Rooms and Legs

I'm starting to think Selena Gomez requested a sexier look for this season of Only Murders in the Building. Last night's new episode featured her in a short skirt, showing off her legs again after her performance in Oliver's dream, and a form fitting cardigan. Another character even makes a joke about her typically big, shapeless sweaters.

Whatever the reason, it's an improvement.

Last night's episode was called "The White Room", referring to a gag where Charles, so bad at delivering his song for the show, finds himself mentally transported to a legendary actors' "white room". The other actors describe it as a sort of psychotic break and hallucinatory haze from which the actor emerges finding evidence that they've done something unspeakably grotesque.

I felt like the shots of Charles in the white room could have been funnier but I really enjoyed the awkward reactions of the other characters when Charles emerged from the zone.

I think I'm enjoying this season more than either of the previous two.

Only Murders in the Building is available on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ in other countries.

Monkey Hands and Chicken Breasts

Interrogating a monkey is something even the most hardened detective rarely anticipates. But it is the task before David Lynch in 2017's What Did Jack Do?, a short film written by, starring, and directed by David Lynch. Released just a couple days ago on Netflix, it's a strange little gem that moves almost imperceptibly between broad comedy and weird mystery.

Capuchin monkeys sure are expressive and Lynch has used them before, most notably in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. This is the first time he's given one a starring role, though, and his own voice and presumably his mouth allows the animal to reluctantly divulge information about his violent affair with a chicken.

It's funny, of course, but it becomes strangely entrancing, too, as Lynch finds interesting ways of matching dialogue to the tiny quirks of the monkey's brow. Incredibly, this film returns to one of Lynch's most persistent preoccupations: the torment of an individual who's done violence to his or her loved one. Explored in more serious terms in Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive, Lynch takes this most grim topic and reduces it to the ridiculous. Yet it somehow retains some of the intrinsic sorrow of the circumstance.

Only one other human is featured in the film, Lynch's wife, Emily Stofle, playing a waitress. But Lynch and the monkey are an engaging enough duo on screen.

A Convenient Location for Many Murders

In 1935's The Riverside Murder, Alastair Sim was more Scottish than I've heard him at any other time. As a police sergeant on a crime scene, he expels a snooping reporter and when she calls him a monster he replies, "Aye, from Loch Ness!" It's Sim's debut film and a decent, engaging little murder mystery.

The main stars of the film are Basil Sydney and Judy Gunn, as a police inspector and the reporter, respectively. What is it about the tension between cop and reporter that has continually yielded satisfying sexual tension? I suppose it's because they're both after the same thing and at any moment they can switch between being allies or foes or back again. There's a mildly S&M quality to it and appropriately the film features a scene where the reporter is handcuffed for being too much in the way. She screams and jumps up and down when a rival reporter snaps her photo and her disgrace is later shown to be on the front page.

She is clearly "in sensation". When her co-worker shows her the article she infers cautiously that the boss has, "seen it, of course?" To which her co-worker replies, "And he wouldn't need glasses!"

There's lots of quick, cute bits of dialogue like that. The mystery itself is a tidy little thing about a group of friends who long ago entered into a pact of some kind together. Now they're being picked off one by one by the murderer, who might be one of them. Most of the action takes place in the first dead man's large house where the housekeeper continues serving tea however trying the situation becomes.

Sim is easily the standout with his bizarre, ghoulish appearance and that great voice, all in the service of being a mildly helpful subordinate. It's not hard to see why he found success in a string of detective roles. The Riverside Murder is available on Amazon Prime.

Virginie, the Inquiring Voyeur

Nothing complicates a relationship quite like a murder. When Brigitte Bardot spots her husband with a gun standing over the body of a deceased Dawn Addams in 1959's Come Dance with Me (Voulez-vous danser avec moi?) she draws the natural conclusion. But she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and plays detective for the bulk of this mostly charming comedy murder mystery.

The beginning of the film takes us quickly through how Virginie (Bardot) met Herve (Henri Vidal). The opening credits are played over footage of Bardot, dressed for mildly formal cocktails, impatiently trying to get a dentist on a pay phone. Her father has a toothache--when she finally reaches the home of a dentist, Herve, he's busy with a very informal poker game.

As Virginie and her father arrive at Herve's home, we're presented with this contrast between a carefully brought up, possibly sheltered, young woman and this dishevelled barbarian.

But they're both attracted to each other and, a few jump cuts later, they're married and having an argument in which they declare never intending to speak to each other again. Herve goes to a club where he runs into Anita (Addams) and goes home with her, passionately kissing and fondling her while her accomplice, a very young Serge Gainsbourg, secretly takes pictures.

Herve backs off, saying he can't be unfaithful to his wife, but I'd say he'd already crossed that line when he started kissing Anita, to say nothing of when he pulled her top off and we were given a shot of Addams' nipple double. When she and Gainsbourg decide to implement their blackmail scheme, Herve goes to confront her where she teaches at a dance studio, Virginie follows, the body is found, and the main plot begins.

Most of the film is from Virginie's perspective as she tries to figure it all out. Like her, we're not sure if her husband is guilty or not. Those who employ the term "male gaze" would say of course this film is still an example of the male gaze not only because of its male director and screenwriters but because of how the language of film was created by men. One of my objections to the term "male gaze" is its variety of definitions and how many amateur critics lazily switch between definitions while using the term over the course of a single review. Another complication is evident in this film when one of the suspects Virginie encounters is a gay man named Daniel (Philippe Nicaud).

The police are suspicious of him because of his "morality" as he puts it but Virginie shrugs and says she has no problem with him. I wish I could say this was the beginning of a surprisingly enlightened attitude in a film for its time but unfortunately this does not turn out to be the case. It's not Dressed to Kill bad but it is in the same ball park--that is, the trope of gay men doing bad despite the nice heterosexuals obviously willing to accept them. This is a product of a certain latent code of morality, part of what would be labelled the "male gaze" but it's clear here the term is hopelessly deficient and reflective of a too limited perspective. Obviously this gaze is not inherently male.

But Virginie's sexual attitude is intriguing in less disappointing ways. While Herve was having his ill-fated first encounter with Anita, Virginie reveals she'd been at a strip club, watching women strip. She'd seemed to enjoy this, an interesting comment on sexual power dynamics, but says she'd much rather watch men strip.

There's a rabbit hole of radical thought that would finally say any expression of sexual voyeurism or assertion on a woman's part is still a product of the oppressive patriarchy. But Come Dance with Me is mostly a fun fantasy, obviously influenced by Hitchcock, but never comes near To Catch a Thief or even The Trouble with Harry.