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Old films that are tremendous

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    "Kind hearts and coronets " is on in one of the independent cinemas in Dublin this weekend.

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      I recently saw The Apartment for the first time and understand why it's beloved. It also is a picture of a New York that probably doesn't really exist any more. I can't imagine too many big insurance companies have armies of people like Jack Lemmons' character doing stuff in desks in a big building in Manhattan. All that's been automated or outsourced or, at least, happens in some boring building with miles of parking out in New Jersey somewhere.

      It occurs to me that the idea of what New York is "supposed to be like" is based on how it was from the depression through the late 60s, largely because of books and films, but the people who actually remember it like that are disappearing and there's precious little of that NYC left, I suppose.


      I don't recall if I've seen all of Escape from New York. I saw most of it on one of those glorious "HBO Free Weekends" that happened in the 80s sometimes.* I recall that it seemed like a very plausible future for New York. In those days, we all heard about how terrible big cities were, especially at night. And I felt bad for the kids and Muppets on Sesame Street. I didn't know until later about white flight and "urban renewal" and Robert Moses and dogwhistle politics and all that. I just thought cities were polluted and violent and getting worse. And I suppose a lot of New Yorkers thought that too, which is how Giuliani happened.



      *My parents would never ever pay extra for a channel, but we had what passed for cable in those days because otherwise we'd get no TV at all. Every now and then HBO or Disney would "unscramble" their signal for a weekend and I'd watch as much of it as I could.
      Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 07-06-2019, 18:08.

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        Snuck into a drive-in to see Escape from NY back in the day. Need to rewatch as it has been a long while since last seen.

        Snake, are you a John Carpenter fan? The original Halloween and They Live are two of my faves.

        Recently re-watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Good god did that film keep your attention.

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          I don't think I've ever seen WAOVW, but I noticed that it's on Netflix or Amazon now, so I'll try to see it soon.

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            Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post

            1. There isn't actual cab service, Cabbie was an NYC cab driver who stayed behind when it was turned into a prison. He was linked to his cab at all times and simply didn't want to leave it (symbolically when the cab is blown up, Cabbie is killed).

            2. Food parcels are dropped in once a month. There is a line of background dialog when the soldiers helicopter into the prison. (*Googles*) "We have a visual sighting on it. It's a crowd of prisoners in Central Park. They're waving at us. Signaling us in the food drop area." See also https://theofficialjohncarpenter.com...from-new-york/



            3. The film was incredibly low budget. The "wireframe computer graphics" of the city was actually a model painted black and white tape, then bathed in a green light (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/423338433710900301/)

            A lot of the SFX was done by James Cameron, who took what he learned and used it when making The Terminator.
            I really need to see Escape from New York. I've only ever seen the sequel, Escape from LA, which is corny as hell but bloody entertaining.

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              EfLA is 10 times better if you watch it straight after EfNY.

              And then round the triple bill off with Big Trouble In Little China.

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                Originally posted by Cal Alamein View Post
                Snuck into a drive-in to see Escape from NY back in the day. Need to rewatch as it has been a long while since last seen.

                Snake, are you a John Carpenter fan? The original Halloween and They Live are two of my faves.

                Recently re-watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Good god did that film keep your attention.
                Oh... just a bit. Obviously he went right off the boil but he always did something interesting. Halloween, EfNY, The Thing, Big Trouble, They Live. Five cult classics. Then the oddness of Prince Of Darkness and In The Mouth Of Madness.

                He just had an amazing habit of bad timing. Bringing The Thing out just as ET landed. Doing a smart, hilarious, weird Hong Kong action movie several years too early.* And EfLA was too cynical for an audience whooping it up for Independence Day. (And the wrong time to be not very good at CGI.)

                * I swear Bulletproof Monk is basically BTILC

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                  I've been to see His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story at the BFI recently. Both are tremendous films, His Girl Friday flat out funnier but Philadelphia Story has greater depth (as well as Katherine Hepburn & James Stewart).

                  But.

                  The plot in His Girl Friday revolves around a man who has shot a black policeman and how his prosecution is political. While Philadelphia Story has a whole running gag about how Tracey deserved to be socked one.

                  How much can we put aside as being products of their time?

                  Cary Grant is so cool. I'm going to try and see Notorious this coming week.

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                    I watched In The Heat Of The Night yesterday.

                    I was more distracted by the existence of a character called Shagbag than perhaps I should have been.

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                      Notorious is awesome. Ingrid Bergman matches Cary Grant for charisma.

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                        Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                        Notorious is awesome. Ingrid Bergman matches Cary Grant for charisma.
                        Another vote for this - watched it again recently after a long while. Incredible tension.

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                          I watched In The Heat Of The Night on Friday too. It looked great, presumably having been remastered at some point, especially the scenes in the town after dark.

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                            I’m watching Downhill Racer. Like a lot of early 70s films, it feels like it has a lot of silence and slow bits where nothing is happening, which is especially remarkable for a film ostensibly about Alpine ski racing. But once I got used to that, I can see it’s a good showcase for Redford, Hackman, and Camilla Sparv, who I don’t think I’d ever seen before.

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                              In a bonanza for ski film enthusiasts, Downhill Racer was released a month or so before On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

                              There seems to have been something of a ski boom in popular culture in the late '60s, with IMG client Jean-Claude Killy the poster boy and enthusiastic pitchman for hire.

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                                'White Rock' was a good non-fiction film from 1976

                                I think technology was important - the first time you could film from the competitor's POV. Not sure the average viewer could afford the lifestyle as yet though, although I recall dry ski slopes becoming a thing in Britain by the 70s (the first one in the UK opened in 1963).

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                                  Originally posted by Cal Alamein View Post
                                  Recently re-watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Good god did that film keep your attention.
                                  Yeah, I saw that recently as well. Riveting stuff.

                                  The whole film was essentially Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor having a drunken argument for two hours. If you've heard the well-documented rumours about their private lives, it probably wasn't much of a stretch for either of them.

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                                    Anyhoo

                                    Back on thread.

                                    SOS Eisberg
                                    Triumph des Willens

                                    And

                                    Brononosets Potyomkin

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                                      Just watched Key Largo. It was OK but I'm surprised that it's supposedly a film classic.

                                      The main thing to come out of it for me was how similar Edward G. Robinson and Maradona look.

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                                        A genuinely bizarre takeaway from a Bogart/Bacall classic directed by John Huston (even if not close to their collective or individual best)

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                                          That's an interesting one. The mood and look and feel of it is great, but it's not particularly dramatic or gripping. Just feels like a fairly standard issue studio film with am admittedly formidable cast.

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                                            I think it was the last of the classic run (after To Have and Have Not, Big Sleep and Dark Passage) and it shows

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                                              [wrong thread]
                                              Last edited by ursus arctos; 10-11-2019, 21:08.

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                                                Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
                                                Just watched Key Largo. It was OK but I'm surprised that it's supposedly a film classic.

                                                The main thing to come out of it for me was how similar Edward G. Robinson and Maradona look.
                                                I initially read "Maradona" as "Madonna," which is almost as odd a comparison.

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                                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                  A genuinely bizarre takeaway from a Bogart/Bacall classic directed by John Huston (even if not close to their collective or individual best)

                                                  The main takeaway from your reaction is your belief that I was being wholly serious.

                                                  I have a bridge to sell that may be of interest to you.

                                                  I thought that some of the acting was pretty wooden but the Bogart/Bacall romantic attachment was mercifully understated (I watched For Whom The Bell Tolls a couple of weeks ago and found the endless Cooper/Bergman soft focus close-ups hard to bear) and there were some powerful scenes.
                                                  Last edited by Nocturnal Submission; 10-11-2019, 21:02.

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                                                    I went to see a 1989 Korean film, Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left For The East? (http://koreanfilm.co.uk/site/film-fe...t-for-the-east), last night. It was beautiful and intense, an examination of the search for enlightenment - and the self-absorption that implies - filled with precise, gorgeous photography, and I thoroughly recommend it.

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