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Hateshinaki yokubô (1958)
An endlessly disappointing film from a great director.
This movie, which borrows the basic scenario from an obscure 1930's film staring Edward G Robinson. It attempts to be a screwball comedy, a noir, a will-they-won't-they romance and a drama. It fails to be satisfying in any of those categories.
The majority of the first hour left me bored, which is the worst sin in cinema. The movie picked up towards the end and became more enjoyable.
Would I judge this movie more lightly if it was by a lesser director? Probably, but I still wouldn't enjoy it. If you haven't seen an Imamura flick, check out The Pigs and Battleships instead.
Häxan (1922)
I prefer the 1968 remake
The 1968 version shortens the time, replaces the music with that of a jazz quartet and adds a wonderful narration by William S Burroughs. Burroughs is somehow the perfect fit for this.
As for the film, there's plenty of striking and outlandish sights to he seen, although you're not going to get pulled in by what little story there is. It's very creepy and slightly psychedelic (of course the film was made before psychedelic drugs were invented.) so it's a great film to watch on Halloween, and I can imagine it would also be excellent if you were tripping. I've never tripped, so I can only speculate.
The film, even the 1968 version, eventuality begins to drag until it's slowed down to a sluggish pace. You'll find yourself dismayed at the prospect of yet another staging of witches doing basically what they did every other "reinactment" in the film
Overall, it's a decent film, and the sets were quite complicate for the time period, but one could feel forgiven if they begin to feel bored after a half hour.
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Bogart's best picture
While ostensibly a mystery film, the movie is wholly dedicated to relationship of Bogart and Graham's characters and that's a relationship we watch slowly decay in a captivating way for a good half of the film.
Prone to anger, paranoia, whatever else neurosis, this is a portrait of two people who are ultimately unable to love, or at least maintain a relationship. Hence they both live "In A Lonely Place" living in the world but unable to make intimate contact with it.
The acting and cinematography is beautiful, and the script. The direction (by Nicolas Ray, who had directed Bogart before) and script are both great.
It's a haunting, striking, dark, and indeed - lonely - film.
Take the Money and Run (1969)
Arguably Allen's best "earlier, funny" film
This is my favorite Woody Allen film. Fill stop.
Allen plays a terrible petty criminal. Not terrible as in a bad person, but terrible as in terrible at his... Uh, profession.
Describing the plot any further would be a waste of your time and mine, but there are so many great scenes and I do want to mention a couple to intime would-be viewers to sit down and watch the damn thing.
Take, for instance, when Allen's character fails to rob a bank because the bankteller couldn't read his handwriting on the note he passed her. What follows is a small gather of bank employees huddled together, trying to decrypt the note while Allen argues with them.
In another scene, we find out hero imprisoned. He agrees to some jailhouse experiments in exchange for freedom. The doc injects him with a cure for whatever, then check on him sometime later. He was sitting there, with a huge beard, dressed in Rabbi's garments and explaining Passover to his fellow inmates.
Finally, and chronologically firstly, we see Allen's character playing cello in a marching band. The band matches around as Allen run along to keep up with them, before playing the cello for a few seconds then repeating it all.
As you can see, the humor in this movie draws on the absurd, and like great absurdist works, it's a pure joy from start to finish.