The Movies I Watched in September

Au coeur du mensonge 1999  7/10

 

Babylon Berlin. Staffel 5 2026  6/10 

Bon Voyage 2003 5/10 

Breakdown: 1975 2025  5/10 

Die Brücke 1959  8/10

 

La chambre verte 1978  6/10 

Children of the Damned 1964  7/10

 

Countdown zum Kriegsende - Die letzten 100 Tage 2020  6/10

Death of the Pastor's Wife 2026  5/10 

Do Ankhen Barah Haath 1957  7/10

 

The Dog Stars 2026  6/10 

L'étudiante 1988  6/10 

Fährmann Maria 1936  7/10

 

Father Mother Sister Brother 2025  6/10 

Les Favoris de la lune 1984  6/10 

Fragment of Fear 1970  6/10 

Hammarskjöld 2023  6/10 

Hatari! 1962  7/10

 

Haut bas fragile 1995  5/10 

Honey Don't  2025  6/10

House of Last Things 2013  5/10 

Hytti nro 6 2021  7/10

 

Indio Black, sai che ti dico: Sei un gran figlio di... 1970  6/10 

Invitation to a Murder 2023  5/10 

Jean-Marie Straub und Danièle Huillet bei der Arbeit an einem Film 1983  5/10 

Klassenverhältnisse 1984  7/10

 

The Last House 2026  5/10 

The Love Guru 2008  5/10 

Made in America 2013  5/10 

Molls and Dolls: The Women of Gangster Films 2006  6/10 

Murder in a Small Town. Season 1 2024  5/10

New York Eye and Ear Control 1972  6/10 

Pin Cushion 2017  7/10

 

Plunderers of Painted Flats 1059  5/10 

Den sidste viking 2025  7/10

 

Strangler of the Swamp 1945  6/10 

Systemfehler: Der Cum-Ex Skandal 2025  6/10 

Turning Point: Generation 9/11 2026  5/10 

Ukigumo 1955  7/10

 

Village of the Damned 1960  8/10

 Wie will ich lustig lachen 1984  5/10

The Movies I Watched in August

Boat 2003  7/10

 

After Hours 1985  8/10

 

The Assessment 2024  7/10

 

Bruiser 2000  6/10 

Bug Crawls 2004  6/10 

Cannibal ferox 1981  4/10 

Cheers. Season 1 1982  8/10

 

Chugyeokja 2008  6/10 

The Dentist 1932  6/10 

The End of the Tour 2015  7/10

 

Fantasmi a Roma 1961 5/10 

Frasier. Season 2 2024  6/10 

Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich 2022  6/10 

GoodFellas 1990  10/10

 

Les innocents aux mains sales 1975  7/10

 

Intervalometer Experiments 2004  6/10 

Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter 2024  6/10 

Lamp 2003  5/10 

Lisa Frankenstein 2024  5/10 

Lonely Are the Brave 1962  7/10

 

Mado 1976  6/10 

The Misfits: Scream! 2000  6/10 

Monk in Pieces 2025  7/10

 

The Outrun 2024  7/10

 

Un prophète 2009  7/10

 

Stolen: Heist of the Century 2025  6/10 

The Thirteenth Floor 1999  6/10

The Time Travelers 1964  7/10

 

New Stuff: Les bonnes femmes

 

The Movies I Watched in May

7500 2019  6/10 

Die Bettwurst 1971  6/10 

Les bonnes femmes 1960  7/10

Born Reckless 1937  6/10 

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History 1988  7/10

The Ceremony 1963  6/10

Godzilla vs. Kong 2021  6/10

Humanoids From the Deep 1980  4/10

Inside Daisy Clover 1962  6/10

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story 2022  6/10

Kichiku  7/10

 

A Killer Walks 1952  6/10

Lady Gangster 1942  6/10

Man of the World 1931 6/10 

The Many Saints of Newark 2021  6/10

Mother/Android 2021  6/10

The Northman 2022  7/10

Personal Shopper 2016  6/10

The Reflecting Skin 1990  8/10

 

Ride or Die 2021 6/10

Saint Maud 2019  7/10

 

Shenandoah 1965  7/10

 

The Silent Sea 2021  6/10

The Sopranos Season 1 1999  7/10

The Sopranos Season 2 2000  7/10

 

THX 1138 1971  7/10

 

The Upturned Glass 1947  6/10

The Velvet Vampire 1971  4/10

X 2022  6/10

Violette Nozière (1978)

In an interwar France struggling with profound social and political change, 18-year-old Violette Noziere rebels against the constraints of her claustrophobic, working-class (and possibly incestuous) family, with troubling consequences.

Excellent true-case period murder drama is a bit unusual work by this director, but it manages to recreate the enigma of the crime, and Isabelle Huppert is extraordinary in the title role.

Halliwell*: "Oddly erratic but interesting recapitulation of a famous French murder case, not quite typical of its director."

Maltin**: "Slow-moving...Huppert sleepwalks through the role, and Chabrol lacks his usual directorial flair."

Merci pour le chocolat (2000)

A young woman discovers that she may have been switched at birth and presents herself to her possible father And slowly discovers the dark secrets that connect her family with his.

Typical for its director this is a meticulously made satire of French/Swiss bourgeois society with a somewhat puzzling plot and an unexciting ending.

On re-watching:  I still agree with my initial opinion; the ending is a bit disappointing.

Halliwell*: "Icy, ambiguous thriller that exposes the passionate screts that underlie an apparently conventional bourgeois family."

Maltin**1/2: "Subdued psychological thriller is mostly nuanced talk, with Chabrol favorite Huppert well suited to the role of perverse matriarch."

Que la bête meure (1969)

A single father is obsessed with murdering the hit&run driver who killed his only child and poses as a screenwriter to get close to the culprit.

A top-rate crime and revenge drama with a relentless view on bourgeois life and one of cinema's most memorable villains.

Halliwell***: "A complex and engrosiing psycological study that ignores the thriller aspects of the story to concentrate on relationships of love and hatred, with a memorable performance from Yanne as an uncouth villain."

Maltin***1/2: "Outstanding film...This may be the best of many fine Chabrol dramas; Yanne and Cellier are unforgettable, the cinematography (by Jean Rabier) beautiful."

New Stuff: Que la bête meure

A favourite of mine I haven't seen for decades.

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."

New Stuff: Les cousins

Continuing my collection of early Claude Chabrol movies.

Just so thoughts (Claude Chabrol)

Only recently I decided to watch Claude Chabrol's earliest three movies, since I'm not sure whether I have ever seen them before (although in the 70s I did see a nearly complete retrospective). To do so I need to purchase them on DVD, so I did some research about German editions.
It's a popular cliche about German culture that it's 'deep' and 'heavy' and 'dark', and I do enjoy the tweets by @NeinQuarterly and @WernerTwertzog that lovingly and profoundly mock Teutonic culture.
However, cliches always do have a hint of truth in them, and I came to think about that when I found out the German release titles for Claude Chabrol's movies. German distributors in general invent often ridiculous titles and usually are not translations of the original titles. Obviously, there's a notion that the German audience must be specifically addressed in order to be able to attract their intention.

So here they are:
  
Le beau Serge (1958) ----------> Die Enttäuschten ("The Disappointed")

Les cousins (1959) -------------> Schrei, wenn du kannst ("Scream, if you can")

Les bonnes femmes (1960) ---> Die Unbefriedigten ("The Unsatisfied")
 

Le beau Serge (1958)

A young man comes back to his home village in France after more than a decade and notices that the village hasn't changed much.

Claude Cabrol's first is a still fascinating, powerful and at times irritating analysis of a small town community.

Halliwell*: "Enjoyable character drama with well observed village backgrounds. Credited with being the spearhead of the 'new wave.'"

Maltin***: "Perceptive examination of the trials of life in a poor farming community and the moral questions raised by how one treats a friend."

New Stuff: Le beau Serge

It is often considered the first product of the Nouvelle Vague, and I'm not sure, but I'm afraid I haven't seen it yet...

R.I.P. Claude Chabrol

PARIS — French director Claude Chabrol, one of the founders of the New Wave movement that revolutionized filmmaking in the late 1950s and '60s, died Sunday. He was 80.

Christophe Girard, who is responsible for cultural matters at Paris City Hall, http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4186665629712299248#announced the death on his blog. Other City Hall officials confirmed that Chabrol passed away, but declined to provide any details, including the cause of death.

Bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Chabrol