2featherbear
Watched Cave of the Yellow Dog again; TCM (or Xfinity) held it for one more day. I also checked out Tubi, and after much searching found a copy in their library. It didn’t stream very well, not quite HD, but it is nice to know it’s there. Unfortunately, no subtitles; dialog is in the original language.
Anyway, some additions and corrections to the September posting, based on a second viewing of the TCM version. The dog Nansal loves is Zochor, which may have something to do with its black and white coat. The yellow dog figures in the story the old woman tells Nansal: a princess is ill, and her father is told that his yellow dog is causing her sickness, and must be disposed of. The father is reluctant to kill the yellow dog, and hides it in a cave. The father visits the cave to feed the dog daily, but one day it disappears. The princess recovers. Not magic – the yellow dog had been interrupting the princess’s trysts with her lover.
Also, to slightly correct the old woman’s explanation of reincarnation: to demonstrate human reincarnation, she pours several handfuls of rice over a needle; the chances of reincarnation as a human depend on a single grain of rice balancing on the tip of the needle.
After she returns from the old woman’s yurt, Nansal asks her mother whether people remember their earlier lives. Mother says grown-ups do not, but little children tell “colorful stories” which may refer to their earlier lives. Later, Nansal and sister Nansalmaa are looking at the sky and finding animal shapes in the clouds. At one point, Nansalmaa insists one of the forms is a giraffe. Later Nansal tells her mother Nansalmaa has told a lie, since she doesn’t know what a giraffe is. Then her eyes light up as it occurs to her that Nansalmaa might be recalling an earlier life.
Hope you can find it in your local library.
Anyway, some additions and corrections to the September posting, based on a second viewing of the TCM version. The dog Nansal loves is Zochor, which may have something to do with its black and white coat. The yellow dog figures in the story the old woman tells Nansal: a princess is ill, and her father is told that his yellow dog is causing her sickness, and must be disposed of. The father is reluctant to kill the yellow dog, and hides it in a cave. The father visits the cave to feed the dog daily, but one day it disappears. The princess recovers. Not magic – the yellow dog had been interrupting the princess’s trysts with her lover.
Also, to slightly correct the old woman’s explanation of reincarnation: to demonstrate human reincarnation, she pours several handfuls of rice over a needle; the chances of reincarnation as a human depend on a single grain of rice balancing on the tip of the needle.
After she returns from the old woman’s yurt, Nansal asks her mother whether people remember their earlier lives. Mother says grown-ups do not, but little children tell “colorful stories” which may refer to their earlier lives. Later, Nansal and sister Nansalmaa are looking at the sky and finding animal shapes in the clouds. At one point, Nansalmaa insists one of the forms is a giraffe. Later Nansal tells her mother Nansalmaa has told a lie, since she doesn’t know what a giraffe is. Then her eyes light up as it occurs to her that Nansalmaa might be recalling an earlier life.
Hope you can find it in your local library.
3Carol420
>2 featherbear: This sounds interesting and very much like something I saw a few years ago but I can't remember the name of it. I do recall that it had a dog and a cave and I remember the man hiding the dog. Maybe it was this one.
4featherbear
>3 Carol420: If you go to IMDB and find the title, there is a link to tubi, where you can then search by title. The internet version has commercials, but I suspect no subtitles. But for many of the scenes there's no dialog and those kids are the best!
5Carol420
>4 featherbear: Thank you.
6JulieLill
The Invisible Man 2020
"When Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see." from IMDB
I highly enjoyed this film. I am now curious to see the original.
"When Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see." from IMDB
I highly enjoyed this film. I am now curious to see the original.
7featherbear
One of 3 surrealist (?) films I’ve seen recently on TCM:
Orphee (Orpheus) (1950). B&W, sound, French dialog with English subtitles. 1 hr 52 min. Director & screenplay, Jean Cocteau. Cinematography, Nicholas Hyer. Editing, Jacqueline Sadou. Music: Georges Auric.
Takes place in post-war France. Orpheus (Jean Marais) at table with his editor (Henri Cremiere) in a loud and crowded student tavern. Orpheus complains he is out of touch with youth. An expensive car with chauffeur arrives and an elegant woman (Maria Casares) steps out and enters the tavern, The editor identifies her as The Princess. A student fight takes place and the crowd, including Orpheus and the editor, emerges from the tavern into the streets. Two men dressed as military or fascist brownshirts roar by on motorcycles, running over the student Cegeste (Edouard Dermithe).
Here comes the mysterious part: the princess orders Orpheus to help the chauffeur carry Cegeste into the limousine. The bemused Orpheus obeys, thinking they are bringing Cegeste to a hospital. Soon Orpheus realizes the limo is not going to the hospital and is being accompanied by the motorcyclists, and the student is dead. They stop at a house and bring the corpse upstairs. The corpse is revived or reanimated, and the Princess (who is Death), leads the student to a mirror that dissolves and allows them passage to a dark corridor.
Orpheus does not follow at this pioint and is struck on the head and wakes up away from the house. The chauffeur, who identifies himself as Heurtebise (Francois Perier) and who probably represents Charon, gives Orpheus a ride home. Heurtebise, following instructions by Orpheus, hides the limo in Orpheus’s garage, which already houses the poet’s own sportscar – being a poet seems to be quite lucrative.
Orpheus then enters his home, returning to his frantic wife Eurydice (Marie Dea) who is being comforted by her friend Alagonice (Juliette Greco), a member of a group of women called the bacchantes (in the original Greek myth, Orpheus is later torn to pieces by the bacchantes, but it doesn’t go that far in the film). Orpheus doesn’t explain where he’s been to Eurydice and ignores her while he writes down cryptic messages broadcasted by the limo’s radio, which he uses to revive his poetic career. Meanwhile Eurydice keeps hinting but Orpheus does not realize his wife is trying to tell him she’s pregnant.
The rest of the film sort of follows the myth, though the key event, where Orpheus leads his deceased Eurydice back from Hades, comes across more as a French farce. In the myth, Orpheus is about to lead Eurydice back to the living world but makes the mistake of looking back, and she must return to the Underworld forever. Something like this happens, but it comes across more as a kind of French farce. The couple escape from Hades because, with the help of Heurtebise, Orpheus is prevented from looking back. But then Orpheus has to live with his wife without looking at her. After some rather comical episodes, Eurydice has to return. But Orpheus goes back again and gets her back, thanks to Princess Death, who has fallen in love with him, and the film closes with Orpheus living in domestic bliss with his wife and their new baby. Lacks the beauty of Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, and, as must be evident, the tone can be puzzling. Apparently Marais was Cocteau’s lover, but whether this is some kind of autobiographical allegory about their relationship or Cocteau's poetic career is hard to say.
Orphee (Orpheus) (1950). B&W, sound, French dialog with English subtitles. 1 hr 52 min. Director & screenplay, Jean Cocteau. Cinematography, Nicholas Hyer. Editing, Jacqueline Sadou. Music: Georges Auric.
Takes place in post-war France. Orpheus (Jean Marais) at table with his editor (Henri Cremiere) in a loud and crowded student tavern. Orpheus complains he is out of touch with youth. An expensive car with chauffeur arrives and an elegant woman (Maria Casares) steps out and enters the tavern, The editor identifies her as The Princess. A student fight takes place and the crowd, including Orpheus and the editor, emerges from the tavern into the streets. Two men dressed as military or fascist brownshirts roar by on motorcycles, running over the student Cegeste (Edouard Dermithe).
Here comes the mysterious part: the princess orders Orpheus to help the chauffeur carry Cegeste into the limousine. The bemused Orpheus obeys, thinking they are bringing Cegeste to a hospital. Soon Orpheus realizes the limo is not going to the hospital and is being accompanied by the motorcyclists, and the student is dead. They stop at a house and bring the corpse upstairs. The corpse is revived or reanimated, and the Princess (who is Death), leads the student to a mirror that dissolves and allows them passage to a dark corridor.
Orpheus does not follow at this pioint and is struck on the head and wakes up away from the house. The chauffeur, who identifies himself as Heurtebise (Francois Perier) and who probably represents Charon, gives Orpheus a ride home. Heurtebise, following instructions by Orpheus, hides the limo in Orpheus’s garage, which already houses the poet’s own sportscar – being a poet seems to be quite lucrative.
Orpheus then enters his home, returning to his frantic wife Eurydice (Marie Dea) who is being comforted by her friend Alagonice (Juliette Greco), a member of a group of women called the bacchantes (in the original Greek myth, Orpheus is later torn to pieces by the bacchantes, but it doesn’t go that far in the film). Orpheus doesn’t explain where he’s been to Eurydice and ignores her while he writes down cryptic messages broadcasted by the limo’s radio, which he uses to revive his poetic career. Meanwhile Eurydice keeps hinting but Orpheus does not realize his wife is trying to tell him she’s pregnant.
The rest of the film sort of follows the myth, though the key event, where Orpheus leads his deceased Eurydice back from Hades, comes across more as a French farce. In the myth, Orpheus is about to lead Eurydice back to the living world but makes the mistake of looking back, and she must return to the Underworld forever. Something like this happens, but it comes across more as a kind of French farce. The couple escape from Hades because, with the help of Heurtebise, Orpheus is prevented from looking back. But then Orpheus has to live with his wife without looking at her. After some rather comical episodes, Eurydice has to return. But Orpheus goes back again and gets her back, thanks to Princess Death, who has fallen in love with him, and the film closes with Orpheus living in domestic bliss with his wife and their new baby. Lacks the beauty of Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, and, as must be evident, the tone can be puzzling. Apparently Marais was Cocteau’s lover, but whether this is some kind of autobiographical allegory about their relationship or Cocteau's poetic career is hard to say.
8Carol420
Dirty Dancing (1987)
5/5
Musical depicting the dance craze of the 1980's
I remember standing in a line that went around the block the day this movie opened in Tampa, Florida. I also remember the protest people that never wanted it to premiere much less last 33 years and still be going strong. A lot of it had to do with the stars...Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray...but also it was a beautiful romance movie that well depicted the attitudes and the wide gulf that separated the rich from the rest of us in the 1960's that was the setting for the story. Unless you have been living under a rock your whole life...you have probably seen this movie at least once. If you haven't seen it....it's worth an hour and 45 minutes of your life.
9.cris
>8 Carol420: I'm happier under my rock, Carol, but thanks for the review.
10Carol420
>9 .cris: I'll send books, tea and cookies...(I can't remember what you Brits call "cookies" but they eat the same)...to you under your rock. I'll just sit here and drool over Patrick. He was actually the best part of the whole thing:)
11ScoLgo
>10 Carol420: You and my mother-in-law, Carol! ;) She will stop channel-flipping and watch Road House Every. Single. Time. she roams into it.
Me? I like cookies, tea, and books so am considering joining .cris under her rock - but if she won't let me in, my other plan is to stand here with an umbrella warding off all the drool.
Me? I like cookies, tea, and books so am considering joining .cris under her rock - but if she won't let me in, my other plan is to stand here with an umbrella warding off all the drool.
12featherbear
The other two of the three surrealist films I was able to watch via TCM in the past week.
The Exterminating Angel (1962). B&W, Sound (Spanish w/English subtitles), 1 hr. 35 min. Director, screenplay, Luis Bunuel. Cinematography, Gabriel Figueroa. Film editing, Carlos Savage. I hadn't seen this before but it seemed familiar. People who host dinner parties will sometimes feel at times “will they ever leave?” as the time gets into the wee hours. Bunuel takes this literally. An upper class dinner in Spain. For reasons unexplained (even to themselves), the staff (cooks, servants, a couple with unidentified jobs) feel compelled to leave as soon as dinner is served. After the postprandials, the time for departure comes and goes. At some point the hosts and guests understand they aren’t able to leave. Time passes and soon the party has no idea how long they’ve been (self?)-imprisoned. No restrooms, food. Mad with thirst, they break through a pipe to get water. Place must be reeking by “now.” There are scenes outside the mansion, where a crowd has gathered, including the servants. No one dares to go in, fearing they won’t be able to come out. Eventually, the “spell” fades and the attendees are able to walk out the doors. That’s it. No explanation. Sort of a Lord of the Flies except bourgeoisie rather than English schoolboys, though maybe it’s more explicitly a thought experiment than a boy’s own adventure, which makes it somewhat less striking.
Viridiana(1961). B&W, Sound (Spanish w/English subtitles). 90 min. Director, Luis Bunuel. Screenplay, Julio Alejandro & Bunuel. Cinematography, Jose F. Aguyao. Film editing, Pedro del Rey. Music, Gustavo Pittaluga. Unlike Angel, I’ve seen Viridiana before, though long ago. Probably more memorable since it has more of a story. Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is a novice just about to take her vows to become a nun. She bears a remarkable resemblance to Kim Novak in Vertigo, and I do wonder if it made an impression on Hitchcock. With some reluctance she takes a hiatus from the path to convent life in order to see her dying uncle (Fernando Rey) at his estate in rural Spain. She rejects her kinky uncle’s advances, who subsequently hangs himself. The estate seems to have been split between Viridiana and her uncle’s son Jorge. The cousins represent two different approaches to the modern world. Jorge wants to improve the estate; Viridiana decides to leave the convent and reenact the life of St. Francis, or perhaps primitive Christianity, so to speak. She invites a group of homeless people to live in one of the estate buildings, and she sees to their care. They are grateful, but while she and her cousin are away, they raid the larder and wreck the dining room. They don’t do this out of malice, I believe, but because they seem to lack social skills and impulse control. I’m not sure where Bunuel is on some of this. He seems hostile to the upper classes, but the anarchy of the poor doesn’t seem to be an attractive alternative – his view of the poor seems rather close to your average reactionary. Considering the striking image of the Last Supper that serves as the climax of the poor people’s dinner party, Bunuel here seems more concerned with sticking it to the Church than expressing a social vision – at the expense of well-intentioned Viridiana.
The Exterminating Angel (1962). B&W, Sound (Spanish w/English subtitles), 1 hr. 35 min. Director, screenplay, Luis Bunuel. Cinematography, Gabriel Figueroa. Film editing, Carlos Savage. I hadn't seen this before but it seemed familiar. People who host dinner parties will sometimes feel at times “will they ever leave?” as the time gets into the wee hours. Bunuel takes this literally. An upper class dinner in Spain. For reasons unexplained (even to themselves), the staff (cooks, servants, a couple with unidentified jobs) feel compelled to leave as soon as dinner is served. After the postprandials, the time for departure comes and goes. At some point the hosts and guests understand they aren’t able to leave. Time passes and soon the party has no idea how long they’ve been (self?)-imprisoned. No restrooms, food. Mad with thirst, they break through a pipe to get water. Place must be reeking by “now.” There are scenes outside the mansion, where a crowd has gathered, including the servants. No one dares to go in, fearing they won’t be able to come out. Eventually, the “spell” fades and the attendees are able to walk out the doors. That’s it. No explanation. Sort of a Lord of the Flies except bourgeoisie rather than English schoolboys, though maybe it’s more explicitly a thought experiment than a boy’s own adventure, which makes it somewhat less striking.
Viridiana(1961). B&W, Sound (Spanish w/English subtitles). 90 min. Director, Luis Bunuel. Screenplay, Julio Alejandro & Bunuel. Cinematography, Jose F. Aguyao. Film editing, Pedro del Rey. Music, Gustavo Pittaluga. Unlike Angel, I’ve seen Viridiana before, though long ago. Probably more memorable since it has more of a story. Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is a novice just about to take her vows to become a nun. She bears a remarkable resemblance to Kim Novak in Vertigo, and I do wonder if it made an impression on Hitchcock. With some reluctance she takes a hiatus from the path to convent life in order to see her dying uncle (Fernando Rey) at his estate in rural Spain. She rejects her kinky uncle’s advances, who subsequently hangs himself. The estate seems to have been split between Viridiana and her uncle’s son Jorge. The cousins represent two different approaches to the modern world. Jorge wants to improve the estate; Viridiana decides to leave the convent and reenact the life of St. Francis, or perhaps primitive Christianity, so to speak. She invites a group of homeless people to live in one of the estate buildings, and she sees to their care. They are grateful, but while she and her cousin are away, they raid the larder and wreck the dining room. They don’t do this out of malice, I believe, but because they seem to lack social skills and impulse control. I’m not sure where Bunuel is on some of this. He seems hostile to the upper classes, but the anarchy of the poor doesn’t seem to be an attractive alternative – his view of the poor seems rather close to your average reactionary. Considering the striking image of the Last Supper that serves as the climax of the poor people’s dinner party, Bunuel here seems more concerned with sticking it to the Church than expressing a social vision – at the expense of well-intentioned Viridiana.
13Carol420
>10 Carol420: LOL!!!
"Drool is Cool"...Your mother-in-law has good taste. maybe I'll just share the tea and cookies with her and we'll watch Road House.
It may get crowded under cris's rock.
"Drool is Cool"...Your mother-in-law has good taste. maybe I'll just share the tea and cookies with her and we'll watch Road House.
It may get crowded under cris's rock.
14.cris
>13 Carol420: You're very welcome to join me, but you'll get kicked out if Tom Hardy wanders by (except if he's in Capone mode. I'm struggling to watch this all the way through. He's unbelievably unattractive, but I guess syphilis isn't a particularly attractive disease!
15Carol420
>14 .cris: I'll be over shortly. How can he possible look that much different with the makeup??? They should have picked someone that was less attractive to begin with to play that role.
16ScoLgo
>13 Carol420: You do find some excellent graphics, Carol! LOL!!
17featherbear
La Strada (1954). B&W, Sound (dubbed Italian w/English subtitles). 1 hr. 48 min. Director, Federico Fellini. Screenplay and story, Fellini, Tulio Pinelli. Cinematography, Otello Martelli. Film editing, Leo Catozzo. An early Fellini film, it seemed to me like an Italian Charlie Chaplin film without the comedy. Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina, plays the waif Gelsomina, sold to itinerant strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn) by her poverty-stricken mother for 10K lire. With her petite stature, cropped hair, and usually communicating with facial expressions, Gelsomina could be a female Little Tramp. Richard Basehart plays The Fool, the negative version of Masina’s good-hearted clown, compulsively “teasing” (humiliating, really) the ill-tempered Zampano, almost as if he had a death-wish. Appropriately, The Fool is a high-wire specialist when he isn’t clowning.
While Zampano seems to be a fairly straightforward example of toxic masculinity (he abuses her physically and psychologically and barely registers her as a human), Gelsomina is more enigmatic. Intellectually simple minded, she sometimes seems to be a Holy Fool, lacking the Tramp’s malicious side. Rebelling against her ill-treatment, she is re-captured by Zampano, and from then on can’t seem to separate from him, even though she is given many opportunities. To some extent she reenacts the battered girlfriend scenario, convinced that under all the brutality and lack of affect, Zampano needs her. But she doesn’t follow the paradigm, never defending his behavior. In two key situations when Zampano does evil things, she refuses to support him and withdraws into herself. Clearly bothered by her withdrawing behavior, perhaps secretly fearing her, he abandons her.
Years later, he learns about her fate, when he hears a familiar song vocalized by a young mother and asks her where she learned it. Wandering and losing touch with reality, Gelsomina was found ill on the beach and taken in by a kind family. While with them, she repeatedly plays a sad tune on the trumpet she used in Zampano’s act, a tune she learned from The Fool. (The tune, the La Strada theme, was famous in its time.)
Using a pebble as an example, The Fool had persuaded her that everything has a purpose, and she carries the pebble with her as a talisman. There is a moment midway in the journey when Gelsomina wishes for death, because she doesn’t know or have a purpose. When deserted by Zampano after he commits the ultimate sin, she loses all purpose and simply waits for death, dying in her sleep. At the end, Zampano realizes, in a way, that his purpose was to care for his little assistant, and he has failed. Rather operatic ending, now that I think about it.
PS: La Strada was one of a series of films programmed by TCM that were restored by the Film Foundation, in honor of the Foundation's 30th anniversary. Founder Martin Scorsese was interviewed before and after the showing.
While Zampano seems to be a fairly straightforward example of toxic masculinity (he abuses her physically and psychologically and barely registers her as a human), Gelsomina is more enigmatic. Intellectually simple minded, she sometimes seems to be a Holy Fool, lacking the Tramp’s malicious side. Rebelling against her ill-treatment, she is re-captured by Zampano, and from then on can’t seem to separate from him, even though she is given many opportunities. To some extent she reenacts the battered girlfriend scenario, convinced that under all the brutality and lack of affect, Zampano needs her. But she doesn’t follow the paradigm, never defending his behavior. In two key situations when Zampano does evil things, she refuses to support him and withdraws into herself. Clearly bothered by her withdrawing behavior, perhaps secretly fearing her, he abandons her.
Years later, he learns about her fate, when he hears a familiar song vocalized by a young mother and asks her where she learned it. Wandering and losing touch with reality, Gelsomina was found ill on the beach and taken in by a kind family. While with them, she repeatedly plays a sad tune on the trumpet she used in Zampano’s act, a tune she learned from The Fool. (The tune, the La Strada theme, was famous in its time.)
Using a pebble as an example, The Fool had persuaded her that everything has a purpose, and she carries the pebble with her as a talisman. There is a moment midway in the journey when Gelsomina wishes for death, because she doesn’t know or have a purpose. When deserted by Zampano after he commits the ultimate sin, she loses all purpose and simply waits for death, dying in her sleep. At the end, Zampano realizes, in a way, that his purpose was to care for his little assistant, and he has failed. Rather operatic ending, now that I think about it.
PS: La Strada was one of a series of films programmed by TCM that were restored by the Film Foundation, in honor of the Foundation's 30th anniversary. Founder Martin Scorsese was interviewed before and after the showing.
18Carol420
>11 ScoLgo: Guess what I watched last night!!!
Roadhouse (1989)
4/5
Dalton is an expert in martial arts and the best professional bouncer in the business. With such a reputation, Dalton is summoned in a small town in Missouri to clean up the sleazy bar called The Double Deuce from the troublemakers who terrorize the customers, without knowing, however, that the villainous local entrepreneur, Brad Wesley, wants things to remain unchanged.
While I obviously have a soft spot in my heart...or maybe it's my head...(cris can tell you)...for "Dirty Dancing"...I just couldn't resist watching "Roadhouse". While it features sexy Patrick Swayze in all his glory, it fails to give me the same "feel good" feeling that the misunderstood and misjudged character that Patrick portrays in "Dirty Dancing". His talents are much better portrayed as a dancer than as a brawler...although he did make beating the crap out of big bad guys really exciting...this one has always held the spot of second place in my favorites. ScoLgo's mother-in law's first place slot is still safe and secure.
Roadhouse (1989)
4/5
Dalton is an expert in martial arts and the best professional bouncer in the business. With such a reputation, Dalton is summoned in a small town in Missouri to clean up the sleazy bar called The Double Deuce from the troublemakers who terrorize the customers, without knowing, however, that the villainous local entrepreneur, Brad Wesley, wants things to remain unchanged.
While I obviously have a soft spot in my heart...or maybe it's my head...(cris can tell you)...for "Dirty Dancing"...I just couldn't resist watching "Roadhouse". While it features sexy Patrick Swayze in all his glory, it fails to give me the same "feel good" feeling that the misunderstood and misjudged character that Patrick portrays in "Dirty Dancing". His talents are much better portrayed as a dancer than as a brawler...although he did make beating the crap out of big bad guys really exciting...this one has always held the spot of second place in my favorites. ScoLgo's mother-in law's first place slot is still safe and secure.
19JulieLill
Escape From Pretoria
3.5/5 stars
Daniel Radcliffe stars in this true life story of two young men imprisoned in South Africa during Apartheid and their attempts to flee prison. I enjoyed it!
3.5/5 stars
Daniel Radcliffe stars in this true life story of two young men imprisoned in South Africa during Apartheid and their attempts to flee prison. I enjoyed it!
20ScoLgo
>18 Carol420: That is too funny, Carol! ;-)
My favorite actor from Roadhouse has to be Sam Elliott. That guy just seems to be a national treasure. He was perfectly cast as the narrator for The Big Lebowski!
My favorite actor from Roadhouse has to be Sam Elliott. That guy just seems to be a national treasure. He was perfectly cast as the narrator for The Big Lebowski!
21Carol420
>20 ScoLgo: I have always liked Sam Elliott. He shows up about 1/3 of the way through the movie but is still wearing the same clothes when he's killed in the bar. maybe he just travels light. He did bring a big knife.
23ScoLgo
>22 .cris: Not yet. Added to my list just now. Thank you!
24Carol420
>22 .cris: Yes...I saw it when it first came out and then bought it on DVD. I thought it had a lot of heart...(for lack of a better word)...for a Western. My mother liked one of his movies that was another Western...but I can't remember the name of it. it was based on a Louis L’Amour novel. She liked those also.
I found it! "Conagher" was the novel and the movie.
I found it! "Conagher" was the novel and the movie.
25featherbear
Again, from TCM:
Village of the Damned (1960). B&W, Sound, 1 hr 17 min. Director, Wolf Rilla. Screenplay, Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, et al. Cinematography, Geoffrey Faithfull. Film Editing, Gordon Hales. Good British SF B-movie. Everyone in the village of Midwich collapses, but revives 20 min. later, and – surprise – a half dozen of the village women are pregnant. They give birth in record time, to genius children, all blonde Aryan types, who develop much faster than normal and are smarter too, in part because they can link their minds, and make adults do their will. Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders, unrecognizable from his suave counter spy in Foreign Correspondent) studies them and comes to the realization that they must be destroyed. Parents with kids who give them “side eye” will know the feeling.
Detour (1945). B&W, Sound, 68 min. (or so says IMDB; seemed feature length to me). Director Edgar G. Ulmer. Screenplay, Martin Goldsmith. Cinematography, Benjamin H. Kline. Editing, George McGuire. A cult film noir, considered exemplary for the genre. Apparently film restoration went through a great deal of trouble producing a good digital version, getting a key sequence from a European archive scan.
Saw this years ago in my grad school days, and still has impact, mainly because of Ann Savage, as Vera, the hitchhiker. Savage is the perfect name for this woman’s performance. Begins in the dark, like a proper noir, with Tom Neal as Al Roberts, in a murky truck stop diner, aggressively rejecting the offer of a ride from a trucker. Neal does the voice over narration, as the flashback begins; it's pretty much the rest of the movie, and we see why he’s hostile to friendly offers of a ride.
Roberts is a poorly paid nightclub pianist (apparently a failed classical pianist), in love with the club’s singer Sue (Claudia Drake). He wants to marry her, but she has bigger plans – she wants to ditch the New York club scene to try her luck in Hollywood, and off she goes. Roberts decides to follow her to LA, but lacking the wherewithal, he has to hitch across the country. He reaches Arizona, and in a diner, a bookie (Edmund McDonald) also down on his luck, offers him a ride in his flashy convertible. In a reversal, Roberts the hitchhiker becomes the victim when the bookie unexpectedly dies en route. Realizing he will be blamed, he dumps the body off the road and takes on the bookie’s identity and car and continues on to LA.
At a gas station stop, it’s Roberts who picks up a hitchhiker, Vera (why???), who, coincidentally, was the bookie’s ex-girlfriend (!). Since she knows Roberts is faking, the relationship becomes female domina lording over submissive Roberts. Holding him under threat of going to the police, she forces him to take her to LA, and it culminates in an absurd murder. In case you’re wondering, there is no catfight with Sue (a hashslinger at this point rather than a star) and Vera. At the end justice is done, in a rather perfunctory way.
Village of the Damned (1960). B&W, Sound, 1 hr 17 min. Director, Wolf Rilla. Screenplay, Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, et al. Cinematography, Geoffrey Faithfull. Film Editing, Gordon Hales. Good British SF B-movie. Everyone in the village of Midwich collapses, but revives 20 min. later, and – surprise – a half dozen of the village women are pregnant. They give birth in record time, to genius children, all blonde Aryan types, who develop much faster than normal and are smarter too, in part because they can link their minds, and make adults do their will. Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders, unrecognizable from his suave counter spy in Foreign Correspondent) studies them and comes to the realization that they must be destroyed. Parents with kids who give them “side eye” will know the feeling.
Detour (1945). B&W, Sound, 68 min. (or so says IMDB; seemed feature length to me). Director Edgar G. Ulmer. Screenplay, Martin Goldsmith. Cinematography, Benjamin H. Kline. Editing, George McGuire. A cult film noir, considered exemplary for the genre. Apparently film restoration went through a great deal of trouble producing a good digital version, getting a key sequence from a European archive scan.
Saw this years ago in my grad school days, and still has impact, mainly because of Ann Savage, as Vera, the hitchhiker. Savage is the perfect name for this woman’s performance. Begins in the dark, like a proper noir, with Tom Neal as Al Roberts, in a murky truck stop diner, aggressively rejecting the offer of a ride from a trucker. Neal does the voice over narration, as the flashback begins; it's pretty much the rest of the movie, and we see why he’s hostile to friendly offers of a ride.
Roberts is a poorly paid nightclub pianist (apparently a failed classical pianist), in love with the club’s singer Sue (Claudia Drake). He wants to marry her, but she has bigger plans – she wants to ditch the New York club scene to try her luck in Hollywood, and off she goes. Roberts decides to follow her to LA, but lacking the wherewithal, he has to hitch across the country. He reaches Arizona, and in a diner, a bookie (Edmund McDonald) also down on his luck, offers him a ride in his flashy convertible. In a reversal, Roberts the hitchhiker becomes the victim when the bookie unexpectedly dies en route. Realizing he will be blamed, he dumps the body off the road and takes on the bookie’s identity and car and continues on to LA.
At a gas station stop, it’s Roberts who picks up a hitchhiker, Vera (why???), who, coincidentally, was the bookie’s ex-girlfriend (!). Since she knows Roberts is faking, the relationship becomes female domina lording over submissive Roberts. Holding him under threat of going to the police, she forces him to take her to LA, and it culminates in an absurd murder. In case you’re wondering, there is no catfight with Sue (a hashslinger at this point rather than a star) and Vera. At the end justice is done, in a rather perfunctory way.
26featherbear
Stromboli (aka Terra di Dio) (1950). B&W, Sound (Italian (standard & dialect) & English), 1 hr. 21 min. Director, Roberto Rossellini. Screenplay, Sergio Amidei, et al. (Rossellini also, uncredited). Cinematography, Otello Martelli. Editing, Roland Gross.
Lithuanian displaced person Karin (Ingrid Bergman) marries fellow internee Antonio (Mario Vitale) to get out of an Italian detainment camp. Vitale is a fisherman, and takes his new wife to his home on the volcanic island of Stromboli (near Sicily). The landscape of this barren place is reminiscent of the island in L’Aventurra. Karin is not happy at all and lets Antonio know as soon as they re-occupy his old house (everything in the village seems to be made of stone), and much of the rest of the film is Bergman demonstrating various ways to be sullen and a general all-around pill. The villagers are as hostile as Sicilian peasants can be, even though they can’t understand her complaints.
In the 21st century there might well be a more sympathetic view of Karin – she gets beaten by Antonio for flirting, he nails shut the door of the house when she threatens to leave after the island’s volcano erupts, and sics a weasel on a trapped rabbit which she finds revolting – and indeed, the villagers are no more likable and just as dense much of the time, but it may be noteworthy that Karin’s internment may have been related to her collaborationist love affair with a Nazi, with the implication that it was done primarily out of her own self-interest. This comes out, incidentally, when she is complaining to the village priest she tries to seduce. To be honest (or judgmental), Karin seems to repeatedly make bad decisions out of self-interest – the collaboration, the hasty marriage, and last but not least, her attempt to escape Stromboli by using the volcano shortcut (while pregnant, by the way). Stupid is as stupid does, to quote another movie. There is a respite with the village’s enormous harvest of big tuna fishes, a set piece – kudos to cinematographer Martelli – which Karin witnesses and, to her annoyance, gets wet and cold. Is the film moving toward a religious epiphany at the end? Ending seemed ambiguous to me, though viewers who compare this with Robert Bresson’s movies think so.
Black Girl (1966. French title: La noire de … ). B&W, Sound (French with English language subtitles), 65 min. Director and screenplay, Ousmane Sembene. Cinematography, Christian Lacoste. Editing, Andre Gaudier. IMDB doesn't have music credits, but the score is local pop music & provides good atmosphere.
A young woman (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), baby sitter for a French couple in Senegal, accepts the offer of a live-in job with the same couple in France. They assume she will function as an au pair, combining child care with domestic work. The woman, Diouana, resents the domestic work (the children are absent until later in the story) and that she is kept a virtual prisoner in the apartment.
Part of her isolation seems to be linguistic – while she is illiterate, it’s hard to believe that as a native of Senegal, where the official language is French, she has a hard time following conversations in or speaking in French. She comes from a shanty, but in an urban setting, and we hear her speaking in French when she converses with her mother and boyfriend. I at first thought she was speaking in tribal dialect but dubbed in French, but I now believe Sembene was intending her inarticulate behavior in France as a sign of her psychological and social isolation, and depression.
I also believe Sembene is using an African mask symbolically. Diouana gives the mask as a gift to Madame, her boss (Anne Marie Jelinek), and later, when in France, exasperated with her treatment, she takes it back. Finally, after Diouana’s death, Monsieur returns the mask and her suitcase to her mother – who pointedly ignores him. When he leaves, he is followed by a little boy who picks up the mask and wears it, with Monsieur looking back nervously, to the end. Diouana’s uncommunicativeness was her mask, her means of retaining her identity in a place where she is not recognized as an individual. I’ve just started Cuties on Netflix, and it’s interesting comparing Diouana’s experience with Amy’s. Don’t know whether it will end in tragedy.
Lithuanian displaced person Karin (Ingrid Bergman) marries fellow internee Antonio (Mario Vitale) to get out of an Italian detainment camp. Vitale is a fisherman, and takes his new wife to his home on the volcanic island of Stromboli (near Sicily). The landscape of this barren place is reminiscent of the island in L’Aventurra. Karin is not happy at all and lets Antonio know as soon as they re-occupy his old house (everything in the village seems to be made of stone), and much of the rest of the film is Bergman demonstrating various ways to be sullen and a general all-around pill. The villagers are as hostile as Sicilian peasants can be, even though they can’t understand her complaints.
In the 21st century there might well be a more sympathetic view of Karin – she gets beaten by Antonio for flirting, he nails shut the door of the house when she threatens to leave after the island’s volcano erupts, and sics a weasel on a trapped rabbit which she finds revolting – and indeed, the villagers are no more likable and just as dense much of the time, but it may be noteworthy that Karin’s internment may have been related to her collaborationist love affair with a Nazi, with the implication that it was done primarily out of her own self-interest. This comes out, incidentally, when she is complaining to the village priest she tries to seduce. To be honest (or judgmental), Karin seems to repeatedly make bad decisions out of self-interest – the collaboration, the hasty marriage, and last but not least, her attempt to escape Stromboli by using the volcano shortcut (while pregnant, by the way). Stupid is as stupid does, to quote another movie. There is a respite with the village’s enormous harvest of big tuna fishes, a set piece – kudos to cinematographer Martelli – which Karin witnesses and, to her annoyance, gets wet and cold. Is the film moving toward a religious epiphany at the end? Ending seemed ambiguous to me, though viewers who compare this with Robert Bresson’s movies think so.
Black Girl (1966. French title: La noire de … ). B&W, Sound (French with English language subtitles), 65 min. Director and screenplay, Ousmane Sembene. Cinematography, Christian Lacoste. Editing, Andre Gaudier. IMDB doesn't have music credits, but the score is local pop music & provides good atmosphere.
A young woman (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), baby sitter for a French couple in Senegal, accepts the offer of a live-in job with the same couple in France. They assume she will function as an au pair, combining child care with domestic work. The woman, Diouana, resents the domestic work (the children are absent until later in the story) and that she is kept a virtual prisoner in the apartment.
Part of her isolation seems to be linguistic – while she is illiterate, it’s hard to believe that as a native of Senegal, where the official language is French, she has a hard time following conversations in or speaking in French. She comes from a shanty, but in an urban setting, and we hear her speaking in French when she converses with her mother and boyfriend. I at first thought she was speaking in tribal dialect but dubbed in French, but I now believe Sembene was intending her inarticulate behavior in France as a sign of her psychological and social isolation, and depression.
I also believe Sembene is using an African mask symbolically. Diouana gives the mask as a gift to Madame, her boss (Anne Marie Jelinek), and later, when in France, exasperated with her treatment, she takes it back. Finally, after Diouana’s death, Monsieur returns the mask and her suitcase to her mother – who pointedly ignores him. When he leaves, he is followed by a little boy who picks up the mask and wears it, with Monsieur looking back nervously, to the end. Diouana’s uncommunicativeness was her mask, her means of retaining her identity in a place where she is not recognized as an individual. I’ve just started Cuties on Netflix, and it’s interesting comparing Diouana’s experience with Amy’s. Don’t know whether it will end in tragedy.
27featherbear
For reference:
Richard Brody. The New Yorker, 10/14/2020: Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking.
Richard Brody. The New Yorker, 10/14/2020: Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking.
28.cris
The Old Guard 2020. Hollywood at its most P.C. and shallow. Four immortals have bonded together to right wrongs through history. The LGBTQvwxyz group are catered for. The leader is the beautiful Charlize Theron, wearing trousers so tight, it's possible she would circumcise herself with every high kick, but hey, it would have grown back! I was worried about Black Lives Matter, but along come a stunning black lady marine (in a troop of stunning black lady marines) so that was covered. I must have blinked and missed the Asian good guy. The psychotic pharmaceutical's boss, who wished to experiment on the group, was an English actor who wore a hoodie under his suit jacket. THAT is seriously messed up! Good points: I find Matthias Schoenaerts quite attractive and the choreography was pretty good. I don't mean to offend, but positive discrimination is not always the answer to inequality. It has its place but not in La-la Land!
29JulieLill
Fantasy Island
2.5/5 stars
I used to watch the TV series which came out in 1977 and ended in 1984. Well, they made a film with the same premise but wow- I don't remember the series being so violent as this movie. The premise, if you don't remember, is that you come to the island to have a personal fantasy but there is always a miscue in what the vacationers' think will happen and what really happens. This was good but not great.
2.5/5 stars
I used to watch the TV series which came out in 1977 and ended in 1984. Well, they made a film with the same premise but wow- I don't remember the series being so violent as this movie. The premise, if you don't remember, is that you come to the island to have a personal fantasy but there is always a miscue in what the vacationers' think will happen and what really happens. This was good but not great.
30featherbear
>28 .cris: I too regret viewing it. Expressed my disappointment in the August thread, if I remember correctly.
31featherbear
TCM:
A Brighter Summer Day (1991). Color, Sound (Mandarin (my guess) & Taiwan dialect; English subtitles), 3 hr. 47 min. Director, Edward Yang. Writers: Edward Yang & 3 others. Cinematography, Hui Kung Chang & Longyu Zhan. Editing, Po-Wen Chen. Music, Hongda Zhan. No credit in IMDB, but the film has Edward Yang responsible for set design. Enormous cast. Never shown in theaters in the U.S.
That’s right, ca. 4 hours; longer than The Irishman. Think of it as a limited TV series with no breaks. I found this rewarding & want to see it again had I the time. It’s also available for rent or purchase on Prime Video (considerably cheaper than the blu-ray) if you’re curious. The only problem with rental is that you only have 48 hrs. to view it, once started. I had never heard of Edward Yang until I viewed Yi Yi, also on TCM, not as long (only 3 hrs.!). I liked it well enough to purchase the DVD, and I was on the lookout for any of the films in his small oeuvre (b. 1947 in Shanghai, died 2007 in California; IMDB credits him as director of 10 films) when I stumbled on it in my cable company's TCM database. Very different in tone from Yi Yi; not sure which is the better of the two. In any case, really puts Taiwan on the cinematic map based on these 2 movies as far as I'm concerned.
Takes place in Taipei in the late 50’s, re-created by Yang from childhood memories – I’m sure he had something to do with the authentic-looking décor, costumes, and the popular song selections. Like the family at the center of the film, I believe his family fled Shanghai when the Communists took over. However, he merges whatever might be autobiographical with an actual, sensational crime that took place in 1961. Immigrants from the mainland at the time were about as welcome as immigrants from south of the border in the U.S. in recent times, which must be coupled with the fear that some of the immigrants might be Communist spies. The father at one point is interrogated by the secret police, functioning like a combination of ICE and the FBI (at one point these scenes were cut for reasons of length and perhaps because it puts the Taiwan government in a bad light).
The children are: elder sister, completing university with plans to immigrate to the U.S., middle sister, preoccupied with (Christian) religion, and pig-tailed little sister, elder brother, a pool shark, and younger brother, the focus of the story, Xiao S’ir (Zhang Zhen), in his early teens, who has an on-again off-again relationship with Ming (Lisa Yang). His school and home are near a military base, and in a part of the city controlled by violent youth gangs (217 & Park St. Boys), though S’ir is not a member. There is a West Side Story vibe for sure, including a “neutral” site where pop music and dancing take place, and a murder of a gang leader that results in a bloody retaliation. This could have been done Martin Scorsese style (see Mean Streets) but it's not in your face hot; few close-ups, perhaps because most of the actors are amateurs, and a lot of night shooting, to the extent that sometimes you don't know which of the characters is speaking.
Since crime is not an option for the Xiaos, who cling to respectability, education seems to be the only way out (e.g. eldest sister), and S’ir is attending a night school with the aim of getting into a day school, the ticket to university. The arc of the story, as far as I could see on one viewing, tracks the disintegration of father and S’ir, driven by the pressures of life as immigrants into borderline pathology, leading to a killing in what seems like a fugue state.
A Brighter Summer Day (1991). Color, Sound (Mandarin (my guess) & Taiwan dialect; English subtitles), 3 hr. 47 min. Director, Edward Yang. Writers: Edward Yang & 3 others. Cinematography, Hui Kung Chang & Longyu Zhan. Editing, Po-Wen Chen. Music, Hongda Zhan. No credit in IMDB, but the film has Edward Yang responsible for set design. Enormous cast. Never shown in theaters in the U.S.
That’s right, ca. 4 hours; longer than The Irishman. Think of it as a limited TV series with no breaks. I found this rewarding & want to see it again had I the time. It’s also available for rent or purchase on Prime Video (considerably cheaper than the blu-ray) if you’re curious. The only problem with rental is that you only have 48 hrs. to view it, once started. I had never heard of Edward Yang until I viewed Yi Yi, also on TCM, not as long (only 3 hrs.!). I liked it well enough to purchase the DVD, and I was on the lookout for any of the films in his small oeuvre (b. 1947 in Shanghai, died 2007 in California; IMDB credits him as director of 10 films) when I stumbled on it in my cable company's TCM database. Very different in tone from Yi Yi; not sure which is the better of the two. In any case, really puts Taiwan on the cinematic map based on these 2 movies as far as I'm concerned.
Takes place in Taipei in the late 50’s, re-created by Yang from childhood memories – I’m sure he had something to do with the authentic-looking décor, costumes, and the popular song selections. Like the family at the center of the film, I believe his family fled Shanghai when the Communists took over. However, he merges whatever might be autobiographical with an actual, sensational crime that took place in 1961. Immigrants from the mainland at the time were about as welcome as immigrants from south of the border in the U.S. in recent times, which must be coupled with the fear that some of the immigrants might be Communist spies. The father at one point is interrogated by the secret police, functioning like a combination of ICE and the FBI (at one point these scenes were cut for reasons of length and perhaps because it puts the Taiwan government in a bad light).
The children are: elder sister, completing university with plans to immigrate to the U.S., middle sister, preoccupied with (Christian) religion, and pig-tailed little sister, elder brother, a pool shark, and younger brother, the focus of the story, Xiao S’ir (Zhang Zhen), in his early teens, who has an on-again off-again relationship with Ming (Lisa Yang). His school and home are near a military base, and in a part of the city controlled by violent youth gangs (217 & Park St. Boys), though S’ir is not a member. There is a West Side Story vibe for sure, including a “neutral” site where pop music and dancing take place, and a murder of a gang leader that results in a bloody retaliation. This could have been done Martin Scorsese style (see Mean Streets) but it's not in your face hot; few close-ups, perhaps because most of the actors are amateurs, and a lot of night shooting, to the extent that sometimes you don't know which of the characters is speaking.
Since crime is not an option for the Xiaos, who cling to respectability, education seems to be the only way out (e.g. eldest sister), and S’ir is attending a night school with the aim of getting into a day school, the ticket to university. The arc of the story, as far as I could see on one viewing, tracks the disintegration of father and S’ir, driven by the pressures of life as immigrants into borderline pathology, leading to a killing in what seems like a fugue state.
32Carol420
N.Y. PD Blues season 1 (1993)
5/5
It was the groundbreaking series that broke all the rules and triggered what may be the biggest mutiny in TV history when some station affiliates refused to carry the show. It was the first R-rated show...and some viewers complained... but the majority loved what they saw. Over the course of the show, NYPD Blues garnered an amazing 86 award nominations and brought home 21 winners. Thanks to DVD technology viewers can now take a ride back to 1993 and ride with the cops of New York's 15th Precinct.
I don't know how I missed this entire series when it first aired since my husband critiques every police show on TV for "realism". Who wants realism? I just want to see more of David Caruso:) The realism satisfied my retired detective, but sadly I found out that David Caruso will leave the show early in season 2 which I am about to start. At any rate...I'm hooked!
33featherbear
As seen on TCM. I’m not sure whether these documentaries should be in the movie or TV thread. Since these are both about movie performers, I’ve stuck these in the Movies thread:
The Great Buster (2018) B&W & Color, Sound (commentary with music), 1 hr. 42 min. Director/writer, Peter Bogdanovich. The life and films of Buster Keaton. Film clips from Keaton’s films and talking heads, including: Bogdanovich, Dick Cavett, Dick Van Dyke, Johnny Knoxville, Paul Dooley, French Stewart, Bill Hader, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Lewis, et al.
Hint: if you’re not familiar with Keaton’s work, the director reserves the high points of Keaton’s films (silent features from the 20’s) until the end. Begins with a survey of the 2 reeler shorts that made his initial reputation, where he worked with Fatty Arbuckle. His 2 reelers were new to me, and quite good. Then his signing with MGM to make feature films, where he lost artistic control. The great features, for which he had more control, preceded MGM, and those clips are grouped and discussed in the last part of the doc.
Instead of going to the great features, the film skips ahead to the mediocre to humiliating exploitation of his Great Stone Face persona in a rather sad career post MGM – appropriately, he was a member of the card game in Sunset Boulevard -- though it was interesting to learn he had speaking parts in some of the MGM features. I also appreciated the comments on the dangers of doing stunts in the early days of film-making – the house that collapses around Keaton in Steamboat Bill could well have killed him.
The classic excerpts at the end include: Our Hospitality (1923) -- Sherlock Jr. (1924, with its classic 4th wall scene) -- The Navigator (1924) -- Seven Chances (1925) – The General (1926) -- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). There were more; the latter two are available on Amazon Prime per IMDB; they’re generally considered the best of the best. Any of Keaton’s films between 1923 and 1928 are the ones to look out for.
Haven’t seen Hospitality, but I have seen the others. My personal favorite is Seven Chances, best known for the insane boulder avalanche, but for me, the nightmarish long shot of the innumerable women who have rejected his offers of marriage, laughing at his impertinence -- that's the one I find haunting. Maybe you have to be a guy.
The Golden Age of Comedy (1957). B&W, Sound, 1 hr. 19 min. Director, Robert Youngson, Writers, Youngson and Rene Clair. Available on Amazon Prime, per IMDB. Does not include either Keaton or Charlie Chaplin; the segments are devoted to the secondary comic performers, especially Laurel and Hardy. Others include: Will Rogers, Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, and Carole Lombard (I had no idea she got her start in silent). Absence of talking heads is probably a plus: result is more clips. Worth watching just for Two Tars, the Laurel & Hardy demolition derby short I found hysterical some 50 years ago; the doc excerpts most of it as I recall, not that I can recall very much about that time.
The Great Buster (2018) B&W & Color, Sound (commentary with music), 1 hr. 42 min. Director/writer, Peter Bogdanovich. The life and films of Buster Keaton. Film clips from Keaton’s films and talking heads, including: Bogdanovich, Dick Cavett, Dick Van Dyke, Johnny Knoxville, Paul Dooley, French Stewart, Bill Hader, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Lewis, et al.
Hint: if you’re not familiar with Keaton’s work, the director reserves the high points of Keaton’s films (silent features from the 20’s) until the end. Begins with a survey of the 2 reeler shorts that made his initial reputation, where he worked with Fatty Arbuckle. His 2 reelers were new to me, and quite good. Then his signing with MGM to make feature films, where he lost artistic control. The great features, for which he had more control, preceded MGM, and those clips are grouped and discussed in the last part of the doc.
Instead of going to the great features, the film skips ahead to the mediocre to humiliating exploitation of his Great Stone Face persona in a rather sad career post MGM – appropriately, he was a member of the card game in Sunset Boulevard -- though it was interesting to learn he had speaking parts in some of the MGM features. I also appreciated the comments on the dangers of doing stunts in the early days of film-making – the house that collapses around Keaton in Steamboat Bill could well have killed him.
The classic excerpts at the end include: Our Hospitality (1923) -- Sherlock Jr. (1924, with its classic 4th wall scene) -- The Navigator (1924) -- Seven Chances (1925) – The General (1926) -- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). There were more; the latter two are available on Amazon Prime per IMDB; they’re generally considered the best of the best. Any of Keaton’s films between 1923 and 1928 are the ones to look out for.
Haven’t seen Hospitality, but I have seen the others. My personal favorite is Seven Chances, best known for the insane boulder avalanche, but for me, the nightmarish long shot of the innumerable women who have rejected his offers of marriage, laughing at his impertinence -- that's the one I find haunting. Maybe you have to be a guy.
The Golden Age of Comedy (1957). B&W, Sound, 1 hr. 19 min. Director, Robert Youngson, Writers, Youngson and Rene Clair. Available on Amazon Prime, per IMDB. Does not include either Keaton or Charlie Chaplin; the segments are devoted to the secondary comic performers, especially Laurel and Hardy. Others include: Will Rogers, Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, and Carole Lombard (I had no idea she got her start in silent). Absence of talking heads is probably a plus: result is more clips. Worth watching just for Two Tars, the Laurel & Hardy demolition derby short I found hysterical some 50 years ago; the doc excerpts most of it as I recall, not that I can recall very much about that time.
34featherbear
>32 Carol420: In retrospect, I believe the arc that followed Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) from his defund the police character to something of a change of heart when he found love is what made the series last as long as it did.
35Carol420
>34 featherbear: I really like him also. It's nice to see an 'average" man be portrayed for who and what he is and not so much how he looks. He's not the tall, dark, handsome character that generally is the heart throb. Got one more disc on season2 and then 10 more years:)
36featherbear
The Booksellers (2019). Documentary. Color, Sound (primarily interviews with jazz score), 1 hr. 29 min. Director & Editor, D.W. Young. Cinematography, Peter Bolte. Music: David Ullmann. Streaming on Amazon Prime (there’s a link on IMDB).
Since we’re on Library Thing, recommendation goes without saying (some movie reviewers apologizing in advance for such a “niche” topic). Begins with the opening of the annual Antiquarian Book Fair in New York. Focuses on dealers in the used and antiquarian book trade in New York, with some comments by civilians, e.g. Fran Lebowitz. Interesting that most of the dealers are post-retirement age (with the exception of Rebecca Romney), while book readers on the New York subways are all millennials, since the dealers believe that electronica are making books and the trade obsolete. Fascinating, melancholy, inspiring.
When I was in college in New York, I had a chance to wander through several of the 40 odd used bookstores that were then congregating around 4th Avenue when real estate prices were lower. They were mostly gone by the time I finished grad school. In New Haven, where I ended up, Whitlock’s, the former second hand bookstore cum typewriter repair that served the community in those days is long gone – a documentary on antiquarian typewriter collectors one of these days? -- as is the one in Audubon Square and the nice basement indie bookstore nearby. But a new second hand place opened near the former J. Press on York, small but good selection, and the combination sandwich and used books place on upper Chapel is hanging on. Hope they both survive the pandemic and social media.
I love library sales, but I collect books to read; I’m not a “collector” as defined in the trade, where collecting is usually around a specific theme or interest (not that they aren’t readers as well). In many cases, these collectors become dealers (some of them still store their inventory in their New York apartments). Generalist used book dealers get their 15 min. as well. The Grolier types, rich, conservative white males, are not the focus, but rather the later generation, still old white guys for the most part, more laid back, like the novelist-book dealer Larry McMurtry who has a brief cameo at the Oscars. Nice to see some time devoted to the sisters who run the Argosy Bookshop in NY, further uptown from the old 4th Avenue area. This is celebratory rather than investigative, so not much consideration of the ethics of buying a book for five bucks from some schmuck that gets auctioned off for 15K. Rare book libraries are not covered, though a doc on those would be interesting. A doc on niche bookstores would be interesting as well.
Since we’re on Library Thing, recommendation goes without saying (some movie reviewers apologizing in advance for such a “niche” topic). Begins with the opening of the annual Antiquarian Book Fair in New York. Focuses on dealers in the used and antiquarian book trade in New York, with some comments by civilians, e.g. Fran Lebowitz. Interesting that most of the dealers are post-retirement age (with the exception of Rebecca Romney), while book readers on the New York subways are all millennials, since the dealers believe that electronica are making books and the trade obsolete. Fascinating, melancholy, inspiring.
When I was in college in New York, I had a chance to wander through several of the 40 odd used bookstores that were then congregating around 4th Avenue when real estate prices were lower. They were mostly gone by the time I finished grad school. In New Haven, where I ended up, Whitlock’s, the former second hand bookstore cum typewriter repair that served the community in those days is long gone – a documentary on antiquarian typewriter collectors one of these days? -- as is the one in Audubon Square and the nice basement indie bookstore nearby. But a new second hand place opened near the former J. Press on York, small but good selection, and the combination sandwich and used books place on upper Chapel is hanging on. Hope they both survive the pandemic and social media.
I love library sales, but I collect books to read; I’m not a “collector” as defined in the trade, where collecting is usually around a specific theme or interest (not that they aren’t readers as well). In many cases, these collectors become dealers (some of them still store their inventory in their New York apartments). Generalist used book dealers get their 15 min. as well. The Grolier types, rich, conservative white males, are not the focus, but rather the later generation, still old white guys for the most part, more laid back, like the novelist-book dealer Larry McMurtry who has a brief cameo at the Oscars. Nice to see some time devoted to the sisters who run the Argosy Bookshop in NY, further uptown from the old 4th Avenue area. This is celebratory rather than investigative, so not much consideration of the ethics of buying a book for five bucks from some schmuck that gets auctioned off for 15K. Rare book libraries are not covered, though a doc on those would be interesting. A doc on niche bookstores would be interesting as well.
37Carol420
The One I Love (2014)
3/5
A troubled couple vacate to a beautiful getaway, but bizarre circumstances further complicate their situation.
The whole thing centers on a floundering couple that go away on a weekend retreat where a hexed cottage miraculously bestows them with their ideal versions of each other. Frankly I liked their doubles in the cottage more than I ever liked the originals. It was a very well brought off plot that could have backfired badly...but didn't. It's one movie that you never really got the ending quiet right.
38Carol420
You Should Have Left - (2020)
4.5/5
The stressed and jealous middle-aged banker Theo is married with the young actress Susanna and they have a six-year-old daughter, Ella. Theo is a hated man since he was accused of drowning his first wife, but he was considered not guilty by the justice. Out of the blue, they decide to travel on vacation to a huge, isolated house in the Welsh countryside to resolve the problems in their relationship. But soon they have nightmares and Theo believes something evil is hidden in the house.
Good acting and good suspense, and creepily scary. The scary part was more about what wasn't actually said or done but more about the unexpected moves by the house itself and whatever/whoever occupied it with this family. It's more of an eerie suspense thriller rather than a jump scare, so if you're after constant scares, this one isn't it.
39Carol420
Gemini Man (2019)
4.5/5
A retiring assassin, Henry Brogan, finds himself pursued by a mysterious killer that can predict his every move. Discovering that he's being hunted by a younger clone of himself, Henry needs to find out why he's being targeted and who the creator is.
I really liked this one. The action was non stop and the plot was very well done. It was an interesting concept that henry Bogan was fighting himself only 30 years younger. Is it an Academy Award winner?...Probably not but it was a fun movie.
40Carol420
The Perfect Storm (2000) - based on the book by Sebastian Junger
5/5
In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail. Magnificent foreshadowing and anticipation fill this true-life drama while minute details of the fishing boats, their gear and the weather are juxtaposed with the sea adventure.
Another one of my dozen or so favorite films. I read the book but it wasn't anywhere near as in your face terrorizing as seeing what these men actually saw and experienced as they fought a killing sea and storm, in a battle that they never had a chance of winning.
41Carol420
Murder At 1600 (1997)
4/5
A young woman is murdered in the White House. Homicide detective Regis investigates while Secret Service works against him. He's assigned agent Chance. She eventually cooperates after a man's framed.
Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane gave an ok performance but nothing compared to other roles by these two...Snipes especially. I wanted the entire White House staff arrested. The film's source novel is the first and one of twenty-five "Murder..." mystery fictional novels written by Margaret Truman, they generally most having government... political...legal....intelligence and bureaucracy backgrounds, but none of these ever having being filmed except the first, Murder in the White House...which is the source novel of this movie.
42Carol420
Phantoms (1998)
4.5/5
One hundred fifty dead, and three hundred fifty missing in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, Colorado, and that's only the beginning.
It is a very effective monster movie...especially in the first half. The best monsters are always the ones which are difficult to kill. To these "things"...humans are little more than a species to be crushed and absorbed. Of course the human condition demands that it fights back. The atmosphere in the first half hour is very eerie blended with a lot of mystery. An empty town....a couple of young women who have just arrived...a couple of bodies and...no answers. Gloom & foreboding doom is creatively created. Then the cops show up and just when you think that things can't get any worse...THEY CAN AND DO. Good edge of your seat nail biter.
43Carol420
In The Nick of Time (1991)
2/5
Gene Watson arrives at an L.A. train station with his young daughter, Lynn, and is confronted by mysterious Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones. They hand him a gun, order him to kill the state governor within 75 minutes and threaten to murder his child if he doesn't comply. Smith accompanies Watson to a hotel where the governor is to speak, while Jones holds the girl. As Watson considers his options, the hour to act draws ever nearer.
If you aren't bored after about 15 minutes of this then you are a better movie watcher than me by far. This brings little if anything to the table and concludes with an unsatisfying ending...which was more silly than tense. Johnny Depp looked like he regretted signing up for this throughout the entire 90 minutes.
44featherbear
>42 Carol420: I remember seeing a trailer for Phantoms and, being a sucker for Mary Celeste scenarios, I read the Dean Koontz book since the pic never seemed to be available on cable (much less the local movie house). The solution in the novel was disappointing, Stephen King lite, reminiscent of It with adults. Eventually viewed it on DVD. The mystery part had the required suspense, the ending was as disappointing as the novel. Not the worst horror flick I've seen. Cast includes Ben Affleck, Peter O'Toole, Liev Schreiber.
45featherbear
>43 Carol420: I liked it, and sometimes stop on it when I'm channel surfing to watch a bit. For me the fascination was whatever loops the hero jumps through to get out of an impossible situation, and I can never remember the loops, so the film always seems new. The shoeshine plays a role, I believe.
46Carol420
>45 featherbear: I liked the shoeshine guy and his artificial leg that saved his life.
47Carol420
3.5/5
Godsend (2004)
The 8-year-old Adam is killed in a traffic accident. His grieving parents agree to recreate him through experimental and illegal cloning, conducted by an ingenious but pushy geneticist. After eight happy years, a scary door opens between Adam II and someone from the past.
You feel the desperation of these two parents but you knew from the start where the film was heading. It's the old story of the best of intentions turning and biting you on the butt. "It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature". The added reasonings for what happened was unexpected and helped to ramp up the story but it was almost as if it was a last minute effort on the writers. Still an okay enough film if you aren't wanting a heavy dose of horror.
48Carol420
Delirium (2018)
4/5
A man recently released from a mental institute inherits a mansion after his wealthy parents die. After a series of disturbing events, he comes to believe it is haunted.
I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. It was tense, scary, with a roller coaster of emotions. It did keep you guessing if some of it or all of it was real or in Tom's head. Tom was a great character that really had the talent of connecting with an audience and made you hope he comes out okay in the end.
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