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Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Fritz Lang DOUBLE FEATURE






You Only Live Once (1937)
++ I foolishly thought this would be a bit on the fluff side, and it was NOWHERE NEAR!! YAYYY

It stars Henry Fonda as a doom-ridden convict, having just finished his third stint in prison. Labeled a Three-Time-Loser, his subsequent conviction will land him a Life Sentence or even a Death Sentence. His only promising aspect is the love of a genuinely d@mn good woman, portrayed with exceptional talent by Sylvia Sydney, whom I've only ever known from Mars Attack! as the grandmother whose music kills the Martians and as Juno in Beetlejuice the Afterlife Case Worker. A fantastic bonus to this surprisingly excellent and very dark film.

Lang is very much in his element with this tale of star-crossed lovers where Fonda's Eddie Taylor not only does not get a break, but it seems that any break presented is dashed cruelly for him. There is a powerful instance halfway through the film that, for most, would have been the climax to a movie, but with Lang, it is cruel jest by Fate that propels this couple into a far deeper spiral. I was utterly engrossed and wonderfully shocked to see it was only the film's midpoint. It was f@ckin amazing!

The composition here is Lang at his shadow-drenched best. There are countless images I would love to find and exhibit. Those compositions add layer upon layer to this hellbent roller-coaster storyline depicting society's callousness and the will of the truly desperate.
Several great talents, including Jean Dixon, Margaret Hamilton, and William Gargan as Father Dolan, propel this gripping drama to its tragic and beautifully filmed ending.

Fritz Lang was one of the first Directors in my late teens and early twenties that I sought out and became a fanboy. This film only revives and electrifies that early endearment.
F@CKIN WOW






While the City Sleeps (1956)
In comparison, having watched it directly after the first, had more fluff than I initially expected. lol

But then that would most likely reflect the exceedingly dark nature and heavily shadowed venue of You Only Live Once. Here, Lang's shadows are the characters themselves in the brightly lit offices, bars, and apartments featured throughout.

With a format of ensemble casts featuring Rhonda Flemings, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, character actor Thomas Mitchell, Ida Lupino, Howard Duff, George Sanders, and my first time seeing John Barrymore's son, aka Drew Barrymore's dad, John Drew Barrymore as a depraved serial killer.

This movie is a sex-drenched spectacle of inner-office politics using the pursuit of a recent killer as a competition between the heads of a newspaper syndicate concocted by the spoiled son (Price) of the recently dead owner of Kyne Enterprises. He pits Hamilton and Sander's characters to win the new Executive Director position or be fired. A third forced contestant is busy fooling around with Price's wife (Lupino). Mildred Kyne, the sister (Rhonda Fleming), happily plays predatorial games with everyone. Including Dana Andrews, an ex-detective, now TV reporter, and drunken rogue.

With so many balls in the air, Lang juggles them with ease. He gives everyone a chance to shine as the stakes get raised, and the murders escalate. Once more, Lang adds a few social commentaries into how things get done and how things get prioritized, and why.

Not a top echelon endeavor, but it is a d@mn excellent and entertaining film all the same.
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I actually liked The Santa Clause.



Victim of The Night
Beast From Haunted Cave, 1959 (B+)

A nice, cozy, eventful enough 50's monster movie. Somewhat refreshing to not get a whole speech about nuclear technology to explain everything too. The effects are silly enough to be appreciable, and the settings and locations are original, rather than the cheap room-to-room-to-room you usually get.
I enjoyed this one as well.



Victim of The Night
I actually liked The Santa Clause.
Yeah, I watched it under duress yet found it an acceptable holiday film.



You Only Live Once (1937) ... portrayed with exceptional talent by Sylvia Sydney, whom I've only ever known from Mars Attack! as the grandmother whose music kills the Martians and as Juno in Beetlejuice the Afterlife Case Worker.
She's also great in Hitchcock's Sabotage. But you're right about You Only Live Once, It is a pretty good movie. I'll have to check out While the City Sleeps.



Yeah, I watched it under duress yet found it an acceptable holiday film.
Same here but I was pleasantly surprised. The sequels however ...





Pale Flower (1964)

This is a rather pensive film-- as much new wave cinema as it is noir. It’s as if Ingmar Bergman directed a Cornell Woolrich tale.

I’ve seen very little Japanese noir, but my guess is that
Pale Flower is a first rate example of their approach to noir, possibly at the point when noir was ending in Japan just as the cinema new wave was beginning.The director is Masahiro Shinoda, one of the important names in Japanese new wave film.

It’s a simple story. When a mob murderer is let out of prison, he returns to his old illegal gambling haunts where he comes across a lady who gambles high and recklessly, seeming to not care whether or not she wins. They form an attraction, and at her insistence they visit another gambling game that has even higher stakes. The gangster becomes the lady’s influence. She becomes very attracted to him, whereas he doesn’t seem to have the emotional capacity to fall for her. Meanwhile in the background a lesser gangster/druggie lurks who might provide an additional allure to her thrill seeking destructive behavior.

The black and white photography is a prime example of noir-- that bold chiaroscuro setting and lighting that

is raw in its simplicity, like the smell of the salt air at the seashore. One of the film’s unique attractions is the avant-garde music score by Toru Takemitsu, a prolific film composer who showcases natural sounds in a continuous duet with the orchestral unorthodox music.

Some of the drama struck me as being of a type emblematic in typical Japanese culture. So in a sense I felt as though I was trying to understand a foreign mood. But the combination of exemplary noir and contemporary script makes it an unusually interesting film. And the ending is pure noir pathos.


Doc’s rating: 7/10



I forgot the opening line.

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Everest - (2015)

I found this fascinating - the true story of the 1996 expeditions to climb Mount Everest which ended in disaster when bad weather closed in, killing 8 climbers. Gives a pretty good account of the climb, stage by stage, camp by camp, which is deadly under the best of circumstances. Just imagine - you're getting on in years and have tried a couple of times to reach the peak of Everest, you give it one last shot and spend many days climbing and encountering hardships. You're nearly there...hours away...but just short of ultimate victory you're weak and it's getting past the safe time. You should turn back...but c'mon. Just a bit to go. People are driven on near the end of that climb, and so many have died. If you combine 1996, 2014 and 2015 you get 50 fatalities just there. Just over those 3 years. Many of the bodies remain up there...

8/10


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The Hangover Part II - (2011)

I don't know why I bother with sequels - the returns are so poor so often that I'm surprised at how often I have a look at them. This second Hangover film isn't bad, but it's not particularly good either as it retreads the same ground from the first a little too doggedly. There's a fine line between doing the same thing over, and departing from the feel of the original too much. This was hobbled by the fact that in the first we didn't know what to expect - things aren't as crazy this time because we're expecting what we get.

6/10


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Ted 2 - (2015)

Yeah, the same as the above - apart from a couple of good moments. You leave this pretty sure there isn't going to be a Ted 3.

6/10
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Black Christmas (1974)



Watched The Bishop's Wife for the umpteenth time. It is still as fresh and charming as ever.
I give it five out of five popcorn boxes and a house covered in twinkle lights.







Everything Clive does I'm interested in, and this was an interesting character. A handyman, a carpenter that takes pride in what he does facing some monetary problems. Separated from his wife because of alcohol issues, he has now some time with the boy. A major setback grants him the opportunity to teach the kid something morally valuable, instead of, like it seems common, try to impress him, try to show him a picture of himself that doesn't exist. In various ways he's teaching the boy to be himself, to think for himself, and, personally, that's the greatest lesson my father ever thought me.

Here's a line from the film:

See that chair? Someone built that chair, and not just one person, several people helped... Remember that. Real people. You know, when you go over a bridge, think about what it took to build that bridge. You ever think about the people who made your pants? Well, think about 'em. Now, Kyle (kid's stepdad)... He's okay for a pud, but I'm sure he never gives things any thought. Not because he doesn't care. He just doesn't have the imagination. You don't want to be like that, right?





I left around the 45min mark, just couldn't watch it anymore. Nothing makes sense, boring, too much forced humor... it just isn't fun. At all.
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