Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann, 2024)

Public hair

Aaaand just because it's summer and we're all entitled to a bit of fun, thought I'd drop in and check out how Pixar's doing.

In A Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950, from the book by Dorothy B. Hughes)

Killer inside me

(Warning: details from the novel and film discussed in explicit detail)

Reading Dorothy B. Hughes' 1947 novel In a Lonely Place and watching Nicholas Ray's 1950 adaptation is like experiencing the difference between night and day: Hughes' novel takes place mostly at night it seems, in dense fog; you often confuse the misty Los Angeles evenings for Dix Steele's twilight view-- occasionally there's the glare of a passing streetlamp, but it quickly fades into the haze. 

Ray's film feels as if it takes place mostly in sunlight; even its interiors radiate the glow of studio kliegs-- the film is described as a noir but if we adhere to strict definitions it breaks one rule of noir: not a lot of shadows onscreen. The look of Ray's films can diverge from the norm (see his debut work They Live By Night) but in this case he opts for the standard-issue brightness of a Hollywood production-- why?

The Munekata Sisters (Munekata Shimai, Yasujiro Ozu, 1950)

Sister act

Ozu working for another studio?! The idea seems unheard of, like the director doing a film noir or shooting an explicitly erotic scene. But in fact Ozu's done at least one gangster flick (Dragnet Girl) and three films outside of Shochiku, of which this one was the first (the other two were his 1951 remake Floating Weeds and his second-to-the-last The End of Summer (1961)). As for The Munekata Sisters, Shintoho studios-- basically 'New Toho,' as the actors there had defected from the old studio due to labor disputes-- needed reputable directors and lured Ozu away by offering him more money: 50 million yen, or $140,000 1950 dollars (around $1.8 million today).

Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2023)

Assassin's creed

Richard Linklater's Hit Man -- adapted from the Texas Monthly magazine piece of the same name written by Skip Hollandsworth-- is that rare news article adaptation that takes an interesting premise (ordinary joe poses as assassin-for-hire for New Orleans PD sting operation) and pushes it to its logical extreme, or at least as extreme as the director can manage. Glen Powell is Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor who teases his students with questions like "What if your self is a construction?" Linklater wastes no time testing that postulate: one day the operation finds itself without a plainclothes officer to deliver the sting, and Gary's colleagues coax him to step in instead.

Utamaro and his Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946) in 35 mm

Immortal beloved 

(Warning: plot twists explicitly discussed in detail)

Utamaro and His Five Women begins with a procession-- the camera gliding past men and women in elaborate kimonos with umbrellas held up like banners; cherry blossoms lining the boulevard, arthritic branches holding up tufts of cottony blossoms that suggest a startling depth (you're reminded of Max Fleischer's stereoptical experiments in Popeye). The procession drones on, the men stride forward, the women-- those perched on wooden clogs-- take huge circling steps, their heads bobbing up and down in sinuous waves. It's a fantastic throwaway gesture of virtuosity, as if Mizoguchi had decided to pick up the baton and conduct a warmup passage.