WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

I'll give them a try if you say they are worthwhile. Thanks! That's what I love about this place - reviews you can trust.

[knitwit45]

Hey Jackie, have you ever seen "Arabesque" with G Peck and Sophia Loren? Talk about a HOOT! The shower "scene" is worth the price of the movie!!!!

[JackFavell]

I haven't seen Arabesque...I really have never liked Gregory Peck, so I pretty much stayed away from everything except the biggies.

I probably shouldn't say this, but I only started to appreciate Roman Holiday recently. I HATED it when I first saw it. That will tell you how much I disliked Peck's movies. Now I actually see a very nuanced lovely performance from him in RH. I didn't see TKAM until recently, and of course it was wonderful. Before that, of the rest of Peck's films, I was only able to watch The Yearling with any pleasure (if you can call sobbing your eyes out pleasure).

[movieman1957]

I will second "The Gunfighter." "The Bravados" is a pretty dark picture but worth a look. I enjoy "The Big Country" too. On the war front "The Guns of Navarone" and "12 O'Clock High" are noteworthy.

[JackFavell]

I was thinking The Big Country might be my next western. I like Wyler.

[feaito]

Last night my wife and I watched George Franju's "Les Yeux sans Visage" (Eyes without a Face) (1959) and we were mesmerized by it. Criterion's transfer is flawless, beautiful, awesome...I found the whole concept of the film so unique and otherwordly. It has an eerie atmosphere and it causes horror, without being really a horror film, but maybe more a thriller? A crime film? The story of selfish, amoral, vain man who wants to play God?. The horror lies within the fact that apparently normal people do such terrible things... Pierre Brasseur is superb as the scientist obsessed with restoring her beloved daughter's beauty. Alida Valli is very good as his doomed, forever-grateful, equally amoral secretary and assistant... Edith Scob's poetic portrayal of the lovely Christiane is bewitching and she appears in some scenes that are pure magic -especially towards the end of the film. I had seen Madame Scob last year, giving a powerful performance as the elderly matriarch in the very good 2008 Olivier Assayas' movie "L'Heure D'été" (Summer Hours). She's an actress of huge talent and exudes innate class.

This film is one of the creepiest and at the same time most poetic films I've seen, especially due to the character of Christiane.

The Criterion Edition has some wonderful & enlightening extras and documentaries. Absolutely recommended. Pierre Bouleau and Thomas Narcejac, who adapted the story for the screen, also wrote the novels which served as basis for Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques" (1955) and Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958)

[MikeBSG]

"Eyes Without a Face" is a gripping film. When I saw it with an audience, the theater seemed to shake in the operation scene as the audience trembled in their seats.

The extras on the DVD are also fascinating. I was struck by the interview with Franju in which he said (to a guy who must be a French TV horror movie host -- he looked like one of the Three Stooges) that the operation scene was so powerful because there was no emotional release on-screen, ie. the woman didn't/couldn't scream so the audience had to respond. I had never thought of things that way before.

[feaito]

I agree Mike, my wife and I were on the verge of our bed during some scenes -the operation sequence, the scenes towards the end, etc.- & that interview with the French TV Host is absolutely fascinating, because he exposes his very unique ideas on horror and the making of the film. He stated that the most horrorific film he ever saw was a documentary dealing the trephination of a brain and he talked about seeing it with other people....he also spoke about restrictions dealing with censors in Germany (no openly Mad Doctors), France & Britain....

[feaito]

I watched the new "Clash of the Titans" (2010) on Blu Ray - I borrowed it from friend of mine-. The CGI are impressive, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as Zeus and Hades, respectively, are good, but the film is only an attractive spectacle, nothing more. The 1980 version with Hamlin and the Ray Harryhausen special effects has a naïve je-ne-sais-quois that defeats this remake on an emotional level -in my case at least.

BTW, speaking of remakes, I realized yesterday that my all-time favorite (Cult) Horror TV Movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (1973) is being remade cinematically and produced by no less than Guillermo del Toro (director of "The Devil's Backbone" (2001) and "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) and producer of "The Orphanage" (2007), among the best Spanish films of the decade). Let's wait and see....

[feaito]

Thanks to Christine I watched Minnelli's "Tea and Sympathy" (1956), a movie that in my opinion more tha dealing with the subject of "presumed homosexuality", deals with people who are different from others or are not "average" and because of this are punished, bullied and chastised by their peers.

The leading character, an isolated young guy -Tom- (John Kerr), who never had the love of a mother or a father, naively searches for what he's been denied... and he feels attracted towards sweet and maternal Laura (Deborah Kerr, in a mesmerizing performance). I perceived that in the beginning he wasn't searching for romantic love in Kerr...I feel he looked for kindness, understanding, tenderness, ... it was her who looked at him reminiscing of the her long-lost young first husband -killed in WWII. The film was quite difficult for me to watch since when I was in school I was victim of bullying due to my quiet and peaceful nature (I did not like fighting, wasn't fond of sports, I was quite an isolated character... and I suffered because of it enormously). Isolated people need nothing more than love and understanding, especially isolated, insecure youths.

Now, the character played by Leif Erickson...here we have THE repressed man who pretends to be a Man's man...I bet he had a secret to keep. And what about Tom's dad (ambiguously portrayed by Edward Andrews)...he was intent that his son should be turned into a man! And he was kind of not very manly himself in some of his traits....For instance, he sat in very queer way in a scene with Miss Kerr. I wondered if something went on between Erickson and Tom's dad when they were schoolmates..... Kerr was a quiet, sensitive young man, but wasn't homosexual... he just had different tastes....whereas Erickson and Kerr were obsessed with manliness and virility, as if they were trying to prove something. A very complex film with multiple readings perhaps. And why did Tom's mother leave his father? Why did Laura (Deborah Kerr) implied she was not getting what she needed from Erickson?....A superb film which I did not find dated at all -like many reviewers stated at IMDB.

[Ann Harding]

Fernando, I am so glad you enjoyed so much the film. From what I read, the original play made it clear that Tom was homosexual. I guess MGM had to make it a bit more fuzzy due to censors. Anyway, like you say, it's mostly dealing with differences and coping with an environment where you feel you don't belong. It's a very good Minnelli, who must have felt very keenly the plight of Tom as well.

[feaito]

Fernando, I am so glad you enjoyed so much the film. From what I read, the original play made it clear that Tom was homosexual. I guess MGM had to make it a bit more fuzzy due to censors. Anyway, like you say, it's mostly dealing with differences and coping with an environment where you feel you don't belong. It's a very good Minnelli, who must have felt very keenly the plight of Tom as well.

Welcome Christine. Anyhow, thanks to Censorship and to Minnelli´s talent, maybe the film became even more complex, multi-layered and engrossing.

[MikeBSG]

My local PBS station was showing "Arsenic and Old Lace" the other night, and I watched bits and pieces of it.

It fascinates me that Peter Lorre steals both "Arsenic and Old Lace" and "The boogie Man Will Get You," the "Arsenic and Old Lace" rip off that Columbia made with Karloff.

[MikeBSG]

yesterday, i watched "Westworld" with Olivia and Ethan.

We all enjoyed the movie a lot. it was nice to see that despite "Jurassic Park" and "The Terminator," both of which borrow from this earlier film, "Westworld" still holds up.

I had a nice time seeing Yul Brynner as the bad guy. That bit of casting really worked.

[JackFavell]

I really enjoy Tea and Sympathy as well - and you are right, all that jumping around, slapping each other at the "manly" sports events starts to look very suspect, and at the least, hypocritical when those same men are pestering and bullying poor John Kerr. I found Deborah's role to be the more fascinating one - her loneliness and inability to communicate with her husband was probably very sympathetic to women of the fifties.