Movies I’ve Seen Lately

I’ll try to do this from memory. It won’t be complete or detailed, but I’ll hope to keep it up to date as I go from here.

These are ones I’ve watched while working out.

In no particular order…

Nosferatu (1922) – 4/5 – silent, (F.W. Murnau, 1922) “To watch F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is to see the vampire movie before it had really seen itself. Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in cliches, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.” — Roger Ebert

“The original, superbly loathsome German version of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is a concentrated essay in horror fantasy, full of weird, macabre camera effects. Though ludicrous at times (every horror film seems to become absurd after the passage of years, and many before—yet the horror remains), this first important film of the vampire genre has more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors. The movie often seems more closely related to demonic painting than to the later, rather rigid vampire-movie genre.” — Pauline Kael

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) – 4/5 – Aguirre, The Wrath of God

Nosferatu (1979) – 5/5 – German/English, Herzog, Kinski

Stage Coach (1939) – 3.5/5 – b/w, classic, (John Ford, 1939) “Perhaps the most likable of all Westerns, and a Grand Hotel-on-wheels movie that has just about everything—adventure, romance, chivalry—and all of it very simple and traditional.” — Pauline Kael

Third Man, The – 3.5/5 – Welles, b/w, spy-thriller, Russia

Seventh Seal, The – 3/5 – Swedish, b/w, (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) “The images and the omens are medieval, but the modern erotic and psychological insights add tension, and in some cases, as in the burning of the child—witch (Maud Hansson), excruciation. The actors’ faces, the aura of magic, the ambiguities, and the riddle at the heart of the film all contribute to its stature.” — Pauline Kael

Magnificent Seven, The – 3.5/5 – western, b/w, based on The Seven Samarai

Seven Samarai, The – 3.5/5 – classic, b/w

Sergeant York – 3.5/5 – Gary Cooper, WWI, b/w

The Big Sleep (1946) – 3.5/5 – Bogie and Bacall, interested release info: some filmed in 1944 and some (refilmed) later in ’46, Wm Faulkner on the screenplay – dialogue!

Not while working out:

Ray – 4/5
Spanglish – 3.5/5
Shark Tale – 2.5/5
After the Sunset – 1/5
Incredibles, The – 4.5/5

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