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It was a good weekend for watching movies.
Dark Command (1940) - Definitely one of John Wayne's best pictures during his Republic years (I admire Stagecoach for what it did but that is much more of an academic admiration). Touches on an interesting side conflict during the Civil War and doesn't yet wallow into the Southern pride that would be more prevelant in the westerns of the later 1940s and early 1950s (where the Southern military was an institution almost completely divorced from slavery).
The Curse of the Golden Flower - Visually, I love the work of Yimou Zhang. Hero and House of Flying Daggers were both wonderful to look at. Unfortunately, the latter was painfully dull and the former would have been but at least had some good fighting in it to pass the time. This one has the same attention to visual gorgeousness but has something of a more coherent story. Not necessarily a compelling story but more coherent. I found it more satisfactory than the other two but if you really liked the other two and the visual satisfaction was enough then you'll probably find this one a lesser effort.
Rocky Balboa - I created a thread for it. Don't you dare mention it hear or iSm will lose his Christmas afterglow on your ass.
Donzoko - Akira Kurosawa's 1957 filming of Gorky's play The Lower Depths. Dreadfully dull (I finished it on Sunday but actually started watching it more than a week earlier). This is mostly because it is essentially a filmed play (there is one interior set and one exterior set) and it relies on visual cues to indicate the class, background, and archetype of the characters. Visual cues that went over my head.
The Jerk - Picked it up really cheap at the last days of the Tower Records clearance sale. Haven't seen it since I was a kid and still enjoyed it, though Steve Martin doesn't hold the same charm he did when I was 12.
Les Bas-fonds - Jean Renoir's 1936 filming of Gorky's play The Lower Depths. This version is much livelier than the Kurosawa version and coming in 30 minutes shorter keeps the energy flowing. The stable of side characters is much diminished as two of the relationships are given a much more central role. The darkness of the Kurosawa version is preferable to this one, particularly in the final conclusion, but this one is a movie rather than a play.
Dreamgirls - In one five minute song performance Jennifer Hudson won herself the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award (though she really is the lead) and she'll deserve every last bit of it. Even though the song isn't eligible for a nomination and therefore wouldn't really fit with the Oscar broadcast's template, if the director is smart he'll get her up there to sing. Wonderful performances all around and while it could have used a bit of trimming at the end (maybe 10 minutes or so) and suffered from having the emotional showstopper in the middle with it downhill from there I strongly recommend this one.
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