Mark at the movies no 7

 

Blazing Saddles.

Release Date 

February 7, 1974

Plot 

On the American frontier of 1874, a new railroad under construction will have to be rerouted through the town of Rock Ridge to avoid the quicksand. Realizing this will make Rock Ridge worth millions, conniving territorial attorney general Hedley Lamarr wants to force Rock Ridge's residents to abandon their town and sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to shoot the sheriff and trash the town. The townspeople demand that Governor William J. Le Petomane appoint a new sheriff to protect them. Lamarr persuades dim-witted Le Petomane to appoint Bart, a black railroad worker about to be executed for assaulting Taggart. A black sheriff, Lamarr reasons, will offend the townspeople, create chaos, and leave Rock Ridge at his mercy.

After an initially hostile reception (Bart takes himself "hostage" to escape), he relies on his quick wits and the assistance of Jim, an alcoholic gunslinger known as the "Waco Kid", to overcome the townspeople's hostility. Bart subdues Mongo, an immensely strong, dim-witted, yet philosophical henchman sent to kill him, then outwits German seductress-for-hire Lili Von Shtupp at her own game, with Lili falling in love with him. Upon release, Mongo vaguely informs Bart of Lamarr's connection to the railroad, so Bart and Jim visit the railroad worksite and discover from Bart's best friend Charlie that the railway is planned to go through Rock Ridge. Taggart and his men arrive to kill Bart, but Jim outshoots them and forces their retreat. Lamarr, furious that his schemes have backfired, recruits an army of thugs, including common criminals, motorcycle gangsters, Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazis, and Methodists.

East of Rock Ridge, Bart introduces the white townspeople to the black, Chinese, and Irish railroad workers who have agreed to help in exchange for acceptance by the community, and explains his plan to defeat Lamarr's army. They labour all night to build a perfect copy of the town as a diversion. When Bart realizes it will not fool the villains, the townsfolk construct copies of themselves. Bart, Jim, and Mongo buy time by constructing the "Gov. William J. Le Petomane Thruway", forcing the raiding party to send for change to pay the toll. Once through the tollbooth, the raiders attack the fake town and its population of dummies, which have been booby-trapped with dynamite. After Jim detonates the bombs with his sharpshooting, launching bad guys and horses skyward, the Rock Ridgers attack the villains.

The resulting brawl between townsfolk, railroad workers, and Lamarr's thugs literally 

breaks the fourth wall and bursts onto a neighbouring movie set where director Buddy AABizarre is filming a Busby Berkeley-style top-hat-and-tails musical number; into the studio commissary for a food fight; and spilling out of the Warner Bros. film lot onto the streets of Burbank. Lamarr, realizing he has been beaten, hails a taxi and orders the cabbie to "drive me off this picture". He ducks into Mann's Chinese Theatre, which is showing the premiere of Blazing Saddles. As he settles into his seat, he sees onscreen Bart arriving on horseback outside the theatre. Bart blocks Lamarr's escape and shoots him in the groin. Bart and Jim then enter the theatre to watch the end of the film, in which Bart announces to the townspeople that he is moving on because his work is done (and he is bored). Riding out of town, he finds Jim, still eating his popcorn, and invites him along to "nowhere special". The two friends briefly ride into the desert before dismounting and boarding a limousine, which drives off into the sunset.

By far this film by Mel Brooks is one of the best comedy westerns I have ever watched and yes the best bit is the Cowboys farting to constantly ending baked beans, there are outstanding performances by the actors in this film, a great end fight scene.

Highly recommended

4 out 4 

Running time(93 minutes)

Rated (AA)

Girls Girls Girls (2022)

Plot 

This is a Finnish coming-of-age drama that features the portrayal of three girls in bittersweet years on the edge of their womanhood.

Two of the girls work together part-time in Smoothie Bar and whilst making drafted named fruit drinks discuss their intimate desires, frustrations, feelings and needs.

The Girls are Mimmi and Ronkko.

Ronko is Asexual and wonders, why she fails to get pleasure from encounters of the carnal kind while Mimmi starts to develop feelings for a figure skater called Emma, who disputes her tough exterior.

Emma struggles to balance their new desire for Mimmi and obsessive focus on the sport that has defined her.

Gradually over three consecutive weekends, we see their shared joy of diving to a party and singing along to the music.

Knowing not what the night will bring.

This sort of makes some yearn to be young again, you see the painful humiliation of sexual encounters that don't go as planned and watch the three girls of the title journeys and you may think to yourself I'm glad you are not young.

Running Time (101 minutes)

Rated(15)

4 out of 4 stars.

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris(2022).

In 1957 London, Mrs Ada Harris, a widowed cleaning lady, becomes obsessed with one client's haute couture Dior dress; it inspires her to buy her dress. After suddenly receiving a war widow'sow's pension, she travels to Paris to do so. She stumbles into a showing of the Dio 10th-anniversary collection and is befriended by André, the Dior accountant, and Natasha, a Dior model. However, the Dior director, Claudine, resents Ada's intrusion into the exclusive world of haute couture.

Dior has fallen on hard financial times, and, because Ada will pay in cash, they reluctantly agree to make her a dress. While in Paris for fittings, she stays with André and encourages him to express his affection for Natasha—who shares his interest in existential philosophy.

When Claudine is forced to fire several Dior's workers for financial reasons, Ada organises a strike and for, Claudine and Christian Dior, Dior to hear André's ideas to modernise and make the business profitable.

Ada returns to London with her dress. She loans it to her client, Pamela, a struggling actress, who wears it to an event. It catches fire and is ruined. Ada's Dior friends read about the disaster in the newspaper and send her another dress, one she initially coveted more than the purchased one.

Sit back and watch the ungrateful, rude ex-cleaner as she goes on her journey to buy a Christian Doir Dress.     

  This is a charming post-war Cinderella with a rag-to-riches story seen many a time before it's based on the 1958 Novel that leaves you with that warm and fuzzy feeling in your stomach before you leave the cinema into the real world of honking cars and busting commuters outside and you sadly say goodbye to a slice of the 1950s.

Running time(116 Minutes).

Rated (PG)

Rated 4 out of 4 

For that fuzzy feeling in your tum, tum.

Smile (2022).

Plot.

We follow a series of events after a Doctor (Dr Rose Cotter)is witness to the suicide of a student(Laura Weaver) at an emergency psychiatric ward.

Before Laura, s untimely death she was sleep deprived and deeply paranoid and yells 

"I, m going to fucking die and no one listens to me"

Laura believes that a shape-shifting spirit with a gruesome smile or the worst you have ever seen is coming to get her.

Moments later an eerie grin spreads across Laura, s face she then proceeds to lock her Eyes with the Doctor and she then slowly slits her throat with a broken flower pot shard.

This film builds the tension by cleverly using unnerving upside-down camera angles and chilling music and if you watch very carefully you may find hidden smiles everywhere that hint at the terror to come.

The film is a bit predictable near the ending the animation of the entity is a bit impressive, there are a few cheeky gags in this excellent supernatural horror.

If you get afraid you be glad to see the return of face masks to being spooked by strangers with an eerie scary grin.

Running Time(115 Minutes)

Rated (18)

4 out 4 

I love a good scary film.

Blonde (2022)

Netflix 

Plot.

 

As a young girl, Norma Jeane Mortenson grows up raised by her mentally unstable mother Gladys. On her seventh birthday in 1933, she is given a framed picture of a man Gladys claims is her father. Later that night, a fire breaks out in the Hollywood Hills, and Gladys drives Norma Jeane up there, claiming that her father lives there, but is forced to go back home at the orders of the police. An enraged Gladys tries to drown Norma Jeane in the bathtub when she asks about her father but lets her go. Norma Jeane escapes to the house of her neighbour, Miss Flynn, who promises she will be fine. A few days later, Norma Jeane is sent to an orphanage while Gladys is admitted to a mental hospital, having been declared unfit to raise a child.

In the 1940s, Norma Jeane becomes a pin-up girl under the stage name of "Marilyn Monroe", appearing on magazine covers and calendars. While trying to break into the acting industry, she is raped by film studio president Mr Z. In 1950, she auditions for the role of Nell in Don't Bother to Knock. The audition goes poorly after she breaks down and leaves in tears, but she impresses the casting director enough to give her the part. As her acting career steadily rises, she meets Charles "Cass" Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. "Eddy" Robinson Jr., with whom she begins a polyamorous relationship. Norma Jeane lands her breakout role in 1953 with Niagara, but after she is spotted in public with Cass and Eddy, she is told by her agent to limit her appearances with them in public, which upsets her because she feels that her persona of Marilyn is just a role and not her true self.

Norma Jeane becomes pregnant with Cass' child, much to her delight, but eventually decides to have an abortion out of fear that the child might inherit Gladys' mental issues. Cass supports her decision. On the day of the appointment, she changes her mind, but it is too late. Following the abortion, she breaks things off with Cass and Eddy. She later meets Joe DiMaggio, a retired athlete who sympathizes with her when she expresses her desire to leave Hollywood and become a more serious actress in New York City. As she films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she receives a letter from a man claiming to be her father. Norma Jeane feels disconnected from her onscreen performance at the film's premiere, saying it is not her. She returns to her hotel room, having been told that someone is waiting for her. Expecting it to be her father, she instead finds Joe, who asks to marry her, which she accepts reluctantly.

Norma Jeane and Joe's marriage sours when Cass and Eddy give Joe some nude publicity pictures of her, which enrages Joe so much that he hits her and demands that she refuse to do The Seven Year Itch out of principle. However, she still goes through with filming, doing the famous publicity stunt with the white dress. When she gets home, a drunken Joe screams and gets physically violent with her. She divorces him shortly after.

In 1955, Norma Jeane auditions for the Broadway play Magda, written by renowned playwright Arthur Miller. During a read-through, her performance impresses everyone but Arthur. He eventually warms up to her when she gives him some insightful character analysis. Norma Jeane and Arthur marry and move to Maine, where she lives a happy life with him and becomes pregnant. However, when walking on the beach one day with a platter of food, she trips and miscarries. Distraught, she returns to acting soon after.

While filming Some Like It Hot, Norma Jeane becomes more uncontrollable and mentally disturbed. She is overwhelmed by the constant press attention, feels that she is becoming a joke, has frequent outbursts on set, especially toward director Billy Wilder, and grows increasingly distant from Arthur. To cope with her stress, she begins taking pills.

By 1962, she has become dependent on drugs and alcohol. Secret Service agents pick up an intoxicated Norma Jeane and take her to a hotel to meet the president, who forces her to fellate him, before raping her, and then has her taken away after she vomits in his bed. Already dazed and drugged on pills, she begins to wonder if this is what being 'Marilyn Monroe' has led to, and she also hallucinates having another abortion before being sent back to her home in Los Angeles. She learns from Eddy on the phone that Cass has died and has left something to her, which she refuses to see at first but is convinced by Eddy, who sends it in a package in the mail. Cass' memento turns out to be the stuffed tiger plush that she found when the three of them were together, and the package also contains a letter where he confesses that the letters that Norma Jeane has been receiving, supposedly from her father, were written by him.

Shattered by the revelation, Norma Jeane overdoses on barbiturates; as she dies on her bed, she has a vision of her father welcoming her to the afterlife.

This is a darkly look into the darkness of what people suffer for their art, it contains sexual images and scenes of a somewhat unpleasant nature of how the main character is treated as a sexual object.

I liked the mixture of black and white with elements of colour and I found the main actress captures the essence of Nora Jean and her alter self Marilyn Monroe, her loss of various babies I think delves her into the realm of mental illness I suspect Post Natal Depression.

I found myself deeply engrossed in the film despite its subject and it is slightly too long

Running time (2h 46m)

Rated (18)

4 out 4 

For the brilliant acting of  Ana de Armas as Nora Jean.