antonioni's Blow Up. it's exactly the sort of thing i thought i'd like and i found it unwatchable. i hadn't counted on how much antipathy i feel for the swinging london stuff.
Mike Leigh called it "a pile of pretentious crap".
Frankly I've just never got the duration of Antonioni, I mean I get the theme of the films, they often look great, they often have some good acting in them. But they all seem to believe (and lots of people seem to believe too) that they are far more deep, giving far more 'insight' into the human condition than they really do IMO.
The Dirty Dozen - The most 'Aldritchesque' of all Aldrich's films? It's a little bit overstuff, lacks that edge that his very best work had, but it is a good, entertaining, picture with a little more to it than nearly all the pictures that drew inspiration from it afterwards.
Moment to Moment - Jean Seberg is a lonely wife, who husband has left her alone with their son on the French Riviera. She starts to develop feelings for a young sailor after a chance encounter, and ends up in a mess. The film itself is a mess, the first part with the developing feelings of the two, with Seberg trying to balance her love for her husband with her attraction to this other man is done with some intelligence. Then the film flips and ends up trying to shoehorn some half-baked thriller element in. This part is just silly in a stupid way. Still the colours are wonderful.
Orders to Kill - a French resistance cell has lost 5 of its 9 members, they allies think they know who the leaker is and pull in a young American flier to train and send as a agent to kill the man. Quite a bit of suspension of disbelief is required but the film is a decent, often enjoyable little thriller. It could do with losing 15 minutes and being a little tighter, and it would have been interesting to see what say Lang could have down with it, rather than Asquith. But it is no wash out
Frieda - Rewatched this. Made in 1947, it's a question film, 'how do we deal with the Germans?' but a pretty good one for all that. David Farrar, a British pilot shot down over Germany is helped by a young German woman, Mai Zetterling, marries her (out of gratitude) and they escape back to England, where they have to deal with the feelings of his family, friends and community. There are some plot points that are constructed for dramatic license - Germany in 1944/45 must have been a doddle to escape from - but you can accept them without too much trouble. Zetterling steals the show, despite the part being underwritten, the camera adores her, she almost literally shines in some scenes. Bit of a underrated gem of UK films.
