Comedy

Ebert’s plot description:
“A sometime rock singer and a middle-aged Greek-American businessman who meet through a videotape computer dating service…
The movie’s mostly about the perfect couple of the title, a matching of Second City veteran Paul Dooley and Broadway actress Marta Heflin. He’s part of a genuinely bizarre family presided over by a ruthless Greek father who requires compulsory attendance at such family rituals as concerts and dinners. She plays a somewhat forlorn member of a music group, ‘Keepin’ em Off the Streets,’ which is part rock band, part extended communal family.”Read More »

A Witch in Love; ‘Bell, Book and Candle’ at Fine Arts, Odeon

THE magic in “Bell, Book and Candle,” which opened at the Fine Arts and Odeon Theatres on Christmas, is not so much black as chromatic. It’s the color that’s bewitching in this film.

Actually, its story of a young lady who possesses some supernatural power, which she uses to inveigle a gentleman into falling in love with her, is neither as novel nor engaging as you might expect it to be. Pretty young ladies in movies are bewitching gaga fellows all the time with enticements and devices that are magic, so fas as the audience can tell. So the gimmick of John van Druten’s stage play, which has been used as the basis for this film — the gimmick of a woman endowed with witchcraft—is really rather silly and banal.Read More »

In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success, propelling him into a universe of greed.Read More »

While at a summerhouse, awaiting their husbands’ return, a group of sisters-in-law recount stories from their respective marriages. Rakel (Anita Björk) tells of receiving a visit from a former lover (Jarl Kulle); Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) of agreeing to marry a painter (Birger Malmsten) only after having his child; and Karin (Eva Dahlbeck) of being stuck with her husband (Gunnar Björnstrand) in an elevator, where they talk intimately for the first time in years. Making dexterous use of flashbacks, the engaging Waiting Women is a veritable seedbed of Bergman themes, ranging from aspiring young love to the fear of loneliness, with the finale a masterpiece of chamber comedy.Read More »

Synopsis:
“Young Jenny heads to the South of England to start a new career as a school teacher. Even before she has had a chance to settle in she meets Patrick, one of the local “lads”. Within a short time she has her hands full when a number of the local boys take a liking to her. But who will be the lucky one who wins her affections?”
– Kevin Steinhauer (IMDb)Read More »

Paris, 1955. Guy, film critic of the Cahiers du Cinéma, often goes to see the films of Vittorio Cottafavi in a local cinema. One day he notices that Jeanne, film critic of “Positive “, the rival magazine, seems to be following him. He is intrigued.Read More »

Synopsis:
Director Robert Hamer’s fiendishly funny Kind Hearts and Coronets stands as one of Ealing Studios’ greatest triumphs, and one of the most wickedly black comedies ever made. Dennis Price is sublime as an embittered young commoner determined to avenge his mother’s unjust disinheritance by ascending to her family’s dukedom. Unfortunately, eight relatives—all played by the incomparable Alec Guinness—must be eliminated before he can do so.Read More »

In “Mixwix”, a department store owner high above the rooftops of Munich reflects on the extent to which his current life, which mainly revolves around underpants and socks, makes sense.

He has long been the king of underpants and socks. He even has the largest selection of underpants ever. Mr. Mixwix is a department store owner and so successful with his underpants and socks that something new has to come, something that stimulates him again, lets him continue. Tennis clothing, for example! Or maybe not? While Mr. Mixwix, quiet as Buddha, sits high above the rooftops of Munich and waits for the building permit for the extension of his department store for tennis clothing, he ponders whether he is on the right track with tennis clothing, or whether he is on the right track at all, and what the right track is in the first place. This immersion in Far Eastern life wisdom, the questioning of his own existence as a big capitalist and of capitalism itself, lead Mr. Mixwix to all sorts of philosophical and peculiar games of thought, but also to statements such as: “How can one be as inspirited by one’s own stupidity as the Bavarian people”.Read More »

Quote:
This is another of the Pete Smith Specialities, which was co-written and directed by Dave O’Brien, who plays the poor fool with the hiccoughs. He tries various “remedies” to “cure” himself (some of which Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition might have applauded) to no avail. It’s all great fun, for everyone but the poor twit. O’Brien frequently played a character not likely to be joining Mensa any time soon in these shorts. This runs on TCM as filler fairly often and virtually every March as part of the “31 Days of Oscar”. Most recommended.Read More »