Spitball Army

watched Oct 30, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

7.4
[streaming, Criterion Channel]

I know I’d seen this sometime in the past, but, on watching, found I remembered nothing about it aside from the similarities borrowed for the Cronenberg remake. I loved the way it begins – at the end of the story, which then gets told as a confession, but the flashback doesn’t start until at least twenty minutes into the film. A couple pretty gruesome scenes with no gore: the best kind.

watched Oct 27, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

5.8
[streaming, Criterion Channel]

I wanted to like this more than I did, as its cinematography is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, given plenty of slow-cinema time for one to luxuriate in. There is a lot of quiet tension in the plot, but the plot itself is simple and deserved some sort of resolution that the filmmakers did not provide. Terrific performance from the actress (Benedicta Sanchez) playing the main character’s mother, so natural that it didn’t seem like acting at all.

watched Oct 27, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

7.9
[DVD, library]

The three main actresses in this – Hayley Mills, Deborah Kerr, and especially Edith Evans – are superb. The film’s origins as a stage play aren’t all that obvious, but the script written from it is occasionally brilliant, with sharp, biting, and witty dialogue.

watched Oct 21, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

6.5
[streaming, Criterion Channel]

This was made four years after his amateurish FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, and it shows a lot of maturity. It has a dreamlike structure similar to MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, which I saw for the first time recently. Then I read (on Curtis Harrington’s Wikipedia page) that Maya Deren was a mentor to him, so the similarities make a lot of sense.

watched Oct 21, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

5.5
[DVD, library]

This picture starts out promisingly. The story jumps out right at the start, the characters are engaging, and the rich colors and sets of the Pinewood Studios very closely resemble the look and mood of a Powell/Pressburger film. But, once an avalanche in the Andes turns into a science-defying roller coaster ride, further absurdities begin to add up, culminating in an escape from a tribe of cannibalistic Maori who are so busy performing a haka that they nearly miss seeing their prisoners swinging from a rope above their heads. That’s Disney for you.

watched Oct 20, 2021
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

7.1
[streaming, Criterion Channel]

Clearly shot on the cheap – Korea here sure does look like parts of Southern California – but effective in its spareness. Plus, there’s Aldo Ray in his mature prime, putting in as fine a performance as I’ve ever seen him in, and outshining the rest of the cast.

watched Jan 15, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

6.8
[blu-ray]

The music is energetic and fun with creative wordplay, even if sounding if all of it is cut from the same oompah/striptease mold. And the intercutting between “real life” and “on stage” is a clever concept that adds depth to the story, but after a few musical numbers, that concept feels like a retold joke that expects as big a laugh as the first time. The real star of this show is the lighting and set design.

The 2010-issued Miramax blu-ray I viewed had a graininess unexpected from a 2002 film, and looked barely better than a high-quality VHS tape.

watched Jan 14, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

9.8
[theater]

This – what I believe was my father’s favorite film – gained so much for me on this TCM big-screen presentation, after decades of seeing it only on TV sets. Even Alfonso Bedoya’s “Goldhat” character, which in today’s politically-correct climate could feel like an insensitive stereotype, comes across mostly as a feral, desperate gang leader with a mile-wide sarcastic streak, who’s main objective is to survive (just like Bogie’s Fred C. Dobbs). In his introduction to the film, Ben Mankiewicz told a hilarious tale of Walter Huston refusing to play his role of the old prospector without his uppers (a demand from his director son John), causing Bogart and John Huston to hold him to the ground and forcibly remove his false teeth – the result, of course, added dimension to the character, and possibly contributed to the elder Huston’s eventual Oscar win.

watched Jan 11, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

6.3
[blu-ray, netflix]

The formative years of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall encapsulated into a trial that took place while he was traveling the country as a NAACP defense attorney. Unfortunately, the trial itself seems like a cinematic retread of others – most notably, the trial at the heart of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, right down to some of its dialogue. And I find it difficult to take Josh Gad seriously, so there’s that. James Cromwell reprises his grumpy man role, this time while wearing judge’s robes. Chadwick Boseman is noble as Marshall.

watched Jan 10, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

6.3
[DVD]

Great concept – man discovers that all of the inhabitants of his town are frozen in time – that I swear I first saw used in an episode of The Twilight Zone, but this decades-earlier treatment leans more toward the light-hearted and frothy. The shots of Paris from the Eiffel Tower are truly breathtaking.