#119 - Withnail and I

#119 is a mega-British Cult Classic I was apparently unaware of till now - Withnail and I

I should have got to this sooner - it's on the Criterion Channel, even though the DVD is out of print with them, and we're under quarantine for crying out loud.

The plot reminds me of a lot of other movies - two buddies go on a bit of a drinking and drug binge in the country - it reminds me a LOT of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - (notice the Ralph Steadman artwork!)

I guess it's semi-autobiographical by Bruce Robinson, but I don't know the director.  Richard E. Grant does his best lying and drunk scoundral here - (and he's pulled that off a few times - LOL) - and Paul McGann, who to be honest, I know mostly as the 8th Doctor from Doctor Who. 

But the two characters and the way they interact with themselves and each other is pretty cool - one part Trainspotting, one part Fear and Loathing, one part On the Road, all in Camden Town in London - LOL.

the channel has a 30 min documentary with the actors, directors, and so forth - and I stumbed onto a website where they have showings for 100 people every year at the site of the old cottage.   Crazy cult following which is great - and it's part of the George Harrison production company Handmade Films, so you gotta love that.  Easy way to get a free Beatles song in the soundtrack - LOL

Not a bad film - wish I had gotten to it sooner - might enjoy another viewing someday

#118 - Sullivan's Travels

Another comedy by Preston Sturges - (prev. seen in The Lady Eve, #103)

it's a movie that actually tries to make light of the serious comedies that were coming out at the time - this is our first appearance of Veronica Lake, a femme fatale who made a nice number of films in the 40's and probably was a pin-up girl in a few GI's napsacks.  And it was an entertaining little tidbit but nothing to write home about

The Bluray has some special features but i won't be getting into them - glad this one is done - another 1940's romantic comedy from Hollywood that never held interest for me

#117 - Diary of a Chambermaid

#117 wasn't quite as salacious as I thought it would be - I think there's an expectation that "Diary of a xxxxxx" films are usually quite sexual in nature - there's some stuff in here that might be risque in the early 60's but not really in France I don't think

In fact it turned out to be a bit of a drama/thriller film - it was made in the 60's but set before WWII which is interesting because there is some anti-antisemitism and nationalism shown here that would have clearly been calling out the French before WWII and their ideals at the time it was made.    Something it reminds me of is the extreme Japanese Militarism that was called out in later 60's films like "The Human Condition" - it's a look back at an ugly time and not flinching or covering it up.   In fact, I read in a book one time that if you were to go to people in 1900, tell them a massive holocaust of Jewish people would take place and that it would be instigated by one country, you'd be far more likely to hear them say France instead of Germany would be predicted to be the instigator.

And this all comes at the hands of a Spanish Director - intriguing - I am sure special features might be a nice addition to this but it's out of print and the CC only had the film.

It's a decent film - Jeanne Moreau hasn't been on our radar yet but she will show up soon - I'm especially interested in seeing her in Elevator to the Gallows.   She has already worked in film for 15 years when this was made.   She will make a great femme-fatale character, I think and reminds me a bit of Barbara Stanwick but we'll see.

Anyhoo I won't get into the story too much but it did take a bit to ramp up and then in the 2nd act went in a direction I was not expecting but good for them.

RB

#116 - The Hidden Fortress

Kurosawa, Mifune, and spears - what else could one ask for!

We hit our 5th Kurosawa Film here with The Hidden Fortress - I don't know if it gets as much love as some of his other samurai cinema.  A friend and I were talking about it recently and it doesn't score very high on our lists but I hadn't seen it in years when I queued it up.

Of course, the one thing that is always said about this film is that it's told from the POV of two lowly peasants, and this inspired George Lucas to tell his story, Star Wars, from the POV of the droids.   Two peasants on a search for gold after a nasty conflict fall in with a General and a princess, which is sort of a coincidence with Star Wars, and they have to cross enemy territory with a precious cargo to safety.

I only caught a bit of the commentary but Stephen Prince said that after Seven Samurai, his next two movies didn't do so well, and so he wanted to do a more basic action story again.  It is his first in widescreen, and so he does this pretty well.  Mifune is great as usual, and it's a nice little story even if I'm not 100% sure about the ending - LOL

gonna go off the road a bit here. - this was the first Criterion film I have watched since my father passed about 10 days ago.  This has nothing to do with my viewing of this film other than a memory that sort of ties in.  In my Dad's house is my old 4:3 crappy tv with built in DVD player I bought almost 20 years ago - he still uses it and it works ok.   Has a couple lines on it and the DVD stopped working years ago -  It went to the Nephews probably 15 years ago when I got my widescreen, and made it up to Dad's after another TV crapped out.

I bought that TV for a band practice space where I could sit on a couch, watch movies, and get drunk and not be seen or judged by people who thought they knew my best interests - in retrospect they probably did but it didn't come from love but judgmental self-righteousness so I rejected it. 

Except for my Dad - I think he understood cause he went thru this that I would have to.  He would express a desire for me at some points to quit drinking and he checked in on me once or twice and got me started on weed, but he never came at me from self-righteousness but love.

Anyways, the first movies I watched on said TV in said practice space drinking Rumplemintz were the Kurosawa Samurai collection - Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and The Hidden Fortress.  I still have that original copy of The Hidden Fortress on DVD and never let it go although we have this one now in better quality.

Just a thought that came to mind today as I writing this....

Love you, Dad - see you again someday.

#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