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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 11, 2015 19:28:49 GMT -5
I recently got a coupon from Barnes and Noble for 20% off my purchase, and when I went in I saw that they were running a special on the Criterion DVD's so it was my lucky day and I snagged Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr" and Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" which despite being both a fan of Kurosawa and Macbeth I had never seen in its entirity until today. I had previously seen scenes from the film in a Shakespeare class I took back in college but I never saw the whole thing which was my loss as it's a great film. My experience with Vampyr was a little less excellent, it had a great feel to it and I loved the climax with the death of the vampire woman and the doctor but the acting felt very wooden and the plot was rather thin. It's not a bad film by any means, and on a tecnical level it's very beautiful, but it didn't keep my attention.
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Post by coke & comics on Nov 15, 2015 5:06:27 GMT -5
I watched The Graduate.
That's one more Simpsons reference I now get.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 17:06:33 GMT -5
I recently got a coupon from Barnes and Noble for 20% off my purchase, and when I went in I saw that they were running a special on the Criterion DVD's so it was my lucky day and I snagged Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr" and Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" which despite being both a fan of Kurosawa and Macbeth I had never seen in its entirity until today. I had previously seen scenes from the film in a Shakespeare class I took back in college but I never saw the whole thing which was my loss as it's a great film. My experience with Vampyr was a little less excellent, it had a great feel to it and I loved the climax with the death of the vampire woman and the doctor but the acting felt very wooden and the plot was rather thin. It's not a bad film by any means, and on a tecnical level it's very beautiful, but it didn't keep my attention. is so good that even my mom likes it. She's been a movie fan since she was a kid but she hasn't seen a lot of the most highly acclaimed foreign films over the years (although she's a bit of a Francophile so sometimes she surprises me by saying "I've seen that" when it comes to French films). But she's curious about them, so she sometimes records foreign films off TCM. And sometimes I'll recommend something if I see it on the schedule and I think she'll like it. And she doesn't like a lot of them. She doesn't like La strada because of the dubbing. It's one of my favorite movies, and I never noticed any trouble with the dubbing, until my mom pointed it out. You see, Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart acted their scenes in English, and they were dubbed into Italian by other actors. And my mom knows their real voices. So La strada is dead to her. And she thinks Wild Strawberries is a waste of time. It's pretty funny listening to her talk about it. She watched it in 20-minutes segments over several weeks. She felt bad for the old guy being stuck in the car with that neurotic lady. And she hated that teenage girl hitchhiking with the two boys. The little smart-ass thinking she knows everything. Umm ... So imagine my surprise when she started praising Throne of Blood! She loved Throne of Blood! She thinks it's better than any English-language version of Macbeth she's ever seen! I considered recommending Jeanne Dielman, Rue de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles to her just to hear her comments. But I thought better of it realizing it would take her six months to watch it in ten-minutes segments. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 20:14:00 GMT -5
I'm not a fan of Vampyr. I wouldn't even consider recommending it to my mom!
She recommends stuff to me too. She was talking about how much she likes Leave Her to Heaven and it was on TCM a week or so later. The ending is kinda dumb but Gene Tierney is amazing!
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 20:22:36 GMT -5
4) "Theater of Blood" -- starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg (in bad cross-gender makeup!). Another one I'd not seen. This is the one "slasher" film, and is so over the top campy, I think it's now my favorite Vincent Price film ever It's hard to top Price playing a campy hairdresser with a humongous afro quoting Shakespeare! LOVED it. . . . I don't think I'd ever call it my favorite Vincent Price film (I'd be more likely to pick The Masque of the Red Death or The Raven ... and there's three or four others popping up in my mind!) but I do love me some Theater of Blood! I saw it two years ago. I thought I'd seen all Vincent Price's really really good movies, and I started out thinking I'd seen Theater of Blood before. But I soon realized I had been thinking of another movies ... and I was very pleased with how much fun and how awesome Theater of Blood was! Diana Rigg holds her own! And no one is surprised! |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 20:35:53 GMT -5
I saw Nanook of the North for the first time today and for a guy who next to nothing about film making in the 1920's it's pretty stunning. That's not to say it isn't beautiful in its own right, but coming from a guy who's sole experience was a sole film class it's astounding what he was able to produce. That's so weird! I watched it yesterday on YouTube. I was looking at Honeywell's 1001 movies you should see before you die list, and I decided to look for the most iconic silent film I hadn't seen. And Nanook really stuck out. Some of the movies I only know from the list, but I should have watched Nanook of the North 25 years ago. I really enjoyed it! I would watch it again just because I liked it so much. In a similar vein, check out The Great White Silence if you haven't seen it already. Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated South Pole adventure had a cameraman! And the footage was worked into a documentary in 1924! It's unbelievable! I was mesmerized as if I watching any regular sound color film. I didn't feel at all like I was watching a silent movie. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 20:44:25 GMT -5
Watched Pandora's Box (#246 on the list) for the first time tonight, and I'm still struggling with it. Most acclaim for the film centers entirely on the appeal of the lead actress (Louise Brooks), and, while I agree that she is beyond endearing, that's hardly enough to propel me through a 130 minute film. One critic also put the director in the same class as Lang and Murnau (all three come from the Weimer Republic era of German filmmaking), but I don't see the comparison. It's possible a lot of that comes from the cinematographer not being as strong as the people Lang and Murnau tended to work with, though. Heck, both made great films with Karl Freund.Anyway, on to the film itself, it's amazing to me how differently different people read the film -- the majority of critics believing that the protagonist was the one who opened "Pandora's Box" and, therefore, pretty much got what she deserved, while a few others believe that she was a tragic (if amorale) figure, and that society and the men around her had unleashed Pandora's Box upon her and upon themselves. The odd part is that neither side seems to acknowledge that there is a debate over this. So I'm still trying to reconcile that, and I'm really struggling with the final chapter of the film. Lulu's final fate, the presence and significance of the Salvation Army, and the codas offered for her "father" and for Alwa -- I'm not sure I get any of it, and not a single critic seems to address any of it either. Does this film require more thought and exploration on my part, or is it all clumsy and meaningless? The absence of critical information about this film (beyond how awesome Louise Brooks is) really bothers me. I love Louise Brooks! And I love Pandora's Box. I saw it on the big screen several times when I lived in Los Angeles. Whenever I would see that it was showing somewhere, I would change my plans to go see it again. I made a Top Ten list a few months ago and Pandora's Box was #8, the highest ranked silent film on my list. It is kind of difficult at first. I was obsessed with Louise Brooks first, I read her book Lulu in Hollywood and the biography by Barry Paris. I can sympathize with viewers trying to cope without seeing Pandora's Box on a big screen, without reading everything they can find about Brooks and Lulu, without the obsession. Pabst is amazing too. He also did Diary of a Lost Girl (with Brooks again) and The Threepenny Opera, and they are both amazing films (to me anyway). |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 20:45:26 GMT -5
Bet no one's mentioned a film that would also make my top 100: Russ Meyer's FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! I cry when Boom-Boom dies. Every time. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 16, 2015 20:54:40 GMT -5
I saw Nanook of the North for the first time today and for a guy who next to nothing about film making in the 1920's it's pretty stunning. That's not to say it isn't beautiful in its own right, but coming from a guy who's sole experience was a sole film class it's astounding what he was able to produce. That's so weird! I watched it yesterday on YouTube. I was looking at Honeywell's 1001 movies you should see before you die list, and I decided to look for the most iconic silent film I hadn't seen. And Nanook really stuck out. Some of the movies I only know from the list, but I should have watched Nanook of the North 25 years ago. I really enjoyed it! I would watch it again just because I liked it so much. In a similar vein, check out The Great White Silence if you haven't seen it already. Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated South Pole adventure had a cameraman! And the footage was worked into a documentary in 1924! It's unbelievable! I was mesmerized as if I watching any regular sound color film. I didn't feel at all like I was watching a silent movie. I've never heard of that but it sounds fantastic so I'll certainly look it up. And I agree about Nanook, it is a lot of fun to watch, as old timey racist as it is I absolutely love the scene where he encounters his first record player. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 20:56:36 GMT -5
She recommends stuff to me too. She was talking about how much she likes Leave Her to Heaven and it was on TCM a week or so later. The ending is kinda dumb but Gene Tierney is amazing! I find Gene Tierney's Leave Her to Heaven too disturbing - I'm talking about the 3 plus minutes of this scene that I find too difficult for me to accept and therefore I grade this movie a 2 star (barely) movie because of that scene I was emotionally sad to see that and I just can't stomach a return visit and I couldn't watch this film anymore. It's sadden me greatly and I haven't seen this movie for 20 years and I still don't have the guts to watch it again. Director John M. Stahl's made it unbearable to watch and yet it was a very stunning movie with great photography and all that - but the lake/drowning scene that brought it down and I understand why it was made this way and I don't recommended this film to anyone. It's too personal for me to explain why. I just can't stomach it anymore. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 16, 2015 22:22:52 GMT -5
That's so weird! I watched it yesterday on YouTube. I was looking at Honeywell's 1001 movies you should see before you die list, and I decided to look for the most iconic silent film I hadn't seen. And Nanook really stuck out. Some of the movies I only know from the list, but I should have watched Nanook of the North 25 years ago. I really enjoyed it! I would watch it again just because I liked it so much. In a similar vein, check out The Great White Silence if you haven't seen it already. Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated South Pole adventure had a cameraman! And the footage was worked into a documentary in 1924! It's unbelievable! I was mesmerized as if I was watching any regular sound color film. I didn't feel at all like I was watching a silent movie. I've never heard of that but it sounds fantastic so I'll certainly look it up. And I agree about Nanook, it is a lot of fun to watch, as old timey racist as it is I absolutely love the scene where he encounters his first record player. The Great White Silence is on YouTube. And it's not without a touch of some completely gratuitous old-timey racism that enlivens any movie party! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 23:42:36 GMT -5
She recommends stuff to me too. She was talking about how much she likes Leave Her to Heaven and it was on TCM a week or so later. The ending is kinda dumb but Gene Tierney is amazing! I find Gene Tierney's Leave Her to Heaven too disturbing - I'm talking about the 3 plus minutes of this scene that I find too difficult for me to accept and therefore I grade this movie a 2 star (barely) movie because of that scene I was emotionally sad to see that and I just can't stomach a return visit and I couldn't watch this film anymore. It's sadden me greatly and I haven't seen this movie for 20 years and I still don't have the guts to watch it again. Director John M. Stahl's made it unbearable to watch and yet it was a very stunning movie with great photography and all that - but the lake/drowning scene that brought it down and I understand why it was made this way and I don't recommended this film to anyone. It's too personal for me to explain why. I just can't stomach it anymore. You are right it is a very difficult scene to watch and is very disturbing. The other scene that is not quite as bad but still hard to watch I think is when Tierney "falls down the stairs." I still watch it though as part of my Vincent Price/Gene Tierney movie trilogy marathon I watch every few years. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 17, 2015 1:44:18 GMT -5
She recommends stuff to me too. She was talking about how much she likes Leave Her to Heaven and it was on TCM a week or so later. The ending is kinda dumb but Gene Tierney is amazing! I find Gene Tierney's Leave Her to Heaven too disturbing - I'm talking about the 3 plus minutes of this scene that I find too difficult for me to accept and therefore I grade this movie a 2 star (barely) movie because of that scene I was emotionally sad to see that and I just can't stomach a return visit and I couldn't watch this film anymore. It's sadden me greatly and I haven't seen this movie for 20 years and I still don't have the guts to watch it again. Director John M. Stahl's made it unbearable to watch and yet it was a very stunning movie with great photography and all that - but the lake/drowning scene that brought it down and I understand why it was made this way and I don't recommended this film to anyone. It's too personal for me to explain why. I just can't stomach it anymore. It's a disturbing movie, that's for sure. It might seem subtle because of what movies have become, but it has a couple of scenes that are really pretty brutal. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2015 9:24:35 GMT -5
Thanks Cooper and Hoosier X for your comments about Leave it to Heaven, a 1945 film starring Gene Tierney.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 17, 2015 10:42:50 GMT -5
I was hankering for another silent film so I took another look at the list today to see if there were any on there that I already owned that would suit my fancy and found A Trip to the Moon! It's one of my favorite films of all time, so I hardly needed the excuse to watch it but watch it I did as well as the documentary about its restoration which is very interesting.
with its run time of just less than sixteen min. it certainly falls short of a feature length...but it's so awesome I'm going to count it anyway.
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