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mogwai-movie-house · 1 day

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I always knew this day would come, with a crown upon my head and my enemies laid vanquished at my feet.

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mogwai-movie-house · 2 days

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Who are your favorite characters from fiction, animated or live action and why?

Don't know if I actually have one in written fiction... maybe Snufkin from the Moomin books, or Reepicheep from The Voyage of The Dawn Treader: they both just represent an appealing heroic archetype of bravery, freedom and individuality. Likewise Tom Saywer and Huckleberry Finn. Oh, and Owen Meany.

In movies and TV shows, I guess there must be lots: Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Richard E. Grant as Withnail, Morgan Freeman as Somerset, Roberto Benigni in Down By Law, Tyrion Lannister, Tony Soprano, Alan Partridge, Mike Ehrmantraut, Walter White, Towelie in South Park, Dr Sanchez in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Spike in Buffy, Chris in Northern Exposure, everybody in Arrested Development.

Steve Zissou, Indiana Jones, Jack Sparrow, Norma Desmond, Harry Powell, William of Baskerville, Ellen Ripley, Jules Winnfield, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Peter Venkman, Howard Beale, Frank T.J. Mackey, Frank Drebin, Emmett Brown, Marge Gunderson, Loren Visser, Anton Chigurh...

Like I say, there's lots.

#still stand by all these today

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mogwai-movie-house · 2 days

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Here's a game: you tell me the name of a film you particularly like and I'll try recommend something similar.

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mogwai-movie-house · 2 days

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Alfred Hitchcock Abhors Violence

#i never get tired of watching this

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mogwai-movie-house · 4 days

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The Unknown (1927)

This Tod Browning film has a legendary status that always baffled me in the past, because it was often referred to as some sort of half-lost classic, whereas the truncated and poor quality versions of the film I had been able to see before, while an obvious cult contender because of the bizarre premise (a criminal hiding in a circus pretends to have no arms, only to chop his real ones off in hopes of winning the neurotic woman he loves) often seemed just too silly to convince, at least as a whole. At no point does Lon Chaney ever convincingly look like an arm-less man, and the shots of him dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief obviously held by someone else's foot at times teeter much too close to comedy and so continually break the spell.

The new Criterion Blu-Ray restoration is visually far better than any that came before it, and about a quarter of an hour longer, too, but the desire to restore the film to as much of its original runtime as possible means they have included every scrap of negative they've been able to lay their hands on, and so practically every shot begins and ends with damaged or excess frames, making the whole thing feel like a glitchy, unfinished workprint. On top of this, all the title cards are on screen for more than twice as long as they need be, and a few of them are needlessly repetitive (all the "hands! hands! I hate men's hands!" stuff) and overly-melodramatic. These two aspects alone affect the flow and forward motion of the film terribly.

In addition, the new score is generic and forgettable piano music, of the kind I strongly dislike: it would have been much better to have commissioned something like that which accompanies the other newly restored Browning film, 'The Mystic', with its thick, eerie atmosphere and precisely-added sound effects, or the John Cale score from 1999.

All these issues frustrated me so much when I watched it that I actually spent a couple of days making my own edit, fixing all the issues I listed above and a few more, and I can say that spending so much time poring over each frame has made my respect for the film and its maker go up enormously, and I now see the rich, deep and thoughtful work of art that lies within it. Chaney's performance is more impressive when pared back a little: trimming some of the continual over-the-top reaction shots makes one focus upon and treasure the smaller details he puts in.

There are some fantastic moments from Chaney - the point he realizes his self-mutilation was for nothing is the high point of the whole film, and one of the most powerful scenes in all cinema - but Joan Crawford is excellent too: clearly a star in the making, and more beautiful than she would ever be again. And repeated viewings made me really appreciate Norman Kerry, as the handsome circus strongman also devoted to Crawford: at first he seems simply light relief, but his subtle waves of hurt and longing and confusion provide the loving heart of the film. He plays a character so simple, physical and passionate that he simply cannot understand a woman with past trauma who shrinks from any man's touch. The scenes in which they eventually overcome this are deeply moving.

So that's my take on the pic: yes, a lost masterpiece, but still in dire need of a editor even today.

7.7/10

#the unknown #tod browning #lon chaney #joan crawford #1920s #silent films #message me if you'd like to see my fanedit

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mogwai-movie-house · 5 days

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I think I've only seen it the once, but my impression was that it felt cheaply made and flat-looking; like it could have been filmed on a fifties TV show set, with the same cameras and lighting, except it had a much meaner streak and that one unforgettable scene with the car blowing up, which still hits you like a punch in the guts today.

The film has the reputation of introducing a new and unpleasant type of violence in movies - kind of the cheap and nasty Mickey Spillane to the thoughtful and poetic Raymond Chandler, when you compare it to earlier, more beautiful and better made noirs like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep, or even Lang's own "M". It's probably true that we wouldn't have gotten later flicks like Dirty Harry and Death Wish without it.

It's a good film, and something of a landmark, but it's not one of my personal favourites.

What pre-1960s movies would you like to hear my opinion on?

#fritz lang #the big heat

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mogwai-movie-house · 7 days

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Double Indemnity is perhaps the ultimate film noir, though I've always hated Barbara Stanwyck's awful permed fringe in it; it makes a stunningly beautiful woman look like she should be playing bingo with the other grandmas in between trying to unsuccessfully pick up sailors down at the docks:

(Before/After:)

I always get the films Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake made together mixed up, and find it funny they were only paired up by the studios because they were the shortest people in Hollywood. This Gun For Hire is a terrific little thriller with Alan Ladd being genuinely threatening, all steely-eyed and tough, Lake being elfinly beautiful and the magnificent and unforgettable Laird Cregar, one of the very best character actors of the 40s (with one of the shortest careers), as the baddy.

M is, of course, a landmark in cinema, and I like it, but I do feel it is a little overrated as an actual film experience, the same as Lang's Metropolis. They both have weak dialogue and some hammy acting: the greatness lies almost entirely in the images.

What pre-1960s movies would you like to hear my opinion on?

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mogwai-movie-house · 7 days

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I was surprised to learn in passing, just the other week, that there were a bunch of versions of this story filmed before the famous one with John Wayne, all based on a 1913 cowboy book, starting in 1916, then 1919, 1930 and 1936. The second one was an early silent directed by John Ford, and I guess he must have liked the story a lot, because he remade it again in 1948, and that's the one everyone remembers.

I saw it many years ago and really liked it; it's essentially a kind of Three Wise Men parable, and so has a different feel and pace from pretty much all the other westerns of the time, being focused almost entirely on three bad guys simply trying to save the life of a baby. I should go back and give it another look, as it's one of John Ford's best.

What pre-1960s movies would you like to hear my opinion on?

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mogwai-movie-house · 7 days

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What pre-1960s movies would you like to hear my opinion on?

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mogwai-movie-house · 9 days

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The Mystic (1925)

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This fantastic film I'd never even heard of until today, made by the creator of the immortal Freaks (1932) and Dracula (1931), Tod Browning. It's never even been released on any home video format before, but the recent blu-ray has been lovingly restored, and now, almost a hundred years later, looks the best it ever has, with one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard accompany a silent, care of the long-time David Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley, who adds a woozy, warped, disorientating atmosphere you can cut with a knife, along with painstakingly-added sound effects, all of which enhance the experience enormously. Every silent film should be accompanied in this way.

Like Freaks, Mystic is the story of carnival folk with a moral code of their own, this time a phony psychic act that travels from Hungary to New York to try get rich by fleecing the wealthy before falling foul of the law. It loses steam a little towards the end but early parts put me in mind of Nightmare Alley (1947) and Varieté, (released the same year, 1925), and it's not far off being as good as them both, which is quite the complement. A splendid find.

7.5/10

#tod browning #the mystic #film reviews #Youtube

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mogwai-movie-house · 12 days

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Best and most accurate comment on the trailer for season two of the lowest-rated animated show ever, 'Velma':

#velma

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mogwai-movie-house · 13 days

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That film has the highest repeat showing value of any movie I've seen: it gets both funnier and sadder every time you watch it, and there's always some new detail that leaps out at you or observation of life to take away and ponder.

WITHNAIL AND I (1987) dir. Bruce Robinson

#withnail and i

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mogwai-movie-house · 15 days

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Some woodcuts from The Droll Dreams of Pantagruel (1565), artist unknown.

I can only think of the works of Hieronymus Bosch beforehand as any kind of precedent for these depictions of the free, nightmarish imagination, but they have no grounding in either the physical world or the myths of the Bible; they seem to have sprung from nowhere, hundreds of years before the surrealists were even born.

#art

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mogwai-movie-house · 16 days

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you seem like a real cunt