I know it seems daunting, looking at all the movies I have written about, but I assure you I have the language skills of a 7th grader, and so it should be an easy read. Just look at that run on sentence!
Entry Relating to Week 1/1/2011 – 1/7/2011
Movies Seen: *First Time Viewed
Unforgiven (1992 Clint Eastwood)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)*
Laura (1944 Otto Preminger)*
Stagecoach (1939 John Ford)*
Gilda (1946 Charles Vidor)*
Black Narcissus (1947 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)*
The Bicycle Thief (1948 Vittorio De Sica)*
The Red Shoes (1948 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)*
Red Sonja (1985 Richard Fleischer)*
The Third Man (1949 Carol Reed)*
The Searchers (1956 John Ford)*
Unforgiven:
What am I doing here? I have already seen this movie. Any western or Eastwood fan has. This is what I’m doing, listen for a second and I’ll tell you. I am a flickchart.com addict, always spending time rating movies, looking for my favorite (right now it’s High fidelity). Every once in a while, a movie would pop up that I was not quite sure how I felt about, or even remembered seeing. This became my second disk in the Netflix shipments: Movies that I couldn’t quite remember the plot of. Having said that last part, I am sure someone has spit out their drink, thinking “YOU FORGOT! HOW CAN YOU CLAIM TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MOVIES!” First of all, I have never claimed that. Second, watch the movie again. Ok, you’ve done that, now imagine you are 15. I thought I was smart when I was a teen, but I didn’t know shit about movies. This movie moves at a slow and steady pace. The dialogue is wonderful, giving you a real feeling for the characters. Where is all the action? Last 20 minutes of the movie. See, my parents didn’t really encourage me to watch rated R movies as a youngling. The first rated R movie I can remember seeing was The Ghost and the Darkness. Wooooooo…… Anyway, R to me was still in my mind all the blood and guts and swearing and boobs that my teenage mind was demanding, waiting behind the MPAA’s stupid rating shield. Unforgiven was not the movie I was looking for. Now that I am an adult, I can appreciate the pace, the language, the emotion and motive behind each character’s actions. I can see that there are no good and bad in this movie, with the exception of the whores, who are mostly good. When Little Bob (Gene Hackman) does what he does in the movie, it isn’t out of spite or evil nature, he’s just a man doing his job. The movie hands a large morale conflict to the viewer, and based on what I know of some people’s opinion of No Country for Old Men, with its ambiguous ending, I am surprised how many people like Unforgiven. Maybe they just remember how badass Eastwood becomes at the end, and that paints the whole movie for them. All this talk, what it comes to is that I really liked the movie and it is much deeper then I remembered.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp:
The amount of movies pre-1970 that I have not seen could fill the Grand Canyon. No surprises, I’m just sayin’ is all. This movie is so SO good. I begins with young upstarts racing against the rules of a war game to find a stuffy old man who OBVIOUSLY doesn’t know what real war is like. And then you find out all about the old man, the Colonel Blimp of the title, and you realize that has life is so full and was so filled with tragedy and joy, that his reaction at the beginning of the movies is well deserved. The story is just an absolute delight to watch unfold, and I may now be in love with Powell and Pressburger films on the whole. Just, do yourself a favor and watch this movie. The only other thing I want to point out is that in the beginning the film opens following a swarm of motorcycles and I immediately recalled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I love seeing shots that inspired other shots!
Laura:
In the fantasy movie expert version of myself, I am a lover and connoisseur of film noir, knowing how to tell the best from the worst and loving them all anyway. In reality, I don’t think I’m too hot on them. I think I have only seen about five in all my movie watching, so perhaps it’s too early to say. Laura was a bit of a mess to me. It starts off with a voice over with a character that I assumed would be the viewer’s POV, but by the end that was not the case at all. I thought it was a good story, although it gets confusing unless you start off just believing that everyone is a damn dirty liar. When I realized that the tall ugly man in the movie was Vincent Price, I did one of my patented “HA!” sounds. If his goal was to make me hate his character, DONE. If you are anything like me, you will want to smack the shit out of him and scream “stop being so thick!” The movie was alright, I don’t know if I’m in a hurry to see it again though.
Stagecoach:
Want to hear something shocking? This is only the second John Wayne movie I have ever seen. Oh, you aren’t shocked. Well, never mind then. I watched True Grit in December in preparation to see the new Coen brothers version (which I have not seen yet). I loved it. Stagecoach was not quite as good. For a movie only following around the occupants of the title, it really went all over the place. Spoilers: Someone steals money, a lady has a baby, John Wayne falls in love, the drunk doctor redeems himself, and Wayne then shoots a couple of other cowboys in the street and is set free. See, that’s a lot to hold onto in your head. A long enough movie to cover it all for sure. What I remember most is how worried I was for the stunt men playing the Indians (I almost wrote Native Americans there). Horses were trampling them and they were falling off moving horses and one guy had to fall underneath the moving stagecoach! Jeez, I hope everyone was ok after that. Probably not.
Gilda:
Remember what I just said about film noir? This was a good one. You meet the main protagonist in the beginning, and you follow him all the way through. Wait, I’m not saying it has to be that way, I’m just pointing it out about this movie. Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a rat. A peasant as one person repeatedly calls him, just plain low class. But you start to like him and by the end you are invested in his future. It’s pretty great how one gets swept up in the storyline. There are some many parts were I wanted to yell at Johnny, tell him to pick up what he has and get the hell out of there, but that isn’t the kind of man he is. Despite his initial rat like appearance, Johnny was loyal to his employer, watching his back and ready to take a bullet for him. And that DAMN DAME HAD TO MUSS IT ALL UP! It’s a beautiful movie to watch, a great story, and I tell you all to go watch it. This is the movie that Red and the other prisoners are watching in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy asks for Rita Hayworth. Just a note.
Black Narcissus:
This is a tough one for me to talk about. Not because I didn’t get it, not because I am sensitive to the plight of nuns worldwide. While watching the movie, I was simultaneously taking care of a very sick cat. Needless to say the movie didn’t have my full attention. From what I can recall, the movie was beautiful to look at, and despite its somber looking cover and description on imdb it was quite funny sometimes. I can’t say I liked it as much as Colonel Blimp, but it was pretty good. I want to watch it again someday when I am more detached from that time period. Also I now know that the mountains can light a fire in your loins. Just sayin’.
The Bicycle Thief:
Or Bicycle Thieves or whatever you want to call it. GET OFF MY BACK! My second Italian neo-realism film, I loved this movie just as much, if not more so then Umberto D. The suffering and sadness of the plight of the main characters is absolutely POTENT in this movie. If I could reach through the dimensional space of the television I would have thrown money at these guys. You just want them to catch a break, and when they do give themselves a little treat, it ends up tasting so bittersweet. I want to recommend this movie to others, but honestly I don’t know how many American film goers have the patience for the pace of the movie. But if you want to see how emotion can TRULY be translated on to the big screen, please check this out. Dear Lord grant this man some MERCY!
The Red Shoes:
This is a film. Words fail me, I don’t even know where to begin. The first thing that comes to mind is something that strikes me as stupid, but I’ll say it anyway: This is a Mary Poppins for adults. Not because it has the whimsy or joy of escaping our world to enter a fantasy, but because when during the actual ballet of the red shoes one is transported briefly to somewhere new, somewhere fantastic. Now, outside of that 20 plus minute ballet scene (which I assure you is NOT BORING IN THE LEAST) is an excellent story about passion, jealousy, and control. The reason I don’t put up a synopsis of movies in these little diddles I write is because I encourage you, the reader, to look into the films on your own. Please, look into this one. If it sounds remotely interesting, check it out. It’s one of the best movies I have ever seen. There, I said it.
Red Sonja:
And then this happened. No, I did not purposely choose two movies in a row with red in the title. This is another gem that the gentlemen of filmsack.com lead me to. I got the general feeling that those guys hated this movie, but I didn’t think it was so bad, a decent adventure film. My biggest complaint is Sandahl Bergman, who played Queen Gedren. She apparently decided that a minimalist approach was appropriate for the movie. WRONG! You should have been over the top! You weren’t going to make the movie worse, and there was even a chance you could have improved it! Instead she is dry as plain toast. Sigh. Well, otherwise it was a fun little distraction from real life. Ok sword fights, funny dialogue, and a big fat guy who kicks all kinds of butt. By the way, Brigitte Nielsen used to be pretty. Who knew?
The Third Man:
I like Orsen Welles as an actor. This movie? Not good. I mean, he was good, but he is in like 10 minutes of the movie. The rest of it is all over the place with its direction. Is it a comedy? I don’t know, some parts of it were certainly trying to be funny. Is it a drama? Well, I thought so, but the ZITHER makes me think otherwise. I feel like I missed something when I watched this movie, but maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’m just not down with the 3 man group and stuff. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
The Searchers:
And this makes number 3! This movie is probably the second best western I have ever seen, the first being High Noon. Spoilers have to be said for me to explain why I liked it so much, so SPOILERS. This movie spans years of time, and it moves so seamlessly from point A to point B that I was never lost. That takes some kind of magic, because other than a character making a comment about how long it’s been or it make-up changing to make the actors look older, there was no indication of time going by. The title is so apt as to make me want to cry. These men took it upon themselves to find this girl, and nothing stood in their way. No settling down, no giving up, even in the face of extreme prejudice against the search they pressed on. I watched it on Blu-ray and it looked absolutely beautiful. If you’re a western fan at all, this movie needs to be seen. A tale that holds so much hope and sorrow all at once, at times I felt like a glass on the brim of spilling.
How many months has it been? Between school, a play, and large amounts of self-doubt, there was no way I could keep writing the blog like I wanted. Now I am taking a little break from school, and I am determined to get back into writing. Reading over what I just wrote, I am rusty. Hopefully that doesn’t make you readers run for the hills.
Questions, comments, or locations to hidden treasure maps, please send them to JDTMovies@gmail.com. Also you can follow me on Twitter @JDTMovies.
Also, I apologize once again for any spelling or grammar mistakes. I am sick as a dog and cannot be bothered with re-reading my own crap. Cheers.
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