Foolish Wives

Foolish Wives, 1922 [Kino edition, Sigmund Romberg score]. A womanizer tries to seduce an ambassador's wife to get her money.

Directed by Erich von Stroheim. Written by Stroheim, with Marian Ainslee, & Walter Anthony. Starring Rudolph Christians, Miss DuPont, & Stroheim, with Maude George, Mae Busch, & Dale Fuller.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's 2½ hours, cut down from the original 8-ish (now lost). There's no reason for it to be longer than 90 minutes. And in all that time, they never bother to explore the title character, or make her anything more than a plot device (in a very weak plot). I guess that would take away too much of Stroheim's own screen time. Still, for a drama of the era, it's not bad. It has some excitement, high production values (notoriously so), and even a sense of humor sometimes. C

GPA: 2.0/4

The Last Days of Pompeii

Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeii, 1913 [Kino edition, Beatrice Jona Affron score]. An Egyptian priest plots against the most fabulous couple in all of Pompeii.

Directed by Mario Caserini, & Eleuterio Rodolfi. Written by Caserini, based on a book by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. Starring Fernanda Negri Pouget, Eugenia Tettoni Fior, Ubaldo Stefani, & Antonio Grisanti, with Cesare Gani Carini, & Vitale Di Stefano.

Concept: D
Story: F
Characters: F
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: D
Music: C
Enjoyment: Melodrama of the corniest, Bulwer-Lyttonest variety, over-acted to a ridiculous degree. It's bad enough to be entertaining. C

GPA: 1.4/4

The X-Files: Season Four

The X-Files: Season Four, 1996-1997. Two FBI agents investigate spooky cases.

Created by Chris Carter. Directed by Kim Manners (8 episodes), Rob Bowman (7), James Charleston (3), R. W. Goodwin (2), James Wong (1), Tucker Gates (1), Michael Lange (1), & Cliff Bole (1). Written by Carter (8 episodes), Frank Spotnitz (7), Howard Gordon (5), Vince Gilligan (5), Glen Morgan (4), John Shiban (4), Wong (3), Valerie Mayhew (1), Vivian Mayhew (1), David Greenwalt (1), & Goodwin (1). Starring David Duchovny, & Gillian Anderson.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: F
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: The first third or so of the season is awful. It starts to pick up again, but never gets anywhere near as good as it had been in previous seasons. The main story arc is stalling; those episodes are reduced to little more than bad poetry readings. C

GPA: 1.6/4

The Outlaw and His Wife

Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru, 1918 [Kino edition, Torbjorn Iwan Lundquist score]. A woman runs off with a man driven to theft by poverty.

Directed by Victor Sjöström. Written by Sjöström, & Sam Ask, based on a play by Jóhann Sigurjónsson. Starring Sjöström, & Edith Erastoff, with John Ekman, & Nils Aréhn.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: F
Dialog: Possibly the most dialog-heavy silent film I've seen. There's almost more reading than watching. And it's really awful dialog. F
Pacing: It's clearly projected at the wrong speed; it's like watching a movie in fast-forward. D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's operatic, in the way that people do grandly dramatic things for no explicable reason. C

GPA: 1.8/4

Blood and Sand

Blood and Sand, 1922 [Kino edition, Rodney Sauer score]. A married bullfighter is seduced.

Directed by Fred Niblo. Written by June Mathis, based on a book by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and a play by Tom Cushing. Starring Rudolph Valentino, with Nita Naldi, Lila Lee, Rosa Rosanova, & Leo White.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: They do almost everything they can to make the protagonist unlikable. D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's weird how little action there is for a movie about a bullfighter. C

GPA: 1.9/4

Ingeborg Holm

Ingeborg Holm, 1913 [Kino edition, David Drazin score]. A widowed mother is sent to a workhouse.

Written & directed by Victor Sjöström, based on a play by Nils Krok. Starring Hilda Borgström, with Aron Lindgren, & Georg Grönroos.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's surprisingly well done for 1913, especially the acting. Movies about tragic social injustice are very much not my thing, but I've seen a lot worse from modern movies. It's not preachy, doesn't make villains of people. And it has the added bonus of possibly being a significant factor in the adoption of socialism in Sweden, which is pretty important for the world (albeit not so important for my enjoyment of the movie). C

GPA: 2.1/4

Ant-Man

Ant-Man, 2015. An ex con is recruited to stop a super-villain with a shrinking suit.

Directed by Peyton Reed. Written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, & Paul Rudd; story by Wright & Cornish, based on a comic book by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, & Jack Kirby. Starring Rudd, with Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian, & T.I..

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: They spend a lot of time with character development. So, good for them for at least trying, I guess? D
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Forgettable fun. The action doesn't drag on as badly as the typical Marvel movie (thanks to the heist formula being a change of pace from the usual Cartoons Punching Each Other). The sense of humor is enough to keep the movie entertaining, but never enough to get a laugh. You can definitely tell it was written by committee, but it's still a lot better than, say, a Thor movie. C

GPA: 2.1/4

"Prehistoric Porky"

"Prehistoric Porky" (short), 1940. Porky Pig is a caveman.

Directed by Robert Clampett. Written by Melvin Millar. Starring Mel Blanc.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A
Enjoyment: Thoroughly silly, emphasized by juxtaposition with artwork that looks like it's made for a serious adventure story. B

GPA: 2.8/4

"Patient Porky"

"Patient Porky" (short), 1940. Porky Pig goes to the hospital.

Directed by Robert Clampett. Written by Warren Foster. Starring Mel Blanc.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: A
Enjoyment: About a third of the cartoon (or what seems like it) features a racist caricature. Then there's a long section of bad puns and cultural references. Once you finally get to Porky's part, it just ends up being a copy of "The Daffy Doc," only with a cat in place of Daffy. C

GPA: 2.2/4

The Penalty

The Penalty, 1920 [2001 Kino edition, Michael Polher score]. A double amputee gangster mastermind has a sinister hat factory.

Directed by Wallace Worsley. Written by Charles Kenyon; adapted by Gouverneur Morris from his book. Starring Lon Chaney, with Charles Clary, Jim Mason, Ethel Grey Terry, Kenneth Harlan, & Claire Adams.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: It starts out really promising, with lots of action, a super-villain, a lady detective, and... a hat factory. It loses steam pretty soon, though. The plot doesn't end up going anywhere, and the movie goes on for about half an hour longer than it should. C

GPA: 2.1/4

The Addams Family

The Addams Family, 1991. Con artists try to rob the Addams family.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by Caroline Thompson, & Larry Wilson, based on characters by Charles Addams. Starring Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, & Christopher Lloyd, with Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson, Judith Malina, Carel Struycken, Dana Ivey, Christina Ricci, & Jimmy Workman.

Concept: B
Story: F
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's not funny. It has none of the TV show's charm. The characters don't make sense. D

GPA: 1.4/4

Blind Husbands

Blind Husbands, 1919 [Kino edition, Donald Sosin score]. A womanizer tries to seduce a neglected wife.

Directed by Erich von Stroheim. Written by Stroheim, based on his book, with Lillian Ducey. Starring Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, & Stroheim, with Gibson Gowland, Fay Holderness, & Ruby Kendrick.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: A movie filmed in the Alps should really be more spectacular than this. C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: As far as melodrama goes, having your climax on a mountain peak is pretty good. But it's still just melodrama. C

GPA: 1.9/4

The Extra Girl

The Extra Girl, 1923 [Kino edition, Jack Ward score]. A girl escapes an arranged marriage by going to Hollywood.

Directed by F. Richard Jones. Written by Bernard McConville; story by Mack Sennett. Starring Mabel Normand, with Ralph Graves, George Nichols, Anna Dodge, Vernon Dent, Ramsey Wallace, & Charlotte Mineau.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: D
Enjoyment: It's more of a melodrama than a comedy, but it's not bad. There's a lot of action, and the handful of comedic bits are amusing. C

GPA: 1.7/4

Manhunter

Manhunter, 1986. A detective tries to get in the head of a serial killer.

Written & directed by Michael Mann, based on a book by Thomas Harris. Starring William Petersen, with Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Dennis Farina, Tom Noonan, & Stephen Lang.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: Okay, obviously Hannibal Lecter is a great character. But he's barely in this movie. D
Dialog: D
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: There are a handful of great scenes, but most of it is really boring. What the movie's really about is stuff that's going on inside the character's head, and Petersen is nowhere near good enough to pull that off. C

GPA: 2.2/4

Sabrina: The Teenage Witch: Season One

Sabrina: The Teenage Witch: Season One, 1996-1997. A teenager has magic powers.

Created by Nell Scovell, based on a comic book by Dan DeCarlo, & George Gladir. Directed by Gary Halvorson (9 episodes), Peter Baldwin (5), Robby Benson (3), Gail Mancuso (2), David Grossman (2), Brian K. Roberts (1), Chuck Vinson (1), & Liz Plonka (1). Written by Scovell (9 episodes), Jon Sherman (4), Norma Safford Vela (3), Nick Bakay (3), Frank Conniff (3), Carrie Honigblum (2), Renee Phillips (2), Rachel Lipman (2), Neal Boushell (1), & Sam O'Neal (1). Starring Melissa Joan Hart, with Caroline Rhea, Beth Broderick, Nate Richert, Jenna Leigh Green, Michelle Beaudoin, Paul Feig, & Bakay.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: D
Music: D
Enjoyment: I don't know why we started watching this, but it is actually enjoyable. I mean, I wouldn't call it a good show, but it has a weirdly good sense of humor for what it is. C

GPA: 1.5/4

The History of Future Folk

The History of Future Folk, 2013. After hearing music, an alien invader decides to live on Earth instead of conquering it.

Directed by John Mitchell, & Jeremy Kipp Walker. Written by Mitchell. Starring Nils d'Aulaire, & Jay Klaitz, with Julie Ann Emery, April L. Hernandez, & Dee Snider.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: There are funny parts, and it's kind of a cute idea. It's like an episode of Flight of the Conchords that goes on for 90 minutes. C

GPA: 2.1/4