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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 29, 2016 13:44:28 GMT -5
How can I compete with Ish's announcement? I will just have to do my best! The last movie I watched was The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968) with Elke Sommer, Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner and Leon Askin. Yes, it does get a lot of points for the cast! That's Elke Sommer, in addition to Colonel Hogan and most of those lovable Stalag 13 Germans from "Hogan's Heroes". Elke is stunning and very scantily clad much of the time. So there's that. It's a spy comedy and a sex farce, all set in Cold War Berlin as star athlete Paula Schultz (Elke Sommer) decides to defect and pole vaults over the Berlin Wall. Her clothes get stuck on the barbed wire and when she tries to swim to safety, her underwear is captured by some fishermen. So she's running around naked in West Berlin until she steals a coat that a guy has just put on the ground as a cloth for a picnic. She quickly gets hired at a strip club. Bob Crane is a shady American, working the black market, and he decides to sell Elke back to the Communists. But then he falls in love with her and complications ensue. The inept East German officials trying to get her back are Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink), John Banner (Sergeant Schultz) and Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) from "Hogan's Heroes." The most consistently funny segments are Klemperer and Banner reprising their bumbling Germans from "Hogan's Heroes." I was actually laughing out loud at some of those scenes. But it's not really a very good movie. I kind of like it, though. In the weird way that I like That Touch of Mink. The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz is silly and not really that funny much of the time and it's too long. But it's never boring, and it has a lot of people that I like. If you do make it to the end, you get to see Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner and Leon Askin in drag. Askin in particular is hilarious in this scene. I recommend this for people who like Elke Sommer despite how bad some of her movies are. And for fans of "Hogan's Heroes"! It's not as bad as its reputation (it has a 4.6 on IMDB) and it might be worthwhile for movie fans who get a kick out of weird 1960s comedies trying really hard to be hip.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 29, 2016 13:53:44 GMT -5
October is about to start, so I'm trying to clear the DVR to make way for all the horror movies I will be recording in readiness for the Halloween season! So in the next three or four days, I will be watching (and hopefully reviewing):
The Loves of Pharaoh (1922). With Emil Jannings, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The 47 Ronin (1941). Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. The Unfaithful (1947). Starring Ann Sheridan. The Steel Lady (1953). Starring Tab Hunter (of Polyester fame) and John Dehner (the voice of Paladin on the "Have Gun Will Travel" radio show).
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 29, 2016 14:08:43 GMT -5
Hoosier, I believe this next box set will be right up your alley. I don't think you ever mentioned viewing these films, I don't think anyone mentioned them on this thread, period. But it's coming..slowly..ponderously..stubbornly unwilling to turn around and go back..it's coming Meanwhile, I have never heard of that Elke Sommer Meets Hogan's Heroes film. You sure can pick 'em But last night I watched once more since it's debut Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Director-Ang Lee Now truth be told, it was a bit hard for me to get into the details of the plot as pertains customs and traditions. But one thing is for sure, the action scenes, and there were plenty of them , are superlative. The balletic swordplay, the leaping and soaring through the air, most of these performed by female protagonists, are a thing of beauty. Funny enough, when I popped the DVD into the player, both the English dubbing and English subtitles were on. And they did not match each other at all. Yes, the gist of it was there, but there were some huge differences. And I have no idea which was more accurate And now I noticed that this year a sequel played in the theaters. Ang Lee is not the director. It got good reviews but not at the level the original received Crouching Tiger won 4 Oscars for Cinematography, Music, Set Decoration and Best Foreign Film. It was nominated in 6 other categories
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 29, 2016 14:48:07 GMT -5
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Director-Ang Lee I saw this when it first came out and I loved it! I also love stuff like Iron Monkey and Green Snake and Naked Killer.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 29, 2016 17:21:49 GMT -5
Not a classic but it will evoke classic memories for many people
All Things Must Pass- The Story Of Tower Records (2015)
This 99 minute documentary is now on DVD and will bring back some great memories to all those who used to shop in music stores. Lots of old footage and photos as well as current interviews with all the key founders of Tower Records
The first store sprung up at the beginning of the 1960s and you'll see how it grew from a California based chain to an international behemoth.And of course you'll see how the music industry changed, how technology came and went. In 1999 Tower Records sold $1 BILLION of products. Five years later it filed for bankruptcy.
Itunes is fine but for me nothing beats browsing through a big music store, listening to whats being played, hearing people talk and having the product in my hands for perusal. "Sigh"
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 29, 2016 17:36:51 GMT -5
One more before I call it a night Heavenly Creatures (1994) Kate Winslet Directed by Peter Jackson Kate Winslet's debut film. She's 15 years old and she and her best girlfriend are spending too much time with each other. Or so their parents think, their relationship is getting immoral. Hey, it's 1954 Peter Jackson, he of the Lord Of The Rings films, with his 4th directing gig. I've seen his earlier Dead Again but alas I don't recall much of it. This one however certainly shows his tremendous directing talent. The story itself starts slowly but Jackson's techniques keeps it very interesting. There are segments of pure fantasy as well as the girls imagine themselves in a village full of people made of clay. It's based on a true story that occurred in England. Despite the slow start, you'll be engrossed during the second half
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 29, 2016 19:01:27 GMT -5
I saw Heavenly Creatures when it first came out. Even though it's been a while, I remember thinking it was an excellent film! I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen it a second time.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 30, 2016 11:24:48 GMT -5
The Loves of the Pharaoh (1922) - This isn't bad for a movie made in 1922. If you're not used to the acting style in German movies in the 1920s, you might laugh your silly head off. Heck, I've seen quite a few old German movies and I laughed my silly head off. The pharaoh is supposed to marry he daughter of the king of Ethiopia. But he falls in love with a Greek slave girl named Theonis. She and her boyfriend are sentenced to death (for trespassing) but he says he'll pardon them both if she agrees to marry him and become the Queen of Egypt. The boyfriend is sent to life in prison in a quarry and she becomes the queen. Well, the king of Ethiopia is all upset and declares war. So Egypt is invaded by the Ethiopians (German men in blackface wearing crazy wigs). The pharaoh tries to get Theonis to swear she will never love another if he is killed in the war. She is rather hesitant. The pharaoh gets very angry because he is involved in this war for her! (As if that's her fault!) So he has her walled up in a secret room in the newly built treasury and left to starve to death. Her boyfriend escapes the quarry in the confusion of the war! The pharaoh is missing in action and presumed dead! The boyfriend finds a secret chamber and rescues Theonis and then leads a successful defense of the city against the invading Ethiopians! The boyfriend is now made the pharaoh to the acclamation of the people and Theonis is his queen. Seems like a good place to end the movie. But NO! There's almost twenty minutes left! First they have a ritual where they judge the dead. The priests ask if anyone has anything nice to say about the dead pharaoh. No one does. So the head priest says he will not be mourned and his very existence will be stricken from history! (And that explains why you never heard of any of this in the history books.) This whole sequence is REALLY CREEPY! There are thousands of people attending the ceremony and no one has one nice thing to say! It's so depressing! And morbid. And very effective. So everybody is celebrating the victory over the Ethiopians and the new pharaoh and the recent royal wedding when a mussed-up, dirty derelict stumbles to the city gate and wants in. It's the old pharaoh! So we get ten more minutes of drama out of this and it doesn't end well for any of the main characters. The Loves of the Pharaoh is a lot of fun, with flashes of brilliance here and there. The whole film doesn't seem to exist anymore, so some of these scenes are a lot of text accompanied by stills. It was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, his last film in Germany. He eventually made his way to Hollywood where his most famous film is probably the original version of To Be Or Not To Be. The pharaoh is played by Emil Jannings, a German actor who came to Hollywood in the late 1920s and soon returned to Germany with the coming of sound film. He is sort of famous to old movie buffs for several highly regarded films. He was the first actor to get the Oscar for Best Actor (for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh) at the very first Academy Awards ceremony. He played the doorman in F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh and he played the college professor in The Blue Angel, where his infatuation with Marlene Dietrich ruins his life. I've seen all these films except The Way of All Flesh and I liked them all quite a bit. The Last Command also stars William Powell! The king of Ethiopia is played by Paul Wegener, who we should all know for playing the golem in the 1920 film of the same name. He was also Oliver Haddo in The Magician. That character was rather loosely based on Aleister Crowley. So Wegener got to play both the golem and Aleister Crowley!
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 30, 2016 11:28:42 GMT -5
I forgot to mention one little bit of trivia when I was writing about The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz..
It might sound kind of familiar. Quentin Tarantino used the name "Paula Schultz" in the second Kill Bill film. Budd buries the Bride in her grave in the chapter titled "The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz."
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 1, 2016 2:43:43 GMT -5
It might take about a week before I get to my mystery box set. I picked up some new release DVDs to watch first ( Central Intelligence with Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson as well as Tale of Tales with Selma Hayek, John C. Reilly and Vincent Cassel). Plus I picked up some other classics from the library that have a due date to return. Along with a my movie-viewing partner who wants to watch a few others with me. When she makes up her mind, it's impossible to move her in a different direction. But last night this was viewed The Big Sleep (1978) Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Oliver Reed, James Stewart, Candy Clark, Joan Collins, Edward Fox, John Mills, Colin Blakely Raymond Chandler's classic private eye mystery and a remake of the fantastic Bogie & Bacall 1946 version.I think I've seen this before in the mid 80s on Cinemax This version now takes place in England and director Michael (Deathwish) Winner does not attempt to shot this in a film noir style. Even so, it's a good retelling and Robert Mitchum is perfect in his Phillip Marlowe role.he had already played Marlowe a few years earlier in Farewell, My Lovely. Very impressive cast in this flick as well. Legend has it about the drinking competitions going on behind the scenes between Mitchum, Boone and Reed. Supposedly Mitchum came out as the winner, downing a bottle of gin in less than one hour
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 1, 2016 18:46:21 GMT -5
The Unfaithful (1947) - With Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden and John Hoyt. There's this Ann Sheridan movies that I saw a long time ago that I've been wanting to see again. Her husband thinks she's been unfaithful and there's some very unsavory people involved, and cops and blackmail and a murder. I couldn't remember the name of it. And I couldn't remember any of the details. So I saw The Unfaithful on the TCM schedule and I was sure it was the movie and I DVRed it. Turns out it's not the movie I was thinking of. I figured that out just a few minutes into it. I'm sure her husband is a DOCTOR in the movie I'm thinking of, but in The Unfaithful, her husband is in construction. Apparently Ann Sheridan made a few movies a lot like this. When Joan Crawford got too old for these kinds of movies, well, she kept making them, just not as many and some of them went to Ann Sheridan. I very quickly realized that I have seen The Unfaithful before, it's just not the movie I'm thinking of. It was looking awfully familiar, but when I saw the statue, the bust of Ann Sheridan that proved that she did know the sculptor that she murdered in the first scene, I was sure I'd seen it. It's a pretty good melodrama/thriller. I didn't feel like I was wasting my time watching it again. One of the things I like about it is the Los Angeles setting. From Angel's Flight to Los Angeles City Hall to MacArthur Park to Santa Monica Boulevard, this movie really felt like home! It really made me miss Los Angeles.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 1, 2016 19:05:46 GMT -5
The Steel Lady (1953) - With Rod Cameron, Tab Hunter and John Dehner. This was perfect for a Saturday afternoon! There's some guys who work for an oil company, flying around in a plane, surveying sections of the Sahara for possible oil strikes. They get stuck in a sirocco and the plane crashes. But they find a German tank buried in the sand with two dead Panzer Korps fellows in it. (And also, a stash of the Caliph's jewels in a secret compartment where John Dehner keeps his liquor.) So they get the tank going and fight Bedouins and thirst and alcoholism and fever and Fred C. Dobbs syndrome. To me, Tab Hunter used to be the guy from Polyester. But I've seen him in a few movies in the last year or so that make me think he was actually a pretty decent actor. John Dehner is pretty good in this as well. You may know him as the voice of Paladin in the radio version of "Have Gun Will Travel."
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 2, 2016 9:11:47 GMT -5
Top 5 movie of movies about making Top 5 lists High Fidelity (2000) John Cusack, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Catherine-Zeta Jones, Tim Robbins, Lili Taylor, Joan Cusack Rob runs a used record store in Chicago and has a snobby attitude musically speaking against his customers. He is running through in his mind his top five romantic heart-crushing relations. And there's always a song that is appropriate for any particular moment I was blown away with this film when it came out. The writing and Cusack's portrayal was letter-perfect. Plus an amazing soundtrack too. There was much I could identify with this film. It was also the first time I really noticed Jack Black and was absolutely floored when I saw he could really sing when he did his version of Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On" 16 years later-it's still great. The Boss thinks so too
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 3, 2016 0:54:40 GMT -5
This is a girl dressed as a samurai. Her reasons for doing this are just as good as anybody else's reasons for doing anything in The 47 Ronin. And any movie that's almost four hours long should leave a little room for cross-dressing. So The 47 Ronin (1941) is what I watched this weekend. I started it Saturday afternoon, got sidetracked in the early evening and didn't get back to it until rather late so it was about 11:00 p.m. when I quit for the night after seeing only 2/3 of the movie. And I didn't get back to it until Sunday afternoon. It's almost four hours long. I liked it a lot. It's a bit slow and there isn't a lot of action. But I sure do love old Japanese movies. Even when I don't really know what's going on. It was released just a few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 3, 2016 11:31:49 GMT -5
The day Gene Wilder passed away, I watched The Producers. The Producers is my favorite Mel Brooks movie. It's the only one I've ever owned on DVD. I've probably seen it twenty times in my life. I didn't watch it when he died because it hasn't been that long since I've seen it. I try not to watch my favorites too often because of the way I wore out Casablanca. Young Frankenstein is showing on the big screen all over the country this week. So the whole family is going on Wednesday. My niece (16) and nephew (13) will probably freak out because it's in black and white. "Why O why did my parents ruin my life by making me watch a black and white movie when I could have been laying around in my pajamas and playing video games and watching anime? O the horrible whims of Fate! Death, where is thy sting?"
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