Bloodline (1979)

 

BLOODLINE  (1979)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Terence Young

    Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, James Mason,

    Omar Sharif, Romy Schneider, Irene Papas,

    Gert Fröbe, Michelle Phillips, Maurice Ronet

A jet-set murder mystery starring Audrey Hepburn as a woman who takes over a large pharmaceutical company after her father's death in a mountaineering accident (which wasn't really an accident). Now it's up to inspector Gert Fröbe and his trusty computer to figure out whodunit, before Audrey becomes a casualty herself. It's elegant junk, with locations all over Europe and enough famous faces playing the greedy suspects to at least keep you wondering who the killer might be. Hepburn made just a handful of films in the last 25 years of her life. Movies like this could be one of the reasons. 

Blancanieves (2012)

 

BLANCANIEVES  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Pablo Berger

    Marabel Verdú, Macarena Garcia, Sofia Oria,

    Daniel Giménez Cacho, Angela Molina, Inma Cuesta

A red curtain opens up on a dark screen. The screen stays dark for a moment, and when it flickers to life, you're watching a silent movie, in black and white, with the same aspect ratio as an old silent film. This one was shot in 2011, and it looks great. It's set in 1920s Spain, and it's a retelling of "Snow White", in which Snow White is a matador and the seven dwarfs are itinerant bullfighters. If you can't imagine something like that, let alone how it could possibly work, trust me, it does. If I was going to give an Oscar to a silent movie, it wouldn't be "The Artist". It'd be this.

Beginning of the End (1957)

 

BEGINNING OF THE END  (1957)  ¢ ¢

    D: Bert I. Gordon

    Peter Graves, Peggy Castle, Morris Ankrum,

    Than Wyenn, Richard Benedict, James Seay

Giant grasshoppers invade Illinois. Can Peter Graves and the U.S. Army stop them before they destroy Chicago? Prospects for survival on the South Side don't look good, till Peter Graves captures one of the grasshoppers and subjects it to a polygraph test. It's a good thing he's handy with a machine gun, too, though. What his brother did to the ants in "Them", Peter Graves does to the grasshoppers in this. 

The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)

 

THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Charles Walters

    Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant,

    Billie Burke, Gale Robbins, Jacques Frsnçois, 

    George Zucco, Inez Cooper, Clifton Sundberg

Fred and Ginger play a bickering Broadway couple in their last movie together. It's in color and Oscar Levant has a couple of piano numbers and Ginger dances in trousers for once and Fred dances in a kilt. 

Bad Reputation (2018_

 

BAD REPUTATION  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Kevin Kerslake

Two things are unimaginable after watching this documentary: Joan Jett without rock & roll and rock & roll without Joan Jett. That's all that needs to be said. 

Bacurau (2019)

 

BACURAU  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho

    Thomas Aquino, Bárbara Colen, Sonia Braga,

    Udo Keir, Silvero Pereira, Thardelly Lima,

    Antonio Saboia, Clebia Sousa, Karine Teles

A man and a woman in a truck carrying water to their dry Brazilian village pass the scene of an accident. Another truck has hit a motorcycle, the cyclist is dead on the pavement, and the truck has tipped over, spilling its cargo of coffins. (Another motorist stops to buy a couple.) Next, we're in the village, where a 94-year-old woman, the local matriarch, is about to be buried. There's the funeral, and then things start to get weird. The village disappears from the G.P.S. maps as if it didn't exist, a drone that looks like a flying saucer appears overhead, people start turning up murdered, and all of it's connected to a small commando unit of gringo killers who are turning the village and its surrounding countryside into a recreational shooting gallery. How can the townspeople counter that? You'll see. Some of the details in this go unexplained, but it doesn't matter. What locks you in is its strangeness and its grim sense of humor and the down-to-earth realism with which it's shot. Plus, the commander of the commandos is Udo Keir. Psychotic villains who shoot people for the fun go it don't get much crazier and creepier than that. 

Quote File / Take 20

 

Some lines from the movies of William Hurt:

"Sometimes the shit comes down so heavy, I 

  feel like I should wear a hat."

  Hurt in "Body Heat"

"The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you 

  think you'll never be unhappy again."

  Hurt in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"

"There's a lot of space out there to get lost in."

  Hurt in "Lost In Space"

"I don't really care for movies. They make 

  everything seem so close up."

  Hurt in "The Accidental Tourist"

"You are a fascinating bastard."

  Blair Brown to Hurt in "Altered States"

"Just tryin' to keep the conversation lively."

  Hurt in "The Big Chill"

(1950-2022)