Don't be fooled: Although I was taught French for three years when I was a teenager*, about 90 % of my French vocabulary stems from the fact that I find cheesy French crooners from the fifties and sixties irresistible (though not Maurice Chevalier for some reason. Possibly because I remember hearing him sing 'Thank Heaven for little girls' when I ( Read more... )

It's Frank Capra month down at the film club. I'm not a big fan of Capra - I just can't buy into that sentimental retreading of "humble everyman teaches the fatcats/girl/himself what life is all about how great it is to be a Caucasian American male, and in the final scene everybody hugs with tears in their eyes" (I realize Arsenic and Old Lace ( Read more... )

You know how I am with Peter Lorre. You know I'm the same way with Conrad Veidt. Not to mention Humphrey Bogart. Lucky for me, they're all in Casablanca. Today I happened to discovered that they all starred in a movie called All Through the Night the year before, and it turned out to be easy enough to pirate get hold of ( Read more... )

Yes! Success! Triumph!

For years I've been wanting to see the Leslie Howard/Bette Davis/Olivia de Havilland vehicle It's Love I'm After and tonight I finally got to see it ( Read more... )

Talked my sister Tiny (and her fiancé, but he didn't need to be talked into it) to watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the pretext that I should show her that Clint Eastwood was a yummy yummy man once upon a time. And compare Blondie with Wolverine, because we do things like that ( Read more... )

You know, there are several similarities between this bout of influenza-with-added-infections-no-extra-charge and that time I had mono: Like being long-term ill, lying in my mum's living room all day, too little sleep and salivating over Greg Wise in period costume.

Greg Wise in period costume obviously being the best part.


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Do you realize I've just spent two weeks watching Kurosawa's Seven Samurai? I really really liked it, but watching a three-hour movie when you've only got it as a video file on your computer (because, you know, ahem) and you're seeing your family and friends again for the first time in four months means largely watching it in periods of fifteen ( Read more... )

I wonder if it makes me a cinetast wannabe if I admit I get through the slower parts of Akira Kurosawa-movies by gratefully ogling Toshirô Mifune ( Read more... )

I finally got my hands on one of those British WWII propaganda movies starring Leslie Howard I've been meaning to see - Pimpernel Smith (a.k.a. Mister V) from 1941. I think these kind of movies are very interesting relics of their time - the gallant Englishman shames the Nazis with his bravery and intellect, and in the closing scene the music ( Read more... )

Again back from the film club, and after watching The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) I've come to realize a couple of things:

You know that creepy guy who was the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? That was Robert Helpmann, a celebrated Australian ballet dancer! Also he was kinda hot. And Wikipedia tells me his obituary in The Times described him ( Read more... )