Rambling Film

It's been another successful year of Blind Spots! Here's a round up of my 2020 films and grades. Aside from the dud that was Reanimator I had a pretty good year. A bit of mediocrity, but I loved Meet Me in St. Louis so much that I can overlook a lot of that. 1) Belle du Jour (B) 2) Reanimator (F) 3) Maclolm X(B) 4) Dial M for Murder (B-) 5) On The Waterfront (B) 6) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (B) 7) Raging Bull (C) 8) Top Hat/Swing Time (B/C+) 9) Jules and Jim (C) 10) Nosferatu (B-) 11) Meet Me In St. Louis/Summer Stock (A/B) 12) Mildred Pierce (A) Here's what I have going on for 2021. I'm getting a little ambitious again with trying to do more than one movie a month. Truthfully with quarantine the way it is, I've actually already watched a few of these and have reviews in my drafts. Hopefully this time around I'll actually be able to find Suddenly, Last Summer. I've been trying to watch this movie for years and someone at Netflix either hoards the DVD, or no one ...

What I knew going in: Not much at all, really. Tony (Ray Milland) is a tennis star who finds out his wife, Margot (Grace Kelly) is having an affair with Mark (Robert Cummings) while he's been out on tour. He retires from tennis, and Margot gives their relationship an honest try the second go around. Only instead of confronting her like a normal human, he decides to blackmail someone into murdering her instead. Long ago when I started this blogging challenge I had a list of Hitchock films I planned to see, and I believe I was taking a vote between this and Rope, and Dial M for Murder is what won. And this turned out to be a solid choice.  For a movie that so obviously is going to end a certain way, the suspense really does stay with you throughout the run time, thought maybe not for the reason you expect. While I normally love a good courtroom drama, I like that this film jumps in time a bit after it's "intermission" (which is kind of funny considering this film isn...

  What I knew going in: That this was a popular French New Wave film Jim (Henri Serre) a Frenchman is friends with Jules, (Oskar Werner) an Austrian living in Paris in the 1910's. They both fall in love with a woman named Catherine. (Jeanne Moreau) Catherine eventually marries Jules, and after WWI, the three meet again in Germany and Catherine starts falling in love with Jim. The film follows these three as they attempt to make a relationship work. I picked this film as I wanted to see more work from director François Truffaut and this seemed like a fairly popular choice, but I have to admit I'm a bit perplexed after watching it. Jim and Jules together make a great pair of friends. Catherine is to put it blunty - kind of a flake, but I wouldn't say I disliked her character. I just found nearly every decision this trio makes to be kind of illogical and I never understood how these two guys would go to such lengths to keep Catherine. I also don't understand why Catherine...

What I knew going in: That nearly every horror director out there credits this film for inspiration at some point in their careers. Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) is an estate agent sent out to Transylvania to meat Count Orlok (Max Schreck) as he wants to purchase property. Hutter begins to suspect that Orlok may be a vampire. Silent films are not for me. I can admit that, I don't think I've ever truly connected with one. Nosferatu however is easily the most enjoyable time I've had watching one. A big part of that is the score. It's beautiful. I absolutely loved the  glockenspiel at the beginning. It's such a lovely score it's hard to think of this as a horror film. I think I expected a bit more horror element to the film itself, but there really isn't. I can see why the creepy makeup job they did on Orlok would inspire a lot of horror fans, but with the amount of praise this film gets I had expected more of it. I really liked von Wangenheim thoug...

What I knew going in: All of it.  Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is a hardworking woman who starts waiting tables after her husband leaves her. Her spoiled daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) looks down upon this, but she's determined to work her way up to owning her own restaurant. However, now her second husband, Monte (Zachary Scott) has been murdered and she finds herself relaying her story during questioning. I must be one of the few people who watched the HBO mini series before seeing the actual movie. To be honest, outside of really liking Evan Rachel Wood's performance, I don't remember much of it. So even though I knew the story, this film felt very different than what I was expecting.  It's funny to me that Joan Crawford has this bitchy reputation yet she's so good at playing these sympathetic characters. I liked Mildred immediately. Sure, she has her faults, but she's easy to root for. Even if you hate that she indulges Veda so much, you can understan...

What I knew going in: The famous songs. IMDB sums up Meet Me In St. Louis up best. "In the year leading up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York." The majority of the film follows Esther Smith (Judy Garland) as she tries to get her new neighbor Jon Pruitt (Tom Drake) to notice her. Esther also has an older love sick sister Rose (Lucille Bremer) and two mischievous little sisters, Agnes and Tootie (Joan Carroll and Margaret O'Brien)  I realized, embarrassingly that I'm not very well versed in the late, great Judy Garland's filmography. I knew plenty about the drama surrounding her life, but I had only seen two of her films. This year I decided to right that wrong and I figured Meet Me In St. Louis was a good place to start. This movie was delightful and just what I needed after a long, depressing week of another needless killing of a black man ...

What I knew going in: All the Oscars it won and that famous line. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is an ex-fighter working odd jobs on the docks for some shady people. After her brother is murdered, Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) starts asking questions around the docks and catches Terry's eye. I've heard a lot of people say this is one of Brando's best performances, so that's the main reason I added it to my Blind Spot list. He's great in this (The Godfather is still my #1 of his though) and Eva Marie Saint was as well. They had wonderful chemistry which I sometimes feel is lacking in older dramas that I watch. I found them both compelling and even though parts of the story felt slow, I was always interested in seeing where they went. This is the second film I've seen from director Elia Kazan, the other being A Streetcar Named Desire , while I think I prefer that to On The Waterfront, I've still been thinking about this film quite a bit, even weeks aft...

What I knew going in: I had seen a few scenes from a documentary on IFC about sex in film. Severine (Catherine Deneuve) has been married to Pierre (Jean Sorel) for one year, yet as much as she loves him she cannot be intimate with him. Instead she has violent fantasies and on a whim, takes a job in the afternoons working as a prostitute. On paper, Belle de Jour could go so many different ways. What surprised me was how delicate this story was handled when it could've so easily descended into exploitation and titillation. I appreciated that, as I don't think I would've been able to watch otherwise. I feel like there are not many characters like Severine in film. It's reveled early on why she has issues with intimacy. Her husband doesn't try to force her, but it's clear the world around her wants her to be a certain way, and taking this job in a brothel is her way of fighting against it. I just wish we had a bit more insight to her thoughts. Deneuve p...

What I knew going in: That it was essentially a body horror type film. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a strange new medical student who has found a way to reanimate dead people with his experiments. He ropes his new roommate Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) in on this as well to disastrous results.  Have you ever watched a film and felt okay about what your were watching? Maybe you like it, maybe it's not perfect, but not bad, then one thing happens. ONE thing that makes you do a complete 180 and immediately lose all hope? Well, that's what happened here. I generally like campy 80's horror. It's not free of misogyny, a lot of them have a very exploitative view of women that some would call "dated" even though it was wrong back then too and no one gave a voice to those who objected, but Re-Animator is easily the grossest example of this that I've came across. And consider this spoiler territory a favor.  Why the hell is there a rape scene in this movie? ...

What I knew going in: The main plot Jake La Matta (Robert De Niro) is a famous boxer whose temper gets the best out of him outside of the ring. That's an understatement, he beats his wife, Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) and frequently gets into it with his brother, Joey. (Joe Pesci) He wants a nice family life, but he can't control himself enough to actually make that happen. I haven't seen a lot of Martin Scorcese's early works. I had Taxi Driver on a Blind Spot a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely so I figured Raging Bull would be a good place to go net. Unfortunately I didn't like this one nearly as much. For me, the only thing this film really had going for it was the way it shot the fighting scenes and the acting. De Niro is great and I'm not surprised he won an Oscar for this, not only for looking so toned while fighting but for gaining so much weight to play La Matta at the end of his story, but he nailed the part emotionally as well. The problem ...

What I knew going in: I had seen parts of it on TV before. Spike Lee's sprawling epic follows the legendary activist Malcolm Little (Denzel Washington) from his gangster days, his prison sentence, and his eventual rebirth in the Nation of Islam before becoming what we know him as now - Malcolm X.  I realize now why I probably never saw this all in one sitting. This movie is three and a half hours long. I must have known that at some point but when I went to start this film on Netflix it came as quite a surprise.  To tell Malcolm X's entire story, I think the length is justified. There's just so much and you really can't leave out certain parts of it if you want the big picture. I think Spike Lee did a great job of containing everything and an amazing performance by Denzel Washington helped as well. One of the things I always want from a biopic is a teaching moment. I liked that this film gave me a better understanding of his journey. In history, especially f...

I'm back again doing the Blind Spot challenge. Truthfully I'm not sure if anyone is officially hosting it this year, but I enjoy the challenge so I'm just carrying on what Ryan started and Sofia continued. What I knew going in: That it was based on a play. Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) goes with her alcoholic and stuck in his glory days husband, Brick (Paul Newman) to his family home to celebrate his father, Big Daddy's(Burl Ives) birthday. But there's more to it then that, Big Daddy was recently at the hospital with a colon cancer diagnosis so the party is also a cover for going over matters of his estate. Maggie and Brick are in a rocky point in their marriage on top of it.  The cast of characters range from okay to flat out deplorable. It's hard to root for anyone really. A lot of my sympathy for Maggie came from amusement over her calling her nieces and nephews "no neck monsters" (Seriously, those kids were awful) But it runs in the family. ...

On a personal level, 2019 has been a struggle, but Blind Spot wise, it was mostly wonderful. My favorite film I saw this year is hands down The Godfather. I went full stan on that. I bought the whole set on blu ray and I watched part one and two several times each. Then I read the book because I wanted to get in the characters' heads more. Cinema Paradiso was also a beautiful film with an ending I don't think I'll ever forget. The worst film I saw was The Godfather Part 3. Andy Garcia was not only rude to John Mulaney at a Lakers game but he's fucking terrible in that movie.  So what does Blind Spot 2020 look like? Take a look below, let me know if you've seen any of these. I'm getting a bit ambitious again. I couldn't decide which Judy Garland and Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire to go with so I'm going to attempt to watch 14 films this year instead of the normal 12. I've done trilogies as one pick before so hopefully this won't be too much handle. ...