What's on your Daily Viewing List? (3 Viewers)

[Dave Moritz]

November 4th, 2020 Wednesday

Full Metal Jacket
4K Blu-ray / HDR10
Native 4K
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 upmixed to Auro 7.1

Wow finally got around to watching my upgrade from the HD-DVD version and I am not disappointed as this is a great transfer!

 

[Robert Crawford]

My thoughts on the following viewings:

• Two O'Clock Courage
• They Won't Forget
• Seven Sinners
• The Shepherd of the Hills

 

[bujaki]

Tuesday, while tuning out what was happening elsewhere:
Women Make Films (TCM) Continuing the documentary directed by Mark Cousins.
The Shakedown (Kino BD) 1929. Wyler's first part-talkie, now lost, and only surviving in this all-silent version. It's a hell of a good movie, directed with assurance and anchored by two excellent performances: James Murray (The Crowd) and a kid actor, Jack Hanlon. Murray plays a grifter who is eventually redeemed by a homeless kid in whom he sees himself as a kid. It's not mawkish, sentimental twaddle. Kudos to Kino for releasing this fine film.
The World in His Arms (Kino BD) 1952, Filling one of the gaps in my Raoul Walsh filmography. Fine adventure yarn filmed in Technicolor by the great Russell Metty. Excellent transfer. Peck, Blyth, Quinn against evil Russians in Alaska.
Never Steal Anything Small (Kino BD) 1959. Because I'd never seen it in 'Scope; because it's Cagney and Shirley Jones; because it's a weird hybrid which doesn't quite work (is it a musical about labor unions?). It seems to take place in Fairy land. Anyway, it does have Jones singing and Cagney and Cara Williams in a knockout number featuring a red Ferrari.
The Reckless Age (Kino BD) 1924. Reginald Denny headlines this comedy about an insurance agent that must make sure that his client marry or else...Many humorous and madcap complications ensue, including falling in love with his clients bride-to-be. Knockabout fight at the end is quite elaborate. Denny is very athletic and funny. Very good transfer.

 

[bujaki]

Wednesday:
Boat People (TCM) 1982. Ann Hui's final film of her Vietnamese trilogy. Japanese photojournalist documents the liberation of Da Nang. Impressed, he returns to Vietnam 2 years later and is "guided" by government agents to "cosmeticized" camps. One older revolutionary is scorned by the new blood (they're oh so rigid). The journalist strikes a friendship with a marginalized family and with another young man with whom he visits a camp of minesweepers. The film devolves into a horror story of unforgettable images of what happens when a revolution stifles freedoms. Not for the faint of heart. Communist or Fascist, it doesn't matter.
Line of Demarcation (Kino BD) 1966. A Claude Chabrol film new to me. Location: a town just across the border between the Nazi-occupied France and the Free Zone. The time: Winter 1942. Nazi military officers and Gestapo agents. Townspeople who display moral courage or cowardice, craven or heroic behavior. Jean Seberg is luminous. The B&W cinematography is bleak and noirish; the score is dissonant. Chabrol shoots dispassionately but builds suspense when warranted. This is a very good film on a period of divisiveness when a people fought for their soul.
Love Me Tonight (Kino BD) 1932. I needed something light after the two films I'd just watched, and what could be better than this wonderful romp in this amazing transfer? I hadn't seen this film in years and it remains just as fresh and innovative as when I first saw it, jaw-dropping as a matter of fact. Too bad that so much footage was cut and lost to us. Still, it is one of the best films of its year, and 1932 remains one of my favorite years for films. Highly recommended.

 

[Thomas T]

 

[bujaki]

View attachment 81497

I just found out about this film and it's on my shopping list.

 

[Thomas T]

I just found out about this film and it's on my shopping list.

It will be a first time viewing. The idea of Alain Delon and Annie Girardot in a giallo is intriguing.

 

[Dave Moritz]

November 6th, 2020 Friday

Back To The Future Pt3
4K Blu-ray / Dolby Vision
Dolby Atmos decoded with Auro 3D 7.1.4

That finishes off watching my new steelbook set of Back To The Future in 4K! I am very happy with the video and audio quality of this set!

Fantastic Beasts: Crimes Of Grindelwald
4K Digital / Dolby Vision
Dolby Atmos decoded with Auro 3D 7.1.4

 

[bujaki]

It will be a first time viewing. The idea of Alain Delon and Annie Girardot in a giallo is intriguing.

And in the buff! That's my prurient, voyeuristic side.

 

[bujaki]

Thursday:
I Died a Thousand Times (TCM app) 1955. Color 'Scope remake of High Sierra with not much to be ashamed for. Good cast delivers and the scenery is the same. One could call it pointless what with High Sierra and Colorado Territory already in the can, but people wanted color and widescreen...
All My Good Countrymen aka All My Compatriots (TCM app) 1969. Winner of Best Director at Cannes, and promptly banned upon the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the film plots the story of a tightly knit group of friends in a rural community for roughly 20 years (1945-65). This village is affected by the agrarian reforms of a socialist regime, and it flocks around the figure of a sole resister who suffers, Christ-like, for them. Story ends in a more positive note.
Night Mail (TCM app) 1936. BFI restoration of a documentary about a train making a mail run to Scotland. Some of the talent behind the camera is quite amazing: Cavalcanti, Britten, Auden.
Broken Butterfly (Criterion Channel) 1919. A "lost" Maurice Tourneur comes to light in a magnificent tinted print. The director's eye for visual compositions is in full display whether on studio or location shooting. A master director.

 

[Thomas T]

And in the buff! That's my prurient, voyeuristic side.

Annie Girardot's nudity is quite discreet but Alain Delon goes full frontal!

 

[bujaki]

Annie Girardot's nudity is quite discreet but Alain Delon goes full frontal!

Naughty (pun intended) Alan.

 

[bujaki]

Friday:
Rachida (TCM app) 2002. Algeria, a nation torn between true faith and fundamentalism that degenerates into violence and killings. Rachida, a teacher who refuses to place a bomb in a school, is shot and left to die. She survives but is a victim of PTSD. She moves to a faraway village but is unable to escape her fears, and another band of terrorists attack the village where she has resumed her teaching. The end shows her defiantly entering the classroom with some of the children. Unfazed and determined, the future is theirs. Powerful film directed uncompromisingly by a woman.
V for Vendetta (4K iTunes stream) 2005. Never felt compelled to watch this until I read how appropriate the plot was for today's headlines. And so it is. I found it riveting. End of comments.
Another Time, Another Place (iTunes HD) 1958. Soap, soap, soap. Young Sean Connery drowns in it while cougar Lana Turner suffers. Glynis Johns steals the show as Connery's widow. A VistaVision show shot by Jack Hildyard.

 

[Dave Moritz]

November 7th, 2020 Saturday

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
4K Blu-ray / Dolby Vision
Dolby Atmos via Auro 3D 7.1.4

The Mandalorian: S2/E2 The Passenger
4K Digital via 4K Apple TV/Disney+
Dolby Atmos

 

[Thomas T]

 

[Robin9]

Yesterday I watched Criterion's Blu-ray disc of Holiday, a film I've always liked and always preferred to The Philadelphia Story. Why did Henry Daniell nearly always play unpleasant characters?

 

[bujaki]

Yesterday I watched Criterion's Blu-ray disc of Holiday, a film I've always liked and always preferred to The Philadelphia Story. Why did Henry Daniell nearly always play unpleasant characters?

Just look at his mouth.
I also prefer Holiday to Philadelphia, perhaps because it was not tailormade to a star's personality.

 

[bujaki]

I started the day by watching a broadcast of the Dallas Opera's November 2018's production of Bizet's Carmen, a production I also saw live. It was good to revisit it since it was well sung and acted. Sexy, fiery and violent. Carmen and Jose go at each other as animals in heat. When she asks: "Where are my castanets?" she goes for his nuts. Great touch.
The Photograph (TCM app) 2007. Nan Triveni Achnas, director. Slow, unfolding story of a woman trying to make ends meet while being exploited by her pimp. She works and lodges with an aging photographer with secrets. Their relationship, distant at first, but warm and touching as she helps him fulfill his last wishes, and most important, the symbol and legacy of the last photograph.
Zaza (Stream) 1944. Renato Castellani's version of the story previously filmed as vehicles for Swanson and Colbert. This one stars Italian diva Isa Miranda, lit as a Sternberg vision of light and shadow, hats, veils and curtains. Intoxicating. And Miranda is, probably, the most beautiful and alluring Zaza of them all. The story is the same: vaudeville star and married man fall in love; he keeps marital status from her; she finds out, thinks wife is his mistress, goes for a showdown; meets small daughter; has a change of heart; gives up man. I've enjoyed all the versions I've seen. There are some more out there...
The Salt of Life aka Gianni e le donne (Amazon Prime) The literal translation of the title is so much better: Gianni and Women. After all, it's about a 60-year-old retired man who has been rendered invisible in women's eyes. He still yearns for them, but alas, it doesn't work as a two-way street. Ruefully humorous in its contemplation of life as it passes.

 

[Thomas T]

 

[Mike Frezon]

Peg and I have just watched...for the first time ever...Roman Holiday.

It was sam-fan-tastic!