#115 - Rififi

Ayee....now we're back - excellent Film Noir from France and a blacklisted American Director.

Rififi is a heist film - probably an inspiration for a lot of heist films and maybe even a few heists.  This film, starring a mostly unknown cast, was offered to blacklisted director Jules Dassin who despite not liking the source material, ended up making a stellar film.

I had never heard of it but it's probably one of the best heist movies I've seen with a 30 minute sequence done almost entirely in silence without dialogue or music and the whole time you're going "whoa" and wondering how things are going to play out.

I can't talk much about the plot except to say that it supposedly inspired Oceans 11, and that would make total sense to me

Another great part of the story is the interview Dassin gives where he talks about how he was treated after the Blacklist, and how afterwards, in Europe, he was free from MGM, the Hollywood machine, and the men who could take his career away - he got a 2nd act in Europe, and that's pretty cool to me considering how bullshit the Blacklist years were.

Good film - worth a blu-ray watch

BTW, Rififi doesn't exactly translate but "pitched battle amongst the men" is sort of where it goes - and it inspired a number of other Rififi titled films based on the author's novels - cool little thing there

RB

#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

#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

#112 - Playtime

AND with this I think I'm going to have to pick up the Tati box set next time there's a 50% off sale at B&N - liking this guy too much

Playtime is our 3rd film and last Tati film for a while - this is a visual feast, (originally shot in 70mm) that takes our characters, including a return of Mr. Hulot, thru the absurdities of modern life.   It's shot on massive sets with some fascinating camera work and in shots where there's sometimes 2 or 3 things going on.

It's interesting that Tati has gone this direction now more or less for two films, and the character of Hulot, rather than instigating the chaos of the first film now seems more likely to be a pawn in it.

There's two hours of Hulot and tourists wandering from place to place - like the other two films there's less plot and more just an almost vaudeville approach to the scenes - in this case it came close to surrealism, I feel like, but all in good humor.   I decided when I had a choice I was gonna have to watch on the widescreen TV as I hear there's just too much that can be missed on a smaller screen and I'd love to see the blu-ray of course.

Two scenes really struck with me - I've made no secret of my love for France and Paris, and this film takes place in Paris, but the whole time the skyline is modern towers and buildings - in a kind of joke at one point the woman is looking at travel posters, and each one is dominated by the same monotholitc Grey Office Tower - US, Mexico, Paris, Hong Kong - a sort of joke and commentary on how modern architecture is destroying the character of these places.   But what really got me is when the tourists are looking at "Modern Paris" there is nothing to distinguish it as Paris except 3 or 4 times, when a glass door swings, and you see the reflection of a famous Paris Landmark in the window, like Sacre Coure, The Eiffel Tower, and so forth - sometimes the tourists swing around as if to catch a glimpse of a ghost.

My other favorite moment was when a waiter rips his pants, and has to hide outside on the balcony.   Soon other waiters with damaged clothing, - a ripped jacket, torn shoe, tie dipped in sauce, come out and swap with him so that by the time it's over, he looks like he crawled out of a wrecked building, with all his clothes ripped and tattered.

Def. going to be getting the blu-ray's at some point - This has been an enjoyable excursion with a new director.

Also there are a lot of special features - there's a lot to this movie, the set design, how all the chaos was engineered and shots made, and it's a pretty interesting thing to go thru when I have some more time

RB

#111 - Mon Oncle

5 years later, we have Tati's first color film and the return of Mr. Hulot in Mon Oncle.   This is a different kind of story.  Instead of focusing on the banality of vacation life, we're seeing the banality of modernism.   The movie is almost a caricature of modernity although satire was the word I saw thrown around.

Huhot lives in a very rustic classical part of a French city - his sister and family live in a ridiculous modern art sort of house that looks nothing like the rest of the area.   The movie highlights some of the absurdities and joys of these two panes of glass.   One part that struck out to me is the rich couple discussing music and driving off to a fancy dinner club while Hulot and company stumble into and out of the local dive bar and you get the impression the lower classes, like the lower decks on Titanic, were a better place to party.

Huhot has a lot of interactions here with his nephew - (hence, the title - My Uncle) - and you def. get the impression the boy is latching onto a world outside the sterile world he lives in

once again a lot of the gags are visual, the dialogue sparse - and the sounds are sharply contrasted between an easy French Cafe Soundtrack and the harshness of a factory, with clangs, buzzes, dings, dongs, hammers, etc.  I guess this was his most popular film - and I must confess I didn't feel like it was filmed in 1958 - I thought it was more of a 60's or 70's film so the color and the photography are great.

Might be worth getting a box set someday - guess we'll see - anyways - got one more Tati to go in this set of films -

#110 - Monsieur Hulot's Holiday

for our next 3 films, we have the comedic presence of Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot, a sort of slapstick character - (at least in this film)

I have never heard of him before this film, but Tati was well known and loved in France - he makes films with a lot of physical gags - I saw comparisons to Chaplin but based on what we've seen he reminded me a lot of W.C. Fields.

This is his 2nd film, and his first with this character Hulot who we'll see again in the next two pictures - it's sort of a plotless string of gags and humor but it's enjoyable, and finally we're back on the streaming channel so I can not have to deal with waiting for DVD's - hehehe

The complete box set wasn't released till the 700's - but we'll get half of it out of the way here - something else interesting was that I watched the 1978 restoration - where Jacques had cut out about 12 minutes from his first film - I guess he was like George Lucas - sorta re-editing and recutting his work until later in life.

This is just a fellow going on holiday in a sleepy seaside tourist town where he has a string of misadventures - good stuff - Curious to see how the character goes in the later films - I might add too the dialogue is pretty sparse and that's fine - but it goes to show how much of this humor is meant to be drank in with the eyes as opposed to hearing it.

RB

#109 - The Scarlet Empress

ach - my dvd for this one had problems - sure looking forward to seeing these on the Criterion channel again instead of DVD's with flaws

This is part of a 6 movie set (or will be released as such) - of a great collabration between the sultry and erotic Marlene Dietrich, and the director Josef von Sternberg, who introduced her to America thru these 6 films.   This one was the 5th

This is an entertaining if a bit campy film about the rise of Catherine the Great, probably told just a bit ahistorical and 1930'ish.   But lord, the sets - a macabre and twisted world is constructed here - the sets and scenes and costumes are both garish and ghoulistic, cramped yet expansive - and as Marlene's daughter put it - this was the one time she had to compete with the set for attention.

I always get a kick out of seeing the 1700's characters speaking with perfect American L.A. accents - not pretending to be Russian or even medieval.   

I gotta say, I would probably be interested in the Blu-ray and absolutely want to see some more of their films together - I assume they'll be later on in the collection but in this case, this was added to the box set years after it's initial release - the only special feature was an interview with Marlene from 1971 but honestly, my DVD had a couple crucial scuffs on it that resulted in me having to find a download copy to catch a 3 minute skip at the wedding and humorously the last 4 minutes of the film

anyhow this is really good - I might get another one in before the weekend but it looks like we're getting a burst of Jacques Tati films - 3 in a row, so hey something new on the way

This was visually an incredible film - I'll save my other thoughts on Marlene for future posts as this one was literally, I think, the first film I've seen her in - can you believe it?