The overarching theme is “stuff getting taken down on November 30” plus “stuff taking up space on the DVR that I need for new episodes of Hudson and Rex“…
Georgia O’Keeffe (2009)
Cable (AXN White), original English
A real artist biopic (I am still mad at John Malkovich) focused on her relationship to Stieglitz–begins when they meet and ends when he dies. Interesting choice, considering her place in the pantheon of late 20th-century feminism….
Anyway, breathtaking scenery at Lake George and New Mexico, Tyne Daly hilarious as socialite Mabel Dodge Stern, a satisfactory amount of painting and paintings and costumes and interior design. I am always curious how accurate the scenes of famous artists painting are, when they are re-enacted by actors. I assume there are “stunt painters” involved…
Operation Petticoat (1959)
arte, original English
Reminded me of Mister Roberts, but without the gut-punch at the end, it’s just a pure comedy. I am ashamed I did not recognize Mrs. Cunningham, who as of this writing is still alive. Wow!
How to Steal a Million (1966)
BR, Deutsch
BR calls their late-late Friday night movies “KlassiX”. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are not. The best thing about this film was learning that there is a French comic actor named, and I am not making this up, “Moustache“. He was later killed in a car crash in Arpajon, France, the birthplace of St. Korbinian. I’m not saying it happened because of this movie…but I wouldn’t rule it out.
(The alarm that went off during the art heist woke me up after I had fallen asleep while Hepburn and O’Toole were canoodling, and it also woke up my cat. And he wakes up angry at the closest human being. Thanks for nothin’, William Wyler.)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cable (Warner Film), original English
I had seen this one for the first time during the Never-Ending Lockdown, and enjoyed it. What impressed me most this time around was the soundtrack: Totally normal, often incongruous, contemporary hit-radio songs, as bumpers to Hill and his wife narrating the story of their lives. He doesn’t want to live like a schmuck, going to work every day for a tiny bit of money, but he’s swimming in the same pop culture.
…and these guys are always eating. Every scene where they’re not killing–and even some where they are–there’s food on the table. They even lure one guy into the car where he’s murdered by suggesting they all go to a diner where he likes their Danish. Respekt.
Paul (2011)
Netflix, original English
Fan-service for several dozen Disney-owned franchises served up with a crunchy topping of smug anti-Americanism. I didn’t hate it the first time I saw it, about ten years ago, so I’ll give it a Did Not Hold Up, but it was lazy writing. Cheap stereotypes and whole scenes lifted from earlier films. Sad, because I like most of the cast (except Wiig, who plays her only character again), and most of the referenced material, and there’s a vintage teddy bear in the mix.
Chaplin (1992)
arte, Deutsch
Star-studded artist bio-pic, heartily recommended, although I wish more time would have been spent on the formation of United Artists.
The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976)
German commercial TV (RTL), Deutsch
Asterix is a mid-20th-century French-Belgian comic book franchise, and Mr Radish is a big fan. This story exists only in animated film, as it was never published in print, and was surprisingly enjoyable. Asterix and his fellow Galicien villagers defeat Caesar, who is embarrassed, and assigns them twelve impossible tasks so they can prove they are gods, so he can save face. Why they didn’t tell him to stuff it, as they clearly already had defeated him, was unclear, but then the movie wouldn’t be feature-length, would it?
Anyway, this one surprised me, as it is not only a children’s movie. Beautiful and artistic animation, with hand-painted watercolor backgrounds and music that really set it off. The Sirens were typical 70s-movie sexpots; and the scene where Asterix and Obelix defeat an endless stream of bureaucrats was ingeniously hilarious. It was a good time. Lovely colors.
Then we saw the first five minutes of Asterix in Britain, and the animation was so cheap and cheesy we turned it off.
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
BR, Deutsch
“The management of this theater suggests that for the greater entertainment of your friends who have not yet seen the picture you will not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending of Witness for the Prosecution.“
Interesting, or maybe not, Dietrich doesn’t do her own German voiceovers. The last film of Tyrone Power, who shows no signature matinee idol charm, possibly because he plays a scumbag.
Ulysses (1954)
BR, Deutsch
German title was “Odysseus”, obviously just to mess with me. (“It’s an Italian movie, Radish, of course they’d use his Latin name.” Obviously. Just to mess with me.) Pretty standard action for the time; everyone knows the story; the women are wearing beautiful costumes out of fabrics that did not exist in ancient Greece but that’s not actually important. In a refreshing change from 21st-century Hollywood, Kirk Douglas is out there wrestling gods with what the kids today would call a “dad bod”.
The special effects were also good for the time; the Cyclops impressed me.
The IMDB says museums loaned weapons and armor to the production. Disturbing if true.
Falling Down (1993)
arte, Deutsch
Another classic I missed in its day; it reminded me of Joker. And I thought of The Bigamist, and how clean the streets of LA were in the Bad Old Days.
Hey, that guy looks familiar: Lt. Tau, Senator Matheson.
Robin Hood (2018)
German commercial TV (Sat1), Deutsch
Mr Radish didn’t have time to see this on a flight a couple years ago, and has been looking for it ever since, but it didn’t show up on any of our usual services, and there’s a reason for that.
Somehow I missed Jamie Foxx turning into an action hero, he’s a playing a *cough* Bagger Vance sort of role, and that was mildly interesting. But the writing was bad, the effects were cheesy, and I couldn’t place the action in any particular time because it mixed fashion, buildings, weapons, and military tactics from too many different eras. It was more confusing than entertaining, especially because Marian was married to Will Scarlet…who is played by the serial killer from Belfast Gillian Anderson took down, which reminds me I am not putting enough effort into my manifesto scrapbooks.
Also I need to track down the Errol Flynn version again.
The Prestige (2006)
Cable (Warner Film), original English
Warning: Small animals are killed for entertainment purposes. The opening scene is the murder of a human, and the whole story hinges on the (accidental? you decide!) death of a different human, and a court-ordered execution is depicted, but somehow these things disturb me less than killing birds for the sole purpose of amusing an audience.
(But the cat doesn’t die. I would have turned it off if the cat died.)
Second warning: Christopher Nolan’s sound engineering is garbage. Dialog inaudible under big bass booms. He does this on purpose, because he considers people who watch movies at home unworthy of an enjoyable experience. FTG.
Anyway, outside of those two things, this tale of obsession, deception, and Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie) was riveting, and I’m glad Mr Radish made me watch it. Even if I couldn’t understand the dialog.
Große Freiheit 7 (1944)
arte Mediathek, original Deutsch
Goebbels banned this film domestically for its depictions of extramarital sexual relationships, which is kind of funny when you’ve seen movies about his mistresses. The Allies released it to theaters a few years later.
It’s a color film, not a “musical” per se but the main character is a former seaman, Hannes Kröger (Hans Albers; I must put him on my watch list) sings in a Hamburg Hippodrome (a nightclub with a riding ring; this one had donkeys), so there is quite a bit of singing and dancing to jazz. After his estranged brother dies, he takes a message personally to Gisa (Ilse Werner, reminds me a bit of Christiane Paul), the farm girl the brother “ruined” a few years before. She’s being abused by her mother and the good villagers over her sexual history, so he offers to bring her to the city for a new start. She moves into his apartment–platonically–and works as a shopgirl for one of Hannes’ friends. In the shop, she catches the eye of a man employed at a local shipbuilder. Woo is pitched, and successfully.
I was more entertained than I expected. Hamburg nightlife is not my jam, and some customs of the time and place were unfamiliar, but the cinematography was good, two of the three main characters and most of the side characters were sympathisch and compelling, and the music was nice. The ending made me sad but it was well-written and complete;
At the end, Albers sings “Muss i denn,” a traditional folk song still sung today when sailors leave Hamburg. Here’s Elvis performing it in a movie I haven’t seen yet:
Variété (1925)
arte Mediathek, original Deutsch (silent)
New fun feature: the arte app lets me take screenshots while videos are running. Muahahahaha.
So now instead of telling you about how and why this film is historically significant, I can let you read for yourself:
ANYWAY, I don’t understand how the orphaned immigrant Berta-Marie fell for the married and abusive Boss Huller in the first place, but somehow she did, and after they run away from his wife and baby, he trains her in the art of the trapeze. As one does. Eventually, they get hired on at the Berlin Wintergarten, a variety venue that still operates today, where they are joined by Artinelli, an Italian trapeze artist. There is a lovely montage of footage of all kinds of acts–freaks, dancers, trained animals, magicians, acrobats, everything you want in an evening out in a weak, crumbling republic*cough*.
Boss starts spending more time playing cards than playing with his mistress, who starts spending more time with Artinelli, and even a hundred years ago, that does not end well for our flying foreigners. You can *see* the moment Boss goes from being a man to being a monster, and the director plays the audience like an accordion (Halt’s Maul, Du!).
This is a 2015 restoration from film archives in five different cities, with a new score recorded in 2022. Definitely worth your time.
A Man in Love (1987)
arte, Deutsch
French-Italian pic that opened Cannes–starring Americans you will recognize from such high-brow fare as Animal House, Halloween, and Law and Order: Ill-Fated Spin-Off. Apparently autobiographical, the film tells a plotless tale of a young Italian-British actress’s affair with an American movie star obsessed with the suicide of an Italian communist, the subject of a biopic they are filming in Rome. Of course, they’re both married; he to a New Yorker who is not having any of this, and she to a French experimental theater director who doesn’t mind if she bangs her co-workers but objects to her falling in love. Meanwhile, her mother (Claudia Cardinale) is dying of something untreatable.
There was some interesting editing intended to confuse the audience–one scene is part of the movie they are making together, the next is not–and some nice cinematography, but when the lovers ran outside to jump into a swimming pool in a thunderstorm, I caught myself hoping for lightning, because everything else they’d done so far had been so incredibly boring.
F’n arte, man. Is this really better than a 47th re-watch of Rick and Morty?
