Monday, December 23, 2019

#114 - My Man Godfrey


#114 - is a Screwball comedy - which apparently I didn't realize was, according to Wikipedia, is a subgenre of the romantic comedy that became popular during the Great Depression, and generally satirized the traditional love story.   Like I thought it was Steve Martin, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields - Physical comedy.   Actually we kinda touched on this genre in The Lady Eve (#103) although I didn't realize that was the name for it at the time

As it turns out I didn't even envision the romantic part of the story till near the very end - I thought it was going somewhere else entirely but that's fine.

Gregory La Cava directed this 1936 film, and this is his only appearance - I haven't made any secret of the fact this may be one of my least favorite genres and periods for movies so I won't get back into that - there were definitely some good points of humor but if I'm checking 5 times to see how much time there is left on the DVD, then I'm not enjoying it a lot

It's got some interesting special features - it was nominated for a LOT of awards, and the blooper reel included has a lot of cussing which is kinda humorous and a reflection on how far these movies didn't reflect the reality of their time - hehehe

I'm not even going to summarize the plot - you can read it if you want on the back of the Blu-Ray or DVD cover but I will admit to being intrigued by the commentary track - I may have to throw it up in the background at 4x speed and get a listen

ok kids - next one is on the streaming channel so I won't have to wait as long - I am not sure what kind of luck I'm going to have as we're about to hit a big string of out of print DVD's but I won't cancel my Netflix or my Library card yet - LOL

RB

Sunday, December 15, 2019

#113 - Big Deal on Madonna Street


Sorry it took so long for my five readers or so to get an update - (hi wife!) - Finally knocked this one out

If it was a better known film or director I'd have probably done better at getting it done - I had some queues - (never saw Friends the first time and had to rewatch) - and a great series called Une Village Francais which I will do a summary of when done.

This is a comedic heist film by an Italian Director I've never heard of with Italian stars who seem pretty famous but I've never heard of them either.   Technically the 2002 caper film Welcome to Collingswood is a remake but I've never seen it.

No special features, not even a worthy essay on the Criterion site - it sorta seems like a throwaway Italian film you get thru to get to Bicycle Thief, so I'm not going to go much further on in this entry except to say it was a little entertaining and not worth a rewatch, IMHO

RB