Recently Watched Films 2018

[Steve Minkin]

he loves history and is fascinated by WWII.

Stalag 17. First saw it when I was 9, when it came out. Some nice comic relief to break up the escape/ spy plot.

[leroysghost]

i recommend Speed Racer (2008) to everyone but it's good for kids too

as a kid i was very into A Shot In The Dark and The Pink Panther Strikes Again

other comedies that got me back then:
Young Frankenstein
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
Airplane!
The Blues Brothers
Clue
A Fish Called Wanda
My Cousin Vinny

Chie The Brat (if you want to try animation)
Return To Oz (if you want to try fantasy)

Play Dirty for PG war movies (edit: forget Glory, extremely not the movie i remembered as a child)

other good, maybe too fantastical, stuff:
The Karate Kid, both Babe movies, Muppet Treasure Island, The Frighteners, The Fall, After Earth, Shaun The Sheep Movie

i was also super into history at that age and something like Pride (2014) would have been right up my alley, but i can just as easily see it boring kids to tears

[surfer]

he loves history and is fascinated by WWII.

Stalag 17. First saw it when I was 9, when it came out. Some nice comic relief to break up the escape/ spy plot.

Nice one, thanks. I've never seen it either

[surfer]

i recommend Speed Racer (2008) to everyone but it's good for kids too

as a kid i was very into A Shot In The Dark and The Pink Panther Strikes Again

other comedies that got me back then:
Young Frankenstein
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
Airplane!
The Blues Brothers
Clue
A Fish Called Wanda
My Cousin Vinny

Chie The Brat (if you want to try animation)
Return To Oz (if you want to try fantasy)

Play Dirty for PG war movies, maybe Glory if the interest extends past WWII

other good, maybe too fantastical, stuff:
The Karate Kid, both Babe movies, Muppet Treasure Island, The Frighteners, The Fall, After Earth, Shaun The Sheep Movie

i was also super into history at that age and something like Pride (2014) would have been right up my alley, but i can just as easily see it boring kids to tears

I will check some of those out, thanks Leroy

[Dan Warburton]

How about Bridge on the River Kwai? I know its 3 hours long but its PG.

Have you tried The Great Escape?

I actually thought about The Party with Sellers for the physical comedy but after I watched the preview I remembered its too mature for him. Any other Sellers movies?

Blake Edwards, A Shot in the Dark, 1964

By far the best (in fact the only decent) Clouseau film. Love it. I'm All Right Jack is also great, but perhaps you need to be British - or have some background knowledge of the English class system - to appreciate it.
Yes, not a big fan of Mr Eldred Gregory Peck myself, but he was just right for the part in Mockingbird and Cape Fear

[Wombatz]

no recommendations for war movies as i hate them myself (conscientious objector here). although i'm planning a move into the related subject of spy movies (preferably with some nice berlin during the wall footage).

our favorite genres are still old adventure movies (next up is treasure island (the orson welles as long john silver (what?) version) since we've just finished reading the book) and sf (next up are dark star and fantastic voyage).

the speed racer trailer looks like a mix between pixar's cars and rollerball, we should try this.

[walto]

By far the best (in fact the only decent) Clouseau film. Love it.]

Don't agree about Clouseau either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfiI9NibBmE

[Dan Warburton]

Denys de la Patellière, Un taxi pour Tobrouk, 1961

With typically colourful dialogues courtesy of Michel Audiard (I've never heard the word bectance* used anywhere else) and sympathetic performances from all concerned, notably Lino Ventura as the gruff brigadier and Hardy Kruger as the Pomeranian aristocratic German captain he ends up having to take prisoner when he and his three companions are cut off from their division and forced to cross 700km of desert to the safety of their lines, it's easy to see why this was a box office success. Ultimately anti-war in tone, with obvious echoes of Renoir's Grande Illusion (much discussion of the rules of engagement, the gentlemanly treatment of prisoners, the inevitable bonding between the German and his so-called enemies) and Melville's Le silence de la mer (von Stegel is clearly smarter and more cultured than his French captors), it's still entertaining. Wonder how it was received when it was released, at the height of the Guerre d'Algérie..
*idiom for food, "nosh" or "grub"

[Dan Warburton]

John Cromwell, Dead Reckoning, 1947

Trawling around online, it seems most people liked it more than I did. Though Bogart's good as always, Lizabeth Scott's femme fatale just doesn't convince (and she was so good in Pitfall and Desert Fury.. whappen?), the plot - much of which has to be narrated in sub-Chandler purple prose by Bogie in voiceover, already a bad sign - is needlessly complex and the pace uneven. Underwhelmed.

[Dan Warburton]

Michael Ritchie, Prime Cut, 1972

First time we saw this a few years ago I thought it was pretty stupid, apart from the awesome opening titles sequence.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b9k1mqlF6Q This time round found much more to enjoy, especially a surprisingly nuanced (given the role he has to play) performance from Marvin. Spacek, as usual, is excellent, and even if the plot is pretty stoopid, it's probably worth the price of admission for the combine harvester chase - and Gene Hackman's plateful of steaming offal

[Dan Warburton]

Brian Gibson, Blue Remembered Hills, 1979

Dennis Potter wrote the script in the dialect of his native Forest of Dean region (I imagine this is what the English language sounded like in Shakespeare's time), but I don't know if it was his idea or the director's to cast adults as teenagers - whatever, it's a remarkable touch: watching big names of British cinema and theatre - Michael Elphick, Colin Welland, Helen Mirren..- ham it up in shortpants and pigtails adds immeasurably to the power of the horrifying conclusion.

[Dan Warburton]

Jean Renoir, Diary of a Chambermaid, 1946

Burgess Meredith not only starred (see above) and produced, but wrote this smart adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's novel to conform to the strictures of the Production Code - and pulled it off brilliantly. Of course, worth comparing to the Bunuel and more recent Jacquot versions (which follow the book more closely), but Renoir and Meredith manage to make their Célestine (Paulette Goddard, fine performance) both likeable and decidedly amoral at the same time.

« Le recul permet d'année en année de mieux mesurer la qualité et l'importance de l'avant-dernier film américain de Jean Renoir. Longtemps seul L'Homme du Sud bénéficia d'un préjugé favorable à cause de son « réalisme », mais Le Journal, je pense, est encore plus beau et plus pur. Renoir y satisfait sans retenue et dans une éblouissante unité de style l'un des projets fondamentaux de son inspiration : la synthèse du comique et du drame. La Règle du Jeu n'était encore qu'un « drame gai » : Le Journal est une tragédie burlesque, aux confins de l'atrocité et de la farce.[...]
C'est aussi sans doute avec Le Journal que Renoir se dégage totalement cette fois du réalisme de son œuvre française. Tout ici, jusqu'à l'extraordinaire vérité des détails vestimentaires, est intégré à une sorte de fantasque cruel aussi transposé qu'un monde théâtral.[...]
Aussi bien est-ce peut-être ici que prendra source la hantise du théâtre qui marquera de plus en plus l'évolution de Renoir. C'est peut-être pour la première fois que nous discernons dans l'œuvre de Renoir, non plus le théâtre, mais la théâtralité à l'état pur. »
— André Bazin, Jean Renoir, éditions Champ libre, 1971

[Dan Warburton]

Milos Forman, Black Peter, 1964

Forman's first feature, if not as accomplished and tight (or politically critical) as his subsequent Czech New Wave masterpieces Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen's Ball - is a little treasure, especially for the wonderfully fresh and natural performances of the young (non?) actors, Ladislav Jakim (Petr) and Pavla Martinkova (Pavla). Well worth checking out, if only for the dancehall scene

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Tourneur, Nightfall, 1956

This was simply terrific - needle-sharp dialogue presumably culled from the David Goodis novel it's based on - it's an intriguing plot, skilfully told via judiciously-placed flashbacks, with excellent performances from all concerned: Aldo Ray plays the hero-despite-himself to perfection, the tired WWII vet with the snappy one-liners, while Brian Keith and Rudy Bond make a great pair of baddies. And Bancroft has never been lovelier. If you enjoyed the combine harvester scene in Prime Cut (see above) wait till you see what Maître Tourneur does with a snowplough Highly recommended, top-notch noir, check it out.

[MRS]

Michael Ritchie, Prime Cut, 1972

First time we saw this a few years ago I thought it was pretty stupid, apart from the awesome opening titles sequence.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b9k1mqlF6Q This time round found much more to enjoy, especially a surprisingly nuanced (given the role he has to play) performance from Marvin. Spacek, as usual, is excellent, and even if the plot is pretty stoopid, it's probably worth the price of admission for the combine harvester chase - and Gene Hackman's plateful of steaming offal

I love this sleazy flick time and again:

Prime Cut (Michael Ritchie, 1972)

What a ridiculously entertaining title sequence, abbatoir process flow chart set to Schifrin Whiz, and of course a shoe falls from the meat grinder. Saul Bass must've cringed. I'm gonna send your enforcers back to Hicag encased in sausages! Hackman has but fifteen minutes of time, yet couldn't act a more brash, lecherous antipode to Night Moves' cool, inquisitive Harry Moseby three years after. I wish he had more scenes, he eats innards. Chicago at that point had been a bit of a forgotten cityscape in cinema, I'm very familiar with the film's zip codes down 55 across 70 into eastern Kansas and the wet sleaze of KC's West Bottoms, they nailed it. Nick's (Marvin) tremendous peak lapels and double vents further corrupt the grey suit pedigree of Roger Thornhill; the white shoes not so much. His saber rattling wordplay with everyone he encounters stands out, in an exchange with Mary Ann (Hackman) at the female slave auction: "It's the weekend y'know. The banks are closed." Nick: "Banks get opened. Easy or hard, they get opened." Hand-held camera work predominates, with great effect for that time, not a frivolous, nauseous gimmick. It's apparent that Schifrin either ruins or absurdly enhances the violence and barbituate pubic hair, not sure.

The last thirty minutes of the movie comprise its hallmark gunfight sequence/harvester chase first at a country fair, spilling into a nebulous wheatfield (can an able human not end run a combine?). Nick then learns awful things, his interest has been abducted (Spacek's first role)--immediate cut to the black Cadillac blazing down the Kansas turnpike under a green-black sky for revenge, Nick jungle-rigging an M76, he then instigates a final march to the barn and Mary Ann via a thick stand of helianthus.

It's awesome how Gene Hackman lying on the barn floor begging to be killed informs Unforgiven as much as Schifrin's (only redeeming) pulsing march under the commute in the storm informs Eno's music under the grand heist in Heat. Director Ritchie has a hilarious resume (Bad News Bears, Wildcats, The Golden Child, the Fletch franchise). Take this one with a grain of salt. Wildly sexist, at the least eminently quotable.

"I believe the young lady would like the consommé? And I will have the vichyssoise."

[henriq]

David O. Russell - Flirting with disaster (1996)

To use a cripplingly devalued qualifier - criminally underrated. This is a gem: imagine a remake of Bringing up baby rambling and tumbling through a snow-blighted midwest, toxic deserts, FBI agents on acid, crippling neuroses played for warm and roaring laughter. And the cast: Ben Stiller of course does Ben Stiller, but circling him you have Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, George Segal, Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette. The fun never stops. And it hurts, too: think a slow burn Fawlty Towers or maybe Pialat on a sunny day. Curse the KG snobbery that keeps this away from that milieu, but it is I think available on DVD from ages ago, and you can rent it on Youtube.

[Dan Warburton]

David O. Russell - Flirting with disaster (1996)

To use a cripplingly devalued qualifier - criminally underrated. This is a gem: imagine a remake of Bringing up baby rambling and tumbling through a snow-blighted midwest, toxic deserts, FBI agents on acid, crippling neuroses played for warm and roaring laughter. And the cast: Ben Stiller of course does Ben Stiller, but circling him you have Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, George Segal, Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette. The fun never stops. And it hurts, too: think a slow burn Fawlty Towers or maybe Pialat on a sunny day. Curse the KG snobbery that keeps this away from that milieu, but it is I think available on DVD from ages ago, and you can rent it on Youtube.

Welcome to IHF, Henrik. Looking forward to your posts very much

[henriq]

David O. Russell - Flirting with disaster (1996)

To use a cripplingly devalued qualifier - criminally underrated. This is a gem: imagine a remake of Bringing up baby rambling and tumbling through a snow-blighted midwest, toxic deserts, FBI agents on acid, crippling neuroses played for warm and roaring laughter. And the cast: Ben Stiller of course does Ben Stiller, but circling him you have Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, George Segal, Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette. The fun never stops. And it hurts, too: think a slow burn Fawlty Towers or maybe Pialat on a sunny day. Curse the KG snobbery that keeps this away from that milieu, but it is I think available on DVD from ages ago, and you can rent it on Youtube.

Welcome to IHF, Henrik. Looking forward to your posts very much

Why thank you, good sir, I think I will enjoy myself!

[henriq]

Martin Brest - Midnight Run (1989)

I probably shouldn't like this as much as I do, but I LOVE it. About as mainstream as Hollywood fare gets, with De Niro as a bounty hunter buddying up with Charles Grodin's mob accountant on a cross country run from New York to Los Angeles. Granted, De Niro really phones it in at times - the scene with the ex-wife doesn't work at all - but no matter, he is enveloped by the genius and timing of Yaphet Kotto, Charles Grodin and the wonderful Joe Pantoliano (I dare any Sopranos fan to not love that man and his voice) - no one can like him say "FUCK the bus" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcbXE8cFLak) and have a volume of air move through your living room. And Charles Grodin - too much to declare him the Harry Dean Stanton of comedy? I want to, anyway, the man is funny just standing in the frame. And, for you Repo men out there, Tracey Walter has a minuscule cameo

[MRS]

"SERRANO'S GOT THE DISCS!"