Recently Watched Films 2014

[Dan Warburton]

Ernst Lubitsch, Ninotschka, 1939

I actually know Rouben Mamoulian's musical sequel (Silk Stockings, 1957) better - and was pleasantly surprised to rediscover how many lines he swiped from the original (magnificent) Wilder / Brackett screenplay. What a great film, even if the only thing that can make Garbo smile (and that was the publicity tag the studios exploited the max) is to see Melvyn Douglas fall on his butt.

[Hayao Yamaneko]

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Drew Barrymore - Whip It!

This is a teeny small town pre-college film about rollerskating but it's also really infectious and hard to pick fault with.
It steers around of a good bunch of shitty tropes and has a good time ploughing headlong into the ones it doesn't care to avoid. The heroine doesn't win the day single-handedly, the stakes for her to succeed aren't insanely hyped, nobody has a lifechanging moment, teenagers behave kind of like teenagers, a first boyfriend thing happens in a not completely unrecognisable and only a bit glammed up way. In context these things feel like small miracles. Andrew Wilson plays the Owen Wilson role at 30% of his bro's slightly desperate comedic energy and we all thank him for it. Everybody looks like they're having a lot of fun.
Cheered me up no end.

[Dan Warburton]

Fernando Meirelles, Cidade de Deus, 2002

Too flashy for its own good, with its Matrix-like freeze-frame 360° turns and whatnot. Key plot events (Benny's disco death notably) are lost in the glitter. The grim message at the end - the infernal cycle is set to begin again, as the kiddies who iced Lil 'Ze are clearly going to follow in his bloody footsteps - feels, as a result, rather tame. Nice to hear Tower of Power's "So Very Hard to Go" though.

[Dan Warburton]

Todd Haynes, Poison, 1991

Based loosely on the writings of Jean Genet - which probably explains why the word "queasy" tends to pop up in reviews (it's not hard to see why rightwing idiots kicked up a fuss about its NEA funding) - these three interleaved tales ("Hero", "Horror" and "Homo") combine to make one of the New Queer Cinema's most notable early outings (pun not intended). Haynes is clearly having a ball playing with cinematic clichés ("Horror" is a blast, with its rakish B-movie camera angles and noir interiors), but his savvy references to directors as diverse as Fassbinder and Hawks are never simply clever for their own sake. It's a disturbing film, but a striking one.

[Dan Warburton]

Joseph H. Lewis, Gun Crazy, 1950

Another killer B with Dalton Trumbo (uncredited) script. Some juicy wikitidbits for you: "In an interview with Danny Peary, director Joseph H. Lewis revealed his instructions to actors John Dall and Peggy Cummins: 'I told John, "Your cock's never been so hard," and I told Peggy, "You're a female dog in heat, and you want him. But don't let him have it in a hurry. Keep him waiting." That's exactly how I talked to them and I turned them loose. I didn't have to give them more directions.'
The bank heist sequence was shot entirely in one long take in Montrose, California, with no one besides the principal actors and people inside the bank alerted to the operation. This one-take shot included the sequence of driving into town to the bank, distracting and then knocking out a patrolman, and making the get-away. This was done by simulating the interior of a sedan with a stretch Cadillac with room enough to mount the camera and a jockey's saddle for the cameraman on a greased two-by-twelve board in the back. Lewis kept it fresh by having the actors improvise their dialogue." Well, the bits Trumbo didn't pen, anyway. Nice.

[Dan Warburton]

Michael Winner, Lawman, 1971

I'm no great fan of Michael Winner's most notorious success - Death Wish - and he frequently came across in interviews as a major league pillock (even if you forgive his open support for Thatcher - which I don't), but this is a damn good western, one which raises some intriguing moral questions (wait for the killer ending). Great cast - Lancaster, Ryan, Cobb, Duvall! - tightly structured and beautifully filmed. Hell, I might even put it in my Top Ten Westerns list, if I ever get to make one

[Dan Warburton]

A Peter Sellers double bill:



Joseph McGrath, The Magic Christian, 1969

Totally wacko and very enjoyable satire on all things capitalist and British, penned by Terry Southern but featuring a galaxy of well known (at the time) broadcasters (Alan Whicker, Harry Carpenter, Michael Aspel..) and star cameos (Raquel Welch, Roman Polanski, but also John Cleese and Graham Chapman who helped out with the script.. hence its Pythonic madness). Sir Guy Grand (Sellers) adopts Ringo Starr, and then proceeds to create as much mayhem as possible, including scuppering the Boat Race, hacking up a Rembrandt self portrait, paying a traffic warden (Spike Milligan) £500 to eat a parking ticket, and, most memorably, filling a huge vat full of blood, shit and piss and throwing in wads of money which the City gents gleefully dive in for. Then it ends up on a cruise ship which is hijacked by Marxist revolutionaries, and.. well, check it out and have yourself a ball.

And, as the saying goes, now for something completely different:



Clive Rees, The Blockhouse, 1973

Bleak tale of seven blokes trapped underground in a German army blockhaus during an air-raid on Guernsey on D-Day. The film helpfully informs us at the outset that only two of them survive. Sellers dusts off his French accent (happily, not as pronounced as his Clouseau) and lets his beard grow. So does Charles Aznavour. There's plenty of booze down there, but when the candles run out.. yikes.

[Dan Warburton]

Andrzej Żuławski, Possession, 1981

As the bloke who wrote the blog I swiped the pic from sez, these people are fucking insane! Goodness knows what it's all about - what on earth is that Giger-like monster in Isabelle Adjani's bedroom? Is Sam Neill a spy, or what? What has the Berlin Wall got to do with it all? As soon as I saw that electric carving knife, I knew we were in trouble (last time I spotted one of those babies in a movie it was in Gérard Depardieu's hands and we all know what he did with it at the end of Ferreri's La derniere femme..). Anyway, the scene where Adjani goes apeshit in the deserted subway corridor is totally awesome. A real trip, this, I can tell you

[Dan Warburton]

John Carpenter, Dark Star, 1974

Carpenter's hell-bent on taking the piss out of Kubrick, not only 2001 (instead of Strauss we get cheesy country'n'western, and instead of superior extra-terrestrial intelligence broadcasting from that big black slab, we get an alien in the form of a spotted beachball with webbed feet) but also Strangelove, as Dolittle surfs to oblivion. Problem is, Strangelove was already taking the piss (out of everything), and Carpenter's sense of humour is nowhere near as brutal as Terry Southern's. Raises more a smile than a laugh. Of course, it's dated quite badly, but that's what you'd expect anyway. Favourite line: "Don't give me any of that intelligent life crap, just give me something I can blow up."

[jon abbey]

I'm a fan of the 1997 Norwegian Insomnia and never had much interest in the 2002 American remake with Pacino and Robin Williams. but in the wake of Williams' suicide, I saw a bunch of people saying this was one of Williams' best roles, and since I skipped most of his serious films for one reason or another, I decided to give it a shot.

well, it sucked. I dislike every Christopher Nolan film I've ever seen (haven't seen the recent ones), there is always a disturbing lack of substance underneath the attempted glitz. we even turned off his first Batman film halfway, we never do that. this one sucked at explaining essential plot points and basically had no reason to exist given the superior original. if I tell you I plan to watch Inception or Interstellar in the future, please remind me of this post. thanks.

[Dan Warburton]

Will do, Jon.



Jean-Pierre Melville, Quand tu liras cette lettre, 1953

Don't be alarmed - Juliette Gréco doesn't stay a nun for long (but she goes back to the convent at the end of the film). Interesting mélodrame noir from Melville, with Philippe Lemaire particularly good as an obnoxious two-faced sex-starved gigolo (wonder why he never went on to New Wave stardom in the 60s - he's really cool here). The music is original, if a little obtrusive, with each character associated with their own instrument. Problem is, the plot gets terribly convoluted towards the end, and it's rather hard to believe Gréco's reactions at times. But elsewhere she's very good at prim and proper, kind of like a Gallic Deborah Kerr. Nicely made film, though - Melville fans should check it out if they don't know it.

[Piano Mouth]

I need to watch more films by Melville, I've only seen one of his films, the one about the German soldier who makes himself a guest at some guy's house with his daughter I believe. Really liked that one a lot.

[Dan Warburton]

That's a great movie - his first, too! If you want to check out some more "typical" Melville, try Le Samurai, Deuxième Souffle, L'armée des ombres and Le Doulos. I hope you like snap brim fedoras, scantily clad dancing girls and vibraphones

[Piano Mouth]

ahaha fedoras yes, well I was one of the gangsters in my high school music production of "Guys and Dolls"

[jon abbey]

the ones I've seen of his are all really good to great: Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samourai, L'Armee des Ombres, Le Cercle Rouge, maybe even more than that.

edit: overlapping crosspost with Dan

[Piano Mouth]

If karagarga had a middle name, it would be "very hard to use".


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[Dan Warburton]

Really? I haven't had any problems in over two years.. and Bob le Flambeur is a freeleech Featured Torrent, so I hope you've snatched it already..



Vittorio De Sica, Umberto D., 1952

This one's worth an essay, which I don't have time to write right now. Though I see Roger (for once) more or less sums up what I'd say if I did http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great ... rto-d-1952 Smart dog, too.

[Piano Mouth]

Yes, am watching Bob the Gambler now.

[Piano Mouth]

eh it seemed promising with the awesome cinematography in the beginning with the city fog at dawn in France and the panorama shot of the streets and buildings. Unfortunately those were the only things that I seemed to like about Bob The Gambler. His character is pretty annoying, actually he really gets on my nerves, and overall I felt like the movie drags on and on, but the main thing is Bob's character. This one is not really my cup of tea. I mean, I think I like movies with the most minimal action possible heh. I guess that's why I like Chantal Akerman and that "Corridors" movie so much. Not going to give up on Melville though, will see what else he has done for sure tho.

[Dan Warburton]

Well, if you're an Akerman fan (me too, sir), I can see why you might not warm to Melville The others I mentioned above are mainly[flash=][/flash] more straight ahead (i.e. more hardboiled) noirs. Meanwhile, if you're into the slower end of French film, have you tried Philippe Garrel? (If you're on KG Le Revelateur is FT.. that's totally silent, he got into "words" a bit later..).
Meanwhile, last night's fun was



Pedro Almodóvar, Entre tinieblas ("Dark Habits"), 1983

Rejected at the time as "blasphemous" by the Cannes Festival (ah, how times have changed - you ask Lars von Trier), this tale of heroin-shooting (and coke-snorting, acid-popping and pornographic novel-writing) nuns, one of whom keeps a tiger (no shit) as a pet, feels rather.. nice, actually. It's more touching than all out wacky - I kinda prefer the wacky stuff, myself - and ends rather disappointingly. Still, if you're from a seriously Catholic family, you might stick this on after dinner one day and see what your folks make of it, hee hee