Yeah Dude, Okay

Film Collection: Kiki’s Delivery Service

October 29th, 2026

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Written by Hayao Miyazaki
1989 | 102 minutes | Japanese
Blu-Ray, English-dub version

Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, Tress MacNeille, Janeane Garofalo, Debbie Reynolds, Matthew Lawrence, John Hostetter, Kath Soucie, Jeff Bennett

What it’s about: In the vaguely modern but timeless world adapted from Eiko Kadono’s 1985 novel, witches are uncommon but still exist, and have a custom of leaving home at the age of thirteen to spend a year learning to hone their skills and make their way in the world. Kiki (Dunst) has been eagerly awaiting this journey, and leaves her small town with her feline familiar Jiji (Hartman) for a large coastal city, but finds it a far harsher place than she was expecting. Eventually she falls in with kind baker Osono (MacNeille), attracts the attention of local flight-obsessed geek Tombo (Lawrence), and starts a service, delivering pies and presents and lost items around the area with her broom. But making one’s way in the world is a big task, full of pitfalls and challenges, and we watch as this big-hearted young girl learns to face them, come into herself, and rise to the moment.

Reflections: I got this a while ago, but hadn’t gotten around to watching it yet. Part of that is because the description of it makes it sound very simple, a warm-hearted adventure for kids of all ages. That kind of entertainment is often a little disposable, rote, shallow. And while it is that kind of fable, it is not simple or shallow. This movie made me cry at least four times. I should have known, because Miyazaki does that almost every outing, taps into an almost primitive emotional well that feels completely open-hearted and completely serious and cuts through the defensive cynicism of a world-weary adult perspective like it’s nothing. And this is one of the best of his I’ve seen–despite being a movie about a witch, the fantastical touches are light, and mostly taken for granted by the characters and the nostalgic, ambiguous world around them, making it feel tender and grounded in a way the more surreal films sacrifice to their respective visions.

I watched the dub because the English versions of Ghibli films post-1997 (this is the second English dub, recorded in 1998) are pretty top-tier and that is the case here. Dunst (16 or so, at the time) is throwing her back into the voice work in a way not all primarily live-actors do. A lot of the movie rides on her selling Kiki’s precociousness in her delivery, wobbling across that line of maturity and awareness, and she pulls it off with bells on. Garafolo is pitching her voice up, giving her character–an artist that Kiki befriends on a misadventure–the lighter, more enthusiastic side of her energy. Reynolds is perfect for the kindly older woman who takes a shine to the ambitious girl, and it’s fun to see a legend like her pop up in something like this. Lawrence gives his crushed-out geek a little bit of edge–a little pushy and clumsy, but with a little more to him than a first glance. And Hartman, MacNeille, and Soucie (as Kiki’s concerned witch mother) are pros at this.

And, of course, it’s beautiful to look at. Right from the opening scene, as Kiki lies in the swaying grass, listening to the radio, every brightly-colored detail and moment of lingering atmosphere (Miyazaki’s fondness for the concept of Ma) seem specifically designed to create a simulacrum of collective memory, stirring something in the back of your mind you can’t quite name. There’s a reason this studio and this creator have the reputation that they do; each film is a magical experience and this is, again, one of the best. Even if it’s in a way that’s difficult to convey–it has to be felt.
Film Collection: The Ides of March

October 27th, 2026

Directed by George Clooney
Written by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Williamson
2011 | 101 minutes | English
DVD

Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella, Jennifer Ehle, Gregory Itzen, Charlie Rose

What it’s about: This adaptation of Williamson’s 2008 play Farragut North (itself loosely based on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign) follows Stephen Meyers (Gosling), a slick political operative working for the campaign of Pennsylvania governor Mike Morris (Clooney) during the Ohio Democratic presidential primary. Behind the back of his boss, campaign manager Paul Zara (Hoffman), the true-believer Stephen meets with Tom Duffy (Giamatti), campaign manager for Morris’s chief rival, setting in motion a political trap. As it plays out, he also comes to know campaign intern Molly Stearns (Wood), herself the daughter of the DNC chairman, and comes to learn some troubling information about the leader he once believed in. The two converging situations force Stephen to play a radical hand, in the process losing some of his soul to the great game.

Reflections: I saw this movie shortly after it came out, but remembered nothing about it going into it now. That makes sense, I think, because it’s a slow, kind of understated and deeply cynical thing. It takes its time setting up a wide variety of chess pieces before they start moving and, although there is a good deal of scheming and power-playing once they do, the story is less about any specific politics than the tragedy of the moral compromise that comes with the bloodthirsty nature of our–perhaps any–system. Clooney’s emerging style–this was his fourth turn behind the camera–fits this moodiness well; it feels lush, but cool and restrained. Shadowy figures lurk in dark hallways, the brassy lights of a diner glare against someone waiting and watching the grey outside, the camera lingers on the exterior of a car in which an important conversation is taking place, unheard. The atmosphere is melancholy, but gives the actors plenty of room to breathe.

Gosling was playing stoic cyphers around this time (see also: Drive, this same year) and he plays Stephen with a quiet affability that first masks his detachment, and then the lack of it. While he’s not doing enough to call it one of his best performances, he pulls off that switch. Hoffman is reliably great as a flustered guy with his own set of principles. Giamatti gets to be Machiavellian, which he’s delightful at, and Jeffrey Wright has a blustering turn as a rival candidate offering an endorsement. Marisa Tomei is charming as a reporter and kind of conscience figure. The standouts though are Clooney himself and Wood. He weaponizes his own charm and charisma, using that as cover for an unsettling menace that only comes forth in the climax, and she evokes the only genuine sympathy in the whole sordid thing, giving a bit of humanity to a sacrificial lamb of a character.

Watching this now, its politics feel somewhat quaint–Giamatti has a line about how “[Republicans] are more disciplined than we are” that hasn’t aged well, and the whole notion of what a scandal even is or means seems to have been wildly innovated upon in the past fifteen years. But the soul of the movie, the more abstract crisis of it, rings even more true now than it would have in 2011. It’s a solid, if dour, political thriller–there’s noting revelatory about it, it’s not saying anything we haven’t known since there have been stories about power, but we obviously still need reminders of those lessons, and it does what it’s doing well.
Film Collection: Lake Placid

October 23rd, 2026

Directed by Steve Miner
Written by David E. Kelley
1999 | 82 minutes | English
VHS

Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson, Betty White, Meredith Salenger, David Lewis, Tim Dixon, Natassia Malthe, Mariska Hargitay, Adam Arkin

What it’s about: Kelly Scott (Fonda) is a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History who gets dumped by her boss (Arkin) and sent to Maine. A Fish & Wildlife guy got attacked by something in a remote lake up there, and they found an almost-prehistoric looking tooth in him. So city-slicker Kelly sets out with stoic F&W investigator Jack Wells (Pullman) and the cranky local sheriff Hank Keough (Gleeson) to find the killer beast. They are joined, somewhat against their will, by Hector Cyr (Platt), a wealthy and eccentric professor of mythology, convinced (correctly) that the beast is a crocodile, an animal that should not be in Maine, and is determined to preserve it as an ecological miracle. But despite the reptile’s impressive size, even finding it will be a challenge, let alone trying to capture it. Especially if it has help.

Reflections: This is not about lawyers and/or Boston, so David E. Kelley is out of his wheelhouse here, and he’s not good at it. Instead of characterization, we get a lot of quippy sarcasm and childish bickering that I think is supposed to be funny, but is actually much more annoying. The actors involved are all much better than this and none of them seem to be relishing it other than Betty White (a frequent collaborator and apparent muse of Kelley’s). There are fat jokes, although calling them jokes is generous, casual misogyny, the invoking of a lot of obviously basic stereotypes. And the story barely does anything–moments of action or tension are sparse, leaving plenty of room for the characters to argue about dumb shit.

I inherited this from a house I used to live in, where it was one of the movies that would get put on coming home from a night at the bar. And it’s perfect for that. On the one hand, it’s so stupid, it’s kind of breathtaking sometimes. As just one example, there is what should be a kind of “oh shit” reveal during the climax, but the movie does absolutely nothing with it and returns to the status quo immediately–it’s bonkers. There are lines of dialogue that are completely baffling. What little scientific premise there is is hand-waved away. The romance is bizarrely flat. It’s all madness. And then on the other hand, I’ve seen this movie sorted as comedy horror, but I would not call it that. It’s barely a comedy, and more like a slightly gorier cousin to something like Dante’s Peak or Twister, where a force of nature is out of control and must be respected and feared. But there is a pretty good shlocky horror movie in here somewhere. A giant crocodile tries to bring a helicopter out of the air. A dude’s head gets bitten off so fast, no one sees it. If the movie had decided to be more that instead of leaning into the banter stuff, it would’ve been pretty good and there is enough of a streak of it that it’s fun to imagine.

This is a bad movie. I don’t even know if I’d call it a good bad movie–honestly, it’s kind of grating, especially during the first act. But I do have a certain sentimental fondness for it and I find it fascinating in the way it wants to be so many things and doesn’t manage to pull off any of them. Why does this exist–what made David E. Kelley, arguably at the peak of his success with Ally McBeal and The Practice, write this? How did such a talented cast end up in this cheapo, 82-minute B-movie (at best)? Why is it called Lake Placid when the name of the lake is Black Lake? It boggles the mind, and there is a certain pleasure to that.
Film Collection: David Lynch: The Art Life

October 22nd, 2026

Directed by Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-Holm & Jon Nguyen
2016 | 88 minutes | English
Criterion Blu-Ray

David Lynch

What it’s about: The filmmaker David Lynch recounts the story of his life, from early childhood in the late ’40s and early ’50s through the filming of Eraserhead in the mid ’70s. His narrations are broken up into discrete anecdotes, detailing memories from growing up in Idaho and Washington, moving to Virginia as an adolescent, discovering a love of painting as a teenager, rejecting art school, living in Boston and Philadelphia, and eventually receiving an AFI grant and being accepted into the Center for Advanced Film Studies. As these stories unspool, we see intercut live footage of the narration, contemporary footage of him in his studio, a wide variety of his cinematic and visual artwork, and archival photographs and home-movies of his younger world.

Reflections: David Lynch was a fascinating character of a filmmaker–his works are known most for being compellingly inscrutable and his name has become an adjective (“Lynchian”) for a certain kind of dreamlike, uncanny atmosphere. He also seemed to be a gentle soul, reportedly cultivating a warm and collaborative environment for those who worked with him and coming off authentically encouraging in his surprisingly prolific social media presence. And it’s fascinating to listen to someone who often preferred to let his work speak for itself explain some of his understanding and artistic motivation. There is some pleasure to be had in connecting some of the childhood memories he recounts to moments he would recreate–he details an encounter with an apparently abused woman that is almost exactly like a scene in Blue Velvet–but the real pleasure of the film is coming to appreciate the worldview that is summed up by the titular phrase.

Lynch was a painter first and a filmmaker second and the visual aspect of the film is built around showcasing his work, with the present and archival footage feeling more like context than content. Here again, the filmmakers make connections between the stories he tells and the surreal scenes he depicts with a textured, mixed-media approach. But what’s exciting about that is the way in which art becomes a vehicle for processing the world, a way of seeing and thinking and being present. And having that obliquely laid out by this odd, kind of gnomish guy with a uniquely nasal voice and a wry, iconoclastic sense of humor is compelling and inspiring.

There are a handful of documentaries I turn to when I’m in a creative rut–Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground, or Wild Combinations: A Portrait of Arthur Russell. There is a fundamental stimulation in listening to artists I respect engage with their process. That’s what I come to this movie for, and it delivers on that level. There is a kind of insular, isolated quality to it, and it is rather light on biographical facts in a way that I could see being unsatisfying for some. But also, that’s who David Lynch was, and if you’re inclined to watch a documentary about him in the first place, you can probably appreciate that.
Film Collection: Night Shift

October 21st, 2026

Directed by Ron Howard
Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel
1982 | 106 minutes | English
DVD

Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long, Gina Hecht, Pat Corley, Bobby DiCicco, Nita Talbot, Basil Hoffman, Tim Rossovich, Clint Howard, Joe Spinell, Richard Belzer, Kevin Costner, Shannen Doherty

What it’s about: Chuck Lumley (Winkler) is a meek dude: he hides from his neighbor’s dog, is browbeaten by his neurotic fiance Charlotte (Hecht), and retreated from a successful career in finance to work in the city morgue. But his ordered world is disrupted when he’s put on night shift with Bill Blazejowski (Keaton), a loose-hanging, motormouthed “idea guy” determined to get Chuck to let his hair down. Chuck also meets Belinda (Long), a sex-worker who happens to be his neighbor and comes to the morgue after the murder of her pimp. Without him, she and her colleagues are working without representation and, at Bill’s urging, he and Chuck become their business managers, operating out of the unsupervised morgue at night. And wouldn’t you know, through the ensuing hijinks, Chuck learns to grab life a little more by the horns.

Reflections: I wouldn’t exactly call this movie sensitive in its portrayal of… well, anything, really–there are moments that have not aged well. And there are funnier comedies from the period, certainly, but there’s something about this movie that is just irrepressibly charming. Some of that is Ron Howard beginning to find his voice as a director–this was his big break, his second theatrical film and his stepping out from under Roger Corman’s wings and the crucible of TV work. Its success set him up for Splash, and the rest is history. That voice is difficult to define, but it’s kind of an earnestness that elevates the material–this is a film that could have been very crass very easily, occasionally even still drifts there. But there is a heart and humanness to it that shines through and overcomes that without being cloying about it.

Another part of the film’s charm are the three leads. Winkler had been in a couple of movies, but was still playing The Fonz at this point and brings an entirely different energy to Chuck, all wryly-frustrated patience and explosive anxiety. Keaton is breaking out of the film (his first speaking film role, landed after a sitcom with Jim Belushi), both in performance and career-wise; his Bill rides the line between obnoxious and likeable and a lot of that is down to the sharply timed, often childlike (in a good way) and physical energy he gives off. And Long (who had just landed Cheers) carries the emotional weight of the movie with an assured ease and gives maybe the best performance of the three. Plus Kevin Costner shows up as a frat boy, Richard Belzer is a murderous henchman, and Shannen Doherty is a girl scout that beats Chuck up, so that’s pretty fun too.

It’s a knowingly silly movie with a lot of heart, in that kind of quintessentially ’80s comedy way, before the cynicism, irony, and post-modernity of the ’90s and what followed. It’s also an intersection of the beginning of several big and interesting careers. It’s a little bit sexy (if almost blushingly so) and it has Michael Keaton singing The Rolling Stones and diving off a balcony in a loincloth. It’s not gonna blow anyone’s mind, but it’s very fun and that’s more than enough.
Film Collection: The Wizard of Oz

October 18th, 2026

Directed by Victor Fleming
Written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf
1939 | 119 minutes | English
VHS

Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Pat Walshe, Clara Blandick, Charlie Becker, Mickey Carroll, Billy Curtis

What it’s about: Based on roughly the first half of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, the movie begins as Toto, the dog of Kansas farmgirl Dorothy Gale (Garland) has bitten snooty bigshot Almira Gulch (Hamilton), who demands the dog be taken away and dealt with. To avoid this, Dorothy runs away and is convinced to go back by a marooned circus performer (Morgan), but a tornado strikes and Dorothy is conked on the head and whisked to the magical (and technicolor) land of Oz. She is set off by the Good Witch Glinda (Burke) along the Yellow Brick Road to see if the Wizard of Oz (Morgan again) can send her home. Along the way, she picks up fellow travelers, The Scarecrow (Bolger), The Tin Man (Haley) and The Cowardly Lion (Lahr), and has to tangle with the Wicked Witch of the West (Hamilton again), who has her eye on a particular bit of footwear.

Reflections: Gee, what do I say about one of the most widely-seen and referenced, most beloved, and most heavily analyzed and chronicled films ever made? I don’t need to say this movie is great–of course it is. The songs are mostly great, and choreographed with wild, colorful spectacle. The old-timey practical effects aren’t exactly convincing, but they still look good, full of theatrical creativity. The set and design work is almost psychedelic. The plot is thin, but it’s fine. And there is just a palpable sense of spectacle and whimsy about all of it that it still resonates, nearly a century later.

It’s sort of heartbreaking watching Judy Garland (sixteen or seventeen here), knowing some of what she was being put through behind the scenes, but she brings a kind of bright, intense energy to Dorothy that is a big part of what keeps the film together. And, y’know, girl could sing. Frank Morgan seems to be having fun in his multiple roles–“Well bust my buttons!” has lived rent-free in my consciousness since childhood. Hamilton is gloriously chewing the scenery and her death scene is one for the ages. Lahr is going the biggest of the trio of companions–a lot of scenes focus on his antics, like his comical run and dive through a window in fear of the wizard–and it’s very over the top from a modern sensibility, but it’s charming also. Haley (replacing Buddy Ebsen, famously made ill by the makeup) gives the Tin Man a kind of mincing quality; Bolger’s charm is more restrained (especially given they cut his wildest dance number).

If you’re even reading this, odds are good you’ve seen this movie, but on the chance you haven’t, it’s definitely of its time and a bit weird, but it holds up. If you haven’t seen it in a while, it’s worth revisiting. Appreciate it for the classic songs and elaborate dance sequences. Enjoy it for the balls-out color, uncanny backdrops, and wild performances. Enjoy it for a story that started as an allegory for the politics of grange farming (or something, it’s been a while since I read the book) but has been distilled down to its most innocent, imaginative essence. Enjoy it because it’s strange and fantastical and does sync up surprisingly well with Dark Side of the Moon (for the first half or so at least). But it’s part of the culture, embedded so deep in the collective unconscious, it is a thing you should know.
Film Collection: Fear

October 17th, 2026

Directed by James Foley
Written by Christopher Crowe
1996 | 97 minutes | English
DVD

Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen, Alyssa Milano, Amy Brenneman, Todd Caldecott, Tracy Fraim, Jason Christopher, Jed Rees, Gary John Riley

What it’s about: Nicole (Witherspoon) is sixteen and has spent the last year living with her dad Steve (Petersen), and step-mom Laura (Brenneman) outside Seattle. Their relationship is awkward and her once-estranged father wants to give her space, which she uses to go out to cafes and clubs with her friend Margo (Milano). On these outings, she catches the eye of David (Wahlberg), a guy in his 20s with a murky background who sweeps her off her feet. Everyone is charmed except Steve, who just can’t shake a bad feeling, and even as Nicole begins to see the cracks in David’s romantic facade, her father’s escalating interventions catch her between a rock and a hard place. Eventually, however, David goes too far and the family must come together as his obsession with Nicole descends into all-out violence.

Reflections: I haven’t seen this in quite a few years and I remember it being sort of mid, an impression its reviews seem to back up. But taken in the context of unhinged ’90s thrillers–a subgenre I have a fondness for, I admit–there’s a lot to enjoy here. The plot is certainly not invested in subtlety, but when it does veer into the ridiculous–the tattoo scene leaps to mind–it’s both funny and uncomfortable. Wahlberg–in his third film and first starring role–is a little wooden as David, who is written as essentially a cypher anyway, but he brings a kind of thick malevolence that works for a movie that’s less about following through on logical details than rolling along through big, dumb emotions. And there are moments when it works well; the rollercoaster scene is objectively silly, but captures that adolescent feeling of sexual awakening in an almost fantastical way.

The biggest problem, I think, is that the movie is pulling in two directions: one where it’s Nicole’s story, a coming-of-age romantic thriller; and one where it’s Steve’s story, about paternal anxiety and the primal instinct to defend one’s family awakening an unknown vitality. It’d be great if they met in the middle, but they don’t, quite. By the end, Nicole feels a little sidelined, and neither of them are fleshed out as much as they should be. Both actors are bringing what they can, though. Petersen leans into the unsympathetic aspects of his character, going for kind of a suppressed, midlife-crisis edginess, like the smug satisfaction of telling David off at the door. And Witherspoon is selling what she has, pulling a fine line between burgeoning independence and total naivete from a script that doesn’t seem to relate to her quite as much.

This came out the same year as Scream, so it barely predates the teen-slasher resurgence, but it’s tapping into the same cultural moment–the top billing of two hot young stars early in what would be major careers, the of-the-moment soundtrack (Bush, The Sundays’ cover of “Wild Horses”), the way the questionably-sexy first half transforms into a home-invasion film by the final act–it’s just trying to modernize psychological horror, rather than gore. Seen through that lens, it’s different enough to be interesting. Even if there is definitely a far more interesting movie in what it only gestures at, there’s a lot it does well, and while it’s very silly, it is also genuinely unsettling at times and I had a good time watching it.
Film Collection: Fantasia 2000

October 11th, 2026

Directed by Don Hahn, Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francies Glebas, Paul Brizzi & Gaëtan Brizzi
2000 | 74 minutes | English
VHS

Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, James Levine, Angela Lansbury

What it’s about: As this film points out, the original concept for Fantasia (1940) was that it would be an evolving project, featuring new animations inspired by and set to classic works of music. While that didn’t happen for the original film, this attempts to continue that spirit by reprising “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence from the original, and setting it among several new segments. Abstract butterflies float to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, soaring whales cavort to Respighi’s Pines of Rome, downtrodden characters find room to dream on the streets of New York to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” is imagined to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102, a flamingo with a yo-yo causes chaos to Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals, Donald Duck stars in the story of Noah’s Ark to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, and spirits of life and destruction clash to Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

Reflections: Although I’ve seen the original Fantasia several times growing up, I was out of the Disney pipeline by the point this came out and this was a first-time watch for me. Like the first film, this is a project that requires a certain headspace, and it’s one that leaves the mind prone to wandering, making it kind of difficult to focus on the film itself, especially in a first viewing. I can say that my overall impression was that it’s a little underwhelming by comparison to its predecessor–a point driven home by the inclusion of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence–and some segments are more captivating than others, but it’s overall worthwhile.

The Rhapsody in Blue sequence, rendered in the style of Al Hirschfeld caricatures, and bobbing and weaving between its four principles and several background characters with the piece’s restless energy, is the standout. The Firebird sequence ends the collection on a strong note, with a sweeping, mythological feel to it. And the Carnival of the Animals is a brief, fun, energetic sequence. The flying whales are hypnotic, but the icy color palate gets a little too hypnotic and soporific after a while. The Noah’s Ark sequence is odd, both in subject and choice of music, but gets a surprisingly engaging tension out of Donald and Daisy believing they’ve lost the other. The butterflies are an interestingly abstract introduction, but don’t stick out in my mind. And the problem with the Tin Soldier sequence is that Bette Midler’s introduction pitches two unused ideas that sound much more interesting than what we got, which is fine, but does show the edges of its computer animation a bit, 26 years later.

This, like the original, isn’t a movie you put on when you want to watch a movie, exactly. There’s no story to keep track of or anything. It’s more of a vibes thing–something to kind of space out to, let one’s imagination wander, or have as a background. It was never going to be the landmark film the original was, but there is a charm to the awkwardness of some of the celebrity introductions (why are Penn & Teller there?) and some fascinating animation and great music. It does what it needs to do.
Film Collection: The Fisher King

October 11th, 2026

Directed by Terry Gilliam
Written by Richard LaGravenese
1991 | 138 minutes | English
Criterion Blu-Ray

Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer, Christian Clemenson, Michael Jeter, David Hyde Pierce, Lara Harris, Harry Shearer, Kathy Najimy, John de Lanice, Tom Waits

What it’s about: Three years ago, Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) was a narcissistic radio shock-jock, poised to land a starring role on a soon-to-be hit sitcom. But his careless, on-air comments to unstable caller Edwin Malnek (Clemenson) inspired the man to murder several people in a nightclub. Now fallen from grace, Jack is living with his girlfriend Anne Napolitano (Ruehl), working in her video store, and drinking himself into a self-pitying mess. Wandering the park one night on the verge of suicide, he is rescued from assault by Parry (Williams), a homeless man with a pathological obsession with finding the Holy Grail, which he believes is in an Upper East Side mansion. Circumstance, guilt, and curiosity pull the cynical Jack further into Parry’s world and quest, and his attempts to reach this warm-hearted energetic, odd self-proclaimed knight begin to open something more noble and present in himself that he’s been missing.

Reflections: The shining draw of this movie and the keystone to its (considerable) magic is Robin Williams. His performance as Parry is pitched at a perfect balance between the zaniness of his comic persona and the sensitivity underneath and it got him his third Oscar nomination (which he could have won if he’d been nominated for Supporting Actor like this role should have been–one of many Oscars bugbears). The rest of the cast is amazing too, though. Mercedes Ruehl (who did win an Oscar for this) is tough and smart and surprisingly patient. Jeff Bridges is doing underrated work keeping his mopey character just likeable enough and absorbing most of Williams’s energy. This is a great use of Amanda Plummer’s intense vibe. Tom Waits is just there for a moment, being… Tom Waits. Kathy Najimy has one scene, but it’s hilarious. All cylinders are firing here.

It is definitely a Terry Gilliam movie. You can feel it in the trashy mis-en-scene, full of debris and machines and shot at strange angles, in the wild visions of the Black Knight that haunt Parry; the movie has a lot of little hallucinatory edges. But while “restraint” is not a word I’d usually associate with Gilliam, this is probably the most grounded, accessible film he ever made–it was the first he directed without being involved in the script and he seems to want to stay out of its way, to the film’s benefit. And his best instincts–the rich colors and textures, the surreal air bathing the action–give the actors and characters a perfect crucible in which to shine.

It’s not a perfect movie. It’s long, veers sometimes toward mawkishness, it’s a little clumsy about its engagement with mental illness, and the stylization of it could be offputting to some. But it’s a movie I’ve always had kind of a soft spot for–I remember my mother telling me about watching it when it came out on video (I wasn’t yet allowed to) and that it moved her. It’s a little weird and of its time, but it’s also some of the best work by multiple talents involved and it was a pleasure to watch it for the third or fourth time.
Film Collection: Phantom of the Opera

October 6th, 2026

Directed by Arthur Lubin
Written by Samuel Hoffenstein & Eric Taylor
1943 | 89 minutes | English
DVD

Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier, Leo Carillo, Jane Farrar, J. Edward Bromberg, Fritz Feld, Hume Cronyn, Frank Puglia, Fritz Leber, Steven Geray, Barbara Everest

What it’s about: In this loose adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, Erique Claudin (Rains) has been a violinist for the Paris Opera for twenty years, but he’s losing his ability to play and is let go. He’s broke because he’s been spending his money anonymously funding voice lessons for Christine DuBois (Foster), a soprano in the opera for whom he has developed a quiet devotion. He’s hinging his prospects on a concerto he’s written, but when he mistakenly believes a publisher is trying to steal it, he murders the man, gets acid thrown in his face, and retreats to the sewers, becoming the Phantom. Meanwhile, Christine is being courted by both Anatole Garron (Eddy), one of the opera’s stars, and police inspector Raoul Dubert (Barrier), both of whom try to protect her while apprehending Claudin for both his initial murder and those he goes on to commit to advance her prospects.

Reflections: When this movie came out, a lot of critics compared it unfavorably to the 1925 silent version with Lon Chaney, and I get it. Even accounting for the pacing of the time period, it kind of plods along, and it very much shies away from the spookier, gothier side of the story, playing it more like a criminal melodrama (a cousin to something like Scarlet Street). The edition I have is part of a Universal Horror collection, but I feel like that sets an unfair expectation for what this actually is, and with that adjustment of expectations… well, it’s still kind of slow and strangely muted, but there are some charms to what’s going on here.

For one, the overall production design is extravagant and expressionist–I’m thinking in particular of an early street scene in which Claudin walks between the opera and his lodgings, or the cavern below the theater where the Phantom meets his fate. But every set design has a kind of grandiosity to it, and the costumes and decor are doing a lot with creating a thick, rich, period atmosphere through almost excessive texture and color (despite the cover image above, the film is in color) and space. Of the cast, Rains is the standout–even when threatening murder as the Phantom, his Claudin has a kind of meekness about him, but also a believable desperation that dances on the line between faith and delusion. Foster is interesting as the ingenue figure–always accommodating but kind of centrally evasive, an object of projection, but also kind of working it. And Eddy and Barrier, who have been giving off distinct flavors of romantic hero throughout, have a fascinating moment with her at the end that seems to nod at a very sexually progressive subtext and, were I still in grad school, I could absolutely spin a paper out of that.

As an adaptation of Phantom, musical or otherwise, this definitely isn’t the best or most representative one. But if you’re already familiar with the story, this seems to be trying to do something different with it. And taken on its own merits as an eccentric ’40s psychological thriller, it’s weird enough that it’s interesting despite its flaws. I would say this is probably not for the casual viewer, but if you’re really into the source material or the period, it’s worth checking out–it’s pretty short. There are multiple extended opera sequences, though, so buckle up for that, but Franz Liszt pops up as a character, so that’s kinda fun.