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| gromit |
 Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:42 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Quote: William Holden turned down Marlon Brando's role in Sayonara (1957) in order to make The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
Yes, Rooney is bizarre in Tiffany's. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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I think Suzie Wong was on The 4:30 Movie or something during the seventies...
gromit wrote: They probably had to outsource these films to the UK as there were no Indians, Swedes or Chinese available in Los Angeles at the time.
Part of the problem was that it was literally illegal to portray positive mixed-raced romances (miscegenation) on the screen - a big reason why Anna May Wong couldn't get the roles she deserved. It was all-Asian or all-Caucasian (or all-whatever), no mixing it up there (although Wong was able to portray a prostitute in Shanghai Express - but you didn't see her actually *do* anything). I don't remember exactly what year that was repealed. |
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http://www.wakasaworld.com |
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| warpedgirl17 |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:04 am |
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Joined: 06 Jan 2009
Posts: 51
Location: Salt Lake City,Utah
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I recently rented and watched Yes Man & Vicky Christina Barcelona. Yes Man was a fun little film. I liked it. Zooey Deschanel & Jim Carrey were funny and great in it. I loved when they went to the Harry Potter party! That was funny!
Vicky Christina Barcelona was an excellent film! I loved the story and characters in it! I love Woody Allen movies! He has made another fantastic movie! |
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I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.- Christopher McCandless(Into The Wild) |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:43 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Glad you liked it. While not it's not among my favorite Woody Allen movies, I enjoyed it more than a lot of his recent stuff. |
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-Topher |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 1:46 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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lady wakasa wrote:
Part of the problem was that it was literally illegal to portray positive mixed-raced romances (miscegenation) on the screen - a big reason why Anna May Wong couldn't get the roles she deserved. It was all-Asian or all-Caucasian (or all-whatever), no mixing it up there (although Wong was able to portray a prostitute in Shanghai Express - but you didn't see her actually *do* anything). I don't remember exactly what year that was repealed.
The S.Ct. case, Loving v. Virginia, striking down anti-miscegenation laws was decided in 1967.
I don't know how much earlier Hollywood became "enlightened." California had actually ruled that such laws violated equal protection back in 1948. But of course, Hollywood wasn't interested in legalities, as much as meshing with the dominant culture in order to make money. Racists buy movie tickets too. I think there were instances where some films were banned in Southern states due to "mixing of the races" and such horrors as treating black folks as real people.
The most recalcitrant states in giving up their anti-miscegenation laws were of course in the south (and southwest), and some kept such laws on the books, but unenforced, up until 2000. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Loving v. Virginia is also the source for the penubral right to marriage which hopefully will lead to gay marriage across the country. |
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-Topher |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:04 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Speaking of Woody Allen, I've started watching Shadows and Fog, which I've never seen before. I was surprised to find that I quite enjoyed the first couple of scenes in a way I hadn't expected to at all. The movie was roundly panned when it opened and has always sounded unwatchable. But the character played by Allen is his trademark nerd (played well, in the Annie Hall mode). Julie Kavner is her amusing self as Woody's live-in girlfriend. They are plunked down into a Brecht-Kafka environment and situation, accompanied by appropriate Kurt Weill music and a plethora of the titular visuals. The juxtaposition is interesting and funny.
Then the scene switches abruptly to a traveling circus, with John Malkovich and Mia Farrow as an unhappy married couple doing some remarkably maladroit improvisational acting, with a guest appearance by Madonna as the other woman. It looks ready to hop the track, but I'm going to hang in there. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:13 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Revisited Spy Game, a 2001 Tony Scott actioner starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, both extremely well cast and entertaining. Redford in particular is terrific, in one of his two latter-day snarky-funny spy epics (the other being Sneakers). Pitt is Redford's protege in espionage, a self-proclaimed "Boy Scout" who gets captured in China. The story is too complicated for me to understand completely, but it's fun to watch these two golden stars doing what they do best--mainly just exuding tons of charisma and charm.
They are backed up by a superb supporting cast including Stephen Dillane, Larry Bryggman, and David Hemmings. We see these actors in movies far too little, but that works in the movie's favor since they carry no baggage. The movie has been somewhat underseen, it seems to me, but it deserves a look if you've never seen it--or like me, even if you have. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Kavner and Allen were well paired in his hit-and-miss segment of the hit-and-miss Manhattan Stories. Had no idea she was in Shadows and Fog. Never saw it. Great movie poster, though. My best friend has had it on his wall for years. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Finished watching Shadows and Fog. Surprise! I liked it more than all but a few Woody Allen movies, and it goes directly into my "underrated" file.
I was wrong about that opening sequence. That wasn't Julie Kavner, it was Camille Saviola, and the character wasn't a girlfriend, it was the landlady. No matter; it was still amusing. Kavner appeared much later in the movie and was hilarious in her own right. Excellent cameos abound, from Lily Tomlin to John Cusack to Donald Pleasance. The musical soundtrack is a gem. Best of all are the photography and lighting. The movie is funny and only mildly pretentious, much less so than you'd expect from Woody Allen taking on German expressionism. Bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much for critics--as if we didn't know that already. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 4:26 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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A Robert Rossen & James Wong Howe post-war boxing flick, starring John Garfield? Body & Soul (1947) sounded great, but is over-written, formulaic, and uneven. There are a number of good scenes and some wonderful moments, but those are more than offset by clumsy staging and pedestrian scripting.
The clunkiness of the film extends to titling the film Body & Soul, which diminished the many nice variations of the classic song throughout the film. Another example of obviousness is how Garfield accumulates scars on his face to show his boxing career progressing. Later in the film, it just looks kind of silly, like the touches of grey in his hair before his final fight. Most of the characters are clearly all good or all bad, and the main villain is too lacking in charisma. There are scenes of pure melodrama tossed in clumsily.
Some of the boxing scenes -- impressionistic low angles, tight close-ups, focus on the men more than the fight -- look like a rough draft for Raging Bull. And Scorsese was/is certainly a student of such 40's and 50's films. I should probably check if he references Body & Soul in his Journey Through American Films, but would be surprised if he didn't.
The final fight is well done, but there's no suspense in how it will unfold. And then the film just ends on what seems like an upbeat, happy note, though there is a serious threat lingering from the mob, and the last character in the film who proclaimed he was unafraid and through with the mob ends up dead (in the ring!). So the quick happy ending of going off with his girl is undercut by the threat of violence and the earlier parallel career. It seems as though they want us to take away the quick happy ending, no matter how forced.
There's a good film striving to break free of the cliches and sloppiness. I liked it, but had expected better. Lilli Palmer is an interesting presence, but is mostly gone during the second half of the film, and then morphs into a weak-willed girl that Garfield returns to, while forming a moral tandem with Garfield's long suffering mother. Garfield is mostly good playing his usual tough guy who falls on the wrong side of right, despite being basically good.
Many of his later film -- Body & Soul (1947), Force of Evil (1948) and Under My Skin (1950) -- all involve gambling and the seedy business of fixing of bets. I think I'd put Body & Soul last of those three by a whisker. Force of Evil suffers from some of the same melodramatic subplots and good/bad dichotomy, but better sustains the tension and tone than Body & Soul. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I've seen Leaving Las Vegas umpteen times. It's one of my all-time top ten films. But I hadn't seen it for many years until last night, and one (at least, this one) is always a little wary of seeing a movie again after a long time for fear it won't live up to the memory.
No fear with LLV. It's a truly great film with a completely unique vision, a love story as one-of-a-kind as any from Gone With the Wind to Casablanca. The ending, which most people seem to describe as depressing, is IMO a triumph as total as the one in Rocky. Ben Sanderson (the mind-blowing Nicolas Cage) is dead set on drinking himself to death, and before the end of the movie, you are right there with him. Sera (Elisabeth Shue) is a hooker who falls unconditionally in love with him, and you can see why. Cage's Ben is a lovable guy. Why he got the way he is you never really see, though hints are there (he lost custody of his son, apparently, for one hint). But the implication that an alcoholic cannot be really explained is always there, and how true it is. Ben drinks because he drinks.
Shue is the equal of Cage; her subsequent career is a mystery. His is less so, though just as weird. He's seldom approached the mastery of this performance again, and has gone for the bucks more often than not. Well, it's his life. But we have Leaving Las Vegas as a permanent testimony to his talent, and to that of the real hero of the occasion...
Writer/director Mike Figgis, who demonstrates a poet's touch. The photography and the music (with great vocals by Sting, Michael McDonald, and Don Henley) are indelible.
I'll probably see it again real soon. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:03 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I seem to be having an unofficial Nicolas Cage festival. Saw Knowing, this year's Cage science fiction epic, which is quite entertaining and suspenseful but pretty cheesy in general. I've neither read nor seen The Da Vinci Code, but Knowing seems to be similar. A bunch of random-seeming numbers are put into a time capsule in 1959 by a weird little girl with a blank stare. Fifty years later--i.e., now--the time capsule is opened up and bad things are predicted, a lot of which have already--gulp!--happened. What's next? That's Cage's puzzle. Bad things ensue. Close Encounters is referenced. Yawn, and occasionally shudder.
It's kind of fun without being in any way exceptional.
Btw, it's strongly reminiscent of the dreaded Signs, which I loved to distraction and which many, many (including many here) loathe. I didn't like Knowing as much, which may mean something or nothing, but it's similar. Both got four stars from Ebert. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Zhang Yimou's To Live (1994) stars his wife Gong Li and Ge You, both of whom are superb as a couple living through the stormy decades of Mao' revolution, the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution and so on. The movie has an epic sweep covering some 30 years of Chinese history, and its impact on the lives of ordinary people. Probably Zhang's best movie I have seen so far.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:05 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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They were a couple but never married.
After To Live(1994), I think they just made one more film together, Shanghai Triad (1995) in an attempt to cash in on their fame while their relationship was ending. Then they split up and Gong Li married a Singapore tycoon in 1996. This was all big celebrity gossip in China at the time.
I liked To Live, but it seems a bit obvious in its structure and message. It did push boundaries in China, and got Zhang Yimou in further trouble with the authorities, who were first displeased by Qiu Jiu -- with Gong Li as a decidedly unglamorous pregnant peasant trying to get legal redress for her husband.
If you haven't seen them, I'd rec their 2nd - 4th films together: Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and The Story of Qiu Ju (1992). Their first film, Red Sorghum (1987), is also very good, somewhat raw and earthy.
Really one of the great opening runs by a director (and actress).
Hmm... IMDb has an article saying that Zhang YiMou is remaking Blood Simple. |
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