What Movie Are You Watching Or Watched Today?

[Mike from Boston]

Prohibition PBS Another Ken Burns history piece, IMO really gives the back story about how it came to be, how it failed and how it was repealed. Plus plenty of Al Capone!

[RoddyRuddy]

David Bowie Rare And Unseen

Think this is for die hard fans only .Most of it is a very strange Russell Harty interview.


Killing Bono
Enjoyable film.

[RoddyRuddy]

Just finshed watching The Ramones - Rock'N'Roll High School - The Movie.
Wonder if Richie Ramone has any plans for the future? I would put money on it that he has.

[Mike from Boston]

Just finshed watching The Ramones - Rock'N'Roll High School - The Movie.
Wonder if Richie Ramone has any plans for the furture? I would put money on it that he has.

P.J. Soles is 61!! How time flies...

[RoddyRuddy]

Just finshed watching The Ramones - Rock'N'Roll High School - The Movie.
Wonder if Richie Ramone has any plans for the future? I would put money on it that he has.

P.J. Soles is 61!! How time flies...

Never forgave her for what she did to Carrie White.Did the fire /water hose not kill her then.

[RoddyRuddy]

The New World (2005)
A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century. For me it starts of really well ,looks fantanstic but goes on too long and becomes too self indulgent with very little of interest happening at the latter part of the film.

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

The New World is certainly not one of the great Terrence Malick's finest films, but is still gorgeous!

I just watched 'Little Caesar' (1931). One of the first and most important gangster films along with Howard Hawk's masterpiece 'Scarface' (1932). Edward G. Robinson is superb in one of his best roles. It is a must watch for fans of the 'gangster' genre.

First post in quite a while so hi all!!

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

Watched 'Touch Of Evil' (1958) last night. I have to say I love this movie, however it has its flaws namely that Charlton Heston is terribly miscast as a mexican detective, thats not to say he didn't do a good job, Just that a mexican actor would have been more appropriate... Hollywood eh (what they like). The massively bloated Orson Welles is unrecognizable as the hard nosed Captain Quinlan but he is just as charismatic as always and his direction is as superbly unique as his earlier work. The saddest thing in regards to the picture is that the finished product may not be as Welles envisaged it as the studio cut, stripped and tinkered with it during post production as seems to have been the norm back then. This being said however the film is still a masterpiece and one of the best Noir flicks out there.

[RoddyRuddy]

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Decided to watch this film dispite not knowing anything about it expect the title itself.Yes a song title of the same name did play a large part in my decision but has nothing to do with the film.Can a film that you know nothing about or have any expectations of suprise you? In this case very much so as it is unlike any film I can remember watching.With out wanting to give anything away it is a film in which the story line really matters.The sound track has a Strummer Clash song •"Death or Glory" and a few other great tracks like "Whole Wide World"- ( Wreckless Eric).Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a good part as the love interest and I spent a little too long trying to get a look at her tattoo.Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman also star.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes 2011

The Guard 2011
Brendan Gleeson is in great form in this Irish comedy

[philipchevron]

The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1948)

In a clear case of life imitating art imitating life, Ayn Rand refused to change a single word of her own screenplay of her iconic individualist novel. Howard Roark, the visionary architect (Gary Cooper) will not change a single brick on his buidings in order to pander to sentimental populist taste, a fact that triggers the climax of The Fountainhead. But Roark's buildings, beautifully realised by the movie team's design department, are works of art. Rand's screenplay is considerably more problematic. She was never a real writer. The Rand Doctrine is distributed among the characters in Fountainhead as though she has just made them draw lots for assorted selections from the Compleat Rand Rants, without much consideration of, ironically, the indiviudual nuances of the characters. The effect is strangely like being hit over the head repeatedly by the same mallet - after a while, the brute force is stll palpable but the actual effect diminuendos down to nothing but a dull thud. What's left is not an assortment of characters but a sense of a disembodied Authorial Voice.

Perhaps the nastiest, least sustainable aspect of Ayn Rand's philosophy, aside from the fact that it fed later and lesser -isms like Glenn Beckism (remember him?) is that its individualist creed amounts to a jungle fight for survival, a fight Rand always meant to win. It takes no account that other people may have neither the capacity, the intelligence or the inclination to enjoin her in conflict. She is, therefore, no better than Nietzsche or Hitler intellectually.

Vidor is not much help. Although his shadowy modernism, channeling the great German expressionists is perfect for the visual effect of the picture, it is acknowledged that neither his command of English nor his mental incisiveness were adequate to the task of interrogating the radical intellectualism of Rand's single-minded creed, so on that score, she gets it all her own way and was a constant presence on the movie's set as a back seat director.

Technically, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey and Gary Cooper (who had bought the movie rights to the book himself) are superb and, oddly, the movie may well stand as a greater testament of Randism than any of her tedious books, in the long run. But most of all, The Fountainhead represents two great though opposing achievements of American democracy: the first, that the movie ever got shot at all, the second, that it then took over 6 decades to get Atlas Shrugged made.

[philipchevron]

The Hour (BBC, 2011)

The (first?) season of The Hour has had a mixed reception much of which, I suspect, is because its advance publicity created false expectations. The Beeb's PR department tried to sell it as a sort of British Mad Men, rich in period detail etc. The characters, we were informed, would smoke cigarettes prodiguously. No shit? Is that what cutting edge TV has become?

In fact, "a new BBC drama set in the compromised world of British public service broadcasting during the Suez Canal crisis and starring Ben Whishaw, Dominic West, Anton Rodgers and Romola Garai" would have hooked me right away and I would have not needed to wait for the DVD box. Suez remains strangely underdramatized in British narrative and there is still much we need to be helped to understand about it. Specifically, the fact that the USA's refusal to take the British side during Anthony Eden's crisis signalled the collapse of the British Empire is a "teachable moment" we need to hear more often in the 21st Century. But also, of course, the collapse of the Empire coincided with a regenerating Britain, a crazy and exhilarating kaleidoscope of call girls, angry young men, coffee bars, West Indian immigrant ships, jazz clubs, Screaming Lord Sutch, the Quarrymen, gritty Northern movies in black and white, satire and, above all, the death of deference. The loss of "Power" has seldom seemed so exciting, and that really is a teachable moment.

The Hour concentrates largely on how BBC current affairs became a beacon of independent comment, how the BBC evolved to see its role as representing the nation, not the state, and how it came upon the aggressive interrogative style which has continued to exemplify Auntie at its best (and sometimes worst) over the ensuing decades. In this, its closest cousin is not Mad Men but George Clooney's brilliant Good Night and Good Luck. And one of the things that's great about this show is that the production designers have not sought to fetishize the iconic symbols of the age. Rich in detail, yes, but the production acknowledes reality too. Ben Whishaw, for instance, finally given a small screen role commensurate with his ferocious talent, wears the same ill-fitting suit throughout the series. These were tough times. L'Homme Vogue was not yet required reading for the television executive.

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1948)

In a clear case of life imitating art imitating life, Ayn Rand refused to change a single word of her own screenplay of her iconic individualist novel. Howard Roark, the visionary architect (Gary Cooper) will not change a single brick on his buidings in order to pander to sentimental populist taste, a fact that triggers the climax of The Fountainhead. But Roark's buildings, beautifully realised by the movie team's design department, are works of art. Rand's screenplay is considerably more problematic. She was never a real writer. The Rand Doctrine is distributed among the characters in Fountainhead as though she has just made them draw lots for assorted selections from the Compleat Rand Rants, without much consideration of, ironically, the indiviudual nuances of the characters. The effect is strangely like being hit over the head repeatedly by the same mallet - after a while, the brute force is stll palpable but the actual effect diminuendos down to nothing but a dull thud. What's left is not an assortment of characters but a sense of a disembodied Authorial Voice.

Perhaps the nastiest, least sustainable aspect of Ayn Rand's philosophy, aside from the fact that it fed later and lesser -isms like Glenn Beckism (remember him?) is that its individualist creed amounts to a jungle fight for survival, a fight Rand always meant to win. It takes no account that other people may have neither the capacity, the intelligence or the inclination to enjoin her in conflict. She is, therefore, no better than Nietzsche or Hitler intellectually.

Vidor is not much help. Although his shadowy modernism, channeling the great German expressionists is perfect for the visual effect of the picture, it is acknowledged that neither his command of English nor his mental incisiveness were adequate to the task of interrogating the radical intellectualism of Rand's single-minded creed, so on that score, she gets it all her own way and was a constant presence on the movie's set as a back seat director.

Technically, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey and Gary Cooper (who had bought the movie rights to the book himself) are superb and, oddly, the movie may well stand as a greater testament of Randism than any of her tedious books, in the long run. But most of all, The Fountainhead represents two great though opposing achievements of American democracy: the first, that the movie ever got shot at all, the second, that it then took over 6 decades to get Atlas Shrugged made.

Great review Phil. Having neither watched the film nor read Rand's book (and having only a limited knowledge of her work) I cant comment too critically on your review, although it is quite interesting that both Vidor and herself were prominent members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. King Vidor, for me is a strange one though. Some of his work is really innovative such as The Crowd (1928) and my personal favourite Duel In The Sun (1946), a unique western riddled with erotic undertones in a Hollywood that was much more concerned with violence than sex within their pictures. This being said however (and you may disagree) he seemed to struggle at times with perhaps his most grandiose project War and Peace (1956). Having toiled for months I finally fought my way through Tolstoy's book and quickly turned to Vidor's adaptation with high hopes, but I was left disappointed. It just never reached the bar set by say, Gone With The Wind (1938), but perhaps the Hollywood mode is to blame for this, or maybe I should give it another go and give old Vidor a break.

With that off my chest, back to The Fountainhead. With your disdain for the writer and subject matter quite evident, I was just wondering would you recomend the film? Perhaps your sentiment that "the movie ever got shot at all" answers me though.

Kind regards

[philipchevron]

In as much as any book should be turned into a movie, there is every reason The Fountainhead should have made the transformation, not least Vidor, Cooper and Neal themselves. It was (and is - it still sells almost half a million copies a year) an enormous best seller which has influenced - or even defined - the political thinking of millions of Americans for decades and was, in part, a response to the left-seeming (ha!) views of the FDR administration and the New Deal. It's an important book, though not a very good one, in the sense that Mein Kampf is an important book.

Our world is impoverished and our capacity to come by our own opinions honestly diminished if we do not hear from all sides. I think my point about it "getting made at all" reflects my admiration that America is still, at heart, a society that welcomes diversity of perspective and is, therefore, more than willing to hear from the first cuckoo of spring. And the second. And the third. My final point is that if a maverick position is insufficiently argued in the first place, second chances are less forthcoming, which explains in part why Atlas Shrugged did not reach the screen until last year, and then only in a climate which could elevate Glenn Beck, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michell Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh to the front ranks of American discourse.

Rand sabotaged her individualist message by allowing her argumentative control freakery to suffocate the effective dramatisation of her book. Vidor attempts to remake The Crowd but his limitations with the English language render him incapable of harnessing Rand's ego. Ironically, Rand manages to make The Individual seem just as scary as the Nazis and the Commies. Any real passion or humanity in the picture comes from the blossoming real life love affair that was taking place both on and off camera between Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper.

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

The Fountain Head is one for the ever expanding list then!

[BelfastsLittlesHobo]

Just watched Jean Luc Goddard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967). like much of his other work Goddard displays a radical approach to film making, shunning traditional techniques displayed largely by his Hollywood counterparts. The film is a critique of 1960’s Paris, portraying the city in a negative light. There is no traditional narrative to speak instead the film seems more to be a series of observations set loosely around the day in the life of a prostitute as she goes about satisfying her materialistic thirst for branded goods by selling herself to clients. These observations are usually bestowed upon audiences by Goddard himself in the form of the films narrator however other characters regularly address the camera like ventriloquist’s dummies, often in long rambling soliloquies, which seems to be an extension of the narration. These observations make the feel of the film as a whole more akin to a documentary rather than a work of fiction.

If you are unused to Goddard then this may not be the best of his films to cut your teeth on, because the film often blurs the lines between reality and fiction it makes it feel rather disjointed and therefore, at times feels rather like an academic essay. This being said however repeat viewings reveals the true power of the film as the ideas Goddard flirts with become clear. A true masterpiece!

10/10