Morvern Callar (2001)

Samantha Morton stars as Morvern Callar, a young woman with an odd name, obviously. All through the movie she has to explain how it's pronounced and spelled, which is amusing for the audience but must grow tiresome for Morvern.

She wakes up on Christmas Eve beside her boyfriend, but he's dead. He's killed himself, leaving her a note and the completed manuscript of his first novel. The note says he's sorry for the bloody mess, but asks her to send the manuscript to publishers for possible publication, and ends with, "I love you. Be brave."

She is brave. Before sending the manuscript to a publisher, she changes the byline to "by Morvern Callar." Instead of having her dead beau buried or even notifying the authorities, she carves his body like roast beef, buries the pieces, and goes gallivanting across the country with her friend, using the dead boyfriend's credit card to pay the tab.

In addition to the novel and the note, Morvern's dead boyfriend also left her a pretty good mix tape, which becomes the soundtrack of the movie — Aphex Twin, Can, Stereolab, The Velvet Underground...

We're never shown what makes Morvern tick or why she's doing what she's doing, but the story works better not knowing. She's simply somewhat askew, as are most of us, but maybe more so. It's all reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith, and that's high praise.

The film has some 1970s-style movie nudity, much of which seemed dubious and unnecessary. Do grown-up best girlfriends who aren't lesbianically involved take baths together? I've never shared a bath with any of my male buddies, but maybe that's just me.

Bottom line, though, this is my favorite film of the week. It could've been a horror movie, a road movie, a dark comedy, a psychological profile, a lot of things, but instead it defies genre and simply tells its story. Does it well, too.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Bottoms (1966)

Here's an hour and a half of people's butts, swaying as they walk away from the camera. They're walking away from the camera, because if they were walking toward the camera, you wouldn't be able to see their bottoms.

All butts are naked, so if you're into that you'll have plenty to like. Me, I don't mind butts if they're well-wiped, but the rear view is of minimal prurient interest. I was more intrigued by the people talking about their butts, and about the experience of dropping trou in front of a camera.

This odd documentary was directed by Yoko Ono, punchline of the 1960s and early '70s. Her cover of Pink Floyd is legendary, but I've increasingly come to believe that the snickering Ms Ono gets is sometimes undeserved. I've seriously liked some of her pop music, and Bottoms is enjoyable, too. Seriously.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Charly (1968)

Cliff Robertson goes full retard as Charly Gordon, an adult imbecile who undergoes surgery for brain repair.

The story's science is shaky, but the drama is compelling enough. As Charly's IQ rapidly rises, he gains a new perspective on the world, and falls in love with his lovely mentor (Claire Bloom).

The editor in me was perturbed by an early scene where Bloom is teaching written English as a second language to adults and, on a chalkboard, she demonstrates that 'nite' should instead be spelled N i G H T. Clearly, this woman should not be teaching English until she's mastered the distinction between upper- and lower-case letters.

Other than that glaring error, Charly makes for a wise investment of your time, though there's really no surprise to it — it's exactly what you'd expect from the plot synopsis, no less and no more.

It's based on Flowers for Algernon, a terrific novel by Daniel Keyes that tells its story via Charly's journal entries, and gives a much deeper sense of the man than the movie can. Scripted by Sterling Silliphant, with an unusual score by Ravi Shankar, it's perhaps Robertson's best performance, but still, the book was so much better.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Diane Linkletter Story (1969)

Waters called this film "accidental," and it was never released nor intended to be. He'd bought a new camera with sound-synch ability, so he had some friends, including Divine of course, improvise a story about the death of Art Linkletter's daughter, Diane.

It's distasteful, obviously, to mock a woman's death, and Waters does what he can to make it more distasteful, because he's John Waters. It can't compete with Art Linkletter's crime against humanity, though — Linkletter built a nationwide drug panic around his daughter's death, claiming she'd jumped off a balcony while high on LSD.

As for the film, it's about nine minutes long, utterly amateur, and not particularly interesting unless you're a Waters completist.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Last Picture Show (1971)

After hearing about this movie for fifty years — it's widely considered one of the best films ever made — I'm disappointed to find that it's about horny high school boys eager to lose their virginity.

Jeff Bridges wants into Cybil Shepard's pants, and Timothy Bottoms is after the football coach's wife, Cloris Leachman.

The film has a terrific cast, and there's some genuine art to it, definitely. The only movie theater is closing, symbolic of the town's demise, and there's no future for the people who live there. Anyone who stays is promised exactly that — a future with no future.

Made by Peter Bogdanovich, based on a novel by Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show is sometimes sad, sometimes deep, sometimes compelling, never boring, and it's absolutely a good movie.

Basically, though, it's a highbrow Porky's without jokes, or a soap opera — As the World Turns, set in a faded and dusty Texas town.

There are other elements in the story, but there's not much more to it than that. Everyone's trying to get boinked, and most of the characters succeed, but it doesn't make any of them happy.

Recommended, absolutely. This is one of the finest films ever made about the pursuit of boinking.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maniac Cop (1988)

The crazed killer on the loose in New York City is actually a cop. Film at 11.

I saw this at Seattle's long-gone Midway Drive-In when it came out, enjoyed it but forgot about it. Only now have I realized that it was written by the brilliant Larry Cohen, and co-stars Bruce Campbell.

Made before Campbell had fully embraced his campy niche, he plays his role as an actor, and he's surprisingly good, not at all Campbelly. Tom Atkins is the star, and he's grizzled and believable. There's also a dash of Richard Roundtree, and several splashes of Sheree North, who steals every scene she's in and almost makes off with the entire movie.

"You have the right to remain silent ... forever."

Maniac Cop is unpretentious but enjoyable schlock. There are some enjoyable murders — tense, even terrifying without being any gorier that necessary, and there's a comical coroner who loves his work.

There's even a bit of a message, when a black guy says, "I've seen plenty of my friends murdered by cops. Shot in the back, shot when they didn't have a gun or a knife, claimin' the suspect had a shiny object. You know cops like killin'. That's why they cops. Yeah."

If the film is less than a masterpiece, and it is, it's probably because it was directed by someone named William Lustig instead of Mr Cohen. This is the only movie Lustig directed that I've even heard of.

Verdict: YES.

I wonder what's the backstory on my DVD rip's odd technical problems. Every time the story involves the Mayor, the imagery looks like VHS and the sound doubles in volume. When the setting is anywhere else, it looks and sounds like a movie. I'm guessing they ran out of funds and filmed the Mayor's scenes on video.

♦ ♦ ♦

Nightfall (1988)

Isaac Asimov wrote lots of rather leaden science fiction, but this is based on one of his best, the short story "Nightfall," about a world orbiting several suns. With different sources of light, the sky's colors and shadows shift and alter, but true darkness is never known.

Once in a great while, though, the stars align exactly wrong, and the world sees a six-sun sunset followed by something nobody's experienced before — night. To the planet's people it might as well be armageddon.

As told by Asimov, there's great drama and trauma, and a showdown between science and religion. Sadly, Asimov's frightful future never envisioned what a mess Roger Corman might make of it.

In this deathly dull and misguided adaptation, David Birney stars as the rational scientist figure, wearing a wig and flowing robes. He's pitted against religious leader Alexis Kanner, and they throw mumbo-jumbo and stilted dialogue at each other.

Padded with inexplicable dance sequences and groping sexual hijinks, the film is barely coherent and forgets to have an ending.

I apologize to Mr Asimov for this film's existence, and for watching it.

Verdict: BIG NO.

Here's a much better telling of the same story in just half an hour, made for radio.

♦ ♦ ♦

Coming soon:
A Day at the Races (1937)
Evil Bong 777 (2018)
The Giant Spider (2012)
Henri (2012)
La Jetée (1966)
The Mechanic (1972)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
3/20/2023

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

Alter
Cineverse
Criterion
CultCinema Classics
DocsVille
Dust
Fandor
Films for Action
Hoopla
IHaveNoTV
IndieFlix
Internet Archive
Kanopy
KinoCult
Kino Lorber
Korean Classic Film
Christopher R Mihm
Mosfilm
Mubi
National Film Board of Canada
New Yorker Screening Room
Damon Packard
Mark Pirro
PizzaFlix
PopcornFlix
Public Domain Movies
RareFilmm
Scarecrow Video
Shudder
ThoughtMaybe
Timeless Classic Movies
VoleFlix
WatchDocumentaries
or your local library.
Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free. Click any image to enlarge. [Arguments & recommendations are welcome,](mailto:[email protected]?subject=Comments for Mostly Words) but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.