Saturday, March 28, 2015
Les cousins (1959)
A young provincial comes up to Paris to study law and shares his cousin Paul's flat, who is a kind of decadent boy always dragging along with other idles.
Intense morality play contrasting rural innocence and sincerity with urban decadence and idleness to a tragic end.
Halliwell*: "The country cousin fable filled with undramatic detail and given a rather perverse ending without any apparent point."
Maltin***1/2: "Complex, depressing, ultimately haunting tale of youthful disillusion...Superbly directed by Chabrol."
Friday, March 27, 2015
From my vaults: Marjorie Deanne
(with Valmere Barman and Joet Robinson - Riding High, 1943)
Bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Deanne
From my library: Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac
A massive, 750-page biography from 1983.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Tôkyô monogatari (1953)
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An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.
A masterpiece of minimalist cinema with a very simple story, but of timeless validity; and within the subtleties you can find depth and artistic honesty.
Halliwell***: "Bleak, austere and moving family drama of life's disappointments."
Maltin****: "Quietly powerful story of old age, the disappointments parents experience with their children, and the fears the young have of time passing. A masterpiece."
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free so he targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.
A mad man's revenge thriller is well made and thrilling as long as you go along with the quite outlandish plot.
Maltin**: "Outlandish modern spin on DEATH WISH gets the visceral response it seeks but makes less and less sense as its story unfolds."
Classe tous risques (1960)
A criminal is hunted by the police in Italy, so
he and his pal arrange to flee back to France with his wife.
Brilliantly stringent and tough crime thriller with existentialist overtones.
Maltin***: "Solid crime drama...Tough, ironic tale filled with interesting characters and vived location work. Great showcase for the young Belmondo, made around the same time as BREATHLESS."
Ignition (2002)
A web of intrigue and conspiracy lies beneath the euphoria as the U.S.
is about to put a man on the moon for the first time in over thirty
years.
Despite the two stars this is a mediocre thriller with a preposterously implausible conspiracy.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
First Lines: Harry Harrison - The Stainless Steel Rat
When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up.
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