In the Anton Corbijn film, Control (2007), among Western nations England in the 1970s doesn’t seem to have much going for it. Young Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), however, has a lot going for him with respect to creating rock songs, and is the lead singer of the well-liked band Joy Division. But Curtis is a wayward romantic and a suffering sinner (and naif). He is afflicted with epilepsy and a lack of love for his wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) whom he treats inhumanely. He cheats on her with a woman called Annik. He is indifferent to the child he wanted his wife to bear. Curtis, a real-life person, commits suicide at age 23.

Control is about a man who finally cannot reconcile himself to social life, at all. Personal failure kills him. Made in black and white, the film is like a grim 400 Blows for young adults (and everyone else), without being the masterpiece that Truffaut’s movie is. Why we never hear what Curtis thinks about his music I don’t know, but Corbijn’s film is absorbing nonetheless. A first feature for the Danish director, it is refreshingly free of visual artiness—and of shallow acting. Important, that.

In the Fifties Mark Robson adapted for the screen a James Michener book, The Bridges at Toko-Ri. Having to do with naval aircraft in the Korean War, the film does what any such war movie would be expected to do by 1954, the year of its release. It makes intelligent use of aerial space and it doesn’t stint on the American bombing of those Korean bridges. It also pays attention to technology and procedure in the military, and is good with crowd scenes; Robson is. Bridges is highly worth seeing, especially for the solid performance of Fredric March, whose Rear Admiral Tarrant is a grave and observant figure.

Why mince words? The United States is an insane asylum right now, for various reasons. Why, American movies, as critic John Nolte has pointed out, don’t even offer any sex appeal anymore. They’re chaste in a wimpy, post-#MeToo way (not in a good way). Recently I saw the 1982 flick, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Now that has sex appeal, no doubt about it. Racy teenagers pop up, attractive girls racy in their nudity. However, Fast Times isn’t much of a movie, half-baked and obtuse as it is. It’s a meandering “comedy.” I hope Hollywood doesn’t remake it, though; it will engender something even worse.

Two socially insecure teenagers are at the center of the anime movie on Netflix, Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (2020).

Japanese anime can be weird to Western eyes, and this one is (to my eyes, anyway). But, really, I finally consider it more imaginative than weird, with a delicate story that is easy to follow. And the kids are relatable. Words is a romance: a boy known as Cherry wears headphones to help avoid human interaction; Smile, the girl who likes him, hides with a mouth mask the buck teeth with braces she is embarrassed by. These two are simply unformed, inexperienced, notwithstanding Smile’s admirable talent with online videos. But it’s time to mature, even to make a connection of sorts with a declining old man.

Directed by Kyohei Ishiguro, the film is chaste and amusing. Alas, it churns out easy answers for its challenging situations, but before we get there it’s a pleasant trip. As often with anime, the visuals are enchanting and beautifully on-point. The pic reminds me a little of the anime TV series Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (whose first season I saw on Amazon Prime) except, happily, it has no interest in homoerotic rags.

In the late Thirties, John Wayne starred in a number of so-called B Westerns, none of them long and some of them far better than the episodes of old TV Westerns (ugh!).  1934’s The Trail Beyond clocks in at 55 minutes and, based on a written story, delivers a fairly complex and beguiling plot.  Wayne enacts a man looking for a missing girl and, before finding her, coming upon her dead father’s map to a gold mine, soon to be coveted by reprobates.

The movie is sophisticated enough to feature two cowboys dressed in suits and ties, leaving chaps and ten gallon hats behind, while traveling on a train; and the action scenes are first-rate for a Thirties pic.  Never were the great outdoors so extensively used for zippy Western adventure—er, in my experience, anyway.  It is a dandy spectacle when an overhead shot reveals a man necessarily driving both himself and his horse off a cliff to the river below.

The best thing about the B Westerns is that they were short.  But that doesn’t mean they weren’t enjoyable.

Cover via Amazon