My aim is true

Winchester '73

(1950)

Truth in advertising: the central figure in this story is a one-in-a-thousand perfectly crafted rifle, which passes from rightful hands to a string of unrightful ones before [spoiler alert!] returning to the man (played [duh] by James Stewart). In many ways a routine oater (a word I've learned from the Times crossword puzzle), but with a lot of fresh twists. My favorite example, a spin on a particularly nasty anti-Indian cliché of the form):

Lin (handing his revolver to Lola [a young, semizaftig Shelley Winters]): Here, just in case you need . . .

Lola: Thanks, I know how to use it. [Takes it, but he doesn't release it, looking at her meaningfully, but unable to say the words.] I understand about the last one.

The philodendron story

Desk Set

(1957)

Have you ever wondered whether every bottle of champagne opened in a movie has either been agitated or stored at 80 degrees? I weep when I see all that precious bubbly fluid wasted.

This is not Kate's best cinematic champagne buzz, but it's not bad, and like her best, it involves flirtation with the "wrong" man, except that since this one is played by Spence, and there's no Cary Grant equivalent, there's never any doubt that he's really Mr. Right, once all the confusion about whether the huge computer he's moving into the Reference Department that Bunny runs at the Federal Broadcasting Network (you know: in the old FBN Building, overlooking Rockefeller Plaza) is going to cost Bunny and her staff of 3 their jobs. Perfectly benign, perfectly forgettable, and once I realized that the 2½-hour time slot was just because I recorded it back when I would still take something from commercial-riddled AMC, the 103-minute actual running time was about right, too. (Yes, your math is correct: 103 minutes of movie, 47 minutes of nonmovie.)

Michael Rennie was ill . . .

The Day the Earth Stood Still

(1951)

Interplanetary ages since I've seen this, and I was pretty damned impressed. Cheesy, well, yeah--but nicely structured, nicely plotted, and Gort is undeniably the coolest sci-fi robot ever--kicks the metallic asses of those dweebs from Star Wars.

But tell me: if Klatuu is so darned smart (and of course he is), and if he has come to Earth to address the leaders of all nations, not just ours (and he has), and if he knows about the United Nations (and he does), then why the heck does he land in D.C. instead of Manhattan? Just wondering.

You don't say

Silent Movie

(1976)

After a day full of cinematic killing and cruelty and general rottenness, I desperately needed something that would make me laugh my ass off. So tell me: why did I stake my chances on a Mel Brooks movie I'd never seen before? I laughed a couple of times, but my ass is unquestionably still where it was before.

Never touch a man's hat

Wild Bill

(1995)

I'm willing to concede that this might have been better actually R-rated and uninterrupted instead of AMC-edited and commercial-break-riddled (I calculate that at least 20 of the 115 theatrical minutes must have been lost), but that could hardly have made the interminable assassination-tease sequence bearable. From what I could see, the only thing worth watching was Jeff Bridges's struggle to make something from a bloodless (which is not to say unbloody) script.

Study war no more

Broken Arrow

(1950)

A sentimentalized version of the 1870 Anglo-Apache peace effort in the Arizona Territory, featuring an appallingly goopy love story and white actors in most of the central Indian roles, including the earnest Jeff Chandler as the noblest savage ever, Cochise.

But dammit: James Stewart, OK? And beautiful southwestern locations reminiscent of John Ford country. Those two factors excuse a multitude of sins, and they get a full sin-excusing workout here.

Got wood?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

(1992)

Cute. Any flick that invites Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, and Rutger Hauer to overact wildly has points in its favor from the get-go, Kristy Swanson is a suitably buff Buffy (she turned 40 in December, incidentally), and what fun to see Hilary Swank in her first film, showing little hint of what she would become capable of.

I've been urged to see the TV series, said to be much better. Maybe someday.

Gas cap

Blazing Saddles

(1974)

Well, I liked it better than the last time I started to watch it but gave up about a half-hour in, but with the exception of Madeline Kahn's tribute to Marlene Dietrich's saloon singer in Destry Rides Again, there's nothing here I'm much moved to see again.

Most interesting thing about the experience was watching an AMC feed for the first time in ages. Of course, Brooks himself plays with squeamishness over the n-word, to sometimes comic effect, but AMC's strategy, rather than have the word interrupted by recognition of inappropriate audience or a pealing church bell is simply to erase the soundtrack for the necessary length of time. Ditto with other vulgarities over a threshold that must be clearer to them than to me: that someone can say "ass----" or "bull----" makes it clear that they're not interested in concealing what word is meant, only in protecting us from actually hearing it. And it's only words that matter, not meanings: the AMCensor has no problem with "You use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore" or "Are we just jerking off?" Those lines are unmolested. Nor are we spared the auditory consequences of the cowboy's leguminous diet. But heaven forfend that we should be subjected to the alliterative poetry of Hedley Lamarr calling Lili Von Schtupp a "Teutonic ----." (Though I guess the fact that her name can be both heard and read indicates that only English obscenities are dangerous.)