Yasujiro Ozu's WHAT DID THE LADY FORGET? (1937) at the IFC Center's Ozu Retrospective for the first time. Amusingly sly screwball comedy in which Michiko Kuwano's Setsuko steals the movie as a modern girl (she smokes!
) bonding over booze and sake with her hen-pecked uncle (Tatsuo Saito) while trying to get him to pull patriarchal rank over his bossy wife (Sumiko Kurishima). Like the regular actors Ozu kept bringing back to his post-WWII movies (Ryu, Hara, Sugimura, etc.) this earlier group of pre-WWII regulars in "WDTLF?" have their own chemistry, and half the amusement is watching how they interact with each other. Tatsuo Saito's facial expressions are goofy-ass hilarious and Kuwano (who at one point is seen reading a magazine with a picture of Marlene Dietrich) seems to have stepped out a Rosalind Russell movie. When Setsuko and uncle Komiya return home dressed in trench coats and hats from a night of drinking you can sense Ozu's admiration of American movies/characters at its most cinematically naked. At a brisk 71 min. "WDTLF?" is fun (despite a badly-beaten print that looks/sounds awful) and, in a scene of domestic abuse that literally had the entire theater gasping (along with many others where the camera moves like mad), has given me the clearest taste yet of what Ozu was doing before he found his pared-down trademark style.
Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) on Blu-ray for the first time. Saw this over the weekend and my God, why didn't I see this sooner? This isn't a spy movie or a road movie or a romance movie or a dark comedy... it's all those things plus Hollywood magic performing at peak levels. Cary Grant exudes enough movie star charm in this movie alone to power the sun; I was literally howling with both delight and fear as Grant managed to make drunk driving look both hilarious and terrifying. Eva Marie Saint is a step down from Grace Kelly (she and Grant were great together in "To Catch a Thief") but, as the movie unfolded, I learned to live with EMS and actually kind-of liked her character toward the end. That dialogue scene in the train's diner car blew me away (I didn't know you could say those things in 1959!) and James Mason (with a thin young Martin Landau as his right-hand henchman) makes a virtue of his handful of scenes by stealing them. Screw critical thinking, this is Alfred Hitchcock's greatest hits (mistaken identity innocent man, icy blonde with something to hide, hilarious on-screen Hitch cameo, purposeless McGuffin, exciting set-pieces with sky-high production values, etc.) all wrapped into one pretty package of color-soaked VistaVision goodness that simply shines on Blu-ray. The opening titles alone (thank you Saul Bass and Bernard Herrmann!) gave me goosebumps. It was a pricey $35 but worth every penny because "North By Northwest" easily rockets to the top of my Hitchcock list of watched films, which is sadly still short more than half of Hitch's work.
Rewatched
Jean-Luc Godard's VIVRE SA VIE (1962) on Blu-ray with the Adrian Martin commentary track on. A good time was had by all (of me).
Michelangelo Antonioni's RED DESERT (1964) on Blu-ray for the first time. Like the Antonioni films I've seen before ("Blow Up," "The Passenger," etc.) this one needs to be rewatched because on first viewing it has left me as bewildered and confused as Roeg's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (which "
Red Desert" resembles in parts). I totally didn't see the neurosis of Monica Vitti's Giuliana being the centerpiece of the movie. I knew Vitti was in the movie but didn't expect her character's mind (or the back of it that Antonioni keeps going back to in shot after shot) and the way she reacts to her surroundings to be front and center throughout. Richard Harris (who looks/sounds like Devon from "Knight Rider" in his dubbed Italian voice) is pretty bland and nonchalant but, within Antonioni's cast of bland human characters, he and Vitti stand out. Picture on Blu-ray isn't the sharpest or cleanest transfer (tons of grainy and undetailed shots) but, as an artistic visual expression of man's ability (or inability in the case of Giuliana) to cope with his man-made ecological disaster, Antonioni's cinematography and production design (the street/fruit cart painted in grey blew my little mind!) really stand out in high-def. To be continued...
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: GAMERA VS. BARUGON (1988/1966) on DVD for the first time. My first KTMA episode ever (the earliest available through fan recordings) and, in its own low-key way, I actually enjoyed it. The phone messages from early fans were awesome. The show's structure remarkably didn’t change that much when it went national (phone messages vs. still store letters, etc). It looks/feels primitive and light on actual riffs (entire minutes go by without a joke), yet "MST3K" KTMA is better produced than 99% of local TV shows back in the late 80's (the theme song alone is boss!). Like certain moments during live Cinematic Titanic shows part of the fun of watching KTMA "MST3K" is coming up with your own jokes at the baffling stupidity of the movie. At least 'GvB' is light on screaming kids and packed with scenes of men-in-rubber-suits beatdowns; bring your own gravy to compensate for Joel & the bots' mellowness and you're golden.
MST3K: THE HELLCATS (1990/1967) on VHS. I can say now that I've survived Ross Hagen ("The Sidehackers") and Anthony Cardoza (those horrid Francis Coleman movies!) through several viewings of "Hellcats," yet as soon as the tape ends I forget the movie I just saw ever existed and most jokes associated with this sorry excuse of an experiment. Something about a cop's murdered brother and his widow infiltrating a gang of bikers to get to a Mr. Big type drug boss and to get revenge (of course)... I think!?! The only thing I remember clearly about "Hellcats" was The Brains not caring enough about this one to bother coming up with original host segments, trotting out instead the reliable 'flashback' chestnut to kill time. Easily among the most boring and deadly-dull "MST3K" experiments ever done, and I've seen "Hamlet"!
MST3K: THE DEADLY BEES (1998/1967) on VHS. Mike and the bots give this one the good old college try (
'this movie has everything... all wrong!') but some bad flicks are just immune to the "MST3K" formula. Fans of British horror cinema (particularly the trashier, sillier side of Hammer) will get a kick out of some faces (Frank Finlay as Hargrove), a handful of obscure references, the house-within-a-studio-set main locale and UK-accented riffs meant to go over most people's heads. The flick itself is deadly indeed, but deadly dull and almost impervious to the riffs and comedy assault from the Brains. The song between Observer, Pearl and Bobo trying to talk the former into staying on Castle Forrester (
'if you stay, I'll fold your sheet') stands tall amongst the sea of emptiness that "The Deadly Bees" unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.
) but John Old Jr. (AKA Lamberto Bava) directs this incompetent-ripoff-of-"Jaws"-screenplay with all the skill of a brain surgeon operating while wearing rollerblades. Roger Corman's upcoming 'Sharktopus' SyFy made-for-TV movie will have to exceptionally s*** for it even to compete with "Devil Fish's" innate worthlessness (with or without the "MST3K" treatment). 
