What classics did you see last week, Jan 1 to Jan 7?

First viewings:

Women Talking (2022):
The women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith, loosely inspired by events that took place in a Mennonite colony in Cotoca, Bolivia, in 2009 when a group of men raped and sexually assaulted 151 women and girls. The film is exceptionally well- directed by Sarah Polley, who elicits marvelous performances from all the cast, especially Claire Foy, Mara Rooney and Jessie Buckley. And it was produced by Frances McDormand (cast member) and Brad Pitt, among others. I liked it a lot, though I do have a major problem with Polley’s script, which I won’t discuss for fear of spoiling it. That said, I suspect it will garner numerous awards before the season is over, and it deserves to be seen for the performances and the subject alone.



Fabelmans (2022):
Spielberg’s most personal, more or less autobiographical film about his falling in love with movies as a boy and dedicating his young life to becoming a filmmaker while simultaneously dealing with family problems. Although I loved Michelle Williams’ performance, overall I was disappointed in the film. Certainly not one of Spielberg’s best. I’m sure others will enjoy it, but for me it was just a little too ego-driven and ultimately not that memorable.



Tár (2022):
Todd Field’s first film in 16 years, and, like his others, is sure to win some awards. Cate Blanchett is brilliant and Field’s direction is superb, but I really didn’t like the script. It was too long and meandering, and then ended abruptly without a clear resolution. While Field’s directorial style was quite interesting, his storytelling, for me, was a failure. I’m probably in the minority in this, however, so for those who love the actress and the director, it’s a film to see, especially during the awards season.



The Rocking Horse Winner (1949):
A young boy receives a rocking horse for Christmas and soon learns that he is able to pick the winning horse at the races. Based upon a story by D.H. Lawrence. Not a children’s story by any means; rather a morality tale for adults, which in the end is sad, even haunting. Excellent script and direction by Anthony Pelissier with wonderful performances by Valerie Hobson, John Mills (who also produced the film), and young John Howard Davies. (What a difference a good script makes!) Highly recommended.



Gunda (2020):



Re-watches:

Three Comrades (1938):
The close friendship of three German soldiers is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman, who’s dying of tuberculosis. Director Frank Borzage’s film is a winner for me, thanks mainly to Margaret Sullavan, who’s wonderful in her only Oscar nominated role. Not as good as Borzage’s The Mortal Storm, but very much worth a look for the cast alone. Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in the days before he became a writer, producer, and director of films like All About Eve.



Song of the Thin Man (1947):
Nick and Nora are involved in a gambling boat mystery. The sixth and final of the series and, while not the best, it’s still quite enjoyable. Great supporting cast, including Keenan Wynn, Jane Meadows, Gloria Graham and a young Dean Stockwell. The script is good and Edward Buzzell’s direction is solid. Definitely worth a look for all Thin Man fans.



Wise Girl (1937):
A high-society heiress (Miriam Hopkins) goes undercover to find her young nieces, who are enjoying a Bohemian lifestyle with their artist uncle (Ray Milland). An entertaining B movie comedy that I watched all the way through, which is saying a lot. Milland, it turns out, was quite good at comedy.

First-time Viewings.

TAR (2022). My Rating: 8,5 out of 10. Blanchett could win another Oscar for her superlative performance in this excellent, absorbing film. Highly Recommended.





THIS PLACE RULES (2022). 8,5 out of 10. Refreshing, fascinating, shocking, illuminating documentary. YouTube sensation Andrew Callaghan is an amazing interviewer and a new type of journalist. Highly Recommended. On HBO.











THE PALE BLUE EYE (2022). 7 out of 10. Recommended.












The Menu (2022). 6,5 out of 10. Cautiously Recommended.





TICK...TICK...TICK... (1970). It's not In the Heat of The Night, but it's got a strong, colorful cast and it's worth a watch. 6 out of 10. 









Re-Watch.

Shotgun (1955). 6 out of 10. Nice little technicolor revenge western with a solid starring turn from Sterling Hayden. Quite violent for its time, this is the the best print I've seen of it, and the technicolor glows.  Recommended to genre fans.

Lady Of Burlesque / William A. Wellman (1943). Dixie Davis, born Deborah Hoople, (Barbara Stanwyck) is the star performer at the Opry Burlesque theater. She is surrounded by co-showgirls, some ditzy, some hard to get along with, some are good friends. She is romantically pursued by comic Brannigan (Michael O’Shea) who doesn’t recognize that “no” means “no.” But everything is running smoothly until during a power outage, someone tries to strangle her. This attack is followed by two successful murders that must be solved to keep the Old Opera House from closing.
    This movie is not at all as serious as the above summary suggests. It can be quite funny and the stage acts entertaining, especially one dance number between Stanwyck and authentic burlesque comic Pinky Lee. Stanwyck has some killer dance moves that will amaze you.
    “Lady of Burlesque,” although coming nine years after Joe Breen and the code crackdown, has a real pre-code vibe. This is a pretty good picture. Recommended.




The Time Of Their Lives / Charles Barton (1946). A Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy that goes outside their usual format except Lou’s comedy persona and antics remain unchanged. The story begins in Revolutionary War times. Tinker Horatio Prim (Costello) returns from a trip with enough money to marry Nora (Ann Gillis), a maid at the Danbury estate, but is continuously thwarted by butler Cuthbert Greenway (Abbott) who also is in love with Nora. Master Danbury is engaged to marry Melody Allen (Marjorie Reynolds) who learns that Danbury is part of Benedict Arnold’s plot. Escaping with Horatio, the two are mistakenly killed by loyal forces, their bodies are thrown down a well, and their souls cursed to always haunt the estate. Are you laughing yet?
    Jumping forward 166 years, the ghosts are still hanging around the well when new tenants move in including a direct descendent of Greenway. Horatio wants to punish Greenway and find proof that he and Melody are innocent. Knockabout gags abound. Interesting A&C experiment which is mostly successful if you appreciate that brand of humor. Personally, I liked it. Not to be confused with the Pulitzer Prize winning play and subsequent 1948 movie “The Time Of Your Life.”





Elvis / Baz Luhrmann (2022). I rarely tune in bio-pics, especially musical biographies. I was happy to miss “Walk The Line,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “Rocket Man,” but chose to see “Elvis” based on some reviews I read on this thread and I’m so glad I did. This is one of the best pictures of the year along with a best performance. The film does follow a common bio-pic plot arc with its portrait of a talented and ambitious artist who is never satisfied with what he has created so falls into booze and pills. Drug dependence, while familiar in Real Life, is overly familiar in bio-pics. Tom Hanks is also good as Elvis’ manager and controller: the man whose decisions always overruled everything else. Hanks plays the entire movie in a fat suit and makeup using English in a sort of Dutch/Deep South mash-up accent. I didn’t know quite what to make of it.
    Director Baz Luhrmann, never shy about over-the-top flash cuts and filling the screen with a ton of visual input, is his same self here. But the main interest for me is the mesmerizing performance by Austin Butler. While your usual Elvis impersonator takes on the older, white-suited, Las Vegas “fat Elvis”, Butler, whose physicality on stage matches that of Elvis himself, let’s us see the younger, struggling Presley, who shocked older, uptight late 1950s authorities and politicians, but energized young people, especially teen girls. It is like turning time back. Highly recommended.





Mission: Impossible
“TOD-5” Season 7, Episode 5 (October 14, 1972)
“Cocaine” Season 7, Episode 6 (October 21, 1972) Guest stars: William Shatner, Stephen McNally
“Underground” Season 7, Episode 7 (October 28, 1972)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Babel” Season 1, Episode 4 (January 24, 1993)
“Captive Pursuit” Season 1, Episode 5
“Q-Less” Season 1, Episode 6 (February 7, 1993)
“Dax” Season 1, Episode 7 (February 14, 1993)

My Life Is Murder
“Another Bloody Podcast” Season 1, Episode 6 (August 21, 2019)
“Old School” Season 1, Episode 7 (August 28, 2019)

Endeavour
“Neverland” Season 2, Episode 4 (July 20, 2014)

Midsomer Murders
“Dead Man’s Eleven” Season 2, Episode 3 (September 12, 1999)

Well for me New year started with a flue and a literally dripping nose...

Started New Year with were I ended last year with a Disney classic.


The Jungle Book 1967 directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and slightly based on the writings of Rudyard Kipling.
Since childhood I'm used to the Swedish voices, this time watching with original English voices. hearing the voices of Louis Prima and George Sanders made a huge difference, most Shere Khan sequences were banned in Sweden.
So many childhood memories, and I Thoroughly enjoyed watching it again!




Last Christmas 2019 directed by Paul Feig and based on a George Michael song.
Kind of sweet harmless movie that didn't appeal to me at all.


Edmond aka Cyrano, My Love 2019 directed by Alexis Michalik and based on the writings of the real Cyrano de Bergerac (there once was such a person) and Edmond Rostand.
The director was inspired by English movie Shakespeare in Love 1998 and to do something similiar with the most famous French plays.
Young Rostand wrote a flop play for the great Sarah Bernard, she suggests him anyway to Constant Coquelin that he will write a play of plays within four weeks.
One of the most entertaining French movies I've seen in a long long time, and easy with subtitles.




Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves 1991, directed by Kevin Reynolds.
There was a song attached to this movie by Brian Adams that sold for years.
It's actually not as bad movie, but far from Errol Flynn.
There was a nice surprise Cameo at the end too. That I had forgotten about.


Cuban Fury 2014 directed by James Griffiths.
Slightly overweight guy once had a a passion for dancing to Latin beats, settled down and became a gray office worker, with a new boss the beat slowly returns.
Nice little story with a charming Nick Frost.


And Then There Were None 1945 directed by René Clair and based on a stage play and novel by Agatha Christie.
Since I've seen many other versions the solution at the end wasn't a surprise, but the way it's done that makes this version apart.
Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Mischa Auer, Roland Young, Judith Anderson and Sir C Aubrey Smith.
Frankly I never seen version before, and I certainly liked it.


Pinocchio 1940 directed by many and based on the stories of Collodi.
In my opinion this movie is a piece of art visually the greatest you can see in animation.
Add to that at least two great songs, "When You Wish Upon A Star" and "Give A Little Whistle" (written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington)
"I've Got No Strings" number scared me as a kid.

Well that was my week!

My first movie-watching week for 2023...

Top Gun: Maverick (2022).



The Gentlemen (2019).



Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).

The Perry Como Christmas Special--(1974)--A throwback to the olden days of TV, when some mellow singer would host a holiday special full of fake snow, host sleigh rides with Santa and extras dressed up in Dickesnian winter outfits, add in some mildly amusing comic sketches, but most importantly, sing and sing and sing some classic Christmas songs. And that was it, and that was enough. Perry Como was arguably the master of these, as his low-key presence was as welcome as softly falling snow, and he mainly concentrated on the music and the holiday theme, complete with skater Peggy Fleming skating around to the "Christmas Waltz," a solemn re-enactment of the Nativity story with religious-themed songs, and a duet with Karen Carpenter featuring a medley of Carpenters and Como hits (Como was still charting with a couple of songs in the 1970s, a decade which featured a much wider variety of pop hits than today). There's also a couple of sketches with comedian Rich Little which probably won't be of much interest to modern viewers; he does an impression of Edith Bunker from All in the Family and asks Como to his face if he's still alive, which calls to mind the much funnier sketch from SCTV which featured a parody of a Como show, Perry Como: Still Alive!; later, he imitates Jack Benny and is upstaged by an ad-lib from a little girl in the sketch. A nice, nostalgic diversion for viewers old enough to remember these quiet, relaxed specials from a less hectic, irritable time.

The Four Seasons--(1981)--Alan Alda wrote and directed this comedy/drama, and it's reminiscent of his Hawkeye character on MASH: a bombastic, overbearing, judgmental know-it-all who makes everything about himself and always has to have the last word, and most of the other words as well. Here, though, it works, because that's the character he plays, and the other characters work well, too. Three middle-aged couples take trips together every season for years; when one couple gets divorced and the ex-husband brings his new, younger love interest on the trips, it upsets the balance for everybody. What could have become one of those dopey comedies in which everyone behaves like idiots and delivers every line in a shrill whine (the kind Diane Keaton specializes in) is successfully held in check; the couples bicker constantly, but realistically. Carol Burnett and Rita Moreno deliver fine performances with restrained comic tones, and the two college-age daughters are played by Alda's daughters (to add to the nepotism, the art photographs seen in the film were taken by Alda's wife). Kind of a Woody Allen feel to the film, without the self-conscious pseudo-intellectualism that weighs down Allen's films.

Don't Bother to Knock--(1952)--Richard Widmark has a spat with his girlfriend, Anne Bancroft, so he decides to have a fling with the sexy babysitter he spots in a hotel window (Marilyn Monroe). Then he finds out that the rule for kids about not talking to strangers can apply to adults, too. Monroe is good as the unbalanced babysitter in a movie that seems a little too rushed, but it's a compelling watch.

I Know Where I'm Going!--(1945)--Standard story of spoiled, tightly wound woman who plans to marry a wealthy man so that she can be set for life, then things go off-course when she meets a townful of Scottish history, populated by regular folks and a handsome stranger, and yada, yada, yada. But this movie has so much charm and flair that it makes the formula so much more enjoyable. Wendy Hiller is suitably irritable, Roger Livesey is an attractive and witty love interest, and the locals are endearing without being portrayed as cloying and cutesy as so many films about "the old sod" tend to do. Petula Clark appears briefly as the little girl in the film, and the traditional songs and dancing are fun. A truly sweet romantic film.