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508,666 | 453,068 | 56,847 | 8 | near-underground film adaptation of a stage play and , as with others , makes me excited for the play much more than the actual film itself | I never heard of The Balcony until someone recommended it highly to me , and perhaps it's understandable why it sits still in obscurity . The name Jean Genet is far from unfamiliar to theater-buffs , and in fact he was one of those real surrealist playwrights that stretched the boundaries of what was possible to portray on the theater . In the case of this play it's about manufacturing dreams , of control during wartime and the cynical belief that people can be dominated by desire and thought and deed , which maybe isn't far from the truth . It's a very strangely structured play , but its unpredictability is a major asset ; we may predict that another fetish or some kind of subversive ideal will be projected , but the way its written about and acted about is the amazingly peculiar thing . Genet teases and prods human nature while going into something new we haven't seen before . It's a challenge I was glad to take . This being said , I cannot recommend The Balcony as if it's one of the all-time great " lost " treasures or other . At best it made me very intrigued to see how it would be done on stage , perhaps ( or just most likely ) in an off-Broadway production . It's not without a sturdy cast , with Shelley Winters turning a good performance as the " madaam " of the fantasy brothel of sorts where outside there's chaos and war but inside she controls all ( it's not a total knockout performance like say Lolita's mother , it's about right for the character though nothing really remarkable except in small bits ) , and Peter Falk as a personally wounded and disgruntled army person . Lee Grant is also a sight to see , as is Jeff Corey as a mixed-up Bishop , and Leonard Nimoy ( yes , Spock ) appears with a couple of minutes of real inspiration . That isn't necessarily the problem though . If there's anything that could be pointed out it's just the way the film is shot and music is used and little important film-making things like that . Joseph Strick isn't a bad director , matter of fact he has a few moments of crazy inspiration that make it worthwhile ( i . e . the three " guys " going around the rubble and addressing the " crowd " of stock-footage ) , but he doesn't bring any truly fantastic style to make this during-apocalyptic tale something haunting . Many shots are too static , and the music by whoever it is comes off as out of place or not matching well enough the surreal nature of the material . In fact , this might be one of the handful of projects I would be interested in seeing as a remake . It's prime material , daring and provoking in the best ways . It's just missing " something " to it , which may explain it's slightly obscure status . |
508,625 | 453,068 | 52,993 | 8 | a very fine western in due to its mounting complex look at justice and star power | Last Train from Gun Hill has the star power to help back up a storyline that is , on the surface , seemingly too straightforward : a Marshall ( Kirk Douglas ) finds that his wife has been killed . When he finds out that it is the son of a cattle baron ( Anthony Quinn ) , despite his old friendship with the baron , he decides to bring the son to justice , holding him by gunpoint in the town hotel until the train comes to take them off to jail - while the baron has his men outside with their guns poised . There's a touchy element to who the son ( played as a snidely little kid in Earl Holliman ) killed , which was that the Marshall's wife was a Native American . But more impressive in the script , and through John Sturges's steadfast professionalism , is how there's the tension between law and the personal , the immediate draw of a gun draw to solve anything , and the bitterness of real vengeance ( watch Douglas's Marshall tell Rick about how he'll be the only one to hear his own brain cry out as he hangs dying , perfectly acted ) . Although it's likely that Douglas and Sturges were in or made better westerns , this is the kind of work that doesn't age in much a way that cheapens the questions poised or the invigorating style . It's a fairly violent film too , with a couple of deaths by the train tracks at night all the more effective from the taunting build-up and the pay-off in one shotgun fired off , and always the threat much more tension-filled than the result . Granted , when a big fire ends up happening , it looks very much like it's on a sound-stage and without a whole lot of suspense ( save for the typical but strong ' who will get the gun first ' moment between the Marshall and Rick in the bedroom ) , but it's the ambiance of the characters , the dread over this dangerous mix of volatile father and townsman - a better than average Quinn without being too hammy - and a good man driven to vengeance in bad-ass Douglas , and the determined woman ( Carolyn Jones ) that makes it so compelling . There's even a slight feeling of unpredictability in the situation - in a town where reputation trumps what is good and decent , but also where emotions run high as can be , the stakes are high for chance . By the very end it feels like it should be more formulaic , and there are bits where the dialog does come off as brawny ol ' western genre jargon ( look simply at some of the quotes on the IMDb page as example ) . But if you happen to come across it on TV one Sunday afternoon , as I did , it's worth the time to sit and get absorbed by a well done star vehicle . |
509,444 | 453,068 | 69,966 | 8 | hip , well-acted and slam-bang action / police flick in the guise of blaxploitation | Arthur Marks somehow knew how to do it : combining the tough and thoughtful police-thriller with a seeming exploitation ( or blaxploitation ) flick into something worthwhile . It may not be for some ; matter of fact , from all I can tell looking at various reviews it's made little of an impression aside from negative . But I was drawn into this seedy , multi-racial tale of dirty criminals and ( some ) dirty cops and a dirty politician because of the simple strengths of the acting and ( most of ) the writing , not to mention an explosive climax and a nifty opening heist scene . It's even more than nifty ; Marks somehow has the cojones to make a poignant moment in this scene , as well as a couple of other times in the film ( i . e . Ruby dying in Jessie's arms ) , where the singer who's doing a number gets cut-off by the tape recording telling everyone to get down and fork over the cash and jewels . . . and she just goes on singing , and a song sung with a mournful voice . The nuts and the bolts of the plot are that in Detroit , where according to officer / athlete Jessie Williams ( Hari Rhodes ) his new partner Danny Bassett ( Alex Rocco ) is in the minority in the black-dominant area , a heist has taken place during a fund-raiser for an up-and-coming politician ( perfectly one-note Rudy Challenger ) , and there's already tension : is it an all-black gang , or all-white ? Can there be a crack when those the cops find immediately shoot back and end up shot dead ? It all leads down to a pimp and his girl , or so it's thought , and not everything is what it seems with tough / smart cop Bassett , yada yada . Describing a lot of the plot isn't necessary , as much of the interest in Detroit 9000 are in scenes of pure attitude , of this time and place in this city a microcosm of racial strife and unrest . If anything it's not even a blaxploitation movie , per say , but something of a black pride movie in a strange way . And there's at the least some equality : the gang is found to be multi-racial , including a dead ) Indian from Canada ! There are ways this movie can get cheesy or stuck in its 1973 time-frame , and of course the clothes , the slang , and the soundtrack all speak to that . But I enjoyed how Hampton's screenplay struck a line between giving many of these characters , including supporting ones like Ruby Harris and Ferby some personality past their stock characters , or how the wit creeps up as really unexpected ( the line Clayton's " assistant " gives to a prostitute is so classic QT lifted it for Jackie Brown ) . And Rhodes and Rocco , otherwise usually relegated to supporting and character-actor parts in other movies , get to show what their made of as cops on a dirty case that just gets dirtier . Lastly , without sacrificing some sophistication in the writing or a refreshingly bittersweet ending , Marks tops it all off with that big chase going six or seven ways across the railroad tracks and fields and cemeteries of really gritty parts of Detroit and put to a raucous , spot-on soundtrack . In a word ( and I can almost hear a James Lipton voice saying this as I type this ) : under-rated . |
508,293 | 453,068 | 104,652 | 8 | not quite there with my absolute favorites of Miyazai , but still a rousing ride | Porco Rosso , a film by Hayao Miyazaki , tells the tale of the title character , a man who has been somehow transformed by a curse into a pig-man . Unlike in some other Miyazaki films , the curse is not largely expounded upon , and instead we're given the main course of his story . He's a bush-pilot / bounty-hunter , who is more often than not getting pulled away from sitting on the beach to fend off citizens from greedy ' air-pirates ' , and trying to make his own way on his own . But when his plane gets shot down , he has to build a new one . He gets the help of a plucky engineer , Fio , and soon has a new & improved plane , yet instead of the old bounties , he's now got to face off against an old rival , Curtis , for a double bet . There are certain things I can nit-pick about this film , and I would probably be looked down upon by the real die-hard fans . I didn't think that the love story side of the picture with Porco and Gina and their past rang that much as compelling or interesting , more as a typical aside to the conventionality of the picture . There were also little things I didn't care for in the final climactic battle between Porco and Curtis ( mainly of the cutting back and forth between the dialog-heavy air-pirate and up in the air with the two pilots , the latter is much more fun and exciting ) . But even with all of this , I would still never tell someone not to check it out , especially if they're getting into Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli's world of adventurous stories in original locales . I did love the character of Porco Rosso himself , who has a little of Indiana Jones in his daring , though with an even more cynical attitude that is painted by a dark past . He's even given a not-too-shabby English voice job by Michael Keaton , and cool voice on the French audio by Jean Reno . I also loved little things about the film too even as I wasn't entirely thinking it was great . Specific shots of the plane in the air are quite incredible , with Miyazaki and his crew moving the film along in a much more cinematic manner than might be expected from usual anime ; it's not your typical animated film because the director really IS directing , getting a specific vision down . And there's a wicked sense of humor about many scenes , some of which might fly over children's heads if they decide to see it ( not that its unworthy for kids to see ) . A lot of the stuff involving the crazy , but kind in front of women , pirates who hold their big gambling ring during the climax . Or the actual pilots themselves , Porco and Curtis , when they have to fling things at each other up in the air as they run out of ammo ! Little details of the animation make it lush and vibrant in places , while sort of lacking the immense surreal and bombastic pleasures of Miyazaki's other work , which isn't necessarily a bad thing here . It's a fun adventure pic with some typical situations thrown into some not so typical locales and characters . |
510,698 | 453,068 | 22,462 | 8 | how to turn such a matter-of-fact physical activity like swimming into cinema | Jean Vigo knows he can't be too bland with a subject like swimming , no matter how good the swimmer might be in his style and speed and graceful varieties of stroke ( so to speak ) . Jean Taris is actually an excellent swimmer , as Vigo makes abundantly clear within the first minute : in a simple over-head shot , with the occasional close-up cut-away , we see Taris defeat his opponents in a swimming race lickety split . But it's how Vigo then treats the whole nature of how to instruct the audience on a topic that makes it worthwhile to find ( it's available on you-tube , by the way ) . We hear the Taris voice-over describe the different movements that can be used - including the " new " one , called the breast-stroke - and that , simply , swimming cannot be taught indoors . Vigo puts his words into an assemblage of images that reminded me of the great scene in L'Atalante with the character Jean underwater , only here taken steps further , and visually it's always a wild little treat . Like his Apropos de Nice movie , Vigo is out to explore possibilities with the frame and the camera and certain techniques that today might come off a tiny bit goofy , but nevertheless display a true resiliency on part of the filmmaker and his technical crew ( notably Boris Kaufman ) . It's all experimentation , but it ends up working better in its favor due to the step-by-step narration and detail . A constant image is that of the swimmer going backwards out of the water into original diving pose , which doesn't lose its appeal as eye-catching . There are also the many tight close-ups from a multitude of angles as the swimmer goes about his instruction : his arms , his feet kicking , his face trying best not to somehow get too much water in the mouth while breathing . And perhaps the most interesting bit when we see the swimmer underwater , likely seen through an aquarium or some other safe place for the camera , and the Taris goes through many different movements . What begins as a relatively easy-going tutorial short on film , by way of the inventiveness of the filmmaker , becomes something much better - a subjective lesson in the art of swimming . There's even a touch of the absurd to much of it , as is the way of the director in his works , like when he does show a man trying to swim indoors , on a chair . And the final images , by the way , are definitely the best , as one last time the swimmer comes up onto the side of the pool backwards , then is seen in a business suit , jacket and hat , and in a great super-imposition walks ahead into the water . Whatever it might mean , I can't say , but throughout as Vigo's eye follows this man on his lesson to those who wonder ' can I be like him ' , there are moments of wonderful exercises in limitless cinematic expression too . |
510,655 | 453,068 | 64,689 | 8 | more impressive as a time capsule / social document than as a rock concert film | At the height of the hippie culture and music scene , filmmaker DA Pennebaker went to the first ' event ' concert . It lasted three days in Monterey California , and hosted almost all of the pivotal , immortal acts in the rock n roll scene of the say - Simon and Garfunkel , the Mamas & the Papas , Canned Heat , the remnants of The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield ( later CSNY ) , Big Brother & the Holding Company ( with Janis Joplin ) , the Who , Jimi Hendrix , and even a special appearance from Ravi Shankar . It's a shame that it's sort of a let-down for a rock fan such as myself . It's not that the performers aren't in their peak form , or that it is filmed poorly ( most of the time Pennebaker and his photographers - one of them the incomparable Al Maysles - work in the roots of cinema verite in their documentary approach ) . The songs themselves aren't really the choice peaks . Some of them are , but some of them aren't , and the overall ( and kinda over-bearing ) air of the hippie world is a little much . The difference between Monterey Pop and Woodstock is that the later combined a focused , absorbing look at the audience while giving room for the prime cuts of the best sets from the acts . At the length of Monterey Pop , which is a third of the length of Woodstock , it's too short . And yet there is much to admire and watch for , aside from the appeal of it being a period piece . Jimi Hendrix , in his first American show after forming the Experience , gives a drug-loaded showstopper ( and one of his most revered and almost over-rated trademarks ) of lighting his guitar on fire after going through a blistering , raw rendition of ' Wild Thing ' . The look on the audience during this scene is priceless . The Who are very good , if a little under-used ( I've seen their performance from the show of ' A Quick One While He's Away ' that is ten times better than their ' My Generation ' encore in the film ) . Big Brother / Joplin and Simon & Garfunkel give soulful , peaceful numbers . And the final act - Shankar - is absolutely mesmerizing , showing how much he was ahead of his time with music ( his speed and inventiveness with the sitar rivals most of the great hard rock guitarists ) . It's not the best of the ' peace & love ' rock docs , but if you're into it anyway you should see it at least once . |
510,140 | 453,068 | 70,034 | 8 | It hits all by itself . . . One of the first , mandatory stops on the tour of MA movies | I finally saw Enter the Dragon all the way through ( in the past I caught snippets on late night TV and never got into it before changing the channel , no offense ) , and I must say this is indeed a highly likable , engrossing , and influential film , for all the right and wrong reasons . Right because it has influenced countless followers in the martial-arts / kung-fu genre , and can be counted on as holding some of the finest , slickest ( not slick in the sense of Jackie Chan's amazing stunts or the artsy-fartsy slickness of Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon ) fight scenes ever filmed . Wrong because behind the " coolness " that follows Lee in nearly every shot and his awesome skills as a fight co-coordinator on top of being an action star , is a storyline featuring villains and supporting characters that soon fizzle out in the viewers ' interests . I know it's a minor squabble for such a film , many a kung-fu fan might say , but I felt that cheesy , tongue-in-cheek poking me in many scenes even as I found myself enjoying them . Lee plays , well , Lee , a master of the Shaolin school who is recruited to participate , and in undercover infiltrate , in a fighting tournament on an island that's run by a vile gangster named Han ( Kien Shih ) , who in between fights holds slaves and opium addicts . Along with this are a couple of supporting characters also participating in the tournament including Williams ( Jim Kelly ) and American businessman Roper ( John Saxon , who isn't actually all that bad through most of it ) . Like I said , the story sort of speaks for what content is there , and the cheesiness the minor characters , over-dubbing ( English over English as I saw it ) , brings it down as a motion picture in and of itself . However , I certainly recognized that through whatever flaws come in the baseline of the script and acting is compensated by Bruce Lee - even as he makes those trademark sounds ( woooaahh ! ) as he fights off dozens at a time , there's an unmistakable grace and magnitude to what he does here . Possibly his most famous sequence , the climax involving the mirrors , is enough to endure most of the movie , but all the other fights as well make the whole experience worthwhile . To sum the review up , I do agree with the argument that Enter the Dragon tends to be over-rated ( many say this is the greatest martial arts film ever and say it without seeing the countless films that have come out of Chinese cinema ) , but as a star in the genre Bruce Lee helped to popularize , he proves here that HE and his philosophies & techniques ( " there is no technique " he states early on ) will endure for decades and generations to come . |
508,725 | 453,068 | 82,966 | 8 | probably not always a very good movie , but it is an excellent Giallo , for what it's worth | I would pretty carefully recommend House by the Cemetery to friends of mine : it would come with a caution that not always will Lucio Fulci make something that is totally sensible . Or , if it is , it's not always very well acted - matter of fact , some of the acting here is wooden or strange or , in the case of that not-quite-bloody kid , excruciatingly dubbed . But there's so much here that does work for what kind of movie that it is that I would end up recommending it as a prime cut of Giallo , true to the disgusting and gory and occasionally relentless shots of stabbings and blood pouring out as if on tap to a faucet . Fulci might not have been the best director at it , but in 1981 with this and especially The Beyond ( which is his best movie still for me ) he showed his worth . Sort of simple premise , sort of OK follow-through : family from New York ( gee whiz , like we haven't seen a New York family or locations in Manhattan in an Italian horror movie before ! ) moves to New England to a house that was owned by a family that is now cursed by the town . A board is up against the cellar door , and for good reason , since once it's taken down ( for , you know , curiosity ) very bad things start to happen . Spooky . At first one might think Fulci will just work with this , and indeed the climax and certain chunks for characters ( some pun intended ) involve this creepy and dark and gruesome cellar that ranks with some of the best ( or just strangest and oddly timed ) in horror history . But there's more to go around : a bat pops out of the cellar , providing a great bat-attack-death scene . A woman with thick eyebrows portends trouble , and then is killed anyway . The family end up at the will of what lies in that darn cellar . And meanwhile , the curse goes on with a mysterious little girl who somehow can only talk to the boy . On the downside of things , Fulci doesn't always show himself as a strong storyteller . As a stylist , with moving the camera around and getting interesting shots , he's much better ; a continuous usage of close-ups on the eyes of characters creates a kind of eerie rhythm I resisted at first , then found cool . And yet for all of his faults , not to mention casting whoever that voice was of that kid ( it's seriously like the dubbed voice of the kid in Fistful of Dollars times four ) or the actor playing the husband , it really does work excellently as pure Giallo terror . There are even , heaven help me to admit , some actual genuine scares conjured up , just by the dated use of hand-held camera , and even more effectively that child crying . I would never , ever call House by the Cemetery great , but . . . if you got it , smoke it away . |
510,542 | 453,068 | 373,469 | 8 | a witty , self-conscious send-up of detective noir , a big plus being Downey Jr | Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is meant to be Shane Black's comeback following a decade spent in the action-movie desert ( albeit only a creative one , he financially has nothing to cry about ) , and it's not a bad way to resurface on the Hollywood scene . For one thing , his film is clever - maybe too clever by half but clever all the same - as it sends up conventions of movies like these , as sometimes a scene will freeze and the frame will go up and reverberating out back to where it started , as Robert Downey Jr's Harry comments on how stupid this or that is in the movies this or that happens . On top of this , having dipped more than a toe into Raymond Chandler , he divides up the picture into chapters and the plot itself becomes less important as it rolls along than the dialog and the fun in playing with what to expect with the characters . Some of this was previously seen to something of a more annoying degree in Last Action Hero , only this time his wild card , paying off in spades , is the cast , chiefly Downey Jr . Downey Jr appears almost similarly in many of the parts he's played in the past years , only not quite all the time . He's predicably unpredictable , or vice versa , and you want to keep watching him with his sly , cunning , awkward , disturbing characters . As the character who " we " ( the audience ) identifies with here , Harry is quite a character . His pathetic and ignorant qualities add a nice humanism to him as the Shamus-in-training in this story , as a thief who literally stumbles on an audition and gets a screentest out to Hollywood . This is where , for a lack of a better word , contrivance springs out , as Harry meets " Gay Perry " ( also very good Val Kilmer ) , a private dick who advises movie crews , and Haroney ( Michelle Monaghan ) , who Harry knew back when they were kids . Soon a murder mystery unravels involving a woman in a trunk of a car driven out to the bottom of a lake . Was it murder , or suicide ? Who are the culprits behind all the other shady things going on ? A lot of this , as Black unfolds it all , doesn't seem to matter that much , which is just as well . Black's attitude is to keep things moving at such a post-modernist clip it threatens to spill the rest of the movie off course . But the cast , as mentioned , keeps things sort of in check , particularly with Downey and Kilmers ' ability to play off each other and Downey and Monaghan's ridiculous chemistry . What matters here are the little moments , the things that pop out from behavior and chance in the scenes ( one critic commented a kinship to Altman , which I don't totally see but can appreciate via the Long Goodbye ) , like when a character gets one in the head on a Russian Roulette lark . That pesky finger is also quite a silly aside , if only for its lack of significance where there should be plenty . Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a lot of fun for knowing what it is and rolling along like a well-oiled machine , despite the plot being as flimsy as one of the pulp fictions from the books Haromy loves so from her youth . |
509,997 | 453,068 | 360,845 | 8 | Godard's first really good film in a while | I first saw Notre Musique at the NY film festival , and responded to it strongly because it was , after going through a slew of his more recent work of the 80s and 90s ( often hit or miss , more miss ) , a very well structured , interesting picture with a very distinct look and feel that balanced the elegiac and darkness with some light . Watching it again , I'm still fascinated most by the first segment ' Hell ' . If this was just a stand-alone short film , I would rank it among some of Godard's best work from the 60s . It's brash , it's seemingly unending , the narration actually does fit the images on screen ( which , from my perspective , is what ends up usually irking me with some of Godard's later work when he does this ) , and all of these images of civilization decaying through war and other disasters , and the machinery and technology used for all of this death and horror , really works to a great effect . Purgatory , the second segment , is often quite good , as it's a really well-balanced mix of fiction and documentary as real life writers and professors and journalists go through issues like Sarajevo , troubles in the middle east , and cinema itself as Godard humorously and sometimes somberly goes through a lecture to some students as he's part of the setting . There's even a perfectly understated , interested performance by the lead Sarah Adler . When the film then transforms into the last act , Paradise , it kind of starts to break some of the power and interest in the previous sections of the film ( I didn't really connect with much of the symbolism , as beautifully photographed as it all was ) . But what ends up really impressing me most about Notre Musique is that I really could understand most , if not all , of what many of these long stretches of dialog were about - unlike in some past , notoriously messy films by the director - and it worked without Godard's way of filming subjects and locations . Julien Hirsch's cinematography , going through the director's vision , is often so striking I'd say it's some of the best that was done in 2004 anywhere . There's still some kind of documentarian's spirit at heart , and it really does work best in the conversations that go on in the film , as lots of subject matter gets covered . This mixed with a partially fictionalized story helps to make something pretty special , if not really sensational , and in its 80 minute running time nothing overstays its welcome . If anything , the film is almost too short by a few minutes . It's a mix of history , politics , poetry , cinema , and the meanings of life and death , and not often does it come off pretentious . |
508,563 | 453,068 | 118,158 | 8 | could've been corny and preachy but is actually rousing and tough and formidably directed | White Squall is based on a true story ; ultimately tragic but also of the ' inspiring ' sort we get often at the movies . It could've been the kind of corny ' this is what I learned and now I'm blah blah ' kind of storytelling that gets excruciating after a while in Hollywood movies . Apparently , thankfully , Ridley Scott knew this and took on White Squall as a challenge : take a character ensemble , the kind of ' male camaraderie ' picture that with a few alterations ( i . e . reduce some sexual content ) could have been produced in the 50s or 60s with a Burt Lancaster or other as the lead , and make it mostly tough and sentimental only in that rugged John Ford sort of sensibility . He succeeded admirably as his film is what it wants to be , which is surprising considering the " it's Dead Poets Society at sea " criticisms I had read online . It's fairly old-fashioned in some ways , but its presented in all the ways that matter . What's also impressive is seeing Scott attempt an ensemble based around character and , up until the last quarter of the picture , not really based on plot . He's done other pictures that have been ensembles , in fact a lot of them , but mostly they're wrapped around the story as it unfolds . In White Squall a lot of things happen , and characters come and go and lessons are learned and there are even a few tears , but it's based around character and it's fascinating to see Scott work with this nearly loose structure . Certainly his cast is a big help , as Jeff Bridges makes an equally formidable lead as the Skipper of the Albatross , the ship for a group of young men going for many months out to sea to " become men " , or rather take the SATs and become a stronger community on a ship . While we only see snippets of how excellent he can be as an actor throughout until the final agonizing scenes during and after the ship wreck , the rest of the cast holds up just as well ( Scott Wolf , Balthazar Getty , Ethan Embry , a really good Jeremy Sisto in an unpredictable ' rich kid ' role , and John Savage as the older ' intellectual ' type ) . It goes without saying sometimes White Squall does run into some hokey or just some territory that is almost put in as an intentional INSPIRATION scene ( in caps ) , like when the boys are at the remote island and run around up the hill to sign that buried book . Yet it's not what doesn't work but what does that makes the film impressive , and it holds up extremely well against its counterparts that don't have a keen eye for the facts in the story as well as making the characters not simply cardboard cut-outs . It's pretty conventional , but in the finest way imaginable , and has a pretty amazing climax out at sea with the title event ( maybe not Perfect Storm but without computers all the more impressive ) . |
510,060 | 453,068 | 109,348 | 8 | takes on the egotistical qualities in artists - and gangsters - in Allen's very funny send-up of Broadway | Now this is something sort of rare , though not really : Woody Allen mixing satire and drama , and the satire actually even more convincing than the drama . The opposite was in a more serious affair , Crimes and Misdemeanors , where art and murder and infidelities all get into one big pot of personality crises . This is the same case with Bullets Over Broadway , though this time Allen's tackling of the ego-maniacal crutches of the Broadway scene - the aging star Helen Sinclair ( Dianne Wiest , one of her very best performances , funniest too ) , the bumbling boob Olive Neal ( Jennifer Tilly , appropriately annoying - and then how it sort of infects the outsiders to the major Broadway scene , one the protagonist David Shayne ( John Cusack , excellent here ) , and Olive's bodyguard , Cheech ( Chazz Palminteri , a character he could play in his sleep , but played pretty well anyway ) . Cheech is hanging around during rehearsals of David's first play he's writing and directing , following getting funding ( on the condition of Olive as a psychiatrist ) from a heavy-duty mobster , and soon he's suggesting ideas , and in the process becomes David's uncredited collaborator . But meanwhile infidelities are abound , with David falling for the wonderfully self-indulgent Helen , and a goofy romance between Olive and the thespian Warner Purcell ( Jim Broadbent ) , leading to a purely ironic climax . Allen's skills at navigating the neuroses of all the characters is very skilled , and sometimes the one-liners are surprisingly funny , all based on the personalities ( Wiesst especially , in a voice that is a little startling at first , gives a classic line about the world ' opening ' up , and her running gag with " don't speak " ) . Even with the more dramatic connections , which doesn't seem to be as much of Allen's concerns since it's pretty one-note with the mob side of things ( and , frankly , the fates of Olive and Cheech sort of seem a little too contrived for the sake of the irony par for the course ) , we do get a very memorable bit to make things worth the while , like David and Cheech's down to earth talk at the bar . But if there's anything else to recommend more strongly it's for the sharpness of the script in the theater scenes , the backstage banter , the hilarious tension stirred up by grudges and ill-timed romances . Plus , there's a bit of an added treat for fans of past Allen films , where he casts Rob Reiner in a role sort of similar to that of Wallace Shawn in Manhattan . Not a masterpiece , but a very enjoyable work that's successful on its dark-light terms . |
510,002 | 453,068 | 39,545 | 8 | a Chandler novel turned into a film with a novelistic approach , sorta | Lady in the Lake is maybe not the best of the Phillip Marloe murder mysteries put to film , but it is quite successful in its own right as an ' experiment ' . But this experiment by star / director Robert Montgomery , works in ways that had me grinning and interested as an avid detective / crime / film-noir type movie fan . His subjective camera , a kind where like in the more recent Being John Malkovich ' portal ' scenes , only in brief shots at a mirror do we see Montgomery on camera , as his eyes are " ours " as the audience . This technique could just be another gimmick , yet Montgomery is smart with the material he's using and the cast he's working with . None of them are stars , so their appeal as types for what they are in Raymond Chandler's story works to a great advantage . And it is in the end a Marlowe story via Chandler , and it is this that will really keep audiences interested or bored . Also , unlike the Big Sleep , this time you can pretty much follow everything to the T in the story . It's not just that the actors range from being decent to very good ( bordering on excellent ) , with Audrey Totter , Ellay Mort and Dick Simmons being among the better of the bunch , but what Montgomery does with the camera sometimes to pipe up the interest . This is perhaps the most novelistic approach to the Marlowe movies - the more prominent , available on video anyway - from the 40s , as all of the long shots of the faces of the actors , Montgomery's own voice ( which is much more satisfying , kind of on a radio-sounding level , than his actual facial expressions which are bland ) , and little details all build up like in Chandler's fiction . Detective stories are built on the details , the ones that are right on the faces or in the mannerisms of the dialog , and in the emotional impact taken on our lead Shamus . Montgomery's camera tricks could grow stale , but they really don't , as some shots and instances stand out , not just because of the content that is more attributable to the source . My favorite likely goes to when Marlowe is dragging himself to the phone booth , as it almost nears a Hitchcockian level of intrigue . It is , on the other hand , maybe not as satisfying on a classical Hollywood kind of level because of the experimentation , and Montgomery's halfway good Marlowe performance ( again , good in the voice , not so good on camera in those little bits of on-screen exposition ) . And a couple of scenes almost go too faithful , if it might be possible , to Chandler's original text , though un-read by me sounds about as close as any of his book-to-film adaptations I've seen . But the style of Lady in the Lake is only part of the entertainment , as the story provides a couple of good twists here and there , and Montgomery's got a good handle on his character actors . Might put off some who are expecting the usual tough and cynical private eye totally on screen doing his stuff , but it's also takes a risk and does it honestly . |
510,395 | 453,068 | 53,146 | 8 | if you watch it for the spectacle , music , and often terrific direction , you'll get your money's worth | I don't know why though I didn't find Black Orpheus to be a flat-out , blow-me-away masterpiece . Maybe my expectations were a little high ; hearing for years about it from my mother ( into Brazilian music ) , and that it won a simultaneous golden palm and Oscar in 1959 . And for quite a while , despite being directed by Marcus Camus ( French ) , and meant for a worldwide audience , was THE film to see from Brazil and Rio . What is interesting , and occasionally a little frustrating , is how the film is shot actually not too complicated , the camera never does any moves that boggle the mind too much , or go into jump-cuts in editing . It's actually in a kind of documentary / realism ( which was Camus's style anyway ) capturing the lives of the poorer people of Rio and also the living-for-dancing kind of life they lead , keeping some hope . This , however , is mixed with the mythical story of Orpheus , who deals with death in order to save his love . But in a way , not all the time but some of the time , for me , the Orpheus story , despite being integral to the film , got in the way of some of the more exciting parts of the film . Obviously , the chief reason to see the film is for the entertainment value , which is pumped up by delivering dancing , a pulsating musical beat , and what ends up getting filled into the not-too-static framing ; a lot of dancing , and a lot of people , practically all non-actors I'd imagine , delivering the goods . And then the storyline comes in . Orpheus is a bus worker who also has a great gift for romancing through the guitar and his looks . It doesn't help his new engagement that a cousin of a friend , Eurydice , comes into the picture and changes everything - they fall in love , the kind of melodramatic , powerful kind of love that is affecting in its classic-film kind of style . . . and then there's Death , who's following along her trail . It's done as a kind of literal interpretation , and one wonders how things may lead up to a tragic climax . It's woven together fine , but I wasn't as moved by the romantic scenes so much as the others involving the real people . In fact , one wonders what this film could've been , either better or maybe not as good , if it was a straight documentary ala Orson Welles's It's All True about the lives of the poor in Rio who get together to Samba the night away . It's really exhilarating to see the sequences of the carnival , and even the ' rehersal ' that takes place in the smaller part of town . There is also one other scene that had me sit up and take notice - when Orpheus , on the search for Eurydice , is with his ' guide ' being a janitor , he's taken to a kind of voodoo room where spirits take control over people in the midst of a weird dance . I didn't understand this scene , like it was something alien to a far extreme . But it was one of my favorite parts of the film as well , for the power in seeing these real people act in this - for them - ' normal ' kind of act . Maybe I'll like it more on another viewing , for now though I did like it , and would recommend it , and to whom I'm not totally sure . Yet it is one of the seminal films from their country . |
509,867 | 453,068 | 286,716 | 8 | One of the few comic book adaptations grounded on the theme of mood over action ; pros to serious movie-goers , cons to others | Ang Lee's filmed version of The Hulk , unfortunately , won't appeal to all those within the mainstream spectrum of movie-goers . I can guess ( hearing from a few of my friends who are true-blue comic book addicts ) fans of the comic will be pleased , however those who may not be fans or admirers and are simply looking for the kind of non-stop action and campy , tongue-in-cheek humor of Spiderman may be disappointed . Ang Lee has taken Stan Lee's vision of the ultimate perturbed anti-hero and created a work that can appeal to viewers with an darker art-house sensibility as well as viewers with a thirst for action-adventure blockbusters . In a sense this is similar to the approach Tim Burton used for Batman fourteen years ago , though his was given a shot of adrenaline and hilarity from Jack Nicholson as The Joker . The Hulk doesn't really have any overtly flamboyant characters like that to chew on the scenes they steal , so rather Lee looks at its core as a story of parents ( notably fathers ) and their children . Children who are tainted from missing and shattered childhoods from their before they can completely remember . Sam Elliot's Solider and Nick Nolte's Cast-out Father , perhaps , are the most important characters of the film after the protagonist Bruce Banner , as that they set the Jekyll and Hyde-esquire story in motion and carry / deliver much of the emotional weight that follows . Eric Bana is scientist Bruce Banner , un-wittingly following in his father's combustible career , who wants to use gamma-radiation to help out frogs in studies , and unfortunately gets caught in an accident of catastrophic proportions . There is , he finds out , something inside of him , ever since he was a child , that gets released into the open by the radiation , and the monster within becomes an unstoppable freak of nature . The gorgeous Jennifer Connelly plays his once love interest and only true friend , Betty Ross , who gets caught in a crossroads after her father , a military man who put away Banner's father away thirty years earlier , gets involved in the pursuit . It isn't just Lee's interest in getting to know who these characters ARE that makes the film fascinating , but in his stylizing of the medium - he has split screens in moments we'd never expect that give the film a comic-book edge , just how when reading one we may look at two or three of the pictures at once for it to sink in . His use of close-ups creates an intensity in seeing and getting to know these people . Rarely in a superhero movie does one look so intently at the eyes . A major drawback , I felt , were the action set pieces . They were certainly above the texture of the Spiderman scenes , yet the Hulk never looks truly real enough to commit total sympathy or other emotional connection to him . The fight scene with three dogs is one of the best fights of the summer , and a climax with Banner and his father is a near powerhouse , but the climax just before it goes on for far longer than it should . But , I suppose that notion could be considered Sour Grapes since I've never read a Hulk comic and only seen snippets of the old TV show . By the end of this character-driven roller coaster , I knew I had seen a well made comic-book adaptation , better than most I've seen in recent memory . But I wanted more , or perhaps less , than what I was given . Notle , by the way , has crazy Oscar-calibert-meets-campy work here , as does the editing by Tim Squyres . |
508,970 | 453,068 | 190,590 | 8 | a rollicking good time | The Coen Brothers ( them being Joel and Ethan ) have a pretty good film here ; recommendable to say the least . If it's not one of their very best it might be because it goes for so much within the framework of the Odyssey that it threatens to run off the tracks . But there's a great deal of originality here too , from the KKK musical number to the tommy-gunned cows to the horny-toad mystery following the " sirens " , to a great final hoe-down involving men with fake beards . It's crazy , and it works most of the time . It's an odyssey inspired by Homer , though it isn't exactly " based " on it ; from what I described up above it's really a jumping off point , as if the brothers took what they remembered from the story after reading it in school , and then put on their own ideas for the characters based on who could best play them . The film takes place in 1930's Mississippi where 3 convicts ( Tim Blake Nelson , John Tuturro and in a Clark Gable-like face , George Clooney ) escape to go look for a hidden treasure , but , like in the original Homer odyssey , there are their sidetracks ( sirens ) and villains ( John Goodman does a good job as this villain ) . About the 4th best Coen brothers movie you can find , with some enjoyable comedy and some ironic moments . Definitely fun and with some memorable tunes . |
507,837 | 453,068 | 206,601 | 8 | of most interest to Fellini fans ; casual viewers , per usual , will be baffled but amused I'd figure | The Director's Notebook , a very off-the-cuff , stream-of-consciousness documentary by Federico Fellini , reminds me of what Terry Gilliam said in his introduction on the 8 DVD , of which this is so generously included . He said that once he went and shot a film in Italy and more specifically in Rome , he guessed that perhaps Fellini was perhaps more of a documentarian of what he saw in Rome than he was making up incredibly outrageous and fantastical visions . This time we as the audience get about as close as that can be ( though Amarcord , and to an extent La Dolce Vita , come close too in their own ways ) to the Rome that Fellini sees as real . We may not , of course , but it is of course all part of subjectivity when going into many documentaries . This time , we get a view inside Fellini's film-making style , his actors , some memories and locations and shots and " lost " sets and footage , and the un-reality of it all just pours more truth to the gobbledy-gook that sometimes makes up the film . As with even the lesser Fellini moments , he doesn't leave fans totally without some fulfillment . It's something that is very much what Fellini would do , given what he wants to show the audience as his techniques and approaches . Right away we know this will and wont be your usual auto-bio into a director , as he gets some comments off some ' hippies ' who happen to be traipsing around the ruins of a film he planned to shoot ( or not , as case may be , I don't know ) . Then he and the American narrator go on between seeing things being shot - and the sets of which shot by Fellini himself with the usual peering and following and moving camera - on Satyricon . But it's not just that , to be sure , as it is basically a look through notes , ideas , and much of what might be considered almost conventional in the Fellini-esquire sense . But it's still entertaining through it all , and I loved seeing a partial re-creation and look at Fellini's inspiration from the " Old Rome " he knew through silent films as a kid . Or the moments with Mastroianni . A nice diddy , which is now no longer a lost scene but now restored , is the sack-man scene from Nights of Cabiria hosted by Masina herself . And all the while , in tricky English , Fellini leads us along in his very bigger-than-life though somehow modest way of talking to us as his audience , through Roman ruins , coliseums , actors in screen tests , scenes being shot , seeing some strange things ( one of which , maybe not as strange , is his own office ) , and other fragments that are very reminiscent of Fellini's comedies and tragedies . Nothing too revelatory , but just enough to keep Fellini fans salivating . |
510,078 | 453,068 | 52,832 | 8 | neither Williams , Lumet , or Brando's best , but it's still pretty damn good ! | The Fugitive Kind is a hot story of desire and loss and craving and heartbreak between a man and two women set in the deep south . Sounds like quintessential Tenessee Williams , and it is in spurts . Sometimes Williams leans towards being a little preachy , however true ( little moments like when Brando and Stapleton have a quiet back and forth about racism via her painting kind of nails it on the head much ) , but it's his skills at doing melodrama that strike up the coolest beats . In fact , this is one of those super-cool movies of the late 50s that could have only starred someone like Brando , who looks at times disinterested in the scene but at the same time completely engaged , curious , smooth , harsh , and knowing of what life can bring with his trusty Ledbelly-signed guitar . It's not necessarily a towering work for the ages ala Williams collaboration 1 Streetcar Named Desire . But that doesn't mean it should be much under-looked either . As an early effort for Lumet it's also a scorcher dramatically ; he's so good with the actors that whatever little missteps the script might take in pouring on the poetic prose in how some of the characters talk ( there's a scene between Brando and Anna Magnani's characters by some ruin of a spot where she says people used to make love that is actually quite boring ) can be usually forgiven . Magnani especially is interesting because she should be a case of miscasting , which , apparently in later years , Lumet admitted to . She seems low-key at first , but her strengths bloom out tenfold when it comes time to act like the hard-knock-life kind of woman she is , who's in a crap marriage and had a horrible affair with a man who didn't do anything after the summer they spent together . Now she's put into a situation where she does and doesn't want this drifter , and vice versa , and she's sometimes just as cool ( though also quite tough and demanding in that big Italian mama way ) as her counterpart . Meanwhile there's also Joanne Woodard , who has the kind of part many actresses love to chew on ; feisty , outspoken , loud but also emotionally moody to the point that she admirably tries ( and doesn't quite get to ) the heights of Vivien Leigh with her classic Blanche Dubois . Overall , Lumet gets a good feel for the period - and shot in New York state no less - while working with good material and an even better cast . It won't ever be as revered as his other work , and at the same time it's much better than some would give it credit for , where the tragedy acts like another sweaty Southern caricature bemoaning existence and fitting on a bad pair of shoes . |
508,183 | 453,068 | 39,881 | 8 | for directorial style , performances , for narration | T-Men might be one of the great film-noirs of the period - certainly a high point for Anthony Mann who already has Raw Deal as one of the masterpieces of the period - if only for one fatal flaw : the narration . While it would probably work well enough in a pulp magazine or wherever a story like this would turn up in print ( it seems just about made for it , though despite the presence of the " real " treasury department officials it's fictional ) , the narrator , who comes off like an even more dead-pan version ( and of course less subtly satirical ) of the VO in the Killing , disrupts the flow of the story where it could be just excellent without it . Little things pop up that could be filmed just was well , finding out the clues and the details and not overrun with the ham-fisted voice of authority . If it was even done in shorter bits interspersed , fine . But as it is , it's the only big letdown of the movie , making it dated ( at least more than usual ) . And yet , this doesn't detract from what should be a must-see for those who want to immerse themselves in a creative visual style . The team-up of Mann and his DP John Alcott was a match made in shadow-heaven , and their collaboration brings out such a strong style that it's hard to look away . This , plus the performances from Dennis O'Keefe , Wallace Ford , Charles McGrayw , make it a firecracker of a thriller , involving a story of two federal treasury agents out for a big sting with a nest of counterfeiters in Los Angeles and Detroit . When Man directs certain scenes , they pop like you want one of these ' old-school ' hard boiled flicks to go . The violence actually isn't very cheap either , at least for the period , and it's a big bang where another director might've gone for the limp whimper . The villains are tough , but like any good soldier undercover the hand is always a little slicker , one step ahead . When it's at its best , T-Men is like the super-cool grandfather to the likes of the Departed . If only for the preachiness , and that stupid voice ( who , apparently for good reason , is uncredited ) , I'd recommend it as whole-heartedly as Raw Deal . As it stands , it's still very good , with the kinds of double-crosses and moments of tension ( i . e . the lead-up to the Schemer's demise ) that rank with the finest the genre has . Bottom line , you're bound to find one or two of the compositions in T-Men right smack-dab in the examples of textbook film-noir lighting and design : maximum impact of B-movie reaching art . |
510,973 | 453,068 | 65,867 | 8 | a little over-long but with plenty of insightful , touching moments about the lack of connecting with others | John Cassavetes has a wonderful yet also curious way of how he deals with his protagonists - not just in Husbands but in elsewhere - that brings to mind someone like Bergman but not at the same time . His characters , to me anyway , seem like they're full of life and vigor and laughs and what may be called braggadocio behavior , but it also is a cover for something missing for them too . Husbands casts its main male characters in the light of what should be a time of mourning , for one of the friends in their tight-knit group that dies suddenly in middle age . We never hear about who this guy was or how much significance he had in specifics to them , but one can just tell the impact it's made on them as they have to hide away - maybe on some kind of " guy " instinct - not to show what they really mean to say or feel . Even when they're drunk , they end up having to put an affront , which can sometimes be pretty amusing and very typical of a New York style of ' hey , whaddaya want from me ' communication . But outside the confines of a comfortable marriage and kids , these guys are to one degree or another emotional wrecks . Where Bergman had religion and the margin of death as the backdrop usually used , Cassavetes has the suburban malaise and childish , male camaraderie where having a good time seems to be all there is . Here , Cassavetes acts as well , and to me his character has one of the most important scenes , if not the most important , in the film dealing with this matter . He , Gus , is with Harry ( Ben Gazzara , who got robbed of an Oscar nomination ) and Archie ( Peter Falk , who is , as usual , Peter Falk ) , when they decide sort of impulsively to break off of their jobs in the days following their friend's death to go to London . What they're their for isn't totally clear , until they start to hit on women at a ritzy casino . They take back the women to the hotel rooms they've rented , and Gus seems to be having the most fun of all with the woman he sweet talked ( which is a nice little scene of charm and sexual interplay with just words ) , and they tussle around in a bed , with that thin line between joking and seriousness being ebbed every which way . This is in line with other scenes in the film like this , little ones that show Gus's attitudes towards life as being sort of a gas even in the more serious moments . But then Gus and the lady go to a little café the next morning , and she - obviously the more adult one of the two - who wants to know straight-out what he really wants from her . He can barely say anything , as he's sort of stopped in his tracks by her serious " I'm serious " talk to him . The kidding subsides , and what's left is that tense sensation that reality of his own lack of expressing himself completely has smacked him right in the face , and getting aggressive only will make it worse . This tends to be something of a common thread with the other characters , however in different degrees . Gazarra's Harry is probably the most flawed , if one had to pick out flaws out of these totally human characters ( no clichés precisely attached ) , who is so torn from himself that he lashes out as his wife when expecting her to say to him " I love you " . You almost can't believe he can treat her this way , but it's how it is , in the Cassavetes world . Falk too is playing a guy who is sort of torn from himself emotionally , only he is somewhat more able to express it , and is more contradictory perhaps than the others . Like with his " liason " with the Asian girl when in London ; we think he's really after some sexual contact from all of his asking the women in the casino , like a kid after some candy or something , but once he has this woman ( who doesn't speak a word of English ) in his reach , and a very intimate reach ( in typically intimate Cassavetes long-take close-up ) he resists . This is a little more awkward a reaction than with the other characters , but it does keep in with his own thread , even if he is able to express his own complete emotional cluster-f following his friend's death . So , at the core , Cassavetes gives us some memorable characters here , even if his film seems to be lacking the overwhelming feeling of seeing a classic . He has his goals set , sort of , but he also takes some time meandering to get there too , and a great scene may be followed by a sort of sloppily timed scene where the strengths of the script ( and I do think , unlike Ebert's assertion , that it was mostly scripted ) were brushed aside for the rata-tat-tat improvisation . For example , towards the end when Harry invited the other guys back in for more fun with NEW women that he's brought up , it goes on in a stilted kind of way , like Cassavetes wanted one more scene of these guys in a form of pretend with themselves and those around them . And actually when he does have a fairly amazing set of moments , like in that very long scene when they're at the bar and everyone's taking turns showing how much ' life ' they have in singing a particular song , with one woman not reaching their mark of quality , there's some spots that drag too . The fire and creative pull of Cassavetes in his prime as a filmmaker is present , if not the overall urgency and tightness of narrative . It's worth the viewing , though , more-so if you're looking to find one of Cassavetes's films not on DVD , or for a good , ' indie ' mid-life crisis drama . |
510,587 | 453,068 | 104,952 | 8 | one of those movies to watch , at least most of the time , when it's on TV | Taking aside when it's edited down for its content and for time , this is really a neat movie to watch when it comes on TV , which - if you have cable - is pretty often . It's also one of the best vehicles for Joe Pesci that was ever made ( even if it didn't technically originate with him ) , and will probably make for part of his great standing as an actor years later through all the other Scorsese movies . It's sometimes very ridiculous - i . e . the suit Vinny wears to Court following no choice , always brilliant - but it's also got a sincerity to it that works . It's original in its characters and dialog even if it always takes some liberties with Southern and New York clichés . The best example of the former would be with the grits part in the courtroom scenes ( " no respectable Southerner would make instant grits " ) . And the cast surrounding Pesci always makes it worth watching . Marisa Tomei - maybe a little unnecessary of an Oscar win - is in her prim here as Vinny's girlfriend-would-be-fiancé who ends up helping him out more than he could've thought . Meanwhile four of the more talented character actors , some seen more than others , bring up the courtroom scenes perfectly - Fred Gwynne as the judge , ( the late ) Lane Smith as the prosecutor , Bruce McGill as the Sheriff , and Austin Pendleton as a stand-in defense attorney . They bring both professionalism and a few laughs in measure with the very sharp , unpredictable script . That it also sometimes leaves it onto Pesci's shoulders to keep up entertainment wise is not altogether unexpected . But at the end of it all it's a very watchable , endearing piece of work , where the case itself in the story is not as worthwhile as the memorable lines of dialog or the bit players . And there's even a bit of good craftsmanship that goes unnoticed by some in it as well ( the first scene at the bar shows this if you look close enough ) . Whether you've seen it in the theaters or not , it's probably one of the true enjoyable movies to watch on a weekend afternoon with nothing to do . |
511,014 | 453,068 | 29,947 | 8 | a lot of fun , but maybe not as great as its newfound reputation | When originally released , Bringing Up Baby was a commercial and critical flop , and was discarded for some time as something not quite as worthy as other works in Howard Hawks's body of work . Today , after years of rediscovery by fans of the stars Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn , it's considered a classic of the ' screwball ' school of comedy , where the timing was graceful and the structure solid in the midst of madcap madness and silliness that involves specific , quirky personalities that should but don't quite always meld ( hence the blueprint for many a romantic comedy for today ) . For me , it's not a flop nor is it quite as classic as I expected . It's a very fun escapade with two stars who often shine with their qualities to subvert ( Grant ) and meet ( Hepburn ) expectations of what they have to offer . Grant is akin here to Clark Kent , nerdy and awkward and just wanting to be left alone , but somehow being drawn into trouble ( and , after all , wouldn't Grant make a good Kent / Superman ? ) Hepburn , meanwhile , can be very charming and lovable and also annoying in equal measure ( though I'm sure the latter is part of the point with her character ) . They're a solid , combined force for Hawks's mildly crazy tale of two people who shouldn't have anything to do with one another but are put together under circumstances of the zany and funny : a dog with a dinosaur bone , and a baby leopard that's tame and actually a pet but is at first thought to be out of the zoo ( that is , until , its doppleganger shows up in the last third of the movie ) . We're led along on their adventures over a day and night to find the bone and the leopard , and how they confound and amuse and annoy those around them from family to policemen to possible betrothed ( Grant's character ) . There are some classic moments , to be sure ; I loved how Hepburn talks her way out of prison by sinking down to the level of mimicry that is totally lost on the cop ; the chemistry between the two stars fluctuates wonderfully , depending on the scene or situation , like by the fire out in the wilderness ; Grant is often so uncomfortable that we forget ( for better or worse ) how charismatic he usually is in place of this bumbling , meek but curious character ; the dress gag , simply , is a riot , as is the bit with the robe ( " I'm gay ! " is a line that gets a laugh for other reasons today ) . But at the same time it's not totally a riot all the way through , with some moments falling kind of flat or just " oh , that's funny " as opposed to laugh-out-loud variety . It should appeal heavily to those who eat up romantic comedies like Hershey's kisses , as should die-hards for the two stars , and if it's on TV on a rainy day it's surely a must-see for at least a few minutes . That it's maybe not quite one of Hawks's best is up for minor debate . |
508,469 | 453,068 | 182,890 | 8 | a romantic tragedy / comedy with an almost ' Blair With ' edge | Chi Girl reminded me of the Blair Witch Project for a couple of reasons , however in a slightly different ballpark . While Blair Witch is a more ' accessible ' film to the audience ( via young people terrified in the woods ) , the idea is similar : if you didn't think that someone had written and directed this film , and that most of the people in the film are actors or non-professionals , you might take it as being for real . On that level , Chi Girl gets it right . Even when the film has a little too much cynicism and , perhaps , nihilism , it's interesting , and doesn't lose interest despite ( like Blair Witch ) it's " no-budget " atmosphere and stylistics . I didn't know it until I looked up the credits after seeing the film ( while not available on video or DVD , by the way , it is shown sometimes on IFC ) that the film was written / co-directed by the " star " ( Heidi Van Lier ) , which adds a little more fascination ; in a way it seems about right . But on that level , it becomes a more psychologically complex film , as she not only delves into her character's psyche , but for the one holding the camera as well . Heather is a basket case ( even her good friends call her this ) , who writes a column for a Chicago paper , but has little to no luck on the social scene . Randy ( the narrator , with a monotone voice reminiscent of the character Cornfed from the TV show Duckman ) follows her with his seemingly objective camera , as she tries to show she can pick up any guy in the night-time bar scene . Eventually she does , with disastrous results , which then brings on the kind of downward spiral that is comparable to Travis Bickle ( pre Mohawk of course ) . One of the great things about the style of the film ( from DP Anders Uhl ) is when she is in the bar trying to pick up guys , the camera is always in long-view , through the windows , peeking through . This could be tiresome , but somehow it's kept fresh in all these cringe-inducing scenes and dialogs . Does this objective , documentary style become subjective at some point ? Hard to say . But what does come through well , even during some of the shaky camera moves and dour moments , is this honest look at obsessive personality , and that this experimental style also calls into question the form of the observer . This is what reality TV doesn't understand , that real life is more like this , with people who are desperate , and disparate . It definitely thrives more on character than plot , so it may not be for you . For some , on the other hand , it could stike a spark . |
507,929 | 453,068 | 69,822 | 8 | quite well acted , but it doesn't change some of its clichés or fabricated conflicts | What a , uh , interesting year for Clint Eastwood in 1973 . Edged between his first directed western , High Plains Drifter , and his second Dirty Harry film , he found time to direct Jo Helms's screenplay Breezy , which posits that middle aged men can have affection and love for unpretentious hippie girls in their early 20s in 1973 . It's such a soft movie you might wonder whether or not it was a pre-Lifetime movie . Eastwood does give the picture some soft touches ( including some song selections that are about as gooey as the worst romance songs you've ever heard ) , but it's the casting that makes the material work . William Holden plays Frank , a real estate salesman , who picks up hitchhiking hippie chick Breezy ( aka Ethel Alice Breezerman or something ) , and even though she drops him off after she tries to help a stranded dog , she comes back to his place ( she was just hanging around near his place since she had gotten out of a bad hitchhiking bit ) , and barely ever leaves afterward . Why she clings to Frank is never entirely clear , or why Frank is alright with it , but there's enough down-to-earth moments around the more cheesy scenes like walking along the beach . It's understandable why each is attracted to the other - with Breezy more-so it just seems part of her ' Breezy ' nature - though with Frank it's a little trickier . He's very easily impressionable , and isn't sure the relationship will work . So there lies basically the only conflict here in what is basically a low-key may-December romance story with tasteful bits of sex and nudity ( the latter from a very beautiful Kay Lenz ) , and a script that kind of just ends very expectedly , with only a minor twist involving drama in a car accident ( it's not spoiling anything saying that ) . While Eastwood's direction is simple and uncomplicated , and the script allows just enough room to make this kind of believable stuff , it's the acting that saves the show . Holden is great as the aging Frank , able to suggest his insecurities while not overdoing it in the slightest ( I'm reminded a little of a less cynical take on what would occur in Network a few years later ) , and Lenz makes Breezy appropriately lovable and annoying in equal measure ( yeah , I found her a little annoying , which might've been the point ) . It's very enjoyable for what it's worth , but there's not too much depth to it . It almost feels like a kind of diversion of a movie experience for both Eastwood and Holden , and it wears its period of early 70s sexual liberation with a slight conservative air . |
510,100 | 453,068 | 91,939 | 8 | a tale that takes a feminist critique of a situation , and gives it a male viewpoint too | I read one review on here that labeled She's Gotta Have it as Spike Lee's ' feminist view ' . I would agree with this in part because he doesn't show anything - the characters really - on any one side . We see her follies completely . But I think there is a male view going on with his look at these characters too ; after we see how a woman can be all liberated and free of being too restricted with who she wants to love / fool around with , there's more of a sympathy going on for the men too as the situation starts to come down to an essential thing - what does Nola REALLY want ? By the end of the picture , no one can really say for certain , Nola most of all , but all the while Lee has given us a look at romance that is ordinary only in how some of the typical characteristics of men and women are portrayed at times . But really , it's also out of the ordinary on showing the little things that wouldn't get into the common romantic comedy . It's a little too loosely structured and the style isn't altogether great , but it has as much ambition as Scorsese's Who's That Knocking or Bertolucci's Before the Revolution , at least in trying to convey subject matter primarily through style . Not to say the substance is left unchecked - in fact for the most part it's one of Lee's sharpest satires on the troubles of the sexes , and the main characters are a bit more believable than those of the main white / black couple of Jungle Fever . Lee boils it downs to seeming essentials at first - Nola ( Tracy Camilla Johns , not bad at all if not as strong as the main ' heroine ' could be ) is a magazine painter , but really its her romantic life that keeps her usually occupied . We see the various attempts of various male ' pick-up lines ' ( which is pretty hilarious , if dated ) , and then we meet guy # 1 , Jamie ( Tommy Hicks , maybe the best ' real ' actor of the group ) , who is really the nice guy , the kind that any reasonable woman would consider probably marrying sooner or later . But she also has male # 2 , Greer ( John Canada Turrell , with a great , shallow look to him if not overall performance ) , who is a male model who is meticulously egotistical even with folding up his clothes before sex . And then there's # 3 , Mars Blackmon ( Lee himself , in uproariously huge glasses and his name etched out in gold across his neck , surely one of his most wonderful characters played by him ) , who is the jokester , and word-spinner , and always takes a while to get around in a conversation . So around and around she goes , and it's really only until the last twenty minutes when Nola finally has to come down and make the decision - and it perhaps will have to come down to the ' right ' decision - but for what she just can't tell . Part of it is that she just loves sex , which becomes a problem when she invites over the three men for thanksgiving ( not a totally successful scene , mainly due to the dialog and pacing , but still a nice job in awkward tension ) . And also a problem when Jamie , the nice guy , makes an ultimatum for Nola . At the same time in the background there is the unusual tension of a possible lesbian affair with Opal ( Raye Dowell , very good in her scenes ) , but nothing comes to it . Scenes like those , where the sexual and relationship-type boundaries come into question , are really interesting . The self-conscious talking-to-the-camera interview bits range from excellent to just OK though , and sort of mark the quality of the film down a peg , even as the characters get to share some of their inner thoughts ( Lee's being the funniest ) . What then makes Lee's film a big step above any other number of films out there , primarily in the Hollywood mainstream , about a woman who has trouble deciding what to do with herself ? It's two things ; one , that the men are probably just as interesting with what they have going on as her , if not more so for Jamie , and two , the cinematic techniques imposed by Lee and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson . The latter of those two helps make She's Gotta Have it even more of a light-hearted picture than it might have been if just filmed as the script is . We get the images first put to Lee's father Bill's score , which is definitely one of his best after Do the Right Thing . Then the images get a lot of invention on such a small budget , unusually intimate and creative camera angles ( I loved the bit when we see in slow-motion the extreme close-ups of Mars getting close with Nola ) , the lighting often very expressionistic , and sometimes the editing going to playful , odd lengths like the sex scene between Nola and Greer . Sometimes the playfulness and first-time filmmaker amazement is a little much , like the color film sequence , which is beautiful but almost better self-contained than with the black & white grittiness of the rest of the film . I also could've done without the last bit after the denouement where all the actors say their names with the clapper . Nevertheless the stylistic merits add a lot to make it a richer film in context and structure . But if you can seek it out , especially in widescreen ( I saw it on IFC , though I wish I could see the director's cut to see what was cut out , however explicit it might be ) , it's well worth it . It's a small film , yet one that brings up some intriguing bits about what it means to really love someone vs . desire them , and what mind-games go on between men & women , men & men , women & women , and where the middle-ground could be , if at all . A minor independent / debut classic . |
509,322 | 453,068 | 95,765 | 8 | sentimental but very memorable tribute to anyone who loves to go to a movie | Cinema Paradiso works very well because Giuseppe Tornatore , for all his schmaltzy moments with his characters , loves cinema incredibly and especially the communal and personal act of going out to see a movie . It also works because for all the sentiment , he makes it a story essentially about a boy , Toto , without a father after the war who finds a surrogate-cum-mentor with Alfredo , the projectionist at the theater . Their bond makes for the emotional core of the film , as the grown-up Toto comes back to the town he left so long ago for Alfredo's funeral , and looks back on his childhood and adolescence in this small down of Giacardola . The clips of the films are one of the strong-points , and just the scenes inside of the Paradiso , where there's lots of warm human comedy coming out of the fun poked at the ' old-days ' of repression ( i . e . ringing the bell for a kissing scene ) , or just the reactions to the different genres and styles ( everything from Visconti to Chaplin to Bardot is screened ) . And there's a whole host of characters Tornatore has that makes a lot of the first half of the picture pretty special . It's maybe in the second half that it got a little too ' adorable ' for its own good , or just too much of a similar one-track kind of narrative with the teen Toto falling in love with a girl whom makes it his first real roller-coaster of a relationship . But , as mentioned , Tornatore keeps it simple , particularly with respect to Toto and Alfredo ( the latter actor , Phillipe Noiret , is incredible in the part , even when blind for half the running time ) . It's also a given that maestro Ennio Morricone delivers up the goods and makes this really rousing , the sentiment not false for a lot of the time as one of his best scores . If I didn't find it overall a masterpiece for some of its sappy bits and occasional over-the-top performance that doesn't click ( most of them do , it's Italy after all ) , it's an exceptional effort for what it tries to accomplish and what many films end up being simply sappy can't quite reach . The film earns its keep by making it very relatable , and reminds us why some of us love movies and movie-going very much . It's the ' shmoopy ' of Italian cinema lovers everywhere , and its worth the view even in the truncated Harvey Weinstein cut that played at the Rialto theater near my town ; a fond goodbye at a fondly remembered theater . |
508,596 | 453,068 | 83,281 | 8 | on its own low-key / aimless level it's exceptional , but still low-key and aimless all the same | It's strange to see an Errol Morris film that works and doesn't work all the same . The film is short , maybe too short , and doesn't really take much time to going into much of what the town of Vernon is about , or if these interviewed are its only residents . There's no unifying theme though to the work , which is the basic problem , as Morris at his best ( Thin Blue Line with the stylization and depth of reasonable doubt in true crime ; Gates of Heaven with loss of life as a means to understand what human nature is all about ; Fog of War about knowing limitations and understanding mistakes made in history ; Fast Cheap & Out of Control with the process and joys of a job well done ) , as it's simply a series of interviews with the residents . Maybe , as one person here pointed out , it's that everyone has a story . But , not to be modest , you sometimes can't understand what these people are saying anyway in their storytelling . But at the same time , as Morris just goes about with his very unobtrusive and expert eye for human detail ( the detail , anyway , of people at their goofiest and more sincere ) , it's very funny to see these backwoods folk and old guys tell their everyday stories and tales of hunting turkey and other animals . Favorite scenes would include : the preacher , who is part-time a laborer and part-time an obsessive word nut , specifically the word ' therefore ' as it appears in the bible and what it means ; the guy with his pet tortoise , who he tries to get to move around by gentle kicks , and also with his wild possum ; the simple coot who's got one tooth and plenty of pictures of possible life elsewhere with clouds and stars in the sky . Morris doesn't shy away from these idiosyncrasies that one can find right away in the not-quite-Deliverance parts of the deep south , and watching the film with an audience is an added treat , to see who may laugh at who doing what . At the end , there aren't really any big ideas to take away from the film , at least on a first viewing , and it may be a little repetitive for some - or maybe not , as it may hit so close to home that it's a likely candidate for best documentary about a town with population 40 . It's a little quirk of a doc-comedy that's worth it for Morris fans , but far from being any kind of masterpiece . |
510,345 | 453,068 | 65,963 | 8 | witty and with enough emotional depth and intelligence to carry the subject matter ; good debut for Ashby | As one of the scruffy underdog filmmakers of the 1970s - who's career unfortunately faltered in the 80s before his untimely death at 59 - Hal Ashby was good at taking a set of characters and a particular idea or theme and getting under the surface just enough to make a mark , while also keeping it an oddly entertaining and accessible as a picture for the art houses . Also , it shows Ashby coming out of his cocoon of editing jobs ( he even won an Oscar , for Jewison's In the Heat of the Night ) by giving the Landlord a very particular rhythm . Many times he'll just let a scene play out , giving the actors the freedom to work with the script their way , and then other times he'll implement montage - or just a subliminal cut-away ( or not so subliminal , as Lee Grant envisions an African tribe going to the Park Slope building , and a whole pack of black babies upon hearing about a little ' accident ' her step-son caused late in the film ) . I was really struck by how he uses experimentation for equal uses of humor , abstraction , and to just feel out the mood of the character ( s ) in the scene . Like when Brides runs to meet with Lanie at her school , and it's inter-cut with images from Fanny at her apartment , and Lanie , and a couple of other things . It can be called ' European ' - and Ashby was an admitted fan of Godard's - but it feels unique to the sensibility of the production and the ' radical ' feeling of the period . Meanwhile , Ashby has the best photography back up a first-time director could ask for : Gordon Willis and Michael Chapman , who give the film a look sometimes of lightness , especially when Elgar is at the family home and the walls are all a bland white , or seem to be ; then other times they light it darker , like in a more intimate setting like Elgar and Lanie out by the beach at night , or just when at the Park Slope apartment . A scene especially with Elgar and Fanny is effective , not simply because she actually comments on how the red light makes her look a certain way - it's the timing of the actors , the awkward but strong sexual tension , and the red light , and the soft soul music coming up , that makes it one of the best scenes Ashby's ever filmed , thanks to the right team . If the style verges on being a little " dated " here and there , like in the opening minutes as Elgar talks to the camera and says what he intends to do with the tenement , or those extreme close-ups of Elgar kissing with Lanie ( which are quite striking on their own ) , its attitude towards the pure human problems of race haven't diminished that much . I liked seeing Bridges , who is spot-on as the total naive future yuppie who's heart is in the right place but confused how to really go about it as the new landlord , interact with the other apartment dwellers , their ' welcoming ' by chasing him away with a flowered pot in his hands , or at the party when after getting him good and drunk tell him what it's really all about in first-person takes . And most of all it's funny and challenging to see , especially during a tense period around 1969 when it was filmed , how essential decency on either side of the race coin could get complicated by love and lust , of the rich family understandably not understanding how Elgar could go through this - not to mention the eventual ' mixed ' dating and the pregnancy - and at the same time the tenees never totally knowing why , aside from foolish design ambitions , wanted to run the place to start with . The best laughs end up coming from the awkward moments , and the obvious ones , as the subtle moments are meant to be more quiet and the ' big ' laughs to come from the interaction of not just in terms of race but class ; watch as everyone in the building uses the drapes from Joyce ( Lee Grant in a well deserved Oscar nom performance ) as clothes and head-dressing , or when Joyce has some pot liquor with Marge , who knows her better than her own family probably does . And who can resist the NAACP joke ? Or a throwaway joke about dressing up as a historical figure for a costume ball ? Ashby and his writers ( both screenwriter and novelist were African-Americans ) know not to slam every point home either , which uplifts the comedy to an honest playing field , which means that when a scene like the quasi-climax when Copee finds out about the pregnancy and flips out with an ax at Elgar it's not really all that jokey , when it easily could've been played as such for an exploitation effect . Only the very ending , which feels complicated by a sort of need to tidy things up with Elgar , Janie and the baby , feels sort of forced ( not helped by the end song , not too ironic , called God Bless the Children ) . But as it stands , the Landlord is provocative fun , if that makes sense , as it works as cool satire , led by sure-fire performances ( Bridges has rarely been this good at being true to a mostly unsympathetic character ) , and it points the way for a career that the director would have where oddball slices of life wouldn't mean there wasn't larger points being made . It's one of the best bets as an obscure find a film-buff can have from 1970 . |
508,345 | 453,068 | 64,911 | 8 | much better than I expected | William Smith was a very good casting choice for the lead , Angel is his name of course , for Run Angel Run . He's got a sympathetic side to his personality that somehow makes him work for Angel , who is sort of a rat talking to a magazine and getting a cover photo followed by the obligatory " I'm done with this , going legit " lifeline . He gets angry , sometimes in tantrum-mode , but he's also likable and attractive as a main leading man , as opposed to just another character actor ( whom everyone else in the cast fills up either nicely or terribly ) . But William Smith isn't the only reason to see the movie , and the guy who introduced the DVD I watched ( I forget his name ) would agree . There's a lot of guilty-pleasure stuff to the movie , to be sure , like the sheep-herding subplot , or the maniacally-shot bike-riding scenes early on and then later when they finally get to the action scenes . But , thankfully , Jack Starrett , the director , tries to tell a story here , and have some entertainment and drama run through what is mostly a paint-by-numbers thriller . It's not just a lot of nonsense and , also thankfully , the nonsense ( i . e . bar fights , dancing , even the corny love scenes and a , gag , walk on the beach ) isn't too distasteful or amateurish . It is dated as hell , and it's mostly for those who love a trashy biker flick . But for those looking to take a chance , Run Angel Run is one of the more pleasant ( yes , pleasant ) entries in the biker-movie sub-genre , where the trick was the look past the cheapness of the film-making for a good time , like eating a sweet Charleston Chew . |
508,215 | 453,068 | 884,328 | 8 | a near-classic throwback to 1950s sci-fi movies , with an emphasis on cool , creepy monsters and a chillingly human atmosphere | The Mist is one of the bleakest horror films to come out of Hollywood in many a moon , but with some points that can be taken . This isn't trash or torture-porn , but an expertly crafted piece of sci-fi / horror fiction that can only come from someone as bravely demented as Stephen King ( or rather from what appears to be a bravely demented creativity that , of course , knows no bounds ) . But if you asked me who directed it had I not known Frank Darabont had , I wouldn't be able to say : this is far from the classically-stylized form of Shawshank and Green Mile , and instead resembles what is like a sci-fi channel movie of the week , only much better written and acted . In fact , it's more comparable to the most succinct and terrifying that 1950s sci-fi movies offered , where creepy ( and I do mean creepy and gross ) monsters and huge insects and things crawl all over and in the darkest places , but it's the human beings and how they react - and how society is reflected ten-fold in the reaction - that counts . Truth be told , the actual plastics of the film are well-done ; the monsters themselves , which are explained only for a moment as a throwaway by a frightened soldier who says this mist and the creatures that come from it are from another dimension and there's some sort of portal or other , are delightfully nasty . They're the kind of huge critters that might have had room in King Kong had PJ had even more time , with the form of an insect or a huge squid or a gigantic crab , can make the audience jump and laugh and yell at the screen . Plus there's the mist itself , which holds a kind of " big-other " quality , as is described by philosophers as this other entity that human beings just can't really completely grasp , even when it's staring them right in their faces ( not quite as direct as in Boyle's Sunshine with the sun , but close enough ) , and if one wanted to read into it enough it's a kind of crafty , ingenious metaphor from King on the nature of fear , of terror completely unbound in the unknown , or the little that is known which when confronted ( i . e . when they go out to the pharmacy ) is about as startling as anything imaginable . But on the side of substance , this is also a winner , maybe even more-so . There's not much doubt in my mind that Darabont , for all of his faithfulness to the original King text , enriched the material for present times with a classic example of rationalism vs . irrationalism . The premise is this : an out-of-towner ( Thomas Jane ) is in a small sea-side Maine town when after a heavy storm a mist starts to crawl over the town , and as he goes to the supermarket to get supplies , with practically everyone else in town getting things , the mist comes completely over , a man runs out " there's something in the mist ! " he says , and the door slams shut . From there-on there's a struggle on the fronts of , simply , what to do : Jane just wants to know what they're up against , how to get to the cars , how to get the hell out ; Andre Braugher's character , a lawyer , might be the most rational , thinks it's poppycock that anything is out there even after the encounter some of the men have with the tentacled creature at the loading dock ; and Marcia Gay Harding , in one of the great examples of playing a one-note character so right , is a hardcore bible-thumper who riles up those inside of the supermarket to realize that the end of the world is coming ala Revelations , and that she - following not getting killed while standing still by one of the alien-bugs - is the wrath of God . It's the first time in a while have I seen an audience yell and cringe and laugh at how each major character meets their fate , no matter what the approach . If it isn't quite Night of the Living Dead classic-status , it might be expected - hence the comparison to sci-fi channel movie-of-the-week status , in small part . It is clichéd with certain characters , archetypes , lots of hand-held camera-work , and a melodramatic musical accompaniment . But it's worth seeing on the big screen , if only for the audience-participation sake , and to take in all of that potent terror that is realized from the fronts of effective creature-feature and socio-political drama . And the ending , to be sure , save for Jane's over-the-top reaction , is bewildering , and I mean that as a compliment . |
509,457 | 453,068 | 64,897 | 8 | a collection of taut mind-games and gripping and revealing dialog . . . and then there's the last scene ! | I'm one of those : Ingmar Bergman is a true artist , a great filmmaker who's connection with the brightness and deepest darkness of human nature , of faults with religion , with close relationships , horrors of the mind , dreams , was so strong that it's hard to believe that he made so much and didn't succumb sooner to his most dogged troubles - death . In the case of the Rite , it's basically an experiment . He has ten scenes , four actors ( not counting himself in an uproarious cameo appearance / in-joke on the Seventh Seal as a priest ) , and a lot of sado-masochistic psychology to work with . There aren't quite as many monologues as in Persona , and not the same depth of a relationship ala Scenes From a Marriage . But for the most part , the Rite works well as another exploration of Bergman's into the frayed mindset of actors , the discombobulated circumstances they get themselves into personally that mucks them up in the real world . Only the theater is their strange refuge , might be the message here , if there is one . One thing's for certain , among the many performances that Bergman stock-company members Bjornstrand and Thullin have given in past films ( Winter Light maybe their best pairing ) , the Rite provides them some of their best work . It might be almost too easy considering the material - a married couple that is completely miserable , full of the kind of bile that is found in the worst boils - and brought to a more succinct point by the actor Anders Ek ( who has also been in a couple other Bergman flicks , notably Seventh Seal as the Monk ) , who might be the most exhaustedly p-o'd actor one's ever seen . They're all on trial for some Kafkaesque reason by a judge ( Erik Hell ) who is making their nerves totally on edge with his insistence on all the ' facts ' coming in . The scenes particularly with him and Thulin are explosive , and even shocking to a point , where as before there's been subtlety and insinuation . As it stands , approximately ths of The Rite is close to vintage Bergman as one could hope for , coming out of a period in the 60s where he plunged into a deconstructionist approach that found him working at full-steam ( Persona , Shame , and Hour of the Wolf are some of the most daring ' art-house ' films ever conceived and executed ) , and considering this as just an exercise is nothing to sneeze at . . . That being said , there is that final scene in the office I can't get out of my head , and unlike other times with Bergman I'm not sure it's such a good thing . It's a turning-the-tables scene where the actors come in costumes and masks ala Eyes Wide Shut and freak the f out of the judge , and Hell ( no pun intended ) goes into a rant about how wrong he was and how he sees that he's just a lawyer who didn't want to do this and that and so on . And it just doesn't feel the same as the rest of the material in the film , an ' off ' quality , despite ( or in spite ) of the fact that on its own it's a truly outrageous thing to see : the costumes are sado-masochism incarnate , with a certain appendage that is ridiculous , and a bowl of wine that is obvious symbolically . Maybe someday if I re-watch the Rite I'll come to admire or find something else about the scene that works better , but for now it's the only thing that is really a bugger about what is otherwise an exemplary work of cinematic theater . If you can find it somewhere in your local video store ( emphasis on ' video ' , it's not available on DVD ) , and are already head-deep in the master of Scandinavian motion pictures , it's worth it . |
508,389 | 453,068 | 74,695 | 8 | a little spotty , some acting flaws , but it's still got the verve and punch of a harrowing anti-war classic | There are reasons I could not recommend Cross of Iron , but they're mostly surrounding little things that strike as being a little more ' ordinary ' or just conventional . There's some moralizing from the perspective of the German side , there's a little acting that doesn't quite click ( mostly due to accents that are a little forced ) , and there's only so much character development to keep the story moving . But those facets are tolerable , even sometimes compelling . What does make the movie highly recommendable , however , is that as with every film he made , to one degree or another , it's a Sam Peckinpah movie . What you see from Peckinpah is what you get , and this time it's in the form of a war movie . It fits that he would make a war movie ; the iconic scenes of the Wild Bunch where Peckinpah lets loose in his style of slow-mo violence on its western heroes , it's like it's ripped out of an operatic battle scene . So is the case with Cross of Iron that Peckinpah is phenomenally successful in portraying war as chaos , as battles rage and it becomes part of the narrative that we don't know who's fighting who . It's in the editing , and in the ( occassionally overwrought ) slow-motion speed , not to mention the various squibs , that make Cross of Iron hit so harshly . On a low-budget , Peckinpah makes the most of his resources , and relies on montage and the inherent idea that war , especially when on he point of view of the side that will lose , is the most horrible concept realized by men in power . And sometimes Peckinpah , also in tune with his usual idiosyncratic method of editing in other scenes as cut-aways , drives the point home on a psychological level . Steiner ( James Coburn ) is a good soldier , a very professional one , who will lead his platoon despite the fact , as he tells James Mason's Captain , that he hates the uniform , hates officers , hates himself in his own skin . And sometimes he'll flash to a moment , a visual , that makes his journey all the more personal . Coburn brings it out in his personality , a kind of look that's intense , thoughtful , and always on edge . He plays this dangerous but ethical man to his logical conclusion , leading up to the ending where he finally breaks out in a desperate , maniacal laughter at the absurdity he's in . As said , it's not a great film . It shows that Peckinpah was working with independent financiers that gave him only so much to work with . But it's hard to look away at times from what Peckinpah gives with what he's got . There's one of the most interesting scenes of any war movie here , not in a battle , but in a sort of " filler " scene - Steiner's platoon comes upon a Russian house full of women , some soldiers , after crossing over a protected bridge . There's a sense of peril in this scene , of multiple rapes about to occur . But then there's a morality here that's expressed too , with an unexpected moment with a sex act , and a naked woman bathing in a barrel . The acting here is some of the best in the movie , where all of the looks from the actors , many of them likely non-professionals , tell all there needs to be said about the smaller tragedies , the ones that get overlooked when looking at the big battles and strategies ala Stalingrad . Peckinpah gets so much right with scenes like these , with taut editing and a graphic vibe , as he does in other portions of the picture , that it's forgivable for what he gets wrong . It's a balancing act he , thanks to Coburn , pulls off excitingly . |
509,643 | 453,068 | 65,976 | 8 | Let it Be . . . Released on DVD for Pete Sakes ! ! | OK , so let me get this straight : Magical Mystery Tour , which I've yet to see but have heard is quite bad and pretentious and dated , is allowed to be on DVD , but this is banned by the Beatles ? Why ? Because at one point Paul and George have a little argument over a song ? As the British would say , bullocks ! What they show in the film of arguments and sulking is what happens in ANY band , and in fact is usually much worse - I was almost surprised there wasn't more of the taped back-and-forth exchanged in the film , given what's been said how bad it got amongst the fab four during their final year in recording , particularly on Let it Be aka Get Back ( the most chilling thing overall is the presence Yoko , who keeps popping up looking like she could duke it out with Bergman's Seventh Seal Death dude and probably win ) . While I watched it on a reasonable if as a given muddy and slightly scratchy transfer online on bootleg , it was pretty much the film intact as it played almost 40 years ago . What makes it a must-see is not the direction , which is at best competent and at worst the weakest thing going for it - sadly , Al Maysles was already taken by the Stones , as his eye would have been perfect - but the Beatles and the music . I'd argue after watching this and listening to Let it Be . . . Naked that the majority of the songs are as great as the main tracks on Abbey Road . Indeed a few of the songs in the movie here , Maxwell Silver Hammer , Octopus Garden , wound up on that album , and are practically interchangeable from the rest of the output . We see the Beatles do what they do best , be Beatles , play and work out the kinks in classic songs , and also the camaraderie that shows what underneath the image given by the other goofier movies that they were simply incredibly talented musicians . This is evidenced by the scenes where they don't actually play or rehearse their own songs but goof around , play rhythm and blues tunes and even at one point a mariachi number sung by Paul ! There's not a lot of time spent with them just talking or shooting the st - at most we get some reminiscing between Paul and John about the Maharishi or some noodling around here and there between takes . It's not even entirely accurate to say it's documentary , as it's more like an all encompassing , authentic home movie with some extra cash to spare on cameras and editing . It all leads up to that rooftop concert that is still one of those big bad-ass moments in rock and roll history ( if , again , not filmed with the best lenses or cameramen , it was perhaps a given that they had to shoot it on the fly ) . The energy and fun comes through all the way , and contrary to the film's reputation Let it Be shows the Beatles as having fun and doing what they do best even in what was their darkest , near-end period . Maybe there's a longer cut out there that shows more of the arguments , more bickering back and forth and maybe some of Yoko leering on like a supernatural delusion . For me , at least , I'd rather not see it : what remains , and what should for God sakes be shown to a wider and more receptive Beatles audience , is very good stuff . |
511,049 | 453,068 | 391,024 | 8 | life on the front-lines , by way of Al-Jezeera , and the American invasion of Iraq | Let's face facts folks , especially at this point if not the should-have-been start : American invaded a country that had nothing to do with . This isn't the core message of Control Room , but it's certainly all encompassing for what Jehane Noujaim wants to say in her documentary Control Room . The argument could be made - and of course has - that Al Jezeera is a militant television network playing to an Arab base , that it shows people damning America all the time and praising Alah and so on and so forth . For the latter I can't say how much is truly shown , even by the documentary's scope . But for the former , the context can't be taken lightly : whether or not it is propagandistic isn't quite the point . When a country gets attacked by another country , it's hard to continue to find praise for the offensive side ( and , as we see later in the film , Al-Jezeera was attacked by American planes specifically ) . Is her perspective meant to show bias ? Maybe , maybe not . It's there in plain sight , how much to s things went following the American invasion , and yet side has to be taken into question , media , military , civilian . There's plenty of questions to ask by the end of the film , even in a form that isn't with the best production values or the firmest visual hold . Control Room is also terrifying in hindsight - if this is where we were at in going into Iraq ( I saw this film in cinemas as the time one week before Fahrenheit was released ) , what about today ? It might be even more intriguing to see a follow-up documentary to Control Room , where one sees what has happened some half a decade ( and deceased hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives later and thousands of Americans ) down the line . But for now , it's a story set in the midst of a conflict established by the Americans to get Sadaam Hussein out of power - and thus throwing the country into a tailspin . And all throughout we're put through the prism of media , of inquiry , of a search for the facts in the midst of two systems shown in the film : American journalism ( we see American military interviewed ) and Arab journalism , and each side in dialog and argument , with location footage interspersed . In a way it's a dense film in just its 84 minutes . This might be Noujaim's main strength is the accumulation of points of view , of perspectives . It's not just pat a statement to make that Control Room takes the side of the Iraqi's and that's it . There's also accountability taken in . There's an fascinating cross-section that reveals some of Bush's hypocrisy ( not hard to do , and there's such an abundance , but just one instance for example ) , where Bush says that " the people of Iraq will control their own destiny . . . they will not just say they were following orders . " Cut to some footage of Americans , in possible dire straits , being asked by Iraqi's why they're in Iraq . " I'm just following orders , " they all say . Is it America , or just Bush ? Is it just Sadaam , or a whole mix of Iraqi's that have to be seen through the prism of the media coverage ? What is really propaganda ? Control Room , ultimately , isn't the greatest of documentaries , mostly in a form that bounces around with the only structure with Bush at the start with his message of " watch out , Iraq , we're attacking now ! " to the disgusting message on the Aircraft carrier at the end . But it is an important one , almost like an early , crucial appendage to the more recent No End in Sight . If only for a moment can we have a view into the first huge cluster-f of the century , Control Room has a purpose . |
508,373 | 453,068 | 317,219 | 8 | Pixar knows how to do formula just right - a lot of fun in an " old-fashioned " story | Cars is the kind of animated film that , considering how computer dominated the realm is now and might be for a while , knows what it is and is successful almost in spite of what it could've been . It could've been , for example , a clunker of a formulaic animated movie where not only do you know what will happen every step of the way after a while the imbalance of comedy and the rest of the more grounded parts of the story detract from any pleasure from seeing the movie work on its own . Pixar , and particularly its co-founder John Lasseter , are particularly based on the importance of the story - however much it might lend itself to others - and having the best cast to go alongside the most believable visual schemes . Cars worked for me as being something that is akin to those " old-fashioned " picture of its kind ( which I mean here as a compliment and not as some kind of put-down like others might ) , where after a little bit in the story you'll know what will happen , but it's fun seeing what's done within the scenes and how unexpected bits of delight come from the characters . Cast-wise , it's actually rather remarkable ; this might be the only time , for example , I won't mind a Larry the Cable Guy performance in a film ( playing a dim-witted towing truck ) . Practically every part , in this case , gets the right choices along-with having the star power . Owen Wilson is Lightning McQueen , who has a big ego as an up-and-coming race car driver . He gets sidetracked , however , when getting into a big accident ruining a road of a small , near-deserted town full of quirky oakies and long-forgotten types . The amount of supporting talent is commendable - Bonnie Hunt , Cheeck Marin , Tony Shalhoub , George Carlin ( was happily surprised at that one ) , and Paul Newman delivering a good show as a car with a shattered past . Through the story then comes the usual thing - Will Lightnign McQueen suddenly break past his young self-contriteness and find who his friends really are ? The answer shouldn't have to be too mysterious to find , but that's not the point that Lasseter and co-director ( late ) Joe Ranft are getting at . If the film does have a couple of liabilities - most of the songs are my least favorite of any of the Pixar films with the end-credits one the exception ; a couple of scenes don't work as well even within the conventions - it's got plenty to admire . As usual the animation team at Pixar gives the audience what they pay to see with this kind of picture - plenty of fantastic sights , with impeccable details with little things like the road itself and the cars and buildings as well as the vast , cool vistas delivered . Thers's also a sturdy , good-natured message behind the story and scenes , with the nostalgia of a period evoked alongside that of the usual ' don't forget what's important ' ideal for kids . And as someone who doesn't really watch Nascar or much of that at all ( even for the crashes that remind painfully why less than 1 % of the country does this ) , the racing sequences are tremendously well done , especially when sitting close to the screen . At the end of it , I knew I had seen a very good movie , even if in some little ways it doesn't completely POP like the best of Pixar's work . It's also the first really good take-the-entire-family movie of the summer , at least on a level of spectacle and all-around entertainment . |
510,681 | 453,068 | 47,444 | 8 | a good start to a handsomely done , ' old-school ' epic trilogy | I watched the first part of the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy , dubbed simply Samurai 1 on the video , thinking that it might be a lot more stylish & / or violent than I was led to believe . It is the first part , but of the second part it is but only up to a point . This is a 1950s style epic tale through and through , and the violence is done in a kind of sweepingly done style , where it goes by fairly quick , no blood at all , though all the while there's the sense of loss that goes with seeing , for example , the big battle sequence early on . This is a trilogy that I saw long ago , but this one , along with some scenes from 2 and 3 , sticks out in my mind to this day . There's a lot of touching care taken in what was Hiroshi Inagaki's power as a filmmaker . Like a Hollywood director actually more than a typical Japanese director , one might say , his take on the legendary samurai Miyamoto is one of reverence but wisdom , of production values of the highest standard ( of the studio standard of Toho at the time ) , with brilliant color photography putting the colors in striking displays throughout at a time when Japan was first getting into it . If it's less than really great , like a Kurosawa film , it's maybe because Inagaki is a little too comfortable at times with what's ' safe ' in the story , particularly with the romance between Takezo / Musashi ( Toshiro Mifune ) and Otsu ( Kaoru Yachigusa ) . This actually becomes a little more unbelievable at times in parts 2 and 3 , but for the sake of its magisterial , dedicated studio roots , it's not that bad , most notably the final scene at the bridge . Some of the plot on the first viewing may not be completely clear , at least through parts of the middle section involving the betrayals and Takezo's friend Matahachi's relationship with Oko . There are one or two really noteworthy supporting performances , like from Mitsuko Mito as Oko . But it's really Mifune's show here , and he plays Takezo in this film like a more naive but still as ambitious and unruly version of his character in Seven Samurai . He's not altogether , but he has it in him to be more , which of course then leads out into the rest of the trilogy . It's one of his better performances outside of his work with Kurosawa , and it gets better as the films go on . Of course , it's best to start here with Inagaki's passionate , rousing work , and even if it isn't the best of the three it still has its high points . It's a very good example of an ' old-school ' , big-budget Toho picture with their brand of excitement and romance . If you're thinking it will be as graphic or darkly comic as Kurosawa's films though , it's not really here ( though only in little sparks , as is more Inagaki's straghtforward style ) . |
509,875 | 453,068 | 462,200 | 8 | a pure Blues movie , if not a great one , with Jackson in one of his coolest performances | I didn't quite get what I expected from Black Snake Moan , but by the end I didn't mind too much either . I went into it thinking I was going to get a real low-down , Southern-Fried exploitation flick where race relations get turned around in a small town and the " wickedness " that Sam Jackson's blues-man character is trying to rid of Christina Ricci's wily nymph would sort of parallel that . In short , pure , unadulterated outrageousness of the Sam Fuller White Dog variety . It goes without saying that the central ' gimmick ' ( and it is nearing a gimmick I think ) of the chain around Ricci - and particularly one moment where Lazarus ( Jackson ) is letting out Rae ( Ricci ) for a walk like a dog around the his field he farms - is meant to be outrageous , as are the moments when Lazarus's young assistant farmer-boy walks in on the itching-for-sex Rae and gets jumped by him for ' it ' . But really , the intelligence of Brewer's script and how he handles the characters is that we get to see these people not just as simple caricatures but as real people , with histories , and it actually becomes a story of redemption , for both Lazarus and Rae as well as Rae's anxiety driven dishonorably discharged army man Ronnie played by Justin Timberlake . These characters do have the blues , and their own personal discoveries are put against this gritty , small-town Southern setting . But there are two very important factors that Brewer has going for him not just in the dramatically sound and fairly original script : the music , which strikes up some of the best blues music I've heard in a long time ( including the great usage of songs by the late R . L . Burnside , an epitome of true blues ) , and the performances from Jackson and Ricci ( more so the former ) . Ricci goes on a brave route playing Rae , who has some skeletons in her closet ( which provides the bare-bones of why she is ' this ' way , even if it seems a little lacking for full psychological depth ) , and who is completely without inhibitions . That she is in panties and a small shirt for most of the movie is only scratching the surface , but it's definitely a high point in his career . But even more so this goes for Jackson , who taps into what makes him such a magnetic talent in American movies - he's super-cool , to be sure , especially when he's playing the blues songs ( one he plays on stage at a blues night at a club brings out even funnier ' mother-f-ers ' than one heard in Snakes on a Plane ) . Yet the range of emotions are on display just as well , with the hurt and wisdom , and the craziness that is sort of underlying Lazarus as well as a sinner-cum-bible thumper . It's certainly the best I've seen from him in years , possibly since he last teamed up in Tarantino's Jackie Brown . Not to say that Brewer doesn't come close to confusing what kind of movie he's making . One might wish he had made just a straight on exploitation film out of the 70s , where the roles get reversed from one of those ' Pam Grier in prison ' flicks . And there are moments of that , and the more trashy side of my taste in movies almost wanted more of that . But I was also very pleased to see Brewer's maturity with the material as well , and in not going for the very big statements like a Paul Haggis or something . It's not even about it being a white woman and a black man - not that there isn't a moment or two that's obviously called into question by supporting characters - but about two lonely , psychologically screwed up folk who , if only by scratching the surface , un-earth things that have been going wrong for them : for Rae , her unwillingness to deal with commitment and her sexuality , for Lazarus his peace of mind and relationships with women and the Lord , and for Ronnie about what it means to be with someone like Rae . It's highly charged , darkly funny , and touching , and it's likely to be under the radar , albeit not without its cult audience . |
510,605 | 453,068 | 78,481 | 8 | not the best Altman , but very far from the worst - it's ensemble time ! | A Wedding may not be the most wholly successful of the classic Robert Altman big ensemble films ( the others I would note off the top of my head are Gosford Park , Nashville and Short Cuts ) , but there's enough solid nuggets to please fans and even a few newcomers . It's a whole mixture of soap operatic and melodramatic and whatever-matic characters who all have family foibles and minor tragedies and other quirks and craziness going in and out of one another ( including , as well , a dead old woman in a bed for most of the picture ) . Every strand that swings away in this piece has at least some performance , some line or some little moment of behavior that makes it worthwhile ; from the talk of the Bishop to the old dead woman in bed ; from the constant love-birdiness of Carol Burnett with the Emil Jannigs-clone ; from that amazingly long and strangely heartfelt song led on by the born-again in the dark den of the house ; from that amazing confrontation between the two Italian brothers . There's so much here that does work that it's practically forgivable to put aside the parts that don't . Some scenes do go on too long or start to loose steam ( hell , even Mia Farrow's mugging becomes much ) , but it's all worth it for that last 10 minutes of madness and hysteria - Altman style . |
509,894 | 453,068 | 69,865 | 8 | mostly crackerjack heist plot with a few great performances | This is a little like if Jean-Pierre Melville were forced to do a recreation of No Country for Old Men . Rather than that , it's a Don Siegel picture , which means there's things about Charley Varrick that make it both wonderfully character-centric and rather cold and vicious deep down . The latter isn't necessarily a bad thing ; done right , as here , there's a sinister edge to Charley Varrick the film , not too pronounced , and a lot smarter than other run-of-the-mill crime pictures . It's also , sadly , a little dated , showing some signs of its 70-ness in some small but significant ways ( i . e . how easily it is for Varrick to sleep with Boyle's secretary since all it takes it flowers , or for that matter the hit-man with the passport lady ) . Even the music by the great Lalo Schifrin screams " Freak-out ! " But it's also so well plotted and giving the audience its due and not treating us like fooled that it's hard not to admire it , or even love it in spots . At the least , Siegel is both a skillful director of action ( the getaway from the bank , and the heist itself , are near classic sequences of delirious suspense ) and with veteran character actors . Matthau in the lead is a smart choice . He's an actor who can hide a good deal with his stern exterior , but we can tell there's a lot going on underneath , and with Varrick he paints him as a character always making a deliberate choice , by default almost having to be one step ahead of the other villains or cops , and there's an extra level of tragedy he does brilliantly to subdue when Varrick's wife dies from the bullet wound . Ditto then for other actors like Andy Robinson ( not too far removed from his stint in Dirty Harry but a little weaker ) , Joe Don Baker ( the grinning hit-man with a one-track mind ) , and John Vernon ( again , from Dirty Harry , here a corrupt banker who gets his just desserts ) . It may not have the same kind of finesse that a higher budgeted action picture might have , but for Siegel it should have no less an amount of care for the story than Dirty Harry or Escape from Alcatraz . We might not get Clint this time , but it's still darn good enough to keep as one of those 70s sleepers that you find at the bottom of the bin at the store , a nugget that has future re-used Tarantino lines like " pair of pliers and a blowtorch . " And few movies have as good an ending at a junkyard as here . |
510,607 | 453,068 | 57,261 | 8 | some of the most memorable child acting outside of a musical or comedy | I was one of a handful of kids who didn't get to read Lord of the Flies at the time when it would've been most appropriate - back in grade school where I could relate to what is the quintessential story of boyhood Id gone amuck ( that is Id without any girls or parental guidance ) . So I had to be content with , years later , watching the film . It turns out to be something very fascinating ; very naturalistic ( the film was mostly improvised by its young cast ) and with breathtaking black and white cinematography . It's the classic story of a bunch of kids marooned on a deserted island with nothing but their wits and most barbaric instincts as young men ( emphasis on men , British no less ) , and what it is to be apart , or decidedly not part , of a herd . And while I wasn't completely blown away by the production , I could see the definite admiration for the source . As for the film , Peter Brook crafted something unique in that he got a bunch of kid actors , pretty much all of them first timers and non-professionals , and made them about as believable as can be possible in a drama . Aside from some other examples like Shoeshine or Stand by Me ( though the latter is more comedy / drama ) , Lord of the Flies showcases these young talents so much in a raw style , and often to heartbreaking and almost anthropological effect , that you can't take your eyes away from it . It's by now means flawless and occasionally suffers from its improvised expression of narrative , but the positive results are so strong it's kind of a sleeper must-see of the 1960s , at least in British cinema . |
508,947 | 453,068 | 100,456 | 8 | while only director , it still is , and feels , looks and sounds like , a Jodorowsky film , a very good one | How criminal is this - the only format that has ever been available for The Rainbow Thief in America is on VHS . Imagine this , a film starring Omar Sharif , Peter O'Toole and Christopher Lee , regardless of who directed it ( though in this case the iconoclast / cult-icon Alejandro Jodorowsky ) , never got released in theaters let alone as of late on DVD . It's not that one must see it because it's a great lost masterpiece and yada-yada . It actually isn't . It's not as great a film as Jodorowsky's own Santa Sangre or The Holy Mountain . But as far as projects go that have been neglected by a major studio , Warner Brothers , this is one of the most notable to my mind . Especially because , when it comes down to it , it's quite possibly the filmmaker's most " accessible " movie to a mainstream audience . This doesn't mean necessarily that it's like ET or something , since if only on the peripheral side of things it's as much a Jodorowsky movie as ever . In this story of a petty thief who robs and steals little things ( i . e . an egg or a newspaper ) to big things ( i . e . an old record player belonging to a circus midget ) , the atmosphere is rich with that of a society that is that of the outsider or the outcast . We're mostly with Sharif throughout the picture as he goes along this lot of folk who live in the dregs , poor , destitute , or in the circus or the freak-shows , or working at the local pub . And the most significant scene showing someone living in a bourgeois setting , which is early on with Christopher Lee , it's in deranged excess with the Rainbow girls surrounded by Dalmatians and riding some motor-car . Even as someone else wrote it , and he was a " hired gun " as they say , this is nevertheless a Jodorowsky picture ( for better or worse depending on the viewer ) . But what makes it different from something like the Holy Mountain is , first , that Jodorowsky isn't out to blow minds away or find some kind of other consciousness through the power of cinema itself . This time he's telling a story that might have been written by Dickens ; it has some of the qualities of a fable while also taking note of squalor and filth and the realities of living on the street and being among folk who dwell in the urban setting . Not to mention , of course , that Sharif and O'Toole spend their years waiting on the possible inheritance money from Uncle Rudolf in the sewer , with O'Toole doing ventriloquism with his ( seemingly ) dead dog . Second , for the first ( and unless King Shot gets made only and last ) time in his career , the director is working with major stars - reuniting Lawrence of Arabia's big names - and he deals with them as he would any other actor in his films , which is to let them go off in whatever direction they can to make it a better picture . And , thankfully , their performances are wonderful , as is the bulk of the picture . While , yes , it is in some parts sentimental , particularly with the very end as one of those coda scenes that has that " it can happen in movies ! " quality , it earns whatever sappy feelings come out because of how rich and full of life the film is . I say that it's his most generally accessible since one doesn't need to be a big art-house buff or into the ostensibly surreal midnight-movie scene to " get " it . The Rainbow Thief , with the possible exception of Tusk which I and most others have yet to see , is the only Jodorowsky film I'd be pretty happy to show to my mother . This may or may not come as strong praise , but at the least it's something of a minor crime that others can't have the choice to decide for themselves on DVD or at a revival screening somewhere . |
509,217 | 453,068 | 303,353 | 8 | like Evans himself , this documentary isn't as great as it thinks it is , but it is watchable throughout | Robert Evans's book version of this documentary , The Kid Stays in the Picture , is still un-read by me . But I have read much about him from other movie books from the 70's , and so this film does illuminate certain aspects of him that I already knew - his huge ego , his drug addiction , his proclivity to lots and lots of women , and having some part in the more outstanding films of the 1970's . Sometimes with Evans himself narrating throughout two things become apparent as peculiarities that keep it from being great - 1 ) the filmmaker's style is rather repetitive and , aside from some flourishes of talent , isn't anything too grand for the material , and 2 ) the three sides to the story that Evans is quoted with at the beginning become rather blurred as one full-on nostalgia ( for bad and good ) comes out . What makes it captivating , however , is that Evans is the kind of guy who will be honest about being full of crap and will even call on himself for his past troubles . Rarely has one man's achievements gone neck and neck with his flaws , and let out in a filmic , grandiose style such as this . Evans is shown to have , basically , a lot of luck as someone getting into Hollywood ( as many of these stories go ) . He starts out as a so-so actor and tries desperately to establish himself as a producer . He becomes more apart of the development side of the pictures , and ushers through Rosemary's Baby , Love Story , and even the Godfather to an extent . As his story includes the personal side ( his rise and fall in the relationship to Ali McGraw , the cocaine , the other tabloid stuff ) , the other side of his professional accomplishments still gears in for room . By the end , one can see that the man has gone through enough to have his rightful reputation as Paramount's longest remaining producer , and will likely hold onto his ego of being the head-cheese kind of ' creative producer ' so many directors like or dread till the grave . If anything , the film is actually too short , as at 93 minutes ( a brilliant Dustin Hoffman imitation over the credits included ) we only get glimpses that are further expounded in the book . Therefore its already subjective viewpoint becomes even more crunched into one all-too-simple story on such an interesting case study . The Kid Stays in the Picture , despite not being as terrific as the filmmakers might think it is by their sleek camera angles and typical interludes of montage , is as close to being as honest as it could be . Honest , in the sense that Evans doesn't hide much in his story and how his own way of speaking about it , in its deep-sounding and straight-forward Hollywood way , is what film buffs look for . He may have been and done a lot of things , but as he says at the end , " I enjoy what I do , which most people can't say that they do . " |
508,133 | 453,068 | 280,665 | 8 | DePalma's best since Carlito's Way , possibly since Untouchables | Femme Fatale is one of those movies for people who love craft in movies , since it contains nearly all of the styles in the book - slow motion , split screen , use of shadows , reflections , and more that I might have not caught on the first viewing . The opening shot / scene is an eye-opener that makes a great re-creation of Cannes from last year ( though East-West , the movie shown within the movie , was at Cannes in 1999 ) , and throughout , DePalma has a breathtaking visual sweep again , like in his earlier films ; his last three films ( Mission Impossible , Snake Eyes , Mission to Mars ) were mediocre at best and at worst awful . Antonio Banderas , a little better than usual himself , plays a photographer who takes a picture of a woman , which brings forth series of events , double crosses , triple crosses , so on . The woman ( or women ) is played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos , a hot firecracker of a babe who is in hiding after a jewel robbery , who has more hiding in herself as well . However , despite this being a cinema-verite type thriller with Mamet-esquire plot turns , the ending is a downer on a first viewing and had me turned off to see it again for a while ( is it even needed , despite its connection to genre , one might ask ) . And once I walked out of the screening , I knew that this could've been a great thriller , and it turned out to be in many parts , though I wouldn't recommend it as the definitive DePalma flick . However , upon a second viewing , it does become a bit more enjoyable , like an old bottle of red discovered years later . Those who are fans of him will find this sumptuous , and other film buffs will also have a good time , at least more than a few of the films De Palma's done lately . |
509,759 | 453,068 | 74,811 | 8 | ingenious in its own Twilight Zone approach , but doesn't quite feel like a major Polanski work | I can understand how fans of filmmaker Roman Polanski could love this movie - and I could understand how some could totally hate it ( Ebert was one of the few who couldn't understand why people weren't running out of the theater ) . After a first viewing , I'm not sure I could fall into either category , however as someone who can't get enough of Kafka and bizarre dark comedies of paranoia The Tenant is effective enough for its running time . Or maybe not - this is one of those cases where it might have been more of a masterwork if it were a half-hour Twilight Zone episode , with Serling delivering the coda as Terkovsky ( or whomever it might be ( ? ) ) writhes in his bed in bandages . It's very similar in the treatment of the doomed protagonist as Repulsion was , however it could be argued that there was more ambiguity , more of a sense of the surreal coming out through a sustained disintegration of character and location ( and , quite frankly , a better lead performance ) than the Tenant . As it stands , The Tenant does have an intriguing premise , the kind that one doesn't tire telling about to other people : Polanski is a Polish émigré to Paris who takes an apartment that was most recently acquired by Simone Choule , who jumped to her near death out of the window and died soon after . But the other tenants are conservative to the max in terms of noise ; after a Saturday night at Terkovsky's with a few friends , there are complaints of too much noise . It won't happen again , Polanski's good-natured but slightly nervous tenant says , but there is no peace even in moving a cabinet or a chair . Soon complaints get registered against another tenant , but from him ? Can he register complaints ? This is a case of not so much mistaken identity but of there being a lack of peace of mind with oneself and the surrounding people . As the downward spiral goes on , Polanski ratchets up tension ( and , dare I say , black-comedic laughs ) by showing Terkovsky in the midst of a horrible dream - one of Polanski's strongest scenes from the period - and in finding teeth in the wall , not to mention the bathroom across the way ( which , I might add , is always a cinematic lynch-pin of horror and surreal madness ) . But somehow , the film never really feels all that significant aside from its excessive design as a would-be mind-f machine , with Terkovsky's tenants only seeming to not be what they seem for a little while : there's not as much suspense when finding out that they really aren't out to get him , which makes the paranoia more self-fulfilling . At least once or twice I thought to myself as well ' why did Polanski take the title role for himself ? ' It's not that he's at all a bad actor , and he has appeared in several films and plays that aren't of his own direction . But aside from being great at looking awkward and tense , like in the church , or in his moments of sort of flipping out when thinking that they really are out to get him to kill himself , his transformation is less creepy than tongue-in-cheek , a test of himself to see if he can pull it off , which he doesn't entirely do . Despite Polanski working at it well to look like the meek and frazzled Terkovsky , I could see at least a few other actors who could pull it off with more subtlety and affecting personality . By the time one sees him in drag , it goes between cringe-worthy and true camp , particularly when he goes for the double-climax at the end ( which , of course , is of little surprise ) . And yet there is pleasure for the film-buff and Polanski fan to see the supporting cast try and dig into the much more ambiguous characters ( Winters and Douglas do this the best , even as they have to strain through limited characters ) , and the unexpected moments like Polanski and Adjani getting hot and heavy during a Bruce Lee movie , or when he gets really drunk , or in one almost random scene where he slaps a kid near a fountain , are rather brilliant in and of themselves . It's a very good film , and one that could maybe stick my attention up when on too many coffees after midnight . But an essential film ? Not exactly . |
508,618 | 453,068 | 79,116 | 8 | solid prison-breakout flick with machismo wit and fine touches of ambiguity | The last of the five collaborations between director Don Siegel and producer / actor Clint Eastwood , Escape from Alcatraz isn't a great blockbuster action flick like Dirty Harry or an experiment like the Beguiled . It is more the former , if anything , and a crackerjack example at best of what to do in crafting suspense from the elements of basic despair in the mindset of men . Barely sentimental ( the exception might be with the loss of painting privileges for one prisoner ) , the film is an examination of a cold system put on by hard-bitten prisoners who are stuck by what the character English says is " one huge count . " It isn't a kind of existential struggle like A Man Escaped , nor a big bombastic crowd-pleaser like Shawshank Redemption either . But for its intended audience , which are fans of its perennial heroic star , and for the lean style from director Siegel , it's one always worth a look when it pops up on TV or if it remains sitting all by itself on the video shelf at the store . Basics to know : Eastwood plays Frank Morris , a criminal who broke out of an Atlanta prison and got sent to Alcatraz , the most insurmountable prison ever constructed . But after taking enough guff from the exacting prison warden ( McGoohan looks like he's not entirely acting , as if he's been a warden for years and years , which is why he's one of the most convincing of all movie wardens ) , getting stuck in the horror that is ' the hole ' , and seeing the damage done to fellow prisoners , he takes action through the crumbling wall of his grate . Among certain accepted - and refreshingly well done - prison movie clichés , we get the big fat brute ( Bruce M Fishcer ) , the wise old inmate ( Paul Benjamin , some of his are the subtlest scenes ) , and the determined but weak-in-the-spirit inmate ( Larry Hanklin , a great character actor , one of those like Robert Schiavelli you can spot right away ) . And all the while , the storytelling goes at a pace that never rushes , never pushes against little details with Litmus or the visitors to the inmates . If sometimes it doesn't give a little bit of exposition on some characters - like its protagonist ( we never know how bad Eastwood really is or not , he just is , though unlike a Nicholson he never really exploits any kind of rebel posit ) - and sometimes has a moment of suspense that can be seen right around the corner ( a funny sound while digging , trouble with the disguised dummy heads in the beds ) , the climax practically makes up for any moments of conventionality . Especially if one isn't completely familiar with the real history behind the Alcatraz escape it cranks up to a high degree through the dark shadows of the prison innards and the outside at night . And it's also fascinating to see an indefinite point at the end of the film ; it's the attempt that counts , not the total end result . A cool and effective thriller . |
508,319 | 453,068 | 456,396 | 8 | almost great film about the momentary damnation of a single act | At the end of L'Infant , I knew I had seen a good movie , but it isn't until now thinking a little more about the nature of its characters and its conclusion that I like it a little more . But saying ' like it a little more ' may be a bit much , as this is a rather depressing story , as much akin to Robert Bresson films ( as other critics have noted ) as to neo-realist films ( with some differences ) . The filmmakers , winners of the Golden Palm for this work , are about as matter of fact with these people as can be made possible , and its catharsis , at first maybe a given , is touching considering what else has transpired . The story just deals with one young man , Bruno , who's one huge mistake - selling his recently born son for adoption money , later getting him back - and how it all comes back around him in st . Even as I knew these were ( seemingly ) non-professionals , and either by the choice of the filmmakers of just the actors ' inexperience there isn't much by way of fuller emotions , there is an emotional core to the film that is there . The main thing at the time that had me keep an eye closely on what would happen is how the Dardenne brothers did the storytelling , the very simple and direct style of the camera . There's likely only one or two shots in the film that are still or not in the hands of the director of photography . But after a while this was the least of my worries , as it really helped along with the bare-bones quality of the drama in the story . If I may not find the film as great as others have , particularly those who voted it in for the Golden Palm , is that there is so little emotion conveyed , even if it is subdued or sorrowful in its way , that when it does come up it has to really be not taken lightly . These are not well-off people , without much hope outside of their child , so it all becomes apart of the key issues - how do I eat , how do I just keep myself going if I can't get a job ? This question is answered well enough , and executed with enough of a grounded direction and purpose that did not cheat itself . It's not an easy film to watch at times , and at times in an inverted way I almost wondered if I was still being manipulated even through this documentary approach to this situation . But I'm very glad I saw it . |
509,548 | 453,068 | 285,005 | 8 | a crime film that focuses more on the personal side of the hit-man , of innocence shattered , and the possibility for redemption | Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive 2 : Birds is loaded with allegory and symbolism , some that works ( like having feathers continually popping up from time to time in the midst of murders , or the sometimes mentioned comet representing wonder in the unknown ) and some that doesn't ( the re-appearances of the wings on the backs of Mizuki and Shu , and the over-usage of archive clips of impoverished people in Africa to emphasize the two hit men's end goal to donate all their money to that ) . But at the core Miike has a very thematically rich film , where the insanity , shame and / or brutality of bloodshed and violence and death are contrasted with what comes before people go down the path of crime - childhood . It's maybe that one is given sight to bloody scenes in person as a child , as Mizuki does when he sees his step-father dying on the bathroom floor dialing on the phone ( one of the great images in the film ) . Or it's just that there doesn't seem to be much of a choice , or out of convenience , it's hard to say . Miike isn't out for easy answers anyway , but after a sort of bizarre meditation on the loss of the innocence we all have in youth , and how it can become uglier and without meaning . It's also , on to of this , a very good story of friendship and ties that bind that friendship going beyond professional duty or consequence . Mizuki and Shu , played by Riki Takeuchi and Sho Aikawa , also from the first DOA ( however not connected by character or plot , only in part by mood ) , are hit men for a hire , and Mizuki , who hasn't seen Shu in many years , witnesses him kill a bunch of gangsters that he was supposed to fire on with a sniper . He follows him , and it leads the both of them , as they're in hiding for suspected / actual murders and money stolen , to the island of their youth . We see flashbacks of said childhood , of fun playing on the beach ( a sweet gag , uncommon for Miike , is when one of the kids is buried in the sand and the other kids run away ) , but also the pain of separating and finding violence among them , like with Mizuki . Nostalgia comes back tenfold , as they reunite with another old friend , and Miike actually crafts sentimental scenes in this middle chunk that work , somehow , because they don't feel very cheap . Then , as if trying to cleanse themselves of their old crime-syndicate ways , they work at a playground helping out kids , and they even put on a demented play involving goofy innuendo with Cinderella and various animals . This play scene is juxtaposed with the sprawling yakuza / triad warfare that breaks out back at home , and it's here that Miike has not only , for my money , the best sequence of the film , but one of his best sequences to date . The play Mizuzki , Shu and the others put on is immature and a little crude , but shown to be all the more innocent and playful when compared to the manic , multiple murders that occur between the two gangs , as bullets fly , blood flows , and bodies contort all over the place as neither side really comes out victorious , or with many members left . It's Miike leashing out his wicked , no-holds-barred style , but also the goodness on the other side of the coin , and it doesn't get much better for a fan like myself . On the other hand , Dead or Alive 2 , following this sequence , gets weirder by the minute , and sometimes not always for the best . With the focused narrative flow given for the Mizuki / Shu story , where they decide to come back to the mainland and keep going with their killings for money in un-selfish reasons , there's another subplot involving , I'd guess , the other killers out to kill them . But it comes off muddled , and even with Miike going for enjoyably crazy images like a midget walking on stilts , or the fate of a character named Jiro , it suddenly felt as if Miike was getting off track of what was working best . But if anything , DOA 2 tops the first one by delivering the goods on substance just as well as the style . Miike is always out for experimentation , with his editing and transitions and usage of a symbolic inter-title " Where are you Going " . And isn't above getting some touching last scenes with Mizuki and Shu on the boat ( Takeuchi , by the way , is one of Miike's best actors ) , even if it feels very sudden , that could be forced by another director but through him feel compassionate to their doom . While Miike and his screenwriter don't quite get deep enough to make this a great film about lifelong criminal friends , and he's still into getting laughs out of depraved acts of violence and bizarre sex ( i . e . that giant penis in a couple of scenes ) , it's surely one of the better yakuza movies I've yet to see to go past its limitations and make it a movie where the main characters aren't just cardboard cut-outs meant for shouting dialog and dying at a clip . |
509,703 | 453,068 | 44,953 | 8 | for the most part a very fine western thriller , good characterizations , but a frustrating ending | The Naked Spur marks a good note in James Stewart's career , as , up until the very end , he seems like a real anti-hero , if hero at all . He lost his land , his wife is gone , and now all he has is money on his mind - and a bounty to catch in the form of Robert Ryan's character Ben . But at some point - namely the end - the film suddenly loses its really convincing , haunting grip on Howard Kemp's downfall : a good man with a good family that soon drifts away as he becomes a quiet , distrusting loner , doomed to collect money from the soon-to-be-departed . It's not that the sudden change in morals is startling in and of itself - people change their minds everyday , even if it is about something they got shot in the leg by Indians over or if every member aside from the Wanted's little lady is dead . But it's that there's almost a plot contrivance in it being because of Leigh's character . There's a darker undercurrent throughout the Naked Spur , mainly because we're seeing James Stewart in this kind of role of a greedy bounty hunter . But the ending tries to make everything too tidy when the chance of Kemp's fate is what is really most compelling ( the scene when he takes Ryan's character out of the water was also included in the section on westerns in Scorsese's doc on American movies ) . And yet even with this ending the Naked Spur is a worthwhile viewing , not just because of a sturdy cast - Robert Ryan , whom I usually pegged ( thanks to On Dangerous Ground mostly ) to be not very expressive as an actor , is great as a chuckling , unsympathetic scoundrel who may or may not really be a killer - but because of Anthony Mann's strong sense of simple storytelling . The tension always mounts whenever violence is on the horizon , like when the calvary-man climbs up the mountain ledge after Ben , or during a good fight ( or the threat of violence ) . Nothing more than a sharp pan or a low angle here and there makes up Mann as a real ' stylist ' , however it's this simple layer of direction that makes him a notable filmmaker of the period . Even if it's not up to his very best ( Raw Deal for example ) , it has some real brains and guts within its conventional innards . And if you are a Stewart fan , you might find this to be one of his most interesting performances in the 50's : going past a specific good-guy image , here is a man compromised by fate and hope for better , even if it's by the pull of a gun . |
508,318 | 453,068 | 64,107 | 8 | memorable moments in a good animated movie | This is another of the few Charlie Brown specials / movies that still sticks around in my mind . In fact , there are some scenes that , for one reason or another , still seem as fresh as ever . It's not the best of the specials , but it is a very good way to introduce one not terribly familiar to the Peanuts world because it makes use of almost all of the main characters and their trials , tribulations , quirks , and gifts . Like Charlie Brown's inadequacy with flying a kite , or Lucy's imperative to mess with the kid's head at most turns , or Linus's compulsive need for his blue blanket , or even Schroder's knack at the piano . Some of these revelations of character are charming and funny . The animators also bring some interest and imagination to otherwise unnecessary ( story-wise ) scenes , like Schroder's piano sequence ( as a kid I was a little perplexed but not now ) and Snoopy's wonderful ice skating scene in the city . The plot is more for the kids than adults as Charlie Brown competes at the one thing that looks like his knack , the spelling bee , reaching to the highest competition and a chance to make himself no longer an outsider . Some of the songs accompanying the film are less than great and hamper on the amusing scenes . However this doesn't exclude how entertaining the special can be , with every spelling-bee scene worth the watch . And the conclusion is wholly satisfying for anyone in the audience , not a happy one but not compromised either . |
510,414 | 453,068 | 64,002 | 8 | fun and incendiary , it's a nifty flashback and more than a little resonant | You've seen the kid with the long hair who's told ' cut it ' , and won't . And then there's a misunderstanding like the one in the story of Alice's Restaurant , where it's a weird downward spiral where garbage , the law , and Vietnam get intertwined . The actual dramatization of the events that are detailed in the now traditional Thanksgiving album ( only because , I guess , Arlo is having Thanksgiving dinner at Alice's ) is about as faithful as imaginable , but I'd say the scenes earlier on , when Arlo has just come into town and isn't able to really stay at any pad for too long due to his long hair and his inability to conform to playing music right in classes . These are subtle jabs at the outcast of the times - not simply as a ' hippie ' , as Arlo Guthrie is a little too folksy to be a typical hippie , albeit not too far removed for Woodstock - and as a mostly one-sided take on the issue of the ' hippies ' , it doesn't demonize one side , while not making bones about showing the upright citizens as those who are close-minded . Filled with some great tunes , and an attitude to film-making by Arthur Penn that reflects its creator in a somewhat lighter , though no less socially conscious mind-set than Bonnie & Clyde ( except less disguised ) , Alice's Restaurant is imperfect entertainment and a glimpse of the period that will appeal to anyone at all interested or remember all-too-well the socio-political troubles . It's a capsule , but not too shabby with age ; plays probably as the first side of a double-billing with 1969's Easy Rider . |
508,835 | 453,068 | 74,860 | 8 | not exactly " safe " , as it's attained more of a cult-status than a full-blown mainstream success | Marathon Man worked best for me seeing it really late at night , all the lights off , almost close to the twilight hours . It was here that the film was able to put forward its full power of thrills and chills , so to speak , but also with a very thick , icy comedy to some moments of it . It's also got Dustin Hoffman who , along with his turn in Straw Dogs , has rarely since gone to lengths in a thriller to really work hard for the material . This time he plays a guy who is maybe closer to himself - aside from all the running of course - but thrust into an incredible situation involving a mad German doctor ( Laurence Olivier , in his most disturbing role to date , maybe his most memorable by contemporary standards ) , after his brother is killed . It's also a case of a movie being much more memorable for little moments than for the overall . A romantic side-bar between Hoffman and his female counterpart in the film isn't nearly as interesting as the villain dilemma . Little moments with Roy Scheider ring off well . But more than anything for me , aside from the obvious " is it safe ? " scene ( where torture got to be its most wrenching and harrowing as any until Reservoir Dogs in an American film ) , is the beginning of the film . After we get the obligatory montage of Hoffman running , Schlesinger and writer William Goldman thrust the viewer into an almost completely absurd yet very real and horrific conflict between a German driver and a Jewish driver on a road in Manhattan , and its in equal turns darkly funny , cringe-worthy , and daring in being as exciting as it is shocking . Both drivers , with their rickety cars and rage amplified by the racism that gears up - leading them into their ends - don't seem like actors , but more like people Schlesinger picked up off the street . This even tops the big climax at the reservoir for me as being a wholly successful , near-perfect scene , and about as excellent as anything in Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy . It's maybe less than great due to some of it early on being a bit too conventional , but when the thrilling aspects of it do kick in , like seeing Hoffman really having to run for his life , it can hook a viewer in not expecting much . Marathon Man also marks as one of the rare successes of Robert Evans career as a producer . |
508,427 | 453,068 | 82,639 | 8 | We are professionals . . . | Ah , punk rock , how it came , saw , went , came back again , and maybe another time , and is now in so many varieties that one could just spend an entire semester in college studying all of the bands that have come from the early to mid 70s and beyond . Ladies and Gentlemen , the Fabulous Stains , is a satirical document of the punk rock scene , but it works better as just flat-out punk and / or new-wave rock than as satire . The writer tries for a Network approach : the media latches on to The Fabulous Stains , a trio girl group started by Corrine Burns ( aka Third-Degree Burns ) with her sister and cousin , who aren't very talented but have Corrine as their wont-take-no-s lead singer with crazy hair and a " I don't put out " slogan while wearing skimpy clothes . Because apparently every single punk girl watches the nightly news and believes every single word they say , suddenly the Stains have a HUGE fan-base of lemming-like girls who latch onto every word of their song " Waste my time " and , soon after , their rip-off cover of the Looters ' " The Professionals " , the real Brit punk rock group touring as the lead group following ( original headliner ) aging rock group's bitter demise . The script takes the point of view that it's probably as much the audience's fault , if not more-so , than the exploitation by the media , which was not uncommon to happen to certain bands ( it even happened to the Sex Pistols to a degree , though the bulk of hype came about after they broke up ) . This part is clever but also not clever by half ; we've seen this quick rise-and-fall story before and there's not a whole lot that's fresh that's brought to the table creatively , except for the cynical aspect that if you look pretty and bad and don't give a bleep you'll make it with a rip-off single that most of the audience doesn't understand anyway . And yet for whatever flaws the film might have director Lou Adler aptly displays , amusingly and with a deft skill at capturing young-and-old rocker angst , life in the ever changing rock scene and specifically punk rock . While it's a given a band will be kick-ass if two members of the Pistols and Paul Simonen of the Clash are in it , as they are in the Looters with a young Ray Winstone as ornery front-man ( one of his most compelling performances as a " tough " guy ) , it will have some punk rock cred . But very young Diane Lane and even younger Laura Dern bring some credibility of their own , and open up another sight for aficionados of the attitude and mood of punk rock , much like the attitude and mood of film-noir more than a real genre , is punk rock for girls . Inspiration for the likes of the Go-Go's can be seen here as " birds " as Winstone says can rock as hard , or just with enough spirit , while also not being too full of crap . That's the interesting thing too in Fabulous Stains , what makes it more interesting as a punk rock flick than a satire : when it's at its best , like Suburbia did as well , we get a personal and sad look at wayward youth with nothing else but music , be that they can't read like Winstone's Billy or just have a parent that's dead like Corrine's father ( " Died in war , beep , got lot of money , beep " ) . It's a fine little nugget of music / movie lore . |
508,937 | 453,068 | 82,484 | 8 | saga of the ape-men | Quest for Fire straddles a line that is somewhere in the range of nature documentary and sillier caveman films of the olden days of B movies . There's luckily more intelligence and storytelling power that keeps things from turning into a silly epic , and the action that occurs is supported by characters we do kind of care about . It goes without saying that despite the attempts by the filmmakers ( and including Anthony Burgess ) to create a dialog of sorts for these 80 , 000 BC homo sapiens and neanderthals , that the power of the film lies in the simple intent of what's said , or felt with the " dialog " , than what one word might mean or another . As a purely visual experience , it's pretty good , if not really ' masterpiece ' worthy . It's a minor cult item , to put it another way . In fact , it's the strength of incorporating a linear storyline into what is essentially a near plot less tale ( what plot can there be with a quest for fire when it's not in the usual conventional mode of a ' quest ' ? ) of a group of homo sapiens at odds with all the forces of nature - animals , neanderthals , rival ' gangs ' , weather , quicksand . There is a kind of ' romance ' that blooms between one character ( I forget who played him ) and Rae Dawn Chong's talkative , happy but strong character , and the problems of her former tribe in developing the earliest stages of a tribal sacrifice and prison and whatnot . It's kind of touching to see the filmmakers have the faith in the intelligence of the audience to follow both threads : naturalistic caveman adventures with a " conventional " romance story . This isn't to say , however , this is for young viewers . Its R rating is pretty well deserved ; there's lots of sex , even a caveman rape of sorts , and lots of murders and death , including one shocking one by a bear ( it's not so much the bear itself but what immediately precedes it ) . But for teens and up it should be pretty intriguing viewing that actually hasn't dated very much . It isn't to say you can't see its 1981 wear and tear ( i . e . certain close-ups of mammoths scream it ) , but its power lies in its simple , primal power of storytelling . |
510,081 | 453,068 | 67,324 | 8 | a very sad but rewarding experience about those who can feel but can't see or hear | Land of Silence and Darkness was Werner Herzog's first documentary . He still had a little bit of ways to go in terms of his style in a straightforward mode ; the same year he made an experimental abstract documentary called Fata Morgana that showed him already a master of " directing landscapes " and getting a mood and setting that was unique . With LOS & D it's a little different - it's a little like the German equivalent of one of those touching documentaries that are on HBO every now and then . He's mostly there not to make any grand visual statements or ubiquitous metaphors , but to capture this insulated world where people survive against all obstacles . It's in the Herzog vein of thought and execution , of showing painfully human beings who've been unfortunately by no fault of their own into a fringe group where the act of communication has to be an obstacle itself , that the film is most powerful . Fini Straubinger is one of those gentle , courageous souls that deserves to be shown more in film , and Herzog has her pegged as a good subject - someone who communicates to those who have none ( dead-blind boys from birth who barely know how to swallow let alone learn the alphabet or ' good ' or ' bad ' ) all through hand-pointing . While Herzog lays on the orchestral strings over scenes that could be silent themselves , the people speak volumes about how the spirit of humanity and the goodness of human beings can live on in the right circumstances . There's a subtext that Herzog reaches at well of the neglect the people have been served , of some people like the woman who used to use braille but forgot and are put wrongfully in sanitariums , when they could be in the right care functional up to a point in society . So there is that part that is a running theme in most of Herzog's work that's striking , the society at large with the stragglers , those that are just trying to keep up . And out of this he makes at least a few moments , without much interference , into little moments of documentary poetry , like the boy who is ambivalent but finally does go around in the pool and feels ecstatic about being under a shower . Or the simple composition of the young man who can barely eat a banana , but merely the slightest bit of work from Fini gets him reacting . Wedging on the line between unsentimental and sentimental is a hard thing to do with a group like this , and on a first feature-length documentary Herzog tries and for the most part makes it a brave turn on a subject neglected and bright and moving . It makes sense he would say that this is the one film he's made in decades that he wants to be available most ; ironically it is overshadowed by the more astounding ( if more crowd-pleasing ) work with Grizzly Man and Little Dieter . Even if it isn't a great film , it is a must-see , which is rare in documentary film . |
508,274 | 453,068 | 102,175 | 8 | one of those cases where the acting and direction ( most of the time ) is better than the script | Spike Lee's films are consistent in one respect , even for the lesser ones , which is that they're always pressing buttons . In the case of Jungle Fever , it's another work where messages come out more than from a guy on a postal route . But that's perhaps part of the point , where such points come in many forms and sometimes like a barrage . This time , it doesn't completely gel as well as Lee's Do the Right Thing , which also held anger , contemplation , humor , and pathos about city life . But this time it's also a tale of sexual morays , where both white and black sides have their share of racism and prejudices , and at the core is a story of outcasts . The interesting thing then about Jungle Fever is how Lee's own decisions in casting and in the unique way he shoots his subjects and implements a subjective take more often then not trump what comes out in his script . Then again , maybe it's close to being inevitable with how the elements mix , and at the end there are some parts of the film that are the best that Lee's done so far as a filmmaker . Wesley Snipes and Anabella Sciora star as the said ' jungle fever ' couple , the man being married with a kid , of all things to a woman who is also light-skinned and with her own ' issues ' , and the woman having an ' old-fashioned ' Italian father . When their affair becomes known to both sides , the costs come out and they both become outcasts . And at the end of all of the points that are made in Jungle Fever by Lee , even through the ones that are pounded and ( of the period ) quite topical and prominent , this notion of society and culture being the biggest culprit is hard to ignore . This main point is made very well by Lee's script , and even as sometimes the script doesn't have the best dialog or lines a little ' too easy ' , if that makes any sense , there are many scenes which do support this to the fullest . And as the job of any good director is to cast right , this film is filled with a who's-who's of professionals and character actors . One could go on as to who appears in the film , from Anthony Quinn to Tim Robbins to Ossie Davis to John Turturro , and they all fit their parts and contribute to adding a level of fascination in each . When the less desirable aspects peak in even more , it only adds to what ends up working on screen . Sometimes the script , as mentioned , is a little derivative and trying to touch ALL bases , with a but the film is more often than not alive due to ( some of ) the music at times . Maybe the most genius pieces of casting were Samuel L . Jackson , in ( arguably ) one of his very best performances , and Halle Berry . In a sense there are similar points made in the " A " storyline and the " B " one , where there is some extra interest in the supporting characters and their connection with the main ones . Jackson and Berry are crack-heads , and outcasts , and to their own degree have the same crap end of the stick as the leads to . Among many scenes where confrontations reach a great emotional intensity , the best comes with Snipes going into the crack-house and seeing just the purest dark side of society , what really does bring people down . In the end , Jungle Fever is one of the Lee movies that is worth seeing , that may prove on a repeat viewing to bring even more thought than previous . It's energetic , somber , occasionally funny and shocking in equal measure . |
510,613 | 453,068 | 60,305 | 8 | not bad at all , actually very good and meticulously structured heist movie , but not great | I had seen nearly everything that is readily available from Jean-Pierre Melville in the United States by the time I got to Le Deuxieme soufflé , which may be part of why I didn't respond overwhelmingly to it . After such challenging , methodical and precisely existential crime masterpieces as Le Samourai , Le Cercle Rouge , Bob le flambeur and the underrated Le Doulos , this one just seemed to not pack the same kind of punch that the others did . Again , this may be the fault on the viewer for seeing this last among his mostly thriller-oriented oeuvre , but perhaps it's also some of Melville's fault too ; again and again , as the dedicated and ruthless auteur that he was ( one of the great French directors I would argue ) , he kept coming back to men in trench-coats with grim expressions figuring out on both sides - criminal and detective - of how to plot the next move or , for the former , how to keep from the fatalism of the plot . Which , for Melville , is something that comes second nature . The difference , perhaps , in this case is that the length ( a whopping two and a half hours , longer than both The Red Circle and Army of Shadows ) and the amount of details in the structure of the story ( i . e . what happened on such and such a day made this happened could've been snipped , albeit I can't pinpoint to which ) bog down some of the more successful aspects to the picture . Which is also to say that for all of its minor misgivings , Le Deuxieme soufflé ( or , simply , The Second Breath ) is near-classic Melville , with nail-bitingly tense suspense scenes like the opening escape from the prison and the latter heist sequence - somewhat more obvious and less coolly ambitious as Red Circle . There's the amazing cinematography as well , a trademark of Melville and his crew to make things gritty but smooth in precision and style , and the performances from Paul Meurisse as the Detective ( maybe my favorite performance of the picture just for the intelligence he imbues in the character ) , and Lino Ventura as one of the quintessential Melville anti-heroes , Gu , the convict who wants in on the big 200 million heist . And even as it could be Melville's most " talky " picture after Bob le flambeur ( which is relative to how pleasantly light , or how seemingly sparse , his films are with dialog ) , when the characters speak it's to the point of with some quotable spunk to them . There's an icy , unspoken angst in Melville's world of criminals , almost questioning but still true to the notion of the ' policier ' , where you'd want the criminals to get away with it if the detective wasn't so doggone determined all the time . It's another fine piece of film-making from the director , just not an all-time-top flick - more along the lines of Un flic . |
508,406 | 453,068 | 500,178 | 8 | Not the best season , but . . . | This is actually the third season of the hit HBO show Spawn , but it lacks at times some of the power and vigor of the first two seasons . There seems to be more of an emphasis on plot lines that don't have as much significance - as in for example the Billy Kincaid plot line in season 1 - for Spawn's fate . But if I have to choose between this and some crap show like That 70's Show , I'll say bring on the hellish gore , drama , sex , and intense vibes . In this season , Spawn continues his trip to get rid of his demons , at any cost ( despite some mis-shootings in Wanda land ) . Some good things , like the side plot with detectives Burke and Twitch and the guest appearances ( Eric Roberts , Robert Forester , Ming Na-Wen , Jennifer Jason Leigh ) . Great series , but knowing it might be the last , I didn't get enraptured as I did in 97 and 98 . |
510,579 | 453,068 | 473,444 | 8 | sometimes a grandiose historical epic , but mostly a lurid , totally absorbing royal family drama ; one of Yimou's best | Even with flaws and all - and there are a couple at least here in Curse of the Golden Flower - I can only think of a handful of filmmakers that have shot to the moon like this and gotten away with it . Zhang Yimou tried it before with Hero and , for me , sort of didn't pull through completely successfully ( not that it hasn't gained its share of fans , and House of Flying Daggers was actually incredible ( both for being able to pull off its wacky high-flying action scenes and scoring as a romantic drama ) and the top of the pops in Yimou's big-budget melodramas . ' Golden Flower ' comes pretty close , if not totally , to ' Flying Daggers ' successes , even if it's possibly even more entertaining and acted on a level that goes to the lengths of emotional absurdity . I don't think I could ever see an American action-epic with the kinds of dark , secret , and lost characters in a film like this , and while I would say the action sequences and battles in said Western counterparts might make a little more sense , the pageantry and power of the visuals strikes this one a bit more extraordinary . I wish I could put the plot into context , but it might take too long , and it's already provided on the main page of the site . Suffice to say though it's a mouthful to try and explain it all in one piece ; simply put , we're given a tragedy as it unfolds more so on the personal level up until the last half hour , where Emperor Ping ( Chow Yun Fat ) and his Empress Phoenix ( Gong Li ) are in a crippled marriage , and hidden behind the rituals and strict decorum and everyday mercies of circumstance there's hatred on both sides , with the Emperor plotting his wife's murder via poison in the medicine she drinks , and once discovered her plot against him through various channels . There's also the Freudian ties between the sons - two from both of them and one from the Emperor and a previous woman ( who will be of significance to much of the picture ) - including not only a liaison between mother and step-son , but between a half-brother and half-sister . In between an amazing bout that occurs with quasi-Chinese ninjas storming the Phyisican and his wife's home , including grappling hooks and chaos and a chase , and a massively epic battle sequence in the Emperor's enormous stretch of royal grounds , there are many scenes that are intimately attuned for the actors , and pitched just high enough to make it delirious fun and sobering in sadness . Sure , it's over-the-top stuff that one might read in another permutation in a trashy supermarket novel , but Yimou is smart enough to let the actors take this material to work much better than one would expect . Gong Li , really , is the centerpiece here as the Empress torn by a life of diligent servitude , only to find that her long-standing sickness is not getting any better ( there are a few scenes of power where she almost breaks down in cold sweats and shaking fits ) , and her allegiances become all the more torn , twisted and fragmented by the poison doing bad things to her mind , and to her tryst with her step-son , and to her intentions towards her wretched husband . It's a great performance , worthy of Luchino Visconti , whom I thought of a couple of times watching the picture in terms of comparing operatic to operatic . Chow Yun Fat , too , is fantastic at being the man who corrupts not necessarily really his control over his empire , but that he can't tell through the third person referrals from his children what's really going on . The scenes of revelations during the last half hour , which include him showing the true state of his hair ( a real wicked moment ) , are some of the best of the film . The rest of the cast , too , does pretty well for themselves , even if one or two of them ( mostly the youngest son ) don't take too much to the over-the-top styling . And the over-the-top , sensationalism of the picture does have its drawbacks , too . I'll need to see the film again to totally understand things in terms of the action set-pieces , like which side was which ( I did finally get a sense of what happened by film's end , of course , but like with Hero I felt a little boggled ) . The music is also monotonous from time to time , albeit with touches of grace and just-right flamboyance . And there might be almost TOO much to put into suspension of disbelief with some of the dysfunctions in the family chain ( s ) , like with Prince Wan and his little girl-on-the-side who's really more than either would think of to be . But I really put myself into not just the operatic intonations , the Shakespeare-goes-Eastern story and characters which highlight the madness and decay in royalty , but the epic scope of the picture as well . The costume design , up for an Oscar , is a small marvel , though the production and art design ranks up with the best I've seen in the decade , where the colors are more than lush , as if out of some artist's fever-dream interpretation of what the insides of a palace look like . And Yimou's camera moves along this world - and gets the battle scenes - with the efficiency and skill that he's been building towards since Hero . Even if what you see might seem all too ridiculous , you likely can't take your eyes away . Is ' Golden Flower ' almost too morbid ? Perhaps , and the characters run the risk of veering off into being cheap in its melodrama . This being said , it ends up working on all of its levels , more or less , and it thrills while it pokes into the psychologies of its magisterial characters , and it ends on a very stirring note . |
508,799 | 453,068 | 60,315 | 8 | if you can ignore the wretched dubbing - one of the worst outside of Godzilla - it's an enjoyable whirlwind of a spaghetti western | Sergio Corbucci is not really a great director , but if I hear his name I perk up in a genre-geek sort of way . Having seen a couple other movies by him , Navajo Joe and Il Grande Silenzio , I knew what to expect with Django , which is some of the same only ( hopefully ) more violent and serious and convoluted . Actually , the story in Django isn't too convoluted , just if you don't pay close attention , which is easy once or twice . It doesn't have the weird , cool energy of Grande Silenzio or the camp of Navajo Joe . But it stands on its own as a solid entry - the most well-known of all spaghetti westerns in Europe ( yes , more than Leone , who was also a God there ) , and , well . . . if you watch the dubbed version from Anchor Bay video and come out unscathed , more power to you . Franco Nero is in his iconic role as the title character ( sing it with me , " Djangoooo ! " ) , a man dragging a coffin into town and with some payback to deliver against a man named Jackson , and is actually caught up in two warring factions : a group of red-suited KKK members , and a crazy group of Mexicans , with women thrown from here to there and in-between . Django , of course , doesn't want to get involved with that , but he does , and it becomes a whole big thing not too unfamiliar to those who've seen their share of Leone pictures . In fact , this was the first in a whole franchise of Django - some official and most not , leading up to this year with Miike's amazing remake - and I could likely see this as being the best without having seen one other . It's just a guess , I could be wrong . Certainly it would be hard to top the body count , which nears 150 ( or maybe it's more ) , if not all of the performances . Then again , it's the look of most of the characters that becomes more and more striking as the movie goes on , including one snarling gunman with bad teeth and big gums ( I forget his name ) , and the stone-faced Jackson himself who Django has the chance to kill early on but leaves alive ( somewhat bewilderingly , then again there would be no film and less conflict for otherwise amazing comic-book gunslinger Django ) . What Corbucci can deliver alongside his cast of mostly bit players and hamming-uppers , is a kind of tough but loose style ; he won't go to extremes like Leone with a close-up or a far-away angle , he'll just zoom and veer right into the action and get all of the bloody , crazy killings right up close and fast as possible . He's a good exploitation director and a decent stylist , with a little artistry and a warped form of professionalism . It must be fun and / or rough work being on his set . So , for any and all genre fans , spaghetti western or just crazy-action film , you'll see why Django gets its rep , for better or for worse , usually the better . It's sometimes sloppy and occasionally not altogether well-made , but it soaks up its audience with its character as he kills quick with his huge cannon of a machine gun and has a final scene at a cemetery that is in the books somewhere as a mark of a true bad-ass . Just make sure , for the love of Pete , to try and steer clear of the English dubbing , as it's a mind-numbing experience ( or just hilarious too ) . |
510,830 | 453,068 | 373,889 | 8 | one of the best Harry Potters yet - much better than you might have heard ! | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a gripping main story involving the continuing peril for Harry and his arch nemesis , the dark lord Voldermort ( Fiennes , as sinister as possible ) , but what surprised me a little was seeing that there's even a kind of political subtext to the story at Hogwarts . This is personified by the ministry's new professor-cum-control freak Umbridge ( Oscar nominee Imelda Staunton ) , who teaches theory instead of practice , and is every ultra-harsh , practically laughable disciplinarian you've ever had the horror to have over your heads . Odd for some other " kids " movies ( save for Happy Feet ) , but for the Harry Potter universe the foreboding presence of the ministry makes the feeling of the dread that Potter has to face that much more pronounced , as a feeling of helplessness spreads out amongst everyone in the society despite the message from the messenger that ' everything's fine ' . Staunton is perfect in the role of Umbridge , and helps to make the character as part of the ranks of those played by Alan Rickman ( ? ) , Gary Oldman ( not really ) , and Ralph Fiennes ( for sure ) as one of the most dastardly figures in the Potter universe . Though she may even be more chilling , even as a momentary figure , because of what she represents for those who need to practice magic first hand . The sense of rebellion with the Hogwarts school is a solid facet for the Order of the Phoenix storyline , and except for a tiny sub-plot involving Harry and Cho Chang , and some of the visuals involved when the kids finally take over during a big exam ( kind of like a super-magical version of the Another Brick in the Wall music video ) , it's a great balance for the much darker elements at work . There's another facet , aside from strong performances ( Radcliffe , by the way , is really coming into his own more than ever ) , which is that David Yates - primarily a director of British television - imbues a lot of extraordinary imagery here . Mostly , because , he makes what could be another ' kids ' movie , as the first two films were , and makes a gradual progression from the third and fourth installments into the realm of a sort of pop-surrealism ; the image of Voldermort at the train station moving his neck around could be out of a stark painting , same for the " mystery " room that serves for the climax of the film . It's much more sophisticated than one might expect , albeit some typical flashbacks used in the realm of the conceit that Voldermort screws around with Potter's mind a lot , and it's certainly the first time since ' Azkaban ' that the direction and the script are at levels of quality that one might not expect in a big summer blockbuster . There's nuance in this struggle of good vs evil , and it's worth seeing it in the theater if only on that level . And as foreboding and cryptic and always with the ominous foreshadowing - unless you've read Half-Blood Prince ( from which I've heard , as I haven't read any of the books , is even darker than any of the others combined , with even truly disturbing imagery ) - as Phoenix can get , there's still a sense of it being a crowd-pleaser . I liked the scenes where Hagard shows Potter and the others his half-brother , a huge ogre that marks as the least essential character story-wise but is a lot of fun to watch , and the scenes with Potter and the others in their secret training rooms gives the movie a sense of purpose for the audience to follow along . In a strange way there is some hope in Order of the Phoenix , though one needs to find it , and not in the way that the one " we don't mention " would go about it . |
508,748 | 453,068 | 425,598 | 8 | misleading ( thought not disappointing ) if you're looking for a Chappelle comedy movie . . . | . . . However as a rap-concert movie , it's one of the better ones I've seen in quite a while . It works for a few reasons , though for some it may not work as well as for others . Basically , if you're coming into this expecting Chappelle doing more of his stand-up & / or sketches , you'll wonder how you could've been misled ( not that his moments on screen don't elicit enough laughs for satisfaction , at least for a Chappelle admirer like myself ) - in fact many white audience members going into the film walked out of screenings . If this is due to the film-making style or something wrong on the end of director Michel Gondry , or just not caring for the rap and hip-hop , is up for debate . But considering the kind of mix of better-than-usual rap music , solid cinema verier style camera-work by Gondry and his small crew , and the fine bits of interview footage , it's actually not a bad film if you go into it knowing what you'll get . For some it may be one of the film events of the season & / or year . One reason it worked is that - and this is of course a subjective part of seeing Block Party - the musical acts are better than most of the rap and hip-hop currently heard on radio and seen on the music channels . Led by an actual band playing music as opposed to all beat machines , the groups ( of which are Chappelle's own favorites , and some of which already appeared on the hit or miss musical segments of his show ) bring out solid beats , and the rappers or singers are not off-putting or ridiculous . The highlights for me were with Kanye West ( with a cool , powerful mix of himself and a school band for ' Jesus Walks ' ) , The Roots , and the Fugee's ' Killing Me Softly ' . There are also some cool , loose moments with Chappelle and some people backstage where he jams and riffs and jokes ( funny jokes too , albeit for the musician's expense more than for the audience ) . For someone like myself losing interest in more of the ultra-violent , idiotic and over-indulgent rap music of the day , it was not unpleasant at all to get dropped back into it with acts that were fresh and interesting ( not that there aren't some mis-steps , Dead Prez and Common not being some of the highlights for me ) . The other thing that made the film work though is Gondry's natural eye with his lens , as he just stands by getting down the attitudes , the emotions and little bits of life in the midst of this huge spectacle . There isn't anything outstanding in his style like with the Maysles brothers or DA Pennebaker in terms of capturing the music in action , and sometimes his focus strays to people on camera who take up a little too much time . But for the most part ( with some exceptions of little moments that just don't work ) his attention to the rhythm of a film , and the rhythm of film led by music - he is one of the most artistically dominant forces in music videos of the past ten or so years - is focused just right . This style also compliments Chappelle , who has a laid back kind of way of talking to people , but with a sense of humor that cuts the chase . Some of the best parts though of his moments on screen aren't expected , improvised , like the James Brown bit on stage , or his obscure ability to play two specific jazz songs on piano , or even his more juvenile jokes in jamming . In short , it's a side of Chappelle you might not usually see at times , or with Gondry , and it all gels together for the sake of the audience that showed up for the show . Nothing too pretentious , and entertaining enough to keep those interested in their seats . |
510,208 | 453,068 | 829,160 | 8 | maybe not long enough , but the history of independent film is too expansive anyway | I was glad I saw Edge of Outside , and I know if I was just starting to become a full on film-buff it would be very helpful in knowing which directors who not only worked independently of the studio system , but those who were able to be individualistic while still being in some sort of system nonetheless . As someone who knows almost all the filmmakers talked about or interviewed here , however , it's nothing new . Of course it's neat to hear about the early silent independents , like DW Griffith and Stroheim and Keaton , and it's always fine to hear the gushing over Cassavetes great body of work . But it's both a shame and a given that it would be only an hour long to cover such subject matter . It's for turner classic movies , so it's not like a PBS documentary special in its way of almost going too long into getting into subject matter . So at only an hour , the one assembling the footage and interviews here probably had TOO much to work with , and thus had to whittle down to the essentials - the early silents I mentioned , plus Orson Welles , Cassavetes , Sam Fuller , Tarantino , Roger Corman , David Lynch , the influence of French & Italian cinema , and a few others amid the crowd ( one of them the near forgotten Henry Jaglom ) . For what it's worth , the interviews - particularly by Scorsese , Bogdanovich , and at least one of the historians - are interesting . Though what is utilized is really just a brief rundown that could have gone more in-depth into each decade and each wave of films and how independents still struggle amid the biggest corporate landscape imaginable for filmmakers today . It's like a brief synopsis , though one that is still appreciated if for nothing else giving glimpses of great and struggling careers to those who may not know much about the likes of Fuller or Cassavetes or the real struggles of Welles . |
509,704 | 453,068 | 381,849 | 8 | as solid , violent , and sophisticated a Western you'll see this year | The best western I've seen since the Proposition - which might not mean a lot since it's been a year since that film came out . But while Mangold's film may not have the existential resonance and eerie quality of the Aussie feature , we do have a better-than-average feat of genre film-making , loaded with great machismo presence ( and heart ) , and a feat of storytelling uncompromised by muddled metaphors or Leone copycatting . It's very violent and without too much hope for the characters on the surface by film's end . It looks as though things have suddenly , surprisingly turned against the conventions ( whether this is different from the original I can't say having not seen the 1957 film version yet ) . But underneath , there's a moral code that is evoked brilliantly . The premise is as simple as they come for a story based on a short - originally written by Elmore Leonard early in his career - for a pulp western magazine . Gang outlaw Ben Wade ( Russell Crowe , his best performance in quite a few years , even if he could potentially play it in his sleep ) is captured without the help of his posse ( with icy fast-shooter Ben Foster as second in command ) , and is sent to be hung for numerous crimes and murders in Yuma . Dan Evans ( Christian Bale , terrific as always , usually in silence ) is a rancher who is in danger of losing his land if he doesn't get enough money together , and so takes the job of being part of the group ( among them an old and weary and hard-ass Peter Fonda as Bryon McElroy ) . It's a tale where good versus evil should be well defined , but this where the conventions sort of get muddled , which is really what starts to make 3 : 10 to Yuma more than just a star vehicle or blockbuster of the week . Beneath the veneer of each man lies truths that haunt them , and have made either one into how they are in the present . Wade is calculating and evil , but somehow has a level of honor beneath his countless sins ; watch him tell of reading the bible cover to cover as a kid after getting it from his mother , and then never seeing her again . Or how Evans got his war wound , how he hides that simple fact from his children , even from his son ( William Lerman , maybe the most limited performance as his sole motivation is ' I'll go with you ' , though still does it well enough to act with the best of them ) . There's some level of understanding that forms between Wade and Evans , and amid the countless gun battles and wounds faced against Apaches , train workers , and the whole town of Contention , loaded with gun power , as the train is soon on its way , neither man can ever quite give in , aside from what the end goal entails . Mangold directs this picture like a pro in the tradition of someone like Howard Hawks - a few really good scenes ( the climactic battle through the town , a dinner scene between captured Wade and the Evans family , and maybe the scene between Wade and Evans in the hotel room , among maybe one other I can't pin down ) , no bad ones . It's interesting to read the only substantial criticism of this 2007 version of 3 : 10 to Yuma being too long , where the original was just right in length . But nothing seems to be fattening to the storyline here , and the script keeps things moving along at a very tense pace while never stopping for a moment of characterization , like one of the campfire scenes . And giving enough breathing room for actors like Crowe and Bale allow for them to do what they do best . In this near-classic feature that works as a very respecting throwback to tragic tales of doomed men in the guise of typical Hollywood product , while working finitely as a pure action movie for today's audiences , 3 : 10 to Yuma is taut , precise and superlative as a " guy " flick . |
508,918 | 453,068 | 36,027 | 8 | not as scary as Cat People , but probably just as creepy , with a pure voodoo mood | I Walked with a Zombie shouldn't be too misleading for today's post-modern horror geeks : this won't have the trademark biting and flesh eating , or running for that matter , when it comes to the un-dead . In this case it's more " old-school " . Jacques Tourner , and his producing partner / collaborator Val Lewton , cooked up this film as their follow-up to Cat People , and while it's no B-movie masterpiece like the former , it provides above all else some effective , oddly evocative imagery to make it near essential for admirers of old horror films . It's a Jane Eyre type story ( I would believe , as I've never read the book ) as a nurse comes to a small island to look after a woman who's been shocked by a terrible fever - so the family says - and can't speak and is on a motorized sort of functioning physical capacity . But one night the nurse sees a figure move in the tower , and sees it is her - their introduction of course - and it's probably the most effective scary scene of the lot , in the conventional sense . But from here on in it's more fascinating than really traditionally spooky . The best bits bring out what is unknown in the ' other ' , which in this case is voodoo witchcraft and superstitions , which involve dances , mojo-dolls ( the mojo-doll specifically for the zombie Jessica , played very well by the actress ) , and lots of scattered objects that spell some of the eeriest signs in any movie . My favorite scene was when Betsy was taking Jessica to where those damned drums were beating on and on , and first we see a dark figure almost in silhouette ( this guy , with crazy eyes done by make-up or some other means , is the only real significant human threat as far as zombies go in the film , and is controlled by voice ) . Then we see a cow's skull , then a dead dog hanging from a tree , and a human skull surrounded by a circle of bones . It's not exactly scary , but this compounded by the exquisite camera-work , gliding alongside Jessica and Betsy as the go along through the field , make things so creepy and even dream-like that it's worth seeing the film alone for that and the voodoo . The actual plot , with the stuffy man-of-the-house who tries to deny there's anything wrong with his wife , and the mysterious madame of the house , and the drunken brother , aren't quite as interesting even if they are essential to the plot . What they're good for is a baseline for all the other ominous things to pop out , and Tourner and Lewton milk it for all its worth . Only the ending , with the narration switching over from Betsy to some man , is a letdown as far as how its done , not so much in what it means for the characters in the long run . Bottom line , I Walked with a Zombie is very good for its time , and has many scenes and moments that hold up very well by today's horror standards ( and , dare I say it , there's a better depiction of voodoo here , as exploitive as it leans towards , than the crude depictions in Italian horror films like Fulci's best film Zombie ) . |
510,425 | 453,068 | 465,551 | 8 | minor quibbles aside , this is one of the sharpest tragic-comedies this year , certainly regarding obsession and psychological mind-games | Rarely have I seen Dame Judi Dench on top of her game as with Notes on a Scandal . She's usually a good show in any film she's in , but here she's perfect for the role of Barbara , who has been a professional teacher in a high school all her life , and is well respected , but can't seem to get enough of her attachments . There's a first one to a woman we won't see during the course of the film ( chiefly because she put a retraining order on Barbara ) , and then enters in Sheba ( Cate Blanchett , beautiful as ever , which may be a small part of the point ) , who becomes a focal point of attention for Barbara . And then when she discovers a terrible secret regarding her new ' friend ' - an affair Sheba's having with one of her 15 year old students - there's a subtle form of blackmail that comes into play , and that becomes a further fantasy in her notebooks . Throughout all of this Dench never breaks from making this a totally believable , broken , but very solid woman who's gone through a life of misery only to want to seek happiness on the other side . One might almost feel sorry for her , in the end , if she wasn't such a dingbat . It might be also my favorite Dench performance I've seen to date ( albeit I'm not all up on her complete catalog of work ) . She's not only convincing on the level of the obviousness of her character , vindictive but sweet , sensitive but cunning , and always with that underlying wit that the British have even in the most dire of circumstances , and I couldn't see anyone else playing her after a while . But it's not just her that makes Notes on a Scandal worthwhile . The screenplay by Patrick Marber , from what must be an equally absorbing and humanistic book , is sharp and intelligent in ways that American filmmakers wish they could make mind-fer movies like today . There's understatement here and there that undercuts some scenes , like when Sheba has to confess to Barbara after being caught with the boy the first time , a very slight tension each knows on each side . And even when things start to get worse and worse , and the truth comes out in the worst way possible ( not just for Sheba , destroying her family which includes her husband played by the great Bill Nighy and her two dysfunctional children , but for Barbara as well ) , there's still some glimmers of dark comedy in there , which one might think would be impossible considering the dangerous pit-falls that could come with such topical , practically controversial subject matter . My favorite of this is when Sheba finds out her own darkest secret from Barbara , and inexplicably in her old 80s makeup again no less . Not that I thought the film was without flaws - chiefly that , oddly enough , it wasn't long enough at 90 minutes ( structurally it ended up working out , but considering how good the characters made the material out to be , I was surprised how quickly Marber and director Eyre got into the affair material ) , and Phillip Glass's musical accompaniment isn't quite fit with the rest of the material most of the time ( I was wondering when Errol Morris would show up , truth be told ) . But I overlook these flaws mostly for the sake of how superlative everything else is done . The performances are all uniformly compelling and with equal measures of understandings in neuroses in one another , and the ending particularly leaves a chilling spell not unlike one found in the Cable Guy . It's probably the best " chick-flick " you haven't yet seen this year . |
510,302 | 453,068 | 179,074 | 8 | pimpin ' ain't easy , but it sure is fun , as the song goes | American Pimp , a film by the Hughes brothers , is probably more entertaining , almost in a manner that crosses between a typical documentary and as one of the film clips shown from the Mack as an exploitation film , than it deserves to be . But then the Hughes brothers have made a film about exploitation , the self-glorified glory of it , the stylish inner world that they've created for themselves and their ' ho's ' that is like the mob only , well , more stylish and specific . Unlike the mob , as the film tries to show ( however true to life compared with facts you be the judge ) that they aren't all violent criminals , but see it as a way of life . The Hughes's - maybe wisely and not wisely at the same time - don't try and interfere with these guys and their dialog . There's no preachy message that " pimping and prostituting is wrong . " They know audiences aren't completely numb to what the facts are in a ( for now ) criminal enterprise . But , as I said , it's also entertaining , the kind of entertainment that comes from listening to someone you know is crazy or f up and at the same time has a weird , hypnotic quality . They go through telling what it's all about - the breaking in , so to speak , of new prostitutes for the pimp , when said prostitutes might leave , the ins and outs of being a new pimp or an old pimp or someone who talks a big game and may or may not mean what he says . Actually , for the latter , the Hughes's don't seem to skimp on any of their interviewees : they all appear to be genuine to the business , appear being the big word . But it's the intent that counts , and these guys at least sound the part , as well as look it , and in a dirty way these guys are really , really funny , sometimes without trying to be even due to their own self-aggrandizing . As for the prostitutes themselves , they are shown not quite as much . While it might have been difficult for the Hughes's to get any legitimate documentary footage of them , aside from a couple of moments revealed like when a pimp named RC ( I think that's his name ) berates a girl for getting drunk , with the menace of violence in the subtext , it works fine as it is . It's like a candid string of tall tales from characters painfully believable , as those who think that the media portrays them stereotypically , and why not ? Some of these guys ARE walking stereotypes - doesn't stop them from getting their pimp-hand on . It ain't easy , but it's almost in a guilty way insatiable . |
508,396 | 453,068 | 817,910 | 8 | a dark romp with vampires and ghosts | Hellboy : Blood and Iron is about vampires coming back after many , many years in wait , and also about ghosts and memory and all those things left behind . If it were about these things more-so in-depth ( or rather the kind of attention that Guillermo del-Toro would pay to the subject matter if he directed ) , it would be really great material . Trouble is , the Hellboy animated movies , with this the second installment , are limited by means of budget , time , and even to an extent the scripting . There's a lack of the dry , sly and just outright clever humor from the Hellboy live-action movies , with only one or two quips from ol ' Red ( Ron Perelman , always good even in dull one-liners ) , and some characterizations and dialog that are as routine as whatever one might find in a straight-to-video release . These flaws being noted , Blood and Iron is extremely enjoyable for what it can afford in its 75 minute running time , which is giving some lifeblood to a comic-book that needs it desperately . The plot works mostly upon the strengths of the animators , and luckily they are many . What might seem ordinary and traditional - even a little lacking in fluidity ( again , budget ) - gives way to extraordinary moments going past the expected for " kids " stuff . There's some very dark material particularly in this installment , as we see an iron goddess , a vampire curse , a couple of blasted witches , snakes , and those creepy ghosts ( which , thanks to some del-Toro presence , reminds one of the Gothic folklore of Mexico ) . It's all very impressive when it works best , and there's even some interesting designs for these villains and creatures of the night . There might not be much depth ( the climax is just a bunch of " we are not like them " semantics from the iron woman to Hellboy as they punch each other senseless ) , but for a short while it's some good fun and some brilliant animation , for what it's worth . Less than great , and at the same time far better than it should have any right to be . |
509,496 | 453,068 | 486,674 | 8 | on the contrary to the other commenter , this is very funny , and a slight comeback for Levinson | Director Barry Levinson hasn't had much luck lately - after Bandits , which was a good though not anything very noteworthy comedy caper , he had two colossal duds in a row - Envy and Man of the Year - which , despite an otherwise impressive host of films ( i . e . Diner , Rainman , Sleepers , even Toys ) could have threatened to throw him off track ala Rob Reiner . But in a way What Just Happened was relatable for Levinson , despite it being the stories of Art Linson , semi-famous producer who's had hits and misses throughout his career , and at the same time gave him some ample material for some sardonic , spot-on satire of the industry . It's not the Player , don't get me wrong , but it gives its winks and nods to the egomania , the preciousness of directors and stars , and how personal lives get caught up in the mix without getting too smug with us common moviegoers . Probably the funniest , as sort of a near running gag , is the latest film that producer Ben ( De Niro ) is being test-screened for audiences ; a rough cut of " Fiercly " starring Sean Penn ( who , as with Bruce Willis , plays " Himself " in the film ) disturbs the audience because , on top of a bleak end for its hero , a dog is killed on screen ( this , for all the wrong reasons , is hysterical funny , if only for the deadpan reaction from DeNiro to the insanely negative response cards ) . The director , however , a British hipster ( brilliantly played by Michael Wincott ) , doesn't take it lightly that he doesn't have final cut . This brings around what seems like a moment of levity midway . . . and then back to the start when it comes time for Cannes . On top of this is Willis's ' plot-line ' involving a beard he won't shave off . It's almost like a slight reprisal of his part in Four Rooms , only put to a much bigger , aggrandizing maximum . Both of these , much like seeing certain characters in a Christopher Guest movie , elicit laughs anytime they're on screen . And the rest of the movie is . . . still very good . Aside from some scenes where Levinson decides to rush things along via the speedy transitions , he provides a style that suits the feel of the material , of Ben trying to balance his personal struggles ( an ex-wife he can't totally let go of , and his rebellious teen daughter with a secret ) with the eternal BS of getting work done in an industry concerned , a lot more often than not , with the final dollar over artistic integrity . It's not quite reality TV , but it has that unpredictable , on-the-fly hand-held feeling all the same , which is a method much more effective used here than in Man of the Year . And De Niro is also surprisingly good ( maybe not a surprise to some , but considering some of his hit-or-miss turns in recent fare ) , as he doesn't lay too low-key in the part . One can probably see De Niro having studied producers - not just Linson himself but others - for long stretches to get the right steps for each deliberate step in ego-maniacal Hollywood . So sit back , relax , and enjoy some near classic self-conscious satire on an industry that deserves anything those in it can dish back out ( if that makes sense ) . |
510,877 | 453,068 | 78,915 | 8 | Not sure if I watched a cut version , but some of these cartoons are cut ! | That being said , I have to say that some of my favorite Looney Tunes cartoons are in this first collection of shorts released in the span of the late 70's and 80's ( another I watched maybe more than this one was Daffy Duck's Quackbusters ) . Here and there I wondered if a couple of the shorts were complete ; they seemed to cut down the Rabbit Fire episode down by half , an a couple others didn't seem 100 % either . Still , I would highly recommend it to those looking to get into the series ( if by some chance not through another route like DVD ) . The cartoons Duck Amuck ( as Daffy goes ape against the vindictive animator ) and the one involving Bugs and the Opera singer top the list , while a few others are also quite appealing like Bugs against the Bull , Daffy as a would-be Robin Hood , and at least half of the Road-Runner shorts . That part of the film , which while given 2nd billing in the title ( The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Movie ) , only lasts a full 20 minutes or less . The enjoyment of those shorts will depend on if you like the Roadrunner shorts to start with , but there are some choice segments that even had me laughing . Not overall a great collection of shorts , but certain shorts are stand-out here . |
510,842 | 453,068 | 94,336 | 8 | gets better , or at least funnier , the more I think about it ( first viewing ) | Amazing I didn't hear about this one until recently , but that seems to be the song and dance with these " cult films " . Withnail & I is one , a film that was made in such short time and on such a short budget one of the executive producers ( Dennis O'Brien , usually the best of chums on the Monty Python films ) tried to shut filming down when he thought the comedy just wasn't working . It didn't get much of a release , at first . . . Then the buzz grew , and it's since become one of the most popular British comedies of the past 25 years . At least among those who might have some identification with these blokes : it's about twenty-something out of work actors in 1969 who go aimlessly through a holiday at one of the bloke's uncle's house out in the country where nothing goes right ( least of which with the uncle itself ) . But it's also got sharp-as-a-tack dialog , the kind of zingers that seem to have a droll way about them even as the actors deliver them with a style that fits the malaise or eccentricities or just plain ego they carry with them . And , of course , it's very funny . It's the kind of humor that snuck up on me , where the oddball seems what it is , but also with an air of reality that doesn't seem false . It would be one thing if Bruce Robinson were after simple quirks . But he's lived this world he's created ( it's largely autobiographical ) , and the gray look and the grime and grit and rain et all fits the sensibility of the comedy . It also follows the tenants of very funny movies about the most unlikely of friends ( ala Sideways and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas ) , where it's a wonder at times how the characters don't go at each others throats , but they also have a strange bond that the audience clicks with . And , of course , there's straight-man and comic-relief , so to speak , with I and Withnail respectively . I / Marwood ( Paul McGann , great at doing an half-neurotic , half - awkward - around - the - flaming - uncle bit ) is a bit of a wreck emotionally , swinging between slightly normal and totally on edge scene to scene , and Withnail ( the brilliant Richard Grant , probably one of the best things , if one could point out in the movie in and of itself ) who's a bigger than life dude , who thinks of himself as such more than anything , and washes his ( somewhat ) hidden misery with booze . Like all lovable jerks , he sees himself as being much more than he is because he acts it , whether he gets into a jam ( i . e . at the pub , with the cops , with a farmer ) or if he's just fobbing off whilst drenched in body lotion . It's a solid match . Then there's also two key supporting roles with Uncle Monty ( Richard Griffiths , the kind of British character actor you spot here and there in movies ) , who's a total nut with a penchant for weird carrots - as well as , gulp , Marwood - and Danny , who in the first scene almost appears as a wild fluke , as a kind of deranged bad-ass in the guise of your common spaced-out drug dealer , and then later on appears again and brings it full circle in one of the funniest pot scenes I've ever seen . Sometimes a joke or a look goes over the head , or the ' British-ness ' of the comedy , where it's sometimes in a mood that relies on a sudden reaction or another line to bounce back . But these aren't often enough to bring down this recommendation : Withnail & I is a slightly crazy movie about sad sacks who've got their lives ahead of them , or not as case might be , and it's another in a lot of many quasi-nostalgia tales of the late 60s , only with a bit more deep-down lament than some others . That it should prove to be quotable on repeat viewings goes without saying . |
510,466 | 453,068 | 121,731 | 8 | a tale of love and loss , as performed by mimes and severed heads | This is quite the rare case : a story performed entirely in mime-form , where everything is silent but done so for a very physical effect by the actors / performers , that actually works . Usually mimes can be a little irksome ( maybe not , depends on who's miming and how well the audience can take it ) , but Alejandro Jodorowksy , in his first attempt at film-making , makes this as experimental as something like Un Chien Andalou yet with an emotional core that can be understood by viewers open to it all . It's based on a novella by Thomas Mann about a woman who wants both her husband and lover back , and somehow gets their heads put into the wrong bodies ! There's a constant sense of both a dream in the scenery and body language , but disillusionment in what the characters are feeling back in their not-quite selves . There's the woman in particular , acted very well ( she's the one sprawled out on a couch or other , with black hair , at least I think it's her ) , who responds to the Jodorowsky character at first with disdain , but then noticing his body changes her attitude . This is a brilliant little scene that calls back to those captivating , surreal moments in film-making of the silent era , and just in performing arts in general , where things were meant to be performed to be understood by the audience intuitively to an extent , not necessarily explained exactly . It might be just as well ; some moments in here call to the strengths of Jodorowsky's wild-man cinema even this early on , as figures in a ' city ' environment pass by the disheartened husband , faces coming always close to the screen like it's meant to be fleeting but always impressionable via make-up and elaborate costumes . La Cravate , or the Severed Heads , also carries some unique traits as a Jodorowsky effort ; the advantage of color is ever powerful and varied in tone from head to environment ( different than what I expected from an underground director , especially as a precursor to Fando & Lis ) , but it's also a work that's usually more light than dark and more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny in its stabs of absurdism . One can't help but chuckle at one of the heads looking up and giving a wink and a smile to the helpless Jodorowsky or his counterpart , or in merely seeing the process of ' transposing ' a head . The music by Edgar Bischoff is also a factor for how sweet it is , contrasting the oddball mood of the material with melodies that sound like happy walks in the park . In short , it's a find that is quite a stroke of luck ; the film was believed lost until rediscovered just in time for the DVD collection set , and for fans it's a minor delight . |
508,652 | 453,068 | 174,666 | 8 | entertaining , raucous , absorbing stories make up this special | I never saw any of John Leguizamo's stand-up before I watched Freak , and after seeing it again on HBO comedy recently it was better , more enlivening and with things that , at the age of 14 , I couldn't understand quite before . Spike Lee did a wonderful job directing , keeping the visual angle up to par with Leguizamo's theatrics and the style of personal storytelling ; it's substance and style merging together but unobtrusively . We get Leguizamo's rants about race and sex ( the bits about sex are classic ) , but a lot of it is about family , and what sticks still fresh in my mind is about his father . Even when things get dark in some of the stories , there's something fresh or crazy or random that Leguizamo pulls out to get a laugh , and it works more often than not . If something does fall flat ( for me at any rate ) it might be his personality tics here and there . But overall , it's the kind of fun material that isn't heady , but is so true to itself that it stings . Find it if you can ! |
508,234 | 453,068 | 106,308 | 8 | Raimi's evolved style of total comic book hilarity | Sam Raimi's third ( but possibly not last ) installment in his ' Evil Dead ' series shows Ash ( Bruce Campbell , a cult hero of sorts ) right after Evil Dead 2 , now back in medieval times , still fighting against the unpredictably grotesque and bizarre Necronomicon . This is just a set-up though , like with most comic-books , for mostly a series of visual gags , in-jokes , puns , homages , and out-right hilarity and parody . In other words , if you're wanting to watch this for the same reasons you wanted to watch the original Evil Dead , you may be disappointed . This is the sort of evolution that Raimi has taken the series with : the first was a film from a filmmaker 21 years old , with an over-load of visual energy , pumping out one of the most visceral and inventive of all horror films . The sequel went half and half - at times it took the sincerity and true horror of the first film , but it also had a lot to laugh about too , as it didn't take itself seriously for most of it . With Army of Darkness , it's tongue-in-cheek incarnate . Take a scene where Ash has just resurrected the " deadites " ( through some fault of his own , mumbling the last word of his forgotten phrase to stop the curse from the book of the dead ) to rise . He suddenly gets pulled down to the ground , and the skeletons from the graves have their way with him , in short , having a fight in the tradition of a Three Stooges skit ( blocking eye-pokes and all ) . This leads up to the skeletons forming their ' army ' of the title , and it's more like a wild send-up of Jason and the Argonauts than a real ' zombie ' film as some horror fans might be mis-led to believe . By the time Ash gets out his chainsaw wielded on his arm , its become cliché all the way , but expertly clever cliché . There is no ' message ' from the film really , it's just a full-blown , ludicrous romp with the middle ages and the occult - and it's all the better ( and gets better on repeat viewings like Brooksfilm comedies ) due to this . And the film may or may not work for some depending on the stamina and prowess of Campbell , who for me is one of the funniest people working in low-budget films today ( he comes up occasionally in big-budget films too ) , but may be a little too ' ham ' for some viewers . Like Evil Dead 2 , From Dusk Till Dawn , and Return of the Living Dead among others , Army of Darkness joins that handful of films that's for a select audience ( it's not as graphic with its gore as in the first film , but its still in high gear ) , to have as a good ' party movie ' with friends . A " gas " from start to finish , to coin a term that does apply well here as one of the better films of 93 . |
509,331 | 453,068 | 79,020 | 8 | Mexico seen through the ( surprisingly ) anthropological eye of Eisenstein | Considering that Que Viva Mexico was ( mostly ) made by Sergei Eisenstein , and funded by Upton Sinclair , the most happy surprise is that the film isn't overloaded with the kind of communist / socialist propaganda that would be immediately expected . It's not that this would be a bad thing in the technical sense ; Eisenstein , on the front of being a pure visionary , couldn't be stopped no matter how thin he stretched himself for his means as a director who had to stay to party / country guidelines . And for Sinclair , the meatier the context the better the hyperbole . But with Que Viva Mexico ! we get a view of the people and customs like out of a measured fever dream . We're given more-so the customs and the traditions , the practice of a marriage , the bullfights , some of the context of the history behind those ' Day of the Dead ' parades . Only here and there are any blatant pleas seen and heard loud and clear ( mostly involving the poorest of the poor in the lot ) . Actually , it could be something , in a sense , comparable to Werner Herzog in attempting the documentary form . It's not quite fiction , but it's presenting documentary in a stylized manner , where things aren't simply stock footage but very much a set-up of the construction of drama in the scenes and scene-location specific shots and angles . And like Herzog , Eisenstein has a poet's eye for visions that many might only see in the most remote history books or travelogues . While the accompanying narration for Que Viva Mexico is a little on the creaky end , there's no lack of splendor for the senses as far as getting an eye full of carefully picked locals ( i . e . the girl Concepcion for the marriage scenes ) or for mixing real documentary footage of the bullfight with careful constructed shots of the bullfighter before and after the fact . Even the music plays a nifty role in the dramatization of events . And here and there , especially as the film rolls along in its last third , a subtle sensation of the surreal drifts into the proceedings . Unfortunately , like It's All True for Orson Welles , Que Viva Mexico remains something of a carefully plucked fragment from a lost bit in the director's career . It's a minor marvel , and certainly more than a curiosity for the die-hard documentary or Mexican history buff , but it's stayed obscurer than Eisenstein's more infamous pieces ( Potemkin , Alexander Nevksy ) for a reason . Despite all the best intentions to simply reveal the cultural day-to-day workings and a little of the socio-political context of the Conquistadors ' impact , it's a cool curiosity at best . |
509,464 | 453,068 | 165,895 | 8 | crazy little pseudo mockumentary - turned - dramatization of the events surrounding a serial killer in Texas | If you're wondering what might be an indication of recommendation for The Monster Hunter ( aka Natural Selection as it's called on IMDb ) , Quentin Tarantino has a quote on the back of the DVD case that reads simply as : " Great ! " And how could he not say that , mayhap , considering David Carradine and Michael Bowen , both co-stars of the Kill Bill movies , appear in two of the juiciest roles of their respective careers ? It's all a big goof , but often very sly and unexpected ; looking at the DVD box you think you're getting a bad sci-fi channel movie with Carradine as a From Dusk Till Dawn type bounty hunter or something . Not quite , kids . It's the story of Willie , a postman who turned into a deranged serial killer ( go figure , it IS a postman ) , and more than half the movie is dedicated to telling his story through interviews with his mother ( she's the best , funniest really , especially talking about his brother Eddie ) , the sheriff , a psychologist ( Bob Balaban , funniest side character ) who talks mile a minute and even imitates Willie ; the redneck hunters who hung around Willy , or sort of knew him , I guess ; the hotel cleaner ; the neighbor , et all . It's shot just like you've seen every true-crime doc on TV , and the filmmakers do it pretty well . But it's surprising to see how good the quality of film-making it with the actual drama ( well , drama , how dramatic can it really get ? ! ) , as there are some images that seem like they could be done not by some cheapo exploitation director but by real true-blue professionals who are making this little excursion into the deranged and backwoods in their spare time . I especially liked the cinematography in the morgue scenes , with the blue a weird contrast to what Carradine's character does in there ( which is rather hilarious and wickedly , um , Christian in a sense ) . But really , much of what makes Monster Hunter entertaining is the wink and nod of the actors to the material , while still making it bad-ass . We know Carradine and Bowen know what they're into , but they play it like pros all the way , even when a ) Carradine as the nut FBI guy goes into a vampire-killing pose in a back lit sun-scape ( my favorite scene ) , and b ) there is a 2nd killer revealed ! This brings it to an even wackier level . With some really rockin music - guest produced by Tom Waits perhaps - and pulled off with enough wit to make Mr . Brooks look like the overly serious sham it is , The Monster Hunter is a little underground sleeper that should appeal to anyone who wonders what it's like in the mind of a serial killer - or a pre-DaVinci Code nut for that matter . Good times for a knowing cult crowd . |
508,419 | 453,068 | 64,437 | 8 | for a film by a one-and-only-time filmmaker , it's very noteworthy in the annals of American independent film history | To get right out of the way , the quibbles I had with the Honeymoon Killers : once or twice in Leonard Kastle's direction the bravely amateurish quality goes into the unnecessarily over-dramatic ( the drowning scene in the lake is the most extreme example , maybe the only one worth noting here ) , a slow start as far as emotional engagement to the story ( it's a slightly weak start in terms of the relationship between mother and daughter Beck ) , and a scene towards the end where right after the murder of a crucial character - and presented in a perfect way with the absence of malice - dialog is exchanged that feels inappropriate for immediately after such an event that's just happened ( or rather , it would be a fine exchange of words - last words spoken directly between Martha and Ray on screen - if it were in another room or a cut-away ) . But these aren't big gaping flaws so much as minor criticisms of what is really a passionate debut where exact knowledge of craft isn't as crucial , though it is filmed wonderfully by Kastle and DP Oliver Wood in black and white , as are the very truthful performances . According to Kastle on the DVD interview , the film is more or less accurate to real events , meaning that certain facts involving the murders are real , but there are small details slipped in for dramatic effect . It's a major credit that nothing feels false , however if suitably dramatic , in a form that edges somewhere between drama and documentary , never too at ease in slipping into one genre or the other . The mood is foreboding a lot of the time , with the limited lighting and tight , lingering close-ups and shots accentuating Martha's fleshy arms . Adding to the atmosphere greatly , and perhaps as the best reasons to see the film , are the leads themselves , with Shirley Stoler giving a second best performance of her career ( the best would later be in a less demonstrative but perfectly cold turn in Seven Beauties ) as a nurse who falls for a skeezy con-man named Ray ( Lo Bianco is also powerful in his role , as well as totally appropriate for the role in an occasional toupee ) , who lures lonely women into his trap and gets their money . It's a story about the couple's duality of ego and disintegration within their combustible deal going on . They're heavily in love , or what might be considered love , but neither side will give in totally for the other's desire - Martha to settle down with Ray and for him to stop his scheming and getting close with women , and Ray to get enough money so the two of them can move on to somewhere else . It's a impactive psychological analysis not just because of how the characters are and act in their real world settings in such a low-budget and non-studio settings , but because the actors are the farthest from being beautiful or pretty to look at . As what Kastle called decidedly anti Bonnie & Clyde casting , Ray and Martha look like they were pulled out of a local deli kitchen , with enough attitude to knock out anyone in sight . It's a fascinating story and fairly well told , and whatever slip-ups Kastle runs into in terms of not telling the greatest story or little things with the style are made up by the immediate nature of the material . It's raw , rough , lurid and disturbing work . |
508,552 | 453,068 | 86,637 | 8 | Funny film with exquisite editing | Woody Allen's Zelig is a funny and smart account of a fictional guy ( as in most Allen films ) who is a chameleon celebrity who blends in to whatever surrounds he has . More than humor , it shows how one struggles to be belonged in society and after being deemed a freak is bad . I found it funny as most Allen films ( not the best but up there ) with a nice touch . |
510,871 | 453,068 | 95,174 | 8 | a near great thriller , sophisticated in its style with unnerving moments | I don't think Roman Polanski's 1988 film Frantic is one of his great works , and it does ( and after reading the cuts the studio imposed it makes a little more sense ) lack some of the great , horrific bits that underly his films from the 60's and 70's . But the good news for those thinking that it's just another Harrison Ford-saves-the-world vehicle may be pleasantly surprised . The studio aside , it is a Polanski film , and it does go against what would typically be a Hollywood film of this story . For one thing Polanski at the time was persona non Grata in America , filming in Paris , and there is a much more European feel to the film than any given American director would've given it . Here and there with some of the shots , the depth used as well as the length , reminded me slightly of Antonioni . But one of the things that Polanski does here , which he has done in films like Knife in the Water and Repulsion , is to make the atmosphere totally suiting the subject matter . We know things may work out alright for its hero , however the way to get there is really sordid and constraining on its lead character - it's tense by keeping patience , not by quick cutting . Ford and wife Betty Buckley arrive in Paris as he is attending some doctor's lecture . While in the shower she answers the phone for something , leaves , and never returns - kidnapped by ( later found out ) Arabs . This then sets into motion almost more of a general unfolding-of-a-situation than a real story . But Polanski , taking some cues here and there from Hitchcock and other film-noir pictures , does make this situation tense enough as its lead works his way through the dark underbelly of Paris . Individual scenes mark close to being some of the better ones Polanski's done . So , Ford's doctor character meets the woman ( Emmanuel Siegner ) whom suitcases got switched when he and his wife arrived at the airport , and ( which was pretty fascinating to me ) for her getting the money she's owed from the same kidnappers of his wife is just as important and a matter of principle . Their search leads them through crooked gangsters , dangerous , terrorist Arabs , and a certain device hidden in a statue ( one almost wishes this wasn't revealed , but as a Maguffin it only matters as a point of wanting for the enemy ) . Through this Polanski uses his star to get a taut performance , where the only heroism comes in being provoked to the edge as the everyman Ford occasionally plays . If you're looking for Indiana Jones , this ain't it . Taking part in an Ennio Morricone score - albeit with a couple of meh songs - and great usage of Parisian settings , Polanski's film is competently directed , with some scenes that lose steam while others remain charged as hell . And it's got a very interesting first half . |
508,788 | 453,068 | 120,866 | 8 | faithful to the source but original in interpretation through the medium , Titus is quite a sight | Titus , Julie Taymor's first film as director ( and possibly her best ) , is a scathing indictment of the vicious chain of violence - or circle , take your pick . First examined by the Bard himself , Shakespeare's play was - from all accounts I've heard - super violent and without too many redeeming qualities ( one friend described it as Shakespeare's I Spit on Your Grave , not the highest endorsement ) . Taymor's take is to give it a vivacious quality , one that pulls together strands of time periods together : it's not just Roman armor , but trench-coats and motorcycles and cars and shotguns and modern cook-wear and even some modern jazz music thrown in . It's disorienting at first , especially with the opening scene just showing a kid at a table playing with toys ( more accurately , if one's looking for symbolism , the early affects of violence on the young ) , then suddenly whisked away to a Roman amphitheater . But if you're ready to give up any sense of the usual , of the constrictive or stuffy environments held by the classic adapters of Shakespeare , it's bound to provide some unexpected thrills and style . And style , by the way , as a means of expressing the harshness of the subject matter . This is far from one of the Bard's light affairs , and any tries at humor are probably gallows humor , or based around some of its talent . Anthony Hopkins takes the title role , a general who was loyal for so long to the Emperor ( flamboyant as possible , which means a lot , via Alan Cumming ) that he's repaid by allowing his new step-sons via new Empress ( Jessica Lange , sultry and dangerous ) to cut off his daughter's hands and her tongue and rape her and leave her for dead . But Titus tries to stay strong and true even through this , and cuts off one of his hands in exchange for the lives of his brothers sons . They're dead too . Then starts the cycle of revenge , leading to a table scene that might have been prep-work for Hopkins , in part , for his stint as Hannibal two years later . But all of this , including a subplot with the Moor Aaron ( tremendous actor , can't recall the name ) , is presented in a form that's alive and energetic , insistent on making us pay attention , even if not every single work sticks to our consciousness ( it IS Shakespeare , of course , a few words might slip by in his poetic prose ) . While Taymor's and her crew have one of the most lavish and awe-inspiring productions of 1999 , and the cast has their fun chewing up said scenery as anger boils and madness comes to a head , and a sort of odd flaw continues onward with the boy's character ( maybe more a fault of the writer than Taymor , albeit with one of the worst closing shots I've ever seen in any movie ) , it's still Shakespeare's show . It might not be his best work , but be it known that it is , thou interested reader , his most disturbing ( maybe not bleakest , that would go to King Lear ) . There's death circling all around these characters , from those that were made slaves and then slaves of the Imperial ego like Lange's character and her two sons , to the Moor who has every reason to fight to stay alive as he will go to kill the innocent maid , and finally to Titus himself who has gone so long killing and pillaging he can take barbaric glee in stomping out a fly . And Hopkins is there to compliment the cringe-inducing moments , as he sits in the bathtub or creates the meat-pies , in a performance so staggering it should be counted as his bravest in the last ten years . Even if going in you already don't like the play , it'll be worth it for his turn . |
509,265 | 453,068 | 222,851 | 8 | cold and dark and extremely ( but not excessively ) violent tale of Kitano in L | Brother is another of Takeshi Kitano's ' Yakuza ' thrillers , though this time the Yakuza are only a small part of the picture and only sometimes set in Japan . Akani ( Kitano ) is a hit-man who has bitten off more than he can chew - killed some of the wrong people , if at the right place at the right moment - and is advised to leave the country . He joins his brother in LA and soon he and a rag-tag group of hoodlums - mostly by way of the chilling , quiet audacity and cunning shooting skills of Anaki - rise the ranks as big-time crime lords in LA . . . that is , until , they mess with the Italians . This part of the story , admittedly , is rather typical and maybe just something Kitano felt he had to work with as one of those staples of the genre : rise and undoubted fall of a skilled but flawed criminal mastermind / killer . But Brother is most impressive not for its plot , which can occasionally appear ragged and disconnected ( perhaps by design as Kitano is the editor ) , but for presentation . Kitano himself as a presence / star / actor is so cool that had he been around during Melville's time he could wipe the floor with Alan Delon and even Belmondo in the bad-ass department . This is just one component to Brother's success though since Kitano could put himself in just about anything and make that part of it look cool . Coolness isn't enough in Brother , and rightfully so ; this isn't a fun movie entirely to watch , even if one might feel guilty in enjoying some of the more crazy shoot-outs and bouts of violence . The body count here , according to the trivia , is 78 . This is a high number , but despite seeing it in a cut R-rated version it doesn't feel very compromised ( mayhap it is and I'm being naive , but it's a first-time viewing all the same ) . It's a real sight to see to witness how Kitano makes these encounters of violence surprising ; the first big one , with the first time Omar Epps and Kitano run into each other on the street ( glass breaks , scoff and demand , glass cut to the face ) the way its edited is fantastic in timing and perception - not minimalist , but something a few beats different then what one would normally see . We also see Kitano's knack at unusual but inventive framing devices , like a dark , massive shoot-out under a bridge at night with warring gangs , and only the lights from the guns blazing off of the bodies . Other moments like these are a sight of bodies laid out in the Japanese word of " Death " , and when one gangster is already dead when a group in a car pull up to a house : Kitano focuses on that . The final shoot-out , as well , is unexpected . It's not a great movie , and suffers from the flaws mentioned at the top . Yet I'd recommend Brother to any genre fan , to those chest-deep in Yakuza flicks and one who's only aware of Kitano from Zatoichi . This is no Shoot Em Up , but a serious picture about the damning implications of a life devoted to self-destruction and annihilation for stupid , materialist and territorial goals . If it's not anything entirely new its film-making enriches what's conventional , and Kitano is always clever at bending the lines . |
509,800 | 453,068 | 79,641 | 8 | magnificent on atmosphere and photography / visuals , so-so on some of the acting and horror | Werner Herzog's Nosferatu is one of the damnedest kinds of vampire movies I've ever seen . It may or may not be as faithful to the Bram Stoker novel of Dracula as the other films in its vein ( never read the book ) , but what Herzog is interested in may not be what is shared by more modern vampire-film fans . This is actually a vampire film that does earn its PG rating ; it's not violent at all , and its lack of violence and bloodletting allows for other factors that wouldn't be seen on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or , of course , Blade . It almost tries to be a ' thinking man's ' vampire movie , where themes of decimation , the Gothic , and the dreadful are amplified by Herzog and his DP Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein's use of locales and the objects in them . While I have not seen the bulk of Herzog's more famous films , this may be one of his best in just purely visual , creepily atmospheric terms . It combines some elements of early German expressionism , the kind that crawls up your skin and is even more spooky than anything in any modern horror effort ( and a small tip of the hat to Murnau's landmark 1922 effort ) , and at the same time incorporating some documentary-style elements ( many hand-held scenes ) . But the problems of the film , at least from my perspective , almost compete with the film's attributes . Being that this Nosferatu , unlike Murnau's film , is in sound and color and with better resources and locations , and suffers from a few qualities that could have been given better attention by Herzog and his people . The acting , for example , is a mixed bag of goods and not so goods . Kinski , to be sure , is one of the major reasons to see the film , as his Count Dracula carries an extra weight of malaise , terror , and ( due to Kinski himself ) a further dark tragedy to his very existence . Any moment he was on screen I was hooked into what he , the nutty actor he is , was doing . Bruno Ganz as the other important character , Jonathan Harker , was good as well in what was required of him . But the part of Lucy is played by Isabelle Adjani in a way that brings the film down sometimes . Maybe in part it was due to watching her perform in English instead of the German dub , but aside from her beautiful physical presence , which isn't enough on its own , her emotional and reactionary read-out was pretty bad . And other supporting players who tackle regulars like Renfield and ( possibly under-used ) Van Helsing only have little moments in lackluster turns . And there's even something almost conflicting with the atmosphere itself that waxed and waned with it working or not . Despite Herzog capturing some effective , strange but very palatable images , chiefly the countless , domineering rats that come about through Nosferatu's very presence , changing an entire city into a feeble and plague-a-plenty place , there's something ' off ' sometimes . And it might be more in due to the music , by Popol Vuh , who have also created music for other Herzog films . The themes that are used work the first time around , but they are repeated without the same effect , or of a lesser kind , than before ; such a deliberate , near awe-inspiring amount of visuals need the right musical touches , and it's just in what works and what doesn't . In the end , what Herzog , his actors , and crew provides with this take on the vampire legend is definitely not one to dismiss , as it has some chilling qualities and a couple of shocking touches . On its own its never boring even in its slowest moments , and amounts to being a good example of what can be done with the most notorious in the sub-genre . But it goes without saying that it misses the mark of being as daring and audacious as Murnau's silent was . |
510,965 | 453,068 | 24,803 | 8 | this not quite short film another of Jean Vigo's precious works , but it goes without saying . . . | . . . that in Jean Vigo's all-too short-lived career as a filmmaker he didn't make one unsuccessful movie , despite his difficulties . But seeing Zero For Conduct , which was no doubt a big influence ( if only in the details of some scenes ) for Truffaut's 400 Blows , I do feel a little sorry for it in a way . Watching it , I kept thinking ' is this Vigo's director's cut , or did they make him cut stuff out ' ? Because within the 41 minute time frame - which comes in over one minute of being a short film - things happen , but they almost happen too fast . Holes are sort of left in the plot , and only occasionally do they becomes a little bothersome ( I wanted to see what happened , for example , when the kid told the short principal " go to hell " as it cuts right from that to the kids gearing up for their uprising for the next day ) . If this were the length of L'Atalante , it might even be just as great as that . It's flaws , if any , are probably also due to budget . It also doesn't help that the print was so scratched , and the subtitles so spotty , that some of the time I wasn't sure what's going on or if a cutaway was right . This all aside , however , Zero For Conduct is a wonderful little song to the spirit of youth , and what it is to be at that age and see authority , practically any authority , as a form of fascism . In fact Vigo makes a point of making the title , Zero For Conduct , part of the repetitive punishment for the students that disobey just in the slightest . It a given until after a while it loses its meaning . We're given a small band of joyful miscreants , Caussat , Colin , Bruel , Tabbard , as they plot to stage a rebellion on the day of the alumni event at the private boys school they attend . Even though one of the professors is actually on the same level of rebellious spirit as them - and at one point does a handstand like one of the other kids and draws a cartoon to prove it - most of the teachers , and the principal with the Napoleon-complex played by the funny Delphin , kill their spirits completely . Vigo's world is almost too much fun though for their rebellion to be too violent or with too many tragedies and so forth , and the anarchy is that kind of childish chaos where it almost comes close to a pillow fight ( in maybe my favorite sequence of the film , where the boys do a sort of test-run for their rebellion , laying to waste their sleeping quarters , caught in delirious , masterful slow-motion and sweet music by Maurice Jaubert ) . If you can find it , and you're already a fan of L'Atalante , you should be in for a very pleasant , early-sound era surprise from Vigo and his great DP Boris Kaufman , with much of it featuring the perfectly goofy experiments with the form that were done in A Propos De Nice , but here with something more of a story . With the quality spotty and all - one of the films most in need of a restoration in fact - Vigo's style never seems too compromised at least , and the sense of pure , cinematic exuberance with what makes life grand and not so grand is up for grabs in a real short shot . We get the little notes of humor , however slight ( like the boy doing a little trick with his fingers on the train ) , and the moments of the dark side ( a moment when the principal , with a student at his desk , does some kind of creepy demon pose ) , and it ends with a cool French school song too . Like Bunuel's Simon of the Desert , I'm not sure if Vigo's film got a bum rap or if he had planned to make it even bigger and with more depth into who these kids are and what the school is like . But like that film as well , what remains contains splendors that can only come from unique minds in film-making . |
509,774 | 453,068 | 48,272 | 8 | how much is dream and how much is reality , Bergman asks in this infidelity drama | Ingmar Bergman making a film with characters in a daze as to what to make of their indiscretions in their affairs with men , what a surprise ! Maybe there's too much sarcasm in that sentence , and perhaps for the period Bergman was working in ( pre Seventh Seal ) it's a little too close to a target to make . Bergman was the best at it , so it's not a knock : Dreams is another in one of his probing examinations , however in a manner that almost suggests he wasn't putting as much time and effort into the script as usual ( in an interview he said he didn't consider it very highly in his oeuvre , and had some bad memories of his time with Harriet Andersson with their personal relationship , coincidentally her character has a rough break-up early in the picture ) . But saying that Bergman wasn't putting as much time and effort is suffice to say that he still makes it very intriguing , very entertaining ( in that suffocating-dramatic Bergman sense where you can feel all humanity sucking out of the room and back in again with every beat in some scenes ) , and with a take on the sexes that allows for some probing hard to see in other movies . We're given two women who work in the fashion photography profession , one a model ( Andersson ) and the other a producer / director type ( Eva Dahlbeck ) . At the start we get right into a claustrophobic sense of unease for these girls set right by the tone of a man in the room - a fat man tapping his fingers while waiting for a shot to set up , and then once again on another one . Tension spills out in the dressing room , the engagement off between Andersson and her fiancée . Meanwhile , Dahlbeck calls her lover who can't come to the phone for long . After this Bergman starts to play a sort of trick on the viewer : what happens to these women with their respective men , is it dream or reality ? Andersson's situation is that she's looking at dresses through the outside windows , and an old man ( Gunnar Bjornstrand , with a nice old-man beard that isn't too shabby ) offers to buy her the dress , jewelry , whatever she wants . To display the generational gap she asks for chocolate with whipped cream and - as something I thought I'd never see in a Bergman film - a rollicking trip to the amusement park to ride rollercoasters and shift through a haunted house . This all seems to be leading to a note that suddenly becomes all the more clear , and I wondered " what gives ? " if this was Bergman presenting dreams . Perhaps he means in the more fragmentary sense of " well , these women have dreams of some men , but . . . these aren't them " . This leads to Dahlbeck's scenes which are a good , sharp contrast to Andersson's . With the latter there's some blocks where the two don't talk ( she puts on a record that spins some cool jazz as the two dance a little and have a silent-movie repore with champagne ) , and for the former it's what some fans of the late Swedish filmmaker love more than anything : characters in personal agony over not realizing a personal connection , through lots and lots of dialog . What's impressive here isn't so much the performances per-say , which are a little cold , but how much restraint Bergman has with the camera as this situation with Dahlbeck's cold professional ( she fires Andersson at one point for being late with the old man ) turns into a fool-hearty tug-of-war of emotions between an equally cold wife of Dahlbeck's lover . If there is any one juicy section in Dreams , and not counting specific scenes like when Dahlbeck has her head out the window of the train ( which is very beautifully executed ) , it's this one . Somehow Bergman pulls out a semi-happy ending , if not without a bit of a coda as to what may happen with these still emotionally entangled souls . If only the structure somehow was worked out a little better ( I'm not sure how I could criticize it more than that - even a flaw from a genius is still a genius move , if that make sense ) it would be a great film . As it stands there's a lot of greatness in the film , only to feel very slightly like an excellent minor work . Still , stay tuned for little winks to the audience , like a rare Hitchcock type cameo ( strange considering Bergman's opinion of the director ) , or a mention of the last time Bjornstrand's lonely rich old man saw a movie - 1918 - which is Bergman's year of birth . |
509,659 | 453,068 | 117,028 | 8 | great concert footage , good in-between bits | For fans of the musical acts that performed at this one of a kind concert , Isle of Wight is a must-see look . The interview sections are not of the high quality of those of Woodstock where you might have taken away something from what was being said . Here it's mostly a lot of ultra-hippie types ( one who apparently gave his 3 year old son acid and pot ) , as well as some British fellows who run the concert . These interviews are OK enough on their own , and maybe the biggest liability from Lerner on this end as well as the music is in the editing . It's only a 2 hour film , which regrettably ( like Monterrey Pop ) is way too short in viewing such a monumental moment ( and fleeting one like Altamont ) in such a short running time . Still , almost every musical act is worth checking out in their limited time frame , and a little extra sadness comes along in seeing that a few of these people didn't live long after the concert ended . Some of the memorable acts include the Doors ( all too brief of course ) , Jimi Hendrix ( ditto ) , the Who , Miles Davis ( in different form from his 50's days ) , Ten Years After , the Moody Blues , and Free . |
508,372 | 453,068 | 374,294 | 8 | As I remember it not a very thrilling thriller , but it did hold my attention greatly | It's a good sight to see that Eric Rohmer's latest film - one that I saw on the same day I saw Godard's Notre Musique - is finally on release on DVD . Because , frankly , I was a little befuddled why I didn't see it get release in American theaters after it was screened that day I saw it at the NY film festival . It's a curious entry in that it isn't one of Rohmer's typical relationship / ' moral ' stories , and at the same time is working somewhat against its genre type . Here is a thriller that has that same deep fascination with its psychology and morality of the characters like Hitchcock , while perhaps lacking the wit and excitement of the master . But there are also major political implications in the works here , and the characters know this very well . It's before the times of Melville's Army of Shadows in that there isn't even a resistance against the Germans - just the brewing of something odd & / or rotten amongst the Germans , Russians and Spanish . I remember quite clearly how much I appreciated and had a good view of these times through the struggles Rohmer painted in this couple of Arsinoe ( Katerina Didaskalu ) and Fiodor ( Serge Renko ) . It's interesting too to see how Arsinoe is basically apolitical in the early part of the film , and yet through the circumstances that follow both health-wise and elsewhere in the world her views begin to change . At the same time there is a spying sub-plot that is given weight by the attention to the scenes with the characters as opposed to just outright action . There's something that is fond for a movie viewer when seeing such difficult times portrayed simply , but with the conflicts brimming at the seams . It's not only about the political toss-and-turning going on , but about the loss of their insulated relationship , and what ultimately leads to what becomes of them . It's based on a true story as well , which adds some weight to it , and it's also as I recall filmed with the clarity that I've seen in the other ( few ) Rohmer works I've come across . A worthwhile viewing at the festival , and hopefully will get some airplay on IFC or Sundance or other for fans of the old Cashiers alumni . |
508,310 | 453,068 | 59,653 | 8 | bare-bones B-Western , 101 | If I had to explain with complete certainty why Ride in the Whirlwind is better than average it wouldn't be very easy because on the surface it seems average through and through . It was made obviously for bargain-basement prices ( I think director / co-producer Hellman once said that he didn't think anyone would see the westerns he made in the 60s ) , yet with that , and within the simple confines , there's a freedom in other ways too . On the surface it seems like a cowboy story gone awry , as cattle herders Jack Nicholson and Cameron Mitchell , along with another partner , are on their way to Waco and come upon a cabin occupied by Harry Dean Stanton ( in total ' bad-ass ' mode with an eye-patch ) and his gang ( who previously robbed a stagecoach and killed a few of its passengers ) , and neither want any trouble so they settle for the night . The next day , of course , a posse has discovered Stanton's gang's whereabouts , and there's a shootout . Somehow , Nicholson and Mitchell ( not the other partner ) sneak out during the shoot-out , but are of course mistaken for being part of the gang , and are sought out to be strung-up . What makes this simple premise - of cowboys falsely accused of pillaging and murder - more interesting than anything else is the consistent sense of dread and of the romantic sheen of more popular A-list westerns being stripped away . Since B-movies , not just B-westerns , concern more-so the basics of the characters , Hellman and writer Nicholson ( who with this and the Trip shows that he actually isn't a bad writer with original material ) dig into the fatalism tapped into both sides , of the posse and the prey . Some of the best scenes come up in the time that would usually be called the filler , when Nicholson and Mitchell hold up at a farmer's house and try and get their mind off of the situation with little distractions - Wes ( Nicholson ) checking out the horses , the two of them attempting a checkers game , trying to sleep - and what isn't said or the extra meaning behind the matter of fact dialog means a good deal . There's also the aspect to their not really being a sense of true justice , as the posse have taken it upon themselves to go after these men ; you know just looking at these barely one-dimensional figures that all they want is a hanging done , no more no less . I'm not sure how much allegory could be drawn from the picture , though on a first viewing sometimes the stilted acting by the supporting players drew away from that ( there's also a practical lack of wit from the screenplay , which is appropriate but nears being a little bland for its own good ) . And while it doesn't dig into the complete heels of the western genre like a later John Ford or Leone movie , or even Unforgiven , Hellman's film is a cut above many other westerns that would settle for conventions being without any challenges to the situations . The climax of the picture doesn't come as too much of a shock to those who've seen their share of genre material , but it was the best way to end the picture : it's not really a happy ending , in spite of the ' riding off into the sunset ' shot . There's no hope in this world , not on any side , even if complete justice is not sought . Short and succinct , this is one of those flicks to see in the one dollar bin at the video store , if only for Nicholson and Stanton's eye-patch . |
509,327 | 453,068 | 48,347 | 8 | tour-de-force from Sinatra , and sharp direction , mark this as worth seeing | The Man with the Golden Arm was one of the first films to have as its main topic ( and , in some respects , the message ) the tragedy of heroin addiction . It's nowhere near a great film , but its importance lies in Otto Preminger's dedication to making it feel real and on the edge of melodrama and naturalism . What I liked is that it's not so much an expose of junkies ( if you want the best expose of that read Naked Lunch , if you can get through it anyway , besides the point ) , but the nature of the urban environment Frankie Machine lives . He expects after he gets out of prison for dealing to go on the straight and narrow , to become a drummer in a band and make it legit as a musician . But he has his " crippled " wife Zosch , who can't work and needs money and often complains , and then there's the old neighborhood - he can't escape seeing Louie ( Darren McGavin ) , who is still doing back-room card games and , yes , pushing dope . Like Mean Streets , it's hard to escape the minutia unless you leave . But then again , it's hard for Frankie Machine not to try and operate naturally in this urban quarter . It's just that he can't escape the temptation of junk ( when he's booked on a phony theft charge with his friend , he sees a junkie freaking out , and it puts back the fear of going back on into his clean self ) . And personifying Frankie is Sinatra , and I can't see anyone else who could've played him , even original choice Brando . He fits into the neighborhood , and seems like the kind of guy who should be a step ahead of the game . But there's also a vulnerability to Sinatra that he pulls out wonderfully , and by the time we see him going ' cold turkey ' in Molly's apartment , it's believable even if it's not the kind of thing those from ' my ' generation would think of heroin ( i . e . Trainspotting and certainly Requiem for a Dream ) . If for nothing else , you want to watch the movie to see what happens to Sinatra as this character . The flaws , however , come in some of the other performances , though it's a little tricky . Eleanor Parker seems to be overacting for a good portion of the movie , fooling Frankie that she's really crippled when in reality she can walk and is fooling him for one reason or another . But then it becomes clearer as it goes along - she's supposed to be nuts , and nuts with jealousy , and on that level it starts to get better . Meanwhile , Kim Novak is good , though not Vertigo-worthy , as the possible girl in the side but more like the voice of reason in the story . Then there's a Detective Bendar , who might be one of the most one-note characters / performances , ever . And also Sparrow , Frankie's nerdy friend , and the characters of Louie and Schiefka , and they're all played as one might expect them to ( actually , McGavin is better than OK ) . As far as casting other talent around Sinatra , Preminger doesn't do all that great . And , frankly , some scenes kind of fall flat . But there's a lot of fascination in the Man with the Golden Arm , and not just as some dated piece of sociological interest . It works as compelling drama , and as a message piece conveyed without being preachy or campy . It's a genuine article , just not exceptional . |
509,344 | 453,068 | 381,061 | 8 | not an all-time champion Bond film , but one that makes me anticipate Craig - and more Bond movies like this - in the future | Casino Royale goes back to the basics in the sense that it's from an Ian Fleming novel , the first time in many years that the franchise reaches back into Fleming's old bag of tricks . That the filmmakers also decide to transfer the story - however much it sticks to the original source I can't say - from communist villains to just plain terrorist dealers and the like . It still has the formula going for it , but not cranked up as it has been in the Pierece Brosnan James Bond films as of late . And it's great to see that the sense of humor is not too keyed up on itself , but rather back to the sly , almost sophisticated lines and moments of innuendo . It's also overlong by at least five minutes , if not more , and despite a good romantic angle in the story with Daniel Craig's 007 and Eva Green's Vesper , that too could've been trimmed just a little . But the dramatic power is matched only by the ruthless abandon of the action from director Martin Campbell ; not even as twisting and double-crossing a plot like this can get can get in the way of the real delights of a Bond film , which are exploited well . In fact , I'd say if for nothing else go to see the films to see Craig run , and then run some more , and kick ass and take as many names possible . The franchise decided with Craig to go back all the way to the beginning to Bond's first major assignment after making rank , by taking devious part in an ultra high-stakes poker tournament with its main guy Le Chiffre ( Maks Mikkelson , excellent as a tearing-blood villain who may or may not be the middleman-bad guy ) . But even before this we've already seen Bond at work chasing down a hired-gun in Madagascar ( quite the almost opening action sequence if I do say so ) , and another at an airport , which is the highlight action sequence for my money . These action scenes are done unpretentiously , and with an equal voracity on hero and foe - it's really a question of who can get who off one's back , or run faster or drive harder during these scenes . And in all of this Craig , if not as handsome as previous Bond stars , is assuredly up for the challenge of being rough and gritty in all of this . It helps to see him in this almost cold and detached secret-agent mode , as it does help make the romantic sub-plot - the usual one - with a little more depth . This romantic plot unfolds already after Bond's first semi-rendezvous with a lady in the Bahamas , with Vesper , played by Green in the great tradition of sultry leading ladies . But this time , being that she's not as big a star as some of the more recent Bond ladies , adds to her appeal . You might wonder what side she's on at first , but it's hard to question her vulnerability . One of my favorite scenes of the film , following a daunting fight in a stairwell , is in a shower , but not at all in the usual seductive way you might think once Bond enters into the shower with her . It's actually really touching , showing Bond's humility in calming her down after being frazzled like that . The romance then unfolds as one might expect , though perhaps to far too quick and extreme lengths ( then again , what else do you expect from 007 ) . There is a climax that does lean more to the emotional than the usual catharsis of ' he kills all the bad guys , yey ' , and actually helps to make the Bond character much more cynical and ready for detachment from his love interests than before thought . But I'm making this sound a little more ponderous than I should . Casino Royale isn't a great picture , but for the bulk of its time on screen it's extravagantly good entertainment , even when scenes are meant to be more about psychological tension like in the poker game scenes . Seein Craig and Mikkelsen face off at the table is just as enthralling as a good chase scene is . And it assuredly makes me anticipate more adventures with 007 , particularly with Craig , who I think should now be poised for a great career as both Bond ( for however long it will last ) and as a leading man too . |
509,900 | 453,068 | 1,130,988 | 8 | a very good metafilm / comedy , and a revelatory performance from its star | I never put much stock into Jean-Claude Van Damme , and really can you blame me ? Looking at his list of credits over the years he's practically always , if not just always , been in completely action-heavy movies that require him to kick some ass , for better or worse , and he's worked on stuff ranging from real kick-ass flicks ( Bloodsport ) to works with big-name directors ( Hard Target ) to campy crap ( Street Fighter ) . Now though , at the age of 47 , he's found , or rather the other way around , a very good filmmaker to make something that one might never expect from him : a metafilm . This means simply , according to wikipedia , that " the audience is tied in with the drama unfolding on the screen . " While this usually refers to movies about making movies like Contempt or 8 , JCVD would still be considered one even as it's only in part about this actor working in the movie business . Because , frankly , that's what is at the core is the stake of this human being , Jean-Claude Van Damme . One may compare to the far stranger ( and arguably much greater ) Being John Malkovich , but in the case of Van Damme he still is making something that his fans won't scratch their heads to . It's about the JCVD of the " real " world coming to grips with himself in this real world by being thrust unexpectedly into a situation as if out of one of his own movies . Following an opening shot that is fairly amazing - both as action and self-referential parody - we get put into the story of Van Damme , in-between projects , relatively broke and losing a child custody battle without enough legal money , being held by gunpoint at a post office in his hometown of Brussells . There's suspense , there's some violence , we even see once or twice the classic karate moves come out . But really for all the care that the filmmaker Mabrouk El Mechri or he and his co-writers put into doing a rendering of another Dog Day Afternoon style heist / negotiator plot , it's all about its star , caught in the crossfire of the situation and in his life at this moment . To be fair though there is some inspired film-making choices and it plays around with narrative inventively and with some inspiration ( the little title cards about the eggs and rocks are just bizarre , but other things work like the shot on just Van Damme while riding in the backseat of the taxi to the irate idolar of Mr VD ) . Only consistent thing to bug me really was the overly harsh lighting ; it's as if Robert Richardson was told to light something even MORE harshly than one might usually see from him , on nearly all scenes , and on occasion it works such as for the hyper-realism , but on the whole it becomes distracting to some scenes . But I digress : if you've ever seen a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie , like it or not , you'll dig this movie to varying degrees , and even if you are a complete JCVD virgin to his catalog it's still a revelation . He's a household name , and it's through his notoriety that the film shows how his career is a double-edged sword . He has fame as an international star , but he also gets cast in movies that are just not really seen by a lot of people unless already fans of die-hard action / martial-arts movie buffs . And in one of the great actor-to-audience monologues I may have ever seen - in fact why , flaws and all , I'd say JCVD is something of a must-see - we see a person's inner monologue played out as personal re-appraisal and as a meta-critique on film itself , as the star is attached to a crane that rises up above the " set " to the lighting fixtures and the actor , who has already shown so far in the film how good he really is , gets even better over the course of six minutes . It's a flooring moment in modern movies to see the " muscles from Brussels " in this confessional wonder , especially given that the actor has gone through things in real life as in the movie's " real life " ( i . e . he's been married before , actually a few times , twice with kids ) , and it comes almost so close as to want to re-evaluate the bulk of his oeuvre . Almost . JCVD is funny , sometimes even drop-to-the-floor funny , and it also cuts deep to the matter of being an actor or star or just a guy in a hostage situation . |
508,660 | 453,068 | 120,915 | 8 | Not heartwarming , but fun | Episode 1 is a good film , but it is by no means the best of the series . True , this is technically the first of the series ( or the fourth ) , and it does set a good stage for the other films , but this film does have it's flaws . 1 - Jar Jar Binks ! What drug was Lucas on when he created that character . I haven't seen a character ( a comic relief one at that ) as bad as that since Godzilla in 98 . And 2 - It's not as heart warming as the last ones , the other films seemed to at least have a good sense of love in it . Yet , that doesn't stop writer / director George Lucas form having plenty of fun ( including with spectacular visual effects that make up most of the movie ) including a terrific Pod Race sequence , great fight scenes , and cool battle action . But it does prove one thing , that like episode 4 , the episode following it ( like the dark episiode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back ) will be dark and good . Good entertainment anyway . |
510,660 | 453,068 | 79,759 | 8 | the Orchestra as a microcosm of society , or a small Fellini exercise , you decide - I think it's both | In most of Federico Fellini's best films , he made big statements about the way we live and socialize with each other and deal with ourselves as much as the past , all within exciting , tragic-comic film-making style . Orchestra Rehearsal does the same , though in a shorter amount of time . We are given a ( union ) orchestra in Italy , who's members vary from young adults to the old timers , women , introverts , trouble makers , and so forth , who each have their own music of choice ( or sometimes of necessity ) . The conductor is frustrated - he can barely get the orchestra to concentrate much less really practice , and the union problems get things caught in the way as they rip through the ironically happy and ( typically ) carnival-like pieces . There's a break taken , which is when everything starts to slowly , but surely , wind down and breakdown among the musicians . In the meantime a television crew stands by taking ' interviews ' of the musicians , their opinions , their little ' off ' moments , signaling the anarchy that will soon ensue . The interviews themselves are some of the strongest , funniest parts of the film - the interviewers get ( sometimes begrudgingly ) words on their instruments , why they play , how they play , and what role their music has in the world . These interviews can also be hit-or-miss sometimes , and because of the constant dialog ( there's sometimes barely a breath to be had , as is the beautiful claustrophobic style in Fellini's characters ) , there's almost too much information going on . There's also the tendency for the character ( s ) , whom are mostly portrayed by un-professionals ( to acting , not to music of course ) , to not be very convincing , or even a little boring ( the conductor's monologue in his room , for example , is one of the weaker parts of the film for me ) . But then it does start to pick up in insane , trademark Fellini fashion as the musicians rebel , and an unexpected surprise comes heading their way . It's likely that Orchestra Rehearsal isn't one of Fellini's very best films , but it is one that captivates as it bemuses , brings laughs as it does thought , and it isn't necessarily a wasteful experience ( some may not like it much at all , at least in comparison to his masterpieces ) . Not to forget the incalculable , lasting power of Nina Rota's music , which drives the film's bombastic , heart-racing rehearsing scenes ( there is also humor underneath much of the music , like when the musicians have their own little solos as jokes ) . There's something always satisfying when a composer is on the same page as the director he's writing for , and few were ever so in tune as Fellini and Rota . And even during some parts that don't add up , their combination helps out a lot . As mentioned before , one could even think deeper into the ideas and thoughts and characters in the film as almost a microcosm of society itself , its easy-going people , its hard-nosed people , its incendiaries , its nostalgics , and its normals and eccentrics . Or , one can just take the Fellini ride , so to speak , and enjoy some 70 minutes with Fellini & company . |
507,989 | 453,068 | 114,194 | 8 | two names : Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen . . . actually , there's more | Filmmaker Gregory Widen learned a little , I think , from his previous outing with Highlander : it's not enough to get Sean Connery and have ridiculous immortals and beheadings . You need some fresh ideas that can live past their shelf life of the 1980s without going into complete repetitive mode . With the Prophecy he has a sturdy script chronicling the lapse of faith with an ex-priest played by Elias Koetas and how he comes into the investigation of a series of crimes involving burnt up dead people and lots of signs pointing to a prophecy of thins involving the word " dark " . On the side of themes , things are fine . But he knew that his script needed some uplift and , as with Highlander , needed a star to carry it over past the genre fans . Christopher Walken was his key , and it's one of his true-blue " Walken-iest " performances . He's playing a supernatural creature of the underworld in the guise of himself , so he knows it's time to go to town , and he does . I can imagine Widen smiling to himself as he wrote such lines as " Study your Math , kids " , wherein Walken could sink his teeth in and make it an awesome nutbar of a performance . He still brings the creepiness when he needs ( in this case all he needs to do as Gabriel is to stare ) , but it's the superfluous sense of humor , a timing that might be deadpan if it weren't for the evil angle , and it works wonderfully . The rest of the film is good , I should still say . This is one of those underrated 90s movies that has people who like it or don't , which is the way it goes sometimes ( at the least , I would imagine , the first film has a better rep than the sequels , filling up a trilogy which is slightly inexplicable given the ending of this film ) . Actors like Virginia Madsen , Eric Stoltz , Adam Goldberg and Amanda Plummer take up very good space for what they need to do , but it's Viggo Mortensen who comes out on top as the most inspired casting after Walken . His scenes as Lucifer are tense but calm , if that makes sense , and he has that quality that one may have seen in De Niro in Angel Heart . He's so convincing as him that he makes his own a character that's been repeated countless times - and not just because of the " Mother's feces " line . He notches up the rank of a solid genre piece like the Prophecy into something of a kind of minor must-see - at least for those of us that will dig Mortensen in almost anything . |
509,446 | 453,068 | 66,765 | 8 | pretty good for me | I have only gotten in part in on Monty Python's Flying Circus , so this was good terrain for me to get through , kind of like getting one of those compilation records of the Beatles that they put out in mass droves when fans just didn't get enough from the actual albums themselves . Nothing apparently is ' original ' to the movie itself , in other words no segments were made especially for the film ( aside from the animations possibly , though even that I can't be totally sure of ) . But one of the good things about seeing the film at this point is that I got to have a lot of laughs with the sketches I'd already seen and liked ( some of them , like the Parrot sketch - albeit classic in a kind of vaudevillian way - aren't necessarily my favorites ) . I really enjoyed the ones too I hadn't seen , like the Marriage Guidance Counselor sketch where Michael Palin is in one of his funniest bits to date . Other classics I really do love , especially on repeat viewings , are the Lumberjack song , with it's always expectable joke funnier than the first , Killer Cars , Man with Tape Recorder Up His Nose , Expedition to Mount Kilmanjaro , and especially the Self Defence Class ( maybe my favorite , albeit it might've worked a little better on the show ) . Flasher too . Sure , it might be a little disconcerting to see some sketches that didn't make it in , or that there are some in there that shouldn't be . It's also a little lackluster - at least in comparison to the later Python films - due to Ian McNaughton being a TV director and more used to the point-and-shoot style of TV as opposed to the camera almost being in on the joke too with Holy Grail and Meaning of Life . But it certainly wasn't a waste of time either . |
508,351 | 453,068 | 90,728 | 8 | a little goofy , as off-the-wall as can be , but also - for the right viewer - just the ticket | Big Trouble in Little China is a movie that is perfect for me IF I'm in the right kind of mood . Sometimes I turn the channels and see this on and can't bear to watch it if I'm on one of those overly ' bad ' days . But if things aren't too bad , and nothing else is going on too troubling in the world , this film does the trick entertainment-wise . In some ways it might be director John Carpenter's most shamelessly entertaining genre flick , with it's hero ( Kurt Russell ) a truck driving near sailor-mouthed ( at least has the attitude to a T ) guy getting involved with a strange martial arts fantasy plot . Going into the film you should know a little background , like how the original title was going to be the sequel to the first Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai picture . It's almost too off-the wall at times , with some wild supporting characters thrown into the mix . To talk about the plot of the film might be moot ; it's suffice to say the film works because a ) Russell is at his best in one of his few Carpenter collaborations , with enough male swagger for any beer-drinking guy ; b ) the special effects and fight scenes , even by today's standards , are not that bad and even have an effect where a little-kid voice inside keeps saying " so awesome " ; and c ) as escapist entertainment , you could do a helluva lot worse . |
509,655 | 453,068 | 66,808 | 8 | pretty crazy , not altogether successful , but it's also very funny | Bananas is like a cookie-batter of all of those early Woody Allen jokes all plopped into a bowl and shaken around . It's a film loaded with political jokes , but without a direct focus aside from Cuba and dictators and the like . There are numerous sexual jokes , including one of Woody's funniest scenes involving a magazine ( the buying and holding on a subway , very silent comedy-like ) . And even Howard Cosell becomes an iconic figure in Woody's comedy in the brilliant opening scenes . The plot is very loose , so if you're looking for that look elsewhere . Also , to put it mildly , some of the jokes may not work at all for some viewers of today . But it's the go-for-broke irreverence of the picture that has it still worth viewing today . Much of Woody's own verbal bits are very good , but it's also worth to note how the physical comedy - while crude and a little off-key - also has a good ring to it . Unlike the director's later films , you can still sense that he's trying to ' get ' how to make a film , and so in trying to do anything he can think of to get a laugh , of course , some of it doesn't work . For example , in Cuba the gag where the gargantuan pile of dung is carried down the stairs with the Lain music in the background gives a grin , but not as big a laugh as might be intended . Indeed , this might be Woody's most ' immature ' film , while still containing some of his more biting , satirical jabs at dictators and oddball politics . Woody would still have this wild , go-for-broke style of humor more akin to some of his quirkier short stories in other films of the early 70s . While this isn't as successful in that regard as Sleeper or Love and Death , I'd still watch it again if it was on TV ; even the romantic subplot , undercooked in comparison with the rest of the more satirical stuff , is interesting . |
508,540 | 453,068 | 48,140 | 8 | not a perfect musical , but it has a lot of great , pure moments , with great stars | It'd be easy to call Guys and Dolls great . It's got Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando ( and , contrary to Sinatra's original wishes , the casting works ) , it's got a really cool 1950s feel , even if it is basically transposed from stage to screen with only a little interruption . And most of the songs are often a lot of fun , and catchy , and performed with that wink and nod to the wonderful escapism inherent in the form itself . If it's not entirely as great as some others of its ilk , it shouldn't be any fault of the filmmaker Joseph L . Mankiewicz . Not all the songs entirely click , and a little of the dialog feels like it's being performed for the stage as opposed to film ( it's hard to tell at times - Brando and Sinatra straddle the line so often that one has to watch carefully to tell when one plays for the camera or for the " stage " , while the actress playing Adele is better for stage than screen ) . The plot is one of those winners that works well for its period , even if one wonders if its influence has stretched to the likes of 1999's She's All That ( well , not quite , but close ) . A gambler ( and 14-year betrothed ) , played by Sinatra , wants to host a big-time game , but is told that the " heat is on " , meaning the cops are on watch . So , he has only one choice to host the game , with a thousand dollar tab . The only way he can get it is through a big-time bet with fellow gambler Brando , who's put on to make a wild wooing job of a mission worker . It allows for the predictable twists in the story , in the sudden turn-on-turn-off of the charms of the character , of the idiosyncrasies of people from the streets ( gangsters and dancers and the " saitn " played by Jean Simmons who falls for Brando ) . It is , in its basic concept , about this whole world of guys and dolls , and how to balance one or the other - obviously without getting married or too compromised . Mankiewicz brings a lot of energy to the piece , even when keeping still with the camera on the subject , and his stars are properly reeled in . Hell , even Brando works excellently for a musical as he goes beyond being simply THE method actor and shows his chops for singing and big-star quality . The story and characters eventually wind down to what you'd hope will happen , and that's fine . All we ask for - and what we get - is entertainment in good spurts of witty , involving dialog , and a few songs and dances that bring the house down ( my favorites were the number with the lady-cats at the club , Luck be a Lady , and the two numbers down in Havana , Cuba ) . |
510,082 | 453,068 | 63,671 | 8 | Corman's Terror Vs . the real deal ; Bodganovich's imperfect but effective look at stardom and mass murder | In one of the most daring displays of creative fortitude - and just one of the great movie-geek stories to tell - Peter Bogdanovich , an assistant for Roger Corman on the Wild Angels , was given carte blanche by Corman for his first film as director , with the only catch being that he had to use Boris Karloff for two days that he owed Corman , and had to use footage from the Victorian horror film the Terror . After seeing the Terror , Bogdanovich joked to his wife how the film should start : the climax of the Terror is shown in a screening room where once the film ends Karloff sitting and watching the film turns around to Corman and says " that was the worst movie I've ever seen ! " But then this , plus the story of Charles Whitman ( you might remember his mention in Full Metal Jacket ) , spurred on a direction in two stories : the story of an old , cranky and waiting to retire horror movie star who thinks he's run his course , and a frighteningly ordinary kid from the suburbs who has a lot of guns and uses them first on his wife and mother , then on passer-bys on the highway . What Bogdanovich has here is a case of two stories that should be completely unlikely to work together - with the killer story being the one that should obviously be more compelling - but somehow logically work together . It's thrilling , and often times hilarious , to see the odd cross-cutting between , for example , a sadistic , random act of violence like picking off strangers on a freeway with a cold , blank expression , to Karloff being annoyed by a sycophantic DJ . While some scenes ( mainly the one with Karloff as Orlock and Boganovich as Sammy Michaels drunk ) are a little flat in execution , there's also a subtext to them too . When we see the boy's family watching TV late at night , with a kind of average , typical expression save for the boy's quiet quality , it spells of the ' snap ' factor that can spring out of suburbia . It's still relevant for today , maybe even too much so in these post-Columbine and especially Virginia Tech days . The main question posed by Bogdanovich is potent , even as his film-making chops are being tested and tried out ( it helps that Laszlo Kovacs , one of the great DPs in cinema history , is DP on the film ) , which is simply this : what is true horror , the monster on the screen or the monster that could be lurking behind the screen ? Self-conscious as it might be , and as amusing it is to see Karloff , in the climactic moment when the killer runs out of ammo and tries to reload , slapping the hell out of the kid for ruining the drive-in movie screening , it's far more startling and provocative than anything Corman would've cooked up on his own . There's also an in-your-face headlines quality to the picture that comes out of the re-write Samuel Fuller did , where the BIG quality of dangerous news and hot-button topics are delivered well in the context of straightforward narrative . As dated as the Terror is , and probably was in 1968 , Targets has a place in today's movie landscape where messages lack that grain of salt . And , of course , an awesome Karloff performance , his last in fact . |
508,352 | 453,068 | 94,980 | 8 | like its predecessor , it's about a certain cross-hair of a particular music scene at the time | I'll admit right off the bat that I didn't respond as strongly to the Decline of Western Civilization 2 : the Metal Years as I did to Penelope Spheeris's first film and documentary , even as I know I did like this film . The former was a kind of fly-on-the-wall ( as I recall , not as many direct interviews , more concert footage ) look at this way of rock and roll life - of LA punks - that Spheeris knew intrinsically . In the Metal Years , she here isn't as much a fly on the wall in the sense of just getting the pure feeling of these people as she is getting answers to questions by a mix of highly popular and working-the-bottom bunch of Metal rockers . It of course can't cover everything in such an amount of time , and one might be slightly disappointed to see Britain's metal scene is sort of overlooked in the course of the film ( not that it isn't represented in interviews with Ozzy and Lemmy , but Maiden and Priest fans , among others , may wonder wtf ) . But if there is any single strength to this seemingly longer-than-90 minute film , with the interviews strung together in a interesting fashion alongside the concert footage , it's that this particular scene of American metal - particularly LA metal's scene - is captured very well . And in this capturing of this time and place and the people all abound in it , it's of course of note to mention that everything the musicians say is not 100 % reliable , and here and there it definitely has the feeling of bullsing with Spheeris's questions ( however clever and funny ) . But there are enough true moments to really get the sense of these people at the time , that there is maybe at least some depth to the members of Poison ( with really one good song in my opinion ) , or that Ozzy does have a very clear and honest view of what's gone on with him and the scene , or what rock means or drugs mean or sex . If there isn't always a focus in the line of questioning , or if there doesn't seem to be much of a structure to the film , maybe it's part of the point . Here we have a mix of rockers either trying to make it ( Odin , who I think made it bigger since , are featured prominently , as well as London ) , or have made it ( Aerosmith , Kiss , Megadeth and Alice Cooper among a couple others ) , and be it that a scene or two is staged or set up at a location for a desired effect , there aren't many punches pulled with the answers to the fairly straightforward questions . And some of them , when not all about " rock and roll is my life " does show the dark side quite accurately , especially considering the time period . One interview with the drunk in the pool gives the most to try and shake off , even as the manipulation of the filmmaker kind of kicks in with having his mother right there watching him in his over-drunk state . But , it is at the end of the day an entertaining documentary , if only as being a fan of the sub-fold of music myself . Some of the concert footage is less than great , even as London and of course Megadeth give quality performances . There was , like with other good documentaries , enough talk coming out of people to really chew on , and it shows Spheeris in a sort of different direction than in the other look at life in underground rock and roll . It's not great , but for the fans of the bands & / or those interviewed , it is near essential viewing , and also with an anthropological side to it through the stories and Q & A's that work for those not as into the music . |
508,280 | 453,068 | 377,091 | 8 | not flawless , but like Larry Clark / Harmony Korine collaborations , they get the grit of growing up teen male | I got uncomfortable sometimes during Mean Creek's second act , which is precisely what the filmmakers intentions were . I even flipped the channel for a second or two when things became a little too uneasy between the kids in the boat . I could relate to this situation very much , of kids who have no idea really how temporal everything is , and how the maturity level of almost everyone involved waxes and wanes and has to truly be tested for change to occur . In the case of Mean Creek's characters , this ends up happening through the main tragedy of the film . It's main figure , a fat kid with some problems of his own , ends up having to cause this change through his own undoing . But it's not even about that as really the cost of a life that young and ignorant ; it's the atmosphere of fear , contempt , revenge , and spite that ends up drawing the characters to their main focus of conscience . The last act that measures this is strong up to a point ; it sort of ends a little abruptly and suddenly and oddly ( the mother AND Culkin's character going out to that certain spot , not believable to me ) . And the actors in general are quite good for their age if a little spotty too . But there was rarely a moment , particularly for the first half , that I didn't buy into . It's almost like one of those true-crime case stories put to dramatization , yet infused with that spirit of the Larry Clark & / or Harmony Korine films . These kids are really on the fringe , and it's there where they can get pushy , nasty , funny ( in a childish way ) , and estranged from leading something of a " normal " life . It's a good , sometimes really intense film about dysfunctional ties between family , friends , and foes in those damned adolescent years , and a kind of extreme case that had me glued to the screen , whenever it wasn't too close to home anyway . |
508,483 | 453,068 | 48,254 | 8 | Imperfect to be sure , yet a picture that holds the Kubrick touch - indie inspiration | Killer's Kiss holds the story elements of a down and dirty film-noir , made for the drive-in and smaller theaters of the mid 50's , and of a Davey , a boxer ( Jamie Smith ) . He's just lost his last fight , though that's hardly on his mind now . What is on his mind is Gloria ( Irene Kane ) , the woman who lives across from him in his apartment . When he views her getting harassed by a thug ( Frank Silvera ) , he steps in to help , and in the process is drawn into her story , and then drawn into her affections . When she's kidnapped by the same thug , this leads him to go looking for her , in the dangerous side streets and alleys of New York , before he heads off to Seattle . This was iconoclast Stanley Kubrick's second feature film ( his first that's most easily available on video and DVD ) , and as I watched it I knew I wasn't seeing anything of a landmark caliber . Indeed , there were some flaws in the performances ( though to Kubrick's defense some of the voices are probably not even of those who are talking ! ) , as well as a weak story turn here and there . However , what makes Killer's Kiss such a highly interesting view is how the 26 year-old Kubrick approaches the material , and what he adds to what else would be a low-grade B-noir . While he is working cheap , he's doing it in his own experimental fashion . That he was so young when he made it adds a special little touch - college kids and independent filmmakers could look at this and feel inspired , despite it being nearly half a century since it was made ( real locations and on a shoe-string budget is a constant for those in the indie world ) . Using the neon-lit streets , the darkened side-streets , and the rooftops and building interiors as his landscapes , Kubrick paints a vivid backdrop for his characters . It is probably correct to say that Kubrick got better as a filmmaker after this film , yet there are sequences ( the entrancing ballet sequence with the narration , the timing in the boxing match , as well as his expressiveness with shadows / value , and the mannequin climax ) that display his obvious talent as a director , photographer , and editor . |
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