What Movies Did You Watch Last Week? (17/04-23/04) CLOSED

Well, if you liked 9 1/2 Weeks, you can check out Zandalee for the heck of it, why not, it's kind of similar, but it's pretty bad.

There's a sequel to The Sting. Never heard about it before. No Robert Redford or Paul Newman, and no George Roy Hill directing, but the writer is the same apparently.

Blasphemy. 

Hi. I've seen most of your movies this week. The two I like most - the comic fantasy 'Your Highness' through which Natalie Portman broke the internet and QT's stunning heist picture 'Reservoir Dogs'.

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My viewings :

‘Marisa’ (1957, Marisa la civetta – Mauro Bolognini)

Seventeen year-old orphan Marisa (Marisa Allasio) is a child of the railway who’s become the most popular girl in her port. Boys only covet her beauty so she believes in being self-sufficient. Marisa is approached by three respectable suitors : happy-go-lucky sailor Angelo (Renato Salvatori) lays claim to the docks, strict Catholic ticketmaster Antonio (Francisco Rabal) patrols the station and champion footballer Luccicotto (Ángel Aranda) roams the parks.

‘Marisa’ is a gentle, disarming fable with a funny script. Cinematographer Carlo Carlini’s serene compositions and elegant camera motions are complimented by composer Carlo Rustichelli’s jaunty, joyful musical accompaniment. The action is beautifully staged by director Mauro Bolognini (assisted here by Flavio Mogherini) who casually depicts small social pleasures while skilfully translating the slow pace of life holding back a free spirit on the cusp of womanhood.

‘The White Wife And The Hot Pepper Lover’ (1980, La moglie in bianco... l'amante al pepe - Michele Massimo Tarantini)

The Patanè family of Naples has a hard-earned reputation to uphold. Grandpappy Calogero (Lino Banfi) still grabs a handful of the ladies, dentist Giuseppe (Lino Banfi) tames his patients by hand and his son Gianluca (Javier Viñas) has the looks of a third generation Patanè studmuffin. When Gianluca is caught with a secret stash of bodybuilding magazines and a new pink suit, his family insist it’s time for him to get married so Giuseppe hires new dental assistant Sonia (Pamela Prati) who’s also a fitness fanatic.

‘The White Wife And The Hot Pepper Lover’ is a gutbusting entry in the ‘Wife’ comedy cycle from grand master Michele Massimo Tarantini. Lino Banfi slices off a generous pair of hambone steaks as the two horny elder statesmen of the Patanè family line who must teach young Gianluca the dangers and delights of the opposite sex. Tarantini and Spanish cinematographer Raúl Pérez Cubero use close-ups, whip-pans, divided camera motions and split-screen techniques to enhance a series of comic set-plays including an unforgettable workout on an exercise bike.

‘Ninette’ (2005 - José Luis Garci)

Andrés (Carlos Hipólito), a fine craftsman from Murcia, Spain, takes a business trip to Paris, France in 1959. At his boarding house in Paris, Andrés makes no effort to resist advances made by Alejandra (Elsa Pataky) - Ninette the coquette - who’s young enough to be his daughter. Upon his return to Murcia with Alejandra in tow, it dawns upon Andrés that Ninette is actually a devout Catholic attracted to faith and devotion.

‘Ninette’ is an entertaining comedy of manners based on a play by Miguel Mihura. It’s nicely filmed and maintains a controlled tone throughout, filing moments of absurdist humour within a variety of adversarial work set-ups. Comedian Carlos Hipólito and horror favourite Elsa Pataky are in scintillating form and receive hilarious support from Enrique Villén as inquisitive businessman Armando and Mar Regueras as kinky maid Maruja. Composer Pablo Cervantes’ music is terrific, a small jazz orchestra underscoring the action and supplying a classical theme that sounds straight out of the 1950s.

‘Silent Laughter : European Style’ (2005, Documentary – Egon Tender-Squires)

Exploring the origins of European slapstick and its adoption of classical miming and clowning techniques.

This is a short video installation celebrating physical comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Max Linder, Ferdinand Guillaume (known also as Tontolini and Polidor ) and André Deed, some of the craziest cats around. It’s set to synthetic mechanised dance beats which accentuate just how modern their movements were.

‘The Fall And The Rise’ (2006, Documentary, La chute et l'envol – Jonas Rosales)

An interview piece with fantasy filmmaker Jean-Claude Brisseau about his influential feature ‘Sound And Fury’ (1988).

This is an extended interview recorded with Jean-Claude Brisseau who’s always courted controversy. It’s solely about ‘Sound And Fury’ which has been acknowledged as an important influence on hard-hitting French films like ‘La Haine’ (1995) and ‘Ma 6-T Va Crack-er’ (1997).


‘Inside Black Orpheus : Music, Carnival And Culture’ (2016, Documentary – Jake West)

A piece-by-piece deconstruction of the experimental musical ‘Black Orpheus’ (1959) which offers a retelling of the legend of Orpheus (Breno Mello) and Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn).

‘Inside Black Orpheus : Music, Carnival And Culture’ divulges some of the secrets behind Marcel Camus’ magical rendering of a classical tale from Greek mythology. ‘Black Orpheus’ explores Afro-Brazilian culture against a backdrop of cultural fusion mixing dynamic dance steps and musical styles from Southern Europe, Western Africa and Latin America. This educational documentary helmed by multi-talented horror director Jake West offers two distinct viewpoints on the movie, a traditional embrace of the film’s open-hearted romanticism, and a more cautious, revisionist take that upends notions of fantasy.

‘The Shallows’ (2016 – Jaume-Collet Serra)

Surfer Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) takes a break from the pressures of medical school to visit a secluded stretch of the Mexican coastline that her late mother went to during pregnancy. Staying in constant touchpad contact with her little sister Chloe (Sedona Legge), Nancy comes to some important decisions about her future while engaging a great white shark in a battle of wits.

‘The Shallows’ is a basic survival thriller about a girl and a shark that gives a sparkling makeover to an elemental force of nature. It’s filmed atop the surface of shimmering crystal blue waters doused with sunlight gloss by visual stylist Jaume Collet-Serra who relishes the opportunity to preserve every glistening drop of water clinging to Blake Lively’s designer wetsuit and bikini bottoms. I don’t think the moral dimension of the story is tapped with the intensity needed to make Nancy’s personal tragedy compelling; awkward attempts to mine her past via passageways of quasi-existential angst are interrupted suddenly by a seemingly supernatural seaside presence, but such erroneous channels pale in comparison to the dark shadowlands cultivated within fatalistic post-war thrillers like Bernard Vorhaus’ itchy melodrama ‘Bury Me Dead’ (1947), Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s literate fantasy ‘The Ghost And Mrs Muir’ (1947) and Jean Renoir’s enigmatic mystery ‘The Woman On The Beach’ (1947). What ‘The Shallows’ does project is plenty of shallow beach bum glamour.

‘Joe Cocker : Mad Dog With Soul’ (2017, Documentary – John Edginton)

An impassioned tribute to tortured vocal artist Joe Cocker.

Songwriters Randy Newman, Chris Stainton, Jimmy Webb, Rita Coolidge, Billy Joel and Charlie Midnight join together with producer Glyn Johns and the American Standard Band to honour singer Joe Cocker in John Edginton’s nostalgic memory mosaic ‘Joe Cocker : Mad Dog With Soul’.

“There’s 3 things I remember about 1969 : Woodstock, the Led Zeppelin album came out, and the Joe Cocker album. And that’s how I sum up 1969.”

- Billy Joel