kingrat wrote:PT, let us know what you thought about some of the movies you saw. Sounds like a great way to spend a snowy weekend!
Well, I'm not much of a reviewer, but I can offer a few words on each of them.
1)
El Norte -- I had seen this in the cinema when it was first released, must have been thirty years ago. It does seem rather dated now, and doesn't have the same impact when you know what's coming, but the subject is interesting and I think it's worth watching once.
2)
And God Created Woman -- I don't understand all the hype about this movie. The young Bardot is lovely but the movie itself and the characters are dull and forgettable.
3)
Three Colors: Blue -- fabulous. I'd seen it before, probably about fifteen years ago in a local art house, and it was just as good now. Juliette Binoche is superb.
4)
My Dinner with Andre -- awful and pretentious. Everyone was talking about it back in the day, how wonderful it was, but it's just yak, yak, yak. I think that Andre fellow might have spent a few years on acid. And what's worse is that the stuff he talks about is real experience, they're not making it up. The commercial interruptions made it worse yet, because we'd lose bits and pieces of the yakking each time, and I'd get lost.
5)
The Bakery Girl of Monceau -- a short film, about twenty-two minutes. It was diverting.
6)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant -- this one surprised me. I started out despising Petra for her pretentiousness, superficiality, insensitivity, meanness, etc., and was uninterested. But then a turn of events changes her and she becomes interesting, even sympathetic. I can't recall having a complete change of heart about a character before this -- and not because of a plot twist or revelation of some sort, but because the character changes so much and believably so.
7)
Three Colors: White -- every bit as good as its predecessor Blue, which I had also seen in an art house about fifteen years ago. Very interesting story, though the conclusion is presented in such a way that many people, including myself, completely misunderstand what happened. [I learned the truth on the IMDb board.]
8 )
Cousin, Cousine -- a whole lot of fun. It's dated but still terrific. And this Criterion print is much better than the one I had seen at some little revival house somewhere decades ago. The two leads, Marie-Christine Barrault (niece of Jean-Louis) and Victor Lanoux are wonderful.
9)
Scenes from a Marriage -- good, interesting characters, but kind of strange. Also this Criterion release seems to be a short version of what had originally been a mini-series. At least a couple of hours material was removed.
10)
Jeanne Dielman -- I had seen this before, almost twenty years ago at an old cinema in Greenwich Village. It has more impact the first time seen when you don't know what's coming, but still interesting the second time. Definitely worth seeing once. Very little dialog, by the way -- mostly we're just watching Jeanne go about her daily routines. Excellent job by belgian director Chantal Ackerman.
11)
Deprisa, Deprisa -- a Carlos Saura film from the early 80s which I don't think I had seen before. I'm a big fan of Saura but this is not one of his better offerings. It's okay, but the characters are mostly unlikeable (to me).
12)
La Nuit de Varennes -- this I had seen before, many years ago, definitely worth a second viewing. Excellent story, and Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcello Mastroianni (speaking french) are super.
13)
Mon Oncle d'Amerique -- weird format, but original if nothing else. Has nothing to do with anyone's uncle in America.
14)
The Earrings of Madame De. . . -- I had seen a beat-up print of this probably twenty-five or so years ago, was good to see it again in a good print this time, and to hear Charles Boyer speaking in his native language. Boyer and Danielle Darrieux are great together.
15)
The Spirit of the Beehive -- I had seen this one in a cinema, probably about fifteen years ago, but didn't remember much about it except that it has one of my favorite spanish actors, Fernando Fernan Gomez. I was watching this one late last night, trying to squeak in a couple more pictures before the free access was over, and ended up giving up and shutting down the computer to go to sleep before it was over. So I don't have much to say about this except that it is useful as a peek into what life was like in a small, remote village in Spain in the 1940s.
I attempted to watch
Voyage in Italy, the Rossellini film from the 1950s, but George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman dubbed into italian was too much for me to take. I can't stand losing half of an actor's performance to dubbing, especially for actors of their caliber. Also tried
L'Atalante and gave up after about half an hour -- I found it trivial and not worth the limited time we had.