#nitrateglow

[traceamountsoftimetravel]

4, 20

Movie of the year?

I didn't go to the movies a lot this year. Furiosa's an easy choice by that measure; as of this writing, Nosferatu (2024) has yet to premiere. We introduced a friend to the Star Wars franchise via the despecialized cut of the original film. That was special, and probably the best overall experience of the year.

What's something you learned this year?

That you can't control the reactions of other people, therefore it's dumb to just live in fear of "offending" them. This isn't about decorum or proper behavior. It's about realizing life only moves in one direction, and you can either hold yourself back by living in the past, or you can grow as your own person and learn how to be a capable, emotionally-mature adult.

[hobbitmajora]

I was tagged by @nitrateglow to list nine films I'd like to watch in the new year! Thanks for tagging me!

In no particular order...

Nosferatu (2024)

2. The Cat and The Canary

3. It's A Wonderful Knife

4. Targets

5. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim

6. The Mummy's Shroud

7. The Last Picture Show

8. Bringing Up Baby

9. Sonic the Hedgehog 3

I tag...all who'd like to play! Say I tagged you!

[norashelley]

Rules: Without naming them, post a gif from ten of your favorite films, then tag ten people to do the same! I was tagged by @maudeboggins, thank you! selecting from OH favorites only in year released order, I could not for the life of me find gifs for some of these so still images will have to do!

I will tag @grusinskayas @4harts @nitrateglow @murderballadeer @bygone-hollywood @oftwodarkmoons @chantalstacys @joanleslies @filminghere @ritahayworrth it took me awhile to get to this, so I'm sorry if you were already tagged and did it already!

[tony-stark-ing]

Rules: Without Naming Them, Post 10 Gifs of Your Favorite TV Shows, Then Tag 4 People.

@nitrateglow @tincanmans @dirtkid123 @anyone else who wants to do this

[groovytimes]

Wasn’t tagged for this, but I’m doing it anyway and I hope to start this off. Your top comfort albums, here’s the link!

My tags: @strangeness-andcharm, @guerrilla-operator, @wideeyedandtired, @hoppkorv, @petiteclover, @glamourbane, @sailonacrossthesea, @ratscabies, @kate2o, @nitrateglow, @curly-italian and @themangledhawk .

[cesarescabinet]

Tagged by @incurablyromanticsblog. Thanks!

Tagging @heavensmortuary @nitrateglow @holyloved and anybody else who wants to try this challenge!

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

I just completed a tag game that asked me to share 9 books I plan to read next year. Here are 9 films I hope to watch too.

Tagged by @nitrateglow

These were tough to pick, too! Half of these are new movies that are frontrunners for the Oscars, because I like to see as many nominated movies as possible...but there are a couple older movies I'd love to cross off my list!

And GDT's Frankenstein is being released next year, and I know I'm going to see that!

I tag anyone who would like to play!! :)

[nitrateglow]

Thoughts on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)

Time for another episode of "Nitrateglow didn't think the panned movie was that bad"... though this one isn't necessarily great either.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was MGM's attempt to remake an old hit. In 1921, under the banner of Metro, the original Four Horsemen was a zeitgeist hit and catapulted Rudolph Valentino to superstardom. It was a lightning in a bottle kind of film, a movie about the horrors of World War I released a few years after the end of that conflict.

The basic plot, because it's late and I'm tired: A lusty Argentine patriarch has two daughters, one married to a German and the other married to a Frenchman. The old man prefers the French part of his family, which causes issues even before WWI rears its ugly head and the two families are drawn into the conflict. The focus is on Julio, the son of the Frenchman. He likes partying, has an affair with a married French woman, and is apolitical, until he isn't because drama. Then he becomes a self-sacrificing hero because personal problems aren't worth a hill of beans in this crazy world.

(That sounded bad, but it's just because I'm sleep deprived. The movie is actually very good and worth watching, I promise. It was directed by Rex Ingram, one of the strongest directors of the 1920s, and it has one of Valentino's best performances too. But crap, I'm supposed to be talking about the remake!!)

Now MGM was thinking about remaking this film as early as the 1940s, but once their 1959 remake of Ben-Hur became a smash hit, they were eager to see what other old blockbusters they could dust off. Four Horsemen was pushed into production, its time period shoved from WWI to WWII, and Vicente Minnelli put behind the camera.

Minnelli wanted to keep the WWI setting, but he was ignored. To be honest, the WWII setting isn't too problematic. The heart of the Four Horsemen story is the family drama and how events outside the family threaten to tear it asunder. Also, you still have Julio's arc from apolitical partyboy to self-sacrificing hero, so the spirit of the original is intact.

This movie isn't bad screenplay-wise due to those strong thematic cores. And Minnelli's visuals are rich as always. I particularly liked the surrealistic flourishes, like the superimposition of the four horsemen over key scenes. A bit campy, perhaps, but whatever, I liked it. And the Andre Previn score is just outstanding: epic, rousing, and romantic.

However, what brings the movie down is the casting of the lovers. Glenn Ford, good an actor as he is, is just wrong for the part. He's 46 playing a role made famous by Valentino at 26, and he's lacking in the charming impetuousness that would make the character credible. (Apparently, Alain Delon was considered but he wasn't famous enough for MGM's liking.) Ingrid Thulin is okay but not exceptional, her performance marred by lack of chemistry with Ford and some obvious dubbing over of her lines by Angela Lansbury doing a French accent. These characters should break my heart but they don't have enough passion to make me care.

It's a decent movie, but not a lost gem. And sorry, I can't help but compare it to the silent film in my head. Between the famous tango scene (not replicated in the remake-- for the best, really) and the finale in the massive graveyard, the mourners lost in a sea of white crosses... God, there's just nothing as memorable in this new version, save for the music.

[zany-the-nerd]

Wait Until Dark piece for @nitrateglow

🔪

[traceamountsoftimetravel]

I was tagged by @nitrateglow to share 9 books I plan to read in the new year.

I tag @nuklearis-sutotok @radaghastly @itsninjawhlestuff @thewaifupillow @sunkissed-optimist and anyone else who'd like to participate!

[thethirdman8]

@nitrateglow you might appreciate this remarkable mashup..

[norashelley]

Tagged by @jwclapton, thank you! I do enjoy being tagged!

Last song: 淋しい熱帯魚 (Samishii Nettaigyo)/ Wink

Last movie: Last movie I finished was 'The Great Rupert' (aka A Christmas Wish) I recommend watching it if you haven't yet, it's such a fun silly little old christmas movie and my dad's favorite. I also started watching Meet Me in St. Louis with my sister tonight but then she wanted to go to bed so we'll finish it tomorrow even though I've seen it a million times I still want to to finish it!

Currently watching: I don't have anything currently playing at the moment but if it means what TV show I've been watching the latest show is Moonlighting, it's such a wild detective/murder mystery/comedy show from the 80s and I'm loving it so much. The writers definitely watched old movies.

Currently reading: Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler. Not my usual sort of book but it's one I'm reading and going over for therapy lately. I was reading other fun things along with it but now I'm determined to finish this one by the end of the year so I am focusing solely on it. I will tag, if you feel like it, @maudeboggins @grusinskayas @murderballadeer @4harts @chantalstacys @oftwodarkmoons @monstrousdaughter @iadoremusicals @nitrateglow @joanleslies and anyone else who likes to be tagged!

[groovytimes]

tagged by @castanierprosper!

last song: I Love You by Fontaines D.C.

favorite color: black

last movie/show: The Out of Towners/ Fargo

sweet/spicy/savory: sweet

relationship status: single

last thing i searched: a discontinued foundation

current obsession: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

Thank you for the tag 🥰

I’ll tag @strangeness-andcharm, @glamourbane, @surfersilver, @belle-bete, @laurapalmerstheme, @nitrateglow and @themangledhawk. Only if you want of course.

[nitrateglow]

Thoughts on We Live Again (1934)

Quick plot summary: A Russian prince who briefly dabbled in socialist philosophy abandons his ideals once he joins the military and rubs elbows with decadent high society. He seduces and impregnates an innocent peasant girl, who bears his child alone. Eventually the two cross paths again when the prince is serving as a juror and the young woman is tried for a murder she did not commit. Guilt-stricken, he aims to redeem himself by saving her from hard labor in Siberia.

Here's another episode of "Nitrateglow is super curious about so-called Hollywood failures and has to investigate every one."

Most classic movie fans have probably heard of Anna Sten, but if you haven't, she was a Ukranian actress who made some Soviet and German movies in the 20s and 30s. She caught the attention of producer Samuel Goldwyn, who saw in her a potential successor to Hungarian silent film actress and talkie casualty Vilma Banky. He also saw Sten as a potential competitor for the likes of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

Sten was hyped to the skies, but her Hollywood vehicles didn't click with the American public. Goldwyn released her from her contract after three films and she's become a footnote in movie history ever since.

But does she deserve to be? Opinion on Sten's acting ability seems to be divided among movie geeks. The writer of She Blogged By Night finds her performance in We Live Again, a Hollywoodized adaptation of a late Tolstoy novel, cringeworthy:

"Still, it’s difficult to feel sorry for Sten, because her inability to relate in an accessible way to the camera is astonishing. It’s as though she had no idea how the camera perceived her, and often moved in such a way that she looked silly, like a hilariously untalented little kid pretending to be an actor. Her line readings were consistently line-by-line, in that each line she uttered has a certain inflection and was matched with certain actions, but these actions were outsized and obvious, and there was no cohesion to her entire performance."

However, reviewing Sten's silent Soviet comedy The Girl with the Hatbox, Fritzi Kramer of Movies Silently feels Sten was a talented performer whose chances at success were unwittingly sabotaged by Goldwyn himself-- he forcefed her image to the public and made them tired of her quickly.

Having only seen We Live Again, I cannot make any definitive judgment of Sten as an actress. She is undeniably beautiful and charming, though I found her stiff and unconvincing in the big emotional scenes. I was far more impressed with her in the quiet moments, like when she is burying her infant son and finds herself unable to fill the grave with dirt. It's not a bad performance by any means though and I'd be interested in seeing more of her films.

The movie as a whole is fascinating. It's explicitly socialist and it carries over a lot of Tolstoy's subversive religious philosophy, which one would think would have been purged from the script before cameras rolled. I have the strong feeling the story works better as a novel than as a glossy Hollywood movie-- it's very interior. But director Rouben Mamoulian puts it over well and I left the movie feeling satisfied.

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

I was tagged by @nitrateglow to share nine books that I plan to read in 2025!

Or I should say: what I hope to read in 2025...I don't usually plan what I'm going to read...so some of these are recommendations from video essays (the Marilyn biography and Men, Women and Chainsaws), and some are ones I've wanted to read for a while but need to find a copy (the Judy and Fosse biographies). The only for sure reads next year are the West Wing book, since it was a Christmas gift and it'll be what I read next, and the Ruth Ware book, since it's being released this year, and I tend to read them fairly quickly.

I tag anyone who wants to play!! :)

[traceamountsoftimetravel]

Tagged by the excellent @nitrateglow

Last song: "Reptile" by Nine Inch Nails

Last movie: Atomic Blonde. Also the soundtrack fucking slaps

Currently watching: Archer

Currently reading: Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. Eerily prescient

I tag: @radaghastly @virescent-phosphor @thewaifupillow @itsninjawhlestuff @nuklearis-sutotok and @sunkissed-optimist