Filmography
Jul. 7th, 2012 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyPrincess Mononoke
I could have sworn I'd seen this before, but apparently not. This is another Studio Ghibli number, this time with a bit of valourisation of humble peasant living and the evils caused by industrialisation, and the need to respect The Land. There are some complicating factors, such as the fact that the woman who runs the industrial city that's poisoning the mountain upon which much of the action takes place gives jobs and homes to ex-prostitutes and lepers, which makes it less easy to draw facile moral conclusions than one might be tempted to - but one also gets the sense that these additions have been added for precisely that reason, rather than for any deeper reason of character. Enjoyable, but not half as good as My Neighbour Totoro.
The Worst Witch
I only got this because Diana Rigg plays Miss Hardbroom, and as I am now a bit of a Diana Rigg fan, I rather fancied seeing it. Oh, and Tim Curry as the Grand Wizard or whatever he is. It's all hilariously 1986 in terms of budget production values and CGI - I remember it being so much better, but such is the nature of childhood memories. It's not aged well, but Diana Rigg does steal pretty much every scene she's in, and that was more or less what I was after.
School for Scoundrels
It's probably sufficient to say that this is a Terry-Thomas special. Ian Carmichael plays Henry Palfrey, a man desperate to win the affections of April (Janette Scott), but who must battle the suave and sneaky Raymond Delauney (Terry-Thomas) for her. In an attempt to get the upper hand, Palfrey attends the Academy of Lifemanship, run by Mr. S. Potter (a superb Alastair Sim), and not only manages to sort out all the other people in his life taking advantage of him, but Delauney too - only to let sincerity get to him in the nick of time, thus ensuring a successful relationship with April and the horror of Mr. Potter. Who breaks the fourth wall in the last few minutes of the film to actually hilarious effect. If you don't like this sort of 1950s/1960s stuff, don't bother, and it is (naturally) in some parts absurdly sexist. But it does send up that genre of 'how to get ahead' books of the period absolutely beautifully.
The Bounty Hunter
I appear to be going through something of a Gerard Butler phase. The story follows an ex-cop, now bounty hunter (i.e. a man who hunts down people who have jumped bail and gets paid for doing so), who discovers his ex-wife has jumped bail and that his next job is hunting her down. Which he does with considerable verve, only to discover that her reason for jumping bail is because she's on the trail of a murder story. The plot follows their attempts to find out whodunnit, to work out whether they actually still have a relationship, and the open question of whether or not he will actually take her to jail. The her, incidentally, is Jennifer Aniston, who I think actually does a good comic turn and I enjoyed her performance. I felt a bit less certain about her really creepy work colleague who seems to think they have a relationship and won't actually take no for an answer. He was... misjudged, I think. I have never before felt that a character deserved it when he got socked with a golf club. Anyway. Far from perfect, but moderately entertaining.
Bringing Up Baby
A classic of the genre, from 1938, featuring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. And a leopard called Baby. Grant plays a paleontologist who finds himself ensnared in the somewhat eccentric capers of a heiress who (it turns out) is the niece of the woman who may give money to his museum. It is, I believe, one of the foundations of the 'screwball comedy' genre, and how could a film featuring not one but two leopards be anything else? It may also, incidentally, include the first use on-screen of the world 'gay' to refer to homosexual (Cary Grant is wearing a feathered negligee at the time). The film has apparently been selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", although what to make of that I don't know - all I do know is that it's jolly amusing and good fun.
I could have sworn I'd seen this before, but apparently not. This is another Studio Ghibli number, this time with a bit of valourisation of humble peasant living and the evils caused by industrialisation, and the need to respect The Land. There are some complicating factors, such as the fact that the woman who runs the industrial city that's poisoning the mountain upon which much of the action takes place gives jobs and homes to ex-prostitutes and lepers, which makes it less easy to draw facile moral conclusions than one might be tempted to - but one also gets the sense that these additions have been added for precisely that reason, rather than for any deeper reason of character. Enjoyable, but not half as good as My Neighbour Totoro.
The Worst Witch
I only got this because Diana Rigg plays Miss Hardbroom, and as I am now a bit of a Diana Rigg fan, I rather fancied seeing it. Oh, and Tim Curry as the Grand Wizard or whatever he is. It's all hilariously 1986 in terms of budget production values and CGI - I remember it being so much better, but such is the nature of childhood memories. It's not aged well, but Diana Rigg does steal pretty much every scene she's in, and that was more or less what I was after.
School for Scoundrels
It's probably sufficient to say that this is a Terry-Thomas special. Ian Carmichael plays Henry Palfrey, a man desperate to win the affections of April (Janette Scott), but who must battle the suave and sneaky Raymond Delauney (Terry-Thomas) for her. In an attempt to get the upper hand, Palfrey attends the Academy of Lifemanship, run by Mr. S. Potter (a superb Alastair Sim), and not only manages to sort out all the other people in his life taking advantage of him, but Delauney too - only to let sincerity get to him in the nick of time, thus ensuring a successful relationship with April and the horror of Mr. Potter. Who breaks the fourth wall in the last few minutes of the film to actually hilarious effect. If you don't like this sort of 1950s/1960s stuff, don't bother, and it is (naturally) in some parts absurdly sexist. But it does send up that genre of 'how to get ahead' books of the period absolutely beautifully.
The Bounty Hunter
I appear to be going through something of a Gerard Butler phase. The story follows an ex-cop, now bounty hunter (i.e. a man who hunts down people who have jumped bail and gets paid for doing so), who discovers his ex-wife has jumped bail and that his next job is hunting her down. Which he does with considerable verve, only to discover that her reason for jumping bail is because she's on the trail of a murder story. The plot follows their attempts to find out whodunnit, to work out whether they actually still have a relationship, and the open question of whether or not he will actually take her to jail. The her, incidentally, is Jennifer Aniston, who I think actually does a good comic turn and I enjoyed her performance. I felt a bit less certain about her really creepy work colleague who seems to think they have a relationship and won't actually take no for an answer. He was... misjudged, I think. I have never before felt that a character deserved it when he got socked with a golf club. Anyway. Far from perfect, but moderately entertaining.
Bringing Up Baby
A classic of the genre, from 1938, featuring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. And a leopard called Baby. Grant plays a paleontologist who finds himself ensnared in the somewhat eccentric capers of a heiress who (it turns out) is the niece of the woman who may give money to his museum. It is, I believe, one of the foundations of the 'screwball comedy' genre, and how could a film featuring not one but two leopards be anything else? It may also, incidentally, include the first use on-screen of the world 'gay' to refer to homosexual (Cary Grant is wearing a feathered negligee at the time). The film has apparently been selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", although what to make of that I don't know - all I do know is that it's jolly amusing and good fun.
