cinemaspeak59

His films with Ingmar Bergman are among the finest ever made. I also liked his dark turn in Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Sagnier, Ludivine

Nishi, Kōichi -- played by Toshiro Mifune in The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Room 1408 (2007). John Cusack plays a writer famous for debunking haunted house claims. When he receives a mysterious postcard about the Manhattan-based Dolphin Hotel, and the cursed history of one of its suites, Room 1408, he can’t resist the opportunity spend a night there so he can quash another ghost hoax. There is much I liked about this horror yarn: the performances of Cusack (the endearing swagger from his 1980s roles on full display), and Samuel L. Jackson as the Mephistophelian hotel manager; the production design; and the ominous use of the Carpenters song We’ve Only Just Begun, which signals the nightmare Room 1408 is about to unleash. A neat twist late in the second act recalibrates the movie, as an overload of special effects was starting to make things redundant. Room 1408 borrows from The Shining, not surprising in that both are based on books by Stephen King.

Kurata, played by Ryūji Kita in Tokyo Drifter (1966)

Life (2017) About an Alien-like creature that stalks a space ship

OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009) Next: a serious spy movie

Héloïse, in a mesmerizing performance by Adèle Haenel, is a sheltered young woman who refuses to have her portrait painted, a prerequisite to her marrying the wealthy Milanese suitor chosen by her mother (Valeria Golino). Héloïse's mother commissions a new artist, Marianne, an equally hypnotic Noémie Merlant, in the hope Marianne can succeed where male painters could not. Subterfuge is needed. Marianne, under the pretense of a walking companion, paints Héloïse in secret by making mental notes of her features. But Héloïse is also studying Marianne; and their scenes together create an exquisite tension of not only will they or won’t they, but when. The Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set in the late eighteenth century, in the picturesque French coast of Brittany. It proceeds at a gentle, Chekhovian pace. Director Céline Sciamma creates a feminist chamber piece that examines, in the most intimate detail, what it’s like to be a woman, and specifically a woman in the late eighteenth century. The story of Marianne and Héloïse is a story of lovers, but it soars into the heavens because it is the love story of poets. Grade: A

Memorable Beginning: Jaws (1975) Memorable Ending: Fail-Safe (1964)

Shirley Temple was in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) with Harry Davenport

The Hour (2011 to 2012)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) Next: favorite Faye Dunaway role

Binoche, Juliette

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) Next: bicycles

Born Yesterday (1950) Next: loveable losers