The 1973 Charley Varrick is gritty fun but not one of Don Siegel‘s best. This is because it is nigh mindless, a sometimes obtuse crime flick.

“A man, his wife and their friend stage a bloody bank robbery without realizing they are stealing from the Mob” (imdb). Thereafter the plot is not always well served. Siegel said Walter Matthau, as Charley Varrick, did not understand what was going on in CV, but it is not a hard movie to follow. You may not always like, however, where it takes you. It has some pretty colorful crooks, though, in Joe Don Baker‘s Mr. Molly and Andy Robinson‘s Harman. And it’s vigorous.

Adolf Hitler, magnificently acted by Bruno Ganz in the German film Downfall (2004), is half-educated and hot-tempered, a sane psychopath clearly unhappy over abysmal failure. His is not the only suicide in this scorching chronicle. The Third Reich falling to pieces, as Russian soldiers pour in, becomes a charnel house of self-killing. The non-suicidal are often wounded. Many long to survive.

Two things about Oliver Hirschberger‘s movie must be said, and at least one of them already has been, viz. it lets the German people off the hook for tolerance of antisemitism, etc. The other thing is that it humanizes people who were human beings—blind ones, alas. These folks include Traudl Junge, Gerda Christian, Alfred Jodl, Albert Speer, and the unhinged devil at the top of the heap. All the same, they were not victims. Their suffering does not match that of Jewish men, women and children in the death camps.

(In German with English subtitles)

The doctors’ wives in the 1971 Doctors’ Wives, directed by George Schaefer, are neglected, disgraceful, betrayed, noble. Seemingly a Valley of the Dolls wannabe (!), the film is a vulgar nonentity. It is a soap opera, by which I mean it is shallow and phony while appearing to be serious. The acting ranges from smoothly successful (John Colicos) to unsubtle (Rachel Roberts) to dull (Marian McCargo).

Sharon and Will and Dean (three characters on Chicago Med), Joe and Stella and Violet (on Chicago Fire) had better hotfoot it to another city. Brandon Johnson, a strong liberal, has just won Chicago’s mayoral race. I don’t think you’ll remain safe on city streets, Violet.

Many children of immigrants, illegal and legal, are currently living in poverty in the U.S. Will this change in the future? One suspects that state and federal bureaucracies will end up as overwhelmed as the Border Patrol is, if they aren’t already.

2010’s The Housemaid is a remake (of sorts?) of a 1960 film. I’ve never seen it but certainly might like it since I liked the remake (directed by Im Sang-soo). In it, Eun-yi Li is a new housemaid for a rich Korean family. Seduced by Hoon, the man of the house, Eun-yi is the Karen McDougal to Hoon’s Donald Trump. Once this is discovered, Hoon’s wife and mother-in-law become bloodthirsty. Eun-yi is in truth wronged and turns vengeful.

The film is smartly, brilliantly directed and edited. Eun-yi standing at a small distance from an older female employee, a fire burning in a lengthy fireplace in the background, suggests the housemaid’s hope for a camaraderie with the woman that does not yet exist. The acting is top-notch, especially that of Jeon-Do Yeon, with her flawless nuance and kind feeling, in the title role. She’s required to be sexy too, and although her breasts may be small, they are shot in a way that renders them utterly lovely.

The climax and denouement of The Housemaid are pretty weird. The only thing I can submit about the denouement is that perhaps it is meant to show that the movie’s rich folks are more or less content in their decadence.

(In Korean with English subtitles)