Camo's Movie Log

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As i told a few people in PM i'm going to make this to update once a week or so with what i've been watching because i want to keep talking about/writing about films and if i don't post about them here there's no real incentive to do so as no one in my personal life watches the films i do. Anyway, there will be some spoilers in these i won't use spoiler tags so it's probably best you don't read if you haven't seen. For the record i've added every film i've watched this year that i've posted about on the site to the first post so i have them all in the one place, that's why there's alot more than the films i've posted about in the thread.

January:

01. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
02. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
03. Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016)
04. Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)
05. Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)
06. Sanshiro Sugata (Akira Kurosawa, 1943)
07. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)
08. U Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997)
09. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, 2016)
10. The Man From Nowhere (Lee Jeong-beom, 2010)
11. Barbara (Christian Petzold, 2012)
12. Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992)
13. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
14. The City of Lost Children (Marc Caro, 1995)
15. Fantastic Planet (René Laloux, 1973)
16. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
17. Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
18. La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
19. The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2016)
20. Manchester By The Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
21. 2046 (Wong Kar-Wai, 2004)

February:

22. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
23. Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
24. Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi, 2016)
25. Ernest & Celestine (Stéphane Aubier, 2012)
26. Hell Or High Water (David Mackenzie, 2016)
27. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
28. The Cameraman (Buster Keaton, 1928)
29. Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)
30. The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921)
31. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)
32. My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
33. Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper, 1980)

March:

34. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
35. The Son (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2002)
36. Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)
37. Meet Me in St Louis. (Vincente Minelli, 1944)
38. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
39. The Orphanage (J. A. Bayona, 2007)
40. Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
41. Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho, 2003)
42. Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
43. The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)
44. The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
45. Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
46. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton, 1948)
47. Like Someone In Love (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)
48. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
49. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming Liang, 2001)
50. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
51. Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
52. To Be Or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
53. Pixote (Héctor Babenco, 1981)
54. The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
55. Best In Show (Christopher Guest, 2000)
56. Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)
57. The Man With Two Brains (Carl Reiner, 1983)
58. George Washington (David Gordon Green, 2000)
59. Buffalo '66 (Vincent Gallo, 1998)
60. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch, 1999)
61. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
62. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)
63. Oculus (Mike Flanagan, 2013)
64. Tickled (David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, 2016)

April:

65. John Wick (Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, 2014)
66. The Loved Ones (Sean Byrne, 2009)
67. Spring (Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, 2014)
68. A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996)
69. Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)
70. Belle De Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)
71. I Saw The Devil (Kim Jee-woon, 2010)
72. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
73. The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979)
74. Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947)
75. Forbidden Games (René Clément, 1952)
76. The Quiet Earth (Geoff Murphy, 1985)
77. The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973)
78. Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
79. The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
80. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
81. Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
82. The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg, 2012)

May:

83. MacGruber (Jorma Taccone, 2010)
84. The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981)
85. The Broken Circle Breakdown (Felix Van Groeningen, 2012)
86. Flesh + Blood (Paul Verhoeven, 1985)
87. Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990)
88. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944)
89. Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
90. Don't Breathe (Fede Álvarez, 2016)
91. Detention (Joseph Kahn, 2011)
92. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, 2008)
93. 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)
94. The Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
95. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984)
96. Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
97. The Man From Nowhere (Lee Jeong-beom, 2010)
98. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

June:

99. Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, 1948)
100. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
101. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn, 2012)
102. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, 1996)
103. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947)
104. The Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946)
105. Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983)
106. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Chris Columbus, 2001)
107. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002)
108. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuaron, 2004)
109. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005)
110. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (David Yates, 2007)
111. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates, 2009)
112. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (David Yates, 2010)
113. Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
114. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (David Yates, 2011)
115. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)

July:

116. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984)
117. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
118. The Raid (Gareth Huw Evans, 2011)
119. A Bittersweet Life (Lee Byung-hun, 2005)
120. The Earrings of Madame de… (Max Ophuls, 1953)
121. Song to Song (Terence Malick, 2017)
122. Junun (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2015)
123. Virunga (Orlando von Einsiedel, 2014)
124. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
125. The Conjuring (James Wan, 2013)
126. The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005)
127. My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
128. Marley & Me (David Frankel, 2008)
129. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009)
130. The Revenant (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2015)
131. Underworld (Josef Von Sternberg, 1927)
132. Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
133. Mission Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996)
134. The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)
135. Mission Impossible II (John Woo, 2000)
136. Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
137. Woman of Tokyo (Yasujiro Ozu, 1933)
138. Spider Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts, 2017)
139. Mission Impossible III (J. J. Abrams, 2006)
140. The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934)
141. Bus 174 (José Padilha & Felipe Lacerda, 2002)
142. The Sea Wolf (Michael Curtiz, 1941)
143. I Remember Mama (George Stevens, 1948)
144. Mr. Lucky (H.C. Potter, 1943)
145. Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947)
146. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccon, 2016)
147. Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
148. Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Siodmak, 1947)
149. The Last House On The Left (Wes Craven, 1972)
150. Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)
151. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
152. All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)
153. The Lego Batman Movie (Chris McKay, 2017)
154. Where Is My Friend’s House? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
155. Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter, 1987)
156. Dead Silence (James Wan, 2007)
157. The Hurricane (John Ford, 1937)

August:

158. Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008)
159. Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963)
160. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Scott Glosserman, 2006)
161. Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
162. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)
163. 49th Parallel (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1941)
164. Up The River (John Ford, 1930)
165. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Joseph Zito. 1984)
166. Steamboat Round The Bend (John Ford, 1935)
167. Near Dark (Katheryn Bigelow, 1987)
168. The Informer (John Ford, 1937)
169. Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 1979)
170. Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
171. Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
172. Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
173. Home Alone (Chris Columbus, 1990)
174. The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016)
175. The Castle (Rob Sitch, 1997)
176. Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
177. The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)
178. Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
179. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
180. Blood Simple (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1984)
181. Attack The Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
182. Brother's Keeper (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, 1992)
183. In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
184. Where The Sidewalk End (Otto Preminger, 1950)
185. LA 92 (Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin, 2017)
186. Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015)
187. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)
188. Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze, 2014)
189. The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008)
190. Hot Rod (Akiva Schaffer, 2007)
191. Absentia (Mike Flanagan, 2011)
192. Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)
193. Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016)
194. L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
195. Amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
196. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
197. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)
198. Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

September:

199. Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
200. Hôtel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938)
201. Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990)
202. Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
203. Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)
204. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017)
205. Moana (Disney, 2016)
206. Tales From The Crypt (Freddie Francis, 1972)
207. The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945)
208. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
209. Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996)
210. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)
211. The Devil, Probably (Robert Bresson, 1977)
212. Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959)
213. The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930)
214. Angels With Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
215. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
216. A Ghost Story (David Lowery, 2017)
217. Okja (Boon Joon-ho, 2017)
218. The 'Burbs (Joe Dante, 1989)
219. Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1977)
220. The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939)
221. Dead End (William Wyler, 1937)
222. Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
223. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

October:

224. The People Under The Stairs (Wes Craven, 1991)
225. The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2012)
226. The Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
227. The Funhouse (Tobe Hooper, 1981)
228. The Visit (M. Night Shyamalan, 2015)
229. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
230. Zombie Flesh Eaters (Lucio Fulci, 1979)
231. Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders, 2017)
232. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1982)
233. Tales From The Hood (Rusty Cundieff , 1995)
234. Amer (Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, 2009)
235. Needful Things (Fraser C. Heston, 1993)
236. City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman, 2017)
237. The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci, 1982)
238. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola, 2017)
239. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (Tom McLoughlin, 1986)
240. The Tingler (William Castle, 1959)
241. Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)
242. The Sacrament (Ti West, 2013)
243. Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer, 1945)
244. Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975)
245. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (Terence Fisher, 1966)
246. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
247. Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)
248. The House By The Cemetery (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
249. Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)
250. Martin (George Romero, 1978)
251. In The Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1994)
252. Inside (Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, 2007)
253. Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000)
254. The Host (Boon Joon-ho, 2006)
255. Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
256. Ghost Story (John Irvin, 1981)
257. The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1972)
258. It (Andy Muschietti, 2017)

November:

259. I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)
260. Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May, 1976)
261. Wind River (Taylor Sheridan, 2017)
262. Tabu (F.W. Murnau, 1931)
263. Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)
264. Logan (James Mangold, 2017)
265. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937)
266. John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski, 2017)
267. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)
268. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
269. Nathan For You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder, 2017)
270. L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
271. The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011)
272. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler, 2017)
273. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
274. Lore (Cate Shortland, 2012)
275. Brigsby Bear (Dave McCary, 2017)
276. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
277. 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)
278. The Boss Baby (Dreamworks, 2017)
279. Bad Genius (Nattawut Poonpiriya, 2017)
280. Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer, 2017)
281. Pariah (Dee Rees, 2011)
282. Life Is Sweet (Mike Leigh, 1990)
283. Pump Up The Volume (Allan Moyle,1990)
284. Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
285. Running On Empty (Sidney Lumet, 1988)
286. Rudy (David Anspaugh, 1993)
287. Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)
288. Beautiful Girls (Ted Demme, 1996)
289. The Children's Hour (William Wyler, 1961)
290. River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1987)
291. The Lion King (Disney, 1994)
292. Anything Else (Woody Allen, 2003)
293. Through The Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)
294. Fat City (John Huston, 1972)
295. Cleo From 5 To 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)
296. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbegh, 2017)
297. Happiness (Agnes Varda, 1965)
298. Secret Agent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936)

December:

299. Vagabond (Agnes Varda, 1985)
300. The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953)
301. Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999)
302. A Very Murray Christmas (Sofia Coppola, 2015)
303. The Gleaners & I (Agnes Varda, 2000)
304. The Gleaners & I: Two Years Later (Agnes Varda, 2002)
305. Pickup On South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953)
306. City Girl (F.W. Murnau, 1930)
307. The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, 2013)
308. mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)
309. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
310. Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)
311. Detroit (Katheryn Bigelow, 2017)
312. Café Society (Woody Allen, 2016)
313. Mighty Aphrodite (Woody Allen, 1995)
314. Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen, 1997)
315. Somewhere (Sofia Coppola, 2010)
316. Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)
317. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki, 2017)
318. Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936)
319. Good Time (Ben & Josh Safdie, 2017)
320. Radio Days (Woody Allen, 1987)
321. Columbus (Kogonada, 2017)
322. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)
323. House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello, 2011)
324. La Pointe-Courte (Agnes Varda, 1955)
325. Tarzan (Disney, 1999)
326. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017)
327. Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Mel Brooks, 1993)
328. The Witches (Nicolas Roeg, 1990)
329. Michael (Markus Schleinzer, 2011)
330. Nothing Bad Can Happen (Katrin Gebbe, 2013)
331. Taxi (Jafar Panahi, 2015)
332. The Wrong Guy (David Steinberg, 1997)
333. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)
334. Shoot The Piano Player (François Truffaut, 1960)
335. Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995)
336. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
337. Hercules (Disney, 1997)
338. American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)
339. The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minelli, 1952)
340. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach, 2017)
341. The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 1: Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)
342. Lady Bird (Greta Garwig, 2017)
343. Sisters of the Gion (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936)
344. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
345. Blade Runner 2049 (Dennis Villeneuve, 2017)



Safe




This was a little underwhelming for me but only because i love Carol (the film not Julianne Moore's character in this haha) this was still a pretty good film. It had alot going for it, good atmosphere and pacing and a very interesting story. The one thing i didn't like was Julianne's performance and it brought the film down quite a bit for me. God, it was so difficult to type that haha, Moore is one of my favourite actresses i was partly expecting to like this more than Carol because i expected her to be really amazing. Dunno if i'm just trying to cover for my gal here but i put most of the blame on Haynes; i think she played what she was asked to, i just don't think it was the right kind of character. She was too timid and distant, i found it really difficult to connect to her in anyway. Thing is as she worsens throughout the film her appearance changes for the worse, in my opinion i think she should have started off with a more dynamic personality then as she worsened she started transforming into this timid character she was throughout the film. That's just what i think anyway, i read a few reviews after watching this to see if anyone agreed but it was pretty much unanimous praise for her performance; oh well it didn't work for me.


The Orphanage




Really don't have much to say about this at all which is why i paired these two together. It was entertaining, i watched it with my gf who was terrified which is always alot of fun. I found it pretty creepy and disturbing myself, good story and very good performance from Belen Rueda. It just didn't do enough for me to surpass: enjoyable horror. Just want to say the scene where she rips off her fingernail won't leave my brain haha, i hate stuff like that.




Memories of Murder




This felt alot longer than it actually was, not in a bad way i was never bored. I mean it felt like an epic in scale look at an investigation, even more so than Zodiac despite taking place in a shorter time and the film being shorter. Can't really pinpoint why it felt that way, maybe because it was set during a shorter period of time and completely focused on this investigation showing us the ins and outs, day by day. Either way very good film, it's not a new favourite and i don't really know why that is, i have no complaints but for whatever reason it just didn't do enough for me to become a favourite. This is pretty funny, but it's also really depressing which is partially due to the humour. I know that doesn't really make sense, what i mean is for example there's a big thing about them torturing suspects. This is made light of throughout with scenes of them hanging people upside down or the one nutcase detective constantly throwing wild cartoonish flykicks, all of this would be funny if it was a goofy, over the top film but it's not. It's about a serial killer a real serial killer this is based on true events, and they only torture innocent people; innocent people who look guilty at the time but innocent nonetheless. Eventually they stop the torture but not because they've realized that what they are doing was wrong whether just wrong in general or even because they have tortured innocents including a mentally challenged man but because they don't want the negative press they are getting and they know the torture could hamper a conviction if they get the right man. It's a very depressing look into human nature, this guy has got to be guilty i mean he confessed and knew stuff that only the killer would know who cares if we torture this guilty scumbag; oh wait it's not him, well now we have him this guy was wearing women's underwear and masturbating near the scene of the crime; oh wait not him either. It's the way torture is justified in general and while i'm not trying to turn this political the way it is portrayed here specifically is so depressing.Another thing that gives this a pessimistic mood is that you (or at least i) don't ever expect them to find the killer it just seems like they are wasting their time chasing dead ends, as well as that there's the fact that the victims aren't portrayed as anything other than corpses; a new piece of evidence. Despite the way it sounds none of this is complaints, i found it a very interesting take on this sort of film. The film is full of humour without ever feeling like it is approaching black comedy and it's a drama about a dark and depressing subject and while it is pretty depressing it's in a very unique way, it doesn't attempt to paint sad backstories of the victims or really attempts to inject any emotion into it but it works out that way anyway. The performances were good too and i loved the look of it, those fields and tight villages at night were great to look it. So yeah, not a favourite but i liked it quite a bit.




Paisan




The very first thing i noticed was Federico Fellini's name appearing several times in the credits at the start, i paused the movie to see what he did for it; he wrote one of the six episodes as well as assistant-directed the film; he filmed the sicilian scenes in Maori. Pretty much right away that upped my enthusiasm for my first Rosselini film since i'm a Fellini fan. I respect Rosselini for deferring a fair amount of this film to others who were better suited for the good of the film while still shaping it with his vision, it wasn't just Fellini who played a major part the other five episodes were written by five other writers; some of the film is in English and i'm guessing the British writer Alfred Hayes largely wrote that dialogue which makes sense. It is a big epic war film that involves various different countries so i don't think it could've worked as well as it did if Rosselini hadn't accepted the input of others. Germany, Japan, America, Britain, Russia and France all overshadow Italy's involvement in the war at least in films i've seen so i found this very interesting. It's difficult to write about this because as i said it's seperated into six different stories set in the Italian Campaign of WWII. I'll try and write about them individually.

Episode 1 is about a group of American Soldiers going through an Italian village eventually a local agrees to lead them to a German minefield but first they take shelter in a ruined castle. Robert Van Loon was very good as Joe from Jersey; most of the episode is focused on a very sweet and endearing conversation he has with the local Carmela while he is watching her. Not a romantic conversation, it is both of them attempting to communicate as he doesn't speak Italian well and she doesn't speak English at all, he mostly spends it reminiscing about home with a nice score on top of it. It's very well written, alot of it is either him picking up a word she said in Italian but without the context of everything else she said he changes the subject; for example she speaks of baby cows and he picks up the word "bambino" and thinks she is asking him if he is the baby of his family so he starts talking about his family, she does the same with his english. Both did a very good job of bouncing off each other. It had a sad ending after you had gotten to know Joe. Episode 2 is about an orphan kid hanging around with a very drunk african-american soldier. Don't know what to say about this one, i didn't like it at first; they seemed to portray the african-american soldier as a big dumb, violent idiot at first and it was all chaotic and hard to watch. Once he sits down with the kid and starts enacting his fantasy of the reception he'll get when he goes home which will obviously not be reality i came to like it though. The end to this one absolutely crippled me, i was on the verge of tears and i knew it was going to get heavier as there were still four episodes left. All it was was a straightforward troubled orphan tale, the music when he realized as well as him dropping the shoes and more than anything what got to me was how unphased by it the kid seemed. It was a completely different approach to the usual sad, crying orphan child, this kid had accepted what life had given him and he'd adjusted to it which is somehow even sadder especially the way it was depicted. Episode 3 is a flashback from a drunken american soldier he is telling to a prostitute who has taken him to her house to try and sell her services, but he's not interested and he tells her why. This one was probably the weakest, it wasn't bad the whole thing was just hard to swallow. The soldier explains to the prostitute Francesca that he isn't interested because six months earlier he fell in love with another Italian woman; of course Francesca realizes it was her.... wait what? Yeah, i could understand if it was a decade earlier maybe, but it has been six months and apparently these two lovebirds didn't recognize each other and not just that Francesca makes it more difficult for some reason, instead of telling him it is her she arranges some idealistic romantic meeting the next day; of course opening it up to the possibility of things going wrong. It was really dumb and contrived, to be fair though it was really short compared to the others.

Episode 4 takes part in Florence where all the bridges have been blown up stopping the allied advancement. This follows an american nurse who is trying to reunite with a well known man called Lupo. Don't really know what to say about this one, it's more of an adventure, it is very intense and chaotic; love the mmusic. Full of running about, stopping to talk to people while she is trying to get to Lupo and a guy she is with Massimo is trying to get to his family. Very well directed. Episode 5 is about three american soldiers staying the night in a monastery. This one was really shocking to me, it was full of sweet monks and very polite soldiers, i couldn't imagine what could possibly be the conflict here, possibly the Germans invanding the church i was thinking. Then it came, the monks found out one of the soldiers was a jew which got them all terrified and remorseful; one asked St. Francis for forgiveness and another prayed to Jesus to protect them. I almost burst out laughing it came out of nowhere. There's a good if not slightly heavy-handed conversation between the catholic soldier and the monks where they get turned into the bad guys and he explains that he has no right judging them. Just want to say this had the most jarring edit ever, there's a few weird edits in this actually it might not even be edits, it might be the copy i had even though it was of good quality had a few problems i don't know. Anyway the jewish and protestant soldiers walk into the doorway in the background of the catholic soldier and the monks then mid sentence there's a clear edit/skip and they suddenly aren't there anymore, i looked at it again and thing is i can't tell if it skipped part of what he was saying and that's why it is or not. He's standing in the one position throughout and what he says would make sense there but it could very well have skipped. No big deal just pretty funny. Episode 6 This part was really gorgeous, paddling about a lake with big open fields nearby, it was a pleasure to look at. This was similar to episode 4, alot more action like you'd normally expect in a war film. Not much i can say about this part other than i liked it, good but very bleak ending.

For the record because i'm obsessed with ranking things i'd personally go: 2>4=1>6>5>3. Anyway, great introduction to Rosselini, the film is of course uneven because it's six different stories. Some are better than others and there's a massive cast so some performances are great and some aren't. Overall though it works very well as a whole, there's some common themes throughout the stories and there are so many great moments. As you can tell a big thing in the film is struggling to communicate, through finding ways to understand each other comes alot of the films beauty and sadness. Very good film, a great depection of very humanistic events and lessons in a war setting. I can see why this is one of Martin Scorsese's favourite films and his favourite from Rosselini.




Letter From An Unknown Woman




Such a haunting film. Imagining what was going through his mind while reading this is crazy. You'd be so creeped out, the idea that a woman didn't just have a crush on you she was deeply in love and obsessed with you. Someone you had never met and don't even remember having seen was watching you, listening to you, you were always on her mind, she has been planning her life around you. That is just such a creepy thought, Lisa is a stalker; good intentions or not she has an unhealthy obsession with a man she is following who doesn't know she exists. I think there may be a double standard here on my part because if roles were reversed and it was a man obsessing over a woman this way i'd be creeped out and concerned, this would feel closer to a thriller for me. But no it's such a beautiful film. Joan Fontaine's performance played a massive part in this working, as well as the script. Lisa came across so sweet and passionate, passionate in a concerning way sure but while watching it i found it beautiful and endearing more than anything else. Their date scenes were amazing, her slowly opening up to him was perfect; 99% of the chemistry came from Fonataine which fit the story. The way she looked and smiled at him, what looked like such genuine happiness. The music too, damn the music got me right away. From the first time he played and she was completely transfixed so was i, right there i bought into her obsession, there was no need for them to ever meet because that right there did it although i'm glad they did.

This film feels like it was tailor made for me, i got really annoyed when he couldn't remember her outside the opera despite being three feet away from her, i thought this was going to be the one thing i didn't like about the movie. Then of course this was turned into the central conflict, the reason they can't be together, it basically noticed my concerns and turned them into a positive. Adored the ending, the music was amazing and i teared up. I figured she would be dead within the first few minutes of the film but it still got to me due to the aforementioned music, Stefan's despair, the fact that his servant even remembered her, Lisa's voiceover and chilling last words, etc.

Stunning film. Kind of want to go out and watch everything from Ophuls and everything starring Fontaine. Fontaine has been outstanding in the three 40's films i've seen her in: this, Rebecca and Suspicion. Actress of the 40's for me right now. I'd also say this has some of the most striking visuals i've ever seen. Perfect.




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Thank goodness you are still here!

I wish I liked Letters more but I honestly didn't care for it. Fontaine certainly wasn't the issue though.



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Here's what I wrote in the 7TH:

Letter from an Unknown Woman

This is an example of a film that is quite liked by everyone but just not suited for my own personal tastes. I think I would certainly benefit from a second watch, but the first watch had a lot of lulls to it for me. I thought Fontaine did a really good job in it, but her character and Stefan just weren't two people that I could really connect to. I couldn't much get into the style of film making of Ophuls on this w atch, but he does seem pretty talented behind the camera. I wish I liked it more, but it just didn't seem to connect with me all that well. Others may really enjoy it though, it is a well regarded film and I wouldn't say there is anything technically bad about it.




I watched Letter from an Unknown Woman for the 7th HOF. I thought it was solid but I didn't love it.
I may give it a rewatch if I decide to submit a 40s list.
I don't disagree with anything you said, actually i went even further; her behavior is very concerning. But i got completely swept up in it which is why it wasn't a problem. Also i'm not sure if it changes much but i'm pretty sure she is only 15 or something when her obsession starts then she has that night with him when she is 18 which is why it lasts the rest of her life. It's not a big difference but i think it at least slightly makes it more understandable.



Here's what I wrote in the 7TH:
That's too bad but understandable. Hope if you do give it another shot you like it more.

The next 40's film i'm going to watch probably on Sunday is The Grapes of Wrath, btw. Just thought i should tell you as i know it's a favourite of yours.



I loved Letter From an Unknown Woman. I reviewed it and gave it a
...I need to see it again too.


Letter from an Unknown Woman

This is an example of a film that is quite liked by everyone but just not suited for my own personal tastes. I think I would certainly benefit from a second watch, but the first watch had a lot of lulls to it for me. I thought Fontaine did a really good job in it, but her character and Stefan just weren't two people that I could really connect to. I couldn't much get into the style of film making of Ophuls on this w atch, but he does seem pretty talented behind the camera. I wish I liked it more, but it just didn't seem to connect with me all that well. Others may really enjoy it though, it is a well regarded film and I wouldn't say there is anything technically bad about it.
Raul that sounds like the same reaction you had to Waterloo Bridge (not a complaint, just an observation)...Do you see either or both of these movies as a 'chick flick' (I can't think of a better phrase)...but you know films focused on a woman's point of view.



Absolutely LOVE Letter from an Unknown Woman. I still haven't seen any other Max Ophuls films, but I urgently should.

As you probably know, I liked Memories of Murder quite a bit more than you did. Maybe it's because I have a bit more of a sadistic sense of humor or personality than you have. I mostly love it when movies laugh with the darker aspects of human nature, even if that darkness comes from the characters we're supposed to sympathize with. It's never been an issue for me.
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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019



Absolutely LOVE Letter from an Unknown Woman. I still haven't seen any other Max Ophuls films, but I urgently should.

As you probably know, I liked Memories of Murder quite a bit more than you did. Maybe it's because I have a bit more of a sadistic sense of humor or personality than you have. I mostly love it when movies laugh with the darker aspects of human nature, even if that darkness comes from the characters we're supposed to sympathize with. It's never been an issue for me.
I actually didn't have a problem with any of that, must have not put that across well. I felt it was very unique the way the humour was used and i appreciated it also being depressing for me. I don't have any actual complaints about it, it just never went above very good for me.

Edit: Since i'm here for the 12th reveal i'll post what i watched tonight.



The Brood -




I'm a Cronenberg fan but i really, really despised this sorry. The Fly and Videodrome are among my favourite films though so it hasn't put me off trying his other stuff thankfully. This is one of the worst horrors i've ever seen. I dunno there's plenty of crappy horror sequels i'd rather watch than this, this took itself way too seriously which just made it really uncomfortable.

This was really hard to watch, not that it was scary far from it; the music, what was with the music? This has got to have the worst score in horror history or at least the worst use of a score, exaggerating obviously but the music was really terrible and it felt like it was used at moments that weren't earned. Constantly i mean there'd be some moment that would pop out from nowhere and this big intrusive score would come in from nowhere as if it was called for. I can't even explain it, it was just wrong. The acting was pretty bad but i think that's something i could have ignored if it wasn't for the music drawing attention to it, i felt like the music was used to lazily tell me what was happening instead of attempting to actually engage me which made it a chore to sit through. I mean it was used when Frank went to pick his daughter up after talking to the principal and psychologist, it started up before he even left the room i mean such a weird unnecessary thing to do; creepy, intense, exciting, whatever music is a great thing but it has to be used right, just plopping it into every scene cheapens the whole film.

The acting was so bad that i honestly wondered if that was supposed to be part of it and i was missing the point, honestly if someone told me that now i'd believe them but i'd still hate this. It starts with an actual play that the characters are watching; when it goes into the first proper character interaction between Hal and Frank i was baffled, i swear i was excpecting it to be revealed as an extension of the play; the whole thing felt completely unnatural, Art Hindle had this weird eyebrow thing going on and Oliver Reed acted like he was actually in a big dramatic play. With everything else i just couldn't accept the bad acting, it was so horrible.

Don't want to continue being negative as i know there'll be fans of this here. There was some interesting things so i can see why some like it but i really didn't. Hope Cosmic hasn't expelled me from the Cronenberg Club for this