Recently Watched Films 2010

[cheerios]

Boondock Saints II

enjoyed it immensely, real gritty, and with elements of horror

[Dan Warburton]

Luis Buñuel, Susana, 1951

Rosita Quintana overplays it a bit, but there's much to enjoy in this Freudian bedroom farce, with its cross-shaped moonlit shadows falling across the floor of a tarantula and rat-infested jail cell (while it's raining cats and dogs outside) and baskets of eggs crushed between Susana's legs (Deleuze was a big fan). Susana's arrival at the house, hailed as "the devil" by the maid, looks forward to Eastwood's in Pale Rider, the silly middle of the night running to and from Susana's bedroom reminds me of the shenanigans in the second (and best) Clouseau pic A Shot In The Dark, and the oh so happy ending, with the sun shining and the sick horse miraculously cured, is pure Lynch. All you need is a happy, waving fireman and a Julee Cruise song.

[Wombatz]

Les Vouleurs from 1997 by André Téchiné. Our first proper movie evening in ages, this unfortunately felt more like watching ok tv. Daniel Auteuil was brilliant as ever in layering his character, only it had no core, so probably Laurence Cote as the girl did a better job, since she was relatively unremarkable but completely believable. The kid had jug ears. Catherine Deneuve stood no chance, she was supposed to be a philosophy professor. The amount of drivel she had to speak hurt somewhat, but what I really don’t understand is why it’s so tough to film a lecture situation that is not cringe-inducing. (Well, actually I understand, it’s because every professor in a film has to give the poor boneheads down there large chunks of wisdom for life every second of the stage time.) But anyway, it was a movie about storylines, and I have no use for those.

[MRS]

Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard, 1978)

[Jesse]

Grosbard directed two of my favorite films in that decade, with several of my favorite performances by American actors: Straight Time [Hoffman, Harry Dean Stanton and (gulp) Gary Busey are superb]; and True Confessions- De Niro and Duvall are perfectly cast as estranged brothers, but the supporting ensemble is amazing as well [the madam of the flop house where the whore/Black Dahlia operates was Grosbard's real life wife- another great role in a film with a ridiculous number of amazing turns].



John Gregory Dunne's script/dialogue writing provided me with enough world weary bon mots to navigate the 80s.

The final scene in True Confessions never fails to leave me shaking my head, truly heart-breaking and brave stuff.

[MRS]

Just read that Michael Mann had a large (uncredited) hand in the script so to the top of the netflix it went. Great stuff, Walsh is a highlight per usual. There's an interesting tangent to this film I'll relay in the TV thread.

[Dan Warburton]

David Lynch, Wild at Heart, 1990

Strangely enough, this time (third? fourth?) this didn't do as much for me. I suppose Nicolas Cage did a good job impersonating Elvis and whatnot, but I'm not really a fan. Great moments, of course, but I thought it dragged a bit.

[Dan Warburton]

Alain Resnais, Stavisky, 1974

Fascinating, even if you don't know (you don't need to know in advance) the historical events on which the film is based - the missing link between the fractured narratives of early Resnais and the later theatrical mises-en-scène. Fine performances throughout (though was Belmondo really the best choice for Stavisky?), excellent cinematograhy from Sascha Vierny and smart music from Stephen Sondheim.

[Dan Warburton]

David Lynch, The Straight Story, 1999

Love this film, with all its subtle nods to Lynch's earlier work. Richard Farnsworth is terrific throughout.

[yonhosago]

Billy Wilder Double indemnity

Just finished it. Loved Edward G. Robinson. Any other good performances by him I should check out?

[leroysghost]

Loved Edward G. Robinson. Any other good performances by him I should check out?

he is great in the two Fritz Lang films he made more or less contemporaneously with Double indemnity: The Woman in the Window & Scarlet Street. he has a starring role opposite Joan Bennett in both (and with support from the great Dan Duryea).

[leroysghost]

David Lynch, The Straight Story, 1999
Love this film, with all its subtle nods to Lynch's earlier work.

/not subtle at all nods .
pretty scenery from the underrated and underutilized Freddie Francis, but this is the one that drags for me unfortunately (at least Wild at Heart doesn't waste time getting to the HDS! plus Bobby Peru and the match/fire theme get me every time) Richard Farnsworth is very good in it though. Sissy Spacek...ehhh not so much.

[jon abbey]

Loved Edward G. Robinson. Any other good performances by him I should check out?

Little Caesar is probably the one he's best known for as the primary star, one of the early classic gangster films (1931).

[leroysghost]

Loved Edward G. Robinson. Any other good performances by him I should check out?

Little Caesar is probably the one he's best known for as the primary star, one of the early classic gangster films (1931).

just be warned that the film is very hamfisted and Robinson's exaggerated, quacking Al Capone is nothing like his performance in the other films mentioned.

[yonhosago]

Thanks guys; Little Caesar and The woman in the window seems very interesting; anything about John Huston's Key Largo, with Robinson and Bogart?

Meanwhile, just finished



Roberto Rossellini Viaggio in Italia [1954]

Stunning!!

[Dan Warburton]

David Lynch, The Straight Story, 1999

this is the one that drags for me unfortunately

Don't you think it's supposed to drag? It's like the middle America Lynch depicts so well. The only scene that gets on my nerves a bit is the bar scene where Alvin and the other guy sit around sharing wartime stories. Necessary perhaps as background information on where Alvin was coming from, in terms of his tortured past - maybe that wartime guilt was what pushed him into drinking and eventually led to the bustup with the brother who he's now on his way to visit - but I thought it was a bit too mawkish.

at least Wild at Heart doesn't waste time getting to the HDS

No, you're right. I think most of my problems with that film stem from Cage.

Sissy Spacek...ehhh not so much.

Yeah, what was with that strange speech impediment?
Meanwhile, last night's fun - and fun it was, because amazingly enough, I'd never seen it before - was

Tony Scott, True Romance, 1993

[leroysghost]

Thanks guys; Little Caesar and The woman in the window seems very interesting; anything about John Huston's Key Largo, with Robinson and Bogart?

Key Largo was mentioned a few pages back. i find both it and Little Caesar to be stupid and annoying myself (ditto for similar films like The Petrified Forest, The Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, High Sierra and Angels with Dirty Faces), Scarlet Street is really very good though.

Don't you think it's supposed to drag? It's like the middle America Lynch depicts so well.

only sans the intrusion of harsh truth! i don't think it's supposed to drag, you should just be happy that the film is taking it's time because it's so enjoyable, but the whole thing made me too aware of how mawkish and superficial it was. it should have been The Sound of Music, but it came off more like Forrest Gump.

[leroysghost]

Robert Wise - Blood on the Moon (1948)

lives up to it's irresistible tagline quite well. an intriguing mixing of the western and noir genres (taken a step further the following year with Mann's Border Incident) with nice, shadowy photography from Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People, Out of the Past, The Hitch-Hiker). nice cast too: Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Walter Brennan, Tom Tully, Charles McGraw, and Robert Preston in what is probably his best film.

[billygomberg]

Dig! (2004)



on anne's rec - really hilarious and a great look into the absolute perils of the music industry. Everyone is a disaster, no good guys. The dude you wanna root for, Anton Newcombe, is an anti-social fuckup junkie, who clearly can't do anything but rock. His double, Courtney whats-his-face from the Dandy Warhols, is, like his band, totally intolerably cocky, preening, and shallow. nothing but fun.

Newcombe is on the left, his, uh, tambourine man (literally), is on the right. I don't think either of them see a sober moment on camera.

[free math]

Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper, 1980)