Managed to get 4 films in this weekend despite the disapproval of her indoors - bit of a frosty atmosphere round Chez Joe! Worth it though, all goodies.
Army of Shadows- this immersive trip into the French resistance plays like a vision of hell where it's perpetually just before dawn, you can't trust your countrymen and there's monsters everywhere. Despite the relentless bleakness it flies by - Melville had an amazing eye for a shot and was incapable of being boring.
Crimewave - Not the Raimi, a 50s noir stuffed with great characters. It's your basic 'just when I was out they pulled me back in again' plot but it's the fringe detail that makes it. Loved the gentle vet/hard bitten mob doctor and the young Charlie Bronson as muscle. Ending a bit rushed and pat but this is an entertaining 75 minutes.
The Stranger - Orson Welles is a Nazi hiding in small town America and about to be married to the daughter of a local judge (blimey that was quick - it's only 1946!) Edward G Robinson is the man on his tail. The tension never reaches unbearable levels - Welles (the actor) is too hammy from the off, his fiancée unbelievably dumb (he admitted poisoning your damn dog!) but as usual the set pieces and visuals are fantastic especially the famous last scene - death by medieval clock tower anyone?
The Honeymoon Killers - cinematic whiplash - starts out campy and crass, becomes the blackest of comedies before heading into pure hell - the last 20 minutes rivals Henry for nihilistic horror. Surely this is screaming for the Arrow treatment? Unforgettable.
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