Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[dave jenkins]

Now that the New Year is finally here, time to catch up on some of those foreign Blu-rays that have been accumulating.

First up, a couple of favorite color Ozus. The transfers make me think I'm actually viewing Agfacolor prints.

Akibiyori / Late Autumn (1960) - 9/10. A very funny matchmaking story, with Setsuko Hara (here middle-aged and frumpy), the always welcome Mariko Okada, and the very elegant Yoko Tsukasa. They are matched with three old meddling fools (Ozu regulars) who mean well but come in for a large helping of gentle ridicule. Late in the action there's a scene in a sushi shop--and that's where Tsûsai Sugawara makes his cameo!

Ohayo / Good Morning (1959) - 9/10. Contains more fart jokes than any film I know. Ostensibly a story about 2 boys who go on a "speaking strike" until their parents come across with a new TV, this is really an amusing ensemble piece about how gossip circulates in a small community. About halfway through the film two characters in a bar are chatting, when suddenly they look over at another stool and see--Tsûsai Sugawara! Man, that guy sure gets around.

[drinkanddestroy]

The Damned Don't Cry (1950) 8/10

Joan Crawford stars as a woman seeking to live a lower-class life behind and live the good life, by becoming a gangsters' moll. Her character was loosely based on Virginia Hill.

Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx7lrPZSmXM

This was a good movie; though I do have problems with the casting:

-- they should have chosen a pretty actress for the role. Joan Crawford was a great actress, but hideously ugly; and for this role, you need a hot babe.  Of course, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and there are plenty of less-than-beautiful-women who have used makeup, clothing, charm etc. successfully. But for this role, we have to believe that this woman could get anything she wants from any guy, that even rich guys who can have any babe will go crazy for her, where she takes over any room she walks into, etc. I'm not saying the movie won't work unless you have a Rita Hayworth or Jane Russell; but you can't use an ugly woman.

-- Steve Cochran, the actor who played Nick Prenta, was really good, while David Brian, the lead actor who played George Castleman, is just average; I'd have preferred if Cochran had played the main character. (Reminds me of The Public Enemy: James Cagney was originally supposed to be the supporting actor, playing Tom Powers' partner; but once they started filming, the filmmakers immediately realized that Cagney was THE MAN, and switched the roles).

-- Kent Smith, who played the accountant Martin Blankford, delivered a very average performance



SPOILER ALERT TILL END OF POST

Other than the casting, my only problem was with the very last lines of the movie, by the two reporters talking to each other outside Crawford's home. (The following 'quotes' are all paraphrased). One of the reporters remarks to his buddy, "It must be tough to live in a place like this": that is the only line from that conversation that should have been used; the movie should have just ended right there. Instead, there are a few more meaningless sentences that follow (and there may have been a few preceding) like "it's not so easy to leave," and "do you think she'll try to leave again?" etc. All of those sentences are useless (to put it mildly) and should have been scratched; that conversation should have consisted entirely of the one sentence, "it must be tough to live in a place like this," followed by THE END.

[noodles_leone]

HOME ALONE 2 - Lost In New York

A classic christmas movie. We always watch it (or the first, but this one is better) in December. It's one of my few unratable films (among The Princess Bride and The Crimson Pirate): I loved it too much as a kid and it became a part of me before I was able to rate it.

MUNICH 8/10

4th viewing? I'm begining to really like it. Both very ambitious and technically perfect.
Two main flaws:
- the main character being treated more like Israel's consciousness than a real character SOUNDS like a good idea but doesn't work at all. It makes it impossible to care about him.
- the final flash-back/making love scene is utterly ridiculous. As I already stated, the flash back itself is incredibly powerful, but everytime we switch back to Eric Bana making faces, I laugh.


To be watched soon:

I got the Dollars Trilogy on BD for Christmas. So far I only owned OUATIA's BD. I will be watching them on my parents' home cinema as soon as possible!

[drinkanddestroy]

- the final flash-back/making love scene is utterly ridiculous. As I already stated, the flash back itself is incredibly powerful, but everytime we switch back to Eric Bana making faces, I laugh.

having the flashback to the death of the athletes while Bana is having sex is perhaps the most disgusting and inappropriate thing I have ever seen in my life in all of cinema. I am sure the families/friends of the victimes love to see the scene where their son/father/brother/friend gets killed is interspersed with Bana having sex.

[cigar joe]

Short Cut To Hell (1957) directed by James Cagney with William Bishop, Robert Ivers, Georgann Johnson, and  Yvette Vickers.  A poor remake of This Gun For Hire 6/10

[noodles_leone]

having the flashback to the death of the athletes while Bana is having sex is perhaps the most disgusting and inappropriate thing I have ever seen in my life in all of cinema.

 

[drinkanddestroy]

After seeing the incredibly amazingly awesome The 400 Blows, I've just now seen the sequels Stolen Kisses and Bed and Board, and I am pretty disappointed. (I've also seen Antoine and Collette , the short that was part of the Love at 20 compilation, but I;m not comparing that one, that's different). It's not that SK and B&B are awful, but it's really disappointing after T400B. (Of course, how many sequels were really like The Godfather Part II?)

IMO, the scripts of SK and B&B aren't nearly as good as that of T400B. Jean-Pierre Leaud is an incredible talent, though his character's personality has changed completely from T400B to SK/B&B. I don't know, maybe it's more fun to watch a very young troublesome teen, than it is to watch a happy go lucky adult.
 Between the two, SK is definitely preferable to B&B. Besides, once we got to the latter part of B&B, I didn't hold the slightest bit of sympathy for Doinel. And some of the stuff at the end with his wife, the Claude Jade character, was ridiculous: it's one thing for a man to cheat on his wife with whom he just had a baby, and that very soon thereafter, she would still care for him very much, and even blame their problems on what she perceives ah her overreaction to his infidelity; but it's quite another thing for him to call her and cry about his troubles with his mistress, and for her to happily be there for him, to give him a shoulder to lean on, and give him advice, etc. I mean, come on! Leaud is at the restaurant with his Japanese lover, while the abandoned Jade is home with her baby, and she is taking his phone calls and comforting him on his love problems?! At that point, they are both very, very pathetic characters.


I just started watching the final installment, Love on the Run; I don't have very high expectations for it at all.

I am half an hour into the movie (yes, I always interrupt my movie-watching to post on the SLWB  ); by this point, the Doinel character's cutesy shtick with the word games and riddles are becoming tiresome. The constant flashbacks are not very enjoyable; is this supposed to be a movie of its own, or a walk down memory lane for fans of Antoine Doinel? 

[noodles_leone]

SK and BBare great movies but very different from 400 blows. The supporters of the adult Doisnel movies are usually not the same as those who like 400 blows.
Anyway, the final installment is not a real movie. Truffaut did it just because he needed the money (he just suffered a couple box office failures). Hence the lack of script and the stupid use of flash backs.

[dave jenkins]

I love The 400 Blows; I like Antoine and Collette; I despise the other Doinel films.

However, the Truffaut film with an adult Jean Pierre Leaud that's worth experiencing is Day For Night.

[drinkanddestroy]

On 2012 Sight & Sound Poll, The 400 Blows was #39 on Critics Poll and #13 on Directors Poll http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/film/4ce2b6b3b75b7

[cigar joe]

The Seventh Victim (1943) 8/10 

[drinkanddestroy]

okay, I just finished watching Love on the Run, a piece of crap.

I'll just treat all these sequels like an awful drunken sexual encounter that I'll clear from my mind and pretend never happened. That's all.

To me, Antoine Doinel is a 12 1/2 year old boy with a black ribbed turtleneck 

[noodles_leone]

A drunken sexual encounter with world's famous and respected top model that created thousands of vocations throughout the world. I'd love to get more of those:)

DJ: Day For Night's original title, even if that's the literal translation, is much much better. La Nuit Americaine means exactly day for night but is far more poetic and powerful. That's a great way to say "à la Hollywood".

[stanton]

The Seventh Victim (1943) 8/10  

Yes, very good, very atmospheric, beautiful, even scary. I watched the 8 of the 9 Lewton produced Horror films in the last months, and  knew only 3 of them before, and they are all very good. All 8/10 and better. I Walked with a Zombie is even a masterpiece.

[stanton]

DJ: Day For Night's original title, even if that's the literal translation, is much much better. La Nuit Americaine means exactly day for night but is far more poetic and powerful. That's a great way to say "à la Hollywood".

I have written the same a few weeks ago here.