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The Gamma People (1956)
Gamma-Ray Creatures Loose!
Filmmaker(s): John Gilling

An American reporter smells a story when he is stranded in an Iron Curtain country where the local dictator is using gamma rays to transform children into mutated henchmen.

Women, Trained story here is a bit interesting, deriving from Nazi experiments with children and indicating a trend actually well supported in the US. But the production is ho hum and it has no value for what it is. But it is an example of something...


Published July 23, 2025
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Ghost Ship Part 2 (1957)
Filmmaker(s): Sadatsugu Matsuda

As Part I opens, Jubei (Denjiro Okochi), the best of sea skippers, is unable to overcome the stormy seas of Luzon. All hands on board the Kannonmaru were lost except for Shinkei, who alone made his way to land & eventually home to inform his grandson Jiromaru (Kinnosuke Nakamura) that his father Jubei met with disaster. Young Jiromaru tells his grandfather that he doesn't want to be a skipper like his father, but wants to go to Kyoto and become a samurai…

Pirates! Ghosts! Samurai! not sure how much I will be able to devote to a study of Japanese cinema. I am attracted to films that rinse modern concepts through a Shinto lens. So the filmmakers and projects I value are actually few. But you have...


Published June 17, 2025
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
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Treasure Island (1950)
PIRATE'S PLUNDER a young cabin boy, a roguish buccaneer... match wits in a swashbuckling adventure!
Filmmaker(s): Byron Haskin

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.

Two Heads, One Leg is rather hard to appreciate in the sea of movies we have now, but once upon a time the world of imagination was owned by books, and this was a king among them. Stevenson invented the modern notion of pirates: the...


Published January 5, 2025
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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Duck Amuck (1953)
A Merrie Melodie ~ Cartoon ~
Filmmaker(s): Chuck Jones

The short-tempered Daffy Duck must improvise madly as the backgrounds, his costumes, the soundtrack, even his physical form, shifts and changes at the whim of the animator.

A Short History of Film Folds have a small list of films I think are essential viewing. This is on it, only one of two allowed for that year. Looking at my list, there are a few animated shorts, and I think that makes sense. Animators...


Published December 11, 2024
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A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
...Blanche, who wanted so much to stay a lady...
Filmmaker(s): Elia Kazan

A fading southern belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.

Mass Transit vast majority of films use someone else's vocabulary, so when you can run across one that helped create that vocabulary it is cause for celebration. Usually the originality is in the vision of the filmmaker, but here it is in the manner of...


Published December 11, 2024
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12 Angry Men (1957)
Life is in their hands — Death is on their minds!
Filmmaker(s): Sidney Lumet

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

No Dissonance film deserves to be on anyone's list of top films. My problem is that it is so perfect, so seamlessly polished, it is hard to appreciate the individual excellences. The acting is top notch. I believe that monologue acting is quite a bit simpler...


Published December 11, 2024
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Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
What a Glorious Feeling!
Filmmaker(s): Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.

Folded Eye Jazz is a nearly perfect film from my perspective: It feels naturally improvised. Its episodes are radically discontinuous, but feel like fluid transitions. It has some great numbers, including the incomparable Cyd Charisse. But what really puts this on my `must see' list is...


Published December 11, 2024
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The Seventh Seal (1957)
The story of a challenge to death
Filmmaker(s): Ingmar Bergman

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.

Folded Narrative Folding is much loved because of his sheer passion, its intimate rawness and the ability to present it visually. He was able to sustain that uncomfortable ability for decades, but this film also has something else -- unique in his work -- a...


Published December 11, 2024
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Ugetsu (1953)
Filmmaker(s): Kenji Mizoguchi

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

Saki from the Potter's Hands my film project, I watch a lot of movies. Good and bad. Old, new; new as old, old as "timeless." Nearly all of them take from me. Making art is hard work. Bad artists make you work harder, investing perhaps everything...


Published December 11, 2024
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Vertigo (1958)
Alfred Hitchcock engulfs you in a whirlpool of terror and tension!
Filmmaker(s): Alfred Hitchcock

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Two Dizzy really has to separate the idea of this film from its execution. I think the idea is terrific and the execution wobbly at least by today's standards. First, the story, which is clever and self-referentially about the making of itself. Initially, we are shown the...


Published December 11, 2024
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