As you would expect this is an impeccably made film by a true great. However, the other British great, Alfred Hitchcock possibly might have made a more involving film.
Ann Todd was icy as Madeleine. Actually what I mean is that icy Ann Todd played Madeleine and that cold centre of the film made it all rather mechanical. I did like the unequivocal ending with her face giving it away.
I’ve just realised Ann Todd was in The Paradine Case so maybe Hitchcock might not have improved this.
There was one outstanding scene when Madeleine persuades Emile to dance. She twirls, he gradually gets into the rhythm (stick and all) and soon they are dancing as uninhibitedly as the villagers in the valley below, and this scene is incredibly sexy. Seriously, I don’t think I have seen a dance scene that was quite so effective before.
Fitzcarraldo
We made Adam watch this by telling him it was about a man who drags a boat over a hill. That is true, of course, but we hadn’t bargained on approximately an hour of film before he even gets his boat. Once it got going and Claudia Cardinale’s disturbing dubbed breathlessness was left behind this became compelling viewing.
Kinski made have been bonkers but I reckon Herzog isn’t too normal either. Not that I’m complaining when people make films on such unlikely subjects and take me to places and eras I’m never going to experience and make fantastic and magical films.
House of Games
This is a stupid film and Professor Maggie Walsh, I mean, Professor Margaret Ford is stupid for the majority of it.
Lindsay Crouse’s performance is wooden and unemotional but I have less of a problem with that now than I did when I saw this in the cinema on its first release. She is just a strange actress and she is, at least, better than Rebecca Pidgeon. I’m not sure what to make of the practice of directors casting their wives in films: it often leads to strange and uncomfortable dynamics.
I like Margaret’s revenge and I do dispute Mike’s assertion that he never hurt anyone. I think humiliation comes extremely close to hurt.
Buffy thoughts have been absent for over four months from this blog! No wonder my stats have been going down. No one cares about my film reviews and what I think of Mad Men.
I love this film. I love it for a variety of reasons but the main one may be because of the wonderful performances.
Allison Janney is the Eve Arden of her day.
Ellen Page is a tiny young Sigourney Weaver.
JK Simmons is quirky.
Michael Cera is awkward and shy in a way I bet he nowhere near resembles in real life.
Jason Bateman was convincing as the teenage middle aged man.
Olivia Thirlby tickled me greatly with her facial expressions (what does “sexually active” mean?) and my favourite bit “I know, right”.
Finally, Jennifer Garner played the most difficult part so well. She had to make the most conventional character the most sympathetic and interesting. Her face when she feels the baby kick is radiantly beautiful. She made me cry then and at the end.
The hate directed at this film is astounding and almost baffling in its intensity. I have a theory but I would, wouldn’t I, think that? Some of the complaints are ridiculous such the one that Diablo Cody’s dialogue is unrealistic because no-one speaks like that. That strikes me as daft as complaining that the dialogue in Buffy is unrealistic. So what? Juno is actually not at all in any shape or form a realistic film. No-one announces to their parents that they are pregnant and have prospective adoptive parents lined up to such equanimity.
If I have a complaint, once again a gorgeous woman (girl) is partnered with a plain man (boy): not that they aren’t cute together.
This was about ten years too long. Hayley Mills was superb as the twins carrying the film effortlessly and charmingly (although accents weren’t her strong point). Brian Keith was all right. Maureen O’Hara was absolutely fine except for the fact she appeared to be two different people: the one in Boston bore no resemblance to the one in California. Perhaps she should have played the twins.
I’m too straight-laced to appreciate this film. Maybe it’s because I don’t drink more than a glass of beer a month, I have never taken drugs and I’m too right-on to find predatory homosexuals funny (Richard Griffiths seems to have cornered that market).
I just didn’t work for me. I know what scenes are supposed to be particularly funny but I didn’t funny them so. The teashop scene was an example of oafishly rude behaviour by a couple of self-absorbed arseholes. I couldn’t see why Withnail and I were friends because Withnail was a selfish cowardly bastard.
The performances were excellent with Richard E. Grant managing to make me feel a little bit sad for Withnail at the end.
I Was a Male War Bride (aka You Can’t Sleep Here)
This was too long and if some of the scenes had been trimmed it could have been perfect.
Like Mr Blandings… I didn’t find it hilarious but I did find it consistently amusing. Cary Grant was a wonderful comedian particularly when not saying anything. I loved how much Ann Sheridan appeared to be enjoying herself and her natural laughter made her character appealing despite how much Catherine bossed Henri around at the beginning which was slightly tiresome.
The location shooting added an extra dimension and probably added to the length of the film because I can’t imagine a studio-based film being so indulgent. Ironically, my favourite bit was in the studio in a back projection sequence with Henri in a side-car telling the absent Catherine how much he likes her being there.
I prefer this to Bringing Up Baby and it is infinitely better than Monkey Business.
In honour of Lindsay Lohan’s “coming out” (though I would dispute that for the past year or so she has been out – certainly out and about), I watched Freaky Friday and it was a real treat.
Jamie Lee Curtis is a lovely actress and so is Lindsay who was as endearing in this as she was in Mean Girls. This is better than the Jodie Foster version because I don’t remember that being nearly as funny as this one is. It also kept its “walk in another person’s shoes” message from being treacly particularly through some great performances from the entire cast.
My only caveat is I don’t like what Tess did to Stacey’s test.
Titan A.E.
A terrible waste of voice acting and some stunning animation. I don’t understand why the plot isn’t the most important thing for a film that can’t be improvised and so developed that way. To hear the directors talking on the commentary that they didn’t know how to plot Akima’s journey from jettison to slave ship so they didn’t bother is mind-boggling.
This is probably my favourite photograph of her. I hope there is no need to explain why.
When I was a teenager I saw every English language film Ingrid Bergman made from Intermezzo to The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (with the exception of either Rage in Heaven or Adam Had Four Sons, I can’t remember which) and I have seen the majority of the films she made thereafter.
I had never seen even a glimpse of her pre-Hollywood Swedish or German films until I found clips on YouTube. I love the Internet at times like these when the kindness of strangers results in the sharing of rare things.
I chose the second clip of Die Vier Gesellen because it shows Ingrid making sandwiches which I guess is something she loved to do. I hope it wasn’t just the cleaning she liked: This excerpt from Isabella Rossellini’s memoir, Some of Me, is hilarious
Second to acting, Mother loved cleaning, which is not to say she loved even that above me. I’m sure she loved me more than cleaning, but what made her happiest was combining the two. We cleaned together.
She was beautiful. At times breathtakingly so. She was a little gawky and she was very tall (and naturally perfect to play The Small Woman). In the clips from Die Vier Gesellen, she is considerably taller than her female co-stars which is not reflected in this programme cover:
Great play is made of her lack of make-up in her US films and her naturalness. I think the difference between tweaked and left alone is startling in the following two images from the same period:
I recognise now that I had a huge crush on her when I was a teen. She was gorgeous and charming. What’s not to crush on?
I’m not sure about her acting ability although I am hypercritical about people who I like a lot and so tend to over-analyse their performances. However, she was mesmerizing in Casablanca and Notorious and I love her “little brown babies” turn in Murder on the Orient Express (not that it was Oscar worthy!). Many of her films I have long since forgotten the detail of them. What was Saratoga Trunk about? I know I have seen For Whom the Bell Tolls but I can’t remember anything at all about it. The Bells of St Mary’s made me feel queasy, I remember that. Gaslight is a glossy version of the superior British film. Spellbound is excellent while Notorious is a top-notch gripping Hitchcock. The US films she made immediately after her Rossellini hiatus are awful. She must be the only triple Oscar to not actually deserve any of them – I mean Anastasia… She wasn’t even nominated for Notorious which is quite probably her greatest performance. She was nominated for For Whom the Bell Tolls and not for Casablanca. Wev! Oscars mean squat.
She died on her 67th birthday after suffering for many years with breast cancer. I was very upset.
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