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| gromit |
 Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 10:28 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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bartist wrote: 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?"
I think it also helps to see Breathless for the first time when you are young. Same goes for The 400 Blows. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 11:12 am |
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I wonder if I'd have the same reaction to Blow-Up if I saw it now. I liked it when I saw it in the early 1970s.
I did like how the world was closing in on Michel in the second half, and him finally getting the money at the time it is useless to him. I did like Jean Seberg. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 11:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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gromit wrote: bartist wrote: 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?"
I think it also helps to see Breathless for the first time when you are young. Same goes for The 400 Blows.
I disagree. Breathless was very much of its time and a faddish kind of quirky movie. The 400 Blows is timeless, classic, and just as fresh today as it was when it was made. All of which is also to say that, in the category of French filmmakers, I think Truffaut is approximately...oh...say...20 times more talented than Godard. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 11:38 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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| I think Truffaut works best when you're 18 - 24. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 11:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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gromit wrote: I think Truffaut works best when you're 18 - 24.
Well, I do suffer from arrested development, so... |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 12:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| I never saw a Truffaut film until I came to New York, at age 25. And I liked all his films--we had a few at film class, and I saw several with a friend who was a Truffaut fan. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 2:05 pm |
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I saw most of those when i lived in Paris, but I saw Breathless in NYC before I went to Paris. I saw it at the Paris theatre across from the Plaza.
Truffaut was definitely better than Godard, but Breathless is one of my favourites. Also Truffaut was a mensch and Godard is an asshole. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:10 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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| Persepolis is a simple but relentlessly strong story. The simple animation - mostly black and white - makes us concentrate on the faces, especially that of the young heroine, who is trapped in Tehran after the revolution. It's as straightforward as a film can be, without a drop of melodrama. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 12:33 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Black Legion (1937) is another Warner social problem film. Based on a true incident involving a Klan splinter group which operated in Detroit and down through Ohio in the 30's.
Bogart is quite good as a working class schmoe who directs his frustrations on to foreigners. As it happens there is a KKK style organization happy to take him on and help him vent. I like how Bogey joins up because of economic insecurity and feelings of helplessness, but immediately his new racist organization compounds such problems, by forcing him to buy a gun he can't afford and making sure he knows his place in the hierarchy. So he's more frustrated and more willing to act out. They set to work beating foreigners, burning down their businesses, running some out of town, etc, until the gun gets Bogey into real hot water.
The trial and ending are a little clunky.
But this is a pretty powerful film.
I quite liked how, after his wife leaves him, Bogey sinks into alcohol and taking up with the floozy his neighbor cast aside. A good supporting cast. Surprised this film isn't better known. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:00 am |
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yambu wrote: Persepolis is a simple but relentlessly strong story. The simple animation - mostly black and white - makes us concentrate on the faces, especially that of the young heroine, who is trapped in Tehran after the revolution. It's as straightforward as a film can be, without a drop of melodrama.
Persepolis is one of my favorite films of the last ten years. It's not just the best film we're going to get about the Iranian revolution, it's an uncompromising film about her personal life. It's an amazingly courageous film. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:56 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Watching Gung Ho, the 1986 comedy I bought last week and which I called the best movie Ron Howard made until Rush. Oops. The movie is very dated and overblown and even Michael Keaton overacts. Not a good purchase, but it means Rush is the only certifiably good Ron Howard movie.
And yes, I know a lot of people like Apollo 13. Count me out. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:36 am |
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That simple starkly elegant animation, in Persepolis, blew me away. Perfect.
Watching The Trip, w/ Steve Coogan, tonight. I suspect it will be neither courageous nor uncompromising, and I plan to not get many of the Brit pop culture references. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:32 pm |
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Location: Shanghai
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Picture Snatcher is a decent Cagney vehicle from 1933. It's kind of a mash-up of newspaper drama, romantic comedy, and crime/gangster film. Another Warner film in which the central character is a criminal trying to go straight. Cagney gets out of Sing Sing and decides to become a newspaper photographer. His main skill is being brazen, which the women seem to find irresistible in 1933. It also helps that he still has criminal contacts. And he tries to date a police captains daughter.
At one point, Cagney goes back to Sing Sing to cover the execution of a woman. He surreptitiously takes a picture of her in the electric chair using a hidden camera strapped to his ankle. This seemed kind of unlikely to me, as it'd be hard to make sure what was in the frame and that there were no obstructions, and the authorities didn't notice, etc. But is based on an actual incident from 1928 when they fried Ruth Snyder for killing her husband, the case which inspired Double Indemnity. And a reporter had a camera strapped to his ankle and got a decent snapshot of her strapped in.
A bit frantic at times, but reasonably entertaining. Cagney kind of acts oddly at times, and continues his streak of films where he pushes a woman in the face (and later socks her in the jaw). After the famous grapefruit, Cagney often smacks a women around once in his tough-guy pictures. Mildly disturbing casual violence against women. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:53 pm |
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One thing I forgot to mention from Black Legion was the odd hats many of the factory workers where. Small beanies, possibly made of felt, with small serrated brims folded up. The kind of hat Jughead wears in Archie comics. Apparently this was actually a blue-collar style at the time. Even though it looks more like something poor immigrants from Hungary might wear, or somewhere else in rural Central Europe.
Another oddity was in the Newsreel from 1937. The police are on a barge in Long Island Sound filled with weapons and other paraphernalia confiscated from criminals. And they just toss the guns and slot machines and various cabinets and whatnot into the water. That's their great disposal method for confiscated property. A different era ... |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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I'm watching the BBC miniseries of "Little Dorrit," which is something like eight hours long, because the six-hour movie duology was apparently not long enough. This is the one that, among other things, details life in a debtor's prison, where Amy Dorrit and her father have lived for twenty years (and based on Dickens' own experiences). It's refreshing to watch a Dickens I knew nothing about going in, including that debtor's prisons were a subject.
As seems to be the case in a lot of Dickens' novels, the protagonist is overshadowed by some of the supporting characters. I do like Arthur Clennam, though, because I like Matthew MacFadyen a lot. (It took me a while before I remembered where I'd seen him. He's Detective Inspector Edmund Reid in Ripper Street. He also stars in movies like Death at a Funeral and the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice, but Reid's his most interesting role.) Oddly, the initially grotesque Pancks is becoming my favorite character. |
Last edited by Syd on Sun Nov 03, 2013 8:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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