Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Sumka Dipkuryera - 1927 - 6/10
AKA - The Diplomatic Pouch

Silent Soviet espionage thriller set in the Soviet's version of England, then afloat the steamer, Victoria.
A diplomatic bag, meant for the Bolsheviks, is being furiously sought by Police Inspector White
(undoubtedly a play on the Reds enemy, the White faction).

Cat n mouse struggles play out inside the confines of cramped and claustrophobic ship.
The villains of the piece, the British secret police, will stop at nothing to intercept the documents.
In their way are the stalwart, Soviet seaman.  Comrades united against capitalist dogs.

The first twenty minutes of the film are considered lost, though you can pick up the narrative easily enough.
Imaginative, expressionistic camera work (director Dovzhenko plays the stoker), energetic music score.
Preachy and dated, but taut and enjoyable, nevertheless.

Note:  The film is easy enough to locate, but subtitles are another matter.
Most subs are for the 70 minute film, though all existing prints are 50 minutes.
Go here for more or less proper subtitles -

 

http://www.addic7ed.com/movie/101550

I resynced the timings, corrected grammar, spelling, and changed some words to clarify the inter-titles.If anyone who can read Cyrillic wants to suggest an improvement, please advise.

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

My Afternoons With Margueritte - 2010 - 6/10

Nice, feel-good, French film.
Village laborer (Depardieu) begins spending lunch on park bench with elderly woman (Casadesus).
She begins reading aloud to him, gradually reawakening his own lapsed reading habits.
Nice relationship between the two, as well as with friends at the tavern.
Love interest between burly laborer and fetching bus driver completely implausible.
Casadesus (born 1914) is exceptional at any age.
Depardieu solid as ever, yet I found his sheer bulk distracting. His gradual metamorphosis into Jabba The Hut is grotesque.

[Vultural]

Nostalghia - 1983 - 5/10

Thirty years ago, I paid good money to see arthouse fare such as this, only to exit afterward thinking myself shallow and stupid.
Now, older and more jaded, I wonder how much responsibility the filmmaker bears.
Had they been too oblique, too steeped in symbolism to make sense?
I’m not advocating for dumbed down cinema, but if the majority of viewers cannot fathom the plot, then the director is squarely at fault.

Joint Italian/Russian film of Russian poet living in Italy, researching a book on an obscure Russian composer.
He keeps daydreaming about the wife he left behind.  Or is she dead?
He and his translator ponder the village idiot, a rambling old man and his dog.
Rain pours most of the time, or sets are shrouded in fog.
The beautiful blonde Italian translator wants to have a baby.  Maybe.  Or perhaps she had an abortion.
Multiple meanings abound, as do veiled narratives.
Most positive reviewers noted one needs to watch this numerous times to appreciate.
I should live so long.

[Vultural]

The Imposter - 2012 - 7/10

Maddening docudrama based on true life disappearance of 13 year old Texas boy.
Who shows up three years later in Spain.
Family hurries to fetch their blonde haired, blue eyed relative, who now has brown eyes, dark hair, a French accent, and a five o'clock shadow.
The family, classic example of no child left behind, shrugs and says, "Welcome home!"
That's about midway.  Film then takes bizarre, unbelievable turns, which you had to believe because they were true.
Great stuff which will have you going WTH throughout.

[Vultural]

Danny Collins - 2015 - 6/10

Al Pacino as aging / elder pop music icon.
Think Neil Diamond.
For a birthday gift, his manager (a very dry, Christopher Plummer) finds a vintage fan letter that somehow never made it into Danny’s hands.
From one John Lennon.  What do you think of that, Danny Collins?
This has a profound impact, as the singer wonders how much of the artist he sacrificed in pursuit of popularity and wealth.
He sets about getting his life in order.  Writing his own songs - reaching out to his estranged son.
Feel good territory, but not too over the top.
I am not a Pacino fan, but he is better here than in most of his films.
His usual shouting and yelling mannerisms to get his points across are absent in this one.

[Vultural]

Haunting In Connecticut 2 - Ghosts Of Georgia - 2012 - 5/10

Family (Ma, Pa and female young un) move to banged up ranch house out in the swamp.
There is an empty trailer nearby, so when wife's sister (Katee Sackoff) rolls up she has a place.
From the get-go, there are ghosts, weird animal traps, visions, coupled with the slow revelation.  The females all share the "gift" for seeing beyond this world.
The plot really doesn't amount to much, though the effects team went hog wild with noises, shaky camera, juttering images, to make you think something was happening.
OK time waster if nothing else is on.

I yanked out the atlas.  Connecticut is 1000 miles from Georgia, and the film title meaningless.

[Vultural]

Gespenster - 2005 - 6/10
AKA - Ghosts or Fantasms

Troubled teenage girl, doing community service from the looks of it, watches an older girl being beaten by two men.
The chance encounter leads to bonding - sort of.
The older girl is harder, manipulative and demanding.  The younger girl had dreamed of the older one, and there is now a sense of wish fulfillment and projection.
A secondary plot follows a middle aged women, recently released from a medical institution, who searches for the child she lost over a decade earlier.
A girl who would be just about the same age as the young girl.
The movie, while filmed in hard light most of the time, has a dreamlike quality to it.
One could view any or all of the character comments or histories as real - or fantasies.
Likewise the characters themselves.
Arthouse film - French / German production.

[Vultural]

Maltese Falcon - 1931 - 5/10

First filmed version of Hammett's novel remained faithful to the plot.
Riccardo Cortez's Spade was a breezy, cheery private eye, though.
Maybe because client Ruth Wonderly (the very steamy Bebe Daniels) ran short of hard currency, but offered soft assets in exchange.  Note the date, this was PreCode.
No wonder Sam was so happy.
Next morning, while she was sleeping one off, detective Spade rummaged through her belongings, digging for clues.
Film not bad, not good either.  Dragged at times.
Cortez either miscast or misdirected.  In or out of clothes, Bebe remained easy on the eyes.

[Vultural]

Firestorm - 2013 - 6/10

Reassuring to know Hong Kong is still capable of cranking out a classic heist flick with action overload.
After a somewhat artsy opening, the lens focuses on a gang preparing an armored car robbery.
Cops led by Andy Lau are on the alert, but too slow.
Several other capers follow.
Plenty of style in this.  Terrific stunts.  In extended gunfights, both sides seem to use tracers.
Fantastic looking.
Docked a couple points for lack of substance.  Narratives are frenetic and incoherent.
Great time waster, but not top tier.

[Vultural]

Traitor - 2008 - 6/10

Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce star in terrorist / espionage thriller.
American Muslim Cheadle, after suffering a crisis of faith, switches sides and helps terror cell in Yemen.
Pearce the CIA op tracking him down.
Solid location photography, tense cat n mouse plot, several twists.
Well acted all around, and seemingly unbiased, but I never got involved with any of the characters.

[Vultural]

Paddington - 2014 - 6/10

Fun childrens movie, though not necessarily for children of all ages.
Paddington the bear, stows away on a cargo ship from darkest Peru to visit London explorer who met his aunt and uncle decades earlier.
In London, he meets the Brown family and has adventures.
Highly enjoyable for those in room who had never read any of Michael Bond’s stories, or for those who had never seen any of the shorts narrated by Michael Hordern.
Seasoned fans thought this a dumbed down version.
One viewer even took issue with Paddington’s hat.  Red, which seems to have originated with the cartoon series.
Therein is the short answer - This movie has its roots in the cartoon show.
Paddinton is foolish, almost ridiculous in this version, but the storyline was approved by author Bond (cameo - man waving at bear).

[Vultural]

Manson - 2009 - 5/10

Lightweight documentary about Manson family as told by Linda Kasabian.
She has been in hiding since the 60s.
Perhaps interesting if you know zero about the group.
Ed Sander's Family remains definitive on the early Manson era.
Prosecutor Bugliosi's Helter Skelter is the one to read for the trial.

[BorisVictor]

Thank you for bringing less known movies to all our attention. Not much replies on your work, but I keep a close eye to your input.

In my opinion your a superstar to keep informing us about less known movies and your honest  reviews. Keep them coming, my friend!

[Vultural]

Thank you for your comments.

As observed, I tend to view "other" films.  I do watch mainstream hits, but rarely comment on them.

[Vultural]

The Toll Gate - 1920 - 7/10

Hard scrabble western.
Outlaw leader (William S Hart) advises gang the reward for them is too high and they ought to disband.
Not surprisingly, the men opt for one final big score.  Train carrying a hefty payroll.
Only the train is packed with lawmen and the Army.  The men are cut to pieces - save for the outlaw leader, and the snitch who betrayed his companions.
From here on, the story is one of vengeance.
Slow going, seldom dull, but a moral code - typical of Hart - overlays the tone.
Interesting to observe the clothes, hats, manners, far different from TV Westerns or films from the 40s onward.

Hart is not the easiest of silent stars to watch - Tom Mix is loads more fun, though more rhinestone.

[Vultural]

Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Sing The Whites? - 2012 - 7/10

Documentary tracing the rise of the British blues groups.
First part covers touring black elder statesmen:  Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson . . .
Then the Brit generation follows:  Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, ending with Zeppelin.
Well done, though I wish the younger batch could lose the apologetic guilt.  Face it, when the old men died out, those skinny white kids were the ones who carried the tradition.
Doc packed with moments and stories.
Yardbird frontman Relf still missed.

[Vultural]

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - 2012 - 5/10
AKA: Vous n'avez encore rien vu

Only myself to blame for this pretentious two hour artsy film.
Deceased director summons ex-actors to view a modern production of one of his works, based on Orpheus And Eurydice.  While they watch, they reimagine their own versions.
Sometimes, you are watching three versions of the same scene.
The look is theatrical, stagebound, indoors.
Very fine acting from France's creme de la creme of actors, yet I was bored out of my skull.

I need to take a break from all these indie / arthouse flicks.

[Vultural]

Poison Ivy - 1953 - 6/10
AKA - La Môme Vert de Gris

Casablanca  police hear a dying gang member ramble about $20 million in gold, US transport, and an imminent date.
Baffled, they alert the US consulate, who contacts the FBI, who ship off crack agent, Lemmy Caution.
First of the Lemmy Caution series starring craggy faced (mirror breaking) Eddie Constantine.
This bears all the trappings of Noir:  shadows, endless cigarettes, smooth gangsters, seedy nightclubs, hard dames.
Only, this is too lite for Noir.  Breezy almost playful, and the fisticuffs are ridiculous.
Moreover, Lemmy always seems three steps ahead of the muscle and the brains.
Enjoyable from start to finish, but pure marshmallow.
Compensations include nightclub dancer that US censors would never tolerate.

[Vultural]

The Hobbit: Spence Edit - 2014 - 6/10

Fan-editor Spence combined the bloated Hobbit trilogy into one film, running three and a half hours.
Virtually all moronic humor was cut, as were most Elvish appearances not in the Tolkien book.
Big omission, Beorn.  Otherwise, one doesn’t really miss the rest.
The plot stays coherent and works.
If anything, more characters could have been tossed, meaning the bulk of the dwarves. Tolkien never elaborated on two thirds of them and most could have been dispensed with.

To be honest, though, near the end I was ready for the whole movie to come to an end.
Certainly not the fault of Spence, who has done a magnificent job here.
The narrative is sluggish and bombastic.  Much of the film was miscast - sacrilege I know, but Martin Freeman’s portrayal of Bilbo never rang true for me.
Still, there are Hobbit fans galore, and this edit - which is easy to track down - is a very enjoyable way to watch it in one sitting.
Also, fans of the film might score this much higher.

[Vultural]

The Sheik And I - 2012 - 7/10

Infuriating documentary of small (very small) American indie filmmaker invited to make film for biennial celebration for the Kingdom of Sharjah.  Huh, where?  Tiny kingdom is one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates.
Without writing a script, the film maker decides to do the one thing he was told not to do, mock the ruler of the country, the Sheik.
Several of his scenes involve having extras don burqas and wave guns. ("Isn't this the typical stereotype of Arabs?"  one asked the director.)
He tries to recruit locals to impersonate the Sheik, and is warned of repercussions. He shrugs. Is reminded, you go back to America, but these people have to live here.
Tries to coerce women to dance in burqas, though that is expressly forbidden.
Director, Caveh Zahedi, of Iranian descent, is every inch the entitled American, I-can-do-anything-I-want artiste.
Zero respect for the country, their social orders.
Film was quickly banned for blasphemy and director Zahedi threatened with a fatwa.  
This cringe inducing film drove me up the wall, and everyone in the hutong was screaming at the screen at various times.
Yet I believe that was exactly the reaction he aimed for, so I'm giving it high marks for hitting those buttons.