Pursued By Trees
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 20, 2016, 19:54
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Ah, the 1944 John (Hans) Brahm directed version! There were also versions in 1932 (with Novello reprising), 1953 ... erm, and apparently 2009. I do love John Brahms' works ... even his Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes are stand outs. Maybe not so much his Man and Girl from U.N.C.L.E. stuff though.
Aye, in many ways, it was ever thus in terms of remakes. To paraphrase Norma Desmond, the stories were still big, it was the studios that got small.
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Sin Agog
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 20, 2016, 20:15
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Think The Lodger may have started out as a play. At least I inherited an old program from a theatrical version of The Lodger, also starring Ivor Novello, after my grandma died. If you're talking about the hardboiled nothingness of the '90s version, then I'm soooo not with you. There was also a straightforward talkie remake in the early '30s which I haven't seen, so don't know about that.
Just watched Chaplin's Limelight for the second, maybe third time, and it really is an underrated masterpiece. I guess audiences wanted him to shut his geggy once he started talking, but God he had so much to say. There are so many lovely lines in this film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044837/quotes
The plot's melodramatic in that Douglas Sirk kind of way, and some of the acting can be a bit over the top, but it's totally hypnotising and heart-wrenching, and loaded with the kind of insight only someone who wanted to create but wasn't allowed to could deliver (Chaplin was on the verge of being deported for being too humanistic at the time). Of course, the stand-out scene is probably when he and Buster Keaton perform onstage together at the end of the film, but everything leading up to that was lovely, too. Monsieur Verdoux and The Great Dictator are the only two other talking pictures he did worth much cop, but Limelight must have been an influence on everything from Larry Olivier in The Entertainer to Birdman, and it surpasses them all if you're able to accept the melodramatic trappings, which were always there in his pictures from the beginning. His autobiography's proving a great read, too.
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jb lamptoast-morsley
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 20, 2016, 21:28
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yes very incisive. Looked up Peter Greenaway and the only film i recognised was The Cook the thief and his lover which I didn't particularly enjoy. Anything else worth investigating?
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Sin Agog
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 20, 2016, 22:17
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I can't really be doing with Greenaway. A few good ideas, but so much cold, middle-class remove that I feel a little more dead inside every time I see something of his. A Zed & Two Noughts would probably be the next thing of his worth looking into. I'd say watch some Derek Jarman films instead; he's like Greenaway after connecting his ashen heart to a defibrillator.
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Pursued By Trees
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Edited Aug 21, 2016, 00:46
Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 00:45
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Sin Agog wrote: A Zed & Two Noughts would probably be the next thing of his worth looking into.
Long as you can stand the Jim Davidson bits. I do like the Vemeer obsession in it though. I'll see your A Z and Two Noughts and raise you Drowning By Numbers! Equally 80's freaky but with a much more bearable cast.
I liked Vertical Features Remake a lot too. Odd humourless spoof/fake documentary that seemed somewhat pointless while I was watching it... but afterwards I found that it had the effect of making me question and disbelieve everything I saw, that claimed to be 'real', somewhat more than usual.
I'm not a huge fan of Jarman ... didn't like Jubilee overly much, didn't get what all the fuss was about Blue ... did enjoy his Tempest though.
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Sin Agog
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 00:59
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I don't exactly love Jarman either, though I do think the old bird had a bit more life in him, until he didn't. I dig how he did his part for normalising gay culture, and occasionally shepherded some truly otherworldly set design, plus I'm a Simon Fisher John Turner fan so the scores were always beautiful. I actually got cut out of one of his films. Think it may have been the one with Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth. Did some juggling with some family and friends in one scene. Generally though, I like my arthouse cinema shit Eastern-European for some reason I'm unclear of. Think maybe it comes across less starchy and self-conscious, plus the background of places like Czech Republic for creepy puppetry etc. meant the cultures were more receptive of weird artistic endeavours than us. Could just be an art is greener on the other side thing, though.
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Sin Agog
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 12:04
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Edge Of Tomorrow is a step up from any other workmanlike Cruise offering of recent years. by the way, Pursued. You may find yourself surprised, at least I did. Quite reminded me of the Alan Moore comic, The Ballad of Halo Jones, and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. Real nitty-gritty hard sci-fi. Tom Cruise may be one of those brazen human shells the be number one American schooling system sometimes produces (I had to endure it myself for a couple of years while my itinerant parents busked and performed in N. America), but he worked for this.
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Captain Starlet
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 13:24
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The 1944 version I'm referring to, not sure I've seen the 2009 version
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Captain Starlet
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 13:26
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Alfred Molina was in the 2009 version, good actor but thinking to myself that it would be a look back to the 1944 version as he's got the same build as Laird Cregar instead of going for something individual. Just my thought though
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Pursued By Trees
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Re: Films Again - all new
Aug 21, 2016, 14:10
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I have seen it! Decent enough story I guess (there seems to have been somewhat of a spate of time-looping sci-fi things in recent years). The only aspect of having Mr Cruise in it that added any value for me was the training montage. Seeing him getting whupped over and over again ...
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