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Skytten (2013)
Why the Right always wins
This very good film shows why the right wing continually wins the day. All the Right (here represented by a political party who reneges on its major election promise) cares about is profit and the unfettered power required to make it, while the Left (represented by the journalist, Mia Moesgaard) is concerned with everything else ... you know, justice, the well being of the species and the planet, so forth.
Enter old Rasmus as the rare Lefty who dares to conceive of a solution usually reserved for state-sanctioned death squads. Of course, he is foiled. The Left always is, because only the Right gets to murder with impunity.
In other words, it's business as usual on this bitch of an earth.
Daddy Nostalgie (1990)
Inauthentic lives
Not a cheerful film, this one. Filmed on the Riviera, but in autumn, the season of decay and death, each character is the sum of a life lived without passion or love. Laure's "Miche" is entirely closed off, ready at all times to express a seething resentment but too resigned to do so. Birkin's "Caroline" is frustrated on every level. Her characteristic sweetness, a compensation for years of neglect from her parents, occasionally comes unstuck with momentary, high-decibel explosions of anger. Bogarde's "Daddy" has mostly lived his life oblivious to those around him, a self-absorbed man unable to truly participate in the hedonism he always sought.
You've got to applaud Bertrand Tavernier's courage for making a film about the desperate lives most people endure. And for making the Riviera, normally the epitome of sun and the good life, equally depressing.
Tutti gli anni una volta l'anno (1994)
Well worth a yearly visit ... if you can find it
I recorded this film onto video sometime in the 90's, during the heyday of Australia's multicultural channel SBS. In those years, David Stratton presented two or three foreign films a week, some of them obscure to the point where none are available today. "Once a Year, Every Year" is one of them.
A few years ago, I transferred the film to DVD and true to the title, find myself revisiting it, if not once a year, every few years. It never fails to enchant, despite a few unfortunately lame moments.
Briefly, eight friends meet every year at the same restaurant. At or near retirement age, they bring with them decades of friendship, including resentments and ongoing squabbles. On this particular night they are mourning one of their group who has recently died and has left a letter suggesting they live communally on his property.
The impeccable performances include, to name just a few, Jean Rochefort as Raffaele, an aging prankster, Giovanna Ralli as Laura, a disgruntled wife, Lando Buzzanca as Mario, a womanizing lecturer, Paolo Bonacelli as Romano, a reticent accountant, and Carla Cassola as Anna Maria, a frustrated Linguist.
Poignant in parts, the film is more a comedy of manners. There is one moment that belongs in Great Moments of Cinema History. For quite awhile we have noticed Anna Maria downing copious amounts of red wine at the edge of the screen as attention is directed to other conversations. And then Carla Cassola, in a bravura performance, breaks out in drunken laughter, taking over a minute of screen time and bringing all talk to a halt as she tries to explain why. It is absolutely hilarious.
Les amants (1958)
Malle wildly overrated
This film looked like a winner until the two lovers put down their glasses at the watermill. What followed looked like a parody of Walt Disney. Jeanne Moreau looked like she was wearing ballet shoes as she fluttered along. And then came that boat scene. Ever laid down with a girl in a row boat? Bloody uncomfortable. Someone should ask her how she managed to deal with the back pain. But I was still holding on until the closeup moments later of Jean-Marc Bory. Strained, phony, downright hilarious. But then it got worse. After the lovemaking back in her room, they kept farting around when any other lovers in such a situation would have been somewhat keen to leave before hubby awoke. Not these two. They couldn't get past each other without endless clutches and expressions of "Darling". Just when I thought they were about to get the hell out of there, they clutched and emoted yet again. And again. And again.
That said, Moreau has never been more hauntingly beautiful. Jean-Marc Bory was great early on with his laid-back, cynical disgust of the bourgeoisie. As a lover, he was a dud. And the final few minutes were excellent.
As for Louis Malle, the only film of his that's moved me is "Zazie dans le metro". And that was a comedy.
L'armée des ombres (1969)
Too many script errors
I've watched this film twice over a period of a few years. Both viewings left me totally conflicted. I want to give it a high rating but there are just too many flaws. Many of them have been pointed out in previous comments, but let me just state what is to me the worst: We are led to believe that Mathilde is the quintessential professional, the go-to woman for getting the job done. Yet she keeps a photo of her daughter in her wallet. Gerbier notes this and asks her to remove it. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, she doesn't. She would have known full well that the photo would eventually compromise her in the event of her arrest. By keeping it in her possession, she endangered the life of her daughter, herself, and her team. When every move these resistance fighters made was fueled by a life or death paranoia, this fatal decision is simply not real. It is result of Melville's careless script.
The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
Arousal from space
I haven't read all the comments, but I'm sure someone has already mentioned that the planet's name, AROUS is but missing an "E" at the end, and that it is pronounced throughout as "eros". Someone has, however, mentioned that Joyce Meadows is hot! Gor may have been a bad guy, but I'll bet John Agar was happy to have him aboard for those pashing scenes with this underrated, sensual actress. Some of the more erotic scenes you'll see in films from the white-picket Fifties.
That aside, if you discount the asinine brain special effects, John Agar is truly scary in a few scenes, especially when his eyes become metallic bursts, and the comment on unbridled power sought after by so many right wing maniacs in history brings it succinctly into the atomic age.
Turkey Shoot (1982)
Ludicrous moment ruins it
Turkey Shoot was the film I was looking forward to most out of a marathon viewing of Ozploitation films, which included "Thirst", "Dead Kids", "The Survivor", and "Patrick".
Not expecting a hell of a lot from any of them I was nevertheless surprised at some genuinely good moments in all.
Turkey Shoot looked like a winner until one scene that lobbed it into the incompetent category. The scene where Paul rescues Jenny from the clutches of Mallory in the inferno. He grabs Mallory's weapon, shoots him in the balls, then grabs Jenny and runs for it, leaving the weapon behind.
Sorry. Even schlock films need to pay attention to this kind of detail.
Vier Minuten (2006)
Too many plot contrivances
This film lost me near the beginning when old Traude refuses to deal with Jenny's messy hands during the interviews with new students. I mean, Traude is supposed to be a woman who is devoted to music and who wants to help female inmates of a prison to learn piano. And she turns Jenny away because she plays "Negro music" and has filthy hands? Couldn't Chris Block, the writer and director, have come up with a more realistic reason for Jenny to bash Mutze nearly to death, thus turning him from what was initially a sympathetic character into a jailer out for revenge? The wartime lesbian subplot didn't add anything to the main plot. If anything, it seemed gratuitous. How could a woman who was daring enough to love another woman under the gaze of Nazis, come to hate "Negro Music"? These two characteristics don't seem to fit together.
The other weird, if not gratuitous, inclusion was the incest subplot between Jenny and her father. Aside from Jenny's outbursts, it was handled vaguely, as it it were no more important than the refusal (or inability) of Mutze's daughter to curtsy to Traude.
And the music drove me crazy. The Mozart and Schubert pieces have been played to death. Surely a couple of more interesting études out of the thousands upon thousands that have been written by hundreds of composers could have relieved the boredom of hearing these hackneyed tunes over and over for the entire length of the film.
I came to this film expecting to like it, which is why I'm so bloody disgusted. But by the time the last plot contrivance was thrown at us: Jenny finding a bottle of her detested father's favourite booze at Traude's place and thus setting up a melodramatic bellowfest, not even the heralded last "vier minuten" could save it.
The Twilight Zone: The Lonely (1959)
A couple of profound mistakes
This beautifully filmed and scripted episode was let down for two reasons. 1) Perhaps it was the morality of the 1950s talking, but no man left alone on an asteroid for years would react with such hysterical negativity to the gift of a female android. 2) It wasn't an android at all, but a woman, the beautiful Jean Marsh.
The popularity of the sex doll industry in the coming decades could have traced its origins back to this episode if they'd done it properly. In fact, the modernization of sex-bots are in the news as I speak.
Robots were not new to movies or television when this episode was made, so they could have at least had her act like one. Her fleshiness would then have added a creepy element. Instead, it becomes a nice little love story about two humans on faraway star.
The Twilight Zone always stretched the imagination and credulity. Normally no one cared. But this episode seemed hamstrung by a Calvinist morality eschewing what would have amounted to masturbation with a machine, or downright carelessness.
The Twilight Zone: Time Enough at Last (1959)
Doesn't stand up after all these years
It's amazing how many Twilight Zones stand the test of time. This one doesn't.
Right off the bat, Burgess is reading a book at the teller window while counting out money. Huh? Then, after the catastrophe, he steps out into a world everyone knew from Hiroshima would have turned him to melting flesh before he got to the Public Library.
Other problematical elements can be overlooked, but these two demand the whereabouts of the remote.
A shame, because the sets are stunning, as is usual with this excellent series. And Burgess Meredith was always a treat acting himself. He was character actor perfection.
I think a lot of Zone lovers would do well to see these again, as I am doing. Almost through series one, I can remember them all from that world long gone when they first came out.