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skimpole

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Posts posted by skimpole

  1. On 6/4/2018 at 8:19 PM, LawrenceA said:

     

    To give some background, I had one year in the 1930's with a FLF (foreign language film) as my top choice: 1937 and Grand Illusion. There were no years in the 1940's with a FLF top pick (that may change, as I watched Shoeshine recently and loved it, but I'm not sure if it will overtake my current top choice for 1946, The Best Years of Our Lives).

    Looking ahead at my annual top ten lists, there are 3 more years in the 1950's, 1 in the 1960's, and none in the following decades. So I either consider the 1950's the greatest decade for foreign language films, or else it was a weaker decade for English language films. Or both!

    I don't have top tens before 1927, the last three years of the twenties are led by a silent foreign film, then it's three in the thirties, four in the forties, two in the fifties, four in the sixties, three in the seventies, one in the eighties, two in the nineties, three in the zeroes, and three so far this decade.

    • Like 1
  2. And here's Best Original Screenplay

    Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd.
    Graham Greene, The Third Man
    jean Cocteau, Orpheus
    Luis Alcoriza, Luis Bunuel, Los Olvidados
    Sergio Amidei, Gian Paolo Callegari, Art Cohn, Renzo Cesana, Stromboli

    I have not seen The Men (original), Panic in the Streets, Mystery Street, When Willy Comes Marching Home (Story), while Bitter Rice and Adam's Rib were nominated the previous year

  3. 22 hours ago, shutoo said:

    I love the film Diabolique, but would've given it one more twist at the end:  Vera Clouzot collapses after seeing her 'dead' hubby stand up in the tub;  he pops his fake eyes out, he and Simone Signoret get a good laugh out of it..in comes the inspector, Charles Vanel, giving the 'I've been watching you two' speech, they're taken away...then, Vanel bends down, looks at poor Clouzot..she opens her eyes, smiles at him..they embrace...ah hah! hubby wasn't the only one with a lover! (or could fake a death) ..she gets the last laugh

    If Clouzot isn't dead, what is Signoret being charged with?

    • Confused 1
  4. Now it's 1950.  Here are my choices for Best Adapted Screenplay

    Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve, based on the short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr
    Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini, The Flowers of St. Francis, based on the anonymous novels Little Flowers of Saint Francis and The Life of Brother Juniper
    Jacques Natanson, Max Ophuls, La Ronde based on the play of the same by Arthur Schnitzler
    Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Rashomon, based on the short story "In a Grove," by Ryonosuke Akutagawa
    Andrew Solt, Edmund H. North, In a Lonely Place, based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes

  5. I saw three movies this week.  Liquid Sky is an attempted cult film, involving aliens searching for a vital substance.  They find that sex produces a similar effect, so they find a means of tapping into the feelings of copulating couples.  The side effect is that the partner enjoying it is zapped into dust.  But as it happens the movie is not only a lot less erotic but a lot less interesting than the scenario provided.  It's sort of like pornography with the nudity all removed but with the same poor acting. 

    The Battle of the Bulge suffers from a number of historical inaccuracies, such that Eisenhower apparently came out of retirement to denounce it.  The most obvious flaw is that there's barely any snow that took place in the winter of 1944-1945.  The actors are mostly forgettable, but there are some interesting tank battles and Robert Shaw has a little charisma.  So the movie of the week is Nocturama half brilliant terrorist thriller, half watching the terrorists stuck in consumerist solipsism while hiding out in a Paris department store.  One might point out the movie needs a little more political bite, since we don't know why these attractive young Parisians are acting the way they are (they're not jihadists). 

  6. And here's Best Adapted Screenplay

    Kogo Noda, Yasujiro Ozu, Late Spring, based on the novel Father and Daughter by Kazuo Hirotsu
    Ruth and Augustus Goetz, The Heiress, based on their play of the same name
    Adolph Green, Betty Comden, On the Town, based on their musical of the same name, co-written with Leonard Bernstein
    William Templeton, Lesley Storm and Graham Green, The Fallen Idol, based on the short story "The Basement Room" by Graham Greene
    Mel Dinelli, Robert E. Kent, Henry Garson, Robert Soderberg, The Reckless Moment, based on the short story "The Blank Wall" by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding

    I have not seen Champion (Adapted), Jolson Sings Again, Passport to Pimlico, The Quiet One (original), The Stratton Story, Come to the Stable, It Happens Every Spring, The Sands of Iwo Jima (story).  The Bicycle Thieves was nominated the previous year
     

  7. And here's Best Adapted Screenplay:

    Arthur Laurents, Rope, based on the play of the same name by Patrick Hamilton
    Cesare Zavattini, The Bicycle Thieves, based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini
    Borden Chase, Charles Schnee, Red River, based on the short story "The Chisholm Trail" by Borden Chase
    Orson Welles, The Lady From Shanghai, based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King
    Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Keith Winter, The Red Shoes, inspired by the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen

  8. And here's 1948, which is the one year since 1940 not to have a best original screenplay award. 

    So here's my Best Original Screenplay:

    Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours
    Roberto Rossellini, Max Kolpe, Sergio Amidei, Germany, Year Zero
    Leo McCarey, John D. Klorer, Ken Englund, Good Sam
    Yasujiro Ozu, Ryosuke Saito, A Hen in the Wind
    Robert J. Flaherty, Frances H. Flaherty, Louisiana Story

  9. I saw three movies last week.  Night Must Fall has an interesting performance by Robert Montgomery, an early performance by Rosalind Russell in an untypical role and a striking performance by May Whitty as Russell's irascible aunt.  As Good as it Gets has a good performance by Jack Nicholson, but one wishes he could  have done something he hadn't done so many times before.  One also wishes Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear gave more than adequate performances.  You Were Never Really Here is clearly the movie of the week, what with Joaquin Phoenix's remarkable performance as a deeply traumatized vigilante, and with its stunning visual and aural landscape.

    • Like 2
  10. I saw three movies last week, all from last year.  Murder on the Orient Express suffered from the fact that I was the wrong audience for the movie, since the 1974 Sidney Lumet version is one of my very favorite movies.  It's basically off in all sorts of ways starting with the fake CGI effects, and attempts to spice up the story with action that make little sense either from the characters or the scriptwriter.  Branagh's ludicrous mustache is the least of his Poirot's problems:  while the Lumet version always showed his work, Branagh's leaps to conclusion after conclusion with one non-sequitur after the other.  Depp's Ratchett is absurdly rude, barely hiding his mafioso past from someone supposedly traveling incognito.  Michelle Pfeiffer would be eaten alive by Lauren Bacall while John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Rachel Roberts, Wendy Hiller, Ingrid Bergman and even Michael York and Jacqueline Bisset easily outshine their 2017 counterparts. 

    The Greatest Showman was a surprise hit.  Its songs could have been written four decades ago, and have the odd quality of being forgettable while you are actually listening to them.  The movie is actually more sentimental and less critical than not only Yankee Doodle Dandy, but even The Great Ziegfeld/  Except for the love affair between Barnum's partner and an African-American acrobat, and editing tricks mastered in the seventies, this could have been made eight decades ago.  BPM (Beats per minute) discusses ACT UP activists in nineties France, one of whose members is seriously ill with AIDS.  It's certainly more complex and profound than the other two movies, though the movie has the bad habit of having poor subtitles that are often unreadable against white backgrounds.

  11. 1. Ivan the Terrible, Part I, Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union

    2. Children of Paradise, Marcel Carne, France

    3. The Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio de Sica, Italy

    4. A Day in the Country, Jean Renoir, France

    5. Day of Wrath, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Denmark

    6. Late Spring, Yasujiro Ozu, Japan

    7. Jour de Fete, Jacques Tati, France

     

    • Like 4
  12. 5 hours ago, TheCid said:

    Seen them all, but bolded not among my favorites.  In fact have not watched any of the above in many, many years.  Not saying they are not good entertainment.

    One Vietnam War movie I would like to see TCM show is Go Tell The Spartans.  It is about the early stages of the war.

    I too, would like to see that.  Also, I wouldn't mind it, if we have to have a memorial Day weekend, we could still have foreign language Sunday night.  After all the United States had a number of allies, and some of them have made war films worthy of anyone's interest.

    • Like 1
  13. I saw four movies this week.  Twilight of Honor is based on the idea "let's make a movie for our hot new TV star Richard Chamberlain, and let's make it like Anatomy of a Murder, only worse in every way." The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is one of those Hollywood movies about China where the Chinese people are played by Curt Jurgens and Robert Donat.  It has Ingrid Bergman playing a missionary whose ability to mother a hundred Chinese orphans is helped by them all being as undistinguished and uninteresting as possible.  With Byrd at the South Pole is actually the most interesting film, an early sound film that is actually a silent film for most of its duration.  From the Journals of Jean Seberg isn't really from her journals, it's sort of an essay film made by Mark Rappaport about fifteen years after her suicide with Mary Beth Hurt serving as Rappaport's amaneunsis. One might wonder viewing everything retroactively in the light of her suicide and J. Edgar Hoover's dirty tricks on her is the best way to examine her.

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