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| bartist |
 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:33 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:21 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I liked Tension.
Well cast, good roles.
A nice guy pharmacist (Richard Baseheart) is working hard and saving up, but his blond wife (Audrey Totter) is looking for an upgrade. When an old flame pops up with a big car and a bankroll, she's gone. Baseheart goes to get her back and gets beaten up. Decides he will kill the new boyfriend.
But his scheme doesn't make much sense -- with the help of contact lenses he creates a new identity, rents an apartment, and explains that he's a traveling salesman who'll only be there on the weekends. So he'll kill the guy who stole his wife and blame it on his alter ego who looks just like him (except for the glasses).
Another flaw in his plan is he falls for his new neighbor (Cyd Charisse, looking lovely as all get out), and they start a romance. At that point you have to wonder why he doesn't just drop the idea of his surly sarcastic wife, and take up with the sweet lovely Charisse. Seems like a better idea than killing a guy, hoping not to get caught, getting your floozy wife back, etc. There's one scene where he is all excited and tells the landlady that he plans to marry the neighbor, and Baseheart does an almost perfect Dan Duryea impersonation.
Totter is good as usual. I like after the police come by and she starts browbeating her husband as per usual, but he's taken on a new identity and isn't putting up with the old crap, and instead of saying anything just gives her a smack across the face. And Totter makes this great face somewhere between outraged and angry. Another good scene is where Baseheart brings Totter to see a small suburban home he's lined up the financing to buy as a surprise for her, and she dismisses this little American Dream so quickly, she doesn't even bother to get out of the car.
One thing that is not explained at all -- in the realm of a spoiler I suppose -- is why Totter kills the guy she moved in with. . But everything is handled well, and has a good pace, that you can overlook the minor flaws. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:04 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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:50 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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yambu wrote: Punch-drunk Love is a shameful mess. Adam Sandler is not only a nerd, but a dim, violent one, who nevertheless wins the girl due to no reason suggested by the story.
The one funny bit is Seymour Hoffman playing a crooked mattress salesman who's running a phone sex business. "Shut the fuck up!" is about all he says, but it's enough.
I saw Punch-drunk Love when it came out and I really liked it. I always found that P T Anderson screwed up his movies with scenes that were stupid and I thought he would get better about that. When I saw P-d Love, I found that PTA had made a very good movie for a change.
Sorry you didn't like it. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 12:14 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I was surprised that Punch-drunk Love got a pretty good reputation.
I didn't connect with it much at all. Seemed rather slight and mean-spirited.
I did think the car crash was very well done, coming out of nowhere. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 2:19 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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On New Year's Day, I was recovering from my lousy cold and spending the afternoon watching Bette Davis and Joan Crawford flicks on TCM (before the Marxes took over for the evening). I loved "Dead Ringer," which somehow I had never seen before--the twist leading to the ending was one of those shock-but-no-surprise bits that I didn't quite see coming. After that came "Berserk," which I was going to skip until I found that Michael Gough, Diana Dors, and Judy Geeson were in it along with Crawford, who was owner and ringmaster of a rather fancy circus, and it was a British Hammer film, so it had some nice moments despite the pulp quality. (My favorite line: "I'm running a circus, not a charm school!") Then came "The Nanny," which made me miss "Jeopardy." Davis was a very proper old-fashioned British nanny in charge of a rebellious boy who claimed she was trying to kill him, to everyone's irritation and consternation. It became an almost gothic melodrama, Davis acting her heart out, and remained riveting to the end.
I love the Marxes but had seen all their movies before. I did want to hear "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" again, but fell asleep before "At the Circus" showed up. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:41 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6948
Location: Black Hills
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Netflix keeps suggesting techno-thrillers and sci-fi...foolish computer thinking it can unravel the complexity of....yeah, I keep watching them.
4:44 is an indie concerning the last few hours of the world for a NYC couple. Aside from the bad science (we don't all die instantly if the ozone layer vanishes- and it's not the sort of layer that vanishes precisely at the title time), and the improbable passivity of the human race, and the suffocating boredom of the couple, it is marginally interesting. I lasted 40 minutes, then ended it for them ahead of schedule.
Paranoia (2013) is your standard techno-thriller about corporate espionage. That's a problem if you don't believe thrillers should be standard. And Harrison Ford should never shave his head. The chief problem is the movie provides its own spoiler in the first 15 minutes.
Black Mirror - a series of 6 short (47 - 60 min.) tales of the near-future, dark, satiric, provocative, and consistently excellent. Like very good Twilight Zone episodes that delve into the follies of electronic media. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:54 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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When I was young and TV hadn't started in Canada yet, the movie theatres (mostly second run theatres) showed many movies that were made before I was born. Horror movies and classics and the Marx brothers etc. I and my friends saw just about all of them. A Night At the Opera was the first one I saw and it played at a first rate theatre.
Back then it was a great thing for us youngsters. Now days many youngsters and older kids spend their time in front of a screen playing games that cost hundreds of dollars and they don't seem to go anywhere. 
Happily, I see lots of kids on the streets and at the malls etc. in Winnipeg. Lots of them skate and play hockey in the winter and play football and soccer when it's not winter. They go to movies also but not like the old days.  |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 12:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I was extremely disappointed in Black Mirror. After a riveting first episode, it devolved into very boring exercises for me.
Meanwhile, carrobin, I wish I'd been with you for your Davis-Crawford pulp binge. Seen 'em all, love 'em all. Oh, wait, you had a cold, right? Scratch the togetherness part. |
Last edited by billyweeds on Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:30 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:12 am |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Short Term 12 is about young workers at a foster care home. It is definitely a young person's job, as they are challenged physically almost all the time.
The main worker, harassed and understaffed, seems to have the knack of how to approach any given situation.
Her main challenge is a fifteen year old girl whose intense depression fuels her with an incredible destructive energy. Our worker passes this girl's open door. Keep walking, I'm saying, but in she goes, and in no time she and the young ward are drawing together.
It is such almost incidental victories that carried me on a high through this movie, even though its unpredictable habitation is also filled with sudden tragedies large and small.
I wasn't crazy about the ending. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:32 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| yambu--I agree about Short Term 12, and about Brie Larson, the actress you seemed to admire without naming. I can't quite remember the ending, but I remember liking it. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 10:29 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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billyweeds wrote: Saw the long-awaited and much-sought-after Short Term 12 tonight, and brother, was it worth the wait. One of the surest-footest low-budget independent films in memory, it features Brie Larson and John Gallagher Jr. in two charming and trenchant performances (yes, both charming and trenchant) as counselor/guardians at a home for disturbed teens. It's tough but sweet, and sometimes very funny. One of the best of a year that's shaping up as the best in quite a while.
Posted one year ago exactly.
Is this a drive-by, Yambu, or can you say why you didn't like the ending? It seemed to me a slice of life sort of story, so the ending worked for me. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:47 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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bartist wrote: Is this a drive-by, Yambu, or can you say why you didn't like the ending? It seemed to me a slice of life sort of story, so the ending worked for me. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:25 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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The other noir 2-fer was pretty solid.
Mystery Street (1950) starts off following a woman who seems to be a "working girl" and in some sort of trouble. She's the lead for the first 20 minutes until she's gunned down and buried. Then it becomes a police procedural featuring Ricardo Montalban as the lead detective, with an assist from Harvard's forensics department. The main suspect looks pretty guilty, but ... It's all handled well, and there's some casual racism tossed Montalban's way for not being white American. Elsa Lanchester has a fun small role as the drunken landlady who tries to act proper (as long as blackmail is proper).
Act of Violence (1948) is a post-war revenge drama with a gimpy Robert Ryan on his way to gun down Van Heflin, who seems to be an unimpeachable pillar of his small community. It's one of those You Can't Escape Your Past, and Menace Can Find Its Way to Your Small Town films. The backstory is that van Heflin was in a Nazi camp and warned the Nazis of an escape attempt. There's some ambiguity as to why he did this -- he claims he wanted to save them from being caught and killed, and was promised they'd be treated leniently. Or maybe it was to get better food and stop from starving. 10 men died due to his snitching and presumably Ryan was gimped up at the same time.
Van Heflin is always an odd presence to me, but he mostly pulls off being a solid citizen, then a pathetic rat, and finally tries to man up. Ryan is also a unique presence, but I like his limited-range air of menace and/or defeat. Here's his character is monomaniacal, it doesn't even seem like he's considered an escape plan. Just vengeance. There's an odd mid-century ethos in which Van Heflin is more worried about his reputation than being killed, so he won't go to the police.
I thought Janet Leigh kind of stole the film as the little wife who has to deal with both a monster trying to off her husband, and the knowledge that her hubby might have done some rather questionable ish during the war. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:06 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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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Coming Home popped up on tv the other night. It came out 35 years ago with an anti-Vietnam theme. Forecasting the future or showing that we don't learn much. Wasn't Marlon Brando's The Men similar: Injured war veteran can regain normal life with help of a good woman.
Bruce Dern is the typical veteran who thought going to war would make him a hero and to his despair finds that there was not one uplifting thing about it. Interestingly enough that disturbs him more that his wife (Jane Fonda in prim shirt waist dresses) has been carrying on with paraplegic veteran Jon Voight who plays his hippy vibe well. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 11:05 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I know there are film buffs who consider Dreyer a master, but I find his films plodding and dull.
Last week Master of The House was a rather stilted affair. Basically the father/tyrant gets the tables turned on him and submits to his ex-nanny -- thus getting his wife back. Besides the ultra-preachy heavy-handed intertitles, everyone decides to act as a jerk to teach the head of the family a lesson. Ho-hum. In the extras it was somewhat surprising to hear critics talk of the film as a comedy. Hard to imagine what anyone would laugh at or even smile over. It really seemed like a 30 minute film/idea stretched to feature length.
Last night I went with Day Of Wrath, and the whole affair played out like some autistic version of a Bergman film. The characters barely move or change expression when they speak. Just maintain sulky or pensive poses. Again there's a tough old woman who controls everyone's fate. I can't help feeling Dreyer had a tough governess, or just mommy issues. The film takes place in the 17th Century and concerns religion and denouncing witches and it's really easy to see where all of this is heading at least from mid-film on.
I didn't even think that much of his supposed masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, which has a very stripped-down stylized look. There's one powerful montage sequence and the rest seemed a little overwrought and heavy-handed.
Dreyer has a peculiar way with dialogue (and too much of it in his silent films) and uses actors in odd ways. I've also seen Vampyr, and two of his silent films The President and Michael. Dreyer just doesn't work for me. Part of it is that I find it hard to relate to religious concerns expressed in Day of Wrath and Joan of Arc even if he is critical of organized religion in those to varying degrees. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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