Author Topic: Top 100 Club: 1SO  (Read 51331 times)

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #240 on: March 16, 2020, 09:54:53 AM »
The Furies

Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) is a powerhouse character,
That's really all I needed to hear. Stanwyck is one of those great actresses whose reputation fades with each new generation and the thousands of other films to watch. It's always great to shine a lot on her.

You really think so? Every film website that I visit, she's held in high esteem amongst her peers. I think she's held up much better than Bette Davis' eroding legacy. Those who are just finding their way down the pathways of film history are being schooled by those like us, who see her as the pinnacle of acting talent from the golden age of Hollywood.

I think Bette Davis is much more well-known and just as respected.
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1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #241 on: March 16, 2020, 10:14:37 AM »
I train people who want to work in the business or are interested in film, and the further back you go the more selective they are about what to watch because the list of options has grown by the thousands since we first caught the bug. It's surprised me how many aren't familiar with Humphrey Bogart and view Casablanca the way I did Lawrence of Arabia. It's something they know they should see, but there's nothing on the surface to entice them. When Cagney doesn't excite them, what chance does Edward G. Robinson have?

With Bette Davis, I think her reputation is often held up as the best of her class and All About Eve or Baby Jane become entry points. Stanwyck has Double Indemnity, but that's a movie firing on all cylinders and not just an actor showcase.

My schooling of others has gone from "let me introduce you to William Powell" to "let me introduce you to James Stewart."

oldkid

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #242 on: March 17, 2020, 11:50:27 PM »
Young Mr. Lincoln

So why isn’t 1939 the greatest year in film?  Not that YML is one of the best films in cinema history, but it adds to the greatness of that year, certainly, if only for the performance by Henry Fonda and the group assembled around him.  This Lincoln is just someone I want to spend time with.  This is less of a biopic and more of a snapshot of character.  How a friendly, focused, brave, unassuming yet ambitious man makes his  way in a world of opportunity and tragedy. 

I was surprised at how funny this film was.  There are a number of comedies that I’ve laughed at less.  Both the quality and variety of humor is excellent.  And we get scenes of celebrations and a long trial sequence and a bit of mystery.  Again, not much in the way of a biopic, it feels as varied as a South Korean film.

That doesn’t mean it’s all good.  The music is ham-fisted, the presentation is overly sentimental and the attempts at being patriotic is just laughable.  A few of the lines were funny and I don’t think they were intended to be.  But I was entertained and the film had much more going for it than I thought it would.

4/5
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1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #243 on: March 18, 2020, 01:17:49 AM »
I looked up my 1939 list and Lincoln is 2nd behind Destry Rides Again. There's certainly a case to be made, and a pretty cool documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh.

As for Lincoln directly, we had the same reaction, and it's my wanting to spend more time that's put this one on frequent repeat around the house. Story-wise it's kind of a mess and aimless until that fatal murder. (The smoke in that shot is my favorite image in all of John Ford's films. It rises from the dead body like a departing soul, and then forms a cloud which hangs over the boys.) But it's full of great moments along the way, like the pie contest. I could watch that on a loop.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #244 on: March 20, 2020, 01:34:46 AM »
We meet again, 1SO! My third and likely final installment in your film club...

Double Indemnity (1944)
A film noir classic, I understand. I've found my reading around the film, including a few reviews, quite interesting. When audiences weren't buying anymore "happily ever after," we got Walter Neff, the ultimate patsy in a grand insurance scheme that pays-off for nobody. I dig the storytelling via flashbacks just before Neff is ultimately caught. I'm not a huge fan of the acting style, as it's quite melodramatic, even if everyone here is fairly black at heart. It's a hang-up I have with a fair few works of classic cinema, either that I've caught on TV, sitting with my grandparents*, or engaging in discovery missions such as this one, as I find the acting a little more artificial and prefer something a bit more natural, i.e. with verbal or non-verbal pauses, faux pas, more subtle changes of expression and tone of voice. Overall, I think it's a very neat film, edited in fairly direct and coherent manner, and any surprises could be found in the twists of the plot. I'm trying and likely failing with words to get at a look that seems rather standard for a film that mostly consists of people talking in living rooms, the camera often still, close-ups that serve the melodramatic aspects of the film, while there are obviously some of the dark hues of film noir (still a lot happening at night, after hours, where the plotting really gets going). For someone who quite likes film noir, even if I haven't seen a wide variety of it (had a lecture series on Chinatown in college, which I loved), this is a good gap to fill in, although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about its overall look or acting.

*My grandparents really got me into cinema. On my mom's side, they would often be watching classic films, always took me to the cinema, and when I tired of all else, they let me rent The Neverending Story (VHS) as often as I wanted to. I don't know why they didn't just buy a copy. On my Dad's side, well...The Sound of Music and the little corner store with 50 titles for rent, hardly any of them new. I get a pang of nostalgia just thinking about it.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2020, 01:56:07 AM by etdoesgood »
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1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #245 on: March 20, 2020, 09:43:07 AM »
Thank you for sampling my product.

It's been interesting seeing what you take to and what you don't and why. There's definitely an artificial quality to Film Noir and Double Indemnity. For me that starts with the dialogue. Nobody talks that smoothly, though I wish we all could. So many great lines that would take a genius for a person to come up with on the spot. Indemnity also has the visual and the sense of impending doom (not just from the voice over but the image during the opening credits of a dark figure moving inevitably toward us.)

I would have to think about a Film Noir that would be the smart next choice for you. It would seem something modern would be best and my heart goes to L.A. Confidential, but that has both Kevin Spacey and some troubling racial content that's important to the story and the theme of corruption and blind hate in Los Angeles. So I will keep thinking.

MartinTeller

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #246 on: March 20, 2020, 11:13:34 AM »
I mean, if you're going to insist on naturalism, then I would say film noir is really not for you.

colonel_mexico

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #247 on: March 20, 2020, 11:30:33 AM »
DOUBLE INDEMNITY is one of the greatest films I've ever seen
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #248 on: March 20, 2020, 12:00:08 PM »
Yeah, I didn't explain myself the best, I guess. I mean, I love Wes Anderson, and his characters' words, speech patterns, and actions are far from natural. I think it's the emotion, the melodrama, that kind of makes me  ::) and feels a little cheesy to me. I know ultimately that's all undermined by impending doom, but yet there it is. All the This baby, and That baby, and I love you baby, and Shutup baby. I know it's to show what a patsy he really is, but it's cringey! And I'm not trying to rail or be disrespectful, I understand this is a universally lauded and adored picture. Just the way they talk, the way their faces are framed in that classic woman looking dreamily into her man's eyes, it feels very artificial but not in an interesting or artful way.

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Antares

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #249 on: March 20, 2020, 12:36:02 PM »
For someone who quite likes film noir, even if I haven't seen a wide variety of it (had a lecture series on Chinatown in college, which I loved), this is a good gap to fill in, although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about its overall look or acting.

I would have to think about a Film Noir that would be the smart next choice for you. It would seem something modern would be best

If you want to delve into Noir, then you have to accept the cinematography and the acting style. Classic Noir came before The Method, just accept it, and immerse yourself in one of the best genres in all of film. Here's some recommendations...

Laura (1944)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Gilda (1946)
Out of the Past (1947)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Night and the City (1950)
The Big Heat (1953)
The Killing (1956)

For foreign Noirs:

Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)
Bob le flambeur (1956)

Also, check out the Noirvember marathons we've done in the past, they are like a Noir tutorial.
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