Charles Laughton: Lodestar

I had hoped to create one of those real-critic year-end top-ten movie lists, but I am finding it exceedingly difficult to remember much of anything I saw before October. I've enjoyed quite a few fall and holiday offerings, but the summer was especially abysmal. Did any would-be blockbuster work? I didn't see Transformers, Shrek 3 or the third and final -- for the love of God, let it be the final -- installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and probably won't under any circumstances short of penalty of death (my own, that is).

Speaking of death, one movie released earlier in the year that has stayed with me is Zodiac. (My other favorite so far is Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.) Now that Zodiac has appeared on many critics' own top-ten lists and was released yesterday in a two-disc deluxe edition DVD, I thought this was as good a time as any to add my own plaintive (and unheard) plea that it not be forgotten to the chorus of support for the film. Given its subject matter and director (David Fincher), this stellar procedural exhibits remarkable restraint and is all the more riveting for it. I have yet to see the eagerly anticipated There Will Be Blood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Persepolis as well as apparent Oscar bait like Atonement. I'm sure there are others I can't recall offhand.

In an effort to see more movies, particularly time-tested or simply old ones, I created my first moviegoing calendar, for the current month. The calendar is, for the most part, a consolidation of the respective schedules of the American Cinematheque (both the Egyptian and Aero Theatres) and the ArcLight (Hollywood and, now, Sherman Oaks). I've augmented the calendar with a couple offerings from other venues, including the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Silent Movie Theatre. The schedule I ended up with has no fewer than 35 titles, some of which I am especially eager to see. I'll consider seeing the other titles, provided that my mood, energy and other obligations permit. (I'll be doing fine, I think, if I see roughly 20% of these movies -- 7 titles -- on top of whatever current releases I happen to catch. On the basis of title alone, A Dandy in Aspic stands out.) This overall endeavor won't necessarily help me keep track of what I've seen for purposes of a 2008 best-of, but maybe it is part of a broader project of memorializing what was available and what I saw this year.

Peeking ahead to the UCLA Archive's February slate of pre-Code films, I came across the most enticing movie description I've read in some time. Paired on a double bill with Hot Saturday (1932), Ol' Chuck is at it again, posthumously of course, in a screening of White Woman (1933):

Banished from Malay nightclubs for "arousing" the natives, torchsinger Carole Lombard absconds with a sadistic plantation owner (Charles Laughton) who takes turns tyrannizing his new wife and his pet monkey. This wacky precursor to APOCALYPSE NOW offers a heady brew of tribal insurrections, sexy ex-convicts and a delirious Laughton as self-appointed "King of the Jungle."

Actually, as exciting as all that sounds, I can't brook non-euphemistic monkey abuse. I love animals, particularly the cute ones I don't eat. And in case anyone was wondering or asking, I still love the troops, too.