WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[MikeBSG]

I watched "Melinda and Melinda" last night.

The last Woody Allen film I had seen was "Sweet and Lowdown." I knew the set-up of this movie (the same story is seen as material for tragedy by one man and for comedy by another) but I knew that most of Allen's post-"Lowdown" films have been dismissed as junk.

Initially, I was a little cool to "Melinda and Melinda." The dialogue is a bit too obvious, and while Allen doesn't appear in the film, a number of the performers seem to be copying him. (Such as Will Ferrell, who is the hero in the funny story.)

But as the film went on, cutting between the serious story and the comedy story, I really began to enjoy it. The humor wasn't in the jokes but in how elements of one story (an Aladin-style lamp, two people playing the piano) bled into the other story. There were also echoes of earlier Woody Allen movies, and by the time the movie ended, I really enjoyed it. given how Allen's career has moved since then (with films made in Britain and Spain) it almost seems like this was his farewell to New York.

[mrsl]

It's not a movie I've seen, but I had to give it a few minutes today, and hope someone else has the same feelings as me. While surfing today, I landed on Bravo and their 30 Scariest movies. Down around # 3 (I tuned in at #10), the choice was Saw II. I had known from the TV ads I had seen that I didn't have any interest in seeing this one, but the few scenes they showed on this program were enough for me to go running to get rid of my breakfast - - a girl dropped into a hole filled with used hypodermic needles was bad enough, but then a girl trying to get something by putting her hands through some holes and when trying to withdraw her hands, razors sliced her hands and fingers - - that's when I ran.

How do people watch this and take pleasure in it? The hosts and hostesses certainly did with their Wow's and Awesome's. My mind just cannot wrap around that sort of thing as entertainment.

Well, that's me so far today.

Anne

[MikeBSG]

Last night, I watched "Dive Bomber" on DVD.

I enjoyed it. Perhaps this was the last of the great aviation films. It was a surprise that Errol Flynn played the obsessed intellectual (a flight surgeon) and Fred McMurray played the doomed daredevil, but this casting worked because the plot was so predictable. Yet I didn't mind its predictability. The scene in which Flynn notes the responses of four men in a flight simulator was extremely suspenseful, and the flying sequences were terrific.

The only drawback was the utterly dopey lowbrow comedy relief of Alan Jenkins trying to flee his wife. cutting it from the film would improve "Dive Bomber" tremendously, since the Errol Flynn-Alexis Smith subplot is quite funny. (Actually, Flynn seems quite at home with humor here, although I guess there was humor in "Dodge City" as well.)

The movie's theme music was familiar to me because Daffy Duck sings it in "Yankee Doodle Daffy," and the dive of the iced-up bomber must have inspired "Falling Hare," when Bugs bunny fights the gremlin.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've been watching Once Upon A Honeymoon with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. I expected a screwball comedy, which in small parts it was but it more reflected the time it was made, when the war was raging in Europe. Ginger Rogers is an American married to a baron played by Walter Slezak, what she doesn't realise until it's too late the the Baron visits countries that soon get invaded by Nazi's. When they are in Poland she has to escape but is caught with Cary Grant whilst making her escape and they are interred in a prison, they escape Poland and follow the Baron to Norway and then to France. It's in France that Ginger has to leave Cary without telling him why, she is going back to her husband to do espionage work. See, it's quite a complex plot for a Cary and Ginger movie. It does all work out well in the end, only after I'd chewed a couple of my nails off.

[Bogie]

I watched two movies this morning. One of which has lots of flaws but I did like the overall finished product and the other kind of confused me with its message.

First the movie with the flaws

Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde (1941)

I've heard that the original with Fredric March was a lot better but since i've never seen that version I can't compare however I can comment on some of the performances and hmm well, I don't think this was one of Spencer Tracy's best works. First of all he's way too American for the role, is too old and just isn't scary enough as Hyde although he does have his moments of creepiness. On the plus side I did like the somewhat subtle nature of the change to Hyde and while he's a truly mean and evil SOB there is the off chance that there would be Hyde's walking around London.

Ingrid Bergman did a passable job as the suffering Ivy Peterson. I especially liked the scene where she meets Jekkyl for the first time. The sexual tension in those 2 scenes were pretty intense and erotic in a way for 1941. I wonder if those scenes got highly criticized back then?

You did get the point hammered to you that Ivy was a bit of a hmm loose woman? She did appear to have that kind of attitude at first however as the film moved along and she was in the clutches of Hyde you couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Bergman did very well in those scenes except when it came to screaming and such. She took that part of her role and made it just a tad overwrought for my liking.

Lana Turner as Jekkyl's fiance...Um worst performance i've ever seen from her. That's all i'll say about that.

Overall I give the film 2 1/2 stars. It was an interesting film but the title role and the poor supporting cast (other then Bergman) killed any chances of it being a true blue classic in my book.


I won't talk too much about the other film but it's one I've wanted to see ever since I saw the synopsis for it on TCM. That film is On Borrowed Time (1939)

Overall, this is a very charming little film and you just gotta love Lionel Barrymore as crotchety old gramps. His performance is so dynamic and broad that at times I wondered if his wheelchair would break down on him! Little Bobs Watson as his grandson was truly excellent in his role. In many ways it was a departure from the cutesy kid roles often seen in Golden Age films as he ran the gamut of emotions from happiness, anger, fear and sadness. All done in a very realistic and believable manner. The movie also has a first rate cast and the whole philosophical undertones of the film amplify the story greatly.

My only confusion is with the ending

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!


I don't know if a family movie today would celebrate death the way this one did. I understand Mr. Brink needing to risk Pud's life but to essentially kill the child in order to have Gramps let him down the tree seems wrong to me. At least Gramps and Pud are happy in heaven as they walk off into the sunset seeing granny and all that.


END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER


I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars. What an underrated little gem of a film!

[feaito]

"On Borrowed Time" (1939) has been in my Must-see List for a long time. Sadly, it hasn't been released on DVD.

I watched "Let's Make Love" (1960) and it was a much better than I had been lead to believe it was. Amusing, fine musical numbers and songs. Marilyn and Yves Montand work well. Wilfrid Hyde-White is always a joy to watch.

[charliechaplinfan]

I felt the same about Let's Make Love I love the musical number My Heart Belongs to Daddy.

[charliechaplinfan]

Yesterday I got to see Invitation to the Dance a 1952 film starring Gene Kelly and featuring some well renowned dancers of their day in three seperate dance acts.

This was Gene Kelly's brainchild and MGM allowed him the money to make the film in England, he wasn't planning to star in it but the studio insisted that he must. He filmed the first two parts in England and then returned to Hollywood and combined with the talents of Hanna Barbera finished the third segment Sinbad where he dances mostly with cartoon people. I thought Jerry Mouse was good, this is awe inspiring, to plan and execute a dance and add characters around you, well that's sheer talent on Gene's part and the animators.

The other dances involve Gene as a clown mourning the dancing girl who loves another and Ring Around the Rosy a story featuring many partnerships and many dancers of their day. Gene features only in one as the Marine who dances, very sexily, with a streetwalker.

The other thing that drew me to this film was the vibrant use of colour, sets and costumes. It's a pity that the film was held back and released only in 1957 and then only to art houses. It is only for fans of dance and therefore plays to a more niched market than the standard Gene Kelly films. I have to be grateful that it was made at all and I'm able to watch it today.

[MikeBSG]

I happened to see "Invitation to the Dance" several months ago, and I liked it a lot. The tragic story, the witty story, and the children's story were all well done, and I was surprised that so little has been written about this film or that it hardly ever came up at theaters or on TV in all the years I've been a movie fan.

[charliechaplinfan]

I thought it was very well done, a work to be proud of. I suppose it wasn't commerically viable and that's why it seldom gets shown. I think an excerpt or two will have been shown in the That's Entertainment movies.

[feaito]

Thanks to Ollie I watched the engrossing "Experiment Perilous" (1944), a good thriller with fine performances. The best things about the film (IMO) and that impressed me the most, are the sets and the creepy Victorian flavor and atmosphere that director Jacques Tourneur instilled.

Hedy Lamarr's beauty is used to good advantage and she does a good work, but her performance does not match the one King Vidor's elicited from her in the wonderful 1941 "H.M. Pulham Esq.". George Brent plays a doctor intrigued by Lamarr's character "Allida", who's married to the strange Nick Bederaux (deftly played by Paul Lukas). Olive Blakeney plays the disturbing Cissie Bederaux. Good storytelling. Fine direction.

[charliechaplinfan]

Last night I watched The Good Fairy.

I loved the story, a girl from an orphanage taken out into the wide world and works as an usherette. There she meets the waiter Detlaff who lets her go to a party at the hotel were he works, there she is spyed by Konrad, played by the wonderful Frank Morgan, a meat packing millionaire who riches, he doesn't have the best intentions in mind, something that Luisa played by Margaret Sullavan doesn't realise. The riches turn her head but only because she wants to play the good fairy. She doesn't realise Konrad wants anything in return. When she rebuffs Konrad's advances telling him she's married when she's not he offers to pay her husband well. She selects a name from the telephone directory, the name is Dr Sporum, he's a struggling lawyer who suddenly gets a high paid job with Konrad's corporation.

When Luisa comes to see who has been the beneficiary of her bounty she strikes up a lovely friendship with the lawyer. It's a lovely sequence when he takes her shopping. Their ends suddenly when she tells him that that night she has to go to a man's hotel room, she is innocent of what this might signify.

Everything does work out well in the end. Misunderstandings get cleared up.

This is such a heartwarming story with a stellar cast among them Beulah Bondi, Reginald Owen, Eric Blore, Alan Hale and Cesar Romero.

[moira finnie]

I just saw Juno (2007) directed by Jason Reitman, whose previous film was Thank You For Smoking. The earlier film, based on Christopher Buckley's amusing book, was a fairly scathing and funny take on political correctness, the media, and lobbyists. I loved it.

Juno, which was made a fuss over at Oscar time, follows the pregnancy of an off-kilter 16 year old as she matter of factly goes about deciding to have her baby, finding adoptive parents for the child (in the Pennysaver!) and her relationships with them and her own parents and friends. The lead, Ellen Page, was quite endearing, yet, as the film went on, it seemed more like a made for Lifetime movie at moments. It was saved from this sort of triteness by J.K. Simmons, a familiar character actor as her father, and Allison Janney as her stepmother. Both actors brought a bit of real feeling to the film, as well as the ability to spin their lines for maximum effect, both dramatic and humorous.

[movieman1957]

"Silver River" with Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan and directed by Raoul Walsh. Trying to recapture a sense of "Dodge City" feel it is a fair film. Huge budget with a cast of thousands and a really good looking town it doesn't quite come to what it hopes to be.

Not much for Ann Sheridan to do. Thomas Mitchell is his usual wonderful self. Flynn is pretty good as seemingly normal guy is corrupted by wealth and his love for the married Sheridan. Flynn goes to far for Mitchell's liking and the friends hit a rough stretch. In the end Flynn attempts to redeem himself and to make good with the town and Sheridan.

Pretty exciting score from Max Steiner.

[MikeBSG]

I saw "The Good Fairy" last summer and loved it. The scene in the movie theater, when she watches a movie in which a man repeatedly tells a woman to "Go!" is hysterically funny. (Preston Sturges wrote the film.)

It has been several years since I've seen "Experiment Perilous." While I usually like Victorian gaslight noir ("Hangover Square," "The Spiral Staircase," "The Suspect"), this one didn't quite make my A list. Perhaps Lamarr was too remote. Perhaps the movie went on too long after its fiery climax. It started well and had a brooding atmosphere for much of its running time, but it didn't quite do it for me.