A good amount of movies for me this week -- huzzah!
Sleeper (1973): BIG Woody Allen fan here -- I have yet to see a movie of his I did not like. Add this one to that list. This is in the style of his early movies, where the plot is relatively light and the jokes move at 1,000 miles per hour. It is sort of different, though, because a lot of it is like a homage to silent movies -- there are a ton of hilarious silent movie-inspired gag sequences where Woody just screws around. Potentially controversial opinion: Woody Allen is probably as close to a modern Groucho Marx as we ever got.
Badlands (1973): Great movie loosely based on the Charles Starkweather murder spree in 1957-58. Martin Sheen is really creepy in this. He is charismatic enough to make it believable that Sissy Spacek's character would fall for him, but there is always this cold detachment to the way he speaks, moves and addresses situations. Kit always says there is a reason for every murder he commits, but there is always this feeling that the reason is the last thing on his mind when he kills. The way Holly (Spacek) reacts to the murders is also interesting. She is utterly naive when Kit first meets her, and every killing slowly changes who she is.
Johnny Guitar (1954): Definitely one of the weirder westerns I have ever seen. It turns basically every traditional western more on its head -- the men are all either spineless or indecisive, and the two women, Vienna (Joan Crawford) and Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), rule the town and whip their groups of men into shape. Emma in particular has an iron fist; I cannot remember a scene where she was not ordering one of the men around or seething in anger at Vienna. There is also this bizarre sexual energy flying around everywhere. Just a strange movie all around, although I did enjoy it, haha.
Mildred Pierce (1945): More of Joan Crawford turning genres on their heads. This movie is notable for being a film noir told from a woman's point of view. Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) -- a lazy, greedy playboy who worms his way into Mildred's life twice -- is as close to a male femme fatale as I have ever seen. It does have a more traditional femme fatale, as well, in Veda (Ann Blyth), who is one of the more despicable examples of this character type that I have seen, haha. Definitely loved this movie. The story is a tad melodramatic at times, but it's so stylishly told that I overlooked that.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943): Hey, an Alfred Hitchcock movie I have not seen! The first half of this movie is surprisingly risky because it is mainly carried by the lingering suspicion the audience has about Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten). It totally works, though, because Cotten is so friggin' creepy, and the story really picks up once Charlie (Teresa Wright) also shares in those suspicions. Something notable: Charlie is unique among Hitchcock heroines in that she is actually a sharp, highly moral person who shows a lot of strength in facing up to difficult choices, and she does not lean on men to see her way through.
The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004): I gushed about this on OB, but hey, a little more never hurt. This is a stunningly animated movie that I had to rewind a LOT to pick up on the bits of story I missed while my eyes were orgasming over the visuals. Seeing what Makoto Shinkai does with light and color reminds me why I love animation so much. I absolutely will see 5 Centimeters Per Second on my awesome TV and probably die from the sheer joy of it. I'll be sure to warn you all in advance.
On the plate for this week: Hard Boiled (1992), Away from Her (2006), The Hidden Fortress (1958) and Seven Samurai (1954).
Movie Count: 82 (Live Free and Die Hard, Time Bandits, The Hustler, Black Dragon (Miracles), Hollywoodland, Blood Diamond, Animal Crackers, Marie Antoinette, Inside Man, The Fountain, Tombstone, Jurassic Park (Rifftrax), No Country for Old Men, Juno, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Rifftrax), There Will Be Blood, Rize, Born Into Brothels, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, Hard Candy, The Matrix Reloaded (Rifftrax), Hot Fuzz, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, Phone Booth, The Dark Knight, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Predator, Ratatouille, Renaissance, Pretty in Pink, Scanners, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Stop Making Sense, The Killing, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rifftrax), Voices of a Distant Star, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Amadeus, Touch of Evil, Paths of Glory, Gangs of New York, Five Easy Pieces, Perfect Blue, Novocaine, A Fish Called Wanda, A Hard Day's Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai, The Wild Bunch, The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Bringing Up Baby, Pleasantville, Citizen Kane, They Live, The Terminator, The Adolescence of Utena, The Castle of Cagliostro, The Professional, High Plains Drifter, In the Heat of the Night, Michael Clayton, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Munich, Traffic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Bug, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Maltese Falcon, Rashomon, Big Trouble in Little China, Sleeper, Badlands, Johnny Guitar, Mildred Pierce, Shadow of a Doubt, The Place Promised in Our Early Days)
