Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Interesting... I really liked The Wolf Of Snow Hollow, I've been told Thunder Road is better, might have to give this a spin.

Thunder Road is great and I loved it even more when I watched it a second time. Highly recommended.

Ars, 1960

In this semi-documentary film from Jacques Demy, we learn about the life of the Cure of Ars, a priest who later became sanctified. Examining his beliefs and the events that shaped his life, Demy tries to give a picture of a man whose life was intense and turbulent.

I enjoyed this film, and I think that part of my enjoyment comes from the fact that Demy's reaction to the Cure of Ars is very close to mine. Looking on a person so consumed by religious fervor fills me with a mix of admiration, sympathy, and horror.

"This is the rope he used to beat himself," the narrator remarks, in an even tone. As with many people whose lives are exceptional, the priest seems to live in some liminal space between brilliant and a mental health breakdown.

Perhaps the most well realized dynamic in the film is the souring of the relationship between the priest and his congregation. He is especially severe, telling them that dancing is basically inviting Satan to take their souls. He calls them out for not really being that faithful, saying that if they find the sermons to be too long, it's because they do not believe enough. And if there's one thing a person who thinks of themselves as pious HATES, it's being told that they aren't pious enough. The priest navigating this rift with his congregation is the most engaging part of the film.

That said, the priest is the main character and yet we never see him. (Well, we see his body on display). There is a certain degree of separation from him as a character, and I think it's partly because his character feels unknowable. There's a mysteriousness to his intensity.

An interesting short film, certainly worth watching.

Attachments

 

Black Widow, 1954

Peter Denver (Van Heflin) is a theater producer, married to a successful actress named Iris (Gene Tierney). When Iris goes out of town to care for her sick mother, Peter ends up attending a party at the home of their neighbors, actress Lottie (Ginger Rogers) and Brian (Reginald Gardiner). At that party, he meets Nancy (Peggy Ann Garner), a 20-year old aspiring writer. The two strike up a friendship, including Peter letting Nancy use his home for writing during the day. But when Nancy turns up dead, all eyes turn to Peter.

The first half of this film is a very solid drama/mystery/thriller. And in a fun use of storytelling, we begin in the present, then get a short series of flashbacks, then return to the main story. It's left very intentionally ambiguous about whether Nancy is a naive-but-ambitious innocent, or if she is a scheming climber. Likewise, we are shown just enough of Peter to wonder if his intentions are entirely pure.

The second half is significantly less interesting, which is a shame. With evidence popping up from multiple sources that Peter was sleeping with Nancy, Peter goes into rogue detective mode, shaking down various witnesses in order to find out the truth. The problem isn't that his investigation is dull, but rather that it becomes clear all-too-quickly exactly how and why Nancy's death happened. There are about 20 minutes of learning things we already strongly suspect, and the film loses a fair chunk of its momentum.

The performances are all very solid, with Ginger Rogers standing out as the blunt-to-a-fault Lottie. Tierney isn't given much to do, which is a shame, aside from looking wounded as more evidence builds up about her husband's infidelity.

The film picks up a bit more steam in the last 10 minutes or so, as there's a good old-fashioned "get all the suspects in one place" showdown. There are, surprisingly, a few unexpected reveals to be had at the end, and the film ends on a relative high note.

Lola, 1961

Roland (Mark Michel) is an aimless young man who, by chance, runs into a woman he was in love with before WW2. Cecile (Anouk Aimee), who now goes by the stage name Lola as a cabaret dancer and is a single mother, starts up a new romance with Roland, all the while still pining over Michel, her child's father who long since abandoned them. Another subplot involves a girl also named Cecile (Annie Duperoux), who strikes up a friendship with an American sailor named Frankie (Alan Scott), who is also smitten with Lola.

This was a very engaging little drama, with the various emotional arcs of the characters playing out against a background and style that adds a note of dreaminess to it all.

I think that it is a challenging task for a film to portray characters whose desires run counter to each other, and yet maintain sympathy for all involved. And I felt that this film was able to do so quite masterfully. The characters are all trying to follow their hearts, and when they are dishonest with each other, it is only out of an attempt to spare feelings.

Further, I like a film that can believably show growth in a character. Roland is able to accept Lola's love for Michel. As the audience, of course, it's hard to be over the moon for a romance where the dude just peaced out for seven years, leaving his lover to care alone for their child. But the point of the film isn't really even about rationality. It's about watching characters navigate their emotions and reevaluate their own lives after a jolting experience.

The subplot with young Cecile and the American sailor was ultimately more wholesome than I expected. They trade comic books and spend a day at the carnival together. While she obviously has a crush on him, he keeps appropriate boundaries with her. Their sequences, including a brief bit of slow motion as he helps her off of a carnival ride, captures some of the magic of having a crush at that age.

This felt more like a film that was content to observe than one that was interested in making any kind of comment. I enjoyed it, especially the way that it was filmed, and it seems to me a very solid movie for someone's first feature film.

Grrr, can't source Short Night if Glass Dolls"...think it maybe an internet buy.

It's on Shudder and a few other streaming services.

I got mine in a relatively cheap 3 pack of "Midnight Movies" from Blue Underground for around $9. It was the same disc as their standalone DVD so it was a pretty great value. There was also a Twilight Time blu but since they went defunct, I imagine it's OOP and not cheap. Good luck in your search!

You seen any other Demy? Young Girls of Rochefort is my favourite.*Delightful movie.

Nightmare Alley - I had never heard of this 1947 noirish drama starring Tyrone Power until I ran across the trailer for the new remake. The combination of Bradley Cooper and Guillermo del Toro piqued my interest so when I ran across this on TCM I had to give it a looksee. Plus Tyrone Power is probably my favorite pre-1960's actor.

He plays Stanton 'Stan' Carlisle, a carnival sideshow barker who has gravitated towards 'Mademoiselle' Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell), a mentalist and the sideshow's star attraction. She and her alcoholic husband Pete (Ian Keith) have a long established con going where he feeds her answers to customers questions which she then passes off as clairvoyance. Stan hangs around because he's drawn to their particular grift and he flirts with Zeena in hopes of learning some of her secrets. She alludes to a "code" that she and Pete have worked up that once had garnered them fame and riches before Pete's drinking landed them back on the carnival circuit. The highly ambitious Stan steadily works at convincing Zeena to take him on as her new partner but she blames herself for Pete's addiction and refuses to entertain the thought of ever leaving him. One night Stan inadvertently offers Pete a bottle of what he thinks is moonshine but which turns out to be wood alcohol. Pete drinks it and ends up dying in his sleep. Stan is eaten up with guilt but not so much that he can't take Pete's place and start learning the code from Zeena. He's helped by young co-worker Molly (Coleen Gray) who harbors a secret crush on Stan.

That's one thing about Powers performance as Carlisle, nefarious as he might be he's never shown to be a womanizer. The prize he keeps his eyes on are fame and riches. After saving the carnival from being closed down and Molly from being arrested, the two meet up with the rest of the crew at a roadside diner but Molly's jealous boyfriend Bruno (Mike Mazurki) and Zeena assume that the two have been fooling around and they're forced to marry. This puts an end to both Zeena's sharing of her secrets and the couple's time with the carnival.

But Stan has learned enough to establish he and Molly at an exclusive nightclub in Chicago where he eventually makes the acquaintance of psychologist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker), who just so happens to cater to the city's elite upper class. When she summons him to her office you're again led to believe that her role will surely be that of femme fatale and that she'll end up coming between Stan and Molly. But viewers expectations are again confounded to a degree. That's part of the overall strength of the movie's storyline. It's not only dark and cynical but it also refuses to go through the usual paces of these types of melodramatic thrillers. Stan's rise and fall might be considered conventional but the way he gets there and Powers portrayal of an ultimately complex protagonist are certainly compelling.

90/100

Yeah, I can sure see how the book might be better-- at least as a neo-noir. Most of my noir reading has been classic noir, e.g. all of Hammett's and Chandler's books. I've read some more contemporary noir, but to me style really pops in classic noir films.

As a matter of fact I've made it a mission to see all of Siodmak's noirs, along with several other directors, and all of John Alton's DP work in noir, along with Nicholas Musuraca's and others. And I want to make sure I've seen every G. Grahame noir...

I'm watching everything Criterion Channel has of his, including shorts, in chronological order. He is a huge blind spot for me.

Eternals
7/10.
Comparisons can be drawn between Eternals and Justice League, both the movies and the characters. One kid in the Eternals movie even compares Icarus to Superman. Eternals is better than Justice League, because it invests more in the characters (including their flaws) and delves more effectively and thoughtfully into traditional sci-fi themes. Eternals has received some bad ratings and bad reviews and I can see why the Christian Right would be upset by a movie that's basically about gods (something avoided in Thor when the Asgardians are presented basically as super-advanced aliens). I heard the movie was also banned by some Islamic nations because two men kiss in it. The movie lacks a strong antagonist in the first two acts (though an antagonist emerges in the third act, which helps). Despite its flaws, the movie was better than I expected and I'd be interested to see where they take the team from here.

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Boldly going.

I have the box set Criterion released a while back. I liked all of them except Une Chambre En Ville (I found the subject matter meshed poorly with the musical style, but am open to a revisit), but would consider Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Young Girls of Rochefort the priorities.

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La Luxure, 1961

In this short film---part of a collection called The Seven Deadly Sins directed by multiple directors--two friends discuss their thoughts on lust and lechery, including a flashback to a similar conversation they had as children.

This is generally a light, easy, fun little short with a lot of different elements that make it a pleasure to spend a quarter hour with.

The standout, of course, is the portrayal of hell, as told from one of the boys to the other. Behind a curtain of flames, nude people feast on food. Seemingly oblivious to the hellfire around her, a young woman rolls around on a bed in a fur coat. Intermixed with the people are skeletons.

This sequence is echoed later, in a part of the film where the two adult friends pour over an art book containing close ups of pieces of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights". As the main character looks at the images, in his eyes the people around him become the characters--suddenly the men and women in the cafe are nude embodiments of the artwork. (Props to Demy for having the male actors be nude as well as the women.) There's a great sense of humor to this scene, as the discussion of the art book is about the warning nature of the painting, while the main character in the film seems to see the nude patrons as more of a sexual fantasy.

The third piece of this short that I found funny was a sequence where a child tries to look up lechery in the dictionary, and the definition (to do with indulging in flesh) leads him through childish logic to determine that it's speaking of the butcher's love for carving up meat.

Worth recommending really just for the neat visuals in both the imagined hellscape and the cheeky "seeing everyone naked" sequence in the cafe.

Good luck with Spencer. All that money spent on costumes and sets and they can't do a better story than this? Princess Di and Charles have two sons and not much else going on, so Lady Di decides to go full out Lady Macbeth. It's the story of a couple weeks around Christmas, the royal family is gathered for holidays in the big palace. Diana realizes that she's a property in the whole royal drama, with every detail of her life being micro-managed by palace staff based on what the Queen thinks is the right story.

I was expecting something more biographical, from courtship to marriage to divorce and then her death but I mainly got Di misbehaving, especially by changing her approved clothes, while Charles stands by, obedient to his royal position. Kristen Stewart does a lot of emoting, but everybody else is pretty much a statue. You have to do some figuring to guess who is Charles. You can pick out the Queen because she always has a bunch of corgis. In the end, my favorite character was played by Timothy Spall, who specializes in those nose-in-the-air sycophantic servant roles. His nose seems endless, as he quietly pulls everybody's strings. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Babadook (2014)

Yes, you are the person who recommended it to me the first time.

Once the movie gets rolling it's pretty close to an edge of your seat experience. This is helped along by some excellent camerawork with some shots taken directly from the back seat of a speeding car in one long continuous take. And there's a bank robbery scene that wouldn't look out of place in any modern day thriller. There's also plenty of improvisation by the two principal actors which just adds to the spontaneous and slightly unhinged vibe. The fact that they do all their own stunts and their own driving puts the audience right alongside them and gives the proceedings a vicarious sort of feel. This was one of two movies I watched that was loosely based off of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's exploits. A robust, well made noir.

90/100