548. Deliverance (1972)

Running Time: 109 minutes
Directed By: John Boorman
Written By: James Dickey, from his novel
Main Cast: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
Click here to view the trailer

SODOMY ON THANKSGIVING EVE

Well, here we are on the eve of "Turkey Day", yours truly enjoying a couple of days off from my workplace and opting to curl up in a warm bed with the wife and check out a good movie. And so that's EXACTLY what I did, except the movie far superseded the "good" that I would have settled for.

Here, our main cast is four strong, as a group of thirty-something businessmen head into the wilderness to enjoy the raging rapids of a mighty river, before the river valley is flooded by the construction of a dam. The mastermind behind the canoe trip is Lewis (Reynolds), who goes against his friends wishes to just spend the weekend playing gold and opts to spend the weekend connecting with nature and being primitive. Joining Lewis is Ed (Voight), Drew (Cox) and Bobby (Beatty), as the quartet head into the wilderness. The plan is for the four to head downstream and end up in the town of Aintry, where they plan to find their cars, courtesy of a couple of local hillbillies that Lewis paid off. The first day goes off without a hitch and when the quartet awaken the next morning, they head back to their canoes and back down the river. This time, it's Bobby & Ed pairing up in one vessel and Lewis & Drew in another. When Bobby & Ed fall behind their friends and stop to rest their arms and wash their faces in a stream, they get taken hostage by two hunters. When Ed is tethered to a tree with his belt, one of the hunters forces Bobby to strip down and what follows is a very uncomfortable rape scene. Lewis & Drew eventually find their two mates, but the damage has been done and it's just the beginning of the quartet's weekend nightmare.

SPOILER ALERT!

What you have in "Deliverance" is really three films all crammed into one. You have a story of man vs. nature, a story of man vs. man and a story of man vs. self. The man vs. nature aspect of it is pretty self-explanatory and when the film starts that's really all this film is. You take four men and you pit them against the wilds of the river rapids and leave them to survive in the wilderness and you have basis for many movies that have been made on that plot alone. Then you throw in the two hunters and it turns into man vs. man, again self explanatory and again a plot that can stand on it's own two feet. Then you throw in the moral dilemma of a man who questions covering up a murder, even if the murder was justified. You force these four men to wrestle with themselves and while maybe never verbally saying it, you get something in their eyes that makes you think they feel guilty, especially Ed. You take all of those elements and you weave them together and you have the makings for a fantastic piece of cinema and a sensational picture and that's what "Deliverance" is. The acting is top notch too, with even someone like Burt Reynolds, whom you wouldn't think could ACTUALLY act, turning in a really great performance. I think Voight and Beatty steal the show though, they were both marvelous.

I just want to talk for a minute about the rape scene itself. It was an extremely uncomfortable scene, but they did do something that kind of took the edge off a little bit. They have the hunters tethering Ed to a tree and basically forcing him to watch as his friend gets sodomized by a Georgian hillbilly. In doing that, the audience, no matter how uncomfortable we get, have someone that we can really relate to at that moment. In a way it really works to transport the audience to THAT moment. In a way, we're the ones tethered to the tree and we're the ones being forced to watch as this helpless man is victimized. It's a very well done scene, despite the uncomfortableness. Speaking of Ed, I also loved the scene, near the end of the film where he sits down to eat something, after just getting out of the river. Once his plate is loaded up and before he eats, he breaks down for just a second. Bobby changes the conversation and soon we're hearing the head of the table, an old woman, talk about an extra large cucumber that she grew. Ed laughs, realizing in that moment that life goes on, that despite the seriousness that the four were forced to face that weekend, things have a chance at normalcy again...someday.

RATING: 9/10 I really don't have any gripes, so we'll call that a review. No '10' because it just didn't feel like a '10', but nonetheless it's a fantastic film and one that is really easy to get gripped by.

MOVIES WATCHED: 353
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 648

November 23, 2011 4:41pm
Happy Thanksgiving

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451. Da Zui Xia/Come Drink with Me (1966)

Running Time: 95 minutes
Directed By: King Hu
Written By: Ye Yang
Main Cast: Cheng Pei-pei, Yueh Hua, Chan Hung-lit, Lee Wan-chung, Yueng Chi-hing
Click here to view the trailer

EVERYBODY WAS KING HU FIGHTING

Well my streak of good movies comes to a crashing halt here at the blog. My last seven reviews written have all been positive reviews, but "Come Drink with Me" would have had to serve me up something A LOT better to get anything even remotely close to positive.

While traveling in a caravan, a general's son is kidnapped and held hostage in exchange for the release of a bandit leader, who is to be put to death. The bandit gang of kidnappers agree that they'll give the opposition four days to release their leader, or else they'll kill the general's son. The only thing that they must worry about now is Golden Swallow (Pei-pei), the general's daughter, coming at them, in retaliation. Of course, she does and we find out soon that their fears were legitimate, as we see Golden Swallow showcasing some pretty fancy sword work and throwing pieces of money as if it were daggers. On her mission to free her brother, Golden Swallow meets up with beggar, Drunken Cat (Hua), a man who turns out not to be a beggar at all, but another warrior and wielder of the Green Wand, a magic wand that turns Drunken Cat nearly invincible. Ultimately Drunken Cat agrees to assist Golden Swallow and an all out war is waged as we head into the climax of the picture.

If you'll remember my "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" review, then you'll remember me filing that film into the folder entitled, "not for me". "Come Drink with Me" is basically "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" thirty years earlier, except the cinematography isn't as flashy and the special effects aren't as poured on. It's a film that looks like it's age and in my opinion, that's a big drawback. The story in "Come Drink with Me" just wasn't very interesting and ultimately I just didn't care about the heroes or the villains that were battling one another or the outcomes of their situations. I'll give them a few brownie points for some mildly exciting action sequences and some attention grabbing swordplay scenes. This is something that if it had a much stronger story and had just a little bit more flamboyancy, it could've really been a home run. Instead, this film just feels so mundane and unimportant. I haven't seen a whole lot of kung-fu films, but I have a strong feeling that this is just another in a plethora of cookie cutter martial arts flicks.

Also, this is apparently another case of the book just throwing something in for historical value, rather than a movie ACTUALLY being a must see. A quick trip to the IMDB page for "Come Drink with Me" and you'll find a message board post claiming that this is King Hu's worst film, where many supposed martial arts buffs denounce this film, recommending that everyone take a look at anything but "Come Drink with Me" when it comes to King Hu cinema. Not good enough for ya? The book also says and I quote: "...despite it's great charm, this is still early King Hu; his mastery of all aspects of the medium, especially his inimitable approach to editing, would only be perfected in later masterworks such as A Touch of Zen." Okay, so THE BOOK is basically flat out saying that, "Yeah this movie's okay, but if you really want a treat check out A Touch of Zen". Must I see something from a director who has yet to perfect his style, according to this book? Really? Nevermind, I've scratched my head over this one long enough.

RATING: 3/10 Not the worst thing I've seen from the book and a few, minor pieces of interest get it a '3', but still a recommendation to avoid. I've moved "A Touch of Zen" to the top of my Netflix queue, so that I can rip this band-aid right off, in one quick motion.

MOVIES WATCHED: 352
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 649

November 22, 2011 7:10pm

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876. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Running Time: 142 minutes
Directed By: Frank Darabont
Written By: Frank Darabont, from the short story Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Main Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Clancy Brown
Click here to view the trailer

"GET BUSY LIVING OR GET BUSY DYING"

At exactly the halfway mark, on my way to "401 films watched, 600 films to go" and my 4th TOP 20, I decided to slip in a personal favorite, just to sweeten the pot - "The Shawshank Redemption".

The year is 1947. Andy Dufresne (Robbins) hears the bang of a judge's gavel and a sentence of "guilty", for the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy is sent to Shawshank Prison, as our film opens, where he is to serve two consecutive life sentences - one for each of his victims. Upon his arrival at Shawshank and for the first month or so, Andy keeps to himself, strolling around the yard like a free man strolling through a park. After some time passes, Andy approaches Red (Freeman) to request a rock hammer - for carving rocks. Seeing as how Red is the "man who knows how to get things", Andy knocked on the right door and Red agrees to help out Andy. Some more time passes and Andy & Red form a friendship. Andy also makes his usefulness known to the guards, letting them in on the fact that he was a banker on the outside world and helping many of the guards with their finances. When Andy begins helping the corrupt Warden Norton (Gunton) of Shawshank it initially seems like a good move toward getting on the good side of some of the higher-ups. Later, when some information that could free Andy comes to light, the Warden refuses to acknowledge it, knowing that if Andy were to ever be released it could spell trouble for the scheming, scamming, dirty Warden Norton.

I saw "The Shawshank Redemption" for the first time back in the mid-1990s. I can still vividly remember watching it for the first time, as once again it was my brother showing me the good films, that would ultimately form the backbone to my interest in movies. I remember I remember seeing the name "Stephen King" flash across the screen, during the opening credits and initially thinking that this must be a horror film. I remember thinking that no matter what the movie I was about to watch, was about, that it would SURELY scare me. Trust me, in my very early days, I let my eyes gaze upon Stephen King adapted movies, such as "It" and my sleep schedule would ultimately pay the price for it. So, as "The Shawshank Redemption" started and despite my brother's insistence that it wasn't a horror movie, I still convinced myself that I would surely, somehow, get a fright from something. And so, "The Shawshank Redemption", for the longest time (though no longer) held a certain aura about it. It was a movie that wasn't scary at all, but for some reason would always give me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that was almost unnoticeable to me. Just a certain haze would hang over me and when I stared up at the walls of Shawshank Prison, along with Andy Dufresne when he first walked in, I would get a chill. Even tonight, as I watched the film for the first time in quite a while, I got goosebumps when the powerful score played and a bus carrying Andy and his fellow inmates rounded the turn and drove through the gates of Shawshank.

"The Shawshank Redemption" doesn't give me that aura of uneasiness anymore. Tonight, when I viewed the picture for the umpteenth time, it was like visiting an old friend. I knew what was coming, I knew all the surprises, but I was still glad to see it again and when the credits rolled at the end I said "farewell", yet again, as the tears strolled down my face. "The Shawshank Redemption" has always had the ability to make me cry. I usually start tearing up when they show a shot of Red holding a magnifying glass and laughing as he looks at a map and envisions Andy crossing the border in his car, with the top down. From there, the tears come and go until Andy and Red reunite on the beaches of Zihuatanejo.

Also, like an old friend, I've learned to overlook the flaws, as few of them as there are. The good always outshines the bad when it comes to me and "The Shawshank Redemption". Maybe I only love this film because it's been a part of my curriculum for so long. It's been a film that for years and years has been brought up anytime I get into a conversation about films with a "commoner". In fact, "Shawshank" is the one film that I think EVERYONE loves. It's the one film that can be the favorite of a film snob or a film imbecile, which may be why it currently sits atop the IMDB TOP 250 Movies of All-Time list. I always have the hardest time writing about personal favorite films of mine. Sometimes, it just comes to the point for me, when I forget why I fell in love with a movie and I just know I love it. Why do I like "The Shawshank Redemption"? I just do! It portrays a beautiful friendship, taking shape in the most unlikeliest of places. It has fantastic acting and a Morgan Freeman narration (which is always good for at least a few brownie points). It made careers, in my opinion, for both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman and honestly, I don't think we'd still be talking about either of those actors today (especially Robbins) if it wasn't for this film. "Shawshank" has a commanding, powerful score that knows when to lay low and knows when to come up blazing. It provides a plethora of memorable scenes and even has a few key, intelligent twists and turns. Darabont proved here, with one film, that he is a master storyteller. He understood the source material to such a degree that he was able to sculpt a perfect film to immortalize that story and to keep the audience captivated.

RATING: 10/10 Fifty more films to go before I make my 4th TOP 20 and the pot just got a whole lot sweeter. FYI: this, "Jaws", "Once Upon a Time in the West", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "The Shop on Main Street" are all battling it out, in my head, for the #1 position of that list. Whew!

MOVIES WATCHED: 351
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 650

November 20, 2011 1:47am

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468. Point Blank (1967)

Running Time: 92 minutes
Directed By: John Boorman
Written By: Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse, from the novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake
Main Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Vernon, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor
Click here to view the trailer

LEE MARVIN IS ONE COOL CAT

I actually started watching this a couple of night ago, but just didn't have the energy to give it my full attention. As I started and watched the first five minutes of "Point Blank", I kind of got the feeling, for no reason at all, that I wasn't going to like it. First impressions can be deceiving.

Lee Marvin is Walker, an everyman with, what we can only assume, is a criminal background. When his best friend Reese (Vernon) asks for his help in doing a job, Walker agrees. The job is to take place on Alcatraz Island and involves heisting a large sum of money from an organized crime organization that uses the island to make drops. When the deed is done, Reese turns on Walker, shooting him twice and leaving him to die in a prison cell. Well, the bullet wounds don't kill Walker, but they might have made him a little bit stronger and they definitely make him more determined to get vengeance on his former partner and his wife, who also turned on Walker back on Alcatraz and sided with Reese. However, it seems that Reese has used the money he lifted to buy his way back into the organized crime business. Now, if Walker wants to regain the $93,000 that he "earned" alongside Reese, he's going to have to go through more than a few gangsters. Angie Dickinson co-stars as Walker's sister-in-law Chris, who somehow gets herself involved in this whole mess.

This shouldn't take too long, so I'll try my best to keep it short and sweet. Well, my first impressions turned out to be wrong and I actually ended up liking "Point Blank" a good deal. But let's tackle the bad first, shall we. I have a strong hunch (and don't ask me why) that this is a prime case where the book is a lot better than the film. It just seems like this was a pretty cut and dry story, however there were certain parts of the storytelling here that I wasn't fond of. Certain uses of colors and the way things were photographed sometimes just didn't match up with the type of story that was being told. This is a story that could have stood just fine on it's own merits, but instead I think one too many artistic liberties were taken and AT TIMES, the whole production came off as a sort of statement of the times, rather than a cool gangster/revenge flick, which is what it was when you stripped away the fact from the fancy. Certain shots, like the one in the storm drain river bed, worked REALLY well for me (I'll never forget that entire sequence - such a nice wide open space and a real beautiful shooting location), while others just didn't - certain dream sequences involving Walker's dead wife Lynne, the use of color in Reese's penthouse - these are examples of shots and images that just didn't seem to quite fit in.

Otherwise there's not much more to nitpick over. Lee Marvin is quickly turning into a favorite of mine and I'll have to be sure and make a note of him for future reference. While I'm touching on cast, I have to say it was a real treat seeing Carroll O'Connor emerge as a figurehead of the criminal underworld. I've always been a fan of "All in the Family", but I don't think I've ever seen O'Connor out of his Archie Bunker regalia. Angie Dickinson was quite the little find as well - beautiful and a good enough actress. The story is great and just when you think the climax is coming, the film loads up another one and fires it at us and we follow Walker along like obedient puppies, hoping that he ices a few more thugs along the way. They keep the film, as a whole, short and to the point (at just around ninety minutes), which is good, because everything is kept nice and concise and there's not a lot of room for unwarranted scenes.

SPOILER ALERT!

On a final note, I will pose a question to anyone who may be reading this. I've got to admit that I was a little confused by the end of the picture. At the end, Walker is to accompany Brewster (O'Connor) back to Alcatraz Island so that he can collect his $93,000. The ending happens and when the film comes to a close, the frame pans up to reveal Alcatraz Island off in the distance. WTF? I thought we were ON Alcatraz already. It seems like some sort of twist that I just didn't pick up on.

RATING: 7/10 All this talk about Alcatraz has reminded me of another, even better movie, "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979 - Don Siegel), another film that could have EASILY been included in THE BOOK. As for "Point Blank" - recommended. By the way, I may do "Deliverance" soon, as sort of a John Boorman follow-up.

MOVIES WATCHED: 350
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 651

November 19, 2011 12:17am

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492. Ma nuit chez Maud/My Night at Maud's (1969)

Running Time: 110 minutes
Directed By: Eric Rohmer
Written By: Eric Rohmer
Main Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez
Click here to view the trailer

A MORAL TALE

In fact, there were six "moral tales" directed by Eric Rohmer, but "My Night at Maud's" happens to be the only one included in THE BOOK. It's a shame really, because this film really peaked my interest in Eric Rohmer and makes me excited to discover more of his hidden gems, of which there's bound to be many.

Jean-Louis (Trintignant) is a Catholic, living in Clermont in France. He is new to the area, working as an engineer and spends his free time studying mathematics and keeping to himself. He attends Sunday services and is enamored by a cute, young blonde whom he sees there every Sunday, but has never mustered up the courage to approach. One day, Jean-Louis runs into an old friend, Vidal (Vitez), whom he hasn't seen in fourteen years. It is just after Christmas, but before New Year's and the two old chums sip beverages at a coffee bar and talk as if they've never missed a beat. At the end of their conversation, Vidal persuades Jean-Louis to join him in visiting a lady friend of his, Maud (Fabian). Jean-Louis reluctantly agrees. The evening between Jean-Louis, Vidal and Maud and their conversations, ranging from religion to love to philosophy, takes up a major part of the film. Eventually Vidal has too much too drink and excuses himself, leaving Jean-Louis and Maud alone together. When Maud persuades Jean-Louis to spend the night, so he won't have to drive in the snow, Jean-Louis is faced with some difficult decisions of morality.

SPOILER ALERT!

I kind of have to argue whether or not this is really a "moral tale". In my opinion, "My Night at Maud's" was not so much a tale of morality, but rather a tale of the decisions we make and the finality of those decisions. It also speaks volumes on the relationships that we kindle as human beings and how sometimes, so easily, they get extinguished. Let's take the main character of Jean-Louis and dissect him. For starters, he was a very complex character. He touted devout Catholicism, yet he had a very repugnant demeanor, at times. During the conversation scene, between Jean-Louis, Maud and Vidal, he seemed so cocky and smug and not the type of person you'd expect to be harping on about religion and morality. As the film goes on he becomes more relateable, but we'll get into that in a second. Here you had a guy who seemed to have his entire life thought out. He somehow knew that he was going to marry the mystery woman from the church, he knew that he wanted a Catholic girl, if nothing else and he often times, throughout the film, claimed that "he knew he wasn't wrong" or "i know I'm right". For him, everything was so final and his life seemed to depend on these solid, structural choices he'd made for himself.

So then you get to the point of the film that actually makes this a "moral tale" and the scene where Jean-Louis is confronted with the beautiful Maud, as they lie in bed together - her nude and him wrapped in a blanket and trying hard to stick to his guns. And, what do you know, Jean-Louis sticks to his guns and when the carrot is dangled in front of him, so to speak, he doesn't go for it. He resists. BUT...he still feels guilty about it. To me, that's fascinating and rings true to life. The reason I say he still feels guilty about it, is at the end of the film, immediately after he runs into Maud at the beach, he's tripping over his own tongue, trying to explain everything to Francoise, who is now his wife. He still feels like he has to explain her, as if she actually is an old lover of his, when in reality, nothing happened between them. They DID have a very deep bond, as short as it lasted, but sexually - nothing happened.

And let's talk about that bond between Jean-Louis and Maud for a moment, shall we. I think we all have people in our lives that we've happened upon, spent a very short amount of time with and then parted ways with, never to see them again. It's so sad really. In the film, when Maud and Jean-Louis are in her apartment and they part and promise to phone one another, it was, to me, a very sad scene, because you kind of knew that they were just going to forget about one another. For me this really hit home, because I've had so many friendships in my life that have blown away like dust in the wind. It's truly heartbreaking if you stop and think about it. You meet someone and for the time that you know them, they're special people to you, but then they go away, for one reason or another and soon they're nothing to you. To go from something to nothing is just heartbreaking. It was also very interesting how Francoise, at first, was completely uninterested in Jean-Louis, yet he was enamored with her. Maud, on the other hand, all but threw herself at Jean-Louis, yet he had already made up his mind that Francoise was the girl for him. It's something that I can't fully understand, yet am fascinated by and can understand on some levels.

As for the bad, I'm not sure I could really relate to the subject matter that existed in the dialogue. I'm just not the type of guy who enjoys sitting around talking about religion, Blaise Pascal and destiny. They're conversations, at times, made me feel like a child in a room full of adults. Not that they made me feel inferior or unintelligent, just that they made me feel bored and uninterested. I was more thought provoked by the actions of the actors and the ultimate outcomes, than the dialogue. However, the dialogue was such a major part of the film, that it was hard to simply overlook it and concentrate on the big picture. I'm not so sure that the subject matter within the dialogue was very important though. I think as long as you were able to grasp the overall message and themes of the picture, you were just fine.

RATING: 7.5/10 I'm not really sure what to make of this one, at this time. I know that I admire how much it made me think and that I think I'm going to be tossing it around in my head for many weeks to come.

MOVIES WATCHED: 349
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 652

November 17, 2011 2:45am

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415. Goldfinger (1964)

Running Time: 112 minutes
Directed By: Guy Hamilton
Written By: Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn, from novel by Ian Fleming
Main Cast: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe, Shirley Eaton, Harold Sakata
Click here to view the trailer

ON MY JOURNEY I MET A MAN NAMED BOND...JAMES BOND

Well, well, well...long time, no see. Yes, it's been about a week or so since I've stepped into the pages of the "1001" book, but I've returned and am ready to immerse myself in so-called classic cinema, yet again. This time around we take a look at the one and only 007 movie from THE BOOK, "Goldfinger" - a movie that I highly underestimated the first time I saw it, years ago.

The appeal of the 007 movies really isn't in the plot, but I'll relay it to you nonetheless. James Bond (Connery) is a British MI6 agent (code designation: 007) with a license to kill and a tendency to thrill. In this particular film, Bond's latest assignment is to infiltrate and gain information on the nefarious Auric Goldfinger (Frobe). For his entire life, Goldfinger has been entranced by the color gold and in his latter years, has become more infatuated with the type of gold that is worth something. His grand scheme is called "Project Grand Slam", where Goldfinger plans to break into the Ft. Knox, Kentucky gold depository and set off a radioactive bomb, thus rendering the gold useless for a period of 58 years and making Goldfinger's own gold more valuable. As Bond learns more and more of Goldfinger's scheme, his mission becomes more dangerous, but also more personal, when Bond's "girl of the night" - Jill Masterson (Eaton), is killed via skin suffocation, when her entire body is painted gold. Along the way, Bond must also contend with Goldfinger's villainous cohorts: the hat throwing, muscle-man Oddjob (Sakata) and the vivacious Pussy Galore (Blackman).

Before I start reviewing, a story: Many years ago, when I was just starting to become interested in film, I made the decision that James Bond films were essential viewing. At the time, I had never seen a Bond film and so I decided to acquire a list of his movies and watch my way through, one by one, from the beginning. I started with Dr. No and if memory serves me correctly, made it all the way to "GoldenEye" (starring Pierce Brosnan) before I decided to give up, because I simply couldn't take anymore Bond. For years, I would consider the entire Bond film franchise to be nothing but rubbish, and tonight I can finally lay those misconceptions to rest. Tonight I realized that the Bond films (well "Goldfinger" anyway) is almost exactly the opposite of rubbish, it's actually very good and taps into a certain excitement, that subconsciously, we all want with our movies. I mean, this is the ultimate, stereotypical male movie. You have explosions, car chases, car crashes, half naked women, guns, gadgets, cars, heists, bombs, evil villains and one, martini swilling hero that every guy wishes he could be. I mean, you have everything just shy of a straight up shot of testosterone.

In all seriousness, this usually isn't my kind of picture. I'm not big on spy flicks for starters, whether they're directed by Alfred Hitchcock or featuring 007. However, "Goldfinger" packs a punch and it's not an easy film to dislike. It actually has a really good story behind it, which kind of had me surprised at about the halfway point. The plot is followable, though I think for the most part, all you really need to know is that Bond is the super-hero and Goldfinger is the bad guy and you'll be just fine. And hey, if you want to talk about acting performances, I think we all know the credentials of Mr. Connery. Hell, it was that same year (1964) that he starred alongside Tippy Hedren in Hitchcock's "Marnie" and I think we can all agree that Alfred wouldn't cast a slouch. There's also the not so obvious Gert Frobe, who did an absolutely amazing job as Auric Goldfinger, making himself very convincing as someone who would be the mastermind of a gold heist. I'll bring this to a close by emphasizing just how much my watching of THE BOOK has done for my tastes. No longer do I write films off without, at least, giving them a fighting chance. Tonight, I say "sayonara" to my old opinion of the Bond films being rubbish and embrace them (well, at least this one) as a true classic and a really fun movie!

RATING: 8/10 I'm shocked by that rating, I truly am. If memory serves me correctly, "Dr. No" was not a bad movie either. I may just have to re-watch the Bond films...at least the Sean Connery ones.

MOVIES WATCHED: 348
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 653

COMING SOON:
Point Blank (1967 - John Boorman)
My Night at Maud's (1969 - Eric Rohmer)
Come Drink with Me (1966 - King Hu)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994 - Frank Darabont)

November 16, 2011 2:35am

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UPDATE - November 2011

I'm going to be away from the blog from now until probably Sunday night or Monday, so I figured I'd drop in and give you all a little update. I'll be watching some non-BOOK movies over the next few days, including working on a couple of reviews for my DVD review blog. This weekend, I'll be spending my movie watching time with my wife, as she's finally convinced me to check out the Twilight Saga. Keep your eyes on the DVD review blog and as always you can hear my opinions on anything, non-BOOK related, at the end of the month at recap time.

While I'm here, I figured I'd give you guys (and girls) a tentative schedule for the remainder of this 100 films. We're quickly approaching the halfway mark of this current 100 and when we get there, I'll be reviewing "The Shawshank Redemption". I intend for that movie to be watched at exactly the halfway mark of this 100 (or at 350 films watched).

At somewhere on or around 360 films watched, I'll be doing a four film tribute to Robert Wise, which will include: "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "West Side Story", "The Sound of Music" and "The Haunting".

At somewhere on or around 380 films watched, I'll be doing my tribute to Jean-Luc Godard with "Godard Week". That tribute will include all eight of Godard's films that are contained in the BOOK and they are: "Breathless", "My Life to Live", "Contempt", "Alphaville", "Pierrot le Fou", Masculine-Feminine", "Two or Three Things I Know About Her" and "Week End".

Also in the remainder of this set of 100 films, I'll be continuing my effort to make this set rife with films from the 1960s. 27 films have been selected, by yours truly, to round out my 60s project and I plan to stick to this schedule.

There are also 14 "open spots", which means that for the remainder of this 100, I'll have free range when it comes to certain choices - 14 to be exact.

So, to sum everything up, here's how the rest of this 100 will go:

*The Shawshank Redemption
*4 Robert Wise films
*8 Jean-Luc Godard films
*27 random films from the 60s
*14 open spots or totally random choices

Add that all up and you get 54, which is exactly what we need to hit 401 films watched and thus make my 4th TOP 20. I hope you'll join me as I continue my journey. As always, thank you to those who follow me, send me comments or even take a few moments to read something I've written. I'll see you next week folks!

November 10, 2011 12:41am

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