I Just Watched...

[LawrenceA]

And B ) I know Scorsese and Schrader were trying to be "ironic" with the climax, or at least staying true to the original Dostoevsky source, but what the HECK was up with that "happy ending"??  Obviously, gun-toting loners were less of a cultural thing back in 1976, but looks like something the puzzled studio insisted on being tacked on at the last minute, so audiences wouldn't be confused by the antihero.

 

I've always thought the ending was in Bickle's head, one last delusional fantasy as he sat dying on the couch. It does follow the lengthy overhead tracking shot that goes from his location out into the streets, as if his spirit is headed up and out.

 

I should mention, also, that Taxi Driver ranks #2 on my all-time favorite list, and I've seen it many, many times over the 4 decades since its release.

[LornaHansonForbes]

I've always thought the ending was in Bickle's head, one last delusional fantasy as he sat dying on the couch. It does follow the lengthy overhead tracking shot that goes from his location out into the streets, as if his spirit is headed up and out.

.

Oh SNAP!

 

Thanks for unpacking that, it makes total sense now.

 

I love TAXI DRIVER too, it is always a film that I cite as a great example of violence done right, that is to say that it's not glorified or romanticized. It builds up slowly to the violent part and when the violent part comes it shocking and horrific and, well I don't have firsthand knowledge of such things, I would say surprisingly accurate with the way the blood splatters and the shots ring out.

 

It surprises me very much that it's a film a lot of people site as inciting violence (largely for the Foster-Hinkley-Reagan aftermath), because it's very hard for me to see how anyone could watch the movie and think that it's saying violence is a good thing in any way shape or form.

[film lover 293]

"Planet of the Vampires" (1965)--Starring Barry Sullivan, directed by Mario Bava.

 

American International Picture movie is a psychedelic mix of science fiction and horror.  The plot--a spaceship crash lands on a planet covered with mist.  After the landing, Something(s) possesses the crew and tries to kill them. 

 

Barry Sullivan is ok but rather robotic as the Captain.  The plot is murky, but where the film excels is in the photography by Antonio Rinaldi.  All six of his cinematography credits were for Bava; here, the photography is full of swirling, multi-colored mists, neon reds and blues, odd shades of orange.  I recognized the color scheme from an earlier Bava movie.  The film is worth watching for the visuals alone.  The scenes where the remains of an extinct(?) race of beings is discovered are genuinely creepy.  The movies' shock scenes are  reminiscent of a tamer version of "Alien" (1979).

 

"Planet of the Vampires" won't win awards,but boasts extraordinary photography, good special effects (for 1965), the occasional howler (referring to another spaceship, a crew member cries "The Xanax Channel's Gone!"),or absurdity of failed Special Effects (the door of the spaceship resembles a telephone receiver).  I enjoyed it.  2.5/4

[HoldenIsHere]

I've always thought the ending was in Bickle's head, one last delusional fantasy as he sat dying on the couch. It does follow the lengthy overhead tracking shot that goes from his location out into the streets, as if his spirit is headed up and out.

 

I should mention, also, that Taxi Driver ranks #2 on my all-time favorite list, and I've seen it many, many times over the 4 decades since its release.

 

Both Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader have stated that the final scene of TAXI DRIVER is not intended to be Travis's death dream or a fantasy sequence but literal reality.  Scorsese has said that the sudden harsh note in the soundtrack when Travis looks at the rearview mirror in his cab is meant to indicate that he is a ticking time bomb that will explode again.

Schrader has said in one of the DVD commentaries that Travis won't be a hero "next time." Schrader has also said that he saw the epilogue as the restarting of the movie.

 

Robert DeNiro in several interviews had expressed interest in doing a sequel about an older Travis Bickle. In an interview in THE GUARDIAN in 2013 De Niro mentioned that Schrader had written a first draft but that both he and Scorsese felt it wasn't good enough to go further with a sequel. Schrader has said that a TAXI DRIVER sequel was "terrible idea" but that Travis was alive at the end of TAXI DRIVER.   

[EricJ]

Both Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader have stated that the final scene of TAXI DRIVER is not intended to be Travis's death dream or a fantasy sequence but literal reality.  Scorsese has said that the sudden harsh note in the soundtrack when Travis looks at the rearview mirror in his cab is meant indicate that he is a ticking time bomb that will explode again.

Schrader has said in one of the DVD commentaries that Travis won't be a hero "next time." Schrader has also said that he saw the epilogue as the restarting of the movie.

 

 

I got that sense of "irony" when the headlines proclaim Travis a good person, and he gets a glowing letter from Iris's parents.

(I didn't quite think it was his "fantasy" to be back to driving past porn theaters in the rain again, over the end credits.)

 

Still, I'm not sure how "ironic" it's supposed to be that Cybil Shepherd jumps back into his cab again.  Maybe the 70's inexperience again compared to our modern savvy, but here's a guy who exudes "Creepy loner stalker" from the minute he walks into the campaign center, and Betsy can't help but be ensnared by his sensitive lonely mystique...

Of course, when he does turn creepy and stalking, it's meant to be a dark twist.

 

You know you're officially out of the 70's when Albert Brooks, who's supposed to be the boring "establishment" character, steals every scene he's in.

[Fedya]

Palance's Hyde is more of a dangerous, sadistic roue who likes the nightlife, carrying a cane with a switch blade for anyone who angers him.

Does he come across a down-on-his-luck gambler in Buenos Aires?

[EricJ]

(I didn't quite think it was his "fantasy" to be back to driving past porn theaters in the rain again, over the end credits.)

 

BTW, it's a secret confession I've had for years--"Archeo-cinematizing":

Whenever there's some old movie footage of driving down Broadway & 42nd, whether in the 50's, 60's or 70's, has anyone else ever had this instinctive movie-historian compulsion to read the theater marquees on the street to see what was playing at the time?

 

(I only spent a college semester or two in NYC during the earliest 80's Koch-cleanup years, so I don't consider myself a "native", but when Travis is driving in the rain, I kept thinking, "Major porn theaters with big marquees in Times Square, I remember seeing those--Look, real grindhouses still randomly showing Texas Chainsaw and Bruce Lee, wow, how long has it been since you could pass by those?")

[Tikisoo]

has anyone else ever....?

 

I think all cinephiles read marquees in movies. I also think we instinctively notice the price of gas if it's posted.

 

(how about those "cand beans" in the grocery store in DOUBLE INDEMNITY?)

[Fedya]

In westerns, I try to count the number of stars on the flags to see if they're accurate.

[RoyCronin]

Living in NYC for so long I can not help but check the details in a film set here, legitimate or fake. Like the opening of The Best of Everything, I think, I walk everyday the same sidewalk as did Hope Lange.

[scsu1975]

The Man Without a Country (1937 short)

 

This story must have been very popular, with several silent versions being made before this short.

 

In this color film, John Litel plays a solider circa 1805 who gets mixed up in Aaron Burr’s plan to create another army. Litel is arrested, and comdemns the United States, saying he hopes he never hears of, or sees, the United States again. Well, he gets his wish, as he is sent off to a variety of ships where no one mentions “T-- U-----  S-----.” Meanwhile, Gloria Holden, who plays his vampire lover, keeps asking every President to pardon him. Finally, Lincoln (Charles Middleton, no less) does, but Holden croaks in his office. Litel finally gets word, and he croaks, but the ghost of Holden spirits him off to the Promised Land. Be prepared for several doses of “Beautiful Dreamer,” “There’s No Place Like Home,” and “My Country Tis of Thee.”

 

This is cornball in the extreme, but not badly done. As a trivia note, Burr is played by Holmes Herbert, who played the lead in the 1917 version (available on youtube in a so-so print). That version is contemporary, as Herbert refuses to go off to fight in WW I. He is given the book “The Man Without a Country” and re-enacts the story within the story. He then is inspired to enlist. Perhaps the main reason to watch this version is to see the lovely Florence La Badie, making her final appearance before an untimely death.

[speedracer5]

has anyone else ever....?

 

I think all cinephiles read marquees in movies. I also think we instinctively notice the price of gas if it's posted.

 

(how about those "cand beans" in the grocery store in DOUBLE INDEMNITY?)

 

Grocery stores in old films all seem to have the large signs in the windows stating "potatoes 5 cents" or whatever.  I love seeing the prices of things.  Or in diner scenes, seeing the prices of the food in the diner.  "I could get a steak sandwich, fries and coffee for 85 cents?!" 

 

These things are just a fun insight into how things were way back when.

[nakano]

especially if you were somebody like Greta Garbo or William Powell earning $10000 a week!

[Sepiatone]

BTW, it's a secret confession I've had for years--"Archeo-cinematizing":

Whenever there's some old movie footage of driving down Broadway & 42nd, whether in the 50's, 60's or 70's, has anyone else ever had this instinctive movie-historian compulsion to read the theater marquees on the street to see what was playing at the time?

 

(I only spent a college semester or two in NYC during the earliest 80's Koch-cleanup years, so I don't consider myself a "native", but when Travis is driving in the rain, I kept thinking, "Major porn theaters with big marquees in Times Square, I remember seeing those--Look, real grindhouses still randomly showing Texas Chainsaw and Bruce Lee, wow, how long has it been since you could pass by those?")

 

I sometimes do the sorts of things others mentioned here, like checking out prices of things and such.  Another thing I do, but not often....

 

There have been VERY few movies made here in Detroit.  BLUE COLLAR and the BEVERLY HILLS COP series are but a couple which had footage shot around the city.  I had the tendency to try and identify the neighborhoods the footage was shot.  AND if used "sequencially correct".  For example:

 

In BLUE COLLAR, there was a sequence in which RICHARD PRYOR was shown driving to some party of some kind.  They'd show a shot of Pryor behind the wheel of his car, then switch to a scene of his car driving past the old Fleetwood plant on FORT St. in Southwest Detroit.  Back to him behind the wheel of his car making what looked like a RIGHT TURN, then showing the car driving past COBO HALL on JEFFERSON Ave. DOWNTOWN!  THEN, behind the wheel again, making what looked like a LEFT turn, and the car NOW glides past the FISHER BUILDING on the OTHER SIDE OF THE CITY!!  He then made another right and went past the RENAISSANCE CENTER back downtown! 

 

Now, I know this all means nothing to someone in Boise, Idaho, but to DETROITERS, it REALLY looked like the editor screwed the pooch.

 

Sepiatone

[LornaHansonForbes]

OMG!!!!!

 

The world is officially upside down now.

 

I just watched AND LAUGHED OUT LOUD at an SNL skit. ( FYI, I have not laughed out loud at a single moment of SNL since the late 1990s and possibly earlier.)

 

Tom Hanks as a Trump supporter on BLACK JEOPARDY.

 

It was extremely well-written!

 

First JAWS 3 on TCM, now this!!!!

 

Shaken to THE CORE.

[hamradio]

"Independence Day Resurgence" (2016) on Pay per view.  They raised the rate to $5.99

 

Movie was OK, not great but not as bad many claimed.  I think the movie's true failure were in that people saw the plot holes i.e. rebuilding out major cities, back engineering alien tech and building a space defense system all in 20 years.

 

If all the aliens wanted was Earth's molten core, why not do that to begin with?  A 3,000 mile wide craft would be immune to anything man can throw at it, be like gnats flying around an elephant. The destruction of Earth's magnetic field would had doomed us all, why waste resources, time and trouble building city killers??

 

The ending gave man a slap on the back.  Movie shows human arrogance on steroids.

 

I do like the design of the Hybrid Fighter but in reality never going to happen - will always have issues with anti gravity.

 

[scsu1975]

The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die (1965)

 

Decent little thriller with some twists and turns.

 

Gary Merrill plays the husband of a rich dame (Georgina Cookson), who apparently keeps him around for hot sex.  She can also put herself into trances, which is probably how she gets through the sex with Merrill. Cookson’s gorgeous niece (Jane Merrow) shows up, and Merrill decides he wants to get it on with her. Merrill and his business partner cook up a scheme to off Cookson. After Merrill does the deed, he buries his wife in the pottery shed. Then they hire an actress to impersonate Cookson, so everyone else will think she went to Italy. Then the actress is offed as well. With Merrill and Merrow alone in his dead wife’s house, strange events start occurring. Is it Cookson, back from the dead? Is she not really dead? Is someone playing a trick?

 

The film works, despite the weird casting. It would have worked better with someone younger (and better looking) than Merrill. No one on the planet should believe a babe like Jane Merrow would go for this guy. He is in serious need of some eyebrow trimming, which would at least diminish his Cro-Magnon looks. And Cookson looks like John “One Step Beyond” Newland in a dress and wig. Merrow is worth watching, of course.

[hamradio]

"The Phantom Carriage" (1920)

 

He-e-re's Johnny!  

 

[cigarjoe]

Payback (1999) Point Blank Redux

 

Payback is the third interpretation of Donald E. Westlake's novel The Hunter (1962), written under the pseudonym Richard Stark. A crime thriller novel, the first of the Parker novels. The other films are John Boorman's Point Blank (1967), starring Lee Marvin and Ringo Lam's Full Contact (1992), starring Chow Yun-fat.

 

Payback was directed by Brian Helgeland and written Brian Helgeland (screenplay) and Terry Hayes (screenplay), (theatrical cut). Cinematography was by Ericson Core, and music was by 

Chris Boardman.

 

The film stars Mel Gibson as Porter, Gregg Henry as Val Resnick, Maria Bello as Rosie, Lucy Liu as Pearl, Deborah Kara Unger as Lynn Porter, David Paymer as Arthur Stegman, Bill Duke as Detective Hicks, Jack Conley as Detective Leary, John Glover as Phil, William Devane as Carter, James Coburn as Fairfax, Kris Kristofferson as Bronson (Theatrical Cut), Sally Kellerman as Bronson (Director's Cut), Trevor St. John as Johnny Bronson (Theatrical Cut), Freddy Rodriguez as Valet, Manu Tupou as Pawnbroker.

 

Give it a fair shake your personal noir tuning fork may accept it more than mine does. Watch also the Film Soleil adaptation of the novel, Point Blank (1967), for a comparison, same story set in California. I haven't seen Chow Yun-fat's Full Contact (1992). Screencaps are from the Paramount DVD. 6.5-7/10. Fuller review with more screencaps in Film Noir/Gangster thread and also here:

 

http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/10/payback-1999-point-blank-redux.html

[Sepiatone]

HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY

 

Just about a half-hour ago.

 

Started out showing footage of autions selling off old and famous Hollywood movie sets( the BOUNTY and the boat used for SHOWBOAT) and supposedly a pair of Judy Garland's RUBY SLIPPERS----is it Kismet or what, but......

 

Just this morning there was a small item in the Detroit Free Press about how those ruby slippers are looking more AUBURN than ruby these days, after spending the last 30 years at the Smithsonian , and the institute has started a KICKSTART campaign to try and raise $300,000 to recondition the slippers and create a technilogically advanced display case to prevent further decay.

 

Sepiatone

[scsu1975]

Is My Face Red? (1932)

 

Not-so-interesting account of a gossip columnist who is more or less a rat – which probably explains why Ricardo Cortez was cast in the part. Cortez is surrounded by his girlfriend (Helen Twelvetrees), a rich society dame he is after (Jill Esmond), his secretary (Arline Judge), and phone operator (Zasu Pitts). Robert Armstrong plays a rival reporter.

 

Nothing much happens for the first half of the movie. There is some snappy dialogue.  Cortez gets to slap a chorus girl on her posterior, which quickly disqualifies him from becoming President.

 

The story picks up a bit when Cortez witnesses Sidney Toler (playing a character named Tony Mugatti) stick a shiv in a mug. Don’t bother calling the police, Ricardo. Let’s see if we can get a column out of this.

 

Cortez faces some trials and tribulations the rest of the way, and even takes a shot to the tabloids. The ending is phony.

 

Toler’s attempt at an Italian accent immediately made me sympathetic to the Asians who didn’t like him playing Charlie Chan. But hey, at least they didn’t call this thing Is My Face Yellow?

 

If anyone is interested in trivia for this (although I can’t imagine why), I did manage to find a few items, and they are posted on the film’s page at IMDb. But don’t rush to get over there.

[film lover 293]

"Rasputin, The Mad Monk" (1966)--Starring Christopher Lee and Barbara Shelley.

 

Film shows how Rasputin had a gift for healing, a talent for hypnosis and how he used enthrallment to make himself rich and get his way with anyone he could use.

 

Lee is excellent as Rasputin, the monk in early 1900's Russia who reputedly had healing powers over the Czar's son. Shelley is also good as one of the Czarina's maids.  She is especially good at implying what the script didn't state.

 

Films' script is ok.  The women's hairdos are very 1960's, not 1910. The score is ok, although it reacts for the viewer, which annoyed me.

 

An enjoyable melodrama that takes a turn toward horror film in the last thirty some minutes.  It wisely never answers the question of whether Rasputin really healed people or not, and lets the viewer decide for themselves.  Film is worth a watch.  2.5/4.

[cigarjoe]

 

Shakedown (1950)

 

Very entertaining noir on par with Ace In the Hole, and grafted with 2014s Nightcrawler, Duff is an obsessed news photographer who also shakes down the the local hoods. Donlevy the "Dapper Dan" mobster, Tierney the rival whose HQ is a bowling alley. The three leads are great. Needs a restoration. 7/10

[EricJ]

"Rasputin, The Mad Monk" (1966)--Starring Christopher Lee and Barbara Shelley.

Film shows how Rasputin had a gift for healing, a talent for hypnosis and how he used enthrallment to make himself rich and get his way with anyone he could use.

 

Lee is excellent as Rasputin, the monk in early 1900's Russia who reputedly had healing powers over the Czar's son. 

 It wisely never answers the question of whether Rasputin really healed people or not, and lets the viewer decide for themselves.  

 

Although part of what got Tom Baker his "mad" Doctor Who gig was his role as Rasputin in "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971), where he more historical-accurately displays an earthy peasant sensuality that certainly knocked the staid Orthodox Romanoffs for a loop, and contributed to his "mystique".

 

Unlike the Lee movie, though, that one didn't come with the "Free beard" gimmick at the theaters.

[film lover 293]

"Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1970)--Starring Christopher Lee and Veronica Carlson, directed by Peter Sasdy.

 

Excellent entry in the Hammer series of Dracula movies.  Movie gets off to a fast, sensational start and gallops on from there.  Dracula is back in Victorian London, and nobody is what they seem.  After the halfway point, I could predict what would happen, but the film is so well done, it was fun anyway.  Lee was excellent, as always, and Carlson was a credible damsel in distress.  Movie is Not Politically Correct, and forgets about a minor character, but other than that, film was a fine watch.  This one's worth staying up for or recording.  3.2/4.