by ·Comments Off on Black Narcissus (1947, Powell + Pressburger)

Who ever would’ve thought that I’d like a movie about nuns as much as this. Fucking incredibly amazing movie, one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think that’s just because I’m kinda drunk. Need to see this again and again. Would kill to see it in the theater. Maybe next year, 60th anniversary and all. Oughtta watch it again simply because I wasn’t paying as close attention as I should’ve… but still, seems like an extremely worthwhile movie.

Nuns opening school/hospital in the mountains with “primitive” people and a gruff, attractive male neighbor. One, maybe more of them, loses her mind. Plot and character don’t really need to be discussed, not that I paid strict enough attention to them to be able to discuss anyway, but even though they’re pretty great themselves, it’s the visuals that make the thing a fucking masterpiece. Wanted to cry at the end.

I like how some of the most beautiful shots (in terms of scenery, staging) are also some of the most fakey (obvious sets + backgrounds). Little praying, if any – surprising for a nun movie. Better than Nazarin probably… gotta see Viridiana next.

Also: a cockatoo and an african grey – in the same shot!

by ·Comments Off on The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951, Robert Wise)

What I learned about life in the 50’s from watching The Day The Earth Stood Still:

Women scream and fall down when confronted with danger

Day The Earth Stood Still

In an emergency, army men ignore women entirely and let them get away.

If a spaceship lands in Washington DC, it’s okay to leave it guarded by two men and some police tape

Scientists necessarily have frizzy hair.

When you ask a US general to summon representatives from every country, the only one they’ll contact is Russia, whom they know will say “no” anyway.

Saying “klaatu barata nikto” can help in a lot of situations, not just when retrieving the book of the dead.

Day The Earth Stood Still

Even aliens believe in God. Lady: “He has the power of life and death” Klaatu: “No, that power is reserved for the almighty spirit”.

Kids say “golly” an awful lot.

The cold war was pretty serious stuff.

Aliens are well-mannered white men.

Day The Earth Stood Still

“The decision rests with you”

by ·Comments Off on Why We Fight (2005, Eugene Jarecki)

Not a good movie to watch when depressed, obviously. Patiently explains why the Iraq war and all the other countries we’ve had military dealings with since WWII are symptoms of the “unwarranted influence” of “the military-industrial complex” that Dwight Eisenhower warned against in January 1961.

Why We Fight

GW Bush and Cheney and Halliburton whatever. Saddam Hussein whatever. 9/11 whatever. A man whose son was killed and wrote to ask his name be written on a bomb dropped in Iraq. A woman who works at a bomb factory. Eisenhower’s descendants talking about Eisenhower. We’re all gonna die. Too bad I watched this, cuz now I can’t see Al Gore’s “An Undeniable Truth” without fucking killing myself.

Why We Fight

by ·Comments Off on The Fallen Idol (1948, Carol Reed)

The movie Carol Reed made between Odd Man Out and The Third Man. I’d never heard of it before it opened outta nowhere at the Landmark.

The Idol in question is Baines, the butler, and the Idolizer is Phillipe, a typical shrill young movie kid who says “Baines” a whole damned lot. Baines doesn’t kill his wife, but she falls down the stairs and dies. At the end, I’m not sure if the kid is covering for Baines, “growing up” by claiming to be telling the whole truth while consciously not mentioning that he thought he saw Baines kill his wife… OR if the kid is smart enough to realize he didn’t actually see Baines kill his wife, and to trust Baines even though he realizes Baines has lied to him in the past. So the kid’s either learning to lie or learning to trust despite others’ lies… either way, that’s what the movie’s about.

Baines is having an affair and preparing to leave his wife, and shows no grief at all when faced with his wife’s death in front of the cops. One of those movies where you can see that everyone’s problems come from hiding something important and that all their troubles would clear up if they’d just stop being so secretive. A lotta movies like that.

But then, also one of those movies where everyone (except the dead wife, who died quite by accident so let’s not worry about her) gets away without trouble, where the movie doesn’t force any undeserved consequences on its characters to teach us a harsh life lesson… not all “Quai des Orfevres” feelgood, but nice nonetheless.

Cool looking part when the kid runs through the streets, terrified of Baines and the death, meets a cop… just the right mixture of low angles and shadows. Gets very tense towards the end, with Baines pulling a gun alone in the basement, threatening to kill himself over the false murder accusation.

Good enough picture but low, crackly sound made it hard to understand dialogue. Glad I saw it, but not gonna be a repeat fave. Movies with shrill British kids as protagonists never are.

by ·Comments Off on A Prairie Home Companion (2006, Robert Altman)

Totally enjoyed it. Jim compares it to Neil Young: Heart of
Gold in how the performances look + feel, and that’s about right (except
without the harsh video look of NY:HoG). Lotta performances and backstage
musings about life, death and endings. Except for the Tommy Lee Jones
part, it’s almost done mockumentary-style. If I didn’t know a little bit
about R Altman, I’d think they shot three times as much material and put
the thing together in the editing room. Tricky to make a fully-scripted
movie seem so free, but he always manages.

I don’t listen to the radio show and wouldn’t have recognized Garrison
Keillor’s voice before seeing the movie, so can’t comment on how it treats
the legacy of his show. Very well, I’d imagine, since he wrote it and
co-stars. I’ve read negative comments about Kline, Jones, Lohan and
Madsen’s characters, but I ate it right up… enjoyed all of them. Way to
combine humor with horror. I felt it was worth the ticket price right when
the opening credits started… all those names of some of my favorite
actors together up on screen. I’d happily call it Altman’s best film in a
decade, but I have sort of a soft spot for Cookie’s Fortune.

by ·Comments Off on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)

2006:
More humorous and lighthearted than I’d expected, until the end when it all turns bad for everybody. Georgie is a spoiled kid who grows up and thinks he can marry a girl who doesn’t seem to like him much. Meanwhile, his dad dies and his mom’s ex tries to win her back, which would be extremely easy if not for meddling Georgie who spoils everything for them and for himself. Family fortunes are lost and family names are forgotten.

–
Watched again in 2026…
Framing! Lighting! Blocking! Timing! Acting!

Joseph Cotten better in this than Kane, and Agnes Moorehead, who made a small impression in Kane, gets a meatier crazy role here. Shitty George was third billed in Sierra Madre, the mom is from silents, love interest Lucy (Cotton’s daughter) is “All About” Eve. After George’s mum dies, his uncle leaves and he finds out the family is broke after Aunt Moorehead put all her money into the headlight company. In the last few minutes he ditches a stable job because he needs immediate cash, and gets crippled in an offscreen car crash.

even in his youth / he was nothing / disgrace the family name

by ·Comments Off on My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2005, Guy Maddin)

About what I’d expected, really. Maddin slowed down the pace of his editing to accomodate Isabella’s writing style I guess. Not much to it – She plays herself, her mom (Ingrid Bergman), David Selznick, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin. Talks to her dad’s giant belly. Short, good. “My dad was a genius. I think.”

by ·Comments Off on Punishment Park (1971, Peter Watkins)

In The Future, political dissidents in the USA are given a choice between long jail sentences or four days at “punishment park”, a desert training ground for law enforcement officials. If they can reach a target before the cops catch them, they’re free… if caught, they go to jail anyway.

Movie has two settings… one group at punishment park, and the tribunal for the next group to be sent… flips back and forth between them. The group in “court” (a tent with card tables) is modeled on Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven, with one member ending up bound and gagged. Someone in the group at the park manages to kill a guard, and after that, it’s vengeance time… the whole group is gunned down as they are caught, with the camera crew first standing by, then trying ineffectively to help.

Punishment Park

Not as interesting as The Gladiators, I think, but a lot more straightforward. Can’t decide if I really liked it. Covers a lot of facets of 60’s radicalism, the straight world’s reaction to it, and the direction the country was going politically. Useful as an alternate-history lesson, maybe.

by ·Comments Off on The Newton Boys (1998, Richard Linklater)

More likeable than I’d expected. Don’t know why I thought it’d be a boring movie. Maybe just soured on the whole “western” thing after seeing The Wild Bunch and not liking it.

Anyway. Matthew “Willis” McConaughey is an alright thief with his explosives-expert partner, but could use a few more dependable men, so calls in his brothers Skeet “Joe” Ulrich, Ethan “Jess” Hawke, and eventually Vincent “Dock” D’Onofrio. They rob a whole ton of banks successfully, and finally pull off the biggest railroad heist in history, getting away with some millions of dollars and five bullets in Dock, who I couldn’t believe survived it. Eventually all get caught after the railroad job and get off with light sentences and live to a ripe old age.

Newton Boys

Completely fun, convincing movie that just gets better as it goes on. Great court scene, great ending and credits, lovely antiheroes, everything that Ocean’s Twelve wanted to be – a crime movie where the criminals are having such a good time that the audience gets caught up in in too. Don’t know why it’s got such a bad rap on the IMDB (5.7). I’d see it again.

Newton Boys