The Glass Key (1942) Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy. Politicians and their fixers and dames. Good yarn in the hands of the pros. The top of the bill. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034798/
My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready. Fair suspense tale. Woman succures a job through an employment agency and goes to the home of the wealthy woman who hired her as a personal secretary. When she goes to sleep that night and wakes up and is told she is the daughter in law of the same woman, Mrs. Hughes. The son, Ralph, and all the servants try to convince her she has had a breakdown and really is Marian Hughes. She is kept in a licked room, with a window looking down to the rocky coast of the sea. How will she escape? Tightly scripted and well acted for a second feature on the bill. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037932/
Riff-Raff (1947) Pat O'Brian, Anne Jeffreys, Walter Slezak, Percy Kilbride. Confused story and dull acting by the cast. A "B" movie to fill the bill at the Bijou back in the day. Something about oil maps and the Canal zone. And a 'fixer' and assorted thugs and dames. 5/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039772/
The Naked Jungle (1954) Charleton Heston, Eleanor Parker, William Conrad. I always liked Heston better as a man of the more recent times, as opposed to the biblical epics. This is a good old pot boiler, with repressed sex, fighting a force of nature - his bride - and the Marabunta...Nature's deadliest force, a column of army ants , 2 miles wide and 20 miles long. And it is headed straight for the plantation he spent 20 years carving out of the jungle. Well, it is going to be a fight to the death and who will win? Saw it in '54 and it still is a favorite - jes 'cause! 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047264/
Marnie (1964) Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Louis Latham. Just about my favorite of the later Hitchcock films. Marnie steals money. Lots of money from lots of employers. Finally caught by Mark Rutland when she steals from his company, he has her trapped into marrying him or she will be turned over to the police. He is intrigued by her and also she is a babe. So he tries to figure her out on the honeymoon cruise. But she won't play. Such a sexy scene and what a kiss in Marks office while she is taking some off hours dictation. During a storm, she is so frightened he goes to comfort her and starting at her forehead and runs his lips down her entire face to her lips for a lingering kiss. Extreme closeup, Well! Talk about heat! Clothes on, no pawing and pulling at each other, but very sexy. 10/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058329/
Emma (1996) Kate Beckinsale, Mark Strong, Samantha Morton. Made for TV the same year the Paltrow movie was shown in theaters. And the updated version Clueless was released in 1995. Do producers all have a brainstorm at the same time? This Emma is so sure of herself in the meddling she is doing with the life of her friend, and Mr. Knightley so right to dress her down for putting false hopes in the head of a "young woman of no connections and dubious lineage." Love Mark Strong as the older man who loves, and waits for the right time, to declare his love for his willful friend. The cast of English actors are all perfect in their Jane Austin world. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118308/
The Town (2010) Ben Afflect, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner. Rewatch. Commented on earlier. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840361/
Date Night (2010) Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Walberg. Suburbanites go into NYC for a dinner date and goes to a top restaurant where you book a table months in advance. Which they did not. Off to the side trying to decide what to do, a name is called over and over and no one answers. So they do. Big mistake. Even though they have a great meal, and lots of wine, they are confronted at the end of the meal by 2 men who ask them to come outside. Thinking it is management about the table they took they go willingly. But these guys are goons working for an outfit that wants the flash drive the couple they posed as have, and are in deep dodo to the boss. They get out of one mess after another and at the end when they collapse on their front lawn, safe again, we are glad. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1279935/
Greenberg (2010) Ben Stiller. I knew I probably would not like this film but since it won Independent Spirit Awards last year, decided to give it a try. Did. not. like. one. thing. about. it! Stiller is so annoying to me I almost quit at the half way point. A guy who has been in a mental hospital is house sitting at his brothers. He looks up his annoying friend. He has conversations and sex with his brothers assistant. She is also annoying. He has a party and it makes no sense. I wanted to scream. 5/10 and that is generous! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234654/
October 31, 2011
October 19, 2011
Lana Turner in A Life Of Her Own
A Life Of Her Own (1950) Lana Turner, Ray Milland, Tom Ewell, Louis Calhern, Ann Dvorak. A remake of 1939s "When Tomorrow Comes", is a story of a young woman from Kansas, who heads to NYC to find fame and fortune as a model. Which she does and then falls for a visiting copper mine owner from Montana. Complications ensue and Lana suffers, Milland suffers, but the best suffering is by Dvorak, in one of her last roles. The original story " A Modern Cinderella" was by James M. Cain, who also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce. Lana wears beautiful '50s fashions and looks great, at least to me. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042677/
Cop Out (2010) Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan. Seann William Scott. Supposed to be a comedy but is not funny. Cop partners suspended for 30 days for something or other are taking a very rare baseball card owned by one to have it appraised so he can sell it to give his daughter a big wedding. Naturally there is a holdup and the card is taken with the rest of the loot. Much blundering around trying to get it back. Scott is stuck in some scenes annoying everyone - and the audience - repeating every word said by his target. By the end I was in a stupor. Don't encourage these people! 4/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385867/
The American (2010) George Clooney. Really slow and mostly uninteresting story, to me anyway, of an assassin and his troubles. I could not relate to the character so it had nothing to hang on to. The cinematography of villages in the sun and cars on twisty roads, were pretty. That was it. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440728/
Cop Out (2010) Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan. Seann William Scott. Supposed to be a comedy but is not funny. Cop partners suspended for 30 days for something or other are taking a very rare baseball card owned by one to have it appraised so he can sell it to give his daughter a big wedding. Naturally there is a holdup and the card is taken with the rest of the loot. Much blundering around trying to get it back. Scott is stuck in some scenes annoying everyone - and the audience - repeating every word said by his target. By the end I was in a stupor. Don't encourage these people! 4/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385867/
The American (2010) George Clooney. Really slow and mostly uninteresting story, to me anyway, of an assassin and his troubles. I could not relate to the character so it had nothing to hang on to. The cinematography of villages in the sun and cars on twisty roads, were pretty. That was it. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440728/
October 10, 2011
Lamour, Loy, & The Cats Meow---
Recently I watched:
The Hurricane (1937) Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Thomas Mitchell. John Ford's The Hurricane is still marvelous film making. Story of the Polynesian sailor being mistreated by the French authorities and the effect his continued escapes from prison has on his sentence, is hard to take. But in typical Hollywood fashion, we get a somewhat happy ending. Lamour and Hall are beautiful to look at, and Astor is too. Mitchell does his usual drunken friend. Aubrey Smith is a good priest, and Massey a fine villain. And that storm! It's a doozy. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029030/
Another Thin Man (1939) William Powell, Myrna Loy, C. Aubrey Smith, Virginia Grey. The one with the baby birthday party thrown by the gangsters. Smith shouts all his lines and is very annoying. But 'Mommy' Loy and Powell are great, as usual. I watch it whenever it is on TCM and it is in my permanent collection. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031047/
The Cats Meow (2001) Kirsten Dunst, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Tilly. William Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Louella Parsons, and assorted other names in 1924 Hollywood go on a yachting holiday where someone is shot. It's the Jazz Age and these are careless and rich and empty people, spoiled by the adulation of the times. Dunst as Davies is darling. Herrmann as Hearst is sad and a boor. Chaplin is a lecher. Parsons is a blackmailer and as annoying as she was into the 1940's when I used to listen to her on radio. The costumes, set decoration and wonderful songs of the score are just wonderful. Enjoyable. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266391/
Black Swan (2010) Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel. A portrait of a bi-polar dancer's descent into madness. I'm not sure if the end is another of her delusions or is intended to be real. My feeling - the director wants us to interpret it as we will. The fantasies that seem so real to Nina are increasingly more terrifying to her. Her controlling Mother has tried to keep her daughter childlike and along with the pressures to be perfect as a ballerina, have driven her to seek escape. Portman is very good in the role and deserves her awards. The production values are first rate. More a tale of mental illness than a dancers story, I rate it an - 8/10. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/
Wall Street (1987) Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/
And;
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Michael Douglas, Shia LeBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1027718/
I watched these back to back on HBO. As we are benefiting from the great money men gambling with other peoples money and driving our whole system to bankruptcy, I thought it was timely to see how Oliver Stone updated his story. Not true. He ends his new version with everyone reconciled and, more or less, happy. Nothing about the wrecking of others lives. LaBeouf seems like a high school kid, so was not too believable as a shark. Douglas as Gordan Gekko, is perfect as a barracuda. As Larry The Liquidator says in "Other Peoples Money" "It's a game. Washington can change the rules, but we don't go away. We adapt and the game goes on." What a world. What a country.
Cast does well with the script in Money Never Sleeps, especially Langella. Mulligan is fine too, as Gekko's daughter, Winnie.
Not the hard hitting take on the gamblers of Wall Street I thought Stone would deliver.
The Hurricane (1937) Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Thomas Mitchell. John Ford's The Hurricane is still marvelous film making. Story of the Polynesian sailor being mistreated by the French authorities and the effect his continued escapes from prison has on his sentence, is hard to take. But in typical Hollywood fashion, we get a somewhat happy ending. Lamour and Hall are beautiful to look at, and Astor is too. Mitchell does his usual drunken friend. Aubrey Smith is a good priest, and Massey a fine villain. And that storm! It's a doozy. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029030/
Another Thin Man (1939) William Powell, Myrna Loy, C. Aubrey Smith, Virginia Grey. The one with the baby birthday party thrown by the gangsters. Smith shouts all his lines and is very annoying. But 'Mommy' Loy and Powell are great, as usual. I watch it whenever it is on TCM and it is in my permanent collection. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031047/
The Cats Meow (2001) Kirsten Dunst, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Tilly. William Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Louella Parsons, and assorted other names in 1924 Hollywood go on a yachting holiday where someone is shot. It's the Jazz Age and these are careless and rich and empty people, spoiled by the adulation of the times. Dunst as Davies is darling. Herrmann as Hearst is sad and a boor. Chaplin is a lecher. Parsons is a blackmailer and as annoying as she was into the 1940's when I used to listen to her on radio. The costumes, set decoration and wonderful songs of the score are just wonderful. Enjoyable. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266391/
Black Swan (2010) Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel. A portrait of a bi-polar dancer's descent into madness. I'm not sure if the end is another of her delusions or is intended to be real. My feeling - the director wants us to interpret it as we will. The fantasies that seem so real to Nina are increasingly more terrifying to her. Her controlling Mother has tried to keep her daughter childlike and along with the pressures to be perfect as a ballerina, have driven her to seek escape. Portman is very good in the role and deserves her awards. The production values are first rate. More a tale of mental illness than a dancers story, I rate it an - 8/10. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/
Wall Street (1987) Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/
And;
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Michael Douglas, Shia LeBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1027718/
I watched these back to back on HBO. As we are benefiting from the great money men gambling with other peoples money and driving our whole system to bankruptcy, I thought it was timely to see how Oliver Stone updated his story. Not true. He ends his new version with everyone reconciled and, more or less, happy. Nothing about the wrecking of others lives. LaBeouf seems like a high school kid, so was not too believable as a shark. Douglas as Gordan Gekko, is perfect as a barracuda. As Larry The Liquidator says in "Other Peoples Money" "It's a game. Washington can change the rules, but we don't go away. We adapt and the game goes on." What a world. What a country.
Cast does well with the script in Money Never Sleeps, especially Langella. Mulligan is fine too, as Gekko's daughter, Winnie.
Not the hard hitting take on the gamblers of Wall Street I thought Stone would deliver.
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