mystery meat's movieverse

by **inmate** » Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:38 pm

remember the night is so fucking good

by **Spooky Jim** » Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:03 pm

You know who'd love this thread? My mom. And she's pretty cool really.

by **carlagain** » Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:10 pm

i wanna go to la fémis do you think that can happen for me

by **Plainsong** » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:01 am

What are your Laughton rankings so far mystery meat?

by **mystery meat** » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:05 pm

top shelf

advise & consent
hobson's choice
the old dark house
the sign of the cross
ruggles of red gap

really good

the big clock
the private life of king henry viii
mutiny on the bounty
the hunchback of notre dame
witness for the prosecution

meh

the canterville ghost
the barretts of wimpole street
the paradine case

barely remember and need to revisit

spartacus

by **Franco** » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:25 pm

I’m gonna be underwater in here but I’d like to at least read and learn. Up next in my 1940-1980 project is Journey to Italy, which I think falls in the purview of the OP

by **mystery meat** » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:30 pm

it definitely does, that's one of my fav movies. bergman's and rossellini's relationship is so fascinating but don't ever read Donald Spoto's Bergman bio it sucks. stoked to hear your thoughts.

no worries about feeling underwater, this thread is a welcoming space for anyone remotely interested in this stuff.

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:31 pm

THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR | Paramount | Billy Wilder | Ginger Rogers / Ray Milland | 1942

fuck no. can't do it. i'm not one of these people who retroactively cries foul at Maurice Chevalier singing Thank Heaven for Little Girls at the beginning of Gigi, but Ginger Rogers playing 12-year-old Sue-Sue with lollipop in hand is really icky and unwatchable. this isn't hindsight knows best so much as the early 40s over-frothed wartime movies consistently force some really naive constructions of interpersonal human relationships and anyone who has ever innocently liked this movie is too repressed for their own good, and if you assess it in the larger framework of Billy Wilder being one of the most misogynist and disillusioned dudes in filmmaking history (who would later call this 'the first American movie about pedophilia') then it's even grosser. and if you block all that stuff out and discipline your brain to engage with this movie on the most innocent and naive face-value terms, it's still pretty lame and goddamn i just wasn't in the mood for the kind of 'jokes' that function as studio propaganda ala that Veronica Lake gag. Wilder's Love in the Afternoon is a lot more substantive and honest and emphatically sordid in dealing with age disparities in Hollywood star couplings and it's an endlessly more fascinating viewing.

stay tuned tomorrow i'm gonna write-up this underrated 1954 Richard Quine noir in conjunction with the recently rewatched Double Indemnity to get at why Fred MacMurray is the equal of Dick Powell for switching between family comedy dweeb-dope and the best kind of noir bitterness cinema has to offer.

by **palmer eldritch** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:43 pm

that movie sounds insane

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:44 pm

a lot of these movies are too old to be good

by **alaska** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:50 pm

wow post as hell

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:52 pm

mystery meat wrote:

A MODERN MUSKETEER | Douglas Fairbanks | Allan Dwan | 1917

this is a movie to watch for Fairbanks doing cool cartwheels and handsprings and furniture-jumping stunts. he's this midwestern dude whose mom did nothing but read Three Musketeers while pregnant and so he's basically D'Artagnan reincarnated. like most silent movies, there's a love triangle pitting dashing Fairbanks against some materialistic stuffed shirt in pursuit of a woman with minimal agency, and it gets more when an outlaw Indian chief has designs on her too. it's a lot of the ingredients of rugged pioneer silent cinema -- dumb and problematic but also kinetic and pictorially gorgeous -- though not quite top-tier Fairbanks, or top-tier Dwan for that matter. but it's certainly better than Dwan's 1939 Three Musketeers starring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers, which is an abomination. also apparently Victor Fleming assisted on cinematography for this picture, that's the kinda trivia i live for.

like this one? just way too old

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:03 pm

i'm cursed to lead the life cinematic

by **landspeedrecord** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:05 pm

you should watch some pre-code movies, stakeout. pre-code films are fucking wild

I'm not going to act like the major and the minor's politics are radical or progressive, but I think its egregiousness is fairly overstated here. it's a totally unremarkable lubitsch riff. the films wilder was writing before this one (ninotchka + ball of fire in particular) feature much more interesting characters and transcend their conceits. the best part of it is the title (and the dry martini line, which people tend to get a kick out of)

anyways, watch sylvia scarlett instead!

george cukor, 1936. the first pairing of cary grant (who uses a terrible cockney accent) & katharine hepburn, who spends almost the entire film pretending to be a young boy. it was a huge box office failure at the time, but its slippery gender politics have made it a classic of early queer cinema

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:06 pm

they made movies this year

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:06 pm

i've watched literally every pre-code movie ever made. i worshipped at the altar of william a. wellman. but now? too old. those movies.

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:14 pm

you were just in love the Wild Bill mystique but then withdrew when u realized he directed shit like Blood Alley, The Great Man's Lady, and Stingaree

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:16 pm

i liked the dry martini line better in that one simpsons ep

i like Sylvia Scarlett but is it too precious for its own good? is the open-air theater-troupe hyperdrive whimsy too much? YOU be the judge!

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:17 pm

can't trust old movies or old movie boys...better to stick to new movies.

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:25 pm

i watch new movies but they’re banned from being discussed in this thread

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:26 pm

do you wanna watch spiderman into the spiderverse with me

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:28 pm

yeah that looks sick, also im a spideyhead from way back

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:29 pm

we can crush a couple of mcchickos

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:32 pm

idk what that is

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:33 pm

hey nathan wrote:and Youre Never Too Young

Taurog on tap!

by **soft milk** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:34 pm

mccheekies with cheesies

by **mystery meat** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:35 pm

i'll just be tackling one of these

by **palmer eldritch** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:37 pm

natural and artificial, the two great flavors

by **Plainsong** » Sat Dec 15, 2018 6:10 pm

Watched DeMille's Cleopatra last night and it floored me.

by **mystery meat** » Sat Dec 15, 2018 6:34 pm

DeMille is so underrated. he got sideswiped by auteurism somehow. one of the all-time giants and pioneering craftsmen and unbeatable at what he did etc

mystery meat's movieverse

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