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More recent viewings, again mostly from the library:
PARIS TEXAS (1986) 8/10
Personally not fond of the ending of this, even if it makes sense and might happen in real life. Harry Dean Stanton's role seems tailor-made. I read a couple of contemporary reviews that praised the "naturalistic" performance of Hunter Carson, but I'm not really sure he was performing, per se. If you've seen him in the other movie he mad in '86, Tobe Hooper's INVADERS FROM MARS, you realize that he's just not much of an actor at all, but rather a kid playing himself, something that works well in PARIS, TEXAS, but obviously didn't peg him for a long acting career.
HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST AND REBEL (2009) 8/10
Bordeline hagiography that doesn't dig too deeply into the man's personal peccadilloes, but offers an expansive—if familiar to some pop culture junkies—study of the many ways in which he changed sexual attitudes for the better (or, according to the feminist authors interviewed, for the worse).
DARK VICTORY (1939) 8/10
Bette Davis at her melodramatic best.
ENIGMA (2001) 6/10
Ed labelled this both ridiculous and sublime. I'd add dull. This thing nearly put me to sleep several times, something I wouldn't have expected a movie with such a fascinating premise to do. And from further reading afterwards, it became apparent that Enigma takes almost as many liberties with the true-life source as U-571, and leaves out Alan Turing, a key figure in the whole affair who met a rather sad fate. Perhaps there's a decent documentary on the subject out there . . .
AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003) 9/10
GODSPELL (1973) 7/10
I'm no Bible guy, but I thought this musical was a generally clever way to present the material, and having the cast dress and behave rather like pie-eyed children was apt. The music—less so the lyrics—was pretty catchy, too.
HAIR (1979) 6/10
Less impressed with this other ode to the 60's, which clearly came about 10 years too late and brought along a bit too much hindsight that couldn't possibly have been present in the stage version in the late 60's.
WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) 8/10
Beautifully Flash-animated political documentary about events leading up to a massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon at the hands of a Christian militia as payback for the assassination of beloved Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel in 1982, while Israeli forces—nominally in charge of the militia—seemingly turned a blind eye. If it wasn't for the fact that my fellow graphic designer at work is a Lebanese guy who lived there through the period depicted in this film and has occasionally talked about the war, I would've had no grounding. As it was, I still had to pause several times to get my bearings by doing some reading online. A powerful film, not without controversy, I'm sure, but one that benefits from a little (or maybe a lot of) foreknowledge.
CHOP SHOP (2007) 9/10
Director Ramin Bahrani appeared on my radar for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I signed out his 2008 drama GOODBYE SOLO. This one's even better, an almost documentary-like exploration of the hardscrabble existence of a 12-year-old orphan Latino boy who works in a bustling auto body shop amid bustling acres of similar businesses in an area called the Iron Triangle near Queens, New York, and his efforts to provide a better life for himself and his older sister, who's secretly turning tricks after hours. Virtually all of the actors in this were either first-timers or actual denizens of the Iron Triangle, and such is Bahrani's skill with these people, and his excruciating attention to realism and detail (as seen on screen and reinforced in the commentary), that you soon forget you're watching a pre-written story unfold. Seems like most of his cast have gone back into obscurity for now, but IMDB lists Bahrani's next picture as a much more star-laden vehicle.
LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING (1955) 8/10
Sensitive treatment about what was then undoubtedly a touchy topic—mixed-race relationships and adultery—especially in Hong Kong, where it's set and where exteriors for the film were shot. It has the expected Hollywood glaze, and Jennifer Jones wasn't exactly half-Chinese (but then who of marquee value was at that time?), but it plays fair by all of the characters - no egregious stereotypes that I could see. Author Han Suyin (real name Rosalie Chow) reportedly never saw the film (at least while it was playing in Singapore, where she lived at the time), and only sold the rights to her autobiographical novel to pay for a badly-needed operation for her adopted Chinese daughter.
PRETTY IN PINK (1986) 7/10
My other 1986 Harry Dean Stanton movie for this month.
I've seen most of the famed John Hughes 80's movies now (most of them only recently, sadly), and while I recall avoiding them like the plague back then (even though I was firmly a member of the demographic they were marketed to), I've yet to watch one I
didn't find at least modest enjoyment in.
THE BOX (2009) 7/10
Despite it being a critical and box-office dog, I actually liked this a bit more than Richard Kelly's cult piece DONNIE DARKO, possibly because he's working here from a script by TWILIGHT ZONE mainstay Richard Matheson, who apparently previously adapted the story into an episode of the 80's ZONE revival. Kelly expands on the material, and expectedly injects his trademark quirkiness here and there, but largely plays it straight, maybe even a bit too straight. Kelly has a knack for generating real tension and strong visuals (and often outre ideas), and I'm curious to see what he would do if he married his unique style to a stronger screenplay that the ones on display in his first three features.
THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND (2002) 8/10
Fascinating and frustrating documentary about the radical lefty "revolutionary" movement that grew out of Students for a Democratic Society in the U.S. in 1969. I knew a bit about this group going in, and have long believed they did more harm than good to both their own cause and the causes of others they came into contact with (a stance I believe is widely held), but to listen to the now grown-up would-be commies—most of them comfortably ensconced in the "terrible" society they once dreamed of overthrowing—trying to puzzle out what went wrong and admitting only mild regrets about their activities is galling. The filmmakers play fair, though, and aren't seen to condone or decry the group's antics (except in the DVD special features, surprisingly!).
SHANGHAI GHETTO (2002) 7/10
Plain Jane documentary about 10,000 Jews who escaped the holocaust in Europe during World War II by resettling in . . . Shanghai (no thanks to unfair immigration policies of the U.S., Canada and Britain at the time). The film is basically a collection of videotaped interviews with several seniors who were there as children and teens, the collective largely cut off from dire news back home. Life in Shanghai wasn't a picnic, but the subjects freely admit that the Chinese—then under Japanese oppression—had it even worse, though outside of one Chinese historian, the deeper relationship between the two cultures isn't explored very deeply. Their interviews are intercut with personal photos and stock footage, though much of the latter isn't directly from the settlement, but rather public-domain wartime clips you've probably seen a million times before.
HELL'S ANGELS (1930) 8/10
Wow! I'd read about this one over the past couple of decades in various film books I have, but never got a chance to see it until now. Shot as a silent by Howard Hughes—and an epic one at that—then largely re-shot (!) as a talkie once the latter became the norm during its long, very expensive production. The story even by 1930 pre-code standards must've been familiar stuff: two rowdy ace pilots (Ben Lyon, James Hall) falling for the same trashy woman (a fairly awkward Jean Harlow in her first starring role — one can't help but wonder if her stage name was deliberately chosen because it sounded like "harlot" with a French accent!). But the flying sequences are positively jaw-dropping, and frankly better choreographed and shot than similar sequences in countless films made years (and decades!) afterward. Hughes (and whomever helped design the aerial battles) make sure you never lose your geographical bearings during these lengthy sequences, and those are the real stars flying the plane and even standing up in the cockpit at regular intervals! There's also a protracted, explosive battle between a zeppelin and a squadron of fighter planes that surely must have pushed the art of miniatures to all new extremes. Apparently Hughes put unused aerial footage from this film to use in two others, and sold even more of it to other productions. This film really deserves the Criterion treatment; the Universal DVD is criminally barebones.
O LUCKY MAN! (1983) 8/10
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986) 6/10
Nicholas Cage will make or break this film for you.
KAMIKAZE GIRLS (2004; Japan) 8/10
Better than I thought it would be, what with the singularly twee looking "Lolita" girl that has haunted me on the DVD sleeve of this since the day it was first released.
WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (2010) 8/10
A searing indictment of the U.S. education system that posits "charter schools" (themselves not without their critics) and the quality of education they've been proven to offer as one possible solution, as well as the introduction of merit-based pay and the abolition of teachers' unions in the public system. Obviously, unions and teachers who love them didn't like this movie. The film follows a handful of lower-class kids as they pin their dreams on being accepted to charter schools, a process
JINDABYNE (2006; Australian) 8/10
DUEL IN THE SUN (1946) 6/10
Definitely deserves its reputation as a handsome turkey. Another Jennifer Jones mixed-race romancer (see LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING) above, and producer David O. Selznick's misguided attempted to out-do GONE WITH THE WIND, but the final product is so overheated it generates more amusement than amazement.
THE LADYKILLERS (1955) 8/10
BLACK SWAN (2010) 8/10
PARIS TEXAS (1986) 8/10
Personally not fond of the ending of this, even if it makes sense and might happen in real life. Harry Dean Stanton's role seems tailor-made. I read a couple of contemporary reviews that praised the "naturalistic" performance of Hunter Carson, but I'm not really sure he was performing, per se. If you've seen him in the other movie he mad in '86, Tobe Hooper's INVADERS FROM MARS, you realize that he's just not much of an actor at all, but rather a kid playing himself, something that works well in PARIS, TEXAS, but obviously didn't peg him for a long acting career.
HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST AND REBEL (2009) 8/10
Bordeline hagiography that doesn't dig too deeply into the man's personal peccadilloes, but offers an expansive—if familiar to some pop culture junkies—study of the many ways in which he changed sexual attitudes for the better (or, according to the feminist authors interviewed, for the worse).
DARK VICTORY (1939) 8/10
Bette Davis at her melodramatic best.
ENIGMA (2001) 6/10
Ed labelled this both ridiculous and sublime. I'd add dull. This thing nearly put me to sleep several times, something I wouldn't have expected a movie with such a fascinating premise to do. And from further reading afterwards, it became apparent that Enigma takes almost as many liberties with the true-life source as U-571, and leaves out Alan Turing, a key figure in the whole affair who met a rather sad fate. Perhaps there's a decent documentary on the subject out there . . .
AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003) 9/10
GODSPELL (1973) 7/10
I'm no Bible guy, but I thought this musical was a generally clever way to present the material, and having the cast dress and behave rather like pie-eyed children was apt. The music—less so the lyrics—was pretty catchy, too.
HAIR (1979) 6/10
Less impressed with this other ode to the 60's, which clearly came about 10 years too late and brought along a bit too much hindsight that couldn't possibly have been present in the stage version in the late 60's.
WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) 8/10
Beautifully Flash-animated political documentary about events leading up to a massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon at the hands of a Christian militia as payback for the assassination of beloved Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel in 1982, while Israeli forces—nominally in charge of the militia—seemingly turned a blind eye. If it wasn't for the fact that my fellow graphic designer at work is a Lebanese guy who lived there through the period depicted in this film and has occasionally talked about the war, I would've had no grounding. As it was, I still had to pause several times to get my bearings by doing some reading online. A powerful film, not without controversy, I'm sure, but one that benefits from a little (or maybe a lot of) foreknowledge.
CHOP SHOP (2007) 9/10
Director Ramin Bahrani appeared on my radar for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I signed out his 2008 drama GOODBYE SOLO. This one's even better, an almost documentary-like exploration of the hardscrabble existence of a 12-year-old orphan Latino boy who works in a bustling auto body shop amid bustling acres of similar businesses in an area called the Iron Triangle near Queens, New York, and his efforts to provide a better life for himself and his older sister, who's secretly turning tricks after hours. Virtually all of the actors in this were either first-timers or actual denizens of the Iron Triangle, and such is Bahrani's skill with these people, and his excruciating attention to realism and detail (as seen on screen and reinforced in the commentary), that you soon forget you're watching a pre-written story unfold. Seems like most of his cast have gone back into obscurity for now, but IMDB lists Bahrani's next picture as a much more star-laden vehicle.
LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING (1955) 8/10
Sensitive treatment about what was then undoubtedly a touchy topic—mixed-race relationships and adultery—especially in Hong Kong, where it's set and where exteriors for the film were shot. It has the expected Hollywood glaze, and Jennifer Jones wasn't exactly half-Chinese (but then who of marquee value was at that time?), but it plays fair by all of the characters - no egregious stereotypes that I could see. Author Han Suyin (real name Rosalie Chow) reportedly never saw the film (at least while it was playing in Singapore, where she lived at the time), and only sold the rights to her autobiographical novel to pay for a badly-needed operation for her adopted Chinese daughter.
PRETTY IN PINK (1986) 7/10
My other 1986 Harry Dean Stanton movie for this month.
I've seen most of the famed John Hughes 80's movies now (most of them only recently, sadly), and while I recall avoiding them like the plague back then (even though I was firmly a member of the demographic they were marketed to), I've yet to watch one Ididn't find at least modest enjoyment in.
THE BOX (2009) 7/10
Despite it being a critical and box-office dog, I actually liked this a bit more than Richard Kelly's cult piece DONNIE DARKO, possibly because he's working here from a script by TWILIGHT ZONE mainstay Richard Matheson, who apparently previously adapted the story into an episode of the 80's ZONE revival. Kelly expands on the material, and expectedly injects his trademark quirkiness here and there, but largely plays it straight, maybe even a bit too straight. Kelly has a knack for generating real tension and strong visuals (and often outre ideas), and I'm curious to see what he would do if he married his unique style to a stronger screenplay that the ones on display in his first three features.
THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND (2002) 8/10
Fascinating and frustrating documentary about the radical lefty "revolutionary" movement that grew out of Students for a Democratic Society in the U.S. in 1969. I knew a bit about this group going in, and have long believed they did more harm than good to both their own cause and the causes of others they came into contact with (a stance I believe is widely held), but to listen to the now grown-up would-be commies—most of them comfortably ensconced in the "terrible" society they once dreamed of overthrowing—trying to puzzle out what went wrong and admitting only mild regrets about their activities is galling. The filmmakers play fair, though, and aren't seen to condone or decry the group's antics (except in the DVD special features, surprisingly!).
SHANGHAI GHETTO (2002) 7/10
Plain Jane documentary about 10,000 Jews who escaped the holocaust in Europe during World War II by resettling in . . . Shanghai (no thanks to unfair immigration policies of the U.S., Canada and Britain at the time). The film is basically a collection of videotaped interviews with several seniors who were there as children and teens, the collective largely cut off from dire news back home. Life in Shanghai wasn't a picnic, but the subjects freely admit that the Chinese—then under Japanese oppression—had it even worse, though outside of one Chinese historian, the deeper relationship between the two cultures isn't explored very deeply. Their interviews are intercut with personal photos and stock footage, though much of the latter isn't directly from the settlement, but rather public-domain wartime clips you've probably seen a million times before.
HELL'S ANGELS (1930) 8/10
Wow! I'd read about this one over the past couple of decades in various film books I have, but never got a chance to see it until now. Shot as a silent by Howard Hughes—and an epic one at that—then largely re-shot (!) as a talkie once the latter became the norm during its long, very expensive production. The story even by 1930 pre-code standards must've been familiar stuff: two rowdy ace pilots (Ben Lyon, James Hall) falling for the same trashy woman (a fairly awkward Jean Harlow in her first starring role — one can't help but wonder if her stage name was deliberately chosen because it sounded like "harlot" with a French accent!). But the flying sequences are positively jaw-dropping, and frankly better choreographed and shot than similar sequences in countless films made years (and decades!) afterward. Hughes (and whomever helped design the aerial battles) make sure you never lose your geographical bearings during these lengthy sequences, and those are the real stars flying the plane and even standing up in the cockpit at regular intervals! There's also a protracted, explosive battle between a zeppelin and a squadron of fighter planes that surely must have pushed the art of miniatures to all new extremes. Apparently Hughes put unused aerial footage from this film to use in two others, and sold even more of it to other productions. This film really deserves the Criterion treatment; the Universal DVD is criminally barebones.
O LUCKY MAN! (1983) 8/10
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986) 6/10
Nicholas Cage will make or break this film for you.
KAMIKAZE GIRLS (2004; Japan) 8/10
Better than I thought it would be, what with the singularly twee looking "Lolita" girl that has haunted me on the DVD sleeve of this since the day it was first released.
WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (2010) 8/10
A searing indictment of the U.S. education system that posits "charter schools" (themselves not without their critics) and the quality of education they've been proven to offer as one possible solution, as well as the introduction of merit-based pay and the abolition of teachers' unions in the public system. Obviously, unions and teachers who love them didn't like this movie. The film follows a handful of lower-class kids as they pin their dreams on being accepted to charter schools, a process
JINDABYNE (2006; Australian) 8/10
DUEL IN THE SUN (1946) 6/10
Definitely deserves its reputation as a handsome turkey. Another Jennifer Jones mixed-race romancer (see LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING) above, and producer David O. Selznick's misguided attempted to out-do GONE WITH THE WIND, but the final product is so overheated it generates more amusement than amazement.
THE LADYKILLERS (1955) 8/10
BLACK SWAN (2010) 8/10
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) allows for speedy rating and cross-referencing to find other movies to rate with a couple of simple taps. 
. icheck does have a lot of films though. I'm not sure if it creates the movie or not -- that is a good question and one I'm sure you would find out soon enough. Now with Icheck you could easily import your IMDB watches say once a month so it really isn't a lot of work for you though.
As usual, this is largely from the library:
who launched their careers under his aegis: Martin Scorcese, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson (who actually cries on camera), Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Polly Platt, Joe Dante, Alan Arkush, Robert DeNiro, Bruce Dern, Pam Grier, Dick Miller (woohoo!), John Sayles, David Carradine, Irvin Kershner and quite a few others, including Corman himself. The timing is probably apt, as the man's well into his 80's now and still producing up a storm, albeit with invariably crappy SyFy movies, one of which is shown under construction throughout the doc. Of all the clips shown—and there are many—I think there was only one movie I don't own or haven't seen, but it was great to see them peppered among so many great stories behind their making. Only a couple of beefs about this: the funky flash-animated sequence midway through the picture (which utilizes imagery from classic Corman movie posters) should really have been at the beginning, and the technique used more often throughout, and I really didn't care to hear input from the likes of Eli Roth (whose films and personality I generally dislike) and Paul W.S. Anderson, neither of whom are Corman graduates, as far as I know.
