Nothin' much to talk about except that today is my grandma's birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma!
The Big Heat (1953): I thought it was a solid film noir/vengeance movie on first watch, but after reading up on the movie a bit, my respect for it went up a bit more, because it actually pulled the wool over my eyes. The biggest trick The Big Heat pulls is how it subtly positions the hero (played by Glenn Ford) as a sort of male femme fatale -- and it has him doing it almost unknowingly and instinctively, which is why it might be a bit tricky to spot. What I also like is how the cloying suburban environment (just over-the-top enough that you know something weird is going to happen) is paralleled with the violence of the underworld. And Lee Marvin is pretty scary as the main mob boss' Dragon. He's calm a lot of the time, but you can tell immediately that he has the potential to explode at any time, and when he rages, he really rages. I like Gloria Grahame as Marvin's girlfriend, too. She is a throwback to fast-talking gangster girlfriends, but she has enough strength to stand on her own.
Death at a Funeral (2007): Had a lot of fun watching this with Shishou and Drift! It's a pretty funny movie about a British family reuniting at their patriarch's funeral, and all the dysfunction that follows. Besides all the hilarity, what I like most about the movie is how it relentlessly marches forward with every random storyline. It switches around a lot, but it never really gets too confusing, because you can see the barest hints about how everything is connected, which leads to the, "Oh no ..." reaction, haha. My one real complaint is that the movie is disappointingly short. I wanted more. :(
Valkyrie (2008): Liked it more than I thought I would -- it's not a bad movie for what it is trying to do. There was this huge shitstorm about Tom Cruise playing the lead because 1) He's crazy, and 2) Um, he's crazy, but the movie is pretty respectful, I think, and doesn't try to force the story into some big, overblown actiony mess. Because you know the plot does not succeed, a lot of the interest comes from the meticulous planning and the willingness of the soldiers to sacrifice their lives for something that, in all likelihood, will fail.
Shane (1953): On the surface, Shane is one of those classic western stories (a mysterious man rolls into town and helps the downtrodden people defend themselves against the corrupt land owners), but there are two things beneath that surface that really spring out at me. One, the movie has a strong anti-violence bent. There are the obvious things like the wife (Jean Arthur) saying she doesn't want her son growing up around guns, and Shane (Alan Ladd) himself saying there's no living with a killing. But Shane is anti-violence in action as well. Shane is a weary guy, tired of being a gunfighter, but there's a scene where Shane and the husband (Van Heflin) are fighting off a group of people in a bar, and this big grin suddenly lights up Shane's face. It plays off to me like he is rediscovering an addiction to violence that had been dormant in him for a while. Pretty much all the violence in the movie is completely chaotic or just plain sad ... there's one death in particular, about 2/3 of the way through, that might be one of the sadder deaths I've seen in the movies, just because of the way it is shown. There is also the way the husband throws himself into the action -- it's half because he genuinely wants to rid the town of its bad influence, and half because he wants to impress his son and make him believe his pop is a tough guy.
The other thing that really springs out at me is the implied attraction between Shane and the wife. Either the husband does not see it, or he believes nothing will come of it, but it's there. For most of the movie, I actually thought it would be revealed that they knew each other in the past (they certainly have enough chemistry to have known each other), but apparently they are just really attracted to each other. It really adds a lot to the wife's character, because she's struggling against her desire to keep Shane around, and the fact that Shane is probably a bad influence on her son.
So, yes, a good movie! Gives you a bit to think about despite seeming to be just another western at first glance.
On the queue for this week: Dracula (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Secondhand Lions (2003) and Stalag 17 (1953)
Total Movies: 119 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Point Break, 500 Days of Summer, Man Bites Dog, Burn After Reading, Glory, Training Day, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, White Heat, All About Eve, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Big Heat, Death at a Funeral, Valkyrie, Shane)
