MADE IN U.S.A / 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER d: Jean-Luc Godard
Made in U.S.A. (1966)
Direction: Jean-Luc Godard
Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard; from Donald E. Westlake’s novel
Cast: Anna Karina, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marianne Faithfull, Yves Afonso
2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle / 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
Direction and screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Marina Vlady, Joseph Gehrard, Anny Duperey, Roger Montsoret, Raoul Lévy, Jean Narboni
When the young cinephiles who would later spawn the French New Wave attended screenings of Hollywood films at the Cinémathèque Française, they often found themselves watching prints lacking French subtitles. Not all of these men understood English, but they stuck it out anyway. After all, you can still learn from a film even if you can’t quite follow the dialogue; [...]
by Dan Erdman | August 16, 2009
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Tags: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle, Anna Karina, Classic Movies, Crime Movies, Criterion Collection, DVDs, Film Reviews, Jean-Luc Godard, Made in U.S.A., Marina Vlady, Political Movies
THE FALLEN IDOL II – Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan
Ralph Richardson in The Fallen Idol
THE FALLEN IDOL Review: Part I
Things are cleared up before the end, after a number of plot contrivances — not the least of which is the mediocre police investigation. Compounding matters, The Fallen Idol offers subpar acting (Henrey and Morgan phone in their performances), stereotyped characters (e.g., the cops and a Cockney prostitute), and some bad cinematography by Georges Périnal. Again, it’s not that the images are in themselves bad; it’s just that they are inaptly applied to the situations in which the characters find themselves. For instance, angles are skewed in an attempt to add tension to banal scenes, an approach made worse by William Alwyn’s melodramatic musical score, which stands in stark contrast [...]
by Dan Schneider | January 10, 2008
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Tags: Bobby Henrey, Carol Reed, Classic Movies, Criterion Collection, Curse of the Cat People, DVDs, Film Reviews, Georges Périnal, Michèle Morgan, Ralph Richardson, Sonia Dresdel, The Fallen Idol, William Alwyn
THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS Review Part II
Edouard Dhermitte, Jean Cocteau in The Testament of Orpheus
Oh my, how poets suffer! It seems that the Orpheus characters, Death (Maria Casarès — who did not age well; she actually resembles Vampira from Plan 9 from Outer Space) and Heurtebise (François Périer), resent being conjured by the magic of a poet, and want to try Cocteau for his sins. Of course, his sin is not sinning, and his sentence is being condemned to live — a wistful thought for the then seventy-year-old Cocteau, whose own real life son Edouard Dhermitte reprises his role as the poet Cégeste from Orpheus.
The whole trial scene plays out like a retarded ‘lost’ episode from the classic 1967 surreal British television series The Prisoner, [...]
by Dan Schneider | December 17, 2006
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Tags: Classic Movies, Criterion Collection, DVDs, Film Reviews, Gay Interest, Jean Cocteau, Le Testament d'Orphée, María Casarès, The Testament of Orpheus
