March Screenings: Best & Worst

                     March Screenings: Best & Worst

Total Films Screened in March: 47

2023 Total: 291

Current All-Time Total: 8,275

Race to #10,000: 1,725 to go!

		✉️				245	Breaking the Ice	1938
		✉️				246	Navajo	1952
		✉️				247	Madron	1970
		✉️				248	Pirates	1986
		✉️				249	Mark, The	1961
		✉️				250	Living	2022
		✉️				251	Kansan, The	1943
		✉️				252	Woman of the Town, The	1943
		✉️				253	Hi Diddle Diddle	1943
		✉️				254	Flame of Barbary Coast	1945
		✉️				255	Dancing Pirate	1936
		✉️				256	Eternally Yours	1939
		✉️				257	Sunny	1941
		✉️				258	Sundown	1941
	💣	✉️				259	Beach Red	1967
		✉️				260	Cheers for Miss Bishop	1941
		✉️				261	Close	2022
		✉️				262	North Star, The	1943
		✉️				263	Hairy Ape, The	1944
		✉️				264	Portrait of a Lady, The	1996
		✉️				265	Nurse Edith Cavell	1939
		✉️				266	Battle of Russia, The	1943
👍						267	What Did Jack Do?	2017
		✉️	🏆			268	Boys and Girls	1983
👍		✉️	🏆			269	Why Man Creates	1968
		✉️	🏆			270	Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements	1985
👍						271	I Came By	2022
	💣	✉️				272	Oscar, The	1966
		✉️	🏆			273	White Shadows in the South Seas	1928
👍		✉️	🏆			274	Penny Wisdom	1937
👍		✉️				275	Listen to Britain	1942
		✉️				276	Autism is a World	2004
						277	Card Counter, The	2021
		✉️				278	Hoop Dreams	1994
	💣	✉️				279	Happy New Year	1987
	💣					280	Knock at the Cabin	2023
	💣					281	Harpoon	2019
👍						282	Hard Eight	1996
	💣	✉️				283	Malena	2000
						284	Emily the Criminal	2022
						285	Sightseers	2012
👍		✉️				286	Streetwise	1984
						287	Conquest of Everest	1993
	💣	✉️				288	Hawaiians, The	1970
	💣	✉️				289	Bless the Beasts & Children	1971
						290	Wake in Fright	1971
						291	Dark City	1950

        If you're a regular visitor to Cinema Wellman, you are familiar with our monthly movie rundowns. For the past nine months, we've given you the Top 10 & Bottom 5 from the previous month. Starting with today's post about March's screenings, there will be a slight change in format.

        My "semi-retirement" has ended. After taking a year off, I'm back to work full time. For the first time since its inception, Cinema Wellman is being hosted by a person with a real job. Working 8 hours a day has certainly cut into my movie time, which is why March's total of 47 movies is the lowest monthly total in over a year.

        For this reason, I'm changing the format from a Top 10/Bottom 5 to simply a "Best & Worst" of each month. There weren't enough quality movies screened in March to fill a Top 10, and I didn't want to lower the bar just to fill a quota. I stand behind the movies I write about and recommend and didn't want to diminish that by elevating a movie that wasn't deserving.

        There will still be a determination of the "Best" and the "Worst" film each month, but the others will not be ranked numerically. There will never be more than 5 Worst or 10 Best, so it's possible that some future months will look like what we've presented in the past with our Bottom 5/Top 10 blogs.

        March wasn't a good month for movies around here. I didn't see anything worthwhile until the 23rd movie I watched. I was checking off a lot of old Oscar nominees and ran into a boring batch for some reason. Nothing that I'd put on a Top 10 list and that had me tweaking the format a bit.

        So, a bit of a change, hopefully for the better. I'm very happy to be working again, and I'm still working on the production schedule to provide you with a new blog/episode every week.

        Thank you for your patience and continued support. It is much appreciated.

        Format change or not, we will still begin with the dreck of the month. Here are the worst movies we screened in March.

The Hawaiians (1970)

    Yet another "colonization" epic that I hated for the same reasons I hated all of the others I've previously mentioned. It's racist, it's misogynistic, it's heavy on the "white savior" theme, and it stars Charlton Heston. Did casting directors think The Ten Commandments was a documentary? He was certainly on top of the list of actors called upon when they needed that "white savoir" in their movie.

        Based on a novel that was probably 900 pages long by James A. Michener (the Charlton Heston of the literary world), this is a boring story set in a beautiful place. A lot of it was filmed in West Hollywood and Culver City, but the beautiful parts were filmed in Hawaii. Not that it helped.

        If it wasn't for Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man, I'd have no use at all for Charlton Heston.

        Next on the list is more overblown Hollywood trash.

        

The Oscar (1966)

     The most amazing thing about this film is that the Academy Awards let them shoot footage for this crap at an actual awards ceremony! They obviously had no idea how bad it would be, and it led to the Academy trademarking the "Academy Award", so they'd be able to control how it was used in upcoming creative projects.

        This film stars Stephen Boyd as a Best Actor nominee at the awards ceremony and the film is told in flashback to reveal what an absolute jerk he is to everyone.

        I was amused that Stephen Boyd was chosen to play an actor. Nothing I have ever seen him in has made me think he could play an actor in a movie.

        The supplemental cast is amazing as it includes tons of Hollywood "regulars." Some are cast as characters, while many others play themselves.

        The strangest casting is of the great Italian singer Tony Bennett as the half-Jewish, half-Irish Hymie Kelly. I am not making that up. Bennett later said it was a "terrible experience," and never wanted to act again because of it.

        I agree with Tony. I also thought it was a terrible experience.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

    I will be the first to admit that I have an M. Night Shyamalan thing. I just don't like his movies. I think it's as simple as that. It started 20 minutes into The Sixth Sense when I turned to Lysa and said, "So he's dead, right?" Shyamalan has never recovered in my mind. I just think he and his movies are vastly overrated.

        I don't know if this film is being praised or scorned since I usually don't pay attention to that, but I just thought this was a whole lot of nothing at the door.

        The performances aren't necessarily bad. There are worse actors out there than Dave Bautista these days. The premise isn't bad either. From IMDb: "While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse." Sounds interesting, right?

        Unfortunately, like many Shyamalan movies, the problem is with the storytelling itself. There are several parts of the story that are never explored that would have helped to explain the motivation of these menacing strangers. There are also gaps in the creation of the characters of the parents. There's something going on that we are left to figure out for ourselves that would have helped explain some actions.

        Not enough character development to care either way, and only one sympathetic character in the entire film. I'm not sure why he still gets money to make films. There are much better, lesser known, directors out there that deserve some financial backing.

        So that's three bad movies, it's now time for the absolute worst of the month. It was an easy choice.

The Worst! - Harpoon (2010)

      "Actually, it's not a harpoon, it's a spear gun." That is the extent of the "comedy" in this piece of trash floating in the ocean from Canada that's more offensive than that heap of rotting seaweed currently headed towards us.

        Billed as a "comedy/horror/thriller" on IMDb for no apparent reason, this tries to be some new take on the Open Water movies but is dead in the water. That stupid pun I just made is better than this entire movie.

        Harpoon has three characters, and I'm still deciding which one I hated the most. There's obnoxious rich white guy with a boat. There's his obnoxious girlfriend who puts up with his shit on the surface. There's the "friend" who is just the put upon third wheel that the girlfriend is OBVIOUSLY SLEEPING WITH from the start. That's one of the twists.

        I'm sorry. I should have warned you that I'm going to spoil the hell out of this movie to prevent you from ever thinking about watching it.

        When you hate all three characters in a three-character film, you know you're in for a dismal time.

        It gets down to drawing straws to decide who gets killed and eaten. Third wheel straight up murders rich white guy. Obnoxious girlfriend shoves third wheel off of the back of the boat where he's ground into hamburger by the engines. Is that even possible? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be something that could happen. How are those propellers set up? Let's move on. Obnoxious girlfriend then tries to flee the scene and leave the two dead guys in her wake when she guns the engines and is propelled off the entire boat and into the water. Is this possible? In the world of physics? Did those engines go from 0-80 knots in two seconds? Ridiculous.

        The movie ends with her in the water watching the boat move away full throttle. She will drown. Roll credits. They all got what they deserved, including being part of the worst movie screened in Cinema Wellman in the month of March.

        Let's look at some good movies now!

        

Penny Wisdom (1937)

    From the 1930s to 1950s, Pete Smith produced a series of short films that were known as "Pete Smith Specialties." He was nominated for 16 Oscars, winning two, including Penny Wisdom.

        Smith narrated the shorts that were comedic in nature and poked fun at everyday life. Penny Wisdom is about cooking and how a "housewife" should properly prepare for a dinner party with important guests.

        Puns and other wordplay are in full force as Smith's narration adds to the hijinks on the screen. I actually saw this Oscar winner for Best Short Subject, Color by accident. I had DVRd another Oscar winner, White Shadows in the South Seas on TCM, and this was shown before the recording ran out. Double bonus!

        Penny Wisdom was good for a couple of laughs as all of Pete's Specialties are.

Listen to Britain (1942)

    This mid-war documentary short out of the U.K. is unique in the sense that it has no narration. Telling a story in a documentary without narration is a challenge since the filmmakers need to rely on the images and sounds to do all the work.

        This is done masterfully in Listen to Britain. Director Humphrey Jennings directed quite a few wartime shorts in the U.K. during WWII. I've seen a handful of them, and I have found all of them well done without being heavy handed as wartime documentaries tend to be from time to time.

        Well done, Humphrey!

Streetwise (1984)

    This documentary tells the story of a group of teenagers living on the streets of Seattle in the mid 80s.

        I've seen more than a few documentaries about young people living on the streets over the years, and I always find them extremely unsettling.

        I couldn't help but think about my own daughters and how thankful I am that they grew up in a loving and supportive environment. Many of these kids never really had a chance in life and it's sad to watch them hustle from day to day just to stay alive.

        These kids want you to know how tough they are and how hard street life has made them, but you can see right through all of that. When you realize they're just children, it makes it all the more heartbreaking.

        Not a fun movie, by any means, but a very good movie.

Hard Eight (1996)

    I've been preparing for an upcoming blog on gambling movies which had me check out this Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring the great Phillip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly. It's a well done, character driven movie (as many of Anderson's films are).

        I'm including it here because it won't make the Top 10 for the gambling list. Doesn't mean it can't be included as one of the best movies I screened in March.

        Gambling movies are inherently depressing, and this is no exception. It's emotionally draining to watch these characters struggle to get through life as they make bad decision after bad decision.

        Paul Thomas Anderson made this film a year before directing Boogie Nights put him on the map. This film has a lot in common with Boogie Nights including sympathetic characters you can't help but root for.

        And Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I miss him so much.

What Did Jack Do? (2017)

     Half of the six films on the best list for March are shorts. No surprise as you know I love a short. However, I am NOT a fan of monkeys, and I'm iffy at best when it comes to David Lynch.

        So, it's a bit of surprise to see 2017's What Did Jack Do? on the list of best movies screened in March.

        Turns out it a tremendous mix of monkeys and David Lynch!

        In this 17-minute short, Lynch plays a homicide detective interrogating Jack, a tormented monkey, in a locked down train station. Jack is dressed in a suit and tie and smokes cigarettes during the questioning.

        I'll just let than marinate for moment.

        Yes. It's all of that, and well worth 17 minutes of your time.

        

        

The Best: I Came By (2022)

    The best movie screened here at Cinema Wellman during the month of March was recommended to me by someone I have yet to meet but is married to a good friend of mine.

        So, thank you, Melissa for the recommendation, and feel free to keep this going in the future. I'm always looking for things to watch, no matter how long the current watchlist is, and you're now batting 1.000, so keep suggesting!

        I Came By is a thriller out of the U.K. that stars one of the Downton Abbey servants as the bad guy! Believe me, I didn't spoil anything there. It's quite apparent where the evil is coming from in this movie. It's the rest of it that doesn't seem to want to follow the rules, and that's what makes it stand out.

        No spoilers, just IMDb to fill you in: "Follows a young graffiti artist who discovers a shocking secret that would put him and the ones closest to him in danger."

        Some of this is your standard thriller fare. A jump scare or two, which is okay as long as it's kept to a minimum. But there are plenty of opportunities to go the standard route in this film that director Babak Anvari decides to go off road. Those decisions are what makes this stand out from other "Netflix Thrillers."

        I love a movie that has me asking questions out loud such as, "Wait, did he just?" Yes. Yes, he did.

        Well, that's a wrap from Cinema Wellman. Those are the Best & Worst of the month of March.

        We hope you'll join us next week for what hopes to be a very special, groundbreaking episode of Cinema Wellman.

        Until then, take care.

        

Platforms

Here are the platforms on which I screened this month's selected films:

The Hawaiians - tubi

The Oscar - TCM

Knock at the Cabin - Peacock

Harpoon - Amazon Prime

Penny Wisdom - TCM

Listen to Britain - kanopy

Streetwise - Criterion

Hard Eight - Paramount +

What Did Jack Do? - Netflix

I Came By - Netflix

If you have any questions about any of these films, drop me an email: cinemawellman@gmail.com

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