Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski, 1962)

7/10
After Truffaut's first, Polanski's first. I like "closed room" settings, so Polanski putting a man, his wife, a drifter they picked up and a knife on a sailboat appealed to me. It did drag a bit - the tension builds slowly (sometimes not at all) and comes to an inevitable climax. I won't spoil the ending but I did wish that it had been done differently. As it is, I liked it, but I thought there was something that could've been done to make it more powerful. The soundtrack is excellent, a weird jazzy thing that sometimes seems ill-fitting, but I liked it.

Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962)

6/10
My Bond knowledge is non-existent. I saw Quantum of Solace when it came out and that was my first one. Just not a series that has ever interested me. But my brother got a hold of a bunch of burns of the first 10 or so, so I decided to join in on the viewing. Dr. No is, of course, the first one, and it seems like a pretty tentative start. Nothing overly sexy or dangerous or exciting here, in fact it's got a couple of pretty cheesy moments, even for the 60's. In any event, I hear Dr. No isn't even very highly regarded by Bond enthusiasts. But it's kind of cool to see the origins of the whole thing. I'm definitely more looking forward to the next two, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger. Well, and Skyfall, which I'll be seeing tonight...but that's getting ahead.

I Hate But Love (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1962)

8/10
The more I dig in, the more the Nikkatsu studios are starting to seem like an endless treasure trove of wildness in Japanese film. I didn't know much about this one going in, but it's startlingly vibrant (especially juxtaposed with what preceded it - see above). The crooked-teeth Nikkatsu star Yujiro Ishihara plays a TV star with a non-stop schedule, kept strictly by his manager and semi-girlfriend (the couple have a no sex pact), the crooked-teeth Ruriko Asaoka. Increasingly dissatisfied with his celebrity life and questioning the meaning of love, Ishihara meets a woman who needs a driver to bring her cross-country lover his Jeep for the hospital he works at. Ishihara, blown away by the concept of long-distance love and searching to do something selfless and "humanitary", forsakes his contracts and TV appearances to drive the Jeep. His manager tracks him across the country, as do reporters and the general public, with opinion swaying from national deserter to folk hero. The movie calms down in the second half when it becomes more of a road movie, and also gets surprisingly dark at times. But it's always interesting, frequently funny, and pretty far out there.

An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)

7/10
Ozu's last film and the last one of my little Ozu season, this one was by far the most scattershot of the five. Maybe Ozu knew it was going to be his last and wanted to get as much in there as possible? I don't know. I enjoyed the central thrust - the five friends and their relationship with their aging, on-hard-times professor. Again, single women and marriage play a part, but the war actually plays a surprisingly large role...to a distracting end, almost. Probably my least favorite of the five, but not by much.

Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, 1962)

8/10
Liked it a lot; it's fun(ny) how scenes like the one with Sanjuro tied up and still outsmarting his 3 watchers are reproduced practically verbatim even today. I don't think Kurosawa's influence on contemporary cinema can ever be overstated. I didn't like it as much as Yojimbo, its "companion piece", and it was a little slow in the middle, but the ending scene made up for everything - really blew my mind and genuinely startled me.

L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)

7/10
The third Antonioni I've seen and the third to not really impress me but I liked this one more than the other two (L'Avventura and Blow-Up). I still don't think it was anything to gush over. The black and white photography was beautiful and Monica Vitti has an incredible presence, but I was bored for a lot of it to be perfectly honest.

Ivan's Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)

8/10
After Solaris, Stalker and now Ivan's Childhood, I'm learning that film rarely looks so beautiful as when it's in the hands of Andrei Tarkovsky. Ivan's Childhood, like the other two, contains some absolutely stunning cinematography...all the more impressive because it's Tarkovsky's first feature and it's shot in black and white. The film feels more restrained than the others and not quite as far-reaching in scope but it's still very satisfying and an ultimately very sad look at a boy's life pre- and post-war.

Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)

6.5/10
Enjoyable enough early Peckinpah Western, though pretty tame compared to what a Peckinpah Western typically entails. The betrayal was telegraphed a mile away (intentionally I'd have to assume, but why?) and the parallels between the old cowboys/Old West are beaten into the viewer's skull enough.

Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)

5/10
Early psychological horror movies where not everything is wrapped up nicely in the end...it hasn't aged particularly well so it's only really of historical significance, to see one of the early pioneers in the genre. The acting isn't particularly good either.

La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962) & Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)

La Jetée - 8/10
Sans Soleil - 6.5/10
Two movies by French filmmaker Chris Marker. La Jetee is a short made entirely of stills and deals with post-apocalyptic time travel, very interesting and curious movie that I watched a couple times and enjoyed a good bit. Terry Gilliam pretty much remade it as 12 Monkeys but I haven't seen that yet.
Sans Soleil is feature length and is a sort of faux documentary/travelogue using mainly footage Marker shot in Japan set to a female narrator reading letters sent to her by the ficticious camera man. Hard to explain. It was nice enough, but I just never really got into it that much.