Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

A poor farmer has to raise 50 dollar before the weekend to keep his little farm on Tobacco Road. Although highly stagey, both in idea and execution, this was a fabulously funny film to watch (although I went through some problems until I could understand the characters). Also, the ending is quite amazing with the beautiful realization that it's not so easy to really change. I was quite touched by it and it also was a big surprise for what I expected to become a really run-of-the-mill happy end. I remember many beautiful details of the film: the dog, running to the mans lap to be stroked, the naughtily innocent Gene Tierney (in her first role?), the insolent husband of the other daughter and the obnoxious little boy. His incessant rambling is simply hilarious, and the blazing stupidity of his character are of such, as I cannot remember from any other film I have seen. This might be very worth re-watching, maybe with focus on the dialogue.  There is a lot of it, a bit hard to...

The grandiloquent Gen. Custer (with a wrong name) tries to bring glory to the forlorn military outpost he is delegated to, but brings war and death. I've made the great mistake of watching this film, before I've watched "They died with their boots on". Not being familiar with the grand story and glorified legend of Gen. Custer I viewed this as a rather weird stand-off between Fonda and Wayne. Many of Honda's actions don't make the least sense, but compared to the 1940 antecedent this is obviously the much more insightful movie. Henry Fonda really manages to get across as a stuck-up, yesteryear's hero and I deeply disliked the character. That was best achieved by showing the bizarre pedantry for protocol and the total absence of humor. That the man is also safe-guarding his daughter (ineffectively, in the end) illustrates a humane side which makes him all the more real. There are some amazing scenes and the battle scenes are fast and breathtaking. I...

The story of a generation in a family of miners in a valley in Wales. The film manages to successfully immerse me in the world of the simple miners trying to cope with novelties such as unions or education. The humble and simple men and women are a likeable bunch, well displayed in their disposition to break out in song at pretty much any occasion. It definitively is a very melodramatic film but to my great surprise it doesn't culminate in sweet happy-ending, but a quiet, somber mood of reflection and after-thought, which felt like a great thing after some of the more kitschy moments. In a way it reminded me a bit of "I remember Mama" although the story is more literate, and the confrontations are quite over the top, as far as there are any. It's sort of a Hollywood kitchen-sink drama, all fluffy and dirty at the same time.  But I was able to enjoy it very much.