Entry Thirteen

Robot Jox: Crazy 80s movie about a future world where war is banned (!) and conflicts are decided by a one on one contest between giant robots. An evil commie robot is battling a heroic American one for the rights to oil-rich Alaska, but an accident causes huge damage and sets up a climactic (and nicely handled) final show down. It's really very silly, but not unenjoyable with the effects - stop motion for the robots, rather than men in big suits - doing a decent job conveying the action.

The Strong Man: A silent comedy starring Harry Langdon. It's my first Langdon film, and while he may look a little like the silent partner in Penn and Teller, his act is purely Chaplin. It's also inferior Chaplin, with only the explosive finale raising any laughs.

The Heroes of Telemark: Bland war film about the Norweigan resistance movement during the second world war. It has a standout sequence in the middle where the resistance group silently infiltrate a Nazi factory, but can't follow it up physically or emotionally.

The Lusty Men: An excellent drama starring Robert Mitchum as a washed-up rodeo rider who helps an amateur in the rodeo circuit to buy a farm for he and his wife. It's pretty low-key, but assumes a convincing naturalism reflected in the excellent performances from Mitchum and Jane Wyman.

Gentleman's Agreement: 1940s drama starring Gregory Peck as a journalist who reluctantly investigates anti-semitism for a magazine by going "undercover" as a Jew and discovers the seething cauldron of hate or indifference to Jews. It's brave (for its time) but very didactic, and as such, comes off as little more than a slightly tedious lecture in How To Behave.

Driving Miss Daisy: Two excellent performances from Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy make this 80s drama stand out. Tandy plays an elderly woman who after a minor accident isn't allowed to drive anymore, while Freeman plays the chaffeur who has to drive her around. Taking place over 25 years, the film charts their growing friendship, while using the times the movie is set in to frame their relationship in larger terms.