Recent Viewing Part IV

I know what you mean. I've learned to live with it (I do think it's a bit of an overly stylised -and not very original- element), but it ain't no Boardwalk Empire (which for a gangster epic in my book is utterly unbeatable).



Nope, if memory serves that was D.
I've been holding off as it's quite far from my area of interest, but I hear really good things about it so I might be coming round after all.

I haven't gotten round to watching any of this, even though they shoot a lot of it very close to my apartment!

Forbidden Planet (1956)

What a fantastic, pioneering film. Awesome!

Volker

I like the part where Michael Giacchino wrote the music.

Last night my wife and I watched the 1969 musical HELLO, DOLLY! We'd never seen it before. It's got a pretty impressive scale. Apparently despite being the highest-grossing film of 1969 it still didn't recoup its budget! It's got a lot of the cheesiness you can expect from the old musicals (it's directed by Gene Kelly), but it has some surprisingly modern sensibilities, satirizing a lot of out-dated notions about the roles of men and women. Barbra Streisand doesn't seem to fit into the 1890s setting, but perhaps that was intention. Her character really stands apart in every scene she is in. It was really fun.

The score won an oscar for the score, which would never have happened today since all but two of the songs were straight from the music that debuted on broadway just five years earlier.

On the surface it would appear to entrench those outdated roles - there's a whole song about how "it takes a woman, a dainty woman," to clean the house and cook the meals, etc. But as the song progresses Walter Matthau (who doesn't have a lovely singing voice, by the way) goes on about how he needs a "fragile" woman who can fix the plumbing and shoe the horses and do all these things that most men couldn't even do in that age. By the end of the song it's clear that this woman is some sort of super-creature who is going to do EVERYTHING. So it may seem like an outdated song to begin with, but by the end it's clearly harpooning that way of thinking. Matthau's character can't prepare his own food (his niece does all of that), so the characters are certainly in that world (which is appropriate given the time and setting), but the film pokes fun at those notions a lot, and every time Dolly is in a scene she turns everything upside down.

The score didn't do much for me either, but the film is quite good -- a tight and focussed "trapped" thriller. One of my honourable mentions this year.

Agreed. I have a special preference for these types of 'isolation dramas'.

The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933) - Fritz Lang

I remember watching that film as a child and that it scared me shitless. It's a brilliant mystery thriller bordering on the paranormal. A master work of expressionistic film.

Volker

I only ever saw Mabuse, Der Spieler, which, while good, wasn't the revelation I hoped it to be after having seen M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder , Metropolis and Woman In The Moon, which were all WAY ahead of their time!

Ha! When I saw the trailer and that Mon Mothma was in this film, my first thought was, "We're going to see Bothans dying." It wasn't until later that I remember that that line was from Jedi.

I need to make some time to see this!

Is it two hours long?

Ah, so it's the European theatrical cut. The director's cut is two hours long and it's the one I've seen. The director's cut reinstates the Goldsmith score as Ridley seriously regretted the decision (pushed on him by a producer).

So did Tangerine Dream. Froese thought Goldsmith's score was terrific.

Volker