Powerful! Ahed’s Knee Directed by Nadav Lapid • 2021 • France, Israel Starring Avshalom Pollak, Nur Fibak, Yoram Honig A celebrated Israeli filmmaker named Y (Avshalom Pollak) arrives in a remote desert village to present one of his films at a local library. Struggling to cope with the recent news of his mother’s terminal illness, he is pushed into a spiral of rage when the host of the screening, a government employee, asks him to sign a form placing restrictions on what he can say at the film’s Q&A. Told over the course of one day, Ahed’s Knee depicts Y as he battles against the loss of freedom in his country and the fear of losing his mother. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the latest from fearless director Nadav Lapid (SYNONYMS) is a molotov cocktail of white-hot political rage that offers a searing critique of the censorship, hypocrisy, and violence instigated by Israel and repressive governments everywhere.
Just thought I’d mention this random Criterion movie generator for those wanting a suggestion from out of the blue: Tycherion Selector Farewell to Dream (1956, Kinoshita) My first random generator result. Nice. Don’t know the work of this filmmaker. Anyone here seen it? Looking forward to a viewing…
Two I still haven’t seen, though I enjoyed Heaven Can Wait which I believe is remake of Mr. Jordan, right? How did you like them?
Well, I was trying to think of a trait that distinguishes Kinoshita, who has over a dozen feature films on the channel (had no idea of the man until yesterday) from filmmakers like Ozu or Mizoguchi: it’s the editing. By miles. What we have with Farewell is the thinnest of storylines - a domestic melodrama that would in most hands be rather dreary; in a post-war Tokyo alley a young man takes over his dying father’s small fish shop while his cagey but attractive older sister schemes to become a rich bride. Kinoshita manages to capture the hopes, fears, intimacy and cruelty of the characters involved in the story most effectively through camerawork and editing. Some of the cutting, particularly in key scenes, is curiously jarring for this period of Japanese filmmaking (from what I’ve seen, anyway) but successfully manages to convey the emotion of the characters in ways the dialogue simply is not up to. Not that it’s a bad script, but it’s clearly just a template from which Kinoshita can create his striking visual impressions. Obviously I was impressed with my first taste of this filmmaker. Definitely looking forward to more.
I believe that’s a remake, but never saw it. Mr. Jordan was fantastic. Edward Everett Horton and Claude Rains were very funny. Uncredited Lloyd Bridges appearance with a British accent. Baba Yaga was very different but I thought riveting, More a study on human condition than a plot/script-driven film.
Lloyd Bridges with a Brit accent? This I gotta see (he had a sort of rugged American rep, no? Much like Jeff. Can’t see the Big Lebowski suddenly doing Sherlock Holmes.)
Finally got around to watching this. It is what it is, and glad I saw it. Touch of Evil Directed by Orson Welles • 1958 • United States Starring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles Orson Welles’s sublimely sordid noir masterpiece opens with the most explosive tracking shot in all of cinema and ends with one of the medium’s most immortal lines (delivered, unforgettably, by Marlene Dietrich as a shady madam). In between is a cascade of pulp pleasures as a Mexican prosecutor (Charlton Heston) and his American wife (Janet Leigh) find themselves caught up in a murder investigation while on their honeymoon in a sleazy border town. At the center of it all is Welles’s towering performance as the monstrously corrupt cop Hank Quinlan—“some kind of a man” if ever there was one.
Lone Wolf and Cub : Sword of Vengeance (1972) The whole series is a great Samaria epic. For a version dubbed in English (with a crazy funk soundtrack and reverbed sword sounds) check out Shotgun Assassin. Its the first two Lone Wolf movies edited into one film for US release.in 1980. Added bonus of Diagoro narration.
Ok, who here works for Criterion? Cinematography by James Wong Howe: 25 Films Glad to see this retrospective, in any event. It includes some lauded films I haven’t seen. And where else will you see a great stream of Funny Lady (great soundtrack if you like Tin Pan Alley tunes and one of the few of his own performances of which the late James Caan said he was proudest) Bravo CC.
We’re in Santa Fe this weekend. Got in late last night as a local annual festival Zozobra was ending. Thought for a bit on why it seemed familiar … this was filmed here and at the La Fonda hotel where some of our friends are staying. Definitely going to rewatch this when we get home - haven’t seen it show up on the channel but I’ve got the blu ray on the shelf and haven’t watched it in years.
This is kind of hilarious and, I imagine, experimental in 1965. The Knack . . . and How to Get It Directed by Richard Lester • 1965 • United Kingdom Starring Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, Rita Tushingham From director Richard Lester comes this mod masterpiece that won the Palme d’Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and all but defined the look and spirit of swinging London. Sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks) has a monopoly on womanizing, while the naive and awkward Colin (Michael Crawford) desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl (Rita Tushingham), it’s not long before the self-assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war, or can Colin get the Knack and beat Tolen at his own game?
This was pretty good. love Richard Harris in later films but hadn’t seen an early film of his. Looking forward to checking out a few more in this British new wave set This Sporting Life Criterion Collection Edition #417 One of the finest British films ever made, this benchmark of kitchen-sink realism follows the self-defeating professional and romantic pursuits of a miner turned rugby player eking out an existence in drab Yorkshire. With an astonishing, raging performance by a young Richard Harris, an equally blistering turn by fellow Oscar nominee Rachel Roberts as the widow with whom he lodges, and electrifying direction by Lindsay Anderson, in his feature-film debut following years of documentary work, THIS SPORTING LIFE remains a dramatic powerhouse.
This is quite something. Intense and amazing performances: Séance on a Wet Afternoon Directed by Bryan Forbes • 1964 • United Kingdom Starring Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough, Margaret Lacey The medium is the menace in this hair-raising suspense classic. In one of her precious few screen roles, stage legend and renowned Method actor Kim Stanley delivers an electrifying, Academy Award–nominated performance as an unstable psychic who coerces her husband (Richard Attenborough) into kidnapping a young girl as part of a scheme to achieve fame by helping the police investigation. Moody cinematography and an ominous Victorian house setting lend a surfeit of atmosphere to this tour de force of psychological tension.
Kes Named one of the ten best British films of the century by the British Film Institute, Ken Loach’s KES is cinema’s quintessential portrait of working-class Northern England. Billy (an astonishingly naturalistic David Bradley) is a fifteen-year-old miner’s son whose close bond with a wild kestrel provides him with a spiritual escape from his dead-end life. KES brought to the big screen the sociopolitical engagement Loach had established in his work for the BBC, and pushed the British “angry young man” film of the sixties into a new realm of authenticity, using real locations and nonprofessional actors. Loach’s poignant coming-of-age drama remains the now legendary director’s most beloved and influential film. Subtitles were certainly helpful with the Northern England accents. I was particularly fascinated by the common use of "thee" in every day language. It's a beautiful and heartbreaking film, certainly worthy of all the accolades.
Somehow, this was way better than I remember it. Bell, Book and Candle Directed by Richard Quine • 1958 • United States Starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon The same year that they costarred in Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, James Stewart and Kim Novak teamed up for this imaginative romantic comedy based on the Broadway hit. Novak is Gillian Holroyd, a normal, everyday witch living in 1950s Greenwich Village who uses her supernatural powers to break up the engagement of her old college rival to the publisher Sheperd Henderson (Stewart). But when Gillian winds up falling for the hapless Sheperd, she finds that it may be love’s magic that casts the most powerful of spells.
Plucking the Daisy Directed by Marc Allégret • 1956 • France When ultra-respectable General Dumont discovers that his nubile daughter Agnes is "A.D.", author of a scandalous under-the-counter novel, he wants her shipped to a convent; but she escapes to Paris, planning to live with her brother, ostensibly a rich artist but really a poor guide in the Balzac Museum. This misunderstanding gets both in serious trouble, and puts Agnes in immediate need of money...just the amount offered as grand prize in an amateur striptease contest, which her new boyfriend, reporter Daniel, is covering for his magazine...
