Nick Danger

I remember the first time Chinatown was shown on television, years ago. It had to be edited for length to fit into the timeslot, but the story is so tight that nothing can be cut. They finally used a new technology, speeding up the playback by a few percent.

Nick Danger

We watched Some Like It Hot. As expected, Billy Wilder surpassed the genre limitations.

The heros, jazz musicians, are introduced as cads and experts at dodging creditors. They have no problems avoiding being arrested when a speakeasy is busted. Then they take advantage of a woman they know for money and her car.

They witness a mob hit, and escape town by dressing as women and joining an all-girl band. They try to milk it for what it's worth, including by nailing Marilyn Monroe under false pretenses, and by accepting gifts from a naive millionaire who thinks they're hot (!).

The movie has an amazing string of dirty jokes that got by the censors. The girls don't know the new women are guys, and run around in lingerie asking things like, "Does anyone want some salami?" and "Do you have maraschino cherries?"

George Raft plays the gangster, and he gets his digs in at Cagney, like trying to slap someone in the face with a grapefruit (with a maraschino cherry on it). Joe E. Brown is charming as the naive millionaire. I'll have to look for more movies with him in it. Marilyn Monroe is good as a comic actress, and she has really friendly breasts. I'd take hers over Mamie van Doren's any day. Lemmon and Curtis are awful as women, but no one in the movie notices. All the cads hit on them, and they don't like it much being on the other side.

I liked the movie, and expect that it would be funnier on further viewings. It has good rewatch potential. But it's on the list adjacent to The Third Man, Paths of Glory, Taxi Driver, and Spirited Away. Even if some of them are harder to rewatch, I like all those movies better. I am glad to have watched it, and I'm glad I own it.

mookyman

A little late this week. I saw Treasure of the Sierra Madre on TCM this weekend, and I thought it was great. It was interesting seeing Humphrey Bogart play a shadier character than I'd seen him play before. I would definitely like to pick up the DVD at some point - what a fun movie.

sundog

Hmmm . . . I unwittingly qualified for this challenge last night by watching my rommate's copy of Traffic (2000) ranked #232 or such.

Good movie, though some story elements are a bit heavy-handed for my tastes (Douglas and his daughter). Del Toro is mesmerizing though and I was finally able to enjoy Don Cheadle in a role. Nicely shot and expertly paced, Soderbergh is a fine, fine director, which makes his leap into commercial pap (Oceans Eleven) even more frustrating, for myself.

chente

Well, I'm about 3 weeks behind on the challange but I'm trying to catch up. I finally watched Schindler's List last night for the first time. I thought it was a good movie although I was expecting more. The subject matter is obviously relevant and important and I thought the cinematography was very good as well, but I was put off with the heavy-handed direction. Obviously, a director tries to set mood but I don't need to be hit over the head to understand. The small amount of use of color seemed very gimmicky to me as well. The end scene where Oskar broke down saying he could have done more felt very contrived to me. That being said, I really liked all the acting performances in the movie. Fiennes was particularly good and Kingsly, Neeson were also good.

Overall I liked the movie but don't feel that this movie lived up to its hype. I feel that the Piano or Life is Beautiful are better movies dealing with this subject matter.

shill66

I haven't seen The Godfather yet. But I'm not participating anyway...