Danger: Diabolik, Gates of Heaven, Porco Rosso, & My Favorite Wife

Danger: Diabolik was a stylish movie with nothing in it. Well, except for Marisa Mell in various attempts to not wear clothes but not show anything. It also suffers from one of the worst dub jobs I've ever seen. It's like they didn't even worry about the voices matching up. And the DVD didn't have the original Italian audio track so I wouldn't be distracted by that. I was, however, also distracted by the Body Movin' video, which takes a bunch of scenes from this movie and remixes them with the Beastie Boys. Which was featured on the DVD as well. It's very difficult to take the movie as anything more than pretty colors and a vague swipe at the establishment. Maybe you could argue that Diabolik's disdain for taxes and the government could have encouraged the May 1968 Paris riots. Then again, you'd be an idiot. Bava is an interesting, and talented director ($400,000 budget for a movie that looks much better than movies that cost a lot more?), but he never really got a good movie. Seems like he enjoyed making good genre films. Too bad he always seemed to go for style more than substance. Because if he spent a little more time on the substance, he could have made a brilliant film.

Gates of Heaven disappointed me in a way, because it wasn't nearly as polished as Errol Morris's later films. Probably because it's his first film and that he made it as a bet with Werner Herzog. Or maybe it's because people who would put their pets in a pet cemetary are people I probably will never truly understand. Then again, at least Morris doesn't mess with editing and music nearly as much as he does in Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control, which almost ruined that movie for me.

Porco Rosso is fairly typical Hayao Miyazaki, except with slightly less emphasis on the strong young women protagonist and pro-environment aspects that dominate most of his other films. However, there's still Fio, and lots of flying. And pigs. And anti-militarism and anti-establishment. So, really, toss the environmental aspects (which are limited to lots of scenery in the background) and it's a typical Miyazaki. I also want to say that I'm both extremely annoyed and happy with the ending. And as an optimist, I know how I think the ending went. As a Miyazaki film it feels a little less weighty than his masterpieces, but it's still much more impressive than almost any other non-Pixar animated film.

My Favorite Wife is the attempt to redo The Awful Truth. Not as good, though, and completely implausible. It's also weird to see Cary Grant and Randolph Scott in a movie together, considering their rumored relationship. I wonder what the movie would have been like had Leo McCarey not injured himself. I have a feeling that it would have been a little more subtle. Plus, they went out of their way to make it clear that Cary Grant had never slept with Bianca, even on their wedding night. Would have been much better if they left that alone, although the damn Hays Code wouldn't allow that. The bigamy jokes didn't get old either. But the movie was saved from being mediocre by the hilarious scene at the courtroom near the end. The judge was, by far, the best thing in the movie. Cary Grant was his typical self, but he wasn't as good as in other movies of the time.