CinemaInternational
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Posts posted by CinemaInternational
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10 hours ago, TikiSoo said:
Another perfect example of how low standards are. Everyone thinks they can write reviews, everyone thinks they can do better than professionals, everyone thinks their opinions matter. This is why "media" is always inviting the public to chime in with their comments, it just feeds the empty narcissistic nation we've become.
I had a very poorly designed West Virginia tourism business card & trifold brochure framed on my desk when working as a graphic designer. I'd show it to my boss whenever he complained our print design was "taking too long" to illustrate the difference between a professionally designed work & amateur designed work: "It may look good on the monitor, but not when printed."
I also had a ghastly photo printed from a kiosk next to a properly printed photo to show the vast difference in quality. Many just don't realize the difference unless they see a side by side comparison.
That "review" should be used in school as an example. Show a comparison for your students to see it's worth the effort to do something well.
I think we all like to talk about what films we have seen, it kind of goes without saying, and everybody responds a different way to a film. I realize that I lashed out harshly against Bless the Beasts and Children this week moreso than any film I've seen in a while (though Desire Under the Elms irked me in June), and there are people who like one or both out there. Do I feel like i am a great reviewer? No. I just write what i feel and try to do a good, well-writen job, but I know I'm no Roger Ebert or Pauline Kael.
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On 8/29/2019 at 10:23 AM, LornaHansonForbes said:
really good Nicholas Ray film that gets better every time I see it, but yeah- would make an unintentionally disappointing double bill with THE CONSTANT NYMPH.
If Nymph was meant to have a lurid title, wouldn't it have an O at the end so it would be Nymph0?
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Just now, TopBilled said:
Nice to see some Hal Wallis productions on your list-- I also enjoyed the underrated CAREER as well as HOT SPELL. If you haven't seen some Hal Wallis westerns, I'd recommend GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957) and LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL (1959). Both star Kirk Douglas.
I do have a library copy of Gunfight at the OK Corral at home waiting.... as for other Wallis productions, I tracked down a few Elvis films (King Creole, Blue Hawaii, Roustabout) at the library as well. Supposedly a rental of The Furies is coming as well. He was a great producer, just a bit frustrating though that some of his films are hard to find.....
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August
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Testament (1983)
The Day of the Locust (1975)
9
Yesterday (2019)
The Fugitive (1947)
The Long Night (1947)
HM Pullham Esq. (1941)
Career (1959)
The Swimmer (1968)
Hot Spell (1958)
The Abdication (1974)
King David (1985)
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
Ladies of Leisure (1930)
Cry Havoc (1943)
Blonde Venus (1932)
Monkey Business (1931)
Platinum Blonde (1931)
Star Trek: The motion Picture (1979)
Desert Bloom (1986)
Once Upon a Time (1944, and seemingly one of the few to like it)
Catch-22 (1970)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
Ask Any Girl (1959)
Ada (1961)
I know this seems like a lot, but I've seen over 70 this month, and I use the grading system kind of like the old newspaper four-star scale: a 10 for a 4 star film, a 9 for a 3.5, an 8 for a 3, a 7 for a 2.5 (which is the beginning of the failing grades), etc....
And if movie scenes could get scored, special mention then to She's Having a Baby, a 1988 comedy drama that went from a 7 to an 8 through an extraordinarily touching scene set to the heartbreaking Kate bush song "This Woman's Work" (a song robbed of an Oscar nomination). The scene itself is a 10.
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6 hours ago, spence said:
have you seen it yourself, I've not, very, very rare for one of his
Yes, I did indeed see Silence on a day in June of 2017. I had rented the DVD from Netflix.
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Bless the Beasts and Children, well i did finish it, but then i wrote this rant to get the anger I have for it off my chest..... And I rarely if ever find a film that makes me feel like this.
QuoteI'm still in a bit of disbelief about this film. I really don't give out low scores like this often, only when something is truly bad or truly offensive to me, and yet here I am with this thing on my hands. The only decent thing about it is the lovely theme song from the Carpenters (what's a nice song like you doing in a place like this?), and everything else is not only flat and dull, but also quite mean-spirited and with a creepy lewd edge about it.
The movie goes off the rails almost as soon as the Columbia lady disappears and never finds its footing. Right off the top, the audience is exposed to a nightmare scene where buffalo are actually shown being slaughtered, and then a boy dreams that the hunters turn the guns on him and his friends, killing them. This is followed by the first of several long, queasy scenes where teenage boys are shown clad only in their underwear as the voyeuristic camera lingers longingly, lustfully around them. So, within the the first 8 minutes, there are your main problems repeated several times throughout: animals actually getting killed on camera (albeit in footage obtained from a wildlife firm in Arizona, and not made specifically for the film) and a distinct pedophilic air that made me feel disgusted and enraged.
If this wasn't enough to go wrong, this is then compounded by the fact that the boys are all blurred characters; I don't feel that despite the fact that the film is about them, that we ever really get a handle on who they are or what they want other than that they want to save the buffalo. (admittedly one of the boys breaks through the haze briefly toward the end) And then the whole thing reeks of something from the early 70s that just laid there and died; with most classic films [and I am usually one of the biggest cheerleaders for classic films you could find], they have takeaways, like sparkling personalities, some insightful moments of human nature, a timeless quality, a message that resonates today, literate or snappy dialogue, great charm, period detail that captures the era in which it was made. Well, this has the period detail (painfully so, the clothes and hairstyles are horrendous), but nothing else. in the way that few films are, this is a dead zone, and one of the worst films it has ever been my misfortune to see.
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Just as a followup to what I said about Watcher in the Woods, I have quotes from an article I have read before about its travails to note how different it would have been for the time originally.....
QuoteBy the late 70’s family films were not the rage. The studio’s glory days had passed and it was time to forge ahead. So, a slate of PG, more “mature”, projects were planned. The first, THE BLACK HOLE. The second slated for theatrical release would be THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. After reading the novel by Florence Engel Randall, Producer Tom Leetch (who worked with the studio going back to MARY POPPINS, and Walt himself) suggested to then head of the studio, Ron Miller, “This could be our Exorcist.” Powerful words indeed, but then the studio needed something stronger to prove their point and new direction. In 1980, I was lucky to have known a high ranking exec. in NY’s publicity department who sent me preview tickets for WATCHER. The audience, mostly made up of critics, were held throughout. They jumped, they gasped and applauded. No one had expected this kind of film. Finally the film had built up to the point of exposing the “Watcher”, there was silence in the theater and everyone leaned forward with expectation. In a shot where the creature spins toward the camera and growls in a close-up (an alternate version of the scene is shown on the dvd minus the growl) the audience of “mature”, “sophisticated” adults suddenly lurched back into their seats, with a gasp. Upon the exit of the “Watcher” a stunned silence filled the theater… then applause. I had not experienced a preview response like that since ALIEN, when that creature broke out from John Hurt’s chest. It wasn’t until WATCHER IN THE WOODS ended that things went sour. It seems no one understood exactly what had transpired. An explanation offered by Lynn-Holly Johnson’s character seemed too vague. The confusion led to audience insult since this was only a “Disney” film and whatever had transpired in the story was understood by a teenager and an 8 year-old kid!
After the film actress Lynn-Holly Johnson was there to answer questions from the press. A young woman stood and simply asked what was it they had just seen. “What was the Watcher? Where did it go? Did I miss something? The kids in the film seemed to understand, yet I’m in the dark?”, she stated. To which Lynn-Holly responded with an overview of a sequence that was referred to as “The Other World” Sequence.
A press agent quickly covered the mic, pulled Lynn-Holly away, and whispered something to her. Returning to the mic, Lynn-Holly responded with a slight giggle, “But you didn’t see that.” A murmur of disbelief expelled from the audience. In the eyes of the critics, THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS was dead. Everything that had been built during the past hour and forty minutes had been lost.
QuoteThe film originally opened with a prologue and different Main Title sequence. A small girl is seen in the woods playing with a doll. The WATCHER’S presence (a roving camera POV) sneaks up to the girl from behind. She suddenly turns to the camera and screams, dropping her doll and running off. The camera changes it view from the running girl to the doll. There is a growl, the doll floats upward, becoming air borne, and is swiftly launched against a tree where it is struck by a blue beam of light igniting it. The Main Titles are played over the burning doll face which melts as the credits continue accompanied by striking “psycho-like” musical strings. This important beginning set up a tone for what would follow casting a much darker atmosphere on every scene to come.
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Just now, TopBilled said:
Right!
It's interesting to look at what both Davis and Cagney were doing in the 80s. He made RAGTIME (1981) with his old pal Pat O'Brien, then did a TV movie with Art Carney. Meanwhile, she did a Disney flick called WATCHER IN THE WOODS, then later THE WHALES OF AUGUST (excellent) and WICKED STEPMOTHER (dreadful).
Watcher in the Woods was done during Disney's experimental phase. It's nothing content-wise compared to what they would be putting out of Touchstone a few years later (I could imagine some jaws dropping in 1986 when Disney first ventured into R-rated waters with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, with its language, nudity, and extramarital sexual scenes --- that is if it hadn't gone out under the Touchstone aegis) But, compared to the stuff Disney was known for, it was pretty daring. You had an attempt at a supernatural horror film for teens, with jump scares, sudden jarring bursts of light, unnerving music and two creepy seance scenes. However, its also a film that was meant to be even creepier than it was..... There was a rush to get it to theaters to coincide with Bette's 50th anniversary in film (and although her role is brief, shes quite good in it), and they never finished the special effects work at the end. That didn't go over well, and they ended up releasing it a year later in a shortened version with a different ending, and also new opening titles to diffuse what would have been a big jolt at the start.
The original ending showed the "watcher", the revised version didn't. Let's just say, he was no looker in the original version......
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Just now, spence said:
TopBilled & others, who enjoyed 1987's very nice (***1/2) Whales of August?
It's sad, *Bet looks much older than Lillian Gish in there too?
Its wonderful. Very tiny and bittersweet, touching, and poignant. In some ways, I feel it should qualify as being the last film of the classic era. Although made long after the studio system ended, it features 5 players all of whom were working while that system was in place, and serves as a touching farewell to its three leading ladies (even if Davis did a few scenes for Wicked Stepmother afterwards)
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I would go with Bette Davis, you look at her run of films, especially her prime years: 1937-1946 and she keeps appearing in some of WB's best films consistently every year.
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1960s nominees [not previously mentioned]: Melina Mercouri, Janet Leigh, Peter Falk, Sal Mineo, Lotte Lenya, Telly Savales, Terrence Stamp, Bobby Darin, Rachel Roberts, Grayson Hall, Lee Tracy, Elizabeth Hartman, Anouk Aimee, Ida Kaminska, Jocelyne LaGarde, John Cassavetes, Carol Channing, Sondra Locke, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel, Catherine Burns, Rupert Cross
Victor Buono was apparently an extra in Judgment at Nuremburg.
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There have been other films post-wide screen era that have appeared in pan-and-scan prints on TCM before.... I think that film The Oscar (1966) was pan and scan, as was a showing of 1963's Take Her She's Mine.
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Just now, Fedya said:
I believe the theme song was Oscar-nominated, so TCM could use it in 31 Days of Oscar.
Heck, show it in a double-feature with Endless Love, which was also nominated for the title song.
It was (up for Best song; and also according to the database here, it aired in 2012's 31 Days ) That category has occasionally housed some films that were panned otherwise: You Light Up My Life, Mannequin, 50 Shades of Gray, Yes Giorgio, Junior, Casino Royale (1967), Ben, Nine... Oh joy, I feel like I am making a listing for TCM presents 31 Days of Oscar: The Dark Side!
Incidently, the song lineup in 1971:
"Theme from Shaft"/Shaft
"The Age of Not Believing"/Bedknobs and Broomsticks
"All His Children"/Sometimes a Great Notion
"Bless the Beasts and Children"/Bless the Beasts and Children
"Life is What You Make It"/KotchShaft obviously won, I'm guessing either this song or the Bedknobs and Broomsticks song was runner-up.
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Very well-deserved I feel. She's always been a favorite of mine, and I've grown up with her films.
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Looking at another on Amazon prime... and its not pretty so far. Bless the Beasts and Children (1971) is one of those films that feels very much of its era without having crossover appeal today. It's limp, and combined with some truly nasty scenes of (actual) buffalo slaughters and some disturbingly long scenes of teenage boys in underwear in which the camera seemingly ogles lustfully over their bodies, it makes for a depressing experience. It just tries too hard to be "hip" and "mod"...... Lovely theme song from the Carpenters though.
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4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
I don't remember her in BROADCAST NEWS! It's been A LONG TIME.
Yeah, Lois wasn't in Broadcast News for very long and Roy described the funniest bit of her role. The rest had her as an attractive anchorwoman and having that bizarre bedroom scene with William Hurt with its sudden jarring R -rated silhouette in close-up.
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4 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
The Story of Temple Drake (1933)?
Or the 1961 remake Sanctuary?
That's definitely what people have been indicating, that it is Temple Drake. Now this is a Paramount film, but Fox bought the rights to it so they could make Sanctuary. It's conceivable then that both versions will appear in the same Criterion release, ala Maganificent Obsession.....
Speaking of Criterion findings, i wish they would do 1984's Swing Shift some day. i have heard that the unreleased director's cut is a masterful film (better than the cut released), and I'd love to see it.
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Adventures with Amazon Prime!
I've dealt with 4 on there in the last 24 hours and am heading in on a fifth. Some of these expire on there at the end of the week so i wanted to get to them before then.
Once Upon a Time (1944) involves Cary Grant, child actor Ted Donaldson, Janet Blair, and a dancing caterpillar. It's supposed to be a fairy tale type of a film, and it greatly charmed me with its 40s snappiness.
Rocket Gibraltar (1988) was the last semi-leading role for Burt Lancaster. in actuality, its an ensemble piece, with Lancaster as a dying patriarch who nobody, save his youngest grandchild (Macauley Culkin) seems to realize is dying. The plot is wispy, but its made up for due to Lancaster's gravitas, and a potent cast (not just Culkin, but also Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Spacey, Frances Conroy, Bill Pullman, John Glover, and Suzy Amis).
Star trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) Until last week i hadn't seen any of the films in the series, but I really admired the first one, and have decided to go after the rest of the first 6. I'd heard that this was by far the weakest of the first six, so i decided to get it out of the way before moving onto bigger things. In truth, there are some sequences in this that work quite well being either exciting or charming (and the cast is very likable), but its ultimately too porridgy for its own good in the closing sections.
And I thought that Catch-22 (1970) was an excellent film, a savage dark comedy and indictment of war, enacted by an exceptional cast and a style of filming that pays homage to its literary roots.
Now, back to Rosalind Russell in Tell It to the Judge.....
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2000s onward: Kate Hudson, Will Smith, Diane Lane, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sophie Okonedo, Felicity Huffman, Eddie Murphy (aforementioned), Ruby Dee, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Demian Bichir, Melissa McCarthy, Jennifer Jason Leigh (aforementioned), Isabelle Huppert, Mary J Blige
and Janet McTeer and Laura Dern again. Dern and Will Smith have a chance at breaking the jinx this year.
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1970s: Carrie Snodgress, Chief Dan George, Margaret Leighton, Ann-Margret, Diana Ross, Jeannie Berlin, Susan Tyrell, Jack Gilford, Diahann Carroll, Giancarlo Giannini, Tuesday Weld, Gary Busey, Mariel Hemingway. [smaller total than the 80s or 90s]
and Madeline Kahn, Marcello Mastrioanni, and Isabelle Adjani mentioned earlier.
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Just now, LawrenceA said:
He was in Dunkirk.
Again, too dense and quick. Sigh. I'm always making mistakes.....
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80s nominees: Gena Rowlands, Eva La Gallienne, Diana Scarwid, Dudley Moore, Melinda Dillon, Joan Hackett, James Coco, Lesley Ann Warren, Tom Conti, Rip Torn, Pat Morita, Christine Lahti, James Garner, Eric Roberts, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Marcello Mastroianni, Norma Aleandro, Anne Ramsey, Edward James Olmos, River Phoenix, Pauline Collins, Isabelle Adjani
And James Woods who was already mentioned for the 90s.
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2 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
Ummm....
Shoot. Big mistake there. Lord of the Rings trilogy and amazingly I was dense enough to miss it on the iconography completely....
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yesterday, when I made the list of winners who never appeared in a Best Picture nominee, I left out Jennifer Hudson.
I started looking over nominees who never made it into a BP nominee. For some reason, i started with the 90s (although I also know that one 2015 nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh has never made it into a Best Picture nominee), so just nominees from the 90s alone here..... Bruce Davison, Laura Dern, Michael Lerner, Juliette Lewis, Joan Plowright, Robert Downey Jr, Catherine Deneuve, Stockard Channing, Rosie Perez, Rosemary Harris, Nigel Hawthorne, Jennifer Tilly, Chazz Palminteri, Sharon Stone, Elisabeth Shue, Billy Bob Thornton, James Woods, Lauren Bacall, Peter Fonda, Fernanda Montenegro, Janet McTeer, Samantha Morton, and Chloe Sevigny.
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Valerie Harper 1939-2019
in General Discussions
Posted
My favorite Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes are usually the ones where Rhoda had an expended role, namely "A Girl's Best Mother is Not Her Friend" [Nancy Walker's second visit], "Smokey the Bear Wants You" [Rhoda dates a man who wants to be a forest ranger], "the Birds...and....um...Bees"[has quite a bit to say when Mary is to teach Bess the facts of life], "The Square-Shaped Room" [tries to redecorate Lou's living room], "Where There's Smoke There's Rhoda" [post-fire, Mary and Rhoda become roommates], "Some of My Best Friends are Rhoda" [where Mary slams Mary Frann for being against Rhoda because of her Jewish heritage], "Rhoda the Beautiful" [beauty contest one], "My Brother's Keeper"[ she plans to date Phyllis' brother], "Mary Richards and the Incredible Plant Lady" [tries to start a business with plants.... or does she?], 'Angels in the Snow" [Mary briefly dates Peter Strauss, Rhoda skewers youth fashion especially in the infamous store Shot Down in Ecuador Junior]