What classics did you see last week? (14 Jan to 20 Jan 2018)
Jan 21, 2018 3:59:07 GMT
petrolino and Lebowskidoo 🎄😷🎄 like this
Post by mikef6 on Jan 21, 2018 3:59:07 GMT
Psycho / Alfred Hitchcock (1960). Watched my new Christmas Blu-ray disc with the commentary by Stephen Rebello, author of “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” (1990). I learned some things that I hadn’t known before but Rebello doesn’t mention some things I would have. The Blu-ray picture, by the way, is more than lovely. Clean, crisp and clear. The only brief strange things were the distortion caused by the herringbone weave pattern on the sport coat worn by Frank Albertson who played the rich oil man who chats up Janet Leigh and on John Gavin’s sport coat will he is sitting on the bed at the Bates Motel. These scenes only last a few seconds, otherwise I loved the experience.
The Time Machine / George Pal (1960). One of my absolute favorite films from the same year as “Psycho.” Another bright and lively George Pal sci-fi adaptation, full of bright colors (by Metrocolor), the action and surprises don’t slow down for a second. And speaking of falling in love with actresses (were we?), I guess I don’t have to tell you the effect Yvette Mimieux had on adolescent boys. “I’ll protect you, Weena.” Rod Taylor does very well as the TM inventor. Four delightful character actor faces make up his dinner companions who hear the story of his time adventures. Alan Young, fine Scots actor now famous for acting opposite a talking horse, is the viewer surrogate and has the famous line at the very end. Sebastian Cabot is most well-known for the TV series “Checkmate” and “Family Affair.” Tom Helmore, who played Gavin Elster in “Vertigo,” plays his character with a slightly sloshed ironic detachment. He comes close to actually believing his friend’s wild tale. Last, two words: Whit Bissell. Has he been in every movie ever made? His biography says that he died in 1996 but sometimes I think I can catch a glimpse of him in new movies. I can’t get away, though, without talking about the stop-motion special effects. What a kick we got out of the changing fashions of the mannequin in the window. The mountain growing up around and then weathering away from the Time Machine. The changing seasons. The decaying corpse of the Morlock. Spectacular. Wonderful. A beautiful film worthy of love and devotion.
Yvette Mimieux in The Time Machine
Cosa Voglio Di Più (Come Undone) / Silvio Soldini (2010). This is a tale we have seen many, many times in movies (one example from the Classic Era being “Brief Encounter”). Unfortunately, “Come Undone” doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) is an indispensable aide to the CEO of a prosperous insurance company. She is in a relationship with Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston), a handyman around their apartment house. He is overweight but there doesn’t seem to be any tension between them. Then, at an office party, she clicks with a man on the staff of the caterers. He is Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino), married with two small daughters. His family is struggling to keep afloat. They embark on a passionate affair and, finally, have to many some tough personal decisions. I never felt much heat from their professed love for each other or their clandestine couplings at a by-the-hour motel every Wednesday. I kept wondering when they would suddenly snap out of it. I had. Not recommended.
I, Tonya / Craig Gillespie (2017). The story of the Olympics’ most outlandish scandal is given an appropriately outlandish telling in this rollicking semi-comical version of events, a movie that speeds down the highway at 120 miles per hour. The film is narrated in interviews with the story’s characters in 2017: Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie), her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), Tonya’s mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), and Martin Maddox (Bobby Cannavale) of the tabloid news show Hard Copy (“CBS looked down on us,” Maddox laughingly says, “because of the stories we did. Now, they have become us”). All of these narrators are unreliable to a certain extent (“It wasn’t my fault” is a frequent refrain of Tonya). Tonya Harding, you probably already know, was a major player in U.S. figure skating in the early 1990s. She became the first woman to complete a triple axel and land cleanly. Yet her background from the working poor and her life of abuse at the hands of first her mother and then her husband made her unsuitable as the leading symbol of this country’s skating community – at least in the eyes of judges and sports associations. Leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Tonya’s #1 rival, Nancy Kerrigan, was kneecapped by an unknown assailant. When it turned out that Tonya’s husband, Gillooly, and his friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser) may have something to do with it, her life and career goes off a cliff. Robbie is fine as Tonya. She trained hard for the part and does a lot – maybe most - of her own skating (she is helped out in the triple axel with a little CGI tweaking). Sebastian Stan is a find as Gillooly. But you will leave laughing at and infuriated with the people played enormously well by Janney and Hauser. Allison Janney as LaVona Harding is a wonder. Foul mouthed. Chain smoking. Never passing a chance to denigrate and insult her daughter. Never showing a moment of warmth even when explaining that every penny she ever earned as a waitress went to Tonya’s training. Shawn, played by Paul Walter Hauser, is an obese single man still living with his parents, who fancies himself an espionage and counter-terrorism expert who knows dark secrets and dangerous people. It is he who hires two thugy numbskulls to attack Kerrigan. He gives a marvelous comedy performance. As I said, all the acting is in, mostly, a comedy mode – except for Robbie. Tonya Harding is always treated seriously. Highly recommended (although, in the Historical Woman Sports movie cage match, I give the edge to Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, and “Battle Of The Sexes”).
Tonya Harding and Margot Robbie
…Continuing a watch straight through the 10 seasons of Doctor Who: New Series in anticipation of next year’s introduction of the 13th Doctor.
S. 7, Ep. 7 “The Rings Of Akhaten” April 6, 2013. The Doctor and Clara visit a planet about to celebrate a solemn ceremony to their god. The “god” however is waking up from a millennial long sleep and is hungry. We learn more about Clara’s empathy, especially with children, and her courage and resourcefulness.
S. 7, Ep. 8 “Cold War” April 13, 2013. Doctor Who has always thrived on stories of people trapped in a confined space while battling a menace and nothing says “confined” like a Soviet submarine under the ice at the north pole in 1983. An old enemy from the Classic Series (1963-1989) – the Ice Warriors – make their first appearance in New Who. And not just Ice Warriors in general but Grand Marshal Skaldak, Sovereign of the Tharseesian Caste and Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy in particular. David Warner guests as a Soviet scientist.
S.7, Ep. 9 “Hide” April 20, 2013. The Doctor brings Clara to a haunted house in the English countryside in the late 1940s to rescue a future astronaut trapped in a shrinking bubble of the universe. A psychic researcher (Dougray Scott, My Week With Marilyn) and an Empath (Jessica Raine, Call The Midwife) trying to communicate with the ghost that haunts the house are needed to help.
S.7, Ep. 10 “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” April 27, 2013. When space scavengers try to capture the TARDIS for scrap, the living machine fights back and almost destroys itself. The Doctor has to descend into the heart of the engine room and fight inside a virtual reality.
Doctor Who: Cold War
The Time Machine / George Pal (1960). One of my absolute favorite films from the same year as “Psycho.” Another bright and lively George Pal sci-fi adaptation, full of bright colors (by Metrocolor), the action and surprises don’t slow down for a second. And speaking of falling in love with actresses (were we?), I guess I don’t have to tell you the effect Yvette Mimieux had on adolescent boys. “I’ll protect you, Weena.” Rod Taylor does very well as the TM inventor. Four delightful character actor faces make up his dinner companions who hear the story of his time adventures. Alan Young, fine Scots actor now famous for acting opposite a talking horse, is the viewer surrogate and has the famous line at the very end. Sebastian Cabot is most well-known for the TV series “Checkmate” and “Family Affair.” Tom Helmore, who played Gavin Elster in “Vertigo,” plays his character with a slightly sloshed ironic detachment. He comes close to actually believing his friend’s wild tale. Last, two words: Whit Bissell. Has he been in every movie ever made? His biography says that he died in 1996 but sometimes I think I can catch a glimpse of him in new movies. I can’t get away, though, without talking about the stop-motion special effects. What a kick we got out of the changing fashions of the mannequin in the window. The mountain growing up around and then weathering away from the Time Machine. The changing seasons. The decaying corpse of the Morlock. Spectacular. Wonderful. A beautiful film worthy of love and devotion.
Yvette Mimieux in The Time Machine
Cosa Voglio Di Più (Come Undone) / Silvio Soldini (2010). This is a tale we have seen many, many times in movies (one example from the Classic Era being “Brief Encounter”). Unfortunately, “Come Undone” doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) is an indispensable aide to the CEO of a prosperous insurance company. She is in a relationship with Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston), a handyman around their apartment house. He is overweight but there doesn’t seem to be any tension between them. Then, at an office party, she clicks with a man on the staff of the caterers. He is Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino), married with two small daughters. His family is struggling to keep afloat. They embark on a passionate affair and, finally, have to many some tough personal decisions. I never felt much heat from their professed love for each other or their clandestine couplings at a by-the-hour motel every Wednesday. I kept wondering when they would suddenly snap out of it. I had. Not recommended.
I, Tonya / Craig Gillespie (2017). The story of the Olympics’ most outlandish scandal is given an appropriately outlandish telling in this rollicking semi-comical version of events, a movie that speeds down the highway at 120 miles per hour. The film is narrated in interviews with the story’s characters in 2017: Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie), her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), Tonya’s mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), and Martin Maddox (Bobby Cannavale) of the tabloid news show Hard Copy (“CBS looked down on us,” Maddox laughingly says, “because of the stories we did. Now, they have become us”). All of these narrators are unreliable to a certain extent (“It wasn’t my fault” is a frequent refrain of Tonya). Tonya Harding, you probably already know, was a major player in U.S. figure skating in the early 1990s. She became the first woman to complete a triple axel and land cleanly. Yet her background from the working poor and her life of abuse at the hands of first her mother and then her husband made her unsuitable as the leading symbol of this country’s skating community – at least in the eyes of judges and sports associations. Leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Tonya’s #1 rival, Nancy Kerrigan, was kneecapped by an unknown assailant. When it turned out that Tonya’s husband, Gillooly, and his friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser) may have something to do with it, her life and career goes off a cliff. Robbie is fine as Tonya. She trained hard for the part and does a lot – maybe most - of her own skating (she is helped out in the triple axel with a little CGI tweaking). Sebastian Stan is a find as Gillooly. But you will leave laughing at and infuriated with the people played enormously well by Janney and Hauser. Allison Janney as LaVona Harding is a wonder. Foul mouthed. Chain smoking. Never passing a chance to denigrate and insult her daughter. Never showing a moment of warmth even when explaining that every penny she ever earned as a waitress went to Tonya’s training. Shawn, played by Paul Walter Hauser, is an obese single man still living with his parents, who fancies himself an espionage and counter-terrorism expert who knows dark secrets and dangerous people. It is he who hires two thugy numbskulls to attack Kerrigan. He gives a marvelous comedy performance. As I said, all the acting is in, mostly, a comedy mode – except for Robbie. Tonya Harding is always treated seriously. Highly recommended (although, in the Historical Woman Sports movie cage match, I give the edge to Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, and “Battle Of The Sexes”).
Tonya Harding and Margot Robbie
…Continuing a watch straight through the 10 seasons of Doctor Who: New Series in anticipation of next year’s introduction of the 13th Doctor.
S. 7, Ep. 7 “The Rings Of Akhaten” April 6, 2013. The Doctor and Clara visit a planet about to celebrate a solemn ceremony to their god. The “god” however is waking up from a millennial long sleep and is hungry. We learn more about Clara’s empathy, especially with children, and her courage and resourcefulness.
S. 7, Ep. 8 “Cold War” April 13, 2013. Doctor Who has always thrived on stories of people trapped in a confined space while battling a menace and nothing says “confined” like a Soviet submarine under the ice at the north pole in 1983. An old enemy from the Classic Series (1963-1989) – the Ice Warriors – make their first appearance in New Who. And not just Ice Warriors in general but Grand Marshal Skaldak, Sovereign of the Tharseesian Caste and Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy in particular. David Warner guests as a Soviet scientist.
S.7, Ep. 9 “Hide” April 20, 2013. The Doctor brings Clara to a haunted house in the English countryside in the late 1940s to rescue a future astronaut trapped in a shrinking bubble of the universe. A psychic researcher (Dougray Scott, My Week With Marilyn) and an Empath (Jessica Raine, Call The Midwife) trying to communicate with the ghost that haunts the house are needed to help.
S.7, Ep. 10 “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” April 27, 2013. When space scavengers try to capture the TARDIS for scrap, the living machine fights back and almost destroys itself. The Doctor has to descend into the heart of the engine room and fight inside a virtual reality.
Doctor Who: Cold War