What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

[T & P]

The Whale. An unavoidably sad film, the kind I nowadays try to avoid because life is too short, but in spite of everything I watched it and Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-winning performance is superlative and worth the trip.

 

[May Kasahara]

Sound of Metal. Beautiful and absorbing. Riz Ahmed is an incredible actor.

 

[May Kasahara]

The Producers. Still fantastic, of course.

 

[Elpenor]

Days of Heaven. Beautiful, ethereal, stunning cinematography and soundtrack. Restrained dialogue, the pictures do the talking.

I had heard it was to be rereleased with a new restoration but not locally. So watched at home via a torrent. I have since realised I could have seen the restoration a big screen if I take a day trip on the train to Cornwall in a few Sundays time. Now wondering if I should do that

 

[redsquirrel]

Watched these before last Xmas but did not get around to writing them up. Still keeping abreast of the Melbourne Cinematheque I binged on their Gangsters, guns and Gauloises: French crime cinema 1945-60 season, which has films from some of the top directors of the period - Clouzet, Sautet, Becker, Duvivier.

Quai des Orfèvres - I’m a big fan of this, not as famous as Le Courbeau, The Wages of Fear or Les Diaboliques, for me it almost stands up to all of them and is more human than those films. Louis Jouvet as the police inspector and Simone Renant are especially good.

Razzia sur la Chnouf - Jean Gabin is a crook returning from the US who intends to start up a drug racket. It’s pacy, entreating stuff, and certainly watchable enough, though perhaps not quite in the same class as some of the other films in this season.

Classe Tous Risques - Excellent, Lino Ventura is the criminal who has fled France for Italy, now running out of money he decides to return home with his family. As you m right expect despite the title things don’t go well. Absolutely brilliant, just pitch perfect.

Le Trou - Becker’s tale of a group of prisoners trying to escape, based on the exploits of a convict who takes a key role in the film. Again absolute top notch, the prison escape is tense and dramatic and the interactions of the characters and their decisions is both real and with depth.

Rififi - Loads been said about this, the film that restarted Dassin’s career after the blacklisting. It’s certainly well worth watching and very enjoyable, but I rather agree with Godard that is not in the same class as its predecessor Touchez pas au grisbi nor its a descendant Bob le flambeur.

Panique - Apparently a box officer failure on release, you can imagine the deeply cynical look at humanity and criticism of ‘mob rule’ might not go down well in post-war France. Ironically it is based off a novel by Simenon, someone who’s own behaviour during the war was hardly inspiting. Micheal Simon is superb as the depressed, misanthropic loner that gets taken for a ride by a young women and her boyfriend. It definitely deserves its reappraisal. There was a another version made in the 80s with Sandrine Bonnaire in the femme fatale role which I want to check out.

A great top notch season, I can recommend each and every film

 

[Sue]

Watched these before last Xmas but did not get around to writing them up. Still keeping abreast of the Melbourne Cinematheque I binged on their Gangsters, guns and Gauloises: French crime cinema 1945-60 season, which has films from some of the top directors of the period - Clouzet, Sautet, Becker, Duvivier.

Quai des Orfèvres - I’m a big fan of this, not as famous as Le Courbeau, The Wages of Fear or Les Diaboliques, for me it almost stands up to all of them and is more human than those films. Louis Jouvet as the police inspector and Simone Renant are especially good.

Razzia sur la Chnouf - Jean Gabin is a crook returning from the US who intends to start up a drug racket. It’s pacy, entreating stuff, and certainly watchable enough, though perhaps not quite in the same class as some of the other films in this season.

Classe Tous Risques - Excellent, Lino Ventura is the criminal who has fled France for Italy, now running out of money he decides to return home with his family. As you m right expect despite the title things don’t go well. Absolutely brilliant, just pitch perfect.

Le Trou - Becker’s tale of a group of prisoners trying to escape, based on the exploits of a convict who takes a key role in the film. Again absolute top notch, the prison escape is tense and dramatic and the interactions of the characters and their decisions is both real and with depth.

Rififi - Loads been said about this, the film that restarted Dassin’s career after the blacklisting. It’s certainly well worth watching and very enjoyable, but I rather agree with Godard that is not in the same class as its predecessor Touchez pas au grisbi nor its a descendant Bob le flambeur.

Panique - Apparently a box officer failure on release, you can imagine the deeply cynical look at humanity and criticism of ‘mob rule’ might not go down well in post-war France. Ironically it is based off a novel by Simenon, someone who’s own behaviour during the war was hardly inspiting. Micheal Simon is superb as the depressed, misanthropic loner that gets taken for a ride by a young women and her boyfriend. It definitely deserves its reappraisal. There was a another version made in the 80s with Sandrine Bonnaire in the femme fatale role which I want to check out.

A great top notch season, I can recommend each and every film

Great stuff. It's funny how Lino Ventura (with one famous exception) always seemed to play a cop or a gangster. I'm sure I read somewhere that the French public voted him one of the best French people ever despite him never actually being officially French passport-wise.

Not sure if you've seen this, redsquirrel, but think you'd really enjoy it. I was lucky enough to see Tavernier talk about it after a screening. I could've listened to his anecdotes for hours. (He worked with Melville and Godard. knew Gabin etc. Fascinating stuff.)

A Journey Through French Cinema (2016) ⭐ 7.7 | Documentary

3h 21m | 12A

m.imdb.com

 

[redsquirrel]

Thanks I'll put that on my watchlist

 

[DaveCinzano]

Sounds awful, but he did make a great film about the french time there post war:

La 317ème section

I might have a crack at that then, ta.

Well, I finally got round to watching it - great, in a grim way. La guerre c'est l'enfer, dude.

 

[Humberto]

Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Set in 17th-century Holland, it's a largely fictional story based on a painting by the artist Vermeer, played by Colin Firth, and the subject of the painting, played by Scarlett Johansson.

Absorbing. Top marks from me.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Watched these before last Xmas but did not get around to writing them up. Still keeping abreast of the Melbourne Cinematheque I binged on their Gangsters, guns and Gauloises: French crime cinema 1945-60 season, which has films from some of the top directors of the period - Clouzet, Sautet, Becker, Duvivier.

Quai des Orfèvres - I’m a big fan of this, not as famous as Le Courbeau, The Wages of Fear or Les Diaboliques, for me it almost stands up to all of them and is more human than those films. Louis Jouvet as the police inspector and Simone Renant are especially good.

Razzia sur la Chnouf - Jean Gabin is a crook returning from the US who intends to start up a drug racket. It’s pacy, entreating stuff, and certainly watchable enough, though perhaps not quite in the same class as some of the other films in this season.

Classe Tous Risques - Excellent, Lino Ventura is the criminal who has fled France for Italy, now running out of money he decides to return home with his family. As you m right expect despite the title things don’t go well. Absolutely brilliant, just pitch perfect.

Le Trou - Becker’s tale of a group of prisoners trying to escape, based on the exploits of a convict who takes a key role in the film. Again absolute top notch, the prison escape is tense and dramatic and the interactions of the characters and their decisions is both real and with depth.

Rififi - Loads been said about this, the film that restarted Dassin’s career after the blacklisting. It’s certainly well worth watching and very enjoyable, but I rather agree with Godard that is not in the same class as its predecessor Touchez pas au grisbi nor its a descendant Bob le flambeur.

Panique - Apparently a box officer failure on release, you can imagine the deeply cynical look at humanity and criticism of ‘mob rule’ might not go down well in post-war France. Ironically it is based off a novel by Simenon, someone who’s own behaviour during the war was hardly inspiting. Micheal Simon is superb as the depressed, misanthropic loner that gets taken for a ride by a young women and her boyfriend. It definitely deserves its reappraisal. There was a another version made in the 80s with Sandrine Bonnaire in the femme fatale role which I want to check out.

A great top notch season, I can recommend each and every film

Several on there I've been meaning to watch - finally got round to seeing Le Cercle Rouge the other day; superb, really felt the ratcheting up of tension, the assembling of the crew, the near-silent heist, the beautiful ugliness of the French countryside, the weird jumpcutting used in the scene where Jansen casts his bullets, the clobber, the shitty Gendarmerie dragnets (all roadblocks and traipsing through muddy fields), the savant detective... So many bits in it recognisable as having influenced things since.

ETA:

Lots more reccos here:

Best French Fillims

Not just Amelie :/ (I've probably bored on already about The Intouchables - if you've not seen, watch; it's the shit) What are our other favourites from nos amis, les frogs?

www.urban75.net

 

[mwgdrwg]

Renfield. It passed 90 minutes I suppose. It seemed very late 90s cheap.

 

[redsquirrel]

With the crime season containing Becker’s brilliant Le Trou, I caught up with a bunch of his other films. I’ve seen the fantastic Touchez pas au Grisbi (if you’ve not seen it start here, there are few gangster films that better it) before but the following were new:

• Casque D’Or - Like Touchez a gangster film, but a period piece set in the early days of the 20th Century. Serge Reggiani is the former gangster who has tried to out that life behind him and become an honest carpenter, but he gets involve with Simone Signoret and as you can imagine it all ends badly. Perhaps not as vital or new as Touchez but class all round from the director, stars and camera.
• Edouard et Caroline - A romantic comedy, dealing with the travails of a young married couple. He’s a young working class musician, she’s a upper class girl who’s (awful) family want him to play at their party - patronising him in all senses. I really liked this, the two leads a perfectly cast and come across as in love but with real arguments between them.
• Montparnasse 19 - Biopic of Modigliani, a well made entertaining enough film but the weakest of the six by some way. Like too many biopics it is too constrained.
• Groupi Mains Rouge - This is closer to the tradition of quality that the New Wave attacked than many of the other films. But in my opinion not really much the worse for that. Its the story of a young man who returns to his family (clan) in the country after many years away and gets involved with a murder mystery.

A great shame that Becker died only 53, despite his career being interrupted by the war he clearly had the ability to be successful in a variety of genres. Perhaps not surprising that the New Wave excluded him from those they criticised.


After Becker I moved on to watch the MC’s French Poetic Realism season.

• La Quai des Brumes - Jean Gabin is an army deserter on the run looking for a new life who gets mixed up in events in the people who live in Le Havre, in particular Nelly (Michèle Morgan). Things inevitably tick towards their ending.
• Hotel du Nord - The little community based in a hotel on a canal is disrupted when two young lovers who have decided on a suicide pact arrive. Based on this and Le Quai des Brumes the New Wave were decidedly unfair to Carné. The little hints and minor characters are drawn well, and the dialogue is great. But the real star of the show is Louis Jouvet who plays the fatalistic Edmond brilliantly.
• L’Etrange Monsieur Victor - Very much poetic realism, on one hand it is a crime film but only on the surface. The plot has a supposedly upright man, but with a hidden life, murder a co-conspirator. The crime gets put on an innocent man who years later escapes and is given a chance to hide by Monsieur Victor. Raimu is superb in the role of the dual life M Victor.
• Zero for Conduct - one of the two that Jean Vigo finished. There’s been reams written about it batter than I can do but if you have not seen it fix that tout suite.
• La Chienne - One of Renoir’s comedy of manners/satires, a meek cashier and wannabe painter is pulled apart by his nagging wife and a prostitute that uses him. Darker, less polished and more obviously brutal than La Regal du Jeu I enjoyed it.
• Pépé le Moko - Jean Gabin is a gangster (there’s a change!) who has ended up stuck in Morocco, but desperate to get back to Paris. A women enters the scene and causes events to come to a head (I’m beginning to see something of a pattern here). Julian Duvivier was part of the tradition of quality, and he’s no Vigo, Renoir, Becker or Carne, but this an enjoyable story with Gabin doing his stuff (and not totally phoning it in as he did towards the end).
• La Béte Humaine - I love this film, I’d pick it as my Renoir ahead of La Grand illusion or La Regal du Jeu. The energy, tightness, emotion cinema and acting are all just perfect it gives you more in 100 minutes than most directors manage in 10 times that length.

Every single one of these films is very good many of them great, I could recommend then all individually but they are worth doing a bit of a binge on as I think they are even more enjoyable as a collection (and none of them bloated like so many of todays films).

 

[belboid]

mrsb has been away, so I've ben catching up on more recent(ish) horrors...

Jennifers Body - a Diablo Cody as a warm up to her new Lisa Frankenstein. A modern feminist classic with lots of cracking laugh out loud moments.

Strangers in the Woods - there are a lot of woods in this weeks movies, nature is evil I guess. This is a fairly by the book 'why on earth would you go there' thriller, well played with a couple of nice twists and a not terrible reason for going there in the first place. Not a bad bit of lightweight hokum.

Out of Darkness - this one is just out, finally after doing festivals for the last eighteen months. Its a paleolithic horror, also set around some woods, as some early men and women land on in island only to find it is already occupied by a monstrous other. Really well shot and soundtracked, a fake language that sounds quite good and an intriguing story albeit a tad Predatorish). It's also, other than the language which is way too developed, astoundingly accurate to the time, with appropriate clothing and tools as well as interactions with ....... Filmed around Gairloch, it looks great too. Thoroughly recommended.

Lovely, Dark and Deep - yup, we're backing the woods again as our protagonist faces her fears and her memories alone as a forest ranger. Once again it looks great, the woods are really well shot and proper spooky. Quite engrossing and with a brilliant last line, its only real drawback is that I have no fucking idea what went on in half of it. Well, I do, I saw it. But how it ties in with the rest of the film or indeed life in general, well, I'm not at all sure about that. I may go back for another look though, see what I missed.

Camp Pleasant Lake - we're on the edge of some woods this time, but they're still there. I'm not sure if this is a pisstake of old slasher movies or just a really really bad attempt to keep them up to date. Abysmal pile of shite, I gave up after half an hour and scrubbed my mind of all memories. There are jocks and a really annoying couple in it. So I clearly didn't wash very well.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I saw The Kid Detective on the channel 4 streaming site.

It was a good yarn. Bittersweet. Nice neat film. More of this kind of thing please filmmakers.

 

[belboid]

Catching up on films I missed for the Oscars, its been Biopic Week for me.

Nyad & Rustin both looked like they would fit into the perennial Oscar category, 'Worthy Real People in Serious Settings' and so they were. Rustin is by far the more interesting story, organising the 1963 March on Washington. Colman Domingo is superb as the man himself and brings the film alive. Which is good because it is an otherwise largely by the numbers movie. Thankfully a largely decent cast keep it alive (a rubbish Chris Rock aside) and there's a lively score to groove things along. A shame, though, that they all but ignore the reason Rustin was hatred was that he was a communist as much as because he was proudly gay. And the actual March itself doesn't look anything like as impressive as it should have done. Still, way better than I expected and well worth seeing.

Nyad is a sports/survival drama. The only thing of note about is are the two performances from Benning & Foster. They are great, a brilliant couple who sound exactly like old friends of forty odd years. Rhys Ifans is rather annoying and I wasn't that fussed about her desperate struggle to complete the swim. Also very odd that the abuse Nyad suffered was referred to but never explored at all, as if it were just a 'thing that happened'. If you enjoy watching the two leads, its worth it, otherwise, meh.

Maestro - whether this is a biopic of Bernstein or Felicia Montealegre is debatable. I'll say the latter because then all three of these movies will be saved by the excellent performance of the lead. Carey Mulligan is brilliant as Montealegre, charming, convincing, so very human. Bradley Cooper is...mostly fine, occasionally very good, but on too many occasions, not very good. His conducting looked deeply unconvincing. It also has the problem of recreating brilliant scenes from his musicals, but nothing like as well as in the original. The production of On the Town looked third rate, even tho it is the greatest musical ever. All in all, I got bored by it and didn't really care what was going to happen. I won't spoil it, but sad stuff happens.

 

[belboid]

May December

The latest, adapted screenplay nominated, offer from Todd Haynes, with Natalie Portman as an actress going to meet the person her character is based upon, a woman (Juliette Moore) who as a 36 year old had an affair with a 13 year old, to whom she is still married, 24 years later.

Very neat at how communities and families continue, skirting around issues, pretending it's all fine. And how audiences (and actors and writers and directors etc etc) get a thrill out of watching and are thus also complicit. Very good.

 

[belboid]

The Zone of Interest

Jonathan Glazer's holocaust semi-fictional drama. Like any JG it is precisely shot, you just know that every shot looks exactly like it was meant to be shot, a la Kubrick. It is cold and precise, which makes it chilling almost by default. The concept works, for about an hour of the movie (weighing in at the perfectly sensible 1:45 mark) but then, even though it did ratchet up the 'action' a little, still just continued to do the same thing. We get it, evil is banal. And arty, in this case. Somehsat unsettling but also unsatisfying.

Just got Past Lives to see now in order to have seen all the films nominated for the main and/or multiple Oscars (excluding Napoleon and Mission Impossible, which I cba with). mrsb will kill me if I watch it without her though. I'm not sure I can risk it...

 

[Orang Utan]

I felt similar on watching it, belboid , but I keop thinking about it nearly two months. Let it percolate and see if you change your mind

 

[May Kasahara]

Brazil. Today's watch with the boy. I haven't seen it for years, after being quite obsessed with it as a teen, and it was a real pleasure to revisit. Much longer and more meandering than I remember, but still so stylish, funny and bleak. Son also enjoyed it.

 

[belboid]

... in order to have seen all the films nominated for the main and/or multiple Oscars (excluding Napoleon and Mission Impossible, which I cba with).

I decided I would give Mission Impossible a go. I haven't seen any of them before, tho am well aware of their general tone and content. Even so, I ws deeply unprepared for how shit it was. Daft and not in a good way, mostly boring, overly long chases, an utterly uninteresting and just stupid macguffin. What a waste of a ridiculously long time. Ohh yeah, he drives a motorbike off a big cliff. Cool man.

 

[Sue]

I decided I would give Mission Impossible a go. I haven't seen any of them before, tho am well aware of their general tone and content. Even so, I ws deeply unprepared for how shit it was. Daft and not in a good way, mostly boring, overly long chases, an utterly uninteresting and just stupid macguffin. What a waste of a ridiculously long time. Ohh yeah, he drives a motorbike off a big cliff. Cool man.

I've never seen a Mission Impossible film. Good to have it confirmed I haven't missed anything.

 

[redsquirrel]

First Melbourne Cinemathque season of the year - Landmarks of the French Musical, concentrating mostly on post-war films

Une Femme est une Femme - I always feel like I should like Godard more than I do. This is not in the category of say the Image Book which was just tedious pretentious crap, there are some nice scenes and gags, and it does have Anna Karina's star to light things up. Interesting and worth watching from a historical perspective but I found it too in love with itself to really enjoy it.

Anna - Probably an inferior film in a lot of ways but also more fun. For a start the musical numbers are much better, having been written by Serge Gainsbourg - and in fact Gainsbourg's style works very well for a musical. Also Karina gets more to do. The plot is pretty hokum (but then that can be said of lots of musicals) but it is delivered with some style and verve and results in an enjoyable 87 minutes.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - Watched this last year, and everything I said then still stands.

One Sings the Other Doesn't - Agnes Varda is just great, I'll take her over Godard any day and twice on Sunday, Funny, genuinely clever and willing to play around she has none of Godard's pretensions, there's a great humility and humanity in her work. Her two young women are bound together when one needs money for an illegal abortion, and they connect. The rest of the film is about their friendship but also about how their womanhood gives them both challenges and joys. It's a political film without ever being preachy. Also inserting to watch this after Umbrella's with the connection between the directors and the contrasts and connections between the films.

French CanCan - Renior does a musical starring Jean Gabin (who isn't a cop or criminal this time). It's a fictionalised version of the creation of the Moulin Rouge (also about a million times better than that film), great fun. Apparently there was criticism that it was (obviously) shot on sets but that is just daft, the theatrical nature of the film is key in plot, style and visuals.

À Nous La Liberté - rather the odd one out being the only pre-war film, though the sort of irreverent style of musical does fit with the other films. An escaped convict makes good and becomes a factory owner, then his ex-cell mate turns up and causes all types of havoc.

 

[secondwind]

A murder at the end of the world

A great performance by Emma Cullen and beautiful cinematography make it an excellent whodunit.

 

[redsquirrel]

Gloria Grahame season from the Melbourne Cinémathèque. Seen some of these before but good to watch them again

In a Lonely Place - probably the best of all the films in the season, Grahame’s best film and Bogart’s greatest performance. A masterpiece from Ray, with Bogart as the self-destructive mean egomaniac he did so well. Grahame is the possible chance at redemption and happiness, but you do not need to be an oracle to see predict what is going to happen. But the tension developed by Ray, the cast and the film is wonderful.

The Bad and the Beautiful - One of Minnelli’s films about art/filmmaking, the plot follows how a ‘great’ producer played by Kirk Douglas affected the lives of three key people - a director, actor and scriptwriter. There are knowing nods to Citizen Kane with the story of the anti-hero told through the three perspectives. Grahame gets a relatively small role (though it won her an Oscar) as the wife of the scriptwriter. It’s a well made piece of cinema, not quite at the top of Minnelli’s work but well worth watching.

The Big Heat - Lang’s crime film with the infamous scene where Lee Marvin scalds Grahame with hot coffee (unscreen). Ford is the vengeful detective out to destroy a mob boss. Grahame is a Marvin’s moll and who becomes the agent of downfall for the mobsters.

The Cobweb - Another film by Minnelli, here making full use of colour. I watched this a bit ago and it stands up to a second viewing.

Sudden Fear - mostly a vehicle for Joan Crawford (her wardrobe gets its own billing in the title credits), playing the heiress out in danger from her new husband, Jack Palance, with Grahame playing Palance’s squeeze and partner. Overall the film is weakened by Crawford’s desire to make it all about her. But despite Grahame being only on screen for a shortish time she brings character to her role.

Crossfire - Dmytryk’s noir that deals with the subject of antisemitism, as well as the nature and actions of soldiers post-war. Robert Mitchum is the sergeant who attempts to pull a comrade out of trouble after he is implicated in a murder. Grahame plays a bar girl who might be able to provide an alibi. Robert Ryan, one of those actors much underrated in my opinion, also has a key role.

 

[Elpenor]

. Robert Ryan, one of those actors much underrated in my opinion, also has a key role.

some good films there….
Robert Ryan’s performance in Beware My Lovely still gives me the creeps

 

[redsquirrel]

Also watched

Black Tuesday - B-class noir with Edward G Robinson as the crazed mob boss who escapes from death row and is not about to let anything or anyone stand in his way. While not among the top of its genre, there are enough nice turns, good performances and scenes that it is an enjoyable evenings entertainment after a day at work.

Designing Women - Romantic comedy from Minnelli. Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck meet, get married and then have to work out how to live together. She designs dresses and is in with the art set, he is a sports writer who likes a beer and poker game - and who is also causing a boxing promoter/mobster some issues, which adds to the couples problems. I'm not really sure Peck is right for the part, but the main problem is that the comedy is just funny enough enough of the time. There is one great scene at the end though ,which ribs off Minnelli's musical background, with a 'arty' choreographer knocking out a whole swathe of mobsters. It's worth the viewing time for that scene alone.

The Golden Coach - the first part of Renoir's musical theatre trilogy (other's being French CanCan and Elena et les Hommes). Anna Magnani is imperious as the lead actress of a group of wandering musicians who becomes the object of romance for three lovers (one of whom is the king's representative in South America). It is slightly bizarre having all the Spanish aristocrats played as if they were English lords. Overall I did not enjoy it as much as French CanCan but it is still a Renoir.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I watched One Love, and found it to be very light on information about the man who was its subject.

 

[krtek a houby]

Tokyo Joe

1949 Melodrama with Humphrey Bogart. Notable for being one of the first American productions to film in Japan during the occupation. Partly filmed, most of it was shot in the studio lot back in the States.

Not one of Bogie's best films.

 

[krtek a houby]

Fantastic Four (2015)

Not as bad as thought it would be. Certainly better than the 90s effort. Apparently Josh Trank was well pissed off with studio interference. Still reckon the two films from the noughties came closest to half decent FF adventures.

 

[krtek a houby]

The Night Stalker

1972 TV movie that spawned a sequel and series. It might just have helped spawn the X-files too, as Chris Carter was a big fan.

Screenplay by the great Richard Matheson.