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Films CXXXV-CXXXIV
I've dropped behind somewhat
CXXXV: Blithe Spirit (David Lean, 1945)
Rather atypical Lean, based on Noel Coward's play (and featuring some of the same cast). Author Rex Harrison arranges for local medium Margaret Rutherford to hold a seance as material for his next book - only to find they've contacted his dead wife, Kay Hammond.
Amusing enough (now period) comedy very much stolen by Rutherford - who is better known for her Miss Marple. I was sidetracked by pondering the film's location - characters speak of shopping in Hythe and visiting Folkestone, but their telephone is Ashford. I read somewhere that Coward wrote the play near Ashford, but equally it was written in Portmeirion.
CXXXVI: Gomorra (Matteo Garrone, 2008)
The Mafia given the Babel treatment - an intercutted series of narratives about the Neopolitan Camorra. As one gang is wiped out, so others jostle for position: a lad hides a gun and joins the gang, two young men aspire to be gangsters and model themselves on Pacino in Scarface, a graduate becomes and enforcer and becomes disillusioned, a middle-aged tailor sells expertise to Chinese rivals and an old man delivers money to families of the imprisoned and dead. There are no police characters, and the church is all but invisible. Fascinating and at times difficult to watch, and not a little depressing.
CXXXVII: Married Life (Ira Sachs, 2007)
Noir comedy with three great performances. Chris Cooper is a little dull but apparently happily married - although he reveals to his friend Pierce Brosnan that he is having an affair with Rachel McAdams. Rather than humiliate his wife, Patricia Clarkson, by divorcing her, he decides to kill her. Meanwhile Brosnan is taken with McAdams and discovers the blissfully happy Clarkson has secrets of her own.
I want to track down John Bingham's novel, to see how things differ, but this pleasingly misanthropic film has too neat an ending for its own good, as if the screenwriter didn't have the courage of his convictions. In the meantime, a splendid piece of work - Cooper and Clarkson clearly buried in their roles as always, and Brosnan playing with and against type. McAdams is given least to do as the object of affection, and it's a bit of a thankless role.
CXXXVIII: He Was A Quiet Man (Frank A. Cappello, 2007)
A curiously shabby Christian Slater plays put-upon bullied worker, Bob Maconel, whose only friends are his fish and who fantasises blowing up his office building each lunch time. When a co-worker goes postal, he saves the life of the object of his desire (Elisha Cuthbert) and is made head of Creative Thinking by his boss (William Macy).
A pleasingly cynical movie, much of it told from inside Maconel's head such that it's not clear how much is real. Very little, would appear to be the answer, and I'm not sure the ending is sufficiently nasty to be logical - on the other hand it's a curious form of redemption. Macy feels cast against type, but his nervous energy (the sense of how long someone can go before being found out) is useful.
CXXXIX: Keeper of the Flame (George Cukor, 1942)
Curiously dark Hepburn/Tracy film - somewhere between Citizen Kane and Rebecca. When national hero Forrest dies in a car crash in a storm, the journalists descend on his estate for the story. Stevie O'Malley (Tracy) gets to know the reclusive widow (Hepburn) and begins to write his life story. It turns out that the hero has feet of clay.
You'd expect the couple to play warring journalists - indeed Tracy is given a rival in the form of a female journalist who pretends they are married - but Hepburn doesn't even appear in the first couple of reels. There is some romance, but it's not like their other pairings.
That's leaves me Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Sea of Grass (1947) and Without Love (1945) to watch - I'm halfway through Woman of the Year (1942)
139 (Cinema: 64; DVD: 70; TV: 5)
CXXXV: Blithe Spirit (David Lean, 1945)
Rather atypical Lean, based on Noel Coward's play (and featuring some of the same cast). Author Rex Harrison arranges for local medium Margaret Rutherford to hold a seance as material for his next book - only to find they've contacted his dead wife, Kay Hammond.
Amusing enough (now period) comedy very much stolen by Rutherford - who is better known for her Miss Marple. I was sidetracked by pondering the film's location - characters speak of shopping in Hythe and visiting Folkestone, but their telephone is Ashford. I read somewhere that Coward wrote the play near Ashford, but equally it was written in Portmeirion.
CXXXVI: Gomorra (Matteo Garrone, 2008)
The Mafia given the Babel treatment - an intercutted series of narratives about the Neopolitan Camorra. As one gang is wiped out, so others jostle for position: a lad hides a gun and joins the gang, two young men aspire to be gangsters and model themselves on Pacino in Scarface, a graduate becomes and enforcer and becomes disillusioned, a middle-aged tailor sells expertise to Chinese rivals and an old man delivers money to families of the imprisoned and dead. There are no police characters, and the church is all but invisible. Fascinating and at times difficult to watch, and not a little depressing.
CXXXVII: Married Life (Ira Sachs, 2007)
Noir comedy with three great performances. Chris Cooper is a little dull but apparently happily married - although he reveals to his friend Pierce Brosnan that he is having an affair with Rachel McAdams. Rather than humiliate his wife, Patricia Clarkson, by divorcing her, he decides to kill her. Meanwhile Brosnan is taken with McAdams and discovers the blissfully happy Clarkson has secrets of her own.
I want to track down John Bingham's novel, to see how things differ, but this pleasingly misanthropic film has too neat an ending for its own good, as if the screenwriter didn't have the courage of his convictions. In the meantime, a splendid piece of work - Cooper and Clarkson clearly buried in their roles as always, and Brosnan playing with and against type. McAdams is given least to do as the object of affection, and it's a bit of a thankless role.
CXXXVIII: He Was A Quiet Man (Frank A. Cappello, 2007)
A curiously shabby Christian Slater plays put-upon bullied worker, Bob Maconel, whose only friends are his fish and who fantasises blowing up his office building each lunch time. When a co-worker goes postal, he saves the life of the object of his desire (Elisha Cuthbert) and is made head of Creative Thinking by his boss (William Macy).
A pleasingly cynical movie, much of it told from inside Maconel's head such that it's not clear how much is real. Very little, would appear to be the answer, and I'm not sure the ending is sufficiently nasty to be logical - on the other hand it's a curious form of redemption. Macy feels cast against type, but his nervous energy (the sense of how long someone can go before being found out) is useful.
CXXXIX: Keeper of the Flame (George Cukor, 1942)
Curiously dark Hepburn/Tracy film - somewhere between Citizen Kane and Rebecca. When national hero Forrest dies in a car crash in a storm, the journalists descend on his estate for the story. Stevie O'Malley (Tracy) gets to know the reclusive widow (Hepburn) and begins to write his life story. It turns out that the hero has feet of clay.
You'd expect the couple to play warring journalists - indeed Tracy is given a rival in the form of a female journalist who pretends they are married - but Hepburn doesn't even appear in the first couple of reels. There is some romance, but it's not like their other pairings.
That's leaves me Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Sea of Grass (1947) and Without Love (1945) to watch - I'm halfway through Woman of the Year (1942)
139 (Cinema: 64; DVD: 70; TV: 5)