Three Blind Mice 2008
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 2000's
Three Blind Mice is the directorial debut of Matthew Newton , and
covers 24 hours in the Lives of three young Navy officers on shore leave, Sounds familiar? Well Its not, No Gene Kelly or Frank Sinatra to be found, The film delves well into dark territory of Navy bastardization and friendship.not since before the Director George Marshall who brought us Destry Rides Again ,The Blue Dahlia and The Forest Rangers (especially) have we seen such an effortless sway between Comedy and Dire Tragedy ,This was like watching ‘On the Town” with out the singing and dancing , having your guts wrenched out and a moment later being wildly tickled by them to the point of hysteria.Starring Ewen Leslie (Kokada),Toby Schmitz (Somersault) and as well as directing Matthew Newton (“Changi” and Looking for Alibrandi) as the seemingly fearless Three traveling through the slings and arrows of Outrages Fortune ,involving prostitutes, Swinging Middle aged future Parents Inlaw, and broken bady parts, But aside from this it deals with the darker subject matter of friendship after abuse, alla “the Kite runner’ emotional self sacrifice, redemption through acceptance, and maybe Love?
This is not a Taratino humor nor a Melinda and Melinda,,its anxious rollercoster ride of fear, and humor that can change in a wink of an eye and still really work. Cast also Includes Gracie Otto as the leading love interest throughout the film,who shines in every scene with a script that rips through the likes of ‘Network’ and seems more spontaneous,(she also edited this film),Brendan Cowell, as a side of the armed forces we are not willing to acknowledge, Pia Miranda as the shirrty fiancee,Alex Dimitriades (Head On), Marcus Grahem( “Underbelly” and Mulholland Dr. ,Jacki Weaver (Picnic at Hanging Rock) Barry Otto( Strictly Ballroom)and the Great,Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell ( Murder She Said, and ‘Breaker’ Morant) and inhabits a Musical score by John Foreman.Everyone you can think of was here and aside from the three blokes have their own moment to shine. A stella cast (Aside from the absence of Jack Thompson and Noni Hazelhurst)all take their turn to make bloody good Cinema, Aside from ‘the Black Balloon’ this is one of the best Australian films to be received this year if not the last 5 years,.
I have to assure , I didn’t not watch and review this film on the basis of its ‘lineage’ because , its made by the son of ‘this person’ or the daughter of ‘that person’, its better than most American films Ive seen this year.This film needs to be seen overseas ,it maybe set in Australia, but these things could happen , and have happened everywhere. After you have seem it you wont be crying and you wont be pissing yourself , but you will feel Different, and better for it.
Tags: Abuse., Alcoholism, Black Comedy, Comedy, Friendship, Military Abuse, Sailor, Self Sacrifice
The Seven Year Itch 1955
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1950's
Here Comes The Breeze from the Subway
A Window into a cultural phenomenon perhaps long past
In the summer in New York during the hottest Month The Husbands of New York Send off their Wives and Children on Holiday to the beach for at least a month, in that time the Husbands shave, buy a new shirt get a facial, and go ‘Wild” ,they go get plastered on alcohol they stay out all night they get tattoos, and pick up women. ‘The Apartment’ and The Seven year Itch’ Chronicles this perhaps forgotten mid century pastime. Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell,” Adams Rib”) Like many of his fellow New Yorkians has sent his wife and kid off for the summer with stick instructions not to drink too much and not to smoke,Richard is a mind mannered man in a publishing company who is nearly sitting on 40 , Alone in his family’s apartment his imagination goes wild , he starts to imagine many beautiful women throwing themselves at him ,but rejecting them all on the basis of him being married, all of a sudden who walks into his life but
but one of the most sexy woman of the 20th century.
An unnamed girl (Marilyn Monroe) moves into the apartment upstairs,and gets her Fan , stuck in the doorway (so to speak) from then on Richards imagination runs wild with the possibilities .He struggles between finding excuses to for her to come down to his apartment by luring her over with his apartment air conditioning and the guilt about feeling the need of cheating on his wife, Marilyn was never better in fact if any reason at all if you’ve never heard of Billy Wilder the director or Saul Bass the maker of the main titles (who did work for Hitchcocks Vertigo,Pyscho, and for Martin Scorsese Cape Fear and Casino) You will see this film because of the famous scene with Marilyn in her white Gown with the wind from the subway blowing up which is featured on every poster of this film.
Tom Ewell plays the same midlife crisis man he always seemed to play and well and Evelyn Keyes (Gone with the wind)who has some scene stealing moments . This could be culturally appropriated today on stage and you could cast Pamela Anderson for all anyone cares but Pam could not hold a Candle to the moments of sensitivity and sensuality especially in that quarter where the veil drops and reveals the girl isnt just a bubblehead but actually quite deep in her thinking and empathetic ,this film today still stands as the ultimate Mans Midlife crisis film and how differently he uses his energy to have a last gasp at youth, some men come to the same conclusion as Dorothy in the wizard of Oz ‘that at the end of the day there’s “no place like home’ and others use adultery to change partner and their lifestyle for good for good . Perhaps when Im older I may Appreciate this film a little more as someone who feels the need to be invigorated by the youth or the attraction of another to show men a different reflection in another’s eyes, but unfortunately it wont be Marilyn Monroe.
Tags: Based off Play, Billy Wilder, Comedy, Dream Sequence, Imagination, Infidelity, Marilyn Monroe, Midlife Crisis, New York, Temptation
Something’s Got to Give 1962
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1960's
'An Unfinished Life'
One of The Most Famous Unfinished films in Hollywood History Something’s Got to Give is the Last Marilyn Monroe appeared in.
A Remake of ‘My Favorite Wife’ it was directed by George Cukor and Starred Dean Martin Cyd Charisse its was one of only two films being shot by 20th Century Fox the other being Cleopatra (which was running massively Budget) The Story Involves a man who has recently remarried 5 years after his wife’s apparent death in a shipping accident, after returning from his honeymoon he soon learns his first wife(rescued from a desert island) is alive and well which creates one or more complications due to complications with Monroe Cukor, and the studio the production was halted shortly after Monroe would soon be dead.
Only a few years later it would be revived an renamed as Move Over Darling directed by Michael Gordon and would Star Doris Day, in the Marilyn role, and would give Day two New songs for her Future Live Shows.
Somethings Gotta Give was released on dvd in the most completed chronological form form in 1999 featuring Monroe’s famous nude scene (The first of a Major star at the time) its a glimpse of that might have been if completed,
Tags: Comedy, Divorce, George Cukor, Marilyn Monroe, Marriage, Presumed dead, screwball, Unfinished
Our Man In Havana 1959
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1950's
Our Man Alec
Our Man Alec
Highly recommend this one…
Based of Graham Greene novel
Jim Wormold(Alec Guinness ‘Bridge on the river Kwai, Star Wars’) is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn’t very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne(Noel Coward .’The Italian job’ and the second coming of Oscar Wilde ) of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn’t got a clue where to start but when his friend Dr. Hasselbacher(Burl Ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) suggests that the best secrets are known to no one, he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provides fictional tales for the benefit of his masters in London. He is soon seen as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere but it all begins to unravel when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his “network” and he learns that he is the target of a group out to kill him Also starring Maureen O’Hara(The Quiet Man) as British intelligence
Written in the wake of the popularity of the James Bond Novel Phenomena, and released three years before the franchise begin with ”Doctor No” Spys and the Cold war were a score of fear and speculation at the time, the Novel and the film more so make fun of this as well as present a possibility of real espionage and contract killing as the result of ‘Hype’ of the Red Scare , this film although a parody shows the real consequences of what happens when you dont check your facts and believing in ‘Santa clause’
Although the New Government of Cuba was More than happy for Graeme Greens novel about the baptista regime, showing it to be corrupt and the thoughtless meddling s foreign spies from both Brittan and America , The Book and the Film were subsequently withdrawn after Greens comments about the treatment of Intellectuals and Gays and Lesbians ,People don’t realize when they put posters of Che Guevara on their wall , they forget when he worked with Fidel Castro he actually supported putting intellectuals and Homosexuals in concentration camps, subsequently this important film about the change in power in Cuba from the Batista’s seems to be little know in its own country.
as a time capsule of a period in history its fascinating to watch a generation who lived in fear of the Bomb and the blunderings of both sides to resolves this the best way they can by sheer stupidity.
Alex Guinness is great as a British ‘Jimmy Stewart’ everyman who wants the best for his family and plays both side of politics like a poker game with deadly consequences.
Tags: Based off Novel, Black Comedy, Comedy, Espionage, expressionist, Graham Greene, Murder, Noel Coward, Noir, Red Scare, Satire, South America, Spy
