Rambling Film

Another year, another Blind Spot! I can't thank Ryan enough for starting this blogathon. He's the reason I'm making an effort to go back in time in cinema. It's something I always had a hard time being pushed to do. I jumped on the bandwagon in 2014, and I'm going to continue in 2018. But first, let's look at my final grades for my 2017 picks: 1) Sleepers (B) 2) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (A+) 3) Videodrome (B) 4) Paris, Texas (B) 5) Sunset Boulevard (A+) 6) Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red (B, B-, A-) 7) Jackie Brown (B) 8) Metropolis (C-) 9) Midnight Cowboy (C+) 10) Do The Right Thing (B+) 11) Boyz in the Hood (B) 12) In The Bedroom (B-) 2017 was my over achiever year because I squeezed the Three Colors trilogy in there. I now have two movies on my all time favorites list in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane and Sunset Boulevard. As always, the biggest plus is that I didn't hate anything. Thankfully that's only happened once...

What I knew going in: That the film was once lost, then mostly recovered with a few title cards to fill in the gaps.  December was a rough go at the Blind Spot. My original pick was Cinema Paradiso, but it's been stuck in "Very Long Wait" hell on Netflix all year. So I held a twitter poll on what I should replace it with, and In The Heat Of The Night won. Then what do you know, Very Long Wait there too. None of these films were on Youtube or Daily Motion. I'm sure I could've found them on Vodlocker but the audio is always out of sync towards the end so I had to go with what came in 2nd on the Twitter poll. Good ol' Metropolis. And look at that, Netflix has it on instant stream. Set in the year 2026, a futuristic city is run by lowly workers underneath the streets and buildings the upper class call home. One day Freder ( Gustav Fröhlich) sees a beautiful woman (Brigitte Helm) and follows her underground to see the workers that fuel the city. He never kn...

What I knew going in: That it was a popular body horror film.  Max Renn (James Woods) runs a sleazy TV channel and is always on the look out for new material. He discovers a pirated tape called Videodrome which shows nonstop snuff. Max's girlfriend Nicki (Debbie Harry) wants to audition for it, and soon he's drawn into Videodrome's bigger picture. Damn, this movie is weird.  Director David Cronenberg was put on my radar with A History of Violence . Then he made Eastern Promises which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I've been meaning to go backwards in his filmography for a while and Videodrome is the one that gets mentioned the most. I can definitely see where some of his ideas for History of Violence at least came from.  James Woods is naturally a creepy fucker so his casting is spot on. I really appreciate that Cronenberg didn't show a bunch of sexual violence. So many other horror directors would've taken the opportunity to go over th...

What I knew going in: I knew the actors in it, but not much of the plot. Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) is a stewardess who smuggles money from Mexico for Ordell Robbie. (Samuel L. Jackson) She's busted one day by two officers. (played by Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen) Ordell sends his bondsman, Max Cherry (Robert Forster) to get Jackie out of jail. Jackie strikes up a deal to get the rest of Robbie's money to the officers to avoid jail time, but she plans on taking it for herself. This almost felt like Tarantino-lite to me. I was expecting it to be as violent as his other films, so not seeing a ton of blood was surprising. What works the best is the cast. They're all wonderful in their roles, especially Pam Grier who carries this film wonderfully. I loved the chemistry between she and Robert Forester.  For such a straight forward story it managed to catch me off guard a few times which is always appreciated. One thing I do regret doing is watching this after I had to...

What I knew going in: It often appears on "Best of" lists for independent films. As a lover of indies, Paris, Texas has always been one that has escaped me. So many hailed it as one of the best. Yet, I kept skipping over it in my Netflix queue. Thankfully the Blind Spot Series gave me the motivation I needed. Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) has been missing for four years when he decides to wander back into society and meet up with his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell) who in turn has been raising Travis' seven year old son, Hunter. (Hunter Carson) Travis decides he wants to find his long lost wife and takes Hunter along for the ride. Travis wasn't a likable character for me. He's selfish and reckless but at the same time I was still so curious about his journey. The film didn't answer all the questions I had, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. Stanton is excellent and carries everything well. It tends to feel longer than it's 2 1/2 hour run time, but...

What I knew going in: I had seen parts of this film before, but never in order. We follow three boys in inner city Los Angeles. There's Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who is raised by his father "Furious" (Laurence Fishburne) to have a strong sense of character and his friends, half brothers Ricky (Morris Chestnut)  and Darren (Ice Cube) who are taking two very different paths.  For all the times I managed to catch this film on TV, I never realized that it actually started with our three leads as children. Another one of the many reasons I love the Blind Spot Series.  Boyz in the Hood still feels very relevant today with its commentary on racism and violence. It's well paced and even though you know something awful is likely going to happen, that's not the point. The violence in that place and time was predictable and that's the saddest thing of all.  Fishburne was the standout to me. Furious' name seems like it would come from what lies beneath. He...

It's gonna get hotter.  What I knew going in: Aside from the themes about racial divide, not much at all. Sal (Danny Aiello) owns a pizza place in Brooklyn. His customers are almost exclusively black due to the area he built in. His racist son, Pino (John Turturro) thinks he should relocate, but he refuses. One day one of his customers, Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) asks why he only has photos of Italian American white men and no black men on his walls. This disagreement turns into Buggin Out attempting to boycott the pizzeria, which continues to escalate throughout the day. Mookie (Spike Lee) A friend of Buggin, but an employee of Sal finds himself caught in the middle. Doing "day in the life" films can be difficult. It's hard to follow someone, or a few people around for a set period of time if their story doesn't progress or shift in any way. Do The Right Thing makes it look easy. There's a lot going on in this film. Through Mookie's eyes, w...

What I knew going in: The entire plot.  Shakes(Joseph Perrino), Michael (Brad Renfro), Tommy (Jonathan Tucker), and John (Geoffrey Wigdor) are four friends growing up in Hell's Kitchen. When a prank they play goes disastrously wrong, they're sent to a reform school where they are subjected to an unspeakable amount of violence. We cut to more than 10 years later and they're all grown up. (and played by Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Billy Cudup and Ron Eldnard) They plan on taking revenge against the guards at the reform school, but they need the help of the one stable adult in their lives, Father Bobby. (Robert De Niro) This was one of those films where I had heard so much about it and had seen bits and pieces that I felt like I had already watched the entire thing. I'm glad I finally sat down and got it in one sitting, but man is this film long. They could've shaved off about 30 minutes of it. The story was harrowing but so fascinating. They did a good j...

What I knew going in: I had seen bits and pieces of this movie before, just never in the right order. Matt and Ruth Fowler (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) are not thrilled that their college age son, Frank (Nick Stahl) is dating an older woman, Natalie with kids. (Marisa Tomei) Although their relationship is a happy one, Frank is showing signs of wanting to skip out on college, and Natalie has an abusive ex-husband, Richard (William Mapother) who is proving to be a problem.  In The Bedroom is a good film that could've been great. I feel a bit strange saying this, because I think Wilkinson and Spacek are very talented actors, they're just not very exciting ones. After Stahl and Tomei stop appearing on screen consistently, the film ends up dragging a bit. It's not that the story isn't there, because this is a very interesting character study on Matt and Ruth's marriage and lives after tragedy strikes them. But it just felt like it was missing something aft...

What I knew going in: I knew of the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Also stupid trivia fact: This was the movie playing at the theater in the House of Wax remake. Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) was once a child star. At some point, her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) became a better actress and took all the limelight. Not wanting to be a brat like Jane, Blanche wrote it in her contract that Jane must get a movie every time she does. Years later, Blanche is confined to a wheelchair and relies on her sister, now a serious drunk for help.  I wanted to see this one before Feud started airing on FX.(I watched this in February) I'm so glad I rushed because it was amazing. Davis is absolutely marvelous as the washed up Jane. Crawford's Blanche gets to be very kind and pleasant, so it's Davis that gets to have all the fun. The way the film is shot is very dated. It tries hard to avoid any type of gore that could stem from the story, but the atmosphere is perf...

What I knew going in: I had read plenty of reviews on each of the films. Blue: "Liberty" - Julie (Juliette Binoche) loses her husband and young daughter to a car crash. Now she's determined to shed every thing from her old life and to keep to herself in Paris. However the music from her composer husband's last piece of work haunts her, and she can't shake it. Reading the synopsis of each film,  I thought Blue would be my favorite but it's kind of a downer. However, it really is an incredible piece of filmmaking.  I like how introspective the film was. It had to be that way, because that's how Julie lives now. She's distancing herself, and the film almost distances us from her. While I would normally hate the "fade to black" cuts director Krzysztof Kieslowski uses frequently, I like how it sort of forced us to focus on the music instead. B White:   "Equality" Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is a Polish man living in France, ...

What I knew going in: I knew of the iconic line "Alright Mr. DeVille, I'm ready for my close up" but that's it. Another I put in based on title alone. Joe Gillis (William Holden) is a struggling screenwriter who has ran into recent money troubles as no one is taking his work. One day he gets a flat tire while driving, and parks his car in what he thinks is an abandoned garage. He ends up on the sprawling property of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) a former silent film actress who still believes she has legions of fans waiting for her glorious return. She decides to keep Joe on her property to re-write a script that she has been working on.  This is the 3rd Billy Wilder movie I've had in my Blind Spot lists. I have yet to be disappointed. I like that he included narration. Joe being a screenwriter, it's only fair that he also tells the story of his own life as if he were writing it down.  The acting is excellent, particularly from Swanson. Norma was so ...

Another year is over and I completed my 2016 Blind Spot List! This event has been a great way for me to actually get off my ass and watch so many classics. I'll always be grateful to Ryan for starting it. Before I put up my 2017 List, here's how I did in 2016. 1) Au Revoir Les Enfants (A+) 2) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (A) 3) The Apartment (B) 4) Marnie (B) 5) Funny Face (B-) 6) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (A) 7) The Passion of Joan of Arc (C) 8) The French Connection (B) 9) JFK (C+) 10) The Miracle Worker (A-) 11) All The President's Men (A) 12) Chinatown (A-) Au Revoir Les Enfants was easily my favorite of the bunch. The only one I disliked was The Passion of Joan of Arc, even though I didn't want to. For next year, I'm going to get a bit ambitious as I wanted to do the Three Color movies, but had so many others I wanted to throw on here. So I'm going to combine them into one month. here's my 2017 Blindspot List: 1) Sl...