Best In Show via Christmas dvd from my brother in law.
A comical spoof on the dog show culture. 6/10
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Best In Show via Christmas dvd from my brother in law.
A comical spoof on the dog show culture. 6/10
Bombay Talkie (1970) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065484/
This is another Merchant Ivory movie that got me looking at recent Bollywood songs.
9/10
Included on the DVD was a documentary, Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls, 1973. Helen was the dancer in over 500 Bollywood movies. Although the commentary was confusing, it was a good portrayal of a remarkable dancer.
8/10
Les Miserables. It. was. awesome. If you like the play, you will probably like the movie. I need to read the book again. I read an abridged version when I was in high school and loved it. Someday I'd like to read the whole thing. 10/10
A Beautiful Life. This has been tagged as a romance, but it is also a young woman's voyage of discovery about herself. 9/10
We Bought a Zoo. Adorable. A lovely movie. Is there anything Matt Damon can't do? He is quite good as a grief-sricken father who will do anything to see his children happy. 9/10
The Bourne Legacy. Meh. I liked it, but it's just an excuse to make another action movie. By which I mean the plot seemed rather recycled. 8/10
Sabrina (1954; Billy Wilder) - 9/10
Effortless grace and charm with some biting wit, sarcasm, and cynicism as only Billy Wilder could do. It doesn't hurt that he had Audrey Hepburn and Bogart as leads.
The White Sheik (1952; Federico Fellini) - 6/10
Fellini's first film contains only glimpses of the greatness to come.
Orphée written and directed by Jean Cocteau (1950)
This retelling of the story of Orpheus is very French in style and dress. It's an interesting view of the Greek myth and uses surrealism to great effect, although the happy earthly ending might be somewhat disconcerting for those who like their mythology undiluted.
Once again b/w photography triumphs where colour would have been a puerile distraction to a story that deals with the interplay of art, life and death. Definitely not for those who prefer watching the screen with the brain switched off.
8/10
Umberto D. directed by Vitorrio De Sica (1952).
This early example of Italian neo-realism was said to be De Sica's favourite and although it's a rather sentimental
Chaplinesque story about an old man whose only companions are his dog and a young girl who works as a maid
in the apartment house where he lives, it holds the attention by the amazing acting that De Sica coaxes out of
complete amateurs.
7/10
Hope Springs (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535438/
Steve Carell is the shrink. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play the couple who need marriage counseling after 30 years of marriage of which the last five years are celibate.
This is a feel-good chick flick that could save you thousands of dollars in therapy if you see it with your partner since the solutions Carell offers are just plain obvious, but not to those caught as that couple was.
For the savings in therapy costs alone, I'd have to give this a 10/10.
Delicatessen (1991; Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro) - 8.5/10
Quirky in that inimitable Jeunet/Caro way, which looks like what would happen if you tossed surrealism, the circus, cartoons, comics, pop art, Carne, Leone, and many other influences into the mix. The two bed squeaking scenes set to music are worth the runtime.
I always feel like I should like Cocteau more than I do given my love for surrealism, but his Beauty and the Beast is the only film of his I truly love. Orpheus was quite interesting, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Awww, that's probably my favorite neo-realist film after Rome: Open City. I gave it a 9/10. I usually don't like sentimental schmaltz; that one still got to me. FWIW, that was late, rather than early, neo-realism, which had already been around for almost a decade.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
You are right, I was thinking of De Sica's long post-war career rather than concentrating on the movement as I should have done. Rome, Open City is one of the greatest films ever made and Anna Magnani's performance one of the greatest also.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
This is one of those multi-national productions that is predominately French and is part of the repetitive spy story films that dogged the 1970s. In saying that, it is quite good of its type with a cast of top liners, including Henry Fonda, Yul Brynner, Dirk Bogarde and Philippe Noiret. The story concerns the defection of a Soviet Colonel to France and, under pressure from the USA, to America where he tells of a network of spies working at the highest level of German, French and English governmental activity. The spies start to mysteriously end up dead and the convoluted plot explains why.
Needless to say, the viper in the nest is the ultra-British intelligence agent whose upper-class pedigree masks a hooray Henry defection. 7/10
The American Soldier (1970; Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - 5.0/10
Fassbinder's art continues to elude me. I've yet to see anything of his that's appealing. This one has some nice noir stylings, but is so dry and dull that the atmosphere is about the only thing even remotely worthwhile.
Il marchese dell Grillo
In my opinion thisis alberto sordis finest work, pure comdic genius of theoldschool. A must watch for anyone who values plautuses and terences comedy.
9/10
Anna Karenina 10/10 This is the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. It is a ballet, it is an opera, it is a play. The settings are luscious and gorgeous. And believe it or not it is well-acted. I thought Kiera Knightly did a very good job; Jude Law was outstanding as the wronged husband. The actor who played Vronsky, Aaron Taylor Johnson (who also played the lead in 2010's "Kick ***"), was good, but he was six years younger than Ms. Knightly, and it shows. It was just noticeable.
I thought Knightly did a very good job of showing Anna as a complex character.The only other flaw for me was that Knightly played Anna as a trifle histrionic when her world was falling apart; I'm reading the book now, and I think her character's grief, while still profound, would be of a quieter and more intense nature. I think she really got it right in the scene just after she gave birth, and the scenes where she is falling in love she is quite transcendent.
Interestingly, I found this interview with her on her role on NPR, and she had this to say about playing anger:
"My dad gave me my probably one and only acting lesson before I did Pride and Prejudice, where he sat me down — I was 18, I think — and he sat me down and he went, 'Right. You've been doing really well on getting by on instinct alone but I think you actually need a couple of tools here.' So he basically talked me through a bit of Stanislavsky and gave me a very, very good note actually, which I've always said. He said, 'Beware of playing anger.' He said, 'Anger isn't very interesting. If you think you're going to go there, really think about it because maybe there's a more interesting route.' And I've actually always held to that because I think he's quite right."
The rest of the interview is here:
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/08/166066...-the-innocence
I have to admit I like Joe Wright. His movies are so painterly, and in this instance all the elements came together spectacularly. Tom Stoppard's screenplay is also well done.
It Rains On Our Love (1946; Ingmar Bergman) - 5/10
Bergman's second film with very little of the great, idiosyncratic genius to come.
Le Amiche (1955; Michaelangelo Antonioni) - 7/10
Early Antonioni is still quite interesting. One can definitely see how he's already experimenting with space and mise-en-scene populated with angst-ridden bourgeoisie. Unlike in his later masterpieces, though, he's not yet entirely reliant on visual metaphors and expressionism with a minimal of dialogue and downplaying of character-driven plot. There's a lot of characters here and the film is awash in dialogue. It does, however, have that characteristic detached, observational distance going on, so despite the wealth of characters we still get to play the role of objective observer.
Sudden Fear (1952)
Joan Crawford is the successful and rich playwrite who marries Jack Palance not knowing he is a confidence trickster after her money. Gloria Grahame is his girlfriend who joins him in a plan to kill the playwrite. Somewhat stagey and not very convincing thriller of the type that rolled off the Hollywood production line during the 40s and 50s. Looking at them now, mediocrity seems to be the hallmark of many of them but there were some very good ones although this isn't one of them. It's alright in patches so it gets 5/10.
http://youtu.be/xAYfP4D-BMI
Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080945/
Apparently not everything Jane Austen wrote is worth spending over $50,000 for including the play that forms the basis for this Merchant Ivory movie. Not knowing much about theater companies I found it difficult to see anyone behaving the way they did around Pierre, but amusing to watch.
Score 5/10
Do the Right Thing (1989; Spike Lee) - 9/10
Don't know why it took me so long to see this; it's an extraordinary film that avoids all of the pitfalls that most "racial commentary" films fall into (see: Crash). A great cast of characters and actors, colorful writing and direction, and a wonderful build-up to a devastating climax.
The Life of Pi (2013)
i had a lot pf expectations for this move based on what i had heard, yet ultimately it let me down. while there were some great scenes and a bit of a twist ending i still found it a bit boring and while the artistic style of it was good it failed to really hold my attention so i would not watch it a second time.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by David Fincher - 7/10
Qimi, I had watched the trailer of Anna Karenina when it came out and didn’t really like it, to be honest, but after reading your post I’m planning to see this film. I’ve seen Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice and it was good.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
The Fugitive Kind (1959; Sidney Lumet) - 8/10
I'm rather puzzled at the lukewarm reputation this film has; what's not to like? You have the greatest American actor ever in Marlon Brando paired with the greatest Italian actress ever in Anna Magnani together playing two lonely characters with the utmost subtlety and understatement; you have superb supporting performances by Joanne Woodward and Victor Jory, a superbly written screenplay by Tennessee Williams (based on Orpheus Descending), all concatenated by the intelligent, slow-burning, atmospheric direction of Lumet. Perhaps it's a trifle too theatrical, especially in terms of the unnatural, florid dialogue, but Lumet was always at home with such theatrical material, and that doesn't make it any less cinematic.
Les Miserables, very well done! 10/10.
The Full Treatment (1961)
A British thriller set on the Riviera in 1960, three years before the laughingly called entertainment **** hit the fan, was not to be missed even though my references gave it the thumbs down. Starring the tragic Ronald Lewis, who died penniless in a seedy London hotel, and a cast of well known contemporary French and British actors, it concerns a racing driver who suffers brain damage during a motor accident in England on his way to France with his newly married bride. Undergoing psychiatry after discovering that he wants to strangle his wife, he discovers that the psychiatrist is setting him up for an insane asylum in order to marry his wife. Run of the mill performances in a run of the mill film but, as a personal nostalgia trip, 7/10.
Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall
This is a concert. The best part was "Someone Like You" followed by the closing "Rolling in the Deep". I realized she is one of the greatest poets of the English language when thousands in the audience sang her lyrics for her. Some might not consider that even a criteria for being a poet, but so be it.
It was a little difficult following her accent when she spoke, but not her songs. I did learn how English females say "a$$hole" from her which is more delicate, like "ahshole", than the cruder way I would pronounce it.
Score 10/10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowqueen
Eeek, I really hope you like it, Snowqueen! Let me know when you see it.
Patrice Leconte's Girl On a Bridge.
Filmed in an almost sulphurous black and white, with a haunting score, Girl On a Bridge is unapologetically romantic, it is erotic without nudity, its humour is droll, its voice alternates between uplifting and bleak. Daniel Auteil is incredible as the knife-thrower Gabor, there's a subtle brutality to him that is caged deep inside, and his mysterious world-weary eyes speak volumes. Vanessa Paradis brilliantly portrays the delicately sensual, naive, tragic Adele, his target, who falls in love with any man who is nice to her, even though she seems to understand the joke is on her... They belong to the caste of those discarded by society, from their near suicidal meeting on the bridge, through their erotic (in an uncomfortably delightful way) knife-throwing act, their parting, and to their near suicidal reunion. But together they overcome this alienation. 9/10
Autumn Sonata by Bergman: Beautiful film. Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman play off each other so magnificently, in their estranged mother-daughter relationship. The years of resentment and guilt and pain build to a heart-wrenching climax and re-established why Bergman is my favourite of all filmmakers. 9/10
King of Comedy by Scorcese: Real quality flick. De Niro is absolutely at the top of his game (as is Scorcese's directing) and Jerry Lewis is excellent as well. The Don Quixote-esque nature of his character with his desire for fantasy over reality is ultimately somewhat tragic and moving. Good stuff. 8/10
Dancer in the Dark (2000; Lars Von Trier) - 9.5/10
I'm one of Trier's biggest critics, but this was a brilliant, emotionally gut-wrenching film--easily his best since Breaking the Waves. Say what you want about Trier's troll-like tendencies, but he is undeniably a ballsy filmmaker, and one of the very few that can so originally and audaciously experiment with form and genre. Who but him could think of combining a plot straight out of a 20s, silent melodrama (a poor girl is going blind and working in a factory to save money for her son's operation so he won't go blind--eat your heart out, Charlie Chaplin and Lilian Gish!), a musical, and the "style" of Dogme 95? It could've been disastrous--and many critics have claimed such (Peter Bradshaw humorously said: "one of the worst films, one of the worst artworks and perhaps one of the worst things in the history of the world.")--but it's held together by Bjork's stunning, unbearably poignant performance, and the utterly original and haunting musical numbers. I know that this is a film I'll be thinking about for months and probably years to come.
Jackie Brown (1997; Quentin Tarantino) - 7/10
This was rewatch on blu-ray, and I thought perhaps this film would've grown on me over the years, but it still feels bizarrely subdued for a Tarantino film. Where's the sense of fun and cinematic adventurism? There are some fine moments, and nobody an orchestrate more original and surprising murders than Tarantino, but it runs way too long and is far too dull for too much of that runtime to be considered great.
Both great films. Bergman is part of my "holy trinity" of filmmakers along with Hitchcock and Kurosawa.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Menard
That looks really good. Thank you, islandclimber.Quote:
Originally Posted by islandclimber
Great reviews, Morpheus. I've wanted to see Breaking the Waves for awhile.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Rust and Bone 10/10 Oh, the French. Are they capable of making a bad movie? This is beautifully done, and the lead actors give unflinching and practically flawless performances.
Breaking the Waves is such a fantastic film. I've always positively adored Emily Watson and this was likely her most stirring performance. Simply beautiful in that tragic way.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
Rust and Bone was quite brilliant. Cotillard and Schoenaerts have a wonderful on-screen chemistry.
Here's a link to a scene from Girl On the Bridge. Accompanied, and heightened by the stunning Marianne Faithfull song Who Will Take my Dreams Away (a song that has that savagely eloquent taste of smoke and leather one finds subtly in amazing bottles of red wine alongside seductive fruits), this scene is quite possibly the most dangerously romantic scene in all of film. When Auteil closes those desperate eyes to throw the last few knives, and Paradis positively writhes, gasping for some kind of air that cannot be grasped, that is beyond love. Ahhhh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaamZLKRul0
Thanks. Do let me know what you think about Breaking the Waves if/when you see it. Von Trier has a habit of getting great performances out of his (often amateur) actresses, and Emily Watson is as superb in Waves as Bjork is in Dancer.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
Although his methods can drive them away from ever acting again, as with Bjork.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
True, and that's a real shame. I listened to the commentary today and it did sound like they clashed a lot and it was a tough shoot. It reminds me of the old days of Hollywood when many of the directors were dickish taskmasters, but, whatever he did, it sure worked.
Some directors see their movies as theirs rather than team efforts, and feel that whatever is necessary to get the "correct" response from the actor is therefore justified. Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and David Fincher are all notorious for their treatment of their actors.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Don't forget John Ford. Hitchcock may have said actors should be treated like cattle, but I've never heard any real complaints about how he treated those he worked with.
Angels With Dirty Faces (1938; Michael Curtiz) - 8.5/10
One of infamous 30s gangster films with Cagney and a young Bogart. Cagney is top-form throughout in what maybe his best performance and best role as perhaps the most charismatic and personable gangster ever in Rocky Sullivan. In fact, he's so good he makes everyone else, including Bogart, Pat O'Brien, and Ann Sheridan pale in comparison, which makes all of the scenes without him come off as rather listless. One wonders if the Sheridan love-interest plotline didn't get heavily hacked, because it seems really incomplete and directionless. Pat O'Brien's priest character (Rocky's best friend since childhood) is so shallow and dull in comparison, though I wonder if that wasn't part of the point being made about the attractiveness of the gangster lifestyle. Luckily, it's held together with some fine, tasteful direction by Michael Curtiz, perhaps the most underrated of the old Hollywood masters. Direction at that time was supposed to be muted, utilitarian, and unostentatious, and while Curtiz can do that, he also finds spots for stylistic flairs in terms of framing, angles, lighting, and editing. The final execution scene may be the best of its kind to come out of classic Hollywood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I'm a little ashamed to say I've only seen Ikiru and Rashomon of Kurosawa's. Both excellent films but I've been lazy getting around to the rest of his work. I have Ran and Throne of Blood sitting here, really need to get around to watching them.
Hitchcock is of course brilliant.
Bergman and Kubrick are my dynamic duo, though.
The Keys to the Kingdom (1944)
This adaptation of A. J.Cronin's best selling novel about an English missionary's life in China is very well acted by Gregory Peck in the lead role and has solid support from Vincent Price and Edmund Gwenn among others. The American accents are too obvious in a film that concerns people from the Tyneside region of England where there is a very strong localised accent. The film is over two hours long but the story, which follows the book reasonably well, holds the interest and covers the internal politics of the Catholic religion that is a feature of the novel. There are some genuinely touching scenes which the director, John M. Stahl, handles well and if Alfred Newman's music score is over the top, the intelligent script by Joseph L Mankiewicz and Nunally Johnson holds the film together. 7/10
Barton Fink (1991; Coen Brothers) - 9.0/10
Probably my second favorite Coen film now behind only No Country for Old Men. It's impeccably directed with their typically detached cynical humor combined with a morbid curiosity. John Turturo is outstanding as the playwright suffering writer's block after coming to Hollywood, and John Goodman is his usual, amiable self, but with subtle, darker underpinnings. The film's nosedive into surreality was a real surprise; the Coen's have flirted with that kind of thing in many of their films (the dream that ends No Country, or the whirlwind in A Simple Man), but none of them have gone for it this fully. The ending on the beach is quite provocative, almost Blade Runner-esque in how mysterious and hypnotic it is. The unopened box seems like an allusion to a similar device in Bunuel's Belle de jour. Altogether a superb film.
If that's all you've seen from Kurosawa then you've got a lot of masterpieces waiting for you: Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Ran, Kagemusha, Dersu Uzala, Yojimbo, Red Beard... When I was in my teens I definitely would've included Kubrick, but over the years my enthusiasm has waned a bit. I still consider 2001, Dr. Strangelove, and Barry Lyndon transcendental masterpieces, but I'm more ambivalent about the rest of his work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Menard
My daughter and I were reciting lines from Scary Movie 3 last night. Since we had some discrepancy about what the lines were exactly we decided to watch it again.
Score 10/10
Brandy for the Parson (1951).
The title comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling about smuggling as this very English comedy details how a diverse group of people try smuggling barrels of French brandy across country by using ponies when their van breaks down. Although in B/W the English country side is shown to great advantage and the whimsicality of the story underlines the eccentricity of some of the characters that make their appearance along the way. Not a film that could be appreciated outside of the UK as its gentility would be unknown elsewhere but it's a pleasant enough tale and quite satisfying in its own way. 7/10
I just started watching The Hidden Fortress last night, but was too tired to get more than about 20 minutes in.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I think the only other Kurosawa I've seen are Yojimbo and Seven Samurai. I watched Yojimbo a few years back as a prologue to a Sergio Leone marathon, since Fistful of Dollars was a remake. I enjoy doing original/remake double features (if they're both good), so what I want to do sometime is watch Seven Samurai again along with Magnificent Seven, which I've still never seen, Ran with King Lear, and Throne of Blood with Macbeth.