Track the Films You Watch (2006) - Page 42

Michael Elliott · 07-31-2006, 12:14 AM

Cinemania (2002)

I had never heard of this film until reading Brook's review of it and I think I enjoyed it a bit more than he did, although I agree that this film is somewhat disturbing to watch. It follows five New York film buffs who go to all ends to see the films they love. I always thought I was near the top of those who watch films but after this film I realized that I'm rather tame. One of the men claims to have seen nearly a thousand movies in one month. One guy refuses to have sex with women because the sex can't be in B&W like in the movies. There's another woman who has a collection of soda cups, which she bought at various movies. I'm not going to sit here and call these people freaks or weirdos because they enjoy what they do and if it makes them happy then who am I to call them out on it? At first I thought these people made a few good points but soon their obsession got pretty damn scary with some of the things that were being said. The most bizarre thing was one guy who said he should kill people talking in the theater but he might not get to finish watching the movie because he'd get arrested.

07/29/06

Please Kill Mr. Kinski (1999)

Funny short film from director David Schmoeller about his one film with Klaus Kinski. Kinski was known to hate directors and Schmoeller talks about them two making the horror film Crawlspace and how his crew was personally asking him to kill the actor. There's some very funny footage of Kinski being interviewed and venting about directors.

Buck Privates Come Home (1947)

Pretty good A&C film with the two returning home after the war and trying to adopt a little girl they found in France. This film here is more cute and charming than funny but it does leave a smile on your face throughout. There were about 200 people in the screening and they seemed to have the same reaction. Not too many laughs but plenty of smiles.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

I've talked about this film countless times but it's the perfect blend of comedy and horror. This is certainly the best A&C film and it's one of the better films to blend the Universal monsters. Costello was never better in his career, Lon Chaney, Jr. was back on track after two so-so performances in the House films and Bela Lugosi gives his best performance as Dracula. Even Glenn Strange is good as the monster. IMO this contains one of the greatest screenplays out there because of how well all the jokes are written around the horror elements. The film also contains some of the all time great one liners, especially the ones with Costello picking at Chaney about being a wolf. Certainly one of the all time greats.

I was probably acting like one of those folks in the above documentary because I was really looking forward to seeing the monsters on the big screen. I certainly felt like a kid in a toy store whenever Chaney and Lugosi first appeared on screen and I'm really not sure if I've ever smiled as big and for as long. It was a real treat seeing these two on the big screen. Needless to say, this film had the biggest crowd of the movie series so far with at least 1200 people at the 5pm showing. Everyone was really eating the thing up from the non-stop laughs to the cheers before and after. The final cheer with tremendous. Going into the film I was curious to see if any of the children would be scared by the monsters since this was a problem with parents taking their kids back in 1948. I'm happy to report that a few kids did start crying during some of the monster attacks. I'm not sure if I'm sadistic for saying this but I did make me smile seeing the monster have an impact.

Joe had told me that he had seen some of these Universal films with a large crowd and many people were laughing at the monsters but that wasn't the case here. Everyone seemed to really love both sides of the film, which certainly made me happy.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

I took my girlfriend to the 8pm showing where there were around 1500 people. As with the previous showing this one here was certainly high in atmosphere. Once again the crowd really ate the film up with constant laughs and cheers. It seemed this crowd laughed even harder than the previous because there were a few jokes that people couldn't hear because of the laughs carrying over from the previous joke. The girlfriend really didn't want to go see this with me but she ended up laughing more than I did so I said I'd keep her a tad bit longer. If she didn't enjoy this one I was going to have to throw her out.

Before the film started she asked me why the crowd was applauding before and after the movie. I'm not sure how it is in other places but that seems to be the thing to do when older movies are playing. I guess the fans just appreciate seeing these on the big screen and they enjoy the old time theater feel. As with old theaters, the Louisville Palace just has the one screen, the ticket prices are low and the popcorn, candy and drinks are low. You'd have to see the Palace but I guess it just hits people with that old time atmosphere and people are happy to experience it. This atmosphere certainly wasn't in the theater when we went and watched Clerks 2 last weekend. Someone said I'm missing a lot by not seeing films in a theater but I think seeing an older film and something new is a big difference. The atmosphere of these two showings is something I've never felt in the 1000+ other films I've seen in a theater. The atmosphere of the Hitchcock films last year were the same way.

In the end, I'm glad I live in Louisville where these older films play 5-6 weeks during the summer. I truly love that atmosphere so much that if I lived in NYC I'd probably be just like the characters in Cinemania.

07/30/06

Redman's View, The (1909)

D.W. Griffith short about a tribe of Indians being ran off their land by evil white men. As the Indians go to walk across the desert, their Chief suddenly becomes ill. Here's another anti-racism short from Griffith and as usual he goes a tad bit overboard and the sentimental ending but overall the film works. The wonderful locations are a big plus.

Female of the Species, The (1912)

D.W. Griffith short about a miner (Charles West), his wife (Claire McDowell), her sister (Mary Pickford) and another woman (Dorothy Bernard) traveling across the desert after a local mine closes. Along the way the wife begins to think that the other woman is having an affair with her husband and she wants vengeance. Here's one of the best Griffith shorts I've seen with the director perfectly blending the suspense and sentimental aspects. The four performers do a terrific job in their roles. Once again the locations are really beautiful. A historical sidenote is that this film was released theatrically the day after the Titanic sunk.

Adam_S · 07-31-2006, 04:12 AM

I applaud certain names that pop up in the credits at older screenings, like Hitchcock, Ford, Toland, Murch, Hecht and so on, and anytime (quite often out here) a guest in the audience is there for the screening when their credit shows up. Some movies I'll applaud the main title as well, or just whenever it starts rolling. I've experienced that on new releases as well. The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potters will get applause at the start of the actual film, as will midnight screenings of films like King Kong.

In fact I'm so spoiled by great LA audiences I get annoyed if an audience doesn't respond gregariously to a film that should obvioously be provoking them to response (PIrates of the Caribbean comes to mind, I liked it less because there was less audience response)

Joe Karlosi · 07-31-2006, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Elliott

Joe had told me that he had seen some of these Universal films with a large crowd and many people were laughing at the monsters but that wasn't the case here. Everyone seemed to really love both sides of the film, which certainly made me happy.

Whoa --- hold on and let me clarify a bit, Michael - - I've seen so many Universal monster movies in NYC theaters that your head would spin, but the few times that people "laughed at the monsters" was the exception, not the rule. I've seen far more horror classics where people loved and respected them - among them, DRACULA, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER, SON OF DRACULA, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, THE MUMMY.... people did chuckle at BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and even when the monster threw the girl in the lake in FRANKENSTEIN.... but it really depends which crowd you got there. But seeing movies with a crowd on a big screen in a theatre is a major revelation, and is like truly seeing them for the first time.

Anyway, the more important thing I've told you over the years is that THIS is how the movies were meant to be seen - with an audience. I'm glad you've started to concede this fact.

Michael Elliott · 07-31-2006, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Anyway, the more important thing I've told you over the years is that THIS is how the movies were meant to be seen - with an audience. I'm glad you've started to concede this fact.

I said nothing of the sort. I said older movies. Legends. I don't think BASIC INSTINCT 2 is anything to get worked up over with a crowd. If the crowd thing was such a big thing then I think more people here would be watching films in theaters and not waiting for the DVD. If you look through the first two pages it seems everyone is waiting for the DVD with very few theatrical screenings.

Quote:

The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potters will get applause at the start of the actual film, as will midnight screenings of films like King Kong.

These are more "fan based" films though. Opening night at a horror sequel (meaning F13, Halloween, ANOES) gets the same reply from the crowd. HALLOWEEN 6 was the biggest cheer for one of these films but at the end of the film they were throwing so much stuff at the screen that the cops had to be called in and the next showing was canceled. VERY out of control crowd that night.

Haggai · 07-31-2006, 03:59 PM

The Strange Woman (1946) 7/10
Hedy Lamarr stars in this mid-19th-century period piece about a femme fatale who ensnares various men, apparently because of the psychological scars left by her abusive dad. The solid supporting cast includes George Sanders and Gene Lockhart, and while the story is more episodic than focused, the various seduction scenes are compellingly done.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) 7/10
Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte star in this combination social conscience/heist movie, with racial tension between two of the crooks being part of their potential downfall. The more noirish stuff about the characters being trapped in desperate circumstances is quite good, and the heist itself is a terrific sequence, but the strong female performers (Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame) are underused, and the ending is pretty hokey. Still, the basic heist elements are sufficiently well executed to make it work on that level.

Bullets or Ballots (1936) 8/10
Somewhat slow and talky at the beginning, but the narrative and visual interest picks up very effectively once the story really gets going. The usual suspects of Robinson, Bogart, and MacLane get some good support as well in this one from Joan Blondell.

There's an interesting meta/post-modern/insert-buzzword-here twist to the first scene, where the bad guys, played by MacLane and Bogart, are watching a newsreel in a movie theater (it already starts off a little self-referential just before that--when MacLane buys the tickets, he asks "when does the crime picture start?"). The newsreel shows a re-creation of the verdict being read at a trial for MacLane's character, Al Kruger, where he was found not guilty, and the judge admonishes the jury for allowing justice to be perverted. They show the happy reaction from the Kruger character, with a different actor standing in for him. So MacLane's character is watching a newsreel where he sees a re-enactment of something that happened to him, but with someone else playing him.

San Quentin (1937) 7/10
Bogart, Pat O'Brien, and Ann Sheridan star in this unusually short (only 70 minutes) gangster/big-house movie. All three of the leads are good, as are several of the big scenes, including a prison yard showdown between O'Brien's warden and a crazed inmate, and a big escape sequence near the end. The narrative arc doesn't really conclude for anyone except Bogart's character, so it's tough to rate this one any higher, but most of what's there works reasonably well.

Joe Karlosi · 07-31-2006, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Elliott

I said nothing of the sort. I said older movies. Legends. I don't think BASIC INSTINCT 2 is anything to get worked up over with a crowd. If the crowd thing was such a big thing then I think more people here would be watching films in theaters and not waiting for the DVD. If you look through the first two pages it seems everyone is waiting for the DVD with very few theatrical screenings.

Sorry to hear that. But I believe the main reasons are that movies today aren't much to get excited about, and the ticket prices are outrageous.

But I'm still glad you've seen that the older films can gain even more when seen as intended.

(P.S. - Let's Go Mets!)

Brook K · 07-31-2006, 06:28 PM

Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2005)
This romantic film about missed opportunities and second chances, is structured around a dual storyline. A lonely baker (Robert Carlyle) stops to help a car crash victim (John Goodman). The dying man tells the baker his life story about a girl he secretly loved and how they planned to meet at the MHBD&CS 40 years later. His dying wish is that the baker go in his place and find the girl. The baker, still hurting from the death of his wife, decides to attend, and finds the 2nd chance that the dying man never received.

MHBD&CS has the making of a good film. Its tried & true romantic storyline involves a large cast of recognizable and enjoyable "faces". In addition to Carlyle and Goodman there's Mary Steenburgen, Marissa Tomei, Danny DeVito, Sean Astin, David Paymer, Donnie Wahlberg, Camryn Manheim, Ernie Hudson, Adam Arkin, and Miguel Sandoval. While using the hoary "dance reinvigorates a man's life" chestnut, Carlyle pulls off the role, making us care about him, and Tomei is even more charming as the romantic interest. There's also a good deal of humor mined as Carlyle's "dead wives support group" chums (Paymer, Arkin, Hudson, Sandoval, Astin) join the school and receive their own surprises.

The problem lies in the dual story structure. The accident victim's retold childhood simply interrupts the enjoyment of the present day story. The cast of young actors simply doesn't hold interest in situations we've seen play out in dozens of other films, the way the veteran cast in the present does. The material is also darker and a good deal duller, lacking any of the humor or spark of the present cast and leaving one wishing for Carlyle and Tomei or almost any of the other characters to have more screen time. There's a scene where Steenburgen also undergoes a change of character, but no explanation is given as to why this takes place; a scene that could have helped the film. MHBD&CS two halves simply don't make a whole, turning what could have been a low-key, entertaining romance into a missed opportunity. - C+

Golden Earrings (1947)
Finishing off the Marlene Dietrich collection with Golden Earrings, a film that is part war-time thriller, part "two people from opposite worlds" romance. Ray Milland plays a British Colonel accompanied by a younger officer on a secret mission in pre-war Germany to get a secret formula from a sympathetic scientist before the Nazis get ahold of it. The pair are almost caught, and have to separate. On the run, Milland meets Marlene Dietrich, playing a gypsy who hides Milland among her own people, even piercing his ears to complete the disguise!

I thought this would be the least film of the collection, given it was the one from a director I was completely unfamiliar with - Mitchell Leisen. But it turned out to be quite good. Dietrich is again, thoroughly charming as the earthy gypsy who's physicality and spunk are both disconcerting and attractive to Milland. I'm not a fan of Milland, finding him to be a rather weak leading man type. He gets the job done here, though, with his stuffy shirt transformation believable and even moving by the end of the film. Murvyn Vye provides comic relief as the head gypsy, Zoltan. Leisen's direction is effective; the lighting and staging is handled with care and the tension in the suspense scenes, while not riveting, is exciting enough in a film where the spy story is almost incidental (and rather less interesting) to the main plot of Milland's and Dietrich's increasing affection for one another. With love, laughs, and more than a little danger, this semi-forgotten film deserves to be better known. - B

So to recap, I would rank the 5 films in the Dietrich set:
1. The Flame of New Orleans
2. The Devil Is a Woman
3. Blonde Venus
4. Golden Earrings
5. Morocco

Why We Fight (2005)
Eugene Jarecki's documentary, its title taken from the famous Frank Capra WWII series, posits that we are now experiencing just what President Eisenhower warned the nation about in his "Military Industrial Complex" farewell address. Jarecki uses loads of statistics, newsreel footage, and talking heads to discuss the theory that America is increasingly controlled by interlocking groups of people for whom war is just good business. The film provides startling facts from credible sources and provides many depressing implications for the future of our country.

However, I found that the film tripped up when it ventured away from politics and economics to try to put a human face in the film. Getting into the personal backgrounds of some of the commentators and telling the story of the father of a Sept. 11th victim who had his son's name put on a bomb being dropped in Iraq. This material dilutes the focus of the film, and takes screentime away from points that could have been explained further. Indeed some of the deleted scenes included on the DVD, should have been in the film. Still, for anyone interested in the subject matter, the film is compelling enough to merit a look. - B

Golden Swallow (1968)
Directed by one of most renowned "kung fu" directors, Cheh Chang, this film from the Shaw Brothers Studio stars the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu as Silver Roc, an amoral killing machine in love with the titular Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei Pei). She has been happily living in the country with Golden Whip Hand, a peaceful, respectful man (though of course he's quite skilled at kung fu as well). Silver Roc reigns destruction down on local gangs trying to draw out his lost love by making it seem as if the butchery was committed by Golden Swallow. This works as she and Golden Whip Hand go in search of Silver Roc, but no happiness lies in store for the characters.

Coming long before the days when the genre became almost exclusively comedies, Golden Swallow (aka The Girl With the Thunderbolt Kick) is relentlessly dark, full of death and tragedy in the manner of 60's samurai films. The acting matches this tone, being melodramatic and serious rather than exaggerated into caricature. It includes a number of beautiful, panoramic shots and excellent use of the moving camera for establishing suspense and tension. However, the fights aren't always up to snuff being a bit silly at times and without a lot of the intricate choreography that became a staple of the genre after it exploded in popularity in the 70's. While I wouldn't put Golden Swallow among the top HK swordfighting/kung fu films, it's definitely worth a look for fans of this type of movie. - B

Sandro · 07-31-2006, 09:32 PM

July Recap

35 films seen, 20 for the first time

Best films seen for the first time (out of

)

Cache

1/2
Last of the Mohicans (1992)

1/2
Hoodwinked