April 9, 2012

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

By michaelgloversmith

1. The Strawberry Blonde (Walsh)
2. Escape from L.A. (Carpenter)
3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone)
4. Macunaima (de Andrade)
5. Fort Apache (Ford)
6. 3-Iron (Kim)
7. The Gospel According to Matthew (Pasolini)
8. Trick or Treat (Smith)
9. Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
10. Chronicle of a Boy Alone (Favio)

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About michaelgloversmith

Filmmaker, author and Film Studies instructor. View all posts by michaelgloversmith
This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2012 at 2:20 pm and posted in The Last Ten Movies I Saw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

12 responses to “The Last Ten Movies I Saw”

  • Zach Olmstead
    April 9th, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    How were the last two John Carpenter movies you saw?

    Have you seen Trick ‘r Treat, directed by Michael Dougherty? It’s a great modern horror film.

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      April 9th, 2012 at 10:08 pm

      I think Ghosts of Mars is Carpenter’s worst film. Escape from L.A. is fun but it suffers from having a plot that is IDENTICAL to Escape from New York.

      Yeah, the wife and I saw Trick ‘r Treat about a year and a half ago. We enjoyed it – more than this unrelated film from the 80s with the same title.

      Among the other movies I saw, Fort Apache and The Gospel According to Matthew are magnificent new blu-rays. I saw The Strawberry Blonde on VHS and was blown away by it. It’s a great comedy from 1941 set in the late 19th century about a love triangle between James Cagney (as a hotheaded dentist!), Olivia de Havilland and Rita Hayworth. The more films I see by Raoul Walsh the more I realize that he was one of the all-time great Hollywood directors. He was a true auteur whose movies have a singularly wild energy.

      Reply
  • david
    April 10th, 2012 at 2:26 am

    How do you like THE THING? I’m not a horror film fan but I’m interested in this film.

    Also,some Raoul Walsh recommendations?

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      April 10th, 2012 at 8:38 am

      The 1982 version of The Thing is Carpenter’s masterpiece. You should check it out.

      The quintessential Raoul Walsh film is The Roaring Twenties from 1939. It’s the best gangster movie ever and one that Scorsese has said provided the template for Goodfellas and Casino. It tells the epic story of the rise and fall of a gangster beginning in WWI, continuing through Prohibition and ending in the Depression during the early 30s. James Cagney’s lead performance is phenomenal. Other must-see Walsh films are The Thief of Baghdad, High Sierra, Pursued and White Heat.

      Reply
  • Bherz
    April 10th, 2012 at 5:01 pm

    Mike did you show Fort Apache or The Good, Bad, Ugly for your class? I really enjoyed this time watching The GBU and its bringing out subtle difference between the Ugly and the Bad. It’s hilarious the townspeople looking in shock as the bad deeds of the Ugly (I don’t know the actor’s name) are being read out — rape, murder, robbery, etc. — yet we still like him. Maybe Lee Van Cleef’s crimes are the same, but its his weirdly cold sadistic personality that makes him “bad”.

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      April 10th, 2012 at 5:31 pm

      It’s really funny you should say that, Ben. I did in fact screen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in my Global Cinema class and most of our post-screening discussion was devoted to how all three characters are essentially “bad” (don’t forget that Blondie, who is also an outlaw, leaves Tuco in the desert to die) and that it’s just a matter of degree between them.

      I showed Fort Apache in a Film & Society class and that also went over well. I think in many ways it’s the ultimate John Ford film: it’s got Monument Valley, John Wayne AND Henry Fonda, the conflict between settlers and Indians, singing and dancing, drunken Irishmen, action, humor and romance. It also celebrates the pageantry and tradition of the military while simultaneously showing how crucial it is to question military authority. Finally, like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it is also a film about the mythologizing of the west.

      Reply
      • Bherz
        April 10th, 2012 at 9:03 pm

        You know I was thinking, Blondie leaves Tuco in the desert and says 70-80 miles back about? I think it’s reasonable to think a person like Tuco could make that; if you walked 3-4 miles per hour in two 10 hour episodes. So does he really leave him to die? However, could you then immediately start drinking hard liquor and be a perfect shot on the target range (once Tuco gets back)?

      • michaelgloversmith
        April 11th, 2012 at 2:07 pm

        And this proves my point about a “matter of degree,” Ben. Blondie left Tuco in a position where he MIGHT have been able to make it out alive but there was also a chance that he might not have. Angel Eyes wouldn’t have left any doubt about the matter!

  • Omar Pineda
    April 10th, 2012 at 5:56 pm

    Last Ten Movies I Saw
    1. I, The Worst of All (Bemberg)
    2. My Left Foot (Sheridan)
    3. The Onion Field (Becker)
    4. Pollock (Harris)
    5. That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel)
    6. Bad Timing (Roeg)
    7. The Piano (Campion)
    8. Battle for Dien Bien Phu (Batty)
    9. All The President’s Men (Pakula)
    10. Coonskin (Bakshi)

    Reply
  • Omar Pineda
    April 11th, 2012 at 11:44 am

    I did see I, The Worst of All. The Piano i saw at home. I, The Worst of All was an amazing. Great filmmaking. I was hoping the source used for the DVD was better or that something better were around. Nope.

    That was a great movie. A read a review on it that said something about it being Bunuel’s worst, but that his worst was still miles better than other peoples’ best. Damn shame the DVD is oop

    Reply
  • Bherz
    April 11th, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    I, The Worst of All looks great — I just saw its streaming instantly on Netflix (ughhh) — I may do it though.

    Reply

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