What Movies Did You Watch Last Week? (10/04-16/04) CLOSED
Apr 17, 2017 2:15:21 GMT
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Post by darksidebeadle on Apr 17, 2017 2:15:21 GMT
'The Lost Boys' is great gothic entertainment with the two Coreys on board for good measure.
Sylvester Stallone did alot of research before making the violent sequel 'Rambo'. It's my favourite since 'First Blood', one of Stallone's greatest pictures, a punishing old school action spectacular that truly delivers on all fronts.
I was knocked out by the hyperstylised 'Lucy' with its virtuoso turn from Scarlett Johansson. Awesome entertainment from a unique action filmmaker.
Happy Easter everyone!
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Here's my viewings for the week ...
‘Fluke’ (1999, Fuks - Maciej Dutkiewicz)
Low-rent thief Aleks Baginski (Maciej Stuhr) engages gangster’s moll Sonia (Agnieszka Krukówna) in a risky plot.
‘Fluke’ is a sexy screwball neo-noir in which an inexperienced young criminal is forced to raise his game by a woman who surrounds herself with danger. Agnieszka Krukówna is note-perfect as the femme fatale who isn’t all that she seems and a heavyweight support cast includes Janusz Gajos, Adam Ferency, Stanislawa Celinska, Krzysztof Stelmaszyk, Tomasz Dedek, Gabriela Kownacka and Ewa Salacka. The film is nicely photographed indoors and outdoors by experienced cinematographer Andrzej Jaroszewicz who was one of Andrzej Zulawski’s regular cameramen whenever he was working in Poland.
‘Oh, Charles 2’ (2011, Och, Karol 2 - Piotr Weresniak)
Carefree yuppie Karol (Piotr Adamczyk) is able to juggle his demanding mistresses with ease but will he be as lucky in love?
The glossy sequel ‘Oh, Charles 2’ feels like a slick remake of ‘Oh, Charles’ (1985) designed to iron out the original’s creases. Karol Górski, the eponymous hero of Roman Zaluski’s superior social satire, was played as an affable chancer by Jan Piechocinski who created a charming but hapless clown to rival Timothy Lea and Alvin Purple. Piotr Adamczyk’s turn as the college educated Casanova turns Karol into a smug, loathsome, self-satisfied jerk who revels in snarky snideness. This disastrous follow-up is a wretched affair that replaces the original’s qualities with stripped synthetic assets.
‘Chas & Dave : Last Orders’ (2012, Documentary – Julian Hendy)
Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock reminisce about their upbringing and working lives in north London while preparing to call time with their final tour.
‘Chas & Dave : Last Orders’ is an old-fashioned knees-up with English heroes Chas & Dave whose novelty tunes and terrace anthems are sung in pubs up and down the country. They’re tremendous musicians.
‘Populaire’ (2012 - Régis Roinsard)
Reality Magazine editor Louis Échard (Romain Duris) auditions bright young hopeful Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François) of Saint-Fraimbault to be his new secretary.
The appetising comic book fantasy ‘Populaire’ celebrates the solitary digit power possessed by a demon typist. The story concerns the sexual revolution during the Silver Age of Comics, with picture postcard stencil drawings given candy-coloured coatings and a fructose syrup finish. Director Régis Roinsard has assembled an expert cast of farceurs including Bérénice Bejo, Miou-Miou, Eddy Mitchell, Frédéric Pierrot and Féodor Atkine but the picture belongs to Déborah François at her most enchanting. I think it would make a nice double bill with François Ozon’s comedy ‘Potiche’ (2010).
‘Squeeze : Take Me I’m Yours’ (2012, Documentary – Bob Smeaton)
Members of the pop group Squeeze remember their days in south London making music.
There’s a remarkable sense of calm to the documentary ‘Squeeze : Take Me I’m Yours’ which is reflective of the personalities and the music. Squeeze captured the simple pleasures of London life with an invigorating pop sensibility.
‘Beaster Day : Here Comes Peter Cottonhell’ (2014 – Snygg Brothers)
Aspiring poet Brenda (Marisol Custodio) takes a job as a dog catcher to please her father Jake (Tom Cikoski), unaware that a giant killer rabbit is ravaging the local countryside.
‘Beaster Day : Here Comes Peter Cottonhell’ is a tiresome Easter-themed monster movie destroyed by dreadful CGI effects. Marisol Custodio carries the story on her shoulders as spunky heroine Brenda but nothing else works. The giant bunny appears static and immobile so it rarely makes contact with anyone and broken bodies are shown through dire digital images. John Fedele phones it in as Mayor Farnsworth who comes under increasing pressure to call a state of emergency and a raft of cameos from Fedele's fellow Seduction Cinema players adds nothing. This is just a terribly weak movie done off the cuff.
‘House of Manson’ (2014 – Brandon Slagle)
Charles Manson (Ryan Kiser) confesses his sins to law enforcement.
Among the litany of films addressing the horrific crimes of Charles Manson, be it directly or indirectly, ‘House Of Manson’ ranks for me as one of the most disappointing. It traces a well-beaten path from Manson’s birth in Cincinnati, Ohio to his cult’s killing spree in Los Angeles, California, but does so in a taxing, perfunctory manner. Ryan Kiser draws a blank as Manson and there’s no sense of time and place developed, with most everything shot in dark hues within the state of California. I found it a trial to sit through if I’m being honest.
‘Inherent Vice’ (2014 – Paul Thomas Anderson)
Private eye Doc Sportello (Joaquin Pheonix) accepts a complicated case involving adultery and a big cash steal.
‘Inherent Vice’ is a shaggy dog story based on a novel by Thomas Pynchon. Set in the heady days of 1970, it’s California dreaming in the hands of two of the Golden State’s favourite sons, director Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit. The sexually charged atmosphere powering Doc’s labyrinth investigation folds beneath ripples caused by goofs, oddballs and eccentrics; nobody’s making waves along the beachfront and a serpentine terror plot gets lost within dark shadows being cast by the crimes of Charles Manson and his cult.
‘R.E.M. By MTV’ (2014, Documentary – Alexander Young)
A document of rock group R.E.M. built from footage found in the MTV vaults.
‘R.E.M. By MTV’ puts forward a potted history of the band by compiling a mannered assemblage of scattershot memories. It’s bedevilled by a proliferation of rapid cuts which is typical of MTV’s own productions. I feel it lacks the strategic planning required to craft a compelling chronicle of R.E.M.'s career and many of the clips and inserts seem random which grows frustrating. Only a few American college radio rock bands of the 1980s were able to consistently release longplayers of such high quality over so many years (Sonic Youth are a prime example, Violent Femmes and Throwing Muses also); this is partly because so many of the best bands broke up and few made it big like R.E.M. Still, if nothing else, ‘R.E.M. By MTV’ reminds us of the depth and diversity displayed by the band throughout their days as a four man unit. I think the definitive documentary on R.E.M. and their music has yet to be made.
‘The Big Short’ (2015 – Adam McKay)
Inside traders Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), Michel Burry (Christian Bale) and Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) join forces to make a big earner while circumventing the downward spiral being initiated by mortgage brokers’ subprime lending.
‘The Big Short’ is a long, talky drama about the lead-up to the global financial crash of 2008 for which nobody seemed to be held accountable. It largely eschews the greed, gangster fantasies and bling culture of executive action ‘The Wolf In Wall Street’ (2013) in favour of education and explanation regarding the deliberately hard-to-decipher terms favoured by big corporations and financial institutions. Director Adam McKay invites Margot Robbie to sip champagne in a luxury bubble bath and establish a connection between his and Martin Scorsese’s films. McKay uses tricks like celebrity endorsements, time jumps, divided narration and straight-to-camera monologues in the style of Woody Allen. I don’t like the characters that populate ‘The Big Short’ but I found the story reasonably interesting.
‘The Conjuring 2’ (2016 – James Wan)
Parapsychologists Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) travel to north London to help the Hodgson family.
‘The Conjuring 2’ is James Wan’s quickfire follow-on to ‘The Conjuring’ (2013), with John Leonetti’s spin-off instalment ‘Annabelle’ (2014) coming in between. It’s loosely based on the strange case of the Enfield Haunting. What’s interesting to me about the ‘Conjuring’ films is their breakneck pacing, a departure from the slow, stately pace and sedate compositional style typical of classical haunted house pictures. Wan knows how to deliver a jump scare and what these films lack in atmosphere they make up for in jolts and thrills. I don’t think ‘The Conjuring 2’ works nearly as well in terms of storytelling as ‘The Conjuring’, and I preferred ‘Annabelle’, but it’s a solid sequel that serves up a decent night’s horror entertainment.
‘Gene Tierney : A Forgotten Star’ (2016, Documentary – Clara Kuperberg & Julia Kuperberg)
An intimate portrait of 20th Century ‘Fox Girl’ Gene Tierney who rose through the studio ranks alongside Jeanne Crain and Linda Darnell.
The documentary ‘Gene Tierney : A Forgotten Star’ constructs a personalised biography of Tierney by quoting carefully selected extracts from her memoir ‘Self Portrait’ (co-authored by ‘Mad’ Mickey Herskowitz). It’s heavy on projection though light on detail, proffering the general idea that Tierney’s measured gift for underplaying mystery significantly enhanced her enigmatic qualities therein. Dedicated fan Martin Scorsese leads the tributes.
“From the moment she first appeared on the big screen, Tierney was a star. The critics weren’t always taken with her performances, but audiences loved her mix of exotic and girl-next-door beauty. She had a slight overbite, which Tierney refused to correct, when she came to Hollywood. In fact, she had it written into her contract that she had “control” of her teeth and hair. A clause like that may seem odd to us today, but during the reign of the major Hollywood studios it was unusual for an actor or actress to have those kinds of exceptions written into their contracts. Tierney was far from a diva or prima donna when it came to performing on the set. Known for her professionalism and kindness with both cast and crew, her first husband, Oleg Cassini said Tierney wanted everyone around her to “be happy.” Gene Eliza Tierney was born in Brooklyn, NY, on November 19, 1920.”
- Stephen Reginald, Meet Me At The Movies In Chicago
“Anne Baxter found herself in Hollywood at 16 and under contract with 20th Century Fox for the next seven years, appearing on screen in the western ‘20 Mule Team’ in 1940 starring Wallace Beery and Leo Carrillo. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing Anne's first film about refining Borax in Death Valley during the 1800's but I've been to Death Valley and all I can say is it's very hot and dry with tumbleweeds as far as the eye can see. Let's hope they weren't actually on location there while filming. That same year Anne was lucky enough to get a supporting role in ‘The Great Profile’, starring the great John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes and Lionel Atwill. Directed by Walter Lang, the comedy really is just a spoof on Barrymore's career and his private life which as we know involved a lot of hard drinking that was the root of a lot of his tempestuous behavior on set and in his personal relationships. Much credit goes to Anne's acting abilities to take on the role of the young and optimistic playwright who believes in Barrymore's character enough to take his career on as a project in the hopes of turning it around with her creativity and guidance. Of course we can't forget that Anne started filming at the ripe old age of 16, then she worked with Barrymore who was able to get himself to the set each day but consumed by alcoholism by this time, he would start to drink by noon and had to have his lines fed to him via giant cue cards and a giant blackboard. Somehow it all worked as Barrymore comes across as the consummate performer in light of these difficulties on set, to the credit of Walter Lang at the helm.”
- Page, ‘My Love Of Old Hollywood’
“Being beautiful was Linda Darnell’s curse. She was an emotionally intuitive actress, but almost from the beginning of her career, she was typecast because of her looks. Add in alcohol problems and a series of tortured relationships, and you have the recipe for a full-tilt Hollywood tragedy.”
- Jake Hinkson, ‘Noir’s Hard Luck Ladies’
“One of the series' weirdest juxtapositions pairs Mr. Scorsese's 1974 film, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," with Jean Negulesco's all-but-forgotten 1951 movie "Take Care of My Little Girl." In "Alice," a cross between a road movie and a traditional Hollywood "woman's picture" for someone like Bette Davis, a nervy young widow (Ellen Burstyn) with ambitions to be a singer breaks with convention and takes to the road with her prepubescent son. "Take Care of My Little Girl" portrays the rebellion of a student (Jeanne Crain) who chooses not to be a member of her mother's snooty and unprincipled college sorority. "The Negulesco film interested me because of the statement it made about conformity in early-50's America," Mr. Scorsese said. "If you overlook the conventions of the time, such as having the women playing the college-age kids be in their 30's, you can go with the movie and not laugh at it." No Throwaways. Along with the universality of Mr. Scorsese's taste, it is his passionate perceptiveness in discerning personal artistic visions and technical feats in the lowliest B movies that gives the series a genuine historic interest. "It's really important to me for some of these films to be seen, if just for fun," Mr. Scorsese said. "But I'm also trying to make a point that you never know how certain things will affect certain people. Out of 'Getting Gertie's Garter,' you can have an 'After Hours.' 'The Last Temptation of Christ' came through 'Accatone!' " Mr. Scorsese, who has been a passionate advocate for the preservation of old movies, was adamant about the ultimate worth of B movies and other Hollywood throwaways. "It's a dangerous situation if you have to start making value judgments about which ones should be saved and which not," he said. "Thirty years from now, the film you destroy could have been something that influenced 25 people to make wonderful movies."
- Stephen Holden speaks with Martin Scorsese about the Lincoln Center’s film retrospective ‘Mean Screens : Martin Scorsese at the Movies’, The New York Times
- Stephen Reginald, Meet Me At The Movies In Chicago
“Anne Baxter found herself in Hollywood at 16 and under contract with 20th Century Fox for the next seven years, appearing on screen in the western ‘20 Mule Team’ in 1940 starring Wallace Beery and Leo Carrillo. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing Anne's first film about refining Borax in Death Valley during the 1800's but I've been to Death Valley and all I can say is it's very hot and dry with tumbleweeds as far as the eye can see. Let's hope they weren't actually on location there while filming. That same year Anne was lucky enough to get a supporting role in ‘The Great Profile’, starring the great John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes and Lionel Atwill. Directed by Walter Lang, the comedy really is just a spoof on Barrymore's career and his private life which as we know involved a lot of hard drinking that was the root of a lot of his tempestuous behavior on set and in his personal relationships. Much credit goes to Anne's acting abilities to take on the role of the young and optimistic playwright who believes in Barrymore's character enough to take his career on as a project in the hopes of turning it around with her creativity and guidance. Of course we can't forget that Anne started filming at the ripe old age of 16, then she worked with Barrymore who was able to get himself to the set each day but consumed by alcoholism by this time, he would start to drink by noon and had to have his lines fed to him via giant cue cards and a giant blackboard. Somehow it all worked as Barrymore comes across as the consummate performer in light of these difficulties on set, to the credit of Walter Lang at the helm.”
- Page, ‘My Love Of Old Hollywood’
“Being beautiful was Linda Darnell’s curse. She was an emotionally intuitive actress, but almost from the beginning of her career, she was typecast because of her looks. Add in alcohol problems and a series of tortured relationships, and you have the recipe for a full-tilt Hollywood tragedy.”
- Jake Hinkson, ‘Noir’s Hard Luck Ladies’
“One of the series' weirdest juxtapositions pairs Mr. Scorsese's 1974 film, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," with Jean Negulesco's all-but-forgotten 1951 movie "Take Care of My Little Girl." In "Alice," a cross between a road movie and a traditional Hollywood "woman's picture" for someone like Bette Davis, a nervy young widow (Ellen Burstyn) with ambitions to be a singer breaks with convention and takes to the road with her prepubescent son. "Take Care of My Little Girl" portrays the rebellion of a student (Jeanne Crain) who chooses not to be a member of her mother's snooty and unprincipled college sorority. "The Negulesco film interested me because of the statement it made about conformity in early-50's America," Mr. Scorsese said. "If you overlook the conventions of the time, such as having the women playing the college-age kids be in their 30's, you can go with the movie and not laugh at it." No Throwaways. Along with the universality of Mr. Scorsese's taste, it is his passionate perceptiveness in discerning personal artistic visions and technical feats in the lowliest B movies that gives the series a genuine historic interest. "It's really important to me for some of these films to be seen, if just for fun," Mr. Scorsese said. "But I'm also trying to make a point that you never know how certain things will affect certain people. Out of 'Getting Gertie's Garter,' you can have an 'After Hours.' 'The Last Temptation of Christ' came through 'Accatone!' " Mr. Scorsese, who has been a passionate advocate for the preservation of old movies, was adamant about the ultimate worth of B movies and other Hollywood throwaways. "It's a dangerous situation if you have to start making value judgments about which ones should be saved and which not," he said. "Thirty years from now, the film you destroy could have been something that influenced 25 people to make wonderful movies."
- Stephen Holden speaks with Martin Scorsese about the Lincoln Center’s film retrospective ‘Mean Screens : Martin Scorsese at the Movies’, The New York Times
Dana Andrews & Gene Tierney :
Dana Andrews & Anne Baxter :
Dana Andrews & Linda Darnell :
Dana Andrews & Jeanne Crain :
Clara & Julia Kuperberg :
‘In A Valley Of Violence’ (2016 – Ti West)
Hard-bitten drifter Paul (Ethan Hawke) clashes with the Marshal (John Travolta) of Denton, Texas, a makeshift township dubbed “the valley of violence”, when the Marshal's son Gilly (James Ransone) goes out of his way to pick a fight.
The existential western ‘In A Valley Of Violence’ is a twisted morality play that confounds expectations and transcends traditional genre limitations. It’s a lean, green wholegrain oater with nutritious performances from Ethan Hawke as wounded warrior Paul, James Ransone as aggressive bully Gilly, Taissa Farmiga as local hotelier Mary-Anne, Karen Gillan as wanton hussy Ellen, Larry Fessenden as hostile hand Big Roy, Tommy Nohilly as hired muscle Tubby, Toby Huss as intense rifleman Harris and John Travolta as the self-appointed Sheriff who finds himself in way over his head. The cast are beautifully costumed by Malgosia Turzanska, their movements set to a throbbing soundtrack by Jeff Grace. Writer-director-editor Ti West crafts some exquisite establishing shots in the style of comic book panels, allowing cinematographer Eric Robbins’ clean compositions to occupy immaculate shot constructions assembled through crisp inter-cutting. West’s typically pared-down storytelling creates a tight frame for him to hang his obsessions with tantalising regularity including the act and art of redemption, the accidental or incidental discovery of illegitimate worlds, and the pressures upon misfits to find each other without the advantage of conventional social skills. On a miniscule shooting budget, West and his small crew have chiselled out a compact thriller that pulses with tension during its darker moments and engages humanity at others. This has instantly become one of my three favourite westerns of the decade so far with ‘Django Unchained’ (2012) and ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015).
‘Keep It Up, Sue!’ (2016, Documentary – Simon Sheridan)
Actress Sue Longhurst takes a brief look back on her career in movies.
‘Keep It Up, Sue!’ is a short, sweet conversation piece with Sue Longhurst who recalls working in the 1970s with vivifying candour. All her films were made between 1971 and 1979 and almost all were hits with European audiences.
‘Loans, Capital and Investments : The Extraordinary Success Story Of Felicity Devonshire’ (2016, Documentary – Bob Alexander)
‘Loans, Capital and Investments : The Extraordinary Success Story Of Felicity Devonshire’ is a mini-documentary that attempts to shed some light upon Felicity Devonshire’s sudden retreat from movies. All her films were made between 1971 and 1979 and almost all were hits with European audiences. Having demonstrated a great head for business, Devonshire left the film industry behind to make her fortune.
‘Respectable : The Mary Millington Story’ (2016, Documentary – Simon Sheridan)
A candid illustration of the life and times of actress and anti-censorship campaigner Mary Millington.
Film historian Simon Sheridan directs this frank examination of Mary Millington’s remarkable rise and fall, reflecting upon her despair, abandonment, persecution and addictions, as well as her unerring devotion to her mother. There are excerpts used from a recorded interview with Millington and video links with filmmakers Arnold Louis Miller, Stanley Long, Willy Roe, Michael Armstrong and Kenneth Rowles. Sheridan’s crafted an essential document of underground filmmaking in 1970s Britain with support from the British Film Institute. It’s also a sincere tribute to one of England’s most influential performers during the era of extreme film censorship promoted by Mary Whitehouse and Margaret Thatcher. ‘Respectable : The Mary Millington Story’ is narrated by actor Dexter Fletcher.
"Mary Whitehouse has won, hasn't she; I mean she apsolootly has."
- Jilly Cooper, speaking in 1988
- Jilly Cooper, speaking in 1988
‘Darcey Bussell’s Looking For Audrey’ (2017, Documentary – Marion Milne)
Dancer Darcey Bussell travels the world in search of the real Audrey Hepburn.
“It used to be said that you can't be too rich or too thin. We now no longer believe this. Bankers and hedge fund managers are too rich; and now the celebrity magazines and tabloids lead the choruses of "Look how skinny's she's got!" The nicer way of saying the same thing, and making it a compliment, is to call the person elegant. Audrey Hepburn came to be synonymous with this form of elegance. Even in her early films, her height, her skinniness and her wistfulness combined to get her noticed. In the unhelpful role of Chiquita in ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, she attracts the attention both of Alec Guinness and of the camera: a woman visually striking and possessed of a certain quality of unhappiness. Being slight and vulnerable, Hepburn could have made a career as one of cinema's perpetual victims – a leading lady for Alfred Hitchcock, maybe. But she was too thoughtful, and too smart in her choice of roles, to let that happen. Somehow, you can see it all in her childhood and adolescence.”
- Alex Cox, The Guardian
- Alex Cox, The Guardian
Audrey Hepburn in the kitchen :
Audrey Hepburn on the golf course :
‘Death Race 2050’ (2017 - G.J. Echternkamp)
America’s chief superexecutive The Chairman (Malcolm McDowell) launches a new race to the death at the National Coliseum in Nueva York, U C A (the United Corporations of America) and pledges that the greatest nation on Earth will forever put ‘America First’. Lining up to compete are 4-time champ Frankenstein (Manu Bennett) who’s to be accompanied by Annie Sullivan (Marci Miller), Jed Perfectus (Burt Grinstead) and his sidekick Giggly Grace Tickle (Shanna Olson), MC Minerva Jefferson (Folake Olowofoyeku), Tammy The Terrorist (Anessa Ramsey) and the American Chair’s special wildcard A.B.E.
It’s now 2050 in the ‘Death Race’ saga and advancements in science, technology and automation have left the vast majority of Americans out of work. Life is cheap and virtual reality participation has greatly enhanced the death race experience. But just remember one thing; ‘Cheerleaders don’t come to practise!”
Happy Easter everybody!
Hated it first time around, gave it one more chance and i still found it a repugnant mess but there are a couple of good performances in it. 4/10
‘The Big Short’ (2015 – Adam McKay)
one of my faves of that year 7-7.5
I love it actually, it has just a fantastic atmosphere, and I loved the ending too. Kristen Stewart is really great. I actually think I prefer it a bit to Sils Maria. 
