Really good but we both favored Chaplin's Easy Street.
We also watched The Stoning of Soraya M this morning. Wow. Sometimes I wonder if I should expose my kid to some of the things I do. Powerful movie. When I saw that it shared a producer with The Passion (of The Christ) I wondered about anti Islamic motives but it was incredibly well acted, brutal yet not gratuitous and was beautiful to look at.
Boy, I hope my daughter will watch Charlie Chaplin with me when she gets a little bit older. That would be awesome.
Watched "Grizzly Man" after recording it off the TV. Timothy Treadwell had some serious issues. It's horrible and morbid and ghoulish to want to hear that audiotape, isn't it?
1. Saw "The Kids Are All Right," the Benning/Juliane Moore/Ruffalo lesbian dramedy. The good: it's a very real, occasionally quite biting and funny movie. It's impressive that they take the exotic hook of the movie (Lesbians raising a family!) and treat it like any other mundane suburban familial existence. The bad: fact is, if they weren't lesbian moms, this would be the most boring movie ever. The plot (without spoiling it, Ruffalo is the sperm donor who injects himself back into the family and screws things up) is forced, and clearly things are happening just so that there actually is a dramatic plot. It gets 3 Taguchimakers out of 5.
2. Continuing my effort to see all the movies that it's really ridiculous I haven't seen yet, I netflix'd Citizen Kane yesterday. Sadly, I already knew what Rosebud was. I guess it's like Darth Vader being Luke's father: Everyone in America already knows. But that aside, I now understand why the movie is a touchstone of American cinema, and I now get about 100 more Simpsons references. The art deco sets are amazing, the staging and scope are amazing, there are some camera shots (particularly in the opera scenes) that are amazing, and it's the classic American bombastic story of the 20th century. Everything about this movie is an icon. I also now understand someone's sig file of an old guy in black and white looking stern and clapping really hard. 5 Taguchimakers out of 5.
Watched "Psycho" for the first time in decades. What a great movie. You could have a field day talking up the subtleties, camera shots, and creepy effects that Hitchcock employed. Yeah there's the famous shower scene. But I noticed more during this viewing the camera work on Bates/Perkins - while he's shown as sort of wholesome on the surface, with the odd camera angles you could subliminally see something off-kilter.
I want to say Anthony Perkin's performance was superb - but I wonder how much he was told by Hitch to just act like a normal young gent, and Hitch would work his magic to make him a villian.
If I were to have one small complaint - it would be
the end where the pyschologist gives the post-mortem and analysis on Bates. It was a bit too much like the end of a Scooby Doo episode, anti-climactic. I guess they felt it necessary to explain it all, with 1960 audiences not trained to recgonize a psychotic. Over the top for Hitchcock. However the final scene with Bates in the room redeems it.
heyzeus wrote::
2. Citizen Kane yesterday. .
Its been a long enough time since I've seen this to give it a fresh look too. I better watch it before it gets bumped from th DVR by Lil Freedette.
Freed Roger wrote:Watched "Psycho" for the first time in decades. What a great movie. You could have a field day talking up the subtleties, camera shots, and creepy effects that Hitchcock employed. Yeah there's the famous shower scene. But I noticed more during this viewing the camera work on Bates/Perkins - while he's shown as sort of wholesome on the surface, with the odd camera angles you could subliminally see something off-kilter.
I want to say Anthony Perkin's performance was superb - but I wonder how much he was told by Hitch to just act like a normal young gent, and Hitch would work his magic to make him a villian.
If I were to have one small complaint - it would be
the end where the pyschologist gives the post-mortem and analysis on Bates. It was a bit too much like the end of a Scooby Doo episode, anti-climactic. I guess they felt it necessary to explain it all, with 1960 audiences not trained to recgonize a psychotic. Over the top for Hitchcock. However the final scene with Bates in the room redeems it.
I went a couple decades without re-watching this one, having originally chalked it up as one of Hitchcock's more famous but lesser efforts, but found, upon re-watching, that it was completely enjoyable even though I knew exactly what was going to happen. Great to look at and, of course, the music is mesmerizing. And, to me, the "cleanup scene" has always been the most haunting in the film.
I've often wondered about the long-winded summation, and how much of it was really necessary. I know when I originally watched it, about 35 years ago, I thought the mother was really alive throughout most of the movie. I'm not sure if I would have been confused without the final scene.
Freed Roger wrote:Watched "Psycho" for the first time in decades. What a great movie. You could have a field day talking up the subtleties, camera shots, and creepy effects that Hitchcock employed. Yeah there's the famous shower scene. But I noticed more during this viewing the camera work on Bates/Perkins - while he's shown as sort of wholesome on the surface, with the odd camera angles you could subliminally see something off-kilter.
I want to say Anthony Perkin's performance was superb - but I wonder how much he was told by Hitch to just act like a normal young gent, and Hitch would work his magic to make him a villian.
If I were to have one small complaint - it would be
the end where the pyschologist gives the post-mortem and analysis on Bates. It was a bit too much like the end of a Scooby Doo episode, anti-climactic. I guess they felt it necessary to explain it all, with 1960 audiences not trained to recgonize a psychotic. Over the top for Hitchcock. However the final scene with Bates in the room redeems it.
I went a couple decades without re-watching this one, having originally chalked it up as one of Hitchcock's more famous but lesser efforts, but found, upon re-watching, that it was completely enjoyable even though I knew exactly what was going to happen. Great to look at and, of course, the music is mesmerizing. And, to me, the "cleanup scene" has always been the most haunting in the film.
I've often wondered about the long-winded summation, and how much of it was really necessary. I know when I originally watched it, about 35 years ago, I thought the mother was really alive throughout most of the movie. I'm not sure if I would have been confused without the final scene.
I was the same way about thinking the mother was alive. My complaint is small - however I think if Hitch re-did it in more modern times the summation probably could be cut a lot shorter - the scene in the cellar pretty much showed Norman was the mother. But again - I wasn't sure and didn't mind some summation too much the first time.
Besides the famous shot in Pyscho, a few I admired were:
The trunk with Marion (Janet Leigh) in it - the dread you felt just seeing the closed trunk. And when the detective announces he recgonizes Marion's handwriting in the guest log, Hitch shows an odd upward angle shot of Bates slowly leaning over to look at it. Somehow it gave me the feeling that this guy must be crazy.
Of course -when Bates gets stabs the detective - that is a classic with the detective doing this backwards flailing descent. Same effect used in Vertigo.
After watching Psycho - am ready for a refresher viewing of "the Birds"
Over the weekend I saw "Up in the Air" and loved it. It hit so many of the right buttons. All the little business travel details and locations were spot on.
Also on Sunday I watched "Red Rock West". IMO the whole movie was a letdown; everything was predictable and cheesy.
