Watched the The Good German which was a pretty good neo-noir set in 1945 Berlin. I mainly watched because the George Clooney character is a reporter for The New Republic, one of my favorite magazines. Interesting technical detail is that it was filmed with aspect ratio of 1.33 but cropped for the theater to 1.87 since modern projectors can't show the lower ratio. It was restored to 1.33 for the DVD.

Next up is a docudrama about a real-life scandal at TNR titled Shattered Glass. Stephen Glass, a reporter for the magazine, was found to have made up most of his stories.

Pat

The difference in quality between the two versions is absolutely astounding, the earlier one does not have any Hitchcockian trademarks, but abounds with wooden acting.

Joseph, you're only the second person who's had something good to say about the Good German. As the other one was my younger brother, whose film recommendations I usually follow without asking further questions, I'll definitely have to try it.

Shattered Glass turned out to be much better than I expected. It was very suspenseful for a movie about journalism that had no violence or car chases in it. The DVD had a commentary by the director and Charles Lane, the TNR editor portrayed in it, and an interview with Stephen Glass.

Rescue Dawn opens in LA and NY today. If I had known about it earlier, I might have flown to LA and dragged my brother and sister-in-law to see it. I thought it had already come and gone since the release date is 2006, but that was for film festival showings. The poster for the movie looks very similar to that of Empire of the Sun which was Christian Bale's first lead role. Also, the story Dieter Dengler tells about seeing the fighter plane fly past his house and making him want to be a pilot resembles a scene in EotS.

I have met few movies I didn't like. LOL

Pat

I watched Miss Potter last night about the life of Beatrix Potter. Renee Zellweger was totally miscast IMO as Beatrix. I don't dislike her, but she just was a distraction for me from an otherwise beautiful movie.
She has some facial twitchy habits that she does in every movie I have ever seen her in and I found it really annoying, plus there were times that she just wasn't able to maintain her "English" accent - other than that...LOL!

Anyone else seen it?

Pat

I re-watched another old classic: "Last of the Mohicans" with D. Day Lewis. Good story, well told. I was surprised that the gorgeous scenery was NOT filmed in upper New York state, but in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina!

Then came Flatland which is based on the 1884 novel by Edwin A. Abbott. It's a computer animation released direct to disk, and although a little tedious at first it became quite dramatic.

Ichi the Killer arrived from Netflix. It's a very strange Japanese gangster film that looks to have been an inspiration for Kill Bill. It's the same sort of gore fest, but I can't tell if it was meant to be horrifying or amusing. I probably missed a lot of cultural subtleties.

Reflections

Assassination

We've been back on the short films; currently making our way through a collection of 16 American shorts. They seem to be less assured than the ones on the European compilation; either completely pretentious or fairly simple comedy stuff of the type you'd find on YouTube. The only ones that really shone were two stop-motion animations, Tim Burton's Vincent and Adam Parrish King's The Wraith of Cobble Hill, and an old 5-minute D.A.Pennebaker, Daylight Express.

Being familiar with the book, I wished they could have kept in all the details and subplots, but I suppose the director did the best he could within the time frame.

By the way, if anyone else has seen this one, I have a question about it.

Coming up: "The Illusionist."

I'd like to know what you think of "The Illusionist". I saw it in the theaters last year and it was ..... interesting. ;-)

Pat

Anyanka, LOL, re "Mulholland Drive." Do let us know what you think of it. I recall I had a lot of questions about it after seeing it, but it was a long time ago. Maybe that would be one to rent again....

Pat, is the Colin Firth film out on DVD to be rented? I never heard of it. I love Firth.

I downloaded clips of the Tölzer Knabenchor performing Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas from YouTube and made a VCD out of them. As might be expected, the audio and video quality is quite bad. I emailed Kultur Video suggesting they get the rights to the performance, but they responded that they had no plans to do that.

I enjoyed The Illusionist too but how on earth I wondered was he able to keep up the pretense-she had a wealthy family-wouldn't there have been a big funeral....it has been some time since I saw it, but that was one of my major questions about it.

Pat

Pat

Joseph, I think you would like this one, if you don't mind subtitles.

Thanks for the recommendation, Woodnymph. I'll check it out. No, I don't mind subtitles; I even turn them on for movies in English if I can't make out the dialogue.

Also went to see the latest Die Hard installment. Ok, it's the same one-dimensional Bruce, the same predictable scenario, but DANG, the stunts and special FX were un-believable. Another entertaining 'summer flic'. Was very glad to see Justin Long (from now defunct tv show ED and recent MAC ads) moving up in the business. He's an awesome young talent to look out for, right up there with Topher Grace in that they both have that instinctive timing.

Last night I watched Unknown-a strange movie about a group of men that find themselves in an apparently abandoned warehouse in the dessert-with amnesia-strange ending.

"The Illusionist". Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell. I concur in spades, so very well directed (Neil Burger).

I've also gone deeper into the story -- apparently the events in the movie were loosely based on a scandal that affected the Austrian royal family in the late 1880s-1890s.

If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'd recommend it. Edward Norton is, IMHO, a darned good actor. And the movie is quite well-made.

Oh, and I've just finished the new HP book. I'd LOVE to see how they handle the plot of that book in a movie.

My personal interpretation of the last scene is that this is the set up for the "next move" of the voyeur who has been videotaping it all. And possibly his next plan is to kidnap the school boy, so he is lying in wait, expecting him to come out, so that he can somehow be lured away, or else, taping him so that the parents can be further tormented. Remember the boy did vanish during the film and I think this is a way of foreshadowing what the ultimate torment will be.

And yes, it was, indeed, much like "Under the Sands" another French film that I really liked a lot. I guess I like these open-ended movies that leave one guessing.

Boy, what a ride. The movie didn't reach the depths of badness at "Plan 9 From Outer Space" but it kind of came close. For one thing, this movie seemed to actually HAVE a budget. Anyway, I did some research and I found the title of the movie -- "Evil Brain from Outer Space". It's a Japanese movie dubbed in English and .... wow. If you get the chance and if you like B or grade Z movies, it's worth a gander, if only for the costumes.

I found a review of it and it's bang-on.

Then a remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which a little more interesting. The maker used the backgrounds of the original film and superimposed live actors on them. It had spoken dialogue, background music, and was in black and white. I don't if the bad acting was a chosen style or the result of...bad acting.

Next up is Batman Begins at the insistence of a friend, and then Enduring Love, based on a Ian McEwan novel.

Now I am off to rent "Perfume", if I can find it....

Dyno, you might like this one....

Pat

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll see if I can find it tonight -- I've got nothing else to do but write a new patent application so I think I'll make it a movie night instead. ;-)

(Or maybe I'll see The Simpsons movie...)

Pat