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| bartist |
 Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:12 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6965
Location: Black Hills
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| Side Effects is worth watching on DVD if you've seen it in theatre, because you can watch the story unfold with foreknowledge and have some fun catching little details. Saw it this weekend, and my sense that it's one of 2013's best was confirmed. When I first saw it, I thought maybe it wobbled a little on Jude Law's relationship with his wife and stepson, but this time it made more sense that she didn't give him any benefit of the doubt. I.e. I was more aware of the history between them and her paranoia about his patients. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Watched my new copy of Lili and cried my tear ducts dry for the umpteenth time. This movie works magic on me. I'm a sucker from the very first scene, and by the time Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer do their climactic, utterly touching, and very sexy ballet I am a goner. This eight-minute dance sequence says more about coming of age and falling in love than ten teen dramedies and 15 rom-coms put together.
The movie won an Oscar for musical scoring, was nominated for Best Actress (Caron wuz robbed) and Best Director (Charles Walters was an undersung genius) and can't get a valid DVD release. WTF???
Also saw the 2012 Kon-Tiki, a fictionalized version of the 1947 raft journey by Thor Heyerdahl and company. Well photographed and informative but something of a snooze overall. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Charles Walters, the brilliant director of Lili, also was responsible for directing Good News, the totally underappreciated college musical in which June Allyson and Peter Lawford demonstrated delightfully unsuspected singing-dancing chops.
Walters also directed Judy Garland and Fred Astaire in Easter Parade, a great but underrated musical which contains (IMO) both Astaire's and Garland's best performances on screen.
Billy Rose's Jumbo is another underrated gem in which Walters and Busby Berkeley teamed up to create one of my favorite musical numbers of all, "Over and Over Again," which must be seen on the wide screen but combines a terrific vocal performance by Doris Day with thrilling circus skills by acrobats. It's also unexpectedly touching.
Finally, Walters also helmed High Society, the wonderful, underrated Cole Porter musical based on The Philadelphia Story, in which Bing Crosby teams up with Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly in individual duets, one of which ("True Love") became a huge hit on juke boxes nationwide. Grace Kelly was the Lady Gaga of 1956. 
Bottom line: Charles Walters had a great career but (largely because his movies were almost all underrated--the sole exception being Lili) never achieved the rep of a Stanley Donen or a Vincente Minnelli. Well, I'm doing my part. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:38 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Madame X is an ultra-50's melodrama with so many cliches of the 50's baked in. But then late in the film there's a scene where a man picks up a down-and-out alcoholic Lana Turner and then they cut to her passed out across the bed and the man zipping up his pants and pocketing her jewelry and money on his way out. And it's pretty clear that kind of stuff wouldn't get past the censors in the 50's. Turns out the film is from 1966, when that kind of stuff could be shown. And makes me believe this kind of high melodrama combined with it's phony/stagey Hitchcockian sets and acting must have been rather anachronistic in 1966.
It is interesting to see a youngish Ricardo Montalban as a smooth lover who becomes the married woman's downfall (pun intended if you've seen the film). It is a bit odd that his character is named Phil Benton and nobody seems to notice his accent or Latin lover charms in this rich WASP Connecticut suburb. Then Burgess Meredith pops in late and drinks and schemes around until she bumps him off too. The trail and ending stuff is extremely silly in its effort to concoct a tricky situation. Among other amusing nonsense, a presidential nominee and his mother can sit in the back of a criminal courthouse day after day with no one at all noticing.
A really weird film, with some good and some fun moments. And some poor old age make-up. Useful to identify 50's filmmaking styles; weird to find them in a 1966 film. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| About Lana Turner, Pauline Kael said it best: "She's not Madame X she's Brand X." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Clearly you need to see the other 11 versions to see how they compare.  The 1929 version starred Ruth Chatterton and got Lionel Barrymore a directing Oscar nomination. Or you could see Frisco Jenny, which is in one of the Forbidden Hollywood collections, and has distinct similarities. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Actually, I'd like to.
Billy, forgot to mention it earlier, but I really like the 40's Good News, as well. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 5:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Bridegroom is a heartbreaking but must-see documentary about one gay couple and the wrenching emotional fallout from the accidental death of one of them. It debuted at Tribeca this year and is currently streaming on Netflix and is reportedly on the OWN network. Its release represents a triumph of crowdfunding. Watching it will constitute 79 of the most memorable minutes of your week.
Btw, the video that inspired the crowdfunding is viewable here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR9gyloyOjM
It's mightily effective, but doesn't even scratch the surface that the feature makes astonshingly powerful. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 2:17 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I'm watching Breathless and am mystified why this is often ranked among the top 20 films of all time. There's obviously something that's escaping me. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: I'm watching Breathless and am mystified why this is often ranked among the top 20 films of all time. There's obviously something that's escaping me.
I totally understand your bewilderment even though I love the movie in many ways. Context is everything. Just as a lot of younger people today see the shower scene in Psycho for the first time and say "What's the big deal?" because they've seen so many more graphic scenes in the meantime, people your age possibly don't get the effect of a movie like Breathless, with its non-linear storytelling and jumpy cutting and on-the-fly photography and disaffected characters appearing in the midst of middle-of-the-road Hollywood filmmaking.
Hard to explain, but (if you were there) easy to understand.
As for why some people still persist in listing it as one of the all-time great movies, well, reputations die hard. Many would dispute the long-time #1 ranking of Citizen Kane. Many say Vertigo is not so hot. It's all opinion, but in some cases it's the inability to reassess one's original verdict. |
Last edited by billyweeds on Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:41 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:21 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Good points, Billy--there are many movies (including "Citizen Kane" and "Vertigo") that I acknowledge as being classics, but I don't particularly like them. And there are many that I love but I know aren't "great," though some of them do show up on the Top 100 lists ("Singin' in the Rain" crosses all boundaries). Movies are such subjective, emotion-tapping bits of art that classifications don't really work for them in general. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:33 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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| Breathless pretty much announced the New Wave, and ushered in the 60's in cinema, and the end of studio system films. The editing and the naturalistic guerrilla filmmaking techniques were also influential. It was also the breakout performance by Belmondo, and the start of Godard's quirky provocative career. It has a kind of offhand charm, a freshness and a kind of screw-it irreverence. But sure, it's probably more renowned for its place in cinema history than the movie itself. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:38 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Breathless pretty much announced the New Wave, and ushered in the 60's in cinema, and the end of studio system films. The editing and the naturalistic guerrilla filmmaking techniques were also influential. It was also the breakout performance by Belmondo, and the start of Godard's quirky provocative career. It has a kind of offhand charm, a freshness and a kind of screw-it irreverence. But sure, it's probably more renowned for its place in cinema history than the movie itself.
Not incidentally, it also weirdly justified Jean Seberg's victory in the "find a Saint Joan" contest arranged by Otto Preminger. Seberg bombed big time as the maid of Orleans, but came back strongly in Breathless and became a European muse for many years, subsequently reentering American movies with just about as little effect as she'd had in Saint Joan. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:40 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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carrobin wrote: Movies are such subjective, emotion-tapping bits of art that classifications don't really work for them in general.
Well said. And that appraisal of the filmic arts makes me feel much more secure in saying I didn't care much for "Breathless," even while recognizing its groundbreaking virtues. I had Syd's reaction when I saw it - "am I missing something?" |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:43 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Meanwhile, despite their overweaning reputations, I still adore both Citizen Kane and (particularly) Vertigo. |
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