What I knew going in: The basic plot as my millennial ass saw the loosely remade Disturbia when came out.
Photographer L.B Jeffries (James Stewart) is holed up in his apartment after breaking his leg on job. When he's not getting visits from his girlfriend, Lisa (Grace Kelly) or his at home nurse, Stella (Thelma Ritter) he's spending his time spying on his neighbors. Then he becomes convinced one of them, Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife.
For some reason, I assumed this film would be kind of slow. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't and that I was immediately engaged throughout. I think this is my new favorite Hitchcock film, there wasn't a minute of it I didn't enjoy.
All the actors in this are good (and the ones we watch across the way are amusing) but Thelma Ritter was by far my favorite. Stella was awesome. I assumed she was going to disappear after she stopped by at the beginning and she didn't. I'm so glad she got to be in the final act as well. Stewart and Kelly had good chemistry as well, I especially loved the moment where Jeffries realizes how wrong he was about Lisa being the right woman for him. Lisa and Stella working as a team was another delight.
The only part of this film that didn't age well are the special effects and that's to be expected. That's always good for a chuckle.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: A+
Memorable Quote "That's abnormal." - Stella (Thelma Ritter)
2019 Blind Spot List
And here are the films I plan on watching next year for Ryan's creation, which is now managed by Sofia. Normally I stick with one movie per month, but I'm going to try to tackle the entire Godfather trilogy like I did the Three Colors series in 2017.
What do you think of my choices? Have you seen them? Let me know!
1) Network
2) Cinema Paradiso
3) In The Heat of the Night
4) Scenes from a Marriage
5) My Left Foot
6) Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
7) Eraserhead
8) Enter the Dragon
9) Kramer vs Kramer
10) The Godfather trilogy*
11) Judgement at Nuremberg*
12) Casablanca
Alternates: Suddenly, Last Summer (This was actually on my 2018 list but apparently Netflix has one DVD for the entire country because I've been on "very long wait" all year)
*Indicates that I have seen parts of the film, just not all in one sitting.
What I knew going in: That many people consider this either their favorite anime or what got them into anime in the first place.
Kaneda is a leader of a biker gang into Neo-Tokyo. After witnessing a strange event, one of his friends and fellow gang members, Tetsuo gets kidnapped and put into a secret government test program that leaves him with telekinesis and a raging temper. Kaneda happens upon a group of activists who help him try to save his friend.
This ended up being one of my alternates. My original Blind Spot pick was Suddenly, Last Summer, then suddenly, someone decided to hoard the Netflix DVD and my local library didn't have a copy for back up. I've been watching a lot of Attack on Titan lately, so I figured Akira would make for a decent watch.
About that...
To start off, I realize I'm quite sensitive when it comes to sexual assault in movies. I'm not going to lie, if I'm not prepared for it happening and it makes zero sense in the story's context it can easily ruin an entire experience for me. (Hello, The Killing Joke) Which brings us to this film, which is very violent, but of course it's only a woman getting forcibly stripped and punched in the face here. That scene, which happens early on was so sexist that it put me in a mood and it never got better. Especially when that same character ends up dying for the male she got punched over.
There are some things I think Akira does well. The premise itself is very intriguing but I didn't feel it did a good job of explaining it. It's over two hours long and it's really running on its last leg by the time it gets there. The characters get little to no development which makes the fact that none of them are likable or remotely interesting even worse.
I wonder if I had walked away from my TV momentarily and missed that early scene if I would've viewed the rest of it with less annoyance? I guess I'll never know.
Recommended: No
Grade: D
Memorable Quote: "This has got to be a trap." - Kaneda
What I knew going in: Quite a bit about the story, and all the behind the scenes drama between Hitchcock and Hedren.
After an encounter in a pet shop, socialite Melanie (Tippi Hedren) follows Mitch (Rod Taylor) to the quiet town he retreats to every weekend. Upon her arrivle, the birds in the town start to behave erratically and things drastically escalate.
Hitch apparently terrorizing Hedren during this film is pretty well known, and now I believe it even more because no director that has your best interests in mind directs you into this performance.
This movie is glorious in how bad it is. I'm sure in theory this film isn't as incompetently directed as it seems, there are some nice shots here and there, but the fact that it's about killer birds in a time when special effects were so limited pretty much gives it zero leeway. I mean, they did this...
Did this movie actually scare people back then? It couldn't possibly have, right? Nothing about this film looked natural. Not the birds, not the back drops, definitely not the performances. The only actor that I thought showed some emotional range was Veronica Cartwright, who played young Cathy. She genuinely looked terrified throughout, even with the clunky editing.
I found this entire film unintentionally hilarious and that alone makes me so glad I watched it. It's just so spectacularly bad on every level. It's like it was the inspiration for all campy 80's horror movies.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B-
Memorable Quote: "She pushed me inside!" - Cathy (Veronica Cartwright)
What I knew going on: I had seen this on stage.
In 1930's Berlin, an English man, Brian (Michael York) befriends a cabaret singer Sally (Liza Minnelli) when he moves in next door. They form a friendship, all while Nazism starts seeping into the world around them.
I've seen this performed by local theater groups before and I suppose I never really took the time to think about how different the film would be. It's a very loose adaptation, though to be fair it's been over a decade since I saw this on stage.
I think the balance of being a musical while including something as ominous as what is to come with WWII is very interesting. It paints a layer of extra sadness over everything. While Sally and Brian pay no mind to any of it at first, all I could think of is how drastically their world will be different in a few years time. That said, sometimes I wish they had gone a bit more in depth with the subplot between Fritz and Natalia.
The musical numbers were stunning and engaging and Liza Minnelli is an absolute star. She definitely inherited her mother's vocal talents and Sally's facade was fascinating to watch. Though honestly, she's so good that no one else in the film can really keep up with her.
I kind of yearned for more of a footnote after the end. Did Brian and Sally ever meet again? What happens to Fritz and Natalia? Those are questions the film didn't need to answer but ones I enjoyed pondering when it was done.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B+
Memorable quote: "God damn it, I'm gonna have a baby." - Sally (Liza Minnelli)
What I knew going in: Apparently nothing
In Germany, a man named Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) kidnaps children. The town is in terror, the police are on high alert, this doesn't sit well with the other non child-murderer criminals. They decide to try to catch the killer themselves so everything goes back to normal.
This is director Fritz Lang's first "talkie" (Though he can't resist leaving a few parts of the film silent) After being unimpressed with Metropolis, this one fared better with me personally. I thought I had a good idea of what this was going to be like. But it ended up being kind of goofy. It's certainly no comedy but for something marketed as a murder mystery it was kind of light, almost upbeat during certain scenes. It's not the tone I was expecting.
Lorre is perfectly creepy in this and he stands out easily while the rest of the cast sort of blends together. I'll never hear "In The Hall of the Mountain King" the same way again.
If I have one major complaint about the film, it's that it dragged in the middle, yet rushed the ending. I would've preferred to have those extra 10-15 minutes where it counted.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B-
Memorable Quote: "I can't help what I do!" Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre)
What I knew going in: Nothing, really.
Blanche (Vivien Leigh) travels to New Orleans to visit her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) after her property is seized. It's clear she's stressed and accustomed to living a certain way. Stella's husband Stanley (Marlon Brando) only seems to make things worse during her stay.
This was another pick that I went off mostly by title. I've never seen nor read the Tennessee Williams play this is based on, so it was all new to me. The heaviness of it surprised me. I feel like the majority of classic films I've seen don't have the emotional weight that more films nowadays do.
The actors are outstanding, especially Vivien Leigh who absolutely steals the show here. I think Blanche is written very sympathetically. At first glance, she could seem stuck up and naive but all I wanted was for good things to happen to her throughout. It made me wish someone would've just sat down and had an actual conversation with her. Brando's Stanley was a massive asshole and he played him perfectly.
I kind of wish this film had been in color. The sets looked so beautiful on their own that I think this would've really complimented it.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: A-
Memorable quote: "I don't want realism, I want magic!" - Blanche (Vivien Leigh)
What I knew going in: Tis but a scratch!
King Arthur (Graham Chapman) goes on a quest to gather knights of the round table and find The Holy Grail.
A lot of comedians who make me laugh hysterically today all credit Monty Python as an inspiration to them. Yet, they've always managed to escape me. I'm still very ignorant of the majority of their work, but I figured this would be a good place to start.
All the members in this troupe have a ton of charisma, and while this film did make me laugh, it wasn't as funny as I hoped it would be. Comedy really is generational isn't it? While I've seen and loved plenty of classic comedies I rarely find anything before the 90's that makes me laugh the way comedies do now. (Except Airplane! and that horse getting punched in Blazing Saddles.)
Thankfully I wasn't expecting to be on the floor over this, and I still really enjoyed myself. I can see now what people where saying when they said sort of spoofed The Seventh Seal, another one of my Blind Spots. I definitely want to watch more of their films after seeing this.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B-
Memorable Quote: "... I got better" - Peasant 3 (John Cleese)
What I knew going in: As weird as this sounds, I thought I had seen this when I was a teenager and just forgotten most of it, but as I watched it in full now, I'm fairly sure I was confusing it with something else.
Ann (Andie MacDowell) is pretty indifferent to sex at this point in her life. Her husband, John (Peter Gallagher) has started an affair with Ann's sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) in the meantime. When John's old college friend Graham (James Spader) comes back to town after a long absence, he changes the lives of everyone involved.
You would think with a title like this there would be a ton of nudity and sex scenes, but there isn't, and that's the beauty of it. This film makes its dialogue about sex. It's discussed, described, implied off screen, but never gratuitously shown.
Director Steven Soderbergh is an interesting filmmaker. When I view several films from one director, I'm always trying to find their style. What makes them this great auteur. I'm not sure I can nail down his. Everything he does is so different from the film he directors before.
I loved the cast here. Gallagher is great at playing smarmy fucks, but it's MacDowell and Spader that are the standouts to me. She was perfect as Ann, especially during her therapy sessions. She felt like a real person. Spader (side note: he was pretty hot back in the day. You go, Ultron.) had excellent chemistry with everyone he shared the screen with. That really shows you how great of an actor he is. I missed him when he wasn't in a scene.
I like it when I have a certain expectation for a film, and it gives me something completely different and better than what I was expecting. That's what this did.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: A
Memorable Quote: "I've got a lot of problems, but they belong to me." - Graham (James Spader)
What I knew going in: I had seen some of the musical numbers
A silent film star, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) finds himself having to get with the changing times when the first "talkie" film is a big hit. A chance meeting with a young up and coming actress, Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) blooms into a secret romance when she is talked into dubbing over Don's frequent costar, Lina (Jean Hagen) in their newest films.
I decided I wanted to think of something other than A Clockwork Orange when I hear the song "Singin' in the Rain." As much as I love tap dancing, I'm awful at watching these classics all the way through instead of just looking up specific routines.
This film is absolutely delightful. The fact that Debbie Reynolds didn't have any dance experience before she made this is extraordinary. Gene Kelly is always a reliable leading man and Donald O'Connor is a joy to watch. The funny thing is this film makes me hate The Artist even more in retrospect. I should've watched this then.
I think they captured the 1920's feel well, and while a later routine gets a bit self indulgent, the spectacle is worth it. I loved that my son sat down and watched this with me. And that he tried to tap dance himself afterwards while singing the title song. Moments like these make me love movies even more.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: A
Memorable Quote: "I'll do it, but I never want to see you again." - Kathy (Debbie Reynolds)
What I knew going in: Apparently nothing.
A knight, Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) and his squire (Gunnar Björnstrand) are returning home from the crusades when Block meets death personified. (Bengt Ekerot) He doesn't feel it's his time, so he challenges Death to a game of chess. As they play, their game affects the lives of others around them as the Black Death begins to sweep across the lands.
I know I've said this before, but Ingmar Bergman is a filmmaker who I was not aware of at all until I became a movie blogger. I was never very good at looking further back into the history of cinema to begin with, so when the Blind Spot opportunity came along, I've had a Bergman film nearly every year. Why am I bringing this up again? Because in my Bergman research I mixed this film up with a different one. See, I thought this was one of the films in his Faith trilogy, which I meant to finish after watching Winter Light. I keep a list of films I want to watch and I change the order of said list often, Apparently somewhere down the line I messed up my Bergman one, because I was expecting this to be a heavy drama and it was essentially the opposite.
It was kind of a nice surprise after preparing myself for it. The Seventh Seal has an airiness to it. Ekerot is startling as death. He's continuously very unsettling to look at but for a film about dying they manage not to drown in that sorrow.
Max Von Sydow was so handsome back then, I loved watching him in this. Bibi Andersson is also wonderful to watch. Unfortunately not all the other characters are as dynamic as those two. Occasionally I had trouble remembering who was who, even though this isn't a long film.
This may not have been the film I was expecting, but I enjoyed it very much. Especially with how popular it seems to be among Bergman fans.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B
Memorable Quote: "I want knowledge." - Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow)
What I knew going in: The story
Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a lawyer who is wrongfully fired by his partners after they find out he has AIDS. He hires another lawyer, Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to defend him during his trial. Joe has to grapple with his own homophobia as he gets to know Andrew and fights for justice.
I love courtroom dramas. I haven't came across many that I didn't like and thankfully this didn't go that route either. I do think it played it rather safe. There are better films out there that address the AIDS crisis within the gay community. I feel like the filmmakers really wanted to touch on it, but were too afraid of how the public would take it.
Tom Hanks is wonderful in this. You can see the pain in his eyes throughout. Denzel also brings his A game. Sometimes I wanted to laugh with Joe, and others I wanted to scream at him. He could've easily been completely unlikable but Denzel never lets it get to that.
This film however has some pretty major faults. The first is that Andy and Joe are really the only fleshed out characters. Everyone else feels like a caricature. Scowling lawyer, asshole boss, sexy lover. No one else felt like they had a personality. I also found the constant close ups of the actors' faces to be completely distracting. Everyone made fun of Tom Hooper for doing that in Les Miserables but this one felt way more excessive. Still, aside from that I enjoyed this film and as always, I'm glad I got around to it.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: B-
Memorable Quote: "Explain this to me like I'm a four year old." - Joe Miller (Denzel Washington)
We have a new host for the Blind Spot Series - Sofia at Returning Videotapes! I haven't changed my banner yet to include her blog, I'll get to that eventually. Even with Ryan stepping down, I love this series - and this excuse to watch something old too much to quit. I had a list already set out before Ryan even announced he was ending it. I'm happy for Sofia for carrying it on!
What I knew going in: That Bette Davis was in it.
Margo (Bette Davis) is a theater actress who is introduced to Eve (Anne Baxter) one night after a show. Eve has been to every performance and says she's a huge fan. After a while, Even begins to show her own ambitions for the spotlight and maybe she isn't as genuine as we thought.
When I watched Sunset Boulevard last year, a few of you suggested I watch All About Eve. Because I hadn't researched it I was expecting a few familiarizes but both films are very different. This one feels more down to Earth and less glamorous, even though it involves actors.
Bette Davis is such a powerhouse, I love her performances. Anne Baxter was great as Eve as well. I don't think a performance like hers could be pulled off today. There was something so conniving about her. Celeste Holm (who has the loveliest voice) was another stand out to me as Margo's friend Karen.
I like when films have narrations and this one handles it seamlessly. Even in the quieter moments it's always interesting. I have to say, I did prefer Sunset to this one, but that's not to diminish this at all. This was a great way to start 2018.
Recommended: Yes
Grade: A
Memorable Quote: "You won't even get the chance to talk" - Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe)
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. I had a bit of drama not being able to get my hands on Cinema Paradiso or In the Heat of the Night. Some day.
2018
1) All About Eve
2) Rear Window
3) The Birds
4) Suddenly, Last Summer
5) The Seventh Seal
6) M
7) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
8) sex, lies, and video tape
9) Singin' in the Rain
10) Philadelphia
11) Cabaret
12) A Streetcar Named Desire
Alternates: Cinema Paradiso, In The Heat of The Night, A Woman Under the Influence, My Left Foot
Yes, I put Cinema Paradiso and In The Heat of the Night on the alternate list again, because unless Netflix puts them on instant stream I'm having a really hard time finding them. I know I'll probably get a lot of shit for Monty Python but despite recognizing all the jokes, I've actually never seen this movie. Only clips of it.
What do you think of my picks? Have you seen them? Which is your fav? Any you hate? Let me know in the comments! I hope some of you join in on this too.
