Burn After Reading - The latest film from the Coen brothers and not one of their better efforts in my opinion. The film lasts just a little over 90 minutes yet both my wife and I felt the movie seemed long, usually a bad sign.
My problem with the movie is its mix of humor and suspense. I find it hard to laugh at an obvious comedy scene when in the previous scene someone had their brains blown out. The actors also seem to be playing to different films, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand play their characters rather broadly with obvious humorous intent. George Clooney and Tilda Swinton seem a little more straight and serious. Pitt does draw some laughs and the scenes where the CIA manager is explaining what has happened to his supervisor are also funny. But, it is not enough to save the film. I would add also that film overused the F word. Worth a DVD rental.
Director Richard Fleischer made one of the most understated films about a sensational topic ever. The thing that will strike you most, upon completion of it's viewing, is how quiet it all was. Antonioni's Blow-Up gives you the same feeling. After his showier tour-de-force, The Boston Strangler, Fleisher did a complete turn around.
The film concerns the notorious British serial killer John Christie(played brilliantly by Richard Attenborough). John Hurt and Judy Geeson play the young couple "taken in" by their treacherous landlord. Christie, acting as an ersatz abortionist, offers his services to the gullible in his neighborhood. His modus operendi is a lethal dosing of ether mixed with carbon monoxide. The film's ending is slightly ambiguous, but in real life ended with the abolition of the death penalty in England. I wont give away plot points, but this is a must see for avid crime fans, and a true glimpse into the mind of the quiet human monster. 10/10
Well firstly, this isn't my usual genre of movies. However, it's been on my list to watch, and I finally saw it last night.
I can always gage a movie by the opening half hour...and this had me...I really like Ray Liotta, and I thought his portrayal of Henry Hill, a real wanna be gangster, was spot on. The casting of himself as a teenager was superb, and it's those small details that help me to be "swept up" into the story.
And what a story. Enough to keep you thinking, and interested. I love the fact that Henry 'narrated' throughout, as without this, a lot of the story, emotion, and reason behind his motivation would have been lost. Even the "breaking the fourth wall" scene, was well timed and done to perfection. As much as I disliked some of the decisions Henry made...(getting involved in drugs etc) I was still feeling empathetic by the end of the story. And his poor wife...well, that must have been true love, to stay with him throughout all the **** he put her through.
Scorsese used enough violence to be realistic, but not too much to be a turn off...all in all a well directed, very well acted, story of a boy who longed to belong, and yet stayed somehow on the right side, to not get killed...and eventually, get out of the mob life.
A solid 7 out of 10. (And that's from a girl, who's top ten films of all time includes Love Actually.....:D )
She's worth whatever chaos she brings to the table and you know it. ~ Mark Anthony
....story of a boy who longed to belong, and yet stayed somehow on the right side, to not get killed...and eventually, get out of the mob life.
Too bad the real Henry Hill was not as noble(or, apparently a deep thinker), returning to his drug-dealing ways, even while in the witness protection program. Ending up right back in prison, with a purported million dollar contract on his head by the mob. The fact that he is still alive today, is amazing.
The Paradine Case (1947) 6.9/10
The Paradine Case is one of Hitch’s more pedestrian psychological films. The film is the first to study the "Mother / ***** Syndrome” or the Madonna ***** Complex as it is more commonly called. According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the male is raised by a cold and distant mother. Such a man will often court women with qualities of his mother, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. Often, the wife begins to be seen as a mother to the husband—a Madonna figure—and thus not a possible object of sexual attraction. For this reason, in the mind of the sufferer, love and sex cannot be mixed, and the man is reluctant to have sexual relations with his wife, for, he thinks unconsciously, that it would be an act of incest. He will reserve sexuality for "bad" women, and will not develop "normal" feelings of love in these sexual relationships. Hitchcock learned about this malady from playwright James Bridie who was also a doctor. Bridie served as an MD in WW1 and 2.
The film is little more than a typical courtroom drama. The first half is pretty interesting but at about the halfway point, the story begins moving at a snail's pace and fails to pick up a lot of steam, the trial scenes stiff and un-dramatic. A great cast is largely misused. Gregory Peck seems miscast (he tries a feeble English accent at times but quickly loses it when he does), Ann Todd is wasted in a tertiary role, and only Alida Valli and Charles Laughton make any real impression. A few neat stylistic touches (particularly the deep focus tracking shot as Louis Jourdan(who always comes across as stiff and wooden - no wonder he never became a star)enters the room, circling around Valli) and some Hitchcock themes (Peck's obsession for Valli) but nothing to make it really stand out.
I don't think the movie was inherently bad, but there are so many things in it which could have been done better. Peck’s miscasting most irritating to me(Laurence Olivier was Hitch's first choice, Joseph Cotten and James Mason were also considered - at least the two Brits would have been a much more authentic a choice given the setting). Hitch’s feud with producer David Selznick was escalating to near critical burn by the making of this film, and it’s very noticeable.
An interesting selection of films. So you disapprove of drugs, then Lexi! ) Never mind all the violence then... However, I must say that since introducing the narration to his movies, Scorcese's flicks have always suffered for not having it. Casino, for example, and certainly The Aviator would have benefited from having some wiseguy narrate, especially the latter as I felt the movie never had a strong point of view.
I suppose Witness for the Prosecution is the superior film to The Parradine Case - hang on, was that actually Hitchcock?
Anne of a Thousand Days
Richard Burton plays Henry VIII in this pretty routine account of his marriage to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, played by Geneviève Bujold (no, me neither). It's not bad, just no surprises really. Burton's stacatto, barked delivery seems very mannered here perhaps because he has so much dialogue and he's not offset by anyone much - being King, he has it all his own way, unlike his fights with Martha in Virginia Woolf.
Part of the problem is that none of the characters are exactly sympathetic and you don't care much; plus you know how it turns out. Anthony Quinn is good as the slimy Cardinal Woolsey who meets his match in Boleyn, who is later deposed for Bond connection Jane Seymour. Fekish from The Spy Who Loved Me turns up as a Spanish courtier too. Very much a poor man's A Man For All Seasons and less exciting than a text book.
Casino, for example, and certainly The Aviator would have benefited from having some wiseguy narrate, especially the latter as I felt the movie never had a strong point of view.
Casino did have a narration. ?:) It wasn't as frequent, or as explanatory as in Goodfellas, but it was there.
"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
Kirk Douglas stars in this superb Stanley Kubrick film about the French offensive on the Somme, 1916. It's in black and white but initially at least is the tone of the WWI footage, so looks convincing, especially in the attempt to cross no-man's land and attack the ant-hill where the Germans are hiding out.
It's a 1958 movie but you wouldn't really know it and you soon forget that none of them have French accents. Totally gripping stuff and only 1 hour 20 mins or so. Some of the top ranking generals seem perhaps a little too callous for credibility perhaps, it seems a dramatic trick. And it also does that thing of pretending you show you a bunch of what look like lairy reprobate soldiers but suddenly swerving to show their softer, more generous side which is all the more moving for taking you by surprise. The TV series Skins was a bit like that, you think they're gonna be nihilistic teenage promiscous scumbags, but they turn out to be nice kids actually...
It has been at least a decade and a half since I last saw this film. I never picked it up on VHS because I could never find a widescreen version. Now, on DVD, the film holds up incredibly well. Spielberg did an excellent job on this film.
The freaky part was seeing Christain Bale at such a young age. A concept all the more disturbing when he is seen with Ben Stiller who apparently has been the same age for the past twenty years.
Somehow, I fooled myself into thinking this would be a great Rashomon-style thriller, given the multiple points of view of the same events. But no, what we get instead is a pretty simplistic film, set around a peace conference in Spain, in which the US President gets shot (or does he?). There are some decent twists and turns along the way as the plot unspools, but in the end the resolution rests on a preposterous coincidence.
Lots of well-known American actors: Dennis Quaid tries way too hard to be Harrison Ford, Matthew Fox proves he can't really act, William Hurt is his usual strong presence, and Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver are totally wasted. Far more interesting are the lesser-known (to me anyway) non-American actors who play what appear to be Spaniards or North Africans.
To a movie crowd as well-seasoned as AJBers tend to be, I say "don't bother".
It was both De Niro and Pesci. Perhaps because it wasn't as fundamental to the film as Henry's narration was to Goodfellas is why you don't remember it. IMO it was great though.
"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
The Pang Brothers bring their usual style to this remake of their own Thai hitman movie, but that is all it's got going for it. Nicolas Cage's hair-weave plays one of those cliche movie hitmen who foolishly let emotion into their lives and their carefully ordered existence falls to pieces. It becomes quite dull very quickly. I'd seek out the original instead.
Sex, Watch Out! aka Lust, Cauition or a few other less PC names I thought up during the movie.
I must admit I was drawn to this by talk of the explicit sex scenes, but I should have shown more Caution and less Lust, because it was a loooooong hour and a half before we had the first sex scene, at least, and that was a girl losing her virginity in a perfunctory, painful way - sort of movie cliche, I don't mean to be flippant but couldn't we have a girl losing it and enjoying it for once?
It's set in wartime Shanghai, Japanese occupied with Chinese resistance members of a sort trying to snare a high-ranking official and taking their time about it. Actually I don't really like wartime movies that aren't in black and white. I can't buy it when its shot through the filter of modern-day cinematography; all the people just look like they're not of the time but in fancy dress.
Worse, I began to ponder the similarity between director Ang Lee and Marc (QoS) Forster. Both can turn their hand to any genre - and are equally boring at all of them! There's no momentum, no cinematic flair. It's all quite alright but way too worthy. Stuff just happens.
BTW the one sex scene is near the end, it's all origami style positions and skinny bodies.
The Trouble with Harry proved, once again, that although Hitch could do a take on most any genre, comedy, in and of itself, was not his strong suit. Although a lot of Hitch fans love this film, I'm not in those ranks. A black "where's the body?" comedy of errors, TWH stretches tedium to the limits. For starters, this film is just too bright and cheerful, for it's own good. Outstanding photography reveals lush reds, yellows and greens. The cast is sunny and reminds me of a Leave it to Beaver episode. No coincidence that Jerry Mathers was part of the cast.
John Forsythe, although a good actor, never worked for me as a Hitch protagonist(his first of 2 Hitch films) and Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick play the cute doddering parts by the numbers. Shirley MacLaine seems to be the only point of interest(very lovely in her first film role).
The aforementioned photography was stunningly provided by Robert Brooks, and Bernard Herrmann removes as much of his brooding trademark style as possible, from the score. But, ultimately, Hitch was left holding the bag on this one. His comedy was better in small doses, spread out through one of his rollercoaster rides.
Drug-crazed hippies, death camps for the elderly, LSD in the drinking water, a 25 year old rock star president and one of Richard Pryor’s earliest roles- what’s not to love about this movie! A cautionary tale with the tagline “If you’re 30, you’re through!”, AIPs response to Altamont is one of the great forgotten funrides from it’s golden era.
The plot revolves around the aforementioned rock star’s rise to power as president of the US, and his plans to do away with anyone over 30(sound familiar, Logan’s Run fans). Starring Christopher Jones(a great whatever happened to…? question) and an all-star back up cast including Pryor(Black power advocate Stanley “X”), Shelley Winters(great hilarious shrew performance), Ed Begley, Diane Varsi(steals scenes as a super hippie mama) and the ever venomous Hal Holbrook. Look for bits by Peter Tork, Bobby Sherman, Gary Busey, Bill Mumy, Walter Winchell, Dick Clark, Army Archerd and even prosecuter Melvin Belli.
There is almost a pseudo-documentary style to this film, and actually alarmed viewers into thinking that a plan to spike our country’s drinking water with acid could be possible. The last scene provides an eerie warning to the hero, and is one of the better trick endings I’ve seen. All in all, a “Groovy” watch and pair it with Blue Sunshine for a “Love Generation gone wrong” double-bill.
What do you get when you mix HOF linebacker Ray Nitschke, ex- Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, bodacious stripper Carol Doda, Kubrick hipster Timothy Carey , Italo-comedian Vito Scotti, ex-boxing champ Sonny Liston, the great Frank Zappa, a 50 foot tall oily- haired Victor Mature, comedienne Teri Garr and the Monkees?
You get Head (1968)(no pun intended)
Throw in bits with Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson(the director), Rona Barrett(gossip hag) and Toni Basil(Oh Mickey your so fine…) and old film clips with Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth, Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, and Ronald Reagan for, easily, one of the most surreal films of the 60s.
As light-pop a band as The Monkees are, this film has a lot of dark overtones to it(including a suicide scene accompanied by the band’s “Whale” song). It definitely sends it’s protagonists up at all opportunities(Zappa tells them "Your music is awfully white!" and Davey Jones sings about his tranny dad). You really never know which direction this movie is going to turn. It also may have some of the best music the band ever made.
And then, of course, there’s Victor Mature, who was experiencing a revival of interest in his career, and sent himself up at all opportunities(see After the Fox).
This is director Bob Rafelson's first feature length film which he co-wrote with Nicholson. The film tanked on initial release, but has slowly grown a devout following ever since. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It does not disappoint in the weird department.
Famous but imo a bit disappointing three-header based on a play, with Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Alec Cawthorne. In it, Caine is a young suitor visiting the husband he is cuckolding at this stately home, bought by money accrued from his detective novels, informing him he's about to steal his wife. It leads to a battle of wits between the two.
But how Olivier persuades Caine to enact an insurance scam on the premises, getting him to dress up in a clown's outfit while doing so frankly defies any belief. Also,
Caine's later appearance as the Inspector doesn't convince because Caine is always Caine a bit, he's a star, not some master of disguise. I recognised it was him. Maybe David Walliams could do that role today, though everyone knows he does disguise.
Grand is the name, and, uh - money is the game. Would you care to play?
Raquel Welch whips a galley of topless slave-girls, Yul Brynner(in drag) sings to an uncomfortably befuddled Roman Polanski ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QitQrNRw6rE ), Laurence Harvey does an impromptu striptease on stage, as Hamlet ( ), Christopher Lee wanders about a luxury liner, looking completely lost in his Dracula garb, old ladies have fixations on war crime atrocities, boxers stop in mid-fight to neck and everybody has a price in this muddled surreal mess.
Peter Sellers is Sir Guy Grand(a grand guy), the richest man in the world, whose credo is that everybody has a breaking point where they would sell out. You just have to find it. Ringo Starr plays his adopted “son”, a hobo Grand finds sleeping in a park. Together, they go out into the world to see just how far they can debase people for filthy lucre. Based on Terry Southern’s savagely funny satire, his book get’s turned into an awkward Python-esque magical mystery tour with bits by Wilfrid Hyde-White, Spike Milligan, Richard Attenborough, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ferdy Mayne, and Monty alumni John Cleese and Graham Chapman(who also helped with the script).
This is a film that is better in parts than as a whole. There are some true comedy gems like this weird scene on a train ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_nOC_txgI ). But director Joseph McGrath seems to be plowing the same ground he’d gone over in the equally so-so Casino Royale. And completely ignoring the source material. If ever there was justification for a remake, this would be the movie. And a nice antidote to the Wall Street mentality.
It’s an enjoyable watch, just for the cameos and dry Brit humor, and there is that catchy song Come and Get It ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIw26-YP96w ) by Badfinger. But I recommend reading the book to see how good it really could have been.
It’s an enjoyable watch, just for the cameos and dry Brit humor, and there is that catchy song Come and Get It ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIw26-YP96w ) by Badfinger. But I recommend reading the book to see how good it really could have been.
And there's also Badfinger's Carry On Till Tomorrow. I love that number!
A while back I used a gif of the famous exploding head from Scanners in one of my posts. I actually hadn't seen the movie, so into the Netflix queue it went. I watched it tonight and was surprised to find it isn't so much a horror film as a sci-fi movie. Alas, though, I'm afraid that early Cronenberg isn't necessarily good Cronenberg: the movie is particularly cheesy and dated, with bad dialogue, a ludicrous sequence involving using mental telepathy to hack into a computer, psychics grunting and gesticulating in a mental duel, and a dull leading man in Stephen Lack--who more than lives up to (or is down to?) his name. Even Howard Shore's music is nothing compared to later works. Still, Patrick McGoohan is good in his role--though, unfortunately, his character is named Dr. Ruth! Given our modern tendency to remake movies from the '80s, it would be interesting to see this one "reimagined"--especially if Cronenberg himself took on the task.
Vox clamantis in deserto
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
edited October 2008
"Brides of Dracula"
Stylish (if slight) bit of fun from Hammer Films, circa 1960, starring the great Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, chasing down the disciples of the (permanently deceased) Count. This one scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, and still manages to summon lingering remnants of long-ago chills at a couple of points.
The story (such as it is) deals with a lovely young French teacher (Yvonne Monlaur) who has to spend the night in the Meinster (sp?) castle, where she finds that the elderly Baroness keeps her charming and handsome young son chained up in a secluded wing of the castle. Our young lady, being the insipid sort required by these films, takes pity on the young Baron and frees him.
Rampant vampirism, slow-motion bats suspended by slightly-visible strings and young babes-turned-bloodsuckers ensue, as the Baron begins to plow his way through a finishing school for pretty young women :v Lucky Peter Cushing is happening by...
Recommended Halloween fun.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Excellent comedy from the Coen Brothers. Great cast, with particular kudos to David Rasche (how great to see Sledge Hammer in a movie like this) and JK Simmons for their hilarious attempts to work out what everybody is doing. "Come back when this....makes sense." )
Run Fatboy Run. Whence this trend of Americans making American movies in Britain with British casts? I guess it began with Robert Altman's Gosford Park; but we've also had to sit through the abominable Death at a Funeral, directed by Frank Oz, and now this cold porridge of lame slapstick and Disneyesque father-and-son cutseyness directed by David Schwimmer (David Schwimmer?). Americans love offbeat British comedies, but it takes offbeat Brits to pull them off.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,419Chief of Staff
Run Fatboy Run. Whence this trend of Americans making American movies in Britain with British casts? I guess it began with Robert Altman's Gosford Park; but we've also had to sit through the abominable Death at a Funeral, directed by Frank Oz, and now this cold porridge of lame slapstick and Disneyesque father-and-son cutseyness directed by David Schwimmer (David Schwimmer?). Americans love offbeat British comedies, but it takes offbeat Brits to pull them off.
I watched Run Fatboy Run last week and it really is a waste of a talented cast...there are a few decent moments in the film...but it could have been wrapped up in half an hour - and all the better for it.
YNWA 97
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
"Count Dracula"
The BBC TV production from the late Seventies, starring Louis Jourdan as the Count and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing. Hadn't seen it for 28 years, but I bought the DVD for my wife a while back, and finally got around to watching with the boys for a Halloween Night treat.
It's as good as I remember, making the most of locations and what little production budget they must have had at the time. One of my favourite interpretations.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
A British horror anthology from Hammer's chief rival, Amicus studios. A quartet of short stories connected by a Scotland Yard investigation into a mysterious house. (hence the title)
The first tale involves Denholm Elliot as a horror writer suffering from writer's block who decides to move in for inspiration and becomes a little too involved with his work.
Tale two stars Joss Ackland and Peter Cushing who are both obsessed with a beautiful waxen image.
In the third macabre yarn we meet Christopher Lee and his adorable little daughter who displays an interest in withcraft.
The most humourous and final story stars John Pertwee as a rich actor who's filming his latest picture along with co-star, the lovely Ingrid Pitt.
It's all firmly cemented by the wraparound story and has the obligatory delicious finale. The perfect Halloween event. -{
French film, natch, from a few years ago. It's about a swell, well to do publisher and his equally monied mates who regularly hold an idiots evening, where each competes to see who can invite the worst idiot over to a dinner party - the idiot has no idea of the secret agenda and is pleased they're taking an interest.
I'd been interested in this, because I got involved with an idiot once, but rather as a friendship which started with good intentions but quickly got on the road to hell. I learned 1) Said idiot's first port of call is to leapfrog you and make you look an idiot 2) You're more likely to fit in with them than they with you - if they could fit in with others they wouldn't be an idiot and 3) I must be an idiot myself to get involved; when you're young you think Oliver Hardy is the smart one, only later do you realise he's dumber than Laurel because he thinks he's smart....
Anyway, the film. Good stuff, but it never gets to the dinenr party cos the scumbag strains his back. The idiot (sort of Danny De Vito mixed with Bill Bailey, actually you could see him do this role with Billy Chrystal like Throm Momma from the Train) has to help him out around his pad for a bit, and he fails to get rid of him, then needs his help again to remedy problems he's just created.
Some implausible moments early on (the host should get rid of his idiot earlier and not ask him to carry out tasks), and I wished the scumbag had acted more like a scumbag in his manner, then you'd enjoy his unravelling more over the course of the evening. But the film gets better as it goes on, so {[]
Seen all the Saw films in the cinema, they just keep getting worse! )
Next film I will see will be Quantum of Solace in bout an hour! Anyone know anything about it??? )
Back during the Great Depression, a character known as the hobo wandered from destination to destination, usually to find work or escape mean climes. His preferred method of transport was open train cars via the rails. Usually, the practice was ignored as harmless hitchhiking. Sometimes it met with violent ends, as there are countless tales of derelicts crushed under the wheels of the iron horses. Sometimes they froze to death, passing thru wintery territory.
Sometimes they met Shack.
One of Robert Aldrich's last great action movies, he was looking for a piece to reunite Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, who had appeared together in The Dirty Dozen. Sam Peckinpah wrote the first draft of this film and was scheduled to direct it. Ken Hyman had started it (he was head of production at Warners from 1966-1969 and brought Peckinpah back in the ballgame, allowing him to do The Wild Bunch). But Hyman had worked with Aldrich too, on the highly successful Dozen, so he went for him over the unwieldly Sam. Aldrich was a straight-up director who really wasn't looking to make the next great art film. Sometimes it just worked out that way(Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?).
Borgnine excels in one of his meanest parts ever, as the villainous conductor Shack, who collects travel fare with a sledge hammer(sound familiar, and this was made prior to TCM). Marvin plays A#1, the toughest ‘bo on the rails, who vows to ride Shack’s train at all costs. Keith Carradine(the one casting flaw IMO) is a young upstart who wants Marvin’s rep, but has no sand. Together, they combine for some of the most violently played scenes ever, including a very prolonged finale with lumber, axes, hammer and chains, choreographed on, atop and beneath a rolling train.
Aldrich tended to work more within the studio system, and knew how to play ball. In the strictest terms, an action film is not really supposed to have artistic merit. That, of course is the biggest rule Peckinpah always tried to break. Aldrich achieved it here, maybe by accident. Another example of fairly similar directorial talents united by a common bond are Clint Eastwood's 2 favorites of the late 60s-early 70's, Ted Post and Don Siegel. Both worked in that studio system and produced adept action films, yet only one is remembered as an artist.
By the time this film came out Peckinpah was starting to bleed again. My personal opinion was that his ego was starting to get the better of him. He may have been taking his reviews too seriously when he made Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and his films started lurching downward from there. Aldrich always seemed on an even keel. It would have been a different Emperor, but maybe not a better one under Sam’s helm.
This is a must see for fans of action films. 9.5/10
Emperor of the North is 1973, btw. Think I may rent it.
Somers Town
Caught this at London's Prince Charles, which has now finished its renovation - er, and looks exactly the same as before. Anyway, this is about two teens, one Pole and one from the Midlands (the young lad from This Is England), both in part of London trying to fill time and scrap a living. The Midlands lad has run away from home; the Pole lives with his Dad who works on the Channel Tunnel.
It's a charming, inconsequential little film, puts you in mind of those 1960s flicks directed by Richard Lester with Rita Tushingham. The frienship isn't very likely to be honest but it's alright. Can't help thinking it would be not seen as anything spesh if it weren't in black and white. Still, I didn't go out to the loo in case anything happened, so it held my attention as I held my bladder.
Beforehand I met Strangeways briefly who was going into see QoS with friends at Odeon Leicester Square.
Comments
My problem with the movie is its mix of humor and suspense. I find it hard to laugh at an obvious comedy scene when in the previous scene someone had their brains blown out. The actors also seem to be playing to different films, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand play their characters rather broadly with obvious humorous intent. George Clooney and Tilda Swinton seem a little more straight and serious. Pitt does draw some laughs and the scenes where the CIA manager is explaining what has happened to his supervisor are also funny. But, it is not enough to save the film. I would add also that film overused the F word. Worth a DVD rental.
10 Rillington Place (1971)
Director Richard Fleischer made one of the most understated films about a sensational topic ever. The thing that will strike you most, upon completion of it's viewing, is how quiet it all was. Antonioni's Blow-Up gives you the same feeling. After his showier tour-de-force, The Boston Strangler, Fleisher did a complete turn around.
The film concerns the notorious British serial killer John Christie(played brilliantly by Richard Attenborough). John Hurt and Judy Geeson play the young couple "taken in" by their treacherous landlord. Christie, acting as an ersatz abortionist, offers his services to the gullible in his neighborhood. His modus operendi is a lethal dosing of ether mixed with carbon monoxide. The film's ending is slightly ambiguous, but in real life ended with the abolition of the death penalty in England. I wont give away plot points, but this is a must see for avid crime fans, and a true glimpse into the mind of the quiet human monster. 10/10
Well firstly, this isn't my usual genre of movies. However, it's been on my list to watch, and I finally saw it last night.
I can always gage a movie by the opening half hour...and this had me...I really like Ray Liotta, and I thought his portrayal of Henry Hill, a real wanna be gangster, was spot on. The casting of himself as a teenager was superb, and it's those small details that help me to be "swept up" into the story.
And what a story. Enough to keep you thinking, and interested. I love the fact that Henry 'narrated' throughout, as without this, a lot of the story, emotion, and reason behind his motivation would have been lost. Even the "breaking the fourth wall" scene, was well timed and done to perfection. As much as I disliked some of the decisions Henry made...(getting involved in drugs etc) I was still feeling empathetic by the end of the story. And his poor wife...well, that must have been true love, to stay with him throughout all the **** he put her through.
Scorsese used enough violence to be realistic, but not too much to be a turn off...all in all a well directed, very well acted, story of a boy who longed to belong, and yet stayed somehow on the right side, to not get killed...and eventually, get out of the mob life.
A solid 7 out of 10. (And that's from a girl, who's top ten films of all time includes Love Actually.....:D )
Too bad the real Henry Hill was not as noble(or, apparently a deep thinker), returning to his drug-dealing ways, even while in the witness protection program. Ending up right back in prison, with a purported million dollar contract on his head by the mob. The fact that he is still alive today, is amazing.
The Paradine Case (1947) 6.9/10
The Paradine Case is one of Hitch’s more pedestrian psychological films. The film is the first to study the "Mother / ***** Syndrome” or the Madonna ***** Complex as it is more commonly called. According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the male is raised by a cold and distant mother. Such a man will often court women with qualities of his mother, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. Often, the wife begins to be seen as a mother to the husband—a Madonna figure—and thus not a possible object of sexual attraction. For this reason, in the mind of the sufferer, love and sex cannot be mixed, and the man is reluctant to have sexual relations with his wife, for, he thinks unconsciously, that it would be an act of incest. He will reserve sexuality for "bad" women, and will not develop "normal" feelings of love in these sexual relationships. Hitchcock learned about this malady from playwright James Bridie who was also a doctor. Bridie served as an MD in WW1 and 2.
The film is little more than a typical courtroom drama. The first half is pretty interesting but at about the halfway point, the story begins moving at a snail's pace and fails to pick up a lot of steam, the trial scenes stiff and un-dramatic. A great cast is largely misused. Gregory Peck seems miscast (he tries a feeble English accent at times but quickly loses it when he does), Ann Todd is wasted in a tertiary role, and only Alida Valli and Charles Laughton make any real impression. A few neat stylistic touches (particularly the deep focus tracking shot as Louis Jourdan(who always comes across as stiff and wooden - no wonder he never became a star)enters the room, circling around Valli) and some Hitchcock themes (Peck's obsession for Valli) but nothing to make it really stand out.
I don't think the movie was inherently bad, but there are so many things in it which could have been done better. Peck’s miscasting most irritating to me(Laurence Olivier was Hitch's first choice, Joseph Cotten and James Mason were also considered - at least the two Brits would have been a much more authentic a choice given the setting). Hitch’s feud with producer David Selznick was escalating to near critical burn by the making of this film, and it’s very noticeable.
I suppose Witness for the Prosecution is the superior film to The Parradine Case - hang on, was that actually Hitchcock?
Anne of a Thousand Days
Richard Burton plays Henry VIII in this pretty routine account of his marriage to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, played by Geneviève Bujold (no, me neither). It's not bad, just no surprises really. Burton's stacatto, barked delivery seems very mannered here perhaps because he has so much dialogue and he's not offset by anyone much - being King, he has it all his own way, unlike his fights with Martha in Virginia Woolf.
Part of the problem is that none of the characters are exactly sympathetic and you don't care much; plus you know how it turns out. Anthony Quinn is good as the slimy Cardinal Woolsey who meets his match in Boleyn, who is later deposed for Bond connection Jane Seymour. Fekish from The Spy Who Loved Me turns up as a Spanish courtier too. Very much a poor man's A Man For All Seasons and less exciting than a text book.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Paths of Glory
Kirk Douglas stars in this superb Stanley Kubrick film about the French offensive on the Somme, 1916. It's in black and white but initially at least is the tone of the WWI footage, so looks convincing, especially in the attempt to cross no-man's land and attack the ant-hill where the Germans are hiding out.
It's a 1958 movie but you wouldn't really know it and you soon forget that none of them have French accents. Totally gripping stuff and only 1 hour 20 mins or so. Some of the top ranking generals seem perhaps a little too callous for credibility perhaps, it seems a dramatic trick. And it also does that thing of pretending you show you a bunch of what look like lairy reprobate soldiers but suddenly swerving to show their softer, more generous side which is all the more moving for taking you by surprise. The TV series Skins was a bit like that, you think they're gonna be nihilistic teenage promiscous scumbags, but they turn out to be nice kids actually...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It has been at least a decade and a half since I last saw this film. I never picked it up on VHS because I could never find a widescreen version. Now, on DVD, the film holds up incredibly well. Spielberg did an excellent job on this film.
The freaky part was seeing Christain Bale at such a young age. A concept all the more disturbing when he is seen with Ben Stiller who apparently has been the same age for the past twenty years.
Somehow, I fooled myself into thinking this would be a great Rashomon-style thriller, given the multiple points of view of the same events. But no, what we get instead is a pretty simplistic film, set around a peace conference in Spain, in which the US President gets shot (or does he?). There are some decent twists and turns along the way as the plot unspools, but in the end the resolution rests on a preposterous coincidence.
Lots of well-known American actors: Dennis Quaid tries way too hard to be Harrison Ford, Matthew Fox proves he can't really act, William Hurt is his usual strong presence, and Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver are totally wasted. Far more interesting are the lesser-known (to me anyway) non-American actors who play what appear to be Spaniards or North Africans.
To a movie crowd as well-seasoned as AJBers tend to be, I say "don't bother".
The Pang Brothers bring their usual style to this remake of their own Thai hitman movie, but that is all it's got going for it. Nicolas Cage's hair-weave plays one of those cliche movie hitmen who foolishly let emotion into their lives and their carefully ordered existence falls to pieces. It becomes quite dull very quickly. I'd seek out the original instead.
I must admit I was drawn to this by talk of the explicit sex scenes, but I should have shown more Caution and less Lust, because it was a loooooong hour and a half before we had the first sex scene, at least, and that was a girl losing her virginity in a perfunctory, painful way - sort of movie cliche, I don't mean to be flippant but couldn't we have a girl losing it and enjoying it for once?
It's set in wartime Shanghai, Japanese occupied with Chinese resistance members of a sort trying to snare a high-ranking official and taking their time about it. Actually I don't really like wartime movies that aren't in black and white. I can't buy it when its shot through the filter of modern-day cinematography; all the people just look like they're not of the time but in fancy dress.
Worse, I began to ponder the similarity between director Ang Lee and Marc (QoS) Forster. Both can turn their hand to any genre - and are equally boring at all of them! There's no momentum, no cinematic flair. It's all quite alright but way too worthy. Stuff just happens.
BTW the one sex scene is near the end, it's all origami style positions and skinny bodies.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The Trouble with Harry proved, once again, that although Hitch could do a take on most any genre, comedy, in and of itself, was not his strong suit. Although a lot of Hitch fans love this film, I'm not in those ranks. A black "where's the body?" comedy of errors, TWH stretches tedium to the limits. For starters, this film is just too bright and cheerful, for it's own good. Outstanding photography reveals lush reds, yellows and greens. The cast is sunny and reminds me of a Leave it to Beaver episode. No coincidence that Jerry Mathers was part of the cast.
John Forsythe, although a good actor, never worked for me as a Hitch protagonist(his first of 2 Hitch films) and Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick play the cute doddering parts by the numbers. Shirley MacLaine seems to be the only point of interest(very lovely in her first film role).
The aforementioned photography was stunningly provided by Robert Brooks, and Bernard Herrmann removes as much of his brooding trademark style as possible, from the score. But, ultimately, Hitch was left holding the bag on this one. His comedy was better in small doses, spread out through one of his rollercoaster rides.
5.9/10
Drug-crazed hippies, death camps for the elderly, LSD in the drinking water, a 25 year old rock star president and one of Richard Pryor’s earliest roles- what’s not to love about this movie! A cautionary tale with the tagline “If you’re 30, you’re through!”, AIPs response to Altamont is one of the great forgotten funrides from it’s golden era.
The plot revolves around the aforementioned rock star’s rise to power as president of the US, and his plans to do away with anyone over 30(sound familiar, Logan’s Run fans). Starring Christopher Jones(a great whatever happened to…? question) and an all-star back up cast including Pryor(Black power advocate Stanley “X”), Shelley Winters(great hilarious shrew performance), Ed Begley, Diane Varsi(steals scenes as a super hippie mama) and the ever venomous Hal Holbrook. Look for bits by Peter Tork, Bobby Sherman, Gary Busey, Bill Mumy, Walter Winchell, Dick Clark, Army Archerd and even prosecuter Melvin Belli.
There is almost a pseudo-documentary style to this film, and actually alarmed viewers into thinking that a plan to spike our country’s drinking water with acid could be possible. The last scene provides an eerie warning to the hero, and is one of the better trick endings I’ve seen. All in all, a “Groovy” watch and pair it with Blue Sunshine for a “Love Generation gone wrong” double-bill.
Something to watch on election night, perhaps.
You get Head (1968)(no pun intended)
Throw in bits with Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson(the director), Rona Barrett(gossip hag) and Toni Basil(Oh Mickey your so fine…) and old film clips with Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth, Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, and Ronald Reagan for, easily, one of the most surreal films of the 60s.
As light-pop a band as The Monkees are, this film has a lot of dark overtones to it(including a suicide scene accompanied by the band’s “Whale” song). It definitely sends it’s protagonists up at all opportunities(Zappa tells them "Your music is awfully white!" and Davey Jones sings about his tranny dad). You really never know which direction this movie is going to turn. It also may have some of the best music the band ever made.
And then, of course, there’s Victor Mature, who was experiencing a revival of interest in his career, and sent himself up at all opportunities(see After the Fox).
This is director Bob Rafelson's first feature length film which he co-wrote with Nicholson. The film tanked on initial release, but has slowly grown a devout following ever since. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It does not disappoint in the weird department.
Sleuth
Famous but imo a bit disappointing three-header based on a play, with Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Alec Cawthorne. In it, Caine is a young suitor visiting the husband he is cuckolding at this stately home, bought by money accrued from his detective novels, informing him he's about to steal his wife. It leads to a battle of wits between the two.
But how Olivier persuades Caine to enact an insurance scam on the premises, getting him to dress up in a clown's outfit while doing so frankly defies any belief. Also,
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Grand is the name, and, uh - money is the game. Would you care to play?
Raquel Welch whips a galley of topless slave-girls, Yul Brynner(in drag) sings to an uncomfortably befuddled Roman Polanski ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QitQrNRw6rE ), Laurence Harvey does an impromptu striptease on stage, as Hamlet (
Peter Sellers is Sir Guy Grand(a grand guy), the richest man in the world, whose credo is that everybody has a breaking point where they would sell out. You just have to find it. Ringo Starr plays his adopted “son”, a hobo Grand finds sleeping in a park. Together, they go out into the world to see just how far they can debase people for filthy lucre. Based on Terry Southern’s savagely funny satire, his book get’s turned into an awkward Python-esque magical mystery tour with bits by Wilfrid Hyde-White, Spike Milligan, Richard Attenborough, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ferdy Mayne, and Monty alumni John Cleese and Graham Chapman(who also helped with the script).
This is a film that is better in parts than as a whole. There are some true comedy gems like this weird scene on a train ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_nOC_txgI ). But director Joseph McGrath seems to be plowing the same ground he’d gone over in the equally so-so Casino Royale. And completely ignoring the source material. If ever there was justification for a remake, this would be the movie. And a nice antidote to the Wall Street mentality.
It’s an enjoyable watch, just for the cameos and dry Brit humor, and there is that catchy song Come and Get It ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIw26-YP96w ) by Badfinger. But I recommend reading the book to see how good it really could have been.
5.9/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2YKCCUeIeY
Unfortunately after this inspired opening segment the movie tanks into a befuddling mess.
Stylish (if slight) bit of fun from Hammer Films, circa 1960, starring the great Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, chasing down the disciples of the (permanently deceased) Count. This one scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, and still manages to summon lingering remnants of long-ago chills at a couple of points.
The story (such as it is) deals with a lovely young French teacher (Yvonne Monlaur) who has to spend the night in the Meinster (sp?) castle, where she finds that the elderly Baroness keeps her charming and handsome young son chained up in a secluded wing of the castle. Our young lady, being the insipid sort required by these films, takes pity on the young Baron and frees him.
Rampant vampirism, slow-motion bats suspended by slightly-visible strings and young babes-turned-bloodsuckers ensue, as the Baron begins to plow his way through a finishing school for pretty young women :v Lucky Peter Cushing is happening by...
Recommended Halloween fun.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Excellent comedy from the Coen Brothers. Great cast, with particular kudos to David Rasche (how great to see Sledge Hammer in a movie like this) and JK Simmons for their hilarious attempts to work out what everybody is doing. "Come back when this....makes sense."
I watched Run Fatboy Run last week and it really is a waste of a talented cast...there are a few decent moments in the film...but it could have been wrapped up in half an hour - and all the better for it.
The BBC TV production from the late Seventies, starring Louis Jourdan as the Count and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing. Hadn't seen it for 28 years, but I bought the DVD for my wife a while back, and finally got around to watching with the boys for a Halloween Night treat.
It's as good as I remember, making the most of locations and what little production budget they must have had at the time. One of my favourite interpretations.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
A British horror anthology from Hammer's chief rival, Amicus studios. A quartet of short stories connected by a Scotland Yard investigation into a mysterious house. (hence the title)
The first tale involves Denholm Elliot as a horror writer suffering from writer's block who decides to move in for inspiration and becomes a little too involved with his work.
Tale two stars Joss Ackland and Peter Cushing who are both obsessed with a beautiful waxen image.
In the third macabre yarn we meet Christopher Lee and his adorable little daughter who displays an interest in withcraft.
The most humourous and final story stars John Pertwee as a rich actor who's filming his latest picture along with co-star, the lovely Ingrid Pitt.
It's all firmly cemented by the wraparound story and has the obligatory delicious finale. The perfect Halloween event. -{
French film, natch, from a few years ago. It's about a swell, well to do publisher and his equally monied mates who regularly hold an idiots evening, where each competes to see who can invite the worst idiot over to a dinner party - the idiot has no idea of the secret agenda and is pleased they're taking an interest.
I'd been interested in this, because I got involved with an idiot once, but rather as a friendship which started with good intentions but quickly got on the road to hell. I learned 1) Said idiot's first port of call is to leapfrog you and make you look an idiot 2) You're more likely to fit in with them than they with you - if they could fit in with others they wouldn't be an idiot and 3) I must be an idiot myself to get involved; when you're young you think Oliver Hardy is the smart one, only later do you realise he's dumber than Laurel because he thinks he's smart....
Anyway, the film. Good stuff, but it never gets to the dinenr party cos the scumbag strains his back. The idiot (sort of Danny De Vito mixed with Bill Bailey, actually you could see him do this role with Billy Chrystal like Throm Momma from the Train) has to help him out around his pad for a bit, and he fails to get rid of him, then needs his help again to remedy problems he's just created.
Some implausible moments early on (the host should get rid of his idiot earlier and not ask him to carry out tasks), and I wished the scumbag had acted more like a scumbag in his manner, then you'd enjoy his unravelling more over the course of the evening. But the film gets better as it goes on, so {[]
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Seen all the Saw films in the cinema, they just keep getting worse!
Next film I will see will be Quantum of Solace in bout an hour! Anyone know anything about it???
Back during the Great Depression, a character known as the hobo wandered from destination to destination, usually to find work or escape mean climes. His preferred method of transport was open train cars via the rails. Usually, the practice was ignored as harmless hitchhiking. Sometimes it met with violent ends, as there are countless tales of derelicts crushed under the wheels of the iron horses. Sometimes they froze to death, passing thru wintery territory.
Sometimes they met Shack.
One of Robert Aldrich's last great action movies, he was looking for a piece to reunite Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, who had appeared together in The Dirty Dozen. Sam Peckinpah wrote the first draft of this film and was scheduled to direct it. Ken Hyman had started it (he was head of production at Warners from 1966-1969 and brought Peckinpah back in the ballgame, allowing him to do The Wild Bunch). But Hyman had worked with Aldrich too, on the highly successful Dozen, so he went for him over the unwieldly Sam. Aldrich was a straight-up director who really wasn't looking to make the next great art film. Sometimes it just worked out that way(Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?).
Borgnine excels in one of his meanest parts ever, as the villainous conductor Shack, who collects travel fare with a sledge hammer(sound familiar, and this was made prior to TCM). Marvin plays A#1, the toughest ‘bo on the rails, who vows to ride Shack’s train at all costs. Keith Carradine(the one casting flaw IMO) is a young upstart who wants Marvin’s rep, but has no sand. Together, they combine for some of the most violently played scenes ever, including a very prolonged finale with lumber, axes, hammer and chains, choreographed on, atop and beneath a rolling train.
Aldrich tended to work more within the studio system, and knew how to play ball. In the strictest terms, an action film is not really supposed to have artistic merit. That, of course is the biggest rule Peckinpah always tried to break. Aldrich achieved it here, maybe by accident. Another example of fairly similar directorial talents united by a common bond are Clint Eastwood's 2 favorites of the late 60s-early 70's, Ted Post and Don Siegel. Both worked in that studio system and produced adept action films, yet only one is remembered as an artist.
By the time this film came out Peckinpah was starting to bleed again. My personal opinion was that his ego was starting to get the better of him. He may have been taking his reviews too seriously when he made Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and his films started lurching downward from there. Aldrich always seemed on an even keel. It would have been a different Emperor, but maybe not a better one under Sam’s helm.
This is a must see for fans of action films. 9.5/10
Somers Town
Caught this at London's Prince Charles, which has now finished its renovation - er, and looks exactly the same as before. Anyway, this is about two teens, one Pole and one from the Midlands (the young lad from This Is England), both in part of London trying to fill time and scrap a living. The Midlands lad has run away from home; the Pole lives with his Dad who works on the Channel Tunnel.
It's a charming, inconsequential little film, puts you in mind of those 1960s flicks directed by Richard Lester with Rita Tushingham. The frienship isn't very likely to be honest but it's alright. Can't help thinking it would be not seen as anything spesh if it weren't in black and white. Still, I didn't go out to the loo in case anything happened, so it held my attention as I held my bladder.
Beforehand I met Strangeways briefly who was going into see QoS with friends at Odeon Leicester Square.
Roger Moore 1927-2017