What should I watch tonight?

[Eric P]

Punishment Park

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The movie takes place in 1970. The Vietnam War is escalating and United States President Richard Nixon has just decided on a "secret" bombing campaign in Cambodia. Faced with a growing anti-war movement, President Nixon decrees a state of emergency based on the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which authorizes federal authorities, without reference to Congress, to detain persons judged to be a "risk to internal security". Members from the anti-war movement, civil rights movement, feminist movement, conscientious objectors, and Communist party, mostly University students, are arrested and face an emergency tribunal made up of community members. With state and federal jails at their top capacity, the convicted face the option of spending their full conviction time in federal prison or three days at Punishment Park. There, they will have to traverse 60 miles of the hot California desert in three days, without water or food, while being chased by National Guardsmen and law enforcement officers as part of their field training. If they succeed and reach the American flag at the end of the course, they will be set free. If they fail by getting "arrested", they will serve the remainder of their sentence in federal prison.

European film makers follow two groups of detainees as part of their documentary; while Group 637 starts their three day ordeal and learn the rules of the "game", the civilian tribunal begins hearings on Group 638. The film makers conduct interviews with members of Group 637 and their chasers, documenting how both sides become increasingly hostile towards the other. Meanwhile, back at the tent, the film crew documents the trial of Group 638 as they argue their case in vain for resisting the war in Vietnam.

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Old Dark House

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Old Dark House is a 1932 horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein. In spite of the presence of Karloff, The Old Dark House was largely ignored at the American box office, although it was a huge hit in Whale's native England where the audience was more in tune with the director's distinctive, ironic sense of black humour. For many years, it was considered a lost film and gained a tremendous reputation as one of the pre-eminent gothic horror films. Finally, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, the original negative of the film was discovered by Curtis Harrington in the vaults of Universal Studios and restored so that it could once more be shown in public. Filled with humorously sophisticated dialogue, the movie also featured Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Ernest Thesiger (Doctor Pretorius in Whale's 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein), Raymond Massey, and Gloria Stuart (the elderly "Rose" in 1998's Titanic) as the ravishing young ingenue. According to the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural, the Femm family's ancient patriarch was played by a woman, Elspeth Dudgeon (billed as "John Dudgeon"), because Whale couldn't find a male actor who looked old enough for the role.

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Ace in the Hole

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ace in the Hole is a 1951 American drama film. It marked a series of firsts for auteur Billy Wilder: it was the first time he was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director; his first film following his breakup with long-time writing partner Charles Brackett, with whom he had collaborated on The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, among others; and his first film to be a critical and commercial failure [1].

The film is a cynical examination of the seedy relationship between the media and the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it. Without consulting Wilder, Paramount Pictures executive Y. Frank Freeman changed the title to The Big Carnival just prior to its release. Early television broadcasts retained that title, but when aired by Turner Classic Movies - and released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in July 2007 - it reverted to Ace in the Hole.

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[Eric P]

too late

i'm going with punishment park  so far they're rounding up hippies

[Eric P]

they really kind of kill the documentary mood with the occasional incidental music.

i think it would be better if they didn't have that.

very powerful though

[Mupepe]

i think you should watch your mouth 

[Eric P]

that's never going to happen, sadly

[Mupepe]

let me watch it for you

[Eric P]

 

[Mupepe]

Eric


                Himurowned

[TVC15]

As someone that hates America, I dug Punishment Park.  Ace in the Hole is better, though. <3 Billy Wilder.  Now I want to watch one of his movies.  Which should it be?  I have all the biggies:

Ace in the Hole
Double Indemnity
Sunset Blvd.
The Lost Weekend
The Apartment
Seven Year Itch

maybe a few more

[Eric P]

watch the apartment again

i really like that film

i'm almost done with punishment park.  it's really really well done and would suggest it to anyone.

i'm going to queue up the rest of peter watkins' output.

[Van Cruncheon]

just testin'

[TVC15]

mmm

[Eric P]

that's a good choice as well

[Eric P]

i'm not really enjoying ace in the hole

the acting is good, the writing is good, but it just seems... i don't know, off some how.

not one of my more favored wilder films so far, but i've got a half hour to go.

[Ichirou]

I tend to dislike Kirk Douglas's acting style for some reason.

[Eric P]

...i can see why this movie hasn't had wide release until criterion unearthed it.

it's very dark and cynical look at the media, but it's more a condemnation of one man's manipulation for the sake of the story than it is of media's complicit nature in all of this

we take great pains to see the newspaper man in the beginning is good and honorable, and it's essentially kirk douglas's character who is the corrupting influence, but even he softens by the end of the movie, but it's not really shown to be growth or anything of that nature.  it's more in line with being an aberration than anything else and now the film is going to great lengths to unpaint this horrible selfish character out of this corner.

i dunno.  it's got 15 minutes, it could surprise me.

[TVC15]

Man, Gloria Swanson is <3  I would stick my dong in her ass any day.

[Eric P]

the movie does redeem itself but i don't think it works as a commentary or critique on the american media establishment as stated.

the ending is excellent after all.

i feared a horrible speech, but thankfully we were ultimately spared.

good film.  worth watching

[TVC15]

After watching it again for like the first time in 2 years, I think Sunset Blvd is probably my favorite Wilder movies.  I can't really find much of a point of criticism to hang on.

Oh well, I think I'm going to watch an early Bergman movie then go to sleep.