What's on your Daily Viewing List? (2 Viewers)

[bujaki]

$ (Criterion Channel) 1971. Richard Brooks directed this heist film about crooks fleecing bad crooks. The final chase scene does go on a bit long. Very good cast; enjoyable film. Casual female full frontal nudity (not Goldie).
World on a Wire (Criterion BD) 1973. Fassbinder's 2-part sci-fi TV movie. A fascination 3 1/2 hour exploration of being, reality, mirrors, reflections, Plato's myth of the cavern, Descartes "I think, therefore I am," Sirk's mirrors as an Imitation of Life, computers as simulations of life, mirrors as multiple reflections capturing multiple reflections of reflections of reality in a computerized world. Leading to the question: The computer we created to create artificial life, or are we the artificial life created by...and so forth...reflecting another reality, another mirror... What a great film! Remember, made in 1973, way before all the others.

 

[bujaki]

After watching Noir Alley during lunchtime, I went ahead and watched TCM's presentation of The Naked City this afternoon. I reviewed the Criterion release several years ago, but I hadn't watched it since then, so it was terrific to see this fine docudrama noir again.

So now we know Sister Margaretta was descended from a martyred saint?
I fell in love with Anna Lee when I first saw her play Bronwyn in How Green Was My Valley. Ford gave her such a beautiful entrance that impressed young Huw (and me) so much. I was about Huw's age when I saw the film and was instantly smitten by Bronwyn's beauty and charm.

 

[Robert Crawford]

After watching Noir Alley during lunchtime, I went ahead and watched TCM's presentation of The Naked City this afternoon. I reviewed the Criterion release several years ago, but I hadn't watched it since then, so it was terrific to see this fine docudrama noir again.

IMO, "The Naked City" is one of the most important film noirs ever made and is an outstanding movie.

 

[Robert Crawford]

By the way, I adore Anna Lee and thought she was great in "The Crimson Kimono". Besides the on location filming of LA, she was the best thing in that movie.

 

[bujaki]

Adding to my Anna Lee admiration story:
I first saw How Green Was My Valley in a 16mm print when I was around 11-12 years old, ca. 1961-62. I cried like a baby, which I was.
Next I saw it at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in a beautiful 35mm print. Unspoiled, unmarred print. I cried like a baby. I wasn't one.
Then I saw it at MoMA in a stunning, I repeat, stunning 35mm nitrate print. I cried like a baby because I had seldom seen anything as beautiful as Arthur Miller's B&W cinematography. And of course, Ford repeats Bronwyn's entrance at the end of the film, affording me another look at Anna Lee's beauty through my tears.
Thank you Ford, Miller and Lee for such a memory!

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Tonight:

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched Julius Caesar (1953) off the TCM app this evening. Great performances all around, and the print shown was OK. Minor work would bring it nicely to Blu-ray.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Another break from the 30 Rock binge:

Do you know what part of the world that poster is from? The United States release date for The Lion King was in June, so it's obviously not our poster because it says October.

 

[Dave Moritz]

May 17th, 2020 Sunday

Decided to watch some content through Disney + on the National Geographic tab.

 

[TravisR]

Do you know what part of the world that poster is from? The United States release date for The Lion King was in June, so it's obviously not our poster because it says October.

I'm guessing it's from England. The only October release dates that match up with an English speaking country are in the UK.

IMDB has a list of various release dates:

The Lion King (1994) - Release info - IMDb

The Lion King (1994) - Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...

www.imdb.com

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Run All Night
Originally Released: 03/13/2015
Watched: 05/17/2020
HDX (1080p) digital streaming on Vudu via Roku 3

A pretty standard issue action movie of the type that Liam Neeson cranked out fairly regularly after the success of Taken. In this one, he plays a washed up alcoholic who once served as the hitman for the Irish mob in New York City. His son wants nothing to do with him until circumstances conspire which result in him witnessing the son of the leader of the Irish mob murder Albanian gangsters. Soon enough, the entirety of the Irish mob, a significant percentage of the NYPD, and a professional hitman are pursuing father and son, who are forced to -- you guessed it -- run all night.

Not the worst example of this sort of movie, but not the best either. It killed a couple hours.

* * *​

The Rest of Us
Originally Released: 02/14/2020
Watched: 05/17/2020
HD (1080P) digital streaming on Apple TV app, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

This small Canadian drama got good reviews on the festival circuit before going direct to VOD in the United States on Valentine's Day.

Craig was a loving husband to Cami and father to Aster until he left them for his mistress, Rachel. For the past decade, he has been a loving husband to Rachel and father to Talulah while Cami has retreated to the rural countryside with Aster begrudgingly in tow.

But then Craig has a heart attack and drowns, and Rachel and Talulah find themselves destitute.

When they show up on Cami's doorstep, she takes them in, for reasons that are only revealed near the end of the movie.

I liked how delicately it observes these two families, drawn together (after long being kept apart) by a man who all of them have loved and all of them have been let down by. For long stretches, it's content to simply observe as these four people get accustomed to one another.

Heather Graham is both warm and cagey as Cami, wife number one, who has the kind of house and job and income bracket that come straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie. She is wealthy and comfortable, but she never moved on from the collapse of her marriage, something that has impacted both her professional commitments and her relationship with her daughter.

Sophie Nélisse is an immensely talented actress, but for too much of the running time she's stuck playing the angry and rude teenager as Aster, daughter number one. But the moments when the pain rises to the surface are beautifully and subtly embodied, and give the character depth she would not otherwise have.

Jodi Balfour makes Rachel, wife number two, likable and relatable when she could have easily been off-putting and cold.

Abigail Pniowsky brings a quiet, perceptive oddness to Talulah, daughter number two. As the one member of this family who has been shielded from the mess her father made of things, she is both the most traumatized by Craig's death and the most open to connecting with her father's first family.

It's to the movie's benefit that the drama is small and the stakes are intimate. But at only 80 minutes, I wish it has been a little less short. It could have used another twenty minutes or so to deepen and further explore the various relationships between the four characters, especially between the two sisters who have lived as only children their entire lives and are only now getting to know one another.

The movie's big twist is fairly obvious from the opening scene of the movie, but figuring it out ahead of time doesn't rob the movie of its impact; the power of the story isn't in its secrets but in its relationships: between these two women who were in love with the same man, between each of them and their own daughters, between each of them and the other's daughter. Those relationships all work, so the movie works.

 

[Mysto]

Last night a little Abbott & Costello. This one was not the best vehicle for our duo. It had the feel of some of the later MGM Laurel and Hardy's where the comedy sequences were squeezed in between production numbers. But on the other hand I really enjoyed the production numbers, especially Ella Fitzgerald. All in all, a worth while watch for a movie I probably haven't seen in 50 years.

 

[Matt Hough]

Good idea about watching Ride 'Em Cowboy, Marv. I may drag this one out today myself even though I had planned on watching the Blu-ray of Far from Heaven.

 

[Mysto]

Good idea about watching Ride 'Em Cowboy, Marv. I may drag this one out today myself even though I had planned on watching the Blu-ray of Far from Heaven.

How about both?

 

[dana martin]

Saturday:



31 years ago a basic cable channel had one of the best ideas at the time, for Friday and Saturday nights, so this past Saturday i relived a typical Saturday night of bad ( but funny as hell) T & A comedies



the are dated, but still damn funny

 

[Robin9]

I watched Five Weeks In A Balloon yesterday. It's essentially a children's movie and adults need to be fairly tolerant which I was last night. The Blu-ray disc has been de-grained and the faces of Barbara Eden and Fabian were far too smooth. In other respects, the Blu-ray disc is good.

I've received three discs this morning, Kitten With A Whip, The Iron Curtain and Run For Cover. I'll decide at the last moment which I'm going to watch tonight.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

The Great Train Robbery was a fun lark (and the big action set piece on the train near the end is very impressive), but my first-time viewing of Hell on Frisco Bay really knocked my socks off. Terrific movie, and a terrific Blu-Ray transfer. And man, did old Edward G. play the king of all louses in this movie.

I love how the poster above tries to make Ladd appear to be towering over Robinson.

 

[bujaki]

Saturday night:
The Anderson Tapes (Criterion Channel) 1971. Lumet delivers a taut, suspenseful heist thriller with a top-notch cast.
Sunday:
I Know This Much Is True (HBO) 2020. The story of the twins, impressively played by Mark Ruffallo, continues. Not an easy watch, but rewarding.
City of Angels: Penny Dreadful (Showtime) 2020. Nasty developments in LA, 1938. This was Chapter 4.
Mackenna's Gold (Criterion Channel) 1969. I don't know. A misfire...All the makings of an epic...it looks spectacular and cheap at the same time...but it offers you Julie Newmar in the nude...and Omar Shariff almost and coyly nude. I'm just going to say it has many exciting scenes but it doesn't add up.
Blonde for a Day (Classic Flix) 1946. PRC values but a nice time killer. PQ was better than the first two entries.

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Tonight:

 

[Matt Hough]

I did watch Ride 'Em ,Cowboy tonight. Fun hijinx with Bud and Lou, but Ella Fitzgerald, aside from getting to sing her hit tune of the day, isn't used enough. I kind of wish Johnny Mack Brown had been made the primary leading man rather than Dick Foran.