Oh! Katharine Hepburn! I mean, I must have seen her in a colour movie before, but it’s… shocking… for her to not be in black and white.

So, this is a David Lean movie? I’m not really a fan of his. I mean, I like his movies, but I don’t really make an effort to watch them, either. So I’m not sure why I got this bluray — it might just be the Hepburn connection.

Is this one of those movies that were financed by the Tourist Board of ? I’ve seen more than a handful of those movies from around this time: Like the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce trying to encourage people to fly down there, so they sent some money to a slightly out-of-work director and/or actor, and then you hope for a huge box office success. (All the movies I’ve seen in that class of films, like the Powell/Pressburger one, have sunk without much of a trace.)

Nice…

*gasp* LOOK AT THIS:

I WANT TO STAY IN THAT HOTEL WHERE DO I BOOK

Hepburn is amazing here. But I can’t imagine that this was a box office smash? It’s too real.

:

In one scene, the character of Jane Hudson falls into a canal as she steps backwards while photographing Di Rossi’s shop in Campo San Barnaba. Leading lady Katharine Hepburn, concerned about her health, was disinclined to do the stunt herself, but Lean felt it would be obvious if he replaced her with a stunt double. He filled the water with a disinfectant that caused it to foam, which added to Hepburn’s reluctance, then required her to film the scene approximately four times until he was satisfied with the results. To protect her skin, Hepburn was covered with Vaseline. Later that night, Hepburn’s eyes began to itch and water. She was eventually diagnosed with a rare form of conjunctivitis that plagued her for the remainder of her life.

Directors! They’re the worst!

This is a beautiful movie, and Hepburn is fantastic in this. The first half, which is basically just Hepburn, is totally perfect. When we eventually get to the romantic interest, it’s still fine… but not as fascinating.

Summertime. David Lean. 1955. ⚄

I’ve seen this before, but it’s been like a decade. And this time it’s on 2K! More pixels!

I remember it being awesome.

So where’s Isaach De Bankolé, then? … Oh! I was thinking of Chocolat, the 1988 Denis movie. Which I saw around the same time as I watched this one.

But this is like the opposite of that one…

Oh, yeah — this is a reference to the genocide in Uganda? Where radio shows would stir the pot…

Man, Isabelle Huppert is tiny…

Oh durr! Herp derp I eat paste. That’s Isaach De Bankolé…

This movie is a lot more frustrating than I remembered. It’s like a slow-moving horror movie where the protagonists refuse to realise that they’re in a horror movie. You feel like sitting there then entire time shouting GET OUT at the screen for like an hour.

It’s so tense I had to take a couple of breaks to just cool down a bit.

So I guess that’s brilliant film-making? To make the viewer care that much?

White Material. Claire Denis. 2009. ⚄

I watched an Elliott Nugent film yesterday — and it was a really screwy screwball comedy. And I see I have two more films by Nugent here, so here goes.

This seems like it’s more of a… comedy horror film? It starts off like a kinda-sorta serious thriller, I guess…

Well, there’s Bob Hope, so the jokes should commence soon…

Nice.

Leading lady arrived, too.

Well, this doesn’t seem to be a screwball comedy. Instead it’s, well, one of them there slightly meta comedy horror films? It’s amusing, but I haven’t laughed yet…

See? Slightly meta.

Indeed.

This is very amiable indeed, but it feels oddly padded. I mean, it’s a 75 minute long movie, so you’d expect it to zip along. And the script has good bones — everything you need for something like this, and the actors are great. But it’s like they had a finished script with lots of asterisks for “perhaps Bob can improv a gag here?” and then Bob didn’t. So you get scenes that seem to lack zip.

But people really like it:

This has always been one of my top10 favourite films, since I first saw it in 1972, at least 14 times since. Bob Hope was still a little green at this stage, but you can almost see (and hear) him coming of age in CATC, his comic delivery technique and timing noticeably improved by the end.

And I do see how this could be somebody’s favourite movie… it’s got something going on. So perhaps it’s just me…

Yes, that’s how you should look going to bed.

*gasp*

But… no. I mean, I like this movie. It’s fine. But it’s not all there. So:

The Cat and the Canary. Elliott Nugent. 1939. ⚃