I was slightly less busy with anime this week, but that means I was also a bit busier with movies. Lots on my plate in this post!
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008): Consistently funny the entire time, though I didn't really get into the story until about halfway through when Jason Segel's character slowly emerged from the post break-up funk. Segel does a solid job of carrying the movie; he's great on How I Met Your Mother and Freaks and Geeks, so it's nice to see him make such a good comedy. Russell Brand is hilarious, too -- his character, a bizarre mash-up of just about every insane Euro rock star ever, just about steals the show every time he's onscreen.
The Stranger (1946): Solid film noir with Orson Welles as a Nazi fugitive (complete with ridiculous mustache) and Edward G. Robinson as the dogged Allied detective who tracks him down to a small town in Connecticut. It's fun watching Welles' character slowly unravel while Robinson's character subtly chips away at him, but there are a couple of bits that are a tad slow, despite the movie being about 95 minutes. The climax looks slightly ridiculous now, but it's still good and rightfully famous.
Love and Death (1975): I am watching so many Woody Allen movies this year that I will probably turn into him by 2010 (sans the talent). This is the strongest of the gag movies Allen made, because it has a solid story behind it -- a cowardly Russian, Boris (Allen), is forced to fight during the Napoleonic wars and is separated from the love of his life, Sonja (Diane Keaton). Somehow, this leads to a plot to assassinate Napoleon. The first half is hysterical (I don't think I went more than a few seconds without laughing), and while it drags slightly in the middle, it picks up again near the end.
Harold and Maude (1971): Very good, surprisingly warm dark comedy about a rich, bored youth who is obsessed with death (Bud Cort) and meets an old woman (Ruth Gordon) who is in love with life. This is probably the funniest collection of suicide attempts anyone will ever see. (My personal favorite is when Harold aims a gun at his overbearing mother, turns the barrel on himself and glances a bullet off his head. It really should not be funny, but it is.) The movie works well in taking a character who could be nothing but an annoying brat and slowly letting him experience the joys of life.
Spartacus (1960): Kirk Douglas is starting to become a favorite of mine -- I need to see more of his movies. He perfectly embodies the strength of Spartacus as he leads a rebellion of slaves against the Roman Empire, led by Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier). The action in the movie is very good (and surprisingly violent, especially considering the era in which the movie was made), and I enjoyed the behind the scenes political battle between Crassus and Roman senator Sempronius Gracchus (Charles Laughton). Only Jean Simmons' performance doesn't stand out much to me -- her character is quite beautiful, but also kind of weak and not really interesting. She mainly exists as Spartacus' wife. Amusing note: Ryan Stiles' "I'm Spartacus!" during the Robin Williams Scenes from a Hat on Whose Line is it Anyway? is at least 100 times funnier when you know the context of that scene.
Scarlet Street (1945): An offbeat film noir with Edward G. Robinson as a straight-laced cashier in an unhappy marriage who courts a sultry woman (Joan Bennett) who believes him to be a famous painter and attempts to take him for all he's worth at the behest of her brutal lover (Dan Duryea). One of the things that makes this movie different from many film noirs is Bennett's femme fatale character; she is an amoral character, but this is mainly because her tragic flaw is that she's in love with such a horrible man (although that really does not excuse how much of a prick she is to Robinson's character). The "normal" femme fatale seduces out of her own selfish desires, so that is kind of interesting. There is a strong emphasis on the guilt of one's actions, which pays off in a good ending that is also bleak as hell.
Sabrina (1954): The very beginning is a tad melodramatic and more than a bit dated, but after that it's a good, very funny romantic-comedy. Audrey Hepburn is stunning as a chauffeur's daughter who spends two years in Paris and comes back a sophisticated woman who captures the eyes of two brothers, David (William Holden) and Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart). Holden is amusing as a total playboy who barely notices Sabrina when she's younger but is thrown for a loop when she returns from Paris. Bogart is just as good, playing the type of slick, sly man he played so well. There are also a lot of jokes and lines that are still fresh and modern -- I probably should not be surprised at that, since most of Billy Wilder's movies have aged incredibly well for the most part. (The line that provides the title of this post, for instance, comes after David injuries himself in an, er, sensitive area after accidentally sitting on two champagne glasses.)
On the queue for this week: Zelig (1983), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Stardust Memories (1980), Barry Lyndon (1975) and Be Kind Rewind (2008)
Total Movies: 25 (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)
