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FANTASTIC BEASTS - CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD
2018
Second division harry Potter with eddie redmayne continuing to shuffle n mumble and look down at his shoes. With his case of peculiar creatures, he heads to paris to stop a rogue wizard (a bloated johnny depp).
7.5 out of 10
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Posted: |
Aug 18, 2019 - 8:07 AM
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By: |
Tall Guy
(Member)
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Cul-de-sac 7.8/10
Pitch black comedy drama written and directed by Roman Polanski and starring a pre-Blofeld Donald Pleasence as George, a hapless new husband struggling with the vagaries of coping with his younger French wife (Francoise Dorleac) who’s already found a shrimping and groping partner in the shape of a young local lad. They live in a windswept castle on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the Northumbrian coast which is actually a place I’ve loved for over 45 years. She puts make up on her husband and dresses him up as a girl, adding to his sense of emasculation but he loves her and will put up with it rather than push her away. Their fragile but playful relationship is further tested when two crooks arrive following a failed and unspecified job in which one has been badly injured. Lionel Stander is the surviving bad guy, and joyfully he says “moider” on more than one occasion.
The trio’s bizarre posturing is disturbed by a visit from some of George’s old friends and their family, including Jackie Bisset and Bill Franklyn, where Richard (Stander) absurdly poses as a gardener/butler. Matters escalate and George has to decide whether, how and when to assert himself. But can he, when the chips are really down?
A very enjoyable study of human behaviour under stress, enhanced by the familiar location. And Lindisfarne Mead, featured a couple of times, is delicious in small doses.
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WIND RIVER
6/10
CAROL
9/10
Watched this again because I wanted to see it on a big screen _60 inches.
One of the best films of the decade!
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The Trouble With Harry (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955) 7/10
Delightful, if somewhat uneven black comedy by Alfred Hitchcock about a bunch of oddball small town residents who stumble upon the dead body of Harry Worp on a nearby hillside, most of whom think they might be in some way responsible for his demise and therefore want the body to disappear without any unnecessary trouble.
I say uneven because some of it is really funny (as when Shirley MacClane's character mentions almost in passing that the dead body up on the hill is her husband), but some of it feels really contrived even for an oddball comedy (such as the passing millionaire, who just happens not only buy all the pictures of one of the resident painters, but seems to willfully raise the price of those he buys). Still, gorgeously photographed (I saw this now in HD on a big screen TV, and the movie looks terrific!), and I for one enjoyed the quirky characters and the offbeat humor. Delightful Bernard Herrmann score, perhaps his only straightforward comedy.
This has been the second time I saw the movie, the first time was some time in the 1980s when it was re-released after a long, Hitchcock estate imposed hiatus.
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Aquaman.
2018
Very, very silly with lots of swirly water and lights. As usual, endless fighting where nobody dies or gets hurt but the poor old buildings take a hammering. But wait, it got sillier. They even had a drum-playing octopus at atlantis. And 1 of the kings in the underwater worlds looked like jim carrey in The Mask. Oh, and in the middle of it, he finds his mum in a hidden jurassic park. And aquaman is an underwater doctor doolittle too - yes, hes a fish whisperer! And the despicable evil brother intent on world domination suddenly became a weeping mummy's boy.
Even as a kids film it was dreadful garbage. 
4 out of 10.
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Posted: |
Aug 24, 2019 - 12:00 AM
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By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
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Frenzy (1972) ... 4/10
There's a lot to appreciate in this, Hitchcock's penultimate film ... but much to dislike too. It holds a special memory for me as I recall watching it the evening I got engaged! I can't recall if it was a TV broadcast or hired video but I do recall I didn't like the film and it's taken me nearly 36 years to try a second viewing - despite owning it, on DVD, for almost a third of this time.
I can imagine this film being controversial at the time but now it looks so dated ... trouble is, it seems to represent a time which is at least ten years before its setting. I'm not too taken with the script but accept that the film is more about the characters and the iconic setting rather than the typical Hitchcock plot-line of the wrongly accused innocent man. Here, our hero does virtually nothing to clear his name until the final sequence (easily the weakest sequence of the film) and there's no tension ... we know that the police have already realised their mistake.
And it is the concentration on the characters which results in my low rating: I'm not a fan of either Jon Finch (who plays a dislikeable young man garnering no sympathy) or Barry (Van der Valk) Foster. The latter appeared to be playing Michael Caine and seemed miscast. I see from IMDb trivia that Caine turned the role down and that David Hemmings was considered for the role of Blaney ... I think he would have been far better.
As much as I like Alec McCowen ... he played Alec McCowen (as a 1950's detective supported by his long-in-the-tooth sergeant ... another typical role for Michael Bates). Bernard Cribbins played against type (and i struggled with this).
Where the film excels in its cast is the two leading ladies: Barbara Leigh-Hunt and, especially, Anna Massey each of whom carried their roles well and were a pleasure to watch. Whilst the passing of the second allowed us a long scene of black humour it also marked a down-turn in the film's audience enjoyment.
It's well-known that Ron Goodwin replaced Henry Mancini and his score is very good, though sparse, with some delightful English music a la Eric Coates.
I won't bother watching this one again.
Mitch
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"... Mr Musicmad...you're not wearing your tie..." 
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MusicMAD gives Hitchcock's BEST film 4 out of 10?
" It's madness. MADNESS!"
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MusicMAD gives Hitchcock's BEST film 4 out of 10?
" It's musicmadness. MusicMADNESS!"
Ha ha 
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Posted: |
Aug 24, 2019 - 5:51 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE DUKE IS TOPS (1938) - 6/10
Lena Horne made her feature film debut in this all-Black picture from Black-owned Million Dollar Productions. She plays a songstress in a vaudeville show produced by her boyfriend, "Duke Davis" (Ralph Cooper). A New York booking agent offers to make her a star in the Big Apple, but has no use for her producer-boyfriend. She's reluctant to accept the offer, so Cooper engineers a break-up so that she has nothing tying her down. Horne goes off to New York, while Cooper winds up having to support himself by working as a barker for a traveling medicine show. The whole middle of the film focuses on how Cooper brings some showmanship into the medicine show's pitch, and raises it to a new level of success. Meanwhile, we see little of second-billed Horne until we learn that her New York debut has been a bust.
As might be expected, this was a cheaply produced film. Horne sings two songs in the picture, and at age 21 proves that she was no actress and was still learning her craft as a singer. Still, the picture is worth seeing as a curiosity for Horne's developing talent, and for a number of Black specialty acts (The Basin Street Boys; Rubber Neck Holmes) that appear in the film.
Lena Horne had her film breakthrough five years later co-starring with Ethel Waters and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson in Vincente Minnelli's CABIN IN THE SKY. Soon thereafter, she was loaned out by MGM to star in Fox's STORMY WEATHER. Her popularity in these two all-Black productions prompted Toddy Pictures to re-release THE DUKE IS TOPS. The film was re-titled THE BRONZE VENUS, and Lena Horne had her name above the title in the film's ads.
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Posted: |
Aug 24, 2019 - 9:42 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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Brokeback Mountain: 9 out of 10
It is hard for me to believe that this movie is 14 years old. I watched it at the theater and have seen it at various time on cable TV, and it still holds up as a profound, well-made movie.
I remember being astonished when I first read Annie Proulx’s novella. What a brilliant piece of literature. Her story captured the perfect time, place and job. It takes place in 1963 which was the cusp of the civil rights and women’s rights movements, but gay rights really hadn’t emerged with any force. Hence, these two lovers suffered great guilt, denial, and discrimination. Her setting was conservative Montana, not some liberal large city. The two men were cowboys, one of the most macho jobs. I loved her two main symbols. The tire iron was symbolic of intolerance, and the two intertwined shirts represented the intense and authentic love of the two star-crossed lovers.
I was surprised when I read Ang Lee would make the movie, and it is a wonderful movie. Gyllenhaal and Ledger were great actors in this movie, and the movie still seems relevant after 14 years. I knocked off one point because I thought the film score for this movie was very weak. In my opinion, the pathos and tragedy of this film deserved a stronger, more heart-felt score.
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