"Double Indemnity" This one is as good as I remember it.

"Charade"
Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy
A delightfully confusing re-mix of the pair that made "Roman Holiday" such a wonderful experience.
Edit: I always seem to misrecollect the characters played by Gregory Peck and Cary Grant. It was Peck with Hepburn in the Roman film and it was Grant (with Grace Kelly) in a role similar to the one of the above "Charade" character in "To Catch a Thief". Anyway, if you haven't seen any of these films and aren't easily confused like some of us, "Charade" is a nice diversion.

The Human Stain starring Anthony Hopkins, Gary Sinise and a bunch of other good stars.
Kind of confusing, but in a thought-provoking manner. It makes the deep thinker delve into areas of the psyche you may not even know existed.
Profoundly moving. In some ways it caused me to feel I should jump through the screen and stick my thumb through Anthony Hopkins' eye and in other ways I wanted to cry for him and all those who may have actually lived through that lifestyle.
Worth watching and my first viewing garners it a 3.5 out of 5 yet it would be easy depending on my mood to give it a 4 or even a 4.5.

"Cat People" (1982)
Natassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O'Toole, Ed Begley Jr, John Larroquette
Cats and Graphic Comics seem to go well together. Beginning with David Bowie's familiar "Cat People" song (better remembered as "...putting out the fire with gasoline.") the following 2 hour viewing details the love story between a young woman chosen by destiny to be a Cat woman (Black Leopard) and the New Orleans Zoo's Curator and animal protector. There is some disturbing visual gore accompanying some stark nudity and intimated intimacy that some might not enjoy. The solution to the plot's conflict is an apt one for the theme.
What's chew pussycat? Whoa a whoa whoa whoa whoa (Sorry Tom).

I've gotta say I liked the original "Cat People" better. The effects are seriously cheezy, but if you can look past that, it's got something the remake lacked.

I did some shopping and found that version (1942) in a double feature DVD set with "The Curse of the Cat People" (1944, the 1st's sequel) for $2.99. Will be viewing soon I hope. Purrfect purrchase?

Jacques Tourneur, the director of the original "Cat People" also directed the great film noir, "Out of the Past".

Never seen "Curse of the Cat People" - don't know whether to congratulate you or commiserate.

"Men in Black III" - not as bad as the reviews suggested, I actually found it to be pretty good! Liked the whole love story B plot.

"The Guard" If you liked "In Bruges", you'll like this. Not quite as wonderful, but with its own charms, certainly.

I watched A Separation the other night - it was named Best Foreign Film at the Oscars a year or two ago. I wasn't exactly optimistic, since I'd read a good bit about Iranian films and the restrictions that are put on them (things like that men and women are not even allowed, typically, to touch one another on-screen in movies made there, and so forth). Add to that that I was pretty much clueless as to what the average day-to-day existence is like for someone living in Iran. What a pleasant surprise and/or revelation the film turned out to be! While many cultural differences were obvious, many cultural similarities were just as obvious. It looked at religion, gender roles, family structure ... and it was entirely fascinating (to me, anyway). The story it told was mighty compelling, albeit slightly disturbing, too. If I kept a personal list of the Top Ten films I've seen in my lifetime? It'd definitely be on it. I borrowed it from the library but plan on buying a copy. One of those that I'm pretty sure I could look at many times and discover something new with each viewing.

"The Ring" (2002)
Daveigh Chase, Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Jane Alexander
To me this is a horror film that isn't scary, just confusing and thus startling when events occur. It's also done in what I must assume is a cost saving cinematographic technique of blue tones (cool to keep you calm, rather than reds to rile you up?). This method causes a lot of minor intricacies of the set design to disappear in the dark (another savings in not having to worry about set dressing?) I wish directors and cameramen would stop using this technique. If I'd seen more of what makes Naomi Watts Naomi Watts (hair strands, folds in clothing, etc.) I might have identified with her more and felt more worry for her safety. That's my nickel on the subject anyway. The film is highly rated by most sources. I liked the story and the actors; perhaps it is unfair for me to single this film out for one aspect of its delivery.

Oo, oo, Officer Tootie, there's a "The Ring Two", the continuing story of Naomi and her character! And more Daveigh. I'd like to see how they pull off explaining how a fifty-year-dead girl gets 3 years older all of a sudden.

"Inglourious Basterds" Well, that was fun.

Last film in a theatre: "Skyfall".
Last films on DVD: "The Wild One" and "Peeping Tom".

tjoeb};>

Last 2 dvd rentals:

"The Bourne Legacy"- not much on story with action scenes that were far too familiar but the performances were good.

"Compliance"- based on true events; phone call to a fast food restaurant from supposedly a cop leads to a female cashier being sexually harassed by her manager & others. Film may be hard to sit through if you don't like shouting at the characters on the screen for being idiots with little common sense. Otherwise, great performances and direction.

"The Seven Year Itch"

I'm not a huge Marilyn Monroe fan, but I think I'd have to agree with a description of her I've seen in reviews of this movie - radiant. And a good thing, too, because her performance saves the film.

Hollywood sex comedies of this era are really a problem for me, because the Hays Code meant that nobody had sex. There's a dreadful coy kittenish quality to all of them. The behaviour is false, the motivations are false, the whole thing has the ring of a cracked tin bell.

Lately I've been reading a lot of fiction written in the mid/late fifties, early sixties, mostly paperback originals aimed at men. And while they are nowhere near as graphic as their modern equivalents, there is still an essential honesty that's missing from films of the period. The censorship from the Hays Office meant that any films of the period that looked at the relationships between men and women had to be distorted, warped, and false.

And we end up with something like "Seven Year Itch" - a couple of excellent performances in the service of a really stupid movie.

Title: "El Cid"
Year released: 1961
Cast: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone, Gary Raymond, Ralph Truman, John Fraser, Geneviève Page
Plot: 1000 AD Feudal Spain finds itself with Christians living with mostly peaceful Muslims except for some African based Muslims who want the world to be worshipping Allah or dead. The Cid arises to fight off the jihadists.
My sense: One of the most relavent films to be watched today for our situation is not much different from the followers of the Cid.
Trivia: The second film in which a woman (Loren) was paid a million dollars for her performance. Elizabeth Taylor was first by signing the year before to be in "Cleopatra" which came out two years later in 1963. Production delay penalties boosted Taylor's salary to over $7 million. So, Loren was actually the first million dollar woman to be seen on screen.

"The Black Widow" (1954)
Starring Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney

An unusual mystery movie, in Cinemascope & Technicolor, yet with a little of the film noir in it combined with a 1950s-style psychiatric angle. I know it didn't get good reviews when it was released, but for mystery buffs like me it's an interesting film. Plus how often do you get film noir in Cinemascope? :-)

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" the 1981 remake.

This one gets mixed reviews, but I've always liked it - excellent period detail, lots of passion.

"Mogambo" 1953. Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner fight over Clark Gable, with a lot of National Geographic African footage in the background. Pretty silly, but fun to watch. Ava Gardner steals the show.

Very cold here right now, so I'm spending the day watching movies.

"Now, Voyager"

I haven't seen this one for forty years. It's melodramatic and sentimental and ridiculously soap-operaish, but I admit that I love it. Paul Henreid is impossibly handsome, Claude Rains is wise and puckish, and Bette Davis cleans up real good. Makes me wish I still smoked, so a tall man with a sexy accent could light two cigarettes at once for me....

"Gorky Park" ('83) - William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Brian Dennehy, Joanna Pacula, Alexei Sayle

If you love the current spate of metropolitan police detective shows, this will ring your bell. It details the solving by a Moscow Militia (police) officer of a morbid killing that took place in Gorky Park. It is based on the novel of the same name by Martin Cruz Smith.

"The Road" (2009) - Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce
Put the dynamic into a post apocalyptic future. Stripped away are all the things that make us human: community, civility, companionship, cooperation... and what's left? Nothing! This film examines what it is that rises from within us to artificially imprint something to existence to make it worth the effort. Caveat to some: to present the loss of civilization this treatise examines suicide and cannibalism (but not in too gory a way, just puts it out there as a matter of fact).
I enjoyed the way in which the responsibility for keeping the flame of worth alive slowly passes from one generation to the next.


Love "Mogambo". I have trouble deciding who the best Hemingway version of a Great White Hunter is: Gable in that or Wayne in "Hatari!". Isn't "Mogambo" the John Ford movie a biopic was based on a couple of years ago?

Couldn't tell you that. I think I'll try to hunt out "Red Dust" which I understand was basically the same movie, twenty years earlier. Same leading man, too, and I do love me some young Clark Gable.

I'm going to look around for some more Ava Gardner movies, too. She was so good in "Mogambo" - blew Grace Kelly out of the water, and I'm a Grace Kelly fan. Part of it I'm sure is that her character is so much more sympathetic, but she really does give a great performance.

Silver Linings Playbook - it was the most boring movie I have ever seen for the first 1 1/2 hours. The end picked up a little but was very predictable

Silver Linings Playbook Excellent film enjoyed it from start to finish

Bradley Cooper is fantasttic in it