I thought that was a given.

I Live in Fear (1955)*: A great postwar film. As always, Kurosawa sets up his shots so well. I'm not sure if another director is as strong at framing scenes, for some, it may be overdone, for me, the aesthetics of each shot could be a telling screencap. This film asks one of the ultimate questions about the nature of reality "after the bomb." Simply, how do we move on? How do we go to work? Protect our families? Is anywhere safe?

Toshiro Mifune is great in this film, it's one of his best performances, and I must have checked the Criterion website 3 or 4 times to make sure it was actually Mifune, completely transformed. Ultimately, you can see how this film lights the way for Rashomon in its dealing with the nature of reality. Is Nakajima wrong? Nope, but neither are his kids. It's a film that probably reflects you more than some objective reality. 4.5/5

That was my mini-review on my list. After reading through some of the 12 Angry Men comments, I couldn't help but think of that film during my viewing of I Live in Fear. Takashi Shimura struggles with some of the same questions that the jurors do, with a more uncertain conclusion in this one.

I don't recall much being said about it, though maybe I was just oblivious. Anyway, I just finished streaming The Horse's Mouth and OMG YOU GUYS IT'S HILARIOUS! My Letterboxd review:

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE READING EMAILS



The Horse's Mouth Qualifying Checks
-X- 1950s (1958)
-X- Language (English)
-X- Themes (Comedies, Little Something Extra, Technicolor)
-X- Spine Range #151-200 (#154)
-X- Read an Essay (The Horse's Mouth by Jonathan Benair, The Horse's Mouth by Ian Christie, The Horse's Mouth by Ronald Neame, Alec Guinness and The Horse's Mouth by Bruce Eder)

I finished watching Eclipse Series 28: The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara featuring five films by a man who is easily the most underrated Japanese director I’ve every encountered. I had never heard of him until I saw I AM WAITING (1957) on the Nikkatsu Noir box set (Eclipse Series 17) in last year’s challenge and it was easily the best film in that set. These five films—INTIMIDATION (1960), THE WARPED ONES (1960), I HATE BUT LOVE (1962), BLACK SUN (1964), THIRST FOR LOVE (1967)--are not that easy to describe and are not all that similar except for a certain boldness in style. None of them are exactly genre films. All have contemporary settings. They clearly carry the filmmaking spirit of the time (1960s) and seem to be influenced by the French New Wave more than anything else. The best of them, for me, are I HATE BUT LOVE and THIRST FOR LOVE.

I HATE BUT LOVE (1962) is about a TV star (Yujiro Ishihara) who is loved by his female manager but revolts against his overburdened schedule by agreeing to drive a woman’s jeep to her doctor fiancé in a poor village in southern Japan. (He’d picked the woman’s classified ad to be showcased on his TV program.) The movie becomes a wild road trip and a reality-show-style media frenzy. It’s very funny at times. It’s the only film in the set that’s in color.

THIRST FOR LOVE (1967) is a melodrama about a lonely, attractive widow (Ruriko Asaoka) who lives with her late husband’s family in a rural villa and sleeps with her father-in-law. She becomes obsessed with a young household servant and gets increasingly frustrated at his lack of response. It’s based on a novel by Yukio Mishima. After seeing the movie, I bought the novel and read it and then watched the movie again, which is probably as good an adaptation as one’s likely to get. I love the book, too.

I should also single out BLACK SUN (1964) because of its central culture clash between a petty thief obsessed with black jazz and a black American GI on the run from the military police. The thief is ecstatic to have a real black “friend,” while the GI doesn’t understand a thing the thief says and doesn’t care about jazz or anything else besides hiding from the MPs. It’s a great idea but it’s not fully developed and the character of the GI is never fleshed out enough to make this work and is poorly acted, to boot. (The actor who plays the GI, Chico Roland, is the same guy who gets his nuts pulled out by Sonny Chiba in THE STREETFIGHTER, if you remember that scene.)

There are a lot more intriguing-sounding films on Kurahara’s IMDB filmography. I hope we get to see more of his films.

Has any one seen The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum? I saw it last night and was blown away by how good it was.

I think I've set a post-marriage record with the number of films I've watched. I think I've averaged almost one a day this month, AND I'm pretty sure I've finished the checklist! Still have lots of mini-reviews to write and some other list housekeeping.

Not much more time due to work and preparing for the Horror Challenge, so I won't hit 30 films; but it's been nice to get Challenge momentum going all month long. It would have been even better if we didn't buy a 3D TV and have to watch a few kiddie films on that; and we decided to start our way through Lost this month.

Best new viewing of the month for me has been Le Trou, but I still have a new horror or two to watch on our last day/night.

I watched the movie quite recently and noted that the defendant's minority/ethnic/religious identification was never specified, but always referred to as "those people" or something similar. Ties in with the idea that stereotyping and opression of minorities is mostly about their minority status, not any particular characteristics they may or may not have as a group.

Ahem...that's "post-wedding," Trevor.

Not to make a thing out of it, but here's the Criterion.com synopsis:

As for me, I watched Homer Bailey throw the first no-hitter by a Reds pitcher since Tom Browning's 1988 perfect game (on TV, of course) and decided for reasons I cannot understand myself to follow that with Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses], reviewed on Letterboxd:

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE READING EMAILS



Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses] Qualifying Checks
-X- 1970s (1976)
-X- Language (Japanese)
-X- Themes (Amour Fou, Cult Movies)
-X- Spine Range #451-500 (#466)
-X- Read an essay (Nagisa Oshima on In the Realm of the Senses interview with Nagisa Oshima conducted by Katsue Tomiyama, In the Realm of the Senses: Some Notes on Oshima and Pornography by Donald Richie)

I am ready for some horror, so I put on the two Karloff pictures from the Monsters and Madmen box, and then Fiend Without a Face. Corridors of Blood is wonderful title, and the picture is quite good, but it's not so much a horror picture as film about addiction and murder. The Haunted Strangler, on the other hand is a terrific horror picture although the last act is anticlimactic. It's interesting that both pictures feature protagonists who start out with noble motives and are brought low by their own flaws.

Fiend Without a Face scared the bejesus out of me when I was a wide-eyed 7-year-old watching it on the local Saturday night horror show with Sir Cecil Creape. It still works for me despite the painfully dated stop-motion killer brains.

Just haven't had time to participate in the challenge this month with various commitments, football season, etc., but I finally got off the schneide by watching The Game for the first time. Holy shit! Love switchback/con movies, and now want to watch it with my kid, who I previously forced to watch The Spanish Prisoner and was a little underwhelmed (didn't make as much impact on me that time either, for some reason). Netflix, of course, sent me the crappy non-anamorphic Universal DVD, though it could have been worse: I put the disc in with the spine label up, and it was FOOL-SCREEN, but fortunately I flipped it over and at least it was WS. I finished the movie watching on my CRT in the basement so non-anamorphic was not an issue, but I was trying to work out at the time and had to stop because (1) quiet dialogue and (2) no English subtitles.

This Fincher guy--I think he has potential.

Meh - he's ok...

I've always enjoyed The Game. Was my first Fincher movie.

Wrapped up the challenge and met my goal of five new watches with The Ice Storm (1997) today, directed by Ang Lee. Surprised I hadn't heard of this before the challenge given the stellar cast and number of big name actors. The middle part of this was really solid, but I got kind of let down by the end. Either way, still one to check out if you haven't yet.

Plan to watch the original Cat People tonight for double credit with the Criterion and Horror Movie Challenge.

^I'm leaning towards the same film as I've not watched it in a couple of years and following it up with Invasion of the Body Snatchers or King Kong.

Spent last night with some friends, then came home and discovered that if I watch The Only Son & There Was a Father that I can knock out three of my remaining check marks so I started with the former. Here's my review on Letterboxd:

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE READING EMAILS


Hitori musuko [The Only Son] Qualifying Checks
-X- 1930s (1936)
-X- Language (Japanese)
-X- Watch films from five different directors in Criterion’s top 10 (Yasujiro Ozu)
-X- Theme (Tearjerkers)
-X- Spine Range #501-550 (#525)
-X- Read an essay (The Only Son: Japan, 1936 by Tony Rayns)

Glad you enjoyed it. I love the film; it combines one of my favorite directors with one of my themes (dysfunctional families) and some of my favorite actors. Earlier this year, I read the Rick Moody novel on which the film is based, and it is an excellent read.

I'm going to watch an Ingmar Bergman film later today, which will finish up the checklist. I've had The Magician in my unwatched pile since the last B&N Criterion sale. It's about time to pop that one into the ol' DVD player.

Doh!
That's been in my to-watch pile for way too long. Hopefully I'll get to it tonight.
I vaguely recall the ending not being as great as I hoped; and also it being really well shot. Looking forward to revisiting it someday.
I'll be watching Kuroneko for sure, and hope to squeeze in one other before dawn.
Great write-up on a great film.
I hope you mean BD player!

I chose today to finally watch HEAVEN'S GATE in its original theatrical cut--which I have on a pan-and-scan 2-tape VHS set. I chose today because I was pretty tired and had low resistance and figured I could just lie down and let it wash over me. I did nod out during it a few times, although I doubt I missed anything. Every scene would open, make its point and then belabor it for about an hour. Even then, it still took me 7 hours to finish it, what with bathroom breaks, meal breaks, a nap, and some chores. What a slog. I still don't know what the hell the point was. Immigrants=good, rich capitalists=bad. There were B-westerns that made that point so much more effectively in running times of 60 min. Needless to say, I won't be upgrading.

I've been told that the subtitles in the foreign language sequences seen in the VHS edition I have were missing from other editions.

I'm interested to hear what you thought of it! I watched it last year, having already by then seen the features from the Four Masterworks box (The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Virgin Spring and Wild Strawberries). I felt The Magician - filmed in the middle of that foursome - fit right in with them in terms of story themes as well as in quality of execution.

Thanks!

I just finished streaming the companion piece, There Was a Father. I feel kinda cheesy picking a Collector's Set with just two films (with a combined run time just under 3 hours), but the clock's a-tickin' and I needed a check mark! Anyway, here's my review:



Chichi ariki [There Was a Father] Qualifying Checks
-X- 1940s (1946)
-X- Language (Japanese)
-X- Watch films from five different directors in Criterion’s top 10 (Yasujiro Ozu
-X- Theme (Made During World War II, Tearjerkers)
-X- Spine Range #501-500 (#526)
-X- Read an essay (There Was a Father: Duty Calls by Tony Rayn)
--- Collector's Set: The Only Son/There Was a Father: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu (#524)

So many unwatched Criterions on my shelf

Squeezed in The War Room just now, leaving me only a short film on the checklist! Here's my review:



The War Room Qualifying Checks
-X- 1990s (1993)
-X- Language (English)
-X- Theme (Documentaries)
-X- Spine Range #601-650 (#602)
-X- Read an essay (The War Room: Being There by Louis Menand)

Aha! I finished the checklist by streaming the Charlie Chaplin short, The Idle Class! Here's my review, as shared on Letterboxd:


The Idle Class Qualifying Checks
-X- 1920s (1921)
-X- Language (English) (Silent)
-X- Watch a title not released on DVD by Criterion (The Criterion Collection on Hulu)
-X- Watch a short

Looking Back

I came into this challenge excited to make use of my HuluPlus account. Strangely enough, nearly a third of my selections were actually DVDs I checked out from my local library. Oh, well. It's nice to make use of that resource, too! Also peculiar is the fact that I somehow never got around to a single Ingmar Bergman film this year! I put him off till the end, as a sort of reward for making myself explore other filmographies, and then I just kinda ran out of time, choosing to complete the checklist instead.

I began the challenge with À bout de souffle [Breathless], which I found kind of wanting at the time. Now, a month later, its weaknesses have already begun to fade and I think back on it as that time when I spent an evening lounging in bed with a gorgeous woman, caught up in an adventure I couldn't really afford. It's not high art at all. Rather, it's the kind of story that seems to be more important than it is when you're young and everything in the world is urgent, but then later in life you see how silly it all was but by then you just kind of enjoy being reminded of having once been young. It's a sort of faux-nostalgia, I suppose, and that's its real appeal.

Japanese Cinema
When I looked back on the 2010 challenge, one thing I noted was that I hadn't explored any cinema from Asia and that I wanted to try to get to some of that in 2011. That didn't happen, but I finally did get to a handful this year. I found Kakushi-toride no san-akunin [The Hidden Fortress] was likable enough, but didn't really wow me. I'll explore more Kurosawa in the future, but I feel like in order to really appreciate his works, that requires more of a commitment from me than I want to make.

I also streamed a pair of Ozu films, Hitori musuko [The Only Son], which I found timely and relevant, and Chichi ariki [There Was a Father], which I just couldn't get into for various reasons. What I appreciated about both films was that Ozu distilled large social issues to essentially the relationships within a single family. It's not easy to do that without being reductive about the issues or turning the characters into one-dimensional placeholders.

My favorite Japanese film by far, though, was Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]. I had some complaints about it in my review, but Eiko Matsuda's performance - easily the most powerful of all the films I viewed this year - was so captivating that I can overlook those flaws. It's an unapologetic, unflinching and brazen performance; it's the kind of performance that reminds us why film is considered part of the humanities.

Chaplin
I saw my first two Charlie Chaplin films, The Circus and the short, The Idle Class. I wasn't really taken with either and I'll likely forget them entirely. A cinephile pal of mine remarked at one point that she strongly favored Buster Keaton to Chaplin, and though my sample size is very limited, at this point I concur with her. These two just didn't really do much for me, though I'm willing to continue exploring his work.

Guinness and Fellini
I've wanted for quite a while to delve further into Alec Guinness's works, and this challenge afforded me two opportunities: Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Horse's Mouth. In the former, he plays all eight members of a family targeted for murder; he wrote the screenplay of the latter. Both films gave me an interesting look at the comedic sensibilities of the venerable character actor, and were quite fun.

La strada was my second Fellini film (I first saw Otto e mezzo [8 1/2] last year). I came to it with a sense of enthusiasm and I really enjoyed its richness of character and setting. It didn't quite resonate with me in the same personal way as did 8 1/2, but I thoroughly loved it all the same. It would make for a fascinating double feature with Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, I should think.

All in all, this was a terrific challenge for me. I managed to make some progress on some personal goals, racked up a lot of checks on iCheckMovies and I had fun discussing both Bergman and 12 Angry Men here on the forum. I think this may be my personal favorite of our DVD Talk challenges, but don't anyone say anything to TV on DVD* or Historical Appreciation!

Awards
Favorite Film Overall: La strada
Favorite Performance: Eiko Matsuda, Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]
Favorite Music: Anton Karas's zither score, The Third Man
Funniest Movie: The Horse's Mouth
Best Way to Spend a Lazy Afternoon: Fishing with John
Most WTF Ending: À ma soeur! [Fat Girl]
Most WTF Moments: Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]

My List, Ranked by Entry Position on My Flickchart
0099 La strada
0132 Hitori musuko [The Only Son]
0144 The Third Man
0177 The Horse's Mouth
0194 Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]
0221 Kind Hearts and Coronets
0249 The 39 Steps
0251 Gimme Shelter
0253 Spoorloos [The Vanishing]
0354 Belle de jour
0368 À ma soeur! [Fat Girl]
0414 Les enfants terribles
0507 À bout de souffle [Breathless]
0570 The Hidden Fortress
0657 The Devil and Daniel Webster
0898 Young Mr. Lincoln
0937 Fishing with John
0949 The Circus
1017 The Idle Class
1074 Chichi ariki [There Was a Father]
1172 The War Room
1201 Secret Agent

I managed to finish off every Criterion I had recorded off my DVR and had been sitting on the hard drive for over a year. Not counting Eclipse, I watched almost every previously unseen Criterion that Netflix had on instant stream. The three I didn't get to were The Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights, and Following.

In the minor scope of things, I made good progress. I watched 3 new Eclipse and knocked off 35 more Criterions from my unwatched list. 260 Criterions and 131 Eclipse to go. I still have some unwatched DVDs and then there's Hulu, so I won't have a shortage of stuff to watch next year. I hit a vein of some good stuff this year, along with a bunch of stuff that I just find awful. There was a constant wave of good/bad/good/bad films this year.

My personal favourite part of that whole revelation is the subtle changes in expression, body language and tone of the last (reasonable) hold-out juror, E.G. Marshall. It's a masterclass in understated acting. The nose-pinching itself seems a little bit forced, but his shift from determination in the 'facts' to realisation that said facts are shaky at best and fundamentally flawed at worst is brilliant.

I quite agree - but I must correct you: in the film, we do (briefly) see the defendant. Right at the start.

Absolutely. The Internet (and The Simpsons) has perhaps helped crystallise the only two possible positions being "best ever"/"worst ever" - or totally (un)true, etc. - and it's not just 'bigots'. That 12 demonstrates that such absolutist thinking has been the case for decades is either reassuring (the world isn't collapsing thanks to the 'net) or deeply depressing (people have always been prone to idiotic (un)thinking).

However, it's also demonstrating that people break down big issues into personal opinion and experience - which is sometimes eminently reasonable.

I agree. But a degree of omnipotence allows for the gambit ("if I'm still alone, I'll give in") to be more reasonable than worrying. However accurate it might be, as a human response.

Oh, absolutely! It's arguable - if terrifying - that such a stand could only be made in a fictional setting. In the real world, one presumes that lone jurors would be railroaded into joining with the masses - or sending in a swift hung jury verdict - rather than allowing for debate and reason to win through.

Particularly since he makes it quite clear that he doesn't as such believe the defendant is not guilty. He's not making his stand based on a belief of innocence, he's merely - perhaps - being bloody-minded(!) and pointing out that there's a slim chance that all the evidence is circumstantial. Which is still a fair leap of logic at the end of the film, let alone at the start!

I also think it's a better film for allowing Fonda to doubt the boy's innocence. For making his righteous stand based on the law, not on the truth (if that makes sense). There's still a strong possibility that the boy killed his father - albeit probably with some justification/provocation - but it simply hasn't been convincingly proven beyond "reasonable doubt". It's a very subtle point, that probably passes many viewers - and isn't necessarily that important in absolute terms - but I think it makes for a better, if more ambiguous, study.