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574,245 | 4,532,636 | 52,357 | 9 | Accomplished If Not " Fun " Hitchcock Drama | Considered by many to be Hitchcock's masterpiece , " Vertigo " may be tough to warm up to on a first viewing . It's an enigmatic and extremely slow-moving film , and it feels personal in ways that many of Hitchcock's other , more playful movies don't . You get the sense that Hitch is working through his personal demons on screen - - the fetishes and obsessions that played such a major role in so many of his films leading up to " Vertigo " feel like characters in and of themselves here . James Stewart delivers a frightening performance as a man who plunges into a world of weird sexual obsession when a woman with whom he's formed a romantic attachment dies ( or seems to ) . He finds another woman who looks amazingly like the first , and proceeds to force a complete physical makeover on her in an attempt to recreate his former love . Kim Novak plays the two women in her typical icy fashion ; for once , her stilted , awkward acting works for a role and comes off as an attribute rather than a liability . In its new remastered life on DVD , " Vertigo " looks stunning . San Francisco and its surroundings are bathed in ethereal , dream-like lighting , and Hitchcock pays more attention to art direction and the use of color than he ever had previously . Also , there's that amazing swirling Bernard Herrmann score that haunts the film , and accompanies one of the most memorable opening credits sequences ever filmed . There are still a number of other Hitchcock films I would rather watch before " Vertigo , " and many others that I would qualify as much more fun , but I can't deny that this one certainly has an allure . |
573,773 | 4,532,636 | 65,492 | 9 | I Love This Movie | If ever there was a love it or hate it film , this is it . " Brewster McCloud " is a glorious mess , an imperfect film in that fascinatingly imperfect way that only Robert Altman could pull off . I admit that much of my affection for this film lies in the fact that I studied it in a Robert Altman seminar ; each of us picked one movie to watch , analyze and report back on to the class , and this was mine . I was completely befuddled by it the first time I watched it , but then after I'd seen it three or four times , trying to make sense of it in order to talk to the class about it , I sort of fell in love with it . Brewster , played perfectly by Bud Cort , lives in the Houston Astrodome and harbors the intense desire to fly . His efforts in that direction are complicated by any number of odd-ball characters , including a rich tycoon for whom he works as a chauffeur ( an unrecognizable Stacy Keach delivers a howler of a performance as the tycoon , and has far too little screen time ) , a private investigator ( Michael Murphy ) with a penchant for colorful turtlenecks who's investigating a series of murders around the city , and a couple of bizarre female love interests , played respectively by Jennifer Salt and a divinely whacked out Shelley Duvall . Meanwhile , a sort of guardian angel ( Sally Kellerman ) with scars on her back where wings used to be follows Brewster around and may just be responsible for the murders taking place around the city ( every corpse the cops find is splattered with bird crap ) . And last but not least , in perhaps the most bizarre role ( and that's saying something in this movie ) , Rene Auberjonois plays some kind of professor delivering a lecture on man's desire to fly , who serves as a kind of narrator for the film and gradually turns into a bird himself . Much of the film doesn't really make any sense in a conventional way , even after multiple viewings . The film is a lot like Altman's break out hit , " MASH , " from the same year , with the overlapping dialogue , chaotic action and super-sarcastic sense of humour , but it doesn't have a universal topic like war around which to anchor itself , and many viewers might feel like they're watching an extended inside joke not meant for them . What is one to make , for example , of the use of Margaret Mitchell as a cranky old lady whose face we never see but whose voice is ingrained in our collective subconscious , and who is wearing an awfully familiar pair of ruby slippers when her body is found , victim to the mysterious avian serial killer ? The allusion to " The Wizard of Oz " of course is obvious , but what purpose does it serve ? The same can be said of Murphy's hilarious , dead-pan parody of Steve McQueen's character Bullitt , and the movie even includes a ridiculous and long high-speed car chase that pays homage to the one in that 1968 hit . It's all very funny , and maybe that's point enough , but I can't pretend to know what Altman was trying to say . But the ending , after all the glibness that has preceded it , comes to a poignant and quite emotionally affecting conclusion . Bud Cort is the perfect actor to make us root for Brewster , and once we see this strange and even rather creepy kid get himself airborne with a set of makeshift wings , our hearts soar and we want to see him achieve the impossible . Watching him frantically flapping his wings as he sails around the Astrodome , only to plummet to his death , offers a sad reminder that some dreams , no matter what optimists may say , are never attainable . Believe it or not , " Brewster McCloud " was the 1970 release that Altman thought would be the biggest hit , and he was very disappointed when " MASH " scored five Academy Award nominations and " Brewster " was ignored . One can't even conceive how Altman ever thought the stuffy Academy would go for something as esoteric as this . |
573,894 | 4,532,636 | 87,553 | 9 | A Rousing Film About a Bloody Subject | A visceral , kinetic and exciting film from Roland Joffe ( whatever happened to him ? ) . Set against the bloody backdrop of Cambodia during the civil war that saw the surge of the Khmer Rouge , " The Killing Fields " tells the story of an interpreter ( the non-actor Haing S . Ngor ) who befriends an American journalist ( Sam Waterston ) and then descends into the nightmare of Cambodia while Waterston sits helplessly in America wondering if his friend is dead or alive . It's one of those liberal films Hollywood loves to make , that asks us to feel guilty about our cushy American lives even as people in other countries are being butchered . It's not heavy handed or manipulative though , and Joffe films the whole thing with a journalistic approach that fits the subject matter and lends the film a documentary-like quality . Ngor , who had never acted before , is amazing , and though Waterston gets top billing as the most recognizable actor , Ngor is the film's true star . |
573,331 | 4,532,636 | 1,139,797 | 9 | An Eerily Beautiful Film About a Little Boy and His Vampire Girlfriend | An utterly unique and oddly beautiful Swedish film about the budding friendship between a 12-year-old boy and a female vampire that manages to be both morbid and sweet at the same time . Oskar is the sad little boy who lives a life of detached loneliness with his single mom . He's horribly bullied at school and sees his dad only once in a while . He has no friends that we see . He seems to have an unhealthy and unleashed propensity for violence , and he keeps a scrapbook full of clippings about grisly murders . Maybe it's for all of those reasons that he's willing to so quickly accept the friendship of Eli , a little girl who also happens to be a vampire . " Let the Right One In " is not a vampire movie in the traditional sense , but given that I was surprised at the amount of vampire horror the movie contains . We see vampire attacks , we see Eli scaling walls , we see vampires attacked by cats and bursting into flames at the sight of sunlight . However , at the heart of the film is an aching , wistful story about two outcasts who find each other , and the fact that one of them is a vampire becomes almost incidental . Eli could just be an awkward little 12-year-old nerd like Oskar and the story wouldn't have to be much different . The movie is dazzlingly filmed . Hardly a scene goes by without some sort of striking image or composition , most notably a climactic scene set in a swimming pool . The scene ends in a moment of shocking violence , but it also manages to be eerily beautiful . And a word about the whole " is Eli really a castrated boy " argument swirling around this film . Apparently the book makes it explicitly clear that this is the case . But there is simply not enough evidence in the film to allow the viewer to make this intuitive leap if he / she hasn't read the book , so I believe that the director and writer left it ambiguous on purpose , so that you can take away what you want depending on whether or not you've read the source material . And in any case , I don't see how that plot detail is especially relevant or makes one iota of difference to the story . |
574,208 | 4,532,636 | 50,212 | 9 | A Beautiful Film About the Delicacy of Humanity | With " The Bridge on the River Kwai , " David Lean launched the string of " epics-with-a-soul " that would dominate the remainder of his career . In " Kwai , " Lean deftly juggles what seem like two entirely different movies to create one strong indictment of war's ability to strip men of their humanity . In one plot line , Alec Guinness , a British officer being held in a Japanese prison camp , locks horns with the commander of the camp ( Sessue Hayakawa ) , who puts Guinness and the other British soldiers in charge of constructing a bridge that will help the Japanese in their struggle to win the war . In the other dominant plot line , William Holden plays the leader of a platoon of men charged with blowing up said bridge . This plot line plays out like an exciting but fairly standard action film . It's the fascinating story of Guinness's transformation , not to mention his spectacular performance , that gives the film its status as a classic . The same quality of British perseverance that made Guinness such a loyal officer for the Allies works in Japanese favor as he becomes committed to building as fine a bridge as possible , forgetting its ultimate purpose . The film very eloquently communicates how noble attributes like loyalty and honor can be manipulated to satisfy what in certain circumstances can be perceived to be dubious ends , which , when you think about it ( though few people want to ) characterizes the basis of military recruitment everywhere . " Kwai " joined a batch of other 1957 releases - - like " 12 Angry Men , " " Paths of Glory " and " Sweet Smell of Success " - - in introducing a grittier and at the same time more poetic style of film-making that looked forward to the art-house style that would come into its own throughout the 1960s . |
573,727 | 4,532,636 | 58,946 | 9 | An Astonishing and Authentic Examination of Terrorism | Wow , " The Battle of Algiers " really could have been made today , couldn't it ? I don't know if I should be comforted or disturbed that the events depicted in Gillo Pontecorvo's film so closely mirror those going on in the Middle East right now . On the one hand , it's comforting to realize that events and tensions that seem scary in the present day have been going on virtually forever , and that every generation has probably thought at some point that the world they lived in represented the human race at its lowest point . But on the other hand , it's disturbing to think that the same patterns have been repeating themselves for ages and we as a race just keep making the same blunders over and over again . " The Battle of Algiers " chronicles in near documentary fashion the struggle of the Algerian Muslims against the imperialist French rule in the 1950s . Overwhelmed by the might and resources of the French military , a rebel group of Algerians resort to terrorist tactics to make themselves heard . Stuck in the middle are the everyday Algerian and French citizens , who die in bombings and attacks perpetrated by both sides , and are fed propaganda explaining how each side is working in their best interests . There's a scene mid-way through the film in which a French military commander lectures a gathering on the personalities and philosophies of terrorist cells . He explains the terrorist cell structure , and how the best way to kill the cell is to cut off its head . Sound familiar ? Pontecorvo's film is engrossing , and one that will always ( sadly ) be relevant . His sympathies obviously reside with the Algerians - - the film ends with images of an Algerian uprising that occurred two years after the main events depicted in the movie , with Algerian people celebrating in the streets , waving flags and shouting cries of " freedom , " " liberty " and such . But we do see the human cost and dubious morality of terrorist warfare , and the film fairly showcases the brutality inflicted by both groups . " The Battle of Algiers " has an astounding authentic quality to it that makes it almost impossible to believe that this is a fictional film and not a documentary . |
574,377 | 4,532,636 | 32,484 | 9 | A Superb Hitchcock Thriller with a Healthy Dose of His Typical Playful Humour | Hitchcock was working at the top of his game in this dazzling thriller . Only he could create movies like this , that blend elements of romantic comedy and dark , grim realism to make something completely unique . Joel McCrea , an actor I've begun to like more and more , plays a writer who travels to Europe with the purpose of reporting on the gathering clouds of war . Once there , he falls for the daughter ( Laraine Day ) of a respected official ( Herbert Marshall ) whose peace organization happens to be a cover up for a spy ring . This ring stages the assassination of an important political figure ( Albert Basserman ) and then kidnaps him to wring secrets from him that will benefit the German army . But McCrea figures this out long before anyone else , and the race is on . " Foreign Correspondent " is filled with dazzling Hitchcock set pieces , beginning with the assassination itself , which segues into a race through a sea of umbrellas . There's one of the film's most famous moments , a nailbiting hideout in a windmill , made even more effective by the eerie production design . And the grand finale is an impressive airplane crash into the Atlantic . The supporting cast boasts George Sanders , best known for his portrayal of vicious gossip columnist Addison DeWitt in " All About Eve , " playing a quite different and heroic character here , and Edmund Gwenn , unrecognizable without his Santa Claus beard , playing a quite different and villainous one . " Foreign Correspondent " maybe feels more like a product of its time than other Hitchcock films , which is maybe also why it seems to be less well known . Like many films from the same time period , it was used both as a piece of entertainment and war propaganda . The last scene finds McCrea delivering a radio address to the American people urging them to pay attention to the dark cloud of war descending on Europe . The speech is quite stirring as delivered by McCrea , and the film fades to black as the rumble of the London blitz pervades the soundtrack . One of Hitchcock's best . |
574,373 | 4,532,636 | 460,791 | 9 | You May Find Yourself Falling for " The Fall " | A strange and wonderful film that's as much about the love of movie storytelling as it is anything else . Lee Pace plays a stuntman , Roy , who suffers an accident and winds up in a Los Angeles hospital , crippled and suicidally depressed . He befriends a little girl , Alexandria , who's in the hospital with a broken arm , and who is entertained by his fantastic adventure stories . Roy begins to manipulate her into stealing morphine for him as a method for committing suicide , but she instead proves to be the thing he needs to help him get over his depression and continue living . This film reminded me both of " The Princess Bride " and " Pan's Labyrinth . " The story within the story has a " Princess Bride " feel , complete with the occasional tongue-in-cheek moment to remind us that what we're watching is the creation of someone's imagination . But it's also like " Pan's Labyrinth , " in that the story we see acted out is diffused through a child's eyes - - the story is Roy's , but the visual interpretation of the story is Alexandria's , so the characters in the story are played by the people she interacts with daily , with the result being that the distinction between reality and fiction sometimes becomes blurred . The creators of " The Fall " clearly intend for their film to be about the joys of movie storytelling . Alexandria says at one point that she doesn't like " flickers , " but the story Roy tells her is exactly the kind of outrageous adventure he would be in himself , and she's hooked . And one of the last scenes in the film shows the hospital staff and patients gathered together to watch the slapstick western that Roy injured himself filming , and they're all enjoying it immensely . I doubt there will be a movie this year that looks better than this one . The production and costume design and cinematography are so imaginative and striking as to send some moments of the film into the world of the abstract . |
573,399 | 4,532,636 | 70,379 | 9 | The One That Started It All | Mean Streets is the film that put Martin Scorsese on the map and established him as a serious talent to watch . In many ways , Scorsese has simply been remaking the same story ever since this one , but I think that " Mean Streets " ( along with much of his 1970s work ) has a much grittier and authentic quality to it than the movies he's been making in the last couple of decades . " GoodFellas " and " The Departed " are certainly expert movies , and they're wildly enjoyable , but you can tell that Scorsese's primary motivation in these films was to entertain , while in his 1970s movies he was passionately driven to tell particular stories . Featuring soon-to-become Scorsese regulars Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel , both delivering top-notch performances . |
574,435 | 4,532,636 | 446,755 | 9 | A " Brief Encounter " for a New Generation | This simply gorgeous and scandalously overlooked 2006 release manages to be a sweeping old-fashioned Hollywood romance while completely avoiding the righteous bombast that usually makes movies like this so intolerable . Based on a novel by W . Somerset Maugham ( and apparently filmed at least once before with Greta Garbo in the starring role ) , this film tells the story of a young and impetuous English lady ( Naomi Watts ) who rashly decides to marry a stuffy bacteriologist ( Edward Norton ) to escape the displeasure of her family and the danger of turning into a spinster . The two move to China , where the doctor pursues his work and the young woman becomes increasingly bored . She begins an affair with a swaggering compatriot ( Liev Shreiber ) , and when her husband catches her at her game , he decides to punish her by volunteering his aid to a cholera epidemic that is ravaging a remote village , and drags her along with him . Once there , and in the face of something vastly larger than either of them , the two begin to realize how petty their marital squabbling is , and each begins to see the good in the other that up to that point was hidden entirely by the bad . The love that develops between them is not the phony , hyperbolic , passionate love that Hollywood aggressively tries to convince us exists , but rather the much more realistic love that is based on mutual admiration and respect . The characters played by Watts and Norton are fascinating , and the two actors do an amazing job inhabiting them . This project was obviously their baby , as both served as producers , and their passion for it shows . They also happen to have a great deal of screen chemistry together . The film is superbly intelligent and unsentimental , and God love it for that . My wife and I found out after watching it together that both of us separately and without knowing it were reminded of " Brief Encounter , " one of our favorite movies . It's not like that 1946 masterpiece in terms of plot , but it's very much like it in terms of tone and in its attitudes about love and relationships . Both films are frank and candid about the many flaws human beings bring to their interactions with other human beings , and both honestly address the distinction between love and lust and don't try to pretend that they always go together . On top of all that , the film looks spectacular . It's the kind of period drama that the Academy usually wets itself over , so I can't imagine how it was overlooked in categories like art direction , cinematography and costume design . But perhaps the fact that the Academy completely ignored it is the highest endorsement I can make for it . |
574,113 | 4,532,636 | 27,652 | 9 | Vengeance Breeds Vengeance | Fury is a ferocious movie from Fritz Lang about the impulses that drive mob violence . It belongs in the same category as films like " The Ox-Bow Incident " and " 12 Angry Men " and other movies that show how a group of normally decent people can turn quickly to animals when they smell blood . Spencer Tracy plays Joe ( read " average Joe " ) , who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up sitting in a country jail , pegged for a kidnapping he didn't commit . The townspeople get wind that someone has been arrested for the crime , and they want to exact their own brand of justice , not much caring on whom they carry it out . In a spectacular sequence , they storm the jail , burning it down and killing ( they think ) Joe . But Joe manages to escape , and the fury he feels at the way they treated him fuels his own feelings of vengeance , until he becomes as ruthless as those he denounces . Lang's movie is unique in that it poses a particularly interesting moral dilemma . The men and women who are on trial for murder ( for Joe keeps the fact that he is alive a secret , just so he can see them hang ) truly did act like murderers . The fact that Joe survives is no thanks to them ; it was pure luck that he escaped . Yet can Joe really let men be punished for a crime they didn't technically commit , and if he does , is he any better than they are ? " Fury " is not an easy movie . There aren't tidy answers to the conflicts ( though there is the obligatory happy ending demanded of films from this time period ) . Sylvia Sidney plays Joe's soon-to-be bride , and provides the film with its moral conscience . She's the prosecution's ace-in-the-hole witness , able to both identify the members of the mob and attest that it was Joe who was locked up in that jail cell . But as she begins to suspect that Joe is really alive ( thanks to some clever clues that Lang places throughout the movie ) , she begins to experience a moral crisis of her own . All of this is told in Lang's typical high style : terrific use of camera work , sound , music . The frenzied mob scene is a coup de cinema , and Tracy gives a taut and disciplined performance in the central role . There's also a very interesting comment on the power of visual media that plays a large role in the prosecution's evidence during the trial scenes . One has to conclude that this was a response to the importance of the motion picture newsreel that had by that time become a staple of the film going experience and would be paid homage as an art form of its own 5 years later in " Citizen Kane . " " Fury " is a terrific , lesser-known film from the 30s . |
574,070 | 4,532,636 | 47,296 | 9 | A Terrific Ensemble and Sizzling Direction Keep This Flawed Classic Watchable | On rewatching " On the Waterfront " recently , I found it to be preachy and schematic , more like a dose of medicine than a form of entertainment . However , I think that's what sometimes happens to socially relevant films when the context in which they first appeared is long past , and this fact should not be held against the movies themselves . Despite any cracks that may have surfaced in the facade of Elia Kazan's film over the years , it still remains a blisteringly powerful movie . Marlon Brando had a singular appeal as an actor . He attacked his roles like a wounded bull , bluntly charging around the screen while letting glimpses of a vulnerable and aching center show through . I would have said that his performance here as Terry Malloy was his best - - if I had not seen the woeful " Last Tango in Paris , " a dreadful movie that nevertheless showcases Brando at his highest level of greatness . His " I coulda been a contender . . . " soliloquy in " Waterfront " has been hopelessly parodied in the intervening years , but I hope that doesn't prevent viewers new to the film from appreciating what a truly heartbreaking and moving cinematic moment Brando creates while delivering it . Watch also the supporting players in this film , particularly Rod Steiger as Terry's brother , both stronger and weaker than his younger sibling , who obviously admires Terry even while he's baffled by him . Even though Brando gets all of the choicest lines in the above-mentioned contender scene , Steiger matches him every step of the way with his hang-dog , nuanced facial expressions . Lee J . Cobb blusters and shouts his way through his performance as the mob heavy ; he serves the function required of him but grows tiresome by the time the movie ends . Karl Malden gives an impassioned performance as a local priest and Eva Marie Saint single-handedly provides the film with some much-needed estrogen . She never gave another performance to equal this one . I greatly admire Elia Kazan as an artist . I don't care about his personal actions or beliefs ; he made great movies , and what he did in his private life does not change that fact . He could make virtually any material better than it would have been in the hands of another director , and what saves " On the Waterfront " today from its heavy-handedness , aside from the remarkable acting , is Kazan's fierce commitment to the material and his explosive directorial decisions . " On the Waterfront " may be flawed , but it's still a classic . |
573,982 | 4,532,636 | 468,489 | 9 | A Remarkable Variation on the Teacher Saves Student Theme | Ryan Fleck's writing and directorial debut is sober and even somewhat glum , but it boasts a tremendous and committed performance from Ryan Gosling in the lead role ; an understated and sweet performance from the young actress Shareeka Epps in a supporting role ; and an intelligent , thoughtful , spare screenplay that avoids falling prey to easy sentiment . Gosling plays Dan Dunne , a young history teacher from a liberal family who himself has liberal ideas and a charismatic way with his students . They like him in a guarded way , despite the fact that he's white and part of the institution that most of them , black kids from an impoverished neighborhood , have been taught to distrust . Dan is filled with the kind of optimism that many of us had coming right out of college , when we cared passionately about our beliefs and believed we could make others care as much about them . However , Dan's promise as a teacher is severely limited by his addiction to crack , which consumes his personal life and turns his lectures into chaotic ramblings . One of his students , a quiet girl named Drey , finds Dan after school hours stoned in the girls ' locker room , and an unlikely bond forms between the pair . Something about witnessing this intensely private and human side to her teacher makes Drey able to trust him and open up to him more than she can to anyone else in her immediate circle , which includes a well-intentioned but distracted mom , a brother in prison , and a no-good drug dealer friend of the family , who wants to put Drey to work delivering to customers . Meanwhile , something about the encounter works the same effect on Dan . It's as if being caught in the act removes the burden of secrecy , and he can let his guard down when with Drey . The two begin looking forward to their casual encounters and conversations , and each fills a void in the other's life . This isn't at all creepy or inappropriate . Drey may have a harmless crush on Dan in the way that young students often do on their teachers . Dan , for his part , becomes protective of Drey , and tries to convince her to stay away from the drug scene even as the example he sets conveys the exact opposite . He tenaciously clings to the belief that one man can indeed make a change even as the indifference and hardships of his immediate world tell him otherwise . " Half Nelson " paints a grim and harrowing picture of drug addiction and loneliness , and much of it is painfully depressing . But there's a tremendous warmth working under the surface of Fleck's film which prevents it from feeling nihilistic . Dan and Drey are both good people , trying to make their way in a world that doesn't always reward them for simply being good . The conclusion of the film is only mildly uplifting . We have the feeling that Dan has weathered some sort of crisis and has made some realizations about himself and his addiction , but the movie ends before we see what he does with that insight . He may ultimately be o . k . , or he may not . What's more important is that Drey will be o . k . , and one of the things I liked most about " Half Nelson " was its suggestion that many times the most effective role models are those who show us who we DON'T want to be , rather than those who we want to emulate . Gosling proves himself to be a young actor to watch with his performance here . Not once does he step out of character , and he exhibits a tremendous screen presence . He's able to charm us as much as he is his students . Shareeka Epps has a sweet , warm quality to her . Most of the time she keeps her mouth set and rigid , and conveys the quality of someone who's determined to be disappointed in the world so that the world won't have a chance to disappoint her first . But every once in a while , a character will make her smile , and when she does , her face lights up the screen . This is a fine film and one that lingered in my head . Highly recommended . |
574,045 | 4,532,636 | 1,155,592 | 9 | Beautiful Dreamer | In 1974 , Phillipe Petit walked a high wire between the two towers of NYC's World Trade Center and for a brief moment became a media sensation . " Man on Wire " is a documentary account of Petit's stunt , focusing primarily on the preparations for it and detailing how he and his team of four snuck on to the roof of the towers in the first place . Let's just say that times have changed . Obviously , the twin towers are no longer there , but if they were , you can be sure it would not be as easy to stroll right in as it was for Petit and his crew . Petit was obviously a man obsessed with a goal , but those who come into the film wondering exactly why he was obsessed with this particular goal will come away still wondering . As Petit says at one point , it's a typically American question to ask " why ? " in relation to something like this rather than simply enjoy the beauty of it . I can't believe Werner Herzog didn't get his hands on this story first , as the man obsessed angle would seem to be right up his alley . |
574,148 | 4,532,636 | 475,276 | 9 | A Tough Watch , But Tremendously Well Done | In " United 93 , " the fictionalized account of what may have taken place on board the sole hijacked commercial airliner that did not reach its target on September 11 , 2001 , director Paul Greengrass has given us a clenched muscle of a movie . The film runs on pure adrenaline ; it's terse , lean and frank . It also happens to be extremely difficult to watch . Filmed in a bare-bones style , with few recognizable actors and very little significant dialogue , the movie offers an account first of what takes place in several air traffic control centers in different locations as the realization that planes are being flown into buildings around the country settles in , and then it confines itself exclusively to the cabin of the doomed flight itself , after the passengers have learned that they're being used for a suicide mission and fight back against the hijackers . Greengrass resists the urge to sentimentalize the events or make heroes of anyone ; the resistance of the passengers is not filmed in dramatic slow motion set to a booming soundtrack . Instead , it looks confused , messy and panicked , the desperate acts of people not suited for their roles . Likewise , the scenes that take place in the air traffic control centers have the atmosphere of authentic immediacy . I was at work the morning of , and the way I learned about what was going on matched very closely the way the people in this movie learn about the events - - through snippets of overheard conversations , images on the news , and random rumours . Many people have decried this movie as being unnecessary at best and downright dishonest at worst . Some have called it a blatant piece of American propaganda . I don't get that . I admit that while I was watching it , I did wonder if I could justify a film about such a sensitive subject that doesn't really have a point of view and can't even claim to be an accurate recreation of events . But then I watched one of the special features on the DVD , a short film about the relatives of those who died on this flight . Many of the actors met with the families shortly after filming , and Greengrass held a special private screening for the relatives before the studio released the film to the general public . All of the family members felt nothing but solace and a sense of peace after watching the movie . Almost all of them expressed their gratitude to the filmmakers for making the film and telling their loved ones ' stories . They seemed unable to understand why others wouldn't want a film like this to be made . One of the rationales used against this movie is that it came out too soon after the date of the tragic events depicted in it . In response to this criticism , one of the family members replies , " It's not soon enough . " So if the families who are most closely affected by the event don't feel the need to justify the movie's existence , why should anyone else ? And as for those who claim that the film is a piece of manufactured propaganda , the Internet culture now allows every Tom , Dick and Harry to publish his or her opinions in cyberspace ( my own included ) as uncontested fact , but how do any of these bloggers know what took place on that day ? They don't . Perhaps no one but the people on board ever will . Greengrass never claimed that his film was a factual recreation , but rather that it's a suggestion of what might have happened based on available evidence . It's easy to sit at a laptop in a coffee shop and claim that the movie is crap based on a bunch of conspiracy theories floating around in the ether , but until anyone has anything better to offer , I'll stick with Greengrass's version of events Only a mere five years after , it's hard to believe that there was ever a time when Americans were so dismissive of terrorism . As this film shows , worked because Americans really had no context for believing something of this magnitude could ever happen . Surprise was the terrorists ' greatest ally . So no , I don't think it's too soon to show movies about that terrible day , or to keep thoughts of it constantly with us . The more we're prepared , the less likely it is that something this horrible will happen again . I can't say I was entertained exactly by this movie , though I was never less than completely engrossed in it . But I can certainly say that it is easily one of the best movies I've seen this year . |
573,850 | 4,532,636 | 56,869 | 9 | Apocalypse Now | Psycho may have been the scariest Hitchcock film , but there is no film by the master of suspense more unsettling than " The Birds . " This enigmatic revenge-of-nature fable makes no effort to explain away its mysteries , and that's the most unsettling thing about it . What is nature seeking revenge for ? Why is the birds ' uprising timed to begin with the appearance in a sleepy little coastal town of an icy blonde from the city ? Why is everyone so antagonistic toward said blonde ? Is it only because she appears to have designs on the resident golden boy stud , or is there more to it ? Ultimately , these questions end up not mattering much . Three-fourths of the film concern itself with the tensions ( sexual and otherwise ) between Tippi Hedren's Melanie and the townspeople ; then all hell breaks loose in the last quarter and these tensions are completely forgotten . The genius of the film lies in its ability to make horror out of the mundane . At the apocalyptic end , as the rag-tag group of survivors drive off into the distance , watched by a bird army that covers the ground as far as the eye can see , the effect on the viewer is as powerful as if the survivors had awakened the morning after a nuclear holocaust . And perhaps most unsettling of all is Hitchcock's refusal to use any kind of incidental scoring in his film . You don't realize how much we rely on film music to tell us how we should feel until it's no longer there to do so . With Rod Taylor as the stud , who keeps that famous hairy chest under wraps ( sorry ladies ) ; Suzanne Pleshette , as the butch and sexually repressed school marm ; Jessica Tandy , in the film's best performance as a mother who relies a little too much on her son ; and Veronica Cartwright , whose presence in any film is like nails on a chalkboard . A strange masterpiece , and Hitchcock's last great film . |
573,999 | 4,532,636 | 93,779 | 9 | A Uniquely Charming Fairy Tale | This utterly charming fairy tale for grownups proves that Rob Reiner and Ron Howard must have gone to the same school of film-making - - both are at their best when they're being light-heartedly whimsical , but make absolutely dreadful films when they try to get serious . This film wouldn't have been anywhere nearly as good if everyone involved had tried to make something more ambitious . Instead , a great cast delivers sweet and funny material , and the emphasis is on characters and story rather than gee-whiz special effects . In a large ensemble of recognizable faces , the standouts for me are Wallace Shawn , in perhaps the funniest poisoning scene ever made , and ( I can't believe I'm saying this ) Mandy Patinkin as a swarthy swashbuckler . This is the only time in his woeful career that he has appeared on a screen and not utterly repulsed me . It helps that he doesn't sing . |
574,315 | 4,532,636 | 10,323 | 9 | I Can Thank This Film for Inspiring My Favorite Film Genre | This German silent is frequently shown in film study classes ( which is indeed where I first saw it ) , so for many it may carry the taint of " homework , " but please don't let that keep you away from it . " The Cabinet of Dr . Caligari " is breathtaking , and you will not miss the presence of sound when you see what a visual feast this movie offers . Firmly rooted in the German Expressionism art movement , " Caligari " creates an entirely new world on screen that looks like a hallucinogenic version of our own . My favorite film genre , film noir , wouldn't even exist if the visual style of German Expressionism hadn't been introduced to the screen in the first place . |
573,824 | 4,532,636 | 78,788 | 9 | This Movie Isn't About Vietnam ; It IS Vietnam | Francis Ford Coppola's extraordinary Vietnam film is deeply flawed , but in this case the flaws feel so right for the subject matter that they almost make the movie better . This movie is a perfect marrying of source material and directorial vision . Setting Joseph Conrad's " Heart of Darkness " against the backdrop of the Vietnam jungles is brilliant , and the dark odyssey of Martin Sheen's character is so nightmarish , feverish and sweaty that this movie feels more like it IS Vietnam than merely ABOUT Vietnam . With a number of memorable appearances , notably Robert Duvall as a war-hungry Army officer glorying in the carnage around him ; Dennis Hopper as a drugged out photojournalist who's lost his mind to the jungle ; and , perhaps most memorable for its pure weirdness , Marlon Brando as Kurtz , the officer who's gone missing and has fashioned himself as a dark God amongst the primitive natives . The movie totally loses its way toward the end , but that somehow feels right . Recommendation : Don't watch the redux version if you can avoid it . It's yet further proof that directors usually have good instincts and that what they initially cut from their movies should remain cut . |
574,051 | 4,532,636 | 107,507 | 9 | Allen and Keaton as Nick and Nora | If " Double Indemnity " had been adapted as a vehicle for the Marx Brothers , you might get " Manhattan Murder Mystery . " This underrated Woody Allen comedy is one of my favorite Allen films . Allen and Diane Keaton , still the best of his many leading ladies , play an upper class , snooty New York couple who go sleuthing when the wife suspects their next-door neighbor of murder . If this plot description conjures images of " Rear Window , " it should . Hitchcock's film is payed obvious homage , as are many of the 1940s and 50s films noir that provide this film the style that it parodies ( in fact , the characters go to see a showing of " Double Indemnity " at one point , and the ending is a spoof of Orson Welles ' " Lady from Shanghai . " ) Allen and Keaton are simply terrific together , deftly stumbling their way through physical comedy bits and one-liners like a nebbish version of Nick and Nora Charles . They're obviously having a great time , and so do we . Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston are also on hand in large supporting roles , and they're hilarious as well . The highlight of the film is a scene in which the four of them are at dinner and actually hatch the scheme for nabbing the murder suspect . It's one of the best moments of ensemble work ever filmed for an Allen movie . Favorite line , delivered by Allen to Keaton as she goes out snooping in the middle of the night against his protests : " Is this what you do when I forbid you ? Because if this is what you do , I won't be forbidding you very often . " |
573,939 | 4,532,636 | 32,143 | 9 | Claws Out , Ladies | Lovers of glamorous bitch fests will have the time of their lives with this gem from 1939 . MGM's best female talent were assembled for this catty story about females good and bad , and all of the conniving , backstabbing , hissing and scratching that ensues whenever you have a group of ladies together at one time . Of course it's all exaggerated , and even fairly retrograde by today's standards , but I encourage everyone to muffle those feminist sensibilities for two hours and allow yourselves to have fun here . Norma Shearer plays the goody-goody heroine , Joan Crawford plays the deliciously malevolent villainess , and Rosalind Russell steals every scene she's in as a brassy society lady with far too much time on her hands . George Cukor was directing at the height of his talents , and keeps things snappy and smart . A treasure to relish from one of Hollywood's golden years . |
573,811 | 4,532,636 | 41,452 | 9 | All Is Not Well in Washington Square | A handsome , icy film adaptation of Henry James's novel " Washington Square . " Olivia de Havilland is a far cry from Melanie Wilkes as Catherine Sloper , a socially awkward ugly duckling who becomes the target of a gold digger , the dashing Morris Townsend ( Montgomery Clift ) , who loves the idea of Catherine's inheritance more than he loves her . Catherine's father , imperiously played by Ralph Richardson , is horrible to Catherine , always comparing her to his late wife and finding her lacking , but he does feel a protective instinct for her and sees Morris for what he is . When her father threatens to disinherit her if she moves forward with marrying Morris , Morris himself takes to the hills , leaving Catherine jilted and devastated . Scorned one too many times , she becomes a bitter , hollowed out shell of her former self and displays a cold cruelty that rivals her father's . " The Heiress " is masterfully directed by William Wyler , and it's surprisingly suspenseful . The acting is superb from everyone : de Havilland , Clift , Richardson ( who can reduce someone to a shriveled husk with the raise of an eyebrow ) , and Miriam Hopkins , in the role of Catherine's romantic and not-so-very-practical aunt . My only quibble with the film is its abrupt ending that stops short . I wasn't ready for it , and expected the story to go further . In a way , though , that's a compliment , because it's basically saying that I didn't want the movie to end . |
574,180 | 4,532,636 | 420,087 | 9 | An Elegy for a Stunning Career | By now , Robert Altman films are a genre unto themselves . They have a language of their own , and there are people who either speak that language or don't . At this point in his career , I doubt that Altman is trying to win over any converts ( if he ever was ) . So let me say this about " A Prairie Home Companion " : whatever else it may be , it is first and foremost an Altman film . If I had been dumped into the middle of this movie , I would have been able to tell you who directed it . As for the movie itself : it's wonderful . It's warm , sad and at times very funny . It's diffused with a nostalgic glow that lasts long after the film itself is over . If there's a unifying motif , it's death , yet the movie never feels morbid or grim . Rather , it's about paying tribute to the past even as you're letting go of it - - it feels like a work made by an artist who is getting ready to say goodbye . This is Altman , so it doesn't all work . There are awkward moments . But Altman is only ever awkward because he tries daring things , and I'd much rather sit through a bad Altman film ( o . k . maybe not " Quintet " ) than just about any other good but conventional film . And most everything about " Prairie " works quite well . Altman has assembled a marvelous cast that rivals the boat-load of Brits he assembled for " Gosford Park . " Each has his / her moment to shine , and no one feels neglected , as can sometimes happen in Altman's large ensemble pieces . I'm not going to single anyone out , because they're all equally deserving of praise . They're obviously having a great time working with one of the best directors of actors who's ever lived , and their sense of fun is infectious . And as he proved with " Nashville , " Altman can make country music sound great to people who don't even ordinarily like country music . This is perhaps the warmest film yet that Altman has made during his long career , proof that the old curmudgeon maybe has a soft spot after all . |
573,512 | 4,532,636 | 477,348 | 9 | A Minor American Classic , Friendo | No Country for Old Men , the Coen brothers ' screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's nailbiter of a novel , is doggedly faithful to its source , which will please fans of the book , but which is also what limits it from achieving greatness . As it is , the movie will probably and deservedly be remembered as a minor classic , but that's due more to its execution than it is its subject matter . It's as accomplished as " Fargo , " still the Coens ' best movie in my opinion , but it doesn't carry a powerful message the way that film did , or have any characters who make a lasting impression . Josh Brolin plays a Vietnam veteran living in Texas sometime in the early 1980s who comes across a satchel of money ( $2 million to be exact ) at the scene of a drug deal gone bad . He takes off with it , his arrogance leading him to believe that he will be able to outsmart whoever comes looking for it . Who comes looking for it is Anton Chigurgh , a relentless psycho who's as untraceable as he is unstoppable ( played by Javier Bardem ) . Tommy Lee Jones plays sheriff Ed Tom Bell , who provides the film with a voice over narration in which he laments the state of the world and the awful nature of crime in his day as compared to those of his dad and granddad , both sheriffs before him . In McCarthy's novel , all of this is told in clipped and deadly serious language , and it all feels more full of philosophical import than it is ; it's not until you've put the book down and start thinking about it that you realize how lightweight it is . I was interested to see if the Coens would bring any depth to the material that wasn't inherently there . They don't . Therefore , the movie is supremely engrossing and suspenseful , and I hung on every scene and image they put on the screen , but it didn't feel like an important movie to me . On the other hand , who says that every movie has to be important ? The Coens bring some of their trademark ghoulish humor to the film , which was welcome , because I thought McCarthy could have lightened up a bit himself in the novel . The film feels oddly unemotional , mostly because all of the principal action revolves around characters who aren't remotely sympathetic ( including Brolin's , who's a bit of a jerk really , when you think about it ) . The warmest character in the film is Brolin's wife , played in a lovely performance by the Scottish actress Kelly McDonald , but her part is tiny , and the character herself has little to do other than look perplexed or suspicious . I thought Bardem lacked the menace necessary to pull off Chigurgh , who's more of a supernatural representation of evil than a real character ; I couldn't help but think what Benicio Del Toro could have done with the role . And Woody Harrelson pops up miscast as a hit-man , in a role as pointless in the movie as it is in the book . But again , all of these weaknesses were things the Coens inherited from the source material . They've made the best movie possible of McCarthy's novel , and " No Country for Old Men " easily joins " Fargo , " " Blood Simple , " " Miller's Crossing , " and " The Man Who Wasn't There " at the top of their canon . |
573,605 | 4,532,636 | 78,748 | 9 | In Space , No One Can See You Wet Your Pants | The film that can reduce grown men to tears , this movie scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it and still does . While its immediate sequel , James Cameron's " Aliens " ( 1986 ) is very good too , it's really more harrowing than frightening . Ridley Scott's original is just plain creepy as hell . It's rare to find a film more atmospheric than this one . Though I don't know what it's like to be on a space crew on board a big-ass ship in the middle of the universe , somehow I think it would be just like this . And it doesn't get more unsettling than the scene where the crew heads out to investigate a distress signal and come across the empty remains of a giant ship with a big batch of eggs growing on the floor . Need I say more ? Despite the notorious reputation of John Hurt's dinner scene , the film isn't that gory . If there's anyone left on the planet who doesn't know what I'm talking about , I won't ruin it . But let's just say the next time you're at a dinner party and someone begins retching violently while his stomach starts bubbling , clear away the dishes and grab a blunt object . But other than that , the scares are primarily psychological . Filmed before the days when CGI could do everything for film makers , the visual effects team here knew if they showed too much of the alien , it would just look cheesy . Therefore , the audience never sees much more of it than brief glimpses , and our dread builds with the dread of the crew , because we don't know what we're dealing with anymore than they do . The same serendipity made " Jaws " a classic of suspense four years earlier . And of course , the acting in this film is leaps and bounds above what you usually see in horror movies . Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm are great fun to watch as they match up in one battle of the will after another . John Hurt made a believer out of me . And Scott uses Tom Skerritt as effectively as Hitchcock did Janet Leigh in " Psycho . " " Alien " really feels like a movie where absolutely anything could happen . I haven't really liked much of anything else Ridley Scott's done ( and that includes " Blade Runner " ) , but this movie at least proves he's got it in him to make a great film , even if he doesn't use that talent very often . |
574,088 | 4,532,636 | 109,348 | 9 | Guys and Dolls | Woody Allen sends up the world of Broadway and the gangsters who love it in this Runyonesque comedy , one of his very best . John Cusack is the Allen surrogate , a nebbish playwright who's struggling to remain true to his artistic vision amongst countless obstacles . Those obstacles include : a gangster's girlfriend ( Jennifer Tilly ) who Cusack is forced to cast in a lead role ; her bodyguard ( Chazz Palmienteri ) , who reveals quite a few dramatic instincts ; a high-maintenance diva ( Dianne Wiest , uproarious ) ; a leading man who eats too much ( Jim Broadbent ) ; and a dithery actress very much in love with her dog ( Tracy Ullman ) . Because Allen sets his movie in a world he knows well ( NY theatre ) , this feels like one of his strongest and most realized screenplays . The whole thing is a riot . Between Wiest , Tilly and Ullman , I still can't decide who's funniest . |
574,047 | 4,532,636 | 20,122 | 9 | A Beautiful , Bittersweet Silent | This was my first exposure to Janet Gaynor , and I fell in love with her . She plays a poor , ragamuffin country girl who begins a timid romance with a wheelchair-bound WWI veteran ( Charles Farrell ) , against the stern wishes of her mother , who wants her to marry instead a swaggering bully . Director Frank Borzage keeps the potential mawkish sentimentality at bay , and pulls achingly beautiful and naturalistic performances from his actors . When you watch Gaynor's face in this film , able to convey heaps of emotion ( just get a look at her when she first realizes Farrell is confined to a wheelchair ) with the most nuanced of glances , it's no surprise that she was able to make a successful transition to sound film and continue as a huge star and box-office draw throughout the 1930s . The forbidden love storyline is the stuff of standard silent film melodrama , as is the suspenseful race-against-time finale that finds Charles Farrell willing himself to walk so that he can get to Gaynor before her husband-to-be takes her away forever . All of that is as silly as it sounds . But it's the quieter moments that give this film its gentle appeal : like the surprisingly erotic scene in which Farrell decides Gaynor needs a makeover and washes her hair with the yolks of a dozen eggs ; or the beautiful bittersweet moment when Farrell gives Gaynor a gold bracelet that looks like an over-sized wedding ring . A film center in Chicago is showing a festival of Gaynor and / or Borzage films , and I look forward to seeing more of both of them . |
573,962 | 4,532,636 | 78,754 | 9 | Razzle Dazzle ' Em | A never less than fascinating , barely fictionalized biopic about legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse . The character in the movie is named Joe Gideon , but come on : he's in the middle of choreographing and directing a stage musical that looks an awful lot like " Chicago , " and he's in post-production on a film that looks an awful lot like " Lenny . " I think we all know who this movie is REALLY about . It's self indulgent to be sure , and a bit of a mess overall , but it's just so damned accomplished in every way that it's impossible not to sit back and enjoy the ride , however destructive that ride might be . And boy is it destructive . You're going to feel like you need to go on a rigorous exercise regimen and a system-cleansing diet after watching the Fosse stand-in in this film abuse himself to death . This movie will quickly disabuse you of any illusions about the glamour of the show business world . Roy Scheider gives the performance of his career as Joe Gideon . My other favorite performance came from Leland Palmer as Gideon's long-suffering ex-wife ( and presumably Gwen Verdon stand in ) . These two make poignantly obvious what made them click in the first place while at the same time conveying perfectly why they can't live with one another . Ann Reinking plays Ann Reinking , one-time girlfriend to Fosse who does the same honors in the movie . And before anyone knew who she was , Jessica Lange played a very ravishing angel of death . " All That Jazz " isn't as tight or as powerful as Fosse's previous musical , " Cabaret , " but that's largely because it's so much more insular as a movie . It's really about the demons plaguing one man , and it doesn't have any broader context than that . Whether or not you like it will depend heavily on how fascinating you find the world of New York theatre , and how much you care about Joe Gideon in the first place . To his credit , Scheider is able to make Gideon an entirely sympathetic , if not entirely likable , character . And if there aren't any musical numbers to rival the razzle dazzle of the " Mein Herr " or " Money , Money " numbers from " Cabaret , " there are still a fair share of showstoppers in " Jazz , " notably a cute little duet for Reinking and the girl that plays Gideon's daughter , and the rousing opening number , in which a stage full of Broadway hopefuls audition for a show in a whirl of quick edits set to the song " On Broadway . " A fantastic , mesmerizing film . |
573,749 | 4,532,636 | 57,012 | 9 | Mein Fuhrer . . . . . I Can Walk ! | Dr . Strangelove had to have seemed strange indeed to 1964 audiences . This came out in the same year as colorful , old-fashioned Hollywood fare like " My Fair Lady " and " Mary Poppins . " Yet " Strangelove " is far from old-fashioned or even colorful . Kubrick's film is stark and cold with a documentary-like air to it . It's also riotously funny . Peter Sellers is a film treasure . This film is a an orgy for Sellers fans , since he plays no less than three different characters , stretching his chameleon-like acting abilities to the limit . The funniest of his three characters is the dead-pan president of the United States , and the film's funniest scene involves him trying to gently break to the Russian premiere that we are about to launch a nuclear attack on his country . His portrayal of the title character is also inspired , and the image of Sellers in that wheelchair wrestling his black-gloved hand into submission with that crazy shock of hair and crazier glint in his eyes is unforgettable . The film also sports a great supporting cast , most notably George C . Scott as Buck Turgison , who discreetly takes calls from his bikini-clad girlfriend during war room briefings , Sterling Hayden as General Jack D . Ripper , who wields his cigar like a dangerous weapon , and Slim Pickens , as the pilot of the plane that is about to end civilization as we know it . My only complaint with the film is its somewhat sluggish editing , especially in the scenes showing the fleet of bombers on its way to their Russian targets . At times , the movie actually drags slightly , even though it's only 90 minutes long . But this is a minor quibble about a film that has rightly earned a spot in the cultural conscience of America . It will never be irrelevant as long as the ability to wage nuclear war exists , and it doesn't look like that problem will be going away any time soon . |
573,690 | 4,532,636 | 14,611 | 9 | No Need to Worry About This Harold Lloyd Comedy | In " Why Worry ? " Harold Lloyd plays Harold von Pelham , a pampered and spoiled millionaire who has all the time in the world to worry about medical conditions that don't exist , and treat his smitten nurse and trusted valet as mere lackeys . He goes to a South American retreat for some much-needed rest and relaxation , but instead finds himself in the middle of a revolution . Along the way he picks up a devoted friend , a giant man named aptly Colossus , who becomes as loyal as a dog to Harold because he helps to pull an aching tooth . By the film's end , Harold has plumbed reserves of hidden strength , realizes he no longer needs his pills and medications , and discovers his love for his nurse . The funniest thing about " Why Worry ? " is that this little band of lovable characters never has a clue what's actually going on around them . They don't know one side of the warring parties from the other ; they just know when they're in trouble , and they go from scene to scene doing whatever is necessary to get themselves out of scrapes without realizing how they're affecting the bigger picture . This film is wonderfully written and performed , with hilarious bits . Watching Harold's transition from pampered wimp to scrappy freedom fighter is delightful , and he has wonderful chemistry with Jobyna Ralston , who plays his nurse , and John Aasen , the impossibly enormous actor who plays Colossus . This film is a treat . |
574,122 | 4,532,636 | 76,786 | 9 | A Superb and Frightening Film | Visuals rule in Dario Argento's splendid fever dream of a movie , " Suspiria . " The plot , which concerns a young American ballerina studying at a European school for dance and slowly discovering that it's run by a coven of witches , crumbles at even the slightest examination . And the film comes to a major anticlimax , and then just abruptly ends , leaving one to ask , " Is that it ? " But everything leading up to the end is so stylishly directed , and much of it truly frightening , that the overall impression is of a remarkable fright film . Doing away with the usual dark , shadowy visual style of the typical horror films , Argento instead takes the opposite approach , and bathes everything in lurid , saturated color . The effect , rather than cheapening or diluting the scares , enhances them , because everything takes on a nightmarish and disorienting quality when there are so many colors and visual textures dominating the frames . He also uses an original score tremendously , rivaling that most memorable of horror film scores , the one John Carpenter created for " Halloween . " ( Notably , Argento wrote the music for his own film as well ) . There are many sequences in " Suspiria " that deserve to go down in horror film history : the opening sequence , of course , of which much has been said , but equally disturbing are the shower of maggots , the attack of the blind man in the middle of a deserted city square , and the final scene in which Jessica Harper's ballerina character stumbles into the bedroom of the head witch . The only strike against " Suspiria " is the extent to which it steals from " Rosemary's Baby , " both in plotting and in visual style . But Argento , while perhaps inspired by Polanski's film , deserves credit for making something completely unique of his own . |
574,260 | 4,532,636 | 416,320 | 9 | Woody , Meet Mr . Hitchcock | Anyone who laments the fact that Alfred Hitchcock is no longer alive to make thrillers can rest easy - - - the Woodman is on the case . " Match Point " is a ghoulishly entertaining movie that threatens to become a rip-off of " An American Tragedy " mixed with " Crime and Punishment , " until Woody jerks the film in a totally different direction and makes it utterly original . For about the first twenty minutes of the film , I was thinking how ironic it was that Allen's best movie in a long time ( and even in the first twenty minutes you can tell it is indeed going to be that ) should also be his most unoriginal . The plot is cliché , and is not helped by the fact that Allen borrows heavily from Theodore Dreiser in setting up his main character's dilemma . However , once the protagonist ( for want of a better word ) sets out to plan the " perfect " murder , inspired by " Crime and Punishment " ( which you see him reading early on in the film ) , the movie becomes an anything-can-happen nailbiter , and had me on the edge of my seat . Scarlet Johannsson is remarkable as an emotionally unstable love interest ; Allen uses her sultry good looks to perfect effect , and he includes her in some of the most erotic moments he's ever filmed . Jonathan Rhys-Meyers , who I can't decide whether or not I like , also equips himself well as the ex-tennis pro who finds himself torn between a life of privilege and his lust for the object of his desire . And all of the supporting players are excellent , though I expected no less from a Woody Allen film . Allen shows complete mastery of a genre he's never tackled . This doesn't even seem like an Allen film at first glance , but many of his recurring themes are here , and his usual knack for writing such strong characters with such believable motives adds much to the suspense and effectiveness of the film overall . A true stunner of a movie , easily one of the best of the year . |
573,757 | 4,532,636 | 26,029 | 9 | Early Hitchcock Is One of His Best | The 39 Steps is the best book Graham Greene never wrote . This classic thriller from Alfred Hitchcock has Greene's stamp all over it , though the famed author had nothing to do with it . It's got spy rings , a man implicated in a murder he didn't commit , a feisty and reluctant girl Friday and wonderfully atmospheric English settings ranging from a rowdy London music hall to the barren , eerie countryside . Robert Donat plays the man on the run and Madeleine Carroll the young lady who first joins him against her will and then cozies up to him when she realizes he's playing straight with her . I had some trouble warming up to Donat at first , but his charming performance gradually worked on me . I had no trouble warming up to Carroll - - I was in love with her from the start , even if I did want to punch her character repeatedly for making things so difficult for our leading man . The entire middle section of the film , that finds Donat and Carroll handcuffed together , is sexy and racy , especially a scene in which Carroll removes her wet stockings while Donat's cuffed hand wavers suggestively about her knees . This is pure Hitchcock , creepy , exciting and funny all at the same time . It's not to be missed . |
573,626 | 4,532,636 | 286,244 | 9 | A Quirky Delight | It's kind of hard to describe " The Triplets of Belleville " other than to say that it's truly original . It made me long for the days of old-fashioned hand-drawn animation , the kind that Disney revolutionized before turning to CGI . Interestingly enough , there's a car chase scene toward the end of the film that reminded me of " 101 Dalmatians , " and I said as much to my wife while we were watching it . It was something about the way the cars were drawn and moved , and the color palate in general . Then in the supplementary materials , one of the film's creators cites " 101 Dalmatians " as an inspiration , so I was able to congratulate myself on my perceptiveness . It doesn't take much to make me happy : ) |
573,902 | 4,532,636 | 65,853 | 9 | Could Just Have Easily Been a Horror Movie | Acclaimed documentarian Fredrick Wiseman trains his notorious camera on the goings on of a hospital used primarily by people from a lower income bracket , and the results will likely sadden and horrify you . Wiseman is always skilled at making you think he's being totally objective ; it appears that he just turns his camera on and lets it run . However , he manages to construct a compelling indictment of how the poor are treated by the American medical industry and anyone with an ounce of warm blood in their veins will be enraged by what they see . There are heartbreaking moments in this film , like doctors telling a woman she has only a limited amount of time to live and her complete unresponsiveness to the news . There are also moments that make you want to turn away from the screen , like the sight of a young man who's been given a purgative for a drug overdose spewing vomit all over the room , and then falling down in it . Indeed , much of this movie makes you feel guilty for watching at all . Shouldn't people's privacy and dignity be honored in situations like this ? On the other hand , how would the majority of us know how the poor are treated if people like Wiseman didn't document it ? The movie doesn't really pose and questions or answers , yet it manages to be completely compelling nonetheless . I saw it in a documentary film class and there was plenty of debate inspired by it . |
573,851 | 4,532,636 | 57,115 | 9 | A Simply Terrific Movie | Sorry ladies , but " The Great Escape " is the ultimate GUY movie . I'll never forget watching this movie when I was about ten or eleven , with my then super-cool brother-in-law , who I realize now was a bit of a slimeball but who at the time I looked up to for the very things that made him a slimeball . But lest you think my fondness for this movie rests only on its associations in my mind and not on its quality , I have seen it since and it holds up remarkably well . Who can forget the iconic image of Steve McQueen taking off across that field on his motorcycle ? We can look back now and see that that image served as an announcement of a new and radical shakeup taking place in film and popular culture , and that the next decade or so would be ruled by the renegade and the bad boy . " Easy Rider , " " Bonnie and Clyde , " " The Graduate , " " The Wild Bunch " would all come later . " The Great Escape " came first . |
574,485 | 4,532,636 | 414,387 | 9 | Leave Your Expectations at the Door and Just Have Fun | Let's get this out of the way : this is not the A & E 5-hour version of Jane Austen's novel . This movie does not star Colin Firth . This version takes greater liberty with the Austen book than does the A & E version . Good , I'm glad that's behind us . Now just sit back and enjoy what happens to be a stellar film . Of course this version is a less literal adaptation , but it doesn't have the luxury of being 5 hours long . And there is much about this version that I thought was actually better than the A & E version . For example , this version is much more cinematic and never more so than at the astoundingly filmed ball scenes , when the camera takes off swooping and swirling around the actors in some of the most complexly choreographed shots I've ever seen . Keira Knightly and Matthew Mcfadyen seem more right for the roles than did Jennifer Ehle and Firth ; they're at least closer to the age of the characters as depicted in Austen's book . Brenda Blethyn improves on the character of Mrs . Bennett , turning her into a real human character rather than a broad caricature . And Judi Dench has a ball storming on to the screen in a couple of scenes and decimating everyone in her path . This film is for people who already know the book and Austen's characters . It's a very fresh and exciting telling of a very familiar story - - - who really needs yet one more ploddingly faithful movie that dares not deviate at all from the novel ? We already have a faithful adaptation that's not going away just because this movie came out , and the book is always there to reread if you need your fix of unadulterated Austen . All I can say is , I was in an audience full of obvious " Pride & Prejudice " junkies , and they were on the edges of their seats through the entire length of this film . Highly recommended . |
574,264 | 4,532,636 | 28,010 | 9 | The Screwiest of Screwball Comedies | O . k . , so maybe the absolute screwiest screwball comedy would be " Bringing Up Baby " from two years later , but " Godfrey " certainly runs a close second . If someone who didn't know what was meant by the term screwball comedy came to me and asked me to show them an example , I would pick either this film or " Baby . " " My Man Godfrey " is an example of what happened when all of the elements of 30s film comedy came together perfectly . It's a bit like " It Happened One Night " in that way ; much of the success of " Godfrey , " like Capra's earlier film , rests on bringing together the perfect ensemble with buckets of chemistry , but " Godfrey " one ups " Night " ( actually , soars right on past it ) on the zany meter . William Powell is flawless as the tramp taken in by the society ditz and " reformed . " Carole Lombard is adorable as said ditz , and her performance here is a sad reminder that her career was cut all too short by an early and accidental death . It seems like every comedy from this time period had to have a stock society matron character played by one from a pool of character actresses , and Alice Brady gets the honors here . Powell , Lombard and Brady were all nominated for Oscars , as was Mischa Auer in the first year the Academy gave awards in the supporting acting categories . It's a shame the Academy has forgotten that it once recognized excellence in screen comedy , and " My Man Godfrey " is about as excellent as screen comedy gets . |
574,405 | 4,532,636 | 85,461 | 9 | Finney and Courtenay Work Wonders Together | The Dresser is a small but absolutely wonderful film , brilliantly acted by Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay . How in the world this tiny film attracted enough attention to garner five major Academy Award nominations back in 1983 is a mystery to me , but it's nice to know the Academy can be guilty of a display of good taste every once in a while ( of course , they gave the award that year to " Terms of Endearment " - - after all , they don't want to be accused of showing TOO much taste ) . Albert Finney is a drunken Shakespearean actor in a production of " King Lear " ; Tom Courtenay is the man who works double time behind the scenes to keep this actor in front of the footlights . It's both hilarious and piteous to see Courtenay's character showering Finney's with attention and affection , only to see his efforts utterly unappreciated and dismissed , even up to the very bitter end . Finney and Courtenay work wonders together , and though Finney gets the showiest moments ( he does get to recite Shakespeare after all ) , Courtenay is the heart and soul of the film . |
573,899 | 4,532,636 | 31,885 | 9 | Every Film Student Knows This One | The Rules of the Game is one of those movies that would be easy to be disappointed by , because it's constantly lauded as one of the greatest movies ever made , and anyone who's spent any time studying film knows that at some point you have to see this movie if you're going to consider yourself a film connoisseur . Well , it is excellent , though it's not excellent in a lot of obvious ways , and I could forgive someone for watching it and having a lukewarm reaction on a first viewing . The film is sort of reminiscent of Bergman's " Smiles of a Summer Night " ( though of course Renoir's movie came first ) in its use of a country estate filled with a bunch of well-to-do's and the servants waiting on them . It also put me in the mind of Evelyn Waugh's novels , as Renoir uses a thin glaze of humour to mask some bitter truths about class and social standing . There are some downright slapstick moments that feel like something out of a silent comedy , but there are also some sober moments that give the film a very serious grounding . What impressed me most was the fluidity of Renoir's direction . The camera is a constant observer , gliding through the vast house , following one character only to switch direction and follow another as he or she walks past . The viewer feels like a voyeur , and Renoir gives the impression that these characters would be behaving somewhat differently if they knew you were watching . I can't explain exactly how he does that , but the feeling comes across distinctly . Probably needs to be watched a few times for a full appreciation . In fact , I need to watch it again myself . |
573,942 | 4,532,636 | 69,762 | 9 | Malick's First Film Sets a High Standard | Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek are lovers on the lam in this , Terrence Malick's first feature film . Malick-directed movies seem to come around with less frequency than total solar eclipses , but he has almost always managed to produce a masterpiece when he finally gets around to it , and " Badlands " set the bar high . This kind of story always seems to work on film , no matter who's in it or who directs it . " They Live By Night " in 1948 comes to mind first , then " Gun Crazy " the next year , " Bonnie and Clyde " in 1967 , Altman's " Thieves Like Us " in 1974 . All of these films are very different and all of them are fantastic . " Badlands " belongs among them . |
574,407 | 4,532,636 | 67,927 | 9 | A Film That Never Sits Still | Vanishing Point is the counter culture movie to end all counter culture movies . It's got it all - - the grizzled , moody anti-hero ; the rebellion against authority ; the naked hippies ; the criticism of racial oppression ; the bleak , " what's the point of it all ? " existential angst . But first and foremost , " Vanishing Point " is one hell of a kick-ass movie . It's clear why Quentin Tarantino , an obvious cinephile , fell in love with this movie and decided to pay homage to it with his car chase film " Death Proof . " Because " Vanishing Point " above all else is supremely cinematic . It's a film about movement - - our protagonist is never content to stand still , lest the demons chasing him catch up to him . And like him , the film never stands still either . It's kinetic and full of an angry and restless energy , and it's always compelling even if it doesn't always make sense . Barry Newman plays the tortured hero , Kowalski , looking like a cross between Mike Brady and Tim Roth . Cleavon Little is the blind d . j . who becomes a sort of guardian angel to Kowalski . And old-time character actor Dean Jagger has an unsettling cameo as a hermit living out in the desert wilds . |
573,986 | 4,532,636 | 65,988 | 9 | Sprawling , Uneven , But Quite Remarkable | Little Big Man is highly uneven , but always fascinating . Arthur Penn directed this picaresque tall tale about a man ( played by Dustin Hoffman ) who experiences first-hand much of America's ugly history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . Narrated by the man years after the principal events of the film have occurred , the film is episodic in structure , and like many episodic films , some sections just work better than others . The tone of the film is all over the place , some of it quite dark and sombre , some of it jokey and slapstick , all of it very critical about America's treatment of the Native Americans . But Hoffman's strong performance holds the film together , and the movie should be held in much higher esteem than it is . As it is , it's one of the more forgotten films from the early 1970s . Faye Dunaway appears in a comic role as a woman who comes to Hoffman's aid , and Chief Dan George , Academy Award nominated , delivers the film's second strongest performance as mentor and father figure to Hoffman . |
574,013 | 4,532,636 | 212,604 | 9 | You May Never Have Heard of This Movie , But It's Well Worth Your Time | A fine little family drama I had never heard of , but which I'm now completely glad that I've seen . The title character of " Tully " is a young man struggling to come of age on the farm he works with his father and younger brother . Rebellious in spirit and darkly good looking , he's more socially and sexually experienced than his brother , and has a more contentious relationship with his dad . When a family secret surfaces , though , it becomes apparent that his bravado masks a great deal of insecurity , and proves that though he may be mature in some ways , he has a lot of maturing still to do in others . " Tully " has a quiet , low-key quality to it that I very much liked . It has a feel for the natural rhythms of rural life and the people who inhabit it . Grand epiphanies , emotional showdowns and the other stuff of traditional family dramas are not present here ; instead , turning points and realizations take place subtly and quietly . Many times it's the moments of silence that convey more than scenes filled with dialogue . The acting is tremendous , and the actors themselves inhabit these characters naturally and flawlessly . Even Tully ( Anson Mount ) , who's supposed to be charismatic and handsome , is charismatic and handsome in the way that someone would actually be in real life , not in the way that movie stars are . |
574,177 | 4,532,636 | 18,455 | 9 | A Beautiful Sunrise | You'll have to suspend a whole lot of disbelief in order to fully enjoy F . W . Murnau's classic silent , but that's the point . " Sunrise " takes place in a fairy tale world in which love always triumphs in the end . The film's subtitle , " A Song of Two Humans , " is an apt description , as " Sunrise " feels more like a song or a poem - - where images and tone are more important than logic . The initial scenes of this film are reminiscent of Dreiser's " An American Tragedy " - - indeed , the style in which Murnau shoots these segments , using dissolve editing to superimpose one image over another to ghostly effect , made me wonder if George Stevens was perhaps influenced by this film when he made his own screen adaptation of Dreiser's novel , " A Place in the Sun . " Poor farmer George O'Brien , bored with dowdy country wife Janet Gaynor , is lured into an ill-advised love affair with a siren from the big city . She suggests that O'Brien kill Gaynor by drowning her and making everything look like a boating accident . At the last minute , he can't do it , and the film changes directions drastically , as O'Brien and Gaynor , who overcomes the newly founded terror of her own husband , spend a day in the city , falling in love all over again . On paper , and even thinking about it in retrospect , " Sunrise " doesn't make a lot of sense . But there's something irresistible about this sweet domestic story , in which two people who thought they knew all there was to know about each other begin to make tentative gestures at rekindling a flame that to all appearances went out long ago . Seeing these two country folk , removed from their usual environment and plopped down in the middle of the big city , juxtaposed to urban life and the ways of urban people , reinforces to us just how right for each other they are , without making condescending assumptions or resorting to the reinforcement of rural stereotypes . This movie isn't about much more than the love of one man for one woman , how that love is tested , and ultimately how the strength of its bond wins out over the hardships and bitternesses of everyday life . Murnau has fashioned a nimble , visually versatile film . It is evidence to all those who still need convincing that the late silents were more sophisticated and artistically advanced than the early talkies . |
573,738 | 4,532,636 | 88,846 | 9 | It's Monty Python Meets George Orwell and Aldous Huxley | An audacious film , and one that was just born to be a cult classic . I've only seen " Brazil " once , but once was enough to make me fall in love with it , and I'm sure it's the kind of movie that just gets better and better the more you see it . Jonathan Pryce plays the man trapped in a dystopian future that looks like something out of Monty Python by way of George Orwell . Visionary director Terry Gilliam creates a fantastic visual world , and a host of great actors appear in small roles - - Robert De Niro has an especially memorable scene as a repair man . And I give Gilliam tremendous credit for sticking to his guns and giving us a downbeat ending in the director's cut . |
573,792 | 4,532,636 | 107,822 | 9 | One of the Best Films of 1993 | A lot of audiences didn't quite know what to make of " The Piano " upon its initial release , which I think is a testament to its originality . I really hadn't seen anything quite like this movie and was riveted on my first go around with it . Jane Campion wrote and directed this story about a mute woman arranged to marry a landowner ( Sam Neill ) in 19th Century New Zealand . She has two loves : her young daughter ( played by Anna Paquin ) and her piano . She's drawn to a frightening but magnetic worker on the plantation ( Harvey Keitel ) and begins a torrid affair with him . Things come to a boil when she's found out by her husband . The film is intensely erotic without being gratuitous . The characters are fascinating , and the acting is uniformly stellar . Holly Hunter gives a brave and fierce performance . Not brave because she allows herself to be filmed nude frequently or because she recreates quite graphic sex acts ; but rather brave because she allows her character to be complicated and difficult and perhaps to some even unlikable . She never asks for our sympathy , but she does ask for our understanding . Neill and Keitel offer able support , and child actor Paquin amazes and delivers a quite un-childlike performance . Top the whole thing off with vivid cinematography and a lush score from Michael Nyman and you have one of the best films to emerge from 1993 . |
574,503 | 4,532,636 | 81,283 | 9 | A Powerful and Dead-On Portrayal of Intense Family Dysfunction | A searing dysfunctional family drama that holds up very well today . Living on Chicago's north shore as I do , I can say with authority that this movie completely nails a certain kind of affluent north shore community that exists in Chicago suburbs like Lake Forest , Winnetka , Highland Park , etc . , places where people erect hedges and fences not so much to keep people out as to keep family problems and secrets in . Director Robert Redford and writer Alvin Sargent clearly understand their subject matter . And in fact , this film so closely mirrors many of the personal circumstances of my wife and her family ( my wife even established a productive relationship with a Jewish therapist who works out of Skokie , no less ) , that we joke that the film is really about her . Maybe it's my closeness to the subject matter that gives me my appreciation of the movie , but even without that I still think that I'd consider this film to be a superb drama , flawlessly acted . Speaking of the acting , Mary Tyler Moore , Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton were all recognized with Academy Award nominations ( Hutton won ) for their work in this film , all deservedly . Moore especially is memorable in her portrayal of a brittle power mom who must constantly hide behind a veneer of icy aloofness for fear that one tiny crack in her facade will send her crumbling to pieces . But two other actors deserve praise as well : Donald Sutherland , as a suffering father who's ill-equipped to deal with his family's problems yet whose heart is in the right place ; and Elizabeth McGovern , who brings a sense of normalcy and healthiness into the film like a fresh breeze off Lake Michigan . There's a lot of talk about whether this film is better than " Raging Bull , " which came out the same year and lost the Best Picture Oscar to " Ordinary People , " which only goes to show how lame award competitions are when it comes to movies - - how can you possibly compare the two ? See them both . |
574,325 | 4,532,636 | 69,281 | 9 | A Funhouse of a Movie | This late entry in veteran director Joseph L . Mankiewicz's oeuvre proved that the old guy still had it . By now , it's probably not spoiling anything to reveal that " Sleuth " is a two-man movie , with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine playing all of the roles with the help of some masterful makeup work . This cat-and-mouse game of who can outsmart who is dark and devilish fun , with production design that's as fascinating to watch as the pinball plot itself , and a terrific , rambunctious score by John Addison . This doesn't seem to be an especially remembered film now , but it's more than worth a look . |
574,366 | 4,532,636 | 29,583 | 9 | Longing for the Days of Hand-Drawn Animation | Watching this first feature length Disney film is a reminder that today's slick computer-generated Pixar movies come at the expense of hand-drawn artistry . " Snow White " is horribly dated in some ways , especially apparent whenever Snow White herself breaks into that piercing , warbly soprano to sing some very familiar songs , but there are moments in this film that will take your breath away with their sheer beauty of animation . I especially liked the wicked queen , who's really scary , and not a jokey villain like those of Disney's more modern animated films . O . k . so a single attractive female shacking up with seven smitten men would make many an eyebrow raise today , but get your minds out of the gutter , people . I can accept that technology changes , and today's animation offers many treats in its own right , but that doesn't mean I don't lament an art that has become by and large obsolete . |
573,802 | 4,532,636 | 64,040 | 9 | Could Have Been Called " Army of the Dead " | Jean-Pierre Melville's " Army of Shadows " is a sombre film about the French Resistance during WWII . It's yet one more movie that makes me feel like I have a terrible grasp of history , as I knew virtually nothing about the movement before seeing this . Melville himself was a member of the Resistance , so I can only assume that his film is fairly accurate . It's powerful , but not obviously so . It doesn't inspire tremendous reactions or emotions while viewing it , but it gets in your head and stays there . The film is lacking any of that championing of the underdog spirit that infuses so many other stories about scrappy groups resisting the tyranny of the powerful . The members of the French Resistance in this film live like unearthly beings , skittering from one shadowy doorway to another , trying to erase any sign of themselves . The movie suggests that this need for non-existence bleeds into their psychology as well - - the film's main character becomes nearly inhuman in his devotion to the cause and his ability to ruthlessly do away with colleagues when there's a chance that one of them might jeopardize the others . He's not inhuman , but he must do inhuman things , because the desperation of his and his comrades ' situations calls for it . The Criterion Collection's print of the film looks terrific , or at least as terrific as the film's dreary pallet of grey and brown will allow . Melville gives the film an authentic look - - only some scenes set in the London blitz and on an aircraft carrier have a studio set look to them . A shot of the Arc di Triomphe both opens and closes the film : a symbol of the France that would eventually emerge from the dark days of WWII , or an ironic jab at a country that can't take much credit for fighting off the tyranny of fascism ? |
573,928 | 4,532,636 | 110,057 | 9 | Utterly Absorbing Documentary | Engrossing documentary about two inner city kids and their struggles to make it into professional basketball . " Hoop Dreams " made a big splash when it was released in 1994 , and there was a big controversy around Academy Award time when it was deemed ineligible in the Best Documentary category . It likely would have won had it been nominated , and it ranks right up there among some of the best documentaries of all time . This is mostly due to how engrossing the storytelling is . You forget you're not watching a fictional film , which just supports the claim that truth can be more compelling than fiction . You don't have to be a fan of basketball to enjoy this movie . |
574,200 | 4,532,636 | 60,176 | 9 | Further Proof That Swinging London Was a Myth | Perhaps the most accessible film Michelangelo Antonioni ever made , " Blowup " joins the same year's " Alfie " to create a set of movie bookends that puncture the idea of a free and swinging 1960s London where one's personal actions have no consequences on others . " Blowup , " however , is a much more intellectually challenging and stimulating film than " Alfie . " David Hemmings plays a free-wheeling and womanizing photographer who , while taking pictures of a beautiful young woman in a park ( Vanessa Redgrave , looking beautiful indeed ) , inadvertently captures what appears to be a murder being committed in some foliage in the background . Think of this as a companion film to " The Conversation , " with a photograph taking the place of a sound recording . The idea at first haunts Hemmings and then obsesses him , and his life begins slowly to unravel . This is Antonioni , so nothing takes place as neatly and clearly as I've layed it out for you here , and the ending is especially enigmatic , but " Blowup " makes for a fascinating watch , and it will likely tantalize and haunt you as much as those blurry images tantalize and haunt the film's protagonist . |
573,985 | 4,532,636 | 443,706 | 9 | Not Your Average Serial Killer Movie ( And That's a Good Thing ) | Zodiac may frustrate viewers who come to David Fincher's latest film expecting a traditional serial killer thriller . The film begins with a couple of hair-raising and rather brutal recreations of murders carried out by the mysterious killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s and early 1970s . These early scenes are shocking and , compared to the rest of the film , disorienting , because they offer the only time that we come close to seeing events from the killer's perspective . As the film progresses , the Zodiac killer himself fades into the background , and the movie turns into a meticulous and engrossing document of the investigation to track him down , an investigation that includes countless blind alleys and false clues and which to this day has not reached a conclusion . I would be more prone to label the somewhat rambling screenplay as sloppy storytelling if I did not feel that Fincher tells the story exactly as he wants to . The elusive narrative works , because the film is about an elusive villain . Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith , a cartoonist working for the " San Francisco Chronicle " at the time the Zodiac killer began his gruesome work . He becomes fascinated by the case , and takes it on as a sort of morbid personal hobby long after the police department has given it up as a lost cause . Graysmith eventually wrote the book on which this film is based , and according to his accounts , he discovered enough evidence about one of the suspects in the case to put the police back on his trail years after he'd been cleared for lack of evidence . Other characters come and go . Robert Downey , Jr . does characteristically terrific work as a reporter at the " Chronicle " who grabs his own portion of notoriety through his involvement in the case . Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards play the two detectives in charge of the investigation . Chloe Sevigny plays Gyllenhaal's put-upon wife , who gradually loses her husband to his obsession . All of the actors deliver thrilling performances , many of them against the odds . Since this isn't a character driven movie , many of the characters remain undeveloped , but not , for once , to the detriment of the film . This story isn't about the people involved , but rather about their role in the Zodiac saga ; once they've served their purpose , Fincher dispenses with them . Ironically , a film that clocks in at nearly 3 hours exhibits a great deal of narrative economy . Parts of " Zodiac " are intensely creepy . Fincher effectively uses the rainy San Francisco atmosphere to its maximum potential , and the grimy browns and grays of the production design call to mind Fincher's other well-known films , like " Seven " and " Fight Club . " But " Zodiac " is much more grown up than those films , and for an audience to enjoy it , it has to have an attention span . Long scenes are given to analyzing handwriting samples , recreating the scenes of murders , digging through newspaper clippings and files . You can tell that Fincher is fascinated by police work in the pre-CSI era , when fax machines were still a novel invention . He delves into the investigative process with a nearly fetishistic attention to detail , but he makes all of it endlessly mesmerizing . He does his best to bring everything to some sort of conclusion , but the real-life end to the story makes a complete conclusion impossible . This film is more about the journey than the destination , and what a journey it is . |
573,781 | 4,532,636 | 36,172 | 9 | A Hilarious Housing Shortage | This is a wonderful comedy that uses the housing shortage in war-time Washington , D . C . to comic advantage . Jean Arthur won her sole Academy Award nomination for this performance , and my only quibble with that is that she was only recognized by the Academy once . She's absolutely adorable here as a type-A career woman who rents one half of her apartment to a doddery old man ( played perfectly by Charles Coburn ) . She runs her apartment with military precision , and the movie's highlight is the scene in which Coburn tries earnestly to stick to the morning schedule given him by Arthur the night before and ends with his pants getting stuck in a tree ( you have to see it ) . Of course there's more to Coburn than meets the eye , and the plot thickens when he rents half of HIS half to a good-looking single man ( Joel McCrea ) and begins to play matchmaker . This is a delightful movie directed with a sure hand by George Stevens . Stevens could be overly stoic and ponderous when making " important " films , but his comedies rarely fail to entertain . " The More the Merrier " is breezy and fun with just enough meat to it to give it some substance . I can't praise it enough . |
574,324 | 4,532,636 | 69,198 | 9 | Jesus Christ or Jack the Ripper ? Or Just Peter O'Toole ? | No other actor has had a career filled with more idiosyncratic roles than Peter O'Toole , and his role in " The Ruling Class " is perhaps the most idiosyncratic of them all . O'Toole plays the heir to a British House of Lords who dies accidentally ( and bizarrely ) , leaving his family to hash out the estate . The family is much disturbed by the fact that O'Toole is the heir - - understandably so , since he believes that he's Jesus Christ . Much wackiness ensues , until O'Toole has a change of perspective and decides that instead of Christ , he's Jack the Ripper . More wackiness ensues , the film gets darker and darker in that way that only British films can , and the whole thing may leave you scratching your head but will no doubt also leave you gloriously entertained . For O'Toole fans , this is a chance to see him single-handedly carry a delirious mess of a movie on his shoulders , and make a rousing success out of it . Much of it doesn't make a lot of sense , but it's all a hoot , especially the impromptu musical numbers peppered throughout the film . There's some scathing satire aimed at the British class system , but it's nothing you haven't seen before , and the whole film has the feeling of being the pet project of an undisciplined director . But I highly recommend this , because you've never seen anything quite like it , and it's a chance to see one of our generation's greatest actors strutting his stuff like the pro that he is . |
573,672 | 4,532,636 | 31,742 | 9 | Hits You Like a Gut Punch | This screen adaptation of the John Steinbeck classic novel is a harsh , fantastic film that took the wind out of me with its frank and brutal depiction of desperation and longing . Movies about the Depression that were actually made at the time of the Depression by people who knew of what they spoke by necessity feel so much more authentic than later movies that treat the Depression as a historical event . The men in this film are quite literally living day to day , and the comparison of men to dogs that serves as a running motif throughout the film feels like more than just a poetic device . Like dogs , these men were faced with the scary prospect of some day being of no more use , and there was no system in place to take care of them when that day came . Being shot like a dog put out of its misery by its owner really was preferable to the alternatives awaiting them . I was surprised about how candid this film was , and how bravely it tackled some of the thornier issues of Steinbeck's novel . The incident between Lenny and Mae is divested of some of its sexual overtones , but much is implied anyway . And a scene between Crooks , a black work hand , and some of the other workers , in which Crooks explains in blunt language what it means to be black , tackles race relations as honestly as many films today . Moments of this film are almost unbearably sad and poignant , but never in that over-sentimental way common to Hollywood films of this time period . Burgess Meredith is terrific in the role of George ; he expertly conveys - - without ever directly addressing it - - the bond he has with Lenny and the degree to which Lenny is as much George's savior as he is Lenny's . Charles Bickford is also excellent as a rough and world-weary worker . The cast's weak links are Betty Field - - hopelessly overplaying her bored sex kitten - - and Lon Chaney as Lenny , though both are very good in the pivotal scene that sets off the action of the film's finale . John Ford's adaptation of " The Grapes of Wrath " from the following year gets all of the attention today , and one hardly ever hears of " Of Mice and Men . " But much of what is great about Ford's film is also great about Lewis Milestone's , and he deserves credit for laying a fine blueprint for brining Steinbeck's beautiful and heartbreaking stories to the screen . |
574,338 | 4,532,636 | 333,766 | 9 | Terrific Debut | Garden State is an excellent first effort for Zach Braff : personal , textured and authentic . There are really only a couple of scenes ( his reconciliation with his father and the soliloquy delivered by Denis O'Hare's character ) that feel clunky and too pat . The rest of the film is notable for how realistic it feels - - - the characters don't necessarily find their ways to happy endings , but they do come to better endings . Zach Braff gives a great performance here in addition to his directorial debut . Natalie Portman also shines - - there's something so magnetic about her persona , she can walk into a scene and immediately make the movie about her ( as she did in " Closer " ) . And all of the other actors in smaller roles - - Peter Sarsgaard , Ian Hom , Jean Smart - - create memorable characters with the sometimes limited material they're given to work with . When I was watching the special features on the DVD of " Garden State , " the director of photography mentioned how he thought the movie's look and feel are reminiscent of the Hal Ashby movies from the ' 70's , and I thought this was very astute . Watching " Garden State , " I was reminded of " Harold and Maude . " It's quirky and goofy like that movie , but it doesn't ever feel forced or like it's trying too hard . One of the best of 2004 . |
574,307 | 4,532,636 | 74,958 | 9 | Sidney Lumet Sees Into the Future of American Broadcasting | Network is hard to describe . It's not hard to see why Sidney Lumet's acidic tirade about American news networks caused a sensation back when it was released . The famous refrain that becomes the mantra of Peter Finch's character , a news anchor who has lost his stomach for the kind of crap he's asked to spew out night after night and decides to do something about it , is " I'm mad as hell , and I'm not gonna take it anymore ! " This could have been the refrain for America at large in 1976 , after assassinations , a failed military conflict and political scandals had pretty much decimated any faith Americans still had in their nation . The fact that that same phrase could be a refrain for America today shows how ahead of its time and relevant this movie was and is . The story seemed outrageous then . Finch's character decides that he's going to kill himself on network television , and the network chief , played by Faye Dunaway in a blistering ball-buster performance , rather than react in horror , sees only the potential for sky-high ratings and a boost to her career . Sadly , in this age of reality television and sensationalistic journalism , the premise no longer seems very outrageous . So as a satire I think " Network " holds up expertly , but as a movie , I think it shows its age . Paddy Chayefsky , who wrote the screenplay , stages the film's action as a series of monologues and speeches , and the overall result can be a bit tedious , like a film version of an essay . The writing feels like it might work better on stage than on screen . But Sidney Lumet , who was coming off a high with " Dog Day Afternoon " the year before , happens to be a director who's always had a knack for giving stagey material a cinematic quality , so he's perfectly matched with Chayefsky . And there are no quibbles with the acting . Finch and Dunaway are fierce and get the showiest moments , but Robert Duvall and William Holden , in quieter roles , do outstanding work as well . Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight give two of the smallest Oscar-nominated performances ever . Both each have essentially one scene , but both do quite memorable things with them , and Beatty's in particular is one of the most grotesquely fascinating cameos ever captured on film . An essential film from the 1970s whose impact is blunted now only because the film was so prophetic . How many movies can you say that about ? |
573,895 | 4,532,636 | 86,879 | 9 | Rock Me , Amadeus | Milos Forman serves up a deliciously macabre film based on the Peter Schaffer play about brilliant composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and lesser composer and Mozart arch rival Antonio Salieri . This is Salieri's story much more than it is Mozart's . More than anything , the film is a study of the devouring envy one artist can have for the talents of another . F . Murray Abraham is good as Salieri ; he has never since gotten as juicy a film role as this . But he's upstaged by Tom Hulce's Mozart , played as a giggling , flamboyant showman who's absolutely oblivious to Salieri's mounting hatred . Indeed , one of the aspects of the rivalry that is most heartbreaking , and which adds fuel to Salieri's fire , is the degree to which Mozart doesn't even recognize Salieri as a rival . Though the movie is meticulous in its period detail , the screenplay is peppered with modern , slangy American dialogue that frees it from the museum piece stuffiness that so often infects other period films . Bravo . |
573,659 | 4,532,636 | 31,679 | 9 | Every Man Against the Bigwigs | The term Capraesque when applied to film has come to mean sentimental , cosy and idealistic . But under many of Capra's superficially simplistic stories lurked a seed of angry bitterness . The desperation of the Great Depression is acutely palpable underneath the screwball romance exterior of " It Happened One Night , " and despite its reputation as a heart-warming Christmas film , " It's a Wonderful Life " has some very dark moments which effectively illustrate one man quickly approaching the end of his rope . In the world of " Mr . Smith Goes to Washington , " everything of course turns out right , justice prevails , and American government is depicted as a body of men who basically want to do the right thing by their people . But it's also an angry indictment of corruption and the self-interest rampant in our government that existed then and still exists today . Rich politicians want the poor to stay poor ( or they at least have no incentive to help the lower classes improve their situations ) , because it benefits them . This movie was pretty fearless for its time , when anti-government sentiment would not have been popular and would become even less popular as the U . S . entered WWII and patriotic fervor struck the nation . Anchoring this film is James Stewart , who deserves mention along with Jack Lemmon as one of cinema's great everymen . He gives a slow-burn performance here , at times very similar to the one he would give seven years later in " Wonderful Life . . " Even given their darker undertones , Capra's films may still be too saccharine for some to tolerate now . But there's something appealing about his movies today . They don't shy away from tough issues , but they make you feel like Mankind has it in him to make everything turn out o . k . in the end . |
573,933 | 4,532,636 | 109,707 | 9 | One Mad Genius Salutes Another | Vies with " Edward Scissorhands " as my favorite Tim Burton film - - though " Scissorhands " wins in a squeaker . Burton was not above poking fun at infamous good bad movie director Wood , but you can tell he also obviously has some affection for the guy , and even admires his dedication to the craft . That makes all the difference in this movie , which could have been a glib if enjoyable comedy , and becomes in the hands of Burton something touching , a tribute from one mad genius to another . Johnny Depp gave us an early indication of his talent for playing crazy eccentrics , but it's Martin Landau , in a tour de force performance as washed up movie actor Bela Lugosi , who you will remember most . The film looks great in black and white , and has a terrific opening credits sequence . |
573,901 | 4,532,636 | 183,416 | 9 | Funny But Sad | If you're wondering why Paul Anka refuses to throw in the towel and admit that his time in the spotlight is over ( have you heard his recent rendition of " Eye of the Tiger " sung as if he's performing in a piano lounge ? ) just watch " Lonely Boy " for your answer . How could anyone keep their head firmly below the clouds when they're surrounded by yes-men - - fans and managers alike - - proclaiming that they're the next best thing to the coming of the Messiah ? I think my favorite moment comes when Anka's manager tells the camera , in all seriousness , that Anka is the most important artist since Shakespeare . All of the people in this are unintentionally hilarious , but the documentary as a whole is a rather sad look at one man's brief moment at the peak of his fame and his refusal to let it go . |
573,641 | 4,532,636 | 55,614 | 9 | Romeo and Juliet : The Musical | This film version of the classic Broadway musical is hopelessly dated , but that's more a testament to how timely the material was than it is a criticism . Of course the image of gang violence portrayed here comes across as unbelievably quaint now , but compare this film musical to any other film musical of the time to see how gritty and different it probably seemed to audiences . Natalie Wood ( pretty , but not a great actress ) and Richard Beymer ( terribly miscast ) make no impression as young lovers Tony and Maria , but Rita Moreno , George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn more than make up for any spark the leads fail to generate . Jerome Robbins ' choreography remains intact and looks terrific on screen , and the score by Leonard Bernstein may be the best ever composed for the musical theatre . I really like the look of this picture . The off-kilter camera angles and stylized production design generate the feeling that everything is transpiring in a feverish dream world and retain the artificial feel of an imaginary world , while Wise's fluid direction and use of actual New York exteriors at the same time open up the movie and give it a distinctly cinematic feel . Wise had a knack for adapting stage musicals that other film directors sorely lacked . |
574,370 | 4,532,636 | 42,546 | 9 | James Stewart and His Giant Bunny Are Absolutely Charming | James Stewart plays gentle soul Elwood P . Dowd in this charming , benevolent comedy spiced with hints of fantasy . Elwood is an eccentric man who consorts with an invisible 6 foot tall ( or 6 ' 3 " tall , to be exact ) rabbit named Harvey , much to the dismay of his sister and niece . They spend much of the film trying to have him committed to an institution so that he'll stop being an embarrassment to them , but their plans don't work , mostly because everyone with whom Elwood comes in contact is utterly beguiled by him . Elwood isn't " normal " like all of the other characters in the movie , meaning he's not uptight , cruel and worried about what others think of him . The movie asks its audience : would you rather be like Elwood or would you rather be " normal " ? Give me a giant invisible rabbit any day over the fussy characters with whom Elwood has to contend . It would be easy to dismiss Stewart's performance as too easy for him , as many critics did at the time of the film's release . But not just anyone could have played this character and made it work . Whether or not Stewart is acting the part well or is just being Jimmy Stewart in a well-matched role doesn't really matter , as the result is the same . He has a tremendous screen presence and carries the film , even though he's off-screen for much of it . " Harvey " is a sweet movie with a distinct strain of melancholia running through it . It's more about the way one wishes the world could be rather than the way it actually is . |
573,709 | 4,532,636 | 923,752 | 9 | The Battle to Be Mr . Kong | A film that will make you ask the question : " Are there really people like this living out there in the world ? " " The King of Kong " chronicles the ongoing rivalry between two celebrities of the video gaming world : nice guy Steve Wiebe ( pronounced WEE-bee ) and jackass Billy Mitchell , world record holder for his Donkey Kong score . Our sympathies easily lie with Wiebe , who just wants to break into the gaming competition world but who has trouble being accepted by the insular world of nerds who populate it . Mitchell is portrayed as a sad , pathetic man who has a lot of trouble finding ties to match his shirts , and who didn't get the memo that feathered hair and black jeans were last seen in 1982 . He acts like holding the world record in Donkey Kong defines him as a human being , and he refuses to face off against Wiebe in public . The movie is absolutely hilarious . Part of me wants to feel bad for making fun of these guys , but the rest of me thinks that if they didn't want to be made fun of , they shouldn't have put themselves out there in the first place . And I have to admit that I admire them all in a way - - after all , they commit themselves to something that's important to them and whatever anyone thinks about it be damned . One of my favorite characters is Mr . Awesome , who makes home videos of himself dressed up as Mr . Awesome giving lessons on how to go about scoring some " poon tang . " You won't believe this movie wasn't made 25 years ago . Movies like this make a fictional movie like " Waiting for Guffman " seem entirely plausible . |
573,981 | 4,532,636 | 67,411 | 9 | Altman Takes on the Wild West | Robert Altman puts his unique spin on the Western , and gives us a haunting and mournful film , and one of the best in his canon . Warren Beatty buries himself underneath a bushy beard and an enormous fur coat to play McCabe , an opportunist who considers himself to have much more business savvy than he actually does . He appears in the ramshackle mining town of Presbyterian Church , somewhere in the wilds of Washington state at the turn of the 20th Century , and builds a whorehouse and saloon . Constance Miller ( Julie Christie ) , also sporting her own mound of unkempt hair , arrives a little later and becomes McCabe's business partner . She knows much more about running a whorehouse at a profit , and it quickly becomes clear that she's the brains behind the operation . These two develop a timid affection for one another that's never overtly expressed , but their relationship doesn't have time to prosper , as a trio of hit men arrive to rub out McCabe after he refuses to sell his holdings to a corporation intent on buying him out . Not surprisingly , considering the director , " McCabe & Mrs . Miller " is a strange film . There are virtually no scenes given to outright plot exposition or to showy acting . Much of the plot is conveyed through asides , casual glances and subtle nuances . Wilderness life is shown in all its unglamorous detail , and many of the normally familiar actors are unrecognizable behind their bad teeth , greasy hair and dirty faces . The harsh environment is a character itself , and few movies have a more memorable ending , with McCabe engaged in a most unconventional shoot out amid waist-high drifts of snow . Altman is of course interested in debunking the usual Western myths . There are no heroes to be found here . McCabe is a decent enough guy , but he's a bit of a fool , and when the bad guys come calling , he runs and hides . The American frontier depicted here is not a sacred place waiting for brave and noble men to come and realize their dreams . Instead , it's a brutal and dangerous wasteland , in which only the craftiest can survive . The theme of corporate exploitation that pervades the film still rings resoundingly to a present-day audience . But for all its harshness , " McCabe & Mrs . Miller " is a beautiful film to look at . Vilmos Zsigmond bathes everything in an ethereal light , and if there are images of icy starkness , there are also reverse images of rich warmth , notably those that take place in the whorehouse itself , which ironically becomes much more of a civilizing agent and cultural epicenter for the small town than the church that figures so prominently in other ways . One of the best from Altman's golden period as a director , and one of the best films to emerge from any director in the 1970s . |
573,987 | 4,532,636 | 44,789 | 9 | One of My Favorites | This vaulted to the top of my list of favorite films noir the second it was over . This truly stylish and excellent little crime thriller stars John Payne as an ex-con who's framed for being involved with a bank robbery he had nothing to do with . Fueled by a sense of wronged justice , he tracks down the real culprits , who have met down in Mexico for the money exchange . The plot gets much more intricate than that , though , when it turns out that the boss of the operation , an ex-cop gone bad , is planning to double cross the other members of the team and collect the reward money for himself . And it gets more intricate when Payne falls for the boss's daughter , who has come down to visit him at his tropical getaway . Many of the usual noir touches are present in this film : the anti-hero who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time ; the hard-boiled tough-guy patter ; the blurred lines between the law and the criminals . The film clips by at a tense pace , and it's an awful lot of fun . |
574,187 | 4,532,636 | 64,276 | 9 | The Myth of the American Dream | Easy Rider likely made a generation of young men want to take to the road on motorbikes , sticking it to the man and living the American dream . And today , it's viewed nostalgically as a relic from a simpler , more innocent time . But I think it's wrong to read the film this way , and robs it of much of its impact . " Easy Rider " isn't about living the American dream ; it's about finding out there is no such thing . That's what I like most about this movie . Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda could have made a smug , alienating critique on bourgeois American culture , and it's rather surprising that they didn't . Instead , they made a disturbing film with a big heart at its center , about two drifters who go out in search of what makes America great , and find that there's no place in it for them . The ending packs a wallop , and I'm always amazed that two newbies who were probably both loopy most of the time on drugs could manage to put together such a strong , resonant film . Jack Nicholson appears in a supporting role as another drifter the two pick up on their travels , and the always fascinating Karen Black appears briefly as well as one of their female companions . |
574,311 | 4,532,636 | 369,702 | 9 | A Powerful , Achingly Beautiful Movie | The Sea Inside is a refreshingly subtle polemic , if there can be such a thing . It has a clear agenda - - arguing in favor of humans ' right to die with dignity - - and it makes only the most minor attempt to address all sides of the right to die controversy , but it never preaches or gets bogged down in treacly sentimentality . It's as clear headed and articulate as its protagonist , Ramon Sampedro , a quadriplegic who fought , and ultimately lost , to have his right to end his own life recognized by the Spanish government . Javier Bardem plays Sampedro in a simply beautiful performance , all the more astounding given the fact that for most of the movie Bardem must act from the neck up only . His Ramon is a man full of great reserves of love and compassion for his family members and friends , but he's also single minded in purpose ; he wants to die , and he doesn't want anyone , no matter how well meaning , to stand in his way of that objective . Therefore , we almost always support Ramon in his goal , but don't always approve of his methods , or the way he treats others around him , particularly the young woman who ultimately assists him in his suicide , who's on the rebound from a failed marriage and attaches herself rather desperately to Ramon , and whom the movie suggests Ramon would take emotional advantage of if it would help him achieve his goal . But the movie's point is that Ramon is being forced to play by rules created by a bunch of people who know nothing about what it's like to be in his situation , so he can be forgiven if he breaks those rules . There's much to enjoy in " The Sea Inside " even if you are strongly opposed to assisted suicide . It really is a poignant , beautiful movie , and it resonates with compassion . I remember the small controversy that surrounded this movie and " Million Dollar Baby , " another film about assisted suicide that came out in the same year , and audiences ' calls to boycott these films because they espoused a point of view the audiences were against . I can understand why someone would not agree with the argument in " The Sea Inside , " but I can't imagine how they could have a blanket objection to watching the film , when it's so full of warmth and examples of decent human kindness . |
573,882 | 4,532,636 | 49,406 | 9 | Early Kubrick Robs the Bank | Stanley Kubrick directed this slick heist film early in his career , and it stands as one of the most exciting of the many crime thrillers released during the 1950s . Our friend Quentin Tarantino owes much to this film . Anyone who thinks Tarantino invented the gimmick of telling a story through topsy-turvy chronology should watch this to see how much this movie had to have influenced " Jackie Brown " and " Reservoir Dogs . " Stylish black and white photography ( which includes some trademark Kubrick Steadicam shots ) add much to this film's atmosphere . Watch and enjoy . |
573,598 | 4,532,636 | 107,688 | 9 | Nearly Perfect | The Nightmare Before Christmas gets better every time you see it . It's a little masterpiece of an animated film from the imagination of Tim Burton , and it's for people who want to gag whenever they see previews for the T . V . show " Seventh Heaven . " This ain't your standard Disney fare , but is rather a morbid and hilarious movie that I watch every Halloween season . The songs by Danny Elfman seem so-so upon a first listen , but they get better on multiple viewings too . If you like Edward Gory , you will like this movie ( though he's not credited as doing so , his artwork had to inspire the people who designed this movie ) . |
574,423 | 4,532,636 | 121,766 | 9 | Lucas Finally Gets It Right | Third time is apparently the charm for Mr . Lucas , because " Revenge of the Sith " finally , FINALLY , feels like a " Star Wars " movie . " Attack of the Clones " was tons better than " The Phantom Menace , " and even " Menace " improves as part of the entire series when it doesn't have to stand alone , but " Sith " is the only installment in the new trilogy that deserves the " Star Wars " brand . With " Sith , " events start to feel like they actually matter , and the elaborate but hopelessly dry plot lines that dominate the first two movies begin to coalesce into something resembling a story with resonance . The Emperor's rise to power and the way he creates a dictatorship while giving the impression that he's preserving democracy feels right , and there's an intense momentum to this film as the dark powers insidiously take over that the previous two films seriously lack . The acting is still woeful , with the exception of Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid , both able to make George Lucas's terrible dialogue sound better by virtue of their British accents alone . Hayden Christiansen continues to play Anakin as a petulant teenager ; he's at times embarrassing in his attempts to convey a demented mind spiraling downward . But in a way , it makes sense that Anakin would be an immature brat at his most impressionable , easily influenced by Palpatine while his still young mind is transparent . So in effect , Christiansen's poor performance accidentally ends up working for the character . And nothing can be said about Samuel L . Jackson's performance , other than that a great drinking game could be made out of it : everyone has to take a shot each time Jackson looks like he'd rather be doing anything other than appearing in a " Star Wars " movie . " Revenge of the Sith " makes the entire prequel trilogy , whatever its faults ( and there are many ) , worth the time it takes to watch them . |
573,753 | 4,532,636 | 31,381 | 9 | Frankly . . . . This Is One Fine Movie | I know " Gone with the Wind " has been teased to death , and there seems to be a sort of snob appeal among the film critical community in denegrating this film as overblown Hollywood melodrama . But the thing that impresses me about " Gone with the Wind " after seeing it recently on the big screen is that it's one hell of a good movie . The entire first half moves with a propulsive energy that not many films can match . Victor Fleming ( billed as director , though there were at least four director names attached to the project ) stages one sensational set piece after another , and hardly a scene goes by without a quotable line or a memorable image . The success of any adaptation of " Wind " is going to rely greatly on its Scarlett , and here I can't say enough about Vivien Leigh's performance . I quite simply cannot imagine any other actress in this role , so perfectly does Ms . Leigh embody it . She's in virtually every scene , but even after four hours of her , I'm not tired of her , and her ability to captivate the screen while she's on it doesn't lessen for an instant . Clark Gable is Clark Gable , perfect for his role as well and an able match for Leigh , but his performance plays as window dressing as compared to Leigh's powerhouse work . I also want to mention Olivia de Havilland . In her own way , she is just as powerful in her role as Leigh is in Scarlett's . Melanie's character is less dynamic and so by sheer necessity de Havilland is frequently upstaged by Leigh . But she holds her own nonetheless . And what struck me is the chemistry the two actresses have when on screen together . The scene in which Scarlett attends a party dressed in bright red , braving the gossip she knows will attend her presence , and Melanie walks slowly forward , determined to prove herself a refined lady by welcoming Scarlett unconditionally , is a tour de force for both actresses . I take points away for some soap operatic elements in the second half that grind the story to a halt , but otherwise this film deserves its place as one of the greatest achievements in American cinematic history . |
573,384 | 4,532,636 | 104,348 | 9 | Enter the World of David Mamet | If there were any such thing as an Academy Award for best ensemble cast , this film would have won hands down in 1992 . What a crackerjack adaptation of the David Mamet play ! The dog eat dog ( or should that be shark eat shark ) world of uber-macho salesmen is brought to vivid life by a cast that includes Jack Lemmon , Al Pacino , Alec Baldwin , Ed Harris and Jonathan Pryce . Mamet's rapid-fire dialogue sounds great on screen , and it's to this particular ensemble's credit that they all know how to deliver it to maximum effect . I'd like to think that Al Pacino's Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor was a way to acknowledge the entire cast , and it's a crime that he won the very same year in the Best Actor category for " Scent of a Woman " but not for this . |
574,420 | 4,532,636 | 53,604 | 9 | A Dark Romantic Comedy | Jack Lemmon plays a nice guy sad sack and Shirley MacLaine the wayward waif with whom he's smitten in Billy Wilder's bittersweet romantic comedy that's long on the bitter and short on the sweet . Wilder nails the sterile world of corporate American anonymity in this film . Lemmon's character is a worker bee , whose work space is lost amid a sea of identical spaces , captured brilliantly by the art direction as a black and white version of a human ant hill . The only thing distinguishing Lemmon from the multitudes is his apartment , which the good ol ' boy management staff like to use for their adulterous trysts , and which Lemmon himself never seems to need for the same purpose . He falls for elevator operator MacLaine , a brassy yet wistful cutie , who happens to be one of his boss's said trysts . Things get complicated as Lemmon has to decide which is more important to him : the moral high ground or climbing the corporate ladder . Lemmon essays a tricky role beautifully . I would have been instantly annoyed by this character had anyone else played him . It's hard to feel sorry for a doormat who can't say " no , " but Lemmon makes it virtually impossible not to like his character . MacLaine , too , delivers one of the best performances of her career , a rather ballsy one in a way , as she makes her elevator operator unsympathetic through much of the movie . This pair of unconventional actors creates a refreshingly bleak romance , if there can be such a thing . The only thing that seems to be preventing both of these characters from getting completely lost in the crush of indifferent humanity is their tenuous connection to one another . " The Apartment " is a perfect New Year's Eve film . It superbly taps into that feeling of being lonely while surrounded by people that only those who live in big cities can understand . Anyone who's commuted to work on a subway or bus will instantly recognize the feeling this movie conveys . |
573,557 | 4,532,636 | 467,406 | 9 | I Fell Hard for " Juno " | Juno is this year's " Little Miss Sunshine , " a tiny film with a gigantic heart . Ellen Page plays Juno ( NOT like the city in Alaska , as she makes very clear at one point ) , a sixteen year old who acts tougher and older than she really feels and who finds herself pregnant after one experimental romp in an easy chair with her best buddy , Paul Bleeker ( the terrific Michael Sera ) . She decides to give the baby to a thirty-ish yuppie couple ( Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman ) living in a sprawling McMansion who haven't been able to have a child of their own . The rest is a sweet , very funny and refreshingly unpredictable comedy about what it means to grow up . There are dilemmas in " Juno , " but they may not be the dilemmas you're expecting . Diablo Cody has written a sharp screenplay that's fair to all of her characters . It was so nice for once to see a young , married , successful couple portrayed as something other than yuppies from hell , and both Bateman and Garner do wonderful work with their characters . Page is a revelation ; this is one of those films that's so self-consciously quirky and in love with its own style that it could have been disastrous if not played just so , but Page nails the main character beautifully . She allows us to see Juno's vulnerability , and that's essential to the film's success . The film , unlike so many others , acknowledges that teenagers aren't equipped to deal with adult problems , and that there's a lot they could learn if they were only receptive to it . I give the film great credit for portraying Juno's parents ( J . K . Simmons and Allison Janney ) as something other than buffoons or losers . And Simmons and Janney as actors have some of the film's best lines and moments . Only someone with a heart of stone could leave this film without a lump the size of Alaska in his throat . And , can I just say bravo to the filmmakers for including a terrific opening credits sequence . Am I the only one who's saddened by the fact that movies don't seem to have opening credit sequences anymore ? |
574,480 | 4,532,636 | 27,532 | 9 | A Minor Classic | Dodsworth is a disarmingly honest and frank depiction of a failed marriage , based on the Sinclair Lewis novel . Its naturalistic acting and its refusal to make its characters anything less than full-bodied human beings make it feel way ahead of its time . It's never mentioned along with other classic films of the period - - probably because it doesn't have an epic scope - - but it should be . Walter Huston gives an absolutely flawless performance in the title role . His type is so recognizable , even today : the successful American business man who values the simplest and most traditional of American values , and who comes across as provincial and crass to the rest of the world . Ruth Chatterton meets Huston's performance every step of the way as Dodsworth's wife , glad of the material comfort her husband can provide , but embarrassed by him and aware that he will prevent her from joining the world of high culture to which she wants to belong . It is to the movie's distinct credit that neither of these characters is either hero or villain . Dodsworth is crass and unsophisticated ; yet at the same time he's honest and never misleads his wife into thinking he's something that he's not . Mrs . Dodsworth has a right to be bored by the kind of life Dodsworth is content with , but she might have thought of that before so readily accepting his financial success . I don't really know for sure , but I have a feeling this movie might have made people very uncomfortable in 1936 . I doubt married couples were encouraged to turn too critical an eye on their own marriages back then , and I suspect that more people than not decided to stick it out in unhappy marriages rather than violate a sense of social propriety . Before the days when people dated for a few years before getting married , many people probably learned about the kind of person they were marrying only after the wedding day . " Dodsworth " beautifully captures the sad , melancholy feeling of waking up one morning and realizing you're not married to the person you thought you were . |
573,953 | 4,532,636 | 49,261 | 9 | A Huge and Hugely Satisfying Movie | Giant lives up to its name . This fascinating movie - - part Douglas Sirk melodrama , part historical epic , part art-house film - - follows the fortunes of a well-to-do rancher in the wide-open spaces of Texas ( Rock Hudson ) and his wife ( Elizabeth Taylor ) , city bred and unused to the rigors of ranching . It spans many years in the lives of this family , beginning with the newlywed couple and following them into their middle age , as they raise their own children . Taylor gives the strongest performance in the film , while Hudson comes off as a bit too bland . James Dean delivers the final performance of his truncated career as a hot-headed oil baron who comes into money too quickly and at too early an age ; and Mercedes McCambridge appears briefly but memorably in the first few minutes of the film as the masculine , harsh and frighteningly violent sister of Hudson and arch rival of Taylor's feminine ways . " Giant " may not be a perfect film - - director George Stevens has been accused of becoming an increasingly ponderous and self-important artist throughout the 50s - - but I think it's a rather astonishing and gripping film . It manages to satisfy the craving for sweeping , wide-screen melodrama , a genre that no decade did better than the 50s , while at the same time give your intellect something to chew on . In this way , it's very much like the kind of epic David Lean would make his own throughout the next couple of decades . |
574,163 | 4,532,636 | 40,662 | 9 | The Best Version of the Dickens Classic | It might surprise many who equate director David Lean with enormous sweeping epics like " Lawrence of Arabia " and " Doctor Zhivago " that he first came to American audiences ' attention in the mid-40s as director of quiet , small and very literary black and white films . He made what in my mind is the greatest romance ever put to screen , " Brief Encounter , " in 1945 , and followed that up with a screen adaptation of Charles Dickens ' " Great Expectations " in 1946 - - - both films earned him Best Director Academy Award nominations , though he lost both times . In 1948 he took his second crack at Dickens with " Oliver Twist , " to this day still the best screen version of the classic story that I've seen , towering far above Roman Polanski's 2005 film and the popular 1968 musical . Lean's " Twist " is a sumptuous film with beautiful period decor and chilly , shadowy black and white cinematography that feels perfectly suited to the cold harsh world into which Dickens ' eponymous orphan is thrown . Lean's unique quality as a filmmaker has always been his ability to combine intense character studies with gigantic , epic stories , so it's no surprise that he's so well suited to do justice to Dickens , whose novels , despite their huge arrays of names , places and outrageous plot twists would be nothing without the colorful idiosyncrasies of their individual characters . He pulls a remarkable performance out of Alec Guinness as Fagin , who delivers an admittedly un-politically-correct reading of the character as a money-grubbing Jew , but who nonetheless nails the spirit of the character as written by Dickens . And Guinness is backed by a cast of strong , if relatively unknown , supporting players . If you have to choose just one version of " Oliver Twist " to see , then look no further . |
573,312 | 4,532,636 | 73,195 | 9 | You Know the Thing About a Shark , Chief ? . . . . . . | I can barely relax in a swimming pool to this day because of Steven Spielberg's ultimate shark movie . I've become a detractor of Spielberg in his more recent years as a director , but " Jaws " represents him doing what he does best : putting fun popcorn movies on screen and using his shameless powers of manipulation to thrill us rather than wrench tears from us . Give me " Jaws " and " Raiders " over " Schindler's List " or " Saving Private Ryan " any day . Acting in movies like this gets overlooked , but I think " Jaws " would not be the classic we remember it as today without the marvelous trio of actors who play the men on the hunt of that pesky great white : Roy Scheider , as police chief Brody , whose sense of duty and obligation outweighs his morbid fear of water and the unknown ; Richard Dreyfuss , as a cocky scientist mesmerized by the beauty and the majesty of the creature they're hunting ; and Robert Shaw , in an off-his-rocker performance as Quint , loony shark hunter , the Captain Ahab of Amity . These three together deliver one of the best depictions of male bonding ever put on screen . Peter Benchley greatly improved his own book for the screen . The book is full of boring subplots and lengthy passages told from the shark's point of view . The screenplay , on the other hand , is streamlined and crisp , not pushing the story beyond its modest bounds , and reducing it to a basic man against nature - - or man against his own worst fears - - tall tale . It's like " Deliverance " lite . And that John Williams score . . . . . oh , that score . . . . . . |
574,065 | 4,532,636 | 99,685 | 9 | One of the Ultimate Mobster Movies | When Martin Scorsese is at his best , no one can do a gangster movie like him , and " Goodfellas " is him at his best . Mind you , I don't think it's his best film ( for me , that title belongs to " Taxi Driver " ) , but it's a hugely entertaining and rollicking film that spends its first half making the world of mobsters look like an enticing fantasy and its second half making it look like a living hell . There are fierce performances from everyone , but though Joe Pesci was singled out for his outrageous depiction of the ultimate hot head , the film would not hold together without Ray Liotta's commanding performance at its center . Lorraine Bracco's performance as a naive dense wife who turns into an enraged shrew of a wife is like nails on a chalkboard , but I'm guessing she delivered exactly what was asked of her . The film features rapid fire editing and a soundtrack that won't quit , but in the hands of Scorsese , elements like this feel like more than empty stylistics . |
574,272 | 4,532,636 | 436,613 | 9 | Play Ball | Murderball is an inspirational yet completely unsentimental documentary about quadriplegic rugby . Yes , you read that correctly . But if you're coming to this movie in the hopes of learning a lot about the sport , be warned - - - it's not really all that much about rugby , but rather about the lives of the men playing it . We are not asked to feel sorry for these men , or pity them . In fact , that's exactly what they don't want . What " Murderball " gets across more than anything else is how much like you and me these guys are ; they've had to adjust to a new way of living , but they're essentially the same . They trash talk each other , brag about their sexual exploits , goof around , make fun of one another . Watching them is like watching any team in a locker room . As one of them mentions , when people hear that these guys are playing the Paralympics , they immediately think Special Olympics , which is not the case . These are men with physical , not mental , handicaps . The film really focuses on three characters : Joe , coach of the Canadian team , who struggles to relate to his pre-adolescent son , who himself has no interest in sports ; Zupan , who has become the poster-boy for quadriplegic rugby , and whose reunion with the friend who caused the accident that paralyzed him is addressed in an offhand manner ; and to a lesser extent Keith , recently paralyzed and just released from physical rehab , who we see painfully trying to come to terms with the reality of his situation , and for whom rugby offers the opportunity of reclaiming some normalcy . " Murderball " made me feel condescending many times . I would see one of the men maneuver his wheelchair down an escalator or jump into a swimming pool for a swim and think , " Wow , they can do THAT too ? " I already knew that quadriplegics can lead perfectly self-sufficient and fulfilling lives , but it didn't hurt me to be reminded of that . The funniest moment in the film comes when it's time to show the how-to-get-back-to-having-sex instructional video that is part of the quadriplegic's rehab . You can tell the guys in the movie thought it was one of the funniest parts too . A terrific film that , unlike the year's most beloved documentary , " March of the Penguins , " actually manages to answer more questions than it raises . |
573,421 | 4,532,636 | 82,096 | 9 | We All Live on a Nazi Submarine | Das Boot is one of those movies you think there's no way you could actually enjoy , and then find yourself totally engrossed in . A three-and-a-half hour film in German set almost completely on a submarine would not seem to have the makings of a gripping film , but gripping this film certainly is . Wolfgang Petersen and his cameraman make tremendous use of their limited space , and this film is more visually dynamic than many films that have much more room to play with . The claustrophobia is intense , and the small details about life on a submarine endlessly fascinating . And it's a tremendously humanist film as well ; by the end , we don't really care that these men are fighting for the Nazi cause , we simply care about them as men . |
574,284 | 4,532,636 | 97,123 | 9 | The Guilty Aren't Always Punished | Crimes and Misdemeanors is probably Woody Allen's darkest film , or at least it was until his British crime thriller duo of " Match Point " and " Cassandra's Dream " from the last couple of years . In fact , " Match Point " borrows heavily from " Crimes " and both borrow from Dreiser's " An American Tragedy . " Martin Landau plays a prominent doctor who pays to have his unhinged mistress ( Anjelica Huston ) bumped off when she threatens to make things unpleasant for him and his accepted social standing as an upright citizen . The guilt he experiences is worse than the shame he would have endured had the mistress lived to tell what she knew . In a parallel story , Woody Allen plays a man in an unhappy marriage who is making a documentary for a regular T . V . show about a pompous T . V . exec ( Alan Alda ) while falling for one of the show's producers ( Mia Farrow ) . The two stories don't seem to be related , aside from the common thread of infidelity that runs through them , until the very end , when Allen's and Landau's characters meet at a wedding and Landau " confesses " his crimes . The big question Allen explores in " Crimes and Misdemeanors " is the inherent nature of the universe : is there a moral structure or is the universe essentially chaotic and cruel ? If there is a moral code , is it dictated to us by a higher power or is mankind itself inherently moral ? These are interesting questions , much more interesting than the " what is the point of existence ? " questions Allen frequently addresses and which he borrowed wholesale from Ingmar Bergman . This film ends on an essentially optimistic note , but not before it gives us a rather nasty and chilling twist - - Landau's character finds that his conscience gradually eases on its own , and finds that the guilty aren't necessarily punished , and are sometimes even rewarded . A highlight in Woody Allen's canon . |
574,280 | 4,532,636 | 55,852 | 9 | Spending Time with Cleo | The Cleo in " Cleo from 5 to 7 " is a frivolous , spoiled singer living in Paris . The 5 to 7 refers to the two hours ( roughly ) of the day we spend with her as she awaits the results of a medical test that will tell her whether or not she has cancer . During that time , we watch her pout , sulk , buy a hat , and goof around with friends , but it's not until the film's final moments , when Cleo meets a total stranger , that she has anything resembling meaningful interaction with another human being . The most remarkable thing about " Cleo from 5 to 7 " is the performance of Corinne Marchand in the title role . Her Cleo is petulant and unlikable in the film's early moments , and she barely plays a part in her own story . She's not even so much afraid of dying as she is of losing her beauty . But over the course of the film , we see her gradually emerge from her pampered shell and flower into a three dimensional woman , capable of complicated thought and emotion . It's a minor miracle of acting . The film doesn't exactly have a happy ending , but it's not really a downer either . Cleo gets her diagnosis , but her reaction to it surprises us . Her final words in the film are about her feeling happy - - the way she delivers the line leads us to believe that this is a new sensation for her - - and at that point it's as if the diagnosis doesn't really matter anymore , either for her or us . |
573,807 | 4,532,636 | 48,380 | 9 | A Movie About the Thanklessness of Leadership | What a wonderful movie ! I can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to seeing it . In a bit of convenient coincidence , I happened to be reading " The Caine Mutiny " at the same time that I saw " Mister Roberts , " and the two stories are kissing cousins . Both concern the tyrannical captain of a largely obsolete ship in the late days of WWII and the second-in-command officers who try to bring some humanity to the lives of the sailors suffering under the strict leadership . In " Mister Roberts , " that captain is James Cagney , and the executive officer is Henry Fonda ( Mr . Roberts ) , beleaguered by the notion that he's missing out on the important parts of the war , and that his time aboard a supplies ship stationed in the safe zone of the South Pacific is wasted . The point of the movie , though , is that the world is full of all kinds of heroes , and combat heroes are only one type . There's a valid heroism to be found in simply being reliable and decent , and the kind of person that knows how to be a good leader . It's less glamorous , but no less important or necessary . One of the points that I liked best about the film was the acknowledgement that the hero's job can be a quite thankless one . Mister Roberts is a hero to his men , but they don't necessarily know it - - they easily turn on him when things don't go exactly their way . Anyone who's ever supervised a group of individuals in any context should be able to appreciate the same feeling . Fonda is wonderful in his role , and he's backed by a tremendous cast . Cagney , Jack Lemmon and William Powell fill out the other major roles , and this is one of those instances where an entire cast just clicks - - the chemistry between all of them is palpable . The film gets a bit maudlin and treacly towards its conclusion , and it tries to race through too much plot in its last moments , but I forgive it these flaws , since it did come out at a time when there would still have been an intense nostalgia for and a great deal of sentimentality surrounding WWII stories like this one . |
573,306 | 4,532,636 | 805,564 | 9 | Lars Has an Anatomically Correct Girlfriend | Lo and behold , a film that still believes in simple human kindness . There's been a severe lack of that on our movie and television screens lately , which is why I found " Lars and the Real Girl " utterly irresistible . I imagine this is the kind of movie that's either going to work for you or it's not . I can guarantee that if you go into it and pick apart all the ways in which it's not realistic , you're not going to enjoy it . Ryan Gosling has rocketed to the top of the list of my favorite contemporary actors . He's given two of the best performances in the last two years : here in " Lars " and last year in " Half Nelson . " The success of " Lars and the Real Girl " depends almost entirely on Gosling's ability to sell this character to the audience , and he does so flawlessly . Lars is a sweet teddy bear of a man who also happens to be intensely lonely . He orders a life-size and anatomically correct sex doll and proceeds to make a companion of her , taking her to parties , to church , to family dinners . A psychiatrist ( a marvelous , as usual , Patricia Clarkson ) tells the family that the best thing they can do for Lars is to encourage his delusion until he works through whatever is causing it ; they relay that to the townspeople , who take it to heart . As a result , Lars's " girlfriend " is completely accepted by the town , and even gets elected to the school board . Ultimately , " Lars " probably isn't very realistic , but isn't it nice to think it could be ? That a group of people could be this warm , kind and accepting , simply because they happen to like somebody and want to see him get better . The film is full of wonderful performances from everyone . In addition to Gosling and Clarkson , Emily Mortimer shines as Lars's caring and worried sister-in-law . It really irritates me that critics were divided on this movie on the basis of it pushing the boundaries of credibility , when they almost unanimously praised " Gone Baby Gone , " a film so melodramatic and heavy handed as to be no less implausible , and that goes down as two of the most unpleasant hours I've spent in a movie theatre for a long time . Has our culture now decided that a film about good kind people is too unrealistic to stomach , and that the only movies that ring true are ones about human depravity ? So far , " Lars and the Real Girl " is one of my favorite films of the year . |
573,990 | 4,532,636 | 44,509 | 9 | Classic Portrait of an Enabler | Daniel Mann directed this emotionally bruising screen adaptation of the William Inge play . Shirley Booth recreated her stage performance opposite Burt Lancaster , as a dowdy housewife stuck in the past , who's so devoted to taking care of every single need of her alcoholic husband that she's forgotten she has a life of her own to live . A young college student ( Terry Moore ) the couple takes in as a boarder shakes up their domestic routine when she exposes them to a world of youth and vitality the two had forgotten existed . Having had direct experience with an alcoholic and the family dynamic swirling around him , I can say that this film perfectly captures the attitudes and behavior of a classic enabler . The fact that Booth's doting wife goes on and on about how proud she is that her husband has remained sober for a year ( even going as far as attending an AA meeting with him ) , and then keeping a bottle of alcohol in the kitchen cupboard and serving cocktails at a dinner party where her husband was an intended guest , struck me as painfully accurate . The movie is quite surprisingly frank about some of the more unsavory " behind-closed-doors " topics that film as an art form wasn't yet comfortable in exploring as of 1952 . In addition to the exploration of alcoholism and its abusive effects on both the user and those around him , the film delves into sex and the long-term - - and sometimes unexpectedly profound - - role it can play in shaping people's ( and especially women's ) lives . |
574,038 | 4,532,636 | 48,356 | 9 | Grow Old with Marty | One of those movies I didn't have a great deal of interest in , but after seeing it left me wondering why I didn't discover it sooner . Don't let the fact that this little film from 1955 won the Best Picture Academy Award keep you from discovering it yourself . God knows you'd be justified , given the Academy's track record . But this is a sweet , warm movie about two ugly ducklings who find one another and happily discover that they don't have to spend their lives alone after all . I've never liked Ernest Borgnine better than I did watching him play Marty . And Betsy Blair , as Marty's love interest , Clara , was wonderful too . ( On a side note , I found out from watching this on TCM that she was married to Gene Kelly at the time this movie was made ) . In a way , " Marty " is a kind of anti-romance . It posits that true love isn't based on the wild passion between two gorgeous youngsters , but rather on the deep affection and compatibility that comes with finding someone you can really talk to and grow old with . A charmer . |
573,473 | 4,532,636 | 15,864 | 9 | One of Chaplin's Best | The Gold Rush , perhaps more than any other Chaplin film , best captures that elusive , sad quality about the little tramp that permeates so many of his films . What is it exactly that's so sad about Chaplin , given the fact that he's always doing something zany and laugh out loud funny ? It's that he always seems to be an outsider ; he never quite fits in . There's always someone bigger , stronger , richer , better looking than him . And I think that's what movie audiences responded to during his hey-day and what they're still responding to now . Perhaps no other scene in a Chaplin film ( at least of the ones I've seen ) captures this feeling more than the one in " The Gold Rush " where Chaplin has gone to a great deal of effort to prepare a New Year's dinner and is stood up by his date , spending his New Year's alone . This scene is almost unbearably sad , so thank God it's surrounded by scene after scene that will have you giggling . This is the movie with the famous " dancing potatoes " scene , and wait till you see Chaplin eat his boot for dinner , slurping up his shoelace like it's a spaghetti noodle . I strongly recommend Chaplin films to anyone who is moderately interested in early cinema but is turned off by the idea of silent pictures . He's so expressive and so fun to watch that I guarantee you you'll forget that you're watching a silent film . Even after movies went to sound , Chaplin continued to make virtually silent pictures , and you don't even feel the absence . |
573,783 | 4,532,636 | 40,636 | 9 | Fast and Gritty | Nobody could use a city's atmosphere to his film's advantage better than Jules Dassin , and " The Naked City " joins " Night and the City " and " Rififi " in the long line of Dassin films that are worth watching for their location shooting alone . I don't know the T . V . series that this movie inspired , but the film is terrific . It's terse and gritty . Not a second is wasted as it races through it's hard-boiled detective-movie plot , climaxing in a splendid chase scene in which the bullets fly . Unlike other Dassin movies , this film seems to have a sense of humour about its own importance , and it never gets carried too far away from its pulpy comic book trimmings . There are no stars to speak of in this ; Barry Fitzgerald is the closest thing to a marquee name , if that tells you anything . But everyone in it is so breezy and relaxed in their parts , they seem tailor made for them . If you're looking for a 40s film that breaks out of the stilted studio conventions so rigidly imposed on many films of the period , take a look at this one . |
573,405 | 4,532,636 | 34,587 | 9 | A Terrifically Spooky Drama | Val Lewton takes the Universal Pictures horror film idea and brings it to RKO , with tremendously improved results . " Cat People " is far superior to any of the horror offerings Universal dished up during the same time period . This superb chiller was helmed by Jacques Tourneur , director of what may have been the best film noir to emerge from the 1940s , " Out of the Past , " and he brings the same dreamy atmosphere to this film that he did to that classic . " Cat People " sounds ridiculous on paper - - it's like a female version of " The Wolf Man , " only set in the middle of New York City rather than rural England - - but it makes for a spooky movie . Simone Simon plays the Eastern European émigré who turns into a cat when her passions are aroused ; and nothing arouses them more than the jealousy she feels toward her husband's female co-worker , with whom he falls in love when his chilly wife won't perform her wifely duties . The plot is a feminist's nightmare - - the idea of a female " cat fight " being taken to literal extremes - - but it's not to be taken so seriously . Indeed , the best scenes in the film are exactly those that show Simon stalking her female nemesis , first down a foggy , shadowy pathway in the dead of night , then in an apartment swimming pool . Tourneur shoots everything beautifully ; he allows imaginative camera work to take the place of any sort of special effect , and hardly a frame of the movie goes by without an arresting image . Terrific stuff . |
573,404 | 4,532,636 | 436,697 | 9 | A Tour de Force for Helen Mirren in a Film That Deserves Her | I was in college when Princess Diana died in a sensational car accident , brought about by a flock of determined paparazzi . To be honest , I didn't pay that much attention to the events going on across the pond . I was really no more than a child for much of the time that Diana was capturing the imagination of the American people , so I didn't fully understand her allure , and I certainly didn't understand , or care much , about the politics of the royal family . So watching " The Queen , " Stephen Frears ' wonderfully fluid account of the few days following the death of Di and its impact on the royal family , I had the uneasy feeling one gets when he realizes that something of extreme cultural importance has happened right under his nose without his realizing it . I had much the same feeling during " Hotel Rwanda . " It's the " I didn't realize all of THAT was going on " experience . I don't know how accurate " The Queen " is , and I don't know that anyone save Her Majesty herself could know for sure . Certainly it's an awfully one-sided movie . In Frears ' version of events , Tony Blair single-handedly saves the monarchy from the vitriol of the British people . It's only through his dogged determination that Elizabeth grudgingly lets go of her royal principles and gives the people what they need - - that is , a sign that the royal family is comprised of a group of people with actual blood in their veins and feelings in their hearts . Michael Sheen , an unfamiliar actor to me , plays Blair beautifully ; his performance goes beyond mere mimicry and conveys both the exhilaration and overwhelming sense of responsibility felt by a man who happens to find himself in a job for which he happens to be perfectly suited at one of the most critical moments in his country's history . But though everything is greatly slanted toward Blair , the film does a good job of cluing us in to Elizabeth's point of view as well . Here's a lady who inherited a job she did not choose , and who by the very nature of that job is turned into a media spectacle against her will . It's important to remember that during the moments when her and her family's callousness toward Diana and her death borders on the inhuman ; in their minds , Diana played a large role in her own death , and payed a fair price for the stardom she received in return . In Elizabeth's mind , the way the British people behave smacks of hypocrisy ; they cry out for blood for the media that caused Diana's death , yet want to hang the royal family for not putting themselves and their grief on display . Navigating the tricky waters of this tricky part is one of our greatest living actresses , Helen Mirren . Because I like her so much , it gives me great pleasure to say that her performance lives up to its hype . She gives what is so rare in films these days - - a tour de force of expert acting . Just watch her face and gestures throughout this film for the tiny nuances that speak volumes . Mirren has been buzzed about as the front-runner for this year's Oscar race since this movie opened , and for once I find the buzz completely justified . The Academy has a chance to show the world that it can , against all appearances to the contrary , recognize true art and talent when it sees it , so of course they'll probably botch things and give the award instead to a glamour puss who will look better on the cover of " People " magazine . But Mirren I'm sure will be the winner in many people's hearts regardless . Frears keeps things moving along with quick editing and a fantastic , staccato score whose effectiveness rests on its judicial use . There's something disorienting yet exciting about watching a movie about people who are alive and well , and still serving in the same roles as their fictional selves on screen . In some ways , " The Queen " feels like it should have come out last year , when a number of other relevant , terse and immensely engrossing films flooded the screens . Though if it had , it would have been one great film among many , whereas this year is has quickly risen to the cream of the crop . |
574,101 | 4,532,636 | 90,756 | 9 | David Lynch's Nightmare Version of Suburban America | This David Lynch chiller just may make your skin crawl . Ever wonder what rotting secrets lie buried underneath the picket fence perfection of suburban America ? Well , David Lynch is here to show you . " Blue Velvet " is actually one of Lynch's more accessible films in terms of linearity and conventional storytelling , but it still manages to deeply disturb . Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern are the two youngsters who get trapped in this particular Lynchian rabbit hole , and Dennis Hopper ( terrifying ) and Isabella Rossellini are the grotesques they find there . What follows plays out like the kind of dream you would have if you were running a temperature of 102 . Don't be put off though - - as creepy and disturbing as the film is , it's also very funny in that way that only Lynch films can be ( meaning that you'll laugh but you'll probably be squirming as you do ) . |
573,688 | 4,532,636 | 71,141 | 9 | A German Update of " All That Heaven Allows " | Rainer Werner Fassbinder's quietly powerful film is a sort-of remake of Douglas Sirk's " All That Heaven Allows , " a film and director greatly admired by Fassbinder , but it has a sharper edge than Sirk's film . In " Ali : Fear Eats the Soul , " the couple fighting a society's prejudice and resentment of their unconventional love must fight some of their own prejudices as well . In Sirk's film , the only thing imposing on the complete happiness of Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson was the busy-body ostracism of family and friends who didn't approve of the relationship between a rich society widow and her working-class gardener . In " Ali , " Fassbinder suggests that happiness isn't something that's gained from the approval of others , but rather is the responsibility of the individuals involved . One of the things I liked best about this film is that as the German society gets used to the unconventional romance and begins to accept our two protagonists , the couple themselves begin to struggle to maintain a grip on the happiness they thought would be their's by right . Fassbinder's unconventional couple are a frumpy German widow and a Moroccan immigrant 10-15 years younger than her . I gather from this film that Moroccans ( or Arabs in general ) were about as hated and feared in Germany at the time of this film's release as blacks were in America during the worst of the civil rights movement . So you can imagine how the couple's initial courting and subsequent marriage is handled by their neighbors , friends and family . Fassbinder himself was gay , and many suggest that the film is an allegory for the way homosexuals were persecuted . Fassbinder's private life undoubtedly informed his film , but the movie is really more universal than that . It really applies to anyone who's ever suffered the judgement of a group of people over something that didn't even affect those people , and really , who can honestly say that they've never been subjected to that ? Fassbinder directs in a low-key , unfussy style , yet he creates images and scenes that linger in the head long after the film is over . It's a lovely film , very well acted , scripted and directed . It's not exactly sad , because it argues that societies are able eventually to adapt to new things and accept things they originally rejected . But it's not exactly happy either , because it suggests that relationships don't necessarily become easier just because external obstacles are removed . |
574,402 | 4,532,636 | 86,312 | 9 | Something Ain't Right in This Particular Nuclear Plant | Released at the height of America's nuclear disaster paranoia , " Silkwood " is one of those blue-collar one-against-the-many films that revolve around simple folk fighting corporate power and abuse as best they know how . Meryl Streep plays Karen Silkwood , who unlikely and reluctantly becomes a spokeswoman against lax safety restrictions in place at the nuclear plant at which her and just about everybody else in her tiny town works . Since it's based on a true story , the movie ends the way Silkwood's life ended , and it ain't upbeat . But I found the whole movie to be morbidly fascinating , especially the details about how the plant treated those they suspected of radioactive contamination . Meryl Streep and Cher , who plays Silkwood's best friend , are phenomenal , and even Kurt Russell flexes his acting chops admirably . Mike Nichols might not seem like the obvious choice to direct a gritty , ugly movie like this , but he's able to make it feel authentic . A disturbing but rewarding experience . |
573,780 | 4,532,636 | 427,312 | 10 | A Devastating and Profoundly Affecting Documentary | Grizzly Man is a mesmerizing but deeply unsettling account of the life and death of Timothy Treadwell , who lived for years with bears in the Alaskan peninsula until he was mauled and killed by one of them . Much of the footage director Werner Herzog has assembled was shot by Treadwell himself ; the rest comes from interviews Herzog conducted with Treadwell's family and friends . What results is a disturbing look into the mind of a man who seems to be self-destructing before our very eyes even as he convinces himself that he's engaged in a just and heroic cause . Herzog is obviously as fascinated by Treadwell's behavioral patterns as Treadwell is that of the bears he studies , and so this documentary becomes a complex series of observations : we observe Herzog observe Treadwell observe the wildlife of Alaska . This is enhanced by the fact that Herzog frequently interposes himself into his movie ; he will editorialize on a piece of footage or make references to the movie he is making . He makes no attempt to maintain that " fourth wall " between film maker and audience . Therefore , his movie is extremely intimate , at times uncomfortably so . Treadwell fashioned himself as a kind of vigilante environmental crusader . He invented a superhero persona for himself , and he makes it his self-proclaimed duty to protect the bears from a modern world of humans intent on their destruction . In the film's early scenes , he's an amusing eccentric , and there's something charming about his devotion to a cause he deems to be important . But as the film progresses , it becomes alarmingly clear that Treadwell was not a well man , that his self-imposed exile to the Alaskan wilderness was more the result of anti-social tendencies and an almost manic persecution complex than it was his concern for the bear population . And one begins to wonder what good Treadwell was actually doing . He wasn't really protecting the bears from anything ; when a group of campers / hunters in one scene are taunting the bears by throwing rocks at them , Treadwell hides in the bushes and works himself up into a rage , but he's powerless to do anything about it . And as many interview subjects throughout the film attest , there was something highly irresponsible about his actions . He seemed unable to respect the line between man and nature . He approached the natural world with the idealistic awe of a child - - we see him cavorting with wild foxes , treating the bears like they're cranky but lovable dogs . He claims that he is more in tune with nature than the human world and that this somehow gives him the right to do what he does , yet he seems incapable of dealing with the realities of that world : the sight of a dead bumblebee reduces him to tears . The film's most haunting , chilling scene is the one in which Herzog listens to the tape that recorded the deaths of Treadwell and his female friend . No videotape of the attacks exist , and Herzog , presumably out of respect , does not play the audio portion for his film's audience . But the impact of the tape is made painfully clear nonetheless , and Herzog can't finish listening to it , pleading with Treadwell's one-time girlfriend to destroy it without ever listening to it herself . This is an extraordinary film that any fan of documentaries - - or for that matter fans of expert film making - - should see . |
574,451 | 4,532,636 | 33,045 | 10 | A Nearly Perfect Little Romance | A warm , sweet and remarkably charming film about two antagonistic workers in the same shop ( James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan ) who are carrying on a romance via mailbox without either of them knowing it . The key to this film's success is that Ernst Lubitsch keeps any syrupy sentimentality absent and calls on his actors to give low-key , unfussy performances . As a result , you fall in love with virtually all of them . There's a strong undercurrent of melancholy running through this film which I appreciated . Loneliness is a major theme , most obviously represented in the character of the shop's owner and manager , played wonderfully by Frank Morgan . He discovers that he's being cuckolded by his wife , and realizes that the successful life he's created for himself isn't enough to keep him from feeling lonely when he doesn't have a partner to share it . This makes the timid romance between Stewart and Sullavan all the more poignant , because they're both reaching out to this unseen other , who each thinks of as a soulmate before they've even met . Of course we know everything will turn out right in the end , but the movie doesn't let you forget the dismal feeling either of them would feel if they found that the reality didn't live up to the fantasy . Lubitsch fills his movie out with a crackerjack cast that has boatloads of chemistry . The little group of shop employees refers to itself throughout the movie as a little family , and that's exactly how it feels to us as well . This is a wonderful , unsung romance . |
574,444 | 4,532,636 | 47,811 | 10 | Douglas Sirk at the Peak of His Artistry | Jane Wyman gives a winsome and luminous performance in this achingly beautiful Douglas Sirk weepie . Wyman plays a dutiful 1950s widow , going through the motions in a straight-laced , stifling suburb . Her children are college age and live away from home ; her life has settled into a boring routine . She falls for gardener Rock Hudson , who not only is younger than her but also is ( GASP ! ) poorer . Marriage to him would mean facing the harsh criticism of the snobbish New England society to which she belongs - - even her children oppose the match . But Wyman's character harbors a strong-willed spirit which bristles at the conventions forced upon her . If this premise sounds familiar , it should - - Todd Haynes borrowed it for his homage to Sirk's melodramas , " Far From Heaven " ( 2002 ) . In that film , he reexamined Sirk's critique of mainstream upper middle class America and the banality forced upon anyone who wishes to belong to that class . Haynes's film is edgier than Sirk's - - a more liberated culture allowed him to explore racism and homophobia in addition to class barriers . But Sirk's film is no less powerful or devastating despite the limitations placed upon it . In my mind , Sirk held a unique place among film directors . He made art out of pure melodrama , something not many could do . The same stories filmed by other directors would be easy to dismiss as cornball entertainment - - but it's not so easy to dismiss Sirk . He attacked conventions that at the time were taken for granted as being desirable for anyone wanting to live the American dream ; but his attacks , if not his films , were subtle , and he made his movies for the very audience at whom he was aiming his criticism . No other Sirk film matches " All That Heaven Allows " for sheer craftsmanship , not even the wildly feverish " Written on the Wind , " released a year later . And Jane Wyman was a perfect Sirk heroine ; she was able to deftly navigate the cornball elements and create a character who you both believe in and care deeply for . |
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