Cinema Paradiso - a celebration of movies

#26

A movie that's not rated very highly but stuck with me is The Black Cat with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. It's very dark.

#27

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 7:35 am A movie that's not rated very highly but stuck with me is The Black Cat with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. It's very dark.

Cheers for the recommendation, not seen that yet, added to the list.

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#28

Grumpy Git wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 7:26 am Finally caught up with Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - loved it!

We read the screenplay for Fiddler aloud (and, yes, we sort of acted out the parts at least vocally) in my 7th grade class, then took an evening field trip to go see it together. It's still one of my favorite movies. That was probably my first introduction to the racism against the Jews (and, to a great extent, racism in general), so it really stuck with me. There's so little of my childhood I remember, but Fiddler is one part I do, quite clearly.

#29

Hubby and I have quoted Fiddler many times. He does a great Topol imitation of "If I were a rich man." We also like " Do you love me?" It works well after a disagreement. We modify lyrics as needed.

#30

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 9:52 am Hubby and I have quoted Fiddler many times. He does a great Topol imitation of "If I were a rich man." We also like " Do you love me?" It works well after a disagreement. We modify lyrics as needed.

Do You Love Me is indeed a fun song, both Norma Crane and Topol are superb throughout the film.

#31

Enjoyed a first watch of The Lord Eagle (2018) on the film streaming service Klassiki.

In 1930’s Yakutia, in Russia’s north-eastern Siberian forests, an old couple are visited by an eagle.

Has it been sent by God to bless or punish them?
A lovely-looking film with much to admire.

Trailer

#32

This film is on YouTube, well worth a look if war films are your cup of tea.

Familiar faces include Ricardo Montalbán, James Arness, Richard Jaeckel, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore and Van Johnson.

John Thomas8 · #33

John Thomas8 · #34

I have been in the revenge business so long....

#35

Bloody love Terry Gilliam, I've watched 9 of his 13 films so far, enjoyed Jabberwocky (1977) recently, even his few films that don't totally succeed show more imagination than many painting-by-numbers directors.

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#36

Latest film viewing, cast includes Shelley Winters, Hal Halbrook, Richard Pryor and Ed Begley.

It's on YouTube, if you fancy a groovy, far-out yarn.

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#37

Had a bit of a horror/sci-fi binge over the weekend.

Enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin (2023), an entertaining variation on the home invasion theme, in which a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a sacrifice to avert the apocalypse.

Men (2022, Amazon Prime), a young woman retreats to the English countryside, following the death of her abusive ex-husband. However the getaway turns into a bigger nightmare, culminating in a full-on body horror finale that you'll either love or loathe. I loved it!

If you're a fan of previous incarnations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Assimilate (2019, Amazon Prime) is worth a look. Basically it's a young adult version of the familiar tale, but it has much to commend and delivers enough genuine chills and thrills to satisfy.

Thoroughly enjoyed Cosmos (2019), a no-budget tale of 3 amateur astronomers who intercept a radio signal of seemingly impossible origin. A slow burner but I was totally fascinated by the hardware on display & writer/directors @ELLandZAND give the film an impressive visual style.

#38

For me, good suggestions.

#39

#40

Trailer

Enjoyed Ága (2018) on @Klassiki_Online, a fascinating & moving tale of an isolated Inuit couple trying to live a traditional life in the Russian northern hemisphere. The cinematography captures some beautiful landscapes, along with the warmth of daily life inside their yurt.

#41

For any admirers of South American cinema

I've always been intrigued by South American political films about life under dictatorships in the 70s & 80s. Now add the tense Pinochet era drama 1976 (2022, Chile, BFI Player) featuring an excellent central performance from Aline Küppenheim.

#42

https://www.openculture.com/2023/06/how ... hetic.html

How Wes Anderson Uses Miniatures to Create His Aesthetic: A Primer from His Model Maker & Prop Painter

If you haven’t yet seen Wes Anderson’s new movie Asteroid City, I recommend doing so not just in the theater, but in a seat as close to the screen as you can handle. You’ll feel more enveloped by the desert landscapes (the Spanish desert, standing in for Arizona), but you’ll also be better placed to appreciate the detail of all the miniatures that fill it. Over his past two and a half decades of feature films, Anderson’s signature aesthetic has become ever more Andersonian. This has many aspects, one of them being an intensive use of models: real, physical models, as opposed to digital visuals created entirely by computer. In the new Vox video above, model maker and prop painter Simon Weisse, veteran also of Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch, explains the how and the why behind it

Asteroid City opens with a train crossing a vast, parched expanse, passing alongside (or through) the occasional rock formation. Any viewer would assume the train is a miniature, though not every viewer would immediately think — as revealed in this video’s behind-the-scenes shots — that the same is true of the rocks.

In both cases, the “miniatures” are only so miniature: the relatively large scale offers a canvas for an abundance of painted detail, which as Weisse explains goes a long way to making them believable onscreen. And even if they don’t quite look “real,” per se, they conjure up a reality of their own, an increasingly central task of Anderson’s cinematic project, in a way that pure CGI — which once seemed to have displaced the art of miniatures entirely — so often fails to do.

The video quotes Anderson as saying that audiences pick up on artificiality in all its forms, whether digital or physical; the filmmaker must commit to his own artificiality, accepting its shortcomings and exploiting its strengths. “The particular brand of artificiality that I like to use is an old-fashioned one,” he adds (but needs not, given his undisputed reputation as the auteur of the retro). Christopher Nolan, a director of the same generation who has an entirely different sensibility from Anderson, also goes in for large, detailed miniatures: mostly buildings that blow up, it seems, but his choices still show an understanding of the kind of physicality that even the most advanced digital effects have never replicated. If he’s seen the alien spaceship that descends on Asteroid City (the mention of which no longer seems to count as a spoiler), he must have felt at least a touch of envy.

#43

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opened in UK cinemas yesterday, I went and saw it on a local IMAX screen.

Watched the new Mission: Impossible film yesterday, and as in previous films there's a macguffin, but this time it's AI related. The action set pieces are great, the final act is outstanding, but the repetitive AI chat could have been trimmed. Part 2 needs to be leaner & pacier.

#44

My weekend film binge.

First watch of Wanda (1970), starring, written & directed by Barbara Loden, about a disillusioned woman who abandons her family, drifts from place to place, and ends up on the road with a petty criminal. A fascinating and impressive piece of downbeat American independent cinema.

Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) is a remarkable piece of French New Wave cinema from Agnès Varda, about a young singer awaiting the results of a medical test, who discovers there's more to life than her vain, self-obsessions. Delightful camerawork on the streets & in the parks of Paris.

One of my comfort films is War Games, which I revisited again last night. Fond memories of first watching it in 1983 on a huge screen in London, it's still a hugely entertaining movie, with a great cast clearly having a lot of fun in their roles.

Finally caught up with Charade (1963), Stanley Donen's stylish comedy thriller, once described as "the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made". It boasts an excellent cast and does indeed serve up an entertaining blend of laughs & thrills. The finale is particularly exciting.

#45

Yeah, Charade was on one of the local channels here yesterday.

Took me a while to remember whodunit.

#46

keith wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 6:13 am Yeah, Charade was on one of the local channels here yesterday.

Took me a while to remember whodunit.

As so often, my guess was totally wrong.

#47

Watched Dial M for Murder yesterday on TCM. One of my favorite classics.

There's another Ray Milland movie called The Uninvited, which I love, but I've had the darnedest time finding it. Ray Milland is not the villain in that one.

#48

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 11:49 am Watched Dial M for Murder yesterday on TCM. One of my favorite classics.

In the UK in the 80s, 3D was back in fashion, so I saw a few classic films that got re-released at the cinema, such as The Creature From The Black Lagoon, House of Wax and best of all, Dial M For Murder, which, being a Hitchcock fan already, I particularly adored.

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#49

Saw Oppenheimer in my nearest IMAX cinema this morning, outstanding!

Just out after viewing #Oppenheimer. I'm an emotional wreck but also buzzing with delight! Finally we get an intelligent, mature film for grown-ups, with scientific wonder, espionage intrigue & political drama all In one. Superb ensemble acting & production. Nolan's pinnacle.

#50

Cillian Murphy who portrays Oppenheimer has been one of my favorite actors since I saw him in "Intermission" twenty years ago. I have enjoyed watching his career path.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332658/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332658/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Fogbow