I spent my movie nights this week with L’Avventura and La Notte.

You seem to me at the moment to be no longer grey. I’ll star you again to be on the safe side. I’ve just assumed that once not grey, never again grey. But I really don’t know how this place works, I could be grey myself and not realise it! This does all seem at times a bit capricious.

I love Zabriskie Point to smithereens! But it is widely disliked, in particular it seems because of the lead actors. They can’t read lines, there’s no denying that. Don’t expect Hemmings and Redgrave! But they do feel right for their parts, nonetheless. I can’t now imagine the story with anyone else in their roles.

Acti…

I spent my movie nights this week with Battle in Outer Space and Zabriskie Point.

I spent my first movie night this week with The Island of Dr. Moreau. The Marlon Brando one.

I finished my Star Trek Christmas this week with Episode VI. I wasn’t fooled for a second. They tried to make you think that Charlotte was the saboteur, but I knew all along it was Samantha.

I find it very easy to imagine William Shatner as a bewildered chef trying to follow a cookie recipe. “Separate the eggs. Separate...the... eggs. The... eggs.... Separate them... from what?” Then he’d move the eggs apart from each other and return to the next line in the cookbook.

I don’t understand what you mean about it taking place in Kirk’s head. That Kirk dreamed it all while they were out camping?

I’m certain there’s a good movie hiding in among the pieces of Star Trek V. Small Praise: it is at least without question a better story than the previous time they had been coerced into going…

This week I watched Star Treks IV and V. I am relieved to find I still enjoy these movies as much as I used to, I think maybe more than ever. Occasionally with movies I have a crisis of taste when something I loved for years reveals itself as a big load of nothing. I suspect one day I’ll get sick of movies…

I only had one movie night this week because of Christmas. Merry that, by the way! Happy Holidays! In between the usual holiday stuff I found time for one proper movie night which I spent with Star Trek III.

If you haven’t already, its worth reading about the production of King Kong ‘76. They had a self-imposed deadline because of an ad they had run a year earlier promising Kong by Christmas. And yet throughout the rushed production, Delaurentiis insisted that the Kong used throughout the movie would be a full-scale…

Yeah, Star Trek is at its best when its about ideas, about discovery and solving problems! And showing a future that is full of hope.

Just to clear up what I meant by there not being a villain: I didn’t mean there was not an antagonist, just that there was no actually villainy involved, no malice.

Earlier this year I finally finished watching the original Star Trek series for the purpose of rewatching the movies after a suitable wait so I could experience them from the perspective of a Trekkie in 1979. I’ve always liked the original cast movies despite having never seen more than a minute or two of the…

Unless you enjoy Ozu in general - and it sounds like you don’t, because you’ve listed three movies of Ozu at his most Ozu - then I’m not sure what there is left of Dragnet Girl to appreciate. I guess it is a historical curiosity. If you like American gangster movies of that era and want to see one from a Japanese…

This was an Ozu week: I was Born, but…, and Dragnet Girl.

I watched this week Death and the River, and Harry Houdini’s Terror Island.

I watched this week Merry-Go-Round. It seems to me of that sort of movie where the plot matters less than the complexity of the plot. I’m well used to Rivette’s conspiracies and playful mysteries, but this one was a bit much! It really did seem for awhile that this was a plot intended to be followed. So I tried…

I have not seen that one, or any of his movies from the 90s and 00s but for Noiseuse and Va Savoir. I liked both of those a lot, but just to my own taste I preferred when his stories took place in worlds ruled by magic! I didn’t look too closely at the Marie and Julien entry because I prefer not knowing what I’m in…

Remember the pianist always there in the background of Duelle playing the actual score of the movie? Noirot does the same, but this time its a lute/flute/drum trio. The plot of Noirot takes just about as long to become clear as it does in Duelle. Noirot is similarly choreographed to Duelle, everyone moving like…