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| gromit |
 Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 12:59 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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A in the H a total classic.
I hope you've seen A Face in the Crowd.
Also very fitting in recent years. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I am one of the world's biggest Billy Wilder fans and one of the world's biggest Kirk Douglas fans, but I've never taken to "Ace in the Hole." Heavy-handed. Obvious. Unsubtle. All of the synonyms for the above. One great line, worthy of the best Wilders: Jan Sterling, explaining why she's not a churchgoer: "Kneeling bags my nylons." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Watched again "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." One of my favorite films of the last ten years, and IMO Emma Watson's best performance ever. Which is amazing considering how good she was in the Harry Potter films.
I loved it even better on a rewatch. One of the finest moments is when out protagonist calls his sister and says, "I killed Aunt Helen, didn't I" and she immediately tells her friend to call 911.
It seems like a high-school comedy, and it is pretty funny sometimes, but damn it's a dark and disturbing dramedy and I strongly recommend it. |
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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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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:38 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Tonight TCM showed a wartime film instead of a noir, but it was certainly dark: "Address Unknown," with Paul Lukas as a wealthy German who becomes enmeshed in the Nazi net. Directed by William Cameron Menzies. They show the weekend noirs twice, and it'll be repeated at 10 a.m. (But by the time you read this, you'll probably have missed it.) |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:07 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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billyweeds wrote: I am one of the world's biggest Billy Wilder fans and one of the world's biggest Kirk Douglas fans, but I've never taken to "Ace in the Hole." Heavy-handed. Obvious. Unsubtle. All of the synonyms for the above. One great line, worthy of the best Wilders: Jan Sterling, explaining why she's not a churchgoer: "Kneeling bags my nylons."
I liked the modern resonance, but would agree that it's pretty unsubtle. In that respect, it captured the whole Trumpian ethos of self-promoting hucksterism and heartless disregard for suffering. In a way, it says something about the America of 1951 that most people then found the film implausible and over the top in its cynicism. I did find Douglas's scenery chewing at the beginning, where he struts into the Albuquerque newsroom, a bit cringe-inducing. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:04 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| It's in-your-face, not meant to be subtle. Things just keep piling on. Kirk is supposed to be putting on extra swagger early, because he's actually kinda desperate so he scales up the bravado to hide that. And then disarms by admitting he's on the skids. And that early bravado sets us up for when we see him really exercise his chutzpah with the way he deals with the local police and later his old boss in NY. I'm usually not much of a Kirk Douglas fan, but think he's pretty great here. I'd have to struggle for another film I liked him in. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:12 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I like him better in "The Bad and the Beautiful." |
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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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| Befade |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Speaking of a film made in the 50’s. Scandal by Akira Kawasaki is interesting. A gossip rag accuses an artist and a singer of having an affair. A photo is taken of them talking. They did not have an affair and sue the publisher. Does that have a present day ring to it? Another aspect is watching the Japanese
Celebrating Christmas with the singer performing Silent Night 🙄 |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 11:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: I like him better in "The Bad and the Beautiful."
He was great in that, and "Paths of Glory," and "Spartacus," and "Out of the Past," and "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers," and "A Letter to Three Wives"--but mostly and mainly and unforgettably in "Lonely Are the Brave," his own personal favorite of his performances, and mine. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:50 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Kirk Douglas was my first favorite actor (in "The Vikings" of course) and I've liked just about everything he's done since. One I really love, though, is "A Letter to Three Wives," because the role is so different from any other character he played, erudite and witty (and a faithful husband to boot). I agree about "Lonely Are the Brave" being great, but it was a heartbreaker. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:45 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| Kirk Douglas always looks like he's acting to me. He can be interesting, but the effort is there, and it always seems phony/acting. I guess he's the definition of a movie star, for me. |
Last edited by gromit on Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:51 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Kirk Douglas always looks like he's acting to me. He's can be interesting, but the effort is there, and it always seems phony/acting. I guess he's the definition of a movie star, for me.
You know, even though I really love Kirk Douglas's screen presence and sometimes his acting, I can understand gromit's POV here. Douglas does almost always seem to be acting, and he is a "movie star" in that regard, but compared with Burt Lancaster (the star I feel about the way gromit feels about Douglas) he's always so "present" that I give him props galore. Along with Van Heflin (the most truly under-appreciated movie star) and my all-time favorite Jimmy Stewart, Douglas has given me more indelible moments than any other male movie actor of that era.
The two current actors who have that effect on me are Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, either of whom I would gladly watch reading the phone book (if the phone book still existed). |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:49 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Burt Lancaster was at our film class once. He took over the class, much to the irritation of our professor and the amusement of the students. It was obvious that he would rule any room he was in. The three actors whose enormous charisma impressed me most were Lancaster, James Earl Jones, and Robert Redford, but Lancaster was the one who practically weaponized it. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:42 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Finally saw Trumbo (what better time to cinematically ponder threats to the Constitution). While I was wowed by the lovely perfs from a talent-heavy cast (Michael Stuhlbarg spot on EG Robinson), I was disappointed by the gross inaccuracies and hagiography of Trumbo who, it should be recalled, was not a Sanders socialist, but an ardent supporter of Soviet style communism including the most brutal form, Stalinism. Yeah, the guy could write brilliant screenplays, but he wasn't quite the champion of freedom he's painted as here.
That said, there were fine moments capturing the writer's wit and the travails of cranking out B movies (perhaps only one tiny notch above the bartonfinkesque "rassling movie with Wallace Beery") as a family industry under multiple noms de plume.
What saved the film from being itself a B movie, and somewhat mitigated the ideological inaccuracy, is the Trumbo that Cranston gives us, who is self-aware enough to understand the humor and absurdities of his situation, and self-deprecating enough to know he's not a hero.
Random obs:
Kirk Douglas using his famous line to remind a pushy producer that he, Douglas, has some creative control. "I [/i]am[i] Spartacus."
John Goodman (as the B movie king) going after a studio exec with a baseball bat when instructed to jetisson Trumbo. It's pure slapstick, but somehow the perfect conclusion to Goodman's cornball arc. The sedentary fat man leaps into action! How many movies have we seen Goodman playing a Hollywood producer or some other force acting upon a screenwriter?
Louis CK reminds me that he's a good comic actor, as Arlin Hird, and that it might be getting to the time that he's forgiven and seen to be, on the spectrum of male sexual offenses, as a petty offender. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| That’s a good one. A new designation: the spectrum of male sexual offenses. Elaborate.. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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