David Vining's Blog, page 200
December 4, 2019
Slap Fight!
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There is nothing more vicious or stupid than an argument about taste, and that’s exactly what Martin Scorsese gave the world when he tried to watch a Marvel movie, gave up, and told the press that he didn’t think they were cinema, saying they were more like roller coaster rides.
Cue outrage from just about everyone. I saw one random comment that said Scorsese was just jealous because he hadn’t made a good movie since 1990. Apparently, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Kundun, Bringing...
Some thoughts on The Mandalorian
So, I finally caught up with The Mandalorian last night, and the most predominant thought in my head was that this was the poster child for why I prefer movies to television.
The first three episodes interconnect together pretty tightly to create what could almost be a 100 minute movie (you’d have to change some stuff like the prevalence of the other Mandalorians, but it’s 90% of the way there). And then the fourth episode starts and it’s from almost another universe. Colors are brighter, the...
The Front Page (1974)
#12 in my Ranking of Billy Wilder movies.
The latest in a series of adaptations of a play from the early 20th century, The Front Page is an enjoyable and highly entertaining look at the journalistic trade. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau both shine in this movie, their third collaboration, and Billy Wilder keeps things clean, clear, and pretty as the story zips along.
There’s been a murder of a policeman, and the man responsible is in prison and ready for the gallows. The newspapers are all...
December 3, 2019
Movie News – Week of 12/2
News that caught my eye:
Alexander Payne Takes On Reimagining Of ‘Babette’s Feast’I hear “remake” and see a beloved film, and I automatically sink a bit.Babette’s Feast is a wonderful movie that needs no reworking. However, the story itself is rich enough to be transplantable. LikeThe Searchers inspiring a sub-genre of films about men going into the wilderness to save a girl, I wouldn’t mind a sub-genre of films about people finding meaning and resolution through a great and large act of...
Avanti!
#19 in my Ranking of Billy Wilder movies.
Billy Wilder occasionally made a movie romance where the underlying logic of the central relationship can raise some eyebrows if you think about it for too long. The budding romance between a military officer and the grown woman he thinks is only fourteen years old in The Major and the Minor is the most obvious example, but Avanti! fits as well. Not thinking too deeply into what brings Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills’ characters together (as well as...
December 2, 2019
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
#15 in my Ranking of Billy Wilder movies.
With knowing winks and nods, Billy Wilder tells a witty and fun Sherlock Holmes tale. It was originally planned and even shot to be a much larger movie with more individual episodes (which made cutting it down from three and a half hours to two hours and change a lot easier, much to Billy Wilder’s bitter acquiescence), but even in this shortened format, the movie is a fun adventure for the Victorian detective.
What survived the cut was two episodes....
November 29, 2019
Doctor Sleep
When these 30-40 year later sequels happen with intelligence by filmmakers who understand the original and how to continue the stories in new ways, good things can happen. Some prime early examples could be The Hustler’s sequel The Color of Money and Scenes from a Marriage’s sequel Saraband. Well, in a combination of hate and love we get Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining nearly forty years later, and I am quite pleased.
If there was one event meant to screw up someone’s life forever,...
Billy Wilder’s Movies Ranked: The Definitive Ranking
We come to it at last, another top list. May the listicle gods be appeased and grant bounties upon this blog. Hey, not a Top 10, so I’m good. Oh, and click here for all the Definitive Rankings.
Billy Wilder’s filmography was great to wade through. He was a remarkable talent who almost always made movies worth the time. He’s made some of the great Hollywood classics, including some lost gems along the way.
Anyway, here’s Billy Wilder’s entire filmography ranked from best to worst.
The Irishman
The canvas is very large, but the story is actually quite small. It’s about three men navigating the American culture of the 50s and 60s as they slowly fall onto opposites sides of an impossible divide. It’s about a man who chose wrong and ends up alone. It’s also expertly and energetically told by one of the great filmmakers using advanced tools as effectively as possible.
From the outset, it’s clear that this story is filtered through one old man’s memory. Frank Sheeran, in his 80s and...
The Fortune Cookie
A man without morals exploits an accident which he blows out of proportion in order to enrich himself, but enough about Ace in the Hole. In some thin way, The Fortune Cookie is the same story as Wilder’s earlier masterpiece, but it takes a very different path, actually working as a comedy instead of the straight drama. It doesn’t work as well, but it still works thanks in large part to the two central performances, the first collaboration between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
Jack Lemmon...
