The Stop Button

Behind the Mask (1932) D: John Francis Dillon. S: Jack Holt, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, Claude King, Bertha Mann, Edward Van Sloan, Willard Robertson. Tedious–at under seventy minutes–thriller about the Secret Service trying to track down “Mr. X,” without realizing they just need to look for the credited actor in a bunch of makeup. Karloff’s a delight as the lead bad guy, but he’s barely in it, especially in the second half. Holt romancing half his age Cummings is major creeptown.

Heavenly Creatures (1994) D: Peter Jackson. S: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O’Connor, Jed Brophy. Mesmerizing account of two teenage girls devoted, singular, murderous friendship in 1950s New Zealand. Jackson takes great care making sure the dynamic visuals serve the story, which is based directly on one of the girl’s diaries (played by Lynskey). She’s the shy, quiet one, Winslet’s the glamorous, audacious one. They’re both superb. Nice pace, strong production values, iffy effects. The international version runs ten minutes shorter than the original cut and, according to the Internet, Jackson’s preferred version.

High Powered (1945) D: William Berke. S: Robert Lowery, Phyllis Brooks, Mary Treen, Joe Sawyer, Roger Pryor, Ralph Sanford, Billy Nelson. Wartime quickie about goings on at a construction project–lunch counter gals Brooks and Treen are trying to find single men, with lug Sawyer somehow capturing Treen’s attention. Brooks gets a love triangle with boss Pryor and haunted Lowery. Maybe if Brooks weren’t a jerk it’d play better? Dirt cheap, but some fun “cameo” appearances and well-executed thrills.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) D: Joel Coen. S: Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Charles Durning, Paul Newman, Jim True-Frost, John Mahoney, Bill Cobbs. Fun but distressingly thin Coen Brothers (and Sam Raimi!) Capracorn homage. Except it’s set in the late fifties, ages past screwball. Lots of knowing nods and meticulous homage. Robbins is a rube who may be more, Jason Leigh’s the reporter who falls for him, Newman (who’s awesome) is the schemer. Good performances, lovely period visuals, bad third act.

Internes Can’t Take Money (1937) D: Alfred Santell. S: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Lloyd Nolan, Stanley Ridges, Lee Bowman, Barry Macollum, Irving Bacon. Accomplished intern McCrea falls for patient Stanwyck, who just happens to be an (unwilling) ex-gangster’s moll trying to find her lost baby. It’s very complicated as Stanwyck and McCrea can’t ever talk about it. Creep Ridges will trade info for favors. McCrea knows mob boss Nolan, which figures in. Great looking picture, poorly written; Stanwyck’s great, McCrea’s miscasted.

Niagara Falls (1941) D: Gordon Douglas. S: Marjorie Woodworth, Tom Brown, Zasu Pitts, Slim Summerville, Chester Clute, Edgar Dearing, Edward Gargan. Very short feature (a Hal Roach Streamliner) about autumn years newlyweds Pitts and Summerville’s trip to NIAGARA. Except Summerville’s so worried about getting horizontal he meddles in unconnected travellers Woodworth and Brown’s visit. There’s a funny gag at the end, but they backtrack, and some okay set pieces, but Summerville’s a drag, Pitts’s wasted, and the romances’re lukewarm. Eh.

The People’s Enemy (1935) D: Crane Wilbur. S: Preston Foster, Lila Lee, Melvyn Douglas, Shirley Grey, Roscoe Ates, William Collier Jr., Herbert Rawlinson. The Feds send mobster Foster up the river for tax evasion. Leading Foster to instruct lawyer Douglas track down his abandoned family. Then Foster’s kid brother, Collier, starts mucking things up. Douglas falling for the wife’s barely a plot point. Rawlinson’s awful in a consequential part, the blue blood turncoat. Douglas’s excellent, however, Foster’s impressively sociopathic, and it’s snappy.

Predator: Badlands (2025) D: Dan Trachtenberg. S: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ravi Narayan, Michael Homick, Stefan Grube, Reuben De Jong, Cameron Brown. Inane video game cutscene of a movie about the PREDATOR (who, it turns out, has a culture so similar to STAR TREK’s Klingons it’d be distracting if this movie weren’t as boring) who teams up with a legless android with a heart of gold (a profoundly bland Fanning), to survive a monster planet. Plus, there’s a Baby Yoda.

Weapons (2025) D: Zach Cregger. S: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Cary Christopher. Handsome–if endlessly derivative–horror picture about a missing grade schoolers. Garner’s their troubled but innocent teacher, Brolin’s an obsessed dad, Christopher’s the one kid who didn’t disappear, Madigan’s his eccentric aunt. The fractured narrative hops from character to character; without it there’s no movie. Incompetent cops and school officials also enable it. Christopher and Madigan are great.