ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

I love it too, despite Jean Arthur

*ducks*

Aw, I like her in it a lot. But OK, the female lead is the one admitted advantage Casablanca has then

Casablanca totally wins in the star power stakes I'm sorry - Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess and Noah Beery Jr are fine, but stacked up against Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre?

I've written on ILX that Jean Arthur and I are not simpatico, The Talk of the Town and The More the Merrier excepted.

these are .... kinda forced criticisms as far as they are criticisms imo

"ive nothing bad to say about this but gimme five mins"

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, September 28, 2023 1:56 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

sure I wondered if I needed to post tbh, but was curious if anyone had had the same experience / genuinely lament that the film was essentially drained of energy for me before getting to see it. Daniel's SW response was interesting, as this really is the only film I can think of where I've had this experience, partially down to how thorough the parodies sometimes were. Like as a counter-example, when I saw Taxi Driver I'd def heard the mirror bit dozens of times before, but none of the rest of it was familiar. Casablanca I'd heard quotes, misquotes, plot points, etc. I honestly think it's a bit strange! totally subjective too of course, just an odd quirk of my personal childhood media consumption choices

tbf the oft quoted/parodied bits of Taxi Driver are really only a couple of scenes or so. I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references as Casablanca and SW - Wizard Of Oz maybe? I liked that when I saw it but perhaps not as much as I could've.

it would be funny if Scorsese's Taxi Driver monologue got parodied in Tiny Toons or whatever

I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references

yeah this was what I was trying to get at. this is *the* exemplar of this phenomenon for me, having somehow missed it until my 20s

what truly killed it for me was seeing THAHN before it, on the big screen too. plus, y'know, the cheesy script. plus seeing it on a plane lol

xp maybe tbf maybe

there's definitely examples where id personally feel similarly but im not sure to the point where it obscures the movie (then how would one know i suppose)

Oh, and "As Time Goes By" is truly one of those Golden Age Hollywood songs that still kills it every single time

What is THAHN. Sounds like a Shah Rhukh Khan vehicle from the title so I'm in favour of it pending future info.

To Have and Have Not?

sadly the latter

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

― rob, Thursday, 28 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

First time I saw any number of Kane scenes it was like "oh so that's what that Simpsons episode/other parody was ripping off".

That kind of thing enhances the enjoyment.

it would be funny if Scorsese's Taxi Driver monologue got parodied in Tiny Toons or whatever

(In the goodfeathers segment, which is otherwise mainly a parody of pesci’s “funny how?” scene - 11 year olds in the 90s were mad for send ups of that and also rain man)

I could see the brain doing Marty’s bit from TD

Yes wins I was thinking of that exact reference and parody combination, thus my choices :)

(When I mention the Scorsese monologue I do mean the Scorsese monologue, not the DeNiro one.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVUDfCiMPs

Enjoyed this as much as ever - this project seems to have gifted me the ability to focus more on films and get more out of them, but there wasn't a lot of extra detail here, just an appreciation of how tight and small the story is, doesn't amount to a hill of beans, etc. Think Rick is kind of a petty prick for a while, it's the fucking nazis ffs, but he needs to be to create tension. Maybe this is why it's a film I can appreciate a lot without actively loving it - it's such a Hollywood view of How Anything Works - done brilliantly of course, but for all its perfection still doesn't quite move me the way my favourite films do.

Anyway, on to the next.

https://i.imgur.com/UyL3XxL.jpg

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid, 1943

Morbsies #96
Sight & Sound Critics #16
Sight & Sound Directors #62

Silent version is on youtube here
Version with music by Teiji Ito (1959) is on vimeo here

Meshes of the Afternoon is a one-and-done deal for me.

It's obvious you're not a woman

unfuckwithable

“The ritualistic form treats the human being not as the source of the dramatic action, but as a somewhat depersonalised element in a dramatic whole. The intent of such depersonalisation is not the destruction of the individual; on the contrary, it enlarges him beyond the personal dimension and frees him from the specialisations and confines of personality. He becomes part of a dynamic whole which, like all such creative relationships, in turn, endow its parts with a measure of its larger meaning.”

she didn't say that about meshes, but it's something i think about a lot

Flashback to a terrific late-2000s Spectrum gig at the Echoplex which used Meshes… as a backdrop and source for some very good video effects.

I liked this, but just as much as a load of other experimental short films I've seen. Mirror-face was the best character. Reminded me of Jan Švankmajer's Alice, a very formative film for me.

Might watch it again tomorrow, it is only 13 minutes after all.

CASABLANCA and MESHES are both perfect

yes, agree

Love Meshes of the Afternoon for its economy (in terms of setting, cast, budget, running time) in creating a world.

I first saw Meshes in a college film class and it BLEW MY MIND. (One of those moments when college really is everything it's supposed to be.) It still pretty much does.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Colonel_Blimp_poster.jpg

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943

Morbsies #69
Sight & Sound Critics #196

This on is on youtube in its entirety!

tried to get into this could not do it, i should try again maybe. scorsese talks about it in these reverential terms

I interviewed Jyoti from White Town for my radio show and he said it was his favourite film, and I promised to watch it. That was a couple of years ago and only getting around to it now, sorry Jyoti!

I'll, ahem, rescreen this one. Loved it but it's been decades.

l like this, very much

Great film

I like it a lot but it's not my favorite Archers.

I've yet to see a truly bad Archers.

BFI season coming up so I still might!

fantastic film! my Archers rankings change all the time, but I definitely wouldn't start with this one at the very least

Just finished Colonel Blimp, excellent of course but I'll have a sleep on it to think about what I really thought, etc. And then on to the next one.

So yes, a very enjoyable watch, not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not something so lush and cinematic. The characters were full of surprises, and all felt very human and also of their time - it's an annoyance to see historical fiction with people acting as they would today, so this isn't the mild praise it may seem.
The problem I have is that I've just spent a year immersed in the second world war and have come away from it with a desire to avoid all WWII-related materials for the foreseeable future, especially slightly jingoistic (as much it needed to be!) British WWII takes. The film does take a critical line on British culture, but it obviously was no time to rock the boat, and right now I want to see that boat rocked, and rocked hard. No fault of The Archers, of course, and I'm looking forward to seeing their other films.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Double_Indemnity_%281944_poster%29.jpg

Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder, 1944

Morbsies #107

The film does take a critical line on British culture, but it obviously was no time to rock the boat

But it very much did rock the boat! As the Criterion website puts it:

No less than Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself tried to prevent Colonel Blimp from being made; he and his administration objected to what they considered to be slurs on the British military, to the friendship between Candy and the German officer and to the implication in the final scenes that unless the British fought dirty, they would lose the war.

oh I know! it balances things well enough that it was able to be released, even if it was not received well by certain people.
But I'm just a bit burnt out on the war.