http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/g...ban_Cowboy.jpg
I have just watched the above, it was great 8/10 great country music.
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http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/g...ban_Cowboy.jpg
I have just watched the above, it was great 8/10 great country music.
I have just watched Thérèse Desqueyroux, a French film version of François Mauriac's great novel of the same name. Made in 1962, this acclaimed film stars Emmanuelle Riva as the eponymous heroine and Philippe Noiret as her overbearingly complacent husband in performances that are the essence of great acting. Riva IS Thérèse and Noiret IS Bernard. There was an extraordinary sense of déjà vu in watching this film as I hadn't read the novel for some years but it all came flooding back exactly as I had imagined it. When I read that it had been filmed on Mauriac's own estate near Bordeaux and that he had collaborated on the script I understood why this is the definitive film version of the book.
It has just been remade with Audrey Tautou in the title role and has been received with mixed reviews. Not surprising really, why bother trying to improve on the perfect?
10/10
To Rome With Love: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859650/
There were 4 stories situated in Rome in this movie. Outside of location, there didn't seem to be any other connection between them. Two of the stories seemed too absurd to take seriously.
Score: 5/10
The Killer is Loose (1956), with Joseph Cotten and Rhonda Flemyng.
This is an obvious precursor to Cape Fear in which a convicted criminal, whose wife was accidentally shot by a police officer, escapes from prison and goes in search of the wife of the policeman who was responsible for his own wife's death. It wasn't bad even though slightly implausible and Joseph Cotten, who was usually given meatier roles to play, looked a bit lost in his part as the policeman desperately trying to protect his wife. Directed by Budd Boetticher, known for his B pictures, it showed a similar lack of directorial control but was still watchable. 5/10
My daughter told me that we have all the Harry Potter movies and so I spent the past 8 days watching them in order, one each evening. Once I got to the 4th one she started watching them with me.
She said they get "darker" and more interesting and she's right. The last two are the best in my opinion. The first two are entertaining, but I get a little annoyed with Harry winning everything and the good guys and the bad guys are too clearly divided. In the last few movies, as Voldemort leaves everything in a mess, the good and bad get complicated, Harry isn't the only one saving the day and the final ending is perfect.
Overall score: 10/10
This evening I watched Twisted Nerve a nineteen sixties film staring Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett in the lead roles. With all those mini-skirts the film looks peculiarly dated and while well-made it doesn't come off as the pseudo medico/horror it was intended to be. There is a notable cast of supporting actors including the ubiquitous Timothy West who usually overacts but gives a very convincing performance as a police inspector. One of a number of British shockers along similar lines to Peeping Tom, Blowup and The Collector, it comes across as a typical piece of 1960s excess.
4/10
http://youtu.be/KmqGOXMUmjY
I used to love Haley Mills when I was a child.
I saw The Phantom of the Opera recently, a home viewing in someone's personal screening room. It was actually the 25th anniversary production of the play that was filmed. At the time it was streamed around the world.
Anyway, while I've enjoyed the music for years, I'd never seen the play for some reason. It was wonderful. I loved it. So over the top romantic. It's kind of nice to indulge in that sort of thing occasionally. The three young actors in the lead roles did a marvelous job of sing, acting, and emoting in general. 10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb1kzpCtmqs
She was absolutely brilliant in her first film Tiger Bay, filmed when she was only twelve-years-old. The whole cast were exceptional but John Mills (her actual father) despite his magnificent performance, was acted off the screen by his daughter who gave one of the greatest child performances in screen history.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
http://youtu.be/oyio8ZtlVys
The horrorthon continues.
The Abandoned: An adopted woman inherits her birth family's old abandoned farmhouse, and strange occurrences occur. Very good haunt movie with some time-bendy sauce on top, though not nearly to the extent Takashi Shimizu uses in his movies. 8.5/10
Gravedancers: Three yuppies dance on some graves while drunk and strange happenings happen. A classic case of a low-budget movie trying to look big-budget with its little money. Result: Bad CGI and obvious rubber masks. Also, bland script and cypher characters. Next time try to do a few things well and buy a writer with what's left. 5/10
Scarecrows: Haven't seen this since on VHS back in the day, and have always wanted to see it again. Another low-budget (almost certainly much lower than Gravedancers) C-movie, but doesn't try to do more than it can. Not much in the way of characters or acting, but gets points for good look-and-feel, the occasional bit of truly oddball humor, and not feeling the need to give more than a bare-bones, throwaway explanation for the scarecrows. 6/10 if you don't like this kind of thing, 8/10 if you do.
The Frightened City (1961) a tedious film about protection racketeering in London starring Sean Connery before he became a big noise playing James Bond.
Although I usually find something about these old British black and white films to hold my interest, in this instance I did not.
0/10
You know, I'm not sure I've seen Tiger Bay, Emil. I'll have to give that a look. I saw her in Pollyanna, a movie that affected me quite deeply at the time.
I have seen Abandoned, Calidore, and it gave me the chills.
DayNightDayNight. This came out in 2007. I saw it on my cable channel. I really, really liked it. It's about a young girl who agrees to be a suicide bomber. The title refers to the 48 hours leading up to the event. 8/10
Vivre Sa Vie. What can I say? It's Jean Luc Godard and the French New Wave. 10/10
I've nearly finished watching this film and it has been most enjoyable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Please check it out it's absolutely stunning but you will probably need to keep the Kleenex to hand for the ending.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
QUOTE=Neely;1171248]I've nearly finished watching this film and it has been most enjoyable.[/QUOTE]
I'm glad that you have enjoyed this film, because it epitomises rural French upper middle class life perfectly. The feeling that appearances must at all costs be maintained even when attempted murder is revealed in the family.
The uncanny thing about it is that the ending at the Café de la Paix in Paris is exactly as described to the last detail in the novel; it's almost as though the scene leapt out of the book and transplanted itself to the screen.
Yesterday I watched The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. Made in 1956 it was taken from a best selling novel and had the hallmark production values of a Darryl F Zanuck film and starred Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones in the lead roles.
Basically it's a story of the advertising business in Madison Avenue but there is a supplementary story told in flashback about how, returning from the war, Peck is unable to settle into his married life because, among other things, he had an affair in Rome that resulted in the woman having a child.
The performances were good with a special one from Frederic March as the head of an advertising agency whose own marriage has failed because of his pursuit of success. It is a long film lasting over 2.5 hours but it kept me interested to the end. The one thing that didn't convince were the children who, even by American standards, were too precocious to be believable.
7/10
Volver, directed by Pedro Almodovar and starring Penelope Cruz, who was fabulous and gorgeous.
The plot revolves around a woman who covers up a crime to protect her daughter, and her mother, whose ghost returns to comfort her. There's much more to it than this, of course. The movie takes its time revealing the core conflict and developing the relationships among the women. I really appreciate Almodovar for making a movie that does more than relegate women to the roles of girlfriends, wives, mothers. They are these things, of course, and in the course of their relationships with each other, so much more.