Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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Some excellent films were made in 1985. I think *Out of Africa* is underrated. It sounds silly to say that, since it won seven Oscars including Best Picture, but I think it is a particularly fine film and should appeal especially to those of us who enjoy the spirit and quality of the classics. I also think -- and this is a big statement -- that it is Meryl Streep's finest performance. It is literate, romantic, a ripping yarn, gorgeously and intelligently shot. The only caveat is that Redford is not quite right as Denys Finch Hatton.
Other great films from 1985 (in my opinion) are Prizzi's Honour, A Room with a View, Witness, After Hours, Kiss of the Spider Woman, My Beautiful Lauderette, My Sweet Little Village, and Ran.
I'm afraid that one of the most overrated films of all time was made in 1985: that revolting pile of crap, Brazil, which fools some people into taking its boring satire and art direction for something more. I hate that film, and I had to sit through a particularly endless version in the U.K. which was cut for the U.S. release.
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Omigod, *Jalna* ! With one of Jessie Ralph's greatest performances!
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I've never heard of that film, thanks! Ann also sings (and dances) in a very enjoyable film she made the following year, Navy Blues.
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I'm looking forward to seeing *Tree of Life*. It didn't get the huge opening in NYC that major films get, and I missed it. It's now playing in only one small-ish theater not in my neighborhood (not that I couldn't travel, it's just not a very good theater). Terrence Malick's films are certainly not to everyone's taste. I tried watching *Days of Heaven* (granted it was on video) years ago and never finished it. But I did see *The New World* in the cinema when it came out (in its longest version) and thought it was a masterpiece, a gorgeous, moving film.
Malick is famous for making a film every decade or so. But if you look at IMDB, it looks like he's changed. He has several films in the works.
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I just wish they could have gotten better actors (as they tried to do) for the two male leads in King's Row. I like the film, but it would have been much better.
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C'mon, how can they celebrate Reagan when two greater artists -- Gayle Hunnicutt and Ramon Novarro -- share the same birthday?
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I think your concerns about the care in which Maria scene in Frankenstein was shot is a point that goes against your argument for the earlier being the better film. Whale's craft and art were evolving. I think that's part of why Bride is superior. Perhaps it's too bad the Maria scene was not in the sequel; it would probably have been shot more artfully.
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Though I love Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein is the greater film in many ways. Whale knew how to use the language of cinema to tell his story -- alot of it is in the marriage of text and image. The Gothic tradition of "monster" as Byronic hero comes through very clearly in Bride; images/sounds enhance the plot to an amazing degree -- e.g. the backlit cross and music in the hermit scene; even the gay (yes, it's there) subtext comes through clearly. Frankenstein is a good film; Bride is a work of art.
The "bride," of course, can mean many things, one of which is poor Valerie Hobson, who has her fiance stolen from her by a rather effeminate man, (Minnie: "He's a very queer-looking old gentleman,") a man who played Horace FEMM in Whale's earlier masterpiece, The Old Dark House. Even the film's opening -- Mary Shelley chatting with Shelley and Byron on a dark and stormy night -- enhances the woman's isolation. Notice how the two men tend to be on one shot, Mary alone in another. (Byron and Shelley where said to be lovers.) Bride of Frankenstein is one of the great surrealist, campy, artistic horror films ever made.
Whale's Show Boat is, I think, the greatest musical ever made, not just a bunch of theatrically presented musical numbers, but a carefully crafted movie. Here's a clip from the film, musical theater's greatest song, perhaps the most perfectly shot and performed song ever captured on film:
(RayF: Don't be too hard on the monster for the "Maria" scene in Frankenstein. It's a sign of his soft side. Having just seen Maria throwing flowers into the water, flowers which float, the monster sees Maria as a little flower who will also float.)
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SOHF, I guess.
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I thought you'd find that tidbit fascinating. Michael Crichton wrote The Andromeda Strain. I worked briefly with his mother on a project a long time ago. She was very tall. Very nice, too.
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I met Michael Crichton's mother many years ago. Her name was Zula. She was very tall.
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*They Came from Within*, David Cronenberg's early masterpiece, is one of the best contagion films and perhaps Cronenberg's most effective film. To quote its plot line on IMDB:
"The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact."
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Ellen Geer has a hilarious bit as Sunshire {font:Calibri}Doré in{font} *Harold and Maude*. When Sunshine accidentally kills herself, demonstrating a scene from Romeo and Juliet ("O happy dagger..."), Harold's mother, played brilliantly by Vivian Pickles, says, "Harold! That was your last date!"
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Finance, well done! But attention must be paid to etiquette! In this game, I think you're supposed to wait for me to say how brilliant you are before you post your clue.
Btw, is there a typo in your clue? Do you mean Nile Delta, or an Egyptian Della Reese?
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I kind of like *The Wasp Woman* :
http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/wp-content/uploads/wasp-woman.jpg
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Abe Lincoln's birthplace moved to Bette's dump co-star
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Though it goes against my grain to call him that --
*Brigham Young* ?
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How about "rent boy?"
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As I've said before, I think David Lean's Great Expectations is an overrated adaptation. I think David Lean's A Passage to India is one of the most perfect adaptations of a novel ever filmed -- it captures the spirit in image even when it can't be true to the words. I also found The Leopard to be kind of ponderous -- went to what seemed like an endless screening of it at MOMA many years ago. But Diary of a Country Priest -- now there's a great film! I also think the film of Tom Jones is one of the greats.
Of novels not yet been filmed, I would recommend my favorite all-time novel, The White Peacock by D.H. Lawrence. And also The Longest Journey, the only novel by E.M. Forster that has not been filmed. These novels would be challenges to film, but I think it could be done by a sensitive director. I think a few of the gothic novels of the early 19th century would make good movies (as Frankenstein has already shown) -- Melmoth the Wanderer, The Monk, The Castle of Otranto, and The Mysteries of Udolpho. And Beckford's Vathek, one of the oddest books ever written, would make a great film, as would Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson.
Of American novels, the works of Sherwood Anderson, particularly any of the parts of Winesburg, Ohio; and of course any of the three stories in Gertrude Stein's Three Lives would be great on screen.
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I know that people really liked Hatfield, personally. His funeral was the same day as that of Jerome Robbins, who was almost universally disliked, and the irony of that was commented upon. Hatfield actually introduced Angela Lansbury to Peter Shaw, the man who would become her husband.
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I can't get Comcast or Cablevision in my part of Manhattan. I have three options: RCN (which I have for TV, Internet, phone); FIOS (recently installed in my building), and Time Warner. Time Warner people seem to have the most complaints about service. I keep getting deal offers from FIOS, but it's too complicated, and I'm mostly happy with RCN. I have 99 TCM movies recorded on my cable box, plus a few other programs, and the thought of giving them up and getting a new cable box is too traumatic!
Yes, the cable industry in NYC has been fraught with political connections. Richard Aurelio, who was Deputy Mayor at one point, later became the President of NYC Time Warner.
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Nothing like maternal sacrifice to please the crowds! Stella Dallas also has similarities. Frisco Jenny (one of my favorites) is sort of an inverted Madame X.
SPOILER ALERT!!! In Madame X, the lawyer son representing his mother (without knowing she's his mother) gets her acquitted of murder. In Frisco Jenny, the son is the district attorney who sends his mother (Ruth Chatterton) to be hanged, but she won't let on that she's his mother! The last scene of Frisco Jenny -- Helen Jerome Eddy burning the newspaper clippings, shot from the back of the fireplace, is a heartbreaker.
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No, nor Frisco Jenny, which is very Madame X like. The dozen I mentioned were all called Madame X's or had Madame X in the title and were based on Bisson's play.
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I'm recording *Wings of the Morning* at the moment. Had a glimpse -- it looks fascinating. I've read mixed things about it but am looking forward to watching this pioneering film.
Rate the stars!!
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John Wayne -- 7
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James Stewart -- 8
Beulah Bondi -- 10