OLDIES!

Older films seen in 2026, continued from the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions. Most of these are really quick comments - typically scribbled down in 10-15 minutes without benefit of notes - and any resulting wit or insight should be viewed as an accidental by-product. Slightly more thoughtful capsules may be found on the now-defunct old reviews page.

All films, both from this year and the 23 previous ones, can be accessed alphabetically. Most can be viewed ranked by rating as well, though I'm still not sure what that's all about.

[Addendum, February 2009: I've now stopped doing reviews of new movies, but I'll continue to update this page; however, this is purely for my own benefit - since I can't always remember when I watched an oldie, so it's handy being able to find them here - and I won't be going any deeper or writing any more than I used to (probably the opposite). I am not reinventing this as a classic-movie site, nor do I set myself up as an expert on oldies. Or anything, really...]

WILD STRAWBERRIES (68) (Ingmar Bergman, 1957): Probably second viewing, first in >25 years. One aspect here doesn't work at all, viz. the Scrooge aspect, the mean man softened by experience and understanding. Borg is supposed to be cold, stingy with money, a failure as a husband and father, but as played by Sjostrom he's actually likeable, a twinkly old man - and the film misses every opportunity to change our perception, e.g. when the girl tricks him into giving her friends a lift too (she doesn't reveal there are three of them) he'd have every right to get angry, or ask for money, but he's happy to go along with it. A transitional film, working with the lively, theatrical group staging of SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT but also looking forward to the bleakness and pessimism of the later movies; an argument about God is still young people messing about here, a married couple bickering is still fundamentally farcical - but the seeds are there. A mixed bag, but important enough to Bergman's art - and encapsulating enough of his personality - to be valuable.

SOLO (72) (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1970): My first Mocky, a frenetic crime thriller made special by his counter-intuitive decision to commission a wistful, Morricone-ish musical theme from Georges Moustaki (of 'Le Métèque' fame) and play it about as often as 'California Dreamin'' in CHUNGKING EXPRESS, pushing the action to arm's-length and adding rueful detachment even as the cops-and-robbers stuff fizzes along frenetically. It makes sense, since - from the opening scene, a proto-Epstein orgy that turns into a massacre - the theme is revolution, and the post-'68 tweak is that our cynical, bon viveur, middle-aged hero (played by Mocky himself) is too old to share the young people's idealism, even as he increasingly bonds with them. "These kids can't stand us," sighs one cop; "When they get rich, they'll settle down," replies his colleague. The film, too, is cynical, but also the kind of Hitchcockian chase movie often resolved by ironic near-misses and cosmic jokes (like the ambulance coming for the wrong person); B-movie action, then it throws in a poignant close-up, or makes a shot of three people following each other weirdly poetic with a snatch of that musical theme. A surprise.

PARIS, TEXAS (65) (Wim Wenders, 1984)

JANUARY 1, 2026