That was my first Melville. It sent me on a quest to see all his other movies. So far, *Le samouraï *is my least favorite. A great movie, but his others are even better.
I like what this newspaper’s Jonathan Rosenbaum says about A King in New York. Well, my googlefoo leaves me empty handed, but he said something about while the movie has flaws, it’s clearly the work of a *free *artist. I.e., the point of view is uncensored and completely honest. Jim Jarmusch is a fan too. And while the movie is certainly flawed–mostly in technique and pacing–it has some of the most chilling moments, and some of the clearest statements about the hypocrisy of American politics, in any film ever made by anyone.
Monsieur Verdoux suffers from some of the same clumsiness of tone, IMO–the segment with Martha Raye is kina hard to take–but it’s another *chilling *political satire. A kind of masterpiece.
Nitpick, but Chaplin’s last film was A Countess From Hong Kong. I remember this because Brando trashed it- he hated the film, hated the making of it, and particularly hated Chaplin (who he remembered as cruel to his family and belligerant to the actors).
Thanks for explaining all that. I did enjoy Le notti di Cabiria, but La Dolce Vita was just too weird for me.
The ending sounds interesting so I’m going to give the movie another shot.
I fast forwarded through La Dolce Vita and only watched the tits dancing in the fountain.
On second thought, I’m fairly sure there was a girl attached to them.
The most recent classic film we’ve seen for the first time was the director’s cut of Woodstock, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary and had a young Martin Scorsese on the crew. We liked it. Inaugurated our new 40" set with it, and you really do need a large screen to do it justice.
I too am not much of a Fellini fan. However, Nights in Cabiria is a masterpiece, and I’d have to put La Dolce Vita in a close second place: largely for the ending though, so if you didn’t finish it, you didn’t see it.
I wish this kind of egregious misogyny was as reportable as the same degree of racism would be. This is pretty disgusting.
Have any of you seen the 1932 version of Rain, starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston? It’s an extremely powerful movie about religious hypocrisy. I hated Crawford’s character at first; it didn’t seem like the right role for her . . . until the “conversion” scene, after which she is shown without her “hooker” makeup. She was never more beautiful than in that scene. And the sexual encounter between her and Huston happened off-camera, and you didn’t even realize it happened until after the fact. Much more effective than a more explicit approach.
I finally saw all of The Children’s Hour recently (had seen bits here and there).
At first I was put off by the somewhat non-straightforward way of discussing the subject matter (especially the actions of Hepburn and MacLaine that made them think they were lesbians), but kept reminding myself of the time period – considering that, they were actually quite frank.
Always love the atmospherics of that time period and good acting by those two and Garner.
I second the mentions of Shadow of a Doubt. The annoyingly naive mother (personality-wise) kept throwing me off but, otherwise, considering it was Hitchcock, I was able to give myself over to the film’s improbabilities, including the detective’s revelation to Teresa Wright and her ultimate strength, given there was no previous hint of it. Again, the mood and atmospherics helped keep me going.
Last classic I saw was Charade with Cary Grant, Walter Mathau and most importantly Audrey Hepburn.
I loved the movie, it was an absolute blast to watch.
If you buy the DVD of the 2002 remake, The Truth About Charlie, the disc includes the original Charade as a bonus–apparently in better quality than if you buy Charade alone!
Can you recommend your favorite? I’d love to see it.
After seeing a documentary about Woody Allen traveling through Europe with his Jazz band, I was impressed by how humble he is. And he seemed really nice. Which is the complete opposite of what I assumed. So, I’d always avoided his films.
Recently, I’ve seen Annie Hall, Manhattan, Everything You always Wanted To Know About Sex…, and Sleeper.
I didn’t care for Annie Hall, but I can see why it was such a big hit at the time.
Manhattan was boring.
Everything You always Wanted To Know About Sex…, and Sleeper were entertaining.
Thank You!!!
I love Charade.
Thanks!
Wow, that’s hard. Each is better than the last. If I had to pick a couple I’d say Le Circle Rouge, and Dirty Money. But you should see as many as you can find.
One classic, one not.
First, the classic: I watched “In Old Arizona”. It won Best Actor Oscar for Warner Baxter in 1929. It’s a passable western in the dime a dozen ‘oater’ idiom. Mr. Baxter does lend his character of the Cisco Kid a certain sympathy as the bad guy of the piece. But that might just be because the ‘hero’ is such a preening moron.
Next, the not: “The Boys from Brazil” Bizarre tale of a plot to clone Hitler. At least now I know where this MST3K riff reference comes from: “You freaked out maniac!!” Notable for the sequence near the end where Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier roll around on the floor together having a good old-fashioned sissified slap party. Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for this???
Try La Strada. I’ve always thought it a good one for people to ease into Felllini with.
That documentary was Wild Man Blues. I liked Allen’s parents; I had no idea until that film that they were still alive. Do you remember the part where the mayor of the city was showing him the burned-out venue where Allen’s band would have performed? Just a few months later, that same mayor was charged with arson in the incident. He was the one behind it!
We love Annie Hall. That’s usually everyone’s favorite Allen film (we loved Manhattan, too.) It won the Best Picture Oscar, beating out big movies like Star Wars. Ebert says something about it was the last little quirky movie to win the Oscar and that films like that probably couldn’t do so today. That’s about right, I think.
That’s weird about the Mayor. I guess he wasn’t a Woody Allen fan.
Another thing that impressed me about the documentary was how he and Soon-Yi, absolutely adore eachother. They were so damn cute together.
His mom was a hoot.