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s a huge david lynch fan still am and this kind of film is the closest cinematic equivalent to what he was doing in the 80s and 90s not surreal exactly but genuinely weird the dialogue is so bizarrely written but the performances are so earnest the briskness of the film is another huge point in its favor i never realized before that this thing was under an hour long so much happens in it and even if the plotting performances and ideas are laughable it never stops moving for a second leave a comment posted in uncategorized bookmark the permalink on the bowery september 1956 posted on november 1 2021 by adam lounsbery 30th academy awards retrospective on the bowery nominated for best documentary feature lionel rogosin s visual diary of new york s skid row in the mid 1950s was one of three documentaries nominated at the 30th academy awards the other two were torero 1956 about the mexican bullfighter luis procuna and albert schweitzer 1957 about guess who albert schweitzer took home the oscar i haven t seen it yet but i have to imagine it captured the hearts and minds of more academy voters because it was inspiring while this is the opposite rogosin clearly took some inspiration from robert flaherty who made documentaries like nanook of the north 1922 and louisiana story 1948 which were documents of real people and the environments in which they lived but which were also partially staged and directed by flaherty to create narratives and dialogue on the bowery follows a man named ray salyer who was born in kentucky raised in north carolina served in combat in world war ii and who drifted and worked manual labor after the war he was about 40 when this film was shot and he s ruggedly handsome in the mold of an actor like dana andrews who was also a southerner who struggled with alcoholism but he s clearly at a crossroads of his life in one scene he drinks a bottle of 7 up and smokes a cigarette and talks with another man about his profound desire not to drink his desire and his reality are at odds and the film s procession of faces tells a story of his possible future old men toothless men shirtless men stewbums falling asleep on bar stools park benches and the bowery sidewalks salyer was apparently offered a hollywood contract based on his appearance onscreen here but he drifted further into alcoholism and died in 1963 the other main character is gorman hendricks an older man and former newspaper reporter who died in 1956 this is a beautiful document of a lower manhattan that is mostly gone now like the elevated subway tracks although you can still see buildings that exist today it unsentimentally records a time and place and the cycle of addiction and destitution that exists in it 1 comment posted in uncategorized bookmark the permalink i vitelloni aug 26 1953 posted on august 30 2021 by adam lounsbery 30th academy awards retrospective i vitelloni nominated for best original screenplay i vitelloni federico fellini s semi autobiographical film about a group of ne er do well young men living in a small seaside town was the only film nominated at the 30th academy awards that had originally been released several years earlier i m not sure why it was nominated exactly since it premiered in 1953 was released in the united states in 1956 and fellini s then current film nights of cabiria 1957 was also nominated and won the academy award for best foreign film fellini was definitely having a moment at this point his film la strada 1954 had won the academy award for best foreign film the year before at the 29th academy awards it s easy to see why fellini was hot shit in the mid 1950s la strada is a beautiful grand tragedy and i vitelloni is equally beautiful while being much more fun and light hearted the group of five protagonists are like the protagonist of fight club 30 year old boys they have vague dreams and talk about leaving their small town but never do they drink harass women and avoid responsibility one of them sings opera one of them writes plays and one of them is forced to work and doesn t exactly excel at it most of them experiment with growing facial hair like college students the film spends more time with certain of them than others like fausto played by franco fabrizi the unofficial leader of the group who marries the girl he got pregnant but constantly tries to seduce other women several times crossing the line into sexual assault the bad sides of these men are constantly on display which is frustrating but it s tempered by how funny their irresponsible idiocy often is fellini perfectly captures the rhythms of a seaside town where it s cold half the year and things only happen a couple of times every year when there s a festival these grand bacchanals end in still drunk hangovers the next morning as the sun rises the rest of the time the main characters prowl the streets fight with their parents and get into trouble entirely of their own making i had insomnia and watched this between 3 and 5 in the morning i put it on because i thought it might help me drift off but instead it drew me into its world and kept me awake there s no manufactured tension or hidden secrets waiting to be revealed i vitelloni is involving in the best possible way it presents a completely real world populated with completely real characters all with an overwhelming aura of melancholy leave a comment posted in uncategorized and tagged 30th academy awards federico fellini i vitelloni bookmark the permalink rock around the clock march 21 1956 posted on may 5 2020 by adam lounsbery this movie is corny as hell but it s an incredible document of the early days of rock roll with great performances and lively dance numbers the kind of music bill haley and his comets played is presented in this movie as a totally new sound it was only new in the early 1950s to people whose idea of pop music was still guy lombardo rhythm blues fans knew the music of black artists like wynonie harris and arthur big boy crudup the kind of music that elvis presley made palatable to white audiences while still retaining some sexiness and danger there s nothing sexy or dangerous about bill haley but he and his band have incredible chops and their music really moves daddio this movie also features a few other bands most notably the platters a black doo wop group who perform two of their timeless classics in this flick the great pretender and only you a good example of this film s viewpoint is the sequence in which the platters sing beautifully while standing nearly still and are then followed on stage by bill haley and his all white band performing rudy s rock with al rex lying down on stage to hump his bass while saxophonist rudy pompilli stands on top of al rex and humps him wild sexualized performances that s for white performers only dad rock around the clock came out right after heartbreak hotel topped the charts and right around the same time that elvis s first lp hit stores so it s quaint on arrival but like i said the music is great and the dancing by lisa gaye and her male partner earl barton is smoking lisa gaye is easily the best thing about this movie she s the only actor whose scenes have some sizzle and her slicked back short black hairstyle might be the most dangerous rock roll thing about this movie 1 comment posted in uncategorized bookmark the permalink strangers on a train june 30 1951 posted on january 9 2017 by adam lounsbery strangers on a train 1949 directed by alfred hitchcock warner bros sometimes i think that hitchcock s black white films don t get enough love aside from psycho which is one of his most modern and accessible films strangers on a train is one of my favorite hitchcock films and i think it s criminally underrated it s been awhile since i ve seen it but it held up wonderfully i honestly think it s one of his best films from this period and as beautiful an example of pure cinema as any film in hitchcock s body of work i don t think it s an accident that this was hitchcock s first collaboration with robert burks the cinematographer who worked with hitchcock into the 1960s and who shot nearly all of his most acclaimed color films like vertigo 1958 and north by northwest 1959 strangers on a train has a nifty little plot based on a novel by patricia highsmith but it s the way the story is told visually and rhythmically that makes it such a tremendous thriller from the opening scene which cross cuts between two passengers legs walking swiftly through a busy train station we are in the hands of a master filmmaker one of the men is conservatively dressed while the other wears loud shoes and pin striped trousers they finally take their seats on the train cross their legs bump into each other pardon themselves and then the fun begins farley granger plays a professional tennis player named guy haines and robert walker plays an unhinged man named bruno antony the film starts with an unpleasant scenario we can all relate to being cornered on public transportation by a chatty and overly familiar stranger and quickly devolves into a nightmare when bruno devises a plan in which he and guy could commit murder for each other getting rid of troublesome people in their lives while giving each other perfect alibis guy thinks it s just one more outlandish utterance from his very odd traveling companion but he quickly learns how deadly serious the insane bruno really is most of the criticism i ve seen of strangers on a train focuses on how much people dislike the film s central romantic couple played by farley granger and ruth roman but i honestly don t understand this i think granger while not the most interesting actor is perfectly cast as an attractive young man completely out of his depth and while ruth roman is pretty dull in this role the scenes in which only she and granger are on screen together occupy mere minutes of the film s running time most of their scenes together also feature her hilariously dry father a senator played by leo g carroll and her crime obsessed sister played by patricia hitchcock the director s daughter whose ghoulish interest in all things dark and sordid recalls the true crime buffs in hitchcock s shadow of a doubt 1943 strangers on a train is a first class thriller with some of the most striking black white visuals in hitchcock s career as well as one of the most memorable and drawn out murder set pieces in his body of work it s a terrific film and worth revisiting if your memories of it are less than stellar 1 comment posted in 1951 june 1951 and tagged alfred hitchcock farley granger film noir leo g carroll patricia highsmith patricia hitchcock robert burks robert walker ruth roman warner bros bookmark the permalink the prowler may 25 1951 posted on january 3 2017 by adam lounsbery the prowler 1951 directed by joseph losey united artists horizon pictures eagle productions the prowler is a queasy movie about voyeurism stalking and sexual power dynamics and it s just as relevant today as it was when it was released evelyn keyes a very good actress who appeared in a lot of small films but is mostly remembered for playing suellen o hara in gone with the wind turns in a star performance as susan gilvray a lonely and frustrated married woman who spends her nights alone in a great big house in los angeles in a brief pov shot before the opening credits we see her in her bathroom wearing a towel she looks out the window directly at the camera and screams the interesting thing about the prowler is that while that peeping tom looms large over everything that happens next we never see him and the viewer can never entirely be sure that he wasn t a figment of susan s imagination but whether or not he exists is beside the point because susan soon opens her door to a more insidious threat one of the two patrolmen who responds to the report of a prowler is webb garwood van heflin a slimy bitter superficially charming man who hates being a cop and is always looking for an angle so he can move up in the world as lapd superfan james ellroy is quick to point out in the supplemental features of the blu ray webb garwood is never specifically identified as a member of the lapd and his badge and certain identifying features of his uniform are different from the ones worn by lapd officers however garwood s black uniform and the fact that the prowler clearly takes place in los angeles seem to mark him as an lapd officer despite the filmmakers decision to err on the side of political caution but just like the mysterious and unseen creeper who sets things in motion it doesn t really matter whether webb garwood is a member of the lapd or not he s a rotten symbol of something much bigger he represents the worst possibilities of unscrupulous people who have the power of the state behind them he can sexually manipulate women commit murder and perjure himself but because of his badge juries and the general public will give him the benefit of the doubt the screenplay for the prowler based on the story the cost of living by robert thoeren and hans wilhelm was written by dalton trumbo who was no stranger to the cruel power of the state trumbo had been blacklisted but it didn t stop him from working throughout the 50s it just meant he got paid much less than he deserved his front for the prowler was hugo butler trumbo is one of the greatest screenwriters in hollywood history and the prowler is trumbo at his down and dirty best i ve seen the prowler several times and it gets a little better with each viewing evelyn keyes and van heflin embody their characters arthur c miller s black white cinematography is haunting and makes susan s hacienda look like the loneliest place on earth losey s direction is crisp lyn murray s music is powerful without being overbearing dalton trumbo s script is timeless the prowler is classic los angeles noir and one of the best bad cop movies of all time leave a comment posted in 1951 may 1951 and tagged arthur c miller dalton trumbo evelyn keyes film noir john maxwell joseph losey lyn murray s p eagle sam spiegel van heflin bookmark the permalink the idiot may 23 1951 posted on december 12 2016 by adam lounsbery the idiot hakuchi 1951 directed by akira kurosawa shochiku company as a nearly lifelong fan of director akira kurosawa the idiot is a difficult film to review watching it was an incredibly frustrating experience since major portions of the film have been lost and it s doubtful they will ever be found kurosawa s original cut of the idiot ran about four and a half hours and was intended to be released in two parts however the shochiku studio bosses trimmed it down to a little less than three hours which is the only existing version the idiot a k a hakuchi is an adaptation of the novel by fyodor dostoyevsky kurosawa followed the plot of the novel fairly closely but changed the setting from 19th century russia to postwar japan appropriately the film takes place in hokkaido the northernmost of japan s main islands the snowy ...
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