Combat!: Silver Service (1964) (TV)

[spoilers] Caje and Kirby are taken to a lodging place (I am very sorry for not being able to specify more precisely what that place was, and what they were doing there; I just do not know it) by a garrulous truck driver. Caje leaves to some unspecified destination, whereas Kirby stays. The truck driver plays a loaded dice with some of the soldiers stationed there, and cleans them out of big money. He suspects Kirby knows about his cheating, and leaves in a hurry, not knowing that the fellows over there had taken most of the fuel out of his truck for water heating purposes. The place is attacked by Germans during the night; Kirby manages to escape and while on the road he runs into the driver, stuck for lack of fuel. They walk out of there together, and end up asking for shelter at a house where a young woman lives with her father. They have to leave the house because the Germans are coming and the woman's father is a former resistance member. Throughout the episode the truck driver carries a heavy load with him, which seems to be of high value to him.

Combat!: The Duel (1964) (TV)

[spoilers] Saunders hitches a ride with a trucker who is transporting weapons and ammunition to Lorraine, where it seems that Saunders' men are in great danger from the Germans. They hear a German tank coming their way exactly when a tire goes flat. They have the option of running for their lives, thus leaving the men in Lorraine in a tough spot, but Saunders won't have that: he tells the truck driver to change the tire while he goes to the adjacent hills and tries to stall the tank for as long as he can. He starts shooting at it, then sneaks near it and climbs on it. The tank operators eventually shake him off, but then Saunders inserts an object (a log, I think) inside the traction system, making its motion impossible. This only works for so long, but it gives time to Saunders to go back near the truck. The support system collapses while the driver is under the truck and it falls on him, trapping him there. Saunders changes the tire, but moving the truck would kill the guy under it. Noticing the tank has resumed its motion, Saunders goes back near it and places a flask with gasoline on it; then he shoots it, causing it to go into flames. Now he can go back and free his friend from under the truck.

His Girl Friday (1940)

Second viewing.

A woman journalist is quitting the profession and getting married. She pays a visit to her ex-husband and ex-boss in the newspaper office where she worked, and he plots to make her reverse her decisions by using a man about to be executed as a bait.

Smart and funny, flawlessly directed. I wish I had more time and energy to review this as it deserves.

Rating: 73 (up from 70) (moved to my list of bests of 1940, in the 8th position.)

Combat!: Mountain Man (1964) (TV)

Saunders, Kirby and Caje request a mountain man to guide them through the mountains, so that they may later guide the whole company through that area. The guy is reluctant at first, but then accedes, conditioned to a reward. They are captured by the Germans.

Quite scenic episode, with impressive skiing sequences.

Combat!: Vendetta (1964) (TV)

Hanley's squad meets a Greek colonel who saves their lives. He is a polemic fellow who doesn't much care for wounded soldiers and pulls rank on Hanley so that he and his troops will lead him to a German depot which he plans to destroy, against Hanley's advice.

I don't know where the vendetta is in this. Just as I didn't know where the glory among men was in the previous one.

Top Hat (1935)

Second viewing.

A dancer meets a woman and falls in love with her. She mistakenly takes him for his married producer friend. She has a dressmaker friend who wants to "settle the score".

This seemed better on second viewing. It has a well polished script which works fine as a comedy, and has well integrated dance-and-song sequences, which are of very good taste.

Rating: 61 (up from 55)

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Superman gets rid of all the nuclear weapons. Luthor escapes from jail and builds an evil clone of Superman.

Weak sequel. There isn't much to be said about it that hasn't already been.

Rating: 32

Combat!: The Glory Among Men (1964) (TV)

Scratch head: what was this one about again? Oh yes, it is about a soldier whom nobody likes because he cheats at the dice game and is a coward in combat. During a confrontation with the Germans he gets caught between the allies and the enemy, without a possibility of being rescued without great danger.

Direct Action (2004)

A police officer has denounced his corrupt colleagues and is threatened by the new corrupt captain. His (I mean the honest cop's) gorgeous female partner becomes his new ally.

Very run-of-the-mill thriller.

Rating: 32

Combat!: The Short Day of Private Putman (1964) (TV)

Let me see if I can remember anything at all of this show, 11 days after I saw it. Private Putnam is, oh yes, now I remember it, he is a 15-year-old boy who lied about his age at enlistment. Now he feigns self-sufficiency before his new army comrades. The waitress at the local bar is the only one in the know, and she is hesitant to tell Lt. Hanley about it.

The Band Wagon (1953)

Second viewing.

An aging dancer, going through a down phase in his career, is invited to do a new musical show under the direction of a prestigious director of classic dramas. A renowned ballerina is invited to be the leading lady.

Almost ininterruptedly enjoyable until the opening night of the flop show. After the performance there is a get-together of the artists, which is kind of a perplexing sequence because, being so well done in mise-en-scene terms, is so poorly provided musically (the slightly ridiculous and thematically unrelated to the rest of the film I Love Louisa). Shortly after that point there are two numbers (Triplets and Louisiana Hay Ride) which contrast even more with the refinement of everything that went before and are among the most grotesque I have ever seen; furthermore, they do not seem to connect between themselves at all. I wonder what they really mean, if anything. Was that break in style on purpose? Was it meant to convey the vulgarity of the new show, in opposition to the stiff elitism of the original one? The third number of the reworked show, the splendid parody of hard-boiled novels/films, seems to be a more explicit commentary on low culture; this time around, however, the artistry which is displayed puts a distance between what we see and that low culture, thus leveling the film and the show within it. To wrap everything around, we have an ending which seems to establish a connection with the original Oedipus Rex thematic thread, approaching the question which must come to the mind of every reader/watcher of that classic play: doesn't it bother Oedipus in the least that Jocasta is so much older than him? The genders are reversed in the film (in relation to the myth), which is probably significative. In truth, this subtheme of age difference is not unrelated to the "main" one, of high-brow/low-brow opposition, with a mean twist: here the older person is associated with the lower end of the cultural spectrum, and the younger one, with its higher end.

Rating: 67

P.S.: after picking up some information on the web about this film, some of its problems were explained to me. The songs were all taken from a 1931 Broadway musical, but the screenplay has, apparently, nothing to do with that show. From which we see that the film is actually, in a way, about itself: it shows how when you join too many incompatible elements in the same work, problems arise.

Combat!: Mail Call (1964) (TV)

A new soldier coming from another outfit joins Saunders' squad. Saunders gets a letter that upsets him deeply; he becomes cold and distant towards his soldiers. At the same time, he gets very suspicious of the new guy, who seems to be dodging combat.

Interesting episode.

Combat!: Weep No More (1964) (TV)

A woman has lost her speech after a traumatizing incident. She is placed in a safe house but escapes and is then captured by the Germans. Hanley goes after her.

One of the weirdest episodes; there are very subtle nuances to it. Those looking for standard combat action will probably not get it.

Combat!: The Wounded Don't Cry (1963) (TV)

Saunders' squad takes over a group of Germans from a dismantled squad. A German officer requests permission to go and fetch plasma from a German ambulance which suffered an accident and was abandoned.

Interesting episode, centering on difficult war decisions.

Combat!: The Pillbox (1964) (TV)

Hanley and a wounded soldier take refuge at a German pillbox; a group of German soldiers enter the pillbox, and are forced to submit to them.

Interesting episode, centering on difficult war decisions.

Con Air (1997)

A released convict is caught on the same plane where a prisoner riot takes place.

Reasonably entertaining at parts; the beginning is the better part; the excitement drops a little in the second half.

Rating: 45

Festival in Cannes (2001)

Several characters with more or less interrelating stories during a film festival.

An interesting cross-section of one aspect of the film industry, from the personal, dramatic angle. The film has a consistent screenplay and, overall, is well directed. The cast is more or less uniformly good, but a word must go for Scacchi, outstanding.

Rating: 53

Trapped Ashes (2006)

Four segments: "The Girl with Golden Breasts" (woman gets a breast enhancement with ghastly consequences) , "Jigoku" (couple on vacation in Japan, she falls for a guy who then dies and...), "Stanley's Girlfriend" (a director and a screenwriter, plus the former's girlfriend, are a threesome of sorts, with a supernatural element), and "My Twin, the Worm" (a pregnant woman is infected with a tape worm and must let it grow because the treatment would hurt the fetus).

Mostly derivative horror. The set-up is practically the same as Tales from the Crypt (1972); The Girl with Golden Breasts is a close variation on Rabid (1977); Jigoku is based on the Tristan and Isolde medieval narrative; Stanley's Girlfriend is so stupid that it couldn't be based on anything else; My Twin, the Worm has an interesting and, as far as I know, original premise, but is probably the least well directed of them all.

Rating: 32

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Second viewing.

Paleontologist meets rich woman who will go to any lengths to divert him from marrying his uptight bossy fiancée and get him for herself.

A very cerebral comedy, with one of the greatest performances ever (Hepburn).

Rating: 80 (unchanged, holds its position as number 3 in 1938's favorites)

Combat!: Anatomy of a Patrol (1963) (TV)

An allied plane containing important aerial film footage crashes. Both an allied and a German squads try to reach it.

A fabulously entertaining episode.

A Jazzed Honeymoon (1919)

A bridegroom gets separated from his bride right after the wedding (note: I probably should call them husband and wife, since it is after the wedding; I am not very assured with English writing). The film depicts his efforts to join her.

An above-average slapstick comedy, the most attractive feature of which is the stupendous Lloyd, of course.

Rating: 60

Paranoid Park (2007)

A teenager gets involved in the death of a railway security guard. As an investigation is under way, he leads a normal teenage life skateboarding, having sex, and hanging out with his buddies.

For me this was an exceedingly unsatisfactory film, with some choices that seemed inconceivable coming from an experienced filmmaker like this. Just as an example, the choice of keeping the main event of the film a mystery until halfway to it -- why? Also, there is so little actually going on in the entire movie, that it feels almost like a short. Sometimes the filmmaker doesn't seem to care much about the actual rooting of the film's themes in images - e.g. I do not remember a single scene featuring the lead character skating. All this is not to say that it is a worthless film: there is a distinct sense of poesy which permeates some of its scenes (the protagonist falling asleep in the lab; the very weird scene where his two female friends talk to him while he is reading the newspaper; etc).

Rating: 45