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La Tulipe Noire (1964)
Not a bad time.
I've been on a bit of an Alain Delon spree as of late, and I saw The Black Tulip get mentioned quite a bit alongside 1975's Zorro, which I really enjoyed. It's another movie where Delon gets to take part in some sword fights while being a dashing hero, and though it's not as entertaining or as action-packed as Zorro, it was still pretty decent overall.
The main trump card The Black Tulip has is that it features Delon playing two characters: brothers who swap identities after one of them gets a scar on his face. Alain Delon has pretty good chemistry with himself, even if it would've made more sense had they been twins, because they do look basically identical (even the scar and different hairstyles do little to distinguish them).
It's all straightforward stuff, with villains being thwarted and an underdog hero becoming a revolutionary figure. It's slow-going at some points and the action scenes don't quite have the spark needed to make them really stand out... though none of it's bad exactly. The Black Tulip looks good enough and Delon's fun in the two lead roles. It doesn't really feel like an essential watch or any kind of classic, but it's good enough.
Secondhand Lions (2003)
Odd but alright.
Secondhand Lions is a strange kind of movie, but I sort of liked it for what it was. It's worth it just to Michael Caine and Robert Duvall doing their thing: two inherently likable actors who unsurprisingly work very well together, playing the uncles of a kid who's made to stay with them, likely because his mother wants him to inherit a supposed fortune the pair have.
It's very much a family movie, and the sort that doesn't seem to get made very much nowadays. Whether in 2003 or 2024, it's surely a hard film to market, because a lot of it's about being old, which kids might find boring, but it's also kind of light and silly, and that might turn away older people. It's an odd one. I'm not crazy about Secondhand Lions, but at the same time, it's hard to feel like I regret watching it.
Underground (1995)
Near-masterpiece
The controlled chaos of Underground is something to behold. Emir Kusturica Can sometimes push things a little far when it comes to surrealism and sheer bizarre sights, but I feel like he reined those sensibilities in almost the perfect amount for this film, and continued to perform said balancing act tonally for almost three hours.
Commenting on the endless nature of war/conflict and mining comedy/satire from it in a way that puts it on the same level as Dr. Strangelove, Underground rushes by in an almost manic way, but never so fast you ever get truly lost.
Ambitious deception, jealousy, love triangles, underground societies, themes surrounding identity, a monkey controlling a tank, the societal implications of three different wars one after the other, slapstick comedy, the conflict between truth and fiction, grim drama... Underground has it all! It's a long sit, but the pacing's generally good, and it doesn't feel the 170 minutes it takes to get through.
Yabu no naka no kuroneko (1968)
Very unsettling supernatural horror movie.
Was glad to buy this on bluray, but my god has physical media just gotten too expensive here in Australia in the last year or two. I love building a collection, but it was easier to do between 2010 and maybe 2021 at the latest. Now it's extra expensive, and various stores are starting to seriously cut down what they sell in the first place.
Anyway, Kuroneko looked great on bluray, and was a good enough film to be worth the premium price tag on it. It has a super harrowing 10-minute opening sequence that has no dialogue, then it's quite fun for about 20 to 30 minutes, while two female spirits get well-earned revenge. Then, the plot thickens when someone re-emerges back into their life. Things do ultimately get grim once more.
It's consistently eerie throughout, I loved the music, and it's very stylish. It's beautiful and disturbing, sometimes at the same time, and even with it not being a pleasant watch at times, I think I could see myself reciting it one day.
Per un pugno di dollari (1964)
From little films big films grow.
I'm sure A Fistful of Dollars is someone's favourite of the three Clint Eastwood + Sergio Leone westerns, but it's probably not the favourite of many. This loose trilogy the pair ended up doing comprised one movie a year for three years in the middle of the 1960s. Watching it in order, we go from one solid film to one great film and then finally it concludes with one absolutely perfect film.
A Fistful of Dollars is quaint in comparison to both For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and almost feels like a proof of concept, in hindsight. Still, it's a more than solid western that can be appreciated today, but I don't think it's as enjoyable as any other film Leone made after this. It probably says something that it took me about 13 years to finally watch it for a second time, whereas I've revisited all the others much earlier (and some I've seen several times, on average once every couple of years).
This film also has to be celebrated for the fact it pretty much established two legends who went on to achieve greatness in the years following: Eastwood as an actor (and eventual director) and Leone as a filmmaker. I guess it was also one of the earliest big films Ennio Morricone scored, too, so it's like a star is born times three.
(Also, Yojimbo's much better, and I think I'd still feel that way even if A Fistful of Dollars had come first).
Kuroi ame (1989)
Bleak Rain
Very different from the other 1989 movie called Black Rain, that's for sure.
I watched this immediately after reading a couple of chapters of the graphic novel Maus, and so it's been a pretty heavy afternoon. Both that and Black Rain look at survivors of horrible events that happened during World War II, and how such events never stopped affecting those caught up in them. There's a bleakness to both, and I'm struck by the rawness and honesty, as well as the way such stories look at how World War II led to generational trauma.
Specifically focusing on Black Rain, I'm not sure it's something I'll ever want to watch again, but it was striking and effective and I appreciate it quite a lot. It reminded me a fair bit of 1953's Hiroshima, which is similarly harrowing in its exploration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath.
Un amour de Swann (1984)
Messy and a little undercooked, but it looks nice, has good acting, and succeeds in hitting a few notes here and there.
Come for Jeremy Irons speaking French and Alain Delon, stay for the sinking feeling of regret that comes from watching a film that you know would work better in its original novel form.
I haven't read anything by Marcel Proust, and I don't know if I will in the foreseeable future, but Swann in Love does feel super literary, as a movie. It deals with the sorts of themes (mostly the pain and frustrations of love) that often seem to be best explored in literature, as opposed to film, the former a medium that's best for getting uncomfortably deep into a character's head and state of mind.
That's not to say movies shouldn't attempt to adapt psychological and dense novels about love/desire/heartbreak, because there's a way to do it right, even if it involves changing things up drastically (I really like both novel and film versions of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, for example).
As for Swann in Love, it has a few really good scenes, it looks nice overall, and I think I mostly get and appreciate what it's going for... but it fails to add up to something great, and is probably overall a little less than the sum of its parts. Still, it could be worth a cautious look for anyone intrigued by the premise or cast on offer here.
Dareka no manazashi (2013)
This gaze's a maze.
I admire the attempt at squeezing a good deal of emotion and storytelling into just seven minutes, but I think Someone's Gaze would've benefitted from having a little more time to breathe. It just feels like it's in a rush, and while on paper it would sound tremendously emotional, the execution left a good deal to be desired.
But not everything disappointed, because Someone's Gaze does have a pleasant and distinct feel to it, and the style of animation used looks pretty great. It's hard to feel like it's a waste of time, given how brisk and short it is, but I do come away feeling like I may have connected more had it just been a little longer, plus a touch less breathless in its pacing.
Aquatic Language (2002)
An interesting short.
Aquatic Language starts well and is definitely intriguing for a while, taking place in some sort of bar or cafe and jumping quite suddenly between various conversations that are happening there.
It establishes a neat rhythm within almost no time at all, and I was wondering how long I'd actually be willing to go along with such a premise for. If done right, I think you could make something almost feature-length that just keeps jumping from one set of people to another every few minutes (maybe like Linklater's Slacker, or something by Jim Jarmusch like Night on Earth).
I don't think it ended as well as it started, and despite the brief runtime, Aquatic Language did still lose me. Oh well - it was good for a time, and still felt decent enough to be worth the watch.
Revolver (2005)
A bit of a disaster.
This film is to Guy Ritchie's earlier films what Worker and Parasite is to Itchy and Scratchy. In other words, it had me wondering "What the hell was that?"
I appreciate he was trying to do something very different here, and can maybe give it a few points for effort, but the execution left so much to be desired. I haven't seen Swept Away, but this is easily my least favorite thing I've seen from Ritchie. It's just a mess, and more often in a frustrating and tedious way than any kind of fun or interesting way.
It's hard to recommend. I'd like to say it's misunderstood or underrated, but I honestly couldn't without flat-out lying. I think it's a movie that's sort of deservedly been forgotten; a misstep in a filmography that's certainly far from perfect, but is generally at least a good deal better than this.
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
There's at least a little comedic gold to be found here.
I used to think Beyoncé was the weak link in this, but I think I was too hard on her in the past. She's certainly not bad here (now that I get her character's kind of a spin on the sorts Pam Grier used to play in the 1970s), and it's really the title character who tanks this film compared to the other two. Similarly, Fat *******'s (IMDb will not let me type the name) a bit tired after appearing in the second film and doing the same schtick this time around. The inclusion of Michael Caine does help remedy the lesser two of Meyers' four main characters, but Caine can only go so far in lessening the pain of the worst scenes here.
Overall, the comedy's hit and miss more than the other two. There are some really funny scenes sprinkled throughout, but a few too many misses to make it feel as fresh and funny. It's probably for the best that the Austin Powers series ended here. Goldmember certainly isn't bad enough to derail what ended up as a trilogy, but I feel pretty comfortable in calling it the weakest of the three.
Wrath of Man (2021)
A bit of a snooze to be honest.
The cinematic equivalent of the eating too much over-cooked steak that's been prepared without any seasoning or flavour of any kind. It technically gets the job done and fills one's belly, but it's also just bland and a bit exhausting to work through.
Wrath of Man needed some flavour and it needed to be a little shorter/snappier. It's meat-headed in every way (which is why it put steak on my mind), and I guess it's technically a functional movie.
It feels like if it was any dumber or blunter, it would edge towards being a parody of generic Jason Statham movies. For a while, I was optimistic it would go somewhere or pick up the pace somewhat, but I don't know... to me, it was just a flat, middle of the road (and admittedly not offensively bad) action/crime/thriller movie.
The Gentlemen (2019)
Very messy, but a decent amount of fun.
A return to form for Ritchie... sort of? At least it feels like it was supposed to be, taking the kind of film/style that made him popular in the late 1990s - as well as having a big ensemble cast, lots of plot twists, and dark humor - and updating it for the late 2010s. The results are generally fun to watch, and there are some great scenes and performances from an impressive cast, but there's also a certain smugness to The Gentlemen that I found pretty offputting at times.
I think it's a moderately clever film, but it thinks it's an exceedingly clever film, and I wish that strange sort of feeling created by this was toned down a little. Ritchie's earlier films are flawed, but they feel a little more sincere, or maybe they just felt fresher back then. Maybe it also helps that I was still a teenager when I first saw Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Rock 'n Rolla.
There are attempts at pushing the Ritchie-isms into slightly different directions throughout The Gentlemen, but it didn't always hit for me. Still a decently good time, but there are certainly flaws holding it back.
L'aveu (1970)
Slow, but worthwhile
Between this and State of Siege, the early 1970s seemed to be a time when Costa-Gavras really had a thing for movies where Yves Montand got captured/imprisoned.
Of the two, The Confession is probably a little better. It is long, kind of slow, and very repetitive; all qualities I feel apply to Costa-Gavras's films, or it might just be me, because I'm not the biggest fan of his. But the approach he takes works fairly well with the story being told here, and I found it pretty interesting.
I wish it had been a little tighter and maybe closer to two hours than two and a half, but it does always find itself moving forward... albeit slowly at times.
Samâ taimu mashin burûsu (2005)
Super entertaining
This is a must-watch for anyone who liked the more recent Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, because it scratches the same itch as a scrappy yet charming Japanese time-travel comedy. They're both different enough to work independently too, of course, with Summer Time Machine Blues having a bit of a wider scope, and also being a film that takes its time setting things up a little more than that 2020 release.
It did this to the point where the first half-hour or so was almost a little dull, because the time travel stuff doesn't really get introduced until the start of the second act. But then it becomes apparent that the slower opening act was necessary to set up much of the humour found throughout the rest of the film, and in that way, it reminded me a bit of the baffling yet necessary opening act of One Cut of the Dead.
Comparing it to those just because they came to mind while watching, I don't think Summer Time Machine Blues is quite as good as either One Cut of the Dead or Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, but it was entertaining and charming in similar ways. It's a light and consistently fun film that has a cool approach to time travel, striking just the right balance between having genuine stakes (to some extent) and just being silly and plenty of fun. I ended up liking it quite a lot.
La prima notte di quiete (1972)
Indian Bummer
I'm starting to gain more appreciation for Alain Delon after seeing some more of his 1970s work, because he's an actor who proved himself willing to take on more challenging and unexpected roles as he got a little older. I don't think age affected his looks too much (he's almost 40 here, and kind of made to look a little rough/disheveled, but is still typically dashing), but his roles earlier did sometimes feel a bit heart-throbby, admittedly still broken up by films like Le Samourai.
He's really good in Indian Summer, and the rest of the movie is pretty good as well. It's slow but effectively melancholic; not a fun film, but it works well as a character study.
État de siège (1972)
Costa-Gavras doing his thing, for better and for worse.
I struggle a bit with most films directed by Costa-Gavras, and with State of Siege, things felt a bit different because I struggled a lot with the film. It feels passionate and does cover a wide range of political topics, often quite explicitly. I appreciate how blunt it is and, like usual, I feel Costa-Gavras is much better at making a social statement than he is making something that's actually engaging to watch on a more immediate, attention-grabbing level.
As such, I feel like State of Siege is still an arguable success, functioning as a political drama that gets a message across, but I otherwise found it a bit dull and tiring to get through... sorry!
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
A unique and quite entertaining piece of horror.
Much of Late Night with the Devil was kind of what I expected, but given I was anticipating something pretty good, I still came away from it happy. I'm not surprised the same way people might've been had they seen this having no idea what it was, but I think that's just how it is with horror movies. They get a small release, they get super hyped, and then when they get a wider release, the people who've been hearing about the movie for months might be expecting something bigger and better than anticipated, just because that element of true surprise is gone.
I'll give the film this, though: it's funnier than I was anticipating, but it was also slightly less scary. The satirical elements could've been pushed a little harder, what with the presentation being a "live television event" from the late 1970s, the recording of which had just been discovered. I was surprised there were no commercials, for example, but maybe that would've made it feel too much like a comedy. And Late Night with the Devil is trying to be a horror film first and foremost, and it's moderately successful in that department. There are a few creepy moments and some well-done moments of tension building. I don't think it'll knock anyone's socks off or keep them up at night, but as a combination of analog horror with the found-footage format of horror, I think it worked pretty well.
It flounders a bit near the ending, struggling to conclude as well as it set itself up, but I was entertained most of the way through and had a good time. Also, David Dastmalchian was great in the lead role. He often pops up in supporting roles, or bit parts, and seeing him lead a movie this well makes me feel like he should be given more leading roles in the future. It's Dastmalchian and the presentation of Late Night with the Devil that work in tandem to make this one worth seeking out for anyone who likes a good horror movie.
Ano natsu, ichiban shizukana umi (1991)
Unexpected
There's some IMDb trivia that claims this is the first Takeshi Kitano movie to not feature any violence, and to be fair, that is what jumps out the most. It feels like he said "and now for something completely different" and aimed to make a movie that genre-wise he'd never really done... though visually and maybe even narratively, it does feel like one of his works. It's got that detached and unique feel, the same sort of pacing I've felt from his other films, and maybe even the understated humour is comparable.
Of course, it all plays out without any gangsters or bloodshed, and if Takeshi Kitano was attempting to break his own boundaries, I'd say it was mission accomplished. It was a nice and kind of breezy watch. It's hard to call it exciting or hugely investing, but it was pleasant; it was pretty good.
The Ninth Configuration (1980)
Pretty weird and pretty good.
There are some definite similarities to Shutter Island, the novel of the same name coming out 23 years after The Ninth Configuration... and the story of this film goes back even further, being based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, who also directed. It's not one for one identical, but it's a little eyebrow raising.
If we're going to compare it to other films Blatty was involved with, I still don't think it touches The Exorcist, but I think I liked The Ninth Configuration a little more than Exorcist 3. The surprisingly humorous elements added a lot to the film, and made Blatty and his slow-burn tendencies easier to get through. The performances throughout are also quite strong.
Visually, it's not as inventive compared to the writing, and I wasn't crazy about the pacing, but this was still a good watch. It was what I was expecting in many ways, but also surprised and intrigued me in ways I wasn't expecting.
Scorpio (1973)
An okay thriller.
There's a Burt Lancaster movie called The Swimmer that I used to get mixed up with an Alain Delon movie called The Swimming Pool (since I've seen the latter, it happens less often), and now here they are in a 1973 movie called Scorpio, which I keep mixing up in my mind with 1973's Serpico. Also, Lancaster and Paul Scofield have appeared in at least one movie together outside Scorpio: 1964's The Train.
All that fairly ordinary trivia from my memory is the review form of procrastination, because there isn't a ton to say about Scorpio. It's a sort of mostly okay thriller that feels a bit sluggish and far from gripping, but executes just enough things well to end up being decently watchable. It also made me think a little of Delon's Le Samourai, only here, he's more or less doing the pursuing rather than being pursued, with his target being a senior spy/former mentor played by Lancaster.
It's been done before and since, and better, too, but the premise still works well enough, and there are a few twists that make it pop just a little bit more. It doesn't feel like the sort of film with a ton of passion behind it, but everyone's doing a pretty good job in front of and behind the camera, and despite some slower parts, I think it ended up being an alright watch.
Christine (1958)
Not a bad watch
There are a surprising number of movies called Christine- a John Carpenter horror movie about a car, a depressing TV movie from the 1980s, and a biographical film about an emotionally troubled newsreader and the dramatic end of her life from a few years ago (to date, I've only seen the second of those).
There's also 1958's Christine, which, to be honest, I mostly chose to watch because it has baby Alain Delon in it.
It's beautiful people in beautiful locations a wrapped up in a fairly straightforward romantic drama storyline with a period setting. I don't think there was a lot to it, but it was a decent enough watch... there are certainly worse ways to spend 100 minutes or so.
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
The trouble with Trouble with the Curve is that it's really boring.
Trouble with the Curve sees Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino mode, only the film around him is much, much more boring.
That 2008 film always seemed like a good swan song for Eastwood's acting career, but I swear I remember Trouble with the Curve being announced as his last on-screen performance.
While I didn't love The Mule or Cry Macho, both were decent, and definitely better than this film at the very least. The latter does also serve as a bittersweet send-off to Clint's acting career. I hope his apparently final directorial effort, Juror #2, is also good.
There are good actors here and very little of it is offensively bad, but at the same time, my god is Trouble with the Curve a boring slog to get through.
12th Fail (2023)
It's fine
12th Fail is well-acted and I watchable, but I wasn't really enamoured with it the same way most people seem to be. It's about one guy studying really hard and facing adversity to get what he wants, and feels very matter of fact/paint by numbers for anyone who's familiar with this kind of underdog story. I just didn't feel like any part of it really excelled or made it stand out, and it was 2.5 hours of mostly decent stuff... of course, with that runtime, the film did end up feeling overlong, given the simplicity of the story.
Visually, there were some interesting longer takes early on, but it ended up feeling flat as it went along, besides the scenery. There's also at least one really bad zoom where they clearly zoomed in on a frame in post-production; it looked comically bad.
Music was good in parts, but a bit repetitive.
L'amour à la mer (1965)
New-Wavey, Romantic, and Quietly Sad.
Even with its brief runtime, Love at Sea meanders and kind of loses the plot a bunch of times, but would it even be a French New Wave film if it didn't? The descriptor of something being a feature rather than a bug comes to mind, because Love at Sea aims to capture life and young love in all its highs and lows, and to that end, I think it works. It's very easy to drift in and out of the film, and to that end, it's not exactly gripping, but watching it in such a way kind of works. It's hazy and tumultuous and scattershot and often plays out like a series of memories, and some beautiful-looking ones at that.
To add to that, the star of the show here is the visuals, which takes Love at Sea from being decent to often very good. Parts are in black and white, and other parts are in particularly striking color, and I couldn't pick which look I liked more. Both are impactful for different reasons, and the way it looks throughout is simply excellent. Did I fully understand why some scenes were in black and white and some were in color? Nope, but I couldn't work out why that approach was taken in something like Oppenheimer, either (reading other people's reviews of that film cleared it up). Maybe that's a me problem. Call me color-colorblind.
Anyone who's not crazy about the French films that made an impact in the late 1950s and then throughout the 1960s probably won't find Love at Sea makes them a fan of that movement in cinema history, but anyone partial to a movie like this should check it out. It's slow, breezy, and downbeat in a unique way, even when it's not exactly exciting to watch, and it looks beautiful throughout. I generally liked it overall.