What classics did you see last week? (14 Jan to 20 Jan 2018)

Ryoma ansatsu ,  The Assassination of Ryoma (1974)  Kazuo Kuroki, (ATG)

Saraba hakobune , Farewell to the Ark (1984) Shûji Terayama (ATG)

Mo hozue wa tsukanai , No More Easy Life  (1979) Yôichi Higashi (ATG)

Chikagoro naze ka Charusuton ,  At This Late Date, the Charleston,  Kihachi Okamoto  (ATG)

Kome , Rice (1957) Tadashi Imai

Moetsukita chizu , The Ruined Map (1968) Hiroshi Teshigahara

Jibun no ana no nakade , A Hole of My Own Making (1955) Tomu Uchida

Four more amazing titles viewed from ATG this week...
When the pioneering independent film production company Art Theatre Guild was founded in 1961, Japanese cinema output was dominated by the major studios. ATG became an alternative driving force, an inspiration, an artistic home. The company provided a foundation for new-wave elements to develop significantly, the wondrous collection of films shown and then those produced between 1967 and '84 transformed and re-shaped the direction of Japanese cinema.

The guild was initially formed as a distributor, principally of foreign art films for Japanese audiences, but with additional funding provided by the major Japanese studios led by Toho, ATG was able to follow world wide trends, promoting the rise of radical new and experimental cinema.

The opportunity initiated by ATG was pivotal for directors of the era wishing to make daring, challenging and highly innovative films. The originality of their individual projects would never have been possible under the controlling gaze of the major studios, which typically ran an assembly line production system, leaving no scope for independence and individuality.

With its own chain of ten cinemas ATG had an inspired policy of giving each major feature a one-month run. Independent cinema in Japan was given unconditional support on a scale unprecedented in the history of Japanese cinema.

The importance of the independent ATG productions, or for that matter any independent films cannot be underestimated. Cinema as an artistic medium can be far more complex than just a simple tool for entertainment, it has the capacity for enlightenment, the transmission of ideas & philosophies, a powerful political weapon and much more...

Discovering the diversity of classic film from Japan's Art Theatre Guild is always a richly rewarding experience, always surprising, thoroughly entertaining, unquestionably highly creative & stylish.
Insightful. challenging and topical, thoughtful multi faceted independent film becomes absorbing cinematic art, which not only looks good but demands from an audience, our full attention... 
Highly Recommended the films produced by Japan's Art Theatre Guild.

Chikagoro naze ka Charusuton 
                                                 

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

I've been in a OLIVER TWIST phase, watching several adaptations in my possession. I have noticed several actors have been in two versions: Bruce Prochniak and Willoughby Goddard (1962 BBC-TV Serial and Broadway OLIVER!), Donald Eccles (1962 and 1985 BBC-TV Serial), Davy Jones (London and Broadway OLIVER! and 1974 Filmation Animated Feature, which was my intro to the story), and Lysette Anthony (1982 TV-Movie and 1985).

Anyhoo, January 14 to January 20
THE SIMPSONS (1993) "Marge Vs. the Monorail." 25th Anniversary. FoxVideo DVD.

OLIVER TWIST (1948) 70th Anniversary this year. David Lean's second Dickens feature and Alec Guinness' breakout film role (although his Fagin fell into controversy with Semetic groups), some of its story changes would be used by OLIVER! as well (Brownlow and Oliver sharing a more familial connection; kidnapped Oliver remaining a prisoner to the climax). Haven't viewed this in 25 years (saw part of it on Christmas vacation 1992 and the rest near Easter of the next year.). Paramount VHS.

COLUMBO (1975) "Troubled Waters." Universal DVD.

DARK SHADOWS (1968) Episodes 106-110. 50th Anniversary. Angelique and Josette both try to save Barnabas but to no avail. Angelique goes to her late husband's hidden tomb with a stake...MPI DVD.

ER (1998) "Sharp Relief." 20th Anniversary. Warner DVD.

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 (1993) "Circus on Ice/The Day the Earth Froze." 25th Anniversary. A favorite of mine, with Joel and the bots viewing an American version of a Finish fantasy (they transform the hero's wedding into a shame show with 'Failure' used repeatedly in their ad-libbed lyrics). I remember recording this episode the same week the show ended its run on Comedy Central in Spring 1996. Shout Factory DVD.

OLIVER TWIST (1985) 12-Part BBC-TV Serial, although I viewed only the second half consisting of Episode 7-12. Watching this on my Christmas Vacation in 1998 was a big deal, for this was the first adaptation I saw that actually faithfully adapted wounded Oliver's living with the Maylie family (Harry, his mother, and Rose), usually omitted from other adaptations I've seen. Viewed on a CBS Fox/BBC Video VHS which removed most of the openings/closings (the cover shows Scott Funnell, although he only appears in the workhouse scenes, being replaced by Ben Rodska for the majority of the Serial).

OLIVER! (1968) 50th Anniversary this year. Columbia-Tri-Star DVD.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1998) "Surprise/Innocence." The major two-parter of Season Two, changing the stakes, as Angel goes from ally to Big Bad. Viewed on the 20th Anniversary of broadcasts in January 19-20, 1998. FoxVideo DVD.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (1978) "Steve Martin/The Dirt Band and Randy Newman." 40th Anniversary. Universal DVD.

Wolves At The Door (2016)

Shows us what may have happened at Sharon Tate's house the night the Manson Family committed those terrible murders. There is no Charles Manson and the Family members are kept as shadowy figures. Not gory, but there is great suspense. The worst murder of all, and you know which one I mean, it is never shown or even implied, but we all know. This movie got terrible reviews, I am assuming for the subject matter. I did find it suspenseful myself, although knowing the true nature of the story made the horror all the more terrible.



Lavender (2016)

A young woman's past comes back to haunt her in mysterious and shocking ways. Starts off a bit slowly but has a sinister and surprising conclusion.



The Two Faces of January (2014)

Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, whose work always intrigues. A married couple in Greece get entangled with a tour guide. Not overly suspenseful but maintains the interest through various twists and turns.



The Shape of Water (2017)

Your typical sea monster falls in love with a mute cleaning woman tale. Beautiful sci-fi fable told with great understanding of humanity. The entire cast is exceptional.



I, Tonya (2017)

The true story of Tonya Harding, who most of us will remember from the early 90's and the drama swirling around her figure skating career. mikef6 has already supplied us with an excellent write-up above so I will just add that I found it to be both hilarious and heartbreaking. Robbie is great as Tonya, but it's Allison Janney, one of my absolute faves, who steals the show as Tonya's confounding mother. She seems terrible and yet sacrifices so much for Tonya. I predicted eons ago that Janney was destined to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and I believe I may have that prediction come true this year.




Rough Night (2017)

Five women get together for the weekend, only for things to go off the rails, very quickly. Think Bridesmaids and you're right where this movie lives. Had a few laughs, very crude and crazy.



The African Queen (1951)

The one classic on my list this week, an excellent movie. Bogart is so lovable in this and he and Hepburn make for a fun on-screen match. Just gets better the further it goes on.

I've been watching a few Cecil B. DeMille movies and have ordered the Cecil B. DeMille collection.
Here are a few I have watched recently:

The Ten Commandments (1956) - huge but boring (BEST PICTURE Nominee for 1957)

Samson and Delilah (1949) - huge but boring

Unconquered (1947) - good but complicated

North West Mounted Police (1940)

The Buccaneer (1938) - I rented this for streaming and plan to stream it today. 
What I always find strange is how often Fredric March played a swashbuckling action hero, yet I never think of him that way based on his later career.   

Movie DVDs ordered for future watching:

The Cecil B. DeMille Collection: (Cleopatra/ The Crusades/ Four Frightened People/ Sign of the Cross/ Union Pacific)

The Plainsman (1936)

Reap the Wild Wind (1942)

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I can't find this one but maybe YouTube somewhere?
The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)

It reminded me of one of my all-time faves, Romancing The Stone. Opposites thrown together on a dangerous adventure, slowly falling in love...obviously The African Queen was used as a blueprint for these kinds of movies to follow.