UKC

Five Graves to Cairo, Billy Wilder's second film as a director.

The war film that Hitchcock never made (in fairness Hitchcock made the brilliant Foreign Correspondent). Pretty much four characters talking in a room, plus a “chorus/narrator” and some extras, clearly based on a play, but actually a brilliant war film with cracking intelligent dialogue and plotting, and it really keeps you on your toes. Amazing that it was made during the Second World War!
Eric von Stroheim hamming it up as Rommel, is superb, and it's astonishing that Anne Baxter was only 20 when they made this film. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Hitchcock comparison because there is a main protagonist somewhat haphazardly thrown into the midst of a complex plot and having to try to stay one step ahead of the antagonists, and there is quite a MacGuffin. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

There is a good film on BBC iplayer called Dirt Road to Lafayette, you might have to search for it under films, it's from BBC Scotland.

It's about a young Scottish boy who plays the accordion and he is visiting relatives in the deep South of the USA with his Dad, they are both grieving.

Nice gentle film, about how music heals and brings people together.

Nice Cajun and Zydeco music

In reply to toddles:

Sounds nice! Thanks

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Un Coeur en Hiver (Claude Sautet, 1992)

French tale of deliberate repression of love which makes The Remains of the Day look like a Sandra Bullock rom-com. 

Great stuff. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I watched Flawless on Netflix the other night, it's like Robert de Niro meets Ru Paul's drag race.

It's from 1999 so might be a bit non pc in today's terms but it is funny.

Robert de Niro plays a retired homophobic, hero cop living in the same  apartment building as Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays a drag queen singer called Rusty.

The hate each other at first but gradually become friends, singing lessons bring them together.

Puzzle on Netflix is quite watchable, it's about a woman who has a rather unfulfilled life, cooking and cleaning for her husband and two adult sons.

She gets a 1000 piece jigsaw as a birthday present and finds she is exceptionally quick at doing them.

This begins to open up opportunities for her to start to assert herself and change her life.

Bit slow moving at times but it's thought provoking.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

The Devil All The Time.

I read Pollock's "The Heavenly Table"  last year and really enjoyed it . I haven't read this, his debut novel, so I didn't know what to expect . Overall it has the makings of a good film but seems to lack cohesion. One critic says it would nave beenn better as a mini series and I can see that.

Good performances all round, though, lovely to look at and listen to: I particularly like the device of using the author as narrator and am wonderring now which other film adaptations would ( or would not) benefit from this treatment.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I re-watched  Casablanca yesterday. After a but of a silly start I still think it justifies its classic status. My main reason for raising it here is I accidentally turned the subtitles on and noticed a problem so left them on.  They were plain terrible... butchering the screen dialogue and I wonder how the deaf who lip read and the partially deaf would deal with this. Has anyone else noticed such shoddy treatment of a major film.

In reply to Offwidth:

Have you noticed that Sofia Helin is back on Saturday night BBC4 but not as Saga Noren? ( Not strictly a film comment but it's the third spin off from the original Mystery Road film, I think. All very confusing)

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Set to record

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Tenet: sixis/10

I thought someone else would have reviewed this by now, but I guess a lot of people are still avoiding the cinema. I was a little reluctant to write it up because I prefer to be positive and I'm a big fan of a lot of Nolan's work, but I don't think this is up there with his best. It's undoubtedly visually spectacular and conceptually ambitious. A fairly deadpan John David Washington stars as The Protagonist, who works for a mysterious agency attempting to combat attacks from the future with weapons capable of reversing the flow of time: guns suck bullets out of walls, fist fights go simultaneously backwards and forwards, attack squads execute temporal pincer movements from different points in the time stream. Hence the palindromic title. The simultaneously opposing time streams do produce some excellent actions scenes, but also make for an ultimately rather tangled narrative. The Protagonist goes out of his way to rescue the wife (Elizabeth Debicki)  of Kenneth Branagh's megalomaniac villain, which makes for exciting plot development, but without any motivation I found particularly convincing.

We watched the reissue of Inception the previous week, and in my view that's a much better movie. Having said that, Tenet has divided the critics and it's certainly worth seeing to make your own mind up. Either way, I do think Nolan is to be admired for putting out this visually striking megabudget blockbuster now, and so doing his bit to get people back into the cinema in such difficult times. Bond franchise take note.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Are you being serious? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

More Wilder, his third-to-last film as writer and director - 1974's The Front Page. 

I haven't seen his next two (Fedora and Buddy Buddy) but my goodness I think The Front Page is the peak of his sardonic cynicism. Dark humour/satire really gets dark here, and it's almost more judgemental than satirical - certainly you feel awkward laughing, even during some slapstick. 
This makes it a bit uneasy and uneven, especially in the first half hour before you settle into getting to know the characters and how THEY know what makes each other tick. 
A rare case of warming to a film as it progresses. The premise seems to be asking for a fully serious treatment, until you realise that that's been done to death, and Wilder's approach actually freshens it up (premise - newspaper owner happens upon an intriguing story about a death row prisoner and has to persuade his top writer not to retire until he writes the scoop). 
The cast is superb, not just Matthau and Lemmon but also most of the supporting players, including reliable faces like Charles Durning. A young Susan Sarandon is given rather little to work with, but it's certainly not a thankless role. Suprisingly there is a weak link from Carol Burnett but it's a small role. 

Well worth a look. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I was. I'm very fearful our local independent cinema, The Electric in Birmingham, won't survive. However, I quite understand others will think such a view irresponsible. I'm long past wanting to debate pandemic behaviour. My own risk aversion is divergently wired so my views on such matters can probably be safely ignored. 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I wasn't questioning your views on pandemic behaviour or responsibility, but the idea that Christopher Nolan is somehow directly trying to help cinemas, by making a film for Warner Brothers in 2019 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I wasn't suggesting anything that direct, merely that he/WB weren't sitting on it until they could expect bigger audiences/takings. Heaven only knows when that will be. It will be interesting to see how people turn out for the new Bond in November, assuming restrictions haven't been tightened of course.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Memento is on iplayer at the moment. Don't know how I missed it first time around but thought it was a fantastic film, very cleverly written and edited.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Wild Honey Pie

Started watching this British indie on Film4 the other night.  Lasted 10 minutes due to the ultra objectionable and totally neurotic female lead. 

Did I miss much?

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Easy way to be number 1 at the box office though 🤣

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Waiting out for The Trial of the Chicago 7. Fortuitous timing and SBC as Abbie Hoffman, let's role.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Watched The African Queen for the first time.

It is somewhat ludicrous, I was somehow expecting something a bit more convincing. Lots of handy coincidences to move the story along, and the romance between Charlie and Rose comes out of nowhere and doesn’t work and isn’t really needed.

Cracking efficient expository dialogue though, and superbly delivered by both leads who also seem to have genuine chemistry, plus the cinematography and art direction are pretty good and they somehow get away with all the cuts to stock footage and bits of back projection etc. 

But the story feels too rushed and convenient. 6.5/10

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Blasphemy!

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Seen it recently with an honest critical eye have you, Tom? Or just wallowing in the world’s misplaced nostalgia and rose tinted spectacles ?

6.5/10 isn’t sloppy anyway 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I should also say to you, thanks for putting your review up and helping with keeping the monthly film review threads going. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I don't know why my eye would be more honestly critical now than it was twenty years ago. 

What score would you give Casablanca?

In reply to Tom Valentine:

That's an amazing question, in the context of this The African Queen discussion. I think I'd still give Casablanca a straight 10, not that I've seen it for years. Not at all sure what I'd make of TAQ now, though.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Amazing how? I was just trying to establish a yardstick, or something to put his 6.5 for African Queen in perspective.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I meant, very interesting, because they're so close in genre, star quality, etc, yet I've a hunch that TAQ may not have aged nearly so well. As I say, a long time since I've seen either.

I think Casablanca's a very good yardstick, actually. Another good one might be It's a Wonderful Life. ?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I haven't seen either for a long time. The main difference in my memory is that TAQ made me chuckle quite a bit whereas Casablanca had me snuffling. I think Bogart is equally good in both but, for me at least, Hepburn has a lot more presence than Bergman ( in the sense that I can't imagine anyone else playing Rose but there's probably several actresses who could have done a passable Ilsa)

Edit: just been looking for a substitute for Bergman, was thinking about Olivia de haviland and Hedy Lamarr when I learned that the latter actually did make a real contribution to the war effort by co-inventing a system of radio frequency hopping to thwart enemy interception of radio messages. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Jane Greer or Deborah Kerr or Anne Baxter, just as three that spring readily to mind, would all have been good as Rose in TAQ but I guess they didn't have the required superstar power to sell a film that needed to be sold simply on two star names. I am not saying there was anything wrong with Hepburn in the role though - she made it her own. 

When I recently watched Hitchcock's Suspicion I got awfully muddled and confused and thought Joan Fontaine WAS Ingrid Bergman, as some of Bergman's work for Hitchcock (not Notorious though) seemed to ape Fontaine's mannerisms in Suspicion. 

So Joan Fontaine could have easily been an Ilsa in Casablanca. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I haven't seen it in more than twenty years, and I think my eye is more honestly critical now than it was when I last watched Casablanca

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Am I a really bad person for thinking that the version of Bedford Falls with all the late night saloons and casinos and bordellos looks kind of cool and we should shout "Jump, George!" ?  

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Deborah Kerr, you're right, but Jane Greer?  Anne Baxter is one I'm only vaguely familiar with.

What about an alternative Charlie? I'll go with Mitchum, especiallyif Kerr is playing Rose.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Jane Greer was awesome and as a Mitchum fan, you must surely know this! In fairness I am not super familiar with Baxter and not sure if she had the light touch needed for Rose. I know her from Five Graves to Cairo, All About Eve and "I Confess!". It's so long since I've seen The Ten Commandments, that I have nothing to say about her in it. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

How much Mitchum and Kerr do you NEED, especially with Kerr playing a goodie-two-shoes?  

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I think The Sundowners was possibly one of the first three films I ever saw at the cinema. 

My mum took us and was adamant that the lady's name was pronounced Karr - but then she was a stickler about Shrowsbury, too.

As for Greer, I actually own a T shirt with her on it and will be wearing it in the next half hour!     

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Blimey. Seen Run for the Sun ? Widmark and Greer 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

just had a taste till Widmark's appearance. Not promising and I know that beauty/prettiness are subjective issues but it would be a long stretch to describe her as a screen goddess, however good an actress she may be.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

TAQ didn’t need a “screen goddess” really, just an versatile star with presence. I just thought of another (arguably “better” than my earlier “off the top of my head” ideas) alternative. Eleanor Parker. But having done The Naked Jungle a couple of years previously, she probably didn’t fancy it . I think she would have made the romance more convincing though. And she could more than equal Hepburn’s “sass”. 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Seems they chose to ignore me. 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Yes, I see the November 2020 release is pushed back to April 2021

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Looks like this might have been the last straw for Cineworld/Regal:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/04/cineworld-to-close-all-its...

I hope that Walther PPK hasn't blown a permanent hole in our local multiplex.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

The Day Shall Come

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7078658/

Very watchable, entertaining satire on the FBI's habit of creating terrorists whose scripted plots they can then heroically foil. Not quite as funny, sharp or unsettling as the brilliant Four Lions, but it's Chris Morris so it's obviously excellent. Highly recommended.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I found it more unsettling, more stark, than Four Lions. Agree not as "funny", which is maybe a good thing, not sure!

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/culture_bunker/october_film_thread-710956...