Last Watched

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Glad to hear that! I watched Dawn at Socorro yesterday morning, along with two other Shermans (I was up at 2 AM and figured I'd make the most of it) Dawn at Socorro deeply impressed me, the best Sherman I've seen. I totally agree, it has an air of regret and melancholy that really distinguishes it and suits Rory Calhoun very well. I also watched Hell Bent for Leather, which I think is Sherman's only Audie Murphy western. It was quite good for fans of Audie oaters, made me wish Sherman worked with him more.

[nrh]

the other detail i really like in socorro is just the sheer animosity that calhoun's enemies feel towards him

i grabbed last of the fast guns and relentless too, will probably watch sometime soon. count three and pray looks good too but we just watched 3:10 to yuma and van heflin's '50s haircut demands some space between visits.

westerns (outside ford and hawks) are seema's only real classic hollywood blindspot so this is becoming something of a minor end of summer project; b or mid budget westerns tending to hover in the 80-90 minute ranger certainly makes them easy to fit in.

[rischka]

yeah it's fun to think of you guys watching old westerns in brooklyn

[Roscoe]

THE LEOPARD MAN, a Val Lewton production directed by Jacques Tourneur, about an escaped leopard on the loose in a small New Mexico tourist town, and it keeps killing women. There are some good shivers to be had, a la the same company's CAT PEOPLE of the year before. But too much of the non-shivery scenes kind of lay there onscreen, which can't be said of the same company's CAT PEOPLE. Worth a look, but the feeling that elements of the story don't quite add up, combined with a fatal flatness of a couple scenes that deserve a lot better, can't be denied.

[pabs]

There's another tasty film based on the same woman's life, Terry Jones's PERSONAL SERVICES

I just watched it and yes, it's very good. Walters is terrific, as you say. Her best scene is the one where she's at the sister's wedding, outside, on a football pitch, confronting her father. I'd seen the film before, many years ago. I do think WISH YOU WERE HERE is the better film, though, but that's because it's more melancholy, and for some dumb reason "sadder" films have a bigger impact on me.

I hadn't clicked that both films were based on the same person. Thanks for mentioning that. The guy who directed WISH YOU WERE HERE wrote the script for PERSONAL SERVICES, unless I'm mistaken.

[greennui]

I finally rewatched The Green Ray today. Began saving it for a hot day way back in june but little did I know it would be the coldest july in living memory with nothing but rain and misery. Am I the only one who, no matter how much I try not to, always picture a green sting ray whenever I see the title?

[sally]

i was thinking the other day that i haven't watched any rohmer in years, i'm glad i wasn't around for his director poll (if we've done it) because i wouldn't have a clue now. not great at rewatching films tho, i feel bad for all the ones that haven't even been seen once

like...gerard rutten's dood water, little pearl of dutch cinema with only 2 views on letterboxd (now) - as gorgeous as anything 1934 produced, up with epstein, storck, the prodigal son. (but maybe that's just my sea bias coming in) was so pretty i kept losing track of the thin plot, but it was the standard of the time 'intergenerational working class coping with !Progress!' so it didn't really matter much. not sure about the 12 min singing intro about the glories of dam building tho.

didn't get screenshots because i watched it courtesy of one of the best national archives, on yt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUfM0Mniq-8

[Joks Trois]

Illegally Yours: I still maintain that Bogo got lucky with What's Up Doc, his only successful straight comedy. Lowe looks, acts and sounds like O'Neil, and Camp is a mix between Streisand and Russell. Unfortunately they have little chemistry, and the film isn't funny. 4/10

Tales From The Hood 2: the first one was camp and somewhat different in the mid 90's. A black horror film with a social conscience. This one shamelessly exploits the politics of resentment in the culture at the moment, and it is even more crudely made than the original. 3/10

1917: Well made, but it is long takes used for arguably the least interesting purpose (i.e achieving verisimilitude), whose impact is somewhat weakened by frequent bursts of typical dramatic music, which constantly remind the viewer they are watching a film. Not sure about a rating yet, but I'm sure at least one person will tell me that my interpretation of its aims are wrong. Hehe.

More technique than artistry.

[flip]

Illegally Yours: I still maintain that Bogo got lucky with What's Up Doc, his only successful straight comedy.

i don't think it was luck, i know we've talked about noises off before (and disagree about it), and while bogdanovich doesn't manage the absurdly intricate staging all that well (it works miles better in a good stage production), he does understand screwball comedy rhythms, which isn't true of all that many directors post-1950 or so.

[Roscoe]

There's another tasty film based on the same woman's life, Terry Jones's PERSONAL SERVICES

I just watched it and yes, it's very good. Walters is terrific, as you say. Her best scene is the one where she's at the sister's wedding, outside, on a football pitch, confronting her father. I'd seen the film before, many years ago. I do think WISH YOU WERE HERE is the better film, though, but that's because it's more melancholy, and for some dumb reason "sadder" films have a bigger impact on me.

I hadn't clicked that both films were based on the same person. Thanks for mentioning that. The guy who directed WISH YOU WERE HERE wrote the script for PERSONAL SERVICES, unless I'm mistaken.

Yes, it seems David Leland wrote the script for both films based on Cynthia Payne's life. I hadn't realized. I'll have to see if I can get another look at WISH YOU WERE HERE, it's been decades.

[Joks Trois]

Illegally Yours: I still maintain that Bogo got lucky with What's Up Doc, his only successful straight comedy.

i don't think it was luck, i know we've talked about noises off before (and disagree about it), and while bogdanovich doesn't manage the absurdly intricate staging all that well (it works miles better in a good stage production), he does understand screwball comedy rhythms, which isn't true of all that many directors post-1950 or so.

So you like Illegally Yours? She's Funny That Way? Even if you like Noises Off, that's 2 out of what, 5?

As far as screwball comedy copies/homages of the last 30 years are concerned, I'd much rather watch Landis' Oscar with Stallone than Noises Off, or Brain Donors, although I haven't seen the latter in 25 years. Each to their own.

[flip]

the only bogdanovich films i've seen recently enough to say much about are noises off, what's up doc, voyage to the planet of prehistoric women (lol) and saint jack (great but not a comedy), i want to revisit paper moon and last picture show soon, isn't paper moon fairly successful as comedy too? i haven't seen it in a long time.

i don't hold out great hopes for many of the later bogdanovich films (haven't seen most of them, including the two you mention), but i have heard good things about they all laughed at least

[nrh]

she’s funny that way is terrific, as is they all laughed
, and I don’t particularly even like bogdanovich all that much

[Joks Trois]

I love Paper Moon, but it is not a straight comedy. It is very funny though. They All Laughed has its moments.

[thoxans]

yeah, they all laughed is awesome, though only half of it is screwball comedy (done well imo); the other half is a very melancholy ode to aging and long lost love (just as the film itself is a love letter to the bygone days of the screwball comedy, hence the janus-like mashup; and just typical new hollywood bogdan doing his slightly meta homage collages)

[thoxans]

Tales From The Hood 2

agreed! though i think even a 3/10 might be too generous tbh. the og is one of the great horror film anthologies imo. genuinely well done and scary, while carrying clear social undertones. the sequel however is the exact opposite. all tell, and no show, as if the creators came up with the messages before they came up with a movie to package them in; and as any halfway decent writer knows, you write the story, and from there the themes emerge. not the other way around. tfth2 was like scrolling for two hours through the twitter feed of an armchair activist that's never left their parents' basement and formed their 'viewpoint' simply by staring at memes on reddit all day

[Joks Trois]

^^Well said. You are correct. 3 probably is too generous. The first one had a great ending too. David also isn't a patch on Williams III, and I like David.

[sally]

looping the loop - arthur robison (1928)

STOP WITH THE SAD CLOWN MOVIES!!!!!!!!!! jeez. also a two hour movie becomes three when you have to stop and translate every unobvious intertitle. but if it HADN'T been about a sad clown this would be a wonderful, intelligently shot, adult film. there was one scene with mirrors (tbh most of the scenes had mirrors, or masks, or doubles etc in) that should be iconic. as it is i never want to see a circus film again

[rischka]

where did you see loop the loop

i finally watched kautner play god in 1948 die apfel ist ab and here's some fun gifs i made!!! the movie is quite sexist just like that whole adam and eve story but the naive effects are so charming!!!!! kautner had great comic talent to pull this off. sry for twitter links, i know they are annoying

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1291 ... 85921?s=20

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1291 ... 41858?s=20

[Roscoe]

TCM is doing Chaplin today for their Summer Under The Stars series, and there's a whole lot of Chaplin going on. It was nice to see that they ran the original 1925 version of THE GOLD RUSH, which seems to have become the norm now -- that Director's Cut he did in the 1940s with a voiceover narration is an abomination.

And I checked out THE GREAT DICTATOR, which is a mess. There's more good stuff in it than I'd remembered, some tasty bits of fun here and there. The dictator Hynkel's virulent anti-semitism is rather remarkable, and there's even an extended joke about media collaboration in nicing up the unspeakable early on. The double storylines are handled with an unbecoming clumsiness, though. And one element of the story just always mystifies me. Why does no one, and I mean NO ONE, ever once remark on the resemblance between Hynkel the dictator and the unnamed Jewish barber. The one person in the film who actually meets both people doesn't seem to notice it, and he's right there when the barber is actually mistaken for Hynkel and swept up in the dictator's party. Why is the replacement of Hynkel with the barber allowed to be accidental, and why is it handled with such awkwardness?

Still, some good laughs here and there. I was more amused than before by Jack Oakie's travesty of Mussolini, portrayed as a big childish thug, happily munching a bag of peanuts at a parade of military weapons.

[sally]

where did you see loop the loop

bonn silent film fest. altho according to someone psychic at nitrateville (can't see how else he's getting the info) they're only up for between 24-48 hours. and even less than that because they've all disappeared today apart from the most recent one (shiny new version of l'argent) which doesn't show it on its vimeo page so honestly ffs their communication is shit

https://www.internationale-stummfilmtage.de/

[nrh]

two very beautiful films by rita azevedo gomes -

the invisible collection, a small (just 45 minutes or so) film adapted from zweig, made for television i believe, constrained to just a few rooms, some slightly abstracted closeups, voiceover. i am sure the low quality print, complete with distracting burned in italian subtitles, does not do the film justice but it is certainly a film made with limited means.

an art dealer goes to visit an old client of his, one with a famous collection of engravings, not to sell anything but out of a kind of inchoate boredom. the client, now elderly, has gone mostly blind. his daughter has sold the entirety of his beloved collection, replacing the engravings with textured sheets of blank paper, which the collector (remembering the exact location of each within his folio) gazes at day after day.

doesn't have the lush beauty of the other gomes i've seen (fragile as the world) but this feels surprisingly light on its feet for something so outwardly austere. there is a lot of beauty drawn from something as simple as those white sheets of paper. a vertical shift, involving reflections on the glass of a framed etching, is extraordinary in a way that i wouldn't think of spoiling it by my clumsy attempt at explanation.

danses macabres, from 2019, which is the great writer jean-louis schfer (who speaks), rita azevedo gomes (who directs) and pierre leon (who mostly listens and edits) traveling through portugal, looking at paintings, smoking cigarettes, and talking about art, images, memory...very funny, very quiet, even as the thought and precision behind every cut and camera choice is plain to see. for some reason i have been struggling to place myself in the mindset where i can watch more non-narrative film this summer, not something i usually struggle with, but this was a major pleasure, and perfect for bright august afternoon.

[rischka]

where did you see loop the loop

bonn silent film fest. altho according to someone psychic at nitrateville (can't see how else he's getting the info) they're only up for between 24-48 hours. and even less than that because they've all disappeared today apart from the most recent one (shiny new version of l'argent) which doesn't show it on its vimeo page so honestly ffs their communication is shit

https://www.internationale-stummfilmtage.de/

thank you! got sucked into cinephobe.tv by something called black widow, w van heflin, gene tierney and ginger rogers in fabulous dresses. obviously inspired by all about eve and the ending was plain as day, silver fox george raft isn't exactly colombo but it was pretty decent for a deluxe color cinemascope noir i'd never heard of. then they showed my beloved shintaro katsu as okada izo in hitokiri ♥♥ so there went my afternoon/evening

[pabs]

I'm not exactly sure what I just saw, but it had the title On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. I was told it was directed by Vincente Minnelli and I'm not going to argue about that. It was released in 1970.

It was a mad thing. I suspect it was maybe a musical, but maybe it wasn't, though there were a few songs sung by two of the characters (played by Barbara Streisand and Yves Montand). Sometimes it tried to be a kooky comedy like Whats Up Doc?. A woman (Streisand) goes to see a psychology professor (Montand) hoping he can help her quit smoking through hypnotism, and he inadvertently discovers she's lived many previous lives. She's clairvoyant. She's also blessed with ESP. He is too. She can make flowers grow and bloom quickly just by talking to them. She goes missing at one point and he summons her telepathically by singing to her from the rooftop of the PAN AM Building (now the Metlife Building) in NYC. A young Jack Nicholson has a tiny walk-on part as her stepbrother.

The film-stock was great, producing some very rich colours, but the story and the way it was put together was like a parody of something. It doesn't seem to belong to any genre. It has absolutely no idea what it's doing. 5.5/10

[sally]

got sucked into cinephobe.tv

yeah. that's why i've avoided looking at it since the day i found it. i'd never leave the house.

also i am DONE watching silent films without translated intertitles. even if it's obvious what's being said, it still kills me thinking i'm missing something. headache now

[nrh]

rewatched cattle queen of montana, and had almost forgotten just how weird that film is. jerry way back compared it to straub huillet (and felipe in his blog compared it to renoir!) but weirdly it just reminds me of those odd kind of b movie referring moullet comedies like billy the kid and the smugglers. except here you have stawyck, playing the only human in the whole film (she also has great outfits), against ronald reagan and some of the most strangely ersatz "native americans" ever assembled in a studio film. alton gets some beautiful effects with light and landscape but at the same time the entire film feels oddly flat; characters are often scrunched up into the center of the frame, facing off against each other in profile, even in the big climactic knife fight.

weirdly several images or sequences here totally burned into my brain, most of all stanwyck's leap over that fallen branch in the film's penultimate gunfight.

[kanafani]

don’t go breaking my heart... Mister To often leaves me underwhelmed, and that was the case again here. I did not dislike it. I certainly appreciate the formal elegance, but it overall feels quite ... slight? The characters are ultimately psychologically/mentally/emotionally unconvincing. Who are these people? Never met such specimen in my life. Granted I do not go out much but still. I guess it is fine to deal in caricatures and broad strokes, but it just did not work for me here. I was thinking a little bit about this shortly after I finished it, and I have to admit I tend to go along with and enjoy such material if it’s in a romantic comedy from the 30s or the 40s, but much less likely when it is set in the present. Maybe it’s just me bringing my own expectations and biases, but that’s just baggage I have to carry around with me wherever I go I guess. It just rubs me the wrong way that he sets his movie smack in the middle of the 2008 economic meltdown, constructs characters that live in the upper echelons of the financial world, and yet this rich setting is not mined beyond silliness and cliches. The results are meager. I guess it was not fair that I watched this while running on the treadmill and that I had to look away from the screen often to make sure I did not fall off cos I’m in the worst shape of my life, but I think the results would have been approximately the same in more optimum conditions. That being said I think I’ll give the sequel a shot on the treadmill on Wednesday and Thursday.

[pabs]

Nobody Knows (Kore-eda, 2004) for the poll.

Devastating. Those poor little kids! My only complaint is that it ran too long and maybe 35 minutes trimmed off it would have made it much better.

7/10

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Saw Niagara (1953) for the first time, since I now live just near the actual Niagara Falls.

I like films that explore a location thoroughly... but aside from the falls themselves this was kinda...bad?

Monroe is fine. Sort of at the exact mid-point of both her talents and flaws. Max Showalter is awful. He's so goofy I assumed it was intentionally going somewhere, and we'd see him sort of devolve into a broody mess à la Joe Cotton in act 1. But no, he's just a goofy dude, who is then joined by an even goofier dude later.

There's a lot of good ingredients here, and it's all cobbled together so oddly that it takes all the air out of it. There's a semi-Hitchockian murder scene which is quite good, followed by an awkward scene of a man being locked in a tower then returning to the scene of the murder with absolutely no narrative or emotional purpose. He just sort of sits there for a while with the corpse, and then gets out later.

I feel like it's a first and third act in search of a good second act. It seems like it's setting up something really interesting where Jean Peters and Showalter work as a mirror for Monroe and Cotton, but in the early happy days of a relationship before it goes sour. Which is great, and we get hints of Peters coming out of some (undisclosed) shell and becoming more aware of herself sexually (urged on at first by her dopey husband) but then, no arc comes of it. It gets too caught up in the murder/noir tropes and doesn't use those to extrapolate on the characters at all, thus rendering the first act mostly useless.

I'd love to see an alternate version directed by someone (anyone) with just a bit of perspective, ideology, etc.

[---]

Rewatch of ABSOLUTE GIGANTEN

Yes the score is godtier. Yes it's godtier car movie. More than that though it's <80 minutes and more than ten minutes of real-time foosball, and still Schipper finds time for dance sequences to both diegetic and nondiegetic music. Fuck watching la flor