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The Man Who Knew Too Much - Not the '56 color version with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. This is the original B&W from 1934 with Leslie Banks and Edna Best as the vacationing couple entangled in a far reaching global assassination plot. I watched the remake a few years back so it's been awhile but I think I actually prefer this one for it's no-frills narrative and brisk pacing. It also has what might be Hitchcock's best villain in Peter Lorre's fey and diminutive Abbott. With his doleful yet bemused countenance, his scarred face and a white streak in his hair Lorre certainly looks the part but he also imbues the character with a quiet menace.

WARNING: spoilers below
Bob and Jill Lawrence are on vacation in the Swiss Alps and a French acquaintance of theirs, Louis Bernard, is competing in a ski jump contest while Jill is a participant in a skeet shooting match. She loses to marksman Ramon, who figures heavily into the story later on. That night while on the dance floor with Jill, Louis is shot and killed by an unknown assailant. Before he dies, he tells her to look in his room for some vital information that she is to pass on to the British consul. When the bad guys get wind that the Lawrence's are indeed in possession of the info they kidnap their daughter Betty and instruct them not to contact the authorities. The rest of the story unwinds expeditiously with Bob and family friend Clive attempting to locate and rescue Betty. This eventually leads them to a nefarious dentist, a secretive sunworshipping cult, hypnosis, a pretty nifty chair throwing melee and an ultimate shootout between the gang of anarchists and tons of policemen.

All in all this was a very entertaining 70 or so minutes of intrigue and dry British wit. I'd have to rewatch the '56 version to honestly tell which was superior but as it stands this one was loads of fun and Lorre makes for a perfectly hissable villain.




I haven't seen the remake but I enjoyed the original very much. The pace with which Hitchcock moved these late-30's spy thrillers was effective as hell. I enjoy all of them very much.
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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Trouble Will Find Us (Alexander Milo Bischof, 2020)
+ 5/10
The Trench (William Boyd, 1999)
6/10
Demolition Girl (Genta Matsugami, 2019)
+ 5/10
Faraway Eyes AKA Here After (Harry Greenberger, 2020)
6/10

After Michael Rispoli dies, he returns to find a soulmate and may find one in Nora Arnezeder. Overlong and way too contrived, but eventually gets affecting.
Unspeakable (Thomas J. Wright, 2002)
5/10
Spirit Untamed (Elaine Bogan & Ennio Torresan, 2021)
6/10
The House Next Door (Deon Taylor, 2021)
5/10
Real Talk (Preston A. Whitmore II, 2021)
6/10

L.A. radio talk show host Jasmine Carmichael has an incredibly eventful night at the station and on the phone.
The Dance of Life (John Cromwell & A. Edward Sutherland, 1929)
5/10
Lansky (Eytan Rockaway, 2021)
6/10
The Virtuoso (Nick Stagliano, 2021)
+ 5/10
A Fantastic Fear of Everything (Crispian Mills & Chris Hopewell, 2012)
6/10

Writer Simon Pegg knows he made a big mistake going to the laundromat.
The Dungeon of Harrow (Pat Boyette, 1962)
4/10
The Last Letter From Your Lover (Augustine Frizzell, 2021)
6/10
Before I Go (Eric Schaeffer, 2021)
5.5/10
Justice Society: World War II (Jeff Wamester, 2021)
6/10

The Flash doesn't understand why he's fighting the Nazis but he helps the other super heroes anyway.
Monster from the Ocean Floor (Wyott Ordung, 1954)
- 5/10
Kokutai (Ryushi Lindsay, 2019)
+ 6/10
The Nut Farm (Melville W. Brown, 1935)
5/10
The Wandering Soap Opera (Raoul Ruiz & Valeria Sarmiento, 2017)
6/10

Life in Chile seems to be a series of telenovelas..
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Umpteenth Re-watch...I don't know what it is about this movie...it's no masterpiece, but it holds enormous re-watch appeal for me thanks to one of the most iconic scores in the history of musical theater. This film's use of Manhattan as its locale ranks right up there with Woody Allen...there's one musical number that begins on the jumbo trinitron and ends on the twin towers (they were still there in 1973).




Thanks! I caught it on TCM, but I think it's on VOD, streaming services, etc.

Just curious, when De Palma's movies were in theaters, was he a big draw like a Nolan or a Spielberg movie? Were they more of a curiosity like David Lynch's work? I've watched 99% of his movies at home.
Oh yes, he was very popular. Perhaps not as much as Spielberg, but up there for sure.



I haven't seen the remake but I enjoyed the original very much. The pace with which Hitchcock moved these late-30's spy thrillers was effective as hell. I enjoy all of them very much.
TCM had a 48 hour Hitchcock marathon a few weeks back and I availed myself of the ones I hadn't seen. I watched one from 1936 that I'll review a little later. One I'm sure you've seen. And I still need to get to The Lodger. Once I do I'll have seen a total of 28 of his films. I've still got a bunch more to go but it's better than I had been doing a couple of years ago in the single digits. The only one I've held off on is Torn Curtain mostly because of it it's low Tomatometer.



THE INNOCENTS
(1961, Clayton)
A film from the Criterion Collection whose number includes the #7



"All I want to do is save the children, not destroy them. More than anything, I love children."

The Innocents follows Miss Giddens as she tries to take care of the kids. But things start to unravel when she starts to fear that the estate is haunted and that the kids are possessed, putting to the test her love and her desire to "save the children". Can she handle the situation? Will she do what's needed to "save" them?

This is a pretty darn good film, but the story behind the scenes is compelling as well. Based on a popular play, the original script was written by William Archibald. However, producer/director Jack Clayton, wanting to add layers to Archibald's script, commissioned Truman Capote to rework it, incorporating deeper psychological themes that take the story beyond the inherent eeriness of its plot.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot or on the PR HOF4



TCM had a 48 hour Hitchcock marathon a few weeks back and I availed myself of the ones I hadn't seen. I watched one from 1936 that I'll review a little later. One I'm sure you've seen. And I still need to get to The Lodger. Once I do I'll have seen a total of 28 of his films. I've still got a bunch more to go but it's better than I had been doing a couple of years ago in the single digits. The only one I've held off on is Torn Curtain mostly because of it it's low Tomatometer.
Look forward to your other review. As for Torn Curtain, that's one of the few of his I haven't seen. I know I'll eventually get to it, and to Topaz, but I'd rather tackle a few others first.



I forgot the opening line.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51578312

150 years ago all this was my ancestors land. Everything you could see, everything you saw yesterday. Until the grandparents of these folks took it. Now it's been taken from them. Cept it ain't no army doin' it, it's those sons of bitches right there.
Hell or High Water - (2016) - DVD

Very happy to see a decent film which combines rust belt anger over corporate greed with brotherly love. Great performances by Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Gil Birmingham. And Texas! Although New Mexico is standing in for it - and to tell you the truth I can't tell the difference. I know and love some great Texans though, even as far away as this corner or the World.

Fantastic screenplay by Taylor Sheridan - I saw his Wind River just a few weeks ago and rate that very highly as well. We all know about Sicario. A big career, or will he fade out? I'm hoping very much he just gets better and better and writes (and directs) some very memorable films.

There it is. I've seen all 2017 Best Picture Oscar-nominated films. A crowded field that included Moonlight, Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion and Manchester By the Sea.

Special Features - Making of features Enemies Forever : The Characters, Visualising the Heart of America, and Damaged Heroes : The Performances. A half hour Q&A session with the four main actors and director David Mackenzie (his Outlaw King looks like it might be okay.) Vision from the red carpet premiere in Texas. Trailer. No commentary for me...

8/10







Here's a fim Céline Sciamma should look up to. Not slight pretentious, not slight crazy feminist. A reminder of the great independents America used to do, filmed and acted accordingly. A powerful film. Powerful silence.




I have no idea what to make or think of this movie and yet I still enjoyed it.




I have no idea what to make or think of this movie and yet I still enjoyed it.
Haven't seen it, but someone brought it up for the last episode of my podcast calling it "galvanizingly funny and audacious as an experiment in how extreme one can be but I don't know what it is about."



Haven't seen it, but someone brought it up for the last episode of my podcast calling it "galvanizingly funny and audacious as an experiment in how extreme one can be but I don't know what it is about."
I've been trying to comprehend it for a good few days now and I still have absolutely no clue what it's suppsed to be about



Victim of The Night




Here's a fim Céline Sciamma should look up to. Not slight pretentious, not slight crazy feminist. A reminder of the great independents America used to do, filmed and acted accordingly. A powerful film. Powerful silence.
I've only seen Sciamma's Water Lilies is she really crazy feminist? I was gonna watch Portrait Of A Lady On Fire.







1st Re-watch...The first silent film to win the Oscar for Best Picture and four other statues...just as joyous and heartbreaking as it was the first time I watched it. This is movie magic at its most pure and most inventive. It deserved every Oscar it won and a few it didn't...a masterpiece, pure and simple.




…there's one musical number that begins on the jumbo trinitron and ends on the twin towers (they were still there in 1973).
Gee, I hope so as they were built in 1973.

Terrific movie. Seen it twice.

not slight crazy feminist.
Why do people think one has to be “crazy” to be a feminist?
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