Sign of the Crass

Last week I watched the movie Sign of the Cross. It's an early Cecil B. DeMille talkie. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to just anyone. It was made in 1932 and still shows the influence of silent movies. They were still trying to communicate with lots of posturing and heavy eye contact. It is also pre-Hayes Code so there is some over the top Roman orgy type stuff and the Colosseum shots at the end are truly campy. Overall it is long, slow paced, and preachy. At times I got bored but it was worth the effort for serious film buffs. One of the obscure gem I picked up was the Big Clock. Check this one out if only for Elsa Lancaster as the Ditsy Artist. She steals every scene. But it's a taut thriller and by the end it will have you on the edge of your seat.

On the other hand I caught a little of Take the Lead on cable the other night but I couldn't take it. While I am a little curious about the resurgence of Ballroom dancing, I actually get that part, dancing with your arms around your woman is a far more entertaining way to do it, but I just can't handle RAP. I hate sounding like an old grandma, but damn that's hideous. Music doesn't have to sound ugly. Not that I'm advocating Bachman Turner Overdrive. I mean what can you say about a band that proved that you don't have to be attractive or be able to sing in tune to have a Top 40 Hit. I guess I've been ruined for Pop music ever since I grew up listening to Classical Music. Listening to the best musicians play music composed by geniuses will do that. I was listening to a CD of Rossini Overtures last week and I was amazed at how much of it I hear it all the time, in movies, commercials and cartoons. Everywhere. It's too bad they don't teach music in schools anymore. Sigh.

June Music

My June music order is a continuation of my Billboard Number One hits collection. The June Buy brings me up through the 80's. On the Rock side there are the Doobie Brothers, Eagles, Chicago, Styx, Billy Joel, Hall and Oats, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, J. Geils Band, Surviver, Genesis, men at work and Toto. Some of these guys I'm surprised I missed last year. Pink Floyd Animals and Wish You Were Here were two albums I should have definitely picked up. The Eagles Long Run album I needed for it's top 40 hits, but most of the other guys were 'Light Rock' or 'Arena Rock'. The Genesis Live album I got because it is one of the few Genesis Albums from the Peter Gabriel Period. Glen Campbell, Barry White, and KC and the Sunshine Band also had number ones that snuck into the list but they weren't Rock. Well, KC was I guess. As always I pick up traditional music whenever I run across it.

June Music Order:

Sacred Healing Chants of Tibet.
Japan: Shakuhachi - The Japanese Flute
Mongolia: Shamans & Lamas
Han Madong: Musical Traditions of Korea
Minute by Minute: Boobie Brothers
Long Run: Eagles
What were once Vices are now Habits Doobie Brothers
Barry White's Greatest Hits Volume 1
Greatest Country Hits: Glen Campbell
Best of KC & the Sunshine Band
Very best of: Only the beginning: Chicago
Greatest Hits: Styx
Glass Houses: Billy Joel
An Innocent Man: Billy Joel
Essential Daryl Hall & John Oats
Fleetwood Mac
Animals: Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here: Pink Floyd
Freeze Frame: J. Geils Band
Eye of the Tiger: Survivor
Genesis Live
Abacab: Genesis
Business as Usual: Men at Work
Cargo: Men at work
Toto IV

June DVD's

In June I went on a foreign movie binge. It was a movie called Pandora's Box that set it off. Someone requested it and when I looked it up I discovered it was the movie that made Louise Brooks famous. My first thought was, Louise Brooks? Who was Louise Brooks? Then I looked her up and discovered she was a trend setter of the flapper generation. Her look and her fashion sense were copied all over the movie watching world, but she had to go from Hollywood to Europe to get her big break in the movie Pandora's Box. Since I'd been meaning to review my foreign film collection any way I went for it and here it goes. I'd already made a big French Language buy last year so this time I tried to cover the whole movie making world (Sort of). Many of these movies I'd either heard of or seen before. Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Fellini's La Dolce Vita are two movie classics that every library should have. M and Diabolique are two movies I'd tried to find before but were out of print. M is a Fritz Lang production of a child predator, played by Peter Lorre, who is hunted down and killed by the the local crime world after the police apply pressure on the gangsters to get their help. It is a very creepy very scary movie. Diabolique is a classic film I tried to get for the Horror collection last year. It was out of print then but I read so much about it I'm dying to see it. All the critics raved about it. If your tastes go to foreign films check out our June additions.

June DVD additions.

Love Comes Softly
Love's long Journey
Love's Enduring Promise
Love's abiding Joy
Aguirre, the Wrath of God: Warner Herzog Directs Klaus Kinski as a mad conquistador lost in the Amazon Jungle.
Wild Strawberries: One of Ingmar Bergman's best.
Blue Angel: Director Josef von Sternberg made Marlene Dietrich a star with this one.
M: Before In Cold Blood there was Fritz Lang's M.
Diabolique: They keep trying to remake this one and fail every time.
Burmese Harp: Anti war movie Japanese style.
Conformist: Tense thriller by Bernado Bertolucci of Pre WWII fascist Italy
La Dolce Vita: Fredrico Fellini masterpiece of the shallow life of an Italian paparazzi. A must for all serious film buffs.
Viridiana: Near perfect direction by Spanish master director Luis Bunuel.
Double Life of Veronique: A modern cult classic from director Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Ikiru: Early non samarai classic from Akira Kurosawa
Jules and Jim: The Francois Truffaut classic of a love triangle.
Lamerica: An Italian look at Albania after communism.
Landscape in the Mist: Greek children look for their father. Can this Movie really change your life?
Lola A fairy tale romance filmed in gritty realism.
Virgin Spring: Ingmar Bergman tale of rape, murder, and a father's revenge.
Pandora's Box: The Early silent classic that made Louise Brooks famous.
Wings of Desire: Angels in Berlin. Everybody rips this one off. Last seen in Hollywood as City of Angels.
Throne of Blood: Kurosawa loved doing Shakespeare, this time its Macbeth.
Spirit of the Beehive: A great movie about kids.

May Movies.

I'm terribly behind in my blogging. Of course since they switched over to 'new Blogger' I don't have a clue if anybody is still reading since comments have almost completely stopped. You might call my May DVD order 'War Month'. I found a bunch of history DVD's on various famous wars and battles. I picked them up with history teachers in mind but my May order was also a continuation of a War movie buy I was working on last year and forgot about. It's not all guy stuff though. I found a couple of Wedding 'how-too' DVDs and several classic motion pictures I missed last year. Body and Soul is a John Garfield classic, while Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and the Great Race are two period comedies that still make me laugh. So who is the better Snidely Whiplash, Terry Thomas in Those Magnificent Men, or Jack Lemon in the Great Race? (Peter Falk is hands down the best comic henchman in the Great Race)

The May Movies are:

Balaclava 1854: The Charge of the Light Brigade
Zulu Wars 1879
Boer War and other Colonial Adventures
Battle of Hastings 1066
Armada 1588
Franco-Prussian War 1870-71
Ultimate Line Dancing
Perfect Wedding Volume 1
Perfect Wedding Volume 2
Super Soccer Skills: Advancing the Skills
Super Soccer Skills - Just Kickin' it
Soccer Shooting Drills
Learn Baseball from the Pros
All Star Training and Conditioning for Baseball
Body and Soul - the John Garfield Boxing Classic, maybe Raging Bull finally did it better, maybe.
Force of Evil - A Film noir classic with John Garfield as a racketeer's lawyer.
We Were Strangers - John Huston directs John Garfield, Jennifer Jones and Gilbert Roland.
Full Metal Jacket - Stanley Kubrick does Viet Nam but D I Ermey steals the show.
Gallipoli - A very young Mel Gibson goes to Turkey to fight WWI. Directed by Peter Weir.
Midway - Forget the cheese ball plot, the battle scenes steal the show. Historically very accurate.
Tora! Tora! Tora! Americans directors did the American point of view. Japanese directors did the Japanese.
Where Eagles Dare - Non stop action, written by Alistair MacClean with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton.
Battle of Britain - All star cast, authentic WWII aircraft, accurate historically, and Leonard Maltin was bored.
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines - another all star cast period comedy including early Benny Hill and late Red Skelton.
Great Race - Hit and miss comedy with Tony Curtiss, Jack Lemon, Peter Falk, and I'm still in love with Natalie Wood.
Green Berets - John Wayne does Viet Nam
Battle of the Bulge - Robert Shaw as the shark from Jaws in a German tank. Think about it.
Battle of Algiers - French Classic.
Paths of Glory - Still the best anti war movie ever made and the transition from behind the line opulence to front lines trench warfare horror is the best long shot ever made.
Horse Soldiers - John Wayne and William Holden fight each other and Rebels. Directed by John Ford.
Stalag 17 - Billy Wilder directs William Holden in an Oscar winning performance.
Cover Girl - Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, Eve Arden do Jerome Kern & Ira Gerswin
Big Clock - I still don't know how this ended up on a list of war movies but it sounds fascinating. Ray Milland, Charles Laughlin, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Harry Morgan in a murder mystery.
Foreign Correspondent - Early Hitchcock spy story.
Star Trek: Next Generation Complete Fifth Season
Star Trek: Next Generation Complete Sixth Season
Star Trek: Next Generation Complete Seventh Season
Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy.