skimpole

We have to start every day at 6:00 AM?

I saw five movies this week. From this Day Forward was cleafly the best, an interesting portait of a working man's life in the late thirties, even if Joan Fontaine would not be my first choice for a working class wife. Burt Lancaster and Anna Magnani were two of the greatest of actors. But The Rose Tattoo can only be called a disaster, a complete failure of empathy on Williams' part. Newsfront and The Devil's Playground are examples of the Australian New Wave. This is misleading: there is nothing remotely as innovative as the French version. At most the Australian movies discuss aspects of Australian history with more frankness and less reverence for established authority than they would have two decades earlier. As such they are competent dramas, and they differ from Canadian movies of the same period, many of which were trying to disguise themselves as Hollywood movies. (Three of the Canadian exceptions: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Why Shoot the Teacher were actually directed by non-Canadians.) The Devil's Playground, in particular is not as lurid as future treatements of the theme, but the characters don't say or do anything particularly original on the subject. Finally there's Inside Lleweyn Davis. One of the most admired movies of last year, one can agree that is expertly shot and staged, that Oscar Lewis gives a good performance, and the characters are less cartoonish as usual--more No Country for Old Men than Barton Fink or O Brother Where art Thou? And a lot of critics I respected admired this film. And Davis is not a simple ****, but has genuine talent. Notwithstanding some critics and despite not having the most likeable of characters, he is clealry more sinned against than sinning. But this is another of the Coen Brothers' contemptous movies, shown, in J. Hoberman's words from "the Olympian heights of a bunk bed in suburbia." As two talented obnoxious directors making a movie about one talented obnoxious failure, one might think there for the grace of God would be the appropriate style. But it's not theirs.

"What channel showed An Oversimplificaton of Her Beauty? Sounds interesting." Actually I saw it on DVD.

The five movies that I saw this week were certainly a collective improvement over my last installment. Gentleman's Agreement, which had the distinction of being the only Best Picture winner that I had never seen, was certainly the least of these. It's more a prime example of something Hollywood has never done well: discuss controversial social issues. The emphasis on comparatively minor discrimination, the focus on individual prejudice, along with the generally self-congrautlatory attitude all date the film. It's easy to parody ("Your plan will never work Green: you're the sptting image of Gregory Peck.") and the scene where Green objects to anti-semitic comments from both non-Jews and Jews is the kind of even-handedness that appears utterly idiotic three years after the liberation of Auschwtiz. 84 Charing Cross Road is a more charming movie, even if it does not fully escape its stage origins. I must confess that although not completely substantial, I'm a sucker for a movie about bookstores. Hobson's Choice can be considerd a David Lean movie for people who thought Brief Encounter was too erotic. But it does possess a certain charm. Nymph()maniac is an understandbly very different movie, and Charlotte Gainsbourg's supposedly sex-obsessed character reminds me of the old Monty Python joke that a murderer is an inverted suicide. Intelligent, deeply problematic in its dealing with Trier's old theme of female ****, some of it is remarkably film-making: an extended scene with Uma Thurman, a confrontation with a repressed pedophile being two highlights. But the best movie I saw this week was the deliriously complex, wildly inventive and stunning romantic An Oversimplificaton of Her Beauty.

I saw six movies over the last two weeks. Our Town may be an "actor-proof" play, in Dwight Macdonald's mordant phrase, but it certainly isn't a director proof movie once Sam Wood got hold of it. He brings out all the sentimentality and falseness of the play. Marat/Sade is better, alternating between somewhat fashionable at the time and therefore dated now aspects with some passages of genuine power. News from Home is one of Chantal Akerman's non-narrative films: essentially shots of New York in the late seventies intercut with letters from her mother back in Belgium. This is less successful than her 1993 film D'est, but still worthy of attention. The last shot is seem from a boat sailing away from Manhattan, which means that one of the last things to enter the frames is the two towers. Hotel Montery is another Akerman experiment, if not as successful. Sweetie is an interesting movie, and it is made with evident care and skill, even if I didn't fully warm to it. I can't say I was disappointed with Spring Breakers, which was just as corrupt, cynical and meretricious as I thought it would be.

Here are my favorite movies by letter of the alphabet: A-Andrei Rublev B-Brazil C-The Confession D-Duck Soup E-The earrings of Madame De F-A Fish Called Wanda G-The Godfather Part II H-Help! I-Ivan the Terrible, Part One J-JFK K-Kiss Kiss Bang Bang L-The Leopard M-Murder on the Orient Express N-North by Northwest O-Ordet P-Pink Floyd: the Wall Q-Quadrophenia R-The Rules of the Game S-Shoah T-2001: A Space Odyssey U-The Usual Suspects V-Vertigo W-The Wizard of Oz X-X-Men Y-Yellow Submarine Z-Z

Well it's nice that we get to see Bombshell after it was previously canceled. Two for the Road and Funny Face would be better Hepburn choices. Are The Lovers and Bay of Angels premieres? We need more foreign actors, so how about Chishyu Ryo?

I'm not sure primosprimos. They're having House this week, and while it may take a decade for them to consider movies from 2001, it's not beyond the bonds of possibility.

Intimate Lighting is on the topic along with the other Czech New Wave film The Shop on Main Street. We don't get to see them in Canada, and I would really like to know where in the country they are being broadcast that means TCM won't show them.

James Mason.

This week I only saw three movies. Guilty Hands suffers from the problem that its plot and its denoument seem to have been copied dozens of times after it was made, even if that's not actually the case. But Lionel Barrymore gives a good performance and W.S. Van Dyke does offer some nice touches. The Japanse Pulse is strange, evocative, not entirely successful, and not helped by being muddled at a crucial point by a malfunctioning DVD. But the best movie of the week is Aerograd, Dovzenkno's version of a frontier movie involving Asian subversives, striking aerial footage and other striking aspects.

Right now I am reading Mario Vargas Llosa's novel about Roger Casement, The Dream of the Celt. I'm also trying to read a book called Class in Archaic Greece.

In Canada we didn't get to see Breaker Morant.

According to the TCM database, the only movie of his where he played a starring role to appear on TCM was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played supporting roles in Brazil, Nixon and Hook, which also appeared on TCM. Strikes me as a good reason to show Felicity's Journey.

Seriously, why don't we have Barry Lyndon on TCM? We've had the other four 1975 best picture nominees on TCM.

Dargo, I have no trouble preferring The English Patient to most other 1996 movies, including Fargo. Alan Parker is not a renowned director and many people will never, quite understandably, forgive him for Mississippi Burning. But Angel Heart and Pink Floyd: the Wall are too of my very favorite movies.

Well I saw six movies this week, all with their own virtues, but none of them fully successful. Mary Reilly is a revisionist take on the Jekyll/Hyde story, and it's better than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but not as good as Bram Stoker's Dracula. it's possible the reason the story has never been successfully filmed is because Robert Louis Stevenson didn't have a profound take on the idea (be moderate and avoid extremes). The story appears to be more profound than it actually is (while the best vampire movies allude to other things sexual desire, aristocracy, the weight of history, as well as a whole cinematic history of artifice). Or it may be because it's never really attracted first rate talent. The World's End is amusing and has some good lines, though one expects perhaps a bit more than don't be an alcoholic. The 21 century version of Peter Pan has its charms, and I finally saw The Clash of the Titans, which at the time its special effects appeared dated, but could still be enjoyed on its own terms. Deserter is an interesting Soviet film, though it's more interesting because of its technique, which is less interesting than Eisenstein, or it content which is hardly profound. And finally there's Stories we Tell: if you ever wanted to see Mamma Mia without ABBA songs, and presented as an earnest Canadian documentary, this is the movie for you!

You have 43 minutes.

Well I was tempted to vote for Fedya and for having Salo as an underground choice. But with such great choices as Avanti, Andrei Rublev, Kagemusha, Tokyo Story and Russian Ark my vote goes to SansFin.

I think Easter Parade and Lola Montes will be my Easter films, along with perhaps Spies.

I saw only three movies over the last two weeks. The Disorderly Orderly is rather ordinary Lewis shtick: an infinitely irritating incompetent is manipulatively redeemed by some crude sentimenality. Tangled isn't a bad movie, but it's totally without genius. Tabu is a very striking movie visually, and I would have liked it much more if the subtitles could be read easier over the black and white backgrounds.

This does look promising: an evening of Ingmar Bergman films, including Through a Glass Darkly, which I haven't seen yet, as well as an evening of documentaries. Also there's The Housemaid and the Bunuel Diary of a Chambermaid: I can't wait to see what crappy Mexican films get to replace them in Canada.

I actually wanted to see Bombshell this morning, and I'm rather annoyed that it's been pre-empted. Being in Canada a lot of the movies that I'd like to see this month keep being replaced on the Canadian schedule.

Considering that it took 19 years for TCM to show her most famous movie, and that her other movies are not readily available on DVD or VHS, i'm not sure we can say that she was honored in the West.

How irritating is that for the first time in nearly eight years that they show A Woman Under the Influence it's pre-empted in Canada. The same thing for the premiere of Went the Day Well. And just to make sure, I'm going to be out of the country on my vacation.