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| carrobin |
 Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:16 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| And there's "Brighton Rock," with the boyishly frightening Richard Attenborough. And how about "That'll Be the Day" and its sequel (and superior) "Stardust," which never made much of a splash in the US but I got the VCR tapes. |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| Out of the three Stardust is the only one I've seen and it's been a while to make a comment...guess it's time to renew an old 'friendship' with Sir Richard. |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| Let's not forget Comfort & Joy, Gregory's Girl and other Bill Forsythe adventures.. |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:42 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Faust (1994) This is the Jan Švankmajer version, blending live action, claymation, old-fashined puppets, and people within puppet costumes. An unnamed man is given a flier on a street corner, discovers it is a map, discards it, finds another in his mailbox, and eventually decides to find out what the map is to. Disturbing things happen, such as a woman carrying her child is dragging a doll by one leg, bumping its head on the stairs and catching its head in the door. When he opens the door to his a apartment, a black cock runs out. When he arrives near his destination, he's in a corridor when a man runs blindly through one door, almost knocks him down, and runs through the door.
Eventually our protagonist finds himself compelled to play Faust in a stage production and for real, which is where the animation comes in. Most of the other Faustian characters are played by the old-fashioned puppets Švankmajer favors. One of these, Faust's jester, furnishes comic relief and is downright annoying. Eventually our Faust does doom himself.
This is sort of a companion piece to Alice, but it didn't work all that well for me. There are some very effective scenes, like the creation of a homunculus, or tiny angels and devils battling with the angels trying to prevent Faust from signing his contract and the devils supplying him with quills so he can do so. But the combination of 20th Century street scenes with old-fashioned puppets just didn't work for me, and the combining of several different stories felt awkward. It doesn't help that there are also at least two versions of "Faust" combined, the Marlowe and Goethe. I'd recommend Alice as a curiosity, but not this. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:01 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| How Green Was My Valley. Still a great film, but the seams show. The cinematography and set design are often magnificent, and there are excellent performances here. Although the film is often criticized for sentimentality, it's also really brutal, as a Welsh family fissures as their village's dependence on the coal industry leads to unemployment, emigration and death. In a way, this is "The Grapes of Wrath" buried beneath the veneer of "The Quiet Man." See for example the brutal expulsion of an unwed mother from the congregation (presaging another scene toward the end when the wagging tongues are directed toward the preacher (Walter Pidgeon) and Huw's sister (Maureen O'Hara). The fracturing of the Morgan family when the miners go on a long strike, climaxing with Huw's mother confronting the strikers over their hostility to her husband, who opposed the strike. And that climactic scene with that damned elevator going up and down carrying the survivors of a cave-in. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:04 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6963
Location: Black Hills
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| Your description sounds like a true "niche" film. Reminds me I finally caught Terry Gilliam's latest, couple nights ago, and made it through about 45 minutes before giving up. Formidable cast, including Andrew Garfield, Jude Law, Chris Plummer, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, but absolutely no spark AFAIC. I've been stressing lately, due to a near-sociopath moving in on the other side of my duplex, and was maybe not in the right frame of mind for a Gilliam film, so might try it again some other time. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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carrobin wrote: And there's "Brighton Rock," with the boyishly frightening Richard Attenborough. And how about "That'll Be the Day" and its sequel (and superior) "Stardust," which never made much of a splash in the US but I got the VCR tapes. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:37 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| I just bought a 2 DVD set of Colloden and War Game by Peter Watkins. Can't wait to see them. |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 4:50 pm |
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| I saw Colloden way back when it was broadcast on the CBC. Terrific. Disturbing. Historic as a depiction of that battle and as the battle was itself. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:14 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Local Hero is probably Bill Forsyth's best. His films were a welcome throwback to the gentle British comedies of the forties and fifities. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:57 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| One of my fifty all-time favs. I love the music. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Let us know how those Langs are.
I'm really hoping this means a lot more Lang dvd's start turning up.
Both Langs were memorable, and one (You Only Live Once) was close to a great film. You and Me is strange and intermittently wonderful. YOLO is a forerunner of Bonnie and Clyde, in that it concerns lovers who wind up on the run robbing banks. It's occasionally almost unbearably suspenseful, in a manner that I've only seen equaled by Hitchcock. Fonda is stardom personified, and Sylvia Sidney in both movies and Fury proves one of the most eye-opening revelations of my movie life.
In all three movies, Sidney gets top billing over Henry Fonda, George Raft, and Spencer Tracy respectively. This sort of says she was a huge star in her day, and for my money she's certainly as skilled as Bette Davis, for example. Somewhere along the line, however, Sidney obviously decided to go the character actress route, and more power to her.
I'd only seen Sidney in Hitchcock's Sabotage, the excellent Violent Saturday from the 50s, and Beetlejuice. In all of them she was fine, but who knew?
In any case, the Lang festival was a big success, and I too hope it leads to more availability of Lang films on DVD. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:39 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 7:53 am |
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Marc wrote: Enter The Void, anyone?
I'm pretty sure that Enter The Void won`t be coming to Medellin. When I get back to North America I might be able to catch it. Sounds like it should be seen on the big screen so you can get mentally and visually pummelled most effectively. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:30 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Quote: By 1929, Sylvia Sidney was on the big screen with "The Different Eyes" as Valerie Briand. There was another film, "Five Minutes From The Station" the following year. Sylvia was slowly leaving the stage for the production studios of Paramount.
1931 saw her appear in five films, of which, "City Streets" made her a star. She was very aware that she was replacing the great Clara Bow, who by now was suffering from severe depression. The contrast between the two actresses was very great indeed and the movie was a hit. The sad-eyed Sylvia made a tremendous impact and her screen career was off a running.
Her next film was "Ladies of The Big House" later in '31. Sylvia played Kathleen Storm, part of a couple framed for a murder they didn't commit. The film made huge profits at the box-office. Co-starring with Fredric March, she then made "Merrilly We Go To Hell" in 1932. The results of the film was, again, an unqualified success.
Later she made "Madame Butterfly" as geisha girl, Cho-Cho San. Here she played in one of the worst productions to date. Most critics agreed that Miss Sidney's performance saved the film from total disaster. In 1933, Sylvia starred in "Jeannie Gerhardt" in the role of the same name. Yet another doom and gloom picture, she played a girl beset with poverty and the death of her young husband before their child could be born. This turned out to be one fine performance and one fine motion picture. Sylvia received the star spotlight in 1934's "Good Dame". Despite her grand performance, the film failed miserably at the box-office, due in part to the miscast of co-star Fredric March. Sylvia scored big with the film critics with "Mary Burns", "Fugitive" (1935). Here she played a law abiding restaurant owner who falls for a big time gangster.
I've never seen any of these.
Anyone? |
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