Category Archives: Movies
Caturday Cat thinks He is God
Truth be told, unlike Gaitonde, the mob boss brilliantly played by Nawzuddin Siddiqui in Netflix’s original series, Sacred Games, boss cat thinks he is God. at all times, not just some of the time. So far I have progressed to 5 episodes of Sacred Games.
Ashwathama
Halahala
Atapi Vatapi
Brahmahatya
Sarama
I sense a theme of death and immortality going on here. More on the Games, later after I have finished watching the remaining three episodes. Are you watching it?
* Translation: Sometimes I think, I am God.
Spring, The Season of Love
A Purrfect Love Story
By two_kittehs (Picture by: cvf)
Happy Gudi Padwa, the first day of spring and the New Year. Its time to welcome spring and the new year by celebrating love. Starting the new year in spring makes much more sense than the dead of winter, isn’t it?
And now a celebration of love.
I heard this today, from the recently released Phillauri. I think I am in love. The very last lines, slay me.
Tere bin saas be kaanch si kaate re,
Zindagi raakh si laage re
Translation: Without you , every breath cuts like glass
Life feels like ashes.
ETA: Check out Diljit Dosanjh, you won’t be sorry, Anushka Sharma, too looks radiant.
It is Time… Emissary, DS9 Season 1, Episode 1
Moving is not fun, no matter how many times I do it. Whether it is across continents and oceans, states or to the neighboring town, it never gets easier. I am so glad that the Insufferable Movie Snob kept the blog going on, posting her detailed and funny reviews. If you haven’t already checked out her reviews you should do so now. She rocks! Here is a link to her last review.
My last movie/TV review post before my brief unplanned hiatus was on Star Trek Deep Space 9. Unlike The Next Generation, aliens of DS9 were more than just obnoxious caricatures and Star Fleet officers were not always perfect. Main and recurring characters experienced growth and change. The show had strong women characters who had more to do than just look pretty. I have be re-watching DS9 since the fall and I for one would like to revisit Terak Nor more than once. It has a wealth of episodes pertinent to this moment in history that we are all a part of.
When I asked which episode you wanted me to review, these were the episodes that came up in the comments.
His Way (6.20)
Its Only a Paper Moon (7.10)
Far Beyond the Stars (6.13)
Blood Oath (2.19)
In the hands of the prophets (1.20)
A Time To Stand (6.1)
Tears of the Prophets (5.26)
Once More Unto the Breach (6.7)
In the Pale Moonlight (6.19)
Most of these episodes are in seasons 6 and 7 when DS9 reached its climax. Because of the serialized nature of the show I think it would be better to go in chronological order. So people who haven’t watched DS9 before, can join in if they want to.
With that in mind, I will start at the beginning with The Emissary. I also think Duet, is a must watch of the season one episodes and we can end our season one watch with In the Hands of the Prophets. If you would like me to cover any other first season DS9 episodes leave a comment.
This is a complete list of season 1 episodes. Without further ado let’s dive in and begin at the beginning.
Holiday Movie Club: “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940)
Streaming Alert: If you’re a cable TV subscriber, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) should have this available for streaming on their WatchTCM website and app for at least another couple of weeks.
It’s Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy New Year to those who don’t (we can all agree that the year ends on December 31st, right?) This holiday film is one of my all-time favorites, though it’s a “Christmas movie” in the same way that, say, Die Hard (1988) is a “Christmas movie,” because it takes place during that season while not having anything to do with Santa Claus or Jesus or “the magic of the season.” The Shop Around the Corner (1940) involves two parallel stories about the beginning of one romantic relationship and the painful end of another, which lends it that air of melancholy that all of the best Christmas movies have. We can appreciate the happy ending our main characters have because we know the potentially sad ending years down the road.
We start with Ernst Lubitsch, one of the few directors in classic Hollywood who was so well-known, he had his own tagline: “the Lubitsch touch.” Of the films he made under the censorship regime of the Production Code, this is one of the best examplars of how he was allowed to handle themes that were supposed to be strictly forbidden (like suicide and adultery) because the censors trusted him to use his “touch” to make the audience empathize with the characters rather than using the themes for cheap sensationalism.
(For a glimpse of what Lubitsch was capable of under less restrictive censorship, take a look at one of his greatest films, Trouble in Paradise (1933), covered by yours truly over at my Pre-Code films blog.)
This film was very personal for Lubitsch because the character of Mr. Matuschek (played by Frank Morgan in probably his best performance) was partially based on Lubitsch’s own father, who was a similarly tyrannical shop owner in Berlin while Lubitsch was growing up — the young Ernst even worked at his father’s store as a teenager. It was based on a Hungarian play about a perfume shop and adapted by one of Lubitsch’s regular screenwriters, the great Samson Raphaelson. It has been adapted several times as a film (including In the Good Old Summertime (1949) and You’ve Got Mail (1998)) and even a Broadway show (She Loves Me), but none of the remakes has ever equalled this simple story of Matuschek and Company, “just around the corner from Andrassy Street – on Balta Street, in Budapest, Hungary.”
Weekend Movie Club: “His Girl Friday” (1940)
I have to admit, I was really torn between reviewing this movie and Holiday (1938), because I love them both so much, but I think this one dovetails nicely with our current election situation, because it’s all about the press being venal, self-serving, and short-sighted, and only stumbling on the truth by a convenient coincidence. His Girl Friday (1940) is a deeply, deeply cynical movie at its heart, and that truth is only slightly concealed by the charms of its stars.
Since I was apparently too subtle in mentioning that The Haunting was adapted from Shirley Jackson’s novel of (almost) the same name, I will say right up front that His Girl Friday is an adaptation of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s The Front Page, a classic play that, like Jackson’s book The Haunting of Hill House, I’ve never read. There are a couple of different stories about exactly what made director Howard Hawks realize that The Front Page‘s bromance between reporter Hildy Johnson and editor Walter Burns could be made into a straight-up hetero romance rather than a story filled with repressed homosexual love, but it makes perfect sense that Hawks would be that guy. Of the “Golden Age” Hollywood directors like John Ford or Frank Capra, Hawks always had the most consistently strong women and always seemed to be the most comfortable with women who could hold their own with and be accepted by the male characters while still being sexy romantic leads. Even when he made a musical starring Marilyn Monroe, in Hawks’ hands it became the story of a strong friendship between two women, not just a story about gold-digging showgirls.
One thing before we start: director Hawks specifically wanted to replicate the fast-moving, fast-talking action of the stage play, so if you have any kind of hearing issues, you may want to turn the closed-captioning on so you don’t miss any vital plot points. The technology of the time required that a series of concealed microphones — up to 35 for a single scene — be turned on and off at precise times, a task made even more difficult by the fact that Hawks encouraged his leads to improvise their dialogue. Though it must have given the sound men conniptions to try and keep up, the effect makes the film still seem fresh and modern 76 years later, and of course the fashion for snappy overlapping dialogue continues to this day.
Weekend Movie Club: And the Winner Is …
Since it’s Cary Grant movies, I think we’re all winners here, don’t you? But if you want to know which movie to watch for next week, the winner is …
(insert drumroll here)
Weekend Movie Club Poll: A Little Cary Grant
We can all use an escape after the events of November, can’t we? So let’s escape all the way into one of these classic Cary Grant movies. Vote on the one you’d like me to write about for discussion next week. As always, I’m giving you the opportunity to vote early and vote often!
Note: for some reason, the original trailer for two of the films isn’t available on YouTube, but I picked the clip that either the home video company has decided is the “new” trailer or a short clip that I think gives a good idea of what the film is like.
Also, I will have a special non-voting Christmas edition of the Insufferable Movie Snob right before the holiday, so stay tuned for that as well.
Ready for USS Defiant?
Since I have been sick the past two weeks, I have been remiss in posting reviews. To take my mind off the election results, I was watching the last episode of the Season Six Dominion arc, Sacrifice of Angels and was struck by the parallels between our times and the DS9 universe. It’s the best of all Treks in my opinion. I love the interplay between the various races, the villains who are unapologetically wicked but have human failings and Garak!
Do you have a specific episode you would like me to review. Leave your selection in the comment section. I will do a poll of the first four by Wednesday. Here is the entire episode list for DS9. DS9 is available for streaming on Amazon Prime and CBS.
Until then enjoy the Klingon Kitteh, one of my lols that got more than 1000 votes when it made to the first page on ICHC, a few years ago. Kittehs + Trek = Win Win!
By two_kittehs
Halloween Movie Club: “The Haunting” (1963)
Haven’t you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just… catch something out of the corner of your eye?
Every fan of The Haunting has at least one story about seeing it, and often more than one. Here’s one of mine:
Years ago, G (my now husband) and I went to see it on a triple bill at an old movie palace in downtown Los Angeles. The college kids sitting behind us mocked it at first: old-fashioned, black-and-white, Julie Harris’s oddball whispered voiceovers.
But then, as the film went on, they got quieter and quieter. Finally, about half an hour in, one of them turned to the other and whispered, “Is it just me, or is this movie kind of getting to you?” And then they shut up for the rest of the film.
That’s the kind of horror movie The Haunting is. It’s not a slam-bang special effects spectacle, or a gross-out endurance test. It sneaks up behind you and lays a cold hand on your neck, whispering to you, asking if you’re sure you know what that noise in the dark was that you just heard.
A quick technical note before we begin: when you see the film, make sure you get a letterboxed copy and not one of the older pan-and-scans. You will literally miss out on half the movie if you don’t get the full widescreen version.
Schroedinger's Cat 