No Dracula this week, unfortunately. I either requested the wrong DVD, or was sent the wrong DVD, but yeah. Luckily I have the correct DVD this week! Hooray!
EDIT: Also, a few UNMEI KAIHEN posts: Ep10 of Spice and Wolf II and ep21 of Cross Game, with ep10 of Bakemonogatari to go up later today.
Stalag 17 (1953): Good movie. It was the inspiration for the TV series Hogan's Heroes, so that should give you some idea about the tone of the movie. Stalag 17 is probably a bit tame compared to something like, say, M*A*S*H or Catch-22 (which is unusual for something written/directed by Billy Wilder), but the characters really carry the story. I especially like J.J. Sefton (William Holden), a selfish, cynical POW who barters with the Germans and rigs up several attractions for the enjoyment of his fellow POWs ... for a price, of course. Sefton's shady ways lead him to be a prime suspect when information begins leaking out from the POW barracks to the POW commanders. The way the story develops is a lot of fun and pretty suspenseful. Also like that the ending doesn't really force Sefton's character to make an unbelievable change.
Secondhand Lions (2003): Really fun movie. Robert Duvall is such a perfect crusty old man. (Guy even comes off old and crusty when he plays Tom Hagen in The Godfather, haha.) Michael Caine is really good, too, as the slightly less crazy who sits back with a smirk on his face while Duvall goes wild. Those two cracked me up the whole movie. Haley Joel Osment is pretty funny, too -- he reacts just the right way to the extremes of his great uncles, and I like how he plays the gradual change in his character's temperament. The flashbacks to the youth of the great uncles are so awesome, too. I especially love the evil villain Duvall's character faces -- a completely over-the-top sheik with a crazy laugh and an obsessive love for money. The flashbacks are totally stereotypical and silly, but in a fun Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of way. Also: One day I want to go fish shooting. That looked like fun.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935): Loved this. It's legitimately hilarious and deliberately campy and weird, but somehow also manages to be really touching at times. (Mostly having to do with the portrayal of Frankenstein's creature. He is like a small child in a big, lumbering body. The famous scene with the blind old man is really sweet and sad. It also reminds me of how annoyed I was that the creature learns to speak fluently in the original novel. The clipped speech is much more affecting.) The best performance, besides Boris Karloff as the creature, is Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, an insane scientist who forces Dr. Frankenstein to team up with him to make a mate for the creature. The scene where he reveals the fruits of his initial research to Frankenstein is simultaneously hilarious and creepy. (My first reaction to it: "WTF?") Thesiger's performance is completely over-the-top and insanely campy, and it's awesome. The movie is also well filmed. Anyone who thinks horror is complete shlock needs to watch this -- you can't tell me this is not entertaining because of how well it is made. The technique makes the creation scene at the end so awesome to watch.
On the queue for this week: Dracula (1931), Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), Dark Passage (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Total Movies: 122 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Point Break, 500 Days of Summer, Man Bites Dog, Burn After Reading, Glory, Training Day, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, White Heat, All About Eve, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Big Heat, Death at a Funeral, Valkyrie, Shane, Stalag 17, Secondhand Lions, Bride of Frankenstein)
