Tuesday, July 14, 2009

This week's movies 14/07/09

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Andersson, Jan Malmsjo. Dir: Ingmar Bergman.

The breakdown of a marriage and its reconciliation of sorts. Impeccably scripted and very insightful drama of the complicated nature of human relationships, but a huge mouthful at 155 mins. Originally a six part series, and probably better viewed that way. Very impressive performances all ways round.

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Marathon Man (1974) Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider. Dir: John Schlesinger

An aspiring marathon runner gets caught up in his brother’s involvement with diamond smugglers and an escaped nazi. Fairly tense thriller, but it’s hard to care about any of the characters in it. Hoffman is separated from the main action too long for his conflict to really resonate.

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Hobson’s Choice (1954) Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda Da Banzie, Prunella Scales. Dir: David Lean

A pompous and chauvinistic boot store owner gets his just desserts when his eldest daughter decides to marry his talented shoemaker. A pleasant treatment of a pleasant play. Hardly hilarious or exceptional, but Laughton does give it his all.

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6 comments:

Chris said...

I really liked Marathon Man and thought Dustin Hoffman was really quite good in it. I might give this a revisit, it's probably a decade since I saw it.

Anonymous said...

WTF - Dave someone's hacked your site and made it look good. Bastards!

Dave Paul Nixon said...

Yeah, I uh, did it myself - graphic designed the crap out of it!

Dave Paul Nixon said...

I think Marathon Man's a very tense film, it's extremely well directed and paced, but Hoffman doesn't come into contact with the main plot till over half way through the film. I just found it hard to really care about him, or really be moved by the development/plight of his character.

Chris said...

Definitely agree with you about the tension - I remember it being quite claustrophobic too but maybe that's just my memory... Do you have it on DVD that I could borrow?

Dave Paul Nixon said...

Alas no, I watched it on one of those ITV channels, the ones that you never watch unless by chance they put a decent film on.