Movies you've seen recently (Part 1)

Cafe Society
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Finally saw 3 Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.

I have to say I loved it. The casting was perfect and everyone in it acted their asses off. Especially Rockwell and McDormand - they deserved those Oscars. It was at times very funny, but we decided that is only so it could be endured, because oh what a bleak, brutal tale. Nobody escapes that movie unscathed. Yet I felt kind of good at the end, because it at least shows you the possibility of positive growth for characters you just would have given up on in any other film.

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The ending was really perfect. Trust a playwright to write something like that.

6218

Even the Ex and his girlfriend!

6219

Saw Swiss Army Man and I didn’t like it at all. If sophomore philosophy, corpse farting and extensive, pointless talk of masturbation are your thing, don’t let me stop you, but I kind of wish I hadn’t seen this. I thought the writing was awful. I loved EEAAO and this film does have The Daniels’ fingerprints all over it, but this was a vastly inferior movie. The acting was good. Paul Dano always does exceptionally well at playing a crazy bastard, and Radcliffe was a compelling corpse.

But these fine actors couldn’t save the film. It was just bad.

6220

The Longest Day (1961), on TCM as part of their “31 Days of Oscar”…every film they’re showing in March was Oscar-nominated.

It’s the story of D-Day, from both allied and German side, shot in a style usually called “earnest”, “stolid”, and “quasi-documentary”. Virtually no effort is made on characterization; it’s just this happened, then this happened, with lots of worrying on both sides followed by shooting and explosions. (The same film-making approach as was taken a decade later in Tora! Tora! Tora!)

The bottom line: allied bad luck (e.g., paratroopers badly missing their landing zones) offset by German blundering (not recognizing that the invasion was not a diversion; not deploying panzer reserves) and Allied heroism.

The noteworthy thing about this film is that every male Hollywood star was in it. Mostly as walk-ons; a star will appear, read a few lines, and not be seen again. According to Ben Mankiewicz’s intro, this was Darryl F. Zanuck’s doing: he devoted massive resources to juggling schedules of the stars.

Most of the officers (on both sides) are Real People; you can tell they’re Real because when they appear, text appears on the screen giving their name, rank, and unit. John Wayne and Robert Mitchum have fairly meaty roles; but we also see Robert Ryan, Sterling Hayden, Edwin O’Brien, Peter Lawford, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda (as Teddy Roosevelt Jr), Eddie Albert; plus every German-speaking actor in the world.

Enlisted men are not Real People but a (mostly unsuccessful) attempt to provide relatable characters. These include Richard Beymer (in the only role I’ve ever seen him in outside West Side Story), Sean Connery (as an Irishman…close enough :slight_smile: ) Red Buttons, Sal Mineo, and several teen idols of the time: Paul Anka, Tommy Sands, Fabian. On the German side there’s Gert Fröbe, in the only role I’ve seen him in besides Goldfinger.

It’s very long, and flawed as noted…but it’s pretty compelling and nicely shot (oscar winner for b&w cinematography). And it ends with a song over the closing credits, sung by the Mitch Miller Singers. I kid you not.

As is typical for films of that era and earlier … it’s a completely sanitized and bloodless war. A character fires a gun, and another character throws up his arms and falls over silently and neatly. There is no blood, no guts, no body parts, no screaming (c.f. Saving Private Ryan).

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I must have seen that film a dozen times on TV as a kid, and the only thing I clearly remember is poor Red Buttons dangling from the church steeple by his parachute.

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Rubber (2010, Pluto) A 4th wall breaking movie about a spare tire that roams the Southwest killing with it’s mind. B, what can I say, it was strange but watchable. Not comedy, not horror, but definitely odd.

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White Lighting 1973 Burt Reyonds

Shot in Arkansas, my home state.

I get nostalgic watching this film. The filmed exteriors and background extras are a time capsule of my 11 year old life. Parts of this film look and feel like home. The shotgun house with added porch looks almost identical to my grandparents home.

Obviously the cast was wearing Hollywood costumes and hairstyles. Ned Beatty is almost unrecognizable in hat and glasses.

There’s powerful undertones in this movie. The extreme poverty, lack of opportunity, and political corruption are strong themes in this movie.

Look past the car chases and fights. See the desperation in some of the faces. You see it in the older parents and grandparents of the main characters. These are people boxed in and left behind. Sell a little Shine, chickens and hogs to feed your family and you still give the sheriff cash every week.

Highly recommend this movie.

Houses like this are featured in the movie. My grandparents started by moving a 3 room sharecroppers shack onto their land. Granddad added rooms onto it and eventually a porch. His house was a little nicer than this one.

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The Batman (2022)

Long, dark (both literally and figuratively), brooding, and joyless.

Some good-to-excellent performances, but I prefer my comic book movies a little more comic book-y than this. Turns out the Riddler is an anti-government conspiracy theorist nutjob, which hits a little too close to reality these days.

6225

Full River Red
I’ve now seen the two biggest box office films of 2022…in China. (This movie and The Wandering Earth 2). It is by Zhang Yimou, who may be China’s premier director. If you’ve seen Hero or House of Flying Daggers, you know that Zhang is a master of fight scenes and breathtaking cinematography that becomes a part of the narrative. In this case, the cinematography emphasizes the sere, claustrophobic narrative set nearly entirely within a walled city in 12th century China. It’s sort of a “Knives Out” story with a bit more grimness to the humor and a bloody ending. I found the score of the portions where the characters are running through the narrow streets of the city desperately seeking the “item” or anyone who can lead them to it to be very interesting, set to a propulsive, almost electronica/hip-hop, version of traditional Chinese song. (there’s a two hour deadline to solve the mystery, with the emphasis on “dead”).

I like Zhang’s films and this one is not an exception. The director knows how to construct a film that keeps you guessing and involved, with so many twists I lost count. I would say the only issue I had was with the extreme nationalistic turn the ending took*.

The ending features a rousing recitation of a famous 12th century poem that concludes with a pledge to restore lost territories (meaning Northern China, but these days, who knows?)

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I find Zhang Yimou to be wildly all over the place. Loved Hero and House of Flying Daggers. I did not enjoy Curse of the Golden Flower or Shadow. I liked The Great Wall better than most other people.

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The Defiant Ones – 1958 – Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis

It was a bit far-fetched, and hamfisted, but pretty good considering the context of its time (50s film-making). Well acted by both leads, especially Poitier. Props to Tony Curtis for insisting Sidney Poitier receive top billing.

Interesting to see a cameo with Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer (of Our Gang fame), in his final screen appearance before being killed in a gun incident.

A good film to see once…but, only once.

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Watched Laura (1944) on TCM this afternoon. Was highly praised, described as a Film Noir Classic.

It was utter shit.

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Something in the Dirt on Hulu. Uh…I don’t have a clue what this film is about. Shoestring budget film made during lockdown with two good performances but I lost the thread right out of the gate.

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I gotta ask, what movies have you liked?

6231

“They can’t all be winners”

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That line is from my favorite movie.:santa:

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That Movie had a lot of great lines.
Bad, bad, bad

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I actually used two of those lines on my answering machine.

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I watched Not as a Stranger and Johnny Belinda on TCM this weekend. I enjoyed both of them. My husband walked in while I was watching Not as a Stranger, and said, “I will never watch a black and white movie again. I can’t stand them”. Within five minutes he was in his recliner and watching. He liked it too. He watched Johnny Belinda with me the next day!