Recently Watched Films

[eraritjaritjaka]

This wasnt bad, except I kept wondering why Michael and Fredo were robbing a bank.

have yet to see it, but wasnt it intended as the payment for a sex change operation? as i recall the sex change ended up being paid for by the sale the movie rights.

[surfer]

This wasnt bad, except I kept wondering why Michael and Fredo were robbing a bank.

have yet to see it, but wasnt it intended as the payment for a sex change operation? as i recall the sex change ended up being paid for by the sale the movie rights.

Yes, based on a true story, Sonny (not Caan, Pacino) robs this bank to pay for his lover Leon's (played by Chris Sarandon, former husband of Susan Sarandon) sex change operation. I was not aware that part of this movie's proceeds went to pay for the real-life Leon's sex change. That is good knowledge, eraritjaritjaka.

[Jesse]

By the way, Sal ( John Cazale) had practically no lines whatsoever. Curious.

Cazale was so good and a catalyst for the earliest screen roles of DeNiro, Pacino and Streep (to whom he was engaged when he died of bone cancer). Reportedly a great advocate for these peers' work.
The Sal role was perfectly pitched. Cazale conveyed a great deal with, as you point out, relatively few lines. Sarandon and Pacino are overwrought throughout, while Cazale works on a slow burn. DDA is worth seeing for Cazale's role, imo.

[Dan Warburton]

Tod Browning, Freaks, 1932

[O'Grady]

CrimethInc - Breaking the Spell
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8399871128

[MRS]

have yet to see it, but wasnt it intended as the payment for a sex change operation? as i recall the sex change ended up being paid for by the sale the movie rights.

I have to seriously question this. And if any movie warrants a spoiler alert for one of the great WTF moments in cinematic history. . .

[Dan Warburton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wojtowicz
"John Stanley Wojtowicz (March 9, 1945 - January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon. Wojtowicz, who was bisexual, married his first wife, Carmen Bifulco, in 1967. They had two children, and separated in 1969. Wojtowicz met pre-operative transsexual Elizabeth Eden (then known as Ernest Aron) in 1971 at an Italian feast in New York City. Wojtowicz and Eden were married on December 4, 1971.
On August 22, 1972, Wojtowicz, along with Sal Naturile and another man, attempted to rob a branch of the Chase Manhattan bank on the corner of East Third Street and Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Wojtowicz and Naturile held seven Chase Manhattan bank employees hostage for 14 hours. Wojtowicz, a former bank teller, had some knowledge of bank operations. However, he apparently based his plan on scenes from the movie The Godfather, which he had seen earlier that day.
The robbers became media celebrities. Wojtowicz was arrested, but Naturile was killed by the FBI during the final moments of the incident.
According to Wojtowicz, he was offered a deal for pleading guilty, which the court did not honor, and on April 23, 1973, he was sentenced to 20 years in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary of which he served 14. He made $7,500 selling the movie rights to the story, and helped finance Eden's sex reassignment surgery with these funds. Wojtowicz was released from prison on April 10, 1987. In 1987, Time reported that Eden, 41, died of AIDS-related pneumonia in Rochester."

[MRS]

Wow, impressive. Didn't The Matrix fund a like procedure?

[surfer]

However, he apparently based his plan on scenes from the movie The Godfather, which he had seen earlier that day.

Hahahaha, that is too much. I agree with Jesse that Pacino overacts, and Sarandon is basically a caricature of homosexual stereotypes. The movie is decent, but I didnt find it particularly absorbing or groundbreaking in any way.

However, as far as Cazale's brooding energy being a template for DeNiro and others, I'll have to point to Pacino's own repressed energy in the first Godfather which came out 3 years earlier as the template for Cazale's Sal and for many other silent but deadly types. Still Pacino's best role.

[nebulabore]

Fiddler On the Roof



"Tradition!!!"

Thought I'd get into the Christmas spirit by watching one helluva Jewish Musical

[O'Grady]

Lee Kang-Sheng - Help Me Eros

Good but bad.

[Ivan]

Silence=Death
Rosa von Praunheim

Just about as intense as I imagined it to be, and then some. David Wojnarowicz, whose work I've been obsessing over for about a week now, was damn near relentless every time he appeared on screen, and that opening scene will be stuck in my head for weeks. Definitely going to be watching this again in the next few days.

[nebulabore]

Jarhead

I remember this sorta getting a bad review when it came out, and how the reviewer compared it to Full Metal Jacket and how it didn't live up to its predecessor. But I mean come on that's like comparing apples to oranges, two different wars, two different scenarios, two different plot lines. Personally I thought this movie was great. Each scene had some sort of emotional action to it that made it carry well. Some great cinematography too and great acting all around.

[michael]

not a movie per se but

i watched the broadway production of the 39 steps @ the cort theater the other day. i love/own the movie & heard some good things so i had pretty high expectations. im not sure if its just b/c it was xmas or what, but it wasnt that great. i mean, it was good. ive never been disappointed w/ a broadway production, but it didnt really live up to my expectations. the meat of the story stayed the same. there was some absurd humor thrown in for good measure. i dunno, the actors were talking a little too fast to follow some of the dialogue/jokes sometimes. & they woudl slow down the dialogue to hammer home some hitchcock references & everyone thought it was the most clever thing. anyway, the most impressive part is that there were only 4 actors who played about 150 characters

so that was cool

later that night i watched you got served

go figure


i think today my sis & i plan on watching the curious case of benjamin button & let the right one in

[michael]

unfortunately, did not catch ltroi

did catch benjamin buttont hough


i havent read the short story but given the conceit, ill feel like it was handled about as well as one could expect. i thought it was pretty good. i liked the cinematography a lot, except the cgi. overall, the movie was a bit too long but im not entirely sure what i would have cut out. i didnt like the whole old woman pov storytelling a la titanic or the katrina backdrop. also, i dont think it quite lived up to all the hype, but yeah, good movie.

i like finchers range, i think

[nebulabore]

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind for about the thousandths time

right now working on a screener's copy of revolutionary road

all i can say so far is that it reaks of old rehashed themes about the degredation of suburban life and the american dream...hmmm haven't we treaded upon these waters before mr sam mendes?

[surfer]

Shadows (Cassavetes, 1959) - Really rough print, even by French New Wave standards, which it owes a lot too, aesthetically. Jump cuts galore, improvised s/t by Mingus. Decent, although amateurish at times. Probably for completists only.


Scarface (De Palma, 1983) - Stupid.

[jon abbey]

Scarface (De Palma, 1983) - Stupid.

yet still decidedly better than the dreadful American Gangster I watched the other night. is Denzel Washington always that bad? and I was a bit saddened/surprised to see at the end that Ridley Scott directed it, since as I was watching, I was wondering what amateur hack was responsible.

on the other hand, last night we saw Blast of Silence, which is the Carnival of Souls of film noir, nice one.

[Stephen]

Currently making my way through Kieslowski's Dekalog for the second time. Just two more to go..

These two always seem to hit me the hardest:

[Salty Swift]

Currently making my way through Kieslowski's Dekalog for the second time. Just two more to go..

These two always seem to hit me the hardest:

Both are quite strong but the harshest one is the fifth one - the one with the murder of a taxi driver - which was later made into a feature length film "Short Film About Killing". Pay close attention to the gorgeous cinematography - you can't miss it.
Final one in the bunch - the one about stamp collecting dad - is hilarious.....there's a few scenes there that I tend to rewind every time.