Award Season (Film #15) 4 March 2013

I did decently this week.  The film of the week goes to Rio Grande.  Gravity took most of the notable awards home at the 2014 Academy Awards, though top picture winner, 12 Years a Slave, was the glorious upstart and my fascination with Steve McQueen makes this a must-see!  Hopefully by next week.

The Last Films I've Seen
1. Presumed Innocent, 1990, Pakula, 6.8.
Dark.  I like 'em dark.  This was a good one, all things said.  Man accused of crime he didn't commit, fairly unpredictable actual killer, solid mystery/thriller.
2. "Man From The South," Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1960, Season 5, Episode 15, Lloyd, 9.0.
The remake by Quentin Tarantino in the fourth room of Four Rooms imbued this with a certain excitement for me from the start.  Not only does Tarantino borrow from old TV/Film, he sometimes remakes it.  Cool. Great episode, with Peter Lorre as a fiendish finger forager.  Good stuff.
3. "Inmates," The Walking Dead, 2014, Season 4, Episode 10, Brock, 6.8/10.
The group is scattered and they're trying to find one another.  There's a lot of silence in this episode, which could make for a better viewing environment, but not enough happens in it to really rise out of the ordinary.  A little more visual beauty would have made this episode strong, but as it stands, it was just sort of blase.
4. Pierrot le Fou, 1965, Godard, 8.2/10.
I watched the first 30 minutes of this twice.  It was invigorating and cast a spell, in it's discussion of Velazquez, and it's chromatic filters.  It devolves a bit into Godard fare, with timelines inconsistent, preoccupation with mysterious words and phrases and actions, and bizarre characters who met each other in past lives or years past.  In other words, the film went from really really good to really good.  Belmondo and Karina were on their game.  Good movie.
5. Rio Grande, 1950, Ford, 8.4/10.
Quality western with some amazing elements.  The music was superb.  The acting, likewise, was superb.  Elements of the story were also great, but it lacked a bit that would have made it even better.  The Native Americans were fairly faceless, which knocks things down in my book.  Still, very close to a 9/10 movie.