Movie Chat

O Brother Where Art Thou, edgar. The Coen brothers admitted that they had never read The Odyssey. Well, we know that Clooney was Odysseus, how about the other characters?

I had not thought of the film in those terms before. Sure, George would be Odysseus and John Goodman the cyclops. The wife falls into place, though inconstant and unfaithful, I haven't read the Odyssey in so many years - I can only see his companions as crew members.

In my opinion Clooney arrived with his performance in "Out Of Sight", an Elmore Leonard book that was lovingly shot in Florida and Detroit. He can take his place with the leading men now.

He has become one I watch for, but only recently.

Hey, yawl. Take a look at this and see what you think.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34754

I don't know what happened to lightwizard.

I done a double header today - extremely rare for me. Saw Hidalgo and The Alamo.

Thing about a movie like Hidalgo, these people are racing some fast horses. The non participants laze around and yet manage to be at each rest stop. People do anything with their horses they want, except race and are in the thick of things anyway. Aside from that I liked it.

I like classic, acclaimed films from Eisenstein's "Potemkin" to "Citizen Kane" to the Godfather.

But I also like off-beat films. Lesser known movies, that show where and how far the genre of film can go. I just watched a jewel of a movie, a Czechoslovakian film from the 60's called "A Shop On Main Street." It deals with the holocaust in a very different way.
An old Jewish lady owns a button shop in a small village.
The Nazis arrive and give her shop to an incompetent
dolt. The two slowly grow to like each other to the tragedy of both. It's a tiny powerful movie starring Ida Kaminska.

Off-beat? How about all the Bergman films? I can't think of a bad one. My wife (then girlfriend) and I went to a three-movie Bergman festival, all in one day. "Winter Light," "Silence," and "Through a Glass Darkly" When it was over, we both had the same thought. How do we commit suicide?

Other :"jewels?" The Russian version of War and Peace with a cast of fifty thousand. The most expensive movie ever done up to that time. Cut from 11 hours to 8 hours for the US marekt. Beautiful color. I remember some major magazine doing an article on the difference between the intent of Technicolor and the Russiab use of color.

"Shoah" Another 11-12 hour film. A documentary film dealing with the holocaust. If I remember, no narrator. Just an interviewer asking questions of Germans, Poles, Jews and dozens, hundreds of others. The film does not preach or accuse. Instead, it lets those being questioned slowly develop an indefensible case against themselves. I have it on tape. Think I'll watch it again, soon.

Oops! Almost forgot. Favorite directlors today? The Coen brothers, Merchant and Ivory.

I like Bergman, though I haven't seen anything by him in many years. My favorite was Virgin Spring.
I don't see many foreign films - Not my choice, but I don't know enough or how to get copies of the right ones.
A foreign film I saw in either the late 60s or the 70s told the tale of an ex Nazi and the woman he becomes involved with. Discussing the war, he says, "One animal kills another ..." Right in the middle of some passionate lovemaking she sees a tattoo on his arm or shoulder, which is the tip-off that he is the one responsible for her husband getting killed while a prisoner. The ex Nazi is killed and as he dies he repeats, "One animal kills another." I've long forgotten who made it and the title.

Fans of classic film comedies, mark your calendars for November 9, 2004. That's when two much-anticipated dvd collections are set to appear:

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can't Cheat an Honest Man / It's a Gift / International House)

and

The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (The Cocoanuts / Animal Crackers / Monkey Business / Horse Feathers / Duck Soup)

The Fields collection contains "The Bank Dick," which has already appeared on a Criterion disc, but the others are, as far as I know, making their first appearances on dvd. Some may grumble at the inclusion of "International House," but this film also contains George Burns and Gracie Allen, so it's a fair trade. We still await the release of other Fields movies, such as "Min and Bill" and "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break."

To say that the Marx Bros. collection is "long-anticipated" would be to indulge in a gross understatement. These Paramount films had been released individually on dvd some years ago, but they've been out of print for a long time. Now they are not only coming back, but they're packaged together in a relatively inexpensive set (roughly $8.50 per film on Amazon is a tremendous bargain compared with $50-100 per dvd for the old, out of print versions). One can only hope that Universal (which, apparently, now owns the rights to these movies) puts some effort into restoring the prints, which, in some cases (most notably "Horsefeathers") are in bad shape.

This is also evidence of a very promising trend in dvd sales: reasonably priced collections of classic movies. Universal has been at the forefront (I've discussed elsewhere its release of the Abbot & Costello movies) and it looks like other companies are taking the same approach (Warner Home Video released a collection of the Marx Brothers' MGM films in the same way). All in all, it's a good time to be a classic film buff and the owner of a dvd player.

Thanks Joe...reminds me I haven't seen the Wizard in a while

Nor I, panz. Send him an email, but no response as yet.

Joe, my husband loves W.C. That might be a great Christmas gift for him. Thanks.

Watched Jurassic Park again, and got to catch the remarkable performance of the guy who was first killed by the raptors.

That one line of his: "You clever girl" was understatement to the max.

I just finished Missing. Tommy Lee Jones in a western, about people chasing kidnapped girls bound for sale in Mexico. It was actually pretty good. Ron Howard directed.

I keep seeing "Missing" popping up on cable and somehow haven't taken the time to watch it. Thanks for reminding me.

It's not an eye catcher right at first, but gets better as you get into it. Some parts as you get into the latter third play really well.

I guess this should be a featured topic as some of those I have in the top ten are inactive!

I neglected to say much about the Alamo. I think the scores for so many films these days are much too serious. They strive for a self importance that does not often match the actions on the screen. How I would have loved a sprinkling of lively Mexican music in a few scenes of this one. The closest to lively music came when Davey produced a fiddle and played along with Santy Anna's boys, camp to camp.
I like the film overall, but if I had been in Ron Howard's shoes would have sought another approach.

I read somewhere that the movie moguls are going to capitalize on the hurricane trend. Something called The Day After Tomorrow. Wonder if we'll be extras. <smile>

Probably a perfect storm comprised of several hurricanes zeroing in on Florida (where else makes sense?). Directed by Ron Howard.

Believe it or not, I watched Disney's Aladdin on DVD the other night. I was prepared to be bored, but was surprisingly captivated by Robin Williams as the genie. How old is that movie?