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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 7:17 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Neither Roeg nor Bertolucci made films I liked.
Just Insignificance for Roeg and The Conformist for Bert.
And I liked but didn't love those.
Agreed. But I've never seen Insignificance, so for Roeg it's zilch from me. IMO Don't Look Now is incredibly overrated.
The Last Emperor is possibly the most boring Oscar-winning movie on record. And Last Tango in Paris, despite a fascinating turn by Brando, is just plain dumb. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:11 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| I wonder if I would have liked Tango better if I'd seen it sooner? The movie had such an aura about it by the time I saw it, and the simulated sex is so unconvincing and dull, that it just did nothing for me. I do think the scene at the tango is brilliant, but the rest feels at times like retreads from much earlier films of the French New Wave or late night cable "art films." |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 11:58 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Walkabout and The Man who fell to Earth are Roeg films I really liked without being able to offer any critical analysis or justification for it. Both had, for me, haunting depths beneath their surface narratives. Walkabout especially IMO deserves another look. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:29 am |
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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"Pickup on South Street" is an terrific spy caper film with great performances by Richard Widmark and Jean Peters and especially Thelma Ritter as Moe, a purveyor of information for a price. I knew I was in good hands with the opening scene of a pickpocket in a crowded subway. One of the best crowd scenes ever done, followed almost immediately with and equally good scene: Moe showing us how to identify a pickpocket.
Samuel Fuller at his best. |
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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 |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:14 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Thelma Ritter won an important award for her performance in Pickup on South Street. It ranks with her finest turn ever, the non-awarded performance in Rear Window. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| I'd say as far as acting goes, Pickup on South Street is way above Rear Window, not because she isn't wonderful in the latter, but because in that she's playing the typical Thelma Ritter type. Pickup has her playing an atypical role for her, and doing so as expertly as she played her more typical character parts. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:38 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: Thelma Ritter won an important award for her performance in Pickup on South Street. It ranks with her finest turn ever, the non-awarded performance in Rear Window.
Which award? The only one I know that she won was a Tony. She does have the distinction of being nominated for the Supporting Actress Oscar, six times (more than anyone else), including four years in a row. (Pickup was the fourth; she lost to Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity which did very well that year.) |
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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 |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Zinnemann didn't want her in the picture and didn't film any closeups of her. She knew this was a decisive role in her career and complained to the producers (I don't know if it was Buddy Adler, or the Columbia execs), who insisted Zinnemann go back and shoot closeups, even reconstructing partial sets to do so. But she copped an Oscar for it.
Capra and Stewart hadn't wanted her for It's a Wonderful Life, either, and blamed her when the movie flopped.
Kinda sucked to be Donna Reed. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:21 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: .
Kinda sucked to be Donna Reed.
Except when starring in "The Donna Reed Show" and being immortalized in this lyric from "Somewhere That's Green" from "Little Shop of Horrors."
He rakes and trims the grass.
He loves to mow and weed.
I cook like Betty Crocker
And I look like Donna Reed.
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| She made a bundle from that show. I like Donna Reed. It just seems like she was always having to fight for her place. She earned that Little Shop lyric. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:38 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| I value Last Tango not for Brando or the sex scenes but for the expression of something you rarely see in a film: Sex is a life affirming act. For a person suffering depression and loss, sex is a way to experience hope. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:42 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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| I also think Bertolucci’s Besieged should not be overlooked. David Theslis and Tandie Newton are unforgettable. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:28 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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s watching "Flowers of St. Francis," which does have some amusing scenes, such as the friars going nuts when they hear they're going to get a visit from Sister Clare and her nuns. It's like they haven't seen a woman in years. (Of course they can't do anything since they're friars and nuns, or at least we hope not.)
And then there's the friar who wants to help a starving friar who only craves a pig's foot so goes looking for and finds a herd (farrow?) of pigs, and chases them, trying to talk one of them into donating a foot to a servant of God. (The pig's owner is none too pleased no matter how holy Francis is.
Rossellini film, which is a series of vignettes about Francis of Assisi and his followers, recommended if you're interested in that director (but I strenuously recommend Rome: City and Paisan first, because they're outstanding without caveats) or don't mind films about religious figures, of which Francis and Clare are among the most admirable. Fellini was a co-writer with Rossellini on the film, and I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the vignette about the pig. |
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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 |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 6:16 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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That does sound like a Fellini addition.
I remember being a little perplexed by Flowers of St. Francis, havign no idea what it was trying to convey. Rossellini apparently was interested in Christianity and its ethics without really being involved in its religiosity Maybe that's why we get this weird film (?)
(He had a lifelong Henry the VIII style passion, which maybe kept him interested in ethics while staying outside the accepted bounds).
You should check out General Della Rovere (1959) which stars Vittorio De Sica as a hustler who reluctantly turns patriot. DeSica had a long leading man career in Italy, but it's rare to see any of those in the US. And by this point DeSica had long been a director and rarely acted except an occasional bit part. So it's interesting on a few levels. Two master directors combining forces. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 12:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Looks interesting, but not on Hulu or Netflix. Looks like I'll have to search. |
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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 |
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