Okay, and this will seem really strange, as I started all this with a glib comment, but I'm with both of you on this as well. I have a great deal of time for Paul Schrader. In fact of all the 70's boys, he alone is the one who has remained interesting. Scorsese can't get a film made unless it stars Leonardo Dicaprio, and Spielberg shows flashes of brilliance but his worldview has always been a little askew, and as for DePalma, well he was always a mook and always will be. But the dig I was making at Schrader is that he does have a problem with women. I also think this is one of the elements that makes him one of the most interesting filmmakers around, because he battles against it. I saw him interviewed at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2005 and he was fascinating. But Dr and Dan, Cat People? Yikes. Awful. Give me the original or its sequel Curse of the Cat People any day.
Anyways, Tropic Thunder. I thought this was hilarious, even if it did lose its way toward the end. Downey Jr is brilliant, particularly in his anti-I Am Sam diatribe, and Tom Cruise was born to play objectionable *******s. It's one of those performances that you really have to see to believe.
And I just saw a film in which Germany (well, it's produced by Austrians) addresses its past--Die Fälscher, aka The Counterfeiters.
Yes I enjoyed that one. Lovely scenes of Nice in the beginning - and Hardy, did you notice the German 'Yes indeed' banker from The Spy Who Loved Me who got blown up in Stromberg's helicopter?
Casino Royale
Action movie from 2006, with Daniel Craig as a Jason Stratham type action hero, only a bit posher. A real curiosity - it starts off like a general action thriller, then suddenly slows up into this card game half way through. A sort of British version of 24, in a way. I don't know why they made it British rather than simply American. There hasn't been a sequel as far as I know.
Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert film. Given the shape the Stones are in, it was a bit like watching Night of the Living Dead: The Musical, but, dammit, those old farts still know how to rock and I had a good time. There were also some nifty guest performances by Jack White (yes, that Jack White) on "Loving Cup," Buddy Guy on "Champagne and Reefer"--actually an old Muddy Waters number, and Christina Aguilera on "Live with Me." Recommended!
Right on Hardyboy,
This film is one of the best ways one can spend his or her time. B-) Those boys know how to do it!! Still. After all this time...there is no one better than the Stones. And Mr. Scorsese ...( Or Marty....as I wish I could have him on my speed dial...) is the best man to capture the magic.
Greatness all around. {[]
Just saw Tropic Thunder again last weekend with a friend. hoo boy, that movie's funny!
~Pendragon -{
I know who I am! I'm the dude playin' the dude disguised as another dude!)
Really, really funny movie, although its earns its "R" rating.
As for me, I picked up and watched a few movies on BluRay over the weekend...
Speed Racer
This summer's biggest flop was actually a pretty entertaining movie with a really unique visual style and exciting, if totally unrealistic races. The picture is razor sharp and the color palette looks like an explosion at a paint factory. If you ever watched the old TV show then you'll probably get some mileage out of this one.
Hulk
This is the Ang Lee arthouse version; a more introspective and thoughtful movie that still delivers some great action (for my money, the scene where the Hulk escapes from the research facility in the desert tops all the action scenes in the new movie). Sam Elliot as General Ross and Jennifer Connolly as Betty are also both vastly superior to William Hurt and Liv Tyler from the new movie. Nick Nolte is memorably bizarre as Bruce's father, although his transformation into an Absorbing Man near the end becomes a little existential. Another great BluRay presentation on this one, although the extra resolution makes the Hulk look even more fake during some action scenes (he almost looks like he's made of plastic at times).
Batman: The Movie
This is the 1966 feature with Adam West. I loved the old TV show and have seen this a hundred times but I had to have the BluRay as the previous versions were average in terms of PQ. A campy, funny take on the material that pretty much matched the tone of the comics back in those days. Surprisingly, the transfer is really well done, nice and sharp with really vibrant colors; Fox did a great job on this one. Lots of cool extras too including a nice hi-res 3D Batmobile that you can examine up close.
Sumptuous and enchanting 1940s film on an Arabian Nights theme. Lovely use of colour as you'd expect with Michael Powell as part-director, but it also benefits from charming performances from its leads. Conrad 'Major Strasser' Veidt is the villain who usurpes his kingly brother, played amiably by a fresh-faced, guilless John Justin. The deposed king, flung in jail and dismissed as mad, wins the friendship of a young thief, Sabu. (Sadly both Veidt and Sabu died way too young of a heart attack, Veidt in the mid 1940s and Sabu in the early 1960s aged only in his Forties.)
You also have June Duprez as the love interest, who Alex may recall from one of his faves, And Then There Were None.
Some character actors turn up; I think I recognised the actor who played Watson to Rathbone's Holmes in a very early scene, he had the same astonished, whiskery tone of voice even though he was done up in robes and a turban.
It has a slightly confusing 'where's this going?' start but gradually wins you over. There are some iffy effects but more charming than the similarly iffy CGI effects that abound today.
Just saw Tropic Thunder again last weekend with a friend. hoo boy, that movie's funny!
~Pendragon -{
I know who I am! I'm the dude playin' the dude disguised as another dude!)
Really, really funny movie, although its earns its "R" rating.
yeaaa it really does )
I've recently been watching THE FALL (in bits, 'cause we start too late and end up falling asleep) with my friend. Loved that movie in the theater, and I'm loving watching it agiain. Absolute brilliance.
One of Daniel Craig's pre-Bond movies, The Mother, directed by Roger Michell--who was first offered the opportunity to direct Bond 22. There's a real "yuck" quality to this movie--meaning Craig's dead-porcupine-glued-to-his-face beard (oh, and his sex scenes with a woman in her 60s are also for strong stomachs)--but it's also a well-made look at aging and how people are all but thrown to the curb when they reach their "golden" years. It's a weird movie--part soap-opera, part kink-fest, and ultimately sad.
Gritty, grainy Jason Stratham action vehicle that gets more preposterous as it enters the final lap. Stratham is an innocent blue collar worker framed for murder and sent to a oil refinery style penal colony on an island linked to the mainland by a thin strip bridge.
Some of the early emotional trauma I felt was a bit harrowing, it's something they have to do these days, even in a Bond film it seems. It's quite irksome when it's tied into a film that is really just silly nonsense. The races at the prison are linked to high ratings but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny really - unlike The Running Man, we don't even see the effect the races are having on any viewers. Joan Allen is a great Nurse Ratched type as the prison governess in charge of it all, however.
Still, I miss the superfly fun that the first Death Race 2000 had presumably.
I managed to miss the theatrical release, so just got around to seeing it last weekend. George Clooney plays a jaded "fixer" for a New York law firm that is defending a client against charges of poisoning the environment and killing people. Tilda Swinton plays the client's overwhelmed in-house legal counsel, on whose shoulders the burden of the lawsuit rests. Suffice it to say she makes some shocking decisions as she tries to control the damage.
Clooney is good at playing the weary, jaded, unfulfilled forty-something -- no glamour in this role. Swinton won an Oscar for her performance, but I actually felt the character was underwritten -- it would have been nice to understand why she could do what she did, other than to please her mentor the CEO.
The player who really deserved an Oscar was Tom Wilkinson -- as Clooney's firm's lead lawyer in defending the client who completely buckles under the strain, he steals the film. Of course, for me Wilkinson steals every film he's in, so maybe it's just my own bias showing through.
There are a couple of interesting corporate security types (i.e., glorified hitmen) who are "fixers" in their own right and make very interesting counterpoints to Clooney's character. The rest of the characters, and indeed the lawsuit itself, are basically there only to serve the central theme that people are capable of extreme behavior when money and power are involved. Hardly a new revelation, but one that is well-depicted here.
watched THE FALL with some friends last night. Man, what an absolutely brilliant movie. The first time I saw it in the theater, the friend who dragged me there wouldn't tell me a thing about it, and I think that's the way to go. :v
I reviewed the remake with Jason Stratham a few posts back. This 1975 film is set in the 'future' of the year 2000 and is very much a precurser to The Running Man. Rather than the race taking place on a penal colony, it's a coast to coast race across a seemingly deserted United States which is under martial law or something. Drivers acrue points for killing pedestrians, with more points for the elderly or toddlers. I sort of struggled a bit to see the humour of this. Worst was David Carradine as the masked driver Frankenstein, all wiry like he's in a black gimp outfit, it's hard to believe the scene where he beats up Machine Gun Joe - played by a young Sly Stallone!
Still, the cars were amusing and the players more vivid, including the blonde Aryan Race Nazi! Overall the movie lacked charm or a sense of sleazy outrageouness.
This 1960s film is a real oddity - a Clouseau comedy without director Blake Edwards OR star Peter Sellers. Alan Arkin plays the French sleuth.
It starts off well, with the usual comic cartoon credits - sans Henry Mancini score however. Clouseau arrives in England by plane, as he gets onto terra firma he realises he's in his socks and tries to barge past back onto the plane. There's a good line in some English bigwig's office, said bigwig says supersiliously "I must say, it was not my idea to bring you onto this case." "You are too modest," replies Clouseau, oblivious to the insult.
But my, it goes downhill quick. Arkin, who looks like Freddie Mercury and has a bit of Borat about him, or maybe the English spy dressed as a policeman in Allo Allo!, is proud and bumbling enough, but lacks the boldnesss of Seller's portrayal. Arkin is too low key; Sellers's man would enter a room (or reum) and command everyone within - when someone would make a fool of him without even trying he would turn brusque and a bully to reclaim the initiative.
Twenty mins in there seems to be no plot, just Clouseau faffing about, going to the Edinburgh Festival, which seems to be in London for some reason. You don't even know what the plot is, as the Pink Panther jewel is sadly absent too. There's the obligatory gadget rundown, with the usual "That's not a gadget, that's my electric razor/inhaler/lunch!" gag.
Arkin's Clouseau put me in mind of Johnny Depp when he's not chewing the scenery as Captain Jack but just fading into the background and being uncharismatic in films like Blow.
Paul W Anderson, (am I right in thinking this stands for w**ker) makes another film that could have been entertaining with a decent B-movie director and ruins it completely. See also Mortal Kombat, Aliens Vs Predator, Resident Evil. Why is this guy still working? I like Jason Statham, but he's on a loser here with this insipid remake.
Action movie from 2006, with Daniel Craig as a Jason Stratham type action hero, only a bit posher. A real curiosity - it starts off like a general action thriller, then suddenly slows up into this card game half way through. A sort of British version of 24, in a way. I don't know why they made it British rather than simply American. There hasn't been a sequel as far as I know.
Corman's low budget '75 Death Race forever, (whose poster adorns my wall), There's really no need for turgid, inpiration lacked rebakes, thank you!
Hey Napoleon, I love Alan Arkin in Catch 22, but that 68 Panther is best left uncovered. Ugh.
Since this is October, my favorite month, I've been on a Bela Lugosi poverty row marathon lately. Won't bore you superhero children with any details though.
Seriously bad trip. You'd need to be stoned to enjoy this stoner buddy movie. It's just two hours of a couple of **** doing stupid stuff that isn't remotely funny.
I'll just say a few words about three of the latest films I've seen at the cinemas:
In Bruges
A superb comedy-thriller with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. Hysterical, insightful, sad, brilliantly written and performed; it is IMO among the best films of the year.
Wall-E
A truly gorgeous film from Pixar, whom it seems can do no wrong. I better not say too much about it since my reputation with two certain members is already questionable, but suffice to say, this is a really beautiful film. :x
Tropic Thunder
A pretty good comedy with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black. Although I did enjoy the film (there were several scenes which were enormously funny), I didn't think it was as good as the hype suggested. Nonetheless, I had a good time and that's all I can ask for.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Exodus, the 1960 epic about the creation of Israel, starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J Cobb and Bond connectionthe actor who plays Dr Metz in DAF, as a cameo!
It's a long 'un, at 3 hours 20 mins. The premiere had it at 4 hours, whereupon some wag cried to the producer Otto Preminger, "Otto, you should let your people go!" )
The first hour is a plot by the Jews to sneak out of the Cyprus camps held by the British and make to Palestine on board a ship, with some 2000 of them or something. They get apprehended in the harbour and there's a hunger strike. Newman is the guy in charge of it and he's excellent. That said, Rat Pack member Peter Lawford is very good as the bumbling arrogant casually anti-Semitic Brit oficer. It's odd to have him saying how Jews look the same, it's about the eyes, with Newman reacting like it's some terrible insult. I guess it mocks the idle English dinner party chat of the time, but I dunno. The joke is he can't tell Newman is Jewish - but, er, Newman is not (though I admittedly didn't know he was half-Jewish). Is it a terrible insult to say some races have physical similarities? Like, er, black people tending to be black? It is a bit strange to have a film like this with a lead who certainly doesn't look Jewish, as with Chuck Heston in his Biblical epics. Then again, am I wrong? Lauren Becall is Jewish but actors tended to adopt an Ivy League East Coast persona + name to get on.
Ah well. The film is gripping, it just goes round the block a few times more when you think it's going to end. Must say, surprised to have us sympathise with the Jewish resistance fighter/terrorist who blows up and kills 80 in a hotel. Then again, odd to have the English as the nominal villains but also with nods to the 'good' Englishman like Spielberg might do later with 'good' Germans and does in his African slave film the name of which escapes me. In fact, the garb of a couple of characters in this def show up in Spielberg's Indy movies, you can imagine him taking notes on this one!
Overall a lovely looking movie and made me want to look up the background on it on Wikipedia.
The first, Hell Ride is a a biker film with a tiresomely macho sense of humour. It's a shame, as it was directed by Larry Bishop, (son of Rat Pack member Joey) whose much underrated debut was a gem called Trigger Happy that caught the spirit of Sinatra and Dean Martin far better than Soderbergh's Ocean's movies.
The second is better. Midnight Meat Train is based on a short story by Clive Barker and sees a photographer trying to impress his boss (played by a still tasty Brooke Shields) with some photos of the city at night. When he takes a photo of a famous model entering a subway train shortly before she goes missing, he is drawn back to the scene and begins following a mysterious loner (Jones) who always catches the last train. Most of Barker's themes, a subculture that exists secretly alongside our world, people giving in to their nightmares, gory deaths and animalistic sexual encounters are all here. It's one of the better adaptations of Barker's work, if nowhere near as good as Bernard Rose's Candyman.
Finally caught up with two relatively new movies. Both were very enjoyable and well made. The first was the 4th installment of the Die Hard franchise. And first off Willis hasn't lost it one bit. The same cocky attitude that I know and love. The little bit where he tests his superiors for proper transmission response and nails them a great example. Liked the computer kid as well. They made a nice team.
Second was Letters From Iwo Jima. I knew it was going to be good but, c'mon now, this was an excellent film. When you stay up later then you should and are cranky for work - it has done it's job.
Or the last bit of it anyway. Nice to look at, and the last one in which Moore looks young. But I recalled a thread by Hardyboy entitled Cranky, oh so Cranky! as M snaps at Q to shut up twice! Oh, and the bit in which Goodnight is led to believe that Bond has savagely drowned Nic Nac by chucking him in a case into the sea - a truly nasty demise - but then seems to think, what the heck, I'll shag Bond anyway! What a charming bunch of people!
"The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands, dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women... Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?"
"They're alive!"
"Are they?"
With this chilling dinner speech, Joseph Cotten(with the aid of Alfred Hitchcock and co- scriptwriters Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Hitch's wife Alma Reville) introduced a new kind of monster to American cinema(and perhaps American culture) - the serial killer. Hitch's favorite film, and it shows. Especially the surreptitious skirting of the censorship of the day. This IMO is his greatest achievement, and his greatest indictment of America. That we live with such blinders that only the truly innocent can understand evil.
This is Cotten's finest performance. I could picture no other in this role. The role was originally offered to William Powell, but rejected. Thankfully. Cotten, at the time, possessed the all-American looks which belied the true nature of the character, and it is a much more complex psychological portrait than Norman Bates could ever be.
Theresa Wright is equally perfect as young Charlie(her favorite film also) who represents the feminine side of Cotten's character. Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott round out the cast as family and friends in this idyllic small town setting, blithly ignorant of the world around them, and eager to believe what they read, rather than what they see. But this film belongs to Cotten and Wright ultimately. It is there world, their war, their love(more than subtle inferences to incest abound).
Dimitri Tiomkin provides a solid score and Joseph Valentine provides some of the most hypnotic photography this side of Vertigo. One of my 2 favorite film's about small town America(A Christmas Story being the other) and a priority film for those just learning about Hitch's work. 10/10
An unfortunate omission to be sure, but without shadow of a doubt, I think Dr Maybe is describing "Shadow of a Doubt".B-)
He is. ) Dr Maybe, I don't know if it was deliberate, but it would help if you included the title. :v
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Watchable made-for TV drama with James Marsters as an ex-con torn between staying on the straight and narrow, or robbing fancy hotels. I wouldn't have bothered with it if it didn't star Marsters.
The Deal--new to American DVD--Stephen Fears's film about the odd-couple friendship between Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and Gordon Brown (David Morrissey), culminating in their battle for leadership of the Labour party. Not quite up there with Hal and Hotspur in Henry IV, Part One in terms of political drama, but well-acted and interesting.
Comments
Anyways, Tropic Thunder. I thought this was hilarious, even if it did lose its way toward the end. Downey Jr is brilliant, particularly in his anti-I Am Sam diatribe, and Tom Cruise was born to play objectionable *******s. It's one of those performances that you really have to see to believe.
Yes I enjoyed that one. Lovely scenes of Nice in the beginning - and Hardy, did you notice the German 'Yes indeed' banker from The Spy Who Loved Me who got blown up in Stromberg's helicopter?
Casino Royale
Action movie from 2006, with Daniel Craig as a Jason Stratham type action hero, only a bit posher. A real curiosity - it starts off like a general action thriller, then suddenly slows up into this card game half way through. A sort of British version of 24, in a way. I don't know why they made it British rather than simply American. There hasn't been a sequel as far as I know.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Right on Hardyboy,
This film is one of the best ways one can spend his or her time. B-) Those boys know how to do it!! Still. After all this time...there is no one better than the Stones. And Mr. Scorsese ...( Or Marty....as I wish I could have him on my speed dial...) is the best man to capture the magic.
Greatness all around. {[]
~Pendragon -{
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
I know who I am! I'm the dude playin' the dude disguised as another dude!
Really, really funny movie, although its earns its "R" rating.
As for me, I picked up and watched a few movies on BluRay over the weekend...
Speed Racer
This summer's biggest flop was actually a pretty entertaining movie with a really unique visual style and exciting, if totally unrealistic races. The picture is razor sharp and the color palette looks like an explosion at a paint factory. If you ever watched the old TV show then you'll probably get some mileage out of this one.
Hulk
This is the Ang Lee arthouse version; a more introspective and thoughtful movie that still delivers some great action (for my money, the scene where the Hulk escapes from the research facility in the desert tops all the action scenes in the new movie). Sam Elliot as General Ross and Jennifer Connolly as Betty are also both vastly superior to William Hurt and Liv Tyler from the new movie. Nick Nolte is memorably bizarre as Bruce's father, although his transformation into an Absorbing Man near the end becomes a little existential. Another great BluRay presentation on this one, although the extra resolution makes the Hulk look even more fake during some action scenes (he almost looks like he's made of plastic at times).
Batman: The Movie
This is the 1966 feature with Adam West. I loved the old TV show and have seen this a hundred times but I had to have the BluRay as the previous versions were average in terms of PQ. A campy, funny take on the material that pretty much matched the tone of the comics back in those days. Surprisingly, the transfer is really well done, nice and sharp with really vibrant colors; Fox did a great job on this one. Lots of cool extras too including a nice hi-res 3D Batmobile that you can examine up close.
Next week...Iron Man B-)
Sumptuous and enchanting 1940s film on an Arabian Nights theme. Lovely use of colour as you'd expect with Michael Powell as part-director, but it also benefits from charming performances from its leads. Conrad 'Major Strasser' Veidt is the villain who usurpes his kingly brother, played amiably by a fresh-faced, guilless John Justin. The deposed king, flung in jail and dismissed as mad, wins the friendship of a young thief, Sabu. (Sadly both Veidt and Sabu died way too young of a heart attack, Veidt in the mid 1940s and Sabu in the early 1960s aged only in his Forties.)
You also have June Duprez as the love interest, who Alex may recall from one of his faves, And Then There Were None.
Some character actors turn up; I think I recognised the actor who played Watson to Rathbone's Holmes in a very early scene, he had the same astonished, whiskery tone of voice even though he was done up in robes and a turban.
It has a slightly confusing 'where's this going?' start but gradually wins you over. There are some iffy effects but more charming than the similarly iffy CGI effects that abound today.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
yeaaa it really does
I've recently been watching THE FALL (in bits, 'cause we start too late and end up falling asleep) with my friend. Loved that movie in the theater, and I'm loving watching it agiain. Absolute brilliance.
~Pen -{
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
Gritty, grainy Jason Stratham action vehicle that gets more preposterous as it enters the final lap. Stratham is an innocent blue collar worker framed for murder and sent to a oil refinery style penal colony on an island linked to the mainland by a thin strip bridge.
Some of the early emotional trauma I felt was a bit harrowing, it's something they have to do these days, even in a Bond film it seems. It's quite irksome when it's tied into a film that is really just silly nonsense. The races at the prison are linked to high ratings but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny really - unlike The Running Man, we don't even see the effect the races are having on any viewers. Joan Allen is a great Nurse Ratched type as the prison governess in charge of it all, however.
Still, I miss the superfly fun that the first Death Race 2000 had presumably.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I managed to miss the theatrical release, so just got around to seeing it last weekend. George Clooney plays a jaded "fixer" for a New York law firm that is defending a client against charges of poisoning the environment and killing people. Tilda Swinton plays the client's overwhelmed in-house legal counsel, on whose shoulders the burden of the lawsuit rests. Suffice it to say she makes some shocking decisions as she tries to control the damage.
Clooney is good at playing the weary, jaded, unfulfilled forty-something -- no glamour in this role. Swinton won an Oscar for her performance, but I actually felt the character was underwritten -- it would have been nice to understand why she could do what she did, other than to please her mentor the CEO.
The player who really deserved an Oscar was Tom Wilkinson -- as Clooney's firm's lead lawyer in defending the client who completely buckles under the strain, he steals the film. Of course, for me Wilkinson steals every film he's in, so maybe it's just my own bias showing through.
There are a couple of interesting corporate security types (i.e., glorified hitmen) who are "fixers" in their own right and make very interesting counterpoints to Clooney's character. The rest of the characters, and indeed the lawsuit itself, are basically there only to serve the central theme that people are capable of extreme behavior when money and power are involved. Hardly a new revelation, but one that is well-depicted here.
~Pen -{
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
Wacky Races with a body count (but fewer laughs
I reviewed the remake with Jason Stratham a few posts back. This 1975 film is set in the 'future' of the year 2000 and is very much a precurser to The Running Man. Rather than the race taking place on a penal colony, it's a coast to coast race across a seemingly deserted United States which is under martial law or something. Drivers acrue points for killing pedestrians, with more points for the elderly or toddlers. I sort of struggled a bit to see the humour of this. Worst was David Carradine as the masked driver Frankenstein, all wiry like he's in a black gimp outfit, it's hard to believe the scene where he beats up Machine Gun Joe - played by a young Sly Stallone!
Still, the cars were amusing and the players more vivid, including the blonde Aryan Race Nazi! Overall the movie lacked charm or a sense of sleazy outrageouness.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This 1960s film is a real oddity - a Clouseau comedy without director Blake Edwards OR star Peter Sellers. Alan Arkin plays the French sleuth.
It starts off well, with the usual comic cartoon credits - sans Henry Mancini score however. Clouseau arrives in England by plane, as he gets onto terra firma he realises he's in his socks and tries to barge past back onto the plane. There's a good line in some English bigwig's office, said bigwig says supersiliously "I must say, it was not my idea to bring you onto this case." "You are too modest," replies Clouseau, oblivious to the insult.
But my, it goes downhill quick. Arkin, who looks like Freddie Mercury and has a bit of Borat about him, or maybe the English spy dressed as a policeman in Allo Allo!, is proud and bumbling enough, but lacks the boldnesss of Seller's portrayal. Arkin is too low key; Sellers's man would enter a room (or reum) and command everyone within - when someone would make a fool of him without even trying he would turn brusque and a bully to reclaim the initiative.
Twenty mins in there seems to be no plot, just Clouseau faffing about, going to the Edinburgh Festival, which seems to be in London for some reason. You don't even know what the plot is, as the Pink Panther jewel is sadly absent too. There's the obligatory gadget rundown, with the usual "That's not a gadget, that's my electric razor/inhaler/lunch!" gag.
Arkin's Clouseau put me in mind of Johnny Depp when he's not chewing the scenery as Captain Jack but just fading into the background and being uncharismatic in films like Blow.
Avoid.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Paul W Anderson, (am I right in thinking this stands for w**ker) makes another film that could have been entertaining with a decent B-movie director and ruins it completely. See also Mortal Kombat, Aliens Vs Predator, Resident Evil. Why is this guy still working? I like Jason Statham, but he's on a loser here with this insipid remake.
May I applaud you on your deft sarcasm, NP? :007)
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Hey Napoleon, I love Alan Arkin in Catch 22, but that 68 Panther is best left uncovered. Ugh.
Since this is October, my favorite month, I've been on a Bela Lugosi poverty row marathon lately. Won't bore you superhero children with any details though.
Seriously bad trip. You'd need to be stoned to enjoy this stoner buddy movie. It's just two hours of a couple of **** doing stupid stuff that isn't remotely funny.
In Bruges
A superb comedy-thriller with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. Hysterical, insightful, sad, brilliantly written and performed; it is IMO among the best films of the year.
Wall-E
A truly gorgeous film from Pixar, whom it seems can do no wrong.
Tropic Thunder
A pretty good comedy with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black. Although I did enjoy the film (there were several scenes which were enormously funny), I didn't think it was as good as the hype suggested. Nonetheless, I had a good time and that's all I can ask for.
It's a long 'un, at 3 hours 20 mins. The premiere had it at 4 hours, whereupon some wag cried to the producer Otto Preminger, "Otto, you should let your people go!"
The first hour is a plot by the Jews to sneak out of the Cyprus camps held by the British and make to Palestine on board a ship, with some 2000 of them or something. They get apprehended in the harbour and there's a hunger strike. Newman is the guy in charge of it and he's excellent. That said, Rat Pack member Peter Lawford is very good as the bumbling arrogant casually anti-Semitic Brit oficer. It's odd to have him saying how Jews look the same, it's about the eyes, with Newman reacting like it's some terrible insult. I guess it mocks the idle English dinner party chat of the time, but I dunno. The joke is he can't tell Newman is Jewish - but, er, Newman is not (though I admittedly didn't know he was half-Jewish). Is it a terrible insult to say some races have physical similarities? Like, er, black people tending to be black? It is a bit strange to have a film like this with a lead who certainly doesn't look Jewish, as with Chuck Heston in his Biblical epics. Then again, am I wrong? Lauren Becall is Jewish but actors tended to adopt an Ivy League East Coast persona + name to get on.
Ah well. The film is gripping, it just goes round the block a few times more when you think it's going to end. Must say, surprised to have us sympathise with the Jewish resistance fighter/terrorist who blows up and kills 80 in a hotel. Then again, odd to have the English as the nominal villains but also with nods to the 'good' Englishman like Spielberg might do later with 'good' Germans and does in his African slave film the name of which escapes me. In fact, the garb of a couple of characters in this def show up in Spielberg's Indy movies, you can imagine him taking notes on this one!
Overall a lovely looking movie and made me want to look up the background on it on Wikipedia.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The first, Hell Ride is a a biker film with a tiresomely macho sense of humour. It's a shame, as it was directed by Larry Bishop, (son of Rat Pack member Joey) whose much underrated debut was a gem called Trigger Happy that caught the spirit of Sinatra and Dean Martin far better than Soderbergh's Ocean's movies.
The second is better. Midnight Meat Train is based on a short story by Clive Barker and sees a photographer trying to impress his boss (played by a still tasty Brooke Shields) with some photos of the city at night. When he takes a photo of a famous model entering a subway train shortly before she goes missing, he is drawn back to the scene and begins following a mysterious loner (Jones) who always catches the last train. Most of Barker's themes, a subculture that exists secretly alongside our world, people giving in to their nightmares, gory deaths and animalistic sexual encounters are all here. It's one of the better adaptations of Barker's work, if nowhere near as good as Bernard Rose's Candyman.
Second was Letters From Iwo Jima. I knew it was going to be good but, c'mon now, this was an excellent film. When you stay up later then you should and are cranky for work - it has done it's job.
Or the last bit of it anyway. Nice to look at, and the last one in which Moore looks young. But I recalled a thread by Hardyboy entitled Cranky, oh so Cranky! as M snaps at Q to shut up twice! Oh, and the bit in which Goodnight is led to believe that Bond has savagely drowned Nic Nac by chucking him in a case into the sea - a truly nasty demise - but then seems to think, what the heck, I'll shag Bond anyway! What a charming bunch of people!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
"They're alive!"
"Are they?"
With this chilling dinner speech, Joseph Cotten(with the aid of Alfred Hitchcock and co- scriptwriters Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Hitch's wife Alma Reville) introduced a new kind of monster to American cinema(and perhaps American culture) - the serial killer. Hitch's favorite film, and it shows. Especially the surreptitious skirting of the censorship of the day. This IMO is his greatest achievement, and his greatest indictment of America. That we live with such blinders that only the truly innocent can understand evil.
This is Cotten's finest performance. I could picture no other in this role. The role was originally offered to William Powell, but rejected. Thankfully. Cotten, at the time, possessed the all-American looks which belied the true nature of the character, and it is a much more complex psychological portrait than Norman Bates could ever be.
Theresa Wright is equally perfect as young Charlie(her favorite film also) who represents the feminine side of Cotten's character. Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott round out the cast as family and friends in this idyllic small town setting, blithly ignorant of the world around them, and eager to believe what they read, rather than what they see. But this film belongs to Cotten and Wright ultimately. It is there world, their war, their love(more than subtle inferences to incest abound).
Dimitri Tiomkin provides a solid score and Joseph Valentine provides some of the most hypnotic photography this side of Vertigo. One of my 2 favorite film's about small town America(A Christmas Story being the other) and a priority film for those just learning about Hitch's work. 10/10
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I was trying to undermine the thread by changing it to "Guess the last film seen...."
Anyway, yes, it was Shadow of a Doubt.
Watchable made-for TV drama with James Marsters as an ex-con torn between staying on the straight and narrow, or robbing fancy hotels. I wouldn't have bothered with it if it didn't star Marsters.