I rewatched Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,’ a film that can no longer be called underrated but it is baffling that critics hated it at time of its release. It’s one of my favourite films. The Arrow Blu looks great!
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Excellent UHD from Blue Underground
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3 crackers there Toscano
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Finally sat down tonight to watch The Wages of Fear (1953) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot!
The first quarter of this movie is a Howard Hawks’ like hangout film with a bunch of dudes being dudes!
However once the setup is done with the movie starts proper with said guys slowing and carefully moving 2 trucks full of nitroglycerin across South America to stop an oil rig fire, and folks this is as stressful as it sounds and nail-biting a concept for a movie as it sounds!
I don’t think I have ever seen a movie that has made me more stressful and tense watching it but in a good way!
Henri-Georges Clouzot is batting 2 for 2 out of the films of his I have seen so far!
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This film really is tense. I like how the first act introduces the characters, as you saw, in a Hawks way, and then pits them through hell. A fantastic film that every film fan should see!
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Four films of exceptional quality, pedigree, and durability…I never tire of these beauties.
1940
1944
1971
1977
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- Allen: Radio Days 6/10
- Brooks: Producers 7/10
- Polanski: Fearless Vampire Killers 10/10
- Walker: At War with the Army 2/10
- Lanthimos: Dogtooth 7/10
- Rohmer: Green Ray 7/10
- Jee-Woon: The Good, The Bad, The Weird 7/10
- Erice: El sur 6/10
- Kassila: Komisario Palmun erehdys 10/10
- Dietrich: Rolls Royce Baby ∞ /10
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Haven’t gotten around to see Rolls Royce Baby yet but now I must 
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Watched a few British films as part of my 1948 cycle.
Brass Monkey (Freeland / 3/10)
Meet the Huggets (Annakin / 6/10)
Scott of the Antarctic (Frend / 5/10)
Brass Monkey is a pretty poor crime drama and only of interest for an early performance by Herbert Lom (by far the best actor in the film) and a cameo by Terry-Thomas when he was still clearly a music hall and radio act. Scott of the Antarctic hasn’t aged well, especially as it tries to make a hero of someone who made avoidable blunders throughout and cost people their lives. The colour looks awful now too.
Surprisingly, my favourite of the three was Here Come the Huggets, a lightweight comedy/family drama but one which is done very well and along with its predecessor Holiday Camp from 1947 (which I watched back to back with this one) show a really interesting slice of life in post-war Britain.
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I’m always complaining about James Bond films being overrated, but I have recently watched Thunderball and Goldfinger, and they’re actually good 
I guess I have a preference for the older 007 films… or maybe it’s just Sean Connery 
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Of course it’s Connery. My wife is the biggest Bond fan I’ve ever met and she will tell anyone that will listen that Connery is the coolest Bond of them all and one of the coolest human beings to ever walk the earth.
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At last, you have seen the light…
I’m glad you enjoyed them…Has this whet your appetite for watching a few other titles…?
Two great and memorable 007 films, plus the original and best Bond…Sir Sean Connery - the ‘King’ of machismo.
‘Thunderball’ (1965) was, I believe, the biggest grossing ‘Bond’ of the 60’s… whereas ‘Goldfinger’ (1964), was 24 carat excellence from start to glittering finish, and set the trend for more gadget-ridden tales to follow. The introduction of the silver ‘Aston Martin DB5’ was a stroke of genius…
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We old timers have to be patient with the younger generations who have been fed on a cinematic diet of CGI shite … and perhaps don’t realize that there are really great films out there, pre Transformers and X-Men franchise - Now go forth and enjoyeth all the other fantastic action adventure films from the 1960s and 70s
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There is not greater pain I have felt as a 21 year old than when I suggest to my friends a movie that was made before like 1995. The only “old” movies most people my age like from before then are the original Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Back to the future films.
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To me this is as bad as dismissing great literature or music because it was made before one’s own time of birth … there’s arrogance and ignorance going on here which is quite disturbing.
I never looked down on films before my time … that would mean rejecting Bogart, Laurel and Hardy, David Lean, John Ford etc to name but a few.
If this were just a few individuals, then I could say, ‘well, their loss’ … but it appears to be an international trend.
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The thing I’ve come to realise is that most people my age do not have any want to explore stuff they like. I think its a side effect of being an “algorithm generation” where most of the online stuff (youtube, spotify music etc) is given to use via algorithm rather from our own searching and curiosity.
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