CLUNY BROWN (1946)

 

Directed By: Ernst Lubitsch

Written By: Samuel Hoffstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt 

Based on The Novel By: Margery Sharp

Cinematography: Joseph LaShalle

Editor: Dorothy Spencer 

Cast: Jennfier Jones, Charles Boyer, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Reginald Gardiner, Reginald Owen, Sir. C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn 

Amateur plumber Cluny Brown gets sent off by her uncle to work as a servant at an English country estate. While there, she becomes friendly with Adam Belinski, a charming Czech refugee. She also becomes interested in a dull shopkeeper named Mr. Wilson. Belinski soon falls in love with Cluny and tries to keep her from marrying Wilson.

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Sadly this was the last film director Ernst Lubitsch finished on his own before passing. Away the following year, though he went out with a bang in this it seems lesser known or at least lesser talked about classic film. 

It feels like this film has so much in entendre throughout the film, (there is a character actually named Betty Cream, played by the scene stealing beauty Helen Walker) but still manages to be heartwarming as it is charming with sharp dialogue and has an innocence, whereas overall it feels more fluffy than serious

Jennifer jones has a star making role as the title character. A naïve tomboy. Trying to find her place in the world where she won’t be taking advantage of. Our character is still hopes and the way Jones player in the role is so winning.

At first, you’re not sure where this film is going or what the story will be until she arrives roughly about 10 minutes into the film. After that, it mostly never leaves her and even when it does, it’s usually characters talking about her. Not to mention. You have to admire lady who masters a true trade

And also offers something you don’t see too much more in films, where a film is more written around a character or a characters and whoever is the star of the film really gets to make an impression throughout.

Charles Boyer’ character at first was annoying, but you were to a charms, especially considering most of the other characters are so stiff and dull. Though at first, you wonder if he’s just a con man and then you realize he might not be, but he mostly is getting what he wants and being quite the rascal doing it, especially while putting the other characters in their places for the most part

What I enjoy about the films that each character gets their time to shine maybe not in quite star making, but each of them has their own scene to shine in that really defines their character be more comedic or more serious

The film is witty and warm. As after all, it is a comedy of manners and errors with real world historical references that were modern at the time that make the film feel a bit more real, even if it feels more like a fantasy set in the real world at times.

A lesser known film that makes magic out of a little and a few details. Then again look at who directed it. He had that kind of touch with most of his films. 

Very old school of quality that is plenty of fun it takes its time to get there. Though classic that can play for the whole family. The adults will probably appreciate the film more 

In the end, bringing a love story romance for most even where it doesn’t necessarily feel like it belongs. You can see why it’s a classic.

Grade: B 

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (2024)

 

Written & Directed By: Pedro Almodovar 

Based on the Novel “WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH” By: Sigrid Nunez 

Cinematography: Edu Grau 

Editor: Teresa Font 

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Alex Hogh Andersen, Victoria Luengo, Esther McGregor

Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

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This isn’t a bad film. In fact, it’s almost frustrating that it isn’t, because there’s so much to admire here, and yet so little that I actually connected with.

Every frame is beautiful. The colors, compositions, interiors, costumes, and carefully chosen shots often look like paintings. There’s a rhythm to it, too, almost like a beautifully directed stage production. But after a while, It started feeling less like one was watching a movie and more like I was visiting a very expensive museum exhibit And while appreciated, just wasn’t necessarily having a good time.

The biggest problem for me is that the dialogue often feels written rather than spoken. The characters seem to deliver information rather than reveal emotion. It’s almost like reading a very wordy novel where the author tells you everything, leaving you to create the images and feelings yourself. Except this is a movie Qqand Pedro Almodóvar is giving us all those images already.

There are moments of genuine beauty and meaning, but emotionally, the film feels strangely cold. Almost like a modern 1950s melodrama that forgot to turn up the melodrama.

And that’s particularly disappointing because Almodóvar is one of my favorite filmmakers. He has always had this wonderful ability to make chaos feel ordinary, make the mundane feel fascinating, and turn emotional extremes into something colorful, funny, messy, and alive.

Here, everything feels much more controlled. Almost too controlled.

The film eventually becomes monotonous, like listening to someone tell you a story when you keep waiting for them to finally get to the point and then realizing you’re not particularly interested in the point.

I also couldn’t shake the feeling that this was partly an appreciation piece for its two magnificent leading actresses. If you’re already a fan of them, there’s plenty here to admire. And honestly, they deserve to be celebrated. But the movie sometimes feels more devoted to their presence than interested in giving us something emotionally involving around them.

It’s gorgeous. It’s sophisticated. It’s carefully constructed. There’s absolutely nothing technically wrong with it And maybe that’s the problem.

I kept waiting for the movie to surprise me, move me, shake me or at least make me feel something beyond “That’s a lovely shot.”

It almost feels like watching a Vogue fashion spread: beautifully designed, impeccably photographed, sophisticated enough to discuss over cocktails, but after a while you’re wondering where the actual story went.

Ultimately, The film feels like a film to study, admire, dissect, and appreciate more than one to simply enjoy And maybe that’s exactly what Almodóvar intended.

But for me, it was like going on a date with someone who has plenty of qualities you admire. They’re intelligent, beautiful, interesting, accomplished, and probably wonderful to other people. There just isn’t any chemistry. So you wish them well And if everyone else wants to rave about them, I won’t argue.

Though by the end if you can afford it. You want to know who the interior designer and costume designer were. As those are immaculate. 

Grade: B- 

JEFF OF THE CINEFILES & UNFINISHED BUSINESS: HALL OF FAME - FILE #0078: BAXTER (1989)

 

Directed By: Jerome Boivin

Written By: Jerome Boivin and Jacques Audiard 

Based On The Book “HELL HOUND” By: Ken Greenhall

Cinematography: Yves Angelo

Editor: Marie-Jose Chauvel

Cast: Lisa Delaware, Jean Mercure, Jacques Spiesser, Catherine Ferran, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Sabrina Leurgoin, Daniel Rialet, Evelyn Dipi

Told from a dogs perspective – the titular Baxter is moved from one owner to another, seemingly never being a good fit for anyone.

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Have you ever watched a movie that is so good you have no desire to really ever watch it again yet you would still recommend it. Well, this is one of those movies for me. Kept me watching with fear and anticipation until the end. Leave it to the French.

I was hoping that the recently released film GOOD BOY, would be on the level of this film while I found that film disappointing this was better than I could’ve ever expected as it kind of feels like it’s own version of the film MAN BITES DOG, though not as disturbing, but disturbing in its own way. Though this film could be watched with films such as WHITE DOG and WHITE GOD. Why all these films have White in the title? You’ll have to watch them and see.

This movie is a very depressing indefinitely disturbing though it never shows any violence throughout more leaving it suggested until the third act. 

Throughout the film, you know where it is going but not how it will get there or what it will do when it does and you kind of hope that it might steer itself somewhere else as we get to know the next inheritors of the dog and can instantly spot their weaknesses and vulnerability. especially as he seems to more go after the innocent, lonely, weak and trusting. All those that used to be sacred in films of the past or even of the films time period in which it was made.

Fell through throughout was thankful it didn’t go some places that were expected. As one feels sorry for most of the characters 

they keep in mind as one get older films like this bother me. They aren’t exactly for me anymore, but they’re watching it. It definitely inspired a reaction and kept me watching which can be rare when it comes to certain films

The film disturbed me yet want to read. It’s original source material. A 1970s American horror. Novel. Not shocked that one of the Screenwriter was future award-winning filmmaker Jacques Audiard (DHEEPAN)

I thought the film would be more an ensemble episodic anthology movie, Sort of like the movie WEINER DOG with less quirky comedy. Which then again makes me wonder if Todd Solondz  was inspired by this movie even as this stays more in a certain community in the neighborhood.

The ending is disturbing and sad as it shows a kind of legacy that will continue in its own one. 

Writer-Director John Waters put this on his list of favorite films that will corrupt you when he had an all two brief movie review show of his own

Which ends up being true as by the end, you are scared and feel a bit guilty as a film is going to make you feel something with barely having a Music score to guide you. It’s not flashy stylistically it’s definitely challenging and seek to instigate as you are a fly on the wall throughout and is going to take you with it willingly or even if it has to drag you unwillingly 

Grade: A

THIS IS NOT A TEST (2026)

 

Written, Directed & Produced By: Adam MacDonald

Based on the book By: Courtney Summers

Cinematography: Christian Bielz

Editor: Pamela Bayne

Cast: Olivia Holt, Froy Gutierrez, Corteon Moore, Carson McCormac, Chloe Avakian, Luke Macfarlane, Joelle Farrow, Krista Bridges, Jeff Roop

Follows Sloane and four other students who take shelter in their high school during a zombie outbreak.

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Based on the young adult novel, THIS IS NOT A TEST feels like the kind of adaptation that probably trims away much of what made the book worth reading. I haven’t read the novel, but I’d wager there’s more room there for the characters to breathe than this film ever gives them.

Instead, it settles into familiar zombie movie territory. Imagine THE WALKING DEAD aimed at a younger audience, only with the occasional surprising moment, yes, including one scene I genuinely didn’t expect. Unfortunately, surprises are in short supply everywhere else. You’ll likely figure out who’s making it to the end long before the characters do.

The frustrating part is that the movie constantly hints at becoming something better. It sets up interesting situations, builds a little tension, then repeatedly backs away just as things are about to get exciting. There are plenty of opportunities to push the horror, the suspense, or even the emotional drama further, but it almost always chooses the safest route.

To its credit, the film isn’t bad. It’s competently made, moves at a brisk pace, and wisely doesn’t overstay its welcome. The cast is believable, likable, and does the best they can with material that rarely challenges them. The movie’s heart is clearly in the relationships and emotional survival rather than nonstop zombie mayhem, and some viewers will appreciate that approach.

If you’re newer to zombie films or horror in general, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this more than I did. There’s enough action and tension to stay engaged, and it never completely loses its footing. For longtime fans of the genre, though, there’s very little here that feels fresh or memorable.

In the end, THIS IS NOT A TEST  isn’t a disaster. it just never becomes the movie it keeps teasing. It’s respectable, watchable, and occasionally effective, but it ultimately feels less like a finished statement and more like an early draft that needed one more rewrite.

Grade: C 

THE INVITE (2026)

 

Directed By: Olivia Wilde

Written By: Rashida Jones & Will McCormack

Based on the Motion Picture “SENTIMENTAL” By: Cesc Gay

Cinematography: Adam Newport-Berra

Editor: Anthony Boys and Yorgos Mavropsaridis 

Cast: Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton

Joe and Angela’s marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places.

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This movie reminded me of something rather embarrassing. I have never been to a dinner party.

I’ve always wanted to be invited to one. Maybe one day, if I ever have a place of my own, I’ll throw one myself. Until then, all I really know about dinner parties comes from movies, television, and books. If they’re anything like this one… sign me up. Hopefully just with slightly less emotional damage.

This feels like a genuine comeback for Olivia Wilde as a director. It reminds you just how talented she is when she’s focused less on genre and spectacle, and more on people. Relationships, insecurities, attraction, jealousy, longing, you know those messy little emotions that make us human.

The film is a loving throwback to the intimate relationship dramas that flourished from the 1960s through the 1980s. You can immediately feel the DNA of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFE and BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE. It’s refreshing to see a movie made for adults that lets conversations become the action.

The smartest thing the film does is invite you into the story without revealing its hand. Whether you know the premise or go in completely blind, you’re pulled in by the seductive setup and the chemistry between the characters. As the evening unfolds, what begins as playful curiosity slowly transforms into something heavier, more emotionally revealing, and surprisingly tense. Yet the film always keeps a sense of humor tucked away in its back pocket.

Every actor is working at the top of their game, and each performance is an essential ingredient in what makes the film work.

Olivia Wilde is especially impressive, both behind and in front of the camera. She plays the anxious, seemingly ordinary half of a married couple stuck in a comfortable rut with Seth Rogen. It’s fascinating watching the dynamic evolve. To each other they’ve become familiar, almost invisible. But through someone else’s eyes, they suddenly become attractive again. The film cleverly explores how desire and perception change depending on who’s looking.

The entire movie feels like a beautifully staged play. I honestly assumed it was an original screenplay because it feels so confident and distinct. Finding out it’s actually adapted from a foreign film that’s already been remade several times was surprising. Even so, this version feels completely fresh and confidently stands on its own.

It’s bold without trying too hard. Provocative without becoming cynical. Underneath all the awkwardness, emotional chaos, and uncomfortable conversations is an oddly wholesome innocence about people simply wanting to reconnect with themselves, their partners, and the lives they’ve built.

At times the film almost plays like an emotional thriller. There isn’t a killer hiding in the house, just vulnerability, desire, regret, and the fear of saying the quiet part out loud. Somehow that’s even more suspenseful.

Even the soundtrack echoes the films that inspired it. It captures that sophisticated, simmering mood where something has been bubbling beneath the surface all evening, and you’re simply waiting for it to finally boil over.

The Invite is funny, sexy, awkward, revealing, and emotionally honest. It’s the kind of intelligent adult drama Hollywood used to make all the time and one I hope becomes fashionable again.

Grade: A 

PILLION (2026)

 

Written & Directed By: Harry Lighton 

Based on The Book “BOX HILL” by: Adam Mars-Jones 

Cinematography: Nick Morris

Editor: Gareth C. Scales 

Cast: Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgard, Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge, Jake Shears, Mat Hill, Nick Figgis, Zoe Engerer

Colin, a weedy wallflower letting life pass him by, meets Ray, the impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, who then takes him on as his submissive. Ray uproots Colin from his dreary suburban life, introducing him to a community of kinky, queer bikers and taking all sorts of virginities along the way. But as Colin steps deeper into Ray’s world of rules and mysteries, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is for him. Has he found his calling, or simply swapped one form of suffocation for another?

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The film is less graphic than I expected it to be.

Even though it does start off with a little bit of a shock. Though sexually frank it shocks more with its moments of tenderness. That is more universal for us all. 

Though I think it uses the BDSM aspects of the relationship as shocking at first, but also to show a kind I’ve avoidance of intimacy, especially when it came to emotions which Skarsgard’s character seeks to avoid. 

As he loves control and power, where we and Harry Melling’s character are not sure if he keeps him around just because he’s a willing consenting victim of sorts or if he feels that this is his way of showing his attraction and care for him. As obviously Skarsgard character is a fantasy come true. Skarsgard plays up the hot hunk with no emotions to the hilt. He has played this before and seems willing to try most freaky roles and go for it. Though making them recognizable human eventually.

What is interesting is what plays out a more hard-edged cruel version of how most relationships are where at first it’s all about the attraction and the sex were one person usually has to take the lead. Hear the roles are more defined as in most relationships. They are either switched communicate communicated about or naturally happen.

Whereas most thing, what’s the worst I could happen will be something sexual here, the relationship relationships or sexual upfront, but more afraid of getting emotionally and personally involved. As it ruins the dynamic and the power-play.

For a film that seems like it’s going to be hard to take or heart edged. It’s got a surprisingly sweet spot and story. It might be mine, the audience of the film. SECRETARY now this film is a little more hard, edged around the heart, and not quite as romantic..

That we do see a relationship evolve. I believe some of the more interesting scenes are with Harry Melling’s character and his parents them wanting to see him happy but his mother who is dying of a terminal disease can tell something is off. We’re not quite right or not quite equal in the way, the relationship is by the end our premonition proves to be right.

This isn’t a film that one would expect where emotions will become a commodity that you in the audience might find yourself choked up in a good way over the film so I can give the film that much credit. As the audience gets involved way more than expected.

As by the end, though it does have a definitive ending it still leaves you wanting more be it in the form of revelations and answers. As by the end it ends up being a coming of age tale. As Melling’s character learns all sorts of lessons and breaks all kind of virginities of his own. 

Grade: B 

YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972)

 

Directed By: Sergio Martino

Written By: Sauro Scavolini, Ernesto Scavolini and Adriano Balzoni

Story By: Sauro Scavolini and Luciano Martino

Based On the story “THE BLACK CAT” By: Edgar Allan Poe 

Cinematography: Giancarlo Ferrando 

Editor: Attilio Vincioni

Cast: Edwige French, Anita Strinberg, Luigi Pistilli, Angela La Vorgna, Ivan Rassimov, Daniela Giordano, Ermelinda De Felice, Enrica Bonaccorti 

A string of murders are committed near the estate of a degenerate author, whose abusive relationship with his wife is further complicated by the arrival of his manipulative niece.

Always a fan of longer movie titles as they come across poetic and almost like the log line or heart of the film. Then again it could just be the translation of the title in English from Italy. When actually it’s based on a line from the film’s director Sergio Martino’s earlier and much better film THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. VARDH 

This twisted erotic thriller has giallo implications. Only other than the beautiful lead Anita Strinberg everything else comes across not glamorous and even ugly. Not as stylish as it seems to try to be. Though the film can be sexy at times and has at least one memorable seductive sex scene. The females amongst the cast are the only beauty this film ends up having other then maybe production design. 

One can see why the leading man played by Luigi Pistilli is mad throughout. He’s A suspect in a few murders of female companions and lusting after Edwige French’s character. Who is supposed to be his niece. She is not only ravishing but She seems to have sex with every other character except for him at least for most of the film

No, as the film and lead are so abusive and misogynistic it’s hard to see where exactly the movie is going or care about most of the characters.

Only one main character approaches any sympathy the only other decent characters are supporting or die way too soon

Now the film is abuse and violence as foreplay as the main couple have a dysfunctional, almost S&M relationship not that the fetish factor makes it dysfunctional as that can be normal. Their relationship has just too many problems throughout.

The lead characters, horrible teeth don’t exactly help sell them as likable or even handsome maybe in a rugged British or masculine manly way that was more in vogue at the time, but once the story does come back into focus and spells it out a little more and you feel the same

The film isn’t stylish enough to really impress or make an audience take notice. The soundtrack isn’t really that impressive either as it becomes more annoying at times as it goes along and even at a little over 90 minutes, this film could’ve been shorter, but that would take away from the films atmosphere that keeps trying to build

The inclusion of an African-American character only to be fetishized and brutalized quickly, but that is how the film treats most of the female characters, including random ones only one of them ever truly takes command to make sure she doesn’t stay that way well the other one tries

The ending makes up for it, but it takes so long to get to it to showcase and explain why certain actions needed to be taken and the relationships between certain characters

Ms. French is no slouch, but not as grand. Even as a moral conniver. If one has seen enough of these movies for all the twists and surprises the filmmakers try to give. You can figure out the ending pretty easily. As it reminds you of a TALES FROM THE CRYPT  episode that guy was on for too long and isn’t as fun though perfectly fits.

Though that is also where the film truly gets interesting while offering an Edgar Allan Poe type ending. Which upon research is what the film is based on. 

Grade: C