Yeah Dude, Okay

Film Collection: The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes

August 31st, 2026

Directed by Stan Brakhage
Created by Stan Brakhage
1971 | 32 mintues | Silent
Criterion Blu-Ray

What it’s about: “About” may be a strong word here, but the film consists entirely of 16mm footage shot by Brakhage at a Pittsburgh morgue, consisting of actual autopsies, from the preparation of the body to the opening of internal cavities, removal of organs, washing, and embalming.

Reflections: Not one for the squeamish, this is stark and confrontational, even by Brakhage’s standards. He doesn’t shy away from any of it: the human body is meat, skulls pulled away to expose brains, swollen, fleshy genitals and extremities, blood, fat, muscle, all of it. There is something deeply, viscerally (literally) upsetting about it, and the utter silence of the film leaves you to confront that, to be uncomfortably reminded what you’re made of.

And yet. Once you sort of get used to it–not a small feat–one starts to see the beauty Brakhage is pulling out. Shifting film stock, sometimes almost angelic lighting, and a quality that’s harder to explain–the calm, collected, objectvity of the camera becomes… not comforting, but almost revelatory. Watching it, I couldn’t help but think about the aestheticized death scenes in something like Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series–there is almost something similar here, but without the tastelessness of fakery. “This is what happens when we die, and we all will. Don’t look away. Can you see something miraculous in this?”

Even among the crowd who might be inclined to watch a 32-minute, silent, abstract art film, this is hard to recommend, cos it’s a lot to handle. But it’s not exploitative–there is thought and dignity in the way its presented. If you can stomach it.
Film Collection: From Dusk Till Dawn

August 31st, 2026

Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Written by Quentin Tarantino
1996 | 108 minutes | English
VHS

Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Salma Hayek, Ernest Liu, Cheech Marin, Michael Parks, Tom Savini, John Saxon, Danny Trejo, Fred Williamson, John Hawkes, Brenda Hillhouse, Kelly Preston

What it’s about: Edgy, put-upon bank robber Seth (Clooney) and his hot-headed, sexually violent younger brother Ritchie (Tarantino) are headed to Mexico after their latest crime spree. In order to make it over the border, they take hostage disillusioned preacher Jacob (Keitel) and his two teenage children, Kate (Lewis) and Scott (Liu), and commandeer the family’s RV. The tense group makes it to the Titty Twister, a rowdy bar south of the border where Seth and Ritchie are set to meet their contact, but rather than an ordinary biker bar, the sleazy place reveals itself as a nest of vampires, leaving them–and a few other motley patrons–to fight their way through until dawn.

Reflections: A thick slab of grindhouse schlock, this is not a movie meant to be taken seriously: Cheech Marin (in one of three different roles) gives an extended carnival-barker sales pitch for pussy. Tom Savini, whose character is named Sex Machine, has a penis-gun (or gun-penis?). The vampire band plays a corpse guitar. The gore, violence, Tarantino’s characteristic edge-lord dialogue, etc., are all turned up to eleven. There’s even a moment where Ritchie lingers lustfully on Kate’s feet. It’s indulgent, brutal, silly, gross, and that’s all kind of the point. Which is great, if you’re in the headspace for that kind of thing, and grindingly unpleasant if you’re not.

The script, based on a concept by makeup artist Robert Kurtzman, handed off to Tarantino in 1990, and realized after the success of Pulp Fiction, has a more interesting first half. For its various excesses, the tension played out between the five leads has some oomph to it–Seth knows Ritchie is unstable, but feels protective of him anyway; the two children, especially Scott, see their father’s loss of faith and no longer fully trust his judgment. The screws turn tighter, punctuated by bursts of violence and littered with smartly observed cultural reference. Once the blood-orgy of the second half begins, the absurdity turns up and the film loses some momentum–the vampires look silly, the gore flows like wine, and investment in the characters goes down. It’s all kind of awesome in a Gwar-concert, trash-spectacle kind of way, but doesn’t have the substance or smooth style of better work by everyone involved.

I feel like I’m being hard on it–it’s difficult to overstate the reputation of this movie, its bona-fide cult status that, growing up as a ’90s film nerd, was unavoidable. Clooney feels like he’s rehearsing the harried cool that he would perfect in later roles and Keitel brings an unusual gentleness to his struggling father character. Hayek is sexy and exudes power, even if she doesn’t have much to do. The makeup effects are great. And the silliness is genuinely fun if you’re not expecting all that much from it and can get past the gleeful ugliness. A movie to put on over drinks with friends, but not something for all tastes or moments.
Film Collection: The Firm

August 31st, 2026

Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by David Rabe and Robert Towne & David Rayfiel
1993 | 154 minutes | English
DVD

Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook, Jerry Hardin, David Strathairn, Wilford Brimley, Terry Kinney, Gary Busey, Margot Martindale, Sullivan Walker, Paul Sorvino, Steven Hill, Dean Norris

What it’s about: Hotshot Harvard Law graduate Mitch McDeere (Cruise) is being courted by all the big firms but, against the reservations of his wife Abby (Trippelhorn), he decides to sign on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke, a relatively small firm out of Memphis that shows up with an unexpectedly sweet offer. But as he’s taken under the wing of Avery Tolar (Hackman), he begins to suspect his new employer is not all it seems to be and he becomes caught in a vise between the firm’s head of security Bill DeVasher (Brimley) and Wayne Tarrance (Harris), a high-pressure government agent. To escape with his life, license, and marriage all intact, Mitch recruits Tammy Hemphill (Hunter), a fiery private investigator, for a long-shot scheme to get out clean.

Reflections: A solid workhorse thriller from the peak era of John Grisham adaptations–from his 1991 novel, this time. Everyone here knows what they’re doing: Pollack’s direction is tight and tense without being showy or getting in the way. The script gets a little muddy and complicated as it goes on, but it never starts feeling dumb, and it all comes out in the wash. Tom Cruise is in fine form, bringing Mitch a little bit of a bad-boy edge until he realizes how in over his head he is; Trippelhorn is wide-eyed but serious, Hackman is weary and cyncial, Holly Hunter (earning one of her two 1993 Oscar nominations) is a pistol, and a whole swathe of character actors are bringing glimpses of interesting stories around the edges.

Both the strength and the weakness here is how much this movie is exactly what you expect it to be. On the one hand, it’s not doing anything particularly special, lacking some of the grittier personality even of other Grisham adaptations (The Rainmaker, A Time to Kill, etc.), let alone the ’90s thriller scene in general. The stakes feel taught as you’re watching, but don’t especially linger. And the deconstruction of glorified, cuthroat ’80s boardroom culture feels flat and old hat at this point (American Psycho exists now and gets much weirder with it). But, on the other hand, there’s something to be said for broad, popcorn entertainment that still feels competent, adult, and doesn’t pander. And “big, mainstream ’90s thriller” is a very particular flavor that this hits perfectly. It’s kind of long, but it’s fun to watch, and keeps its energy up even in its final third where all the scheming is a little hard to track.

The one aspect of the film that does kind of stand out is the jaunty (also Oscar-nominated) score by Dave Grusin. Its jazz-piano texture is a weird fit, but it does fit, making it the riskiest and most interesting choice here and worth noting. But even without that fun touch, this is still a solid genre film and worth checking out, even if it’s not gonna blow your mind.
Film Collection: Brighton Beach Memoirs

August 29th, 2026

Directed by Gene Saks
Written by Neil Simon
1986 | 110 minutes | English
VHS

Jonathan Silverman, Blythe Danner, Bob Dishey, Judith Ivey, Brian Drillinger, Stacey Glick, Lisa Waltz, Alan Weeks, Jason Alexander, James Handy

What it’s about: It’s 1937, Brooklyn, and the memoirs are those of Eugene (Silverman), a basically good kid of nearly 15 who is wrestling a wise-ass streak and some raging hormones amidst the chaos of the rest of his family. His mother Kate (Danner) is wound tight, trying to keep everything together: her widowed sister, Blanche (Ivey) is a shy, withering woman who might have a chance with the Irish man across the street (Handy) of whom Kate doesn’t approve. Blanche’s elder daughter Nora (Waltz) is pushing for an opportunity to audition for a Broadway show, even though it would mean missing school. Eugene’s older brother, Stanley (Drillinger) is struggling to find his way and contribute to the family, as their father Jack (Dishy) is overworking himself at two jobs to keep everyone afloat. And Eugene’s younger cousin, Laurie (Glick), who’s heart has a palpitation, is wryly observing it all.

Reflections: Contemporary reviews suggest that this film adaptations blunts some of the edge of Simon’s original play, but in my experience with it now, that’s its primary charm. There is a coziness to it, a nostalgic innocence, decades removed from my own childhood, but which fed into it from older generations. Eugene, as a narrator, is sweet but not saccharine–equally fascinated to learn about masturbation as he is concerned about the larger things of life. The stakes are serious–concern for family in an increasingly tense Europe, the economic anxiety of carrying the family through the Depression era, familial roles that unfairly shape responsibilities and regrets–but nothing is ever completely dire. There is a slightly artificial sheen, a neatness to everything, that ends up feeling a little bland, but also weirdly comforting.

As a film, the theatrical origins bleed through a bit–characters talk in long, often emotional exchanges, peppered with callbacks, witticisms, and colorful phrases. Danner and Ivey are the standout performances, grounding their characters and falling into the “golly-gee” tone of the script the least. The design and look of the film are soft and warm, which fit neatly into the overall wistful feeling, and when the action does open up slightly–Eugene charging down the street, running a milk-bottle like a football, for example–there is some fun to be had in the movement.

As I was watching it, I couldn’t help but think that it came out the same year as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, another film with a teenage boy breaking the fourth wall to explain his life. But where John Hughes’s film is grounded in its (then) modernity, a young voice speaking forward, this one is the voice of someone older looking back. It’s not really that things were simpler, then–as Eugene observes, there always comes a moment where childhood ends. But there is a sense of reassurance in looking back, having grown up, and that’s the exercise of this. It’s a mild, old-fashioned mac-and-cheese kind of movie, but that’s not a criticism–those have their place, and I had fun with it.
Film Collection: Wages of Fear

August 29th, 2026

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot & Jérome Geronimi
1953 | 148 minutes | French, Spanish, English, Italian & German
Criterion DVD

Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter van Eyck, Véra Clouzot, William Tubbs, Dario Moreno

What it’s about: An isolated South American oil town, only accessible by plane, has collected a disgruntled cadre of drifting foreign laborers–unable to find work or afford the airfare out. Among this wayward group are Mario (Montand), affable but disaffected, especially to the affections of the local cantina girl, Linda (Clouzot); Jo (Vanel), a blustering and conniving fellow Frenchman and one-time gangster; Luigi (Lulli), a hot-headed and big-hearted Italian; and Bimba (van Eyck), a closed-off German survivor of Nazi atrocities. When a remote derrick blows and the only way to put it out is with nitroglycerin charges, these four desperate men are hired for the high-paying but incredibly dangerous job of transporting a large amount of the highly unstable substance in two trucks across hundreds of miles of mountainous desert, decaying roadways, and their own inner terrors.

Reflections: Based on the 1950 novel by Georges Arnaud, this is a classic thriller and remains, even seventy-odd years later, one of the tensest, most uncomfortable experiences in cinema this side of a Safdie film. Clouzout draws out the tension–the movie is long and slow, spending nearly its first half building the atmosphere in the town before the proper adventure kicks off. At first, we see these different men process and react to the purposeless dead-end in which they find themselves. Personalities and prejudices grind against one another as all the different exploitation simmers around. Once the trucks get rolling, though, the stakes become immediately more existential, and the pretensions and ambitions that were built up in the first half are rapidly stripped away.

The sense of doom and mortality in this second half is constant and escalating. The story lingers for achingly long stretches in moments of potential disaster and, even when they are narrowly averted, something unexpected will go wrong instead. The audience is rarely given a chance to breathe, and when they are, the space is filled with the character’s–especially the melodramatic Jo’s–own reactions. As Jo, Vanel convincingly embodies the way his confidence and power is stripped away as a sham, and Montand is sad-eyed and aloof, becoming visibly harder and rawer the deeper into hell he goes.

The film is dark and dour, full of muck and grime both visually and spiritually. It’s also undeniably exciting and shows a mastery of form that put “the French Hitchcock” on the international map, won a bunch of festival prizes, and has been cited as one of the best European films of all time. And watching it now, I’m struck by the salience of its questions about economic survival in desperate circumstances, oil as a corrupting force, and commitment to the dream of a better life, even in the face of deadly insanity.
Film Collection: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

August 29th, 2026

Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos
Written by Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman & Howard McCain
2009 | 92 minutes | English
DVD

Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra, Steven Mackintosh, Kevin Grevioux, David Aston, Elizabeth Hawthorne, Craig Parker

What it’s about: Based on a story by Danny McBride (not that one), Robert Orr, and Len Wiseman, the third film in the Underworld series is a prequel to the original, telling a backstory of the struggle between the lycan Lucian (Sheen) and the vampire elder Viktor (Nighy). In a vaguely medieval period, not long after the start of the conflict between werewolves and vampires, Viktor created the Lycans–werewolves able to hold on to their humanity, rather than becoming mindless beasts–to serve the vampires as a slave class. Lucian was the first and most favored of these new creations, but he began to overstep himself, calling out the unjust treatment of the lycans and becoming involved with Viktor’s daughter Sonja (Mitra), leading the lovers into conflict with her tyrannical father.

Reflections: This is not a “good” movie. It unironically contains the line “But father, I love him!”–that’s the level we’re working on here. Visually, the color palette is almost non-existent, lighting is a somewhat foreign concept, and the fight scenes are over-edited and full of awkward CGI werewolves that just look silly at this point. Every story beat is exactly what you think it’s going to be, played out with a relative minimum of personality. It’s all very stupid. But this also not a movie that’s really supposed to be “good;” this is a movie you watch because it’s very stupid–the mall-goth vibes and melodramatic teen angst level of storytelling are kind of the point. And on that level, it somewhat works, if not as well as the previous films.

Most of that is down to Nighy and Sheen reprising their roles in the franchise, the former stalking around and glowering like he was made for it, and the latter bringing what energy he can to the tropey role he’s in, and kind of working it against type as the sweaty, brutal hero figure. Rhona Mitra is fine; nobody else has that much to do, but things do occasionally indulge in a particularly sweet bit of action choreography or an especially metal shot of the castle where most of the action takes place and drop enough breadcrumbs of cool to see it through.

If you give in to it, there is a certain cheesy sweep to the “I’m gonna swordfight your evil dad”-type horny vibes, but the change in setting means it doesn’t quite have the “Kate Beckinsale shooting dudes while doing flips in leather” kind of rizz that’s the reason I picked up the box set in the first place. I don’t know that I’ve actually watched the last two (yet), but that lack makes it the least fun of the first three. It’s not offensively bad, but not necessary to seek out unless you’re really getting into the franchise.
Film Collection: Seven Psychopaths

August 28th, 2026

Directed by Martin McDonagh
Written by Martin McDonagh
2012 | 110 minutes | English
Blu-Ray

Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Waits, Brendan Sexton III, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Long Ngyuen, Kevin Corrigan, Gabourey Sidibe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Pitt, Željko Ivanek, Linda Bright Clay

What it’s about: Martin (Farrell) is a screenwriter, struggling with his most recent project, a thriller called Seven Psychopaths. He’s drinking too much, his relationship is on the rocks, and the script isn’t going anywhere. This is of great concern to his friend Billy (Rockwell), a ne’er-do-well type who is involved in a scheme with Hans (Walken) to kidnap dogs for ransom. Without consulting his partner, Billy snatches the beloved dog of Charlie (Harrelson), a violent gangster who starts obsessively pursuing the kidnappers. Martin and Hans are roped into the aftermath as the three of them, together, fend off the threat while trying to hammer out what kind of story Martin wants to tell.

Reflections: Like 8½ and Adaptation before it, this is a film that is, abstractedly, about itself. And that is a fundamentally navel-gazing exercise: not for nothing is the main character named Martin. McDonagh seems to be working through a kind of toxic-masculinity–the aggressive, violent impulses and the fascination with them, alcoholism as a coping mechanism, disconnection in relationships with women, and so on. His self-insert in Farrell is flanked by Rockwell’s id-driven Billy, constantly trying to wrestle control of the movie, and the older and more reflective superego in Hans, to whom Walken brings a kind of authoritative serenity. Meanwhile, Harrelson provides a counterweight: the violent man with a weird sensitivity to Martin’s sensitive man with a streak of violence.

Mixed into this core are a whirl of recognizable faces in strange side stories. Tom Waits (clutching a rabbit) tells a story of being part of a serial-killer-killer couple, with nods to real historical killings (such as the Texarkana Moonlight Murders). The main trio discuss and rework the story of a Vietnamese fighter (Nguyen) taking revenge for America’s actions in the war. The characters reference action film tropes and interrogate quotes from Ghandi or Buddhist philosophy. The allusions and fragmentations are trying to push the inward quality of the film into a larger social context–they’re not always successful, but they are entertaining, weird, and sharply written.

A self-obsessed, very dude-oriented movie is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fair. And I would say it’s easily the weakest of McDonagh’s four films so far, which never quite rises to the hallucinatory heights of the aforementioned similar works. But the cast is great and all giving strong performances. And it’s interesting as a glimpse of a the kind of stories we were telling in a particular moment, as we began, in the early 2010s, wrestling with some of the more toxic aspects of 2000s culture. It’s maybe a little too clever for its own good, but there is still intelligence to it and a kind of shaggy-dog charm that makes it worth watching.
Film Collection: The Pink Panther

August 28th, 2026

Directed by Blake Edwards
Written by Maurice Richlin & Blake Edwards
1963 | 121 minutes | English
VHS

David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Claudia Cardinale, Brenda de Banzie, Colin Gordon, John Le Mesurier, James Lanphier, Guy Thomajan, Michael Trubshawe, Riccardo Billi, Mari Welles, Martin Miller, Fran Jeffries, Gale Garnett

What it’s about: Hapless Parisian inspector Jacques Clouseau (Sellers) has been on the trail of notorious jewel thief The Phantom for twenty years. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Simone (Capucine) is taken up with The Phantom, bachelor playboy Sir Charles Lytton (Niven), behind his back. Furthermore, Lytton’s American nephew George (Wagner) has come to Europe and seems to be running some game of his own. All of them converge on a ski resort in Cortina, also hosting Princess Dala (acted by Cardinale, dubbed by Garnett), who just so happens to be in possession of the world’s most fabulous diamond, the eponymous Pink Panther.

Reflections: If I’ve seen this before, it hasn’t been for decades. In my mind, I thought of it as a goofball comedy caper film, and it is that, but it’s also very effective as a thriller. There are pratfalls galore, wry dialogue, delightfully absurd situations–the gorilla car chase, a hallway routine acted out on the streets of Rome, stands out in mind–but they exist around a pressure-cooker plot that mostly plays it straight and ends on a surprisingly dark (and code-breaking) note. The best moments of the film play into both these instincts simultaneously–an extended sequence in which Simone has to juggle multiple men in her hotel room wrings tension out of physical comedy in a sharp and cackling way and is incredible to watch.

It also drips with an undeniable ’60s style, starting with that iconic theme music by Henry Mancini and a playful, energetic cartoon title sequence. Niven oozes charm, Sellers walks the line between big-hearted and tightly wound, both Capucine and Cardinale play up their characters as sharp and sexy in different ways. By modern standards, the pace is slow and the gags somewhat restrained, but it gives both the jokes and the various traps and schemes of the characters time to breathe and leaves room for the complexities of each relationship to sink in.

Given that it spawned seven sequels, two reboots, multiple animated series, several television specials, and even a handful of video games, there is clearly a special sauce here that tapped into pop cultural consciousness. Watching it now, it feels like classic entertainment, giving off a certain nostalgic, family-friendly feeling but without sacrificing a naughtily winking edge. A movie that goes as well with a cocktail as a cup of cocoa, and a delight either way.
Film Collection: Legend

August 26th, 2026

Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by William Hjortsberg
1985 | 114 minutes | English
DVD — Director’s Cut

Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Annabelle Lanyon, Robert Picardo, Cork Hubbart, Peter O’Farrell, Kiran Shah

What it’s about: Child of the Forest Jack (Cruise) takes his sweetheart, Princess Lili (Sara), to see the unicorns, embodiments of the world’s light and magic. But an impulsive Lili touches the animals, forbidden for mortals, and allows the forces of the Lord of Darkness (Curry) a chance to assassinate one of them, tipping the world onto the verge of eternal night. Separated in the ensuing chaos, the two young lovers must right the situation: him with the help of the mischievous Gump (Bennent) and his band of faeries, and her by resisting the temptations of Darkness.

Reflections: Of the big ’80s fantasy films, this is one of the dreamiest and weirdest. The director’s cut–which adds 24 minutes–moves at a languid pace, the characters are mostly flat archetypes, several important plot mechanics basically boil down to “it’s magic, it’s fine”–this is a movie that operates on vibes more than logic. But the director’s two previous films were Alien and Blade Runner–Ridley Scott can nail a vibe. Everything is suffused with an opulent and increasingly gothic design, storms of petals or clouds of bubbles dance around in the frame, there is glitter all over the place. The dialog veers from weirdly stilted (“Kill her! Forget her! Think of the unicorn!”) to bumbling-sidekick shtick (“Aye, tis no sight for a sober man.”) and nothing is ever really explained, but the texture of the whole thing is easy to get lost in.

More than that, though, I remember seeing this movie around middle-school age and there was something hypnotic about it. Watching it again as an adult, there is a thick undertone of coming-of-age sexuality to the whole thing that I think registered subconsciously–it feels like a fever dream, but it is doing something. There is also a lot of campy humor to it–just the way the goblin Blix (Playten) delivers a “Wow.” to an overreaction from the supreme evil is funnier than most of the actual “jokes.” But no one is working harder to sell this thing than Tim Curry (RIP, sir). Setting aside the wild design of his character, his performance is magnetically weird, over the top in exactly the right way, and he ends up carrying the whole film (just look at the box art).

I’m not surprised this flopped, which it did. It’s a really eccentric turn and still not really like anything else Scott has made. It doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense, but film–art in general–is not a totally intellectual experience. This feels more like it’s trying to tap into something more mythical–serving up sumptuous images and pulling together a mishmash of things from folklore and the collective unconscious. I kind of love this movie for that, but it also got me at the right age and it’s one I’d recommend cautiously; one’s mileage may vary depending on one’s patience for its oddball nonsense.
Film Collection: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

August 26th, 2026

Directed by Colin Higgins
Written by Larry L. King, Peter Masterson and Colin Higgins
1982 | 114 minutes | English
VHS

Dolly Parton, Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Charles Durning, Jim Nabors, Robert Mandan, Theresa Merritt, Lois Nettleton, Noah Beery Jr., Barry Corbin, Raleigh Bond

What it’s about: The town of Gilbert, TX exists in harmony with the Chicken Ranch, a old-west brothel on the edge of town that has become a local institution, currently being run by Miss Mona Stangely (Parton), who enjoys an ongoing tryst with the town sheriff, Ed Earl Dodd (Reynolds). But this harmony is disrupted by Melvin P. Thorpe (DeLuise), a shit-stirring, fame-seeking investigative journalist from New Jersey by way of Houston. Thorpe’s manufactured outrage reaches a fever pitch after a party at the Chicken Ranch with the Aggie football team, drawing attention from the Governor (Durning) and presenting an existential threat to the future of the Chicken Ranch and perhaps Mona and Ed Earl’s relationship as well.

Reflections: RIP Dolly–pouring it out for a real one. I have a sentimental attachment to this film; it’s weird, a little leaden in places, and was apparently miserable to make, but it’s also some genuine country fun. The songs are great, Burt Reynolds has a little bit of an edge to his grumpy comedy, and Dolly has enough charisma to carry the whole thing, even if it doesn’t fully let her let loose. Dom DeLuise does an awkward boot-scoot in a weird little cowboy outfit and a pageboy haircut. That’s… certainly something to see. Charles Durning got an Oscar nomination for this. It’s very sex-positive and not weird about it. There’s a lot to enjoy.

And while it is absolutely meant to be broad entertainment, there is a certain resonance in it. Underneath the musical coating, you have the archetypal western story: modernity upsetting an older way of life that there’s no going back to. And that modernity reflects ultimately the same late ’70s/early ’80s anxiety in something like Network–Thorpe even tells Ed Earl he and his television show represent the new kind of justice. For all the chuckles and cheery attitude, there is a melancholy to it, and one of Dolly’s best songs gets the heart of that moment (“I Will Always Love You,” written well before the film but repopularized by it).

But more than that, there is an earnestness to the silliness, a kind of old-fashioned, cheesy quality that modern comedy is too self-aware to really replicate, but which still holds up. It’s the kind of movie one wants to watch on a cozy afternoon–light and cheerful, spilling over with star-power, some pathos, but it all turns out all right. Even one of the authors of the original play admitted the work wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but it’s got heart and charm and is worth watching if you haven’t seen it or revisiting if you have.