I Just Watched...

[Lorna]

OH MY GOD GOLD STAR FOR ME I FIGGERED OUT HOW TO DO PICS@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kingrat]

(i apologize because this is going to meander)

One of my favorite FILMMAKING ANECDOTES ever (and one from which an invaluable lesson can be gleaned) involves a day DURING THE FILMING OF JAWS when SPIELBERG threw PETER BENCHLEY off the set because he decided that in the film's grand finale, the shark was going to eat the air tank and blow up. i'm going to paraphrase from memory, but BENCHLEY told SPIELBERG that was IDIOTIC and no one in the audience would believe it, to wit SPIELBERG replied that- if he had done his job as a director- the audience would be willing to accept (or more aptly put- "swallow") anything.

and he was right. He (with an excellent group of artists) made a film so MASTERFULLY CONSTRUCTED and BRILLIANTLY MANIPULATIVE of THE AUDIENCE that I for one know that if ever I am attacked by a shark, the very first thing I am going to do is look around for an AIR TANK to shove down that mother's gullet.

Anyhow, why the Hell am i bringing this up? (you surely are now asking)

Because on a whim (hah hah) I started watching WIM WENDERS' 1984 oddity PARIS TEXAS and he hooked me for exactly two hours and 8 minutes or so of the 2 hour 26 minute film because he is a brilliant filmmaker who was working with great actors and a great crew.



it is a movie that is OBVIOUSLY constructed by someone highly intelligent- there are symbols throughout and a brilliant almost mathematical geometry to the story- apparently KUROSAWA loved this movie and I get that.

It's beautifully shot and framed- there are A LOT of shots that could honestly BE IN A MOVIE TODAY which is wild, because 2/3 of this movie is EXTERIORS of TEXAS and CALIFORNIA ca. 1983/4- but they're framed so tastefully that many shots don't have anything in them to "date" the footage.

BUT...

In the end, for all his OBVIOUS GENIUS and for all the talent and effort of the cast, WIM WENDERS and CO. cannot get me to buy their own personal "shark eating the scuba tank" moment on which HANGS the finale of the whole film.

Spoilers may follow.

This movie starts out something like RAIN MAN where HARRY DEAN STANTON- with a real JOHN CARRADINE vibe- is found NON VERBAL in a DELIRIUM in Texas after wandering the desert FOR FOUR YEARS (?!?). His brother- who is played by DEAN STOCKWELL who I LOVE and who is SO GOOD IN THIS, comes to claim him. we discover that STOCKWELL and HIS WIFE have been rasing HARRY DEAN'S SON who is now about 8 in LOS ANGELES because HARRY DEAN vanished four years ago and neither he nor his wife have been seen.

Long story short, HARRY DEAN seems almost autistic in this movie, but he becomes verbal again and plays things in sort of a "JIMMY STEWART with a head injury" fashion, and has a gentle and highly endearing nature that is built up so well by the filmmaker that, although we may furrow our collective brows with concern as an audience when( at the film's one hour mark) HARRY DEAN and HIS EIGHT YEAR OLD SON [WHO HAS BEEN RAISED BY DEAN STOCKWELL AND THIS WIFE AS THEIR OWN IN A NICE STABLE HOUSE IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY] just go POOF! take off FOR TEXAS in search of HARRY DEAN'S WIFE, the kid's mother WITHOUT INFORMING THE KID'S ADOPTIVE/ACTUAL/DECENT/STABLE/CARING/EMPLOYED/HOUSED/VERBAL/FULLY INVESTED PARENTS that that are doing this.

whew.

this is not okay- but WENDERS- the craftsman- has us along for the ride because he OBVIOUSLY KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING, so we keep on WATCHING...

and we get to TEXAS where see that HARRY DEAN'S WIFE, the kid's mother is NASTASSJA KINSKY ( WHO WAS 35 YEARS YOUNGER THAN HARRY DEAN STANTON!!!!!!!) and she is A PEEP SHOW WORKER in A BACK ALLEY IN HOUSTON.

And the film is getting to the 2 hour mark, and I'm still along for the ride, because this film is compelling and well shot and gorgeous and a time capsule, but also so contemporary- and even though it's slow, things are happening, and the acting is good and i'm invested in the characters.

stop reading here if you don't want the ending "ruined"

and then we discover that DURING THEIR MARRIAGE, HARRY DEAN PULLED SOME REAL IKE TURNER LEVEL s*** ON NASTASSJA- BEATING HER on a DRUNKEN BENDER BEFORE BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE and causing her to flee with their four year old son.

It's like discovering RAIN MAN was actually RUSSELL CROWE'S DAD who chained him to the radiator in LA CONFIDENTIAL.

AND THEN HARRY DEAN JUST GIVES HER THE KID AND WALKS AWAY FROM BOTH OF THEM.

END OF MOVIE.

The kid never goes back to DEAN STOCKWELL and his wife who have RAISED THE UNGRATEFUL LITTLE ****, the last we see of his adoptive mom, she's in a fugue state laying sprawled on his STAR WARS SHEETS. I don't mean to shame SEX WORKERS, but OH MY GOD, what is NASTASSJA gonna do with him WHILE SHE'S WORKIN THE PEEP SHOW DURING THE LUNCH SHIFT????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS NOT OKAY, NONE OF THIS IS OKAY-

the opening theme to LAW AND ORDER should've have started playing any number of times during this movie.

it's like if LENI REIFENSTAHL directed LOVE ACTUALLY- in the end, ain't no amount of aesthetic messaging and talent gonna get over SOME SERIOUS ISSUES WITH THE BASE MATERIAL.

Lorna, I had exactly the same problem with this film. My comments may even be somewhere on this site. Someone responded that he thought the ending was "open"--maybe the boy will be better off with his parents, maybe not. To me the ending is as dark and devastating as the ending of FORBIDDEN GAMES, only Wenders doesn't get it. Maybe because Stanton and Kinski are so movie-star cool, whereas the bourgeois aunt and uncle only provide food, clothing, shelter, stability, and ordinary affection, none of which the sperm supplier or the baby mama can provide except sporadically.

There's also one amusing misstep in this last part of the film: Stanton leaves the boy for his mother in a room in Le Meridien, which at that time was the priciest hotel in Houston. Not very likely, though the shot through the window of the boy in the room is nice.

[Bronxgirl48]

ANGEL ANGEL DOWN WE GO (which is also known by another name that I can’t recall and I’m too lazy to look up) makes THE BIG CUBE look like a masterfully constructed piece of genuine social commentary with great acting to boot.

It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

It was also the first film I saw on YouTube.

But I'll bet Jennifer (JONES) looks good (in ANGEL ANGEL DOWN WE GO) Wonder why she would even consider doing something like this -- wasn't she already married to super rich Norton Simon?

Actually, at the risk of being body snarking and dissing Jennifer Jones, of whom I’m also a fan, she looks terrible.

She was such a stunning beauty in her younger years, but as she got older, she stayed religiously thin, and her face took on kind of a hardness that reflected a lot of the hardships of her life. Plus, the cinematography is incredibly saturated, and she wears a series of ridiculous Loretta Lynn looking wigs.

I’m sure she wanted to do the movie to prove she was still a viable actress and a viable sex symbol, and could connect to the young generation with a controversial role like some of the ones that she had done earlier, but holy cow.

It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen this movie and I still remember how absolutely mind blowingly bad it is.

I just looked up her marriage to Norton Simon, which actually occurred in 1971, two years after ANGEL was made. Could explain a lot, lol.

[Cinemaspeak59]

The Holdovers (2023) Alexander Payne returns with this funny, poignant, picturesque period piece set in a tony New England boarding school. The year is 1970, and three people, for different reasons, find themselves spending Christmas break on campus: a curmudgeonly, acerbic classics professor (Paul Giamatti); a talented but troubled student (Dominic Sessa); and the cafeteria manager (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), mourning the loss of her son in Vietnam. I found Giamatti’s character a tad over the top, and his backstory a bit forced. Regardless, the film is beautifully observed and acted, and it’ll likely be another addition to the “Christmas” movie.

[Allhallowsday]

Last night on METV (looking forward to this episode all week!):







I've admired that greasy Space Cowboy since I was 4 years old...when the episode was new!

[kingrat]

We have watched the first three episodes of UNCOUPLED and have enjoyed them. Since Darren Star is co-author and the show is set in New York, this is obviously intended to be a gay SEX AND THE CITY. Neil Patrick Harris discovers via text that his partner of 17 years (Tuc Watkins) has left him. Marcia Gay Harden chews the scenery most agreeably as a woman whose husband has left for a 25-year-old woman. In Episode 3 Neil drops his towel to reveal a delightful derriere.

The show runs the risk of becoming too overly with it, but so far I have been laughing, while also having heebie-jeebies at the thought of suddenly being thrown into the world of Grindr, which is the point of the show.

[TikiSoo]

We have watched the first three episodes of UNCOUPLED and have enjoyed them.

UGH! Until your description thought this might be a sequel to the hilarious BBC show COUPLING 2000-04.
It starred the most mesmerizingly pretty Sarah Alexander so....guess not-

[Masha]

We have watched the first three episodes of UNCOUPLED and have enjoyed them.

UGH! Until your description thought this might be a sequel to the hilarious BBC show COUPLING 2000-04.
It starred the most mesmerizingly pretty Sarah Alexander so....guess not-

An Americanized version of: Coupling (2000-2004) was attempted in: 2003 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338592/?r ... q_coupling

It was an unmitigated disaster. The original English version has an IMDb.com rating of: 8.6/10. The American remake has an IMDB.com rating of: 3.6/10. "Following poor critical reception, NBC canceled the show after only four episodes."

We have attempted to find it but we have not located it on any streaming service.

We both love the original BBC version and I strongly recommend that all adults seek it out because it truly is hilarious.

[I Love Melvin]

We have watched the first three episodes of UNCOUPLED and have enjoyed them. Since Darren Star is co-author and the show is set in New York, this is obviously intended to be a gay SEX AND THE CITY. Neil Patrick Harris discovers via text that his partner of 17 years (Tuc Watkins) has left him. Marcia Gay Harden chews the scenery most agreeably as a woman whose husband has left for a 25-year-old woman. In Episode 3 Neil drops his towel to reveal a delightful derriere.

The show runs the risk of becoming too overly with it, but so far I have been laughing, while also having heebie-jeebies at the thought of suddenly being thrown into the world of Grindr, which is the point of the show.

You're right to think that it teeters on going overboard but I won't spoil anything by getting ahead of you. I really like Brooks Ashmanskas as his friend Stanley, who, along with Marcia Gay Harden, is one of the best sources of humor. I'd remembered being impressed with him before even seeing him when her did the voice of Gore Vidal for the recent documentary about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, The Last Movie Stars. There's room for pathos amid the humor too, and Stanley becomes a big part of that. It wasn't renewed for another season apparently, so it is what it is. It reminds me a little of Paul Rudnick's play and film Jeffrey (1995), which dealt with the perils of gay men dating in the time of AIDS, a risk for a comedy but it paid off. I'm several generations removed from the world of Grindr, so I'm just as unnerved as you are.

[txfilmfan]

We have watched the first three episodes of UNCOUPLED and have enjoyed them. Since Darren Star is co-author and the show is set in New York, this is obviously intended to be a gay SEX AND THE CITY. Neil Patrick Harris discovers via text that his partner of 17 years (Tuc Watkins) has left him. Marcia Gay Harden chews the scenery most agreeably as a woman whose husband has left for a 25-year-old woman. In Episode 3 Neil drops his towel to reveal a delightful derriere.

The show runs the risk of becoming too overly with it, but so far I have been laughing, while also having heebie-jeebies at the thought of suddenly being thrown into the world of Grindr, which is the point of the show.

Watched this when it came out, and was waiting for the next season, but Netflix cancelled it. It's supposedly moving to Showtime.

[Dargo]

DECISION BEFORE DAWN (1951)

Can't believe I've never before watched this excellent WWII-themed film. Recorded it the other night off the Movies! channel (this way one can FF past all the commercials) and watched it last night.

Richard Basehart gets top billing as an American Army officer who is assigned to an intelligence operation headed by Gary Merrill, and with the latter coming up with the idea to select captured German POWs to spy for American forces behind German enemy lines. Basehart's character isn't completely on-board with this idea.

Now, who actually should have gotten top billing in this would be Austrian actor Oskar Werner who is the POW selected for this venture, as a large percentage in the middle of this film is devoted to his attempting to find the information of German troop and tank movements and then eluding capture after his indentity becomes known by the Germans. Werner is excellent in this part as a man who had become disillusioned with his country's politics and war-making and enough so to turn traitor and help end the war more quickly during its closing year and after the tide of the war had turned in the Allied Forces' favor.

I was particularly impressed with how six years after the end of this world conflict the film's director Anatole Litvak was able to so effectively recreate the visuals and the chaotic circumstances of war-torn German cities and their inhabitants as the fall of the Third Reich being just months away.

(my rating: 8/10)

[Hibi]

OH MY GOD GOLD STAR FOR ME I FIGGERED OUT HOW TO DO PICS@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're one up on me!

[Hibi]

But I'll bet Jennifer (JONES) looks good (in ANGEL ANGEL DOWN WE GO) Wonder why she would even consider doing something like this -- wasn't she already married to super rich Norton Simon?

Actually, at the risk of being body snarking and dissing Jennifer Jones, of whom I’m also a fan, she looks terrible.

She was such a stunning beauty in her younger years, but as she got older, she stayed religiously thin, and her face took on kind of a hardness that reflected a lot of the hardships of her life. Plus, the cinematography is incredibly saturated, and she wears a series of ridiculous Loretta Lynn looking wigs.

I’m sure she wanted to do the movie to prove she was still a viable actress and a viable sex symbol, and could connect to the young generation with a controversial role like some of the ones that she had done earlier, but holy cow.

It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen this movie and I still remember how absolutely mind blowingly bad it is.

I just looked up her marriage to Norton Simon, which actually occurred in 1971, two years after ANGEL was made. Could explain a lot, lol.

Yes, Norton Simon rescued her from making more of these turkeys. Still, I wish Towering Inferno hadn't been her last film (though she has a good part in it). She wanted to film Terms of Endearment, but she couldn't get it made with her as the star so she sold the rights to James Brooks. Her lines in Angel are cringe worthy. A really terrible film.

[Masha]

[...] the perils of gay men dating in the time of AIDS [...]

I read that first as: "in the time of PLAIDS"

My mind reeled a bit at the idea that fashion could be truly perilous to some people.

I believe that I need more sleep. This is not quite my time of day.

[Lorna]

OH MY GOD GOLD STAR FOR ME I FIGGERED OUT HOW TO DO PICS@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're one up on me!

it's um...not not hard.
gonna try and save it for special occasions!