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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 4, 2019 16:14:09 GMT -5
My wife and I watched Stan & Ollie last night (loved it) and she remarked she had never seen a Laurel & Hardy film or short. I pointed out a few scenes that are homages to some of their bits, like a trunk that slides down a stairwell, at a train station, that homaged the famous piano moving gags, in The Music Box. When I was a kid, we went to Shakey's Pizza Parlor, every week for dinner and comedy shorts, from Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin (plus sing-alongs and other entertainment). I loved those comedy shorts and now she wants to see some of them. I told her we had to see Sons of the Desert and The Music box; but, I am looking forward to pulling up some of the others. Now, if we could only watch them on a big screen, while sitting at long tables, on bench seats, with so-so pizza!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2019 0:01:07 GMT -5
My wife and I watched Stan & Ollie last night (loved it) and she remarked she had never seen a Laurel & Hardy film or short. I pointed out a few scenes that are homages to some of their bits, like a trunk that slides down a stairwell, at a train station, that homaged the famous piano moving gags, in The Music Box. 1.bp.blogspot.com/-qWwVwbiwM9g/Teb-UEUURkI/AAAAAAAAFpw/Q_5tBasqHDc/s1600/Marvin%2526telescope.jpgWhen I was a kid, we went to Shakey's Pizza Parlor, every week for dinner and comedy shorts, from Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin (plus sing-alongs and other entertainment). I loved those comedy shorts and now she wants to see some of them. I told her we had to see Sons of the Desert and The Music box; but, I am looking forward to pulling up some of the others. Now, if we could only watch them on a big screen, while sitting at long tables, on bench seats, with so-so pizza! I did that too as a Kid and I'm glad that you've liked Stan and Ollie ... awaiting for the DVD to come out.
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 5, 2019 17:11:28 GMT -5
My wife and I watched Stan & Ollie last night (loved it) and she remarked she had never seen a Laurel & Hardy film or short. I pointed out a few scenes that are homages to some of their bits, like a trunk that slides down a stairwell, at a train station, that homaged the famous piano moving gags, in The Music Box. 1.bp.blogspot.com/-qWwVwbiwM9g/Teb-UEUURkI/AAAAAAAAFpw/Q_5tBasqHDc/s1600/Marvin%2526telescope.jpgWhen I was a kid, we went to Shakey's Pizza Parlor, every week for dinner and comedy shorts, from Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin (plus sing-alongs and other entertainment). I loved those comedy shorts and now she wants to see some of them. I told her we had to see Sons of the Desert and The Music box; but, I am looking forward to pulling up some of the others. Now, if we could only watch them on a big screen, while sitting at long tables, on bench seats, with so-so pizza! I love Sons of the Desert! It's one of the comedy classics of the 1930s. The other feature films are a bit of a mixed bag, but several of them are pretty funny. Block-Heads comes to mind. The other classic shorts are "Tit for Tat" and "Brats." And then there's "Men O' War," which seems to be kind of hard to find, but I taped it off AMC in the VHS days and I used to watch it over and over again.
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Post by Mister Spaceman on Apr 5, 2019 20:24:50 GMT -5
I'm very fond of "Way Out West" myself but, really, it's hard to go wrong with most of their work in the Thirties.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2019 22:12:05 GMT -5
It's probably a lot more modern than most films discussed here (2003) but it's older then 10 years so I am posting here rather than new and current movies...
After seeing Peter Guralnick's book Feel Like Going Home discussed in the book thread, I discovered our library had a copy of the documentary film Feel Like Going Home written by Guralnick and directed by Martin Scorcese, the first part of Scorcese's docu-series on the blues. I requested it, and just got a chance to watch it all the way through this evening(I had started it twice before and got interrupted, so started over this time). The first volume explores the origins of the blues in the Mississippi delta and the African origins of the music, as it follows bluesman Corey Harris' journey through the Delta and to Mali meeting with musicians discussing music, the blues, and their history with each. It touches on Leadbelly, Son House, Muddy Watters, Robert Johnson, and John Lee Hooker among others, and includes contributions by Taj Mahal, K'eB Mo and othe rmore contemporary blues players as well as interviews with those who knew House, Johnson and some of the other classic bluesman, as well as with a number of west African musicians.
It's a fascinating watch filled with lots of great blues music. I'd like to track down the rest of the series now (our library only has this volume it seems), and check out more of Corey Harris' albums, and I have been digging out some of my classic blues anthologies to listen to again after watching it.
-M
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 14, 2019 22:58:13 GMT -5
We watched Sons of the Desert, recently, and my wife and I enjoyed it (me more than her, I think). I don't know why; but, I had it in my head that this was either a desert film or a western. Probably reading the title associated with a picture from another film. I noticed that the actress who plays Ollie's wife looked rather like a slightly taller (and heavier) Helen Mirren. I made comment about the newspaper headline that said the ship that Stan & Ollie are supposed to be on (while they are actually in Chicago, at a lodge convention) is foundering in a typhoon. By the time newspapers got ahold of something like that the ship would have escaped or sunk, which is the jist you get after. My wife then jokes about me looking for logic in a Laurel & Hardy film. That's me to a T. On my own, I watched Kriminal, the 60s Italian caper film, based on the fumetti, from Magnus and Max Bunker. Kriminal was one of the early imitators of Diabolik, tough there was more continuity to it Magnus and Bunker also created the popular Alan Ford adventure series). It's violence and eroticism got the creators in trouble with authorities. none of that is here, though. The film is basically a 60s caper/adventure, treading on the James Bond phenomena, which fueled a bunch of French and Italian films, like Kommissar X, Fantomas (with Jean Marais), the 3 Fantastic Supermen, Diabolik, Superargo and others. This was a bit weaker than Diabolik and Fantomas. There is also a sequel, which I haven't seen.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 19, 2019 8:34:41 GMT -5
My wife and I watched Stan & Ollie last night (loved it) and she remarked she had never seen a Laurel & Hardy film or short. I pointed out a few scenes that are homages to some of their bits, like a trunk that slides down a stairwell, at a train station, that homaged the famous piano moving gags, in The Music Box. 1.bp.blogspot.com/-qWwVwbiwM9g/Teb-UEUURkI/AAAAAAAAFpw/Q_5tBasqHDc/s1600/Marvin%2526telescope.jpgWhen I was a kid, we went to Shakey's Pizza Parlor, every week for dinner and comedy shorts, from Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin (plus sing-alongs and other entertainment). I loved those comedy shorts and now she wants to see some of them. I told her we had to see Sons of the Desert and The Music box; but, I am looking forward to pulling up some of the others. Now, if we could only watch them on a big screen, while sitting at long tables, on bench seats, with so-so pizza! Oh, The Music Box is an all-time favorite of mine. I re-watched in on Youtube (thank you, Youtube!) last year for the first time in decades.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 22, 2019 23:52:14 GMT -5
So, I've been on a European B-Movie kick, with some films of the 60s, mainly; but, not entirely, from what is known as the "Eurospy" genre. These are cheaper knockoffs of the Bond films, inspired by their success. Some were serious, some were spoofs; all were done cheaply. Now, if you are a Mystie (a fan of MST3K) you are aware of Secret Agent Super Dragon, Danger Death Ray and Operation Double 007 (aka Operation Kid brother, with Neil Connery, Sean's brother). Those are a bit more at the lower end of the spectrum. I watched the first three of the Kommissar X films, from Germany, with Tony Kendall and Brad Harris. Kendal was actually Italian actor Luciano Stella, who was convinced to change his name by Vittorio De Sica, to better sell films outside of Italy. Brad Harris was a bodybuilder, athlete, stuntman and actor, who worked in some of the sword and sandal films. They are teamed here as private eye Joe Walker (Kendall) and New York cop Tom Rowland. The first film is Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill... Rowland is is training police in Yugoslavia, while Walker is searching for a missing nuclear scientist. They keep running into beautiful women and people trying to kill them, before they track down the villain to an island lair, with irradiated gold bullion and hypnotized female guards. This one has a bit more scope than the others and is pretty good, though it kind of drags in the middle. Next is Death Is Nimble, Death Is Quick... This one has more exciting action scenes, especially a big stunt chase across the roof of a building, between Brad Harris and Dan Vadis. Vadis is one of the bad guys, a karate expert killer. Vadis was another bodybuilder and stuntman, who also did sword & sandal and starred in the Ten Gladiators movies (the second, Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators, is awesome!) They have a big karate fight, in a temple, at the end, that is nearly as good. Also appearing is Siegfried Rauch, who played the intelligence officer in Patton, who studies Patton, as well as the German sergeant you see throughout The Big Red One, as Lee Marvin's opposite number. The third film, Sp Darling, So Deadly, is also pretty good... This one is set in Singapore, with a villain trying to steal a filter for a laser weapon, using his female assassins (and a few guys). There are some double crosses and plenty of fights. This one kind of loses the plot a bit and the formula is starting to wear thin; but, mostly holds together. Seen on its own, its probably better than I describe. I also watched the 3 Fantastic Supermen, with Kendall and Harris.... Kendall and Aldo Canti are a pair of criminals with super suits that let them do extraordinary physical things. They have stolen from some mobsters and Brad Harris is hunting for some counterfeiters and recruits them to help, donning a third supersuit, himself. They bounce all over the place, smacking bad guys and kissing pretty ladies, in gonzo fun. This and others were spawned by the Batman craze and there were severl other 3 Superman films. I watched Supermen Against the orient, which is set in Hong Kong, with a lop of kung fu action and tons of silliness, including Canti in the most unconvincing drag you will see, this side of Gene Hackman (The Birdcage). They also get two new Chinese recruits, one of whom is female... I also watched Argoman, The Fantastic Superman... Which is all kinds of cheesy. It kind of followed on the heels of Super Argo vs Diabolicus and Super Argo and the Faceless Giants. Both of those feature a masked wrestler who is a kind of superhero, ala the Mexican lucha libre movies of El Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras. Argoman is a superhero, though with a price, while Super Argo is wrestler and pure hero, in the mold of characters liek the aforementioned luchadors and characters like the Phantom (who probably inspired the costume) and characters like Hugo Pratts Asso di Picche This get a bit dull, in the middle' but, again, start well and end well and are fun for Mysties (Rifftrax has covered Super Argo vs the Faceless Giants) Argoman is campier, while the Super Argo films are done straight. I'm hoping next to watch the Agent 077 films, which are more bond spoofs. I'd also like to check out the original OSS 117 films, based on the series of novels. They were later the inspiration for Jean Dujardin's two Oss 117 spoofs, which are set in the early 60s. Those are hilarious; these are supposed to be more serious. By the way, if they had done Captain America in the 60s, Brad Harris would have been perfect... Unlike Arnold's generation, he was a bit leaner in muscle mass and looks the way guys like Kirby drew Cap, before they bulked him up so heavily. The 3 Kommissar X films and Argoman are all available on Youtube, as are the 2 Fantastic Superman films. Super Argo is also there. I'm a sucker for these mid-60s action films, with tongues in cheek, sexy women and handsome heroes. Also recommend the French Fantomas films, the Seven Golden Men caper films (there are 2 of them), the Fu Manchu films of Christopher Lee (the first 3, anyway; with a note to the racism) and the German Dr Mabuse films, which a crime/horror thrillers. The original Fritz Lang ones (and the 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse, which he did in the 60s) are pure classics; but, the 60s ones, from lesser lights, are still mostly good thrillers (more the earlier than later films in the series).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2019 1:40:55 GMT -5
I just finished watching Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, the Criterion Collection edition. I've liked every Kurosawa film I have seen, but I haven't seen many, and this was my first time seeing Yojimbo, and I quite liked it. I found the DVD is a thrift store a week or so ago for $2, but this was the first chance I have had to sit down and watch it. It's always interesting to see films produced in cultures outside the US, especially one's from a country like Japan that has a very different body of cultural literacy that it draws from for its tropes, archetypes and such. IT is also fascinating to see the origin of a lot of techniques and tropes that have made their way into US cinema and storytelling from Kurosawa and his body of work. I know a lot of modern audiences won't look past the black and white or the sub-titles, but they should, this film is a masterwork and deserving of any attention it gets. I need to fond more Kurosawa films to watch. -M
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 28, 2019 11:44:20 GMT -5
I just finished watching Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, the Criterion Collection edition. I've liked every Kurosawa film I have seen, but I haven't seen many, and this was my first time seeing Yojimbo, and I quite liked it. I found the DVD is a thrift store a week or so ago for $2, but this was the first chance I have had to sit down and watch it. It's always interesting to see films produced in cultures outside the US, especially one's from a country like Japan that has a very different body of cultural literacy that it draws from for its tropes, archetypes and such. IT is also fascinating to see the origin of a lot of techniques and tropes that have made their way into US cinema and storytelling from Kurosawa and his body of work. I know a lot of modern audiences won't look past the black and white or the sub-titles, but they should, this film is a masterwork and deserving of any attention it gets. I need to fond more Kurosawa films to watch. -M Kurosawa is my favorite filmmaker and Yojimbo is my favorite of his films. I've seen it a bunch of times. I've seen a lot of Kurosawa's films, from 1946 to the end of his career, there's only two or three I haven't seen. (I really want to see I Live in Fear, but I just can't find it.) They're all good! (Except I didn't really get Rhapsody in August.) My favorites among his lesser-known films are High and Low, Stray Dog and Dersu Uzala.
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 28, 2019 18:22:33 GMT -5
I'm currently watching Dick Tracy's G-Men. It's the only Ralph Byrd Tracy film/serial which I haven't seen and there's something about Byrd that makes him a perfect fit for Tracy even though he doesn't quite fit that hardboiled nature with a sense of amusement that Gould's creation had. It's a shame that he died so young.
I've just finished Chapter Nine and Zarnoff has dropped a dirigible on the G-Man. It's an impressive scene but does intercut the studio filmed shots with actual footage of the Hiddenburg disaster. I suppose that this is something which happened a lot more frequently than most people care to think about - just where does all this stock footage in adventure films/serials originate? - but I can't help but feel that I should be more affected by seeing such an event used for entertainment purposes. It's one of those situations I suppose where I'm kind of glad that the human brain doesn't seem capable of connecting the dots the way it perhaps should.
Anyhoo, on to Chapter Ten!
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 28, 2019 23:02:08 GMT -5
Haven't seen the serial; but, just looked at chapters 9 & 10, on Youtube. When the dirigible is approaching the mooring mast, I think it is the Hindenburg, though it could have been different footage, from a previous Hindenburg trip or the naval airships, Los Angeles, Akron or Macon. That's definitely the Hindenburg crashing onto the ground at the very end.
t could be worse, there is far more graphic footage when the tail section first crashes to the ground, with the nose pointed to the sky. I've had a previous nightmare about that footage. I've had a fascination with airships, ever since I first saw the movie Zeppelin, on tv, as a kid (network broadcast). I've read everything I could get my hands on and have a coffee table illustrated history of the Hindenburg. I used to have a book about thr naval airships, including both the blimps and the dirigibles (USS Shenandoah, USS Los Angeles, USS Akron and USS Macon). Ironically, the Hindenburg had fewer casualties than most of the other post-WWi dirigible crashes (36 vs the 48 deaths on the British R101 and the loss of the USS Akron). The Akron went down at see, killing 73, with only 3 men surviving, rescued by a German ship. The craft had no life jackets or rafts, to save weight. That fault was corrected on the Los Angeles and the macon, afterward, allowing nearly the entire crew to survive the at-sea crash of the Macon. Prior to these accidents, the Shenandoah, the US Navy's first dirigible, broke apart in a storm, killing 14. A group in the bow section survived when one of the officers was able to pilot it like a free balloon.
The Navy also had a large fleet of blimps, including one class, the N-Class, which had a crew of 21. They even had an experimental metal hulled one, the ZMC-2. The blimps had an excellent record for patrol and convoy escort duty.
When my dad was a kid, during WW2, he saw a flight of blimps go across the area he lived (southern Illinois). When he first told me the story, he thought they were dirigibles; but, the timing would have been wrong, as the Akron was lost in 1933 and the Macon in '35, and my dad was born in 1931. He said he was older, when he saw them and it was around the war; so, it had to be a flight of blimps.
The movie The Hindenburg makes use of the actual newsreel footage, as well as includes the actual WLS broadcast, at the end of the film (they recreate the commentary, within the film, during the crash scenes. They make it seem like most of the people on board died; but, it was only 1/4, as they were carrying 93 passengers and crew. Good movie, though. Zeppelin, with Michael York and Elke Sommer (set in WW1) is also a good one, for airships.
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Post by berkley on Apr 29, 2019 1:09:25 GMT -5
First I've heard of any of those Italian films, sounds like the kind of thing I'll want to try, one of these days. I have seen some of the old luchador movies, Santo vs the Mummy, stuff like that, and enjoyed them. They were mostly in black and white, from what I remember, so the colour Italian superhero movies look like fun.
The only Italian spy movie that comes to mind that I've seen is Matchless, which I may have mentioned here before, as I remember really loving it when I saw it on tv as a young kid. I didn't know it was an Italian movie back then and only became aware of the fact after looking for info on it online a few years ago - that info including even the title, which I couldn't recall after so many years: all I remembered was how much fun I had had watching it, the 60s spy-movie genre (sort of an In Like Flint feel), and the plot device of an invisiblity-granting ring that the hero somehow came into possession of. Of course it could well turn out to be one of those things that appeals mightily to a ten-year old but that won't be nearly as enjoyable to an old, jaded fifty-something geezer, but nonetheless, I look forward to seeing it again someday.
I've seen a fair number of Kurosawa's films but by no means everything. Of the lesser known ones, I remember being impressed with his debut, Sanshiro Sugata, and Red Beard. Actually, it turned out that both are pretty famous, but I hadn't known about them myself when I started getting into Kurosawa's stuff back in the 90s.
Hey, looking up Yojimbo on wiki, I just found out that Mifune played the same character (or a close facsimile thereof) in a third movie (after Yojimbo and its sequel, Sanjuro) made by another director, Hiroshi Inagaki: it's called Machibuse, the English title apparently being Incident at Blood Pass (not a direct translation, I'm guessing). Might have to keep an eye out for that one.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 1:40:20 GMT -5
Watched Sonny Chiba in The Street Fighter... Was reminded of this a few weeks ago by a blogger/youtube host who I follow (his tag line is Pop Culture in Analogue) who focuses on retro pop culture especially movies, vintage paperbacks, comics, vinyl and Disney when he reviewed the new blu-ray release of the Street Fighter collection. It was one of those movies I had wanted to see but never did and had forgotten about as more and more stuff accrued in my to watch/read piles over the years, and then I ran across a DVD copy of the Street Fighter/Return of the Street Fighter double feature at a thrift store this past weekend and picked it up. I still haven't had a chance to watch Return of the Street Fighter, but I did watch the first film and quite enjoyed it. It's Japanese martial arts done 70s exploitation style and it is marvelous for what it is. Chiba is a phenomenal martial artist, but he doesn't have the presence of a Bruce Lee, and the movies lack some of the gravitas of Lee's features, being played over the top, but they are great fun and an enjoyable viewing experience (unless you just don't groove to exploitation style features, then you probably won't like it). It is certainly a product of its time, but it is enjoyable as what it is. -M
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 30, 2019 16:48:33 GMT -5
Here are the films from the "1001 Films You Must See Before You Die" list that I saw in April: 1. The Butcher (Le boucher) (1969) - A very poetic serial-killer movie from France. The lead actress looked very familiar but I couldn't place her until I looked at her filmography. She played Babette in "Babette's Feast"! 2. Utu (1984) - WOW! I highly recommend this one to just anybody who can handle some blood and some violence. It's a New Zealand film about a Maori uprising in the 1870s. 3. The Horse Thief (1986) - I liked this one a lot too. The main character is caught stealing horses and the whole family is ostracized. It's about the people of Tibet and you get to see a lot of pageantry and ritual. 4. The Decline of the American Empire (1986) - This made me think "What if all those chatty, self-obsessed, pretentious people from all those French New Wave movies got older, moved to Canada and became college professors?" I probably would have liked it more if I hadn't seen so much French New Wave in the last few months. I saw the sequel The Barbarian Invasions last year and I liked it a lot more than this! 5. The Fly (1986) - I was counting The Fly as a movie I've seen, but as I was looking at the List films for 1986, I thought about it for a minute and I wasn't sure I'd seen it. I sort of remember watching part of it on HBO or Showtime when it was only a year old and not liking it enough to ever bother to watch the whole thing. So I watched it on YouTube Movies last week. There was a lot that I didn't remember, and when I got to the stuff I DID remember, I also remembered why I didn't want to see the rest back in the 1980s. This is not a film I like very much. 6. The Rapture (1991) - A fascinating film about a woman who becomes obsessed with the idea that the End Times are nearly upon us. I remember when this came out and I was just not interested. But it's NOT what I thought it would be. I liked it a lot. 7. The Idiots (1998) - An early film from Lars von Trier that is not for everybody. I have mixed feeling about it. I had trouble getting through the first 30 minutes and I paused it and then I read about it, including a bunch of stuff from Danish film fans. I didn't have as much trouble finishing it the next day. I guess I see what von Trier is getting at, a little bit. But I'm not sure it's worth the effort. 8. The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) - Another one that's not for everybody but I love Abbas Kiarostomi so much, and I'm glad I'm learning to appreciate Iranian film in general.
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