Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957). You probably don’t need me to tell you this is masterful. Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth is raw, muscular, urgent. Revisioning it to accommodate samurai doesn’t deepen or otherwise change the story in any dramatic way. It really just winds up being a different way to tell it, letting the natural power of the story emerge. (Sometimes this sort of thing can get tripped up by its own trickiness, even when well done like the version of Richard III starring and partially orchestrated by Ian McKellen.) Toshiro Mifune brings exactly the right intensity to the lead role, but it’s ultimately the striking visual sense of Kurosawa–typified by the incredibly eerie feel of the sequence that introduces the seer who puts the tragedy into motion–that makes the film vital.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, 1970). I usually don’t think of Billy Wilder as a champion plotter, but that’s short-sightedness on my part. While I’m quick to celebrate the cascade of genius dialogue in classics like The Apartment, Some Like it Hot and Sunset Blvd., each of them is equally a feat of story construction. This original tale of London’s greatest detective is muddled at times, largely a victim of the bloat that struck Hollywood productions when dragging out their running time was the chief tactic for making them feel like events. The plotting, languid as it may be, is still rock solid. There are nice performances by Robert Stephens as Holmes and Colin Blakely as Watson, even though the characterization gets overly bogged down by some business at the beginning involving Holmes’s potential homosexuality. While some sitcom silliness goes along with it, to Wilder’s credit, it is largely done respectfully enough that it doesn’t feel dated. However, it’s a thread that is set up as a major concern and then barely explored the rest of the way, making it feel fairly superfluous.

Every Girl Should Be Married (Don Hartman, 1948). This, on the other hand, is what a severely dated movie looks like. Cary Grant plays a bachelor pediatrician who is relentlessly pursued by a department store salesgirl who’s enamored with the prospect of marriage and the suburban paradise that naturally comes with it. The film’s version of proto-feminism is having a lecture hall full of woman cheerily announce that they all snared husbands through sneaky emotional traps. Grant certainly displays his abundant natural charm in the role, although he lays it on too broadly at times, perhaps a mark of boredom since this is a role that he’d basically played several times over by this point in his career. There is one striking moment, maybe the goofiest I’ve even seen him play, when he mocks the overeager nature of his pursuing potential partner.

Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008). A completely unique film, Waltz with Bashir is essentially an animated memoir, pulling together the remembrances of Folman and others as they come to terms with their actions as members of Israeli military forces in the 1982 Lebanon War. Using animation allows Folman to visualize incidents as they exist in the memory, even as they shift and grow as different people fill in his blanks. The animation is sharp, jagged, earthy and engrossing, often creating vivid images that couldn’t be realized any other way, and actually drawing us closer to the fear and anguish depicted on screen.

Once Upon a Time (Alexander Hall, 1944). Another Cary Grant vehicle, though this one is sorta nuts. Grant plays a struggling theater producer who tries to revive his career with a child’s pet, a caterpillar who dances whenever the song “Yes Sir That’s My Baby” is played. It has a touch of farce to it, but none of the energy or snappy dialogue needed to really make it come alive. Instead it’s just a series of scenes of Grant desperately trying to convince people that this dinky rhythmic critter is a surefire superstar all leading up to the lesson that a child’s trust is more important than riches. It’s daffy and dopey and dull.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)