Both Black God White Devil and Terra Em Transe are among the 71 movies from 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die that I have yet to see, but I'll get to them in time.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
Watched Zangiku Monogatari (a.k.a. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums), a 1939 Japanese film about a young actor who falls in love with his infant brother's wet nurse, leading him to be disowned by his father, an actor of renown. The movie uses no close-ups (or at least almost none), which I didn't particularly like because I already had a bit of trouble keeping track of which character was which (not helped by the movie being in black and white and the image quality being what one would expect from a late-1930s film from Japan). The characters (and by extension the movie itself) treat the main female character pretty poorly, not really allowing her any agency. I think it may have been intended to show how women were treated by society in the time the movie is set, but to me it came across rather like she was more of a prop in the male characters' stories than a character in her own right.
Watched The Letter, a 1940 Film Noir starring Bette Davis. The film starts off with Davis shooting a man dead, and the movie than centers around the investigation and trial—why she did it and whether she'll get away with it. It's a decent film—definitely not one of Davis' best, but perfectly okay.
Watched Thieves Highway, a 1949 Film Noir about a truck driver who seeks revenge on a produce dealer (played by Lee J. Cobb) who ripped off and crippled his father. I didn't quite know what to expect from this movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. The story takes a few turns that made it difficult to predict where it was heading, there are several colourful and memorable characters, and there is quite a bit of social commentary that I liked (mainly to do with money, class, and economics). Parts of it also reminded me of The Wages of Fear, though obviously this movie predates that one.
Watched David Holzman's Diary, a 1967 No Budget Mockumentary. It's kind of boring and not really that interesting besides—maybe—how it fits into film history. Also, the main character is a complete creep (though he would say he's a voyeur) and very unsympathetic.
Watched Limite, a 1931 silent Brazilian experimental film. Three people are on a boat and we get their backstories via Flashbacks. It sounds like it could be interesting but it's really, really slow—it's almost two hours long but the story could easily be told in fifteen to thirty minutes. It's on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list but I can't say I understand why (and since the copy I own is the 2009 edition whereas this movie wasn't added until the 2013 edition, I don't have the option of simply reading the entry to find out). Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
As someone who has watched Limite I can say I safely agree with your judgement. I found it a borderline excruciating experience. It seems to have been placed more on a pedestal due being one of the most unique films of the period that still (kind of) exists. Our cinema has a lot of lost films, so that contributes to Limite getting a sort of unearned spot at a pedestal: it is one of the very few experimental ones from that time period left.
From the time period I'm more fond of São Paulo: Symphony of a Metropolis (found on youtube!) though that's a documentary.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
A while ago, I watched the old The Miracle Worker movie and...I will admit, it was actually pretty great.
it's a living
Hey folks. Bit of left-field question regarding a Trope Launch Pad draft, Hyperactive Editing
. Would anyone be familiar with the history of the kind of rapid-fire, jump-cutting, scattershot editing commonly used in YouTube videos that probably had its start with You Tube Poop in the late aughts? The article for the latter mentions a few previous instances, but if anyone's familiar or can point to some good source matter on the subject (or even just a better forum thread), it'd be appreciated. Cheers.
Frumpy and grumpy
I watched Sorry, Wrong Number which wasn't particularly good. A lot of flashbacks, a lot of voice over for an ending that seemed like a foregone conclusion.
I also watched These Three which is the first film adaptation of The Children's Hour (by William Wyler who would later do the 1960 version with Shirley Mac Claine and Audrey Hepburn). The lesbianism, of course, is gone because of the Hays Code, so it loses that from the play, but Lilliam Hellman still did the screenplay, and it's really good. I highly recommend it.
"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
Watched Storm Over Asia, a 1928 Soviet silent propaganda film about a Mongolian man who becomes a fugitive from the law and ends up joining the Russian Civil War. It's one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. As far as Soviet propaganda from that era goes, it's fairly middle-of-the-road.
Watched None Shall Escape and made a page for it. It's a 1944 film about a trial against a Nazi officer following the end of the (then-ongoing) second world war, told via flashbacks from the points of view of the witnesses at the trial. I liked it, but I'll admit that I'm a sucker for movies about the Nazis. It's kind of interesting how it predicted the Nürnberg defense and pre-emptively dismissed it while the war was still going on.
Watched Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest from 1951. It's about a priest in a small village undergoing a kind of crisis of faith because he's living in a Crapsack World. In that respect it reminded me a lot of Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, though of course it predates that movie by more than a decade. Still, I can't help feeling Bergman's movie is better, and Bresson's later work Au Hasard Balthazar also conveyed the feeling of the world being a terrible place better, so I'd recommend watching either of the other two movies instead. Granted, I'm definitely not the target audience for a movie about a crisis of faith—not being religious myself—so maybe others would appreciate it more.
Watched The Big Sky, a 1952 Western directed by Howard Hawks and starring Kirk Douglas. In the 1830s, a group of men travel up the Missouri River in order to trade with a native tribe, but a company that fears that their monopoly on trade is being threatened tries to stop them by any means necessary. It's kind of interesting that unlike many other Westerns of this era (such as Stagecoach and The Man from Laramie), the natives are not portrayed as the bad guys, the rival company is. Even when a different native tribe attacks the expedition, they're doing the bidding of the evil rival company. The native characters the protagonists interact with are all portrayed sympathetically. Otherwise, it's a fairly unremarkable Western—Hawks' later work Rio Bravo far surpasses it in quality, in my opinion.
Edited by TompaDompa on Apr 24th 2020 at 2:17:52 PM
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
Frumpy and grumpy
Watched a few films from the 1960s:
- A Patch of Blue: I liked the film, and quite liked the ending as well. It felt realistic.
- In Cold Blood: I liked this fine, but I felt it was too long, and perhaps, a little too disturbing in terms of it trying to get you to know the killers, sympathize with them, etc., etc. And I have no interest in that in some ways. It's not that I don't appreciate understanding peoples' humanity, and I don't like capital punishment, but I think true crime takes the wrong lessons from the movie (being the most important film of the type), and focus about the murderers rather than their victims.
- Saturday Night and Sunday Morning: I liked this film best out all the 60s films I watched. I like these angry working-class men movies, and am happy to finally watch a British New Wave film. I would watch this as a double-feature with Alfie. Alfie is definitely more of a cynical, sexist asshole, though, than Arthur, but it definitely has that same underlining anger of post-WWII England.
- Paris Blues:Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman are best friends and jazz musicians in Paris. In come Joanme Woodward and Diahann Carroll on vacation in the city of love. The boys and girls fall in love but there are issues: Poitier doesn't want to go to USA because of obvious reasons (and although not perfect, Paris is integrated and a tiny bit less racist) while Caroll wants him to face it and fight the good fight together. Newman wants to live the bohemian lifestyle and thinks it's important for his art, so, in a Downer Ending, he decides to stay in Paris and not go with Woodward. Woodward, surprisingly, is a pretty chill, liberal sort of woman with two kids but chases Newman even though he was initially interested in Carroll. I liked that the film gave equal stories to both couples, and showed both sides of their struggles. Also, seeing Newman hit on Carroll, although not weird in our day and age, I imagine must have been "shocking" for audiences for a studio flick in 1961.
Edited by LongTallShorty64 on Apr 4th 2020 at 7:27:45 AM
"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
Frumpy and grumpy
The Big Heat: I liked this film a lot, and it's really weird to see young Lee Marvin without the grey hair, and being probably one of the most evil bad guys in Noir. That coffee scene is still pretty shocking. The only complaint I have is the fridging of the poor wife. I don't think it was necessary to the story at all.
"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
Watched Me and My Gal, a 1932 comedy starring a young Spencer Tracy (not to be confused with the 1942 film For Me and My Gal starring Judy Garland). It's not all that impressive—the plot is spread so thin that even at one hour and twenty minutes the movie kind of drags, and the comedy is pretty so-so. The main thing that is interesting about this film is that it's fairly explicitly pro-alcohol despite being made during the Prohibition Era.
Watched The Spiral Staircase, a 1946 horror thriller. I thought it was okay, but I didn't like The Reveal. The killer being somebody in the household doesn't make a whole lot of sense with the set-up provided at the beginning of the film. What's more, the "film language" (for lack of a better term) points in the direction of the killer being an intruder. I don't have anything against the killer being revealed to be a character known to the audience per se, but it felt out of place here. It's a plot element I associate with murder mysteries, and the movie is otherwise not that kind of story. Oh, and I had a hard time taking the killer seriously after the reveal, because their motive was ridiculous and the way they acted wasn't congruent with how they acted before the reveal. Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
Watched Stage Door, and for the most part I found it enjoyable. Wonderful snappy dialogue, lots of people tossing barbs back and forth, Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn are both excellent, and it more than passes the Bechdel test. Unfortunately, though, I found the ending to be kind of...sour, even though it's presumably supposed to be bittersweet. I know it's a dramedy, but Kay committing suicide is dark enough that I couldn't really enjoy any of the jokes after that, and the fact that Terry's star turn and sudden ability to act is caused by Kay's suicide makes it hard to enjoy her newfound fame (especially considering that her dad essentially bought her that role in an attempt to ruin her acting hopes, whereas the other girls in the boarding house seem to have been working just as hard, if not harder, but because they don't have a rich dad who's trying to destroy their acting dreams, they can't get any parts). Something about it just kind of feels like "Yes, Kay did kill herself, but it was really a net positive if you think about it!", which doesn't really sit right with me.
they're gonna find intelligent life up there on the moon/and the canterbury tales will shoot up to the top of the best-seller list
Frumpy and grumpy
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Stage Door is really funny and enjoyable. I don't remember reading the ending that way so much, but rather a friend taking the torch from another friend who's brightness ended suddenly. Then again, I haven't watched the movie on a while.
If you want another movie like that (but 100% doesn't pass the Bechdel test) watch The Women. It's so funny, it doesn't matter it's all about men.
"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
Just watched Mildred Pierce, and boy what a delight that was. Wonderful cinematography, intriguing story, great acting from Joan Crawford, and Eve Arden was a lot of fun too. Since my primary skill is nitpicking, there's one thing I would have changed: have Mildred walk off on her own at the end, instead of with Bert. really long and rambly reasoning behind the cut Also, Zachary Scott is great at flipping from charming to a completely repellent slimeball, so by the time he gets shot (again) he really, really has it coming.
they're gonna find intelligent life up there on the moon/and the canterbury tales will shoot up to the top of the best-seller list
Watched the other French 1931 musical comedy by Rene Clair, À nous la liberté. It's not bad, but I'd recommend watching Le Million instead, for the songs if nothing else.
Watched This Gun for Hire, a 1942 Film Noir. The protagonist is a hitman who is double-crossed by his employer, who is selling a formula for a chemical weapon to the Japanese during WWII. It's a bit interesting in that the protagonist is actually a pretty vile character, having little to no qualms about killing people even if they're innocent, or cops. He's really only a "good guy" by comparison, since the villain is even worse.
Watched King Vidor's The Crowd from 1928. It's a good movie, though the main character is a bit of a fuckup which gets frustrating at times—I kept thinking that his wife deserves way better since she is pretty much an angel in comparison. It has some great visuals—I especially liked the creative use of dominoes to show the passage of time. Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
Unbeugsame Klinge
I'd like to ask for everybody's help with something. There was a movie I saw on Turner Classic Movies a few weeks ago that I can't remember the title of. It was about two men exchanging letters- one of whom lived in Nazi Germany. The letters he received from his friend became rather cryptic after a certain point, which starts to draw negative attention to him from the authorities.
And I can't remember the friggin' title! Anybody know the movie I'm talking about?
Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.
Unbeugsame Klinge
Yes, thank you!
When it comes to French films, I keep returning to this one from 1939 La Règle du Jeu - The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir. Some of luckier ones in the cast and crew found their way to the set of Casablanca some years later.
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
Here's a topical double feature I watched, two films about outbreaks of infectious disease: Panic in the Streets and The Killer That Stalked New York, both from 1950. I made a page for the latter.
Panic in the Streets is directed by Elia Kazan and stars Richard Widmark as a doctor who tries to contain an outbreak of pneumonic plague in New Orleans when an autopsy reveals that a murdered man had it. He is teamed up with a police officer and the two butt heads quite a bit. It's sort of like a Buddy Cop movie except Widmark is a doctor rather than a policeman.
The Killer That Stalked New York is Very Loosely Based on the 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak
, which I hadn't heard of before watching the film (which says something about how successfully the outbreak was contained). This film shifts more focus onto the outbreak compared to the other one, which I appreciated since I thought that part was more interesting than the more typical Film Noir parts in both movies.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
Today I watched Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk, a French film from 1961 which may be quite unknow outside of France considering the English wikipedia entry consists in one sentence. Just started a short work page.
It stars Lino Ventura and Charles Aznavour and I suspect it must be a Cult Classic in France considering how many quotes felt familiar.
It is set in 1941; a five-man Free French Forces commando gets stranded in the Sahara desert, then happens to steal a German car and make one prisoner. They travel with him, creating a situation that feels very similar to Lifeboat where they have to trust him but not too much. However the conclusion is very different as he really is a nice guy: this is quite the anti-war film (while Lifeboat was anti-german propaganda).
Edited by gropcbf on May 23rd 2020 at 8:25:48 PM
Frumpy and grumpy
I didn't know Charles Aznavour acted. Thought he was just a singer!
I didn't either, but in these days it was not uncommon for singers to also act (at least in the French industry). See Jacques Brel or Johnny Hallyday for instance.
Frumpy and grumpy
I think that was a big thing in Hollywood too, even in the classic era. Look at Doris Day and Frank Sinatra as prime examples. Aznavour surprised me, but then I remember watching his rendition of "La Boheme" and it's pretty theatrical.
Watched The Blue Lamp, a British Police Procedural from 1950. I rather liked it, being a fan of the genre in general. The film at times reminded me of High and Low, Rififi, and M, which are all excellent films, so that's a good sign.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
O Pagados de Promessas is definitely one of the classics of Brazilian cinema. From the same period I also recommend Black God, White Devil
and its sequel Antonio das Mortes
(although it escapes the confines of this thread by two years), both by the master Glauber Rocha. If you want social critique about all levels of Brazilian society your one-stop-shop is Entranced Earth
also by Glauber Rocha, which is to Brazilian society in the 60's what Nineteen Eighteen Four is to European history in the 40's.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."