Post-it Galen

@willowpudge27.bsky.social

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Chicago-based, bass player for hire, fool for free He/they

A 2-star review of Sarah and Son (1930) Sarah (Ruth Chatterton) and her husband Jim (Fuller Mellish Jr.) are Austian immigrants in the US, struggling to make ends meet with their vaudeville performances. After Jim runs away with their child Bobby (Phillipe De Lacy), Sarah is left to build a life alone. Ten years later she's a famous opera singer and tracks down her long-lost son. I bounced off this one completely. Perhaps during the great depression, a father selling his son reads more believably, but nowadays it's an absurd premise that's quite hard to take seriously. This is an example too, of the theatre-influced acting failing to translate to the screen. Most of the actors, Chatterton especially, grossly overact in every scene which also helps to kill any buy-in by the audience.
A 2 1/2-star review of Hell's Angels (1930) In Hell's Angels, brothers Roy (James Hall) and Monte (Ben Lyon) Rutledge and their bestie Karl (John Darrow), an exchange student from Germany, are all best friends going to Oxford together. Karl's spent so much time in England he "feels English". Monte sleeps around and gets in trouble when he sleeps with a German major's wife. Roy's girlfriend Helen (Jean Harlow) is unfaithful to him. Antics ensue. But when war is declared and Karl is drafted back home, everything falls apart! This. Movie. Draaaaaaaaaaaaags. Every single scene feels easily 30% longer than it needs to be, we spend so much time with these boring people's boring lives and for what payoff? The relationship between the Rutledges and Karl is set up like it's gonna be the Whole Point but once the war starts, Karl dies immediately and is never mentioned again. When Roy learns about Helen's infidelity…he breaks up with her and we don't see her again for the rest of the film. The airplane stunts are incredibly cool, and it's clear to see the influence on later films, but man oh man it would be a much better film with about 40 minutes less of Stuff.
A 2-stat review of Their Own Desire (1929) Discord in a happy life! When her father (Lewis Stone) leaves her mother (Belle Bennett) for another woman (Helene Millard), society darling Lally (Norma Shearer) is left crushed. Soon after, she meets a man (Robert Montgomery) who turns out to be the son of the woman her father married. Will Lally stay true to her ailing mother? Or go with this man to find true love? This was alright, the costumes were gorgeous and it was well paced. At 65 minutes in length it feels like a solid episode of a TV drama. What takes the wind out of the film's sails to my mind is the romance between Lally and John, which entirely consist of John chasing her around and throwing himself at her like a goddamn stalker. All of his appearances are so off-putting and gross you start rooting for her to leave him by the end.
Picture of me playing bass in dramatic black and white
A 3-Star review of Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil is Friedrich Nietzsche's attempt to put down his philosophy in plain, easy to understand writing, communicated through a long ordered list of thoughts, points, observations, and questions. His fundamental point, to my interpretation, is that while society in the "modern day" (1885) is moving away from religion, people are not really engaging with the question of what "good" and "evil" really are without a presupposed diety or with whether those are even useful concepts to hold onto at all anymore. To my taste, I find about 60% of what he says to be interesting and insightful. There's thoughtfulness about the dangers of dogmatism, the foundations of morality, and worthy takes on existentialism. Unfortunately the other 40% of the book is rough. Nietzsche gives the impression of a 14-year-old Call of Duty-playing suburban 4chan user who thinks he's the only person in history to have an original thought. All of his good ideas are kneecapped by his insistence that actually Yes, Heirarchies Are Good and we should base society around empowering the Strong. His rank misogyny is thankfully contained to one chapter, but it does render said chapter vestigial. His obsession with hierarchy extends to another chapter of pure race science garbage, comparing the "base natures and values" of all the different races of the world: Germans, French, Italians, English, & South Germans. His antisemitism is at least interesting in that, while he pretty heavily rails again the contemporary Anti-Semetic League, when he tries to be positive about Jewish people it comes of as extremely condescending and othering. Finally, the book ends on a poem so bad that translator Walter Kaufman mentions multiple times throughout the introduction to the book, the footnotes to the edition, and the intro to the poem itself that it is a "blemish without which the work would be much improved"
Nightly schedule for Chicago bar Clara for the month of July
A game of wordle with 2 words played. All letters in PENIS are incorrect All letters in TUMOR are incorrect
A 2 1/2-Star review of The Vagabond King (1930) The self-proclaimed "king of the vagabonds", François Villon (Dennis King) is sentenced to hang by king Louis XI (O. P. Heggie) for his provocative political songs. Before his execution, the king decides to give him a chance to make good on his boasts and allows François to rule in his stead for a week. Of course François wins both the 100 Years War and the heart of Katherine (Jeanette MacDonald). This is an operetta, with songs throughout but no standout tracks or performances. The plot moves along ploddingly slowly and quite frankly does nothing interesting. Overall boring and forgettable, but inoffensive. The kind of movie that translates better to a Futurama episode than something feature-length
A flyer for the Young Masters Summer Concert Series 2026, with shows June 18th (passed), June 30 (Welles Park, 6:30), and July 9th (Fred Anderson Park, 5:30)
A 4-star review of In Old Arizona (1928) In Old Arizona, there's an outlaw on the loose. A daring desperado with a heart of gold who steals front the rich but not the poor and goes by The Cisco Kid (Warner Baxter). Meanwhile, a lawman named Dunn (Edmund Lowe) comes out from New York to chase the price on the Kid's head. Will the Kid's girl, Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess) give away all his secrets? Okay there are some obvious major flaws, with the casting of a bunch of white people in brownface and bad accents to play the Mexicans, and the deep deep pervading misogyny that fuels the conflict & ultimate resolution. The acting is over the top, the dialogue is bad, the audio quality poor. But damn, at least in a camp way, this one is fun. Maybe I've been watching too many slow aristocratic dramas from this era but In Old Arizona is an action blockbuster by comparison. The tension between the Kid and Dunn is great in all their scenes, and Tonia Maria is so delightfully evil & vicious she steals the show.
A flyer for the Young Masters Summer Concert Series 2026, with shows June 18th (passed), June 30 (Welles Park, 6:30), and July 9th (Fred Anderson Park, 5:30)
Dead Money IMO a way more effective "let's do a different genre" DLC than OWB. Here, you're kidnapped and forced into helping an insane old man break into the vault of the Sierra Madre Casino, freshly completed & ready to open the day the bombs fell, sealed ever since. You must gain the trust of 3 companions, each with a personal stake, and pull off a heist, centuries in the making. The character interactions are by far the highlight of this one, with Christine, Dean Domino, & God/Dog all standouts in their own ways. So far this one leaves me the most curious to replay & see the other outcomes.
Honest Hearts In Honest Hearts, you join a trade caravan to Zion Nation Park, as you arrive to the park your entire caravan is slaughtered & you are left to sort out the politics of the multiple tribes of people living in Zion. This is a solid little side plot, the map is beautiful, the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go plot is a difficult choice, the characters are... mostly enjoyable. Joshua vs David vs the Old Man is a nice, uh, tri-chotomy of white savior-y guys. I think there are maybe some aspects of the depictions of the tribals that have not aged well. Follows-Chalk especially bothered me, mostly because his infantalizing voice lines played a lil too often for my taste and imo undercut how smart we're told he's supposed to be "That com-pass thing always knows where north is? Even when we can't see the stars?"
Fallout: New Vegas Replayed F:NV for my first time since, god, high school? And it did really confirm this is one of my favorite games of all time. There's not a lot i can say that doesn't word-for-word repeat what I said about Fallout 3 earlier in the year, but this one is better! The world feels much more cohesive as an organic whole, spread out relatively evenly across the map. The writing is sharper, the characters stronger. Even where the same patched-together-with-duct-tape feeling arises, it feels less slapdash, more carefully considered, and honestly more charming. There's very little I can say about this game that hasn't already been said. Youve played it before. And if you haven't, you ought to.
A 3-1/2 star review of Coquette (1929) In Coquette, Norma Besant (Mary Pickford) is a flirtatious girl-about-town who falls in love with low-class working man Michael (Johnny Mack Brown) but her father (John St. Polis) doesn't approve of their match! There's a good sense of drama and pacing, and while the audio quality is not high, the acting is solid. Mary Pickford does an excellent job carrying the film and her resulting Academy Award for Best Actress feels well earned. Of course, as with many of the films of this time, the melodrama wears thin by the end of the plot, the underlying misogyny is palpable, and the ending is contrived enough to be laughable.
A 5-star review of A Storm of Swords (George RR Martin) As the realm-engulfing war of the previous book winds down, our various characters find themselves largely scattered, with nothing going anybody's way basically the whole time. Even a neat resolution to the war is tantalizingly close but seemingly farther away every chapter. GRRM is of course a master of different POVs, jumping constantly between very different characters with an astonishing consistency of tone and characterization between the different viewpoints. Characters and events are colored through these different perspectives into a truly rich web of relationships personal and political. I love a fantasy book where you can tell the author has multilayered pages of spreadsheets to keep track of everything.
A 1-star review of The Valiant (1929) Eh, kind of a boring slog. A mysterious man (Paul Munni) turns himself into the police for a murder for which he shows no remorse, though he refuses to give a real name. After seeing the man in the paper, a woman (Margueritr Churchill) visits him in jail to see if he is her long-lost brother. Maybe this one works better in it's original, stage-play form, but this did very little for me. There's an air of overwrought melodrama which really doesn't match a lot of the actual stakes here. The movie keeps referring to the man as "Valiant" for standing on his principles and not giving his name, but his reasons for doing so are so paper-thin it's hard not to walk away feeling like that guy was pretty dumb for all that.
A 3 1/2-star review of Backrooms (2026) A solid psychological horror story. I like how tight and considered the shots and pacing are, it leaves the right amount of questions unanswered, such that can be interpreted multiple ways. I think this film doesn't necessarily stand out especially from other similar A24 films, but it's still a solid entry
A 1-star review of White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) Racist dreck, generally uninteresting, and not worth your time. While it pays lip service to the idea that colonial exploitation is bad, this is a film where a white guy washes up on a beach and the natives think he's a god. This goes on for an hour. There's some neat color grading at least.
A 3 1/2-star review of Alibi (1929) Gosh, I have almost no thoughts on this. The most positive thing I can say is that it is a feast for the eyes. The shot composition, lighting, sets, and costuming are all fantastic, making every scene just really lovely to look at. Past that, there's not much to say. Chick Williams (Chester Morris) is a crook who, fresh out of jail, elopes with his sweetheart, Joan (Eleanor Griffith), the police chief's daughter who believes Chick is reformed from his time in prison. Chick of course immediately commits a robbery and murders an officer. Will Eleanor find out his true nature? Will his alibi hold up? How many human rights abuses will the police commit trying to catch him? (lots) The plot unfolds pretty easily with no real surprises, and while the acting is good, nobody really stands out.
A 3 1/2-star review of Madame X (1929) Sigh, another melodramatic film about a fallen woman feeling remorse for her wicked ways. Jacqueline, AKA Madame X (Ruth Chatterton) is a divorcee, prevented from seeing her son (Raymond Hackett) ever again by her ex-husband, Mr. Floriot (Lewis Stone). She falls into alcoholism and crime over the years that follow, ultimately being put on trial for murder, with her now-adult son unknowingly assigned to her defense! The worst parts of this movie are systemic, having to do with this misogynistic obsession with punishing immoral women that so many of the films of this era lean into. If I go on too much this'll turn into an essay on the trope writ large, but suffice it to say I find this trope tired, even within the context of its time. Did the film studios in '29 just forget any other plot structure existed? Those issues have more to do with tropes and trends of the era than they do with this specific film, which I actually enjoyed a fair bit. The acting is extremely cheesy and melodramatic, but it sort of works for me given how all the actors (but especially Chatterton) throw themselves fully into their roles. Director Lionel Barrymore leans into the stage play origins of the script, framing & blocking shots as if they were on a theater stage. A lot of the actors at this time were coming to film from theater and while this choice does mean the pacing is much slower than is comfortable for modern palettes, it plays to the strengths of the actors in a way that really worked for me.
A poster for the Max Brown Quartet The Whistler, in plain text over a field of Brat Green
A 3-star review of The Divine Lady (1928) The Divine Lady is a historically-inspired telling of the life and times of Lady Emma Hamilton (Corrine Griffith), lover to Admiral Horatio Nelson (Victor Varconi). This was...fine. Corrine Griffith's performance is by far and away the highlight of the film, she brings a palpable enthusiasm to the role that makes her a delight every time she's on screen. The sets, too, are gorgeous and are shot very well. This is visually a lovely movie with a lot of neat stuff to look at. Boats even! Otherwise there's not much else going on. A common pitfall of historical films is the tendency to just sort of show a series of events like checking off points on the list of stuff the protagonist did in their life. This is no exception, and the 1920's-style love triangle plot they add to string all the scenes together is paper thin, really boring, and doesn't really add anything. At a certain point the movie starts to ignore Lady Hamilton to focus on Admiral Nelson doing boat stuff, and this makes the final 20 minutes drag longer than the previous 70.
A black and white image of me playing the bass, sitting on a stool
A 1 1/2-star review of The Broadway Melody (1929) A painful slog. The Broadway Melody is an early musical where there's basically 3 things going on. 1) There is a weird, incestuous(?), throuple between songwriter Eddie Kearns (Charles King) and the singing Mahoney sisters, Hank (Bessie Love) & Queenie (Anita Page). Eddie is involved with Hank, but when he sees that Queenie has gone through puberty since the last time they met, he realizes shes hot now and falls for her completely, losing all interest in Hank immediately. This is so so so gross and ruins all sympathy for Eddie, the protagonist of the film. The fact that (SPOILERS!) he gets everything he wants in the end is tbh disgusting and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Fuck Eddie fr. What carries it through this stuff is that Bessie Love & Anita Page are delightful, with excellent chemistry throughout. 2) This is a musical about people putting on a musical (technically a revue, but c'mon). Other than the female leads, the best parts of the movie are the light comedy scenes making fun of the behind the scenes interactions of musical productions, mostly because of the ways they resonate (through the lens of the songwriter who is obviously a flawless genius) to musical productions I have personally experienced. The overall tone of everything tracks completely to modern-day musical cheese and I do appreciate that. There is a clear historical line between this film and Lin-Manuel Miranda. 3) This is a musical where all the songs are performances in the revue they are putting on or otherwise played by characters diagetically, so they're...kinda boring and largely irrelevant to the plot. Some decent dance sequences but nothing to write home about.
A 5-star review of Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb Oh man this one was up my alley. A high fantasy with some almost fairy tale-like elements mixed in for flavor. The character work here is excellent and the layers of plot and intrigue are complex and satisfying. It sort of reminds me of if Games of Thones scaled way down and stayed in one place with one character the whole time. I'm going to be itching to come back to this series. Also a lot of good dogs throughout.
A 3-star review of Weary River (1929) A thoroughly fine film. Jerry Larrabbee (Richard Barthelmess) is a gangster who reforms himself through music while in prison, and also gets famous for writing the films titular song. Most of the film progresses along a pretty straightforward plot without any real surprises. Barthelmess delivers a solid performance, but it's a little undercut by his singing scenes being overdubbed with another actor. There's a lot of music in this, and they play the title track in its entirety 4 (four) times throughout the film (not counting its use in the score as well). The plot flows nicely enough to make it an enjoyable watch, but the underlying moral attitude of "Prison is a Good Thing and prison wardens are just kindly old men who want to help you" leaves a pretty gross taste in my mouth when I stop to think about it at all.
Some guys playing jazz
A 3 1/2 star review of Our Dancing Daughters (1928) Our Dancing Daughters centers around a love triangle between Diana (Joan Crawford); a hard-drinking, charleston-dancing, party-girl flapper with a heart of gold, Ann (Anita Page); a friend of Diana's who pays lip service to traditional values, but has a trail of broken hearts behind her, and Ben (Johny Mack Brown); a rich dude with no other relevant traits. This feels like Sex and the City 75 years early. The whole conflict here is kinda dumb and everything that happens boils down to rich people drama. That being said I enjoyed this more than many of its contemporaries. Joan Crawford gives a performance that allegedly "launched her career" (she'd been acting for years at this point so I think they just mean this one made her famous) & she is for sure the standout actor of the film. Anita Page also does a stunning job as a villain, incessantly taunting Diana after stealing her man. The male actors are pretty much all set dressing & Johnny Mack Brown in particular is very robotic. The actual set dressing however, is top-notch. This is a beautiful movie to look at, with gorgeous art deco mansions, fantastic costuming, and interesting cinematography.
A collection of Hemingway's short stories, this is a solid read the whole way through. The stories tend to be quick, punchy, and pointed. Major recurring plots include "man gets himself killed pursuing masculinity", "this big bad world will chew you up and spit you out", "I have daddy issues", "times sure are changing huh?", "maybe alcohol is kinda bad guys', and the timeless "war is hell" The writing style is super direct and plain, and feels like it would translate really well to being read aloud. Because the writing is so spartan, there is a real sense that every word is carefully chosen.
Ugh what a lame nothingburger of a movie. Soldiers Tex (William Boyd) & Buddy (Robert Hale) are besties with German defector Fuzzy (Alan Hale). They meet a Russian aristocrat (Paul Weigel) with a beautiful daughter named Tanya (Diane Ellis) whom Tex immediately falls for. But oh no! Evil Captain Heckla (Fred Kohler) takes advantage of the revolution to kill the aristocrat, kidnap Tanya, & steal his mining operation. Then our heroes have to go save her. This entire plot is bafflingly framed by Tex's after-the-fact court martial, as he explains his apparent desertion to his commander (Jack Richardson). Theres so little here there's not much else to talk about. Most of the writing feels like a rough sketch that was supposed to go through some more revisions before getting filmed. A friend I watched it with said "it was like having a movie described to me". The sub-60 min runtime is merciful & nothing really offensive or awful ever happens so I wouldn't go so far as to call it "bad", but I wouldn't try to watch it again by choice either.
3/5 Stars In Thunderbolt, a woman called Ritzie (Fay Wray) has fallen in love with a boring banker named Bob (Richard Arlen) & wants to leave her life of crime and association with her lover, mob boss "Thunderbolt" Jim Lang (George Bancroft). This is director Josef von Sternberg's first sound film, and it's kind of an iteration on his earlier film Underworld (1927) with the same broad strokes: Girl wants to leve mob boss. Mob boss won't let her go. Mob boss sees other guy is worthy of his respect. Mob boss sacrifices himself so they can be together. Thunderbolt doesn't quite hit the same mark as the earlier film (though it's close) for me. The relationship dynamics are less nuanced, Jim Lang is a less engaging performance from George Bancroft than Bull Weed was, the stakes in the climax feel much lower, and the final third sort of drags once they're all in prison. This film uses sound in interesting ways, mostly in the choice to use only diagetic music in its scenes, with characters half shouting over music in the same room as them. This has a funny effect of making the film sound much clearer than a lot of other movies of the time, as sometimes post-production can drown out dialogue. I've seen some reviews say that this is a "semi-musical" and that's a straight-up lie. Unless the cantina band scene makes Star Wars (1977) a musical, this one ain't either.
Bachelor Chow (Now with flavor!) from Futurama
This one didn't wow me. Mrs. Cheyney (Norma Shearer), a wealthy widow from Australia, is making waves in British high society & everyone wants a piece of her. But oh no! She and her low-class (!) butler (George Barraud) are plotting to do some robbing. Will love prevail? Will this fallen woman get away with everything? Will everybody be in pajamas for the second half the film? Yes to at least one of these! Really this reminded me of the high society plays of Oscar Wilde but like, less clever
Some dudes playing jazz
A really entertaining watch, fun dialogue & good acting with a really frustrating conservative slant to the morality. Cynthia (Kay Johnson) is a rich party girl, living it up at speakeasy parties & making out with the hot married man (Conrad Nagel) she loves. His wife Marcia (Julia Faye) is cool with it and will divorce him, but the paperwork won't go through in time to satisfy the conditions of Cynthia's grandfather's will, which stipulates that she must be married by a certain date, or lose her inheritance. To skirt this, she marries Hagon Derk (Charles Bickford), a man on death row. But when the real killer confesses, Derk is freed and now they have to be married together!!! This one gets frustrating to me because it's slightly too self-aware of the deeply misogynistic themes at play to then just do them anyway. It's totally chill for Roger to sleep around with Cynthia & everybody knows about it, but the second she's married it's all over? Come on man. Something about the way that the 2nd half of the movie tries to tag on Cynthia for her "evil ways" gets under my skin. At least they throw jazz a bone. Holy shit, aero wheel racing, omg the pickleball of 1929
The cover of Dune by Frank Herbert
Blinded by the fury of passion - by the despair of a lost love — she had not reckoned with The Letter Starting Jeanne Eagels
Flier for the Madcats Blues Jam at 117 W. Slade St, Palatine, IL 60067 Saturday, March 29th, 2026 6:30-10:30pm
Movie poster for Skyscraper (1928). Blondy, a white guy in a red shirt and sailor cap, smoulders at the camera