Movie-Viewing Experiences 6/4/17 - 17/4/17
A+ = Adored Masterwork A = Excellent A- = Very Good B+ = Good B = Nice Try B- = Tolerable
C = Seriously Flawed D = Pretty Awful E = Truly Dreadful: Looking Into the Void F = Vile & Repugnant: The Void
PERSONAL SHOPPER (2016)
d: Olivier Assayas
CAST: Kristen Stewart; actors with European-sounding first & last names
> creepy; ever-so-trendy Kristen is employed as someone who buys clothes & accessories for rich ever-so-busy women (some job, huh?)...her twin brother has recently died from a heart condition which Kristen also has (doesn't stop her smoking though)...she believes that he will contact her spiritually...someone gets in contact but she's not sure who...; clever use of texting really ramps the tension up; love the way you are not thrust entirely into the story, so you spend time figuring out what exactly just happened; events unfurl gradually and naturally, regardless of how bizarre they are; Kristen is Audrey Hepburn packed in ice
Award-Worthy Performance
Kristen Stewart
DENIAL (2016)
d: Mick Jackson
CAST: Rachel Weisz; Tom Wilkinson; Timothy Spall; Andrew Scott
> I was once a passenger in a car driving back from a work training session...it was late at night and we were 30 kilometres away from home...one of the blokes started to spout forth with an argument that the Holocaust didn't happen...I spat out my mouthful of stout and demanded that we pull over so that I can get out rather than have to listen to this shit...it was a long walk home; this film is a quite-tense depiction of Holocaust denier David Irving / Penguin Books' 2000 libel trial; I was appreciative of the lack of blatantly big emotional scenes to stoke our outrage...it effectively states its case as fundamental moral sense
Award-Worthy Performance
Timothy Spall
THE GLASS KEY (1942)
d: Stuart Heisler
CAST: Alan Ladd; Brian Donlevy; Veronica Lake; William Bendix; Joseph Calleia
> a during-the-war 1940's film noir, so most (but not all...where's the paranoia? where's the shadows?) of the genre features are in place...anti-hero + difficult to tell the difference between crime, politics, the law and big business + sexy as hell femme fatale + bad rich men + cheated poor men + complicated plot + psychotic thugs; there's not much acting going on, which keeps the characters at the level of serviceable (when Brian Donlevy gives the best performance, you know that something is lacking); not much in the way of sarcastic wisecracking either, which is missed...lotsa grimacing throughout; greatly lifted by the tough, frightening scenes with William as a bully-beast; entertaining, but I can't help wondering how much better it would've been with Bogart, Greenstreet, Bacall...
PASSAGE HOME (1955)
d: Roy Ward Baker
CAST: Peter Finch; Diane Cilento; Anthony Steel; Cyril Cusack; Geoffrey Keen
> another "woman-in-a-house-of-men" story...this time on a cargo ship; crew is disgruntled with the starchy captain (Peter) and he is disgruntled by his lonely lot in life...but Diane comes aboard and he falls madly in love for the sheer convenience of her; film is bookended to accommodate a flashback structure which seems to be a needless artiface; strong performances by all concerned (wonderful classic British character actors sprinkled about) without anyone particularly standing out; the pretense of being at sea is craftily done and the inevitable storm sequence is outstanding and must have covered Diane in a helluva lot of bruises; docked a notch because the intended victim shows compassion and understanding to her drunken would-be rapist
THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996)
d: Milos Forman
CAST: Woody Harrelson; Courtney Love; Edward Norton; James Cromwell
> an allow-pornography or allow-censorship story based around the legal exploits of the publisher of Hustler magazine; movie improves as it leaves behind the smalltime tits'n'bums days and goes into corporate hardcore...but in these days of free, easily-accessible, anything-is-available porn, it all comes across as a bit twee; the inevitable jabs at the Moral Right (they're all portrayed as partypooping dingbats) are laboured and elbow any claim to evenness; Courtney is wonderful as the downside of debauchery; smut + drugs + religion + freedom of speech + ridiculous wealth + a nutjob with a gun: God bless America
Award-Worthy Performance
Courtney Love
THE UNINVITED (1944)
d: Lewis Allen
CAST: Ray Milland; Gail Russell; Ruth Hussey; Donald Crisp
> genuinely creepy ghost story that has some of the most effective and beautiful use of shadows / darkness in any movie ever made; Gail is lovely in this and her truly tragic life adds a poignancy to her role as a girl haunted by inner and outer demons; the big old house is rightfully a character in itself and lends a plausibility to the events (like in The Ghost & Mrs Muir and The Enchanted Cottage); unusual use of grown brother and sister as the protagonists; however, what nearly pushes this film off the rails for me are the silly interjections of light-headed humour...totally inappropriate for the tale being told and on a couple of occasions the carefully set-up dark mood is ruined...what was the director thinking?
20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)
d: Nathan Juran
CAST: all unknowns to me except for a guy who ended up in Time Tunnel
> a US rocketship on its return voyage from Venus crashlands in the sea just off the coast of Sicily (bizarrely, it never even makes a wave!); a specimen of a Venutian creature escapes...starts off the size of an action figure but grows rapidly...and it is very pissed off; the star of the movie is Ray Harryhausen...his glorious claymation skills are a pure joy to watch; the monster looks like a komodo dragon on two legs and variations of the design were used in later Ray films; best bit is when the monster goes on a rampage through the streets of Rome and tackles an elephant!; King Kong had the Empire State Building and this guy has the Colosseum; great fun without a single digital SFX in sight...how refreshing
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016)
d: Jon Favreau
CAST: Neel Sethi; Voice Actors - Bill Murray; Ben Kingsley; Idris Elba; Christopher Walken; Scarlett Johansson; Lupita Nyong'o
> live action re-workings of classic animation films...why?...I guess because digital SFX can now match the fantasies which come out of a person's pencil... still seems a little pointless to me; anyway, this is a sumptuous visual feast and they kept in the two great Disney songs (both done poorly here though); I've always had a problem with talking animals (apart from cartoons of course) and to use big-name actors with distinctive vocal patterns & inflections (everybody can do a Christopher Walken) invites disconnection from the characters; the kid does a pretty good job (although his use of phrases like "really cool" and "my bad" don't belong); overall, it was okay but I kept thinking of and missing the 1967 animated version
THE STAR WITNESS (1931)
d: William Wellman
CAST: Walter Huston; Charles "Chic" Sale; Dickie Moore; Nat Pendleton; George Ernest
> a not-entirely homogenised blend of cuteness (Capra-style "typical" American family with a crotchety old grandpa who thinks he's still fighting the Civil War) and nastiness (gangsters kidnap father and 9 year old son and rough them both up...dad gets repeatedly bashed against a wall and the kid gets thrown about...no softening of violence here); the family are witnesses to a gang killing and kept under police guard to testify...cops do a lousy job of protecting them!; the hero turns out to be the unlikely hooch-tippling grandpa rather than any of the to-be-expected types hanging around; final scene is both amusing and a little sad; doesn't mesh as satisfactorily as it should, but certainly an interesting try
THE MAN WITH TWO FACES (1934)
d: Archie Mayo
CAST: Edward G. Robinson; Mary Astor; Louis Calhoun; Ricardo Cortez; Mae Clarke
> based on a stage play written by two members of the Algonquin Round Table, so it's quite 1930's, quite clever and quite sophisticated...and probably was better as a play; an actor wants to protect his actress sister from the Svengali-mongrel to whom she's married, so killing is resorted to (as you do); the twist is pretty obvious right from the start but it doesn't really ruin proceedings too much; however, Mary's dreadful oh-brother acting irks somewhat and not enough is made of Louis' villainy (he coulda been creepier...domestic violence / sexual degradation are merely hinted at); Mae had the potential to be a fun side character but she drops out for some reason halfway through; treats murder surprisingly flippantly
BURKE & WILLS (1985)
d: Graeme Clifford
CAST: Jack Thompson; Nigel Havers; Greta Scacchi; Matthew Fargher; Chris Haywood
> a true story that is so bleak that the film-makers obviously felt compelled to rewrite history just to turn it into a movie that people would pay to see; Robert Burke and William Wills led an 1860 expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria across some of the most anti-human terrain on Earth...it was a complete disaster (despite what the film shows, they did not make it to the sea...the mangroves were impenetrable); stunted characterisation means that you neither understand or particularly care about the men involved; the numerous flashbacks are a tedious device and reveal nothing; nice acting vignette from Matthew at the end; having visited these sites in my travels, the story means something emotional to me, but this remains a botched film; read The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd instead
SYLVIA (1965)
d: Gordon Douglas
CAST: Carroll Baker; George Maharis; Peter Lawford; Joanne Dru; Ann Sothern; Edmond O'Brien; Lloyd Bochner; Aldo Ray; Viveca Lindfors
> tawdry 'n' turgid; involves a private eye investigating the dark past of a rich man's wife-to-be; you want gritty?...how about a rapist stepfather & a take-advantage priest & a karate choppin' transvestite & a fat old lush & a prostitute beater & a blackmailed adulterer?...need it to be softened?...how about the woman-with-a-past becomes a poet and the private eye falls in love with her?; Carroll does her tough gal bit but can't avoid The Young & the Restless over-emoting; the detective is played by a void called George; none of the eyebrow-raisingly-stellar supporting cast make any kind of impression; graded leniently because I could still do my crossword to it without nodding off
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