October 2018 in Films
As you will see I watched A LOT of movies in October. The month began with my third trip to Pordenone in Italy for the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. The festival was again jam-packed with amazing film, mostly rarities from film archives and new restorations. I then watched several 2018 films (in theaters and on Netflix). Lastly, the month ended with the news that FilmStruck will be shutting down on November 29th (no worries, I still have a job!), so I have been binge-watching silent films and Japanese cinema. All of this resulted in a lot of cinema consumed. I discovered some new favorite directors and some truly awe-inspiring cinema. As always, you can see everything I watched plus some favorites after the cut.
- Sperfuira! (The False Oath)
- La Grande Bretèche
- The Sealed Room
- Always Keep To The White Line
- The Covered Wagon
- Satana (1912)
- Parsifal (1912)
- Das Geheimnis Der Marquise (The Marquise’ Secret)
- Our Pet
- Captain Salvation
- Plus De Chauves (No More Bald Men)
- Un Rayon De Soleil
- Her Code of Honor
- Schall Und Rauch (Sound and Smoke)
- The Lincoln Cycle: My Mother
- The Lincoln Cycle: My Father
- Not’ Fanfare Concourt (Our Band’s Going To The Court)
- L’Auberge Rouge (1923)
- Diplomatic Henry
- Sowing The Wind
- Der Kampff Ums Matterhorn (The Fight For The Matterhorn)
- Das Mädchen Für Alles (The Girl For Everything)
- Das Alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law)
- La Plus Belle Conquête De La Femme C’est La Citroën
- The Mating Call
- The Lincoln Cycle: A Call To Arms
- [Reklama Piecyków Do Piecznia]
- Le Cheval Emballé
- Dunungen (In Quest of Happiness)
- The Way To A Child’s Heart
- Smouldering Fires
- That Other Girl
- Schultz’s Lottery Ticket
- The Child Thou Gavest Me
- Making A Convert
- What Could She Do!
- The Last of the Hargroves
- The Portrait In The Attic
- Neobychainye Prikliucheniya Mistera Vesta V Strange Bolshevikov (The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West In The Land of the Bolsheviks)
- Le Secret De La Cuisinière
- Den Gyldne Drøm
- Paris At Midnight (1926)
- The Lincoln Cycle: My First Jury
- The Lincoln Cycle: Tender Memories
- The Rock Garden
- Captain Blood (1924)
- Suspicious Wives
- Judaspengar (The Price of Betrayal)
- Ballettprimadonnan
- [Reklamfilm Barnängen – Reportage Från Sommarens Stockholmsutställning]
- L’Homme Du Large
- Melodie (1929)
- Les Rameaux. Hosannah! (De Faure)
- Assunta Spina (1915)
- The Lincoln Cycle: A President’s Answer
- The Lincoln Cycle: Native State
- Le Cheminée Fume
- Prästänkan (The Parson’s Widow)
- Madame De Langeais
- Liebe
- I Promessi Sposi (1922)
- The Lincoln Cycle: Under The Stars
- When The Tables Turned
- Husbands And Lovers
- Eugénie Grandet
- La Cousine Bette
- (L’Invasione Dell Truppe Tedesche Nel Beglio)
- L’Energica Avanzata Contro I Ribelli Di El Baruni
- The Enemy (1927)
- La Memoria Dell’altro
- L’Atlantide (1921)
- Der Hund Von Baskerville (1929)
- Ett Farligt Frieri (A Dangerous Wooing)
- Changing Hues
- The Home Maker
- Memory Lane (1926)
- Filendouce Est Insaisissable
- Troll-Elgen (The Ghost Elk)
- The Slavey Student
- What Do You Do On Friday Night?
- Forbidden Paradise
- [Reklamfilm Barnågen – Chimpansen Rakas]
- A Simple Mistake (1910)
- Der Goldene Abgrund. Schiffbrüchige Des Lebens (The Golden Abyss. Castaways of Life)
- La Donna Che Inventò La Diva
- Robert Vignola, Da Trivigno A Hollywood
- Laveuses
- Admiral Cigarette
- Lasse Månsson Fra Skaane (Struggling Hearts)
- Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgers
- The Ploughshare
- Something Good – Negro Kiss
- In Old Kentucky (1927)
- Mes Voisins Font Danser
- The Little Boys Next Door
- Les Bottines Du Colonel
- When Mary Grew Up
- Gontran Et La Voisine Inconnue
- La Vengeance Du Sergent De Ville
- Park Your Car (1920)
- The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
- Impromptu (2017)
- Le Joueur D’Échecs (The Chess Player)
- Ocean’s 8
- Tea With The Dames
- Colette (2018)
- The Land of Steady Habits
- Private Life
- The Kindergarten Teacher
- Dude
- Like Father
- Lightning Sketches
- Cartoons on Tour
- Col. Heeza Liar, Detective
- Bobby Bumps Starts for School
- The Circus (1920)
- The Fable of the Jolly Rounders
- Fireman Save My Child
- The Bomb Idea
- Felix Comes Back
- Springtime (1923)
- Scents and Nonsense
- Dinky Doodle in Lost and Found
- Hot-Toe Mollie
- Toby the Milkman
- The Farmerette
- The Haunted Hotel (1907)
- La course aux potirons (The Pumpkin Race)
- The Ouija Board
- Koko Sees Spooks
- Dinky Doodle in Just Spooks
- Alice’s Mysterious Mystery
- Slick Sleuths
- Pete’s Haunted House
- Sure-Locked Homes
- The Fresh Lobster
- The Witch’s Cat (1929)
- The Haunted Ship (1930)
- Skulls and Sculls
- Wot a Night
- Bold King Cole
- Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don’t Want To Be A Man)
- Die Austernprinzessin (The Oyster Princess)
- Die Puppe (The Doll)
- Anna Boleyn
- Sumurun (One Arabian Night)
- Gan (Wild Geese)
- Neko to Shôzô to futari no onna (Shozo, a Cat and Two Women)
- Tutto a posto e niente in ordine (All Screwed Up)
- Ferdinando e Carolina
- Dietro gli occhiali bianchi (Behind The White Glasses)
- The Night Porter
- La donna nella Resistenza (Women of the Resistance)
- My Beautiful Laundrette
- Subarashiki nichiyôbi (One Wonderful Sunday)
- A Dog’s Life (1918)
- Karumen kokyô ni kaeru (Carmen Comes Home)
- Karumen junjô su (Carmen Falls In Love)
- Tooi kumo (The Tattered Wings/Distant Clouds)
- Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki (She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum)
- Haru no yume (Spring Dreams)
- Shoulder Arms
- Sunnyside (1919)
- The Idle Class
- Pay Day
- A Day’s Pleasure
- A Woman of Paris
- The Circus
- Kimi to wakarete (Apart from You)
- Minato no nihonmusume (Japanese Girls at the Harbor)
- Kurutta ippêji (A Page of Madness)
- Arigatô-san (Mr. Thank You)
- Anma to onna (The Masseurs and a Woman)
- Kanzashi (Ornamental Hairpin)
- Naniwa erejî (Osaka Elegy)
- Gion no shimai (Sisters of the Gion)
- Yoru no onnatachi (Women of the Night)
1880s: 0
1890s: 3
1900s: 11
1910s: 56
1920s: 63
1930s: 15
1940s: 6
1950s: 7
1960s: 3
1970s: 2
1980s: 3
1990s: 1
2000s: 0
2010s: 11
L’Atlantide, 1921 (dir. Jacques Feyder)
This was the world premiere of a beautiful new restoration of this film by Lobster Films and it did not disappoint. This lush three-hour adventure film is an adaptation of the 1919 novel of the same name by Pierre Benoit. I’d seen the 1933 version by G.W. Pabst earlier this year and I think both films are very good (and each keep aspects of the source material that the other discards), but for me this epic is the version. The tinting on this new restoration was to die for and the locations – it was shot in Algeria! – are to die for. I hope this new restoration is released on home video or streaming some day, however based on a conversation I had with Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films this seem doubtful. I’ll forever be glad I was lucky enough to see it with my own eyes.
Le Joueur d’échecs (The Chess Player), 1927 (dir. Raymond Bernard)
I had no idea what this movie was about going in and in no scenario would I ever have guessed that a movie about Polish revolutionaries would include death by an army of automatons. This is available from Milestone Films and I highly recommend seeking it out.
Private Life, 2018 (dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Netflix has released a ton of films directed by women this year and I was able to catch up with several of them this last month. This latest film from Tamara Jenkins, her first in over a decade, is a warm and bittersweet and unabashedly humane look at the struggle of a long married couple as they attempt to conceive. Some of Paul Giamatti’s best work, and a fearless performance from Kathryn Hahn.
Neko to Shôzô to futari no onna (Shozo, A Cat and Two Women), 1956 (dir. Shirô Toyoda)
I actually found this movie on FilmStruck when we first launched and when I discovered it was an adaptation of a Jun’ichirô Tanizaki novel (a favorite author of mine), I immediately added it to my queue. I think it’s running time is what kept me from watching it in a timely manner and boy was I dumb. This is THE cat person movie. It’s 2+ running time flies by and it’s filled with utterly delightful moments. A true hard to find gem.
Karumen junjô su (Carmen Falls In Love), 1952 (dir. Keisuke Kinoshita)
I have absolutely fallen in love with the films of Keisuke Kinoshita. I wish I had discovered them earlier! This one is a sequel to Carmen Comes Home (the first color film made in Japan), which is a much more well-known/regarded film, but I actually liked this film better. Both films co-star Hideko Takamine and Toshiko Kobayashi as showgirls whose modern lifestyles get them into many, many shenanigans. Both films reminded me quite a bit of the kind of buddy comedies Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell used to make in Hollywood in the 1930s. Highly recommended.
Arigatō-san (Mr. Thank You), 1936 (dir. Hiroshi Shimizu)
This has got to be one of the sweetest films I’ve ever seen. It takes place over one bus journey from rural city of Izu to the faraway city of Tokyo, with Ken Uehara playing the titular Mr. Thank You – a nickname given to the bus driver as he utters the phrase often during his route. Along the way he helps locals – delivery messages, picking up new records, etc. – as well as helps his passengers. It’s a lovely film about the importance of community and connections, and the resilience of every day people.
Yoru no onnatachi (Women of the Night), 1948 (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
I watched four of Mizoguchi’s “fallen women” films – movies about women who descend into prostitution for various reasons (a topic that several of the Japanese filmmakers I’ve watched in the last few days tackled), with this film being the rawest of the four. It’s rough and it’s real and it will break your freaking heart.
So that was October. November is of course Noirvember, which this year will mostly consist of foreign noir that I want to watch before FilmStruck closes. There are also several new releases coming out in the next few weeks that I can’t wait to see. Something tells me it’s going to be another jam-packed month of soul-stirring cinema!
Posted on November 1, 2018, in 2018 in Films and tagged A Cat and Two Women, Arigatō-san, Carmen Falls In Love, Hiroshi Shimizu, Jacques Feyder, Karumen junjô su, Keisuke Kinoshita, Kenji Mizoguchi, L'Atlantide, Le Joueur d'échecs, Mr. Thank You, Neko to Shôzô to futari no onna, Private Life, Raymond Bernard, Shirô Toyoda, Shozo, Tamara Jenkins, The Chess Player, Women of the Night, Yoru no onnatachi. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
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