I Just Watched...

[Lorna]

One more thing in re THE DEATH KISS: you would absolutely be forgiven if you had to stop and rewind the scene where the killer is revealed because they show his face for like a nanosecond. I guarantee you a handful of people watched this in the theater in 1932 and absolutely did not catch who the killer was.

[TikiSoo]

Re: ANY WEDNESDAY

It's too bad Dennis wasn't allowed to recreate her role in the film. She had the kind of ditzy charm to pull off this type of role. Fonda seems too intelligent to really be believable playing this airhead type of role. (though she tries hard)

Exactly!!

Lorna said:

It wasn't until I saw him in LONG DAYS' JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (which is looooong and not "easy" to watch, but still excellent) that I realized how great and versatile he was.
although, i think he was a TOTAL CRANK in real life, so that kinda bled into his later work.

Looks like my intuition about Long Days Journey is correct-a tough watch but worth the investment-some movies are like that.

My first Robards movie was A THOUSAND CLOWNS '66 which I found utterly charming. It set my opinion of Robards as a big blustering, controlling male and "stagey" actor, like a handsome version of John Huston. And I do agree like Huston, he was most likely a "crank" in real life.
Anyway, the personality he brought to his body of work is still impressive. I visited his grave in CT a few years ago in homage.

[Lorna]

FYI: if I accidentally “report” any of you to the moderators, I am all apologies I keep seeing that “!” At the top right hand corner and thinking it’s the reaction button.

[I Love Melvin]

Re: ANY WEDNESDAY

It's too bad Dennis wasn't allowed to recreate her role in the film. She had the kind of ditzy charm to pull off this type of role. Fonda seems too intelligent to really be believable playing this airhead type of role. (though she tries hard)

Exactly!!

Lorna said:

It wasn't until I saw him in LONG DAYS' JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (which is looooong and not "easy" to watch, but still excellent) that I realized how great and versatile he was.
although, i think he was a TOTAL CRANK in real life, so that kinda bled into his later work.

Looks like my intuition about Long Days Journey is correct-a tough watch but worth the investment-some movies are like that.

My first Robards movie was A THOUSAND CLOWNS '66 which I found utterly charming. It set my opinion of Robards as a big blustering, controlling male and "stagey" actor, like a handsome version of John Huston. And I do agree like Huston, he was most likely a "crank" in real life.
Anyway, the personality he brought to his body of work is still impressive. I visited his grave in CT a few years ago in homage.

I don't know anything about his personal life but it seems as though, for whatever reason, he mellowed somewhat in later years. I like him a lot as Ben Bradlee in All the President's Men (1976). He was the cool, levelheaded one in a fairly heated environment, whereas in many of his earlier roles he was the overheated one. He won the Academy Award for that performance and won it again a year later for Julia, not bad for late career work. I also like him in the Lana Turner potboiler By Love Possessed (1961), as her crippled, dispirited husband whom she blames for her own boredom and waywardness. The movie is fairly standard melodramatic tripe but his quiet suffering managed to register.

[Lorna]

I had the very distinct pleasure of watching SANJURO (1962)- directed by AKIRA KUROSAWA and starring TOSHIRO MIFUNE at MAXIMUM MIFUNE in something of a comedic action riff on SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS in 16th century feudal JAPAN- '"TOSHIRO MIFUNE AND THE TEN COMPLETE IDIOTS," if you will.

This film is a sequel to YOJIMBO- which is the only KUROSAWA film I have seen that I have not liked. I don't know why or how to explain it, maybe I wasn't in the right mood. This film is more or less a redux of the same story- a cadre of naive country men rebelling against their local corrupt goverment at the risk of their lives, encounter MIFUNE sleeping in their broom closet (SERIOUSLY) and the plot doesn't stop from there.

MIFUNE is a nameless wandering RONIN (reminiscent of HAMMETT'S "CONTINENTAL OP") who subverts power structures of local tyrants and crooks, aiding the downtrodden and opressed with a fox-like ingenuity, an "I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS s***" air about his every movement, and AN ABSOLUTELY AWESOME ABILITY to MASSACRE LARGE AMOUNTS OF MEN ALL ON HIS OWN. HOLY S***, THIS GUY IS A GODDAMN ANIMAL! FORGET GODZILLA, I HOPE TOSHIRO MIFUNE NEVER DECIDED TO ATTACK TOKYO DURING HIS LIFETIME!!!!!

Nonetheless, this movie is 99% action-adventure and LAUGH OUT LOUD KNEE SLAPPING COMEDY I KID YOU NOT- there are moments where it's like watching A SHIH TZU TRYING TO HERD A BUNCH OF BABY DUCKS.

CAMELLIAS are a major plot point, which I loved.

There are also two great, but small, roles for women- which is nice because a lot of JAPANESE films set in this time period leave women out of the story.

[Lorna]

more in re: SANJURO (1962)

Sorry to break the review into two, I'm rusty.

I do need to add, without giving ANYTHING away to ANYONE who has not seen SANJURO (1962) that this film has one of THE MOST MIND BLOWING, SHOCKING, AMAZING, SUBVERSIVE, GENIUS ENDINGS EVER IN ALL OF FILMDOM.

Seriously.

I had to HIT PAUSE so I could throw myself on THE GROUND and HOWL.

I wonder how many people in THEATERS watching the movie for the very firST time have SPONTANEOUSLY AND LOUDLY INTERJECTED A SERIES OF EXPLETIVES IN OUTRIGHT SHOCK at THE END.

I know I did.

This movie was rad.

[Lorna]

I started with a low opinion of Robards by seeing him first as Brutus in JULIUS CAESAR, where he is 1) miscast, 2) dreadful, 3) looks hungover, and 4) sometimes seems to be reading his lines off cue cards. Fortunately, he is better in other films.

In his "defense" (?), I think JASON ROBARDS was just one of those people who was born looking hungover, like JOHN KERRY or RAYMOND MASSEY.

[Bronxgirl48]

I have a vague remembrance of Jason Robards, Jr. as a declining horror film star in something called FOOLS, also starring Katherine Ross.

Speaking of horror films, I saw THE DISEMBODIED with Allison Hayes yesterday. Cheapjack production values add to the overall dull goings-on. Allison is a sexually restless, frustrated sexpot with a trashy past unhappily hitched to a stodgy but rich jungle doctor. Periodically she is unexplainably transformed into a writhing voodoo queen making life and death decisions over the local native population and of course hubby. Paul Burke almost becomes ensnared, only to fall into a worse trap ten years later with Patty Duke as voraciously needy Neely O'Hara in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Skip this one as it does Allison no favors; instead, remember her in the great ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN.

[Lorna]

I saw THE DISEMBODIED with Allison Hayes yesterday. Allison is a sexually restless, frustrated sexpot with a trashy past unhappily hitched to a stodgy but rich jungle doctor. Periodically she is unexplainably transformed into a writhing voodoo queen making life and death decisions over the local native population and of course hubby.”

(Sigh)
Another MADAME BOVARY REMAKE?
Almost as done to death as JANE EYRE…

[Hibi]

FYI: if I accidentally “report” any of you to the moderators, I am all apologies I keep seeing that “!” At the top right hand corner and thinking it’s the reaction button.

LOL! Curtains!

[LiamCasey]

FYI: if I accidentally “report” any of you to the moderators, I am all apologies I keep seeing that “!” At the top right hand corner and thinking it’s the reaction button.

Nice to know I’m not the only one who has done this!

[Allhallowsday]

Hosted by JOHN WATERS and JACQUELINE STEWART :
HAIRSPRAY (still love it). The soundtrack contains the best and longest overlooked of the original singles used. WATERS is a true record lover.
CRY BABY (what was interesting 33 years ago remains interesting. JOHNNY DEPP inexplicably loses his pants).
POLYESTER ( a few larfs, remains just plain bad, not extraordinarily so).

[Bronxgirl48]

Hosted by JOHN WATERS and JACQUELINE STEWART :
HAIRSPRAY (still love it). The soundtrack contains the best and longest overlooked of the original singles used. WATERS is a true record lover.
CRY BABY (what was interesting 33 years ago remains interesting. JOHNNY DEPP inexplicably loses his pants).
POLYESTER ( a few larfs, remains just plain bad, not extraordinarily so).

The divine Divine!

Wish they had included PINK FLAMINGOS and FEMALE TROUBLE.