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bartist

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:33 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6944 Location: Black Hills

carrobin wrote:

Did anyone see "Looking for Richard"--the documentary about Al Pacino rehearsing for a film of "Richard III" that never got made? I caught it on TV and it was riveting. Of course "Richard III" is my second favorite Shakespeare after "Much Ado About Nothing," though it's true I haven't seen a lot of Shakespeare, but I really really really wish Pacino had finished the film. He'd have been terrific.

I was not aware there was any intent by Al to make a film version of R3. Pacino wanted to share his meditations on the Bard, an analysis of R3, and make some observations about Brit v American acting....I didn't get any sense that the rehearsals and so on were meant, at any point, to lead to an actual production. Was ever producer in this humour wooed?

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carrobin

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:48 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

The IMDb information doesn't mention a movie being planned, but as I recall, Pacino was expressing serious hope for filming the play. But the documentary was as far as it got, unfortunately. (If I were a rich angel, I'd have backed it!) (FYI, there's also a note that you can see it on Amazon for $2.50.)

marantzo

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:13 pm

Joined: 30 Oct 2014 Posts: 278 Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.

Billy, Olivier Is very good on the stage and on the films he can be very good and not very good. Laughing

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Syd

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:23 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12890 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster is the story of Ip Man (who should really wear a costume with IP on his chest, beside Ip Woman, Ip Man, Jr., and Ms. Ip; he's played by one of the Tony Leungs), whose claim to fame is that he was Bruce Lee's teacher. Along the way, he befriends Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), heir of the Gong family's martial arts tradition, who would be a grandmaster herself if she only had a penis, but is pretty formidable herself.

This is a stunningly beautiful film that is mostly dull, partly because Ip Man is not interesting at all. What makes it worth watching is Gong Er's story, which should have been the entire focus of the movie. It's one of Ziyi's best performances, only exceeded by House of Flying Daggers and 2046, although it's often reserved. I wish the rest of the movie deserved it.

The absolutely outstanding sequences are at the very end, when we see Gong Er's training, then Ip Man's. (Gong Er's are better and moving.) But why wait till the end?

Last edited by Syd on Mon Oct 17, 2016 10:02 pm; edited 2 times in total
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

gromit

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:26 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

Some more Russian film in my on-going slow excavation.

Tchaikovsky (1970).
It's mostly a period piece and costume drama. A portrait of a bygone age, where decorum and manners, and closeting your homosexuality are the rules. And the rules are followed.
The costumes are impressive.
Some nice horse riding through birch forests.
Some discussion of music composition and critique of the results.
Plenty of T's music performed by famous conductors and orchestras.

It's not that lively, and overlong at 2.5 hours. I thought Part II, the last hour, meandered too much and had pacing issues. It is a pretty realistic presentation of the life of Tchai, and he's presented as wrapped up in his music, ineffectual in his private life, and burdened by a secret which shall not be named. Actually i liked how the film handled that, as there are enough hints throughout, but as it was often true in that time, nothing is directly stated .
A decent film, which could have been tightened and edited down.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:47 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

Stalin's Bride (1991) turns out to be a Hungarian film about the collectivization in a small Ukrainian village. Folks are turning in their prized possessions and trying to convince themselves that Stalin knows what he is doing and has their best interests in mind. Yeah, that Stalin really is great!

Then the village gets an idiot, as a young woman, wild and primitive, wearing a burlap sack turns up. One joke is that the train that carries off their valued possessions brings them a village idiot (she was a stowaway), which seems a comment on collectivization. Sort of you get what you deserve.

A few people help her with food, while the young men mostly tease and harass her. During one such attack, she tries to find refuge next to a large portrait of Stalin and starts yelling that she's Stalin's fiance and that he will protect her. So of course, the opposite happens and the political police haul her away for such blasphemy. They interrogate and torture her as a potential spy. And then after that proves fruitless, they nervously back off, worried that they arrested someone for professing love for Stalin. Back in the village, when anything reminds her of the interrogation, she starts accidentally denouncing people as spies, and they get hauled off to jail.

It's a farce and black comedy, and the central woman is pretty convincing, acting as an unlearned savage. And the concept of the villagers all trying to believe in Stalin is good too. But it mostly almost works. I felt like I got what they were trying to do more than appreciated what they did.

I liked one late exchange, where the local political commissar is talking to two villagers in the public square, and then notices a villager standing behind the Stalin portrait listening. The politico complains about this behavior and threatens that he'll report the villager. And the villager coolly says, Yeah, well I'll report you too, nicely deflating the puffed up commie. Folks are being carted off to jail, interrogation, probably torture on the basis of an idiot shrieking they are a spy. So anyone can fall on anyone's denunciation. Who's willing to take a chance, when in fact everyone is being asked to spy on everyone?

But overall there weren't enough moments that crystallized the problems of a surveillance/police state, or the ills of collectivization. Some of the humor was a little broad or obvious. Maybe it was a bit too low budget to make the villagers all seem real instead of characters playing parts in an ensemble. This has a mere 75 votes on IMDb, so is somewhat obscure I suppose, as you might expect from a Hungarian farce about Soviet collectivization with an uncivilized idiot as the main character ...

Last edited by gromit on Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:13 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Though I have decent respect for Pacino the actor, I found Looking for Richard one of the more obnoxious exercises in thespian narcissism I've experienced. That said, I would still like to see Al tackle Richard 3.

gromit

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:48 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

Watching Vol. 3 of the Columbia Film Noir set.

I Am Julia Ross doesn't really seem noir at all to me. It's a domestic crime/murder drama from 1945. A woman thinks she's been hired to be a live-in secretary, but really she's been selected to the corpse of Mrs. Marion Harris. They intend to pretend she's barmy and suicidal. So it's more like a Hitchcock thriller -- you're innocent, but there's a conspiracy against you -- or perhaps Seance on A Wet Afternoon.

The film reasonably delivers, at times getting you to think what you'd do in such a situation, which is I believe what you do when you invest in such a film. There's a few instances where things happen in a rather convenient movie style, especially towards the climax. But overall it's everyday domestic malevolence is creepy.

The Mob has Broderick Crawford go undercover to infiltrate the mob's control of the waterfront (in St Louis, I believe). It's kind of amusing that his version of going undercover is to get as noticed as can be. He loudmouths and wisecracks his way into various encounters with the crime bosses. Which makes for a fairly lively, entertaining film. I especially liked the way Crawford and the mob outsmart each other during their first encounter. That was good script-writing. The one twist at the end is rather implausible, but ties up the film reasonably well, and explains the mystery of the Big Crime Boss. Fun film. I assume this would hold up well on re-watch.

Last edited by gromit on Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Syd

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:14 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12890 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I'm going to have to find "The Mob." I like Broderick Crawford.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

gromit

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:11 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

Ernest Borgnine is one of the crime bosses.
And Charles Bronson pops up briefly as a longshoreman (early role for him).
So good casting.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:31 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit wrote:

I Am Julia Ross doesn't really seem noir at all to me.

Neither does My Name is Julia Ross. You're right about the style but wrong on the title.

carrobin

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:34 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

I saw "My Name Is Julia Ross" on TCM a year or so ago, and liked it. It had a nice old-fashioned British sinister romantic style.

Last night TCM showed two early Monty Woolley-Gracie Fields films, "Holy Matrimony" and "Molly and Me."

In the first, Woolley is a famous artist, but he's been away from England for 25 years, and when he's summoned to London to be knighted, nobody knows what he looks like. Thus, when his valet (Eric Blore) dies on their first night back, the doctor mistakes the artist for the artist's valet, and Woolley goes along with the mistaken identity because he hates the rites of high society. Then, when he learns that his valet is to be interred in Westminster Abbey, he tries to identify himself correctly, to no avail. Fortunately he meets Fields, who recognizes him, but as the artist's valet--because of correspondence they'd exchanged--and the artist happily settles down with her in her cozy cottage. But he can't keep himself from painting, and so complications arise. Lovely little romcom (but I was surprised at how quickly they eliminated Blore--maybe it was his first film).

The second film had Fields as an unemployed actress who manipulates her way into becoming housekeeper at Woolley's London mansion, takes charge immediately, and ends up firing the staff, and thus has to get a new staff on short notice for her employer's important political dinner. She calls upon her theatrical friends, who not only rise to the occasion but help to repair the breach between Woolley and his son (Roddy McDowall) and thwart a blackmail plot by Woolley's nasty ex-wife.

I think both films were first-timers on TCM. I hope that means there are similar ones to come. I'm getting rather annoyed by the frequency of some movies that come round every few weeks.

gromit

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 4:02 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

Drive a Crooked Road (1954) was rather a dud.
A good deal is unexplained.
We don't see the crime at all, but rather the focus is on the time it takes to drive the getaway car. Snooze.

It's always interesting to see Mickey Rooney, but here he isn't called upon for much range. I thought Dianne Foster was pretty good, though her character is rather limited too. The music score is intrusive and annoying.

Really I had trouble finding anything to be interested in, except perhaps for the cars themselves, and the very 50's-ness of the whole thing. I guess there's a slight twist on the femme fatale. The screenplay is by Blake Edwards and needed a tune-up. A rather silly idea, executed in mediocre fashion.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Syd

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:52 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12890 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Lionel Barrymore has to be the most unconvincing Russian I've ever seen in Mata Hari. Up until it was mentioned he was Russian, I was assuming he was supposed to be French or even American. Ramon Navarro is more convincing as a naive Russian aviator who I thought was a sex-charged idiot. Greta Garbo has no trouble making conquests as she plays the femme fatale. She does fall for the aviator, and convinces him that she's going to have an operation without telling him it involves twelve projectiles entering her torso. (This scene would be tearjerking if it wasn't so monumentally silly.)

The movie's entertaining, and Garbo's decent enough, but she was better in other movies. Besides, we don't see her facing the firing squad, so they could have missed.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

gromit

Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:56 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9008 Location: Shanghai

The Burglar (1957) is shot with a lot of verve. It's a pretty clever film and the director and cinematographer constantly try out ideas, and most of them work. Dan Duryea has kind of aged into his baby face, and has a good weary presence. For most of the film I thought he looked like William H Macy. I liked his restraint among the directorial flourishes.

This is Jayne Mansfield's first significant part, but Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? was released ahead of it, and made her a star. So Columbia sat on this this little B pic for two years in order to cash in on her peak popularity. I really enjoyed the pace and characters. I guess the sneering murderous cop is perhaps a bit much, but it works within the film. So bad guys and good guys are flipped. Dan Duryea might be a thief, but he's holding up the family business and honoring his promise to protect and care for his half-sister.

It's also fun to see some of Atlantic City in it's peak beach resort/pre-gambling days. The Steel Pier: The Nation's Show Place one banner proclaims, as various people, and a horse dive, into the Atlantic.
So far 2 out of 4 winners in this noir set.

Last edited by gromit on Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

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