Track the Films You Watch (2006)

I'm glad you tried it and enjoyed it. I was attracted to it because of the cast, and thought it was entertaining.

Earth vs the Spider (1958)
Somehow I'd missed seeing this AIP '50s monster flick, so last night I gave the new Lions Gate R1 DVD a spin (the video quality on it is excellent by the way). It's rightly considered a rip of Universal's TARANTULA, but this still turned out to be brisk and enjoyable, and a lot of cheesy fun. When a young girl and her boyfriend search for the girls' missing father, they stumble across a giant spider's cave and, naturally, the monster eventually crawls around town. Better-than-average special effects for this type of cheapie, with some surprisingly vivid shock moments and the required helping of some typical teenage 1950's rock n roll music. Gene Roth is a hoot as the doubting sheriff, and there are some shameless plugs for some of Bert I Gordon's other pictures like THE MAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE.

01/12/06

Gimme Some Truth (2000)

This documentary takes a look at John Lennon as he makes his “Imagine” album, which is my favorite of his. This documentary would have been terrific if you haven’t already seen Imagine John Lennon, which pretty much has all the same footage, although the songs are complete here.

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Produced by Roger Corman this is a prime example of a cult classic from the 70s. In a cross country race, drivers are given bonus points for running over anyone on the streets. The film is pure nonsense from start to finish and that’s what makes it so much fun to watch. It’s overly violent and over the top all the way through with fun performances by David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone.

X-312: Flight to Hell (1970)

Jess Franco directed adventure film about a plane that goes down in the Brazil jungles and the survivors who must battle natives, gangsters and wild animals. The political side plot is quite boring and really drags the film down but the adventure story isn’t too bad, although it drags even at only 85-minutes. The film is pretty straight forward, considering this is a Jess Franco film, which makes it a tad bit too bland for its own good. Paul Muller and Howard Vernon star.

01/13/05

John Lennon: Sweet Toronto (1969)

Another concert/document from director D.A. Pennebaker, this one looking at Lennon’s set at the Toronto Peace Festival. There’s a lot to talk about in this hour long film but Lennon’s set is decent, although I found the band to be quiet lame and that includes the playing by Lennon and Eric Clapton. I’m curious to know how many drugs were taken before jumping on stage. The stuff with Yoko Ono was absolutely horrible. Her high pitches squeals and screams grounded my nerves and nearly pushed me over the edge. The best moments happen at the start of the show when we see clips from Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

Grizzly Man (2005)

Werner Herzog’s latest film ranks as one of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever witness and also shows that Herzog is one of the greatest and most overlooked filmmakers out there. The documentary takes a look at the life of Timothy Treadwell, a man who for 13 years lived in the Alaskan wilderness with dangerous grizzly bears before finally being eaten alive by one. Most directors would have shown this as a Discovery channel type film or would have shown Timothy as a fun loving, animal lover but Herzog doesn’t play sides and unlike Michael Moore, that’s what makes this such a fascinating film. Herzog doesn’t shy away from the fact that Timothy was a very warm hearted guy but he also doesn’t hide that fact that this warmness comes out of some deeper issue that made this guy very dangerous to himself. There isn’t a false step anywhere in this film as Herzog asks all the right questions and gives some very insightful opinions himself. This is the type of film that Hollywood could never make with their $200 million dollar budgets. This film has more heart, soul, suspense and tears that money simply can’t buy. The amazing footage of Timothy being inches away from 10 foot bears to one scene where he cries over a fox that has been killed by a wolf. The most tragic thing, much like the characters in Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, is that Timothy was eventually killed by the things he loved most. When Timothy was eventually killed it was recorded on audiotape and a morbid curiosity makes one want to hear what actually happened but Herzog made the right choice not to play the audio. We get to see Herzog listening to the tape and his facial expressions give us everything we need to know about the events. In the end this is truly a remarkable film that people should certainly seek out.

The Lions Gate DVDs are sourced from old TV syndication videotape masters, not proper film elements.

The R2 discs aren't that hot either but they are still better than the LG releases. Three of the four titles being released by LG in April are 2.35:1 films so it looks like we'll probably get them P&S.

So I've read. But while Lion Gates' HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER and BLOOD OF DRACULA definitely left much to be desired in their video quality, the other LG disc I watched last night - EARTH VS THE SPIDER - looked great. If SPIDER is also from those TV video masters, it's one hell of a syndication master, and it could have fooled me.

You would be mistaken here, Michael. Though it may seem to you that you recall some familiar things or parts of things from having seen IMAGINE JOHN LENNON, there is a great deal of new footage in GIMME SOME TRUTH that was new and not in the 1988 documentary. For one thing, GIMME SOME TRUTH is about 60 minutes on its own, and there is not 60 minutes worth of this footage in IMAGINE JOHN LENNON.


By Lennon's words, he was nervous as hell for this show, still not entirely used to playing apart from the other Beatles. He reportedly tossed his cookies before the performance, even. He had been into heroin in the late '60s and wrote a song talking about experiencing withdrawal from it: COLD TURKEY. He wanted it to be on the Beatles' final album, but he wound up putting it out on his own.


Maybe the director should have "directed" her to stay backstage, or not to sing. After all, it was "his" movie.

Films Watched in 2006

Key
2006 Films in Red
Re-watched Films in Green
All 2005 & 2006 films are theatrical viewings unless noted
All pre-2005 are home viewings unless noted
All are OAR unless noted

Rating - a simple 4 point scale
A - Really Enjoyed
B - Enjoyed
C - Did not Like
D - Hated

Stats
004 = Films watched
004 = Films watched for first time
000 = Films re-watched
001 = 2006 Films Seen

The Films
001. 01.01 - Brokeback Mountain (2005) - A
002. 01.02 - The Last Command (1928) - A
003. 01.06 - Hostel (2006) - B
004. 01.08 - Match Point (2005) - A

Yeah, complete songs.



Probably also fell back on the heroin going by his and Clapton's eyes.



You still don't seem to understand what a documentary is. Yesteryday you told me documentaries aren't "real films" because "the director doesn't have to direct anything". I guess to you Herzog didn't really direct GRIZZLY MAN? The point of a documentary isn't to make something up so why in the hell should D.A. Pennebaker direct someone to stay backstage? His job is to capture what's given to him and make something from it.

Relax. Michael, I think you may need to take a Chill Pill.

I'm just answering your comments. You said there was no directing when it comes to documentaries so I was wanting to hear your reasoning behind this thinking. You said documentaries weren't real films so again, I wanted to hear your reasons for thinking this. In the past you've given your reasons why silent films "don't count" so I'm interested in your theories on documentaries.

What exactly are WOODSTOCK, GRIZZLY MAN or even GIMME SOME TRUTH if they aren't films? You can look at the quality of various documentaries to see the work of a real director. Anyone can throw clips together but to put this clips together in an order to tell a story that remains interesting does need a director.

added to master post:

title: dangerous liasons
rating: b
comments: first viewing. some great dialoge (witty sexual inuendos), nice period piece. not a big malkovich fan, but liked him in this one. got to see uma nekkid ... always a nice thing.

title: the hidden
rating: b
comments: seen this a couple of times. definitely a guilty pleasure. i always watch this and wonder what it would be like to truly "cut loose".

01/14/06

Monster of Piedras Blancas, The (1959)

Silly Mexican rip of The Creature from the Black Lagoon has a small fishing village being terrorized by a sea creature who likes to cut off heads. There isn’t an ounce of charm in this low budget film, which makes it deadly boring and silly. The creature looks pretty good but he isn’t on screen until the very end.

Hitler’s Madman (1943)

Douglas Sirk’s first American film was also filmed by Fritz Lang as Hangmen Also Die the very same year. War propoganda at its highest as the Czech people stick together to assassinate Nazi Richard Heydrich (John Carradine). This thing here gets mixed reviews but I found it incredibly slow, boring and just not all that interesting. Carradine delivers a good performance but outside of that everyone else is pretty boring and while the direction shines in a few spots it never really comes full circle. The ending with “we should all rise up” might have packed a punch in 1943 but today it comes off very, very stupid.

Tun Men se mo (The Rapist) (1994)

Cat. III Hong Kong film about a serial killer being tracked down by police. The basic premise of this film isn’t too original but the film does manage to remain interesting throughout. The best moments are the final twenty minutes when the rapist is in jail being questioned by the police. The director wanted to get inside the mind of a rapist and these scenes work very well. I’m not too familiar with Hong Kong films but I was told Cat. III films were the “most graphic” yet this one here wasn’t all that bad. The rape scenes contained more nudity than what you’d find in an American film but this here never crossed into exploitation like so many films here. The biggest problem is the rather weak direction, which never really gets a good pace going.

Viva Las Vegas (1964)

A racecar driver (Elvis) must pick between his love of racing and his love of a beautiful red head (Ann Margaret). This was my fifth Elvis movie and so far I’d call this the best one thanks in large part to Ann Margaret who clearly steals the film in every scene she’s in. The chemistry between her and Elvis is right on the mark in its cuteness and the music is also wonderful throughout. The story is still rather weak and predictable and Elvis the actor wasn’t too much but overall the film manages to be a lot of fun.

Michael, I'm hoping that someday you may come to realize that you have a tendency to put words into people's mouthes, and to blow things they have said out of proportion, take things out of context, and put your own spin on them. I have said that I am not necessarily a big fan of silent movies and that, as a personal preference, I prefer watching films with sound. I have recently watched Lon Chaney's THE PENALTY (1920) and I liked it and I intend to buy it, to place alongside several other silent films I already own in my personal video collection.

The same twisting of my words has come because you and I had a private conversation recently (as in "offline", and not on this board) about John Lennon's SWEET TORONTO. I said that when an artist is onstage performing a musical concert, and when it is being filmed for posterity, there's not any kind of "acting performance" from the musician (and I think you'd agree), as in Alfred Hitchcock telling Tippi Hedren how to do approach a scene in THE BIRDS, for example.


There is no "story" being told when it comes to a straight performance of a rock concert, captured on film. That's all I'm saying, and I'm sticking to it. Choosing and editing different moments of a performance together, taking different closeups or songs and re-arranging them to make it a better film, that's different. And why you're bringing up GRIZZLY MAN (which I have yet to see, but am very interested in), I don't know. And I never mentioned WOODSTOCK either, so I don't know why you're exaggerating and branching out. It's also YOUR terminology when you write: "these aren't films". I never said this.

GIMME SOME TRUTH, however, is just a little music collection, as far as I'm concerned. Everyone is entitled to 'track their films' as they see fit, but personally I don't list made-for-DVD "Video LP's" as feature films. I also don't count movie shorts, old loony toons cartoons, or DVD "making of" bonus materials in my feature films list. When I think of how much of those I have watched each year but do not list, I would have quite a total at the end of the year, indeed!

First time viewings in Blue

British Agent (1934)
Leslie Howard romances Kay Francis during the Russian revolution.

Jewel Robbery (1932)
Standard 1930’s romantic/comedy as William Powell plays a debonair jewel thief.

The Murderers Are Among Us (1946)
In post-war Germany a young woman freed from a concentration camp shares an apartment with a Nazi Doctor haunted by his past crimes. Liked the odd-angle Third Man cinematography but the story wasn’t as involving as it could have been.

One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
Minor Kurosawa film follows two young people on a day long date as their money dwindles to nothing.

The Harder They Fall (1956)
Bogart’s last film is a good one as he plays a washed up sports writer with a conscious, hired by crooked fight promoter Rod Steiger to be a publicist for a fraud boxer.

Blackbeard The Pirate (1952)
Fairly average adventure yarn bolstered by Robert Newton’s joyfully over the top archetypical pirate portrayal “Arrh shiver me timbers”.

That Touch of Mink (1962)
Badly dated & flaccid sex-farce has businessman Cary Grant romancing 40 year old virgin Doris Day.

The Cardinal (1963)
Would-be epic chronicles one mans rise through the ranks of the Catholic Church.

Dark of the Sun (1968)
Dirty Dozen-like film has mercenaries Rod Taylor & Jim Brown leading a mercy mission in a war torn African nation with the hopes of retrieving 50 million in diamonds. Not a great film but very entertaining & I’d definitely pick it up were it available on DVD.

Hustle (1975)
Flat noir-ish police thriller stars Burt Reynolds investigating the death of a young girl.

Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Sean Penn stars in this fictional biopic/mocumentary of a 1930’s Jazz guitarist. Sort of a Woody Allen version of This is Spinal Tap minus the laughs. This one probably appeals more to hard-core Woody Allen fans (of which I’m not).

Red Eye (2005)
What starts out as a pretty good thriller aboard an airplane quickly degrades due to idiotic lapses in logic and a overtly predictable finale that’s been done a hundred times over.

New DVD purchases/Revisits (New to DVD/Upgraded DVD)

The Wild Bunch (1969)
(Upgraded to the new 2-discer)
Ride the High Country (1962)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
Watched the 1988 Turner cut which is the one I’ve seen the most – I’ll watch the new 05 cut sometime down the road.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
(Upgraded to the new 2-discer)

Actually, your exact quote was this:

I'll stick with the sound version of Ben Hur since it's my all time favorite and I don't expect the warm up version to do much. With silent films they are incomplete and don't really count because you need the sound.

I don't think my comments were taking anything out of context.



Yes, we agreed with this matter that a director isn't going to "direct" the artist while on stage. That's the whole point to a documentary in that the director should try to capture what is in front of his eyes without changing things around. Now, where does the directing come with a documentary? Could be camera shots, editing and just trying to capture the feel of a performance. You and I have seen plenty of live shows to know when a director really makes you feel as if you are there in the crowd. We've also seen plenty of "fan recorded" shows, which usually don't capture the mood very well (even though I personally prefer them).



I'm not sure what you mean by "Video LP". A collection of music videos? A single music video will need its own director but that wasn't the case with GIMME SOME TRUTH, which was a documentary of the making of Imagine. As with GRIZZLY MAN or any other doc, the director had hours and hours worth of footage that he had to cut down and make into a "document" of what was going on at the time.



But why are the shorts any different from a feature length film? Are you an Academy Awards voter or something?

Again, this here comes to my opinion that you (rightfully) don't care too much about this history of film. You certainly would count these films whenever you are interested in them like when they're horror movies (Frankenstein/Dr. Jekyll). You say I'm nuts for watching these shorts or you say I do it because I want my total number to be higher, which is just B.S. If someone selects not to view these things then they are missing nearly 30 years of cinema before the first real feature was made. Film started in the 1890s and features didn't become the norm until 1920 so that's 30 years of filming someone would miss. Can you imagine all the legendary names people would miss out on if they said these films weren't "movies"?

There are no "rules" when it comes to a movie. You could break down what played in theaters and what went straight to VHS/DVD or even made for TV. You seem to have the notion that only "features" count but this rule was only made when it comes to the Academy Awards and they had to make a seperate catagory for short films back in the 1920s. That's why I asked if you were an Academy voter. If not, why you would put so much into one of their rules is beyond me since we've agreed they aren't the smartest people on the world. Hell, they didn't even give GRIZZLY MAN a nomination and I'm suppose to go by their rules?

There is no number game being played here but I'd suspect anyone who's interested in the history of film would find these highly entertaining. Silent films have been forgotten by the whole but these early days are even more rare when it comes to finding fans. People might know Chaplin and Keaton but they don't know the people who influenced them. Do they need to know? No but some people want to know the entire history of film and not just what happened 50 years after it started. When sound films came into play movies were already a good 40 years old. That's 40 years of films that people are sadly overlooking because they don't like silents. Those who hate B&W are REALLY missing decades of films. Those who won't watch anything made before 1980 are missing nearly 100 years of cinema. We could also say (like me) those who refuse to watch foreign films are missing out on decades worth of cinema.

That's the point of watching everything you can get your hands on. To learn. How many people want to learn these days? Not many. Do I blame them? Not at all and in fact I'd actually tell them NOT to try it. The time, money and energy involved would drive some nuts (which you'd say happened to me a long time ago ).

And I really don't think you're watching these "shorts". Or, whenever I asked if you watched one you always say no.





Jim, having never seen this is the 1988 version the one to start off with? I know you haven't seen the 2005 version before but would it be best to start off with the old VHS, which I believe contains the original theatrical cut or is the 1988 version the one to go with?

Michael,

I'd either start with the 88 Turner cut (which I believe got a VHS release) or the new 05 cut (though I haven't seen it) as both versions are on the newly released DVD. I wouldn't recommend starting with the heavily edited (or I consider butchered) original cut. Either way I don't think the VHS you're referring to is OAR.

FYI - I've read that the 05 version is shorter, more tightly paced & edited in some parts compared to the 88 cut.

added:

title: must love dogs
rating: c-
comments: if it wasn't for diane lane, cusack (always a fave of mine), and a few touching/funny moments, i probably would have rated a d. stupid plot, unnecessary characters, and no believability.

Thanks Jim. I guess this is a lose/lose battle since no one really knows what the director prefered. I've been at a few "fan boards" and it appears most people are unhappy with the 2005 cut. I've never seen the film but it seems the '05 cut also uses the Dylan vocals during Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

I've read a few "fan" reviews and they seem to have their history mixed up a bit when it comes to how Dylan got involved in this film. This was 100% the director who eventually fell in love with Dylan and then asked him to join the cast. Fans seem to think it was some sort of studio call or Dylan refused to do the soundtrack otherwise. Of course, the fans might be pissed off because the soundtrack turned more of a profit (and is better remembered) than the film.

You certainly are taking what I said out of context. Because what we were talking about in that BEN-HUR discussion was regarding my opinion of remakes, specifically. I always say I don't think we need more of these 21st century remakes of older films. Then you come in with your usual speech about how "remakes have been here forever, since the silent era of film, and are nothing new " (like I don't already know that). Then I give my opinion that I could understand silent films being re-made in the 30s, 40s, or 50s for benefit of the "sound" era, and when Hollywood still knew how to make them good. When I called the silent BEN-HUR a "warm up," it was a tongue in cheek jab at you during one of our debates, because I love the 1959 sound version very much.

I will say once more that, personally speaking, I prefer sound films to silent. Still, this hasn't kept me from watching, liking, or owning several non-talkies.


I'm sorry it bothers you that I'm only tracking feature films, but it's only my personal choice. There are no rules. I am not tracking short subjects.


You are entitled to believe whatever you choose. I know what I'm interested in and what I care about; you don't. You may have whatever opinion you wish, but it won't change my facts.


I don't know what you're talking about. I certainly "count" silent 'features' as 'feature films'...


I don't know where I ever said you were "nuts" for watching these shorts. There's nothing wrong with having an interest in them and a desire to watch them. But I have toyed with you in some of our more jocular moments about wanting to increase your annual tally of films. I believe you are genuinely interested in films of all eras and genres, but I also believe you enjoy displaying your wide array of "conquests".


To each his own, Mike. Personally, I'll watch silents, talkies, golden age, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90,s 00s, black and white, color, 3-D, foreign, etc... but I'm not ashamed to admit that I have certain "preferences". Silent films are not my priority, nor are most musicals or westerns or war films. It doesn't mean I will never watch these types of films; it just means that I have my preferences. Life is way too short. But I thank you for pushing me to see PATHS OF GLORY, because it was a great film I would otherwise have missed.


Learning and knowledge comes with the territory, but I don't specifically watch films to "learn" or become a walking film encyclopedia (though this turns out to become the natural progression when one watches many movies); I watch films to be entertained. To me, it seems you're so busy watching everything and "learning" that you're not relishing the movies themselves.


I could find films you haven't watched, and you could do likewise with me. It doesn't mean anything, and we've covered this ground before. Live and let live, and that's all there is to it, I say. We're just beginning a new year here, tracking our films. It's still early enough to avoid this silly back and forth stuff. Let's not turn this thread into the "Mike and Joe Revue" like last year.

george,

Thanks for the recommendation! This was a wonderful film. I knew that Walk, Don't Run was a remake but just never got around to seeing the original. I was surprised that the Cary Grant remake was such a carbon copy in so many ways. What a great cast. Jean Arthur was terrific.

Thanks again for suggesting I check this film out. This was a Netflix rental but it will be a permanent addition to my library very soon.

Joe

You're welcome.

Not to disrupt the spirited discussion , but I'd like to ask Michael a question.

I noticed in the Kubrick director's thread that you've seen his early short films and I was wondering how you got a hold of them. I've checked Amazon, DDD, and even the IMDB, but none of these sites has any release info. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

FRANKENSTEIN and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE both run 10 minutes and you counted them on your list. You said you didn't count short films. This is why I said you would count these if they were something you were interested in like horror films.



Take away the shorts and silents from my list. How many 25 year olds you know are watching the "other" things on my list? I think that should tell you I'm interested in the "history" of films and not a film count. Not once have you ever seen me tell people in this thread that they should seek out these shorts unless they're interested in seeing where films started.



This here could go back to what George and I were talking about earlier. I hate to quote Armin since we never agree but there's a good site called The Story of Film where it talks about different viewers of films. Naturally VERY VERY few are interested in the history and film and as I said earlier, I really don't blame them. You do have to sit through a lot of worthless shit, which you can see by my list, which is full of BOMB and ratings.

It would be very easy to pick and select films I think I would like but I don't do this because I want to know more and I do believe you can learn a lot from these bad "B" and "Z" movies. I think these films can tell a lot more than some of the classics out there. But again, you don't see me trying to push these "bad" films on anyone here. I will certainly try pushing people to watch EAST OF EDEN or THE GUNFIGHTER over HORRORS OF THE RED PLANET or THE SOUL OF A MONSTER. Now, if someone is interested in the history of horror then both of these films, no matter how horrid they are, they're important and should be seen.

That's why when we pick movies for one another I've asked you to watch PATHS OF GLORY, ON THE WATERFRONT, COOL HAND LUKE and EAST OF EDEN. I'd love to hear your opinions on THE SOUL OF A MONSTER, GIFT OF GAB or CHILD BRIDE but these films aren't important so there's no point in telling someone to watch them when I could recommend better films.

Do I enjoy this? You betcha. I would never do anything I didn't enjoy.



C'mon, don't try getting P.C. for votes here.



I got in trouble with this last year so I'll send you a PM. However, if you live in NY or LA they are shown every so often but I believe they haven't been shown the past couple of years. FEAR AND DESIRE has a 16mm print at UCLA but I don't think this can be shown without special agreements. There's also a 8mm print, which has been shown plenty over the years but this here is in pretty rough shape.

However, all three shorts and FEAR are pretty poor to fair films so I wouldn't recommend them unless you want to see every Kubrick film.

Thanks Michael.

I was mostly curious, because although I've known about these films for a while, I was unaware of anyone who'd actually seen them. I do remember hearing something about them, possibly even seeing some clips in the documentary, Stanley Kubrick a Life in Pictures.

Saraband (2003 orig., 2005 US theaterical release) - Ingmar Bergman's latest, and perhaps this time final, film feels both instantly familiar and surprisingly fresh. It is a story of terrifying hatred and possessive love amongst a family fractured by previous wounds. Stellar performances and Bergman's absolute command of film language (even when shooting dig video for the first time instead of film), combine with the acidic script to create a work that shows time and age has dulled none of the fascinating complexity and raw emotional power that comes with the phrase "written and directed by Ingmar Bergman". - A

Tony Takitani (2004) - A quiet, meditative film about a man who, the narrator tells us, doesn't realize how lonely he is. As a child he grew up the neglected son of a touring jazz musician, spending virtually all of his non-school time on his own or in the care of distant relatives. In adulthood he has no friends or relationships outside work. It's only when he falls in love with a client and "the way she inhabits her beautiful clothes" that he realizes how empty his life has been. She makes him happy in ways he has never before experienced. Unfortunately, he cannot fulfill the hole inside this woman that she has filled within him and his carefully self-contained world will begin to unravel.

Using a spare, calm style, director Jun Ichikawa shows us that love can be as disruptive and destructive as it is uplifting and pleasurable. With precise camerawork and a soft piano score, Ichikawa creates a mood of examination and reflection. Yet even in painstaking closeup, the characters remain inscrutable, sometimes frustratingly so. There is an inward collapse that renders them unable to communicate their feelings and fears to one another. This empathic and moving film is almost too brief at only 75 minutes, but it says everything it needs to. - B+

Triple Agent (2004, no US theatrical release) - From French master Eric Rohmer comes this film, set in the pre-war France of 1936-37. A White Russian emigre and his artist wife live in Paris. The husband works for a Russian veterans organization and has access to many political officials and sources of "important" information. The wife is mostly content to remain willfully ignorant and concentrate on her paintings. The speech of every character in the film is dominated by politics and the undercurrent of world events occurring at the time, such as the Spanish Civil War or membership in the Communist Party. With rumors of intrigue, coups, shady financial deals, and war; can the couple remain above events or be swept along by the tide of history?

Like almost every Rohmer film, Triple Agent is dominated by talk. Political discussion, the plight of Russian exiles living abroad, artistic esthetics, male ambition to play a greater role in the "action" are the ways that Rohmer sets the atmosphere through conversation rather than cinematic flourishes. For added period flavor, he cuts in relevant news reel footage from the time. Because this is the language of history rather than love, the film doesn't rise to the heights of many of his previous films, until a key event that is. An event that recasts the film in a different light forcing us to reevaluate what we've already seen. This provides a further layer of emotional complexity to the film calling for an examination of each nuance and creating a film for which re-watching is a requirement. - A-

The Island (2005) - Combining an intriguing sci-fi premise, an excellent cast, and several terrific action sequences (particularly the highway chase with the train wheels rolling off the truck - killer execution), director Michael Bay creates a surprisingly enjoyable film. Unlike Armageddon, The Island is not spastically edited; it takes its time in setting up the story, introducing characters, and appropriately pacing the action with "quiet" moments once the film ramps up. It could have been even better with a more thorough focus and examination of the scientific themes and questions the film generates, and it is unfortunate the creators could not figure out a more suitable climax then an eye-rolling descent into action movie clicheville, but for most of its running time the film delivers more entertainment than I would have thought possible. - B

The rest of this month and into February will see a lower movie-watching output. I'll still be getting Netflix at their now slower rate, and occasionally hitting the theater (tomorrow I hope), but for viewing from my collection I'm concentrating on TV for awhile - we're watching Firefly right now (2 eps so far), and I'm most of the way thru disc 1 of Looney Tunes Gold v3, after that there's S1 of Home Movies and Entourage before I return to movies and the rest of the Warner Noir box 1 (Asphault Jungle, The Set-Up, and rewatch of Out of the Past).

That's how my year has been starting off too, Brook. I've been on a real television kick as of late, and it has taken time away from film viewing!

Yes, and after carefully cutting out almost all non-sports TV watching the last several years so I would have more movie watchin' time, I've found myself watching 4 new shows this season, not to mention the almost unbearable wait for The Sopranos to start again in March.

The Olympics will cut into my time too.

The Dark Corner (1946) 8/10
Slickly constructed noir combines two parallel stories with some clever plotting, as a private eye fighting to overcome his demons gets mixed up with a high-society love triangle that's more than a little familiar, to anyone who's seen Laura. Lucille Ball is a lot of fun as the struggling hero's loyal assistant. Some corny dialogue and a few silly plot devices pop up here and there, but Henry Hathaway's direction hits some great notes as well. I liked this one just as much as Hathaway's much more famous (at least as far as I can tell) Kiss of Death.

Hello, Dolly! (1969) 7/10
Way more flash than substance in this gigantic Broadway musical adaptation, but seeing it in 70mm brings out the best of the breathtaking colors, production design, and locations. Spectacle doesn't get much more spectacular than this, and there's a lot of fun humor from Walter Matthau and Barbra Streisand, but almost none of the other characters are interesting in any way, and the whole thing feels a lot more cartoonish than it should have been. But boy does it look good in 70mm.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 7/10
Nice lead role for Dana Andrews as a good cop struggling against his violent instincts in another Otto Preminger noir. As Eddie Mueller's DVD commentary points out, Preminger's direction is very solid, but I had trouble buying the story at several points, which could have used some more work. Still pretty entertaining overall, though, especially some of the minor characters.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) 4/10
Chan-wook Park's weird story about the violent adventures of a deaf-mute guy with an ill sister starts off with some entertaining bits, especially with the funny character of the girlfriend. But I found it kind of hard to follow at first, and I thought the second half was a completely incoherent string of unpleasantly brutal and nonsensical scenes. Park's more recent Oldboy got some good reviews, so I might check that one out at some point, but this one didn't work for me at all.

odd I find Sympathy to be the superior work because of its psycho esque reversal and intense psychological impact it held.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind -

My second favorite Miyazaki, right under Spirited Away. This film is complete and utter perfection awe inspiring and jaw dropping. The flying footage was incredible, the voice acting and drawn acting (I saw the subtitled TCM run) were outstanding and I loved the scifi plot/premise. MUCH stronger than Castle in the Sky or Howl's Moving Castle, and a tighter, more focused movie than Kiki's with a less heavy hand than Mononoke. Simply brilliant and I'll be buying the DVD very soon. I'm so THRILLED at TCM's run of these movies.

Excellent, excellent film.

Adam