Late Autumn (Yasujiro Ozu, 1960)

8/10
Late Autumn is something of a re-working of Late Spring - despite society and family pressures, a young, eligible woman shows little interest in marriage, to the confusion of all around her. In Late Spring the young woman didn't want to abandon her father. In Late Autumn, it's the mother. Three friends of the mother's deceased husband take a keen interest in fixing her up, and it's quite funny to see them obsess over this "case" and the methods and ideas they come up with. If Japanese society of the time was anything the way Ozu depicts it, it's staggering how much of a focus marriage used to be back then.

L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)

4/10
My second Antonioni (after Blow-Up) and the second I haven't been particularly impressed with, I wonder just how well his films age...L'Avventura certainly seems to be more of its era. Its characters and their dialogue share something with the French New Wave but I find those films (the ones I've seen) to still come off more vital. I found L'Avventura less interesting as it wore on (to the point of boredom) and not necessarily because the "disappearance of Anna" was phased out. I just didn't find the remaining characters, their ensuing relationship, or anything else particularly engrossing. Maybe Antonioni just isn't for me, but I'll keep an open mind since I also have L'Eclisse to watch eventually.

Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)

6.5/10
Not really much to say about this one, it was an okay, enjoyable and interesting enough British horror from 1960. I enjoyed the screaming Technicolor the most but otherwise, eh.

Take Aim at the Police Van (Seijun Suzuki, 1960)

8/10
The third movie of my Nikkatsu Noir set from Criterion, and this is more what I had in mind when I bought the set - guns, sex, action, intrigue, double-crosses, the whole nine yards (I Am Waiting and Rusty Knife were both considerably tamer and focused more on the whodunnit/investigative aspect). There's a lot of fun to be had here even though the plot is unnecessarily convoluted...and ever since I read about Nikkatsu films subverting the family values of Ozu films prior, well it hasn't been real hard to figure out who in fact did it in the last two movies. That hasn't decreased the enjoyment of watching em however.

Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

8/10
Yep, took me this long to get around to this classic...great, fun movie but I can't help but think that anyone watching a Godard movie in 2009 will, for the most part, miss out on what made them so special back in 1960. Godard seems very much "of his time" and while it's possible to still appreciate and enjoy them now, you can't help but feeling you're missing out on something.
As an aside, this was a copy of one I rented a long time ago and it wasn't the Criterion version. Annoyed at myself for getting an inferior version, I did some reading and found that the Criterion release of Breathless is actually illegal in Quebec because it's a French movie being sold under an English title. Come ot think of it, that may explain why it's so hard to find Godard's movies for sale here...

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

8.5/10
Great...can't believe I waited this long to watch the entire thing. I loved the scene where there's a top-down view of Arbogast coming up the stairs and Norman running out of the adjacent room with a knife. Combined with the music, it actually made me jump..impressive for a movie made 50 years ago. The scene at the end where Norman smiles at the camera and it ever-so-subtly flashes the skull of Norman's mother over his face is great too. Definitely worth all the hype.