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Twisters
(2024)
3.5/5
This was a guilty pleasure for me. Living in Missouri, which is part of "Tornado Alley" and having an interest in Meteorology, I enjoyed this film.
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Twisters
(2024)
3.5/5
This was a guilty pleasure for me. Living in Missouri, which is part of "Tornado Alley" and having an interest in Meteorology, I enjoyed this film.
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Some more arrivals from Amazon through the mail... and one brand-new 4K release from Kino Lorber pre-ordered through the good folks at Barnes & Noble. 
Man of the West (Anthony Mann / 1958)
The Forgotten Pistolero (Ferdinando Baldi / 1969)
The Unholy Four (Enzo Barboni / 1970)
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee / 2005)
Man of the West was one of Anthony Mann's later Westerns, this one starring Gary Cooper. It's really quite a gritty and at times unsettling film. Gary Cooper, in one of his later roles, plays a mysterious reformed gunfighter named Link Jones, who is traveling aboard a train to the town of Good Hope, to make an important delivery. He meets with an extremely talkative gambler named Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell) and a saloon singer named Billie Ellis (actress and singer Julie London, of Cry Me a River fame). Then the train gets held up and hijacked by a group of outlaws, and as it turns out, Link used to actually be one of them. Left behind after the gang takes over the train, the three passengers make their way on foot and eventually make it to a hideout used by the gang and their leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb), a zestfully sadistic old man who welcomes Link back into the fold. But the other gang members aren't nearly as trusting as Dock, and they take both Sam and Billie prisoner. Link, however, is merely pretending to get back into old man Dock's good graces because when the gang hijacked the train they also stole a bag of money which he intends to be used by the citizens of Good Hope, and Link fully intends to reclaim that money, bring his old gang to justice for their crimes and redeem his tarnished reputation. But he also has to protect Sam and Billie from the other gang members, who definitely have ill intent on their minds with regard to Billie. At one horribly tense early moment, one gang member presses a knife to Link's throat in order to persuade Billie to strip for them.
The acting is quite brilliant all around, and Cooper is certainly as stolid as ever, reliable pro that he is. But the real jewel in this movie's crown is Lee J. Cobb's performance as the man who has become one of my favorite Western villains ever. No lie! Whether it's nostalgically reminiscing nostalgically about the past bloody deeds in his criminal past or gleefully cackling at the prospect of one more big score knocking off the bank in the nearby town of Lassoo, the character of Dock Tobin is one seriously deranged and dangerous yet damaged piece of work, and the great Lee J. Cobb simply knocks it out of the park. Seriously, he's downright Shakespearian! (It's no secret that Anthony Mann was a big fan of the Bard's King Lear.) Now, supposedly Dock is Link's uncle and an evil mentor figure who taught him everything he knew in the ways of criminality - which he eventually grew up out of - but the funny thing is, Gary Cooper was actually ten years Lee J. Cobb's senior. Cooper was actually born in 1901, and Cobb in 1911. But you would never know it from the performances they deliver, Cooper somehow looking eternally youthful and Cobb looking every bit the demonic old buzzard.
The Forgotten Pistolero and The Unholy Four are two Italian Westerns co-starring Leonard Mann and Peter Martell, both movies released on a single DVD by the company Wild East in 2007. The first one is especially classy, supposedly being an adaptation of the Greek myth of Orestes. I actually found out about it through two books about Westerns written by British writer Howard Hughes, Stagecoach to Tombstone: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Westerns and Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers' Guide to Spaghetti Westerns. Both books feature a series of Top Ten lists by several prominent writers and critics, including Sergio Leone biographer Sir Christopher Frayling and filmmaker Alex Cox. And The Forgotten Pistolero made both lists of Tom Betts from the Westerns All'Italiana blog, so it's not just one of his favorite Spaghetti Westerns, but one of his favorite Westerns period! So I felt compelled to check this film out, and I've got to say it's pretty good. I don't know that it's necessarily one of the all-time greatest, but I very much understand Betts' enthusiasm. And like I said, there's another movie on the same DVD, The Unholy Four, which also features Mann and Martell as two of the leads, but this time they're joined by Helmuth Schneider and none other than the great Woody Freakin' Strode!! The four actors portray four inmates who escape from prison in Dodge City after a group of bank robbers tries to burn it down. One of these inmates is an amnesia case who can't remember his own name, but suspects that the answer to his questions lies in the nearby town of Oaxaca.
Quite honestly, I don't know what I could possibly say about Brokeback Mountain that hasn't been said before many times over by people more articulate than I, so I won't say much. Suffice to say, the movie is a deeply emotionally involving and poetic cinematic masterpiece directed without so much as a single misstep by Ang Lee. This is a movie about thwarted love, pure and simple, regardless of the gender or the sexuality or the gender of the characters, and the movie has no agenda whatsoever beyond telling the plain and brutal truth of it. Not only Ang Lee is performing at a career-best peak here, but so are the actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway. As it so happens, I have a very close relative in the hospital right now recovering from brain surgery after having some tumors removed, so watching this movie really strikes a sad chord for me right now (but in a good and gratifying way). The brand spanking new 4K UHD version is simply gorgeous, and deserves to be part of any serious film viewer's collection.
Man of the West (Anthony Mann / 1958)
The Forgotten Pistolero (Ferdinando Baldi / 1969)
The Unholy Four (Enzo Barboni / 1970)
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee / 2005)
Man of the West was one of Anthony Mann's later Westerns, this one starring Gary Cooper. It's really quite a gritty and at times unsettling film. Gary Cooper, in one of his later roles, plays a mysterious reformed gunfighter named Link Jones, who is traveling aboard a train to the town of Good Hope, to make an important delivery. He meets with an extremely talkative gambler named Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell) and a saloon singer named Billie Ellis (actress and singer Julie London, of Cry Me a River fame). Then the train gets held up and hijacked by a group of outlaws, and as it turns out, Link used to actually be one of them. Left behind after the gang takes over the train, the three passengers make their way on foot and eventually make it to a hideout used by the gang and their leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb), a zestfully sadistic old man who welcomes Link back into the fold. But the other gang members aren't nearly as trusting as Dock, and they take both Sam and Billie prisoner. Link, however, is merely pretending to get back into old man Dock's good graces because when the gang hijacked the train they also stole a bag of money which he intends to be used by the citizens of Good Hope, and Link fully intends to reclaim that money, bring his old gang to justice for their crimes and redeem his tarnished reputation. But he also has to protect Sam and Billie from the other gang members, who definitely have ill intent on their minds with regard to Billie. At one horribly tense early moment, one gang member presses a knife to Link's throat in order to persuade Billie to strip for them.
The acting is quite brilliant all around, and Cooper is certainly as stolid as ever, reliable pro that he is. But the real jewel in this movie's crown is Lee J. Cobb's performance as the man who has become one of my favorite Western villains ever. No lie! Whether it's nostalgically reminiscing nostalgically about the past bloody deeds in his criminal past or gleefully cackling at the prospect of one more big score knocking off the bank in the nearby town of Lassoo, the character of Dock Tobin is one seriously deranged and dangerous yet damaged piece of work, and the great Lee J. Cobb simply knocks it out of the park. Seriously, he's downright Shakespearian! (It's no secret that Anthony Mann was a big fan of the Bard's King Lear.) Now, supposedly Dock is Link's uncle and an evil mentor figure who taught him everything he knew in the ways of criminality - which he eventually grew up out of - but the funny thing is, Gary Cooper was actually ten years Lee J. Cobb's senior. Cooper was actually born in 1901, and Cobb in 1911. But you would never know it from the performances they deliver, Cooper somehow looking eternally youthful and Cobb looking every bit the demonic old buzzard.
The Forgotten Pistolero and The Unholy Four are two Italian Westerns co-starring Leonard Mann and Peter Martell, both movies released on a single DVD by the company Wild East in 2007. The first one is especially classy, supposedly being an adaptation of the Greek myth of Orestes. I actually found out about it through two books about Westerns written by British writer Howard Hughes, Stagecoach to Tombstone: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Westerns and Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers' Guide to Spaghetti Westerns. Both books feature a series of Top Ten lists by several prominent writers and critics, including Sergio Leone biographer Sir Christopher Frayling and filmmaker Alex Cox. And The Forgotten Pistolero made both lists of Tom Betts from the Westerns All'Italiana blog, so it's not just one of his favorite Spaghetti Westerns, but one of his favorite Westerns period! So I felt compelled to check this film out, and I've got to say it's pretty good. I don't know that it's necessarily one of the all-time greatest, but I very much understand Betts' enthusiasm. And like I said, there's another movie on the same DVD, The Unholy Four, which also features Mann and Martell as two of the leads, but this time they're joined by Helmuth Schneider and none other than the great Woody Freakin' Strode!!
The four actors portray four inmates who escape from prison in Dodge City after a group of bank robbers tries to burn it down. One of these inmates is an amnesia case who can't remember his own name, but suspects that the answer to his questions lies in the nearby town of Oaxaca.Quite honestly, I don't know what I could possibly say about Brokeback Mountain that hasn't been said before many times over by people more articulate than I, so I won't say much. Suffice to say, the movie is a deeply emotionally involving and poetic cinematic masterpiece directed without so much as a single misstep by Ang Lee. This is a movie about thwarted love, pure and simple, regardless of the gender or the sexuality or the gender of the characters, and the movie has no agenda whatsoever beyond telling the plain and brutal truth of it. Not only Ang Lee is performing at a career-best peak here, but so are the actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway. As it so happens, I have a very close relative in the hospital right now recovering from brain surgery after having some tumors removed, so watching this movie really strikes a sad chord for me right now (but in a good and gratifying way). The brand spanking new 4K UHD version is simply gorgeous, and deserves to be part of any serious film viewer's collection.
__________________
"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)
"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)
Last edited by Darth Pazuzu; 07-24-24 at 06:38 PM.
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[Cat on a Hot Tin Roof] 3rd Rewatch...The story has been cleaned up a bit for general consumption, but director Richard Brooks, and stars Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Burl Ives deliver the goods in this steamy film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play that chronicles the problems of the Pollitt family, which includes Newman as Brick, the alcoholic former football player depressed about the death of his friend Skipper, his wife Maggie (Taylor), the voluptuous vixen who can't get her husband to touch er while trying to encourage him to suck up to his father (Ives) for the family fortune when the possibility comes up that Big Daddy might be dying. There's also a terrific supporting performance from Jack Carson, who I have never enjoyed more as Brick's older brother Gooper, but this is Taylor and Newman's show all the way. This film should have won Newman his first Oscar and Taylor matches him note for note, in a powerhouse performance that she managed to turn in at the same her third husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash This is my #2 Taylor performance behind Virginia Woolf. and I am of the opinion that Taylor never looked as breathtaking than she did in this film and that's saying a lot.
All told it was an enjoyable adaption of T. William's '55 play. He wrote some pretty twisted stories.
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COMMANDO
(1985, Lester)
(1985, Lester)
Commando is probably one of the prime examples of this, featuring Schwarzenegger at the top of his game, doing pretty much just that. He plays John Matrix, a former Special Forces colonel who sets out to rescue his daughter (Alyssa Milano) who was kidnapped to force him to assassinate a South American political leader. Despite these stakes, I don't think there's any doubt in anybody that watches this as to who will walk away victorious.
This is one of those films I used to see often when I was a kid. Growing up in the 80s, I caught the brunt of that action film wave. However, it had been probably 25-30 years since I had last seen it, and it is probably that lack of stakes that had kept it at a distance for me. I mean, it is fun and laughable to see Arnold plow his way through an endless army of thugs with bad aim, as bodies fall left and right of him, but it is not necessarily something that sticks with me.
Grade:
Full review on my Movie Loot
The Guest 2014
I'm just gonna start by giving you the final line of this movie which sums up the latter half for me "what the ****!"
I mean you kinda know where this is going to go but when it goes there it goes big bold and brutal!
Slick directing and superb casting and acting from everyone involved.
5//5
I'm just gonna start by giving you the final line of this movie which sums up the latter half for me "what the ****!"
I mean you kinda know where this is going to go but when it goes there it goes big bold and brutal!
Slick directing and superb casting and acting from everyone involved.
5//5
The Conformist (1970)
Film centered on a mid-level facist lackey who neither believes or disbelieves his reasoning for being such. The direction by Bertolucci is first class and the performance by Jean-Louis Trintignant is impeccable. The set pieces are great and the allusions to mental illness via syphilis of Marcello well depicted. Breaking it down you have to ask, what would you have done in the main protagonist's position and that's the key to the film. He is a cold and calculating individual, shown especially in his romantic forays. This is shot really first class with tremendous scenery. Also had me laughing at bits where I was not sure I should be. The taxi ride was hilarious and underplayed. Rewarding experience.
Film centered on a mid-level facist lackey who neither believes or disbelieves his reasoning for being such. The direction by Bertolucci is first class and the performance by Jean-Louis Trintignant is impeccable. The set pieces are great and the allusions to mental illness via syphilis of Marcello well depicted. Breaking it down you have to ask, what would you have done in the main protagonist's position and that's the key to the film. He is a cold and calculating individual, shown especially in his romantic forays. This is shot really first class with tremendous scenery. Also had me laughing at bits where I was not sure I should be. The taxi ride was hilarious and underplayed. Rewarding experience.
By https://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/no...m/TheNews.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34273437
Stalker - (1979)
Off to the movies last night to see Stalker on the big screen with a good friend of mine - I was particularly interested in not wasting this opportunity. He said something interesting as we were leaving afterwards - that watching the three main characters in the film traverse the zone was like watching children at play, because the various rules and fantastical but very cerebral occurrences have that same imagination-based inventiveness about them. Stalker is the kind of film you really have to listen carefully to, because the viewer really has to invest energy into completing that atmosphere of strangeness that would otherwise be absent - making the everyday visuals consisting of abandoned and decaying factories and houses suddenly seem otherworldly. It was only my second time seeing it, but reflecting back on the impression it made on me last night has me thinking it's the work of a great thinker and cinematic master at his peak - Andrei Tarkovsky was really something. I've yet to see Ivan's Childhood, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice.
10/10
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Latest Review : Past Lives (2023)
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A cappella / Mubansô (Hitoshi Yazaki, 2016)
A patient coming of age from the late 60s in Japan, of a girl about to end her high school years while engaging in the strong political activity of that era, having a complicated relationship with her family and meeting her first true love. There are a lot of factors put together and like any good slice of life narrative, it takes a bit of this and a bit of that to elaborate a portrayal of drifting youth that is engaging in the journey and absolutely mesmerizing in the endpoint; uneasy and melancholic, but also rich and meaningful as a story of personal growth.
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By https://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/no...m/TheNews.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34273437
Stalker - (1979)
Off to the movies last night to see Stalker on the big screen with a good friend of mine - I was particularly interested in not wasting this opportunity. He said something interesting as we were leaving afterwards - that watching the three main characters in the film traverse the zone was like watching children at play, because the various rules and fantastical but very cerebral occurrences have that same imagination-based inventiveness about them. Stalker is the kind of film you really have to listen carefully to, because the viewer really has to invest energy into completing that atmosphere of strangeness that would otherwise be absent - making the everyday visuals consisting of abandoned and decaying factories and houses suddenly seem otherworldly. It was only my second time seeing it, but reflecting back on the impression it made on me last night has me thinking it's the work of a great thinker and cinematic master at his peak - Andrei Tarkovsky was really something. I've yet to see Ivan's Childhood, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice.
10/10
HUNTER HUNTER
(2020, Linden)
(2020, Linden)
"Without its pack, a lone wolf won't go for its usual prey. It'll go for the old, the young, the sick, dead."
That is one of the many lessons that hunter and fur trapper Joseph (Devon Sawa) tries to pass on to his daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell). The two live with their wife and mother Anne (Camille Sullivan) in a remote cabin with just the bare necessities. But when the threat of a lone wolf arises, they have to find ways to survive which also brings up buried tensions between the couple.
Hunter Hunter lives mostly on the atmosphere of dread it manages to build around its main characters. It has its spurts of thrills here and there, but for the most part, it's just the uneasiness it transmits what gets to you. Just like the family is on edge, waiting for the worst, we are on edge wondering when the "lone wolf" will attack.
Grade:
Full review on my Movie Loot
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North by Northwest (1959)
I'll give it a 9.25
Haha. I've watched the first half of this movie goodness knows how many times, and always given up on it because it's so ridiculous.
Well last night I finally finished it. I'm glad I did, because whilst it doesn't get all that much less ridiculous, it's actually quite thrilling by the end, but most of all it is visually gorgeous. Some just stunning pictures from Hitchcock, which Antonioni would have been genuinely proud of.
For me it went from an over hyped nonsense to a must see.
I'll give it a 9.25
Haha. I've watched the first half of this movie goodness knows how many times, and always given up on it because it's so ridiculous.
Well last night I finally finished it. I'm glad I did, because whilst it doesn't get all that much less ridiculous, it's actually quite thrilling by the end, but most of all it is visually gorgeous. Some just stunning pictures from Hitchcock, which Antonioni would have been genuinely proud of.
For me it went from an over hyped nonsense to a must see.
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This film was a great piece of hokum. Just the right mixture of menace and clownery that makes you unsure if it's a piss take or serious. I really enjoyed it and took me back to the days of OTT movies like Stephen King adaptations. Dan Stevens is great in it.
Yes! it was fantastic, such a treat, he is so enigmatic in it and devilishly handsome too, had me wondering why he isn't more of a bigger star today. I never thought it was a piss take, I just didnt expect it to pop off as much as it did.
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North by Northwest (1959)
I'll give it a 9.25
Haha. I've watched the first half of this movie goodness knows how many times, and always given up on it because it's so ridiculous.
Well last night I finally finished it. I'm glad I did, because whilst it doesn't get all that much less ridiculous, it's actually quite thrilling by the end, but most of all it is visually gorgeous. Some just stunning pictures from Hitchcock, which Antonioni would have been genuinely proud of.
For me it went from an over hyped nonsense to a must see.
I'll give it a 9.25
Haha. I've watched the first half of this movie goodness knows how many times, and always given up on it because it's so ridiculous.
Well last night I finally finished it. I'm glad I did, because whilst it doesn't get all that much less ridiculous, it's actually quite thrilling by the end, but most of all it is visually gorgeous. Some just stunning pictures from Hitchcock, which Antonioni would have been genuinely proud of.
For me it went from an over hyped nonsense to a must see.
I saw it couple of years ago and agree with the outstanding visuals very much. Loved Grant and Mason (and Martin Launda!) in it.
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In the Name of the Father (1993)... took a while to get going but when it did, poof... Powerful story and DDL (my avatar) and Pete Postlethwaite were heartbreaking. Should be a mandatory Fathers Day viewing or something. 8/10
It was a stunning film when it came out in '58-- both important artistically and very adult. Everyone loved it, and I was mystified why Brick continuously repelled the sexual advances of is wife, Maggie "the cat", who was drop..dead..gorgeous. When I got older, I understood better, but I think Newman's part was just a tad overwritten and overacted. But he admitted that he overacted in The Hustler as well, but it's one of my favorite films.
All told it was an enjoyable adaption of T. William's '55 play. He wrote some pretty twisted stories.
All told it was an enjoyable adaption of T. William's '55 play. He wrote some pretty twisted stories.
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Kneecap
I knew absolutely nothing about the Belfast-based hip-hop trio before watching Kneecap, and while I'm no hip-hop fan, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The band members apparently play themselves, with Michael Fassbender along in a supporting role.
It's hard to think of another recent musical "origin story" as fascinating and disarming as this one, written and directed by Rich Peppiatt in his feature directing debut.
Be aware that much of the movie is in Irish (with English subtitles) and even the parts that are in English have some pretty think Irish accents, so you may want to watch this with a captioning device if you watch it in a theater.
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
(1997, Benigni)
(1997, Benigni)
"I don't like Visigoths. Starting tomorrow we'll write: 'No spiders and Visigoths allowed'. I'm sick and tired of these Visigoths."
Directed and co-written by Benigni, Life is Beautiful follows the relationship between Guido and Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. The film is clearly divided in two parts. The first one in 1939 when Guido and Dora meet and fall in love, plays more or less like a traditional romantic comedy. There's your "meet cute", the flirting and courting, an "evil" boyfriend to "defeat", and ultimately a "happy ending".
The second half, though, is a serious war drama. Set in 1944 as the Nazi occupation of Italy takes place, we see Guido and Dora, now a married couple, being forced into a concentration camp along with their young son. As the parents are split, and Giosué is trying to figure out what's going on, Guido makes an effort to convince him that everything is just a game in order to protect him from the horrors around them.
Grade:
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