#101 and time for a break

I haven't felt that motivated in writing this lately, so I'll close up shop, at least for my summer holiday. Maybe I'll pick this up later, maybe I won't. I'll likely continue on GetGlue or a similar service, where someone will actually see what happens. :)

Yesterday I watched the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which I had not seen previously (only the Abel Ferrara version) and which I quite liked. There were hardly any special effects at all, something that easily dates a sci-fi film, and the basic concept is as chilling as ever.

Nicolas Cage doing what he does best

That being a very bad lieutenant indeed in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. Cage was in splendid psycho mode and was able to rein it in, too, when the role required it. The rest of the cast (including Eva Mendes, Brad Dourif and Xzibit) was fine, the music was cool, the ending a little unexpected... all in all, I enjoyed the film. Extra points for singing iguanas!

I haven't seen the original Bad Lieutenant, but I understand they have little in common besides the basic idea.

Another fine 1959 western

They Came to Cordura isn't quite Rio Bravo, but a very good western in its own right and a rather more subdued one. It isn't that well known, despite the casting of Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth and Van Heflin. Robert Rossen (The Hustler) proves he can direct a cavalry action sequence, but most of the film is about slow-burning conflicts and relationships between the seven main characters.

I was a little surprised how hard-edged it was. Heflin was a great bully, a big chance from his heroic western roles in Shane and 3:10 to Yuma. Cooper was a very flawed hero trying to live with his past cowardice. Hayworth's role was not just about looking sexy (which she of course did effortlessly, at 40 years) Everyone looks tired and dirty most of the time - perhaps this is one reason why the film is not better known. Another might be that it's set during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, which was a military failure for the USA.

This seems to be post #99. I wonder what should be the hundredth...

Harder to kill

Die Hard gave us an action hero who can be hurt, who has doubts, and who would be happy to let the authorities handle it if they weren't so incompetent. John McTiernan had already proved with Predator that he could handle the 80s-style muscular action men (and introduce some twists to the formula), and with this movie he introduced a new subgenre of Western action: "Die Hard on a plane/train/ship/etc." Sadly none of the imitators would be as good.

Pretty much a perfect storm of an action movie.

Hard to kill

The titular Malone of Give 'em Hell, Malone is kind of a low-level superhero: he himself comments early on that he's hard to kill. He doesn't lie: Malone is shot a few times, stabbed, and beat upon the head with a baseball bat. He bleeds but does not die, and goes to his mother's retirement home so that she can patch him up.

The film has plenty of casual cruelty and needless violence. But somehow I liked it better than, say, Sin City. The latter felt very pretentious and hollow. Malone felt like an honest B-movie with no delusions of grandeur. I'm not sure I liked it as such, but it was all right.

Thrice punished

Poor old Frank Castle. His adventures on film have all been pretty bad. I had never seen the first one as a teen (probably the only time it could be somewhat enjoyable) and satisfied my curiosity when it was on TV. The Punisher reminded me that Dolph Lundgren belongs in the Christopher Lambert school of truly wooden acting, Louis Gossett Jr. can exhibit some charisma even in a dreadful film, and Nancy Everhard whom I remember from somewhere (maybe the series Reasonable Doubts?) is a nice-looking lady.

Pigeons from hell

No, not the short story, but Hitchcock's The Birds. It feels a little silly these days, but there are some effective moments of suspense when the birds are not attacking. When the main characters board up the house, wait, and try to find news on the radio, it reminded me of zombie films. Maybe Romero was slightly influenced by this?

Another thing I really like is that no explanation is given. Still, overall this is only an average film.

Vastly improved

Fast Five is a real shot in the arm for the franchise and the best entry since the original. The concept of bringing a big team together works and Justin Lin has evolved as a director. The action is still more outrageous and removed from the laws of our physical reality, but I don't say this to criticize. It is a dumb movie but gloriously so.

I can rebuild her. I have the obsession...

I had seen Vertigo once previously. Another viewing probably helped me to appreciate it as one of Hitchcock's best and most disturbing films. James Stewart continues to tear down his All-American nice guy image after doing it in Anthony Mann's westerns. It seems he is the one possessed, not Kim Novak. Bernard Herrmann's score is one of his best and Robert Burks provides great cinematography. The story feels murkier than in any previous Hitchcock and the ending doesn't offer any relief.

Very good, then, but not my favorite Hitch.

Hoverboards

They were pretty much the only thing I remembered from Back to the Future Part II. It was darker than my memories and better too, although not quite as good as the first. The Blu-ray transfer looks amazing.

Rotoscope drugs

First iPad-written entry, let's see how it goes...

A couple of friends came over and we watched A Scanner Darkly. Interesting animation style and properly bizarre plot. Quite a cast, too: Robert Downey Jr, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson... And a bunch of songs by Radiohead. I enjoyed it.

Apparently this iPad text entry thing doesn't play nicely with the blog formatting commands. Oh well.

Hitch + Hitch

The Project moves on - maybe we'll actually finish this year!

Tonight's double feature was Hitchcock's remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Wrong Man.

The first was a solid effort but not exceptional. I wonder if the director himself thought it better than the 1934 film. The second was very interesting and not much like his other films. It's low-key and based on a true story. The photography is rather noirish: black & white, shadows & light. It lacks Hitchcock's familiar trickery. Henry Fonda is very good as the wrongfully accused man. The master's frequent collaborators Robert Burks and Bernard Herrmann worked on both films.

Next up, Vertigo, finally. It's been a long time since I last saw it.

Odinson

Thor himself (Chris Hemsworth) was the best part of the entertaining Thor. Natalie Portman was typically good with her small role and Tom Hiddleston pretty good as Loki. Most other Asgardians (and Earth people, for that matter) were kind of one-note characters. Thor's hammer-fu felt weighty and mighty enough for the most powerful warrior of a race once believed gods. The Destroyer looked like a proper Kirby creation. We also got a first look at Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, even though he remained uncredited.

Frost giants were disappointingly small, basically fulfilling the "faceless orc horde" role.

Good time was had by this comics fan.

Dark side ascendant

Not strictly film-related, but I guess I can stretch my own rules. And you can watch movies on it, so...

I, a notorious anti-fan of many things Apple, bought an iPad 2 this weekend. Can a hipster haircut be far behind?

It's five by five for Darren Aronofsky

I've seen Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler, and found them all affecting films. Very different stories and settings, but one could argue that the story is not the point in his work, by which I mean a written version wouldn't feel so stirring. His use of visuals and sound (including faithful composer Clint Mansell) is essential to the whole. Sometimes what he shows is horrifying, sometimes mystifying, sometimes neither, but it always seems to touch a nerve in me.

I'm not saying all movies should be like this - one of my favorites, Howard Hawks, preferred a rather low-key approach and let the characters and dialog carry the story. Both ways, and others, are perfectly valid. But it's really refreshing to see an Aronofsky film every now and then.

This long-winded preamble was just to say that now I've finally seen Black Swan, too. As with The Fountain, it took some time before I was absorbed in the proceedings, possibly in part because I know nothing of ballet. But I don't have to comprehend the artistic side to see it's brutal, body-breaking work that's supposed to look easy, echoing The Wrestler. Things build and build and towards the last third I was completely riveted.

I wasn't as devastated as after watching Requiem (which I still haven't seen again), but most definitely affected. It's a great film about obsession and perfection, even though I don't plan repeating the experience soon.

Every last seat was sold and my neck will feel the suboptimal location tomorrow. Suffering for your art, indeed.

Heavy reading

TASCHEN's 100 All-Time Favorite Movies was so cheap I couldn't resist, even though Rio Bravo or North by Northwest are not included. But I guess I know them by now.

Dangerous

Ah, Hollywood. Only there can Jean Peters be the plainer-looking woman of the two female leads in Niagara. But the other one was Marilyn, and there is something about her in this film that immediately spells "dangerous". The Niagara Falls are dangerous, too, and the ending is signposted early on but this matters not a bit. A nice noirish thriller, all in all.

King Tiger vs. up-armored Balrog

It's got tanks. It's got a big monster. It's got Weta Workshop building all that and Gary Kurtz of Star Wars & The Empire Strikes Back fame producing. I think Panzer 88 is one film I definitely want to see. I hope it gets made.

Read a good article here.

Unlikely weekend combination

While visiting friends in the countryside we watched X-Men: The Last Stand for game background and Låt den rätte komma in because everyone wanted to see it.

X3 is pretty uneven, but stays just on this side of watchable. Still, it's hard not to wish that Bryan Singer had stayed on the project. Let the Right One In (its English title), on the other hand, was a real surprise and a real gem. A Swedish vampire movie about two 12-year-old kids sounds like it shouldn't work. Happily, I was proven wrong.

We win, Gracie!

If you're going to make a dumb movie, why not make it gloriously dumb? Armageddon is handicapped by a natural immaturity, and I forgive it. Harry Stamper is the man.

Hitch and Grace

Being the topics of the two film books I bought this week: Alfred Hitchcock: The Complete Films by Paul Duncan (2011) and High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly by Donald Spoto (2009), the latter as a Finnish translation.

The first book is from TASCHEN, so the focus is on images instead of text, but that's fine since I already have quite a few words about the master.

Anybody can type

A Howard Hawks & Cary Grant double bill today with Only Angels Have Wings and Monkey Business. Both are among my favorite directors/actors and both are in great form here. Wings portrays one of Hawks' small groups of professionals doing a difficult job, this time airmail pilots flying a dangerous route over South American mountains. Jean Arthur was great as the female lead; I definitely need to get more of her movies.

Monkey Business has Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, and funny chimps. I was smiling pretty much all the time. Charles Coburn utters an absolute killer, deadpan line when he and Grant watch punctuation-challenged Monroe sashay (the only word that seems to fit) out of his office. The men look at each other. "Anybody can type."

No need to remake that one...

The Coen brothers tried, anyway. I haven't seen their version of The Ladykillers, but I have seen the original now and find it hard to see how it could be meaningfully improved upon. Wonderfully black English humor.

Kane

Tonight was the second time I watched Citizen Kane. I recall I found it good but not great as a young adult. What can one say about "the best film of all time" (which it certainly isn't, because no single film is)?

Well, I can say I found it pretty compelling. Effective non-linear narrative, ace cinematography, Bernard Herrmann score, and young Orson Welles kicking ass on both sides of the camera. Good, intelligent reasons to like it. But it's the story itself that sticks to me. A poor boy gets everything and finds out he has nothing. That is simply a great, powerful myth.

The transfer on the DVD I have was nothing to write home about, though.

Twice the nostalgia value

When Back to the Future was released, if offered a hefty slice of 1950s nostalgia. Watching it yesterday, I realized another 30 years will soon have passed since 1985, and 80s nostalgia was very much in effect. Huey Lewis, Van Halen, Walkman... ahhhh.

As a film it is of course still impeccable entertainment, guaranteed to lift your spirits. This time around I particularly liked Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson's performances. To no one's surprise, the Blu-ray looks and sounds great.

I remember parts II-III as somewhat less entertaining. But it's been much longer since I last watched those, and now that I have the whole trilogy it will be revisiting time soon.

Project Hitchcock lurches back into life

After an all-too long break we managed to continue the project by watching The Trouble with Harry. It was very funny but quite different from any other Hitch movie I've seen. Shirley MacLaine featured in her first film appearance.

A driving visionary

H.B. Halicki was a man who really wanted to make a superior car movie. He directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the original (and vastly better than the remake) Gone in 60 Seconds, and did his character's stunt driving while at it. He also owned many of the vehicles used in the filming.

The result is half endearing low-budget filmmaking without much of a script, and half amazing chase sequences. Halicki was injured twice while driving. You can see that cars were something the crew was passionate about, and in a movie like this you don't need much else.

Cary Grant on fire

It wasn't really news to me that Grant is an excellent comedian. But Arsenic and Old Lace, which I hadn't seen, was still amazing. Every other actor did their job well (I particularly liked "Karloff" and "Roosevelt"), but it is Grant's show and he carries it brilliantly. Insanity's rarely been so exhilarating.

Rambo 1-2

A TV channel is showing the Rambo movies, and I watched most of First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II (I managed to miss the beginning both times). First Blood is still a decent film and recognizable as the story of the novel, even though I do prefer the book version. Part II is mostly awful: it's poorly directed and looks like a cheap Cannon film. As far as I can remember, the quality would go still lower in part III.

At least I'm reading about them...

As I sadly haven't been watching much recently. New arrivals to the film book pile include Mark A. Vieira's Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits (1998), Donald Spoto's Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (1992), and Jeanine Basinger's The Star Machine (2007) which I am reading now.

In my defense, I was recovering from fever

Nicolas Cage was reliably insane throughout and there were bees.

Yes, it was The Wicker Man and no, it wasn't much good.

But at least there was a tip of the hat to Edward Woodward.

One of Mann's finest

Heat is, for me, the best of Michael Mann's urban thrillers (I don't think anything can topple The Last of the Mohicans from the number one position overall). I've seen it a few times, and this was the first time on Blu-ray. I don't remember what bothered me about the final encounter between Hanna and McCauley, but whatever it was, it was gone now. Very, very good stuff throughout its long running time.

Twice the iron

Iron Man 2 on Blu was an enjoyable experience. I liked it in the theater, but just might have liked it slightly more the second time around. It's a pity they had to recast Rhodey, but Don Cheadle is fine in the role, as is Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash.

I just heard Shane Black will direct the third movie. I liked what Jon Favreau did with the first two, but if someone has to replace him, I believe Black will do good.

Two Best Picture nominees in as many days

Today it was The King's Speech, which is on the surface very different from Winter's Bone. But both put good actors front and center and let them act. There's no hurried editing and hardly any action.

Playing a person with an impediment is a good bet to secure an Oscar, but this fact doesn't take anything away from Colin Firth's performance. It's great to see him sparring with Geoffrey Rush.

These two and Inception were very good, and there are still interesting Best Picture nominees I haven't seen (at least Black Swan and True Grit). 2010 seems to have been a good year.

Come see the scenic Missouri

Thankfully Winter's Bone got into theaters here - I was afraid it would be strictly DVD fare. Apparently Daniel Woodrell's novel is called country noir, and it isn't a bad label for the film either. A determined protagonist is asking unpleasant questions about a missing person and gets in harm's way - sounds like noir to me. Jennifer Lawrence is great as the 17-year-old Ree Dolly and John Hawkes (Deadwood) backs her up nicely. If they both get an Academy Award I won't be crying foul.

Black Santa of the Woods with the Thousand Elves

Finally got around to watching last year's Rare Exports. It was a pretty successful blend of action, horror and comedy. This was a really bad Santa.

Hit rate so far: 2/2

A few days ago I watched From Russia with Love, which had been as lovingly restored for HD as the first Bond. Another similarity was that it was a good movie. Unlike most Bonds, the plot was recognizable to readers of the novel, too.

I had avoided it this far...

But now I have seen Gone with the Wind. Knowing little about it except the general idea, I was surprised how unsympathetic the two main characters frequently were for such a beloved story. Being the losing side in a war was also described more harshly than I expected. The portrayal of slavery was a rather idealized version of what happened, but I guess you couldn't show everything in 1939. Maybe the film is just being faithful to the novel in this respect, I don't know.

What struck me most was how beautiful the movie was. The 70th anniversary restored DVD version is a sight to behold. It was one of the most expensive films ever made at the time, and it shows.

I am happy that I took the time to watch it.

Spiritual

That's how I would describe Contact. Science and religion are rarely treated this equally in popular fiction. No simple, definite, correct answer is offered. The cast includes a bunch of heavyweights but ultimately the film rides on Jodie Foster's slender shoulders and she carries it brilliantly. A lesser performance would have made it much more difficult to be swept along. It's not a perfect film, but it has never failed to engage my brain or my heart.

I don't know if there's a God or life in outer space, but I like what Sagan said about waste of space.

Driver, Detective, Player and Connection

Thus are called the four main characters in Walter Hill's The Driver. They are bare-bones archetypes and the film doesn't really need lengthy explanations of motivations or background. The action sequences do the title proud: there's lots of driving and it's suitably exciting. Thankfully CGI wasn't available yet.