"Just another day in Truffaut's life"

DAY FOR NIGHT

Original title: La nuit américaine 

Year: 1973

Country: France/Italy

Language: French, English

Number: 567

Director: François Truffaut 

Starring: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean-Pierre Léaud

François Truffaut's Day for Night is probably his best or shall we say most prestigious film of them all, compared to all the low budget film he had made until then. Day for Night is a meta film (a film about the making of a film) that shows us all the difficulties on the set, that is actually a drama film itself.

Day for Night follows the cast and crew during the filming of Je Vous Présente Paméla (Meet Pamela). Truffaut himself plays the director, Ferrand who faces many difficulties from many of his staff members, like from the old diva Severine (Valentina Cortese) who have troubles of remember her lines. Or the young and heart broken actor Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) who is about to run away from the set because of that. There's just some of the problems.

Day for Night is a good and well constructed meta film that has everything a movie set needs. All the details, all the props and all the three dimensional people as they are in the real life drama film that we all live in. And what's funny it's that at some point some of the characters says this will be the last film they make, something all of the staff perfectly understand without any form of upsets. Thumbs up.

Grade: B+

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"Tell me something new"

BROADCAST NEWS

Year: 1987
Country: USA
Language: English
Number: 766
Director: James L. Brooks
Starring: William Hurt, Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks, Robert Prosky

James L. Brooks' Broadcast News is an exciting, fresh comedy that takes place inside the world of news reporting. Besides from being funny, the character shows a wide emotional range, everything from happiness and anger performed in a emotional and realistic way. We follows three very different individuals, whom we first see as children and later on see them as adult and laught and clearly see why they are what they are in the present.

Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) has always been obsessed with the news, so much that in some ways it's effecting her mental health. Her friend and colleague Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) was the nerd that was used as a punching ball by the big guys and instead of lying down he burst out that they in ten years will works as garbage men making only $10 000 a year, while Aaron himself is being a famous reporter. They are the winning team, and there might be a little sparkle between them. But one day a sport anchorman, Tom Grunick (William Hurt) who uses every possible tricks to get what he want, disguised as a humbled gentleman. He breaks through as a news anchorman in his first week at the job, while Jane and Aaron feels out competed by this new threat, while there are a romantic tone between Jane and the man who is against everything she stands for.

Broadcast News is a good comical and satirical view about the life of a news reporter. Among all the employee there's all kinds of special types that we can see our self in, if it's the stressed out type or the arrogant ones. This not only a comedy, but also a serious drama about how much stress it's actually is to be working in the news and that their job is always hanging in a thin tread. It's a great cast, specially Holly Hunter who playing a character that is so into her work, that it's changes her mentally. But when she's alone and has nothing else to do, she gets all her frustration out by crying, and this is probably the funniest, and saddest moment in the film because it's shows that she tries to do everything and is afraid of not being successful. Albert Brooks is just supper and is probably the character we have most sympathy with because he's intelligent but not the love he needs. William Hurt isn't anything but the same monotone character as he's played dozen of times, but this add some anger towards his character. Broadcast News is a great film with a well chosen cast and a great story about the difficult life of journalism.


Grade: A-


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"We don't take kindly to strangers"

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

Year: 1955
Country: USA
Language: English
Number: 287
Director: John Sturges
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Anne Francis

Picture this: A western noir, which John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock happened to be. Seeing my first so called "western noir" It's simply one of the best and most suspense films I've seen until now in the western genre. Featuring great performances that we already know from this genre such as Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin that all fits right into the film and makes the whole setting believable.

The movie is set in the year 1945. A town called Black Rock lies in the middle of the desert where the Southern Pacific Railroad train always pass by. But one day, the first time in four years the train actually stops there. But there's only one passenger that goes of the train. A war veteran named John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) who has only one functional arm. Most of the inhabitants, who mostly are workers who spend most of the day just sitting rocking' in their chairs out in the hot sun, is very suspicious of this new stranger and wondering what is he doing here. They find out that he's looking for an old man named Komoko. But every where he ask about him, all the people of the little town are scared that he might stick his nose into something that shouldn't be any of his business.



Bad Day at Black Rock is a very well made western film, set in modern day where it doesn't seemed to have changed at all since the wild west. The crooks are pretty much the same and there's also no law at all. Robert Ryan does an excellent performance as the unofficial leader, Reno Smith who does every thing to get rid of the man who might reveal the towns darkest secret. The rest of the western cast is just superb, their appearance have the kind of "We don't take kindly to strangers" kind of feeling that really makes this film so exciting and thrilling to watch. I don't want to give away the ending, but I promise this movie doesn't ever drag.


Grade: A+


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"Everything other than sweet"

TURKISH DELIGHT

Original title: Turks fruit

Year: 1973

Country: Netherlands

Language: Dutch

Number: 572

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Monique van de Ven, Rutger Hauer, Tonny Huurdeman, Wim van den Brink

Before Paul Verhoeven made a career in Hollywood as one of the most infamous director with such controversial films as Total Recall and Basic Instincts, he made even more daring films in his native Netherlands. And it's Turkish Delight that clearly stands out as his greatest one, with Rutger Hauer in the leading role, another Dutchman who later became international famous. And also the cinematographer Jan de Bont who later made such great action films as Speed and Twister. Turkish Delight have many times been ranked as the best Dutch film of all time, and was a big box-office hit in Netherlands.

Turkish Delight is the story about the hyper sexual sculptor, Eric (Rutger Hauer) who one day hitchhike with a girl named Olga (Monique van de Ven) whom he develops a sexual desire for, but is later evolved into what they think is real love. Eric is a restless and egocentric person, who don't like to be bossed around, he's more or less a real anarchist. Olga seems to be more and more repulsed by his wild pranks, but there's also the problem that every one around him seems to be effected in a negative way. Nobody, specially Olga's family can't stand him, he's seems to not get along with any one.

Turkish Delight is a very dark and perverse, but at the same time kind of liberating film. I think that has very much to do with the fact that Eric is an artist. This is truly an amazing performance by Rutger Hauer, a man we either love to hate or love. There are also a lot of shocking scenes (thought I can't understand why they actually censored people's private parts) many shocking sex scene which is either to daring or embarrassing to watch. There's also a pretty violent scene, a dream sequence where Eric brutally kills Olga and another man whom she have slept with. My overall opinion is that this is a wonderful but grotesque love story.

Grade: A-

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