2013-04-30

Mike's Movie Goals For 2013 - May Update

End of April update.
Just like every year, I get very excited about the 1000 Greatest Films list in the first months trying to complete it and advance my way into its lenghty blind spots of my cinephile knowledge.
With Roger Ebert's recent passing and my recent reading of his Great Movies books, I made myself a promise to view all those films he listed in those referencial guides to the film lovers. I also want to watch every film from his yearly top tens since he became a film critic 1967-2013. Beginning with In the Heat of the Night, his number 10 for his first year as a film critic.

First, I made a list of films I’ll likely try to tackle down while trying to get rid of my list of Pantheon Directors at the same time. The Pantheon Directors list stands as the foundation of every film enthusiast and or film critics’ theories and views on the cinema. It is quite arbitrary since American author theorist Andrew Sarris first released it in 1968. Anyhow, I still think it holds the road pretty well.


2013-04-29

The Barefoot Contessa

The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954)
Starring Ava Gardner as the contessa and Humphrey Bogart as the has been movie director, this story was known as based on Rita Hayworth’s life but as some Film historian recalled it is more probably based on Anne Chevalier’s (actress of F.W. Murnau’s Tabu). The Barefoot Contessa recalls the story of a sex symbol who got the Hollywood fame but wasn’t satisfied with it until she met a man with whom she felt deeply in love.

2013-04-26

There’s Always Tomorrow

There’s Always Tomorrow (Douglas Sirk, 1956)
Of the many aspects of the films of Douglas Sirk’s that define his signature there’s obviously the colourful visuals, his use of few means, melodramas, plot lines scratching just enough the boundaries of moral conservatism in the American society, and deep symbolism in his mise en scène.

2013-04-24

STOKED : The Rise and Fall of Gator

STOKED : The Rise and Fall of Gator (Helen Stickler, 2002)
Following Dogtown and Z-Boys, this other documentary about the subculture of skateboarding reveals one of its darkest sides. The rise of Mark « Gator » Rogowsky as one of the most well paid Vert skater of his time; the 1980’s. And then, its fall into depression, huge egomaniacal, and inviction for rape and murder at the first degree.

2013-04-23

Dogtown and Z-Boys

Dogtown and Z-Boys (Stacy Peralta, 2001)
Just as a bunch of The Beach Boys songs reminds us, California and surfing is the real thing. The History of skateboarding has everything to owe to surfing and its invention is in most part due to a derived product from the wave riding movement. In California a bunch of kids wanted to be the next champions of surfing but had to compensate for the lack of waves in their area with another standing sideways item. It was natural that they go to the four wheeled wood planks to fulfill their needs of sensations.

2013-04-22

Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956)
Put aside Georges MélièsA Trip to the Moon and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Forbidden Planet is hands down the most influential Sci-Fi film of all-time. Depicting for the first time human beings travelling in space in a vehicule they built and visiting a planet other than the Planet Earth. Staring Anne Francis, a very young Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, Warren Stevens, and Robby the Robot.

2013-04-19

Le Trou

Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960)
Introduced by one of the five men who tried to escape the prison Paix la Santé in France. This is the last film of director Jacques Becker, who died shortly after finishing the filming, Le Trou, is an excellent suspense film that however reminded of Grand Illusion, Becker was assistant director for Jean Renoir, and Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped. It is probably as entertaining as both movies but not as deep and masterful in meaning as neither of them. It is, indeed, a great movie but not a masterpiece as both titles aforementioned apply.

2013-04-18

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, 2000)
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen and directed by the latter, it is stated in the openning of the film that O Brother, Where Art Thou? is based on Homer’s Odyssey and titled just like the movie Joel McCrea’s character in Preston SturgesSullivan’s Travels works on while traveling as a hobo in the movie. The Coens have a grand admiration towards the director of some of the best comedies of the 1940’s and it is a great homage to make this movie that was never directed and that carries Sturges’ spirit. Some scenes are direct connections to the original film of 1941 especially the scene in the movie theatre.

2013-04-16

Imitation of Life (1959)

Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
A woman, Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), has lost her daughter (Susie) while away at Coney Island for a day of leisure. In the meanwhile, a nice woman (Juanita Moore as Annie) took care of her along with her own daughter, Sarah-Jane. When Turner finds her daughter with Annie, she accepts to take the mother and child in their apartment. Annie, a black woman with a white child, becomes in the same time Lora’s maid and helps her raise Susie while she struggles to get into show-business and follow her ambitions. It is a story at first about a woman who’s ambitions leaded her to success but also to neglect her family and potential lover. It is also about how coloured people had to suffer in America in the 1950’s, it is unbelievable to actually witness intolerance and how director Douglas Sirk actually criticizes racism. The film can even be split in two halves because the second half is mostly about Annie and Sarah-Jane and the first half about Lora, Susie, and Steve (John Gavin).

2013-04-11

In The Heat of the Night

In The Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)
In a small town of Mississippi named Sparta and during a normal night, a policeman Sam Wood (Warren Oates) finds the body of the richest man in town dead and in blood. His head seems to have been smashed by an object. Passing by the same night is the homicide agent Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) from Philadelphia. At first, people of the place make the easiest link between the stranger in town and the murder. Especially since Tibbs is a black man, Gillepsie (Rod Steiger) the county sheriff gets all his suspicions on him. However, he soon discovers that Tibbs is a police officer and that he could be his best help to resolve the crime.

2013-04-09

The Travelling Players

The Travelling Players (Theodoros Angelopoulos, 1975)
A group of theater actors are traveling in Greece to try to perform the erotic tale of Golfo. With this 230 minutes film Theodoros Angelopoulos, who was a film critic in Greece for a socialist journal,  directs his third feature film that tries to summarize in episodic vignettes some of the most important moments of the History of Greece in the 20th Century. The rise of the Nazis, the Occupation, the presence of the Englishmen, the rise of the leftist governement, etc. It is a very political movie that wants to be a representation of a particualr time. Much like Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, Angelopoulos’ film doesn’t have a distinct narrative and the almost documentary feeling of the whole thing brings a genuine historical angle to the events pictured.

2013-04-08

Gilda

Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)
Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is an American gambler who just arrived in Argentina to have a new life. After a succesful dice game a mysterious man, named Ballin Mundson (George Macready) saves his life and Johnny says that it is his rebirth. They quickly became partners in Ballin’s gambling house and they share a friendship that may flirt towards a couple. After a trip that Ballin takes he comes back with a beautiful and sexy wife called Gilda (Rita Hayworth). It is more than clear that at the first gaze of each other, Gilda and Johnny, they are sharing a troubled past together. But they keep it quiet to hide it from Ballin and not loose his trust towards both of them.

2013-04-05

Sátántangó

Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)
In a rural Hungary of post-communism of the 1990’s, a group of farmers decides to free themselves and get their annual salary together to get to a more profitable farm. Leaded by the messianic figure of Irimiás (Mihály Vig who also composed the eerie but transcendental score) along with his collaborator Petrina (Putyi Horváth) the comic relief of the charming that is Irimias and his kind words the group will let their entire salary to the leader to get to a place where they will be their own bosses. Just like Lenny’s farm in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the group will blindly believe the wise mouthed con artist. The other characters are many couples, the Schmidts (László Lugossy and Éva Almássy Albert), the Kraners (János Derzsi and Irén Szajki), the Halics (Alfréd Járai and Erzsébet Gaál), Futaki (Miklós Székely B.), and the hermit doctor (Peter Berling).

2013-04-04

RIP Roger Ebert


Words are missing me to say how much respect and admiration I had towards Ebert. An inspiration and a Great Film Critic.

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