(2008) dir. Darren Aronofsky
viewed: 12/29/08 at AMC Loews Metreon 16 with IMAX, SF, CA
Darren Aronofsky, director of Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and the godforsaken The Fountain (2006), delivers, like a metal chair crashing on your skull, a brutal, painful, amazing film, with a tremendous performance by Mickey Rourke as the titular wrestler. It’s [...]
Archive of entries posted on December 2008
The Wrestler
Night Nurse
(1931) dir. William A. Wellman
viewed: 12/27/08
I’ve been digging on the “pre-code” era of Hollywood of late, so I queued up Night Nurse, a Barbara Stanwyck film about a girl who ends up training as a nurse, and finds herself in over her head with a couple who are trying to starve two little girls to [...]
The Thief of Bagdad
(1924) dir. Raoul Walsh
viewed: 12/26/08
My latest effort in my exposing my kids to silent films was the epic fantasy The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks. I hadn’t seen it myself, so the level of risking their interest was higher perhaps than with one of the comedies of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, which has [...]
White Dog
(1982) dir. Samuel Fuller
viewed: 12/23/08
Some people watch White Christmas (1954) as holiday mood inspiration, me, apparently I watch White Dog, Samuel Fuller’s film about a racist, killer canine. Doesn’t that just set the mood?
Actually, I’d seen White Dog back more than ten years ago on a bootleg video from Le Video, San Francisco’s one awesome [...]
The Hustler
(1961) dir. Robert Rossen
viewed: 12/22/08
Having accelerated pool playing from an occasional pasttime to a more substantial practice, I felt it behooved me to revisit the uber-classic pool movie, 1961’s Paul Newman/Jackie Gleason film, The Hustler. I had seen it years ago, and I do mean years. And in the 1980’s I did see The Color [...]
Sally of the Sawdust
(1925) dir. D.W. Griffith
viewed: 12/19/08
Of my foray into silent film, I have only watched just one D.W. Griffith film, his notorious epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). As for Sally of the Sawdust, it’s not among his better-known films, in fact, it still lacks its own Wikipedia page (for what that tells you). I guess [...]
Mouse Hunt
(1997) dir. Gore Verbinski
viewed: 12/19/08
I see so few films on VHS anymore, and it’s really a factor of letter-boxing vs. non-letter-boxing (call me a snob, rightly or wrongly). But in trying to come up with some films that might cater to my kids’ particular interests, I recalled this film about a mouse outwitting humans as [...]
The Misfits
(1961) dir. John Huston
viewed: 12/19/08
Among many other tropes this year, I’ve been watching/rediscovering/discovering for real the first time director John Huston. For some time I’d had interest in seeing The Misfits, both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe’s final film. As with many things, I let the conversion of many tropes and interests meet and give [...]
Zardoz
(1974) dir. John Boorman
viewed: 12/16/08
Wow and wow, again. Very likely one of the worst films ever made.
Somehow, this cult Sci-Fi flick from 1974, starring Sean Connery and directed, written and produced by John Boorman, had slipped by me all these years. A “friend” (if I can still call him that) “recommended” the film to me [...]
Baby Face
(1933) dir. Alfred E. Green
viewed: 12/15/08
Baby Face is considered one of the best of the Pre-Code Hollywood films, featuring an amazing performance by lead Barbara Stanwyck. The sexuality in the film is not just innuendo, but Lily’s (Stanwyck) story is one of sexual power, Nietzsche-inspired Will to Power, and the climb of the corporate ladder. [...]
