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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2016 14:13:51 GMT -5
Also, Virginia Field! I love her! She was very pretty and she was 5'10"! They usually do a pretty good job of hiding how tall she is. (In this film, the guy she's escorted by most of the time must be at least 6'3".) But sometimes, you'll see a shot where she's in the background and you can tell she's gigantic! She should have played Pat Savage in a Doc Savage movie. Or she'd be a great Baroness Paula von Gunther. In the uncredited category, we have Willie Best and George Chandler! My cup runneth over! About Virginia Field: I loved her and I seen several of her movies and I did not know that she is 5'10" ... she is an inch taller than Lynda (Wonder Woman) Carter and I was stunned when you shared that here ... Hoosier X! |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 26, 2016 14:14:40 GMT -5
Moulin Rouge (2001) Ewan McGregor, Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent
A songwriting poet (McGregor) falls for a diva whore (Kidman) in the 1899 parisian caberet Moulin Rouge. A wealth and powerful duke covets the diva as well and holds the financial fate of the cabaret in his hands
Forget about the 1950s version of this movie that starred Jose Ferrer and focused on Toulouse- LauTrec. That character here is just incidental. McGregor is obviously a time travellor and has brought to the Gay 90s all the lyrics and music of classic rock and pop from the last 50 years. Armed with lyric sheets from artists like Elton John, U2, Paul McCartney, Rogers and Hammerstein, David Bowie , Whitney Houston and so many others, he is hailed as a genius. Personally I'm put off by great songs I've grown up with turned into Muzak elevator tunes or over-dramatized theatrical versions. But its so campy here that I'll forgive this tresspass.
The film is unbelieveably stunning. Director Baz Luhrmann has packed the film with so much eye candy that everytime you might watch it, you'll see some more new visuals not noticed before. Colorful beyond imagination, enchanted costumeing, the film was nominated in just about every Oscar and Golden Globe category and won quite a few. Except it wasn't nominated for an Oscar Best Director. Simply the biggest Oscar oversight of this millenium so far. Luhrmann has only directed 2 movies since, concentrating on shorts and TV instead
My pet peeve for the film lies with Nicole Kidman. Never liked her. Can't explain why. Any film she's in gets an auto demerit point from me. And it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise
The film understandbly could divide viewers between love it or hate it. It's in-your-face and over the top. And it co-stars Kidman. The only good part about that was Nicole injured her ankle during filming and wound up being replaced by Jody Foster in The Panic Room because of that. Thats great-one less Kidman film |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 26, 2016 18:04:29 GMT -5
Also, Virginia Field! I love her! She was very pretty and she was 5'10"! They usually do a pretty good job of hiding how tall she is. (In this film, the guy she's escorted by most of the time must be at least 6'3".) But sometimes, you'll see a shot where she's in the background and you can tell she's gigantic! She should have played Pat Savage in a Doc Savage movie. Or she'd be a great Baroness Paula von Gunther. In the uncredited category, we have Willie Best and George Chandler! My cup runneth over! About Virginia Field: I loved her and I seen several of her movies and I did not know that she is 5'10" ... she is an inch taller than Lynda (Wonder Woman) Carter and I was stunned when you shared that here ... Hoosier X! That shows what a great job the studios did hiding how tall she was. I think it was Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo that I noticed her in the background walking behind people at a gambling table and I thought "Dang! How tall is Virginia Field!" I looked it up on IMDB. Also very tall: Julie Newmar. I don't know how I never noticed it before but now, when I watch the old Batman series, I notice it. I'm always going: "Dang! Burt Ward is a midget!" |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 26, 2016 22:36:36 GMT -5
Ringu (1998) Written & Directed by Hideo Nakata
A cursed videotape is making the rounds. To watch this short video would result in a phone call immediately following informing you that your death will occur in one week. Any photograph taken of you will have your face severely distorted. Your death face will have a hideous grin. Thank god DVDs were on their way
I believe this still remains Japan's highest grossing horror film. 4 years later the American version, The Ring, premiered. I had enjoyed The Ring back then and kudos to the original as well. I plan to re-watch the Americanized version tomorrow to make the comparisons.
Ringu is not a gross-out film. There's no blood or gore at all. Just a creepy premise and a mystery with a ticking clock. A Japanese woman investigates the death of her neice and her friends and comes upon the cursed videotape. She watches it like an idiot who stays in a haunted house. Then she makes a copy and gives it to her ex-husband to watch. Even as I scratch my head wondering what would possess this woman to do this, I'm still caught up with the premise. Is the Americanized one better? I'll know tomorrow
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Post by spoon on Mar 26, 2016 22:46:00 GMT -5
Ringu (1998) Written & Directed by Hideo Nakata A cursed videotape is making the rounds. To watch this short video would result in a phone call immediately following informing you that your death will occur in one week. Any photograph taken of you will have your face severely distorted. Your death face will have a hideous grin. Thank god DVDs were on their way I believe this still remains Japan's highest grossing horror film. 4 years later the American version, The Ring, premiered. I had enjoyed The Ring back then and kudos to the original as well. I plan to re-watch the Americanized version tomorrow to make the comparisons. Ringu is not a gross-out film. There's no blood or gore at all. Just a creepy premise and a mystery with a ticking clock. A Japanese woman investigates the death of her neice and her friends and comes upon the cursed videotape. She watches it like an idiot who stays in a haunted house. Then she makes a copy and gives it to her ex-husband to watch. Even as I scratch my head wondering what would possess this woman to do this, I'm still caught up with the premise. Is the Americanized one better? I'll know tomorrow I like the American version better. I find the Japanese version laughable and cheap, rather than scary, at times. When it comes to Asian horror films remade in the U.S., I like the Thai film Shutter much more than Ringu. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2016 0:25:49 GMT -5
Hoosier X ... Julie Newmar is 5'11" and I got her autograph of her playing Catwoman and she was one of the tallest female celebrities that I met in real life. She was amazing and generous to her fans as Catwoman.
Burt Ward was 3 inches shorter ... FYI.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 27, 2016 2:06:47 GMT -5
The Manxman (1929) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Carl Brisson, Anny Ondra, Malcolm Keen Pete (Carl Brisson) is a poor fisherman. He's in love with a beautiful village girl Kate but needs money to get married. So off he goes to earn his dough in Africa. He asks his best friend, Philip to watch over the girl till he gets back. Philip and Kate get it on hot and heavy, especially when they get a telegram saying Pete is dead. But wait, the telegram was sent in error and Pete's back. The honorable thing to do for Philip is keep the affair a secret and let Pete get married to Kate. But wait, Kate's preggies. Pete thinks he's a poppa but Kate knows the truth Flash back a few days ago to my write up on the pre-code Hollywood film Murder In The Vanities. See what I wrote concerning Carl Brisson being a terrible, terrible, terrible actor. Never seen or heard of him in my life and here he is once again. Thank god, this is a silent movie. It's the last silent movie Hitchcock did. If I thought Pete was terrible as a veteran actor, imagine how wretched he was a few years earlier. The hideous acting of Brisson, the gorgeous face of Anny Ondra, the over-wrought emotive face of Malcolm Keen as Pete's friend Philip (he looks like he's sucking on a lemon all the time) makes this melodrama a must-see. it's played totally straight but its hilarious to watch. Not what you would expect from Hitch. There's no criminal acts, no Hitchcockian camera tricks. I didn't even notice Alfred doing a cameo either. But it's a fun ride. Here's Carl Brisson. Take aim with your tomatoes  Doesn't he look like a doofus?  There is something about him that would make me cross the street if he was coming my way
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 27, 2016 8:55:45 GMT -5
The Manxman (1929) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Carl Brisson, Anny Ondra, Malcolm Keen Pete (Carl Brisson) is a poor fisherman. He's in love with a beautiful village girl Kate but needs money to get married. So off he goes to earn his dough in Africa. He asks his best friend, Philip to watch over the girl till he gets back. Philip and Kate get it on hot and heavy, especially when they get a telegram saying Pete is dead. But wait, the telegram was sent in error and Pete's back. The honorable thing to do for Philip is keep the affair a secret and let Pete get married to Kate. But wait, Kate's preggies. Pete thinks he's a poppa but Kate knows the truth Flash back a few days ago to my write up on the pre-code Hollywood film Murder In The Vanities. See what I wrote concerning Carl Brisson being a terrible, terrible, terrible actor. Never seen or heard of him in my life and here he is once again. Thank god, this is a silent movie. It's the last silent movie Hitchcock did. If I thought Pete was terrible as a veteran actor, imagine how wretched he was a few years earlier. The hideous acting of Brisson, the gorgeous face of Anny Ondra, the over-wrought emotive face of Malcolm Keen as Pete's friend Philip (he looks like he's sucking on a lemon all the time) makes this melodrama a must-see. it's played totally straight but its hilarious to watch. Not what you would expect from Hitch. There's no criminal acts, no Hitchcockian camera tricks. I didn't even notice Alfred doing a cameo either. But it's a fun ride. Here's Carl Brisson. Take aim with your tomatoes Doesn't he look like a doofus? There is something about him that would make me cross the street if he was coming my way I bought a cheap ($6!) four-disk collection of 20 Hitchcock movies that included several of his silent films as well as a lot of his 1930s films (like Sabotage and The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps). The Manxman was included. It's not good. It's not Hitchcock's worst movie, by the way. I remember struggling through The Manxman in one sitting. But there were a couple of movies in that collection that were much harder to watch. The first time I attempted to watch Juno and the Paycock, I got about ten minutes into it and gave up. I didn't try again until more than a year later. But The Farmer's Wife is even worse! It got to the point that it was the only film in the collection I hadn't watched and I had come to dread Hitchcock's silent films so much that I didn't watch it for a year after I managed to sit through Juno and the Paycock. I have great patience for films of all types and I usually get some historical enjoyment from even the worst and most dated and most tedious movies. But The Farmer's Wife was a chore! I watched 20 minutes the first night and about the same the next night and I decided I didn't want to be watching this movie for the rest of my life so I bit the bullet and watched the rest of it the third night. Ugh! On the plus side, Hitchcock gets a lot better with the coming of sound. From his earliest sound films, Blackmail, Number 17 and The Skin Game (with Edmund Gwenn!) are all very good, and by the mid-1930s, he really knows what he's doing. I think the only sound film by Hitchcock that I've never seen is Waltzes from Vienna. It's Hitchcock's only musical and it has a reputation of being not very good. It's on YouTube and I've been meaning to watch it for three or four years. Maybe I'll see it within the next few weeks. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 27, 2016 10:00:00 GMT -5
But The Farmer's Wife is even worse! It got to the point that it was the only film in the collection I hadn't watched and I had come to dread Hitchcock's silent films so much that I didn't watch it for a year after I managed to sit through Juno and the Paycock. I have great patience for films of all types and I usually get some historical enjoyment from even the worst and most dated and most tedious movies. But The Farmer's Wife was a chore! I watched 20 minutes the first night and about the same the next night and I decided I didn't want to be watching this movie for the rest of my life so I bit the bullet and watched the rest of it the third night. Ugh! Oh I agree totally about The Farmer's Wife. I couldn't make it to 20 minutes before deciding I had a life to live. Juno and The Paycock I might have gone thru but I think I watched the clock more than the film. I was determined to see every Hitchcock film and also make an exception to Waltzes from Vienna since I do my watching via DVD and say to myself its not available in that format. I still have 2 left to see, Blackmail and The Ring. But The Manxman really grew on me as I watched. Moreso because of the over-the-top hysterical performances by the actors. If you look at it as a comedy, its very enjoyable. Maybe how you look at Jack Schiff SF BatmanOh, I had to look it up but Manxman means an inhabitant from The Isle Of Man |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 27, 2016 11:06:56 GMT -5
But The Farmer's Wife is even worse! It got to the point that it was the only film in the collection I hadn't watched and I had come to dread Hitchcock's silent films so much that I didn't watch it for a year after I managed to sit through Juno and the Paycock. I have great patience for films of all types and I usually get some historical enjoyment from even the worst and most dated and most tedious movies. But The Farmer's Wife was a chore! I watched 20 minutes the first night and about the same the next night and I decided I didn't want to be watching this movie for the rest of my life so I bit the bullet and watched the rest of it the third night. Ugh! Oh I agree totally about The Farmer's Wife. I couldn't make it to 20 minutes before deciding I had a life to live. Juno and The Paycock I might have gone thru but I think I watched the clock more than the film. I was determined to see every Hitchcock film and also make an exception to Waltzes from Vienna since I do my watching via DVD and say to myself its not available in that format. I still have 2 left to see, Blackmail and The Ring. But The Manxman really grew on me as I watched. Moreso because of the over-the-top hysterical performances by the actors. If you look at it as a comedy, its very enjoyable. Maybe how you look at Jack Schiff SF BatmanOh, I had to look it up but Manxman means an inhabitant from The Isle Of Man It's been a while since I saw The Manxman and I don't remember hating it. I think I found it dull. I might have been amused at times. I don't remember The Ring very well either, but I do remember thinking it was Hitchcock's best silent film except for The Lodger. As I recall, The Ring is not great but it's watchable. Blackmail is really good! A very interesting early sound thriller that is almost a great film in its own right, but is particularly interesting as a harbinger of the Hitchcock style as well as a great example of filmmaking techniques in the early early sound era (1929!) to compensate for the limitations of existing technology. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 27, 2016 11:24:05 GMT -5
I finished No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) about an hour ago. Highly recommended! It's an early Kurosawa film. I've heard of it before but I never heard much said about it, good or bad. It's great! Movies like this are why Kurosawa is my favorite director. He made five or six well-known, highly regarded classics of world cinema. And when you get past those films and start rummaging through the rest of his filmography, you find one great movie after another! It's about an idealistic Japanese woman named Yukie. She's 19 years old in 1933 and she's going to find the next 12 years to be very hard on people who oppose a militaristic regime. When you see enough World War II movies, you notice a subset of movies about civilians opposing the Nazi regime. Consider No Regrets for Our Youth the Japanese equivalent. Sort of. I don't want to say too much about it because the wonderful surprises were a big part of why I loved this movie so much. I think its interesting that Kurosawa made a movie showing that, yes, there were people in Japan opposed to the government. (Not nearly enough!) And that it was released so soon after the war! There's an interesting back story, I bet, and I want to see if I can find an in-depth biography on Kurosawa to find out more about this film ... and what Kurosawa did during the war. Also, there's a short appearance by our old buddy Takashi Shimura. He interrogates Yukie when she gets in trouble later in the film. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 28, 2016 1:20:57 GMT -5
The Ring (2002) Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson
American remake of Ringu
I saw The Ring in theaters during the initial release and was quite impressed.Finally last night I viewed the original Japanese version.
As member spoon opined, The Ring is the superior film, at least to my westernized sensibilities. That's also discounting the fact I saw a subtitled Japanese movie and might have missed some important dialogue due to the translation
Credit, of course goes to the original for its plot which the American film faithfully follows. The Ring is about 20 minutes longer, the character motivations and back story to the curse are fleshed out and improved. The lead actress's son plays a more important role in the later version as well. The overall acting is much more natural.
A very effective horror flick with no gore and very minimum amount of blood. It is rated PG-13 but shows you a film can be creepy despite that.
It earned a quarter BILLION dollars, highest horror remake money maker (at least as of a few years ago) and started a trend of other Japanese remakes by Hollywood such as The Grudge, Dark Water and Pulse. They didn't even attempt to do House-and they shouldn't. Leave well enough alone.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 28, 2016 10:58:37 GMT -5
Still on my latest Ingmar Berman kick, I watched Scenes from a Marriage (1973) last night. It was originally a six-episode mini-series Bergman did for Swedish TV. It was edited down to about three hours for a US theatrical release. If I were describe it to you, it would sound like a chore to watch. Johan and Marianne seem to have an untroubled marriage, especially when compared to their feuding friends, Katarina and Peter. Over the next three hours, we will find out this is very much not true. But it's Bergman, and if he wants to make a John Cassavettes film, it's OK with me. It's a good thing that Liv Ullmann has grown on me over the years because she plays Marianne and she is onscreen every freaking minute. And Bibi Andersson, one of my favorite members of the Bergman stock company, plays Katarina. She's only in one scene but it's great to see her and she's as great as ever. I was trying to figure out who Liv Ullmann reminds me of, and it finally hit me! She's the Swedish Mia Farrow! Which prompted me to think of some of the other Swedish actresses in the same terms. Bibi Andersson is the Swedish Sandra Dee in Wild Strawberries, but after that, she's the Swedish Debbie Reynolds. Bibi Andersson - the Swedish Sandra Dee? Does Sweden need a Sandra Dee? Eva Dahlbeck is the Swedish Ava Gardner. Harriett Andersson is the Swedish Gina Lollabrigida. I had trouble thinking of one for Ingrid Thulin. Greta Garbo kept popping into my head. Which makes no sense because Greta Garbo IS Swedish. But I kept thinking of Ingrid Thulin in Garbo's roles and vice versa, and it works for me, especially considering how few Swedish films Garbo made. And because Ingrid Bergman made one film with Ingmar Bergman, that means that Ingrid Bergman is the Swedish Ingrid Bergman. (This is pretty silly. Forgive me. I saw Batman v. Superman yesterday and I'm still recovering my critical faculties.) |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 28, 2016 23:23:12 GMT -5
Tonight on Hoosier X's YouTube Theater - Variety Lights (1950). Federico Fellini's first film as director! And already, all the elements are there for a Fellini movie! Show business! Clowns! Giulletta Masina! I enjoyed it immensely! It's not La strada or La dolce vida or The White Sheik. But I've already seen those! |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 29, 2016 1:11:22 GMT -5
Mona Lisa Smile (2003) Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal
1953 at the Women's College of Wellesley and Julia Roberts arrives to this bastion of conservative values as a free thinking art teacher determined to open the eyes of her pupils into questioning what the role for women should be
I've see variations of this film since 1967's To Sir With Love. Authoritative school board-check, trouble making student-check, romance between 2 teachers-check, new teacher on first day of school can't control students-check, slowly wins their affections and becomes their mentor in all personal problems-check. The film is missing a song the students sing to the teacher in the finale as well as the graduation dance.
A middle of the road movie
Julia Roberts always seems to have a runny nose. Lots of Kleenex in her pocketbook
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