WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

That's a very interesting observation, Mike. Really, it makes you wonder if we are in some kind of cultural lull. I haven't seen the film for a long time, but you make me want to watch it again.

I thought Fly from Babe deserved an academy award. I don't remember the dog in Down and Out that well. Maybe it's time for a rewatch.

Maybe TCM could do a tribute to animal performances?

[kingrat]

Before leaving for the festival, I watched Toys in the Attic (1963, George Roy Hill), mostly because of Hill, a director who made two enormous hits, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting and then made his best film late in life, The World According to Garp. Hill was a Broadway director, and Toys in the Attic, which had won the New York Drama Critics' Circle best play award for Lillian Hellman, was his first film. A number of the 50s/60s serious plays did not make especially good films, so expectations were fairly low. Much of Toys seems like warmed-over Tennessee Williams, like the fluttery spinster played by Geraldine Page.

Nonetheless, the film has elements to recommend it. If Dean Martin is unlikely as a Southerner or the brother of Geraldine Page and Wendy Hiller, he has the right optimistic glad-handing salesman quality essential to his role, not to mention charm and talent. I like watching Hiller mop the floor with the tremulous Miss Page in all their scenes together. Classical Rep training 1, Actors Studio 0. Hiller actually has the most interesting part, a woman who can face the truth and live with the knowledge of unpleasant things. Yvette Mimieux repeats her performance from Light in the Piazza, which works fine. An aging Gene Tierney (I did not recognize her) plays Mimieux's mother, a woman having an affair with her African-American chauffeur (Frank Silvera), which is a daring theme for the time. The Freudian textbook stuff seems dated, but Hill already knew how to direct.

[Rita Hayworth]

AIRPORT 1970



I just love watching very late last night from 1:20 to 3:40 in the morning with so much drama, excitement, and great acting, and I was literally on the edge of my chair at all times. I enjoyed it more now than I did decades before. It was unreal movie and this is definitely a classic for the ages. An All Star Cast ... see my selected picture. I just love it. This one amazing movie that stands on the test of times. I know most of you probably seen it ... but this is the first time in over 20 years that I last saw this movie and I love it even more that has more drama that you can possibly shake it.

[JackFavell]

I only saw the end of Toys in the Attic when it was on, kingrat, but the end made me really wish I had seen the whole thing. I am a big Hiller fan, since she has my first name. Hiller's last few scenes..... I don't think I've ever seen her come undone in such a way before. She was so unnerved, and lost that tone she always seems to have, that reserve. I totally believed her shock and prescience at how things were going to be destroyed. She's like the glue holding all these flibbertigibbets together, so when she unravels, God help the rest of them.

TCM should do a day of unhealthy families. Ladies in Retirement, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Toys in the Attic - they all seem to be related to one another. I love this type of movie.

[kingrat]

I haven't seen The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, but love Ladies in Retirement.

By the way, on Broadway Anne Revere played the role Wendy Hiller had in the movie, and won a Tony for Best Supporting Actress. The play had Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton as fluttery Carrie, and Irene Worth as Albertine.

George Roy Hill already seemed to have some idea of how to direct for films, unlike a number of directors who came from the theater.

[JackFavell]

Yes, it didn't strike me as particularly stagey, or in fact, even a little bit so. He seemed like he had command of techniques to pull you in - which shots to make you empathize, feel what the characters were thinking instead of keeping you at arms length, etc.

Can you imagine that cast? Wow. I love Hiller but I wish I could go back in time and see that one on stage.

[RedRiver]

TOYS IN THE ATTIC is very much like Tennessee Williams. Not a great movie, by any means, but quite wicked and never dull. A movie I can enjoy without giving rave reviews. I'd be surprised if Wendy Hiller WASN'T the best of the cast. She almost always is. Her Hollywood work is good. But the Shaw adaptations show us the remarkable depth the actress had to offer. MAJOR BARBARA and PYGMALION: some of the finest acting I've ever seen!

[JackFavell]

I own both films, Red, and Pygmalion's in my top five films.

[feaito]

The other day I saw the very marvelously filmed Scorsese movie "Hugo", in which Asa Butterfield plays beautifully the title character; what a charsimatic kid. Beng Kingsley impersonates Georges Méliès and Chloë Grace Moretz, Isabelle, the girl who befriends Hugo. Sacha Baron Cohen is effective as the train station's policeman. The cinematography, costumes, sets, art direction, musical score, etc. are all fantastic. A truly magical film whihc deserved its A.A. nominations. It's a pity that two such endearing films, like this one and "The Artist" had to be released the very same year and compete against each other at the Oscars; both set around the same Era and dealing with the cherished subject of vintage Classic cinema....A film I'll revisit many times. I absolutely loved Méliès automaton!

[JackFavell]

What a marvelous film, Fer, I agree. Definitely the best one I saw last year, or in several years.

[MichiganJ]

The other day I saw the very marvelously filmed Scorsese movie "Hugo", in which Asa Butterfield plays beautifully the title character; what a charsimatic kid. Beng Kingsley impersonates Georges Méliès and Chloë Grace Moretz, Isabelle, the girl who befriends Hugo. Sacha Baron Cohen is effective as the train station's policeman. The cinematography, costumes, sets, art direction, musical score, etc. are all fantastic. A truly magical film whihc deserved its A.A. nominations. It's a pity that two such endearing films, like this one and "The Artist" had to be released the very same year and compete against each other at the Oscars; both set around the same Era and dealing with the cherished subject of vintage Classic cinema....A film I'll revisit many times. I absolutely loved Méliès automaton!

If you liked Hugo, I would highly recommend the new, blu-ray release of Méliés A Trip to the Moon, which features the restored and reconstructed, hand-colored version of the film.

Screen caps comparing the black and white and color versions:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm

Also, if you liked the automaton, don't miss the Raymond Bernard silent, The Chess Player, which features, among other things, an automaton that, well, plays chess.

[MikeBSG]

Here's another vote for "The Chess Player," which is a true gem of silent fantastic cinema. It really deserves to be better known.

On Wednesday, I watched a mixed bag of a movie, "Amazon Women on the Moon" (1987).

I don't think the movie (a comedy sketch movie which tries to imitate channelsurfing on late night TV) ever got a theatrical release. I saw it at the Cleveland Cinematheque.

Some of the skits are mean spirited and don't really work. (I still can't figure out the opening skit with Arsenio Hall. Why is this supposed to be funny?) But the genre parodies are usually done with a sense of fondness that is winning.

The title skit that spoofs 1950's sci-fi is right on the money and very enjoyable. I really love the "Invisible Man" parody, in which the scientist only thinks his formula has turned him invisible, but when he takes his clothes off he can still be seen by the naked eye. And there is a clever spoof of 1930's "Reefer Madness" type movies, which lets you see Mike Mazurki and Carrie Fisher both semi-undressed in the same scene. (Whoever imagined such a thing was possible.)

Overall, I thought the good outweighed the bad with this one.

[kingrat]

Mike, speaking of Arsenio Hall: he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame right next to Marilyn Monroe. So you get a star if you're one of the century's legendary icons or if you're, well, Arsenio Hall.

[RedRiver]

I like "Amazon Women." As you say, Mike, it's hit and miss. But it's more good than bad. Ed Begley, Jr as The Not So Invisible Man is side splitting. Who hasn't thought of that possiblity while watching Claude Rains and his counterparts? There's something about a kid buying condoms (from Ralph Bellamy?). And an appeal for support for the growing problem of "Blacks Without Soul."

True, some of the skits don't work. But the running time is short. And you can't really get bored with the rapid change of direction. The concept of this type of parody, I. E. BLAZING SADDLES, early Woody Allen, is "Wouldn't it be funny if..." Yes. With the right flavor and good timing, it would be!

[feaito]

Thanks for your recommendations Kevin & Mike.

Wendy, We always are in much need of magic in our lives!