so yeah

I'm taking a break from this.

Skip It 3/7/2010

Tobacco Road (1941)
Directed by: John Ford
Written by: Erskine Caldwell; Jack Kirkland; Nunnally Johnson
Starring: Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson, Dana Andrews, Slim Summerville, Ward Bond
A family of backwood idiots in South Carolina are evicted from their property by the bank, and do very little to help themselves. Soon the moronic son is married to the local religious zealot and they buy a car and drive around reeking havoc, crashing into almost everything and abusing the car like it's a toy. The patriarch of the family wants to get a loan from the bank so he can plant some crops again, but he's too lazy and shiftless to actually do anything. There's a bunch of weird slapstick and overacting that could put post-Scarface Pacino to shame, mixed with awful maudlin scenes of desperation. This kind of film is typical of that era in American history, where rich, 'enlightened' people gathered to laugh at those less fortunate, be it blacks, latinos or hicks, in movies filled with stereotypes and cruelty. It's a dated dud that is better off forgotten. D



Possessed (1947)
Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt
Written by: Rita Weiman; Silvia Richards + Ranald MacDougall
Starring: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges
Joan Crawford falls in love and gets rejected, so she tries to do everything she can to win the object of her affection's love. At some point someone drowns or something and Crawford winds up in a hospital, but I think there was more to it than that. To be honest I had the hardest time paying attention to this one. I typically like Joan Crawford movies, but this melodrama just seemed stagnant. Her acting is good as usual, but she'd definitely done better work than this. C



Blood Beach (1980)
Directed by: Jeffrey Bloom
Written by: Jeffrey Bloom
Starring: David Huffman, Marianna Hill, Burt Young, Otis Young, Lena Pousette, John Saxon, Darrell Fetty
'Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, you can't get to it.' The film's tagline is probably the most memorable thing about this movie. An unseen monster is sucking people under the sand of a California beach, and a bunch of cops try their best to find it and kill it. The story could have made for a good monster movie, but the execution here is abysmal. There are entire scenes that seem (badly) improvised, such as a scene were the wife of a victim spends what seems like an eternity describing to the police what her husband was wearing when he disappeared. The scene is endless, and pointless, just like the rest of the movie. F



Dick Tracy (1990)
Directed by: Warren Beatty
Written by: Chester Gould; Jack Epps Jr. + Jim Cash
Starring: Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Charlie Korsmo, Glenne Headly, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman, William Forsythe, Seymour Cassel, Charles Durning, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Sorvino, Dick Van Dyke, James Caan, Kathy Bates, Catherine O'Hara, Mary Woronov
When the various crime families are forced to consolidate, detective Dick Tracy must do his best to bring the big boss down. Also hanging around are a homeless kid who Dick takes under his wing, a nice girl who wants to marry Dick, and the bad girl lounge singer who knows more than she's letting on. The problem with this movie is the story, which fails to hold the various more successful elements together. Everything else is pretty exceptional, from the over-the-top comic book performances, colorful sets, a lively score, bizarre make-up and some original songs by composer Stephen Sondheim. But the story is pretty routine and fails to really hold everything together, and by the last half hour things get really tiresome. C+



The Forbidden Dance (1990)
Directed by: Greydon Clark
Written by: Roy Langsdon + John Platt
Starring: Laura Harring, Jeff James, Barbra Brighton, Miranda Garrison, Sid Haig, Angela Moya, Richard Lynch, Shannon Farnon
An Indian princess from the Amazon must convince a corporation to stop the destruction of her jungle, so she and a witch-doctor hop on a plane and fly to Los Angeles. Soon she's someone's maid, and she goes out dancing with her bosses spoiled lay-about son. They dance the 'forbidden dance,' aka The Lambada!, one of the most ridiculous dances I've ever seen. Soon the lay-abouts bigoted ex-girlfriend and the evil corporation's hit-man team up to get rid of the sexy dancing thorn in their sides while our hero couple prepares for a televised dance competition. This is one of those movies that has to be seen to be believed, where every scene is just so aggressively awful that you question the direction of our society as a whole. F (A+ for camp value)

See It 2/27/2010

Grand Illusion (1937)
Directed by: Jean Renoir
Written by: Jean Renoir + Charles Spaak
Starring: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Julien Carette, Georges Peclet, Werner Florian
WWI changed everything, and 'Grand Illusion' carefully reveals the eroding social structure of the early 20th Century. The classes are melting into each other, and the new world emerging is seen with both hope and reservation. The cast is well chosen and they work wonderfully as an ensemble. There are many powerful scenes in the film, so many that it would be pointless to try listing them. Nevertheless, this is a great film about the futility of war, racism, classism, and all other things that separate any human being from another. A wonderful film. A-



Pygmalion (1938)
Directed by: Anthony Asquith + Leslie Howard
Written by: George Bernard Shaw, WP Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple, Anatole de Grunwald, Kay Walsh
Starring: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr, Scott Sunderland, Jean Cadell, David Tree, Everley Gregg
Professor Henry Higgins, an upper-class intellectual snob, makes a bet with a friend that he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a crass, unrefined girl from the street into a refined, dignified lady of society. After working and training Eliza to fit in, he soon realizes that Eliza is a human being, with feelings and opinions of her own. Goerge Bernard Shaw's play is successfully adapted into a funny, touching film, featuring an absolute knock-out performance from Wendy Hiller as Eliza. The sexism that occasionally rears its ugly head could turn off today's viewer, but whatever, they'd be missing out on a really good film. B+



Ninotchka (1939)
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Written by: Melchior Lengyel, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Starring: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi, Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach
A wonderful romantic comedy starring the luminous Greta Garbo, who plays Ninotchka, a tough Soviet visiting Paris to finalize the sale of some confiscated royal jewels. She plays the role to perfection in finding nothing good with capitalism and all that it represents. The movie must have given audiences some insight into what was going on with the Soviets at that time. She eventually begins to soften a little after spending time with her co-star Melvyn Douglas, a rich playboy, who happens to fall in love with her. Things get complicated when true identities are discovered, and the former owner of the jewels tries to get them back. The story is somewhat basic but does have quite a bit of humor that brought on more than a few chuckles. B+



The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Directed by: John Ford
Written by: John Steinbeck; Nunnally Johnson
Starring: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon, Russell Simpson, O.Z. Whitehead
This powerful film chronicles the turmoil of a family traveling west to California during the Great Depression. The always excellent Henry Fonda plays Tom, just released from prison. He travels back to his family's farm only to discover they've been evicted from their land. When rumors of available work spread from the west, the family packs all their belongings to brave the unknown as they make their way cross country in their jalopy. There are countless powerful scenes and images throughout, as our heroes face starvation, homelessness, and cruelty on their journey. A



Ball Of Fire (1941)
Directed by: Howard Hawks
Written by: Billy Wilder, Thomas Monroe, Charles Brackett
Starring: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Leonid Kinskey, Richard Haydn, Aubrey Mather, Kathleen Howard, Mary Field, Dan Duryea
When a group of socially awkward professors, led by Gary Cooper, realize they need to study how 'real' people talk in order to complete their 12 year encyclopedia writing project, they end up unwittingly aiding a beautiful singer (Barbara Stanwyck) escape from the police when her gangster boyfriend gets into hot water. While laying low with the professors, everyone learns something new, and eventually she gets a marriage proposal from Cooper. Things get dangerous for everybody when her mobster boyfriend locates her. Stanwyck is great as always, but it's Gary Cooper who's the real draw here. Playing against his tough guy image, he is really good as the timid, awkward Professor Potts. B



The Naked City (1948)
Directed by: Malvin Wald
Written by: Albert Maltz + Malvin Wald
Starring: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted de Corsia, House Jameson, Anne Sargent, Adelaide Klein
Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York City and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model, is murdered in her apartment. Homicide detectives Dan Muldoon and Jimmy Halloran investigate. Suspicion falls on various shifty characters who all prove to have some connection with a string of apartment burglaries. This police procedural was groundbreaking in it's day, but often plays like a narrated episode of 'Law and Order.' Regardless, it's still a pretty interesting movie, with some great on location cinematography of a long-gone New York City of yesteryear. B



Miss Julie (1951)
Directed by: Alf Sjoberg
Written by: August Strindberg; Alf Sjoberg
Starring: Anita Bjork, Ulf Palme, Marta Dorff, Lissi Alandh, Anders Henrikson, Inga Gill, Ake Fridell, Kurt-Olof Sundstrom, Max von Sydow
When the young, wealthy Miss Julie and the married servant Jean spend the midsummer night together, they reflect on their respective pasts. They are in love but because of who they are they know they cannot possibly be together. They hatch a plan to run away together, but circumstances, and the specters of their painful histories, seem to hold them where they are. This is a very odd but incredibly moving film. Anita Bjork is fantastic as the cold, defensive Miss Julie, and the dreamlike cinematography is some of the best I've ever seen. A-


----------------
Listening to: Loretta Lynn - Snowbird
via FoxyTunes