17 March- A Woman Under The Influence
...the choice of the slightly young kids for this slightly older couple was an interesting choice. Falk has to work frustratedly through extended scenes with the children, where you know there is no way to relate to them, why their mother has gone away. It kills you.
30 March- Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? {For 1957 Retrospot}
It's like a pop song, all jaunty melody and twangy guitar chords, which talks about poverty or war; a cyanide message wrapped up in a dollop of syrup.
How does Mansfield make those noises?
13 April- Two-Lane Blacktop
...my definition of the word "cool" has been redefined by the last hour-odd watching this film. I would call that a valueful use of my time.
5 May- Ugetsu Monogatari
Here is a director with a Shakespearean ambition of his own. He is fearless in taking the consequences of the actions of these greedy/ ambitious men to their fullest extreme. Death and degradation of the spirit are your ultimate reward. Wow. Be careful of that which you wish for, would convey a fraction of the power of this message.
23 May- The Devils
Scenes go from sublimely strange to crazy, against a background of pure white brickwork, spinning sacrificial crosses on which to place the nearest protestant, and infernal devices to encourage the confessions of witches.
15 Jun- The Conformist
I have seen Marcello described as a weak man, but that doesn't go far enough. He represents something venal, a very symbolic cowardice and by transposition, the epitome of the Fascist.
23 June- Faces
Gena Rowlands; appears as a catalytic character to the side of the action. She is a dirty angel, a beautiful train wreck. Cassavettes worships her with his camera, but burrows for the cracks and fissures. Gena stares back into the camera, and melts it with her laser vision.
28 October- Body & Soul
This is "just" a sports movie as much as The Hustler is. The standard rags to riches boxing spiel is the framework, but the movie stops to allow the characters to talk to each other.
4 November- Ossessione {For Noirvember}
There's an amazing scene where the man gets physical with the widow in a street. The camera pulls back and a crowd forms around the pair like a whirlpool coalescing. As the man leaves, the crowd disperses more like smoke. I can't convey how well Visconti does these things. Cinema Ultimo.
14 Nov- Mildred Pierce {For Noirvember}
... a good deal of the film could bubble in its own melodramatic juices, if Curtiz allowed it to. The whole is so much a greater thing than the parts it includes. It, ultimately, becomes one of the best mother/ daughter sagas I can ever remember seeing. EVER!