A few reviews

[mnkykungfu]

^I felt exactly the same as you when I watched it. Honestly, even knowing what it is, the film feels like it wants us to be invested in the methodology of the heist and in how the different women's different motivations affect the ending, but very little of that worked for me. Only arguably two of the women are given much depth whereas I wanted them to be co-leads (WidowS not Widow). The heist and the dirty 'good guys' felt thinly drawn and nothing I hadn't seen 100 times before, and the film felt like the real decision-making was still made by the men and the women were scrambling to adjust to what the men did. It's not a bad film, but for what it seemed to want to be it failed on every level for me.

 

[TM2YC]

The Man with Two Brains (1983)
I used to watch 'The Man with Two Brains' on a loop when I was young (it surely must have been an "edited for TV" recording, given all the nudity) but I hadn't seen it since, mostly because it only got it's first limited blu-ray release a couple of years ago. The real Steve Martin 80s classics have been weirdly difficult to see for some reason... in the UK anyway. I might just be coming down from the high of laughing myself silly for 90-minutes solid but is 'The Man with Two Brains' the funniest American film ever made? (not including the Marx Brothers obviously). No matter how absurd it gets, from the cat infested operating theatres, to Martin climbing a building like Spider-Man with his saliva, it's played dead-pan, as if it's all perfectly normal. The late great David Warner's vast Frankenstein-like gothic castle lab being inside a tiny cheap condo building, like it's the Tardis, is one of the best running jokes. I'd totally forgotten the film had an amazing Goblin/Giallo style synthesiser score!

^ A bit of that sensational score.

^ How many takes did they have to do with this kid to get this gag in a long take?!

^ Best joke about "Azaleas" ever!

^ Yay a fan made 35mm scan of the trailer!

 

[TM2YC]

Road to Perdition (2002)
I had another go at trying to like 'Road to Perdition' as many others seem to rate it highly. The trouble is I'd read the brilliant Max Allan Collins comic book on which it's based and the even more brilliant 'Lone Wolf and Cub' Manga (by Kazuo Koike) on which that is based. It swaps feudal Samurai for Prohibition gangsters, the Shogun for Al Capone and instead of the main character being the Shogunate's top executioner, he's a legendary mob enforcer known as "The Angel of Death"... but in most ways it's very similar in style and tone. Collins actually prints a quote from Koike in the preface to his comic adaptation and "Road to Perdition" = "Road to Hell" = "Road to Meifumado", a line that is constantly referenced in the Manga. Director Sam Mendes and writer David Self seem to have asked themselves "How can we make the most boring possible version of this idea?". They go for an icy dour atmosphere and a slow rumination on guilt and grief, instead of what was originally an action packed adventure, a "roaring rampage of revenge". This should've/could've been a 1930s 'John Wick' but Mendes reduces the thriller premise of Sullivan waging a one man war against the entire prohibition underworld to a brief bloodless montage with jaunty comedy music. As if subconsciously realising that they'd ruined this story, Mendes/Self insert a new character played by Jude Law to pursue the protagonists, in order to restore a sense of dramatic tension, because they themselves had excised all the dramatic action. I'm sure if I could objectively evaluate this film on it's own merits, I'd be loving the incredible performances, beautiful lighting and inventive direction but I guess I can't.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Never read the (comic) book first. lol I absolutely love both the comic and film, but I did them in reverse order. I find that that is key for me enjoying film adaptations. Did the same with Ready Player One and that film is so different than the book that I have a feeling I would have been irked if I'd read the book first. I was initially reluctant to get into The Mandalorian because it was so obviously a LWAC ripoff, but I've learned to appreciate these on their own terms, for what they do differently (and well!) with the same concept.

 

[TM2YC]

Falling Down (1993)
No matter how many times I watch 'Falling Down', I need to remind myself that this isn't directed by Paul Verhoeven, another Director of Scandinavian descent, who was the same age as the late Joel Schumacher (and looks not dissimilar to him too). It feels so much like the kind of intelligent but high-octane satire of American culture that made Verhoeven's name, where as Schumacher usually makes dreadful films but here, for once he made something perfect. The symbolic use of costumes, props and dialogue is cleverly done, it's Michael Douglas' 1960s haircut, glasses and shirt, his cultural references to G.I. Joe, prices in 1965 money and the Apollo missions. It's Coca-Cola, McDonald's (or the movie's non copyright infringing "Whammy-Burger" with a big golden W) and his little girl being shown innocently playing with a toy gun throughout. I hadn't realised before that this was being filmed while the L.A. riots were going down, which interrupted filming.

I love the relationship between Robert Duvall's Sergeant Prendergast and Rachel Ticotin's Detective Torres. I can't recall many on screen relationships quite like it, where there is such an easy mutual respect and fellowship between two different cops of different personalities, genders, cultures and ages. I always wonder what a 90s "buddy cop" TV show about these two could've been like? Duvall's carefree delivery of the line "F*** you Captain Yardley. F*** you very much" is one of the greatest. Some of those lines and scenes are truly iconic, who hasn't opened the box on a disappointing fast-food burger and thought "Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this picture?!". You see some criticism for this being seen as playing up to racial stereotypes of the adversaries Douglas encounters on his odyssey across Los Angles, but that's forgetting the psychotic white Nazi, the skeezy white guy hustling Douglas for money (incompetently) and the rich white and utterly unpleasant golfer he encounters. Douglas is attacked for invading the golfer's turf (literal golf course turf), in the exact same way he gets accosted for crossing "gang turf" early on in the film. The only difference is the poverty and the wealth of characters. This time I was enjoying watching the funny look on the face of the girl serving burgers, it's like she's so bored with her job, that Douglas holding the staff at gunpoint has actually made her day better.

 

[TM2YC]

Torn Curtain (1966)
I assumed with this being Alfred Hitchcock, the "Curtain" of the title was a (bloody) shower curtain but it's actually the "Iron Curtain" and this is a Cold War espionage thriller... or at least it wanted to be. A lacklustre script and a mismatched and miscast leading couple, taciturn method actor Paul Newman and irrepressibly bright and cheerful Julie Andrews scuppers the film. Some have complained it looks dated for 1966, which it does, but Hitch's films looked dated in the 50s but it didn't matter when they were so damn good. Arriving right after five back-to-back classics, including 'Vertigo', 'North by Northwest' and 'Psycho', 'Torn Curtain' is such a step down in quality but it's an engaging enough caper. The only stroke of real genius is the scene where Hitch has the viewer on the edge of their seat with nothing more than two men scribbling unintelligible symbols on a blackboard for 5-minutes. Some memorable turns from supporting character actors enliven things at points.

There is a whole unused Bernard Herrmann score:

Compare that with the actual intro music by John Addison:

I think they chose the wrong music.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Torn Curtain (1966)
Arriving right after five back-to-back classics, including 'Vertigo', 'North by Northwest' and 'Psycho', 'Torn Curtain' is such a step down in quality but it's an engaging enough caper.

When I did my Hitchcock marathon last year, I made a case on Letterboxd that I think people have been giving him too much credit and not enough credit to all the people around him. Part of that is because Hitchcock himself was eager to take credit for everything that worked well on a film (even the acting!) and eager to cast the blame on everyone else when a film didn't quite come together. It's a rather unsavory and insufferable aspect that comes out in his Truffaut interviews.

If you look at his films during his "golden age", they're the ones where he'd assembled all the players and had his factory working at full steam. Cinematography by Robert Burks. Editing by George Tomasini. Production management by C.O. Erickson. Costume design by Edith Head. Usually a score by Bernard Herrmann. And I think the real unsung hero: most of Hitch's best scripts come from other writers, my favorite being John Michael Hayes.

There are some great Hitch films missing one or two of these people, but once you start looking beyond that, all those films are "lesser Hitchcock". Notably, Hermann was so pissed off that Hitch threw away his score for Torn Curtain, they never worked together again. Hayes was so pissed off about the way Hitch treated him as a writer during (yes, during) The Man Who Knew Too Much that he never worked with him again. And the list of actresses creeped out or harrassed by Hitch until they never wanted to see him again is quite long....

There are some all-time great films directed by Hitchcock, but the percentage of truly great films out of the ton he made is probably 10% or less. I wish that when people talked about those movies, they dove beyond the typical old white man hogging all the credit to see the very talented people that made his great films stand out from all his mediocre ones.

 

[TM2YC]

There are some all-time great films directed by Hitchcock, but the percentage of truly great films out of the ton he made is probably 10% or less.

Sure, he churned out quite a few "quickie" silent/early sound films in the early days and tailed off a bit at the end (which brings the average down) but the films he made in the mid career are an unrivalled run of decent-to-exceptional movies. 10% is an exaggeration. He made about 50 movies, roughly 10 of which are still some of the most celebrated and iconic ever made (so 20% for a start), another 10 are great movies, but I won't argue about the merits of the other 30 (although I suspect you like them less than I do). Sing the praises of his other collaborators sure (not forgetting Saul Bass) but that doesn't mean you have to reduce his achievements to do it. If you're really serious about 10%, I challenge you to name the only 5 "truly great films" he made? (or just 4 factoring in "...or less")

 

[mnkykungfu]

He made about 50 movies, roughly 10 of which are still some of the most celebrated and iconic ever made (so 20% for a start). If you're really serious about 10%, I challenge you to name the only 5 "truly great films" he made? (or just 4 factoring in "...or less")

Sure, here's my Letterboxd Top 10 List. From that, I'd say only 6 or arguably 7 are "truly great", which is a really subjective term, but I'm thinking of films that are not only lionized by the film glitterati, but which I could throw on for my girlfriend or an average movie-goer and have them won over and singing its praises by the end, regardless of them being over 50 years old or in black-and-white.

I was just loosely throwing out the 10% figure, but turns out to be spot on. Letterboxd has 61 directing credits for Hitch.

I definitely am cooler on Hitchcock than you (and than most cinephiles nowadays), which is to say that I probably estimate him a bit higher than most people did for most of his career. He was largely dismissed as a shameless self-promoter of *genre* films until Truffaut took him seriously. And then he almost immediately started losing his longtime collaborators and suffered several high-profile disappointments right when he was finally getting appreciated. Partly because he wanted to use his new clout to move over to Comedies and Spy films rather than Thrillers.

But for many of those old Thrillers, I have big issues with the story; I'm one of the people Hitch would derisively label "the implausibles". I also find a lot of his older films to be rather misogynistic, and knowing about his personal life and interactions with women, it's hard not to see that as endorsement rather than just depiction. Hitchcock was a pretty shitty person and I get no glee from seeing misogyny in his films. That means that I find a lot of his films to be very mixed-bags, regardless of the talent involved in making them: Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Suspicion, Marnie, and many more all fall into this category. They have some great aspects, but they're not truly great films. At least, not for me.

 

[TM2YC]

I was just loosely throwing out the 10% figure, but turns out to be spot on. Letterboxd has 61 directing credits for Hitch.

I wouldn't trust Letterbox to be accurate in these types of situations. Their list includes war time propaganda short docs, promo shorts, unfinished and never released films and German language versions of the exact same movie. Plus a few of his early films are "lost films", so unless you are about 120 years old, I doubt you've seen them, and therefore do not have an opinion on their quality, or lack thereof. Plus as I mentioned before he was doing up to 3 quick films a year in his early silent days, while learning the ropes (pun intended). The figure is more accurately 52 films (even including all his early movies), 7% of which is 13.5%.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Okay, you got me, so 13.5% of his films were "truly great", not 10%.

 

[TM2YC]

Okay, you got me, so 13.5% of his films were "truly great", not 10%.

The point being that even when I'm not going to argue with you claiming only 7 are "truly great" movies (a fairly extraordinary statement to my way of thinking but hey taste is taste), the original "10% or less" claim was a bit hyperbolic. If you said something reasonable like "you know less than half of his movies are truly great" then fair enough, that's probably true, no argument from me.

---

Open Range (2003)
You don't hear much about 2003's 'Open Range', certainly compared to other Kevin Costner directorial efforts, or in lists of the great Westerns, but when I have heard things, they've been very positive. It is one the great westerns and although it's hard to compare anything with 'Dances with Wolves', I reckon this is of equal quality. I see it labelled as a "Revisionist" Western but it feels totally classic to me, featuring all the mythic elements of the genre. It's got flawed, fallible and humble heroes, making a reluctant lone stand against corrupt power and cruel evil. They're out manned and out gunned but none of that matters because their cause is just. The film is in no hurry, across nearly 2.5-hours, to get to the inevitable epic showdown. It takes it's time to let us live with the characters, so as that end approached, I was getting seriously concerned how I'd cope if they didn't make it through. I was on the edge of my seat. Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner wonderfully play two outwardly tough and stoic men, who harbour deep feelings and a gentleness of spirit, even if violence seems to be their only recourse. Duvall is doing that brilliant "sticking his tongue out" acting that only he can do, a similar thing to his character in 'Days of Thunder' (a favourite movie of mine). 'Open Range' was one of the last things the great Michael Kamen scored and he does the film proud. Pretty much a perfect movie, I want to watch it again already!

 

[mnkykungfu]

^We can agree to agree on Open Range, at least. Such an underrated film imho.

 

[TM2YC]

Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)
Another rewatch of my favourite version of Frankenstein but this time in HD. It looks as good as I'd hoped it would, the lighting, the colours and even the camera moves stood out more. Michael Sarrazin's makeup as the creature holds up perfectly in HD and I love the way it imperceptibly devolves across the course of the film.

I wrote a fuller review last time: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/film/frankenstein-the-true-story/

 

[TM2YC]

Three Amigos (1986)
One of the lesser known remakes of Akira Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai'. My friends and I were big fans of 'Three Amigos' at school in the late 80s/early 90s, to the point where we would do their hands and hips dance thing to make each other laugh. I don't think I'd seen 'Three Amigos' since those times, so I was really hoping this poorly reviewed comedy wouldn't disappoint. Given the premise, washed up (silent) movie actors are mistaken for real cowboys and hired to defend a village, I was hoping this was a proto-'Galaxy Quest' gem.

Unfortunately it's many similarities to that later, near perfect movie, highlight the imperfections of this script. For example, the "Three Amigos" don't know the villagers think they aren't actors, so they are never really deceiving them, therefore it doesn't feel like they truly have an obligation to actually risk their lives to help the villagers out. Once the threat is revealed to be potentially fatal, they just help because they are our protagonists. Plus their skills as Douglas Fairbanks-style silent era action-comedy stars should have more clearly come in to play to win the day. You could have had a big moment where they realise they almost are real cowboys e.g. "We can do this guys! We can ride a horse, we're actors! We can throw a lasso, we're actors! We can fire guns, we're actors! We can do our own stunts, we're actors! The only difference is that we're terrified but we can pretend we're not... we're actors!". 'Three Amigos' is still an adventure with lot of fun and many laughs but it's one 80s comedy that could really benefit from a remake, to do another pass on the script (unlike many other 80s movies that should just be left alone).

 

[TM2YC]

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)
I've been meaning to watch this for years for several reasons, it's got a score by the maestro Ennio Morricone, a script by 'Withnail and I' creator Bruce Robinson, Cinematography by the incredible Vilmos Zsigmond and is directed by Academy nominated Roland Joffé but it's the fact that Christopher Nolan is soon releasing his own version of this story 'Oppenheimer' which finally had me thinking "I really need to get around to seeing this!". It's a decent enough historical re-enactment that held my attention but it's less than the sum of the talents behind and in front of the camera. When it's sticking to just dramatising the activities of the "Manhattan Project" it really works but around the mid point it feels the need to start dramatising the lives of the characters. These are earth shattering events (literally) and scientists who changed the course of human history forever, next to that, what they did on the weekend feels inherently boring.

This 4K 35mm fan scan of the theatrical trailer looks amazing. So much more contrast and atmosphere than the bright, flat HD transfer of the movie I watched:

 

[TM2YC]

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
My family watched this a ton back in the 90s but I'd not seen it in ages. It's still wonderful. I hadn't thought about it being a twist on 'Mary Poppins' before, except Mrs Doubtfire isn't there to put the family back together, Mrs Doubtfire is there to make Daniel realise his family can work better apart, and Daniel as this film's Mr Banks doesn't need to act more like a child, he needs to act more like an adult. The script is smart, classy and impactful between the jokes. It would've been so cliched to have Pierce Brosnan's Stu character be the evil stepdad but he's perfect in every way. It's playing with that cliche in the scene where Robin Williams secretly overhears what Brosnan is saying behind Miranda's back, to a dodgy looking guy at the bar, but he's just saying nice genuine things. Brosnan is such a great straight-man, despite Williams giving one of his greatest comedy/drama performances, I laughed the hardest at the awkward little looks Brosnan gives.

^ This period trailer quotes the obvious "Put his family back together" cliche that the movie actually avoids.

This was the first time I'd seen this since Red Letter Media's Wheel of the Worst #8, where they strongly suspected Williams based the whole Doubtfire character on Edinburgh born Canadian variety show impresario Christine Hamilton. I reckon that's true after seeing this film again. It certainly would explain why the character is repeatedly referred to as being English and having an English accent, despite her having an obvious and note-perfect Scottish accent (at least it's obvious to somebody from The British Isles). If Williams had just mimicked Hamilton's voice, he wouldn't necessarily have realised that.

 

[addiesin]

Finally watched Hardcore Henry. Fun gimmick, one problem. The main character never speaks, so there's no emotion at all. All this cool action for no reason. There was an editing joke that made me laugh out loud when he found the horse, but explaining why would ruin it and spoil the film.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

Absolute classic, but it goes to show how many film concepts in the '90s we bought into even though if you think about the reality of them, they're so completely nuts.

I've read interviews with Brosnan where he said the film was a bit less fun for him because Robin was having so much fun playing while he had to kind of stick to the script. He said Robin did so much improv that there are multiple variations on nearly every line in the film, but a ton of it couldn't be used because you'd have to come up with an R or NC17 cut of the movie!

Finally watched Hardcore Henry. Fun gimmick, one problem. The main character never speaks, so there's no emotion at all. All this cool action for no reason. There was an editing joke that made me laugh out loud when he found the horse, but explaining why would ruin it and spoil the film.

I know I'm in the minority here, but as we are so often meant to place our own emotions onto the bland "everyman" character of films, I had no issue with this. I think most of the films Sam Worthington starred in would have been better if we never heard him or saw his face, for example.

 

[addiesin]

I know I'm in the minority here, but as we are so often meant to place our own emotions onto the bland "everyman" character of films, I had no issue with this. I think most of the films Sam Worthington starred in would have been better if we never heard him or saw his face, for example.

Oh I don't mean to be too negative. I had fun watching, but wouldn't try to get my wife to watch, that's all.