Half the reason for this blog's existence

Today we watched North by Northwest and Psycho, both in high definition. Northwest is probably my second most often seen film (Rio Bravo being the champion). I always find its charms impossible to resist, and it never feels as long as it actually is. It looks marvelous on Blu-ray.

I believe I'd seen Psycho only once before, and the plot's surprises had been spoiled for me even then. But it still holds great power. With the exception of the psychiatrist's explanation scene at the end, it feels quite modern, or maybe I should say timeless.

After the triple home run of these two and the immediately preceding Vertigo, I don't think Hitch ever achieved similar heights. Of course, most directors never make a single film that's this good.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that I skipped four movies in Hitchcock's filmography. This was because the studio audience had an additional member who had never seen North by Northwest and I wanted to show both BD titles in the same session. We'll get back to those missing ones later.

North Face

Being the English title for Nordwand, a somewhat factual German film about the 1936 attempt to climb the north face of the Eiger, also known as Mordwand or Murder Wall because of the number of climbers who have died trying. This story does not have the mandatory happy ending either.

The movie takes a while to get going, and non-climbing scenes are of average quality, but when we get to the north face the filmmakers seem to switch gears and the results are gripping and look marvelous. I don't know how much was actual climbing and how much special effects, but the whole fit together so well I didn't really care.

The richest director ever

I have no source to back up that title, but I'd be rather surprised if anyone beats Howard Hughes. Tonight I watched both films he directed, Hell's Angels and The Outlaw.

The best parts of Angels happen in the air, no doubt about that. It's thrilling to see two dozen or so biplane fighters swirling in the sky and know that it's real footage, not CGI. Hughes assembled a small fleet of WWI warplanes and pilots and shot a lot of film, which made the movie the most expensive ever made at the time. There's also some fine model work, used in the nighttime Zeppelin mission over London and the bombing of a German munitions depot. The rest of the film is uneven, to put it kindly, but Jean Harlow is good - good at being a bad girl, that is. Only a few years later the Hays Code prevented this kind of racy material being shown.

The Outlaw is famous for showcasing Jane Russell's breasts and being censored because of that, and her chest is indeed the most memorable element of the movie (her acting, sadly, less so). It's a retelling of the Billy the Kid legend that inserts Doc Holliday in the events, and not a terribly good one at that. There are some good scenes, but more ridiculous ones. At least Walter Huston, father of John, appears as Pat Garrett.

Grace part three

To Catch a Thief utilizes the familiar story about sending a thief to catch a thief. Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, some great dialog between the two, and beautiful Riviera - those alone would be sufficient, but you also get Hitchcock's direction. It's one of his lighter films, and highly entertaining.

Why are you looking that way, man?

Been a few years since I last saw Rear Window, and it's always a great experience. I don't know why any man whose girlfriend was Grace Kelly would spend so much time looking outside, but other than that it's basically a perfect thriller. One of Hitchcock's best, and thus one of the best, period.

Straight on 'til morning

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which I watched yesterday, is the other Trek film directed by Nicholas Meyer, director of KHAAAN, and that film's only contender for the best entry in the series. It's a very fitting farewell to the original crew. Most characters get some snappy lines, but Spock, Valeris and the Klingons are perhaps best served.

KHAAAN!

Whoever guessed tonight's movie shall win no prizes.

Odds are Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is the best Trek movie not only now, but for all time. It's been beautifully remastered for HD - reputedly the most extensive restoration work of the six films with the original cast. I had no complaints.

The best hacker movie?

My favorite is Sneakers, which I rewatched again tonight. Killer cast, snappy dialog, heart in the right place, and no stupid made-up GUIs. Most of what they do is "human hacking" or social engineering. If you accept the central McGuffin, most of the rest isn't too far-fetched, just exaggerated. I also liked how the heroes don't shoot their way out of trouble; they carry guns a couple of times, but fire exactly one warning shot.

Rapid fire dialog

Besides Hitchcock, there's another director whose name begins with an "H" whom I hold in very high regard, and he is Howard Hawks. "Three great scenes, no bad ones" was his own pragmatic definition of a good movie, but it's safe to say he surpassed that frequently.

Today I watched His Girl Friday, one of the first movies where people talk over each other instead of waiting politely until the other actor has said his piece. More importantly, it's an extremely funny film. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell play wonderfully off each other.

Not a perfect murder

Tonight's entertainment was Dial M for Murder. It was the first film out of three in which Hitchcock cast Grace Kelly as the leading lady. Originally shot in 3D, but almost always shown flat, it's a very enjoyable suspense film even though the plot is kind of convoluted. As it often is with Hitch, it's not so much about the events of the script but rather how they are told.

And hey, Grace Kelly.

A Lapland odyssey

Napapiirin sankarit is, in fact, called Lapland Odyssey in English. It is Dome Karukoski's fourth full-length film; besides this one I have only seen his first, Tyttö sinä olet tähti, which might be my favorite Finnish film, certainly among the best. The new film was very entertaining and I'm happy I went to see it.

That's Montgomery Clift, honey!

Sung about by The Clash, and playing a priest in I Confess. It's not among Hitchcock's finest, but that still leaves plenty of room to be pretty good. It takes some time to get going, but towards the end there's enough suspense and twists. Clift plays the role well, even if he has better hair than any priest I've ever seen. The supporting cast is also fine.

This makes it 50 posts. I'm not bored yet, so I'll keep going... Project Hitchcock alone is good for more than a dozen entries!

Hush-hush and on the QT

When I first saw L.A. Confidential, I only knew Russell Crowe from The Quick and the Dead, and Guy Pearce not at all. Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito were of course more familiar. I hadn't even read the novel or anything else by Ellroy - safe to say this has been rectified since. I just knew that here was a movie where everything worked.

This must've been the fourth or fifth time I see it, and the impact hasn't been lessened at all. On BD it is very easy to appreciate the wonderful cinematography, set design, and costumes.

Casablanca is movies

Said Umberto Eco after going on and on about semiotics and other fancy concepts, and I agree. It sums up Old Hollywood as well as can be imagined. It's amazing how a script that was written as the filming took place and was a compromise between writer Koch's and director Curtiz's intentions can work so perfectly. One of the films that kicked off my interest in older movies.

Books about westerns

Yay, a new package in the mail!

Edward Buscombe's 100 Westerns is part of the BFI Screen Guides series. It's a handy pocket-sized book that devotes a couple of pages to each selected film.

Stagecoach to Tombstone: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Westerns by Howard Hughes (not that one!) uses a different approach. It focuses on 27 movies, and also discusses similar or related westerns in each chapter. For example, the Tombstone chapter mentions Wyatt Earp, Dead Man, Open Range and other modern westerns.

A weepie for guys

You know, when Maximus triumphs but dies soon thereafter and walks into Elysium... I did find some extra moisture in the corner of my eye. This would be Gladiator, of course, this time the extended edition on Blu-ray. It's one of my favorite historical epics. The aforementioned moment feels so wrong and so right. I guess I have some sort of a built-in trigger for heroic death stories. The Alamo, King Leonidas with his Spartans (and assorted other Greeks who tend to be forgotten) at Thermopylae, The Wild Bunch, Maximus...

Note that I'm not saying only boys' weepies have this effect. I am a big old softie sometimes.

Very different action movies

Green Zone could almost be a prequel to the Bourne series, showing what David Webb was like before he volunteered to become Jason Bourne. Paul Greengrass' direction is similar, Matt Damon plays the protagonist again, and they even got John Powell to score it and Christopher Rouse to edit it. It's a solid action thriller even though the idea of there being no WMDs to be found is hardly surprising in 2010. Some of the characters are based on real people and many members of Bourne's... I mean Roy Miller's team are actual veterans, not actors.

The Warriors is anything but realistic, but highly entertaining. Somehow I had avoided seeing it until now. It's an urban fantasy about one heroic gang versus a hundred others, populated by a cast of (mostly) unknowns, and executed perfectly to this specification.

Carpenter's masterwork

John Carpenter's, that is. I am, of course, talking about The Thing, which may be my favorite horror movie of all time. It stood up to a 5th or 6th viewing brilliantly, and the BD release reveals all kinds of new detail. Rob Bottin's spectacular creature effects do not suffer at all from the high-def treatment.

I miss the signal

Just watched Serenity, and I think I appreciated it even more the second time around. But it did make me miss Firefly something fierce.

The book pile grows taller

Thankfully, only by two titles - my backlog is long enough already.

Foster Hirsch's The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir (2008) is the author's revised version of his 1981 book.

Casablanca: Script and Legend (1992) by Howard Koch is also an update of an earlier edition. Koch is uniquely qualified to write this book, as he was one of the original scriptwriters. In addition to the script, there are some still photos and thoughts by various writers, including Umberto Eco.

"Look at what they make you give"

The Bourne Ultimatum wraps up the trilogy in grand fashion. Either I got used to the camerawork after watching Supremacy, or it is a little calmer now, but the frenetic style was fine. I liked the narrative trick of having part 3 happen both during and after part 2. The actors continue to shine. There are many standout moments, but Bourne's line to Paz (quoted in the title) was among the finest, neatly mirroring his encounter with The Professor in Identity.

For my money the Bourne trilogy is the most satisfying and smartest film series of recent times, and ranks pretty high on the all-time list as well. They could've stopped after the first movie and the story would've been complete, but the additional exploration of Bourne's character and history in the latter two works. All three are kickass action movies, too, which is equally important to the franchise. They mix American-style stories and indie/European-style filmmaking well.

Bourne again

Tonight's movie was The Bourne Supremacy. Paul Greengrass takes over from Doug Liman, and while I am not bothered by the camerawork like many people seem to be, I think I prefer the photography of the first film. Both returning and new cast members are excellent and it's a worthy sequel, all things considered.

Two great directors

Strangers on a Train has Hitchcock in excellent form. One more and then we get to his Grace Kelly triple.

The Deadly Companions was Sam Peckinpah's first feature film. This one I hadn't seen before and knew nothing about, except that Maureen O'Hara was in it. It's an offbeat western to be sure, with plenty of quirky characters. A promising start.

Where the modern Bond learned his tricks

The complete Bourne trilogy on BD arrived in the mail today. I started watching it right away with the first movie, The Bourne Identity. It was the third or fourth time I saw it, and it still works damn well. Acting, photography, direction... it's all there. I remember being very pleasantly surprised when I rented the film for the first time, having read the book once.

I think the creators of Casino Royale took a long hard look at the Bourne franchise when rebooting Bond with Daniel Craig.

Book of old sins

I ordered an ex-library copy of Mark A. Vieira's Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood (1999) over a month ago and it finally got here. I'd forgotten how slow surface mail was.

Anyway, it seems to have been worth the wait. For those interested in the book or the era, you can start with this review or the Wikipedia entry. Since this censorship lasted until 1968, I feel this topic is very much worth visiting.

Going country again

I was wondering which movie to watch this Sunday evening and happened upon Peter Bogdanovich's The Thing Called Love. I thought it would be a good counterpoint for Crazy Heart, and indeed it was. It's about four young people who've come to Nashville and hope to make it in the music business. They are ably portrayed by Samantha Mathis, River Phoenix (almost the last film he did), Dermot Mulroney and Sandra Bullock (on her way to fame) - all of whom sing their own songs and participated in the songwriting. The ending is open to multiple interpretations. This film was a nice little surprise.

Oh, and there's an actual musical connection to Crazy Heart, too: T-Bone Burnett, a friend of River Phoenix, worked on some of the music even though he's not credited on IMDb. He seems to be quite the seal of quality; see also Walk the Line, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and others.

New old reading material

I visited a second hand bookstore today and grabbed a couple of cheap film books: Mitä Missä Milloin -elokuvaopas (1995) by Asko Alanen, which is his list of 1000 classic movies, and The Hollywood Professionals Volume 1 (1973) in which Kingsley Canham discusses the work of Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh and Henry Hathaway.

The 4th decade

Today we started on Hitchcock's fourth decade as a filmmaker with Stage Fright. Some very funny scenes, Marlene Dietrich pretty much playing herself, and a great turn by Alastair Sim as Jane Wyman's father.

Yes, he is Iron Man

I cannot imagine anyone better for the part of Tony Stark - Robert Downey Jr. simply nails it. Iron Man was a brilliant start for a franchise, and even though it's RDJ's show, the others are solid too. If a superhero movie can make a man who can fly thrilling again, it must be on the right track.

Going country

I went to the local indie movie theater (should do that more often, as it's just around the corner) to watch Crazy Heart, and I'm very happy I did. Jeff Bridges was great, Maggie Gyllenhaal was good, and so was the music by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett. I don't listen to country much, but this was good stuff.

Not the Hitch you're used to

Today we watched Under Capricorn. It's basically a period costume drama with few typical Hitchcock touches. Quite worth seeing nevertheless.

Apocalypse Australia

A couple of days ago I watched two films set in Australia after a nuclear war: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and On the Beach. I was slightly sad to discover that either Max or I have changed since my youth, as I found that film only average, with some great stunt work. I think this BD is not a keeper.

On the Beach I had not seen but knew the basic story, not from the novel but a Finnish song. It proved to be one of the most chilling films I've seen. I wonder how it got made in 1959.

You can have any brew you want

Ah, The Fast and the Furious. The BD release features the loudest engine noises I've heard at home. It's the best thing Rob Cohen has directed and by far the best entry in the series. Sure, a guilty pleasure, but it feels like an actual movie nevertheless.

Ten long takes

Rope is pretty contrived, but I have always liked it. And did so again.

HD is a drug

So, The Hurt Locker, first film directed by a woman to win the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture. I don't know if it was the best movie last year, or Kathryn Bigelow's best, but it's certainly damn good and worth some accolades. The Blu-ray release looks and sounds wonderful.

790

After two evenings spent inventorying my DVDs, that was the frightful number of titles I reached. Movies in boxed sets were counted separately, as was each season or box of a TV show.

Holy mackerel, that's all I can say.

Word is Bond

I think I need a new label to show when I watch BD movies instead of DVDs. Luckily they are cheap!

Tonight's programming was two versions of James Bond: Dr. No and Casino Royale, the first cinema screen 007 and the first with the current actor. Dr. No is the first actual Blu-ray disc I've watched, and it immediately convinced me that this technology was money well spent. The restoration work was done from the original camera negatives, scanned at 4K resolution, and the film now looks astoundingly vibrant. I find the film one of the better Bonds, as it's not overladen with gadgets and corny jokes and Sean Connery is in fine form from the get-go.

Casino Royale was a very promising start for the latest incarnation. Daniel Craig is a proper blunt instrument, Eva Green is stunning and actually has a character to play, and the supporting cast is fine. Implausible gadgets and jokes are in mercifully short supply. My only major complaint is the end of the film: I found the last big fight scene entirely unnecessary. Without it, the film could've been shorter and they could've used something more akin to the novel's ending. My copy is "just" a DVD, but it looked fine, if not mind-blowing like its predecessor.

Test drive, 2nd leg

After watching The Paradine Case I noticed Breakfast at Tiffany's was on TV, and suddenly wanted to see how it looks on DVD with my fancy new gear. I happened to have the disc but for some reason hadn't watched it yet. I'm happy to report it looked wonderful. All kinds of color and detail seemed to pop out of the screen.

Did I like the film, you ask? Is water still wet?

Test drive

After getting a new toy, I just had to watch something. What better way to try out a shiny Blu-ray gadget than watching a black & white film from 1947 on DVD, I ask? We continued the Project with The Paradine Case, which is not one of Hitchcock's greatest but actually worked well as a trial run, being about a trial (ha ha).

In all seriousness, it was a good candidate because my American disc benefits from some pretty impressive restoration work. When the upscaling performed by the BD player was added to this (I don't claim to know which was the more important factor), the picture quality was very good for such an old film.

Toys!

Because I was ill recently and also because my birthday is coming up, I treated myself to a Blu-ray player; a Samsung BD-C5500 to be precise. It's pretty compact and plays nicely with my Samsung TV using some arcane art known as HDMI-CEC Anynet+. Mostly this means that I don't always need both remotes.

A most beautiful word

For Scrooge McDuck, "free" was the most beautiful word. Don't know if I'd go that far, but it is a nice one, and sometimes it applies to movies. The Internet Archive, home of many things free, includes a Moving Image Archive, and its Movies section is worth perusing. The Feature Films category is most relevant for this discussion.

There's film noir, comedy, sci-fi and horror, all of it in the public domain. I went a-searchin' yesterday, and grabbed Buster Keaton's The General, pre-Code She Done Him Wrong with Mae West and Cary Grant, The Most Dangerous Game with Joel McCrea and Fay Wray, and Anthony Mann's noir T-Men as test samples.

Bright stars

Project Hitchcock goes on; tonight's film was Notorious. Bergman and Grant are very, very good, and so is the director. The story was surprisingly topical for 1946, and rather ruthless within the constraints of the Hays Code. Recommended.

What a difference a day makes

I just slated a J. Lee Thompson film in the previous post, and then I saw Cape Fear - the original one, which was the very next movie he directed. Gregory Peck starred in both, too, but that's where the similarities end. I didn't really like Scorsese's 1991 remake, but now that I finally watched the original I found it a tight, effective thriller. I'm trying to avoid quoting other writers, but here I must bow to David Thomson, who said: "I think that Robert De Niro's Max Cady is a superb master class given by a great actor, whereas Robert Mitchum's Cady is the Beast."

In the accompanying 2001 documentary the director mentions his love for Hitchcock's work, and on Cape Fear he worked with some of the master's crew. Editor George Tomasini did Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and more, Robert Boyle was a production designer and an associate art director on Northwest and a few others, and Bernard Herrmann scored many a great film for Hitch and others (including that persistent Northwest).

Every mention of the word "rape" was removed from the script (replaced by "attack") at the insistence of censors, and the film still had a hard time getting approved. One reason cited was "there was a continuous threat of sexual assault on a child" - it must have been heavy stuff in 1962 mainstream cinema, and the Beast is still no laughing matter.

The MacLean curse

I've heard fans of Stephen King complaining that his books always get butchered in film adaptations. But it doesn't take too much effort to name half a dozen that are pretty good. Poor Alistair MacLean on the other hand was really unlucky. I've seen roughly half of his movie output, and Where Eagles Dare is the only one I can say I liked.

Case in point: The Guns of Navarone, which I watched yesterday. Even as a teenager it wasn't one of my favorites, and now it seems old-fashioned in the worst way. Too long, too plodding, poorly directed action sequences, and good actors in roles that would've needed younger men. The Germans tool around in authentic American WWII vehicles, but this was pretty much the norm in older war movies. On the plus side I count some nice Greek scenery and the fleeting appearance of a Catalina flying boat.

Theme-free day

You can surely draw a connection between High Plains Drifter and Spellbound, but it would be too loose to count for anything.

Drifter is a film where Eastwood finally plays a man with no name. In the Dollars Trilogy he actually had a name or nickname in every movie. I'm not sure if it is a great western, but it's an interesting one (you don't often see a town remade into a personal hell). The writer Ernest Tidyman also had a hand in Shaft and The French Connection - not a bad way to start your 1970s.

Spellbound is frankly implausible. But it has Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Hitch regular Leo G. Carroll (six films), a Dalí-designed dream sequence, and some clever touches by the director, so it is far from a waste of time. Both Bergman and Peck would return.

Film people on paper

In a previous post, I listed my general film books. This time it's all about people who make the movies. I guess I'll organize this according to the number of books I have on each person. It isn't a long list.

Alfred Hitchcock

I've got John Russell Taylor's Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock (1978; the Finnish translation is called Hitchcock: elämä ja elokuvat), Charlotte Chandler's It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography (2005; translated as Se on vain elokuvaa: Alfred Hitchcockin elämäkerta), and one encyclopedia-style book, Howard Maxford's The A-Z of Hitchcock: The Ultimate Reference Guide (2002).

Audrey Hepburn

There's Donald Spoto's Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn (2006) and her son Sean Hepburn Ferrer's Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit: A Son Remembers (2003).

Ingrid Bergman

Only one: another book by Mr Spoto, called Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman (1997; translated as Ingrid Bergman).

Humphrey Bogart

Another translation: Bogart by A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax (1997; known as Humphrey Bogart: Elämä ja elokuvat in Finnish).

Howard Hawks

I have Joseph McBride's Hawks on Hawks (1982; translated with the same name).

Other

Today on my way home from work I came across Peter von Bagh's Tähtien kirja (2006) for a decent price, which I might as well list here since it discusses numerous film stars from the silent era to the present.

Mind: off

I went to see The Expendables with some friends. It was what I was looking for: brainless old school action with entertaining stars, although some of the action was cut too fast and close - the bane of many a modern film - and the script was uneven, certainly not on par with the best 80s action movies. Also the loudest film I've seen in a long time.

Back home I felt like some brain cells were still stirring, so I searched my TV recordings for a cure. I found Stealth, which was as dumb as they come. It had lots of CGI dogfights, lots of things blowing up, and Jessica Biel. Director Cohen is the auteur behind The Fast and the Furious, which I love dearly and which is a deep character study compared to Stealth.

All in all, a highly successful mind-numbing exercise on both counts.

A beginning and an end

On tonight's menu: Stagecoach and The Man from Laramie. Being the beginning of the long collaboration between John Ford and John Wayne, and the last western Anthony Mann and James Stewart made together, in other words.

Everyone raves about The Searchers, but I think I prefer Stagecoach. It transformed John Wayne from a B-movie actor (it was his 80th film according to the IMDb!) into a star, and his entrance is certainly iconic. When Ringo Kid appears, spinning that Winchester with the large loop lever, you can almost hear the movie switching gears. The ensemble cast is faultless and Monument Valley is, well, a monumental backdrop. It's a pity the European DVD release is so bare-bones - the Americans have two different special editions.

Stewart was an all-American hero onscreen and in real life (he was a decorated bomber pilot in World War II). But he wasn't always such a clear-cut nice guy in his post-war films. Laramie is one example of this. Will Lockhart is obsessed with revenge ("I came a thousand miles to kill you," he says) and doesn't let minor problems such as a crippling injury to stop him. The story feels like a majestic theater play which could be adapted to almost any era in history. The epic New Mexico terrain and the endless, vast sky are beautifully photographed. I have now seen two out of five Mann-Stewart westerns; the rest are waiting their turn on the shelf.

Is it already obvious that I like westerns?

Films on paper

I don't have a big library of books about movies. But I do like the ones I have.

Peter von Bagh leads the pack with three titles: Elokuvan historia (2004 edition), Rikoksen hehku (1997), and Lajien synty (2009). Agree with him or not, fully grasp everything or not, there's no denying his passion and literally encyclopedic knowledge.

Another single-author source I have is David Thomson's "Have You Seen...?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (2008). He can also be a bit highbrow, but anyone who loves Rio Bravo is okay in my book.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (2004 edition) is edited by Steven Jay Schneider. It's a good general reference and includes more popular movies than either of the above gentlemen.

Video-opas 95, edited by Bello Romano, was sadly never updated. It's dated now, but still a good source, especially for Finnish translations of film names (which, incidentally, was the reason I bought it when I was translating for a local TV station).

Finally there is Film Noir (2004) by Alain Silver and James Ursini - you can guess what it's about.

I have some books on individual actors and directors, but those can wait for another time.

A little western

The Duel at Silver Creek is a simple, unexceptional film which nevertheless has three interesting features: it is one of director Don Siegel's earliest works, one of Lee Marvin's first roles outside TV, and it stars Audie Murphy, the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II. At less than 80 minutes the movie feels like an episode of some old TV series. A light snack that won't trouble my mind when I go to sleep.

A water tank and a boat

No, not Titanic. Lifeboat is set in a lifeboat - reportedly the smallest set ever used for an entire movie. It's a fine technical achievement, but also works well as a film. The Hitchcock cameo is very subtle (originally he considered floating past the boat as a corpse). Tallulah Bankhead steals most scenes and John Steinbeck provided the original story.

In the name of the Project, we also watched his two World War II propaganda short films, Bon Voyage and Aventure malgache. Made in French with French actors, the idea was to show them in those areas of France where the Germans were already retreating. However, they were shelved and only shown to the public in the 90s. Both are very dull. I don't think I'll watch them again.

Best drinking couple on film?

To kick off the weekend in a relaxed manner I watched The Thin Man, which I had heard would work for the purpose. It did so beyond my expectations - the only problem was that I forgot to pour myself a drink. Maybe I'll do it now!

William Powell is Nick and Myrna Loy is Nora. They are married and they drink a lot. It's fantasy-land drinking that looks impossibly cool and has few adverse effects on anyone, which may or may not have something to do with the Prohibition having just ended when the film was made. There are also some murders to solve, but the mystery is secondary to snappy banter and some great supporting characters. It ends with a traditional "collect all suspects together" dinner and I didn't guess who the killer was. Loy and Powell are a wonderful, natural comedic pair who made many movies together - having seen this, I'd like to check out some of the others.

I think I'll have just one nightcap.

Inception

I saw Inception in a theater last Sunday and really liked it. This is as coherent an opinion as I can now express.

This post brings us up to date; my backlog from the moment I got this idea has been exhausted. I planned to watch something today, but decided to start writing this stuff instead.

Only three decades to go

A bit of backstory: last year I started Project Hitchcock with a friend of mine. Simply put, we are going to watch all of his films which I have collected in chronological order (currently that means 43 titles; I plan to get a few more). With life getting in the way, it has been slow going but now it's moving again.

Last Saturday we watched Shadow of a Doubt, which neither one had seen. Great acting by Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, and the supporting cast, and a nice small town setting which somehow reminded me of Twin Peaks with its immense normality and curious people.

It was released in 1943 and the finishing line Family Plot came out in 1976, so it's going to take a while yet.

Bonus trivia: we have previously watched The Lodger, The Ring, The Farmer's Wife, Champagne, The Manxman, Blackmail, Murder!, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, The Lady Vanishes, Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, Foreign Correspondent, Mr and Mrs Smith, Suspicion, and Saboteur. No, I cannot be arsed to hyperlink all of them. You know where to go. If you want details about the numerous DVD releases (their quality varies), you can go to Alfred Hitchcock Wiki.

Avoid expensive imitations

I saw 3:10 to Yuma (2007) in a theater and found it rather average. It was too long and deviated pretty far from the original short story by one Elmore Leonard which I had read before I knew it was a movie too, let alone two movies. My estimation of its quality has only fallen since.

Recently I watched the 1957 original, and man, it was something else. Better written, better acted, better photographed... an actual classic. The remake is a prime example of adding needless backstory and silly action scenes where they are not needed.

Your clothes... give them to me, now

Ah, The Terminator. Good practical effects, Arnold's best role, cold and effective score, more chilling than future entries in the franchise... it's all good. We can be happy that O.J. Simpson was not selected as the T-600.

Exhausting

No theme day now, just Crank: High Voltage. Jason Statham gives his all again as Chev Chelios, who has survived the fall at the end of the first movie and gets in trouble immediately: Chinese gangsters steal his heart. Cue delirious action with hardly a pause until the credits. Also appearing are Amy Smart, Dwight Yoakam, David Carradine, Corey Haim(!), Geri Halliwell(!!), and a bunch of real-life pornstars who are on strike ("No pay, no lay"). Every ethnicity is mocked mercilessly and nasty stereotypes abound.

It's like Grand Theft Auto on, uh, crank.

This is not a bad thing at all.

Private parts destroyed: 2

Next up was a sleazy 70s day with the triple bill of Chato's Land, Coffy, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Chato's Land is the first film where Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner worked together - later they would do Death Wish. Bronson was middle-aged before he got famous, and in this movie he was 51 but still extremely buff. It has a simple revenge plot: half-breed Chato kills in self-defense, runs from the posse, and when this posse kills his friend and rapes his woman Chato kills every motherfucker in the desert. One rapist gets his balls burned and does not survive the experience. Jack Palance plays the morally ambiguous leader of the posse.

Coffy is a blaxploitation classic. Voluptuous knockout Pam Grier is a nurse whose young sister is ruined by drugs, so it's revenge time again by any means necessary. This is the film which teaches you to hide razorblades in your afro, just in case. All sympathetic characters get hurt (not that there are many) and all bad guys are colorful stereotypes and suitably rotten. This time the genital destruction is carried out with a shotgun.

Alfredo Garcia features a tremendous performance by Warren Oates as Bennie, who goes looking for the titular head. Everything is dirty and sweaty, and occasional moments of peace are guaranteed to not last. Bennie gets truly deranged towards the film's conclusion and bad people meet bad ends. Some good people also meet bad ends. Sam Peckinpah delivers again. I don't remember any nuts getting specifically smashed, although it might have happened in one hail of bullets or another.

Good times throughout!

80s Day II: Electric Boogaloo

This time I got distracted by something or other and only managed two movies: Gremlins and The Living Daylights, both previously unseen. Both worked well.

Gremlins was funny and had groovy creature effects, and Timothy Dalton was a fine 007, kind of foreshadowing the grittier approach of Daniel Craig. It feels silly to say that Maryam d'Abo was a believable Bond girl, but I'll say it anyway. The film was fairly faithful to the short story, even though it only offered enough material for the Bratislava defection scene. This was the last Bond in the (very loose) Cold War continuity, with General Gogol making a brief appearance.

It started with a red dawn

This whole idea originated a couple of weeks ago when my summer holiday was ending and I decided to watch movies that were somehow thematically linked. The first batch was an 80s day, during which I saw Red Dawn, Highlander, Romancing the Stone, and Sixteen Candles (which I actually had never seen and enjoyed greatly).

Red Dawn had some pretty nice replica Soviet vehicles, including a T-72 that looked so good the CIA got interested. Physical effects, models, and actual moving vehicles always have more charm than CGI. And the Finnish Jatimatic SMG made an appearance; I guess it was more popular in Hollywood than in real life. Highlander had unconvincing swordfights, wooden Christopher Lambert, flamboyant Sean Connery, and Queen. Somehow it still more or less worked. Romancing the Stone was no Raiders of the Lost Ark then or now, but mostly entertaining nevertheless and Kathleen Turner was smoking hot.

As I said at the time: truly, a decade among decades!

Party like it's 1959

This blog is named after the main characters in two wonderful movies: John T. Chance in Rio Bravo and Roger O. Thornhill in North by Northwest. It exists mainly for my own amusement and its purpose is to list and possibly comment on the films I watch. Peter von Bagh I am not, nor do I attempt to be.

Hawks and Hitchcock are among my favorite directors and these two films would be on my desert island list any day of the week. In addition to being released in 1959, they share other traits. Both are fairly long but feel shorter and light-footed. Both heroes have a middle initial and are played by men in their 50s. I don't remember if the T stands for something, but Cary Grant says the O stands for nothing. Both men romance incredibly sexy women who are much younger than them, but this is hardly unique in movies. Both have been released as fine DVDs. And like I said, both are among my best-loved films, and Rio Bravo holds the (small) honor of being the movie I've seen more often than any other. I cannot remember how often anymore.