Recently Watched Films 2012

[Lao Tsu Ben]

with Glenn Ford (is this his best performance, I wonder? that and 3.10 to Yuma maybe)

I love those two films and Glenn Ford in them, but he's also great in colors in Minelli's The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

[Wombatz]

My favorite Glenn Ford is The Sheepman.

[leroysghost]

Also Jubal & Gilda

[Dan Warburton]

Good calls, all! Had forgotten about that Minnelli

Argento, ha! Finally got round to watching



Four Flies on Grey Velvet, 1971

I'd like to do this to my postman one day.. What a bloody potty film this is - full of weird characters (Godfrey, aka God "but you can call me God Almighty if you want", The Professor, who looks like Godard after a night in the gutter, Arrosio the queer private eye.. hilarious performance from Jean-Pierre Marielle) and even weirder sub plots. Totally unsympathetic "hero", Roberto the rock drummer (whose greatest moment is when he squashes a mosquito in his hi-hat), but the Morricone soundtrack saves the day. Well, almost.

[presquepartout]

Good calls, all! Had forgotten about that Minnelli

Argento, ha! Finally got round to watching

i didn't even like it all that much. great shots, but it was almost impossible to follow with so much italian w/o subtitles. i might enjoy the edited dub version more.

[Dan Warburton]

It's better in English, for sure, as I found out when the English audio track on the file I was watching suddenly died and switched back to rather hysterical Italian. In any case, as you say, not one of his best. You get the sense he's playing around with his technique instead of using it to advance the story, develop character and heighten tension. On the subject of audio, I wish I'd been able to hear Carroll Baker's delicious drawl instead of Italian in this



Marco Ferreri, L'Harem, 1967

As usual Ferreri manages to combine humour with ferocious pessimism, when what starts out as a seemingly harmless tale (of a woman who, unable to decide which of her three men to be with, invites them all to join her on holiday in Dubrovnik) becomes tense and ultimately terrifying, underpinned - or undermined - by a distressing Morricone soundtrack featuring some wild blowing by Gato Barbieri. If anyone knows of - or how to get hold of - English audio on this, PM.

[Dan Warburton]

Frank Borzage, Lucky Star, 1929

Shot half as a talkie and released in Europe only as a silent (just as well), poorly distributed after the Wall Street Crash, and miraculously rediscovered in a vault in the Netherlands in the 1990s, great to see this out in a smashing triple DVD set on Carlotta, with lots of tasty bonuses. Don't want to sound like Norma Desmond here, but you can see what she was on about when you check out these truly great performances from Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor. Marcel Carné was a big fan of this film, apparently - practise yr French
http://www.marcel-carne.com/carne-et-la ... zine-1929/

[Dan Warburton]

Louis Malle, Les Amants, 1958

Has Jeanne Moreau ever been more beautiful in a film? Hard to imagine that this provoked such a scandal when it came out (a married woman committing adultery and liking it! a-and was that an orgasm I saw? horreurs!) - I wonder what Justice Potter Stewart would make of some of the stuff coming out today. But the end of the film remains open - her wistful look at the child in the café reminds her of the daughter she's leaving behind. I doubt she'll be gone long.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

I used to think that she was not what one can call a pretty actress - beautiful, this is another matter I suppose, - until I saw her in The Train (John Frankenheimer), eerily so then.



I haven't even seen the film yet, only the beginning once, but when one comes to think of it, Paul Scolfied, Jeanne Moreau, and Michel Simon in a supporting role, besides Burt Lancaster, whom I don't like very much, this was some great casting.




Croupier - Mike Hodges, 1998

Mike Hodges' come-back to England is gloriously unsentimental and artificial (pretty much everything was shot on a studio set) and might satisfy those who hated I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Even Simon Fisher Turner's score and Clive Owen (both) may not seem out of place this time. A warning nonetheless, this is, like the poseur that serves as a central character, pretentious stuff, which is not at all a fault in my eye. I may as well describe it as bold, like, say, an Ornette Coleman's album title. Check out the suit, the reference is not so far-fetched.

[Dan Warburton]

The Train (John Frankenheimer) [..] Paul Scofied, Jeanne Moreau, and Michel Simon in a supporting role, besides Burt Lancaster, whom I don't like very much, this was some great casting.

I should check this out, coming as it does right between Seven Days In May and Seconds, la belle époque, quoi. I don't mind Lancaster, as it happens - thought he was great in Il Gattopardo (to recover from the disastrous box office of which, IMDb informs me, he took charge of The Train and replaced Arthur Penn with Frankenheimer), and enjoyed him very much recently in Atlantic City.

Croupier - Mike Hodges, 1998

Mike Hodges' come-back to England is gloriously unsentimental and artificial (pretty much everything was shot on a studio set) and might satisfy those who hated I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Even Simon Fisher Turner's score and Clive Owen (both) may not seem out of place this time. A warning nonetheless, this is, like the poseur that serves as a central character, pretentious stuff, which is not at all a fault in my eye. I may as well describe it as bold, like, say, an Ornette Coleman's album title. Check out the suit, the reference is not so far-fetched.

Comeback, how so? Did he escape to the US for a while, or something?

[Lao Tsu Ben]

My mistake, I believed so because of something I read a little too fast recently here about The Terminal Man

The movie, part of Mike Hodges' post-Get Carter, pre-Croupier two-decade fugue (that also included Flash Gordon) is kind of all right.

Ok, he didn't really leave, he was just fucking around (excuse my french). I must have assumed this fugue to be an exile. A case could perhaps be made that it was. But anyway, that's not my area of expertise as you noticed it!

I don't mind Lancaster, as it happens - thought he was great in Il Gattopardo (to recover from the disastrous box office of which, IMDb informs me, he took charge of The Train and replaced Arthur Penn with Frankenheimer), and enjoyed him very much recently in Atlantic City.

I won't discuss the fact that Burt Lancaster is a good, even a great actor- it's just, you know, personal, I guess. I tend to like the films he played in better than him in them, whereas it's often the other way around if I happen to like an actor or an actress (I can see Catherine Keener in any - rubbish - movie, God only knows why).

[Dan Bennett]

Croupier - Mike Hodges, 1998

Mike Hodges' come-back to England is gloriously unsentimental and artificial (pretty much everything was shot on a studio set) and might satisfy those who hated I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Even Simon Fisher Turner's score and Clive Owen (both) may not seem out of place this time. A warning nonetheless, this is, like the poseur that serves as a central character, pretentious stuff, which is not at all a fault in my eye. I may as well describe it as bold, like, say, an Ornette Coleman's album title. Check out the suit, the reference is not so far-fetched.

Just watched this based on your comments. I'd downloaded, and was deciding between this, The Man Without a Map and a far-too-worky-for-comfort rewatch of Robinson in Space for a project I'm working on. Flicking through the booklet that came with the Robinson/London box set I saw the first essay was by Mike Hodges - and so mindful of the gambling theme I decided the universe had cast the die for me.

Glad I went the way I did - excellent film. The too modern-novel voiceover shouldn't work but it really does, largely thanks to the fact that Clive Owen's performance matches it affectless glance for affectless line.
Poseur is an interesting description of his character - I felt he was only posing for himself, but maybe they all are. Unsentimental it certainly is though. Desperate to be The Less Deceived, Jack ends up deceived by himself and his father, and his response, to laugh at it, is maybe just that same ironised teleology playing itself out in endless self-reflective self-defence - looking like the bent, unglamorous mirrors in the casino.
Very timely too - made in the late 90s when both the London gangster and the playing out of that one-upmanship of self-aware irony was saturating cinema. As though this film plays that strand to its end game - the only thing you can win by playing that game is something you can never spend.

[Dan Warburton]

Robert Zemeckis, Used Cars, 1980

The Convoy-like cross country escapades of the last half hour are a bit tiresome (there's some good stunt work though), but the first hour or so is funny as hell, especially the two TV illegal commercials ("that's too fuckin' high!" bang!). Snatched this because Pauline raved about its "wonderful, energetic heartlessness." Good call.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Glad I went the way I did

Glad you like it - and you seem to entertain gambling metaphors a lot more than I do, which makes for very interesting comments. Thanks.

Very timely too - made in the late 90s when both the London gangster and the playing out of that one-upmanship of self-aware irony was saturating cinema. As though this film plays that strand to its end game - the only thing you can win by playing that game is something you can never spend

I think you're especially right on that. That's Hodges saying to his younger peers, in the time of self-consciousness and irony, that's how we do it. It's true that the gambling metaphor should prove particularly effective.

It was also fitting that you should speak about Robinson in Space, which I didn't know, since Paul Scofield had been mentioned a few posts ago. I realize that I have London on my hard drive. I shall definitely check them out.

[Dan Bennett]

you seem to entertain gambling metaphors a lot more than I do

Remarkable what a couple of glasses of whisky will do for my tolerance of forced metaphors

Definitely check out London. Very interesting film. Of the two I personally have more of a soft spot for Robinson in Space, maybe since that landscape of sub-industrial, logistic-networked England is much more familiar to me than London - but they're both excellent, funny, smart films.

[Eyjafjallajökull]

25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

[Eyjafjallajökull]

After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)

[P. Wretch]

It was also fitting that you should speak about Robinson in Space, which I didn't know, since Paul Scofield had been mentioned a few posts ago. I realize that I have London on my hard drive. I shall definitely check them out.

Yes, I second the Keiller recommendation: he's like a more lugubrious, English Chris Marker. These are essay films disguised as narrative adventures, in which built structures and landmarks are the only on-screen stars. Scofield's voice really sustains the whole thing, though, which is why I think the third, posthumous instalment in the series, Robinson in Ruins (with Vanessa Redgrave), is, while still good, not quite as memorable.

With regard to the soundtrack of London, one might argue that Keiller, in striving for a melancholic atmosphere, makes too much use of the Heiliger dankgesang movement from Beethoven's 15th quartet, which is played over and over. At any rate, it may disturb Beethoven purists who like hearing his works entire.

[Dan Warburton]

Peter Jackson, Braindead (Dead Alive) , 1992

Uncle Les doesn't get the best line - my vote for that goes to Father McGruder's "I kick arse for the Lord!", closely followed by Paquita's "your mother ate my dog!" - but he's damn good with those meat cleavers.
Just about all you need to know about the plot can be found here http://www.cracked.com/funny-4669-dead-alive/
and there are about a zillion more photos here showing where the cuts were made (all puns intended) http://www.schnittberichte.com/report.php?ID=164848 You will never eat custard again. Total masterpiece.

[Dan Warburton]

Brian De Palma, Dressed To Kill, 1980

No shortage of literature about this online (Hitchcock influence blabla, shower scene referencing both Psycho and Brian's own Carrie blablabla, the museum scene inspired by Vertigo blablablabla..), but I wonder if the giallo connection isn't more relevant. Was BDP aware of Giuliano Carnimeo's Case of the Bloody Iris (the razor slash in the lift scene)? Or Argento's Profondo Rosso, with its the "subliminal" shot of the killer (virtuoso tracking shot when Kate leaves the museum and throws away her other glove on the steps - watch carefully as the camera pans from her to the guy in the taxi, and check out who's picking up the glove behind her when she gets in the cab). Still can't say I like the Pino soundtrack, but, like the awful Goblin stuff Argento uses, I can see why it's there and why it works.