SteveGon

Cover Up (1946)

Viewed 2/6/2006 (first viewing)

Neat little mystery about an insurance investigator looking into the shooting death of a policyholder. Was it murder or suicide? And why does no one want to help him with his investigation? William Bendix livens things up as an obstinate sheriff.

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What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)

Viewed 2/6/2006 (first viewing)

Early film from Pedro Almodovar, a black comedy about a woman frustrated by her dysfunctional family. Wild and unpredictable, but it never quite catches fire.

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Fear Strikes Out (1957)

Viewed 2/7/2006 (first viewing)

Pretty good biopic of baseball great Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins), whose career was almost derailed by mental illness brought on by his domineering father (Karl Malden).

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Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Viewed 2/7/2006

Revisited Aardman's latest classic.

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Un Flic (1972)

Viewed 2/8/2006 (first viewing)

Jean-Pierre Melville's final film stars Alain Delon as a detective on the trail of a gang of bank robbers led by his best friend. Typically cool and reserved French crime flick, a solid capstone to Melville's career.

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Anna Christie (1931)

Viewed 2/9/2006 (first viewing)

German language version of Greta Garbo's first talkie is slightly better than it's English language counterpart.

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Green for Danger (1947)

Viewed 2/9/2006 (first viewing)

Superb whodunit set in an English emergency hospital during WWII. Expertly done, a must-see.

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The Fallen Idol (1948)

Viewed 2/9/2006 (first viewing)

Carol Reed near-classic about a little boy who innocently and habitually lies without grasping the consequences. When his best friend - the family butler - is accused of murdering his wife, only he holds evidence that would prove the man innocent. But will anyone believe him?

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Our Man in Havana (1959)

Viewed 2/9/2006 (first viewing)

Satirical spy movie stars Alec Guinness as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana who is recruited as a spy by the English government. Moderately engaging, but bland.

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Triple Agent (2003)

Viewed 2/10/2006 (first viewing)

Eric Rohmer's talky but engrossing account of a White Russian Army general working as a spy in 1930s France. A tragic and fascinating tale, based on fact.

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My Sassy Girl (2002)

Viewed 2/11/2006 (first viewing)

Overly long but enjoyable Korean romantic drama. A guy falls for a girl angered and haunted by the death of her last boyfriend. Despite her abusive attitude, he refuses to give up on her. La la la. Reportedly based on real life accounts posted on the internet.

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Flesh and the Devil (1927)

Viewed 2/11/2006 (first viewing)

Finished off Warner's Greta Garbo Collection with this well-produced melodrama about a woman who comes between two lifelong friends. A few silly moments, but surprisingly effective.

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Get Out and Get Under (1920)

Viewed 2/11/2006 (first viewing)

Funny Harold Lloyd short finds the comedian experiencing car problems and a girlfriend who's marrying someone else!

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Tony Takitani (2005)

Viewed 2/12/2006 (first viewing)

Minimalist meditation on loneliness and loss, based on a short story by my favorite author, Haruki Murakami. A lonely artist finally scores a wife, but her addiction to buying clothing (!) leads to tragedy. Not for everyone, but fans of Murakami should appreciate it. Now where's that adaptation of Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World?

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Le Petit Soldat (1960)

Viewed 2/12/2006 (first viewing)

Jean-Luc Godard's powerful study of a French photographer caught up in the Algerian struggle for independence. Originally banned in France due to its scenes of torture and the proposition that it was a tactic used by both sides. Still as relevant as ever, sad to say.

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Kongo (1932)

Viewed 2/12/2006 (first viewing)

Deliciously twisted pre-code tale of a maniacal ivory trader (Walter Huston) holding sway in the Congo. He keeps the natives in check by using magic tricks and plots revenge against the man who crippled him. His diabolical plan includes corruption of the man's innocent daughter! Sort of a cross between Blue Velvet and Heart of Darkness, a must-see for fans of strange cinema.

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The Vampire's Ghost (1945)

Viewed 2/12/2006 (first viewing)

Low budget chiller about a cultured (and not entirely unsympathetic) vampire terrorizing an African port. A forgotten little gem, worth seeking out.

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Thanks Michael!

Recently viewed films:

Onechanbara **
Night of the Living Jews **
White Heat ****
Dead Set ***
Working Stiffs ***

Zombie Movie Appreciation Thread

Haggai

Steve, how did you go about seeing Fallen Idol? There's a theatrical re-issue starting to tour some of the country now, by Rialto, which usually means a Criterion DVD release once it's out of theaters.

Films watched in 2007 | 2006 | 2005

SteveGon

Haggai, I have the UK R2 DVD of The Fallen Idol. Since I just bought it - along with Green For Danger (which I'd been wanting to see for ages) and Our Man in Havana - there probably WILL be a Criterion release.

Recently viewed films:

Onechanbara **
Night of the Living Jews **
White Heat ****
Dead Set ***
Working Stiffs ***

Zombie Movie Appreciation Thread

Mario Gauci

02/11/06: THE BIG COMBO (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955) ***

Despite a bland title, this is a top-notch film noir, one of Lewis’ best in fact, with a first-rate cast (Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, Ted De Corsia, Robert Middleton, Jay Adler, John Hoyt, etc.), a typically hard-boiled script courtesy of Philip Yordan and some memorably violent scenes for its time (police officer Wilde’s torture at the hands of gangster Conte, Donlevy’s “silent” demise by Conte’s henchmen Van Cleef and Holliman, Conte punching his moll, Jean Wallace, in the face, etc.); cinematographer John Alton and composer David Raksin lend their expert support. I had first seen this one some 15 years ago when I caught it one afternoon, quite by accident, on Italian TV and was very impressed by it; I’m glad that my reacquaintance with it via Alpha’s DVD proved to be equally satisfying.


02/12/06: THE BROWN BUNNY [Theatrical Release Version] (Vincent Gallo, 2003) BOMB

Although I had long suspected that the notorious unsimulated fellatio sequence would be the only reason for me to watch this movie, I had no idea that I would have had to suffer through around 75 minutes of excruciating boredom before it got there! Having just come from a 3-month film-making program in Hollywood, I can understand a director succumbing to the temptation of pointing his camera at anything hoping that it will eventually make sense in the editing suite; however, Gallo’s film looks and feels like all the available footage has just been pasted together without any editorial intervention! Scenes just go on and on without any rhyme or reason, characters whisper unintelligibly all through the picture and Gallo’s character comes off as a chick magnet with no sex drive, and a cry-baby in the bargain!! I can’t begin to think how the Cannes Film Festival audience felt when having to sit through an even longer (by 26 minutes!) cut of the film! As for me, I found myself helplessly bursting into laughter occasionally at the sheer self-indulgence, pretentiousness and absurdity of it all; even that sequence is not free of chuckles, as Gallo has his character and Chloe Sevigny’s carrying on a would-be rhetorical conversation while the latter is giving him (pun intended) lip service!! I can understand the furore this sequence has caused given that it features a recognizable, Oscar-nominated Hollywood starlet but, again, Gallo is hardly breaking new ground here, as explicit oral sex sequences featuring established actors were also featured in Nagisa Oshima’s AI NO CORRIDA (1976) and Marco Bellocchio’s DEVIL IN THE FLESH (1986; I can't wait to get my hands on the No Shame DVD)! Maybe he just decided to insert the scene because someone reminded him that the word “gallo” in Italian means “cock” - as in rooster. The "twist" at the end makes everything, particularly that sequence, all the more stultifyingly inept and redundant...

IMDB Reviews

Michael Elliott

As much as I love "classics", I'd have to shoot myself if I couldn't watch current trash like ANIMAL HOUSE, PORKY'S, POLICE ACADEMY or any other recent comedy.



Again, I'd have to play with a gun if I didn't watch anything recent. I use to watch everything that was released into theaters but this has been cut out. I'll certainly watch anything that gets considered the best of the year or something that just interests me. I think if someone overlooks current films it's just as bad as overlooking silents or B&W films. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the majority of us here wouldn't have liked BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN if we had seen it in 1935. Heck, we probably wouldn't have paid it ANY attention since it was just horror trash.


Steve, have you seen the original version? If not, TCM will be showing it at the end of April. You can use a spoiler warning for others but did you figure out the "twist" in the story? I'm not sure if you noticed the nudity but around the 45 minute mark, the daughter is outside when the natives start a ritual. She gets scared and runs back into the cabin where she's grabbed by a couple men. I'm going to guess it was an accident but there are two times where they rip her shirt exposing her breasts.


Agreed on THE BROWN BUNNY. I think the director shows talent but this thing was just horrid. I respect what he was trying to do but it just didn't work.

IMDB Reviews

Michael Elliott

I'd actually agree with you here. There were other epics from overseas and it's just movie lore that keeps BIRTH alive has a "historically important" film. It might have been the first American epic but there were others before it. If someone wants to see Griffith as "the father of film" then they'd have to go back five years to when he started to kick in the editing. Everything Griffith did in BIRTH was done in earlier Civil War shorts by him and the editing was done five years earlier. BIRTH just runs over three hours and the movie lore takes it from there. (The same as with Chaplin and the eating of the shoes. Done eight years earlier but lore gives credit to Chaplin)

Now, there's no question that BIRTH is going to upset people but I think this is unfair to the movie and the director. This type of film (with the racist tones) was done earlier and later but for some reason BIRTH is the only movie to get attacked and Griffith is the only director to be attacked. I'm still not sure why this is the case unless folks simply want to treat Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd differently because they were doing comedies. Perhaps Cecil B. DeMille won't be attacked because he went on to create "pretty" films while Griffith's career was pretty much over after INTOLERANCE bombed at theaters.

To attack Griffith as being racist is just showing ignorance IMO but it seems the majority here don't attack him alone. If you'd also seen BIRTH and knew nothing about Griffith someone might say he was racist but again, this is judging a person on one out of 500 movies. The biggest difference between Griffith and other filmmakers of the time is that he wanted to tell stories. THE BIRTH OF A NATION happens to deal with something we see as racist today but it was just a story. It wasn't meant to be spread around as the truth.

BIRTH wasn't the first time Griffith dealt with racial hatred. You can track this all the way back to his first few films in 1909. Racism was shown towards whites, blacks, Indians, Mexicans, Russians and every other type of race. Did Griffith hate all of these people? Of course not, he was simply telling stories. People look at BIRTH and call him racists against blacks but they should see HIS TRUST and HIS TRUST FULFILLED before saying a word. Both are Civil War shorts that attack whites and say blacks were the only "good" people in the entire war. Was it a message film? No. It was simply a story. BIRTH wasn't a message film either. It was simply a story he was told.

Griffith didn't use screenplays, everything on screen came directly from his head, told in ways he remembers the stories being told to him. There's a 1930 interview with Griffith done by Walter Huston, which was included before BIRTH was released back into theaters. Here Griffith tells how he got the story for BIRTH. It came from a book called "The Klansman", which is fifty times more brutal than the film. Had Griffith wanted to spread the message of hate and racism then he could have gone a lot further by being more faithful to the book. The book was the basic storyline for the film.

The second story came from those who actually fought in the Civil War. The film shows blacks being freed and then taking over white people. Is this the racist aspect of the film? Not to me. The idea of blacks overtaking whites sounds silly and stupid in 2005 because we live in a better time. It was far fetched in 1915 that something like this could happen. However, this was a MAJOR fear for Southern people back when these events were actually taking place. If we were living in the days when the Civil War just ended and were in the south, we'd fear the slaves being freed. Why didn't people want slaves freed back then? Probably over stupid fears that would never come to actually happen and if they DID happen, it was because of a single, stupid person and NOT the fault of an entire race.

In the film, the "racist" aspects include blacks overtaking the government. This hasn't happened since the war ended. In the film, the "racist" aspects include blacks spitting in the faces of whites. Again, this here would be up to a person and not an entire race. You can't blame a race for what one person might do. Other racist aspects include a black man trying to rape a white woman. Again, we can't blame an entire race for this.

You could say, and I would say, that BIRTH shows the above stuff happening by ALL blacks, which is where the racism comes from. Perhaps Griffith should have been more clear and said it was the person(s) doing these crimes and NOT the entire race. But this here goes back to what I was saying earlier. Griffith was telling a story, not making a message film warning white people. The book dealt with these storylines and that's what was filmed. The second part of the story comes from folks who actually fought in the Civil War and feared these events would happen. Griffith was a small boy when his father returned from fighting in the war. Griffith has said he'd sit under the table and listen to their stories about the country and its future. What he heard is the story he copied over in BIRTH.

Were these Civil War fighters racist in thinking blacks would attack all white women? Yes. They were racist for blaming an entire race. What the movie does is simply tell their side of the story. The racism shown in the film isn't a message but a story being told. That story isn't coming from Griffith. That story isn't coming from 2005 and that story isn't coming from 1915. That story is coming from men who actually fought in the war and men who believed slavery was right.

It's no different than THE SEARCHERS. In that time Indians were feared and god forbid someone mixed races. When THE SEARCHERS takes place that type of stuff wasn't allowed and the majority of people would feel just like Wayne did. You can even look at GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER and the racism shown by the two fathers because they didn't want races mixed. This type of stuff here, or what's shown in BIRTH, isn't looked at the same way today and that's why it's important to judge this stuff when it happened and not on today's morals.

I'm not sure if I've left out any of the other "racist" issues in BIRTH but the film is just a story. It's not a message that was meant to be passed around as the truth. Griffith had no ill feelings towards blacks but this here is coming from those who knew him. Not what we see in his films. BIRTH tells the story of a racist and how a racist saw things when the war ended. It's not to be seen in 2005 as a warning to start to Klan back up.

People also mention the blackface issues but this was covered in the other thread. Chaplin, Griffith, Lloyd, Roach and various others wanted professional actors and there just weren't many (if any) black actors back then so whites were given the roles. Just like men playing the women roles way back in the day. How many Indian actors can we name from the 10s-60s westerns? Not many but we could name dozens of white actors playing them. The same with Chaney and Oland playing Asians back in the day.

We could look at "racial" humor in the forms of Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Tom & Jerry or even The East Side Kids. Back in the day this type of humor was considered funny. After Pearl Harbor people wanted to hear The East Side Kids make fun of Japanese people. After 9/11 how many jokes did we hear about that race of people? These films show what the attitudes were in the day and as history, they should be left alone. Thankfully this type of attitudes aren't excepted today but that's no reason to pretend they weren't around back in the day.

IMDB Reviews

Joe Karlosi

Michael, that could be the longest thread you ever wrote. That said, my interest on the very controversial BIRTH OF A NATION is still sizzling.