The life of Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba gets a fictional work out with charming Evelyn Laye playing a tempestuous Irish soprano who sacrifices two men who love her - a young student (Emlyn Williams) and an Archduke (Carl Esmond) - for a career in opera in which she is supplanted eventually by a younger singer (Conchita Supervia). Old fashioned stolid musical drama covers several decades with Laye performing excerpts from "La Traviata" and being bossed around by the impresario for whom she performs played by acclaimed German stage star Fritz Kortner who escaped Nazi Germany and eventually settled in Hollywood. Laye has great screen presence.
Visually stunning film is a futuristic neo-noir thriller with serious 1940s Raymond Chandler overtones. It's 2019 and Los Angeles is a hellhole of smog, acid rain, crowded air traffic zooming in between towering skyscrapers and derelicts of all kinds populating the streets. Four renegade replicants (Rutger Hauer, Joanna Cassidy, Darryl Hannah, Brion James) arrive from outer space hoping to get life extention by their maker. An ex-cop, a blade runner (Harrison Ford), is assigned to "retire" the replicants and along the way not only falls in love with a specially engineered replicant (Sean Young) but also begins to question his own origin. The film is full of great action sequences - the spectacular chase involving Joanna Cassidy, the encounter with the child-like but deadly Darryl Hannah and the final confrontation with Rutger Hauer. Ridley Scott's most personal film, his masterpiece, which initially flopped but has since gained in stature over the years. Every element of the film comes together to create a classic of the science fiction genre. Dazzling cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth, the iconic production design (copied by so many films since) and Vangelis' outstanding score using different motifs (even a "tabla" is heard at one point) throughout. The long awaited sequel soon arrives in cinemas 35 years after Scott's imaginative original.
Boomerang (2015) Francois Favrat 6/10
A Bag of Marbles (2017) Christian Duguay 2/10
Glory (2016) Kristina Grozeva & Peter Valchanov 8/10
The Treasure (2015) Corneliu Porumboiu 7/10
By the Time It Gets Darks (2016) Anocha Suwichakornpong 5/10
Repeat viewings
Howards End (1992) James Ivory 8/10
Sometimes a Great Notion (1970) Paul Newman 5/10
Careful, He Might Hear You (1983) Carl Schultz 4/10
The Mafu Cage (1978) Karen Arthur 6/10
Crimes of Passion (1984) Ken Russell 10/10
That Sinking Feeling (1979) Bill Forsyth 4/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Kuso (2017) Flying Lotus 5/10
Mother (2017) Darren Aronofsky 3/10
Victoria and Abdul (2017) Stephen Frears 4/10
After the War (2017) Amarita Zambrano 6/10
Patti Cake$ (2017) Geremy Jasper 4/10
Sicilian Ghost Story (2017) Fabio Grasadonia & Antonio Piazza 6/10
Repeat viewings
Stop Making Sense (1984) Jonathan Demme 9/10
Iphigenia (1977) Mihalis Kakogiannis 7/10
Pink Narcissus (1971) James Bidgood 1/10
Fear City (1984) Abel Ferrara 7/10
I Want to Live (1958) Robert Wise 10/10
Major Dundee (1965) Sam Peckinpah 5/10 (Extended Version)
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Stale but pulse pounding B-movie that efficiently creates what it sets out to do - a horrific nightmare for every parent. A single working Mom (Halle Berry) gets to face her worse fears when her six year old son is kidnapped from a park. Hell hath no fury as a mother scorned - here she jumps into action and relentlessly chases the kidnappers across motorways, small towns and alleyways. Frightened and hysterical at first, she quickly realises she's on her own and nobody but she can save her child. The horrendous devastation - crashed cars and wounded pedestrians - she and the kidnappers leave in their wake gets a shortshrift by the screenplay. Berry, a former Oscar winner, is sadly reduced to such fare in Hollywood although she is very good within the confines of the screenplay which amusingly is a big finger to small town red-neck America.
Erratic, lifeless and extremely overlong screen biography of the "mad king" Ludwig II of Bavaria. Visconti appears to have gotten a bit too carried away presenting his muse and offscreen lover, Helmut Berger, in the title role. The actor's physical beauty is used to good effect in what unfortunately becomes a four hour trudge through a seemingly exciting life presented in a dull manner not helped by Berger giving a stiff performance as the king covering his life from when he was crowned in 1864 to his death by drowning in 1886. The screenplay crawls through the events in his life - his platonic love for his cousin, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Romy Schneider), her attempts to pair him off with assorted women, his obsession with composer Richard Wagner (Trevor Howard) who holds great influence over him and eventually betrayed him, tormentented by his homosexuality and ending with his descent into madness and drowning. Sumptuously produced film is peppered by familiar faces in the supporting cast - Helmut Griem, Gert Fröbe, Silvana Mangano, Umberto Orsini - but the film just drones on and on with no end in sight. It's a relief when the king finally drowns.
This was a cut up version of the tv miniseries concentrating only on the White House years. The Reagans come off very human - totally devoted to each within their hysterically dysfunctional family unit - as the screenplay moves quickly ticking off all the important events during their life in the White House. James Brolin gives an amazing impersonation capturing the quivering voice and the President's sense of naivety without reducing him to a joke as the media portrayed him. However, the film belongs to Judy Davis. She takes the part of Nancy Reagan and runs with it at full throttle playing a ferociously ambitious woman resembling the Joan Crawford of "Mommie Dearest" fame - everything but the wire hangers. Just when you think Nancy is getting too campy Davis manages to bring the character several notches down making her sympathetic. The film zips along touching on the behind-the-scenes power struggles with Alexander Haig and Donald Reagan, the assassination attempt on the President's life, his illnesses, Iran-Contra and Nancy's spending sprees. In the end it's about a couple who never bothered about their children but lived only for each other.
Loosely based account of the relationship between tobacco heiress, Doris Duke (Susan Sarandon), and her alcoholic butler Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes). She's tough, shrewd, intelligent and pops pills, drinks too much, jumps into bed with young men and likes to live it up. He's gay, an introvert and looks after her with a great deal of care. When she died suddenly he ended up in control of her billion dollar estate. The actual characters did not look at all like Sarandon and Fiennes (nor like Lauren Bacall and Richard Chamberlain who played them in an earlier film) but both are very good here as this mismatched couple who get on like a house on fire - they are touching and funny finding in each something they lack in themselves. Great jazz soundtrack with songs by Peggy Lee with whom the butler had once worked.
Slow and extremely maudlin melodrama with a mature Claudette Colbert going through an emotional wringer without getting her hair mussed - losing one husband (Orson Welles) to the war, gaining another (reliable George Brent), raising two sons and discovering twenty years later that her first husband is still alive and back sporting an Austrian accent with a tiny tot (little Natalie Wood in her first film) in tow. It is all very stiffly presented in an artificial way as everyone goes about getting emotional every five minutes. A heavily made up Welles is fascinating to watch with his subtle facial tics but seems totally out of place in this genre - a weepie - yet manages to give a commanding performance using his expressive eyes and distinct booming voice. Colbert is, well Colbert - smartly dressed and very chic as she suffers continuously. The Max Steiner score compliments the excessive mush on display.
Second tier Lang, a period piece, moves at a fairly brisk pace. While his wife (Jane Wyatt) is away, a lecherous failed writer (Louis Hayward) tries to have sex with the maid but accidently strangles her instead. He coerces his crippled brother (Lee Bowman) into helping him dispose of the body by rowing to the center of the river next to the house and dumping it. When the body is later discovered by the police all clues point to the innocent brother. It's the old good brother vs bad brother plot which Lang regurgitates and tries to whip up into a gloomy and perverse gothic-noir melodrama. Despite the sleazy atmosphere there is a certain perverse fascination in watching the nasty Hayward murder, lie and cheat. The film, shot on a low budget, still manages to create atmosphere and is helped by it's cast who are all fine.
Night Without Stars (Anthony Pélissier, 1951) 7/10
Atmospheric murder-mystery, totally set-bound at Pinewood, although seemingly shot in lovely South of France. A disillusioned lawyer (David Farrar), who lost most of his eyesight in an accident during the war, lives in exile on the Riviera where he meets and falls in love with the beautiful widow (Nadia Gray) of a resistance leader. He soon becomes suspicious of her activities after he comes across a dead body, runs into a rough bunch of barflies and finds she has another suitor after her and who threatens him. Suspenseful yarn has enough tense moments to keep the plot moving smoothly. Nadia Gray is a lovely presence.
Une si jolie petite plage / Such a Pretty Little Beach (Yves Allégret, 1949) 10/10
Nobody did "melancholia", "desolation" or "bleak" better than classic french cinema. And nobody played "wounded" with such sorrow and pathos, yet became a sex symbol doing it, like Gérard Philipe. Yves Allégret's haunting film foreshadows the "nouvelle vague" while Philipe's character here is a mid-link between the desperate characters embodied in films of the 1930s by Jean Gabin and the equally tough yet mistreated characters played by Trintignant, Léaud, Belmondo and Delon during the 1950s & 60s. A stranger arrives in a rain soaked little coastal town, checks into a shabby little hotel and arouses the curiosity of the few inhabitants he comes across - the proprietess, a young boy, another visitor from out of town and a bedraggled maid (Madeleine Robinson) who falls in love with him. All is not as it appears and different layers of the story are gradually revealed. The film screams noir - bleak, moody with a sense of doom prevademing the air - and is photographed accordingly full of shadows through which the main character meanders. Philipe is outstanding with his expressive eyes and hang-dog appearance. This is one of the great classic films and Allégret's masterpiece.
Amusing fluff with Kay Francis as an aging gold-digger coming to the end of her beat. Strictly "B" material with the star at the end of her career although she still has enough spark to carry the silly script through. Margaret Hamilton and Nigel Bruce provide good support.
WWII spy thriller which follows a group of agents of the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in their bid to outwit the Nazis by getting vital information about German army manoeuvres for the Allied Forces with D-Day about to take place. Semi-documentary look at a section of the defence that started as a small force and eventually grew to become the CIA. A grim looking Alan Ladd leads the force and gets help from Geraldine Fitzgerald who tangles with a slimy Nazi general along the way. The ending is surprisingly not the usual Hollywood cop-out and maintains the bleak mood of the piece even though the film never amounts to anything more than a "boy's own" adventure.
On the Night of the Fire / The Fugitive (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1939) 8/10
Extremely rare but downbeat film revolving around a spur of the moment crime that spirals into a nightmare of theft, blackmail and murder which brings ruin to a working class couple. Ralph Richardson and Diana Wynyard are both superb but terribly miscast - a barber and his wife living amongst the absolute lowest denominator of human life in a small coastal town in England. Both stars don't even bother to disguise their plummy accents while Wynyard looks like an impecably made up film star throughout. Unusually bleak story goes from one sad dilemma to the next with no end to the couple's problems. Very noir-like in atmosphere and lit in expressionistic style by cinematographer Günther Krampf. This is a fascinating film and a rare chance to see Richardson in a lead role and lovely Wynyard who was always a beautiful presence in the few films she made. The film has a number of familiar faces in the supporting cast - Sara Allgood as a vicious gossip, Glynis Johns as a maid and Irene Habdl as a prying neighbor. Worth checking out.
