I watched some old 'classics' and the '07 nominated films I'm still catching up on. And the weather is still too bad to be spring. We had 100 mph straight line winds in the area and lots of rain anh some hail. Damage was mostly 8-10 miles away, where trees were blown down and roofs and whole buildings torn apart. Electricity was off for lots of folks. Thankfully, my little pocket of the world came through okay - no damage or outages.
The films I saw:
The 39 Steps (1935) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026029/
Robert Donat and Madeleine Carrol in Alfred Hitchcocks early chase mystery. Filmed in part on the Scottish moors and highlands, it is very atmospheric. 7/10
Rebecca (1940) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032976/
Five years after "39 Steps", Hitch is working in the USA for David O Selznick, with a large budget and Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in a story by Daphne Du Maurier. Great atmosphere, and character actors in every secondary part; Judith Anderson as the housekeepter Mrs. Danvers and George Sanders as Rebecca's 'favorite cousin' are standouts. Sets and costumes fine too. To me a perfect - 10/10
Frenchman's Creek (1944) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036840/
Joan Fontaine as Lady Dona St. Columb in the mid 1600s England, has a dolt for a husband, and Basil Rathbone the evil friend, who is trying to seduce her. After a quarrel, she takes her children and goes to the house on the seashore and there discovers a new servant, William (Cecil Kellaway), in charge. Before long she has also discovers a ship in her cove, and meets the Pirate Captain (Arturo deCordova). Romance ensues. Filmed is lush technicolor, with lavish costumes and sets (which won an Oscar), a lovely score with Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' used as the love theme, and Daphne Du Maurier's story, this was a favorite of my teen years. Joan gets to join the pirates on a raid dressed as a boy; and her fight with Rathbone on the stairs of the mansion, is one of the great scenes of a desparate woman triumphing over a cad. 9/10
Sabrina (1954) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047437/
Audrey Hepburn is the 'only' Sabrina. This should never be remade. Humphrey Bogart is just passable as the gruff businessman, but William Holden is charm itself as the younger brother and Sabrina's dream man. Her costumes and hair style were copied by many women in the year this came out. We all got that haircut. We wore those tight loooong skirts, with the slit in back so you could walk. That raincoat and those flat ballet style shoes were everywhere. Hoop earrings were the rage. The story is fun, but it was a feeling you got of the possibilities, that was important. The scene about plastics was, for us - the audience - almost like science fiction. It was that new and the uses were just being discovered. Perfect except for Bogart. He just wasn't the man for this part. 9/10
City On Fire (1987 Lung fu fong wan) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093435/
Chow Yun Fat as the doomed undercover cop, who is trying to get out so he can marry his girlfriend, and also save his life. The final half hour is the robbery that goes terribly bad, with our cop caught in the middle; and the famous standoff with 3 of the guys pointing guns at each other; the final shootout and death scene of our cop. This is the part that Quentin Terrentino used for his Resevoir Dogs. But he didn't have Chow, a great presence and talent. 9/10
U.S. Marshals (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120873/
Tommie Lee Jones and crew from The Fugitive are on another case. Enjoyable. 8/10
Red Road (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471030/
If your like extreme closeups in almost every scene, and ratty looking buildings, people doing awful things, this film is for you. Not one scene is in the least attractive. Set in Glasgow, if I were the city fathers I would sue. The female lead, Kate Dickie, is a depressed woman whose job is to watch the security cameras on a large console of screens. One day she sees a man, who she thought had been locked up forever, out on the streets. She begins to stalk him, finally getting into a party at his flat. Eventually, we get to the most graphic oral sex scene I have ever witnessed. Tony Curran, a redheaded Scot I like usually, is the man doing the nasty. By the end of the film with the reveal of why the woman goes after him, accusing him of rape and then recanting, I for one didn't care why she did what she did. I was just glad to finally be through with these people and this world. Oh, Tony we hardly know ye. 5/10
Gone Baby Gone (2007 Extras/Commentary) www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/ The DVD extras on this film are very good. The commentary track with Ben Afleck is interesting because he tells why he shot at certain places. And points out the real people of the neighborhoods he gave parts too in the film. I watched all of them and feel they are some of the best I have seen on a DVD. 8/10
Eastern Promises (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765443/
Take out the looooooong fight scene with Viggo Mortensen naked and bloody, and we have the usual mob story, only it is the Russian mob instead of the Mafia Wiseguys. After the first 30 seconds of the big fight, I had to avert my eyes. Not worth seeing all the blood and gore to see Viggo's Jewels bobbing around. He did sound pretty authentic with the accent, but I'm not Russian so don't know. Naomi Watts was the female lead. She has very little to do. 6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment