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Blood and Black Lace (1964)
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
1964 | Horror, Mystery
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"One of my favorite filmmakers is an Italian director named Mario Bava. His most famous movies have titles like Black Sunday and Black Sabbath and all that, but the one that really was astonishing at the time was a picture called Blood and Black Lace, which is one of the most gorgeously lit Technicolor movies I’ve ever seen. And it’s a whodunit kind of thing — a murderer in a fashion house and models are being killed in various gruesome ways. This is the early ’60s when you could get away with a lot more in the way of explicitness than you had been able to before, and these movies still basically played grindhouses. But it’s such a beautiful movie to look at, and the juxtaposition of beauty and death is really perverse in it. It runs through all his works, but in this particular movie, which I think is one of Tarantino’s favorites, it really comes to the fore. It’s a very entertaining picture, and very violent. Bava was completely unknown when he was actually alive. Almost nobody except, you know, the most extreme film buffs ever saw those movies. But now, as often happens to people when it’s too late for them to enjoy it, he’s now revered, and people see his movies who didn’t even know they existed before."

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The Battle of Algiers (1966)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
1966 | Classics, Drama, War
7.4 (8 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"The notion of making a fiction — meaning you look at it and you think it’s all documentary footage, but it’s all shot. And the reality factor of that is something that makes you able to escape into the film; the fabric of that fiction is so believable and completely knitted together that you buy the proposition of the film — even when you see people getting shot and there’s no blood coming out of their bodies or whatever. There’s something about shooting something [in black and white] — and I’m talking about two movies that are in black and white, we should say, except for the part [in Andrei Rublev] where they show the color of the fresco of the Russian icons. I really like movies that are in black and white, because you feel like you are watching a movie. We associate it with things that were filmed at that time, that would have been filmed in black and white. So there are different concessions and commitments to make to a limited palette for a reason. When I make a movie like Miral, there’s a kind of reversal stock that I’m using outside and sometimes it really feels like Technicolor, like a movie like Exodus, and there are other moments when it’s rougher and it feels like The Bad Lieutenant, or something like that."

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Keegan McHargue recommended Lola (2001) in Movies (curated)

 
Lola (2001)
Lola (2001)
2001 | International, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"In the recent documentary Gerhard Richter Painting, the painter speaks at length about being a young artist emerging in post–World War II Germany. He says that he always considered painting to be nothing more than a trade that one dedicates oneself to day after day. Working is, above all, very respectable. Perhaps this attitude can be attributed to the fact that postwar Germans were faced with the arduous (but perhaps liberating) task of writing a new history for themselves—trying to come to terms with the past while simultaneously looking toward the future and the endless possibilities therein. With such daunting business at hand, a workhorse spirit would be a must for all German artists. Fassbinder most definitely had that spirit, leaving behind forty feature-length films and playing countless other roles over the course of his short career. Lola alludes to some of these particular pressures and concerns. Lola herself is a woman with a troubled past pressing forward with her life. It is a great, classic story, and a lot can be read into it. But on a purely aesthetic level, Lola is a sumptuous visual journey. So many textures and colors . . . if Zéro de conduite is a Dadaist masterpiece and The Scarlet Empress is expressionism on film, Lola is pure Technicolor pop art, and one of the best late Fassbinder films. Coincidentally, Rainer Werner Fassbinder died the day before I was born."

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Hell's Angels (1930)
Hell's Angels (1930)
1930 | Action, Classics, Drama
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Big budget, elaborate air combat scenes which resulted in several deaths and Gimmick after gimmick… This has to be the Howard Hughes’ World War 1 epic, Hell’s Angels.

Where to begin?

Well, we follow the Routledge two brothers as they join the war effort and the Royal Air Corps. in 1914 and whilst one is a somewhat cowardly womaniser, his brother is the noble heroic type who spends the film being screwed over bey everyone in one way or another, but most notably by his girlfriend, Jean Harlow, who is so annoyingly wrong for him that it is a relief when he has heart is broken by her in the third act.

But like mots aspects of this plot, this is as messy and disjointed as everything else. We are given a story line to follow for two hours, as Hughes indulges his legendary love of flying to create some of the best dog fight sequences ever committed to film. They are real, epic and effective in conveying the thrilling danger of these world war one battles.

But this is a film of gimmick. Pushing the pre-code envelope with sex and bad language, this was originally conceived as a silent movie and was re-written and re-shot to become the sound movie whcih we have to today and there in clearly lies the problem. What we end up is a movie cobbled together, with silence sequences being converted to sound, the poor acting from its star James Hall as the idealistic Roy Routledge, Jean Harlow, replacing the original silent star Gretta Nissen for this sound version, excelling in her role as his trampy girlfriend and Ben Lyon as the weaker brother, Monte, but the real star of this show are the special effects.

But of the human stars, Harlow, presented here in the only colour footage known to exist of the tragic star, who would die at the young age of 26 just seven years later, probably delivers one of the best performances in the whole picture, certainly outshining her male co-stars.

Of the special effects though, the use of 2-tone Technicolor, which was actually shot with the Metrocolor system but processed by Technicolor, in one sequence as the group are all together at a party, as well as the classical use of tints during some other scenes, add a vibrancy to the project. But this also can have a jarring effect, especially as we leave the colour scenes and wrap up thet sequences in black and white.

But the model effects, notably the munition raid at the end and the Zeppelin bombing London scenes are spectacular, especially for the time. The other notable gimmick which has yet to be transferred to the small screen, was the original use of what was called Magnascope back in 1930.

This was obviously only used at high end theaters but this paved the way for what IMAX are doing now, by blowing up the aerial scenes into a larger screen format from the 1.20:1 ratio which the the rest of film was presented. But when you add all this up you have got a mess!

Magnascope, technicolor scenes, tinted scenes, daring aerial battles, a half arsed love story and an image of world war which was a kin to that of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor’s (2001) view of World War 2! But this is what this is. An early, lavish popcorn blockbuster, with little to offer but cinematic thrills, which it succeeds at without any doubt.

The action is great, the plot is mediocre to say the least but as film, it does offer a brief insight into how cinema audiences saw the Great War back in 1930 and you can not help but think that this audience was only nine years away from the next one as we watch this.

pictureBut the ending was grim, with noble ends rounding off a story of brotherly love and love of duty and country, seems overblown considering what we had had to sit through but still, by the end, is anybody really routing for the Routledge brothers to have a happy ending?

I certainly was not. But this ending is the nearest thing that this film has to a story arc, as is pays off the opening act where Roy risks his life fighting a duel for his cowardly brother against the very German officer who is about to have them executed.

Duty wins out and Monte sees the light at the end after a very melodramatic death scene.

But having said all that, this film is worth it for the action alone and for film buffs, the only colour footage of Jean Harlow.
  
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
1937 | Animation, Classics, Family
Darker than you might expect...
Contains spoilers, click to show
The first of Walt Disney's historic features was a pleasure to watch. Beautifully animated with deceptively gentle strokes, we are delicately guided through the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale. But this is still a fairy tale and a 1930′s film, made at a time where stories were not so toned down for our children, and a healthy dose of fear and horror was not shied away from.

Snow White is definitely a ditsy princess, so innocent that her counter has to be the personification of pure evil and she certainly is. The Queen, represents some of our darkest emotions, and there is little effort to tone this down, which I liked, a lot. She is evil, driven by her vain jealously to firstly attempt to have Snow White murdered, and then failing that, to poison her into a narcoleptic state and have her buried alive! Is this what you now think of a s Disney film, with a U rating? No, but thanks to this and the following films successes, this is a prized classic and untouchable. I think that this is a true family movie, with as much darkness as there is light, with some great musical numbers, indelible characters and an animation style which is truly timeless.

I mean this is a musical which was made in Technicolor less than ten years after the innovation of sound was introduced to black and white films. This is a film which children feel a part of and don't even compare to black and white's of the same era, which of course, they hate and don't feel are real.

Hats off to Walt, who I must admit, I've never really been a fan of, but I'm working my way through his classics and am liking what I am seeing so far.
  
Big Little Lies
Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
9
8.6 (97 Ratings)
Book Rating
So much more than I expected
This was my first read by Liane Moriarty and I'm fairly blown away by this book. BIG LITTLE LIES takes the ridiculousness of a bunch of mainly elitist mums surrounding their kids' kindergarten class. Oh and there's husbands too. It was a witty painting of cliques, bitchiness, friendships strong and true and tragedy.

"Jane, nice to meet you! I'm Amabella's mum, and I have Jackson in Year 2. That's Amabella by the way, not Annabella. It's French. We didn't make it up."

"We're a bit too white bread here in the peninsula. We like to think we're terribly diverse but it's only our bank accounts that vary."

There are three friends in this book, each carrying secrets but these three really did care for one another. I liked each flawed woman in this threesome, Madeline, Celeste and Jane. There were characters to love, like, hate and those that redeemed themselves.

Bullying and more is a thread in this book and I felt sick, heart-sick, at times in terms of the nature of these issues. There is also some gut wrenching heart ache and I felt each emotion in full technicolor.

"She'd always known that her reaction to this night had been too big, or perhaps too small. She hadn't ever cried. She hadn't told anyone. She'd swallowed it while and pretended it meant nothing, and therefore it had come to mean everything."

At the heart of BIG LITTLE LIES is a tale of suspense. The seeds are placed right at the beginning and I spent the whole book guessing, re-guessing and second-guessing all my suspicions. Liane Moriarty is a truly talented writer, I enjoyed the light, the witty quips and dialogue, alongside the dark and sad. I'm definitely eager to read more by her.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through netgalley in return for a honest review.
  
    Shine

    Shine

    Jessica Jung

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    Crazy Rich Asians meets Gossip Girl by way of Jenny Han in this knock-out debut about a Korean...

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Natasha Khan recommended Post by Bjork in Music (curated)

 
Post by Bjork
Post by Bjork
2006 | Rock
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I think it's because when I was 12 I had Debut and I really liked that because I was just dancing around singing and enjoying it, quite an innocent record that had some beautiful moments. But really for me Post is an album I heard that was unlike any other at the time which was combining electronic and organic elements and I just really enjoyed delving into that sonic universe that she created, it's so experimental and forward-thinking and unique to her, but it perfectly fit into that time and landscape. I think it's really timeless. I think she has become a certain thing now but on those first four or five albums, for me, she was such a pioneer and so fiercely dedicated to her art and so unique and so closely linked to themes of nature and passion and love and the body and raw childlike feelings, and using all these really exciting instruments and sounds to put across her pop songs. 'Army Of Me' was the first single that came out - [sings intro] - POW! Clanging, massive drums and Michel Gondry was making the videos and I think the album just sonically draws in so many amazing, London early to mid nineties influences. But then having songs like 'Cover Me'. I remember hearing an alternately recorded version of 'Cover Me' which she actually did in a bat cave! You can hear the bats squealing and flitting about, so there's all these kind of sub-bass, deep 808 beat noises that I got really excited about, but she's got like bloody harpsichords and harps and stuff like really archaic chamber music sounds mixed with really heavily electronic digital sounds. So that was a real education, combining those things, because for me, if it's too much of one or the other I miss them a bit. Even on Berlin there's a lot of real instruments but there's synths and stuff going on too - I love it when people combine those things. Also, the eclecticness of the record: she's not afraid to travel from songs like 'I Miss You' which is that type of fanfare to 'Army Of Me' which is dark and techno and 'Hyperballad', which is like fucking four-to-the-floor, but just with all these strings it's super-emotive, a Technicolor dream."

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