#138 - Rashomon

 ALL RIGHTY! - Made it to more Kurosawa and please let's leave the recent batch of English Melodrama and thriller for the good stuff.

TBH I was pushing thru Hitchcock for this - it's why I rushed so much this week to get them done.

I didn't realize this was the first real Japanese film to get an international audience.   It wasn't made for them but it did the trick.   As such there's probably not a lot I can or need to say about it but some things I didn't know.

This put Toshiro Mifune on the map but he was a virtual unknown before it.   Obviously even Harrison Ford had a couple films you didn't know about before Star Wars :)

The story is short and sweet - a bandit ambushes a samurai and his wife, captures him, rapes her, and afterwards the samurai is dead.   We know THAT much.   After that what is known and unknown is lost in one of several told versions of events by a woodcutter to a commoner and priest at a crumbling temple where they hide out from the rain.

TBH I have the DVD but haven't watched it since the first time.   It's been restored, and got some nice Blu-Ray extras, some of which are on the CC, but it's not the easiest film to really get a handle on and watch - but that's the whole point - the story is confusing, and incredulous, and you share in the confusion of the storytellers as they hear and relate multiple versions - of which we never truly learn the real one.

Almost everyone in the story will show up in future Kurosawa productions and the special features are great to watch as well

RB

#137 - Notorious

 

I liked this next Hitchcock film a little better - a Spy Noir film with the same two principals as the last one, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.   

A woman who's father was a Nazi Collaborator is recruited to go to Brazil and sniff out what other former collaborators are doing.   Some nice tracking shots here and a good story/chemistry between the two actors.

There's some interesting stuff on the disk but this one I had to watch via streaming service with commercials so they're not available but I'd be interested to hear the 1948 radio re-enactment.

side note I think I can see why everyone was in love with Ingrid Bergman :)

# 136 - Spellbound

 

I had some stuff come up - mostly moving - cause you know - stuff moves.

Didn't really like this one - hard to keep my interest - another 40's Melodrama - we'll get out of these soon and into the good stuff

DVD looks like it has a lot of interesting extras on the website but it's out of print in the CC so as usual gotta come up with plan b's sometimes

On a side note, there's a lot to be found very easily searching Roku - Search for something and you probably WILL find it on a streaming app somewhere

Anyways - not much to say - strange young man shows up to run a mental hospital and has mental issues 

#135 - Rebecca

 

Ah, it's been too long - but we'll get thru a few good ones in the next few weeks I hope

Been moving, trying to get stuff done, etc - but anyways - here we go - I thought this was discontinued by the collection but maybe that changed recently - in any case it's on Bluray now with a ton of special features

What we have here is Hitchcock's first American film and the first of three we'll watch in this block.   I try to go out of my way to not inform myself of the plot on suspense films so that everything is agonizing and you never know what's coming.     I kinda feel like he's starting to come into the Alfred I know, as opposed to The Lady Vanishes or The 39 Steps, both of which we've covered here - (good lord, I had to reread the post I made 5 years ago to be sure I watched it - no memory of it) 

This one however, the lighting, suspense, story, were gripping - I'll go into the next two films the same way, I expect - waiting to see what the old fellow has got for us

#134 - Haxan

 

Yeah, it's been a few weeks in part because I wasn't looking forward to this one

I mean it wasn't the worst movie I've seen but some sort of quasi-educational documentary on witches and how they were probably people with hysteria isn't gonna be a popcorn clutching extravaganza.

I could imagine in the 1920's, the imagery, grotesqueness of the figures, and the experience of seeing the dark ages on the screen made it somewhat more entertaining than watching paint dry.

Having said that, it does try very hard to paint a sympathetic portrait of these women, many old, possibly with a disfigurement or something that made them stand out - many poor, and what they were forced to endure.

Might be interesting to watch with the commentary but another time I think

RB

# 133 - The Vanishing

 

This was an incredible psychological thriller from a Dutch director that probably would have been more powerful if I hadn't seen the 1993 American Remake and knew the entire plot and ending from the get go - suffice it to say I think this is a better film than the remake.

I guess the Dutch director, George Sluzier,  did the American one too and was TOLD he could make the American version the same way, but departures and broken promises and test audiences changed the ending of the American version.   In any case, this is worth your time if you like that scary stuff

RB

#132 - The Ruling Class

 

man..I am never gonna get those 2.5 hrs back

didn't like this movie - wasn't too impressed by it - sorta hate British Humor and especially cult classics from a British Point of view which generally aren't as entertaining when you aren't aware of what the film is trying to mock due to cultural differences.

I mean, just no freaking way I would watch this again