Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[anonymous1980]

Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey) - 10/10

Damien, Big Magilla: You old fogeys were not kidding when you say this film is one of the best films ever made. I have to say I was surprised by the amount of humor in what's essentially a very sad film (well, I guess it needed it). The sequence at the hotel did what no other film, at least to my memory, ever did and I don't know if anyone else out there felt this way when they saw it: It made me smile while fighting back tears.

[Big Magilla]

These are not officially out on DVD - I got them from Robert's Hard-to-Find Videos in Canada at http://www.robertsvideos.com/index.php3

He takes his time in getting them to you but he doesn't charge you until the copies are ready to be mailed. I got them in five days once he sent them. I also got Me, Natalie and the 1968 version of The Sea Gull, neither of which I've seen since they were in theatres.

I just ordered Child's Play (the 1972 film with James Mason and Robert Preston) and Thunder Rock (1942), but had trouble with the website picking up my credit card information. I had to tell him to use the card from my last order.

He gave me Five Finger Exercise free of charge because it's missing the opening credits. This, however, is one of the titles Columbia is now selling directly from their website:

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevid....ter=mod

The Applause DVD has a running clock at the bottom of the screen which is a little annoying, but not totally detrimental.

The Face to Face DVD is the English dubbed version which is just as good as the Swedish version - Ullmann and Erland Josephson expertly dub their own voices.

[Reza]

Applause (1973) TV Ron Field, Bill Foster) 7/10

Fairly faithful transposition of the Broadway hit to TV with Lauren Bacall and Penny Fuller reprising their stage roles. Bacall has never been better than as Margo Channing in this musical version of All About Eve.

Separate Tables TV (1983) John Schlesinger 8/10

Schelsinger goes back to Terrence Rattigan's original script in which the four main characters played in the film by Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and David Niven are played by just two - Julie Christie and Alan Bates, both of whom are superb as you would expect. Claire Bloom and Irene Worth are also excellent in the Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper roles, though I still prefer Cooper's delicious scenery chewing in the film version.

Face to Face (1976) Ingmar Bergman 8/10

Devastating performance by Liv Ullmann as a shrink who needs one of her own. With Sissy Spacek in Carrie and Ullmann in this it's bewildering that they gave the Oscar to Faye Dunaway in Network.

Five Finger Exercise (1962) Daniel Mann 5/10

Watered down version of Peter Shaffer's play with Rosalind Russell in the Jessica Tandy role of the obsessive mother. Ironically Tandy's ex-husband, Jack Hawkins, plays Russell's husband, played on stage by Roland Culver. Maximilian Schell and Richard Beymer, fresh from Judgment at Nuremberg and West Side Story, respectively, add to the star power but the script, which moves the locale from post-war England to the U.S., takes the immediacy out of the story.

Are these out on DVD? I have the first two on video but would like to get them on DVD. Have never seen the Roz Russell.

And ofcourse I've never seen the Bergman either.

[Reza]

Applause (1973) TV Ron Field, Bill Foster) 7/10

Fairly faithful transposition of the Broadway hit to TV with Lauren Bacall and Penny Fuller reprising their stage roles. Bacall has never been better than as Margo Channing in this musical version of All About Eve.

Separate Tables TV (1983) John Schlesinger 8/10

Schelsinger goes back to Terrence Rattigan's original script in which the four main characters played in the film by Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and David Niven are played by just two - Julie Christie and Alan Bates, both of whom are superb as you would expect. Claire Bloom and Irene Worth are also excellent in the Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper roles, though I still prefer Cooper's delicious scenery chewing in the film version.

Face to Face (1976) Ingmar Bergman 8/10

Devastating performance by Liv Ullmann as a shrink who needs one of her own. With Sissy Spacek in Carrie and Ullmann in this it's bewildering that they gave the Oscar to Faye Dunaway in Network.

Five Finger Exercise (1962) Daniel Mann 5/10

Watered down version of Peter Shaffer's play with Rosalind Russell in the Jessica Tandy role of the obsessive mother. Ironically Tandy's ex-husband, Jack Hawkins, plays Russell's husband, played on stage by Roland Culver. Maximilian Schell and Richard Beymer, fresh from Judgment at Nuremberg and West Side Story, respectively, add to the star power but the script, which moves the locale from post-war England to the U.S., takes the immediacy out of the story.

Are these out on DVD? I have the first two on video but would like to get them on DVD. Have never seen the Roz Russell.

[Big Magilla]

Applause (1973) TV Ron Field, Bill Foster) 7/10

Fairly faithful transposition of the Broadway hit to TV with Lauren Bacall and Penny Fuller reprising their stage roles. Bacall has never been better than as Margo Channing in this musical version of All About Eve.

Separate Tables TV (1983) John Schlesinger 8/10

Schelsinger goes back to Terrence Rattigan's original script in which the four main characters played in the film by Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and David Niven are played by just two - Julie Christie and Alan Bates, both of whom are superb as you would expect. Claire Bloom and Irene Worth are also excellent in the Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper roles, though I still prefer Cooper's delicious scenery chewing in the film version.

Face to Face (1976) Ingmar Bergman 8/10

Devastating performance by Liv Ullmann as a shrink who needs one of her own. With Sissy Spacek in Carrie and Ullmann in this it's bewildering that they gave the Oscar to Faye Dunaway in Network.

Five Finger Exercise (1962) Daniel Mann 5/10

Watered down version of Peter Shaffer's play with Rosalind Russell in the Jessica Tandy role of the obsessive mother. Ironically Tandy's ex-husband, Jack Hawkins, plays Russell's husband, played on stage by Roland Culver. Maximilian Schell and Richard Beymer, fresh from Judgment at Nuremberg and West Side Story, respectively, add to the star power but the script, which moves the locale from post-war England to the U.S., takes the immediacy out of the story.

[Precious Doll]

Deliver Us From Evil (2008) Ole Bornedal 2/10
Extraordinary Measures (2010) Tom Vaughan 1/10
Robin Hood (2010) Ridley Scott 1/10
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Oliver Stone 2/10
Bronco Bullfrog (1969) Barney Platts-Mills 7/10
Dogtooth (2009) Giorgos Lanthimos 7/10
The Party's Over (1965) Guy Hamilton 6/10
Draquila - Italy Trembles (2010) Sabina Guzzanti 6/10

Repeat Viewings

My American Uncle (1980) Alain Resnais 8/10
Love Unto Death (1984) Alain Resnais 7/10
Salvador (1986) Oliver Stone 1/10

[Reza]

Machete (Robert Rodriguez, 2010). 9/10
Totally cool......deadpan Danny Trejo is superb. Other highlights....Cheech Marin strung up on a cross, a stiletto in an eye. A camp classic.

[Damien]

Gate Of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa 1953). Although this Japanese movie was highly acclaimed in its day -- it won both the Oscar and the New York Film Critics Award for Foreign Film -- it seems to be completely forgotten today. It's a shame because it's splendid Although it has some trappings of a samurai picture, the film is in its essence a deeply affecting rumination on the meaning of love. Much deeper and far more moving than any of Kurosawa’s samurai epics, it has a grandeur that is almost Shakespearean. The first half meanders a bit before Kinugasa fully delves into his theme but once he does the film becomes fascinating. Beautiful performances and an outstanding musical score, as well.

7/10



Edited By Damien on 1285399076

[anonymous1980]

The Innocents (Jack Clayton) - 8.5/10

[OscarGuy]

I very much enjoyed Easy A, though if you hate John Hughes, you should probably skip Easy A. Although there's much more positive and joyful elements in Easy A than most of Hughes' somewhat downer-ish films, it is plain just from the references to Hughes' films that this was definitely conceived as that type of film, a movie meant to represent and symbolize the modern high school environment.

I adore the humor in the film, the set-ups to punchlines preceding by 30 minutes or longer, the knowing reference to real literature (unfortunately, I was the only one who seemed to get and laugh at the Sylvia Plath exchange near the end of the film), and the simple depth of character in the film.

[anonymous1980]

In Bruges (Martin McDonagh) - 8/10

[Hustler]

Picco (Philip Koch) 7/10

[Big Magilla]

I have to say Damien is right on the money with 11 of his 12 reviews - maybe all 12, I've never seen Star Witness.

Poor Frank Morgan. Had the supporting category been available to him he would surely have won that category in 1934. Luise Rainer, who seems like a lovely old lady, remains the most confounding double winner in Oscar history. Her first Oscar for The Great Ziegfeld was totally undeserved and her while I liked her in The Good Earth, I think she was the weakest of that year's line-up.

As for my viewing, I've gone in the other direction for a change, catching up new films on DVD.

Helen (2010) Sandra Nettelbeck 5/10

Well-made, well-intentioned, but really depressing movie about depression that has some lovely performances in it, starting with Ashley Judd and Goran Visnjic, though Lauren Lee Smith has the showy role as Judd's bipolar friend. Nice location filming in Vancouver.

City Island (2010) Raymond De Felitta 7/10

Nice showcase for Andy Garcia as middle-aged correction officer who discovers long lost son when the kid is put in his lock-up, has him released in his care without telling him or his family why. Nice subplot has Garcia attending acting classes with Emily Mortimer. Alan Arkin as his acting teacher has an hilarious riff on Brando and his "bullshit' techniques which (he says) ruined acting. Filmed on location on the Bronx's City Island and in lower Manhattan.

La Mission (2010) Peter Bratt 7/10

Nice showcase for Benjamin Bratt, whose brother wrote and directed this study of a macho San Francisco bus driver and single father who goes ballistic when he discovers his son (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is gay. Film makes good use of San Francisco locations.

Letters to Juliet (2010) Gary Winick 7/10

A lovely performance by Vanessa Redgrave transcends the chick flick gimmick of an old lady looking for her lost love with the aid of her grandson and a young woman abandoned by her fiance in Verona. It helps, of course, that Redgrave's long lost love is played by Franco Nero, her long lost love in real life, with whom she reunited late in life. The two were married in 2006 when Redgrave was 69 and Nero 65. Their story would probably make a more interesting film, but we have what we have and it's quite charming in its own right. With Amanda Seyfreid, Christopher Egan and Gael Garcia Bernal. Beautifully filmed on location in Verona and Siena.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1284895146

[Precious Doll]

Pornography: A Thriller (2010) David Kittredge 4/10
The Other Guy (2010) Adam McKay 4/10
Adelheid (1970) Frantisek Vlacil 7/10
The Happiest Girl in the World (2009) Radu Jude 7/10
No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009) Bahman Ghobadi 7/10
Esay A (2010) Will Gluck 7/10
Spring Fever (2009) Ye Lou 6/10
Der Tod der Maria Malibran (1972) Werner Schroeter 5/10
Please Give (2010) Nicole Holofcener 8/10
7 Days (2010) Daniel Grou 7/1

[Damien]

Been watching a lot of old stuff that I either hadn't seen in decades or not seen at all.

One Night In The Tropics (1940. A. Edward Sutherland) Abbott & Costello's debut and absolutely atrocious. Imbecilic musical comedy in which nothing has the slightest relationship with logic and the ultimate pairings of the leads and co-leads -- which you know will be because of billing -- make no sense at all. Abbott & Costello literally stop the action to do some out-of-place routines and their characterizations – kind of con men, at least at first – also are lacking credibility. The closest to a saving grace is Mary Boland, who manages to be pretty funny.
3/10
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Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932 Rouben Mamoulian) Mamoulian is trying out various then-novel cinematic devices -- for instance, the first few minutes of the movie are told through POV shots of Jekyll and we don't see Fredric March at all until he looks in a mirror. But then the director drops this ploy, and it really has served no purpose. At the same time, this pre-code film is rather startling in how upfront it is about the title character(s) being obsessed by sexual matters, and its violence remains unsettling almost 80 years after it was released. Marvelous performance by Fredric March.
7/10
==============

Viva Villa! (1934 Jack Conway)
No expenses spared in this sweeping, fanciful Selznick “biography” of Pamcho Villa. Damn, it sure as hell moves, and the script is for the most part intelligent and funny. The film – both in its production design and the cinematography, with its gorgeous chiaroscuro – is wondrous to look at, and the faces of the peons are so beautiful, evoking Diego Rivera. It’s on the side of the angels (funny, considering how many Republicans were involved in the production) and is fast paced, exciting and unexpectedly moving. Beery is awfully good in the role. There are shortcomings, including some clichés and contrivances, and some tired hoary humor, with Stuart Erwin and Leo Carillio irritating as hell (Fay Wray is bad, but not irritating). A terrific show.
8/10

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Blondie (1938 Frank R. Strayer)
First Blondie movie, and they were still feeling their way. The plot is a little more hackneyed than necessary and Larry Simms’s lines (and line readings) as Baby Dumpling get a little tiresome. But Penny and Arthur already have a terrific chemistry and the film offers a nice look at middle-class America 1938.
5/10

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The Big House (1930 George Hill)
Prototypical prison film (who would have guessed that Metro would have paved the way for Warners?) is marvelously atmospheric, and has terrific performances by Wallace Beery, Robert Montgomery and, especially, Chester Morris.). Where the film falters is in characterizations that are kind of all over the place and situations and plot turns that sometimes seem awfully phony.
7.10
========

Young Dr, Kildare (1938 Harold S. Buquet)
Just lovely. A very gentle-hearted movie about goodness and kindness, with a perfectly cast ensemble of actors. Lew Ayres is ideal in the title role, and Lynn Carver, Samuel S. Hinds and Emma Dunn so warmth as his loved ones. r. You get the sense that Dr. Gillespie is a still-evolving role, as he is really quite splenetic here. There are narrative gaps and stalls and an occasional contrivance, but still this is such a nice film.
6/10

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Trader Horn (1931 W.S. van Dyke)
This Best Picture nominee is as much of a travelogue as a narrative film, most especially during a long sequence of different African animals being seen in stock footage. And when it goes into narrative mode, there’s not all that much to it – a tiresomely gruff Harry Carey and an unappealing Duncan Renaldo walking around through the jungles and plains. Then, for no apparent reason White Jungle Queen Edwina Booth decides to leave her people – which annoys them to no end, and the tribesmen are after the trio. The pacing is sluggish and you want to kill Carey for his fetishic with the word “Lad.” But Booth – her tits peeking out – is very alluring, and there is some nice erotic tension once she’s on the scene. Some awful process shots – and the fast motion action sequences have an almost surrealistic quality. Still, one can understand its popularity back in its day – it’s exotic.
3/10
==================

A Free Soul (1931 Clarence Brown)
Pre-Code, so it’s quite adult and it’s very entertaining, but there are also too many plot contrivances to swallow. Lionel Barrymore’s Oscar-winning performance is most impressive – it’s light on the ham – although it’s a supporting role. This is the picture that really made Gable a star and you can understand why – he has a mixture of brute force and unaffected charm that would have been both startling and irresistible to 1931 audience. Truth to tell, he gets a little tedious, and his character is inconsistent – being quite soigné in the early parts of the picture, a crude bully later on. The picture serve's as State's Witness Number 1 as to Norma Sherear’s awfulness as an actress. She performs in starts and stops, like a car stuck in the snow that moves suddenly and makes a little progress. She’s coy, affected, mannered, strained. And the film wants to have it both ways – condemning both snobbism and gangsterism.
5/10
==============

The Private Life Of Henry VIII (1933 Alexander Korda) Sort of a Cliff Notes (or Classic Comics Illustrated) version of 16th century British history. Largely superficial and glib and coy but sometimes witty and fun and the film possesses a pleasing acknowledgment that sex was very much on people’s minds. Laughton is often alarmingly hammy, but he does have some surprisingly moving moments.
5/10
=================

Star Witness (1931 William A. Wellman) An Oscar nominee for Original Story, this is a terrifically entertaining crime yarn about a family whose lives become hell when they witness a crime and are called to testify against the gangsters responsible -- fast-paced, ingenious, gripping with fine performances from Chic Sale and Grant Mitchell. Remarkably fluid for a 1931 movie, when compared to the product at Metro and the other studios (though there are still a couple of awkward cuts). And the pre-Code violence is pretty awesome – Mitchell getting smashed against a wall l and little George Ernest literally being thrown into a closet.
6/10
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The Great Ziegfeld (1936 Robert Z. Leonard) One of the very worst Best Picture winners. A long dull slog, and a mishmash of a picture. The charm of Powell (and Frank Morgan and Myrna Loy, who nicely channels Billie Burke without doing an imitation) are about all this film has going for it. It has a poorly developed narrative and the dance numbers are moribund when compared to what Busby Berkeley (for one) was doing at the time. Luise Rainer is a dreary, irritating, mannered thing. Her Oscar win was a travesty, and her phone scene merits a big So What? Nice to see Fannie Brice, and Ray Bolger does an amazing dance (although he remains charisma-free) but their numbers are just plopped down, for no good narrative reason. Pretty dire stuff.
3/10
=============

Affairs Of Cellini (1934 Gregory La Cava)
A well-nigh perfect movie, although because it is so small in scope it probably stops short of being a great one. LaCava and his cast walk a thin line here, balancing the farcial with believable romanticism. And they – with the once-in-a-while exception of a slightly too broad March – bring it off. Frank Morgan is a miracle – exquisite comic timing and his bluster never eradicates the innate humanism of the character. This Best Actor nominee would have gotten my vote over Gable and WIlliam Powell. A wry Constance Bennett too is pitch perfect, and Fay Wray is hilarious playing stupid. A joyful, marvelous movie
9/10