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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 14, 2016 13:46:18 GMT -5
Moulin Rouge (1952) Jose Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Colette Marchand
The life story of French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The gay 90s in gay Paree and at the Moulin Rouge nightclub women are lifting their petticoats as they dance the can-can. At a table downing cognac like water is Toulouse-Lautrec, sketching the colorful dancers and other patrons. His drawing speed is such as to make Jack Kirby jealous. When the café is ready to close T-L gets up to leave to reveal to the movie goer that he is a victim of stunted growth, normal sized torso but the legs of a child due to an adolescent accident. Watching this film is to marvel how they pulled off this effect during the course of the movie via camera angles, special costumes and other tricks. Besides which, the film has superb Technicolor, sets and costumes-winner of Oscars for its cinematography and design.
Ferrer well deserved his nominations for the tortured painter and plays a double role that includes own father. Zsa Zsa (who I previously only knew as The Queen Of Outer Space ) star plays a Moulin Rouge singer. I rolled my eyes during both of her numbers when she opens her mouth and you hear some operatic diva's voice emerge.
Pretty good movie. Toulouse-Lautrec can be thought of as the original Robert Crumb since he made his intial fame from posters that were displayed all over Paris shilling for the Moulin Rouge. They had a slight psychedelic quality to them as well and were thought indecent at that time by the hoighty-toighty
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 14, 2016 13:58:23 GMT -5
So I've heard the name John Waters revered often enough that I decided I'd finally like to know more. Unfortunately, while the internet has been great at providing interviews and lists of films, I'm struggling to figure out anything more about the man and his works. Any fans here that could tell me more about him and perhaps recommend an entrypoint film? Just a heads up Shax that there are 2 different versions of Hairspray. The original film from 1988 is written and directed by John Waters featuring Rikki Lake in the lead role as well as Sonny Bono, Divine, Debbie Harry and many more. The film was a cult favorite and spawned a Broadway musical in 2002 which won a Tony award and ran for many years. A 2007 version of the musical was released with John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and others. John Waters had a hand in the writing and makes a brief cameo as a flasher but the director is Adam Shankman. It's a very good musical but I'd start with the original first
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Post by MDG on Jan 14, 2016 15:37:28 GMT -5
So I've heard the name John Waters revered often enough that I decided I'd finally like to know more. Unfortunately, while the internet has been great at providing interviews and lists of films, I'm struggling to figure out anything more about the man and his works. Any fans here that could tell me more about him and perhaps recommend an entrypoint film? Just a heads up Shax that there are 2 different versions of Hairspray. The original film from 1988 is written and directed by John Waters featuring Rikki Lake in the lead role as well as Sonny Bono, Divine, Debbie Harry and many more. The film was a cult favorite and spawned a Broadway musical in 2002 which won a Tony award and ran for many years. A 2007 version of the musical was released with John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and others. John Waters had a hand in the writing and makes a brief cameo as a flasher but the director is Adam Shankman. It's a very good musical but I'd start with the original first Coming in late, but i wouldn't start anywhere besides his Baltimore-made movies, especially Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2016 17:13:37 GMT -5
Moulin Rouge (1952) Jose Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Colette Marchand The life story of French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec The gay 90s on gay Paree and at the Moulin Rouge nightclub women are lifting their petticoats as they dance the can-can. At a table downing cognac like water is Toulouse-Lautrec, sketching the colorful dancers and other patrons. His drawing speed is such as to make Jack Kirby jealous. When the café is ready to close T-L gets up to leave to reveal to the movie goer that he is a victim of stunted growth, normal sized torso but the legs of a child due to an adolescent accident. Watching this film is to marvel how they pulled off this effect during the course of the movie via camera angles, special costumes and other tricks. Besides which, the film has superb Technicolor, sets and costumes-winner of Oscars for its cinematography and design. Ferrer well deserved his nominations for the tortured painter and plays a double role that includes own father. Zsa Zsa (who I previously only knew as The Queen Of Outer Space ) star plays a Moulin Rouge singer. I rolled my eyes during both of her numbers when she opens her mouth and you hear some operatic diva's voice emerge. Pretty good movie. Toulouse-Lautrec can be thought of as the original Robert Crumb since he made his intial fame from posters that were displayed all over Paris shilling for the Moulin Rouge. They had a slight psychedelic quality to them as well and were thought indecent at that time by the hoighty-toighty That's one movie that I really wanted to see and thanks for a good report here. Sounds like a winner to me.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 15, 2016 13:56:08 GMT -5
Micki + Maude (1984) Directed by Blake Edwards Dudley Moore, Amy Irving, Anne Reinking, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant
Dudley loves his wife Anne but ,as a busy lawyer, she's away at the office often and not interested in starting a family. Dudley starts an affair with Amy the cello player. Now that Amy gets pregnant, Dudley will ask his wife for a divorce. But before he does, his wife reveals she's pregnant too and has had a change of heart and is willing to become a mama. So Dudley keeps his wife, also marries Amy and becomes the expectant father for 2 different women who have no clue about his double wife. And of course hold down his career as an on-the-spot- TV reporter
Decent rom-com with nice character work by those concerned. Not ha-ha funny but actually a warm entertaining film with a well-meaning bigamist. Amy's father in the film is a professional wrestler and real wrestlers make appearances including Andre The Giant who just stands around looking big. But when he stands next to little Dudley you can't help but smile.
IMHO, the last decent film by Dudley Moore who , without Blake Edwards, had a Dudley type of film career. I did like him as part of the comedy team with Peter Cook back in the day
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Post by Gene on Jan 15, 2016 23:52:35 GMT -5
I just popped in The Magnificent Seven. My dad and I used to watch westerns on Saturday nights when I was a kid and this is the one that made me fall in love with the genre.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 16, 2016 0:32:03 GMT -5
I just popped in The Magnificent Seven. My dad and I used to watch westerns on Saturday nights when I was a kid and this is the one that made me fall in love with the genre. Love that film.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 16, 2016 13:09:54 GMT -5
Magnolia (1999) Written/Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Phillip Baker Hall, Thomas Jane, William H. Macy, Henry Gibson, Alfred Molina, Luis Guzman
Multiple character subplots of discovery, facing one's inner truth and finding love, interweaving and building to resolutions
This is one amazing movie. Yes, its epic length at over 3 hours but once you begin you're stuck like quicksand. Taking place in L.A. these character's have their own compelling stories that slowly build and we begin to see their relationship to each other. Tom Cruise runs a company that teaches men how to get any woman he desires, John C. Reilly is a street cop who falls for a cocaine addict, Phillip Baker Hall is a TV game show host estranged by his daughter, Jason Robards is on his deathbed and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is his male nurse...there's more subplots as well and they intercut and move along, gaining momentum
The background music is a swirling symphony of sound that perfectly complements the film and songs are provided by Aimee Mann as well as classic Supertramp hits.
Each of the performers brings their "A" game to this movie. Its a phenomenal cast and no one disappoints. Its also the last film Jason Robards appeared.
And the ending...one of Biblical proportions that that can not be foreseen
Shakespeare In Love won the Best Picture Academy Award that year over this and Saving Private Ryan. Give me a break!! I highly, highly recommend this movie
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 16, 2016 14:14:24 GMT -5
Shakespeare In Love won the Best Picture Academy Award that year over this and Saving Private Ryan. Give me a break!! I highly, highly recommend this movie
Not a fan of calling any particular movie "best" for a few reasons, but I do think that Shakespeare in Love is an excellent film, with a superb script and quite a few fine performances. Same with Private Ryan, though I don't think its script is up there with Shakespeare in Love's.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 16, 2016 19:58:40 GMT -5
Magnolia (1999) Written/Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Phillip Baker Hall, Thomas Jane, William H. Macy, Henry Gibson, Alfred Molina, Luis Guzman
Multiple character subplots of discovery, facing one's inner truth and finding love, interweaving and building to resolutions
This is one amazing movie. Yes, its epic length at over 3 hours but once you begin you're stuck like quicksand. Taking place in L.A. these character's have their own compelling stories that slowly build and we begin to see their relationship to each other. Tom Cruise runs a company that teaches men how to get any woman he desires, John C. Reilly is a street cop who falls for a cocaine addict, Phillip Baker Hall is a TV game show host estranged by his daughter, Jason Robards is on his deathbed and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is his male nurse...there's more subplots as well and they intercut and move along, gaining momentum
The background music is a swirling symphony of sound that perfectly complements the film and songs are provided by Aimee Mann as well as classic Supertramp hits.
Each of the performers brings their "A" game to this movie. Its a phenomenal cast and no one disappoints. Its also the last film Jason Robards appeared.
And the ending...one of Biblical proportions that that can not be foreseen
Shakespeare In Love won the Best Picture Academy Award that year over this and Saving Private Ryan. Give me a break!! I highly, highly recommend this movie
Shakespeare in Love deserved that Oscar. There were a lot of great movies that year but I was rooting for Shakespeare in Love, and I was glad it won. But I sure wouldn't be saying that Shakespeare in Love was robbed just because something I didn't like quite as much had won. The ending of Magnolia was great, and there were a lot of good scenes and a lot of great performances. But overall, I didn't find Magnolia to be nearly as clever as the director thought it was.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 16, 2016 22:35:10 GMT -5
Just watched Fistful of Dollars for the umpteenth time. But the first time for my youngest son.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 17, 2016 15:19:46 GMT -5
Under The Yum Yum Tree (1963) Jack Lemmon, Carol Lynley, Dean Jones, Edie Adams, Paul Lynde, Imogene Coca, Robert Lansing
Jack Lemmon is a swinging, horney landlord and only rents apartments to beautiful single women. Lynley and Jones are college students planning to get married. They agree to see if they are compatible by living together (but no hanky-panky). Lemmon rents Lynley the apartment not knowing she'll have a male roomate and is determined to break them up and bag her. Paul Lynde and Imogene Coca are the wacky married maintenance workers for the buildings.
One of the slew of films from the early sixties that was all about the pursuit of sex but never, never condoned the idea of premarital nookie. Hollywood was still controlled by a censor board even as society began to cast of the Victorian Age morals. You could even believe the word "sex" could only be spoken a defined number of times
Given that, its a film nade watchable by a great cast. Well, maybe not Dean Jones, king of family Disney films and so wholesome that I doubt he had any sexual genitalia. But Jack Lemmon-man do I miss him. Comedy or drama, victim or cad- he could play them all wonderfully. He had such an everyman quality to him that you could always identify with his persona on film. And Paul Lynde and Imogene Coca made a great married couple (on film only). Robert Lansing has bigger beetle brows than Henry Wilcoxin.
The film was playing first run in the theaters when JFK was assasinated. I remember it as being one of the earliest entries of NBC's primetime Saturday Night At The Movies show when they were finally allowed to play recent Hollywood films (after a 5 year waiting period)
Edie Adams got the job on Jack Lemmon's behest after her husband Ernie Kovacs died and she was financially struggling
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 17, 2016 15:39:36 GMT -5
Love Happy (1949) Harpo, Chico and Groucho Marx, Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Raymond Burr
A delicatessen is actually a front for a diamond smuggling operation with a million dollar necklace hidden in a sardine can. Harpo snatches the can looking for food and now mobsters are after him headed by femme fatale Ilona Massey and her henchmen including Perry Mason
Last official Marx Bros film but relly meant to be a solo starring role for Harpo. When money dried up to finish the film, the new investors insisted Groucho and Chico be included to ensure box office success. Groucho does some narration and is in a couple scenes. Chico gets abit more to do but it is Harpo who drives the movie. If you watch it as a Harpo film, its OK with some very funny routines. Compared to a prime Marx Bros film its a bomb.
Vera-Ellen is a cute, pixie dancer who appeared in many wonderful musicals (On The town, White Christmas and more). She danced with Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and others. Very popular for a time but then Hollywood musicals started to wane during the last half of the 50s and her opportunites to performer began to disappear. Also unknown to all, she was anorexic for many years and her diet began to effect her health in the late 50s. She developed arthritis at an early age. She had back to back unhappy marriages. Her only child died of SIDS after a few months. Vera-Ellen disappeared from public life in the early 60s and only was recognized again when she died in 1981 from a long bout of cancer. A very sad ending. She has a great dance bit in the film
And of course this movie is known for this 48 second cameo introduction-first appearence in a legitimate movie
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 17, 2016 16:03:34 GMT -5
Love Happy (1949) Harpo, Chico and Groucho Marx, Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Raymond Burr
I've seen bits of it here and there over the years but I never saw it all the way through until a year or so ago when I watched it on YouTube. It has its moments. The roof chase with Harpo and the neon signs gets lots of points for being weird. It's worth a look for hardcore Marx Brothers fans. It never got so bad that I wanted to turn it off ... but parts of it aren't good.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 17, 2016 16:23:19 GMT -5
I saw a few early talkies over the last few days.
Abraham Lincoln (1930) - This isn't very good. It's watchable (barely) for Walter Huston and Una Merkel and some of the other actors playing historical figures. I was never so bored that I ever thought about turning it off ... but I was pretty bored at times. It's just a bunch of vignettes from the life of Abraham Lincoln. He's born, he splits rails, his early sweetheart Ann Rutledge dies young, he meets Mary Todd, he debates Douglas, he becomes president, there's a war, he is shot and killed by a crazy cracker actor. Directed by D.W. Griffith, so it's probably passable entertainment for D.W. Griffith completists.
Chandu the Magician (1932) - I really liked this at first. It's a Lugosi film I haven't seen. I kept thinking about Stan Lee saying Chandu was an inspiration for Dr. Strange. And it has a lot of atmosphere and fun little set pieces and it was a really nice print from TCM with beautiful cinematography. But it was lacking a little something. I was never bored but I'm not particularly excited about ever seeing it again. I'd much rather watch White Zombie or Island of Lost Souls!
Mandalay (1934) - Kay Francis is an adventuress/club hostess sort of lounging around Burma when her slimeball boyfriend (Ricardo Cortez) abandons her in Rangoon with slimeball club owner (Warner Oland). So she vows never to fall in love again and becomes a heartless blackmailing temptress. All she wants is enough to live in peace in the cool hills above Mandalay. She takes a steamer and meets a doctor (Lyle Talbot) who is trying to redeem himself after killing a patient during surgery while drunk. They fall in love. Old boyfriend Ricardo Cortez shows up and bananashenaigans ensue on the steamer.
Only sixty-five minutes long. They don't get to Mandalay until the very end as the "The End" figure scrolls over her face as she disembarks at Mandalay.
Liking this movie depends on how much you like Kay Francis. I love her. She's such a great actress. I don't know how she does it. I've seen her in four or five movies and she always works her magic no matter how dumb the movie is. (She's in King of the Underworld with Humphrey Bogart and they are both magnificent in a movie that is just so wonderfully dumb that I can hardly put it into words. The only reason Mandalay isn't as dumb as King of the Underworld is that it's shorter.)
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