Author Topic: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project  (Read 22347 times)

pixote

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #150 on: July 17, 2017, 12:11:36 AM »
Glad you watched Mouse in Manhattan. Did seeing Jerry in the sewer immediately call to mind Ratatouille? It did for me.

I felt like the animators were specifically referencing Lloyd's Safety Last!, but I'm not sure I saw any hint of Keaton here. Stan Laurel, maybe.

Quiet Please! isn't part of my Tom & Jerry marathon, but just based on your description, I'm really surprised it beat Mouse in Manhattan for the Oscar, too.

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pixote

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #151 on: July 18, 2017, 12:38:56 AM »
I finally remembered to update the index.

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pixote

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #152 on: July 18, 2017, 03:13:14 AM »


Tee for Two  (William Hanna & Joseph Barbera, 1945)

Tom is out golfing, horribly. When his ball finally rolls into the cup, it bounces right out, because Jerry is resting there. Hijinks ensue. Tee for Two is a nice change of pace for the series for a couple of reason. First, there's a nice give-and-take here, with Tom giving as good as he gets, for once. Second, it's nice to see Tom doing something out of the house — something with a clear, uncomplicated goal. A round of golf provides pretty much all the structure a short like this needs — something concrete to pin a bunch of gags on. And the short is at its best when the jokes are specific to the golf course setting — Tom using Jerry as a tee, for example; or cleaning him in the ball washer. Other gags involving an angry bird or a swarm of bees aren't bad in isolation, but in context they break the comic momentum somewhat because they aren't rooted strongly enough in the story and setting. I would bet that a similar short from Disney, with Donald Duck in the Tom role and Chip n' Dale splitting the Jerry role, would be more entertaining — partly because Disney tends to have better story sense, keeping the gags rooted in the core concept and let them build on each other; and partly because much of the best humor in this style of short aren't in the actions but in the reactions by well-defined characters, and nobody reacts better than Donald.

Potential Nominations: I'd only nominate this for Best Short if you dubbed in Nic Cage at the end, screaming, "NOT THE BEES!"

Grade: C+

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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #153 on: July 18, 2017, 05:45:24 AM »
I finally remembered to update the index.

pixote
Nice!

For the sake of completeness my brief write-up on The Woman In Green also covered The House Of Fear. :)
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pixote

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #154 on: July 18, 2017, 11:35:25 AM »
For the sake of completeness my brief write-up on The Woman In Green also covered The House Of Fear. :)

Updated, thanks!

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1SO

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #155 on: August 08, 2017, 10:02:54 PM »

A Bell For Adano
"The farmers in the country were awakened by it in the morning. The drivers of carts
knew when to start by it. The bakers baked by it. The sabbath, when all the bells ring at once,
this bell rose above all the others and was the one we listened to."


Except for being a war film set in Italy, I knew nothing about this film. This isn't about plot surprises, but the tone, which is all over the place. Here, that's a great thing because director Henry King balls it all up into a cohesive whole, making it a film with something for everyone who doesn't have a pre-existing condition against classic cinema. There's the pathos and melodrama I expected, but also quite a bit of comedy that crosses into screwball. Moments that are silly yet played with a deadpan intelligence, followed by a haunting depiction of soldiers released from prison camps, returning to their families. Though filmed entirely on a Hollywood backlot, there are shots which evoke Italian neorealism and characters who would be at home in Fellini's later work (without dwelling on either, which is why I loved it.)


The star of the film is John Hodiak, who looks like young Martin Balsam if you darkened in the borders of his facial features. It's easy to overlook how good he is when everyone else is stealing scenes, including character actors playing the locals who move around with the manic energy of the Marx Brothers. Among the soldiers, William Bendix is the clear standout, but Harry Morgan has some great moments too.


Gene Tierney is unfairly miscast. It isn't that she's playing a blonde, that's explained and seeing her not her usual dark-haired self is the point of her character. However, she's also referred to often by her dark skin, when she practically glows in the B&W lighting. All the other Italian women are exceedingly authentic, which only makes her non-accent and pale skin stick out more. Richard Conte also shows up for a scene comparable to the Christopher Walken's part in Pulp Fiction. He gives a speech and a half, a speech that has no bearing on the rest of the film, and it's some of the most bland writing. This is why A Bell For Adano doesn't rise to match A Walk in the Sun (still in my Top 5 for this year), but they both stand out as a different kind of war picture, one that feels like it didn't leap that far off the page.
Rating: * * * - Good, #13 out of 81 for 1945

Possible Nominations: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Ensemble, Best Surprise
« Last Edit: August 08, 2017, 10:06:09 PM by 1SO »

oldkid

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #156 on: August 09, 2017, 03:47:02 AM »
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

There are the people who deride It's a Wonderful Life for being too sentimental. And it confuses me every time I hear it.  The whole bells and wings line is childish fantasy, but for the most part, it's a dark film in which the bad guy wins.

Now if someone claimed A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is too sentimental, that I could understand.  It wears it's heart on it's sleeve, there are too many plot points you can see a mile away and it is a pretty common coming of age story.  But it hit me right between the eyes.

First thing I noticed was the art direction, especially in street scenes.  Everyone is bustling, moving about, but each movement makes sense and no one runs into each other.  The twenty to thirty people milling about are choreographed carefully, to display an ordered business, as if it were a musical.

Although each character is a stereotype (cheerful, drunk Irishman father; hard-working mother attempting to overcome poverty; slut aunt-- well, perhaps that is less a stereotype in the 1940s-- irritating younger brother), yet I believed them all.  Perhaps that's my gullibility, or perhaps it's the casting... or perhaps it's because the writers so carefully placed a conflict within each main character and they struggled with themselves throughout the film. 

So when the inevitable tragedies and hook ups happen, I was ready to cry and laugh and do all that the film wanted me to do.  I was joyfully manipulated into emotional resonance.  I love that feeling.

4/5

Best supporting actress, best supporting actor, best adapted screenplay, best art direction, best film.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Teproc

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #157 on: August 24, 2017, 09:27:03 AM »
Zoku Sugata Sanshirô / Sanshiro Sugata II (Akira Kurosawa, 1945)

Did not watch it with this in mind but here we are. This was a bit of a disappointment for me, as I quite liked the first one, which has a classic coming of age narrative and some marvelous imagery... this one still has some of the imagery and relatively frequent flashes of brilliance from Kurosawa's direction, but the script is pretty terrible. Initially it looked like this would be a propaganda film, with a judo vs boxing opposition that would reaffirm Japanese identity in the face of foreign occupation, but that ends up being a relatively minor aspect of the film, with the bigger fight being between two japanese schools (well, as much as Okinawa counts as Japanese): judo vs karate. This sounds exciting, and it sounds even better once I tell you the final fight takes place on a snowy mountain... but it doesn't live up to those expectations at all, especially compared when the somewhat similar climax of the first one. Really, this has typical sequel problems: it undoes all of the main character's development (on a character level I mean), and tries to go bigger than the first one without much success. Kurosawa's direction still makes it eminently watchable, but it's not enough to save the whole thing.

4/10
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Teproc

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #158 on: August 24, 2017, 12:55:47 PM »
Roma città aperta (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)

A product of its time. Not a time for complexity or subtelty, a time for grandstanding against nazism, celebrating resistance to oppression and denouncing collaborators, which: fair enough. But it doesn't make for the most interesting story. As I understand it, it's the birth of Italian neo-realism, which is a style that makes a lot weigh on story and acting. The acting side is very strong, across the board, especially Aldo Fabrizi as the saintly Don Pietro and Anna Magnini as the martyr Pina. Religious terms because catholicism is all over the film, though not in particularly interesting ways. The story is... fine. Again, it's easy to understand how impactful it must have been at the time, both emotionally and formally, but now it's... fine.

6/10

Possible nominations:
Best Actor: Aldo Fabrizi
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Magnini
Ensemble Cast
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pixote

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Re: 1945 Retrospots: Discovery Project
« Reply #159 on: August 24, 2017, 01:51:42 PM »
A product of its time. Not a time for complexity or subtelty, a time for grandstanding against nazism, celebrating resistance to oppression and denouncing collaborators ...

Sounds very 2017.

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