891movies - Tumblr blog

[891movies]

my life has fully been put on pause as i wallow in the feelings dancer in the dark awakened in me

[891movies]

[891movies]

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul/Angst essen Seele auf, dir. by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1974)

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“Time no longer existed. There existed only a secret and unspoken pleasure I experience in hearing the echo of our footsteps in that silent city.”

Senso (1954) dir. Luchino Visconti

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The Lady Vanishes (1938) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

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The Evil Dead (1981)

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LUCILLE BALL AS BUBBLES DANCE, GIRL, DANCE (1940) Dir. Dorothy Arzner & Roy Del Ruth

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Dance, Girl, Dance (1940, dir. Dorothy Arzner): This movie is flawed (the dialogue and editing in particular are very clumsy at times) but I love it so much. Lucille Ball absolutely steals the show but Maureen O'Hara deserves a lot of credit as the rare "good girl" of the era who actually got to show some claws. Not to mention her monologue at the end, truly one of the most electrifying moments in 1940s cinema!

The Evil Dead (1981, dir. Sam Raimi): Weird, scary, and gory as all hell. Obviously it's cheap and none of the characters get even a hint of development but it's a lot of fun anyway. It did get a bit too gory for me at the end, but I'm a sensitive soul and the effects were still very impressive.

The Lady Vanishes (1938, dir. Alfred Hitchcock): An all-time great Hitchcock film to me. The mystery is gripping and the characters lovable, and most of all it's a lot of fun (not to mention much less pessimistic than Hitchcock usually is)!

Senso (1954, dir. Luchino Visconti): That's a lot of trouble to go through for a man with an ass that flat.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder): Rooting for those crazy kids even though she's kinda racist and he copes by cheating. And it figures that the German remake of a sweet, beautiful American melodrama would be so bleak and show so much full frontal nudity.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, dir. Lars von Trier): My search for a von Trier film I don't like continues because he knocked it out of the park with this one. Björk might deserve more of the credit here, though, and also jail time for weaponizing her powerful voice to emotionally destroy me like that. Now excuse me while I go cry for days and days.

[891movies]

Napoleon (1927, Abel Gance)

[891movies]

Terms of Endearment (1983)

Directed by James L. Brooks Cinematography by Andrzej Bartkowiak

“Impatient boys sometimes miss dessert.”

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Marilyn Monroe in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) dir. John Huston

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Lo Mang and Kuo Chui in Five Deadly Venoms (1978)

《五毒》

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The Asphalt Jungle (1950, dir. John Huston): Not gonna lie, I struggled to pay attention to this one. There were a couple of lovable characters and some intriguing turns but mostly I found this movie boring. The fucking nerve of having Marylin Monroe take up 60% of the poster when she's only in it for about five minutes!

Terms of Endearment (1983, dir. James L. Brooks): There is something very real about this movie - love a toxic mother-daughter relationship where the mother is a complex person and not 100% evil - but my god, did the cheesy music drag it down.

Napoleon (1927, dir. Abel Gance): This film is incredible. So impossibly grand and ambitious, that at 330 minutes it still doesn't tell the whole story. So technically innovative, so creative and ahead of its time, it honestly blows my mind that it was made in the 1920s. Even almost a century later, that triptych sequence still stands unmatched in its sweeping glory.

Um. Now all that being said.... I don't tend to care for war films or biopics and while Napoleon is an excellent example of both, it had an uphill battle to climb in getting me interested in the subject matter. That's not to say it never captivated me - there were a lot of scenes that had me sitting on the edge of my seat - but ultimately, I admire it a lot more than I enjoyed watching it.

My favorite scene (aside from the glorious triptych sequence) I actually enjoyed more for its meta textual context. Since Napoleon was originally meant to be only the first of six parts, it only tells the rise part of this rise-and-fall story. However, some seeds are planted that foreshadow Napoleon's inevitable downfall and this happens most overtly in a scene right before he goes to Italy. He stops by the empty National Assembly hall and while there, feverishly promises the imagined ghosts of fallen revolutionaries that he will lead the revolution across Europe. It's some of the most incredible acting in all of silent cinema, I got literal chills watching it.

Anyway, this was the longest entry I had left by far so I'm both glad and a little saddened to have it out of the way. And at least it was a shorter and more enjoyable viewing experience than Gance's seven hour incest movie!

[891movies]

Body Heat (1981).

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Nicholas Ray - Bigger Than Life (1956)

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On the set of Shoot the Piano Player (1960), François Truffaut

[891movies]