7/10
I didn't love the movie but I enjoyed filling in the blanks in my on-going lessons in movie history. It's amazing how many things derive from or riff on or parody scenes from this movie. And why did this weird little movie have such a giant impact? I liked it but I think it was very much of its time. I also understand the soundtrack is part and parcel with the movie but wow I could have done with a lot less Simon & Garfunkel.
8/10
The fruits of the Japanese new wave are seemingly in endless supply. Branded to Kill is one of the most notorious, as it got director Seijun Suzuki essentially blacklisted from the Nikkatsu studio for being too "out there". It's certainly out there (the best of these films are), totally goofy and cool and weird. Maybe it doesn't hit the heights of my favorite, A Colt is My Passport (also starring chipmunk-cheeked Joe Shoshido) or Tokyo Drifter but it's still pretty excellent.
8.5/10
The second film in the Drive lineage was Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai, an effortlessly cool French noir film that really hit all the right notes for me. It really had it all - smart direction, icy cold performances (especially from Alain Delon), great visual style, good music, and a brilliantly restrained tone. Definitely could grow on me and make me like it even more.
7/10
I love Spaghetti Westerns and haven't watched one in a while. So tonight I watched The Hellbenders from Sergio Corbucci (director of two of my favorites, Djano and The Great Silence). The Hellbenders is sort of a SW-come-road movie, about a man played by Joseph Cotten and his 3 sons (the Hellbenders) killing a convoy of Union soldiers and stealing the million dollars in cash they were carrying, to bring it back to the South to reform the Confederacy. The movie was made after Django but before The Great Silence and it feels caught between the two indeed - you don't get the in-your-face violence of Djano, nor do you get the artistry of The Great Silence. So it's somewhat unsatisfying in that regard. The best part of the movie is the psychological wars between the father, his sons, and the "widow" brought in to keep the ruse of 4 men lugging a coffin through the desert alive. Joseph Cotten is great and most of the acting is well done, and Ennio Morricone's score is good too. But the dubbing (English-on-English, mostly) really hurts this movie, which is unfortunate.
7/10
For a Luis Bunuel movie that I didn't know a whole lot about going in, I was surprised at how straightforward it was. Catherine Deneuve plays a high society woman who on the surface seems to have it all, except she can't bring herself to be physically intimate with her husband - but she repeatedly fantasizes about being sexually used, abused, debased...to the point of working for a "classy" whorehouse in the afternoon while her husband is at work (hence being given the alias Belle de Jour). Once she is able to live out her fantasies, ironically, she is drawn closer to her husband, but of course, tragedy is a step away. This is adapted from a novel which may explain why it isn't quite as off the rails as the Bunuel I've seen, but it does deal with themes that seem to be up his alley. Deneuve is fine but I thought Pierre Clementi stole the show as the jealous gangster who falls for Belle de Jour. I can only imagine how the rape/S&M/abuse fantasies (from an upper-class woman, no less) went overi n 1967.
8/10
Pretty outrageous, silly, but ultimately very innovative Godard movie that surely must contain his most overt, vicious attacks on the bourgeoisie. It almost feels "too" Godardian in that respect, too over the top, but maybe that's the point. Hilarious, frustrating, endlessly self-referential, I thought it was great fun.
10/10
Last Nikkatsu movie, and hands down the best one. Combines all the over-the-top humor, romance, double-crossing, and violence from the previous four. The story isn't new territory but the story is told very well, the film is directed with flair, the soundtrack is exceptional, and Joe Shishido's moody main character seems to be both inspired by and sowing the seeds for the Spaghetti Western anti-heroes of the era. In fact it's hard to believe this movie was never remade as a Western because it's certainly ripe for it. If you want all the best of the Nikkatsu movies in one 84-minute chunk, start here.
