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Sorry to do this to you, Rules, but whenever I see the words "I Confess" I have to post this...
Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review
→ in Movie Reviews
I noticed in the other thread you were going to watch Bone Tomohawk. You get to it?
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Well, I don't really want to say anything because I don't know what you know about it. I think, if you didn't like the start, you probably shouldn't bother.
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Well, I don't really want to say anything because I don't know what you know about it. I think, if you didn't like the start, you probably shouldn't bother.
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That's helpful, really. I'm not knocking the film but geez, I have sooo many movies right now to watch that I have to pick and choose and right now I'm in sci-fi mode
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In the latter stages, it turns into a very gory horror movie.
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Best mode to be in!
or When Worlds Collide
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Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov
Genre: Film Noir Mystery
About: A woman psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) falls in love with her patient, (Gregory Peck) who suffers from amnesia. He's accused of murder, but believing him innocent she goes they go on the lam, while she attempts to recover his memory that might prove his innocence.
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov
Genre: Film Noir Mystery
About: A woman psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) falls in love with her patient, (Gregory Peck) who suffers from amnesia. He's accused of murder, but believing him innocent she goes they go on the lam, while she attempts to recover his memory that might prove his innocence.
Review: I enjoyed this! It's an, interesting, romantic, mystery-thriller, but doesn't feel like a noir. It was ground breaking in being one of the first films to portray psychoanalyze, and it portrays that branch of medicine in a good light. Back in 1945 the mentally ill were still being treated as objects of fear and scorn...and were still be subjugated to barbarous treatments...so this gentle style of care as shown, was important for people to see.
I thought Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck were quite good and very believable as a romantic couple struggling with the mystery of Peck's identity and the logic of love being more initiative than psychoanalysis. The film itself is aware that the love of the doctor for her patient is illogical...so I don't see that as a flaw.
The love conflict is a major theme of the movie and even the elderly doctor in Rochester points out to Ingrid (and to the audience) that her love for Peck is not logical and not based on good science. But the films premise is that the heart can be more powerful than the mind and love can heal all. And I love that concept!
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In the latter stages, it turns into a very gory horror movie.
In one of the stronger scenes, a man taken prisoner by the savage tribe has his scalp cut off along with his hair. The man is then killed in a gory manner with his torso being hacked into half, and his entrails falling out.
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Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan 1957)
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa
Genre: Social commentary drama
About: A drifter in jail (Andy Griffith) who with the help of a woman radio promoter (Patricia Neal) becomes an instant media sensation. As his stardom rises to ever increasing heights, he begins to believe his own hype. A case study of megalomania.
Review: I love this film, I loved it the first time I watched it and even more so after a rewatch. It's a hard hitting expose about the sleazy world of media, advertising and power...with a megalomaniac drifter who has no real talent except in self promotion. I couldn't help think just how prophetic this movie was. In 1957 it might have seemed far fetched and indeed it bombed at the box office, but in the 21st century, I couldn't help thinking about another American media mogul who has risen to dizzying heights of political power, all the while promoting himself as he insults those around him.
Elia Kazan was on a role in the 1950s. For most of that decade he was America's number one director with some big movie hits under his belt (until he testified before congress members in the infamous McCarthy Commie hunt.) Kazan liked doing social commentary, especially about injustices....And A Face in the Crowd is full of self reflection at our unbridled love of media celebrity. The bigger the hype the more we swallow it. Kazan and his script writer Budd Schulberg knew this and together give us one helluva powerful movie...The movie is constructed differently than most films, which is why I say it's an expose film.
Kazan was big on casting unique and new talent in his films. Here he introduces for the first time, Andy Griffith and Lee Remick. Griffith was anything but subtle in this role and had mainly worked in theater as a sort of comic personality...which suits the character of Lonesome Rhodes to a tee. I couldn't see any other actor doing this part, Griffith owns it. And Kazan and Schuberg thought so too, they searched for a long time until they found the one actor who they thought could pull off this role.
In the 2005 documentary Facing the Past, that was included on the DVD extras, Andy Griffith said Kazan encouraged the actors to use method acting and to visual their roles as if they were living them. Griffith says he became so emotionally involved in becoming Lonesome Rhodes that he suffered emotional difficulties for it. In a nutshell the man owns the character!
Patricia Neil is perfectly cast...and Lee Remick choose a damn fine film to make her movie premier in.
Oh and I loved the whole Vitajex scene, very different than the rest of the film, but it works wonders
....and how naughty for the 1950s!
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My Old Lady (2014)
Director: Israel Horovitz
Stars: Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Length: 107 minutes
About: A self centered, unethical and unscrupulous American, Mathias ( Kevin Kline) inherits an apartment in Paris that comes with an unexpected resident an old lady who has a contract to live there (Maggie Smith).
Review: I thought this looked like my type of film. The first act was drama with light comedy supplied by a bitter, yet funny Kevin Kline who finds himself out of money and is willing to do whatever it took to get some cash. This is the type of role Kevin Kline was born to and he's very good at it!
But then the second act starts and oh! it was bleak, like a Eugene O'Neil play. On and on and on...about how horrible their childhood was and how messed up they were. It felt like being in a group therapy session with everybody dumping their deepest and darkest secrets out in public....not that I would know what one was like, but the second act really felt that way.
But then in the third act, the movie lightens up again. It's not a bad movie, and I did enjoy most parts of it. Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith had great chemistry. Certainly a worthy film to watch on a cold winter night.
I watched My Old Lady mainly because of Kevin Kline, and it was okay, but I didn't think it was one of his better movies.
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S.O.B. (Blake Edwards, 1981)
Director: Blake EdwardsWriter: Blake Edwards
Cast: Julie Andrews, William Holden, Richard Mulligan & All Star
Genre: Comedy Parody
About:A down and out move producer who's previous movie was a huge flop, attempts to save his career by reworking his latest movie into an X rated erotic production. With the highlight being a family friendly star (Julie Andrews) take off her top.
Review: There's a rather cruel joke being played on the audience by the director Blake Edwards. Or maybe some would say, it's a witty joke. Either way, many a person has watched this enigma of a film without getting it. I got it...but still found the slapstick style of comedy tediously unfunny. Well Loretta Swit was funny and I'm not saying the other actors were bad, heck they were good and there's a lot of them too, but the script wasn't funny. Instead we get Blake Edwards' rant about Hollywood's shady side of the biz, which would be great if the script was clever and not boorish.
Oh, the big to do is that Julie Andrews bares her breast, hence making the movie a cult classic...and an enigma. It's more of a shock value than comedy value. I have to say Julie Andrews topless wasn't a thing of beauty, though the scene was kind of funny. The best thing for me about S.O.B. was all of the stars in it. It's a plethora of who's who in Hollywood.
There's a lot more to S.O.B. than just Julie Andrews baring her breast. In fact, most of the movie takes place before that happens, and she's not even in some of the best scenes. Richard Mulligan shines in this movie, and there are so many other great stars that it can't just be narrowed down to something like "a Julie Andrews cult classic". The only part of the movie that I don't like is the part with the guy and his dog on the beach.
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I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden
Genre: Film Noir, Crime Drama
About: A priest who once had a love affair and now is under suspicion of murder but can't clear his name without breaking the seal of the confessional, where he learned the identity of the real killer.
Review: This is the 26th Hitchcock film that I've seen...I enjoyed I Confess, but I wouldn't rate it as one of my favorite Hitch films. I wasn't that engaged in the story, it never felt tense and it never felt like the priest was in any real danger. It still could have worked if we got some deep insight into the inner workings of a priest's life or a detailed police investigation. But both were only lightly touched upon. I would have liked to seen the identity of the murderer kept a secret until the end. That way we could have had some twist and turns.
Montgomery Clift was amazing in: Judgment at Nuremberg, The Misfits and A Place in the Sun...but here he's miscast and seemed to be off in his own world and not 'in the movie'. He lacked emotions and I didn't buy that he was a priest being investigated for murder, while burdened with the knowledge that he knows who the murderer is, but can't tell the police as it would violate the Catholic confessional.
I thought the actor who played the murder was really good in his role and overall it is a film that held my attention.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden
Genre: Film Noir, Crime Drama
About: A priest who once had a love affair and now is under suspicion of murder but can't clear his name without breaking the seal of the confessional, where he learned the identity of the real killer.
Review: This is the 26th Hitchcock film that I've seen...I enjoyed I Confess, but I wouldn't rate it as one of my favorite Hitch films. I wasn't that engaged in the story, it never felt tense and it never felt like the priest was in any real danger. It still could have worked if we got some deep insight into the inner workings of a priest's life or a detailed police investigation. But both were only lightly touched upon. I would have liked to seen the identity of the murderer kept a secret until the end. That way we could have had some twist and turns.
Montgomery Clift was amazing in: Judgment at Nuremberg, The Misfits and A Place in the Sun...but here he's miscast and seemed to be off in his own world and not 'in the movie'. He lacked emotions and I didn't buy that he was a priest being investigated for murder, while burdened with the knowledge that he knows who the murderer is, but can't tell the police as it would violate the Catholic confessional.
I thought the actor who played the murder was really good in his role and overall it is a film that held my attention.
Great review of I Confess. I agree with everything you said, from the movie being good, but not one of Hitchcock's best, to Montgomery Clift being miscast in the movie.
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