(An island off the coast of Main; 1950's?)
Bette Davis's penultimate performance and Lillian Gish's last film, coping off for the latter a film career that dates back to 1912 (Davis's to the early 30's). The two play sisters, Davis a blind widow, and Gish a fellow widow who looks after her. There's really not that much plot in a conventional sense, though Vincent Price does stop by to attempt to court Ms. Gish, who was 93 years old when her performance was filmed. In fact this is more Gish's film then Davis's, she has (in my estimation) the better part, and to see her so sharp on screen at that age is a little joy, and probably the only reason to see the film which is very stage play talkie.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Moving
Early next week I am moving from my current and long time residence to a new location, which may have some affect on this blog. The reliability of my Internet access at this point is somewhat in question, and the computer I will be using insites that my Blogger account is in Spanish, and won't let my cut and past from word pad. Therefore this blog my come to an end at least temporally, or alternately may come to only be updated occasionally and irregularly. I hope to continue to write on films and post them on my MySpace group 'The John Nance Garner Fan Club' as that is more accessible with my computer system. However as I mentioned before, my Internet statues is up in the air a bit and that might affect things as well. In the fullness of time I hope to be able to return to this blog in largely the way I have in the past. Regards.
Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
(London; 2001)
Director Stephen Frears Dirty Pretty Things takes a look at the plight of illegal immigrants in present day England. Chjwetel Ejiofor is Okwe, and illegal immigrant from Nigeria, a former doctor who has a secret past. An insomniac he is keeping down several jobs, including cab driver, hotel desk clerk, and underground physician, while renting a sofa from Turkish refugee Senay (French actress Audrey Tautou). One night, while cleaning a backed up toilet in one of the rooms at the hotel, Okwe discovers a human heart clogging up the thing. Okwe wants to do something about this, but as he is an illegal immigrant, is afraid of deportation should he become directly involved. In process of time Okwe discovers an back door organ harvesting operation praying on illegal aliens, and offering in exchanged forged passports and other documentation. Okwe battles his consense, with his desire to stay in England so as to avoid a horrible fate awaiting him in his home country. An appropriate story for our times, it reflects the human condition suffered by many people caught between circumstances and the system. A David Byrne song plays over the closing credits.
Director Stephen Frears Dirty Pretty Things takes a look at the plight of illegal immigrants in present day England. Chjwetel Ejiofor is Okwe, and illegal immigrant from Nigeria, a former doctor who has a secret past. An insomniac he is keeping down several jobs, including cab driver, hotel desk clerk, and underground physician, while renting a sofa from Turkish refugee Senay (French actress Audrey Tautou). One night, while cleaning a backed up toilet in one of the rooms at the hotel, Okwe discovers a human heart clogging up the thing. Okwe wants to do something about this, but as he is an illegal immigrant, is afraid of deportation should he become directly involved. In process of time Okwe discovers an back door organ harvesting operation praying on illegal aliens, and offering in exchanged forged passports and other documentation. Okwe battles his consense, with his desire to stay in England so as to avoid a horrible fate awaiting him in his home country. An appropriate story for our times, it reflects the human condition suffered by many people caught between circumstances and the system. A David Byrne song plays over the closing credits.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Stage Fright (1950)
(England, mostly London; contemporary)
Until about the last five minutes of the film, when the twist was reveled, I was a tad disappointed in this lesser known work of Hitchcock’s. The plot concerns aspiring actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman in a fine follow up performance to her Oscar winning role in Johnny Belinda), who goes undercover as the ‘dresser’ of theater star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich, not straying far from the familiar), to prove her philandering boyfriend (Richard Todd) innocent of a murder. Along the way Eve falls for police inspector Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding), and must struggle to keep her now duel identities separate, as Wilfred is investigating the same case; this provides most of the films suspense. Devoid of the Hitchcock visual flourishes that we’ve come to expect, this is a good but mostly forgettable thriller, and perhaps the closest the great director has ever come to ‘phoning it in’. Alistair Sim is terrific however as Eve’s bemusedly devious father.
Until about the last five minutes of the film, when the twist was reveled, I was a tad disappointed in this lesser known work of Hitchcock’s. The plot concerns aspiring actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman in a fine follow up performance to her Oscar winning role in Johnny Belinda), who goes undercover as the ‘dresser’ of theater star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich, not straying far from the familiar), to prove her philandering boyfriend (Richard Todd) innocent of a murder. Along the way Eve falls for police inspector Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding), and must struggle to keep her now duel identities separate, as Wilfred is investigating the same case; this provides most of the films suspense. Devoid of the Hitchcock visual flourishes that we’ve come to expect, this is a good but mostly forgettable thriller, and perhaps the closest the great director has ever come to ‘phoning it in’. Alistair Sim is terrific however as Eve’s bemusedly devious father.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Adventures of Errol Flynn (2005)
TCM produced documentary on the eventful life of swashbuckling lady's man Errol Flynn. A TV bio-pic about the man produced a number of years ago was titled "My Wicked, Wicked, Ways", so you just know his life story is going to be entertaining. Flynn was born in Tasmania, and worked as, among other things, a slave trader before becoming an actor. A lover of women, acting, sailing, and perhaps surprisingly writing, Flynn is a fascinating character whose life kind of parallels that of actor John Barrymore, whom he played in one of his last films. Ironically the parts about the actors films seemed to slow this documentary down, as his personal life and observations are generally more intriguing then his rather formula productions at Warner Brothers.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Big Love: Season 1 (2006)
(Utah, contmporary)
IMDb
A quirky/poignant drama ala HBO’s Six Feet Under, only dealing with polygamy rather then undertakers, Big Love is the type of program that just gives people at LDS Church public relations headaches. They fail to see a reason for it, as do many other Latter-day Saints, to them it just brings up awkward issues from the past they would rather be forgotten. In fact the official Church response to the program, issued March 6th 2006, goes so far as to say the following: “Big Love, like so much other television programming, is essentially lazy and indulgent entertainment that does nothing for our society and will never nourish great minds.” Ouch, that’s about as hostel as their likely to get in an official statement.
Yet I wonder if this is just another example of the tendency among mainline Mormons to avoid dealing with the tricky issues that abound in our tradition. We (as a whole) don’t like to think about them, we don’t like to have to address them, whether in Church, conversation with a non-member friend, or in popular entertainment. We can handle a brief joke or two on occasion, and once in a great while spend an evening pondering “The mystery’s of the Kingdom” with friends, yet to encounter something like polygamy in a modern context is discomforting for your average LDS, and here is where I think Big Love provides a potential service.
No doubt the bulk of the audience for Big Love, like the other racy HBO family drama’s, is not going to be LDS. Though having now watched the entire first season, it would certainly help the viewer if they were. Distinct LDS references, along with those to the broader Mormon tradition are dropped with little or no elaboration, terms like “sealing” and “garment” and “temple recommend”, may not be fully understood by “gentile” viewers not immersed in our own unique jargon. Though despite this, Utah’s largely Latter-day Saint populace acts as a kind of stand-in for the viewers perspective, the ’regular people’ who encounter, to one degree or another, the polygamous Henrickson clan around whom the series centers. This ironically is something your average member could support, having the “Mormons” on the show be the ‘regular guy’s’, yet then they have to encounter the “Mormons” of a quasi-19th century variety, which brings the typical Saint back into uncomfortable territory. Before I go one I do need to stop and acknowledge the semi-explicate depictions of sex on the show, though adding that other then a cameo appearance by Bill Pullmans posterior, no real nudity is shown. This degree of sexual frankness will be anathema to many members, yet also provides a convent cover for them dismissing the show, and by extension, the things it may have to teach us.
I’m afraid I have to take some exception to the folks at PR, but my “great mind” found some nourishment in Big Love, it found a rare canvas on which is depicted the cognitive dissidence of Mormonism past and present, where big business achievement and mounting credit card debt come face to face with sister wives and communal orders. Here we have a character, a successful businessman by the last name of Kimball, who invites our major male protagonist Bill Henrickson, (the owner of a growing chain of Utah based home improvement stories) into a civic organization composed of Salt Lake area business owners.Kimball is the epitome of the modern successful Mormon, he even has a rather common Mormon last name, one shared with a dynasty of LDS Church leaders going back to the earliest days of the movement. Kimball see’s I think a bit of himself in Bill Henrickson, and is practically impressed by his compelling narrative, having been thrown out a polygamous group at the age of 14, and then building himself a life and successful career as a “true” Latter-day Saint. Bill used to tell this story on a kind of inspirational circuit, while a practicing member of the mainline Church, before circumstances thrust him back into the world of polygamy. That Kimball finds this all so compelling and heroic is ironic in term of his name and his heritage, he says he can’t get over the barbarism of the modern fundamentalist, yet they practice what in the 19th Century would have made him the definition of a successful Latter-day Saint. Heber C. Kimball by the way, was the only Mormon Church leader of his day to have more plural wives then Brigham Young.
The way all the mainline Mormon characters deal with polygamy is in fact fascinating. Hendrickson daughter Sarah’s (Amanda Seyfried) best friend Heather (Tina Majorino) is a “Molly Mormon” who has some “very strong views on polygamy”, yet keep’s the Henderson’s secret out loyalty to her friend. First wife Barbara’s (Jeanne Tripplehorn) sister Cindy, likewise telegraphs a desire to get her nieces and nephew away from those practicing “The Principle”, but keeps mum to the authorities because she doesn’t want to inflict any destruction on her family. Even the Henrickson’s lawyer, played by former Clinton staffer Lawrence O’Donnell Jr., chooses to treat them simply as clients and friends, making no apparent judgment calls. In fact what was once called ’the Mormon Creed’, “Mind your own business”, seems to still be in effect among many of these Latter-day Saints, which perhaps explains why practice of ’the principle’ has remained such an open secret in stretches of the mountain west.
There are those among the LDS by-and-large who might have interest in exposing the Henrickson’s, but here they take the form of the sitcom staple ’nosey neighbors’ (who’d like to fellowship that ’single mother’ across the street into the Church) and a women of obsessive tendencies. By keeping mostly to themselves and taking a few other common sense precautions, the Hendrickson’s can functioning rather well in the modern world, where the biggest issue might be who runs who to their recital or baseball practice.
The Henrickson’s have those average, every-day problems, but there dramatic significance is heightened by having them played out among three wives and seven children. First wife Barb balances a career as a substitute teacher with family responsibilities and feels as though her husband has been “stolen away” from her by his other ’responsibilities’. Second wife Nikki (Chloe: Sevigny), who grow up on the polygamous compound of Juniper Creek, has succumbed to a shopping addiction now that she is out among the modern world, and tries desperately to keep the existence of her excessive debt from her husband, lashing out at others in the family in ac effort to deflect her mounting sense of personal guilt. Third wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), only 23, is suffering the standard feelings of isolation and overwhelment that affect young mothers. All the while son Ben (Douglas Smith) struggles with puberty and a sexually aggressive girlfriend, and daughter Sarah copes with intense social unease. These are all typical modern problems, very 21st Century, very contemporary Mormon, save for the marital arrangements, they could be any Wasatch area family.
No the Mormon past comes more to the front in the form of Juniper Creek, the polygamist compound in which Bill grew up, and too which he reluctantly returned seven years prior, when his wife had cancer and he desperately needed a loan. Trips to visit relatives in the desert community, and visits from members of a vastly extensive family bring that place, and that life style, to the forefront. While 19th Century in its social arrangements and cultural conceptions (one polygamist wife viewing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on television mutters “uppity”), it to, like the Henrickson’s suburban homes, is also in dissonance to a modern reality. Cheaply constructed country homes whose residents drive Hummers, plural wives tending the field and polishing the private plane. It’s a world of both pot lucks, and corporate style board meetings. All presided over by a cowboy hat wearing prophet, a former accountant who enjoys folk songs and the poetry of Emily Dickinson (Harry Dean Stanton). He’s authoritarian, yet genial, ruthless, but sentimental. At 76 years of age the importance of sex has waned in his mind, yet he keeps 14 wives including a 15 year old he seems more interested in teaching diction to then sleeping with.
The modern and primitive join hands and show there not that different, which is perhaps more disconcerting then comforting to the modern Mormon mind, even if we’re not likely to tell you that.(When you talk to a young Mormon women about polygamy, their response will most likely boil down to, “I’m glade I don’t have to deal with it, we don’t practice that anymore“.) When some long time polygamous wives are told they are to be reassigned when their husband falls out of favor with the groups leader, Bill tell’s them they don’t have to listen to him. “But he’s the one true prophet of the Lord” one responds. When Bill’s brother Joey confesses to Barb that he is a closet monogamist, but won’t tell his wife Wanda that he doesn’t want another wife, because he knows she’ll be upset, fearing they then won’t be able to go to the Celestial Kingdom, I see the modern parallels, and wonder how many other Mormons can be brought to acknowledge them. The source of the greatest meaning in their lives is also the source of most of their pain, yet they cling to ‘the principle’ as many of us cling to the Church, because it has become or axis, and we’ll never be able to see our own spirituality through any other prism. This may be good, this may be bad, but its something were wedded to as Mormons, a light by which we both see and are blinded.
I am thankful for Big Love. Thankful for the odd kind of Mormon every-family that are the Henrickson’s. Their adventures in dissonance truly nourish my soul, and expand my mind.
IMDb
A quirky/poignant drama ala HBO’s Six Feet Under, only dealing with polygamy rather then undertakers, Big Love is the type of program that just gives people at LDS Church public relations headaches. They fail to see a reason for it, as do many other Latter-day Saints, to them it just brings up awkward issues from the past they would rather be forgotten. In fact the official Church response to the program, issued March 6th 2006, goes so far as to say the following: “Big Love, like so much other television programming, is essentially lazy and indulgent entertainment that does nothing for our society and will never nourish great minds.” Ouch, that’s about as hostel as their likely to get in an official statement.
Yet I wonder if this is just another example of the tendency among mainline Mormons to avoid dealing with the tricky issues that abound in our tradition. We (as a whole) don’t like to think about them, we don’t like to have to address them, whether in Church, conversation with a non-member friend, or in popular entertainment. We can handle a brief joke or two on occasion, and once in a great while spend an evening pondering “The mystery’s of the Kingdom” with friends, yet to encounter something like polygamy in a modern context is discomforting for your average LDS, and here is where I think Big Love provides a potential service.
No doubt the bulk of the audience for Big Love, like the other racy HBO family drama’s, is not going to be LDS. Though having now watched the entire first season, it would certainly help the viewer if they were. Distinct LDS references, along with those to the broader Mormon tradition are dropped with little or no elaboration, terms like “sealing” and “garment” and “temple recommend”, may not be fully understood by “gentile” viewers not immersed in our own unique jargon. Though despite this, Utah’s largely Latter-day Saint populace acts as a kind of stand-in for the viewers perspective, the ’regular people’ who encounter, to one degree or another, the polygamous Henrickson clan around whom the series centers. This ironically is something your average member could support, having the “Mormons” on the show be the ‘regular guy’s’, yet then they have to encounter the “Mormons” of a quasi-19th century variety, which brings the typical Saint back into uncomfortable territory. Before I go one I do need to stop and acknowledge the semi-explicate depictions of sex on the show, though adding that other then a cameo appearance by Bill Pullmans posterior, no real nudity is shown. This degree of sexual frankness will be anathema to many members, yet also provides a convent cover for them dismissing the show, and by extension, the things it may have to teach us.
I’m afraid I have to take some exception to the folks at PR, but my “great mind” found some nourishment in Big Love, it found a rare canvas on which is depicted the cognitive dissidence of Mormonism past and present, where big business achievement and mounting credit card debt come face to face with sister wives and communal orders. Here we have a character, a successful businessman by the last name of Kimball, who invites our major male protagonist Bill Henrickson, (the owner of a growing chain of Utah based home improvement stories) into a civic organization composed of Salt Lake area business owners.Kimball is the epitome of the modern successful Mormon, he even has a rather common Mormon last name, one shared with a dynasty of LDS Church leaders going back to the earliest days of the movement. Kimball see’s I think a bit of himself in Bill Henrickson, and is practically impressed by his compelling narrative, having been thrown out a polygamous group at the age of 14, and then building himself a life and successful career as a “true” Latter-day Saint. Bill used to tell this story on a kind of inspirational circuit, while a practicing member of the mainline Church, before circumstances thrust him back into the world of polygamy. That Kimball finds this all so compelling and heroic is ironic in term of his name and his heritage, he says he can’t get over the barbarism of the modern fundamentalist, yet they practice what in the 19th Century would have made him the definition of a successful Latter-day Saint. Heber C. Kimball by the way, was the only Mormon Church leader of his day to have more plural wives then Brigham Young.
The way all the mainline Mormon characters deal with polygamy is in fact fascinating. Hendrickson daughter Sarah’s (Amanda Seyfried) best friend Heather (Tina Majorino) is a “Molly Mormon” who has some “very strong views on polygamy”, yet keep’s the Henderson’s secret out loyalty to her friend. First wife Barbara’s (Jeanne Tripplehorn) sister Cindy, likewise telegraphs a desire to get her nieces and nephew away from those practicing “The Principle”, but keeps mum to the authorities because she doesn’t want to inflict any destruction on her family. Even the Henrickson’s lawyer, played by former Clinton staffer Lawrence O’Donnell Jr., chooses to treat them simply as clients and friends, making no apparent judgment calls. In fact what was once called ’the Mormon Creed’, “Mind your own business”, seems to still be in effect among many of these Latter-day Saints, which perhaps explains why practice of ’the principle’ has remained such an open secret in stretches of the mountain west.
There are those among the LDS by-and-large who might have interest in exposing the Henrickson’s, but here they take the form of the sitcom staple ’nosey neighbors’ (who’d like to fellowship that ’single mother’ across the street into the Church) and a women of obsessive tendencies. By keeping mostly to themselves and taking a few other common sense precautions, the Hendrickson’s can functioning rather well in the modern world, where the biggest issue might be who runs who to their recital or baseball practice.
The Henrickson’s have those average, every-day problems, but there dramatic significance is heightened by having them played out among three wives and seven children. First wife Barb balances a career as a substitute teacher with family responsibilities and feels as though her husband has been “stolen away” from her by his other ’responsibilities’. Second wife Nikki (Chloe: Sevigny), who grow up on the polygamous compound of Juniper Creek, has succumbed to a shopping addiction now that she is out among the modern world, and tries desperately to keep the existence of her excessive debt from her husband, lashing out at others in the family in ac effort to deflect her mounting sense of personal guilt. Third wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), only 23, is suffering the standard feelings of isolation and overwhelment that affect young mothers. All the while son Ben (Douglas Smith) struggles with puberty and a sexually aggressive girlfriend, and daughter Sarah copes with intense social unease. These are all typical modern problems, very 21st Century, very contemporary Mormon, save for the marital arrangements, they could be any Wasatch area family.
No the Mormon past comes more to the front in the form of Juniper Creek, the polygamist compound in which Bill grew up, and too which he reluctantly returned seven years prior, when his wife had cancer and he desperately needed a loan. Trips to visit relatives in the desert community, and visits from members of a vastly extensive family bring that place, and that life style, to the forefront. While 19th Century in its social arrangements and cultural conceptions (one polygamist wife viewing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on television mutters “uppity”), it to, like the Henrickson’s suburban homes, is also in dissonance to a modern reality. Cheaply constructed country homes whose residents drive Hummers, plural wives tending the field and polishing the private plane. It’s a world of both pot lucks, and corporate style board meetings. All presided over by a cowboy hat wearing prophet, a former accountant who enjoys folk songs and the poetry of Emily Dickinson (Harry Dean Stanton). He’s authoritarian, yet genial, ruthless, but sentimental. At 76 years of age the importance of sex has waned in his mind, yet he keeps 14 wives including a 15 year old he seems more interested in teaching diction to then sleeping with.
The modern and primitive join hands and show there not that different, which is perhaps more disconcerting then comforting to the modern Mormon mind, even if we’re not likely to tell you that.(When you talk to a young Mormon women about polygamy, their response will most likely boil down to, “I’m glade I don’t have to deal with it, we don’t practice that anymore“.) When some long time polygamous wives are told they are to be reassigned when their husband falls out of favor with the groups leader, Bill tell’s them they don’t have to listen to him. “But he’s the one true prophet of the Lord” one responds. When Bill’s brother Joey confesses to Barb that he is a closet monogamist, but won’t tell his wife Wanda that he doesn’t want another wife, because he knows she’ll be upset, fearing they then won’t be able to go to the Celestial Kingdom, I see the modern parallels, and wonder how many other Mormons can be brought to acknowledge them. The source of the greatest meaning in their lives is also the source of most of their pain, yet they cling to ‘the principle’ as many of us cling to the Church, because it has become or axis, and we’ll never be able to see our own spirituality through any other prism. This may be good, this may be bad, but its something were wedded to as Mormons, a light by which we both see and are blinded.
I am thankful for Big Love. Thankful for the odd kind of Mormon every-family that are the Henrickson’s. Their adventures in dissonance truly nourish my soul, and expand my mind.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Jimmy Carter: American Experince (2002)
Two part PBS documentary on the life and presidency of James Earl Carter. It offered a little fill-in on events of the Carter years, a period I’m not quite as familiar with as those of the presidencies immediately proceeding and following it. However it didn’t alter my perceptions of the man in any significant way, as with I think most people, I view Carter as an honest and well meaning man, who was simply in over his head in the presidency.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales: Voice in the Dark (2007)
(outerspace; 2271)
Wiki
The better then expected DVD sales success of the Babylon 5 seasons and TV movies, opened the door to doing an anthology series of direct to DVD “Lost Tales”. In this first volume we have two, slightly interconnected stories dealing with celebrations marking the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the Interstellar Alliance at Babylon 5. The first story concerns now Colonel Lochley bringing a Catholic Priest onto the station to deal with an aperient case of demonic possession. The story is a meditation on the declining role of spiritual faith in an increasingly science and technology driven world (or universe). A clever little religious catch-22 is also presented. It’s funny that series creator/head writer J. Michael Straczynski, a well known atheist, is one of the best writers about religious thought out there today. This shows the true empathy of a good dramatist.
The second story is about President Sheridan’s trip from Minbari to the afformentioned anniversary celebration aboard Babylon 5. On the trip there he begrudgingly gives an interview to a reporter, is shown by the technomage Galen the future destruction of New York City, and must deal with a young Centauri prince, who could be fated to engineer the future sneak attack. Both stories play more like the short stories they are, then like an episode of the 90's space opera, this is especially true of the first. However the feeling of the old show is there, and one or two good CG sequences adds something of a sense of scope. The DVD also boasts a plethora of special features, including tributes to departed cast members Andreas Kastulas and Richard Biggs, as well as B5 sock puppets.
Wiki
The better then expected DVD sales success of the Babylon 5 seasons and TV movies, opened the door to doing an anthology series of direct to DVD “Lost Tales”. In this first volume we have two, slightly interconnected stories dealing with celebrations marking the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the Interstellar Alliance at Babylon 5. The first story concerns now Colonel Lochley bringing a Catholic Priest onto the station to deal with an aperient case of demonic possession. The story is a meditation on the declining role of spiritual faith in an increasingly science and technology driven world (or universe). A clever little religious catch-22 is also presented. It’s funny that series creator/head writer J. Michael Straczynski, a well known atheist, is one of the best writers about religious thought out there today. This shows the true empathy of a good dramatist.
The second story is about President Sheridan’s trip from Minbari to the afformentioned anniversary celebration aboard Babylon 5. On the trip there he begrudgingly gives an interview to a reporter, is shown by the technomage Galen the future destruction of New York City, and must deal with a young Centauri prince, who could be fated to engineer the future sneak attack. Both stories play more like the short stories they are, then like an episode of the 90's space opera, this is especially true of the first. However the feeling of the old show is there, and one or two good CG sequences adds something of a sense of scope. The DVD also boasts a plethora of special features, including tributes to departed cast members Andreas Kastulas and Richard Biggs, as well as B5 sock puppets.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
I never fully understood the appeal of Popeye, but maybe some of you folks out there will appreciate the fans efforts.
Looking for an obscure half-remembered animated film from childhood, well try the Wiki List of Animated feature-length films. Now if they'd just put The Mouse and His Child on DVD.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Nate Dredge's: The 100 Greatest Films of All Time, Version 2.1
A slightly altered list eliminating Pieces of April and The Train while adding The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Presented Chronologically:
1925
The Gold Rush
1928
The Crowd
1930
All Quite on the Western Front
1931
City Lights
1932
Grand Hotel
1933
Duck Soup
1934
It Happened One Night
1935
Mutiny on the Bounty
1936
A Night at the Opera
San Francisco
1938
Angles With Dirty Faces
Bringing Up Baby
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Gone With The Wind
1940
His Girl Friday
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
1941
Citizen Kane
Sgt. York
Sullivan’s Travels
The Lady
EveThe Maltese Falcon
1942
Mrs. Miniver
Yankee Doodle Dandy
1943
Shadow of a Doubt
1944
Double Indemnity
Laura
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
1946
The Best Years of Our Lives
It’s a Wonderful Life
1948
The Treasure of the Sera Madra
1949
The Heiress
1950
HarveySunset Blvd.
1951
A Place in the Sun
The African Queen
1952
High NoonSinging in the Rain
1954
Rear Window
Sabrina
1956
Giant
The Searchers
1957
A Face in the Crowd
Bridge on the River Kwai
Twelve Angry Men
Witness For The Prosecution
1958
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
1959
Anatomy of a Murder
North By Northwest
1960
The Apartment
Inherit The WindPsycho
1962
Advise and Consent
Lawrence of Arabia
The Manchurian Candidate
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
To Kill A Mockingbird
1963
The Great Escape
1964
Dr. Stranglove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
The Night of the Iguana
1965
Dr. Zhivago
1967
In the Heat of the Night
1968
2001: A Space Odyssey
1969
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1970
Patton
Ryan’s Daughter
1972
The Godfather
1974
China Town
The Godfather Part II
1975
Nashville
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976
Network
Rocky
1977
Annie Hall
1979
Apocalypse Now
Being There
1980
The Elephant Man
1981
On Golden Pond
Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982
E.T.- The Extraterrestrial
The Verdict
1983
A Christmas Story
1984
Once Upon A Time in America
1985
Back to the Future
1986
Blue Velvet
1989
Driving Ms. Daisy
1990
Millers Crossing
1992
Scent of a Women
Unforgiven
1993
Schindler’s List
1994
Ed Wood
Forrest Gump
Nixon
The Shawshank Redemption
1996
Fargo
1997
L.A. Confidential
1999
American Beauty
2001
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2003
Gangs of New York
1925
The Gold Rush
1928
The Crowd
1930
All Quite on the Western Front
1931
City Lights
1932
Grand Hotel
1933
Duck Soup
1934
It Happened One Night
1935
Mutiny on the Bounty
1936
A Night at the Opera
San Francisco
1938
Angles With Dirty Faces
Bringing Up Baby
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Gone With The Wind
1940
His Girl Friday
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
1941
Citizen Kane
Sgt. York
Sullivan’s Travels
The Lady
EveThe Maltese Falcon
1942
Mrs. Miniver
Yankee Doodle Dandy
1943
Shadow of a Doubt
1944
Double Indemnity
Laura
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
1946
The Best Years of Our Lives
It’s a Wonderful Life
1948
The Treasure of the Sera Madra
1949
The Heiress
1950
HarveySunset Blvd.
1951
A Place in the Sun
The African Queen
1952
High NoonSinging in the Rain
1954
Rear Window
Sabrina
1956
Giant
The Searchers
1957
A Face in the Crowd
Bridge on the River Kwai
Twelve Angry Men
Witness For The Prosecution
1958
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
1959
Anatomy of a Murder
North By Northwest
1960
The Apartment
Inherit The WindPsycho
1962
Advise and Consent
Lawrence of Arabia
The Manchurian Candidate
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
To Kill A Mockingbird
1963
The Great Escape
1964
Dr. Stranglove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
The Night of the Iguana
1965
Dr. Zhivago
1967
In the Heat of the Night
1968
2001: A Space Odyssey
1969
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1970
Patton
Ryan’s Daughter
1972
The Godfather
1974
China Town
The Godfather Part II
1975
Nashville
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976
Network
Rocky
1977
Annie Hall
1979
Apocalypse Now
Being There
1980
The Elephant Man
1981
On Golden Pond
Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982
E.T.- The Extraterrestrial
The Verdict
1983
A Christmas Story
1984
Once Upon A Time in America
1985
Back to the Future
1986
Blue Velvet
1989
Driving Ms. Daisy
1990
Millers Crossing
1992
Scent of a Women
Unforgiven
1993
Schindler’s List
1994
Ed Wood
Forrest Gump
Nixon
The Shawshank Redemption
1996
Fargo
1997
L.A. Confidential
1999
American Beauty
2001
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2003
Gangs of New York
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
(Oregon?; 1963)
IMDb
This is close to perfect. Milos Formens reflection on conformity and nonconformity is deeply resonate. Strong performances all around from large cast with Academy Award winners Nicholson and Fletcher two of the many standouts. I put off seeing this film, but shouldn't have, it is deserving of a place on any top 100 list.
IMDb
This is close to perfect. Milos Formens reflection on conformity and nonconformity is deeply resonate. Strong performances all around from large cast with Academy Award winners Nicholson and Fletcher two of the many standouts. I put off seeing this film, but shouldn't have, it is deserving of a place on any top 100 list.
The Bat (1959)
(Small American town bordering a forest; contemporary)
IMDb
Mystery writer Agnes Moorehead investigates the case of a masked killer called 'The Bat', who is after a million dollars hidden in the mansion she is renting for the summer. Sort of Murder She Wrote meets Scobby-Doo. I came away convinced Ms. Moorehead could have played Ms. Marpel.
IMDb
Mystery writer Agnes Moorehead investigates the case of a masked killer called 'The Bat', who is after a million dollars hidden in the mansion she is renting for the summer. Sort of Murder She Wrote meets Scobby-Doo. I came away convinced Ms. Moorehead could have played Ms. Marpel.
Monday, August 6, 2007
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)
(Unspecified, USA; contemporary)
IMDb
Millionaire businessman Vincent Price invites a small cross section of people to a party held at "the only truly haunted house in America". Price promises to pay his visitors each $10,000 if they stay a full 12 hours in the house, money which each of them desperately needs for their own reasons. Of course its not long before chandlers are dropping, missing heads a turning up, and people are mysteriously found hanging, or dropped into a pit of acid. Perfect fit for Price, but doesn't stray much from formula.
IMDb
Millionaire businessman Vincent Price invites a small cross section of people to a party held at "the only truly haunted house in America". Price promises to pay his visitors each $10,000 if they stay a full 12 hours in the house, money which each of them desperately needs for their own reasons. Of course its not long before chandlers are dropping, missing heads a turning up, and people are mysteriously found hanging, or dropped into a pit of acid. Perfect fit for Price, but doesn't stray much from formula.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
(Unspecifyed city, United States, though filmed in Italy; 1968, flashback to 1965)
IMDb
Your probably more familiar with the plot of this movie from Charlton Heston's The Omega Man (1971). An unknown plague scowers the world, killing most, and leaving the rest as zombie/vampires. Vincent Price is the last truly human survivor, a chemist who got his immunity from the bit of an infected bat in Panama, some years before the real crises begins. Price has turned his home into a kind of lose fortress and spends his days searching for needed supplies, visiting his late wife's tomb, and staking vampire people through the heart, and then burning there bodies. Eventually his lonely life is brightened when he meets an only semi-infected women and cures her with his blood, only to hounded by her fellow Semi's who fear him as they fear the Zombies. Enjoyable and low budget. I believe Will Smith will soon appear in another variant of this age old formula entitled I Am Legend.
IMDb
Your probably more familiar with the plot of this movie from Charlton Heston's The Omega Man (1971). An unknown plague scowers the world, killing most, and leaving the rest as zombie/vampires. Vincent Price is the last truly human survivor, a chemist who got his immunity from the bit of an infected bat in Panama, some years before the real crises begins. Price has turned his home into a kind of lose fortress and spends his days searching for needed supplies, visiting his late wife's tomb, and staking vampire people through the heart, and then burning there bodies. Eventually his lonely life is brightened when he meets an only semi-infected women and cures her with his blood, only to hounded by her fellow Semi's who fear him as they fear the Zombies. Enjoyable and low budget. I believe Will Smith will soon appear in another variant of this age old formula entitled I Am Legend.
Shock (1946)
(San Fransisco and the nearby countryside; contemporary)
IMDb
While waiting for her returning POW husband at a San Fransisco hotel, Anabel Shaw gets quite a Shock when she witnesses a murder. The murderer incidentally turns out to be the very same Doctor (Vincent Price) who will come to treat her at a country mental institution. Fair programmer whose greatest strength is the nuance Price brings to his character. Dr. Cross killed his wife in a fit of anger over disagreements pertaining to their coming divorce (Anabel Shaw's character witnessed this event from her hotel room via a rear window). Price wanted to call the police but his mistress (Lynn Bari) convinces him to try and cover the murder up, later faking his wife's death as part of a climbing accident. Vincent goes back and forth throughout the movie trying to figure out what to do, and eventually kills Ms. Bari before turning himself in (there had to be a less messy way of handling that situation). Anyway, look for more forthcoming Vincent Price reviews as I recently received a four picture disc of the actors horror/mystery work.
IMDb
While waiting for her returning POW husband at a San Fransisco hotel, Anabel Shaw gets quite a Shock when she witnesses a murder. The murderer incidentally turns out to be the very same Doctor (Vincent Price) who will come to treat her at a country mental institution. Fair programmer whose greatest strength is the nuance Price brings to his character. Dr. Cross killed his wife in a fit of anger over disagreements pertaining to their coming divorce (Anabel Shaw's character witnessed this event from her hotel room via a rear window). Price wanted to call the police but his mistress (Lynn Bari) convinces him to try and cover the murder up, later faking his wife's death as part of a climbing accident. Vincent goes back and forth throughout the movie trying to figure out what to do, and eventually kills Ms. Bari before turning himself in (there had to be a less messy way of handling that situation). Anyway, look for more forthcoming Vincent Price reviews as I recently received a four picture disc of the actors horror/mystery work.
The Virgin Spring (1960)
(Rural Sweden; 13th Century)
IMDb
Winner of the Oscar for best foreign language film, Ingmar Bergman's little masterpiece is an adaptation of a medieval Swedish morality play. The story concerns a young women raped and murdered by two itinerant goat headers, who that very night unknowingly take shelter with her family. Quite and profound the movie takes you to a fully developed, largely unsentimentalized world, one beset by human imperfection and crises. I didn't expect to but I found the whole thing gripping, and surprisingly taught for a Bergman film, yet filled with slow slow moments that only add to the suspense and pathos. Worth seeing.
IMDb
Winner of the Oscar for best foreign language film, Ingmar Bergman's little masterpiece is an adaptation of a medieval Swedish morality play. The story concerns a young women raped and murdered by two itinerant goat headers, who that very night unknowingly take shelter with her family. Quite and profound the movie takes you to a fully developed, largely unsentimentalized world, one beset by human imperfection and crises. I didn't expect to but I found the whole thing gripping, and surprisingly taught for a Bergman film, yet filled with slow slow moments that only add to the suspense and pathos. Worth seeing.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Fight Club (1999)
(unspecified American city, other city's; contemporary)
IMDb
The first rule about reviewing Fight Club, is not to talk about Fight Club. You can't really, not without betraying Fight Club. It is a maddening movie in some ways, it cheats. Yet it cheats in its cheating, and in that way is perfectly honest. Paradox is part of the bargain.
Now if you make a movie, and you call it Fight Club, and you put say Meatloaf in this movie, well then you've got me in the opposition from the get go. Yet if you make this movie cleaver, and if that works for you, then you might win me over. The early black sarcasm gives way to an alienated philosophical bloviating, and a fascist existential philosophy the film both values for its purity and ridicules for its insanity. It's radical and populist, fascist while being socialisticly anarchist, and all with just a little bit of early 20th century progressivism.
Edward Norton is fine in this role, the white collard nobody who hates his job and hates himself. His insomnia a metaphor for the crushing effects of modern life, his peace drawn from the support groups for deathly conditions he dose not have, emblematic of his need to refresh himself through the pain of others. His mundane yet calculatingly evil job, (which brought him low in the first place) is a catalyst for an massive visual representation of released rage. Is he an apologist for Timothy McVeigh, or Ralph Nader by way of Al-Quada?
We shouldn't feel sympathy, yet we need to for this to work. The creators found an inventive way around all this, in fact its the essence of the story, and it works because Norton builds up such good will in our minds early on, and because Pitt's character is in trajectory between 12 Monkey's and Oceans 11. This film has quite a cult following, which is good in its appreciation of quality and invention, but potently bad in its political implications. It is a libertarian film, in both a wide and fringe sense. While it probably warrant's continued examination on my part, say a repeat viewing in a couple months or so, it kept my subconscious mind occupied, and the rest of me completely entertained. I was being manipulated, but the gun was in my hand all along.
IMDb
The first rule about reviewing Fight Club, is not to talk about Fight Club. You can't really, not without betraying Fight Club. It is a maddening movie in some ways, it cheats. Yet it cheats in its cheating, and in that way is perfectly honest. Paradox is part of the bargain.
Now if you make a movie, and you call it Fight Club, and you put say Meatloaf in this movie, well then you've got me in the opposition from the get go. Yet if you make this movie cleaver, and if that works for you, then you might win me over. The early black sarcasm gives way to an alienated philosophical bloviating, and a fascist existential philosophy the film both values for its purity and ridicules for its insanity. It's radical and populist, fascist while being socialisticly anarchist, and all with just a little bit of early 20th century progressivism.
Edward Norton is fine in this role, the white collard nobody who hates his job and hates himself. His insomnia a metaphor for the crushing effects of modern life, his peace drawn from the support groups for deathly conditions he dose not have, emblematic of his need to refresh himself through the pain of others. His mundane yet calculatingly evil job, (which brought him low in the first place) is a catalyst for an massive visual representation of released rage. Is he an apologist for Timothy McVeigh, or Ralph Nader by way of Al-Quada?
We shouldn't feel sympathy, yet we need to for this to work. The creators found an inventive way around all this, in fact its the essence of the story, and it works because Norton builds up such good will in our minds early on, and because Pitt's character is in trajectory between 12 Monkey's and Oceans 11. This film has quite a cult following, which is good in its appreciation of quality and invention, but potently bad in its political implications. It is a libertarian film, in both a wide and fringe sense. While it probably warrant's continued examination on my part, say a repeat viewing in a couple months or so, it kept my subconscious mind occupied, and the rest of me completely entertained. I was being manipulated, but the gun was in my hand all along.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Gray Gardens (1975)
(East Hampton New York, 1973)
Wiki
Documentary filmmakers the Maysles brothers where tuned on to the story of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little Edie", when making an ultamity scraped documentary on other members of the Bouvier clan. Aunt and cousin to the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Beales were living in there dilapidated East Hampton estate Gray Gardens in a conditions deemed by the community unsanitary. There was no electricity or running water, garbage had piled up inside, and the mansions grounds had become a variable jungle. The reclusive pair was however able to improve things enough so as not to be evicted, but the house was still a disturbing emblem of decay when a documentary film crew came to chronicle its residences lives in the mid-1970's.
How did this happen?, is the question that runs through Gray Gardens. How did these two lives just sort of collapse in on each other, and become so mired in this rut? It is a question never truly answered. They were wealthy, they had both been moderately attractive women when younger. "Big Edie" had made records, and had a prolonged affair with a musician and writer, while "Little Edie" had attended college and received marriage proposals from multiple millionaires. Yet somehow, starting apparently in the early 1950's, (the film is vague on details which only adds to its effectiveness) both their lives just kind of stopped. While her mother had been separated from her father for some time, (being loyal Catholics they never officially divorced, though he lived with another women) right around 1952 "Little Edie" (full name: Edith Bouvier Beale) became concerned about her welfare, to the point where she says she could barley sleep. Having been living in New York City for some years, apparently as an unsuccessful actress, her lifestyle subsidized by the family fortune, young Edith returned to the home of her youth for what was apparently to have been a short time. Twenty years later she was still there.
The two lived mostly alone, though they had one regular visitor in a young man named Jeremy, whose exact purpose for visiting is never made clear in the movie. There were other visitors too on rare occasion, an unidentified middle-aged women, and an elderly man are the only two who come to "Big Edie's" 79th birthday part, a simple affair for which she actually traveled outside her small room, an apparently rare occurrence. Most of the time its just them alone, and in this case a film crew which never numbers more then two. The Edith's reminisce, look through old photographs, feed their eight cats, and listen to self-help guru Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on the radio. Then they complain, and bitterly spare with one other, both bemoaning of the sacrifices they've made, both lamenting lost or never-lived lives. It's hypnotically drawing, yet also repellent, its what happens when people just stop, out of fear, out of laziness, out of something unexplainable. In short it is terrifying, yet absolutely human. It is incredible film making.
Wiki
Documentary filmmakers the Maysles brothers where tuned on to the story of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little Edie", when making an ultamity scraped documentary on other members of the Bouvier clan. Aunt and cousin to the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Beales were living in there dilapidated East Hampton estate Gray Gardens in a conditions deemed by the community unsanitary. There was no electricity or running water, garbage had piled up inside, and the mansions grounds had become a variable jungle. The reclusive pair was however able to improve things enough so as not to be evicted, but the house was still a disturbing emblem of decay when a documentary film crew came to chronicle its residences lives in the mid-1970's.
How did this happen?, is the question that runs through Gray Gardens. How did these two lives just sort of collapse in on each other, and become so mired in this rut? It is a question never truly answered. They were wealthy, they had both been moderately attractive women when younger. "Big Edie" had made records, and had a prolonged affair with a musician and writer, while "Little Edie" had attended college and received marriage proposals from multiple millionaires. Yet somehow, starting apparently in the early 1950's, (the film is vague on details which only adds to its effectiveness) both their lives just kind of stopped. While her mother had been separated from her father for some time, (being loyal Catholics they never officially divorced, though he lived with another women) right around 1952 "Little Edie" (full name: Edith Bouvier Beale) became concerned about her welfare, to the point where she says she could barley sleep. Having been living in New York City for some years, apparently as an unsuccessful actress, her lifestyle subsidized by the family fortune, young Edith returned to the home of her youth for what was apparently to have been a short time. Twenty years later she was still there.
The two lived mostly alone, though they had one regular visitor in a young man named Jeremy, whose exact purpose for visiting is never made clear in the movie. There were other visitors too on rare occasion, an unidentified middle-aged women, and an elderly man are the only two who come to "Big Edie's" 79th birthday part, a simple affair for which she actually traveled outside her small room, an apparently rare occurrence. Most of the time its just them alone, and in this case a film crew which never numbers more then two. The Edith's reminisce, look through old photographs, feed their eight cats, and listen to self-help guru Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on the radio. Then they complain, and bitterly spare with one other, both bemoaning of the sacrifices they've made, both lamenting lost or never-lived lives. It's hypnotically drawing, yet also repellent, its what happens when people just stop, out of fear, out of laziness, out of something unexplainable. In short it is terrifying, yet absolutely human. It is incredible film making.
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