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Post by london777 on Jul 27, 2018 13:48:10 GMT
And now for something completely different. Just released (at last): Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football (2018) Documentary Like "Snakes on a Plane", the title says it all. For nearly 20 years Carlos "Kaiser" Henrique Raposo was employed by various Rio de Janeiro soccer clubs yet never once kicked a ball in a competitive match. He lived the glamorous life and was a self-confessed sex-addict. (A terrible affliction but Brazil is the best place to suffer from it).
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Post by london777 on Feb 27, 2019 0:41:24 GMT
In $5 a Day (2008) dir: Nigel Cole, Alessandro Nivola takes a road-trip with his estranged con-man father, played by Christopher Walken, who shows him how they can both survive and travel for that amount by (ahem) bending the rules a little.
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Post by london777 on Feb 28, 2019 19:20:37 GMT
The "Affair of the Diamond Necklace" was an attempted con-trick, and major and long-lived scandal, in the time of Marie Antoinette. I have mentioned some films about it in BATouttaheck's current and excellent "Classic Jewels" thread.
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Post by hi224 on Feb 28, 2019 19:42:27 GMT
i never got to see the plumber.
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Post by timshelboy on Feb 28, 2019 19:52:01 GMT
Both DARKENED ROOMS 1931 and THE DAIN CURSE 1978 feature fake spiritualists
Guess we should add CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
And can't help giving THE GRIFTERS another shout. Here's a family reunion to treasure
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 1, 2019 16:08:10 GMT
Both DARKENED ROOMS 1931 and THE DAIN CURSE 1978 feature fake spiritualists Some others featuring spiritualists/mediums who employ trickery to some degree: The Thirteenth Chair (1929) Charlie Chan's Secret (1936) Family Plot (1976)
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Post by manfromplanetx on Mar 1, 2019 21:18:51 GMT
Shonen , Boy (1969) Nagisa Oshima An excellent film on the topic was inspired by a Japanese news headline from 1966. Shonen tells the story of a struggling itinerant couple who subsist as con-artists. The pair carefully execute traffic accidents, which enable them to extort money from the alarmed & anxious drivers. Realizing the profitable benefits of using their young son, they train him up to also fake injury, by jumping in front of moving cars. An absorbing tale of modern Japanese desperation, an intricate canvas, a brilliant reflective social and psychological insight of the times, of the family unit. Masterly composed with superb cinematography & outstanding characterizations, a pensive screenplay is highlighted with amazing location shooting throughout the length of Japan.
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Post by london777 on Mar 8, 2019 1:49:10 GMT
In The Woman in the Hall (1947) a poor widow with two daughters augments her income by using her children to extort money. Visiting the houses of rich people, they tell a sad story and beg for help. Complications ensue. The widow is played by Ursula Jeans, better known as a classical stage actress. Also features Jean Simmons as her daughter. The film was the first feature which Jack Lee directed, after learning his trade making war-time documentaries. His best known films were the WWII dramas "The Wooden Horse" and "A Town Like Alice". He was the elder brother of Laurie Lee, author of "Cider with Rosie".
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Post by london777 on Mar 8, 2019 22:10:02 GMT
180º (2010) dir: Fernando Kalife IMDb says: Salvador Diaz is a skilled conman. For most of his years, he cheated others for a living ... until he cheated the wrong man.
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Post by london777 on Mar 18, 2019 5:53:40 GMT
In Focus (2015) dir: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, Will Smith plays a master con-man who can assemble a sizable team to pull off "long" cons. His career is thrown off course when he falls in love with his "intern" (Margot Robbie). The film tries desperately to be cool and scenes are rushed as if the directors are frightened that their (presumably young adult) audience will get bored. Unlike the brilliant "House of Games", the cons are not properly explained and we are just told they work because "the guys are the best at what they are doing", yet leave us unconvinced that they are even possible. Also the psychology of the two main characters seems unrealistic. It is a bit behind the times. These movies where piling twist onto twist was the whole point were clever in the 80s and 90s, but we have seen so many that we no longer take anything that happens at face value, so no exciting surprises. This is the best scene, where Smith duels with a Chinese billionaire, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the story and, significantly, is one of the few scenes which is allowed to "breathe" and take its own time to unfold.
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Post by jeffersoncody on Mar 18, 2019 7:08:24 GMT
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Post by london777 on Mar 18, 2019 13:02:05 GMT
i never got to see the plumber. Very interesting, I am sure, but if we have quite finished with your household arrangements, could we please return to our topic of movies about con artists?
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Post by hi224 on Mar 18, 2019 18:58:04 GMT
i never got to see the plumber. Very interesting, I am sure, but if we have quite finished with your household arrangements, could we please return to our topic of movies about con artists? ha.
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Post by london777 on Jun 8, 2019 18:34:36 GMT
Two films directed by Australian Stephan Elliott (best known for writing and directing "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" - 1994) feature conmen as the protagonists: Frauds (1993) (which he also wrote) stars Phil Collins as a crooked insurance investigator who persecutes Hugo Weaving. Welcome to Woop Woop (1997) (which he partly wrote) stars American Johnathon Schaech as a conman fleeing the New York mob who hides out in the Australian outback, only to get into worse trouble. Note Rod Taylor in the "Chips Rafferty role".
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Post by london777 on Oct 10, 2019 22:32:07 GMT
Parasite (2019) dir: Joon-ho Bong must be one of the best films released this decade. I greatly enjoyed this writer/director's Memories of Murder (2003) and Mother (2009) but this is more ambitious and even better. Joon-ho Bong has mastered all the most important departments of movie-making, camerawork, scriptwriting, producing and acting, and uses that knowledge to complete the film exactly how he wants it. His fairly short filmography includes police procedurals, horror, monster, comedy, and social criticism. Parasite juggles with several genres, which could have been disastrous, to achieve a more complex and weightier movie. The story concerns a family from the underclass whose four members are either unemployed, or have temp work which does not use their abilities (such as folding pizza cartons for a pittance). The first part of the movie reminded me of Hirokazu Koreeda's excellent Shoplifters (2018) and I am sure Koreeda's films are an influence on Joon-ho Bong. But halfway through there is a plot development which changes the film from social observation to something darker and deeper culminating in an almost apocalyptic ending. The family members in turn wheedle their way into the confidence of a super-rich family with disastrous results for everyone. One of the things that make this movie so unusual is that none of the ten main characters are really bad people. The rich are insulated from real life by their wealth and the other six are just desperate, having been let down by society in various ways. They each have scenes where we can sympathize with them, while sensing that they are heading for a train-wreck. Another aspect of the movie I liked is that it made me think what it is like to be South Korean and living in the shadow of a powerful military dictatorship run by a lunatic. Though only lightly touched on in the script, this situation yields the plot device which underlies (pun intended) the goings-on. One ironic point is that well into the film, by which time the four losers are deep into their various scams, the daughter forges a document using computer graphics and the mother comments "She would make a great confidence trickster". They obviously do not think of themselves as such but as needy people taking advantage of a rare opportunity which has come their way.
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Post by london777 on Jan 5, 2020 3:40:46 GMT
In Amantes (1991) dir: Vicente Aranda, a gang perpetrate property scams, selling properties while the real owner is temporarily absent. It is a love triangle, and one of the women (Victoria Abril) is a femme fatale, inducing Jorge Sanz to betray and swindle his straight-laced young fiancée (Maribel Verdú). It is based on a true story, and the resolution has the messiness of real life but not the satisfying integrity of art. I was disappointed. Too much kissing.
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Post by petrolino on Jan 5, 2020 4:18:42 GMT
In Amantes (1991) dir: Vicente Aranda, a gang effect property scams, selling properties while the real owner is temporarily absent. It is a love triangle, and one of the women (Victoria Abril) is a femme fatale, inducing Jorge Sanz to betray and swindle his straight-laced young fiancée (Maribel Verdú). It is based on a true story, and the resolution has the messiness of real life but not the satisfying integrity of art. I was disappointed. Too much kissing.
Vicente Aranda and Victoria Abril (pictured on the right) are one of the great director-star tandems in European cinema.
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Post by london777 on Jan 5, 2020 20:17:22 GMT
Yes, they made 12 movies together. I have not seen any other Aranda movies, and none have tempted me. Let me know if I am missing anything special. Victoria Abril I only knew from Almodovar's ¡Átame! (1989), where she played opposite Antonio Banderas. Her film debut was in Richard Lester's Robin and Marian (1976), starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. Maribel Verdú most will know as the tragic lady in Y tu mamá también, the film which launched Alfonso Cuarón's career. She does not have any better luck in "Amantes". The male lead, Jorge Sanz, I only knew from Belle Epoque (1992). Though as different as chalk and cheese from "Amantes" (being a very light comedy, whereas "Amantes" is a bleak saga of self-destruction) he basically plays the same part - a gormless and randy young stud just out of national army service, who has no direction in life and just lets things happen to him. The main difference is that in Amantes he is torn between two women whereas in Belle Epoque he has to choose one of four sisters (after sampling each of them first, of course). He had previously played the young Conan in Conan the Barbarian (1982).
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 5, 2020 20:30:50 GMT
CASH ON DEMAND 1962
Andre Morell poses as a bank security investigator Colonel Gore Hepburn and tricks his way into the office of Scrooge-like bank manager Peter Cushing. Basically it's a A Christmas Carol turned into a bank heist film.
"I flatter myself I am a rather *uncommon* thief. A common one would just make off with the money, but I can't help interesting myself in people. It's a failing you ought to cultivate, Fordyce."
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Post by bravomailer on Jan 5, 2020 20:34:44 GMT
The Netflix series Messiah - maybe?
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