February 2012
52 posts
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Suggested Movie Review
RAIN
The feature debut of New Zealand director Christine Jeffs (Sunshine Cleaning) feels like a very personal tale. 13-year old Janey is at that awkward age between child and woman. She watches her mother drink, flirt, and steal kisses from her father’s friend Cady (The Debt’s Marton Csokas, whom I didn’t realize was a Kiwi). Janey begins to teeter between innocent...
DVD Tuesday
HUGO - Won quite a few Oscars this week for its look, but the film was just too slow for me to really get behind.
VANYA ON 42nd STREET - I may have hated My Dinner with Andre, but Louis Malle’s impromptu Chekhov in the pre-restored New Amsterdam Theater is good stuff.
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My Ten Most Anticipated Films of 2012
What is this humble film nerd most looking forward to?
Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson’s back, with his usual Anderson-ness and a great cast. May 25
Brave - Pixar’s next film. Jun 22
The Dark Knight Rises - Dying to see how Nolan brings it all home. July 20
Argo - Ben Affleck directs this true story about the US trying to rescue hostages in Iran by posing as a Canadian film crew....
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Suggested Movie Review
SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS
The winner of the first Best Picture Oscar was William Wellman’s fantastic WWI epic Wings. But there was another Picture award that year, one that never reappeared: Best Unique and Artistic Production. That specific award went to this silent classic, by German director F.W. Murnau. And where Wings is an impressively-scaled film, filled with real dogfights...
Set Your DVR
Late Monday night features a truly stunning film, one that marked the end of the Hays Production Code.
11:30pm - Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? See this film.
(all times EST on TCM)
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Suggested Movie Review
CONTROL
I know nothing about Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis. So it’s yet another of my many examples of why biopics just don’t work that I knew what was going to happen the entire film. Curtis is a young, blue-collar boy from an industry town, with dreams of becoming a rock star. He joins a band, marries his sweetheart, sudden success, has an affair, guilt, pressure, leading...
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Suggested Movie Review
THE EXPLODING GIRL
I really like Zoe Kazan. In 2008, I saw a Broadway production of The Seagull, and it’s saying something that with a cast including Kristen Scott Thomas, Peter Sarsgaard, and Carey Mulligan, I left the theater asking myself, “Who is this amazing Zoe girl who played Masha?!”
While Zoe is the main character here, on-screen almost the entire 80 minute run-time,...
Set Your DVR
Saturday’s got a few:
12:30pm - One of the first official noir films, The Maltese Falcon. Bogie!
4:00pm - Bullitt! Four words: San Francisco car chase.
8:00pm - John Ford’s terrific adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, starring Henry Fonda.
(all times EST on TCM)
Oscar Picks
Here’s my picks and predictions for the major categories in Sunday’s Oscar extravaganza. Full nominee list here. My Top Ten of 2011 is here.
BEST PICTURE: Only nine nominees this year. Not sure if this new nominating process is really making all that much sense just yet. Ah well. I think The Artist has the momentum to take it all. But sometimes that feeling of inevitability can turn...
Set Your DVR
Friday has a notable Billy Wilder film:
10:00pm - Ace in the Hole, a cynical look at the media circus, starring the great Kirk Douglas.
(all times EST on TCM)
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Suggested Movie Review
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
I was not prepared for how caught up in Victor Erice’s beautiful and quiet allegory I would find myself. Made in 1973, at the end of the Franco’s long rule over Spain, this film focuses on an isolated village following the Spanish Civil War (1940, the very start of Franco’s power). A young girl becomes amazed with a film shown in their village, James...
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Suggested Movie Review
THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
Writer/director Tony Richardson’s 1962 film is one of the most notable of the brief British New Wave movement, and an intriguing example of similar movements with different births. The British New Wave shares a lot of the style and substance of the French New Wave: low budgets, black & white, themes of rebellious youth and anti-society. But...
Set Your DVR
Wednesday has a quite a few films to record:
12:00pm - Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove.
8:00pm - Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
10:00pm - Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (this one’s been on my DVR for a month; haven’t seen it in years).
12:15am - One of the best political films of all time, All The President’s Men.
(all times EST on TCM)
DVD Tuesday
J. EDGAR -I missed this in theaters. From what I’ve heard, it’s another examples of Eastwood’s volatility: when he’s good, he’s very very good, but when he’s bad, he’s Invictus.
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE -A hit at Sundance, but not quite a hit with me.
ANATOMY OF A MURDER - Continuing to do no wrong, Criterion has restored Otto Preminger’s...
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Suggested Movie Review
CHOOSE ME
Let’s put aside how incredibly dated Alan Rudolph’s 1984 ensemble film feels. From the pink neon credits, to the constant sultry sax of Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and his sexy singers scoring the whole thing. Rudolph learned under the great Robert Altman, and this film was a breakthrough for him - it screened out of competition at Cannes that year. So let’s...
Suggestions Week
Got quite a few film suggestions from last week’s request. Many I hadn’t heard of, some were already on the queue. Watching and reviewing those films begins today.
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Movie Review
MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
I don’t believe I’ve seen this entire film in decades (yikes). Capra bought the story originally to make a Mr. Deeds sequel. Thankfully for us, Gary Cooper wasn’t available, and young Jimmy Stewart (whom Capra had just directed in his Best Picture winning You Can’t Take It With You; his on-screen romantic interest was Jean Arthur in that as...
Set Your DVR
Two greats back to back on Monday night:
10:00pm - Carol Reed’s fantastic noir The Third Man.
12:00am - One of my favorite Best Picture winners, Amadeus.
(all times EST on TCM)
Set Your DVR
Two notables on Sunday:
12:00pm - 1937’s Best Picture winner is The Life of Emile Zola. It’s another one I’m including, so you can see just how bad Best Picture winners can be.
3:30pm - The fantastic 1951 Best Picture winner An American in Paris.
(all times EST on TCM)
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Set Your DVR
A particularly fantastic film playing late night Saturday:
1:00am - The Lion in Winter. My god, what a gloriously witty, clever, dark and fun battle of the sexes. Hepburn and O’Toole are so wonderfully evenly matched, you can’t look away. Record this and watch it post-haste!
(all times EST on TCM)
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Movie Review
PINA
It’s one thing to choreograph for film. The dance is put together for the camera, likely adapted to compliment certain framings or angles the director wants to use. But it can be quite difficult to go the other way and film choreography conceived for a stage or space. Say, for example, that one particular section has two dancers at stage left. The film frame may want to be...
Set Your DVR
Friday has a few notable picks:
10:30am - All The King’s Men, winner of 1949’s Best Picture Oscar. I only include it so you can see just how bad a Best Picture winner can be (see also: Cimarron).
6:00pm - “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” The acting will floor you in 1967’s Best Picture winner In the Heat of the Night.
4:45am - I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, the...
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Movie Review
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE
Every once in a while, there comes a film that sort of ‘resets’ cinema by saying, “Sometimes, people can just talk.” Pulp Fiction comes to mind, as does Richard Linklater’s Slacker. In 1981, that film was Louis Malle’s My Dinner With Andre, in which playwright/actor Wallace Shawn and director/writer Andre Gregory portray a dinner...
DVD Tuesday
TAKE SHELTER -Number 10 on my best-of list last year. Tense and beautifully acted.
TINY FURNITURE -This 24-year old writes/directs/stars in a movie co-starring her mother and sister as her mother and sister, and she gets the Criterion treatment. #notjealous
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT - Another stunning Universal restoration. You should check out 1930’s Best Picture winner. ...
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Movie Review
…AND GOD CREATED WOMAN
This 1956 film was writer/director Roger Vadim’s debut, and it made his then-wife Brigitte Bardot an international sex symbol. What story there is seems to exist merely to allow Bardot’s “town slut” Juliette to prance around, dance, drink, and seduce at will. Maybe it’s too dated, but it seems today like a fairly sexist story about an...
Set Your DVR
One particular film to note for Valentine’s Day:
10:00pm - Summertime, the delightful David Lean film of Kate Hepburn finding herself in beautiful Venice.
(all times EST on TCM)
Got some suggestions?
Obviously I watch a lot of films, old and new. Over three years of reviews on this humble blog of mine. Do any of my seven readers have a film they’d love to see me review? A favorite of yours that I’ve not seen?
Let me know in the comments.
Politicking
I’ve still been ranting away on my political blog, Facepalm. Here’s some highlights of the last month:
- An outing at a public park becomes an example of the big government argument.
- Santorum cries “War on Faith”, yet his Hanukkah card includes a New Testament scripture about Jesus. #notfromtheOnion
- Why do people want to be president?
- Lack of demand, lack of...
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Set Your DVR
Sunday’s got a pair of recommends:
6:45am - I love the 1949 musical On The Town, starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. “New York, New York, a helluva town!”
12:30am - 1955’s Best Picture winner, Marty.
Set Your DVR
Tomorrow (Saturday) is a big day for your classic movie-watching on TCM:
8:00am - The sexy, naughty pre-Code musical 42nd Street, starring Ruby Keeler.
9:45am - The Naked City, Jules Dassin’s noir-ish police procedural. Watch it for the NYC locations alone.
1:15pm - The classic On The Waterfont.
3:15pm - I include Going My Way, the Best Picture winner of 1944, less because of its own...
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Movie Review
AUTUMN SONATA
“A mother and a daughter. What a terrible combination of feelings and confusion and destruction.”
So says daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) during a brutal overnight argument with her mother Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman, in her final film) in this superbly acted 1978 film from Ingmar Bergman. The premise is simple: Eva hears that her mother has lost her companion of many...
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Movie Review
FAIL-SAFE
The year is 1964, and moviegoers are presented with a black-and-white film about the Cold War. A bomber receives orders to drop its nuclear payload on Russia; this order is a mistake, but procedure has them cease all communication with the outside world. Obviously, a bombing of the USSR, even accidental, has HUGE consequences for the rest of the world. The generals in the war room...
Set Your DVR
Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, on TCM:
10:45am - The classic pre-Code gangster film, The Public Enemy, starring Jimmy Cagney.
DVD Tuesday (Extra)
LADY AND THE TRAMP - Forgot to mention this Disney hi-def frame by frame restoration of one of my favorites. Seriously, it’s great.
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Set Your DVR
I’m gonna do a few of these this month, as Turner Classic Movies does its 31 Days of Oscar line-up. Here’s a few for late tonight/technically tomorrow morning (all times EST):
3:30am: 1932’s Best Picture winner, Grand Hotel.
5:30am: The stunning 1930 Best Picture winner, All Quiet on the Western Front. This is another film that Universal has restored and will be releasing on...
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DVD Tuesday
ANONYMOUS - Director Roland Emmerich (2012, Independence Day) isn’t exactly the director I’d have in mind for a “thriller” about Shakespeare.
PROJECT NIM - Intriguing doc about the young chimp taught sign language. A recommend.
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