Well… On The Waterfront was majestic. The performances superb and my 16 year old son has finally found an object of his affection in Marlon Brando. Gushing is a word I’d use. It was a great starter for our DAF main course. Special mention to Rod Steiger who’s performance lives longest in the memory. Less showy than Brandos, though now Sean is researching Brando posters furiously for his bedroom wall.
My youngest son Benson had this to say about DAF… "This is really funny Sean Connery is better than even Daniel Craig at James Bond
Praise indeed from an 11 year old.
The oppulence of every scene drips from the big screen. It was like post dinner Christmas, all the presents had been opened and everywhere is decorated and crucially everybody is stuffed. It’s ripe and just about to decay but not quite. Surely a mirror of the 70s itself. The visual gags work better on the big screen as does the framing of the fight scenes. Jill St John radiates on the big screen in a way I hadn’t paid attention to on the small screen before. But Connery, wow, he strides across the screen with a presence that pops out of the screen, was there ever an actor more comfortable with themselves and their body? Maybe Cary Grant. Maybe. What Connery does is invite the audience in on the joke ( he does it more literally in NSNA and in Wrong is Right ) but here the balance is better, he’s parodying his own earlier Bond performances whilst simultaneously being the dangerous panther he always was.
( Moore managed parody but never danger ) he is saying to the audience I don’t believe any of this shit, but hey isn’t it a blast so strap yourselves in I’m going to make this ride go very fast.
Full disclosure I’m off to see it again on Thursday afternoon.
24 Hours to Live
B-movie with a great cast: Ethan Hawke, Liam Cunningham, Paul Anderson and always fun to watch and sadly missed-Rutger Hauer (all those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain). Recommended for action-fans
Nightmare Alley
I did not really get Guillermo del Toro so far.
Sure, I saw the great set design, the intelligent camera moves, the love for genre mixed with current topics.
But I did not really get his movies. It all seemed to me too gimmicky, too much homage, too much “fanboy cinema”.
Sorry, Mr. del Toro. It was me. I was wrong.
And after watching “Nightmare Alley” I am looking at your films completely differently.
Really, “Nightmare Alley” made me understand del Toro´s approach for the first time completely, and I was surprised how tightly and yet never rushed the narrative of this 2 1/2 hour film unfolds. Everything comes together perfectly, culminating in a most devastating closeup of Bradley Cooper.
What a great film, sadly completely underrated. A genre movie which really is about our times, the age of con men and their destructive behavior. Definitely one of the best films del Toro ever made and one of the best films of last year.
But isn’t Nightmare Alley notably a change in style?
The original is superb too
I would say his filmmaking style was close to „The Shape of Water“ and „Crimson Peak“ - but the subject matter was what some critics call „more mature“.
I don’t know the original, unfortunately. And I have to rewatch the previous del Toros to say something that is more than a spontaneous impression.
Curiously, I‘m rediscovering Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson currently, too. I don’t know why I turned away from those, too, in the last years. But now I am a total fan again.
If you have any desire to read the book, I highly suggest doing so. Not the most cheerful thing you can read, but worth it.
The 1947 version is very good but suffered from the fact that due to the censors they just couldn’t film so many aspects of the story. They were even forced to tack a “happy” ending on it. It had always been a favorite of mine, though, but damnit if this new version hasn’t ruined it for me. (It’s on YouTube… just saying…)
The author William Lindsay Gresham was in and of himself a walking noir story. There’s too much to post here but the man ended his life by checking into the hotel where he wrote Nightmare Alley, signed in under the name Pete Krumbien (a character in the story), and swallowed a bunch of pills.
Another interesting note about Gresham - if you’ve seen the movie “Shadowlands” with Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger was playing a woman who was running from her alcoholic husband… William Lindsay Gresham.
Wow. Thanks for the insight!
Boss Level
Funny Groundhog Day-version for grown ups with a cool Frank Grillo and Mel Gibson. So even a bored Mel Gibson would have been a great Bond villain it seems…
Let us hope he doesn’t come across images from THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. He can be disillusioned later.
Such a wise child. Obviously, superior parenting played a significant role.
I think that captures perfectly DAF’s charm. It is assuredly a film of its moment.
For me, this is the film where he first manifests completely the Connery screen presence. As Guy Hamilton said “You don’t tell Sean Connery how to play James Bond” (a valuable asset in an actor for a director not known for his ability with actors).
Exactly. This is why I refer to his performance in DAF as Connery Bond 2–related to, but not an extension of, his previous five performances.
I hope you have/had a wonderful time.
Just finished, absolutely magnificent. Definitely steering him away from late Brando. It’ll scar him from love for life hahaha. My wife got him a great poster from the Wild One, so Sean is happy. She was laughing though as Brando was her fancy at that age too so she had him on her wall. Full circle so to speak. Great statement about Hamilton, he was a dreadful director of actors, which makes Connerys performance even better.
Ace in the hole
A Billy Wilder movie classic I had not seen before. And what a magnificent and relevant one this still is - with Kirk Douglas having no fear coming across as utterly self-serving bigmouth reporter who capitalizes on one man’s struggle to stay alive, delaying his rescue from a mining accident. Exposing people and the media as vultures ignorant of human suffering, just getting their kicks of an event they turn into a carnival for their own pleasure.
Wonderful.
The Sweet Smell of Success
Another classic I had not seen before - and another fantastic movie, this one starring Tony Curtis as a desperate PR agent and Burt Lancaster as a newspaper columnist whose malignant narcisism makes people dependent on his good will to further their careers or break them forever.
Alexander Mackendrick directs with a perfect eye for New York City at night atmosphere and brings out the best of his actors. A bitter but absolutely realistic film about people selling their soul for personal advancement. Timeless, unfortunately.
Death on the Nile (2022)
I have said it before: I am a total Kenneth Branagh fan, and after loving his “Murder on the Orient Express” I was afraid I would be disappointed by his “Death on the Nile”, after reading all the bad reviews.
Rubbish. This is a great movie, magnificent entertainment. And Branagh once again proves how elegantly fluid he establishes a place and how seemingly effortlessly he can draw fabulous performances. And this one even goes further into the Poirot character, establishing his basic trauma as a piercing through line for the thematic core of this murder case.
With Branagh now (finally) an Oscar winner, could EON please acknowledge that they should give one of the greatest living directors of the Commonwealth an invitation to direct a Bond film?
“I’ve seen hard-boiled eggs before, but you’re twenty minutes.”
When told it might be good to be seen praying for her husband’s successful rescue, his wife responds: “Kneeling bags my nylons.”
The Sweet Smell of Success
Neither actor was ever better (though Lancaster matched it several times).
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). It was more funny than I remember. And heartwarming. Robin Williams is truly missed. A childhood favorite. It may have been my first PG-13 movie I saw beginning to end, fun fact.
Licorice Pizza
Leave it to Paul Thomas Anderson to make the most involving romance in years, and this between two very different people, most unlikely to fall in love with each other. The film is also extremely funny, honest, surprising and relaxed - and it takes you back to those adolescent summer days when everything seemed possible. Fantastic.
I really liked Death on the Nile as well. It didn’t get much love from the critics, some of whom took issue with the backstory on his moustache, which I quite enjoyed.
Had the same thoughts about Branagh directing a Bond movie…even posed the question to my wife during the Oscar broadcast. I liked his take on Thor (again, in the minority here), and I think he would be a very interesting and possibly great director for 007!
Westside Story by Steven Spielberg - a really balanced and well done remake for our time, it does misses Natalie Wood for me, the other side the movie is really good and works with a more faithful cast. Am truly positively surprised with a remake of one of my favourite movies ever.
Death on the Nile - What a beautiful made movie by Branagh, he really gives Egypt a really beautiful role in the movie, some of the backstory of Poirot is actually quite brilliantly done and does add to the story, the use of music is quite impressive, the Soundtrack really sets a mood and the sung music true to the era the movie is set in is quite good. This movie is a step up from the Orient express, and I am looking forward to the third movie which is green lit.
American Underdog (2021)
Zachary Levi, Anna Paquin
Dir. Andrew & Jon Erwin
American Underdog is the story of one of my favorite NFL players, former Rams and Cardinals’ quarterback Kurt Warner. Going by the film’s trailers as well as the rather hokey title, I went into it expecting something on the level of a Hallmark film or something of a similarly low quality. While there are moments in the film where it begins to flirt with that kind of filmmaking, American Underdog ended up being an enjoyable watch. Zachary Levi shows his dramatic chops here and his natural charisma is enough to carry things forward, but Anna Paquin really steals the show here as Warner’s wife Brenda. Also surprising for this kind of film is that the football part of the film is actually somewhat decent as well. The action scenes in sports movies, and in football movies in particular, are almost always painfully bad. While they’re not great, they are far better than what the trailers would lead you to believe. All-in-all, American Underdog is an enjoyable watch that exceeds the admittedly low expectations that I had for it.
Saw it in the theater. Also thought it was quite good. They did right by Kurt I think. Big Zach Levi fan, but agree Anna Paquin was the highlight.
Pig
One of the best movies I have seen in the last years. Definitely award worthy. Did not get anything.
Nicolas Cage - yes - proves once again what a great and horribly underrated actor he is. Sure, he made many movies in the last decade to pay off debts, but he remains an incredibly gifted actor with a wide range.
This drama is going against every expectation one brings to it. And it really is a deeply moving portrayal of people who try to mask their pain and their mistakes.
What a powerful experience this film is.
Absolutely recommended.