So I'm about to start mega-posting over here, but I just want to begin by saying how disappointed I am about myself that I didn't watch
Gone Girl earlier. I've always been one of those guys that undervalues Fincher (except Se7en, obviously), but daaaamn was that a good movie! They way the movie just plays with your emotions and perspective was so slovenly satisfying to experience. Just a superbly crafted film. I even laughed at several instances just due to the sheer dark absurdity of it all. Though I sort of sympathize with wife even still... no woman should be forced to watch Adam Sandler films.
Alright, on to the mega-posting, I finally caught the
Original Cape Fear. By the grimy grave of Robert Mitchum was it great! His low-key, despicable persona was just oozing in every scene. I was ages since I saw the Scorsese remake, but I think I like the original more. I feel quite a deal of reserve saying so though. Scorseses film almost feels like an inversion. Cady just doesn't want to punish Bowden, he wants to teach him something, basically thinking that he's helping the guy. Cady isn't just predatory towards Bowden's daughter, there is some unholy attraction for her side too, with her budding sexuality and all. And so on. Basically, it feels like Scorsese took what was a very straight story and twisted it in so many nasty, immoral angles. That said, working off memory, Mitchum's restrained performance is just more effective than Niro's extroverted, bombastic display in eliciting a reaction. And that sorts of seals the deal for me. But hey, guess I'll have to see the remake again some time soon.
In other news, I had a massive arthouse itch over the weekend. So I purposely sought out the most esoteric bullshit I could find in about half an hour. The result was
Eden After. Jesus Christ this left me cross-eyed and stupefied. It's about a bunch of bored (yet insanely gorgeous) students that play faux murder games to entertain themselves. A strange man comes in and offers them something more real and profound. That description obviously do not capture how fucking strange this film is, but that's the jist of it.
Annoyingly, I was left a little baffled when trying to grasp the theme of the film. There is sort of is this underlying narrative about "initiation-rituals" in the pre-modern sense of the word, passing from one stage to the next and all, effectively becoming a different person in doing so (quite literally, ala
Possession). Yet, simultaneously, the film appropriates several themes of cyclical narratives, events happening in recurrence which seems to stand in contrast with the point of doing initiation-rituals...
That said, this movie was absolutely frontloaded with some of the most dazzingly beautiful, angel-faced females I've ever laid eyes on (and I've seen
Son of Sinbad, so I KNOW what sort of comely babes classical Hollywood had ensnared for themselves with their studio contracts). So hey... the film had that going for it to.
Moving over to more respectable parts of cinema, I saw
Bonjour Triesse as a natural springboard to having watched Breatless in the previous mega-post... and it was very stimulating! One of those movies where the candy was in how the characters related to one-another and the psychology that had been spawned from that. Seberg's dad (great, reserved performance btw, really nailed the subtle, undignified part of his life) was such a playboy that it coloured her entire personality. In the beginning she complains that her life lacks excitement - but really her life has been so full with wordly stimuli that she has grown desensitized. Seberg's relationship with her father even had an incestuous ring to it (a bi-product of his libertine, pleasure-oriented lifestyle). One of his girlfriends even says that they are a "perfect married couple". So yeah, one of those movies where there was an satisfying amount of stuff for you to unpack from the main characters -- and I think it succeed better than many contemporary movies I've seen in depicting the despiriting aspects of decadence and being rich and all. Can't say that Seberg reminded me much of Seberg from Breathless though. In Bonjour she's happy-go-go and frivilous high-society girl. Not the philosophical, inwards-looking, yet still very glad and happily-minded girl from Breathless.
Mildred's Piece wasn't the height of Classical Hollywood drama... but it was pretty solidly pleasing still. Crawford was spirited and it was well put-together and all. Don't have much to say about it. I think there is some sort of disconnect on how Mildred was able to raise such an uncompromising despicable daughter. And yeah... the internet informs me that much of that explanation was cut when they adapted the book.
In other news, my Bogart fix for the week was
Dead Reckoning. It was pretty entertaining. The whole flashback-exposition style that they picked to communicate the story felt a bit jarring at times but overall it was good. Bogart got roughed up pretty bad in this one. (not Alan Ladd-bad in
The Glass Key but still pretty grisly for the 40's). The femme fatal certainly was a looker but I struggle to remember more than that. Sort of a movie that worked better in parts than as a whole.
Also... that funny gif coaxed me into watching
The Bride Came C.O.D. Scratching one off both the Cagney and Davis list simultaneously and all that. And... they are pretty much the reason to watch it. Their performances were engrossing and engaging in that neat, smile-inducing manner. It's basically one of those comedy films that are charming but not really that funny. But it's also sort of funny that you can make a
It Happened One Night rip-off without featuring an actual journey. Fine as it is but nothing really special.
On the more action-y front, I saw the film that inspired
300...
The 300 Spartans. It's one of those films that's good in how it evokes stoicism and professionalism to lionize it's protagonists (ala,
Bullit). David Farrar, whom played Xerxes, came off as more menecing and nasty than his
300 counterpart, but in a more realistic manner -- in that way Absolute Monarchs can show an absolute disregard for life and kill a great multitude of people on whims and vacillations. Lastly, the film has a greater historical versimilatude than the 300th one, but still somehow manages to erroneously present the Spartans as champions of democracy.... (and straight sex).
Speaking off war... not many fans of Soviet cinema around here, eh? I saw this Soviet war film called
The Fourty First. But it was definitely strange since it was split into two parts. The first half is what I expected, a war film in the Karakum Desert during the Russian civil war between the Whites and the Reds. Then, half-way through, it becomes a romance-movie between a female communist sniper and her aristocratic prisoner of war -- neither of which had taken center-stage up until this point (you definitely have to applaud the Soviets for managing to crank every tenet of Marxism into a love story
). But it was still interesting since it had a staunch and uncompromising feminist angle to the romance. The prisoner loves said female sniper... but he doesn't really love her beliefs or convictions, that which drives and molds her, and her efforts to coax him into trying to understand her point of view are meet with false-understandings and a desire to not truly hear or think about what he's saying. Surprisingly effectively done, truth be told.
Onto the rewatched list...
I sacrificed untold hours and saw
Godfather One and
Two once again. I discovered that I am on team Godfather one, though articulating why is rather difficult. I'll just be lazy and say that Godfather 1 reached greater heights of drama. Also honored Cimino and beheld
Year of the Dragon. I just love the Cimino-ess of it. He knew how to make an eye-pleasing picture for sure.
In the Name of the Father got better as I've aged, great drama.
Both Young Frankenstein and
Blazing Saddles are waaaay better than
Willy Wonka. Philadelphia was still solid but not that great.
Also finally got my paws on that book "Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies in the U.S", and is reading it through. But yeah... the mega-posts are already to long for me to start talking about books as well.
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