skimpole

A whole evening dedicated to Laurel and Hardy, so I can wait to see what TCM Canada will preempt Sons of the Desert for again. Looks like we'll get to see the premiere of Two or Three Things I Know About Her. I wonder why they can't get Charles Burnett for MLK day.

I saw four movies last week. Independence Day, along with Armageddon, is the most cynical of Hollywood blockbusters. It lacks craft, genuine wit, or genuine invention. Every gesture is made with the lowest common denomination response in mind. But the idea of our world, or our world in 1996, suddenly interrupted by an malevolent, impenetrable alien force, did have a visceral effect that seemed to make up for it. I can tell when this effect wears off. It's near the end of the first third, where after the aliens have destroyed the world's cities and uncounted millions of lives, the stripper with the heart of gold is not only saved along with her child, but also their bloody dog makes it as well. Independence Day: Resurgence is not able to repeat that visceral effect, since their 2016 is nothing like our 2016. And despite more destruction, more danger, more special effects, more aerial battles, more plot holes (Judd Hirsch manages to get from the Atlantic Coast to Nevada in a day?) everything is very low energy. Will Smith's performance in the original was nothing special, but one misses its energy here. Jeff Goldblum has never been less interesting. Mandy, in retrospect, is what would happen if you took all the elements of Ghost Rider, put them in a blender, and then hired an independent director to create a movie out of them. The results are...genuinely eccentric. Crazy Nicolas Cage has a good reason to be crazy. I haven't actually been watching the movies since Adaptation that destroyed his reputation, but he's surprisingly tolerable here. Certainly a strange movie, maybe even a good one. Sweet Bird of Youth is Richard Brooks' second shot at directing Tennessee Williams. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was not a good movie, but at least there was an understandable relationship between repressed homosexual Paul Newman and his oversexed wife Elizabeth Taylor. By contrast, the relationship between Newman and Shirley Knight seems to be based on some studio head's desire for a happy ending to go along with the bowdlerized story. The 17th Parallel is clearly the movie of the week. Clearly it's a partisan documentary, and should be viewed with caution. On the other hand this portrait of a North Vietnamese village resisting American bombing does offer a genuine picture of people showing considerable initiative under remarkable strain, as well as a side American media made little effort to show. I also rewatched the Peter Brook King Lear the Saturday before, and My Man Godfrey. It's awesome, and I'm startled I didn't realize it before.

I have seen it, it's my favorite movie of 2010, and you should definitely see it. (It also has my favorite for Best Supporting Actor of 2010).

In the Peter Brook King Lear, Irene Worth plays Goneril, while being five years older than Paul Scofield, who plays Lear. On the one hand, actors are rarely Lear's age (he says in the play that he is eighty). On the other hand, it is odd that Lear wishes Goneril be either sterile or cursed with ungrateful children when Worth was in her mid-fifties.

theyshootpictures.com top 1000 movies for 1971 A Touch of Zen King Hu, China (Hong Kong) #341 Out 1, noli me tangere Jacques Rivette, France #406 La Region Centrale Michael Snow, Canada #483 W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia #684 Two English Girls Francois Truffaut, France #842 Jonathan Rosenbaum top 1000 movies The Death of Maria Malibrun Werner Schroeter, West Germany Deux fois Jackie Raynal, France Four Nights of a Dreamer Robert Bresson, France How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman Nelson Pereira Dos Santos, Brazil *Out 1 Jacques Rivette, France Petit a petit Jean Rouch, France Red Psalm Miklos Jancso, Hungary *La region centrale Michael Snow, Canada Trafic Jacques Tati, France W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (Makavejev) Films marked with an asterisk (*) are on Rosenbaum's top 100 list. Note that dates are not exact.

You would think there's been a thread on characters being clearly the wrong age, for example Jesse Royce Landis and Cary Grant in North by Northwest and Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate being mother and son, despite being only born a couple of years apart. Can anyone remember where that thread went?

Last week I saw four movies. The Sea Around Us starts the beginning of Irwin Allen's career. It includes some portentous quotations for Genesis, a frankly mercenary attitude towards exploiting the sea and some interesting deep sea footage. I suspect the reference to global warming was just a typical melodramatic Allen touch, but it does make the movie look much more perceptive now. For All Mankind is more dignified, and having elaborate footage from the NASA missions is impressive. Having astronauts putter around the moon doing frivolous things does somewhat hamper the supposed gravity of the event. If you were to wonder what a screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas would be like, you'd probably guess it wouldn't be at the same level of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Or William Powell or Myrna Loy. The fact that I don't particularly prefer Jean Arthur to Irene Dunne, does say something impressive about the comedies Frank Capra and Mitchell Leisen had her star in. As such Theodora Goes Wild is OK. Dunne does show some energy, and Douglas becomes more acceptable as the movie goes on (he starts rather pushy and obnoxious). Hermia & Helena is about a young Argentine woman who is trying to adapt A Midsummer's Night Dream into Spanish. She muddles around, meets some associates, wonders about some past relationships in a very undramatic and unerotic way, has civilized conversations with an important relative. So basically she just putters around for 86 minutes. Not to everyone's taste, or mine for that matter.

Death in Venice would certainly be my favorite foreign language film of 1971 if it were eligible. However, since Dirk Bograde does most of the talking, and he's the key to the film, I consider it an English language film, despite whatever Italian language versions there may exist. Why isn't Solaris considered a 1972 film?

1. Two English Girls Francois Truffaut, France 2. Murmur of the Heart Louis Malle, France 3. Land of Silence and Darkness Werner Herzog, West Germany 4. Out 1: Noli Me Tangere Jacques Rivette, France 5. The Ceremony Nagisa Oshima, Japan 6. Fata Morgana Werner Herzog, West Germany 7. Four Nights of a Dreamer Robert Bresson, France

Now it's 1979. Here is Best Adapted Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, Apocalypse Now, based on the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam), Monty Python's Life of Brian, based on the Gospels. Arkadiy Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Stalker, based on their novel Roadside Picnic Jack Burns, Jerry Juhl, The Muppet Movie, based on characters created by Jim Henson Jerzy Kosinski, Being There, based on his novel of the same name And here is Best Original Screenplay: Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Yuri Notstein, Tale of Tales Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman, Manhattan Jose Bartolome, Pedro Chaskel, Federico Elton, Julio Gracia Espinosa, Patricio Guzman, The Battle of Chile Steve Tesich, Breaking Away Robert Alan Aurthur, Bob Fosse, All That Jazz

Movies such as The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, and The Fearless Vampire Killers are noticeable for evil winning. Can anyone suggest the first Hollywood movie where this happens?

Now it's 1978. Here's Best Original Screenplay: Ermanno Olmi, The Tree of Wooden Clogs Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata Michael Cimino, Derec Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn Redeker, The Deer Hunter Mark Rappaport, The Scenic Route And here is Best Adapted Screenplay Martin Rosen, Watership Down based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams Peter S. Beagle, Chris Conkling, The Lord of the Rings, based on the novels The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein Anthony Shaffer, Death on the Nile based on the novel of the same name by Agatha Christie Eric Rohmer, Perceval le Gallois, based on the romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chretien de Troyes Jerzy Skolimowski, Michael Austin, The Shout, based on the story of the same name by Rupert Graves I have not seen Coming Home (original), Bloodbrothers, Same Time, Next Year (adapted)

Now it's 1977. Here is Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman, Annie Hall David Mercer, Providence Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep George Lucas, Star Wars Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, Hitler: A Film from Germany And here is Best Adapted Screenplay: Yuri Klepikov, Larisa Shepitko, The Ascent, based on the novel The Ordeal by Vasil Bykau Alvin Sargent, Julia, based on the novel Pentimento by Lillian Hellman Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere, That Obscure Object of Desire, based on the novel The Woman and the Puppet by Pierre Louys Wim Wenders, The American Friend, based on the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith Larry Clemons, Vance Gerry, Ken Anderson, Frank Thomas, Burny Mattinson, Fred Lucky, Dick Sebast, David Michener, Ted Berman, The Rescuers, based on the novel The Rescuers and Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp I have not seen The Turning Point (original) or I Never Promised you a Rose Garden, Oh God! (adapted)

theyshootpictures.com top 1000 The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy #84 Tristana Luis Bunuel, Spain #371 The Red Circle Jean-Pierre Melville, France #589 The Wild Child Francois Truffaut, France #664 Claire's Knee Eric Rohmer, France #678 Dodes'ka-den Akira Kurosawa, Japan #731 El Topo Alejando Jodorwosky, Mexico #921 Jonathan Rosenbaum top 1000 movies Le cochon Jean Eustache / Jean-Michel Barjol, France Days and Nights in the Forest Satyajit Ray, India L'enfant sauvage Francois Truffaut, France Fata Morgana Werner Herzog, West Germany Le petit theatre de Jean Renoir Jean Renoir, France The Spider's Strategem Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy Tristana Luis Bunuel, Spain Vampir Pere Portabella Spain Note that dates may not be exact.

Last week I saw six movies for once. Tunes of Glory is one of those sixties English movies where the performances are the best things about them, with Alec Guinness as a commanding office with a drinking problem and John Mills as his new superior with his own problems. Guinness and Mills are good, though one might think they could have exchanged their roles. Avengers: Infinity War may seem incomprehensible to people who haven't seen the dozen or so earlier movies. One might add that it did not really develop the characters as those movies did. On the plus side, this may be the greatest triumph of intercutting since Intolerance. The Belle of New York has a nice Fred Astaire performance. two first rate dance sequences, and charming set decoration. It also has, in Vera Ellen, the dullest partner I've seen in an Astaire movie. Seriously, she is as just and dull as one might expect in a Salvation Army scold and attempts to make her complex are not successful. The Penalty is best known for Lon Chaney's masochistic efforts to appear that his legs had been amputated. This attracts more attention than his performance. The movie is both reactionary (one of Chaney's plans as a criminal mastermind involves using immigrants to cause riots) and ill thought out (supposedly Chaney isn't responsible for his actions because of a physical problem which he's eventually cured of. Yet he is still held responsible for them and is killed at the end, the penalty of the title.) World War Z is essentially five action set pieces. In the first four hundreds, possibly thousands, of people die but Brad Pitt lives, along with someone else to get him to the next set piece. The genuine competence of these sequences does not overcome the general callousness of the movie, where apparently the vast majority of humanity has no hope and must be slaughtered for our amusement. Eighth Grade was a bit disappointing to me. It captures the insecurity and solipsism in that time in a girl's life. But it does not really explain her apparent inability to have friends, or her lack of interest in anything other than being popular. Some things appear off as well (you'd think an eighth grade musical band, at the end of the year would know how to play the American national anthem).

1. The Confession Constantin Costa-Gavras, France 2. The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy 3. Le Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir Jean Renoir, France 4. The Red Circle Jean-Pierre Melville, France 5. The Wild Child Francois Truffaut, France 6. Tristana Luis Bunuel, Spain 7. Days and Nights in the Forest Satyajit Ray, India

Andrei Rublev (1966) Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) Max Ophuls, France The Leopard (1963) Luchino Visconti, Italy Persona (1966) Ingmar Bergman, Sweden Last Year in Marienbad (1961) Alain Resnais, France Breathless (1960) Jean-Luc Godard, France The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1964) Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Robert Bresson, France Charulata (1964) Satyajit Ray, India Pierrot le Fou (1965) Jean-Luc Godard, France Jules et Jim (1962) Francois Truffaut, France Winter Light (1963) Ingmar Bergman, Sweden The Battle of Algiers (1966) Giles Pontecorvo, Italy Gertrud (1964) Carl Theodor Dreyer, Denmark Weekend (1967) Jean-Luc Godard, France The Organizer (1963) Mario Monicelli, Italy Contempt (1963) Jean-Luc Godard, France Playtime (1967) Jacques Tati, France Shoot the Piano Player (1960) Francois Truffaut, France The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) Jacques Demy, France Le Samourai (1967) Jean-Pierre Melville, France Band of Outsiders (1964) Jean-Luc Godard, France Marketa Lazarova (1967) Frantisek Vlacil, Czechoslovakia Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors (1964) Sergei Parajanov, Soviet Union Z (1969) Constantin Costa-Gavras, France/Algeria Masculin Feminin (1966) Jean-Luc Godard, France Vidas Secas (1963) Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Brazil The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) Jean-Marie Straub, West Germany The Colour of Pomegranates (1969) Sergei Parajanov, Soviet Union Le Trou (1960) Jacques Becker, France Le Bonheur (1965) Agnes Varda, France High and Low (1963) Akira Kurosawa, Japan Army of Shadows (1969) Jean-Pierre Melville, France Daisies (1966) Vera Chytilova, Czechoslovakia The Red and the White (1967) Miklos Jancso, Hungary Lola (1961) Jacques Demy, France La Collectionuese (1967) Eric Rohmer, France Mouchette (1967) Robert Bresson, France Valley of the Bees (1968) Frantisek Vlacil, Czechoslovakia Tokyo Olympiad (1965) Kon Ichikawa, Japan Alphaville (1965) Jean-Luc Godard, France Zazie in the Metro (1960) Louis Malle, France The Virgin Spring (1960) Ingmar Bergman, Sweden Harikari (1962) Masaki Koboyashi, Japan Death by Hanging (1968) Nagisa Oshima, Japan The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (1968) Satyajit Ray, India 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) Jean-Luc Godard, France The Milky Way (1969) Luis Bunuel, France

Now it's 1976. First, here is Best Adapted Screenplay: William Goldman, All the President's Men, based on the book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward Frank Waldman, Blake Edwards, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, sequel to the movie The Pink Panther Gerard Branch, Roman Polanski, The Tenant, based on the novel of the same name by Roland Topor Federico Fellini, Bernardo Zapponi, Fellini's Casanova, based on the autobiography Historie de ma Vie by Giacomo Casanova Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti, The Innocent, based on the novel The Intruder by Gabriele D'Annunzio And here is Best Original Screenplay: Paddy Chayefsky, Network Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver Carlos Saura, Cria Cuervos Elaine May, Mikey and Nicky John Cassavetes, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie I have not seen Cousin, Cousine, Seven Beauties (original), Voyage of the Damned (adapted)

Now it's 1975. Here is Best Adapted Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon, based on The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. by William Makepeace Thackeray Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, based on Arthurian legend Woody Allen, Love and Death inspired by War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and other 19th century Russian novels John Huston, Gladys Hill, The Man Who Would be King based on the short story of the same name by Rudyard Kipling Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, Jaws, based on the novel of the same name by Benchley And here is Best Original Screenplay: Aleksandr Misharin, Andrei Tarkovsky, The Mirror Theo Angelopoulos, The Travelling Players Joan Tewkesbury, Nashville Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Mark Peploe, Michelangelo Antonioni, Peter Wollen, The Passenger I have not seen And now my Love, Lies my Father Told me (original) or Scent of a Woman (adapted). It's odd that Lies got an original nomination, since it's clearly based on a story and got an adapted screenplay nomination at the Canadian film awards.

I personally prefer the 1991 film Van Gogh and prefer Jacques Dutronc in the role. I think oscar winners can be easily replaced. It would be interesting to replace James Stewart with Spencer Tracy (who performed the role on Broadway) in The Philadelphia Story, Broderick Crawford with John Wayne in All the King's Men, Judy Holliday with Marilyn Monroe in Born Yesterday and Olivia De Havailland with an equally good but distinctly less beautiful actress in The Heiress. I wonder if instead of choosing Tony Perkins, Hitchcock had chosen one of the other Golden Globe winners for New Star of the Year, like John Kerr or James Garner.

theyshootpictures.com top 1000 movies The Colour of Pomegranates Sergei Parajanov, Soviet Union #231 My Night at Maud's Eric Rohmer, France #264 Army of Shadows Jean-Pierre Melville, France #389 The Sorrow and the Pity Marcel Ophuls, France #451 The Damned Luchino Visconti, Italy #524 Fellini Satyricon Federico Fellini, Italy #580 Antonio das Mortes Rocha Glauber, Brazil #635 Z Constantin Costa-Gavras, France #772 Jonathan Rosenbaum top 1000 movies *L'amour fou Jacques Rivette, France La femme infidele Claude Chabrol, France Katzelmacher Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany Ma nuit chez Maud Eric Rohmer, France An asterisk (*) means that the movie is one of Rosenbaum's 100 favorite movies. Note that dates are not exact.

Skate Kitchen Isle of Dogs Sorry to Bother You

Yet again, three movies this week. Kiki's Delivery Service is a charming, inventive delightful Miyazaki film dealing, as his movies often do, with the struggles of a young girl as she strives towards maturity. The only complication being that she's a witch who goes places on her broom. The apparently European city she lives in stunningly beautiful. The only slight problem is that it pales slightly in comparison to other Miyazaki movies. *Corpus Callosum is a strange experimental, non narrative film by avant-garde filmmaker Michael Snow. It's hard to describe. It mostly occurs in two places: in an office and apparently the living room of one of the characters. While life elapses weird things happen, some are Melies like manipulations of the movie, other more advanced manipulations of film. I thought it was interesting, but it's not surprising that others wouldn't. Ismael's Ghosts is a movie about a movie director whose relationship is interrupted when his wife suddenly appears out of the blue after completely vanishing 21 years ago. This is a complex, rich film with Marion Cotillard giving an excellent performance as the wife and Charlotte Gainsborough also good as the girlfriend. I suppose it would have been better if the movie had been more about them and not about the crisis that nearly wrecks the movie the director Mathieu Amalric is making. But it's still fairly interesting.

A Touch of Zen has a number of versions: "The film took two years to make and its 1969 Taiwanese release was divided into two parts. After its box office failure, the International Film Company tried recutting the film into a single two-hour feature, which was released in 1971, also to poor reception. The reconstruction of the whole work began in 1973 and premiered at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first non-Mainland Chinese film to win an award at the annual showcase, garnering a technical prize for the restoration." https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/a-touch-of-zen-king-hu-s-masterful-concoction-of-cinematic-flavors

1. The Sorrow and the Pity Marcel Ophuls, France 2. Z Constantin Costa-Gavras, Algeria/France 3. The Colour of Pomegranates Sergei Parajanov, Soviet Union 4. Army of Shadows Jean-Pierre Melville, France 5. The Milky Way Luis Bunuel, France/West Germany 6. A Touch of Zen King Hu, China (Hong Kong) 7. The Damned Luchino Visconti, Italy/West Germany 8. Boy Nagisa Oshima, Japan