Lady For A Day (1933) - Good Good Good Good Good - This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Directed by the master Frank Capra, it's a funny, sweet, dramatic, and ultimately heartwarming story about the power of friendship and good deeds. If you're looking for a movie to boost your spirits and excercise your tear ducts, rent this one. Plus it's got characters with names like Dave the Dude, Shakespear, Happy (a standout performance by Ned Sparks,) Missouri Martin, and Apple Annie.
Joan of Paris (1943) - Good Good Good - Here's a sweetly sad movie about a Parisian barmaid who falls in love with a downed Free French flier on the run from the Gestapo and pays the ultimate price for love and country. Like other propoganda movies made during the war, it pulls no punches in depicting Nazi brutality and resistance sacrafice, thus making the drama that much more intense.
Did you know that Dave Barry has a blog now? Don't you think that The Free French Fliers would be a great rock band name?
posted by Greg 2:56 PM
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Last night was the goodbye moving to Reno party for Ken and Laura. Though we're sad to see them go, we're very excited for them and wish them the best of luck. We got to see the new L. A. Examiner prototype and it looks awesome. There was much music and tamales done up right by our hosts Bonnie and Chalie.
We went to the Getty yesterday with Lance, Marisa, and Cal Parker. It was Sean's third visit, but the first time I got to go with him. It was a great morning and I got to introduce Sean to some of my favorite painters such as James Ensor (two down,) Reubens, Delacroix, Millais, Turner, Goya, Knopff, Friedrich, Munch (bellow,) Gaugin, Poussin, Alma-Tadema, and of course Rembrandt.
The Naked Kiss (1964) - Good Good Good Good - This is another one of Samuel Fuller's most famous and most disturbing movies. From the opening scene where a bald prostitute beats up her drunk pimp, it just gets stranger. It's a strange and engaging film in which the "happy ending" can only be considered happy in comparison to how it could have ended. It's amazing that a film like this could be made in 1964. From reading his autobiography, I know that Fuller had final cut, but that's only because his producer was flaky and he ended up seeing no profits from what has become a cult classic.
The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) - Good Good Good - I knew this movie would be dumb and it was but darnit if I didn't laugh the whole way through.
Is Paris Burning (1966) - Good Good Good - This movie tells the story of the liberation of Paris during WWII. It's centered around Hitler's order to destroy the city before retreating from it, and the questions of weather the German general in charge (played by Goldfinger) will carry out that order. It suffers a little from cinema sprawl: trying to fit such a big story into a movie, even if it's 3 hours long. But other than that it's very exciting and inspiring to watch the French stand up to their Nazi opressors.
posted by Greg 6:16 PM
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) - Good Good - This was our first trip to the cinema since Sean was born, and that in itself made the trip quite exciting and feel like an adventure. I love the Next Generation crew, so I'm glad I saw this one, but really it wasn't that great of a movie. There were some good ideas and action scenes, but it was a little too predictable to really take you away.
The Desert Rats (1953) - Good Good Good - This is a solid British movie about the BEF defending Tobruk from Rommel in North Africa during WWII. It involves an English officer's conflict with his Austrailian troops, and their eventual mutual respect gained through dusty fighting and sacrifice.
God is My Co-Pilot (1945) - Good Good Good Good - This propoganda film is about an Army pilot who joins the Flying Tigers, American pilots who volunteered to fight for China against Japan before America was involved in WWII. It also involves some religious mumbo jumbo, as the title implies. It's great as a historical document, with a solid melodrama and some good aerial fight scenes. I'm sure it was made better by the memory of the P-40 I recently saw, but I enjoyed the film very much.
Dunkirk (1958) - Good Good Good - Another British film, this one about the "Miracle of Dunkirk." Since it was made well after the war, it doesn't whitewash what a mess it was that brought on the evacuation of troops from the Dunkirk beaches using any available boats. It follows two stories, a group of abandoned soldiers making their way to the beaches, and a group of civilians who more or less reluctantly volunteer to take their boats to Dunkirk. The stories come together on the beach as sacrafice and heroism blend together in classic war movie tradition. Suprisingly violent for 1958.
Lilo and Stitch (2002) - Good Good Good - Light entertainment from Disney, it looks and feels good. The heavily Elvis oriented soundtrack and Hawaiian locale get many points in my book.
Shock Corridor (1963) - Good Good Good Good Good God!! - I'm currently reading writer/director Samuel Fuller's posthumously published autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking, an amazing book about his life as first a New York crime reporter, Hollywood screenwriter, WWII soldier, and then Hollywood director, so I figured I'd check out one of his most notorious films. The story follows a journalist who feigns madness in order to be admitted to a mental hospital where an unsolved murder has taken place, hoping to solve it and get a story which will win him fame, fortune and prizes. His stripper girlfriend reluctantly agrees to pretend she's his sister who he has unnatural feelings for. Many crazy and horrible things happen, leaving us to wonder, who's going mad now? It's a very disturbing film which pulls no punches. Best line of the movie: "Oh no! Nymphos!!!"
State of the Union (1948) - Good Good Good - Directed by Frank Capra, this is the story of a rich but idealistic industrialist (Spencer Tracy) who is convinced by his mistress (Angela Landsbury) to run for President of the USA. In the course of doing so, he begins to sacrafice his ideals, but in the end re-unites with them and his firebrand wife (Katherine Hepburn.) Like many movies made from plays, it's a little too talky, but Capra's skill and the great actors make it a compelling film.
posted by Greg 7:42 PM
Directed by the master Frank Capra, it's a funny, sweet, dramatic, and ultimately heartwarming story about the power of friendship and good deeds. If you're looking for a movie to boost your spirits and excercise your tear ducts, rent this one. Plus it's got characters with names like Dave the Dude, Shakespear, Happy (a standout performance by Ned Sparks,) Missouri Martin, and Apple Annie.
