Movie-Viewing Experiences 29/9/17 - 11/10/17
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
ANOTHER EARTH (2011)
A FIRST VIEWING
d: Mike Cahill
CAST: Brit Marling; William Mapother; Kumar Pallana
> very impressive low-budget indie film which combines the sci-fi concept of a parallel Earth with personal tragedy, guilt & redemption; a teenage girl makes a catastrophic mistake one night which ruins lives, as a mirror Earth suddenly appears in space...is there a link?; I love imaginative cleverness and this film hits that and then some; acting by all is superb, with a special mention of Brit who is totally convincing as the young woman trying to fix what she has done; little Arty touches fit here (strange music + fiddling with focus + dashes of handheld) and you're never entirely sure where it is going; a great movie experience, during and afterwards
Award-Worthy Performance
Brit Marling
THE PURPLE PLAIN (1954)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Robert Parrish
CAST: Gregory Peck; Maurice Denham; Bernard Lee; Brenda de Banzie
> a WWII film where the war is mere backdrop to another story entirely; fighter pilot stationed in Burma is understandably grieving over the bombing-death of his wife back in England...he exhibits self-destructive tendencies and is nearly discharged...he meets a Burmese woman, falls in love, promises to return, but ends up in a plane crash & stranded in the desert; a resolutely little story, the topic of mental illness caused by duress is its main focus (shellshock & depression & suicide are all examined) and adds interest via its rarity in a war movie; Gregory's role pushes him right to his acting limits (that's not far, I grant you) and he comes off fine, with the three British actors providing strong character support; the trek through the desert (did you know Myanmar had a desert?) seems to me to be harrowing-lite but is still effective
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015)
B+ RE-EVALUATION Original Grade: B
d: Joss Whedon
CAST: Robert Downey Jr; Chris Evans; Chris Hemsworth; Scarlett Johansson; Mark Ruffalo; Jeremy Renner; Paul Bettany; Elizabeth Olsen; Aaron Taylor-Johnson
> my original criticisms remain: it is too much of a slugfest (seen one robot get ripped to pieces, you've seen them all) & the six lots of prophetic visions seem to be excessive, draggy and too much of an ad for the upcoming movies in the franchise & the 141 minute runtime doesn't scoot by like it did in the first Avengers flick; however, the emotional stuff (Hawkeye's family + the Nat/Bruce romance + the Maximoff tragedy) hit me a little harder this time round and the action scenes are perfectly staged WITH A STEADY CAMERA!!; while none of the jokes in this is up to the Hulk-Punch-Thor or Hulk-Flail-Loki standard, they come thick and fast and gave me a couple of snickers; and James Spader clearly has a voice of pure evil
BATTLE OF THE SEXES (2017)
B+ FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Jonathan Dayton; Valerie Faris
CAST: Emma Stone; Steve Carell; Bill Pullman; Andrea Riseborough; Alan Cumming
> the timing of this film is perfect (well...here in Australia anyway): we are postal-voting on a human right + a recent report that women, on average, are still earning less than men for the same job + the death of Hugh "I Objectify Women" Hefner...throw in bitches-do-as-i-say music videos and men outnumbering women in government 10-to-1, and any suggestion of sexual equality is a joke; this film underlines that via what really was a small, ridiculous media stunt between a couple of U.S. tennis players in 1973; however, apart from a stretched running time (coulda lost half an hour, easy), this is a light, enjoyable watch with a sterling lead performance
Award-Worthy Performance
Emma Stone
FUNNY FACE (1957)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Stanley Donen
CAST: Audrey Hepburn; Fred Astaire; Kay Thompson
> a musical which was a box office flop when first released but became a hit second time round in 1964...I don't understand either reaction...it is clearly an above-average production which should have pleased fans of this stuff...but it is also nothing particularly startling or fresh; wonderful colour palette is used throughout so the film pops, and Audrey (forever charming) + Fred (forever young...up until The Towering Inferno) work well together and convince as lovers, despite the 30 year age gap; out of the 9 songs, I count only 2 classics (and not the title song, which is naff) & out of the 8 dance routines, I count only 1 classic (Fred, accompanied by umbrella and overcoat); still, it is an undeniably pleasant way to spend 103 minutes
REAL LIFE (1979)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Albert Brooks
CAST: Albert Brooks; Charles Grodin; Frances Lee McCain; J.A. Preston
> I have always despised so-called Reality TV (it has made me dislike people even more than a bitter old hermit should) and welcome any attempts at destroying it; this mockumentary is about a filmmaker who wants to spend a year recording a normal family doing normal things...without any interference...but, of course, real life can be pretty boring, so interference is inevitable; best thing about this reasonably funny comedy is that Albert Brooks isn't doing his Master of Mope persona (which I've never really liked)...he does a shallow, increasingly manic narcissist instead... far more entertaining (for one movie); while the story runs out of steam, and the amusing situations are quite hit-and-miss (the ending doesn't work at all), there are small features (the camera-helmets; the horse surgery) which tickle the pleasure centre
GOOD SAM (1948)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Leo McCarey
CAST: Gary Cooper; Ann Sheridan; Ray Collins; Louise Beavers
> echoes of It's a Wonderful Life (even George Bailey's brother turns up in a similar role!); Gary is an excessively-good samaritan, giving his money away to those who hand him a sob-story, at the expense of his own family's needs; while Coop does his patented vaguely-numb underplaying, Ann shines in a role that demands wisecracking, sexiness, tears, anger and hysterical laughter...proving yet again that she was the most underrated actress of the Golden Era; the story outstays its welcome and overdoes the schmaltz, but it has an undeniable if-only-that-were-so charm; bizarrely treats suicide-by-overdose quite flippantly
Award-Worthy Performance
Ann Sheridan
STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! aka THE FULL TREATMENT aka THE TREATMENT (1960)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Val Guest
CAST: Ronald Lewis; Diane Cilento; Claude Dauphin
> tries really really hard to be a Hitchcockian psych-thriller but focusses too much on the pysch rather than the thrills; begins with the immediate aftermath of a car crash...innocent truckie is killed and a very recently-married couple retreats to France to recover...but the husband (who was driving) is now a bit of an angry headcase who fantasies about killing his beloved...thank Freud then for the psychiatrist who just happens to live nearby...; while it cries out for James Stewart + Grace Kelly + James Mason to take over the leads, the actual cast is up to the task; the telling is somewhat sluggish without even a whiff of humour to give us a break from all the melodramatics; the twist ending(s) is borderline silly but at least it's surprising (my guess was completely wrong); it works, but Alfred the Great would've made it a whole lot snappier
FINAL PORTRAIT (2017)
B- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Stanley Tucci
CAST: Geoffrey Rush; Armie Hammer; Tony Shalhoub; Clemence Poesy; Sylvie Testud
> not much more than a filmed version of a Reader's Digest "My Most Unforgettable Character" article; writer James Lord has his portrait painted by great Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti... instead of taking one afternoon, it takes a month...that is the foundational joke/premise, and pretty thin it is, too; Geoffrey gives another larger-than-life portrayal that to me seems to flirt with OTT (like his portrayals of David Helfgott and the Marquis de Sade), painting (hee hee) the artist as the standard difficult, irascible, boozing, whoring genius; handheld camera is used throughout for no apparent reason other than ease of shooting (I felt woozy a couple of times) and is an aggravation; a lightweight, pleasant-enough but rather superficial look at the so-called artistic temperament
THE RUNAWAY BUS (1954)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: Val Guest
CAST: Frankie Howerd; Margaret Rutherford; Petula Clark; George Coulouris
> minor British mystery-comedy set in fog-bound England...all the flights are grounded, so a bus tries to take passengers to alternate airport...but thieves have stashed gold bullion aboard...and one passenger is the criminal mastermind; I've always considered Frankie Howerd to be one of the lesser Brit comedians (his endless bitchy exasperation and rambling monologues were always more annoying than funny)...your enjoyment of this film will depend upon him; inevitably, wonderful Margaret overwhelms everybody else, this time playing a billowing old fussbudget who believes in the power of positive thinking; the plot is unnecessarily convoluted (he's the baddie...or is it him...or her...or them?) and nearly grows tiresome but the brief running time saves it
DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966)
C FIRST VIEWING
d: Bernard Girard
CAST: James Coburn; Camilla Sparv; Aldo Ray; Robert Webber
> a dull heist movie (I didn't think that was even possible); for a heist movie to really work, the build-up to the robbery (first two-thirds) must intrigue...why did they buy that? what does he do? why have they chosen that exact time and place?; then the heist itself should be pacy with the unexpected mixed in with the explained (oh...I know what they're gonna do...); top it off with a coda of some sort...Fate playing an ironic hand or one tiny human error fouling it all up (crime shouldn't pay, after all); in this film, the build-up is boring, full of detail and information that in no way plays a part in the big event...the big event is fairly pedestrian and lacking in action or tension...and the coda (in this case, a punchline) is just dumb; the one minor asset is James...as cocky and smooth as ever; watch The Asphalt Jungle or The Italian Job instead
THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935)
D FIRST VIEWING
d: Ernest B. Schoedsack; Merian C. Cooper
CAST: Preston Foster; Basil Rathbone; Alan Hale; John Wood; Louis Calhern
> brought to you by the same guys who made King Kong (I suggest you watch that again instead), this crappy Ancient History drama takes ages to get to Vesuvius blowing its top (1:24:00 in a 1:36:00 runtime!); Preston isn't up to snuff as either an action hero or tragic figure (pity Errol Flynn wasn't available); some bloke named Jesus pops by to save a sick kid and drives his fanclub wild...unavoidably recalling Life of Brian; other giggles include Basil Rathbone as a tightly-curled Pontius Pilate who acts like he needs to eat more fruit and Alan Hale in a toga, reluctantly displaying his flamingo legs; the crushing and burning and collapsing are well done (in a 1935 kinda way) but after all we have had to endure, the sequence is a too-brief and unsatisfying catastrophic volcanic eruption...with no lava!
FYI: the John Wood in this movie (he plays the grown son) was an Australian actor (born in Forbes NSW) working in early Hollywood before the outbreak of the war...he returned home and joined the Australian Army but was captured by the Japanese in Malaya and became a POW in Changi...you can pay your respects HERE and HERE
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
ANOTHER EARTH (2011)
d: Mike Cahill
CAST: Brit Marling; William Mapother; Kumar Pallana
> very impressive low-budget indie film which combines the sci-fi concept of a parallel Earth with personal tragedy, guilt & redemption; a teenage girl makes a catastrophic mistake one night which ruins lives, as a mirror Earth suddenly appears in space...is there a link?; I love imaginative cleverness and this film hits that and then some; acting by all is superb, with a special mention of Brit who is totally convincing as the young woman trying to fix what she has done; little Arty touches fit here (strange music + fiddling with focus + dashes of handheld) and you're never entirely sure where it is going; a great movie experience, during and afterwards
Award-Worthy Performance
Brit Marling
THE PURPLE PLAIN (1954)
d: Robert Parrish
CAST: Gregory Peck; Maurice Denham; Bernard Lee; Brenda de Banzie
> a WWII film where the war is mere backdrop to another story entirely; fighter pilot stationed in Burma is understandably grieving over the bombing-death of his wife back in England...he exhibits self-destructive tendencies and is nearly discharged...he meets a Burmese woman, falls in love, promises to return, but ends up in a plane crash & stranded in the desert; a resolutely little story, the topic of mental illness caused by duress is its main focus (shellshock & depression & suicide are all examined) and adds interest via its rarity in a war movie; Gregory's role pushes him right to his acting limits (that's not far, I grant you) and he comes off fine, with the three British actors providing strong character support; the trek through the desert (did you know Myanmar had a desert?) seems to me to be harrowing-lite but is still effective
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015)
d: Joss Whedon
CAST: Robert Downey Jr; Chris Evans; Chris Hemsworth; Scarlett Johansson; Mark Ruffalo; Jeremy Renner; Paul Bettany; Elizabeth Olsen; Aaron Taylor-Johnson
> my original criticisms remain: it is too much of a slugfest (seen one robot get ripped to pieces, you've seen them all) & the six lots of prophetic visions seem to be excessive, draggy and too much of an ad for the upcoming movies in the franchise & the 141 minute runtime doesn't scoot by like it did in the first Avengers flick; however, the emotional stuff (Hawkeye's family + the Nat/Bruce romance + the Maximoff tragedy) hit me a little harder this time round and the action scenes are perfectly staged WITH A STEADY CAMERA!!; while none of the jokes in this is up to the Hulk-Punch-Thor or Hulk-Flail-Loki standard, they come thick and fast and gave me a couple of snickers; and James Spader clearly has a voice of pure evil
BATTLE OF THE SEXES (2017)
d: Jonathan Dayton; Valerie Faris
CAST: Emma Stone; Steve Carell; Bill Pullman; Andrea Riseborough; Alan Cumming
> the timing of this film is perfect (well...here in Australia anyway): we are postal-voting on a human right + a recent report that women, on average, are still earning less than men for the same job + the death of Hugh "I Objectify Women" Hefner...throw in bitches-do-as-i-say music videos and men outnumbering women in government 10-to-1, and any suggestion of sexual equality is a joke; this film underlines that via what really was a small, ridiculous media stunt between a couple of U.S. tennis players in 1973; however, apart from a stretched running time (coulda lost half an hour, easy), this is a light, enjoyable watch with a sterling lead performance
Award-Worthy Performance
Emma Stone
FUNNY FACE (1957)
d: Stanley Donen
CAST: Audrey Hepburn; Fred Astaire; Kay Thompson
> a musical which was a box office flop when first released but became a hit second time round in 1964...I don't understand either reaction...it is clearly an above-average production which should have pleased fans of this stuff...but it is also nothing particularly startling or fresh; wonderful colour palette is used throughout so the film pops, and Audrey (forever charming) + Fred (forever young...up until The Towering Inferno) work well together and convince as lovers, despite the 30 year age gap; out of the 9 songs, I count only 2 classics (and not the title song, which is naff) & out of the 8 dance routines, I count only 1 classic (Fred, accompanied by umbrella and overcoat); still, it is an undeniably pleasant way to spend 103 minutes
REAL LIFE (1979)
d: Albert Brooks
CAST: Albert Brooks; Charles Grodin; Frances Lee McCain; J.A. Preston
> I have always despised so-called Reality TV (it has made me dislike people even more than a bitter old hermit should) and welcome any attempts at destroying it; this mockumentary is about a filmmaker who wants to spend a year recording a normal family doing normal things...without any interference...but, of course, real life can be pretty boring, so interference is inevitable; best thing about this reasonably funny comedy is that Albert Brooks isn't doing his Master of Mope persona (which I've never really liked)...he does a shallow, increasingly manic narcissist instead... far more entertaining (for one movie); while the story runs out of steam, and the amusing situations are quite hit-and-miss (the ending doesn't work at all), there are small features (the camera-helmets; the horse surgery) which tickle the pleasure centre
GOOD SAM (1948)
d: Leo McCarey
CAST: Gary Cooper; Ann Sheridan; Ray Collins; Louise Beavers
> echoes of It's a Wonderful Life (even George Bailey's brother turns up in a similar role!); Gary is an excessively-good samaritan, giving his money away to those who hand him a sob-story, at the expense of his own family's needs; while Coop does his patented vaguely-numb underplaying, Ann shines in a role that demands wisecracking, sexiness, tears, anger and hysterical laughter...proving yet again that she was the most underrated actress of the Golden Era; the story outstays its welcome and overdoes the schmaltz, but it has an undeniable if-only-that-were-so charm; bizarrely treats suicide-by-overdose quite flippantly
Award-Worthy Performance
Ann Sheridan
STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! aka THE FULL TREATMENT aka THE TREATMENT (1960)
d: Val Guest
CAST: Ronald Lewis; Diane Cilento; Claude Dauphin
> tries really really hard to be a Hitchcockian psych-thriller but focusses too much on the pysch rather than the thrills; begins with the immediate aftermath of a car crash...innocent truckie is killed and a very recently-married couple retreats to France to recover...but the husband (who was driving) is now a bit of an angry headcase who fantasies about killing his beloved...thank Freud then for the psychiatrist who just happens to live nearby...; while it cries out for James Stewart + Grace Kelly + James Mason to take over the leads, the actual cast is up to the task; the telling is somewhat sluggish without even a whiff of humour to give us a break from all the melodramatics; the twist ending(s) is borderline silly but at least it's surprising (my guess was completely wrong); it works, but Alfred the Great would've made it a whole lot snappier
FINAL PORTRAIT (2017)
d: Stanley Tucci
CAST: Geoffrey Rush; Armie Hammer; Tony Shalhoub; Clemence Poesy; Sylvie Testud
> not much more than a filmed version of a Reader's Digest "My Most Unforgettable Character" article; writer James Lord has his portrait painted by great Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti... instead of taking one afternoon, it takes a month...that is the foundational joke/premise, and pretty thin it is, too; Geoffrey gives another larger-than-life portrayal that to me seems to flirt with OTT (like his portrayals of David Helfgott and the Marquis de Sade), painting (hee hee) the artist as the standard difficult, irascible, boozing, whoring genius; handheld camera is used throughout for no apparent reason other than ease of shooting (I felt woozy a couple of times) and is an aggravation; a lightweight, pleasant-enough but rather superficial look at the so-called artistic temperament
THE RUNAWAY BUS (1954)
d: Val Guest
CAST: Frankie Howerd; Margaret Rutherford; Petula Clark; George Coulouris
> minor British mystery-comedy set in fog-bound England...all the flights are grounded, so a bus tries to take passengers to alternate airport...but thieves have stashed gold bullion aboard...and one passenger is the criminal mastermind; I've always considered Frankie Howerd to be one of the lesser Brit comedians (his endless bitchy exasperation and rambling monologues were always more annoying than funny)...your enjoyment of this film will depend upon him; inevitably, wonderful Margaret overwhelms everybody else, this time playing a billowing old fussbudget who believes in the power of positive thinking; the plot is unnecessarily convoluted (he's the baddie...or is it him...or her...or them?) and nearly grows tiresome but the brief running time saves it
DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966)
d: Bernard Girard
CAST: James Coburn; Camilla Sparv; Aldo Ray; Robert Webber
> a dull heist movie (I didn't think that was even possible); for a heist movie to really work, the build-up to the robbery (first two-thirds) must intrigue...why did they buy that? what does he do? why have they chosen that exact time and place?; then the heist itself should be pacy with the unexpected mixed in with the explained (oh...I know what they're gonna do...); top it off with a coda of some sort...Fate playing an ironic hand or one tiny human error fouling it all up (crime shouldn't pay, after all); in this film, the build-up is boring, full of detail and information that in no way plays a part in the big event...the big event is fairly pedestrian and lacking in action or tension...and the coda (in this case, a punchline) is just dumb; the one minor asset is James...as cocky and smooth as ever; watch The Asphalt Jungle or The Italian Job instead
THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935)
d: Ernest B. Schoedsack; Merian C. Cooper
CAST: Preston Foster; Basil Rathbone; Alan Hale; John Wood; Louis Calhern
> brought to you by the same guys who made King Kong (I suggest you watch that again instead), this crappy Ancient History drama takes ages to get to Vesuvius blowing its top (1:24:00 in a 1:36:00 runtime!); Preston isn't up to snuff as either an action hero or tragic figure (pity Errol Flynn wasn't available); some bloke named Jesus pops by to save a sick kid and drives his fanclub wild...unavoidably recalling Life of Brian; other giggles include Basil Rathbone as a tightly-curled Pontius Pilate who acts like he needs to eat more fruit and Alan Hale in a toga, reluctantly displaying his flamingo legs; the crushing and burning and collapsing are well done (in a 1935 kinda way) but after all we have had to endure, the sequence is a too-brief and unsatisfying catastrophic volcanic eruption...with no lava!
FYI: the John Wood in this movie (he plays the grown son) was an Australian actor (born in Forbes NSW) working in early Hollywood before the outbreak of the war...he returned home and joined the Australian Army but was captured by the Japanese in Malaya and became a POW in Changi...you can pay your respects HERE and HERE
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
