Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski
Cast: Donald Pleasence, Françoise Dorléac, Lionel Stander
Genre: Comedy Drama

About: A mild mannered Englishman (Donald Pleasence) is married to a hot blooded, sex starved French wife (Françoise Dorléac). They live in a remote castle on the beach. Along comes two moronic criminals, one of them critically wounded. Mayhem ensues.

Review: I went into this movie with good spirits, but this zany,1966 Roman Polanski film is not to my liking. As much as I love the 1930's screwball comedies, I dislike the zany, unstructured comedies of the mid to late 1960s. I don't find them funny for the most part. I believe this film succeeded for what it was trying to do and for the target audience it was made for. Just not my cup of tea.

Pretty much all the characters in the film, annoyed me. The little guy with the thick glasses had such a grating voice that I was glad when he finally kicked the bucket! The gangster with the wounded arm and the French woman also were so unlikable that it effected my viewing of the film. It seemed like the director was going for zany characters in a zany situation, located in a zany location....a little too zany for me.

I did like Donald Pleasence, and laughed a few times. The scenes where the family visited for dinner and the gangster had to pretend he was the servant...was my favorite part.

Another funny part was when Donald Pleasance's is dressed in horrible looking drag and carrying the unconscious gangster on a stretcher...The gangster wakes up and sees Pleasance face and looks terrified! Ha! Great use of a 1st person POV camera angle for that shot.

Oh, all the eggs at the beginning were funny. Eggs outside, eggs in the chicken coupe and when the gangster sneaks into the kitchen and opens the fridge door.....it's full of nothing but eggs!

Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady
Genre: Screwball comedy romance

About: A rich, ditzy woman (Carole Lombard) goes on a scavenger hunt for a Forgotten Man, and finds Godfrey (William Powell) living in the city dump. She then hires him to be the butler to her eccentric family and falls in love with him.

Review: I had watched this classic only once before when I was first getting into 'old films'. I liked it then but I wasn't well versed enough in the style of 1930s film making to truly appreciate it. This time around I was even more impressed with.

Right off the bat, I loved the title credits, how clever with the billboard style, art deco design. You know for a movie to work like this, you need to care about the characters. Instantly I liked Godfrey, the Forgotten Man, a derelict living in the city dump. You might think that's preposterous, that nobody would live in dump! Oh, but they did, the Depression of the 1930s was horrible and unlike today there was no 'safety nights' for the destitute.

In the movie you'll hear the phrase , 'prosperity is just around the corner'...being repeated with indignantly by the the city dump dwellers. That phrase resonated with1930s audiences, who recognized it as President Roosevelt's catch phrase. OK...I could go on with the history lessons, but the point is this is a brilliant film that was relevant to the target audience as it spoke of the suffering the average person faced and lampooned the ultra rich who made idiots of themselves as they burnt money like it was a stack of firewood.

A lot of movies start off with a good premise, then fizzle out in the end...but not My Man Godfrey, as the story unfolded and we learned more about Godfrey, the funner it got. I enjoyed the snappy dialogue, it was cleverly humorous as it lampooned the rich. Carole Lombard was one of the greatest comedians who graced the silver screen, sadly she would be killed in a plane crash in 1942 helping to sell war bonds. She was only 33 at the time.


In the last few years a digital colorized version of My Man Godfrey was made. I was curious to see what it looked like. I read about it and learned, it's not one of those hideous Ted Turner colorized movies from the 80s. The colorization process was done in 2005. It looked great and I hate the idea of colorizing movies, but it looked like an early 1930s color movie. The colors were not bright an garish but were muted and matched the color palette of the 30s art deco style of the movie to a tee.


I quickly forgot I was watching a colorized movie and I could actually see a lot more detail in the film too. I noticed some set pieces that I hadn't even seen before. And I could spot some subtle facial inflections that I hadn't noticed before.

After a second viewing of My Man Godfrey, I have to say I was even more impressed with the characters and fast witted dialogue.




.

It's also the first film to mention American's war time secret branch of the military the O.S.S.

I watched the black and white version of My Man Godfrey, but I put the colorized version of it on my watchlist when you mentioned it in the HoF. It sounds like they did a good job on it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Tom Hardy plays the heavy, a really bad guy that makes the story line possible. What impressed me was his fine acting and especially the way he delivered his lines. He spoke like an uneducated mountain man would, which made me believe his character was real. That says a lot about his acting ability.

I'm shocked (and saddened) by your rating of 12 Angry Men. I know that you said that you didn't like it as much now as you did when you first saw it, but I didn't expect that low of a rating.

Did you like his character?

Yeah, very much.

Here is a fan page that lists his...

Powers/Skills
Intelligence, Lies, Knowledge in hunting, Physical Strength, Skilled gunman and hunter, Excellent firearm skills
http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/John_..._(The_Revenant)

I skimmed through your thread, clicked on what I've seen and could easily agree with. Now that I'm done, I want to dust off my copy of The Salton Sea (2002) for a rewatch (which I recommend, by the way) and I also want to see Brooklyn (2015).

Cheers!

Blade Runner...Theatrical Cut (1982)

I really love this movie, and I don't know if I love the story more or the look of it more? Or maybe it's the brilliant music score. I do know it's a film that makes me think, and I've thought about this film a lot!...Any film that can capture my imagination and hold it, is special, Blade Runner is very special to me.

I've seen this before of course, many times. The last time I watched the Final Cut version of this film. But it's been 34 years since I've seen the original Theatrical Cut, that's the version that was released in theaters and the version I just watched.

I swear Blade Runner gets better every time I watch it. This time around I realized just how beautifully Ridley Scott frames his compositions. The scene in the Tyrell corporation's office is perhaps my favorite, that's why I choose that photo. Seconds before that shot in the photo above, we see the reverse angle as Tyrell enters the room. There's this eerie light shimmer on the walls and the lighting is a warm gold, it just looks stunning. The decor is stunning too, with it's voluminous spaces and an Egyptian feel...which matches the pyramidal shape of the building. The film is filled with so many beautiful compositions...and the art designs is sublime.


If there's one thing that Ridley Scott excels at is, world building, he fills the movie from side to side and top to bottom with details...details upon details! The film is so three dimensional that it looks like you could enter the world of Blade Runner at any scene. Ridley's use of night shooting coupled with rain...lots of rain...and lots of smoke, gives the set texture and realism, that otherwise wouldn't be there. The man's a genius at getting the right look.

Then there's the haunting music score by Vangelis. It's heavy and dark when we're on the crowded urban streets, then like a lifting storm the music lightens as the spinner car lifts up into the sky. During Rachel's Voight-Kampff test, the score changes to a light tinkling bell sound. Later we have a mellow steamy saxophone score in Deckard's apartment setting the appropriate mood. The visuals are so stunning that the music score is often overlooked but it's presents is powerful.

And what's not to like about a film noir, existential, slow burn-sci fi film, with some graphic violence punctuating the dark night. The morals that the film explores, as it examines what it means to be human, is deep. So deep that the debate still rages over just what the film is saying.

Optimus can I ask what you would have liked to seen Blade Runner do differently?