SCFZ

Mileage is gonna vary -- Beatty's sole accomplished moment for me in SHAMPOO was his reaction to Goldie Hawn catching him balls deep in Julie Christie -- "Hey, I've been looking all over for you!"

EDIT -- well, I'm not really being fair. It's certainly an accomplishment for a man of Beatty's clearly considerable intelligence to convincingly play so dumb. It's the whole "who gives a shit about this guy" that is the real problem.

"Hey, I've been looking all over for you!"

Yeah, holy shit. Definitely my favorite moment of the film.

Bílá nemoc (Skeleton on Horseback)

A new disease originating in China ravages the nation while an egomaniacal fascist leader drives the people to their ruin. The illness lasts a few weeks and, oddly, only affects adults above 45 or 50, sparing the young.

Unbelievable plot, right? Seriously though, this was made 83 years ago, 1937, in Czechoslovakia. Directed by Hugo Haas.

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

wut

Smokey and The Bandit: a massive hit in its day, but it is a mediocre film with no artistic merit or intelligence whatsoever. Only Reynolds saves it from the scrapheap. Its real value now is as an artifact of a bygone era when Hollywood made films primarily for the domestic market. In this case, for Betty and Cleatus. The timewarp feel is almost surreal in 2020. It plays like a parody of the white American south. No black people lived there in the late 70's apparently. 4.5/10.

Great flick! Hitchcock's favourite movie - good enough for me

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Warlock (Edward Dmytryk, 1959) - A nice, loose Western in which you never knew who the protagonist was or who you were supposed to root for, kinda. I'm glad brotherdeacon also picked up on the gay subtext between Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn in his review on LB. Quinn's character is the most overt gay character I've seen in a Western from this period. It was kind of a waste though to cast Dorothy Malone and just have her be there.

Inferno (Roy Ward Baker, 1953)- Robert Ryan is stranded in a technicolor desert with a broken leg. Decent enough pulpy fun, would have been nice with a few more desert set pieces but in the end it was a B noir, not a pure survival film. And in pure technicolor fashion, lots of colorful wardrobe changes for Rhonda Fleming.

greennui wrote: ↑Sat May 09, 2020 5:08 pm
Inferno (Roy Ward Baker, 1953)- Robert Ryan is stranded in a technicolor desert with a broken leg. Decent enough pulpy fun, would have been nice with a few more desert set pieces but in the end it was a B noir, not a pure survival film. And in pure technicolor fashion, lots of colorful wardrobe changes for Rhonda Fleming.

The film's main selling point and artistic achievement as well is its use of 3D. All the camera angles are (wonderfullly!) structured for 3D. It's in fact one of the best and most beautiful 3D films I've seen so far.
So if you haven't watched it in 3D you've seen only a pale derivative of the actual film, I'd say.

gonna watch warlock as it's on youtube. wanna see quinn's gay character

hey this wasn't bad

I liked the novel WARLOCK very much -- can't imagine it onscreen, and certainly not with Mr. Fonda.

wba wrote: ↑Sat May 09, 2020 8:52 pm The film's main selling point and artistic achievement as well is its use of 3D. All the camera angels are (wonderfullly!) structured for 3D. It's in fact one of the best and most beautiful 3D films I've seen so far.
So if you haven't watched it in 3D you've seen only a pale derivative of the actual film, I'd say.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the 3D part. I imagine so even though I've actually never seen a film in 3D.

I'm currently trying to watch Sion Sono's last movie THE FOREST OF LOVE and so far (50 minutes in and 100 to go) it is absolutely amazing and mindblowing. Sono's assuredness as a director is mind-boggling, and I can think of few living filmmakers who apparently know as well what they want to do and are so successful at achieving it. It seems like he's in some kind of Picasso-mood where he just does what he wants and seemingly gets the artistic effects he wants effortlessly.
Anyway, there's also a mini-series from this material, which I hope to watch afterwards.

A friend of mine is a Sono nut. He told me recently that the series is better.

I'm on the fence, but I really like The Whispering Star, which isn't as acclaimed as some of his other films. Guilty of Romance is probably my second favourite.

Haven't seen neither The Whispering Star nor Guilty of Romance and have sampled only a small handful of his films in the past, mostly when they came out. The last Sono I saw was "Why Don't You Play in Hell?" (2013) which I watched with two friends at home in 2014 (or such) and I thought it was a pretty bad movie. So I haven't seen a Sono in a long time. All the other Sonos I've seen where at the time of their release at a festival or at the cinema. My favorite would be "BAD FILM" (2012), followed by "Cold Fish" (2010) and "Love Exposure" (2008). . My first Sono was "Strange Circus" (2005) which I thought was terrible, back then. So I'm far from an expert, but as I love three of his films I'm very curious about the rest.

THE HATCHET MAN -- William Wellman's melodrama set in San Francisco's Chinatown, with Tong wars and assassins and arranged marriages and stuff. The main cast are white actors, of course, so there's a good deal of hands being tucked into sleeves and squinting and sentences that begin, "it is written..." A brisk 75 minutes, with Wellman managing some very cool extended camera movements and tasty setups -- he seems very fond of putting objects in the foreground of the image. Edward G. Robinson tries to transcend the limitations of the role and the fact that he's playing an Asian, and largely succeeds, I'd say. There's some lip service paid to changing times and putting away the traditions of the past, and all that. One very interesting scene is set in a bar populated almost entirely by interracial couples, interestingly all comprised of white women dancing with Asian men. I'm not sure there's a whole lot going on here, but I'd recommend hanging on to the very end for one of the most startling OMFG moments in pre-Code movies.

I came super close to watching that about two nights ago, funnily enough! Will watch soonish, as its my next Wellman in line.

Escape By Night (John Gilling, GB, 1951)
Looks like I've been misjudging the British film industry; I always thought there were prestige productions and quota quickies and nothing in between... but either there's a middle tier of films that haven't drawn much attention, or else those quota quickies are a lot more interesting than I expected them to be. VERY solid claustrophobia-noir, recommended to Flip in particular. Mr. Caution on his three-days-only youtube channel has taken it down already, so I'll do a thing forthwith.

Amazon UK managed to ship me the new Blu-Ray of SATANTANGO, from the new restoration supposedly supervised by Tarr. I've seen the film a couple of times in cinemas straight through, and was looking forward to owning a good home video of it. The aspect ratio seems a bit off somehow -- I'll need to check some of the reviews to see what folks say. The image on the old Curzon AE DVDs looks stretched out of shape in comparison. Still, looking forward to checking out more than the first few minutes.

^^I heard only the upcoming Arbelos version was approved by Tarr.

^^^It is the Arbelos version, released by Curzon in the UK. Others have posted that they're not seeing any lines. We'll see, I'll be checking out reviews of the release, if there are any.

Just watched my 15th silent during the past 7 weeks. It seems I'm on a roll.

Roscoe wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 1:37 pm ^^^It is the Arbelos version, released by Curzon in the UK. Others have posted that they're not seeing any lines. We'll see, I'll be checking out reviews of the release, if there are any.

Interesting. A rep from Arbelos said on blu-ray.com that the UK version is not based on their transfer.

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 3:17 pm

Roscoe wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 1:37 pm ^^^It is the Arbelos version, released by Curzon in the UK. Others have posted that they're not seeing any lines. We'll see, I'll be checking out reviews of the release, if there are any.

Interesting. A rep from Arbelos said on blu-ray.com that the UK version is not based on their transfer.

EDIT -- Interesting indeed, as the blu-ray has the Arbelos logo before the movie starts.

Roscoe wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 7:04 pm

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 3:17 pm

Roscoe wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 1:37 pm ^^^It is the Arbelos version, released by Curzon in the UK. Others have posted that they're not seeing any lines. We'll see, I'll be checking out reviews of the release, if there are any.

Interesting. A rep from Arbelos said on blu-ray.com that the UK version is not based on their transfer.

EDIT -- Interesting indeed, as the blu-ray has the Arbelos logo before the movie starts.

Cool be the encode that is different then.

Kids Return: odd mix of a crime film, youth film and boxing film that doesn't completely work and is Kitano's worst serious film from his prime period (89-99), but it has its moments and the soundtrack is great. 6/10

And for what it's worth, the issues I was having with the picture on the Curzon SATANTANGO turned out to be easily solved by adjusting the sharpness levels on my TV.

Night Moves (the Reichardt one) was on dreaded MUBI and I've only seen Certain Women from her so decided to give it a try.
Really glad I did, I've always been a fan of Eisenberg's and I see his performance got some mixed press but he was very effective here for me, along with the fantastic music, visuals, and editing slowly and carefully building the suspense without forgetting to develop the characters. An ambient thriller. I think I like it in general when slightly more idiosyncratic directors decide to make a genre film but now I can't think of any other examples off-hand.

Olivia (Jacqueline Audry, 1951) - Girls in Uniform by way of Ophüls. Good execution of a familiar story, Edwige Feuillère was great as the headmistress.



Svengali (Archie Mayo, 1931) - Really enjoyed this. Great expressionistic sets, J. Barrymore was good and I found Marian Marsh completely transfixing.





I think I might go on a pre-code horror binge.

greennui wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 7:20 pm I think I might go on a pre-code horror binge.

I just started a pre-Code horror binge myself! It somehow hadn't occurred to me until a few days ago that that's a distinctive horror period worth grouping and exploring as such, when I found an iCM list of pre-Code horrors.

I would recommend Supernatural with Carole Lombard, from what I've seen so far. I do not recommend Murder by the Clock, which I just watched. Will make a list of all my favs when I'm done exploring

Evelyn Library P.I. wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 7:37 pm

greennui wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 7:20 pm I think I might go on a pre-code horror binge.

I just started a pre-Code horror binge myself! It somehow hadn't occurred to me until a few days ago that that's a distinctive horror period worth grouping and exploring as such, when I found an iCM list of pre-Code horrors.

I would recommend Supernatural with Carole Lombard, from what I've seen so far. I do not recommend Murder by the Clock, which I just watched. Will make a list of all my favs when I'm done exploring

I've rewatched Frankenstein/Bride of/Dracula recently and I really enjoy the quietness of them, still some remnants of silent cinema in there. Looking forward to that list!

Archie Mayo's right up there with Roy del Ruth in terms of reliably good WarnerBro hack directors.