevitable slide towards the end of everything, I often joke about everything being the Last Something (semester, car, winter coat, syllabus, idiot student question, etc.), but I sort of thought of yesterday's game as the Last Game - or at least the Last Game at a Bar with Chicken Wings. Sicily is six hours ahead of Vermont, so with the exception of 1:00 p.m. Sunday games (7:00 p.m. Catania time) most games won't work schedule-wise (even if I could find a Sicilian bar that had the NFL package). I suppose I'm facing the same scheduling issue with my beloved CFL, although I'm used to watching them for free on CFL+ on my phone or laptop so my expectations are different. So, anyway, it just seemed important that I showed up one last time to catch a game in a bar. It was a nice time, although somewhat bittersweet.

I was sporting my sweet new Montreal Alouettes jersey, which meant that the Vikings were 2-0 this year when I watched a game at Langdon while wearing CFL swag (so I guess we know what the problem with their season was). 

Movies in 2026 6

 

Chloe, (Atom Egoyan, 2009)

I always associate Hal Hartley and Atom Egoyan together, although they are very different filmmakers, mainly because I discovered them both around the same time. They were two intelligent, talented independent filmmakers with unique visions and whose films inspired definitive moods. Unfortunately, if that makes any sense, Egoyan was "discovered" and handed bigger budgets (and constraints) than Hartley ever has. There are definitely very well-known actors who appear in Hartley films, such as Isabelle in Huppert in Amateur or Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren, and Julie Christie in No Such Thing, they are clearly sacrificing a ton of salary as a labor of love so that they could work with him. Egoyan was eventually plucked from his small films focusing on the Armenian experience or the dehumanizing influence of technology and was given resources (and limitations) that Hartley could never dream of. Sometimes it works, such as his extraordinary The Sweet Hereafter (which I'll happily get the opportunity to re-watch again as is it featured in the Atom Egoyan collection this month on the Criterion Channel). At other times, it simply didn't. This morning I gave another look at his 2009 film Chloe, which starred Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, and Liam Neeson. All of them give very fine performances, especially Moore, although even on a first viewing I didn't think the whole added up to the merits of its parts. I mention first viewing because shortly after watching it for the first time I found out that it was a remake of a French film, Anne Fontaine's 2003 film Nathalie..., which starred Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, and Gerard Depardieu. The original is not a great film, but certainly better than Egoyan's remake. Essentially, I just don't understand why he made Chloe in the first place. Obviously, artists get tired of themselves and want to try different things, and that's something they should always pursue, but this felt like someone offered him a lot of money to make an erotic thriller. So, no, I would not recommend Chloe. There are simply too many great early Atom Egoyan films that deserve greater attention. 

Movies in 2026 5

 

The Unbelievable Truth, (Hal Hartley, 1989)

It's difficult for me to imagine a trilogy that more consistently and unabashedly makes me happy than Hal Hartley's Long Island trilogy. Now, technically, it's not really a trilogy in the classic sense, other than the fact that all the stories occur in Long Island. Last night I began a re-watch (well, yet another re-watch) of the trilogy, beginning with The Unbelievable Truth. It stars Robert Burke as Josh and Adrienne Shelly, in her film debut, as Audry. It's a classic Hartley film, full of quirky malcontents, clever dialogue (often repeated), smalltime crooks, unexpected music/dance numbers, its own sense of timing and logic, and essential truth. Burke and Shelly are great, and it made me both happy and sad because I recently saw him in Hartley's latest, Where to Land, and I'm reminded of her tragic passing (murdered, just as her own directing career was kicking off). It featured bit pieces by Hartley regulars such Edie Falco (long before the Sopranos), Bill Sage, Christopher Cook, and Mark Bailey (providing one of his guitar solos). Falco and Sage were both in Where to Land. I think he made the movie for $75,000, which shows what you accomplish with intelligence and creativity. Whenever I see some absurdly overblown CGI-generated "blockbuster," I just think about how many brilliant little gems like The Unbelievable Truth are not being made. Even now, decades later, Hartley, long a darling of critics and movie-lovers, has to crowd source funding (and I always invest). I can't recommend The Unbelievable Truth (and almost any Hartley film) too highly. All my my Hal Hartley DVDs will be making their way to Sicily.