The MacGuffin

In Name Only (1939)

Wealthy businessman Alec Walker (Cary Grant) is unhappily married to Maida (Kay Francis), a schemer who married him for money, not love. He learned of her deceit shortly after they were married, but she has his parents and society fooled into thinking she is the perfect, loving wife. Alec has long decided to stop pretending he is happy, so Maida is trying hard to get his family and friends to control his behavior. While he is out riding one day, he meets Julie Eden (Carole Lombard), a young widow who charms him with her forthright and humorous nature. He begins to court her, but she pulls back when she discovers that he is married. Alec asks Maida for a divorce, and she pretends to acquiesce, but in the end, she refuses him, and informs Julie that she will not let him go without a scandal. Julie cannot risk exposing her daughter to a trial, so she asks Alec to let her go. All three characters struggle to get what they want, but only two of them are willing to address the moral ramifications of those desires. Who does Grant end up with? Watch and find out!

Here’s what I’ve been watching recently:

Ah, winter. The time when my usual routine of watching a lot of stuff turns into “really watching a lot of stuff,” what with it being dreary outside most of the time. Here are a few things that have distracted me during the last stretch of particularly nasty days in Seattle:

Television has been taking up much of my time, as I am still playing catch up with several shows, so these are the newest shows I have been trying out.

Trying to discover the logic behind what I decide to watch on any given day is an exercise in futility. I watch some things because the writer, director, DP and/or actor(s) interest me. I watch some things that my movie snob friends would refer to as “embarrassing” and insist I stop talking about. I watch some things because I think the story will be neat. I watch some things because my sister tells me to and eventually I’ll watch it just to shut her up. You may think my taste in film and television is asinine; I think it’s eclectic.

What have I been watching lately? Well, let me tell you…

Last Man Standing

Much of my adolescent movie-watching years were spent during Bruce Willis’s tough guy box office reign. Films like Die Hard, The Last Boy Scout, and even the rather disappointing Striking Distance were top priority for my film watching time. When the film opened in 1996, I had just graduated high school earlier that year, and it was my birthday: exactly what I wanted, a new Bruce Willis action film.

The Muppets: So, there’s a new Muppet movie. You may have heard of it; it’s called The Muppets. I LOVE The Muppet Show, but the only Muppet movie I have every really cared for is Muppets From Space. (I am fully aware that this is an unpopular choice for favorite Muppet movie. There are some who would like to forget this film was ever made. Pshaw, I say to them. It’s lovely.) My husband nagged me and nagged me to go to this, and since I force him to watch an unusually large number of Bob Hope movies, I graciously complied.

I’ve been trying to expand my horizons a bit more with the latest couple of titles that I’ve been seeing. There’s so much great work from everywhere that it always feels like I’m catching up to everyone else. I made it a point to see more stuff from around the world along with the usual mainstream fare that I enjoy. From a devastating Italian trilogy following World War II to a quietly effective thriller from Canada, and from a chilling character drama involving an escaped cult member to a dying high school teacher trying to make an extra buck for his family, there’s never a shortage of content to fill my unquenchable need to sit in a chair and stare at a screen for hours on end.

Brandi Sperry: It is getting to the end of the month, and that time when, after weeks of gorging, a horror fan might either be looking to circle back around to the must-watch-every-year classics, or get a little out there and outside the box. (2002), a disturbing French film from writer/director Marina de Van, could easily be classified as outside the confines of horror. It is not meant to be “scary.” But the sense of apprehension in the viewer that it evokes, the atmosphere of psychological instability, and the sheer, gory ickiness of it, to me, provide so many of the trademark sensations that many horror films do that I can’t help but think of it that way