WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

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JackFavell
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies..... I love little harp glissando as Godfrey shoos away the "pixies". I like how you can hear Brady giggling occasionally as Godfrey leaves, and then all the way down the stairs....
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Birdy
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Birdy »

She does have an infectious giggle, doesn't she?
I'm going to watch it again tonight and try to pick up where I dozed off (thankfully) last night.
This will make about the 100th time!
(Okay, maybe only 99, but I can say most of the dialogue with the movie. How embarrassing.)
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Ann Harding
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Ann Harding »

Recently, I watched two films by Douglas Sirk, when he was still Detlef Sierck and worked in Germany.

La Habanera (1937) with Zarah Leander, Ferdinan Marian and Karl Martell
Image

Astrée (Z. Leander) a young Swedish woman visits Puerto Rico with her aunt when she meets a rich land owner (F. Martell) and falls madly in love with him. She decides to stay on the island and accepts to marry him. Ten years later, she has a young son, but, she is deeply unhappy. Her husband is jealous and she misses terribly her native Sweden...

This picture produced by UFA was a huge success and made Zarah Leander, the Swedish singer, a huge star of German cinema during the Nazi period. I had never seen Leander before in a film and I must admit she has charisma: a very striking face like that of Garbo with a very deep contralto voice. She knows how to move in front of the camera and to project her disenchantment. Sirk's direction is truly excellent like that of his later melodrama produced by Universal. Here, we are in B&W, but we get the same kind of situation where the heroin is trapped in a loveless marriage, discovering too late that her infatuation was a mistake. The story weaves into it quite cleverly a few songs where Leander can display her deep sensual voice. Somehow the film manages to capture the sultry feeling of this island (it was shot in Tenerife, Canary Islands) where Leander is slowly losing the will to live. As you can see from the plot, the film could be a Hollywood production. The film never touches in any way, the actual situation of Germany at the time. It's very handsomely produced with gorgeous costumes and lighting. Worth discovering! :wink:

Zu neuen Ufern (To New Shores, 1937) with Zarah Leander, Willy Birgel, Viktor Staal
Image

Gloria Vane (Z. Leander) is a music hall star in London in the 1850s. To cover her lover, Sir Albert Finsbury (W. Birgel), she accuses herself of forging a check (she is innocent). Gloria receives a 9-year prison sentence and is deported to Australia to the notorious Paramatta penitentiary. She hopes that Albert will get her released. But he is too busy courting the local governor's daughter to be bothered with her. Gloria's only hope is to be selected by one of the local farmers as a wife to be released from the penitentiary...

This is Leander's first film with Sirk. It has all the trappings of a real melodrama. The heroin is pure and accepts everything for the man she loves. Until she discovers she has been following a mirage. Albert (W. Birgel) proves himself to be unworthy of her sacrifice. Then, she can start to rebuilt herself as a person. Leander really casts a spell with her tall and imposing figure. It's no wonder all the men are looking at her. She projects her doom with conviction like Garbo did. the few music hall scenes are brilliantly staged. We discover her in the London Adelphi theatre where all the men are gathering to hear the scandalous Gloria sing her naughty song. The later scene in a shaby theatre in Australia couldn't be more different: she sings her despair with great charisma but gets only boos from the rough crowd who expects to hear a funny song. Sirk is already a master at staging a melodrama. In a way, I prefer his earlier pictures to the later glossy Universal features. He seems more in control of his material here than later when he had to shoot remakes of Stahl pictures. Anyway, if you have a chance to catch those, they are really worth watching. :)
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moira finnie
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by moira finnie »

Thank you so much for posting this info about La Habanera (1937). I've only seen Zarah Leander in clips and documentaries and heard her interesting contralto voice on recordings. She was a fascinating lady from all the evidence that I've seen. Now I've found that this film is available via Netflix and hope to see it soon.

Leander can be heard and seen singing beautifully in the film, Die Grosse Liebe (1942) below and in La Habanera (1937) in the second clip. The chorus line behind the Amazonian Miss Leander consisted of German soldiers recruited to play rather large angelic backup singers in an effort to make Zarah look petite. The conductor will be familiar to many American movie fans of The Third Man (1949) in which he played the porter of an apartment house. He is played by Paul Hörbiger, a fixture in German films before and after the war, (he was a singer as well as an actor). In both films Leander is singing words by Bruno Balz and music by Michael Jary. Balz, a homosexual, was arrested several times under the Nazis, but escaped in part due to the efforts of his collaborator Jary and reportedly Leander to avoid having him placed in a concentration camp.

A clip from Die Grosse Liebe (1942) is below. Check out those chorus boys, but listen to that beautiful voice too. She is singing “Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh’n”, one of the pieces regarded by German soldiers as “songs of endurance”. The Gestapo regarded it as somewhat defeatist, since it expressed a longing for peace, but it and Leander were extremely popular during the war.:.
[youtube][/youtube]

La Habanera (16937). Wish I could brush that weird spit curl off her forehead!
[youtube][/youtube]
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

After 20 years I got to watch Waterloo Bridge from 1940 starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor (thanks Ollie). I watched this as a teen and thought it was just one of the most romantic movies ever and Vivien just the most gorgeous creature ever to grace he screen. Well I haven't changed my opinion. It's so romantic, she's so lovely. One thing I didn;t notice last time was the excellent supporting cast and Robert Taylor, he's very good too. Of course I'm crying buckets now.

Vivien Leigh, the best and most beautiful actress to come out on England, perhaps the best and most beautiful actress in the world, ever and she was English :wink:
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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Moraldo Rubini
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Moraldo Rubini »

Ann Harding wrote:Recently, I watched two films by Douglas Sirk, when he was still Detlef Sierck and worked in Germany.

La Habanera (1937) with Zarah Leander, Ferdinan Marian and Karl Martell

This picture produced by UFA was a huge success and made Zarah Leander, the Swedish singer, a huge star of German cinema during the Nazi period. I had never seen Leander before in a film and I must admit she has charisma: a very striking face like that of Garbo with a very deep contralto voice. She knows how to move in front of the camera and to project her disenchantment. Sirk's direction is truly excellent like that of his later melodrama produced by Universal. Here, we are in B&W, but we get the same kind of situation where the heroin is trapped in a loveless marriage, discovering too late that her infatuation was a mistake. The story weaves into it quite cleverly a few songs where Leander can display her deep sensual voice. Somehow the film manages to capture the sultry feeling of this island (it was shot in Tenerife, Canary Islands) where Leander is slowly losing the will to live. As you can see from the plot, the film could be a Hollywood production. The film never touches in any way, the actual situation of Germany at the time. It's very handsomely produced with gorgeous costumes and lighting. Worth discovering!
How wonderful to see posts regarding Zarah Leander, who's long been the subject of my fascination. Some years ago I bought a copy of the La Habanera DVD, but about 2/3 of the way into the film, the DVD gets stuck before skipping a good 10 minute chunk of the movie. So disappointing! I immediately exchanged the DVD, but its replacement did the same at exactly the same location of the film. I therefore assumed it was a problem with the master and I gave up. Did you have any problem with your copy, Ann?

As I recall, the locale that initially enchanted Astree Sternhjelm (Miss Leander's character) was Puerto Rico. I found it both fascinating and creepy how she learns that the southern climes are debased, the people inherently cruel and begins to long for the more natural northern climates featuring the cleansing attributes of snow. Ah, those Aryans! This was Detlef Sierk's last movie in Germany, before he emigrated to the U.S. and became Douglas Sirk. His wife, the actress Hilde Jary, was Jewish. Supposedly, she was denounced by Sierk's first wife who was a member of the Nazi party. It's astounding that so many great pieces of filmic art were made during these dark days.

I'm hungry to see more of Zarah Leander, especially Die große Liebe with its iconic anthem "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" that Moira mentions. This song was later paid homage by the "Mother of Punk" - Nina Hagan in her song "Zarah" that begins with the angelic choir and the opening refrain of the number. Hopefully, one day Das Lied der Wüste and Heimat will become available to American audiences (along with a working copy of La Habanera!)
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Ann Harding
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Ann Harding »

Moraldo Rubini wrote:How wonderful to see posts regarding Zarah Leander, who's long been the subject of my fascination. Some years ago I bought a copy of the La Habanera DVD, but about 2/3 of the way into the film, the DVD gets stuck before skipping a good 10 minute chunk of the movie. Did you have any problem with your copy, Ann?

Moraldo, I didn't have problem with my copy as it's from a French broadcast and not the Kino DVD. I still have to watch another two Leander pictures (again from French broadcasts): Das Lied der Wüste (The Desert song, 1939) and Das Herz der Königin (Mary Queen of Scots, 1940). I'll let you know what I think of them. :wink:
As I recall, the locale that initially enchanted Astree Sternhjelm (Miss Leander's character) was Puerto Rico. I found it both fascinating and creepy how she learns that the southern climes are debased, the people inherently cruel and begins to long for the more natural northern climates featuring the cleansing attributes of snow. Ah, those Aryans!
As you pointed out, Sirk fled Germany shortly after this film. Working under the Nazi regime, whether in theatre or cinema, was extremely difficult for him, not just because of his wife as he explains himself in the excellent volume Sirk on Sirk by John Halliday. I am not sure there is any political reading to do into this film. Apparently, UFA was just trying to produce entertainment and escapism, hence the exotic locations, in their films. In his previous pictures from 1935, Sirk adapted Selma Lagerlöf and H. Ibsen, again, he took refuge in classics to avoid the general 'atmosphere'. Still, Sirk points out how the powerful Don Pedro is killed by his own madness. He had the serum that could have cured him destroyed beforehand. You can also read some social comment there.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by feaito »

After reading Christine's, Moira's and Marco's post on "La Habanera" and Zarah Leander, I am more interested than before in watching Miss Leander's films.

I have watched some films lately:

"Last Chance Harvey" (2008), a fine comedy drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.

"Desierto Sur" (2008), a mildly entertaining film depicting the journey of a daughter who tries to find a small town in Chile in order to scatter her mother's ashes. Some very interesting performances, but at times a little bit pretentious for my taste.

"The Mad Miss Manton" (1938), an absolutely hilarious screwball comedy with Barbara Stanwuck portraying a dizzy heiress. She's terrific and I laughed out loud the whole film. A real discovery and a small gem. The ladies who play Stany's equally dizzy friends are incredibly beautiful and appealing. Henry Fonda is very good too. A great comedy & a must-see.

"The Last Tycoon" (1976), an interesting film about a Thalberg-like producer based upon Scott Fitzgerald's novel. Good but I was annoyed at some inconsquencies in the period setting. Not very successful in that department. Robert De Niro is excellent as usual and Ingrid Boulting had a special, ethereal, out of this world quality.

"Shane" (1953). Finally I got to see this masterpiece. Awesome photography. Beautifully told story. Excellent performances. Perhaps Ladd's finest moment on screen. Brandon De Wilde is impressive as th small boy who idolizes Ladd.

Ang Lee's "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (1994). A very good Taiwanese film depicting the relationships of three daughters with their widowed father. Fine blend of drama, food and romance.

Jacuqes Feyder's "Knight Without Armor" (1937) Marlene Dietrich's make-up and gowns notwithstanding -beautiful but not appropriate for 1913-1917- a very realistic account of the whereabouts of a Russian Countess and a British Spy, before and during the Russian Revolution. Very absorbing and engrossing. I was impressed by the realism, violence and harshness of certain sequences. Donat is excellent and Marlene is dreamy. I can't wait to see Feyder's French films!

"The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" (1955). A very good drama that tells the story of one of the biggest scandals of the turn of th XXth Century in New York, involving a beautiful model, a highly respected architect and a megalomaniac millionaire. Beautiful cinematography and period setting. Joan Collins is suprisingly good in the title role.

"Under Pressure" (1935). An entertaining account of the lives of a group of "sandhogs" who live and work in NY City. Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe sort of reprise their Quirt & Flagg roles. Marjorie Rambeau stands out as McLaglen's woman. Amusing.

"Late Bloomers" (2006). An entertaining film about four elderly ladies who start a lingerie business in a very old-fashioned town.
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poorly written non-reviews on my part

Post by bryce »

My wife and I movie-hopped from Drag Me to Hell to Up last night. Boy, as if that isn't the best movie-hop of all time! Both films were excellent, however - shining examples of the best their creators have to offer. In regards to the Sam Raimi flick, it's just as good as Evil Dead II, but whereas that film fully embraces the camp, Drag Me to Hell possesses a cold, steely-eyed seriousness, proving that you can make a traditional demons 'n voodoo horror flick without all of the gore and inconsequential slaughter. Concisely: It was amazing! Much to some folks chagrin, I'm sure, I'll state, for the record, Your Honor: it was the best horror film I've seen in a decade, and maybe the "purest" one I've ever seen. Raimi's got Hitchcock's penchant for suspense, thrill and the cheap scare, but he wields those powers like John Carpenter, and that's a damned dangerous thing.

Up is the culmination of everything Pixar's been working for over the past twenty years. I didn't believe it when numerous reviewers said the first five minutes would bring you to tears. It did. Boy, either I'm getting old and soft or this is the year of filmmaker's pulling at our heart-strings by revealing our own humanity. I'd say it's the latter. The film is a very human story, with a very human protagonist and a very human (wholly colored; not in any way cut and dried or black and white) antagonist, and it deals with some incredibly tough and complex emotions in ways that both children and adults can understand. Up puts the bulk of the emotional burden on us adults, especially the older ones and those who have lost, whilst simultaneously helping us to further embrace the treasures that are the most important in our lives: memories, new and old, the people we make them with, and the children who are innocent enough not to be weighed down by them like we are.
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Re: poorly written non-reviews on my part

Post by Moraldo Rubini »

bryce wrote:Up is the culmination of everything Pixar's been working for over the past twenty years. I didn't believe it when numerous reviewers said the first five minutes would bring you to tears. It did. Boy, either I'm getting old and soft or this is the year of filmmaker's pulling at our heart-strings by revealing our own humanity. I'd say it's the latter. ...
At the screening I attended last night, as the opening segment ended, the audience gave it an ovation. I couldn't remember that ever happening in a movie (other than for a musical number) before. There's a sudden turn in the middle of the movie that had a completely different tone from the rest of the pic though; it seemed almost like they mixed up the reel with another picture. I found Up to be a bewildering mix of brilliance (especially the first 1/3) and disappointment.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by bryce »

You're not the first person to have said that the opening of the third act was jarring, but you are the first person I've read that has actually been disappointed by it. I actually found it completely natural - you have to have conflict before you can have resolution, after all, and in any children's or adventure film I've ever seen the two buddies always fall out - and didn't even notice while I was sitting there watching it.

I mean this in the nicest way, but these are tales of human experience here, the rules of normal storytelling don't apply. As with Benjamin Button, trying to pigeon-hole it into some pre-conceived notion of how a film is supposed to flow will only result in a diminished experience. Boy, is that a pretentious statement or what? Yet it's true. The same goes for The Wrestler. We're not watching traditional film here - we're watching, essentially, documentaries about people's lives (except they flow with the angelic grace of scripted events). To me it's sort of a blending between classic Hollywood and Werner Herzog, except instead of having to coax the desired performance out of a subject (as is almost always Herzog's case, to the point of inserting himself into his pictures, thus forever proving the "observer" effect), they simply write the story from scratch and have actors play it out like they want.

Eh, whatever, maybe I'm easily pleased these days. Two years of watching nothing but z-grade underground flicks must have permanently damaged my taste receptors.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by mrsl »

What, exactly is Up about? I looked it up on imdB and they are still asking for someone to write a description for it. I looked at the questions, trying to get a glimmer of the substance of the movie, but nobody there gave me any satisfaction. I have seen a couple of commercials for it, but again, it gives no hint as to what the movie is about. Can you guys do a short sentence on the content of Up?

As for Drag me to Hell - - - c'mon, couldn't they think just a little bit and come up with a less 'turn-off' name? I'm not sure I can take Bryce's advice about it, I think I'll wait for a few more comments on it before I chance watching it or not, since our tastes are so vastly different.

Anne
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Birdy »

Can one of you pm me about this emotional opening scene for UP? I'm going to see it next weekend and NEED A SPOILER. REPEAT...I NEED A SPOILER. (Yes, I'm yelling.) I'm extremely emotional at all movies and live performances...even when they're not meant to be sad. I'm just easily moved, I guess. I have to take a pack of kids to this and it's VITAL that I know how much kleenex to pack and if I need to avoid mascara. Often for emotional movies, I'd just rather know what's coming. And I don't care that I've ruined the experience. (It took me years to work up to The Notebook.)
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Moraldo Rubini
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Moraldo Rubini »

mrsl wrote:What, exactly is Up about? ... Can you guys do a short sentence on the content of Up?
An elderly widower and balloon salesman finds his lifetime home being encroached by modern highrises and sets off towards his longheld goal to see Paradise Falls (Venezuela) by attaching balloons to said house and floating off to adventure.
Birdy wrote:Can one of you pm me about this emotional opening scene for UP? I'm going to see it next weekend and NEED A SPOILER. REPEAT...I NEED A SPOILER. (Yes, I'm yelling.) I'm extremely emotional at all movies and live performances...even when they're not meant to be sad. I'm just easily moved, I guess. I have to take a pack of kids to this and it's VITAL that I know how much kleenex to pack and if I need to avoid mascara. Often for emotional movies, I'd just rather know what's coming. And I don't care that I've ruined the experience.
I think when people (I, at least) talk about the opening; they're talking about more than just the opening scene, but rather the set-up for the film that follows. The very opening is a "newsreel" that reminds us of Citizen Kane's similar beginning that gives us some background. This is followed by the life story of a relationship between the main character and his wife. It's told without dialogue and should inspire the return of the great art of silent film. Though beautifully told and very touching, it did not draw tears from my arid ducts. You might need one tissue, and if you only mascara the upper lashes, you should be fine.
However, 2/3 of the way into the film, a discovery is made and this caused me to blubber. I hesitate telling you, as it came as such a surprise to me (perhaps I'm easy), that its discovery was part of its delight. PM me, if you really must know; but it's like telling you that "Rosebud" is the sled (oh dear, is there someone here who hasn't seen Citizen Kane? If so, in CK's case, that's oversimplified, and the sled is only a symbol of its true meaning, which you'll discover if you'd only watch the masterpiece). If your only reason for knowing is preparation, I can give you that now: 1) Take a box of Kleenex and don't wear mascara; and 2) the remainder of the movie is long enough to give you time to recover and exit the theatre in light without fear of blotchy features and red eyes.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

"Woman In The Window." I had it in my Netflix list long before Dewey posted his clip.

SPOILERS

Part of me really likes this and part of me hates being suckered. You watch a whole movie, suspending a little logic along the way, only to find out it is all a sham. Maybe I'm not that smart but it often takes away from my enjoyment of it. I sit there and think "Oh, crap."

That being said there are some good performances here. Robinson is very good as a kind of plain man caught up in a situation almost by accident that one wrong decision haunts him. Dan Duryea shows up late but he is his wonderfully slimy self. He is especially creepy when he and Joan Bennett have a little disagreement. Raymond Massey does little but goodnaturedly spout police procedure all over the place. Fine direction by Fritz Lang.

Now, if only I could learn to live with the ending.
Chris

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