Over the weekend I watched [/b]Hellboy 2: The Golden Army[b] and 40 Year Old Virgin. I enjoy both of them immensely. I really hope a 3rd Hellboy movies get green lit but we’ll have to wait for del Toro to finish his Hobbit movies.
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[url]http://img193.imageshack.us/i/images2lom.jpg/[/url] [size=3]L’armée des Ombres [/size] (J.P. Melville, 1969)
![http://img193.imageshack.us/i/images2lom.jpg/[/url]](http://img193.imageshack.us/i/images2lom.jpg/%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
Called the best film about the French Resistance by L’Express, this masterful Melville movie wasn’t received enthusiastically in '69 (what were they cheering in those days?). Luckily some of Melville’s colleagues and fans financed a restauration that was re-released theatrically in 2004 in France, and in 2006 in the US: American critics chose it as one of the best movies of the year.
I watched the Dutch DVD (only French audio, Dutch subs) wich offers the 2004 restauration print: it looks awesome, I can’t remember that I ever saw a Melville looking this good, not even in theaters.
It’s all there: the pessimism, the silence, the sparse but shocking outbursts of violence … there’s one execution scene which is absolutely vintage Melville, one of the greatest scenes he ever did: watch the reaction on Ventura’s face
It was based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, who also wrote Belle de Jour, adapted by Luis Buñuel. Kessel used his wartime memories and Melville added his own memories as a member of the resistance to them. Filmed in his characteristic noirish style, noir Melville style so to speak: very little dialogue, ultra-slow pace, images almost complety drained from colours, incredible compositions.
4,5/5
Stranger on the Third Floor - “the first real film noir” according to one writer. This 1940 production is considered quite a rarity, though I quickly realised while watching it that I had seen it before. It’s a neat, nightmarish little thriller about a reporter who becomes a murder suspect, but the plot is secondary to the rendering of the protagonist’s psychological torment.
Really, the expository scenes and the conventionally upbeat coda are just bookends; the central section is a wonderfully realised expressionistic tour de force (photography was by the great Nick Musuraca) in which the blurring of dream and reality is achieved almost perfectly. Soon-to-be-staple noir themes emerge - the wrong man motif, guilt, paranoia, cruel chance.
Peter Lorre is top billed, but has only a few, albeit memorable scenes as the sinister stranger of the title.
“Donkey Punch” it was ok, slightly better than i expected.
Spent a very pleasant evening last night catching up with a few old buddies from this forum and elsewhere at the Duke Mitchell Film Club at The Cross Kings pub here in London. To be honest it was just an excuse for us to get together but the assortment of short films, trailers and thrown together nonsense was a good evening’s entertainment.
There was a real variety of stuff on show but I think the stand out for me was the Disney / Dali collaboration short animated film called Destino. Apparently the two planned it all in 1946 but it was never actually made until the Disney team pulled it out of the archives and made it happen in 2002. It’s cool stuff and not your average Disney. It’s on Youtube these days. (What isn’t?) So check it out here.
Anybody I know?
No doubt they all know you
Impossible - I keep changing my avatar.
There was a fella who looked much like you but was not drinking cider so I assume he was an imposter
The bounder! Mind you, real ale will always win over crap cider.
Me too, but I’m in love with my actual one, so I might keep her for a while
Quite right too.
Julie Newmar if I’m not mistaken. I always remember her fondly from her days as Catwoman.
“Paradise Lost” not bad.
There’s a Duke Mitchell Film Club??? holy crap that’s awesome!
watched the director’s cut of Hellboy late last night.
Named in honour of Duke.
Here’s an article in Time Out which explains the premise of the club quite well.
I like how they were nice and called him a contemporary of Dean Martin - he was a Dean clone. Which doesn’t bother me at all.
That is awesome and if I lived in London I would be there too.
Thanks for that link - what a wonderful piece of work.
And it’s good to be aware of the film club, too. Sounds very much like my kind of thing (I live on the fringes of London).
Recent films I’ve watched
The Giant
Delicatessen
Violent City
Fear City
Me too. But I was surprised at how far afield folk come from. Our party included lads from Yorkshire, Norfolk and Austin, Texas. We were probably something of an odd case I admit but others I met there come in regularly from Southend. It’s amazing how far film geeks will go to see a bit of trash.
yeah, but you could be sending mixed signals :-\
that dude Sherp is hot