WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[movieman1957]

Chris said:

My daughter will watch the Marx Brothers one night and then she is off the see the latest installment of "Saw."

I know that we share April 29, 1984, as a wedding anniversary (What're you going to do for No. 25? The pressure's on!), but do we also share the same daughter?

If yours is about 5 feet and adorable then I'm going to be worried. The girls might find it pretty neat. As far as my 25th we haven't really talked about it. My wife wants to renew our vows but we've had such a great marriage I am of the opinion that is doing something that need not be done. They've hardly expired.

I do owe her a decent honeymoon. We didn't have much money when we got married so it was a dim motel in Williamsburg but I like to think we had fun being together.

What are your plans?

[MikeBSG]

I've been watching war movies lately.

"Sands of Iwo Jima" -- as terrific as its reputation. This is probably the American film epic of the Second World War.

"The Steel Helmet" -- very effective. Easily the Sam Fuller movie that I like the most.

"Guaducanal Diary" -- this is the WWII movie that every American has in his DNA. Parts of it could be faster but this is the film that has shaped how Americans think about WWII.

"The Cruel Sea" -- very effective and different from the other films in presenting war as a job that must be done every day.

[charliechaplinfan]

Alison, I am SO in agreement. I'll make the popcorn, come on out and we'll watch little bunny rabbits frolic thru the grass.....ANYTHING is better than scary movies....

I'm glad it's not just me then

I've just watched one of the absolute gems of British cinema The Lady Killers. It is so funny. Mrs Wilberforce is one of the great characters of film. Alec Guiness one of it's very best actors. It's the pinnacle of the Ealing Comedies.

Yesterday I saw Late Chrysanthemums by Naruse. This film conentrated on the lives of three retired Geishas, it's a great character study, one of those lovely Japanese films that is just a story about life. One of the actresses Haruko Sugimara is in many of the Japanese films I've seen. She usually plays a business woman or runs a geisha house, she's such a great actress.

[feaito]

I've just watched one of the absolute gems of British cinema The Lady Killers. It is so funny. Mrs Wilberforce is one of the great characters of film. Alec Guiness one of it's very best actors. It's the pinnacle of the Ealing Comedies.

I absolutely agree

[Ann Harding]

Yesterday I watched Ivy (1947) with Joan Fontaine and Herbert Marshall. When I saw the name of the director, I was terrified: Sam Wood! Argh! He made so many ponderous and boring pictures..... But, then I noticed another name on the credits: William Cameron Menzies as producer. And it turned out that William had certainly a lot to do with the way the shots were composed (thank God! ).
Ivy (Joan Fontaine) is very selfish lady who would love a life of luxury. But her husband is poor. Then she meets millionaire Miles Rushworth (H. Marshall). She plans to marry him but her husband and her lover are in the way... How is she going to get rid of them?
Joan Fontaine played the evil lady of the title more poisonous than a scorpion. The cinematography and settings were remarkable (Thank you Mr Menzies!!!) and gave the film a wonderful film noir atmosphere. Russel Metty shows his mastery in B&W. The men in the film were not as well characterized as the women. The Daniele Amphiteatrof score is excellent. Really enjoyable! Thanks Fernando!

[feaito]

Glad to hear you liked it Christine. The aspects of the film you enjoyed the most coincide very much with mine.

[charliechaplinfan]

This morning I watched Jeux Inderdits or Forbidden Games by Rene Clement. A film centring around two very young actors and the effects of the war on them. I'd read the synopsis beforehand, it concerns the children stealing crosses and making graves for dead animals in a run down mill. It sounds a bit gruesome but after the opening scenes it's quite humourous and quite irreverent towards the church. A delight.

[MikeBSG]

Yesterday, I watched "San Francisco" for the first time.

If I hadn't known the movie was building up to the earthquake, I would have stopped watching it. Gable was good, but he has been better in a lot of other stuff. Macdonald just isn't my thing, and really I could not have cared less where the sang. However, Spencer Tracy was the guy worst served by the movie. He had the task of being glum and humorless every time he showed up.

The earthquake scenes were very well done, and it reminded me that there did seem to be "disaster movies" in the Thirties (Last Days of Pompeii, In Old Chicago, The Hurricane).

[feaito]

Mike,

I love those "Disaster" movies from the '30s you mentioned. The special effects were awesome. Two other films which are amazing in this aspect are "The Rains Came" (1939) and "The Good Earth" (1937). Now, we only get CGI and photoshop!!

Over the weekend I watched four very different films:

Sam Peckinpah’s “Ride the High Country” (1962), which was titled in my country “Pistoleros del Atardecer” (Sunset Gunfighters). Currently the Western is not among my favorite Genres, but I used to love them as a kid; I watched hundreds of them every afternoon on public TV. I still enjoy watching some of them, especially if they are above average. This movie belongs in my opinion, to the kind of Westerns that transcend the Genre. I was impressed by the precision and timing of this film. It must be one of the very best westerns I’ve seen in my life and it arguably has both, Randolph Scott’s and Joel McCrea’s finest performances ever. A poetic, touching, superior film.


“Tony Manero” (2008), a decadent, sordid, downbeat account of the life of an amoral man obsessed by Travolta’s character of “Saturday Night Fever” (1977). Alfredo Castro’s performance is brilliant and the film is very good, but definitively not for all tastes. There are some very strong scenes.

The long overdue “Three Comrades” (1938) by Frank Borzage which contains an absolutely mesmerizing, luminous performance by the marvelous Margaret Sullavan. This actress exuded naturalness and talent from every single part of her body. She’s flawless. One the very best actresses Hollywood ever had. What a sensitive, deft performance she gave. I was completely enthralled by her. And the three male leads are also superb. Robert Taylor gives one of his best (if not the best) early performances and his chemistry with Miss Sullavan is incredible. I was truly impressed by him. Franchot Tone and Robert Young as his pals are equally good. I had taped this film off TCM, many years ago and thank God the VHS has not deteriorated as it should (I taped it in EP). This film ought to be released to DVD along with “The Mortal Storm” (1940), which I have yet to see. Nobody can epitomize celluloid romance as Borzage. Hail the master!

Lastly, I watched “Prince Caspian” (2008). I found it overlong and did not like it very much. I think that it has excessive violence (for a family film anyway) and is inferior than part I.

[MichiganJ]

Over the weekend I watched the terrifically odd “art-film” Brand Upon the Brain, by Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. Ostensibly a “silent film” (Isabella Rossellini narrates), with plenty of inter-titles, the actually soundtrack is as much of the experience as the images (many of the sounds are foleyed, and there is one, brilliant sequence, where an actress sings). Shot on Super 8, mainly in black and white, the picture is obviously grainy, and much of the cinematography is purposely washed out, which does two things: It makes the film seem more like an “actual” Silent film (considering the shape most of those films are in, unfortunately), and two: provides even more of a dream-like quality the film’s “plot” is trying to (and quite successfully) capture.

So, what’s it about? Got me. The main character (suspiciously named Guy Maddin) paddles in his canoe, returning to the island home he grew up on. His dying mother has asked him to return to paint the lighthouse he and his sister, as well as a group of orphans, called home. While painting, Maddin flashes back to his childhood, just on the verge of adolescence. His overbearing mother sits in the top of the lighthouse with a telescope, able to see virtually everything Maddin and/or his sister are up to. Meanwhile, his father toils away in his laboratory, working on nefarious experiments, which involve the orphans (and gives the film it’s title...I think). There’s voodoo curses, paganism, a fair amount of sex/nudity (be warned), and a brother/sister detective team, too!

Odd, but riveting, this is a film that I will return to again, for sure. While images linger, I’d really recommend it for the soundtrack (apparently the film had toured with a live orchestra and live foley artists, as well as various narrators. Now that would have been something to see---and hear!)

[feaito]

Last night I watched for the "nth" time George Stevens' brilliant Romantic Comedy "The More the Merrier" (1943), but this time on the projection room of my building. It's really a totally different experience to watch a film on a big screen. One notices things that one hadn't seen before. For one, I realized that the print released by Columbia-Sony is in worse condition than I had previously realized watching it on my TV set. I saw it with two friends and they were delighted by the actors, the story, the witty dialogue, the sexy situations, Joel's and Jean's incredible chemistry, etc. It's fantastic to be able to introduce friends to these not-widely known masterpieces of the American Cinema.

[Ann Harding]

Really glad you enjoyed Three Comrades. It was my first ever Borzage picture many years ago.


Yesterday I watched DeMille's Four Frightened People (1934) with Claudette Colbert, William Gargan, Herbert Marshall & Mary Boland.
Four people travelling on a boat affected by bubonic plague escape through the jungle where more adventures are expecting them.
As I started watching this film, I really wondered if the screenwriters were in a normal state when they wrote it? I think they probably had some heavy lashing of gin combined with some pot!!! Claudette looks first incredibly dowdy as the spinsterish school teacher; Mary Boland is a society lady clutching a lap dog through the densest rainforest!!! In the end, dear Claudette is wearing a skimpy outfit displaying her lovely features while Boland is teaching birth control to a tribe of indigenous malaysian!!!! The whole story is so out of this world that it becomes some kind of mad 'happening'. I must say I had fun watching it! Thanks Fernando!

[feaito]

Happy to hear that you enjoyed it Christine. It's really an offbeat, crazy, amusing Pre-Code.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Pencil me in as a devoted fan of Three Comrades. A few of my thoughts (and a nice poster) are here:

http://silverscreenoasis.com/oasis/view ... 7731#17731

[feaito]

I read your thoughts and agree with them Mr. Arkadin. I have to watch "The Mortal Storm" (1940) though.