Last night, a vampire double bill…
1922
1970
6 Likes
The Gorge.
Wasn’t prepared for any of this, but there for all of it. The less you know, the better.
Trapped (Fleischer / 1949) 5/10
Twelve O’Clock High (King / 1949) 6/10
Port of New York (Benedek / 1949) 5/10
The Third Man (Reed / 1949) 10/10
10 out of 10 is not a rating I give a film very often. Maybe a handful of the thousands of films I’ve seen. But The Third Man deserves it on every front as far as I can see. The script, the direction, the camera work, the lighting… you can go on and on. And because I’ve been watching films chronologically for a while now you realise just how different it was to anything else being made at the time. Cinematic, thoughtful, clever and no need for a happy ending. Just plain excellent.
3 Likes
Mickey 17
My Berlinale opener. Quite good, very Bong Joon Ho, lots of layers. Entertaining.
I liked the Nisferatu. The atmosphere, acting were very good and it has stand the test of time very well
2 Likes
Last 10:
- Mankiewicz: Barefeet Countess 6/10
- Almodovar: Volver 8/10
- Trier: Element of Crime 7/10
- Trier: Epidemic 6/10
- Kwan & Scheinert: Everything Everywhere All at Once 3/10
- De Bont: Speed (cinema) 8/10
- Baker: A Night to Remember 6/10
- Rollin: Requiem for a Vampire 6/10
- Brass: All Ladies Do It 7/10
- Trier: Europa 7/10
Linklater’s Before Sunrise
Perhaps a little dated and arguably veers once or twice closer to cliché than profundity, but original, warm hearted with a light touch and good performances.
Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall
Intriguing script, convincing dialogue and flawless acting. Quite moving and stands with best courtroom dramas.
1 Like
I just finished this beautiful dumpster fire of a movie last night. Which left me feeling weird after I found out today that the great Gene Hackman (1930-2025) and his wife and dog have died under mysterious circumstances. Since I’ve always had a soft spot for campy/schlocky/so-bad-it’s-good movies, I immediately loved Eureka (1983). It’s about a gold digger (Hackman as Jack McGann)who strikes it rich in Alaska at the beginning of the 20th Century. Later he must contend with his beautiful daughter (Russell) being in love with an ex-pat French bohemian (Hauer) and his business partner (Lauter) being pressured by a powerful Jewish gangster (Pesci) to sell part of his island to the Mob for developing and building casinos and hotels. Though the story looks intriguing on paper, the film has graphic, brutal violence using such cheap special effects that the final product came across as comedic rather than disturbing. The movie actually garnered an X rating in the for its violent scenes when it was first released! The first 20 minutes of the film are incoherent and confusing due to what appears to be possible scenes having been cut out of McGann’s (Hackman) years of gold digging in Alaska. Good performances by Hauer, Russell, Pesci and Rourke make the remainder of Eureka worth watching.
2 Likes
This has been on my must-watch movie list for some time. Thank you for sharing this!
Yeah it’s a mess
1 Like
“Not guilty”
3 Likes
I just watched a horror film made by the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers production company, Black Magic (1975). An evil magician is hired by a rich female divorcee to make a love potion that will make her love interest (a hunky architect) fall in love with her. Lots of weird, gross spell concoctions (including human breast milk straight from the tit) and cool death spells! It kept me entertained the whole time from beginning to end.
2 Likes
In honour of International Women’s Day I kicked off my ride through 1950 films with a bunch dominated by female stars.
Outrage (Lupino 6/10)
All About Eve (Mankiewicz 7/10)
Born Yesterday (Cukor 7/10)
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 8/10)
The Damned Don’t Cry (Sherman 5/10)
Joan Crawford was starting to look her age by this time and struggles to convince as a woman who no one can resist in The Damned Don’t cry. Bette Davis plays an older woman and in a much better film so makes a success of All About Eve. Gloria Swanson pretty much plays a version of herself in the Excellent Sunset Boulevard and Judy Holliday steals the show in Born Yesterday. Mala Powers (who?) is the female lead in Outrage but the real interest of this film was it’s director, Ida Lupino. Lupino had made her name as an actress but is the writer, producer and director of this drama about a young woman battling a mental health breakdown after being raped. Female directors were rare back then but Lupino shows a deft hand proves herself a very capable hand behind the camera.
3 Likes
The other great quote from ‘12 Angry Men’, delivered by Henry Fonda, is: “Is it possible?”
These words form the crux of the film…which leads to the other jurors accepting the possibility that their initial opinion may have been wrong, and that white and black are often grey…
A cracking, though-provoking film…and one that always begs the question: ‘What would I do in a similar situation, with the odds stacked against me?’
‘Would I side with popular opinion, or listen to my conscience?’
2 Likes
I’ve been watching a lot of Larry Cohen movies recently. God Told Me To; Q: The Winged Serpent; The Stuff; Black Caesar; and Hell Up in Harlem. I also watched Hercules (1983) with Lou Ferrigno and The Black Hand.
3 Likes
Longlegs (Osgood Perkins, 2024)
One of last year’s most successful and critically acclaimed horror movies, clearly influenced by The Silence of the Lambs. It was directed by Anthony Perkins’ son (talk about having good credentials) and co-produced by Nicolas Cage (who also plays the creep). The story is about a possibly clairvoyant young FBI-recruit who’s asked to help track down a mysterious man named ‘Longlegs’ who inspired several cases in which a father all of a sudden slaughtered his entire family for no apparent reason. Somehow this Mr. Longlegs seems to have the power to turn normal people into murderers.
The film is eerie and occasionally also scary, but personally I had trouble to get into this rather odd mix of police procedurals, serial killer tropes and supernatural elements such as mind manipulation, deadly dolls and a dangerous nun (a dangerous what? Yes, a dangerous nun, I’m not making this up). Horror, so they say, relies on the suspension of disbelief: it doesn’t have to be realistic, but we must be able to attach some credence to what’s happening as long as we’re watching a horror movie. The suggestive first half works quite well, but things become less intriguing as the story progresses and becomes more explicit. But maybe that’s just me, many others seem to like this movie a lot and I do admit that the denouement (which was nevertheless well-prepared and announced) caught me by surprise.
**½ out of 5 – disappointing
4 Likes
- Franco: Dracula’s Daughter 5/10
- Franco: Night of the Skull 5/10
- Lumet: The Network 6/10
- Friedkin: The French Connection 7/10
- Wells: Aftersun 8/10
- King: The Gunfighter 6/10
- Grau: Death Penalty 5/10
- Kokkonen: Pähkähullu Suomi 7/10
- Kaurismäki: Klaani 8/10
- Rossen: The Hustler 7/10
1 Like