Anastasia (1956)
I had never seen it. The set up of the film is that Ingrid Bergman is being g used to trick her way to £10 million.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film, with a couple of effecting moments, involving the Grand Dowager.
M
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Young Gary Oldman practising for his roll as a nasty cop in the wonderful Leon.
Playing police against Mafia he gets into the expected mess.
Especially watchable if you enjoy seeing young women undressed in suspenders and stockings. Well it is one way to cause a car crash.
Awful Sound track ersatz Miles Davis by Mark Isham.
Fill the plot holes yourself and it’s not as bad as some critics thought.
Prime.
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Seeing Lena Olin there reminds me that there’s still no official Blu-ray release of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. The Criterion R1 DVD remains the best official release, but why no BR is a mystery really.
One more in my desire to bring modern cinema to the fore.
The Magpie.
The husband Shazad Latif an unhelpful slob who will chase other women if given the slightest chance leaving DaisyRidley(a StarWars cast member apparently) to keep house and look after the babe in arms.He takes the elder daughter to act in a film being produced locally and lusts openly over the leading lady.
Daisy sorts out his downfall.
It crackles with the tension of mutual dislike. Well acted and directed British production
On Prime.
How did they afford that house.
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Arnold Ridley was her Great Uncle. Remember him ?
Thanks for the recommendation. Much more my sort of film.
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It’s been 7 years since I last watched Interstellar. Within the last 20 months I’ve changed to a bigger screen, much better sub, different better soundbar, SR pink fuses and much better HDMIs. Regardless of whether the film is your taste, this is a technical masterpiece. I thought it was good 7 years ago, but last night the picture quality was even more stunning and more importantly the sound was incredible. Soundtrack sounded wonderful. The sub was working overtime on those really deep pulsating sound effects. Apart from adding drama, they were done to make the audience feel the crushing pressure and mechanical stresses of the space craft. This is the perfect example where there is no substitution for a sub…and unfortunately a good sub. My whole room was filled with ridiculously deep, sub-hearing spacious bass hitting my body.
A bit silly in places, bit too far out for me, but who cares, last night was a superb experience.
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Last Sunday I streamed an absolutely unforgettable performance of a rare opera, Rossini’s La Donna del Lago. It’s available on the Met Opera’s app Met Opera on Demand and as a DVD. The cast was of a once in a lifetime category, headed by Joyce diDonato and Juan Diego Florez.
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An 88 film print of Night of the Big Heat
Well acted with a great cast despite a slight story line.
But for heavens sake complaining about a big heat of 108f - should have been in the UK this year.
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Double bill last night.
The Lighthouse.
William Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are two lighthouse keepers on the Maine coast who drive each other quite insane after they are locked in by a fierce storm.
The postcard shaped picture and the intense monochrome photography emphasise the isolation and madness.
So looking for something a little lighter
Invitation to a Gunslinger.
Yul ,beginning to look a little crusty around the edges,is hired to kill George Segal who has come home from the Confederate army into his Union town to find his property sold and girl friend married.
Our hero does not follow the script of course.
The cartoon slot was taken over by the many YouTube memes of DT.
Both Prime.
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Call My Agent the movie Netflix. Big fans of the TV series but this is just OK - massively over hyped inevitably doesn’t live up to the praise. Some delicious scenes but as always you remove the SIT bit (plus real life actors with their neediness and insecurities) you’re left with a bunch of quirky characters in search of a home.
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I enjoyed the French Dix Pour Cent.Is this an English language film?
No it’s predominantly in French with just a couple of scenes in English. The French is pretty quickfire.
A Testament of Youth. A quietly powerful film which should be required watching for any that seek to glorify, gamify or to take too lightly the horror of war….rather that they saw the front line impact of their recklessness.
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Another 88 Films Release with a stellar cast including George Sanders and Maurice Evans with Patrick Allen and one of the few roles for Sean Connery’s brother Neil.
Much better than the reviews would have you believe and a superb transfer to Blu-ray.
The Body Stealers 1969
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There are those who maintain Hitch’s 1958 masterpiece is The Greatest Movie Ever Made™. Personally, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and would go with Citizen Kane, La Regle Du Jeu or La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Though it’s certainly better than Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (looking at YOU, BFI/Schite & Sound!)
Nevertheless it’s still a fantastic film, with brilliant use of the VistaVision format, Bernard Herrmann’s superb score, Saul Bass’ graphics, Robert Burks’ photography which is expressionistic and dreamlike, making use of stark but luminous greens and reds and just genius, Coppel & Taylor’s spot-on script and a splendid cast (is this Jimmy Stewart’s greatest ever performance?).
But really the film is Hitchcock’s. It is an example of an “auteur movie”, in that despite the number and excellence of the collaborators, it is the product of one man’s vision. Rather like Michael Powell’s magnificent but career-ending Peeping Tom of two years later, it’s less about Scottie’s trauma and fractured mental state than a musing on the cruelty of director-muse relationships and cinematic fetishism and voyeursim – though this being Hitch, there’s a detached, lugubrious quality about the director’s confession. He enjoys unsettling people, and is amused by the fact that we say we’re unsettled.
Nobody else could have made this movie.
And – as a cinephile, those dolly zooms. OMFG. Hitch rules!
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A brilliant film, and, like Hitch’s Rear Window, one that I never tire of repeat viewing.
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And the other half of a cinephile’s viewing.
Jim Jarmusch directs Tom Hiddelston and the gorgeously androginous Tilda Swinton. As they are a pair of married vampires who have lived for hundreds of years even knowing Christopher Marlowe (you might know him as John Hurt) the action has to take place at night.
Life seems to be a costly battle to find the sanguinious?equivilent of Chateau Margeaux.
Sets are wonderfully dressed and the sound track features music by which Tom earns his living.
It’s the fault of that bloody BFI and Sight and Sound pandering to strange tastes.. Tucked away on Prime.
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And yet more art house cinema nonsense.
Featuring the acting skills of Daisy Ridley who is a very lonely, withdrawn woman comfortable only in her own quiet routine.
It is over 20 minutes before she manages to speak a word.
She tries to break out and form a relationship with a new work colleague but his inquisitiveness about her life is threatening and she has to retreat.
A tender portrait of a troubled soul.
MUBI
1 Like