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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2023 10:17:01 GMT -5
Things to come is great; but, I hate colorized versions. I saw it as a teen and was hooked the moment I saw the giant Deco bombers, from Wings Over The World.
It isn't exactly prescient about dictators and the war to come, as it is observant of current events. The book was published in 1933, as the Nazi's came into full control of Germany. Mussolini had already been in power for several years and had launched an invasion of Ethiopia. So, the early parts of the film didn't take that deep of thought. The future stuff as much reflects the reaction to industrialization and scientific advancement. Wells was definitely a keen observer of Man, though he had cultural blindspots.
His War In The Air, written before that, predicted another World War, fought with airships and gas, which was overly entrenched in the strategy of WW1. He still hadn't seen blitzkrieg, as the Spanish Civil War was a few years away.
Menzies and Alexander Kourda did an amazing job, with the visuals.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2023 10:31:40 GMT -5
I watched Pedro Almodovar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! which, while entertaining and expertly crafted, as all the Almodovar films I've caught have been, was a major disappointment in one overwhelming way: it sent a terrible message about how men and women relate to one another, with Banderas's character kidnapping the female lead, knocking her unconscious with a punch to the head, tying her up in her own apartment, threatening to cut her throat if she screams, etc, etc - but all in the name of true love, so apparently we're meant to accept that's it's OK in the end, as his victim and her sister who rescues her do: they voluntarily seek him out after escaping. What the hell Almodovar was thinking with this is beyond me and I'm amazed it hasn't come in for more criticism (there has been some but not nearly as much as I'd have expected). I'm lucky this wasn't the first Almodovar I've seen or it might have put me off his movies altogether. As it is I'll have to take a break before trying anything else, and hopefully when I do it'll wash the memory of this one out of my brain. Almodovar got a ton of criticism of his follow up, Kika, which features a comical sequence of a maid, who has been tied to a chair and gagged, tries to get free, while her mistress is being raped. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down does kind of flow with a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, and the earlier 1970s tv film Sweet Hostage, with Martin Sheen and Linda Blair had a similar story. Also, John Fowles' The Collector, both novel and film, deal with similar things, of a mentally imbalanced, but sympathetic captor, and his victim, who has her own issues and seeks escape from a part of her life. Fewer people were forgiving of Kika's scenes and it generated a lot of backlash, with that film being rarer in video stores, compared to Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, High Heels, or Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. All About My Mother kind of rescued his reputation and led to his more notable films, like Talk To Her, Bad Education and Volver. Almodovar uses a lot of very dark humor to satirize elements of life and society, especially in his earlier works and he got pretty vulgar in some of those early ones. Almodovar was part of an artistic movement that challenged the conservatism of Spanish society and you also have to keep in mind he is gay, in a society that condemns him, which partially drives his using film to make statements about the hypocrisy of that society. The controversial scenes in Kika were part of a story that was condemning media sensationalism and obsession with people's personal lives. I love his work, as he was one of the earliest foreign film directors whose body of work I set out to explore (along with Luc Besson and Paul Verhouven); but, he does make you uncomfortable in many of his films, by design.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 2, 2023 22:44:43 GMT -5
I was just watching a behind-the-scenes featurette, about filming Cool Hand Luke. It just took me back tot he first time I saw it. I was a kid, not even a teenager, and it played on a Saturday movie slot,. This is before cable; so, we are talking a random local timeslot, to fill in programming. You'd get a movie every week, unless it was a heavy sports time, and Cool Hand Luke was on, one Saturday afternoon. That thing grabbed me from the opening, with the edits of the parking meter violations popping up, as Paul Newman uses a pipe cutter to cut off the heads of the meters. You watch him stumble around, obviously drunk, stopping to pull out a bottle opener on a dog tag chain, then pop open a bottle of beer, take a big swig and continue on, until flashing lights come along. Then you see him brought to the road gang farm and meet Strother Martin, as The Captain. Just everyone involved was great, a tremendous ensemble of character actors, including Newman, who played characters, but had leading man looks.
So many iconic scenes, from Carr, the floorwalker, giving them the barracks rules as Luke just chuckles at how he has given in to their rules. The card games and betting, George Kennedy's Drag-Line, laying down rules for the cons and Luke just taking it in, cutting through the BS with a quick remark and a smile and the rebellion of everything. Morgan Woodward as The Walking Boss, with the mirrored sunglasses and wooden cane, with the rifle bolt in a loop on his pistol belt. The tapping of the stick, then holding it up to call for the rifle. The man looked like the personification of death. Strother Martin's speech, after Luke is dragged back, after escaping, with the "Failure to communicate" section. The visit from Luke's dying mother, then him being locked up in "The Box," when she dies, so he doesn't try escaping to get to the funeral. The boxing match with Drag-Line, the bet over the eggs, the guards breaking Luke down. The woman washing the truck as the prisoners oggle her.
When I was a kid, I couldn't understand what the hell Luke was doing, at the beginning (other than the obvious; but, why was he doing it?). By the end of the film, I understood he was rebelling against authority; but, I just kind of chalked it up to the punishment being out of proportion to his crime. When I saw it, as an adult and a veteran, I understood him more. He was always a rebel, chafing under society's ridiculous rules; but, there was more to it. He "done real good in the war;" but he didn't know how to leave whatever happened to him behind. The medals listed meant he saw heavy combat, which means death and destruction. He returns home to little men telling him what to do, all the time. He went nuts. His service and the harmless nature f the crime should have meant leniency; but he got back-breaking labor, to try to knock him down. He wouldn't break. He kept breaking their petty rules and thumbing his nose at their self-imposed authority.
The cast is just amazing....just a look, or a few lines said so much.
They don't make films like this anymore, they don't get casts like this....you don't find actors like Paul Newman. No CGI trickery, no using the music to manipulate the audiences emotions (the music is there, but it adds, it doesn't replace the words and the performance). The very definition of "classic."
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Post by berkley on Jul 2, 2023 22:52:58 GMT -5
I watched Cool Hand Luke on black and white tv as a kid in the early 1970s and have not seen it since. Not sure how much they cut for tv and I'm sure I was too young to appreciate everything about it so I really should re-watch it some time.
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Post by berkley on Jul 4, 2023 0:17:19 GMT -5
Watched Kiss Me Kate tonight, a 1953 musical I liked a lot when I saw it on tv as a teenager. First time I'd seen it since then and I liked it just as much this time around. Great cast with Keel, Kathryn Grayson, and Ann Miller and showcases several well-known Cole Porter songs, like Too Damn Hot.
This is the second Howard Keel movie I've seen lately: Jupiter's Darling was the other one, another 1950s Hollywood musical - with a story set in ancient Rome, with Keel playing Hannibal! Utter silliness of course, but so much fun. Kiss Me Kate was much more successful and probably the better film but I have a soft spot for Jupiter's Darling perhaps from seeing it at a younger age - probably the ancient Rome setting with the soldiers and elephants appealed to me as a kid.
It's interesting that Keel's deep baritone and semi-operatic style of singing remained popular enough for him to be a prominent leading-man in musicals into the late 1950s. Was it rock and roll that killed off this kind of thing?
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 16, 2023 11:47:19 GMT -5
Last night I watched All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001).
It’s about a group of Japanese teens, most of whom are big fans of a pop singer named Lily Chou-Chou.
Some of these teens are not very nice!
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 16, 2023 19:20:32 GMT -5
Last night I watched All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001). It’s about a group of Japanese teens, most of whom are big fans of a pop singer named Lily Chou-Chou. Some of these teens are not very nice! That sounds like 90% of the book report presentations I sat through, in school.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 17, 2023 14:15:56 GMT -5
I watched 1964's The Naked Witch this weekend.
At less than one hour long, no one could accuse it of not getting to the point fast enough. It would have been even shorter if the director had skipped the (rather) superfluous historical introduction on witches; I swear, that was so long that at some point I wondered if the film was actually a cheaply-made documentary and fast forwarded to check whether there was an actual story coming up. Which there was, and it was pretty good even if predictable.
This intro uses a lot of old paintings and illustrations to accompany the vivid description of what witches were supposed to be doing in the Middle Ages. It's not really historical, although some history gets blended in; there is a decidedly unfair and overly colourful insistence on how evil witches were, and how witch trials were society's way of waging a genuine war against Satan and his minions. Which it probably was in the head of the inquisitors and pitchfork-wielding mobs of the day, I'm sure, but I wish the narrator had made it clear that this was mass hysteria more than self-defense.
Anyhoo, we skip to present times, as a university student visits an isolated American town settled centuries ago by German immigrants. They still all speak Hollywood German, so they must be the real deal. Said town is interesting to the student because a famous witch is associated with its history; flashback scenes reveal that she was actually the hapless mistress of a married scoundrel who, to get rid of her, accused her of practicing witchcraft. The poor woman was publicly executed by having a stake run through her, but before the sentence would be carried out she cursed the whole place and especially the family of her erstwhile lover.
The student resides at an inn owned by (surprise, surprise) the descendent of the scoundrel. The innkeeper's daughter naturally become the film's love interest.
Cutting to the chase, we see the witch come back to life after the student sticks his nose where it didn't belong, and she takes revenge on her lover's family as promised. Naturally she's stopped in extremis before she can murder the innkeeper's daughter.
As witch stories go it's all right. House of Secrets kind of stuff. It's however a little jarring to have the witch of the title, who was the innocent victim of an evil man at first, turn out to be a real witch a little later (and a mean one at that).
The title "the Naked Witch" is sort of amusing in hindsight; as far as I can tell, the film is only called that because the titular character is briefly seen naked as she bathes under the moonlight (not something I expected in a film of that era). It's as if the producers wanted to be sure that when naughty-naughty moviegoers in 1964 wanted to see "that film with a naked witch in it", they'd know exactly where to go!
No Carnival of Souls, to be sure, but it would have made an OK episode of Into the Unknown.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 17, 2023 16:38:02 GMT -5
I watched 1964's The Naked Witch this weekend. At less than one hour long, no one could accuse it of not getting to the point fast enough. It would have been even shorter if the director had skipped the (rather) superfluous historical introduction on witches; I swear, that was so long that at some point I wondered if the film was actually a cheaply-made documentary and fast forwarded to check whether there was an actual story coming up. Which there was, and it was pretty good even if predictable. This intro uses a lot of old paintings and illustrations to accompany the vivid description of what witches were supposed to be doing in the Middle Ages. It's not really historical, although some history gets blended in; there is a decidedly unfair and overly colourful insistence on how evil witches were, and how witch trials were society's way of waging a genuine war against Satan and his minions. Which it probably was in the head of the inquisitors and pitchfork-wielding mobs of the day, I'm sure, but I wish the narrator had made it clear that this was mass hysteria more than self-defense. Anyhoo, we skip to present times, as a university student visits an isolated American town settled centuries ago by German immigrants. They still all speak Hollywood German, so they must be the real deal. Said town is interesting to the student because a famous witch is associated with its history; flashback scenes reveal that she was actually the hapless mistress of a married scoundrel who, to get rid of her, accused her of practicing witchcraft. The poor woman was publicly executed by having a stake run through her, but before the sentence would be carried out she cursed the whole place and especially the family of her erstwhile lover. The student resides at an inn owned by (surprise, surprise) the descendent of the scoundrel. The innkeeper's daughter naturally become the film's love interest. Cutting to the chase, we see the witch come back to life after the student sticks his nose where it didn't belong, and she takes revenge on her lover's family as promised. Naturally she's stopped in extremis before she can murder the innkeeper's daughter. As witch stories go it's all right. House of Secrets kind of stuff. It's however a little jarring to have the witch of the title, who was the innocent victim of an evil man at first, turn out to be a real witch a little later (and a mean one at that). The title "the Naked Witch" is sort of amusing in hindsight; as far as I can tell, the film is only called that because the titular character is briefly seen naked as she bathes under the moonlight (not something in a film of that era). It's as if the producers wanted to be sure that when naughty-naughty moviegoers in 1964 wanted to see "that film with a naked witch in it", they'd know exactly where to go! No Carnival of Souls, to be sure, but it would have made an OK episode of Into the Unknown. I saw this a long time ago and I remember it as being bad but somewhat amusing at times. And mercifully short!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 21, 2023 16:41:49 GMT -5
Recently watched the 1934 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey and directed by Harold Young (his directorial debut). I'll be honest that I found this a rough go. It's just overly-mannered (and I give grace based on the time period and that it was a British production), was largely a bunch of talking heads and was just incredibly slow, feeling significantly longer than its 94 minute run time. Honestly I was far more interested in Merle Oberon's life and ethnicity than the movie.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 21, 2023 17:03:06 GMT -5
Recently watched the 1934 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey and directed by Harold Young (his directorial debut). I'll be honest that I found this a rough go. It's just overly-mannered (and I give grace based on the time period and that it was a British production), was largely a bunch of talking heads and was just incredibly slow, feeling significantly longer than its 94 minute run time. Honestly I was far more interested in Merle Oberon's life and ethnicity than the movie. Try the 1935 Tale of Two Cities for a much more vibrant and fast-moving and emotionally moving story of the French Revolution. Blanche Yurks as Madame DeFarge and Lucille LaVerne as The Vengeance are alone worth the price of admission. Basil Rathbone is as despicable as he was as Murdstone in David Copperfield (also 1935) and the action scenes are excellent. The caricatured characters are fun to watch and the more developed ones, particularly Colman as Carton and Henry Walthall as Dr. Manette, are quite effective. Your understanding about the era's overly mannered approach will not be tested nearly as much as in Pimpernel.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 21, 2023 17:37:04 GMT -5
Recently watched the 1934 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey and directed by Harold Young (his directorial debut). I'll be honest that I found this a rough go. It's just overly-mannered (and I give grace based on the time period and that it was a British production), was largely a bunch of talking heads and was just incredibly slow, feeling significantly longer than its 94 minute run time. Honestly I was far more interested in Merle Oberon's life and ethnicity than the movie. Try the 1935 Tale of Two Cities for a much more vibrant and fast-moving and emotionally moving story of the French Revolution. Blanche Yurks as Madame DeFarge and Lucille LaVerne as The Vengeance are alone worth the price of admission. Basil Rathbone is as despicable as he was as Murdstone in David Copperfield (also 1935) and the action scenes are excellent. The caricatured characters are fun to watch and the more developed ones, particularly Colman as Carton and Henry Walthall as Dr. Manette, are quite effective. Your understanding about the era's overly mannered approach will not be tested nearly as much as in Pimpernel. At some point I'll re-visit that. But I believe that next up is 1936's My Man Godfrey.
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Post by Batflunkie on Jul 21, 2023 20:19:02 GMT -5
Recently watched the 1934 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey and directed by Harold Young (his directorial debut). I'll be honest that I found this a rough go. It's just overly-mannered (and I give grace based on the time period and that it was a British production), was largely a bunch of talking heads and was just incredibly slow, feeling significantly longer than its 94 minute run time. Honestly I was far more interested in Merle Oberon's life and ethnicity than the movie. For years, all I knew about the Pimpernel was the Looney Tunes spoof
The book series does seem interesting, maybe I might need to give it a read some day
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 21, 2023 20:50:14 GMT -5
I read The Scarlet Pimpernel, after seeing the 80s tv movie version, with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour and Ian McKellan. It's not exactly action-filled, per se, compared to something like The Prisoner of Zenda, The Curse of Capistrano (the first Zorro pulp, later retitled The Mark of Zorro) or Rafael Sabatini''s work. There's some cloak and dagger stuff and a lot of people talking, in drawing rooms, and little intrigues here and there. Great characters, though, with Sir Percy Blakeney, aka The Scarlet Pimpernel, as the template for every idle playboy who is secretly a dashing hero (including Zorro, Batman, and the rest). Marguerite is a terrific character, in her own right and Citizen Chauvelin, the villain, is suitably layered and nasty.
It originated as a stage play, which is why it tends towards talking heads.
There is a 1950 version, The Elusive Pimpernel, with David Niven, that he was forced to do, under contract requirements. I've never seen it, but have wanted to, for some time. the 1982 tv movie, referenced above, is quite good and ups the swashbuckling a bit. Andrews was fresh off of Brideshead Revisited and Danger UXB and handled both the action parts and the foppish character well and McKellan was even oilier than Massey. Seymour is the weaker element; but, she has very good chemistry with Andrews, which you have to have, for Marguerite. You can watch it on Youtube.
The 1999-2000 tv series, with Richard E Grant is very good, with a lot of swashbuckling and plenty of stuff to feed Grant's tendency to ham it up. Elizabeth McGovern is Marguerite and Martin Shaw, of The Professionals and Inspector George Gently, is Chauvelin, who is more 3-dimensional in the series, since there is more room to develop the character.
For that kind of thing, I'm a bit more partial to the 1937 or 1952 The Prisoner of Zenda, though the 1937 has the better acting. Ronald Coleman is the English hero, from the playing fields of Eton, as well as his cousin, the crown prince. C Aubrey Smith (inspiration for the cartoon character Commander McBragg) is Colonel Zap, Raymond Massey is the villain, Black Prince Michael, David Niven is the noble friend Fritz von Tarlenheim and Douglas Fairbanks Jr is the delightfully evil Rupert of Hentzau. Great swordplay, plenty of intrigue and action, tremendous third act and well done all around. The 1952 version has Stewart Granger, in the lead, and he's a bit wooden, by comparison, but does a decent job and James Mason, as Rupert, helps it tremendously. Plus, it was done in Technicolor, which brings the whole Astro-Hungarian costuming to life.
The novel is quite good and it was followed by a sequel, Rupert of Hentzau, which kind of brings an end to all the intrigues, in a darker manner.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 21, 2023 20:55:10 GMT -5
ps These guys did a nice version of The Scarlet Pimpernel......sort of...
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