thrill wrote:I watched Blood Simple, Double Indemnity and Body Heat this past weekend. I was in a noiry mood.
how was body heat?
Let me first say that I liked it a lot. My biggest critique was that it was really derivative from Billy Wilder movies, specifically Double Indemnity. Not just stylistically, but plot points too. I doubt I would have noticed it, but I watched it right after Double Indemnity, so it was really fresh on my mind. Unfortunate timing, but it was a great movie. William Hurt was great, Mickey Rourke has a small role but is great and Kathleen Turner is hot.
As an homage to noir and Billy Wilder, it is excellent and if you watch it on it's own, it's a great movie.
umm.. pretty sure i have to watch this immediately.. i've been on a noir mission
lately and must add this one to my list
The Orphanage is streaming on Netflix. I know it has been discussed here before. There has been a glut of horror/dark suspense-thrillers in the last several years, most of which involve an attractive lady and a small child.
I was actually able to buy into this one. Scary movies hardly ever affect me at all other than of course the startling, but this one was definitely spooky, and it gripped me. The movie gets a little shaky down the stretch, but manages to hold it together. Definitely worth a watch. This isn't a genre I visit often, simply because I don't like it a whole lot, but this was a scary/fun experience.
I say watch it with a date, she'll grab your arm for sure... and you know where that leads...
watched the first (or one of the first) mainstream movies to show boobies last night..
"promises, promises" is your typical old black and white movie with a slapsticky husband
and wife story line.. only the super hot blonde (jayne mansfield) has her boobies hanging
out all over the place the entire movie.. it was really weird to see after watching a million
old movies and never seeing even a bra or a short skirt..
ghostrunner wrote:I just watched Seconds (1966) with Rock Hudson - awesome!
I don't get why John Frankenheimer isn't more recognized. The camera work in his films is unlike anything else from American films at that time. There might be some precedent in European films of that era, but he definitely had his own style. Darren Aronofsky has ripped a couple things off this movie. There's a big use of the "attached" camera effect in this one - where the camera seems to follow exactly how the character moves and the rest of the world moves around them. Spike Lee uses it a lot, and I'm pretty sure it's in "Requiem for a Dream."
Plot-wise it's kind of like an extended Twilight Zone. The main character is a dissatisfied suburbanite who goes to a shady company that fakes his death and gives him a new face and name. Some of the visuals are a little too heavy handed - maybe this is where Aronofsky got it from. There's an interesting scene with a bunch of mid 1960's hippies having a Bacchanlia-style party/orgy. Much more nudity than you'll find in other movies of the time. That and a number of other scenes carry on too long, and the end is agonizing. But there's some nice quieter moments, particularly when he goes back to see his old house.
Also - the company is owned by a creepy old man played by Will Geer, who does a fantastic job. Much of the acting in the rest of the film is over the top, but he's very understated and it's a more modern style performance. I read up on Geer and he's an interesting fella. A gay, or maybe bisexual, communist radical who was blacklisted in the 50's. He also played - wait for it - Grandpa Walton.
Watched "Seconds" last night. Good movie - your review is accurate. The camera work was really unique - especially during that beatnik party/orgy - watching it you feel like your heading into a mildly hallucinogenic state.
Definite elements of Twighlight Zone. The makers of "Mad Men" series surely have watched this movie in their research.
Speaking of Twighlight Zone - I caught a few episodes online that I've never seen. One with Lee Marvin (mancrush?) - I believe called "The Grave." Marvin's also in another great episode "Steel" where his robot boxer breaks down before a fight, so he enters the ring against a robot to collect the paycheck.
ghostrunner wrote:I just watched Seconds (1966) with Rock Hudson - awesome!
I don't get why John Frankenheimer isn't more recognized. The camera work in his films is unlike anything else from American films at that time. There might be some precedent in European films of that era, but he definitely had his own style. Darren Aronofsky has ripped a couple things off this movie. There's a big use of the "attached" camera effect in this one - where the camera seems to follow exactly how the character moves and the rest of the world moves around them. Spike Lee uses it a lot, and I'm pretty sure it's in "Requiem for a Dream."
Plot-wise it's kind of like an extended Twilight Zone. The main character is a dissatisfied suburbanite who goes to a shady company that fakes his death and gives him a new face and name. Some of the visuals are a little too heavy handed - maybe this is where Aronofsky got it from. There's an interesting scene with a bunch of mid 1960's hippies having a Bacchanlia-style party/orgy. Much more nudity than you'll find in other movies of the time. That and a number of other scenes carry on too long, and the end is agonizing. But there's some nice quieter moments, particularly when he goes back to see his old house.
Also - the company is owned by a creepy old man played by Will Geer, who does a fantastic job. Much of the acting in the rest of the film is over the top, but he's very understated and it's a more modern style performance. I read up on Geer and he's an interesting fella. A gay, or maybe bisexual, communist radical who was blacklisted in the 50's. He also played - wait for it - Grandpa Walton.
Watched "Seconds" last night. Good movie - your review is accurate. The camera work was really unique - especially during that beatnik party/orgy - watching it you feel like your heading into a mildly hallucinogenic state.
Definite elements of Twighlight Zone. The makers of "Mad Men" series surely have watched this movie in their research.
Speaking of Twighlight Zone - I caught a few episodes online that I've never seen. One with Lee Marvin (mancrush?) - I believe called "The Grave." Marvin's also in another great episode "Steel" where his robot boxer breaks down before a fight, so he enters the ring against a robot to collect the paycheck.
if you guys liked "seconds".. you should watch teshigahara's "the face of another"
Freed Roger wrote:Sign that I'm heading toward movie snob-dom? - can't find a single movie in a Redbox that I'd subject myself to.
Recently went to one that had no copy of Vicki Cristi Barcelona, Doubt, Flash of Genius, Changeling. Many copies of Big Momma 8.
Heading towards? 8 is the seminal work in the series.
About Seconds, this is interesting if true (from Wikipedia):
Brian Wilson and Seconds
Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson saw the movie during its initial release, between sessions for Smile. Under the influence of drugs, the early stages of schizophrenia, and pressure to complete Smile, Wilson found Seconds an especially intense experience, that affected him personally (beginning with his arriving late; the first dialogue he heard onscreen was "Come in, Mr. Wilson", taking him by surprise). His state of mind shifted over the next months, between fantasies of escaping his own life in a similar way, and thoughts that perhaps rival producer Phil Spector had somehow convinced Columbia Pictures (sic) to make the movie "to mess with my mind". Wilson later abandoned the Smile sessions, and did not see another movie in a theater until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. His experience was later recounted in The Beach Boys by Byron Preiss, Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! by Domenic Priore, and Wilson's own Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story (written with Todd Gold).
