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508,765 | 453,068 | 87,332 | 10 | One of the Funnest movies ever | Human Sacrifice , Dogs and Cats living together , MASS HYSTERIA said one Peter Venkman . And that could pretty much describe this goofy comedy from the great minds of Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis . But the plot is pretty interesting also . It shows a trio of scientists ( funny ones at that including Bill Murray in one of his best roles ) turn from college rejects to the biggest hit in New York by being ' profesional paranormal investigators and eliminators ' ( AKGhostbusters ) . There are plenty of funny parts , but they are overshadowed by parts of ridiculous ( yet remarkable ) effects which showcase ghosts of plenty . But thanks to great writing , great directing ( Ivan reitman ) , and great acting , this film gets to be a great example of comedy in it's finest form and It's one of the best films of the 80's as well . |
508,787 | 453,068 | 477,348 | 10 | You need to call it . I can't call it for you . It wouldn't be fair . | No Country for Old Men is as exceptional a mix of two creative talents - the Coen brothers , Joel and Ethan Coen , and author Cormac McCarthy ( recent winner of the Pulitzer for The Road , his own masterpiece ) as one could imagine , as they converge on a story that in lessor hands would be just a B movie . The story concerns an average Joe out hunting one day in Texas who comes across a bunch of dead bodies , heroin , and a satchel with 2 million in cash . He takes it , but without knowing that a true embodiment of a psychopath ( Javier Bardem ) is on his trail , and as he evades him it becomes more and more clear the fatalism that lies in store , as a weathered sheriff ( Tommy Lee Jones ) is also on the trail with perpetulally sad eyes looking on from his stolid demeanor . More than this , it's also about as good a morality play as one could ask for , because it plays and tools and makes very serious questions about what is moral , or what isn't , or what is so ambiguous that it's all up to the toss of a coin or a chance ride out of town . There are a few interpretations to Bardem's character Anton that could be taken , but one thing is certain - he's less a symbol than a real presence , a " ghost " as Jones's sheriff calls him that can come around at the drop of a pin , usually in the dark , and strike the utmost fear ( or confusion if you're a clerk ) in the hearts of men and women . You'll never look at a coin toss the same way again . Or an air-gun . Or fixing a bullet wound in a leg . Or a hunt at a motel . Or even the aftermath of a car crash . But at the same time it's the purest time of cinema , recalling Hitchcock and Leone and Welles's Touch of Evil and the best of noir and westerns . There are so many exceptional shots and lighting , so much depth to the perception of the characters through the mis-en-scene , so much tension , that through this it's all up to the actors to make or break the near-perfection that is the McCarthy source . Bardem embodies Anton like no other could - you can't look at his eyes , often steel-cold and horrifically professional ( to what professional who can say ) , which occasional tear - and it's obviously worthy of an Oscar . And Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones are also fantastic ; we see Brolin often in the midst of an action scene , a moment of ' save-your-life ' going on , and one can finally see an actor of his caliber completely breaking out in a role that doesn't require him to ever totally " emote " . Jones , on the other hand , gives a compassionate turn in a film that's about the struggles of desperate men in a land without law and order . He's gone through so much that it comes out completely in his voice and eyes , sorrowful but holding back , and he reaches a level of connection with the character that makes the Fugitive look like simpleton TV . Kelly McDonald , who plays Lleland's wife , is also excellent when called upon , especially in a crucial scene later in the film . It's gut-wrenching , bleak , violent , super-tense ( I clenched many a knuckle during some scenes ) , surprisingly funny in a darkly comic manner not seen by the Coens in many years , and artistically fashioned to a beat that is meditative ( watch the opening moments with Jones's voice-over ) , simple , and doomed . It's beautiful and terribly tragic , for McCarthy fans it finally strikes at what is truest to his material - even if you haven't read the book itself the Road will give an indication of the mood and atmosphere at hand - and at the moment I can't think of any other film that would be the best pick of the year - maybe one of the best films I've ever seen . |
510,990 | 453,068 | 60,891 | 10 | the feminine control factory of 18th century and beyond | The Nun might be just another very good , possibly excellent and heartbreaking piece of " religion is rotten and the people in it control people in terrible and soul-crushing ways " movie-making akin to Carl Dreyer if not for its last third or maybe second half ( it's something of that length ) . For a good while Jacques Rivette's film from the book by Denis Diderot is about Suzanne ( Anna Karina ) , a young woman who is passed along from her parents , one the mother wanting to go to the afterlife " clean " without the burden of her sin which was connected to Suzanne's father not really being her father , to a convent and forced to say she will be celibate and devout and all that jazz . Jazz as in life as a nun , forced to say that she believes wholly in God and will deny herself everything in order to serve him - when he calls or feels like it of course . In this first half or so the film is about as close as one can get outside of Carl Dreyer to it being about the pain inflicted upon an innocent in a world dominated by a ) a natural prejudice towards women , in this case to go completely rigidly by the rules - or , b ) for that matter , a hell placed upon those who dont want to be nuns and just want to experience something else in the world . We see Suzanne subjected to this convent at first run by a helpful and loving Mother Superior Mme de Moni only to die and her replacement be so hard-pressed as to eventually see Suzanne as being possessed by a devil , keeping her away from the other nuns , locked up without food or water , or any legal counsel . This part seems straightforward as does the eventual Priests - find - out - Mme - is - unrelenting - and - transfer - her story progression . . . but something very fascinating happens , something that makes The Nun from what is already a heart-rending and tasteful story of repression and super 18th century Christian fervor into a great film . The second convent , on first appearance , is total bliss compared to the former one . Suzanne is treated to happy nuns , a happy Mother Superior Simonin , and even some lighthearted revelry like playing games outside , something that would have never happened at the previous convent . But there's also an underlying uneasiness that is confirmed by the Mother Superior being , how should I say , " clingy " to at first Suzanne's story and then Suzanne herself . It's not just enough for Rivette , by way of the book , to show religion being domineering and cruel and at best complacent in the expected sense , but for another look at what should be religious organization run by caring and spiritual people to be also total kooks . It's like Rivette puts down this section of some fun like the slightest of reprieves and then to bring it back under the rug , and it's something really special to see . It's a bleak story not simply because a woman who has no rightful place in a convent of nuns is forced into it and made into another cog in the religious machine , but for the lack of hope conveyed in what good there is , the goodness of people devoted to a life of faith , that is revealed . It's an incredibly precise indictment on organized religion and society that allows how it runs as much as captivating morality drama . The Nun can also be read as a searing feminist statement , but going into this part might make this too long a review . Suffice to say The Nun , a controversial film ( at the time ) made from a controversial book of its time , conveys what it wants to say in stark locations and even starker performances from the supporting cast . The two actresses playing the significant Mother Superiors in the story deserve credit , yet the main reason to see the picture is for Anna Karina . She makes a sense of purpose in every scene , a performance that is startling for it being so removed from ex-husband Godard's usual self-conscious comedy / dramas and into something that requires her to plunge the depths of whatever she can handle emotionally for the character . It turns out to be the best serious performance of her's I've seen to date outside of maybe Vivre sa vie . Suzanne , thanks to Karina , is so sad a character , so right in her common sense and driven almost mad by this rigid and monstrous Christian dogma that you cant take your eyes off her for a second . It's rare to see a performance this tender and selfless to the dark and light in human being . |
508,877 | 453,068 | 373,444 | 10 | what's the third dimension ? To hear Don Hertzfeldt's little whatever-the-hell fluffy creations answering that question is one of the highlights of this deliriously campy and unhinged act of brilliant stupidity . For a while all I had seen was Intermission in the 3rd Dimension , where lots of wonderful non-sense ensues when a pair of 3-D glasses become involved . And always , in all three parts when finally seen , it becomes one nice bit shot of collective absurdity , where the little furry things go on and on in talk sometimes , the dialog never matches the lips , and its never unmerited . Hertzfeldt jumps on any goofy idea that seems fit for his little demented world of crude drawings , including rainbows , horses , Satan , lollipops , giant killer robots , giant eyeballs , and direct from Hertzfeldt's Rejected flying ticks . There's nothing that isn't worth laughing hysterically from seeing all of this . . . unless you have no soul . I kid , but really , this is like a litmus test of crazy ' underground ' animation that doesn't go avant garde but really just doesn't take anything , at all , seriously ever . It's charming and shockingly funny , and Hertzfeldt - following this and his ( oddly enough ) Oscar nominated act of advertising bravado Rejected - will be etched in your mind soon afterwards .
509251 453068 378194 10.0 On the whole , so to speak , or by itself , the second part of Kill Bill fits the Tarantinian psychology Although , as a film buff myself , having a whole Kill Bill epic in one sitting would've been satisfying , like the first part that was split Vol . 2 works extraordinarily well . In terms of storytelling it's direct and ( of course ) unconventional , in style Tarantino pays homage / borrows ( or depending on your point of view steals ) from most of the films that stew around in his arsenal . And with dialog , in maybe a couple of moments it doesn't seem up to par , but it's not often . And the acting is in the greatest tradition of B-movie , spaghetti western , shaw-brothers , kung-fu et . all . If you look at both Kill Bills it's fascinating as a movie buff to discover things you haven't seen before ( i . e . the whole blood-coated style of the climax in vol . 1 ) and things you recognize right away ( i . e . the unmistakable songs of Ennio Morricone , who is just as creditable as Leone for Tarantino's style ) . What's there to say about the story , except that it picks up where it left off ? Sort of - as usual , the non-linear story aspect kicks in , and two sections of the film derail from the continuing story of revenge on the DIVAs and Bill ( the squad members this time being the perfectly paced in tone and presence Michael Madsen as Budd , and Daryl Hannah's most vindictive role as Elle Driver ) . At first , we get a stark , black and white view of what the Massacre at Two Pines " was like , and right away we're introduced ( finally ) to Bill , played by David Carradine , one of the most calm , affecting film villain performances in recent memory . The other derailment is to tell the immensely entertaining story of The Bride's training by the heavy-duty Pai Mei ( Gordon Liu , in one of his performances in the whole KB saga ) . This could be counted as the funnest part of the film , aside from a few key moments , as the camera sweeps from medium to close up happen every thirty seconds or so . In the acting department , as I've said , Tarantino gets a big boost - this could be counted as being one of the key performances of not only Carradine's career , but Thruman's as well . They elevate the mood of Tarantino's ( sometimes ) tongue-in-cheek dialog , but they're also pro's that do their best when it comes time to the showdown , with monologues that come close to being QT's most memorable ( although not his best - as cool as it all sounds , it doesn't hit the Pulp Fiction marker ) . When it does end , the whole operatic sense of the film seems to work , and to the audience it will either be a fitting end or a disappointment . It is , at least , the most ambitious action / comedy / drama / kung-fu / western / romance film ( this is referring to Vol . and both volumes together ) in many a moon ; it's a lot like opening up the filmmaker's skull , and getting a scrambled up dosage of his memories and references , and it works much more often than not . Oh , and how about a bit of applause to Bob Richardson and Michael Parks ! | null |
509,709 | 453,068 | 70,136 | 10 | an incredible story of a man's gifts ; not your usual sports documentary | Werner Herzog's The Great Ecstacy of Woodcarver Steiner is a glimpse of a man who is quite amazing at his gift of ski-jumping - he's the world record holder at the time of filming ( and a record he actually tops over himself more than once ) - and how he's all the more impressive because of his humble attitude towards the activity . He's a woodcarver as his other profession , but has it as his primary obsession to fly , to get whisked away someplace that is of his design but not entirely of his control . And he's affected by the pressure of his own skills , skills he acknowledges but doesn't flaunt ; like some comic-book hero , he has to deal with the responsibilities he has at his disposal , of not going down for his audience ( who might want to see that happen ) , or for himself , and at the same time staying true to his gifts . He's often by his own , seen through Herzog's long lens contemplating or trying to stay on his own two feet well enough when not ski-jumping . But he knows that he can't be brought down , as his touching story about his pet raven as a kid , who got pecked away by other birds , and in order to stop it , as an act of compassion , he shot it down . At the end of the day , however , the thrill of flight is all that counts , high scores be damned . Herzog takes this man's obsession , albeit with modest feelings about his own worth as a mega-star in Switzerland , and transforms it into a beautiful spectacle of simple facts - of the moment by moment updates of Steiner's conditions or what has to be done to the slope or what rules have to be changed to accommodate Steiner alongside the other contenders - with some of the most beautiful shots in any Herzog film . It's not anything alien to see someone in a typical sports documentary to see the athlete in slow-motion speed , but somehow Herzog transforms the familiar into something akin to the theme , of Steiner's own thrill and ' ecstacy ' as what the audience feels as well . It's very interesting as well to see Steiner in slow-motion when he skids , when he or another ski-jumper gets injured ( and almost everyone seen ski-jumping in the film , and there aren't many shown other than Steiner , get injured in tumbles in rough ways ) , as it's something one usually wouldn't see in the glorious montages of sports figures . I also really enjoyed seeing Herzog combine voice-over taken after the event , with Steiner slightly rambling on , over the footage of his jumps . Just seeing a ski-jumper in and of itself is a fascinating sight , as one curls up and has to anticipate what's to come in mere mili-seconds . And Herzog adds his visual poetry of motion with some usual-yet-compelling behind the scenes footage to make it an exceptional work . Steiner isn't a simple hero , but one who's got complexities even Herzog can only see so much into , as he's an otherwise everyman who goes to fantastic lengths for greatness , yet is very aware of the fragility of such power in a sport so reliant on deadly competition and spectator unrest . Very well done . |
509,735 | 453,068 | 435,625 | 10 | possibly the most effective and scary horror movie of the year | Neil Marshall is not a name I was familiar with before seeing his latest film , The Descent ; he's made movies released in the UK , which got limited to no release in the US , to which it would be rightful to say that this is the best kind of calling card he could have made . It's a horror movie that's made with the eye of a professional , one who realizes that the best way to get an audience involved in what comes in the second to third acts of the picture is to make an equally compelling set-up act with the characters . The cast is also all but unknown to me , but they all too perform very strongly as the tough , hot women who decide to risk it down in a spelunking ( if that's the word ) expedition . Particularly the roles of Sarah ( Shauna MacDonald ) and Juno ( Natalie Jackson Mendoza ) are very compelling once the action really starts to roll . But going back to the professional part of the style - this is the kind of horror movie where you do and you don't notice what the filmmakers are doing . Unlike a recent horror movie like Saw which induces lots of fancy shmancy photography and editing to try to draw a viewer in , the director knows the best way is to not show what's going on . With this case being a cave , where the claustrophobia , consistently dark corners , and the lack of direction and light , marks enough doom that it just needs to be shot in a straightforward telling-the-story manner . At the same time , even with all of this atmosphere induced once the creatures appear and the pace picks up tenfold , you almost might forget really that a ' style ' is going on , which is quite pleasing at a time when horror directors feel the need to make things gritty just for the sake of it . This is not to say the film isn't one of the most gory of the year , with enough blood to probably go through two of these newer remakes . The set-up to the film with the girls is quite good ( including a beginning involving a certain child that is one of the great modern horror movie beginnings by being realistically horrific ) , leading one to want to see these girls make it through to the end . The ending that has been apparently changed by Lions Gate for the US release is indeed unsatisfying , though it's lead-up is a plot element that's the only convention that doesn't really work . This is that a particular character near death gives information that's only there so that later in the film something else can come of this , breaking part of the belief within the disbelief ( if that makes sense ) . But , overall , this is likely to become a nifty cult hit from overseas , the best of its kind to come from the UK since 28 Days Later . It doesn't really lie to you about what it is , and within certain conventions everything is put to top notch use with locations , tension , special effects and make-up , and even a couple of amusing points . It's a piece that I would probably in good conscience recommend to any serious fan of the genre . |
508,142 | 453,068 | 47,136 | 10 | one of my favorite westerns | Nicholas Ray , one of those rare directors who could put in a style or outlook of his own in various films of different conventional types in 1950's Hollywood , has with his film Johnny Guitar a job very well done . I had the chance to see it on the big screen at a revival screening some months ago ( mostly among Joan Crawford fans ) on a double bill with Sam Fuller's Forty Guns . Crawford , McCambridge , and definitely Sterling Hayden ( one of my all-time favorite ' guy ' actors ) brought a lot to the entertainment factor of the film . The story goes like this ( and if you've seen Sergio Leone's Once Upom a Time in the West , you'll notice obvious similarities , as his was a slight homage of this film ) - Crawford owns a bar / parlor on the edge of town . The townspeople want her out to make way for a railroad , most vocally of this is McCambridge ( in maybe the best performance of the film , really the most theatrical ) . The title character is played with usual panache by Hayden , who at first is a little enigmatic , then reveals himself to have a past with Crawford . The story then unravels from there , in a way that actually went against my expectations , much to my delight . This is the kind of genre picture that knows what it is , but with a director clever enough to take chances . For example , there is the contrast of color between Crawford and the angry townspeople near the beginning of the film . She's playing the piano on one side of the room in a white dress , while the others , the supposedly ' good ' people of the town , are all in black . Is Ray messing with the convention of good guys white , bad guys black , or do we have to keep attentive all the way through to know how it plays out ? I think you'd have to - this is one of those westerns that has enough excitement , humor ( mostly dark or unintentional ) , and a climax that goes with some of the best of them . At the least it should hold up for those expecting something very dated - it's not quite as towering as the Leone films , but on its own terms Ray has a contender against all those old-school Ford / Wayne westerns . |
510,576 | 453,068 | 56,965 | 10 | I'm 71 , I got a right to be loud lady , I'm going to die soon ! | I was so glad I finally got to see this online ( again , via you-tube ) , because it's an incredible shot of comedy from the sharp-as-a-Jewish-tack mind of Mel Brooks . It's like Brooks stumbled into an avant-garde theater showing an underground short , like a slightly more sophisticated Brakhage short . Which makes it all the more uproarious , because these sorts of films DO take themselves way too seriously as art sometimes ( sometimes the symbolism is deep and meaningful , but other times , as Brooks's old man comments that it's meaning is junk ) . We also get the insight that it's , of course , a " dirty picture " as he sees two amorphous shapes come together and " bond " in the ways that only abstract images from avant-garde filmmakers can do . But of course the director Pintkoff is in on the joke too , and shapes his movie in order to suit Brooks's lashings , despite the ' others ' in the theater that just want silence . I think maybe a part of me just found it funny , in the first few minutes I mean , because it was Brooks doing such an over-the-top Russian caricature . But there's many , many great zingers in there , the kind that provided me the same belly laughs I had from the classics the Producers and Blazing Saddles . Though for some , since it's onlt 3 minutes long , there won't be much in the way of " story " to get in the way . It's just a cranky old man fobbing off on 60s experimental film-making - and an old man that could criticize anything any day of the week and make hilarious ! |
508,963 | 453,068 | 65,780 | 10 | Not only one of the greatest rock doc's ever captured , but one of the most important of all documentary films | Gimme Shelter details the Rolling Stones tour in 1969 , as they promoted their albums Beggar's Banquet ( already released ) , Let it Bleed ( it would be released at the end of the year ) , and slowly worked through material for their album for the next year called Sticky Fingers . The film is now infamous for rock fans for it's depiction of the doomed Altamont speedway concert , where amidst a higher-than-usual pitch of angry vibes in the audience a Hell's Angel killed a man after seeing him pull out a gun . The rest of the film leading up to that is just as watchable ( or , I don't know if that moment , free-framed near the end , is what could be called as ' watchable ' ) for fans of the Stones , showcasing some of their best songs live including Jumping Jack Flash , Satisfaction , Love in Lain , and Sympathy for the Devil . There is even a scene where the Stones listen to one of the tracks that they recorded for ' Fingers ' ( the ballad Wild Horses ) that's rather serene . But then , of course , comes the Altamont concert , which gets an appropriate build up as the promoters and lawyers figure out the concert , which was to be the west-coast throwback to the legendary Woodstock concert that occurred earlier that year - in fact , many have called Gimme Shelter the ' anti-Woodstock ' for its aspect of rock and roll tragedy , however they each have their own senses of the beauty and disillusionment that went with the era . The directors , Albert & David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin , give us the most appropriate thing to let us know what happened at the concert , much like with the hippie era in San Francisco that by 69 had deteriorated . They view the audience a little more intently than the band , and when the band plays we hear all of the toxicity in the noise that comes from the tired audience as well as the group frustrated with the state of affairs at that moment . It's almost like a crescendo in an opera that builds to finale that's known before it was started , and we are left with the memory of how harsh reality comes over a once-promising scene . And , like Woodstock and other non-rock documentaries , it holds unforgettable moments for people to see in future generations . |
509,259 | 453,068 | 17,925 | 10 | perhaps the boldest , and maybe just the best , of all action comedies | The General provides the kind of blockbuster entertainment a lot of today's action-film fans don't know what they're missing and provides the kind of humor that's varied in physical prowess and ingenuity with timing and detail and deadpan expressionism . While Passion of Joan of Arc may make us bawl out in tears and City Lights and Sunrise marvel us with the joys of living , The General is just rollicking fun filmed to a perfection within its limitations . It might tell a slightly contrived love story ( i . e . she'll only even speak to John if he is in a uniform despite a reasonable explanation why he's declined to fight at first ) , and some of its special effects sequences are near unbelievable , but Buster Keaton and collaborator Clyde Bruckman are so in control of their elements - of crowds , of the speed and intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the train , of Keaton in the midst of Civil War terror - that it's hard to see it as anything else but a classic of its time and beyond . Just the sheer physicality is incredible ; watching Keaton put together these sequences , from the bits of him trying to load up a train with wood to getting onto another rail of tracks to dodge the other cars and just running around and then having the hundreds of soldiers running and fighting and in battle formation , is nearly overwhelming . The General is only 75 minutes but it feels epic and full of grandeur , and its got some hysterical set-pieces to boot ( watching Keaton and his female lead getting out of a bear trap is enough to belly laugh and cringe at the same time ) on top of its breakneck pacing . In a sense there isn't a whole lot of plot even as it tells a very carefully constructed story in the strictest action-movie sense of the word : a man in love with his engine and the girl of his dreams isn't allowed in the army , but nevertheless takes some kind of control over his " General " train car , and one night overhears of a plot to sabotage his Confederate buddies , which he'll stop in the most insane circumstances imaginable . The General provided me with two things consistently , and didn't let up for its entire running time : sheer cinematic prowess the likes of which is equable to the greatest and brawniest of silent pictures where you barely need a title card to keep things moving along ( and of all things a train is a really clever vehicle , no pun intended , to keep the action and the story without any real lulls save for Keaton's pratfalls ) , and Keaton himself as a one-of-a-kind clown . He's not exactly always sweet and delightful in the sense that Chaplin is , but in his very downtrodden and almost serious way he's the best kind of comedian you could ask for in this environment . It's based on a true story , which adds to the appeal of the sort of frowning clown of action - one of the truly spectacular stunt-men even in just loading a gun or bringing out his blade - that Keaton is quintessential in being . And it goes without saying that by the time we get to that bridge blowing up it simply reveals itself as a towering HOW-did-they-do-THAT set piece you couldn't try and fake on a computer . Loaded with sublime craftsmanship and daring-do ( and all on the " good-guy " side of the confederates ! ) , the General is not one to miss . And anyone thinking that a silent film doesn't have the power to keep an audience dulled by empty-headed and soulless and trashy Hollywood entertainments need to look back at this . It's a need fulfilled to the Nth degree . |
508,697 | 453,068 | 53,125 | 10 | like one big collection of classic Hitchcock sequences , strung together by one red-herring after another , plus Cary Grant | Although I wouldn't rank North by Northwest in the highest pantheon of Hitchcock's masterpieces - it won't ever get as deep or revelatory or demanding of repeat viewings as Psycho or Vertigo or Rope - it's got enough crackling , dry-sharp wit and incorrigible suspense sequences for an excellent time . One can tell that Hitchcock might be reaching at times to get commercial appeal , even more than usual with his films of the 50s ( and after Vertigo and before Psycho , he's trying to make up for what he thought of as lost ground ) . But it's a commercial entertainment that still hails high above the ranks of today's proficient but soulless demonstrations of panache with archetypal heroes and villains in double-cross moves . Thornhill ( Cary Grant ) is an advertising man who gets the typical-Hitchcock ' wrong-man ' scenario , and as typical too involving a ) spies , b ) government espionage with the all popular ' MacGuffin ' , and c ) a blonde leading lady with her own issues to deal with in the middle of the men . The villains in this case are the very calm and collected James Mason and his leering henchman Martin Landau , as a quasi-chase develops across the country all over George Kaplan - who , by the way , doesn't really exist . The plot , to be sure , is cobbled together under Ernest Lehman's attempts to put together something that Hitchcock would respond to and , more crucially , afford him his two favorite pastimes - one is the witty , very knowing dialog meant exclusively to lighten potentially clichéd territory and give grins to others ; the scenes with Grant and Saint in the train car , trading off innuendo , is one scene that over-steps the problematic territory , in general their chemistry is elevated thanks to Lehamn's snappy , amusing words . There's even a great bit provided by Thornhill's mother , played by Jessie Royce Landis , as one of Hitchcock's older who smirk things like " You gentlemen aren't REALLY trying to kill my son , are you ? " The other pastime are absurd but completely wonderful sequences where a character or characters get pitted against larger-than-life odds . The hallmark crop-duster scene was the one I had seen even before the whole film , in a class where the sequence was broken down ; this , along with Psycho's shower scene , make up some of the most accomplished executions of storyboarding , and how timing and details of the figures in a shot , and the intensity or lack thereof , that Hitchcock's ever done . The Mount Rushmore climax - save for what happens to Grant and Saint following the cliffhanger moment , which is my least favorite part of the movie - is also stellar , including what precedes it in the hideout . North by Northwest is essential viewing , but is it really a completely devastating triumph like Hitchcock at the peak of his powers ? Not exactly , as there's some moments where it feels like Hitchcock on auto-pilot with some of the twists and preposterous turns , and he's really more into his suspense scenes and getting Grant perfect in these scenes more than anything else . There's also not much depth to the whole process , yet that's part of its appeal as a yarn of an adventure story . But as a suspense-comedy , it's a work of big-studio success , as Grant comes off on note in every scene he's in , and helps make even the smaller , supporting actors seem important in the grand scheme of the story . In a way it's a great Hitchcock film in the sense that you can just curb the usual logic at the door and just hop along for the ride , and it's in this that North by Northwest should always be remembered ( alongside the Bernard Herrmann score , one of his best ) . |
509,201 | 453,068 | 57,012 | 10 | Kubrick takes a whack at comedy - and the cold war | Stanley Kubrick always likes to try something new with each movie he does , and this proves it . This is truly one of the grittiest , and best dark comedies I've ever seen with some crude moments and some odd ones ( who'd think to have Slim Pickens riding a bomb on it's way down ) . It turns into a flat out masterpiece though with the spectacular acting by Peter Sellers ( in three separate roles ) , George C . Scott ( his facial expressions are a crack up every time ) , and a supporting cast of crazies in a government of loons , the most impressive of these being the incomparable Sterling Hayden in his best dramatic / funny role . It contains a resonance as well that sticks till today , as corruption and pig-headedness rules in all sorts of governments , but most of all in those with the most power . It's almost worth it just for the opening credits and end sequence with " we'll meet again " . |
510,095 | 453,068 | 486,141 | 10 | what's with the rabbit ? | I wasn't expecting this little made-for-DVD special short cartoon , Mr . Incredible and Pals , to be THIS funny , but it is . It's sort of in a really cheesy , stupid way funny too , and I couldn't get enough of it not only as a fan of the Incredibles but in what it was spoofing too . The moving ' human ' mouths over the bad animated faces reminded me of the cartoons from the 60s - definitely the inspiration - the kind that were featured very briefly and oddly on a TV screen in Pulp Fiction . Story ? There is none , really , Mr . Incredible and Frozone go to stop some Lady-bug lady or other from making traffic a means to conquer the world . The big joke in all of this is there is basically next to no REAL animation here , and coming in the same package as a film so complex in its CGI stylizations and wonderment like the Incredibles , it's a really hilarious , spot-on work that mocks it greatly . I wonder really if kids younger than I will really understand the big joke about it , but for the parents or other adults and teens and others who bought the DVD , the joke might not be lost on them . It's all one big goof , basically , but it's made even funnier when listening to the audio commentary track , where Craig T . Nelson and Sam Jackson - as the characters - comment on this TV pilot that never actually aired in the US , and how embarrassed Frozone gets seeing all of this , particularly with a very random rabbit that keeps getting a close-up to bounce up and down ( eventually even the at-first defensive Mr . Incredible has to stop and says it stinks more or less ) . In fact , I'd say I laughed even harder during the commentary than I did during the actual short itself , as Jackson in the Frozone character really got to some points that I didn't expect , like saying that the creators of the TV show made his Frozone white , or rather ' tan ' . It's great stuff , is what I'm saying here . |
507,926 | 453,068 | 92,067 | 10 | Miyazaki turns fantasy on its wonderful , conventional head once again | Castle in the Sky ( full title Laputa : Castle in the Sky ) is another in the extraordinary works in the cannon of Hayao Miyazaki , who is arguably the master of fantasy in animation , worldwide . It's plot should be able to read through easily , at least for anyone who's seen the main conventional point of either the Dark Crystal or Lord of the Rings ( probably the former is a little more accurate ) . A princess has to get to a location with a sacred object - in this case an rock-amulet - and take it to the main power source on Laputa , a secret castle that can barely be said to exist except in rumor . She goes on an adventure with another curious party , a boy , and the two of them have to contend with pirates and a nefarious man in a suit along the way . The twists are turned on a familiar premise at every step , however , because Miyazaki lets his imagination and influences spring out all over the place . We get vines and clouds and Superman-inspired robots ! What Castle in the Sky promises is what it delivers full-throttle ; it's action and excitement for a family audience ( and it's not to sound patronizing ; dudes in their 20s and gals in their 30s will love this as much as the little ones who sought out Spirited Away and Totoro so ) , and humor in bits and pieces as well ( maybe not as much as Totoro , or skewed in a surreal way like Mononoke , but it's still there in a light tone with the pirates ) . And the design overall should capture everyone's fancy ; from the Goliath ship to the little details of the robots to the expanse and crevices of Laputa , to what looks like it MUST have been special visual FX animation , it's all mind-boggling and mind-blowing at the same measure . It might not be Miyazaki's ultimate triumph , but it's still great film-making , a triumph of imagination to deliver on a tale of good vs . evil . |
511,012 | 453,068 | 910,970 | 10 | adorable and haunting , delightful , joyous , and ultimately funny | I never thought I'd say this but . . . WALLE is better than Toy Story . This might not seem like such a high claim given how many other wonderful movies from PIXAR have come out over the past 13 years , particularly the ones by Brad Bird ( Incredibles and Ratatouille ) . But since Toy Story blew open the front door for CGI animation , and stood as the pinnacle of awesome , great entertainment and film-making , I wasn't sure if anything could top it . WALLE does by far , and then some ; I'd even say that this is probably the best Disney movie that , technically , they never made . For years Disney , the studio joined at the hip ( and now , practically , submissive to whatever PIXAR wants in animation ) , didn't want to do WALLE , as it was a somewhat bleak science fiction movie with of the movie not featuring any distinct human dialog at all . And , no cute animals talking either ; the closest we get here is a cockroach , and , thankfully , we only get cute chirps and squees of joy . It was a risk , but after waiting for so long to make it , Andrew Stanton has what critics have been dubbing the " M " word : masterpiece . It works on the levels that satisfy simply for the levels of a comedy . WALLE the character is one of those classic character straight out of Disney movies that you don't see ever done this well , or at least this purely : he's wholesome , innocent , curious , lovable and loving to the robot that comes to earth , Eva , looking for any signs of life , and we want to cheer for him every step of the way . It's a quasi-Chaplin character , if Chaplin were obsessed with a video of an old 1950s musical ( somehow , in the post-apocalyptic world of 2700 , still intact ) , and only wants to hold Eva's darling hand , despite getting into mishap after mishap and eventually leading to his trip out into space . No quirk of behavior , no amazingly adorable physical bit of comedy is unturned , and every one works , even ones that you don't see coming . At the same time , it also works as a science fiction parable , one that works splendidly for our times without pushing it down our throats . Its message is one that is general , which is why when poised around satirical overtones on the AXIOM ship - where WALLE finds Eva bringing a plant to the ship's captain and then stopped by a HAL-9000 type of computer - it's enriched by a context we all know very well . Taking care of the planet and taking care of ourselves physically are points that are put forth without being preachy , and there's lots of good humor to go with that too ( the moment when the pudgy captain finally walks , put to Thus Spoke Zarathustra , is one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen ) . AND , it's also an incredibly touching love story to boot ; two robots who can't quite seem to get together until one sees how much the other cares for the other . The simplicity here , too , is awe-inspiring , and like a silent film brings on the tear-ducts in the final moments of suspense . So , it's a superb comedy , a fully-realized and somewhat original science fiction story ( then again what is original entirely ) , and the best date movie of the summer . On top of this , director Andrew Stanton and the vast PIXAR team have gone once again another leap forward with their technological skills for all use in telling the story . I don't care who you are , adult , child , old dude in a wheelchair , this is top-notch film-making , some of the finest one will see in this new decade of the 21st century . While points ahead to the future of animated movies , it doesn't stop or go corrupt in basic film-making . For those who would be wary of a movie with very little dialog , don't fret : there's enough " pure " cinema here to suffice . It left me speechless , in-between laughing and crying and whatnot . + |
508,668 | 453,068 | 29,870 | 10 | more than 70 years old and , with a couple of big exceptions , hasn't aged a day | Michael Curtiz's Angels with Dirty Faces can be considered a full-blooded , no-holds-barred genre classic for a few reasons . One of it is how well he depicts the " hero " worship of street-tough kids who look up to the next generation of super street-tough and street-wise hoodlums . The Dead End Kids - an actual gang of sorts who acted in this and another movie - look to James Cagney's Rocky Sullivan since , first and foremost , he came out of the neighborhood and the very building that they hang out of ( the initials , along with those of Sullivan's boyhood friend turned Priest Jerry , are carved on the wall ) . But also there's the persona of Rocky Sullivan , a guy who wont take no s off of cops OR the criminals , and will do things his way or a highway burned to a crisp . And , perhaps underneath this , for all of the ruthless things that Rocky Sullivan does , he's honest . There's a genuine quality to him while he occasionally lies , cheats , steals , whatever as a 1930s era gangster is want to do . This is what makes it extra powerful then when , right before he's sent to the electric chair , the Priest asks him to lie outright and act like he turned yellow for the Dead End Kids and others to see how he turned out . Apparently there's another version of this ending where this didn't happen , and oddly enough I prefer the version I saw with the turning yellow . This is not just because of Cagney's performance , which already up until now is just about legendary in proportion . There's an underlying message with it being the priest that asks this of him . Now , part of this has to do with them being friends and that there's this trust between them . But there's also the fact that it's a priest , a man of the cloth , using God and his will and life-after-death as a means to get some scaring back into the kids as opposed to the usual hero worship . It doesn't matter that the kids aren't told the truth , but that Jerry will know that it wasn't true , but puts up the front anyway . This is a classic ending that works on multiple levels . Speaking of Cagney , there's no way one can say they are a fan of the star without checking this out . Here is one of the quintessential performances of all time in ANY gangster or crime picture . This lends itself , of course , to the fact that Rocky Sullivan is such an interesting character as the dark half of the face that was Rocky and Jerry as kids ( one could see a similar split take shape in an underlying or existential sense in Scorsese's movies of this ilk ) . But it's Cagney that imbues it with real guts and tenacity ; he knows this guy so well that he doesn't have to break a sweat at doing a big dramatic scene , such as the big shoot-out at the end , or even in the smaller scenes where he doesn't take lip from Bogart ( also in very fine form , seeing two giants face off is an added bonus ) where little facial markers and moments make it so memorable . He's a natural at this because simply he sets the pacing just right for the scene and rolls with it to the logical end . One can see process being worked out right on the screen but with the seemingly effortless grace of a class act . It's also , I should also add , a very cool story , one that even as it's set in the late 1930s loses little of its resonance for today ; a story like this could just as easily be shot in the same environment as say the City of God underworld in Rio , where one rises up through the ranks with some ferocity and also a little help from crooked cops or politicians , and then the next generation already lining up , and one or two good apples in the bunch . Oh , and it's got very fast and cutting action scenes , which never hurts when done right . |
509,700 | 453,068 | 765,443 | 10 | deep in rich characterizations , unpretentious in style , perfect performances , one of the year's best ! | David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises takes on , in the broadest stroke , the Russian mafia . But it's not that broad , per-say , so much as it takes on the atmosphere of an organized crime family , of the terror that is just completely seething under the surface , and comes up like pus out of a boil when heated . The Russian underworld of London isn't too pretty , and rivalries are settled often with the slice of a throat by a shaving knife ( as happens towards the beginning of the film , and later on in a graveyard , put to a splendid jump-cut to an accordion player ) , with the members initiated through specific tattoos on the torso and knees . And when the most unexpected happens , like a terrible rape / pregnancy / birth via a 14 year old girl , the repercussions could be even more severe than a murder rap . I loved getting immersed into the nature of the people , of the violence , the threat of it , the joys submerged with lots and lots of vodka ( it could be a stereotype , but then what would a stereotype be if it weren't true in the ugliest form ) , and at the same time always outsiders to British society . It's an insulated world , where double-edged personalities are common , especially if a crime boss / father like Armin Mueller-Stahl's character Semyon and at one time he has to be kind and compassionate to those outside of the circle . Like Naomi Watts's midwife character , who first comes to him about this mystery baby and a girl's diary written in Russian . But there's always the sensation , even early on , that he's a lot more sinister , a lot more cruel and vicious than he would let on to any " ordinary " person , and this is all the more apparent in his quick outbursts against his son Kirill ( Vincent Cassell ) . Kirill , of course , is like a lone black sheep of the family , who gets into trouble with other families , usually through killing somebody in all late hours of the night . Nikolai ( Mortensen ) is the driver / bodyguard / foot-soldier to Kirill and the rest of the family , and has a bond that goes beyond what Kirill has - he's really like a ' good ' son , if anything at all , to Seymon . Some of the best scenes in any Cronenberg film are those that are filled with an unspoken tension , and understanding of the dynamics , when Nikolai settles a situation between Seymon and Kirill , or those subdued homo-erotic moments from Kirill to Nikolai . Many of those scenes , the whole story arc of Nikolai , is a truly compelling tale that soon reveals itself - and not to reveal too much here as to make it spoiling - as part of Cronenberg's aesthetic of the double-sided nature of a man , or the duality inherent in certain types . But suffice to say , it's one of the coolest examples , even if it might seem almost conventional at first , because of what Nikolai's future will come to following the fight he has in the steam-house . While we see the more emotional story of Anna who , like Nikolai , is an outsider who is put into a somewhat torn situation ( albeit Nikolai , unlike Anna , is far more cunning , and as he says to her at one point he is a ' bad ' guy ) , her side of the story is more of something to keep things moving along - the fate of the diary , the baby , the whole ball of wax of secrets surrounding the mother's death and so on . This is all still compelling , in sad voice-overs , but somehow Anna's side is more of a base-line to the saga of the Russian family , which is appropriate . Her ending , which seems tidied up on the surface , has an open-ending that feels almost TOO tidy - however if you're thinking that ambiguity is lacking , it actually nears up to what History of Violence offered in a ' what next ' kind of query to the audience . As modern thrillers should be , as Cronenberg and his screenwriter knows , Eastern Promises is efficient , startling , and often as entertaining as the goofiest moments of any film by the director . Only here its in little moments of dialog ( was Anna's uncle in the KGB . . . maybe not , but as an auxiliary ? ) , not so much in outrageousness or super-gore . And yet it's also probably even more violent , if only in the suddenness , than History of Violence ; the much hyped steam-room right with Mortensen fending off the two gangsters lives up to it , as it's as visceral as Oldboy's classic sequence , and with an energy and shock value that made everyone in the audience I saw it with yelp and cringe . But Cronenberg isn't simply going by shock value here - Eastern Promises is very strong as classic storytelling , and even better in the acting department . Mortensen is one of Cronenberg's very best male collaborator / stars , and here his work is , if anything , more subtle and textured than the last one ( which is saying a lot of both director and actor ) ; Mueller-Stahl gives maybe his best performance since the 80s , a sure Oscar contender if I've ever seen one ; Watts is sublime in a role that requires her mostly to be uneasy around Russian mobsters and frightened by the fear all around the situation ; Cassell is about as taut as can be imaginable , and at the same time projecting the pathetic subtext to Kirill's boasting masculinity and stupidity . If you're planning on seeing any crime movie this year - that isn't directed by the Coen brothers - and one that is atmospheric without hyper-stylization , and grips the intellect just as much as the emotions , Eastern Promises is it . In a career of some of the most challenging probes of men on the edge of sanity and / or reason , Cronenberg continues to strike where the iron is hot , or just not seen to even be considered grounds for striking at all . |
508,779 | 453,068 | 1,227,926 | 10 | possibly the single funniest thing I've seen from Whedon . . . | . . . I say this though as a quasi-Whedon ignorant ; I've only seen about two seasons worth of Buffy , no Angel , and all of Firefly and Serenity . Joss Whedon's sense of humor is playful , crude , warped , and everything one might love from a skewering of superheroes . Hancock , take note , this is how it's done with consistency ! The premise of Dr . Horrible can be summed up in one sentence : Boy ( Dr . Horrible ) with nerdy powers finds and wants girl , boy loses girl to arch nemesis boy Captain Hammer , boy plots revenge , boy finds things end on a pretty bitter and sad note . Or , to put it another way , it's about the nerdy guy wanting the girl and the beefy upstart with an ego the size of a blimp is hogging her for himself . That's the gist of it , anyway , but to say this is all Dr . Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is about is to do a total disservice to Whedon and his large fan-base . This is a musical not quite unlike the Buffy classic " Once More , with Feeling " only without that pesky ' you have to know a and b and c are going on in the series and season ' logic . One is thrust into that sharp , laconic , and joyously obvious sense of humor that reveals Whedon as someone who is a kind of curious master of musical comedy with those appropriate doses of barbed satire . At the same time , as one who may have watched their share of Buffy and even Firefly knows , Whedon is also a hopeless romantic ( hopeless in that he can't seem to put people together without something going wrong , which is the point of all drama one supposes ) , and his tale of Dr . Horrible , done through songs that reveal the characters ' souls , heartfelt and adorable and totally meat-headed ( the Captain's final song at the podium with his award is next to Godliness ) , and at the same time a cheap joke ( random cowboys singing along from the sides of the frame ) or a catchy number ( the " Man's gotta do " song is far more wondrous than about 99 . 9 % of stuff on the radio now ) isn't sacrificed for the sake of what little plot there is . And lest not forget the acting , or at least the awesome musical prowess . Neal Patrick Harris and Nathan Filion are just about perfect in their roles , as is the woman who plays Penny ( the red-headed girl Dr . Horrible meets at the Coin Mart ) , with Filion especially juicy in a somewhat campy turn where he takes all those heroic qualities of his Firefly character and reveals the dark side ( " And yes , we had sex " ) . Dr . Horrible's Sing-along Blog is about as close to romantic - comedy - musical - satire amazement as one could hope for , or maybe not expect , from Whedon , particularly as a free web-series running just about the length of a full short film ( or an extremely short feature ) . |
508,898 | 453,068 | 65,836 | 10 | One of De Palma's very best ; perhaps his most gleefully deranged | In this very late 60's irreverent , almost anarchic low-budget film , Brian De Palma defines more of his strange , given Hitchcock-like fascination of voyeurism , and attacks the issues of the day . The most prominent of which , both cringe-inducing and just plain funny , is when he focuses on the black-power movement ( a black woman handing out fliers asking white people ' do you know what it's like to be black ' ) , which is something that could only work for that time and place , not before or now . But one of the key things to the interest in the film is 27 year old Robert De Niro ( not his first or last film with the director ) , who plays this character who sits in a room looking out through his telescope at women in their rooms , setting up phony deals , and in the end basically throwing bombs . Those who have said that De Niro can't act and just is himself in every movie should see this movie , if only out of some minor curiosity . A couple of times in the film it's actually not funny , as when there's a disturbance in a black-power meeting ( filmed in a grainer , rougher style than the rest of the film ) . In the end it's capped off with a rambling monologue in an interview that tops De Niro's in King of Comedy . It's pretty obvious where De Palma's career would go after this , into slightly more mainstream Hollywood territory , but all of his trademarks are here ; the dark , almost nail-biting comedy , the perfectly timed style of voyeurism , and interesting usage of locals . Think if De Palma and De Niro did a Monty Python film , only even more low-budget and in its New York way just as off-the-hinges , and you got Hi , Mom ! It also contains an eccentric and funny soundtrack . |
509,539 | 453,068 | 416,320 | 10 | a serious channeling of Dostoyevsky via infidelity drama by Woody Allen | Match Point is my favorite American-directed film of 2005 . Woody Allen , coming off of hitting his stride again with Melinda and Melinda , goes back to his darker , dramatic side , and makes a story that may seem a little familiar , though not to his discredit . Woody borrows ( some may say steal ) elements from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment , one of the great novels of the 19th century ( some may say ever written , I have read his work though not this yet ) , and transfuses it with subject matter that he's more than well acquainted with - the relationship drama . But un-like Love and Death , which was Allen's way of parodying the work of the author , this time he takes the work seriously , plunging the audience into the mind , conflicts , and outcome of the protagonist . That the performances by the actors involved , particularly the three main leads are top notch ( Jonathan Rhys-Myers , Emily Mortimer , and Scarlett Johnasson in one of her best ) brings full blood and flesh to Woody's strong skeleton of a film . The story starts slow . Chris Wilton ( Rhys-Myers ) is an Irishman in London , a tennis instructor who could've gone pro . He meets Chloe ( Mortimer ) through her brother Tom ( Matthew Goode ) and they soon become close , close enough for marriage . Basically , he marries into an upper-class family where he's coaxed into becoming a businessman for the family . But during this he also meets Nola Rice ( Scarlett Johansson ) , a struggling American actress , who's engaged to Tom . One thing leads to another , yada-yada , and Chris winds up in a big pickle as he's in a love-triangle between Chloe and Nola . Allen handles this dilemma with a powerful precision , by building up the relationships Chris has with each girl , and how there is not unbelievability in the set-ups . Nola is sensible and intelligent , if not altogether , while Chloe is caring and decent , if maybe too picture perfect for Chris . The dynamics are set-up so well , it leaves room for ample drama and suspense . Allen , who has also been a playwright for decades , knows the way people interact like so , and how not to rush the situations and use tact with delicate scenes . There is also the element of Opera , which Chris sees with Chloe's family often , and the element of tennis . The analogies that both produce could possibly be very trite or cliché . It's not to say a couple of scenes are even cliché ( ladies , you know you've seen quite a few movies with passionate kissing in the rain ) , but I even bought into those scenes . There is perhaps a certain manipulation that goes into these kinds of love stories , how much the audience can go with the inner conflict of our main character . But as the protagonist goes into a frame of mind that most may not be able to identify with , we're still with him all the way . And , perhaps , it's also because I love a good , solid infidelity story . Allen has here not only his best film in several years , but also likely his most suspenseful one . Those who may not go with the sympathies & / or empathy for the characters may not like the film as much . Some have even criticized minor gripes with the film , like Rhys-Myers's unconvincing accent , or the over-usage of London's most famous landmarks . As an American , perhaps , I didn't mind certain things like these . When a filmmaker has this much trust in his script ( and Woody , pushing 70 in making this , is not amateur ) , and has the right cast , it just takes off from there . To say I was on the edge of my seat through a good chunk of the third act is an under-statement and , at the core , was even cathartic in a way . It's the kind of film I would love to tell more people about , even if they think Woody is washed up after years of arguably less-than-great pictures . For some it might not even ' feel ' like a Woody Allen movie , that at times it's a little ' slick ' . It still is , however the work of an artist reaching further into his grab-bag with younger , exciting actors , and an interesting use of a ( finally ) new city . |
509,398 | 453,068 | 26,029 | 10 | extremely entertaining , even by today's standards suspenseful , and probably Hitchcock's first great ( sound ) movie | The 39 Steps , which is based on a novel and now has become the basis of a hit Broadway show , is full of the kinds of things we love about Alfred Hitchcock's films , and in a rough , awesome form . It's got a MacGuffin , sort of ( or rather the title itself is something that doesn't even matter ultimately in what it really means ) , it's got a " wrong man " scenario where the lead character is chased as a suspect with spies and daring-do escapes , and the interaction between a classy leading man ( here Robert Donat ) and a leading lady ( here , though for a shorter time , Madeline Carroll ) up to par with him as a screen presence . True , it's also a little less ' polished ' , if you will , compared to Hitchcock's 50s and 60s work , but considering how so few years it came out after the advent of sound , many sequences are rather incredible , if only for what little is used . I loved seeing the chases , one on a train , another through a mountain-side , and another that is more like a " hide-don't-find " moment after Richard and ( very reluctant ) Pamela escape from the spies and hide under a bridge covered with sheep . Even the climax of the picture speaks to Hitchcock's unequivocal gifts at painting suspense but also throwing in a sliver of pathos ; watch " Mr . Memory " in the final shot explaining about a formula or other and see how Hitchcock regards such silly things as " plot details " , unless it's at the expense of something of a joke ( i . e . on the train with the Hard Day's Night ' old man ' and the other guy joking about the paper ) . What matters is that the story keeps moving and , under the circumstances , makes some sense . And here we get somewhat a pre-North-by-Northwest tale where average Joe , Richard , brings to his home Miss Annabella Smith , who's a spy and is running after shooting someone at the Memory show they both just left from . Morning after , he finds she's dead with a knife in her back , he's the blame , and has to run to find people she's mentioned to him ( which Hitchcock shoots eerily in a faded close-up over a map of her face repeating things she said earlier in a different tone of voice ) . Throughout this short but invigorating film , we get lots of comedic bits , like Richard's stumble into a town hall meeting and giving a speech to buy some time . Or even a lovely romantic piece that's like a slice of a silent film as Pamela almost escapes but decides to curl up on the couch instead . It's overall a beautiful , tense but very funny movie by a filmmaker who knows his stuff inside and out , and isn't worried about showing a good time in the midst of some unconventional technical choices . |
508,433 | 453,068 | 1,185,616 | 10 | a waltz with death and memory | Sometimes the only way to deal , or at least come to terms with , something inhuman and inescapable like experiences in combat can be through abstraction . When faced with the memories of such things , I can only personally imagine as someone who's never been shot at repeatedly or shot repeatedly at others as a soldier , memory remains , but sometimes not always intact or with things blocked . Waltz with Bashir is the best war film I've seen in however long I can recall to face up to the fact that people in war have to live with themselves decades after any conflict ends - such as Israel and Lebanon in Beirut in the early 80s - and that a person's own demons are tantamount to the devastation they might see or possibly connect to with the " other " . In this case Israel and Palestine , once again a topic that will make some see the film even without really knowing what it's about . Many will be surprised ; it's an original hybrid , maybe the most original to use rotoscoping since Waking Life and with the same power of those Gerald Scarfe animated war-scenes in Pink Floyd's the Wall , and at the same time a documentary . The director himself is the subject , at least in part , as Ari Folman goes around to people who he fought with or may have known or knew fought in the Lebanon war , and he tries to figure out what else he may have seen of a massacre which only a piece of a hallucination-cum-memory , where he rises out of a beach and puts on clothes with two other soldiers , remains elusive . What do the other ex-soldiers have to say or reminisce about ? Usually about some painful or just some strange experiences that can only be told from the horses ' collective mouths . A vision of a naked woman ascending onto a boat to comfort a nauseated soldier who later swims across a sea back to his fellow soldier ; another who is in a trench against unseen snipers in tall buildings who forces his way to use another gun so that he can do a " waltz " of the title while firing ; another soldier describes seeing a field of destruction and bodies as if in " an LSD trip " . And all the while Folman drifts in and out trying to piece things together , sometimes telling of before and after the war ( trying to get a girl he lost back with no luck ) or just seeing apocalyptic visions like bombed planes at an airport with no one in sight . Every story mounts to something more and more devastating , and as we learn more about Folman and his background - parents survived Auschwitz - we can start to realize his completely unconscious guilt about a massacre that occurred that technically the Israelis had no ' direct ' involvement in ( it was ultimately Christian soldiers who killed the masses of people in Beirut , but it was given the ' whatever ' pass by the Israeli troops ) . But it would be just one thing if this were just a documentary charting memory of wartime , or another if one were to learn more about a conflict that isn't quite as well known to the casual observer of Israeli-Palestinian-Lebanon military conflicts ( and there's no lack of them sad to say ) . Either of these could make splendid and harrowing pieces of non-fiction , but the animation elevates it so something else . Folman knows some of this is so painful and haunting and shocking , if only for himself if not also for the audience ( and it is ) , that the only way to sift through it and come to grips with it is to see it played out , dramatically , in another medium . The animation is not always " trippy " like a Linklater picture , but some of it is truly astounding " trippy " animation , with visions and dreams and memories put together , with the occasional funny scene ( i . e . " fast-forward " through the porno tape ) that work far greater in animation than it would in live action . It provides a freedom of expression , possibilities , but it serves an emotional and even moral context . As animation that is not for the kiddies ( i . e . Persepolis , Linklater's films ) can show time and time again , when given the chance or slips through the kiddie-tested waters , another level of expression can hit an audience with colors and vibrancy and mixtures that come closer to how a mind sometimes sees things , if in this case tragically in retrospect . And yet , by the end of Folman's great film , there's a shot that zooms through the crying masses of Palestinian women to the face of Folmans , and then to some actual footage from 1982 at the camp following the devastation . Sometimes you need cold , hard facts , sometimes just a memory , and sometimes it's so unreal as to believe even happened . Waltz with Bashir deals with all of these things with a scope that is nothing less than moving and appropriately jarring . |
509,860 | 453,068 | 286,244 | 10 | the best neo-surrealistic animation I've seen since The Wall - a unique movie-going experience | Within the first five minutes of The Triplets of Belleville I knew I was about to see either one of the worst films of the year , or one of the best - writer / director Sylvain Chomet and art director / designer Evgnei Tomov have created a ( animated ) world in which they seem to be in love with every frame , every image , every musical note , and at first there is that sense that this is an off-putting style . But soon I realized that what Chomet and Tomov were doing was much like what Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali did with their classic Un Chien Andalou . The story is not incomprehensible because it's simple enough so that a child could follow along , and the strategy thus is to tell it with an artistic , intense , mad-cap , whatever you can think to call it , personalized view on the characters and the environments they get themselves into . That the film is from France adds a charm once the elements get skewed ( the animators tackle the Tour de France , big cities , ocean-liners , singers , frogs , and the gangster underworld ) , and that it doesn't have - and doesn't need - subtitles to tell the story is another remarkable feat . As the film reached into the last act , I then realized two things - 1 ) this is one of those films , like Un Chien Andalou and The Wall ( the great Gerald Scarfe's influence was one that I guessed , though there's probably more I didn't catch on ) , that won't appeal to everyone . Those expecting a cute French animated film can expect that , however a movie-goer needs to have an open mind to the material , and that the term " cute " would be taken for granted while being immersed in this film . 2 ) since the film is made like an original , without much compromise to where the story has to be headed or which characters do and say what , at the least The Triplets of Belleville works superbly to create an overwhelming state of mind for the viewer . Personally , I get exhilarated watching a movie where I don't even WANT to expect where the story is headed . Throughout most of the 80 minutes I felt an un-canny faith in the filmmakers that their oddball , free-wheeling visions wouldn't go up in smoke . And by the end I left wanting more for some reason or another . Like I said , some might be turned sour by the execution of the material , yet for others the fantasy-like nature of The Triplets of Belleville should make for an interesting night-out . For one thing , you won't get those frogs out of your mind very easily . |
510,461 | 453,068 | 78,446 | 10 | Still the most superb and funny drug film ever | You notice how Ebert has his great movies section in his site , well if I was to have a section like that , this would be the first film to put in it ( among a couple of dozen though , so don't be nervous ) . While of course there are other great drug films : Traffic ( which deserved best picture ) , Boogie Nights , GoodFellas ( which even though is my # 1 is in many other genres ) , Half Baked , Blow , and any other Cheech and Chong movie other than The Corsican Brothers . But this one gets on the top of my list by just telling it straight . While of course some is exaggerated for comedy , C & C represent the average Joe who wants some dope and has trouble usually getting it around town ( unlike say Half Baked , which was a little unrealistic in that they were hallucinating and always getting pot . Richard " Cheech " Marin and Thomas " Tommy " Chong in the 70's made many funny albums , and this was they're first movie . And within the first 15 minutes of the movie is classic comedy cinema , truly a contender with such moments as the Woody Allen Gub or the Springtime for Hitler scene in The Producers . In these minutes , the two ( Cheech playing his character Pedro and Chong playing his character Man Stoner from the famous albums ) meet by a hitch-hiking feat and when Chong pulls out a monster joint and the two smoke it ( followed by Cheech eating so much acid he would be out for a month ) , the two become best friends . The following then in the movie contains various segments of how they try and get grass from a crazed Vietnam Vet , in Mexico , and other places . Along the way they are hunted by a police sergeant ( Stacy Keach , who would give one of the 80's best comedic performances in Nice Dreams ) , and get mixed up in a punk band . And don't forget the Ajax lady who makes Martini in Cukoo's nest look normal . Overall , the film is a triumph of the American comedy , but it also has some deep meaning ( some you might only be able to find when you start to light up , but hey ) . The 70's were a time when people were snorting coke , going to discos , getting the Aids , etc . But what a change of pace to see 2 goofy yet very optimistic guys going about as they probably would in real life in that time getting grass and playing music . One of the most outstanding 70's films and comedies . |
508,871 | 453,068 | 462,322 | 10 | the bad-ass extravaganza of the year ; B-movie heaven if there ever was | Ah , Grindhouse movies , loaded for bear with the sickest garbage and clichéd to hell ; hell , by the way , not to be taken for granted . The films and trailers presented are half-vomitoriums and half-absurd white-knuckle thrill-rides , where genre is taken apart like scissors on a stretch-Armstrong doll with all of the gooey effluence gushing away on the screen . And unlike some who've already seen the film , I'm not totally certain yet ( least on a first-viewing ) of which feature I liked / responded to more . They're both imperfect movies , but naturally so , and there's stuff in both that can be criticized for ( i . e . Planet Terror goes too far and has dialog written as if by a guy in prison , and Death Proof is maybe too much like a Tarantino movie to really squeeze into the grindhouse mold ) . Yet on the terms that the filmmakers go for , they totally accomplish ten-fold . It's also just an extreme load of fun and excitement , with the kind of disturbing material that is unequivocally , hysterically funny . Planet Terror is , in some ways , an even more fed up horror-show circus of violence and explosions and massive-gun-fire / death-counts and catch phrases than From Dusk Till Dawn was . It certainly marks another high-point for Rodriguez as someone who takes precedence for shocks and wild tricks of the visual medium than " interesting " dialog . In this case , Planet Terror revels in the cut-outs from past low-grade genre drek , and it works terrifically in the realm of the premise : noxious gas unleashed on a small town that sparks up " infected " people by the dozens-to-later-hundreds of zombie-esquire folk after a stripper , a rogue , law-enforcement folk , doctors , and a couple of babysitter sisters . It's almost a case for how some things - like WRETCHED violence and gore and multiple casualties and excess to a T - won't get an NC-17 . Rodriguez also wisely uses two courses of action . First is to make all of these vicious special fx all the more gleeful in the debauchery in its humor - not just the popping sores on the faces , or various limbs affected , but the " did they actually do that " moments , ( Tarantino's genital area , the wrists of McGraw's doctor daughter ) , and to wonderfully set-up the look of the Grindhouse picture , where scratches are common as hell , a reel will go missing once in a while ( ironically right during or before a hot sex scene ) , and almost tearing at the seams . This and Machete , his much-anticipated vehicle for the great character actor Danny Trejo , demonstrate Rodriguez's real gifts , and the actors he puts on display ( from Cheech to Michael Biehn to surprisingly Rosa McGowan ) are completely , hilariously unconscious of the recklessness of schlock like this . In very short , a gas from start to finish , with a nice touch of Carpenter-music ( John I mean ) . In the middle of the two films , by the way , are at least three whacked-out trailers as sort of special guests of Rodriguez and Tarantino's . Far more funnier and audaciously outrageous than the " normal " trailers , where Zombie's Werewolves of the SS giving Nicolas Cage his finest moment in film in many years , Wright's DON'T ! a fantastic play on a cliché-by-title , and Thanksgiving being maybe the best , most shameless work Eli Roth has done yet ( where else am I going to see a turkey get . . . well , maybe I've already said too much , aside from the greatest line ever : " White meat or dark meat , they'll both be carved ! " ) . There's the movie-geek in all of us that would wish that all of these movie will someday be made into features , though part of the charm , if one could describe , is that they won't . Tarantino , meanwhile , has something of a totally different route to go on here , which is all relative : Rodriguez , after all , is the first part of a double-billing , and as such makes his with much greater abandon for standards of good taste or common sense , yet is also not completely as strong because of its sort of badness ( albeit goodness too ) . Tarantino is , more appropriately , the second half and not-quite main attraction , even if his might seem like more of a tame and conventional effort when compared to Planet Terror and the incredible trailers . It's an homage to the wild road-chase movies of the early 70s , where Vanishing Point gets a huge nod and Kurt Russell gets the brightest note to a career now overloaded with kids movies . His character , Stuntman Mike , is a wickedly fun masochist who's got attitude by leaps and bounds , and quite the bad-ass car . He doesn't contend with some ladies from the stunt-department of a movie-set , however , where a cat-and-mouse game ensues . And a damn fine game indeed ; the car chases in Death Proof should maybe even appeal to those who usually don't take to car chases too highly , namely because Tarantino's got a satirist's eye always at work somehow in the material . The danger comes when it leans towards being talky , as QT tends to do , and one shot in a diner brings Reservoir Dogs very much into mind . But it's also of interest that Tarantino has actually made a very solid action thriller , one that goes one or two steps further than the common road-movie of the old times went , with the craziness there and sort of complimenting Tarantino's clever direction , tough women , and good old rock & roll . So gear up in your dirty seat , if you can find one , with a bunch of friends in a crowded theater , and make sure not to miss the little animated intros to the " parental advisory " warning before each movie . It's the movie ' event ' of the year , particularly for fans of unrepentant action and gruesome carnage . |
510,382 | 453,068 | 64,873 | 10 | one of the sleepers of the late sixties , with ( good ) experimental ideals for a drama | In some scenes in the Rain People , Francis Ford Coppola's precursor to his hey-day of the seventies , there is the mark of a similar situation to 1969's Easy Rider , but not exactly in the same reference frame . Here we have a drama about disconnected people from society , in some ways alienated by the choices or by limits imposed by one mean or another . It's one of those rare original dramas where some scenes stand alone as total knockouts . Even with such a low-string budget and a very freewheeling , so to speak , attitude about filming the movie , Coppola is able to capture everything that needs to be said through these clearly defined characters and the curved , unexpected degrees of one character versus the helplessness of another , or vice versa , or both . And , as one might be inclined seeing as how it is very much about the cutaways of suburban life of the 1960s , it has that escapism of the film mentioned before , but of a more concrete , near timeless quality with the drama and the underlying issues . In a way , if Bergman were on route as a quasi-guerrilla 20-something filmmaker out to get the strange truths of everyday outsiders , this might be it . But along with all of the very direct and sometimes self-conscious photography ( though also with a more documentary approach at times , akin with its indeterminable characters ) , the actors all fit into place . Shirley Knight , an actress I'm not too familiar with , has a complex , diverging role as a pregnant wife running off in a sort of existentialist conundrum of what life is there to have . There are moments of some awe-inspiring acting by her , and one of my favorites ( if not my favorite ) is when she is on the telephone calling her husband the first time . Such a tense scene on both ends , and in every small gesture and inflection of a word so much about her is spoken with so little . It's extraordinary in ways that mirror others in Coppola's films . Then comes in the character of ' killer ' played by James Caan . This , too , is a dangerous character to take on , as it is a mix of childish bewilderment and amusement with scarred memories . Think Forrest Gump if he didn't make it past the football and wit . It's one of his best , actually , by being the most minimalist - for a guy who's usually playing tough guys in movies , here's one that also is part of the crux of the story and of Knight's character . Also very good in a supporting role is Robert Duvall as a cop with a rough side and rather checkered past ; kind of an early sample of other defected characters he would play later on in his career . So the characters , and what Coppola risks in having an uneasiness running in them , are really what make up the film , as whatever story there is it is definitely not resolved in the usual way you might think or expect . The last ten or so minutes are like others in Coppola's work , where the specific tragedies on all sides are undercut by the emotional - and psychological - implications this will leave on the principles are amplified to the sublime and sad . This is , for its time , brave on the part of what is trying to be represented ( in both the freedom as well as the flaws and ambiguities ) in the subject matter . And the style of the picture adds a fragmented kind of view onto it all with quick flashbacks that are graphic and self-contained in a contrast with the longer shots in some crucial scenes . It's a road movie of its period , but its also got a lot more working than it would under another filmmaker with less chances to take on the nature of these outcast characters . One of the best films of 1969 . |
508,560 | 453,068 | 12,349 | 10 | rarely has there ever been such a deft mix of wonderful absurdity and ( dark ) sentiment as here | It's easy to call Charlie Chaplin a genius , but I'll say it once again : the man was a genius , if only at doing a certain particular kind of film . You wouldn't ever see Charlie Chaplin doing a silent horror film , or at least one like out of Germany , or even a big epic that ran Griffith lengths . His artistry was concerned with those who could just about afford the price of a ticket back in the 20s and 30s to see his films and he combined pathos that was incredible and unique in and of its spectrum of humor and compassion . Some may call films like the Kid and even City Lights sentimental , but they may miss the greater picture at work which is that any sentiment is orchestrated and ( the usual kicked-around word ) manipulated amid the comedic set-ups . Earned sentiment is different than faux sentimentality chucked on to the viewer , and if any case could show this distinction better it would be hard to find a better example then the Kid . As it stands even at 50 minutes , which was trimmed by Chaplin himself 50 years after its original release and including a new musical score , it's just about a perfectly told tale . It is short in either cut form but its so simple a story to tell that anything else would just likely be padding ; even that ' Dreamland ' sequence towards the end of the film is crucial and allows for Chaplin to let loose on a wonderful light-and-dark examination of all the major characters in the picture - now with angel wings and devil horns ! What it's about , in complete basics , is that a woman leaves her baby in the backseat of a car thinking she won't be able to take care of him , and the baby winds up by chance in an alleyway the Tramp is at , and the Tramp decides to take care of him ( he even names him , in one amusing aside , John ) . Then it cuts to 5 years later , and the two are an intrepid duo as they break and fix windows , eat lots of pancake , and the Tramp nearly gets pummeled by an " Older Brother " of a kid John gets in a fight with . Meanwhile , the mother is now a success , not knowing her child is somewhere - right in front of her nose . This may sound like a bit of story , but it's told briskly and without a missed beat in editing , and Chaplin's re-edit tightens it to a point where we're mostly with the Kid and the Tramp . Their scenes are everything that Chaplin wants them to be : playful , absurd , cute , and bittersweet to a degree . We know this can't exactly last , but the moment the poor maybe-sick Kid is taken away to the orphanage becomes one of the most tragic ( and yet partially triumphant ) sequences in the movies . It's in a case like this , where we as the audience tear up , more or less , as the Kid is being carted away crying his eyes out , and then inter-cut with Chaplin's daring dash across the roof-tops to save him , that we see the genius of comedy and tragedy combined and working off each other . This is assisted greatly throughout by child actor Jackie Coogan who may be one of the very best child actors in any film , silent or otherwise ; that it's silent adds to the challenge and success of pure pantomime that without fault feels true : even a beat with the Kid playing with toys , an obviously " cute " bit , is great , and up for the task of playing off a quintessential clown like Chaplin . Featuring some excellent set-pieces just unto themselves ( aside from Dreamland there is the fight between Chaplin and the Brother with that belly-laugh part with the repetitive brick-hit to the head , or when Tramp and the Kid stop to sleep for the night at the home and have to sneak around to try and not pay an extra coin ) , an absolutely beautiful musical track from Chaplin , and excellent performances from all supporting cast ( including frequent Chaplin star Edna Purvivance ) , it's altogether an awe-inspiring feat . To see this or City Lights or Modern Times to an extent is to see ideas and character outlasting far beyond their time and place as something far more valuable to the public consciousness . |
509,563 | 453,068 | 87,193 | 10 | If ever there was a way to spend 72 minutes with Bergman , it's here | Fanny and Alexander , to Ingmar Bergman , IS his last released film , written and directed by him . But this film , which was originally meant only for Swedish television , found its way to the USA and abroad , and ( excluding Saraband , which was a film that just had to be made by its maker ) is a welcome piece of theater , about the theater . After the Rehearsal is a short , but extremely satisfying take on what it means to be a director , and what it means to act , or to just be in the profession of the imitation of life . Bergman gives us only three actors ( two kids , who pop up only for a few moments , one of which the child who wonderfully played Alexander in the above title , is one of them ) , and all that happens is talk , and talk . To one who may not be familiar well with Bergman , it may not be wise to go immediately to this film . That is , unless one is very much in love with the theater . The filmmaker , who was also a major producer and director of countless theatrical production , is able to suffuse his personal views , good and bad , on the process , or the lack thereof . Interesting too is how his lead male , Henrik ( Erland Josephsson , one of Bergman's most recognizable and accessible talents ) , has a conversation not just with an aspiring actress ( Lena Olin ) , but also his ex-wife ( Ingrid Thulin , also one of the magnificent women from Bergman's repertory company ) , to explore his past and present difficulties . There is so much that Bergman brings to the table to discuss about the theater in this film , and in such a short running time , that it might be moot to delve very far into his what certain things may or may not ' mean ' . Like many of the director's films , it's dramatic structure that tries to get behind the surfaces of what lies in seemingly one or two-sided characters . Henrik , at times , is given voice-over narration where he questions what he's saying , sometimes in anger or despair , to this young actress . Or , when his love ( Thulin ) is shown to be somewhat compassionate even as she seems a little crazed or , in fact , lonely . As Henrik and his pupil talk ( not rehearse , of course ) about why they are there , it becomes strikingly existential even when it's not meant to be . Olin is brilliant in the opposing side of Josephsson's often calm but boiling persona , as she tries to figure out what it is this director wants out of her . When it comes down to it , Bergman is not only asking questions about the theater and the people in it , but also about human nature in its role of the theater . While this could sound like subject matter to scare or ( worse ) bore away some viewers , if you give the film enough patience for the 72 minutes ( that seem to fill each minute with enough substance for an average work twice its length ) , it serves its purpose well enough to not be disregarded as an important later work in Bergman's career . And , by the way , if you're young ( i . e . under 17 ) and have some reason to want to check this out , don't let the R rating deter you ; it's one of the most un-necessarily R-rated films ever ( for a brief flash of nudity , which could very well even be given a PG rating ) . |
510,193 | 453,068 | 386,676 | 10 | grows on you very quickly | The luscious saga of Michael , Dwight , Jim , Pam , Janice , the whole ball of wax , is one of the great comedy successes of the past decade . It might not quite be Seinfeld , but it's close , and in its own way this revamp of the British TV show ( with Ricky Gervais here as executive producer and occasional writer ) is similarly groundbreaking . Almost all of the dialog is improvised - I think Steve Carell said once that he has an earpiece to feed him lines here and there - and the writers they do have for the show are some of the finest around ( some crosspolination , if that's the word , from the likes of the Daily Show like with Larry Willmore ) . Plot - there are a bunch , as I am beginning to learn bit by bit going through the past seasons . Unlike many a sitcom , the storyline and continuity does matter , but if you were going into a random episode in season 2 or 3 you might be able to follow along . It's all about the characters , really , and how the personalities one grows accustomed to stay true even when things shift a bit . It's also a great time with the documentary form - not so much mockumentary , even though there are some days where the camera crew get some looks thrown their way , be they ' turn it off ' or ' get a load of this ! ' And , of course , all the players are brilliant . Steve Carrel has become a full-blown star thanks to the show , and it reveals a lot of his depth as an actor ( yes , they give Michael a soul from time to time , aside from being the incredibly awkward-inducing-feeling boss at Dunder Mifflin ) . A lot of times you get the feeling you're seeing Michael say something to the camera-person he's said before , but no matter what it's still hilarious , because Michael is a sincere fellow . What that means for his co-workers is something else ( ever watch " Diversity Day " ? or Sexual Harassment day ? or all the days ? ) . At times you squirm in your seat like in a grand-guignol horror movie , as everybody else , relatively more normal than Michael ( or not , as case might be ) are stupefied by the extremes Michael will go to . And yet Carrel can also pull it off fantastically when actually being somewhat human , adding that side that doesn't make him just a complete jerk . It's tricky , and it's why he's always never going to be dull on the show . Ditto for Rainn Wilson , who can keep the same deadpan expression all the time and knock it out of the park . A lot of times just seeing him get a prank pulled on him is like watching a sun rise - the most beautiful thing imaginable ( shall I compare Schrute Farm Beets to a summer's day ? ) . And Jim and Pam , aside from the facet of a relationship on TV that isn't contrived or put through the wringer , seems to be just another piece to the ensemble , not a dominating factor like it might be on another show ( and contrary to how the buzz was beforehand , the two of them hooking up ends up not being the most fascinating crux of the show - Mike and Janice , on the other hand , whew ! ) So , The Office . . . one of the great comedy shows . . . not much else to say . . . get back to work ! |
509,410 | 453,068 | 52,987 | 10 | not too sure why Polanski doesn't like this one , unless for purely obsessive reasons | The Lamp , apart of the short films collection on the Criterion DVD of Knife in the Water , distills a lot of the great visual madness and absurdism in his films into one silent short film . It's a really quick punch of ' why not ' movie-making , where there is a sense of total control over the movement of the camera , and where it rests on its life-less ( yet somehow lifelike ) subjects . Maybe Polanski didn't end up liking it for a reason that , as a fellow filmmaker myself , I can understand . The subject matter here is very thin - a guy who makes dolls makes one , leaves , and the place gets set on fire when a fuse burns out . How to film it must have seem like the challenge to the director , and I could maybe see where he must have obsessed over the pans and direct close-ups of the angles . There was a lot of work put into it , so at the least it's hard to call it a half-assed attempt at making something out of little . But taking aside the director's own take on the material , I have to say that it really struck me how instinctual all of the movements and angles felt , and also how the design of what was there was dead-on . The dolls are just there , but there's a spooky tone to it too , a kind of underbelly that is reached in the darker parts of the room , mainly when the owner leaves and things are left in a noir-like tone . I loved seeing the close-up of the fuse itself too , which looked almost robotic in its stature , and also in hearing the crazy sound effects , as if out of a horror movie or something . It's basically like that , a horror movie only with dolls and a cuckoo clock in place of teenagers and such . It's a superb little shot of 8 minutes on film - and truly a kind of ' film-film ' , one that should be shown in most film classes to get an idea of what can be done with the camera if given the chance to use it over digital . |
509,095 | 453,068 | 39,689 | 10 | perhaps the major studio triumph of Touner's career ; cast is fantastic | To see Robert Mitchum in a film like Out of the Past is to see one of the benchmarks of the film-noir era and style of film . He wears his trench-coat through many scenes of the film , looking weathered yet strong in his own way as he's put against the elements , and there's a certain tragedy in his performance at times even as he's one of the cooler stars of the 1940's Hollywood system . He stars as Jeff Bailey , a private-eye turned gas station attendant with a past involving a woman , a criminal , and a messy affair that left him running into a kind of ' quiet ' life . But he's brought back out of it by his old ' boss ' - in a terrific early role from Kirk Douglas ( his first scene in the film , as well as one with Jane Greer in the third act , ranks as great ) - into something of a trap . While director Jacques Tourner and his screenwriter do a very credible job in telling the story , particularly in setting up the characters and the inherent flaws in them all via the flashback romance , is that the atmosphere trumps over . Tourner , who had his early breaks in the B movies of Val Lewton , does the story and the characters a splendid service in how he gets down the urban settings , and even the scenes in Mexico , on the beach , in a very foreboding office towards the end of the film . There are a few taut twists , but they all work , and the entanglement of Jeff , Kathie and Whitt is one of those classic examples of how its down believably . You might be able to sense what could have been between Jeff and Kathie , but in this situation who's to say why it shouldn't be as dark and ( perhaps ) existential as this ? It's not a humorless film either , and seeing it in an sold-out audience is a delight to add with the entertainment . |
508,824 | 453,068 | 338,751 | 10 | A truly smashing , psychologically bound blockbuster | Martin Scorsese strikes again with a powerful cast and expert crew , but the subject matter is what really got me into the grip of The Aviator . Scorsese and writer John Logan focus , of course , on the prime of the life of Howard Hughes , a kind of c . f . Kane with airplanes and movies substituting for the newspapers . While Scorsese dives right into his technical mastery , Logan dives into the private life of Hughes as well as the public . As a kind of ' golden-age of Hollywood ' production the film hearkens back to the greatness from the old days , but also taking on a subject that is a tough one to take on - Hughes ' obsessive compulsive nature . On the outside to the public he does go like this to a degree - spending millions on his air epic Hell's Angels , going past the limit of what to spend on planes for the second world war ( and " the Hercules " which the press dubbed the " Spruce Goose " ) , and with women . But on the inside , he gradually became a full-blown germaphobe , repeating words , and locking himself in a room at one point and not coming out ( this would later be what many remembered him for , the notoriously reclusive Billionair hermit of the 20th century ) . With Scorsese's outstanding cinematographer Robert Richardson , experimenting with different touches of light and composition , and with his veteran editor Thelma Schoonmaker ( partly responsible for the immediately recognizable pace and style in Scorsese's films ) , they get into the mind of someone like Hughes better than any other film I may have ever seen . It's often kinetic , focusing on the smallest things , and going ( appropriately ) sometimes like an Olver Stone film . Although Gangs of New York , Scorsese's previous epic , contained a good pace , I may have not seen one as intense and effective since Casino . Adding to this is Dante Ferreti , one of the greatest of all production designers , giving life to all of the locations in the film . Most surprising , and satisfying , is that the acting is better than expected , or at least topping expectations . Di Caprio , who was the originator of bringing Hughes ' life to the screen ( he also has an executive producer credit ) , dashes off any minor doubts I had that he could pull it off . He can be a superb actor , engaging fully a character ( What's Eating Gilbert Grape , Gangs , and Basketball Diaries being good examples ) , and sometimes not ( Titanic , Catch Me if You Can ) . This time , he hits it right on the head , giving ( though it's never a big deal for me who wins or loses ) an Oscar caliber performance . By the time the story and Hughes swing deeper into his disease , before and following a tragic , heart-racing plane accident , he finds all of the touches to make Hughes believable , flaws and all . It certainly is , along with it being the convincing take on o . c . d . technically , the finest portrayal of someone with it . But even greater is that he finds the notes when with his co-stars . There is Cate Blanchett ( as if not more terrific than Di Caprio ) as Katherine Hepburn , Hughes ' love interest for about ten years . Something of an eccentric character herself , but also very down to earth , Blanchett doesn't skip a beat in finding her own voice within the star . There are also parts like John C . Reilly , Hughes ' financial adviser ( and part father-figure ) , Alan Alda , a senator who brings Hughes forward to be questioned in a public committee , Alec Baldwin as Hughes ' ' foe ' Juan Trippe , and so on . Even for an actress like Kate Beckinsale , who I feared would be hardly worthy to fill a role like Ava Gardner , the environment Scorsese gives to them is very natural considering the Hollywood backdrop . It's always tricky calling one film the best of the year . Many other films that came out this year were big contenders for such a somewhat pretentious title . It could be appropriate for one to say that The Aviator , while not one of Scorsese's best , is one of the best Hollywood productions of the year . At the least , if only from my perspective , it delivers a Scorsese film where he takes a risk at a subject he doesn't know too much about ( aviation , though he didn't know much about boxing either for Raging Bull ) and runs with the people in the film , reaching for a height some might feel he can't really take . |
508,207 | 453,068 | 74,749 | 10 | one strange kind of pulp , Cassavetes style . it's not for all tastes , but it is a brave , effective work of originality | Killing of a Chinese Bookie is , from time to time , not easy to sit through . John Cassavetes had one of the harshest styles of any independent director in film history ; his close-ups can be out of focus , wavering , mostly hand-held , and his DP probably had only enough lights depending on when Cassavetes could get the dough for them . But limitations that were put on Cassavetes , either by choice ( which is arguable ) or by cost , don't make the film feel compromised . If anything it adds to the idiosyncrasies and ' noir ' quality of the script ; it's a surprisingly well-directed film that Cassavetes has , but it's not simply this that leaves a lasting impression . ' Chinese Bookie ' makes its impact because of mood , character , Ben Gazarra's performance , and an attention scene to scene where people are in the lowest common denominator ( a strip club , a gangster's office or car , on the run ) . While Cassavetes has the themes that ran through the pulpiest stories and the most thrilling thrillers of the 40s and 50s , its still Casavetes through and through . Like many of the director's best work , too , the premise is there plain and simple , and it's always the context of the dialog , the connections the actors have , the time taken for a cut-away , that makes the big differences . Gazarra is Cosmo , a club owner who has his strippers doing their dances to a weird , sort of pathetic lounge singer , and he has just wiped his debts clean . Then he goes again and makes his debt rise by gambling once more , and taking out a loan from some mobsters . When they offer an option to wipe out the debt - kill a bookie in Chinatown causing problems for the competition - he's totally reluctant , but agrees on a bad threat . The consequences are not the simple ' scene - of - the - crime - cops - get - involved - good - triumphs ' kind of deal , however . Surrounding this premise are scenes that verge on the meditative ; a lot of times we see Cosmo looking on at his eccentric club , or with his ' girls ' , and Gazarra makes him a curious sort , a man who leads a crude , mismanaged life but is never vulgar , never even mean , and beneath his calm exterior following the murder ( one of the most startling killing scenes I've ever seen , not just for the obvious other casualties ) is a loneliness , almost a longing for something else . He should be just another shady character among the lot of them , but as he gets in deeper with the gangsters , and subverts his conscience ( probably another strong theme here , as well as demeaning oneself because of people putting one down ) , the audience can suddenly have some sympathy for a man who should have none . Even when a moment could be dull or uninvolving , Gazarra makes us involved , without calling attention to his emotions in obvious ways . It's a career highlight if ever there was one . And Cassavetes continually films without a net and without a desire to do it " mainstream " . I admired how Cosmo watched the girl audition for the club , but he never pans up - only showing legs walking back and forth - until she steps down . Or the nighttime scene with Cosmo or the gangsters in the car , about as dark and ominous as possible . And the way that Cassavetes opens and closes his film is most intriguing of all ( if one is still watching by the end , as mentioned it might turn off some viewers expecting a more conventional narrative ) - we see the singer , who has no self-confidence following night after night being booed while trying to have his own unique style in singing for the girls to dance to , and finally he just walks off after not being able to take any more ( this is the last shot , following an ambiguous end for Cosmo , as his fate is left open to chance or damnation ) . There's almost a parallel that can be made not just to the singer and Cosmo ( Comso being booed off or not successful , in a sense , from life in general ) , but to Cassavetes himself . It's strange and provocative , like a story taken for granted - of the gambler having to pay debts in an unforgiving underworld setting - given some fresh life and a sense of possibilities for what can be done in the genre . I can't wait to watch it again , perhaps even the 1976 version . Only note of warning : if it's your first time with Cassavetes start with something else like Faces or Woman Under the Influence . But if you want to take a risk , here's the riskiest picture of any genre from 1976 . |
510,500 | 453,068 | 47,478 | 10 | Kurosawa's triumphant epic - totally & successfully driven by character and story | Akira Kurosawa was and is considered the master of east-western film-making ( in that he made his Japanese films accessible for fans of American westerns while still making the movies his country found popular ) , and out of the few Kurosawa movies I've had the pleasure of viewing ( Hidden Fortress , Rashomon , and this ) I'd have to say that while Rashomon is still my favorite , I nevertheless had a blast during this one . The story has become quite influential to filmmakers from the likes of John Sturges ( The Magnificent Seven ) to John Lasseter ( A Bug's Life ) : a small village has been terrorized by bandits for far too long , amid times of civil war in the nation , and so on the advice of Grand-Dad , they decide to hire four - which soon becomes seven - samurai for the job . There's no money , just food and honor , even though the village isn't exactly pleased to have samurai back in their village . Each character is drawn and executed compellingly , though for my money Toshiro Mifune proves why he became one of Japan's most notorious film actors . His work as the brave , bold outcast of the seven is awe-inspiring practically all the way through , like the hero of a western that anyone can root for since he's a true rebel at heart within a group of men with a task at hand . Kurosawa directs his tale and main and supporting players like a grand composer , orchestrating a vivid story and extracting from great actors like Takashi Shimura ( the old , wise Samurai ) , Ko Kimura ( the disciple Samurai ) , Daisuke Kato ( Schichiroji ) , and Mifune ( Kikuchiyo , which isn't his real name ) just the right touches of humanity , humor , tragedy , romance , and intensity . The overall intensity , by the way , isn't over-estimated ; its long length ( almost 3 hours ) isn't distracting in the slightest since Kurosawa's editing and photography ( the later helmed by Asakazu Nakai ) are extraordinary . Not to compare the two films , but one thing I saw in common with Seven Samurai and a Lord of the Rings film is that , if anything else , it definitely isn't a boring experience . Along with a score by Fumio Hayasaka that gives the film just a bit more of a pulse , and a showdown that is relentless with excitement , this is one of the must-see action films for film buffs , or anyone with an serious interest in having fun with an epic . |
508,233 | 453,068 | 22,100 | 10 | Fritz Lang's ( sound ) masterpiece - a taut and quintessentially suspenseful story , and Lorre | The first time I saw M , by Fritz Lang , I almost didn't know what to make of it . I was overwhelmed by the power of the performances , the staging of the scenes , the locations , and the power that the simple story had with such complex circumstances . Then I saw it again , and a third time , and I know that this is one of the best films ever to come out of Germany - it's a powerful statement about protecting our children ( if you're looking at it as a " message " movie ) , but in reality it is just a piece of cinema heaven . Thrillers today only wish they could draw a viewer into the mystery elements , and have such unconventionality of the times . Boiling down to this , M is about a child Killer - the legendary character actor Peter Lorre in his first major role - who snatches children when their parents don't watch , and continues on until an investigation goes underway . But as the police investigate overly thoroughly into the real criminal underworld , they know something is up , that this is someone far more gone than they could ever be , so they join in the hunt . This all leads to one of the supreme dramatic climaxes in any thriller . On the first viewing I just went straight for the story , which is able to suck one in enough to make you feel dizzy . But on the multiple viewings it becomes even more interesting as one can study the intricacy , and indeed full-on artistry , of Lang's camera . He puts it in unusual places at times , and adds for good measure shades of dark and gray in many of the night scene ( this is , by the way , a precursor to ' film-noir ' , which Lang later became an important director in the 40's and 50's ) . On top of this , there is a very modern sense of style in the editing - I remember a couple of scenes that surprised me editing wise . One is where the cops ( I think it was the cops ) have an argument about the investigation - two of them get into a shouting match , and we get medium close-ups of them going back and forth . This is done quickly , with a kind of intensity that isn't even captured in today's thrillers . There is also the hunt for Lorre in the digging of the house , where Lang cuts around constantly , heightening the tension between the predators ( the criminals ) and the prey ( Lorre ) , until it's almost too much to take . The disturbing aspects of the story , of child abduction and murder , have become benchmarks of a number of today's thrillers , where the cop is usually the subject and the killer left more in the shadows , in cat & mouse style . This doesn't happen here , and because of it by the time we get to the final scene , with Lorre being interrogated and giving his " I can't help it " speech , it becomes something poetic , tragic , frightening . Lang doesn't leave his " message " so simplistically , he makes sure we know Lorre's side too , however twisted it has become , and the antagonist is shown as human as opposed to these present-day thriller where the killers are barely given one dimension let alone two . There were reports that during filming Lang put Lorre through torture , ultimately causing the two to never work together again . But nevertheless , out of this comes a towering performance of a small , wild-eyed criminal in the midst of an extremely well-told and unpredictable mystery story . In short , if you don't know what you're in for when you hear that whistle , those several infamous notes , you may not at all . |
510,187 | 453,068 | 64,921 | 10 | disarming , honest look at the practices of salesmen on the road | Albert and David Maysles , apparently working from a personal source ( the four men , nicknamed the Gipper , the Rabbit , the Bull , and the quasi-lead being the Badger , all come from or around the Irish-Boston section that the Maysles came from as well ) , found themselves a kind of theatrical core to what is , in terms of the actual shooting , about as straight-on as can be in documentary cinema . Al Maysles , especially , would make the bulk of his work in the future just like this - shooting with just him on camera and a sound-guy ( in this case David ) - and it has the feel of being right there and up front in the situations . What the Maysles called " direct-cinema " , as opposed to the term Cinema Verite . It's not exactly a news program , but it's not your run-of-the-mill documentary either . While the brothers put their subjective view on the material by , of course , choosing what not to show ( who knows if the men made more sales than were actually shown , or if there were more quiet moments or conversations in the motel rooms that rambled further ) , and in the editing process of who to cut to or what to close-in or back away from , it feels always fresh in perspective . We're really right there seeing what is going on during the sale , as well as seeing how the men " unwind " by complaining about the sales they didn't make , the things that kept them from what they had to do , which was put forward the " # 1 bestselling book in the world " for 49 . 99 a month to your average Joe or Mrs . Joe down the street . What the Maysles don't ask is to make you really put a very harsh judgment either way ; by both sides presented , of the men in the desperate but completely professional and slick act of selling ( selling themselves probably just as much as the bible , and how getting the sale or not suddenly changes them in front of the prospective customer ) , and how they are behind closed doors , shooting the s , playing cards , or driving in their cars . Most especially fascinating , however , is that the Maysles put a theatrical ring to the proceedings , like watching characters from a stage play ala O'Neill in the great drama of life - characters , by the way , who can be talked about just as real people as figures in a film . Seeing Salesman gives a glimpse not so much into religion - they're not sermonizing here , the Maysles - but into a specific world that doesn't exist the way it used to , where men followed along leads from previous sellers , and sometimes made it through the door or not at all . There's a disarming quality to the production ; we should think that these guys aren't the ones to like or identify with , that we're the ones getting peddled to and made to feel like we MUST get this or else and so on . By opening it up just by a glimpse , and how the 16mm camera goes around with the freedom of the fly-on-the-wall , it opens up the perspective . It's one of the Maysles's very best , a piece of true Americana as a time capsule . |
510,621 | 453,068 | 69,762 | 10 | Meditative view of life , love , and death by Terrence Malick | Badlands , based on the relationship between Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate ( and later an inspiration for Tarantino's True Romance and NBK ) , never has a moment where something un-realistic curries . Writer / producer / director Terence Malick leads his film along with a true emphasis on both the psychological nature of Kit ( Martin Sheen ) and Holly ( Sissy Spacek ) , and with the un-canny knack for a relaxing style in his camera . At best , Badlands is one of the successful homages to European cinema of the 1970's , something that will last a long time due to its pairing of absorbing art-house and ( perhaps ) mainstream sensibilities . At worst , a viewer could feel bored with Malick's intent on running with his poetic ideas as a director . If there was any pretentiousness at all , it went over my head ; this is a film that draws you into its tragic nature . Sheen and Spacek are totally believable as a couple on the run , as Kit continually has a trigger-happy attitude to people after he shoots Holly's father . While Spacek holds the heart of the picture steady , I'd have to say that Sheen's Kit is one of his best performances . He comes off in the perfect sense - you wouldn't think for a second that Kit could be a killer , that is until he pulls out his pistol . It works just as well that Holly is the narrator , so that the viewer can understand where Kit's coming from , and where he's going . If there is any distance between his character and the audience , there's still a strong , emotional connection through Spacek , and their bond as a loving , if dangerous , couple . Overall , Badlands is extraordinary in a way that doesn't cram its atmospheric from start to finish on the audience , and it looks at young people in love , however in such twisted circumstances , in an honest way in how escalatory events create a disillusioned feeling in youth . That it's made on such a low budget gives it more merit . Kudos should go to the musical score by James Taylor , Gunild Keetman and George Tipton , too ; it's one of the best debuts of the 70's . |
507,872 | 453,068 | 78,480 | 10 | just about a masterpiece of animation ; Rosen is a brilliant British filmmaker | Watership Down is that animated film you'll hear about from a friend - not usually when you're a kid unless you're the kind that hangs around those reading dark British animal novels written by Richard Adams - when you're an older teen or an adult , and that it's not you're garden-variety Disney movie with violent rabbit encounters and an animation approach that is not at all " fluffy " in description . When finally seen , it goes past the hype of being one of those sleeper hits of the 1970s . It's mostly a pure masterpiece of animation , British or otherwise , though for Britain it's an even more significant achievement if only because only a handful of movies made there have made it to the States ( not counting Rankin / Bass stuff like the Hobbit , more like the 1950s Animal Farm adaptation ) . The approach from writer / director / producer Martin Rosen recognizes the source material as something very special ; it's very much like one of those memorable books translated to screen without compromise that speaks to either very sophisticated older kids or to open-minded adults . It's not a fun romp , but rather a drama about society broken down to pieces and the contention between those that want to break from the old ways and destruction from human hands and those that still c ling to the ways of the ' General ' character . It's also not for those not ready for a sad story ; while it doesn't quite end on a sad note ( maybe more bittersweet with a touch of the spiritual in a sense ) , there's lots of struggle and adversity to face , and it even faces questions that probably mean more coming out of an English mind-set regarding the breaking out of the old guard in times of survival . Basically , it's about two rabbits , Hazel and Fiver , who lead a group of rabbits from their old homestead to a place that will be safe from destruction . And it's a good idea as all the old burrows and tunnels are plugged up . But there's contention in the ranks from the ' General ' , who demands that everything stay the same . Thanks to rabbits like Bigwig though things move ahead , but there's a lot of obstacles along the way . This is the clothesline of the plot , and there are a lot of details that should feel like they're apart of a more conventional animated movie even out of Disney . And yet , with Rosen's direction and the work of the animators , it's by a different impulse and mood , the film has the look of a real artistic drive - colors are usually ( with a couple of exceptions like with that odd sun ) very naturalistic , as most of the rabbits are , and because of this there's something going on one doesn't usually see in animated talking animal movies : a sense of the world presented as realistically ( or at least honestly ) as possible , and then pulsating with humanistic qualities through the characters and their journey . As I mentioned , it's not really for little kids . If only because some of them will just be confused at times or not understand why the rabbits aren't like the really cute ones of other storybooks and fantasies ( or , actually , just parts of the storyline and really well written dialog ) , but also because of the violence - the kind of which that could've inspired the PG-13 rating system back in the day . This goes without saying occasionally Rosen tries to put in some things that could make it more family friendly , and these end up being the only liabilities of the movie , notably , for me , the Art Garfunkel song put into a scene midway through ( not to say too much but it involves a ghost ) that feels sappy as bad syrup . When Rosen sticks to his guns and makes it a solid , unflinching story of rabbits out for survival in not-so-merry old England , it's exceptional , and surely one of the best films of the late 70s . |
509,739 | 453,068 | 18,217 | 10 | an early Soviet classic of visuals that should be seen by anyone serious about editing | I think that Sergei Eisenstein , who has ( rightfully ) been credited as one of the grandfathers of modern cinema , is sometimes forgotten as someone who can really direct great epic scenes along with making them expertly edited . The filmmaker here knows he's pushing along an ideology , one that is not only encouraged but all but required of him to give to the public . But he also knows that to put out the message there needs to be some conviction , surprise , something to catch eyes as the information's already known . Perhaps even to a greater extent than Battleship Potemkin , October : Ten Days That Shook the World puts on display a director with total confidence not only in his flourishing , insistent style , but in that of his mostly non-professional actors , crowds , real-locations , sets , and his crew . It's one of the most assured pieces of silent film-making I've ever seen , and it's taken a few viewings to take in everything in one sitting ( I ended up watching half an hour , and then sitting back trying to remember everything I just saw , or thought I saw ) . Some uses of montage in the film - make that most if not all - rival those of even the better editors working in commercials and music videos today . Like those editors , they're working with images meant to be dynamic and to the point . Here it's the story of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia , where Lenin took control of the reigns of the provisional government with left the country at a stand-still in poverty . Or , at least , that's how the film would definitely lead things onto . Watching a film like this and seeing 100 % accuracy is irrelevant . But watching it to get a sense of what cinema is supposed to - and can do - with tricky subject matter , is completely worthwhile . Some of these scenes are just pure masterpieces of crowd control ; when the people mass together in the town square , for example , one might immediately think of the Odessa stairs from Potemkin . Here , however , there's more than one chance for such operatic takes on harsh realities . The beginning - where they tear down the statue - is striking enough . But just watch when the crowd has to disperse and runs around early on in the film , or especially the storming of the Winter Palace . Could you do the same material with computers today ? More than likely , but not with the same conviction and ' this-was-really-happening ' feel that a camera ( recreating ) on the scene could get . And , sometimes , as when the monument / statue gets ' put back together ' , it's almost amusing but still convincing of what the medium can do . And soon enough Eisenstein reaches his climax , the immense lot of 10 days that brought the country to a peak of change and possible prosperity for its people . It's like October for the Russian people of the time is like a thousand or so snapshots of that time and place in the world . The one point that Eisenstein poses for his viewers - not just for his of-the-period silent film crowd but for those watching today - is that he is not making it boring for those who can give themselves to the images , the moments taken with some shots more than others . Anyone getting into editing , I think , should see at least some of Eisenstein's films to get an idea of where the smoke of post-modern film-making generated . October is probably one of his prime examples ; if you want to watch it for purely historical or political contexts it may be hit or miss depending on point of view , but it is hard to see as a misfire in telling a story using spectacular and imaginative compositions with the frame , lighting , and with specific , profound musical accompaniment by Edmund Meisel . |
510,200 | 453,068 | 317,248 | 10 | a powerhouse crime saga , with a fierce , daunting fusion of style | City of God played for months on end at an the Angelika theater in New York City back in 2003 , and I was hesitant whether or not I should go there to spend ten dollars and to sit in a little theater with a packed audience , or to wait in video . I gave in to my temptations to see the film , from what I heard from various reviewers , and by the end , I knew it was truly worth the admission , and then some . Director Fernando Meirelles , along with co-director Katia Lund , crafts a film that steams so much with a passion to tell this story , to reveal all these characters ( most of which who wear their flaws right on their sleeves like badges of honor ) , and to be honest with how their tales unfold , that even the most die-hard of action film or gangster connoisseur will feel the visceral , hardcore nature of the City of God long after the lights come up , subtitles and all . This true story ( from a novel by Paulo Lins , former resident in the slums ) is told , much like Scorsese's master-work Goodfellas , in a kind of flashback format where the narrator takes us back to the City of God when the lower class were shuffled into the slums of Rio De Janeiro without much hope . Our narrator , who only calls himself Rocket until the end , lives amongst the Tender Trio , friends of his whom start out robbing oil trucks and whatever they can get their hands on to stay alive . An impromptu heist at a motel gets the cops swarming , and the trio becomes scattered , though not dissolved . As it proceeds into the seventies , we find out that some members of the group died , a few went to jail , and Rocket stays on the sidelines , hoping to become a professional photographer with little or no assets to become one in and outside of the City of God . Then there's Li'l Dice ( played through most of the film by the equally terrifying and gleeful Firmino Da Hora ) , who in the first act of the film is a kid who's the smallest among the bunch of older teens who make more or less successful robberies , though as Rocket says " You need more than guts to be a good gangster , you need ideas . " In flashback ( not to spoil ) we discover what went down at the motel that night , and from there in a brilliant stroke of editing we see how Li'l Dice became Li'l Ze , who rises up little by little in the drug dealing schematics of the slum and soon takes over a supplier to sell cocaine . Rocket ( Alexandre Rodrigues ) may be the protagonist viewers can identify with , but Li'l Ze is as fascinating an antagonist as any I have seen in a long time , who masks his insecurities with boyish joy in all of the mayhem he creates . Otherwise without hope , Li'l Ze becomes the dominant supplier in the slums , something of a tyrannical businessman , and as his story unfolds as does Knockout Ned ( Seu Jorge ) , who becomes Ze's rival in the eighties . The only way a movie like this could work is if we feel for the characters plights and heights and such , even if they're evil in nature like Li'l Ze , Carrot , and Knockout Ned . That's why the filmmakers plunge us right into the City of God , and the nature of the city , and while the narrator may pass judgment on people he's known his whole life , he like us know why they're up to no good . The thieves and dealers and killers became such by looking up to their role models , the older hoods of the region , and with each younger group of kids who want to smoke dope and vandalize is another and another . As long as you don't get caught with your pants down by the cops , or get raided by chance , the odds for anarchy are in your favor in such a place . We understand equally why Rocket wants to get out of the city his own way as much as we understand the wars between the gangs , and this crucial facet makes the film work extraordinarily well to its advantage . Indeed , we understand the tragedies of such minor roles as the Runts - the orphans of the streets - much as we would understand the importance of such roles as in a Dickens novel . Along with this technique of storytelling , is the way it's filmed that's eye grabbing . The first scene shows in fast action a chicken chase , and then our hero between the gang and the cops viewed in a tailspin fashion as we are sent back to the beginning . Then , we get all the energy of even the simplest of scenes , and the hidden passion ( Rocket on the beach with Angelica , for example ) all by the mostly hand-held photography by Cesar Charlone , and the break-neck editing ( i . e . the montage of how Li'l Ze makes a name for himself , or the disco dance sequence ) by Daniel Rezende . |
509,614 | 453,068 | 104,815 | 10 | a bang of a debut | Robert Rodriguez has his first little / big film here that is by no means big money wise . The book written by Rodriguez , Rebel Without a Crew , illustrates this point very well , but to see the film in its present form you might wonder if it really cost more than he says . But it's this same grit that adds to its rough charm , like a slightly more cartoonish , crazy and action-packed film in the vein of Night of the Living Dead ( shoe-string done with a level of truth for what the genre material needs ) . The budget for this film was 7000 . That is the cheapest price for a film given wide release I've still heard of , and probably is . And watching this film I noticed that a lot the big hundreds of millions of dollars spent on other films , while usually bankrolled with high-powered Hollywood casts and immense crews working on special effects , they lost an intensity that this film has even in its brief quiet scenes . Plus , as in the rest of the Mariachi films , it's often got a slick , quick sense of humor where Rodriguez's compositions say almost all there needs to be said . The story shows a singing musician ( El Mariachi ) who is not looking for trouble , but everyone is wanting to kill a man carrying a guitar case , which he has . It's a nifty little classic of exploitation / action that was meant for video markets but doesn't compromise . It's even got OK acting . |
510,636 | 453,068 | 734,824 | 10 | I want you rockin ' back inside my heart | Surely one of the best episodes of the entire series - and with one of the most terrifying scenes ever shown on television - episode 7 of season 2 is one that really packs its astounding punch in the last part of the show , as we see what becomes of Laura's cousin , Madeline , as she is about ready to leave Twin Peaks after spending perhaps too much time in the town . The revelation that finally comes , who Laura Palmer's killer is ( and , in effect , Madeline's killer ) , is displayed in a scene of pure white-knuckled tension and suspension of disbelief ( however , total belief in what the scene entails psychologically ) . What makes it such a triumph for Lynch as a director is how he maneuvers the mood . Before we see this grisly murder take place , we're taken to the Roadhouse to see a girl - who , by the way , sang the same song in Industrial Symphony , Lynch's little seen concert film - singing a song that is meant to be serene , about love , and wanting someone close to care about the other , hence the bit with Donna miming the words to the song being sung to James . . . . But then comes that zinger , and Lynch lays on his skills like it's nobody's business . We see slow-motion , extremely bright light , then the shock goes into a perverse detail of how " Bob " operates in his most violent mode . It ends up being extra shocking , too , because it's not entirely expected like this , not so much as to who the killer is , but in the progression of the episode . For TP fans , this definitely holds a big place of merit ( one friend of mine said that it gave him nightmares - this is a guy in his 20s mind you ) , and even just for Lynch fans it should have a special mention as one of his best directed efforts , albeit 45 minutes . |
510,957 | 453,068 | 43,014 | 10 | arguably Wilder at his very best ; Swanson , Holden , and von Stroheim are about perfect | I was a little speechless after I first finished watching Sunset Blvd . I had an idea of what to expect , but I didn't expect that a film made over half a century ago would be so sharp , so artistically compelling , and so tragic while still containing a blistering sense of humor . In some ways it was ahead of its time with its satire , ironically in a film that looks to the past with a sense of sad , but honest nostalgia . Gloria Swanson , the star of the film , plays a woman who is a star still in her old mind , Norma Desmond . There are a handful ( how big the hand is depends on the particular viewer ) of films where you have a character or characters that are not only unforgettable , but become so trenched in the public consciousness its hard to think of mistaking it for anything else . Even as a kid and knew that line " I'm ready for my close-up , Mr . DeMille " was a basic , but dead-on swipe at ego , or at least stardom . That it was in this context makes it all the more comic / tragic . That Sunset Boulevard also has the distinction of being in the film-noir tradition along with having some satirical grounding solidifies it one of the really unique films of the Golden Age of post World War 2 America . The story starts with our protagonist and past-tense narrator , Joe Gillis , who is a struggling B movie screenwriter in Hollywood . Fate , or maybe just odd luck , pits him into the driveway of a big , almost archaic estate that almost looks haunted to him on first sight . He meets Norma Desmond , whom he doesn't recognize as once being a big silent movie star . " I am big , " she says in one of her trademark lines , " it's the pictures that have gotten small . " She confides in Gillis , after he tells her who he is and why he's there ( hiding out as it were ) , that she has a screenplay she wants DeMille to direct as her ' comeback ' . He very reluctantly agrees to do it , and very soon gets sucked up into her world , becoming disconnected to his small circle of Hollywood friends . But he still has one , as a kind of secret almost , Betty Schaefer ( the beautiful Nancy Olson ) , who is an aspiring screenwriter . One can maybe guess what might happen as this goes on , but like with Wilder's other great films , the unexpected moments and keen revelations / coincidences are the best parts ; Erich von Stroheim as Max , Norma's ' butler ' , is surprisingly good . I've seen Sunset Blvd . several times now , but I can't forget how much I laughed the first time around ; I wondered why it was even considered in the ' film-noir ' tradition ( not that it didn't have its stylistic or character bearings , but compared to Double Indemnity it didn't seem as pumped up ) . I really took it as a kind of pioneering black comedy , with Norma Desmond as the delusional , self-fulfilling has-been . For example , when Gillis first arrives and Max and Norma bury her pet monkey - it's not just the image of the dead monkey and the reverence paid to it , but also as they bury it Gillis ' wry narration . The narration in this film is another great trademark , with that kind of snappy later 40's / early 50's wit that helped move from the kind of wit that was in earlier Hollywood films . And of course there are some other absurdities that bring out a few good laughs , in particular when Norma visits DeMille in the studio , and gets suddenly by some surreal miracle all the attention she's been having in her head . In repeated viewings , the film does show itself as darker , with a lot more thought put into the themes and real problems in the characters . Not just Norma , but also Joe , who little by little becomes more like the sneaky son of an overbearing mother than a real collaborator . The final scenes , which link up to the " end scene at the beginning " , and then the sort of crazy , classic epilogue of Norma on the staircase , more of the film-noir elements come through . The ' average Joe ' , so to speak , in over his head ; the sinister elements that are around him ( more so here psychological than criminal ) ; and of course the ' black widow ' in Norma Desmong . Swanson , in what should've been her Oscar winning role , never misses a beat . Through her delusions of grandeur and overwhelming nostalgia for the old days ( another great scene is when she makes him watch all her old silent films ) , there is also a vulnerability that doesn't make her a totally hateful character . And through all of this is one of the best screenplays that's ever come out of the Golden Age of Hollywood . As I mentioned the narration is sharp and observant , as in a sort of Pulp-noir novel , and the dialog for the time isn't very unconvincing . The relationships , like the one between Joe and Betty , is handled gently , so that the punch that's given to the viewer at the end has more of an impact . Max , as well , is maybe even more a complex character than Norma ; why stay as a butler for a woman who is almost in a time warp ? Perhaps he is too . Maybe that's one , perhaps subtle , message to the film - as much as it is fascinating to look to the past , to get locked into it is something very detrimental . But the film may not have a very clear-cut message , as it is a dense film with different appeals to different people ( like a Kubrick film ) - it's funny , it's romantic , it's sly , and at times very weird . I can't wait to see it again . |
508,399 | 453,068 | 104,797 | 10 | superior craftsmanship , Washington's performance , and a sobering mixture of history and drama | Malcolm X is many things to many people , but one can never say he didn't make a significant mark on his time and for ' his ' people , as he and the Nation of Islam defined it . But ' his ' was contingent on his religion , his experience growing up and being an ' Afro-American ' in the United States , and as it turned out it was not set in stone . What Spike Lee's film does so compellingly is shine light on the history of the man and his place in a country with one of the most disturbing , racist histories in the world , and not make it too dogmatic or beyond reproach . On the contrary , this is one of Lee's most commercial works , made in epic form and imbued with his style at the top of his game . Only Do the Right Thing , in terms of his non-documentary features , tops this for sheer directorial virtuosity and intelligence with the subject matter . How much it sticks true to the autobiography of Malcolm X ( as told to Alex Haley ) I can't say yet , having not read the book . But for what it's worth , on its own terms , Lee crafts his story with the grandiosity appropriate to the character and the circumstances . Malcolm ( Washington ) is born to a religious man , but one who's killed by white people . He's denied his dream of being a lawyer and forced into labor . He becomes a criminal and is sentenced to 10 years for multiple counts of theft . And then in prison is changed around by Baines ( Albert Hall ) , who converts him to the Nation of Islam and its teachings . It's mind-opening because , for the first time for him , his perception comes clearer than ever regarding the black experience - and what are really their rights , which have been few since the abolishment of slavery - and he becomes the big cultural figure he's remembered as . Even if one doesn't agree with all of the philosophy and speeches from Malcolm - and it's not hard to see why Malcolm had so many enemies , even from his own fold - it absorbs one not terribly familiar with what he was about in thought and practice and deed , and it gets the audience thinking one way or another about the nature of racism and race and separation in America . And past all that , it's directed with nerve and pizazz , while not going too far off into avant-garde . For all of Lee's success here as a storyteller , it wouldn't be quite the same without the star ; oddly enough once he's off the screen - for the final ten minutes which becomes a long eulogy that drags on longer than necessary in nearing pomposity - it doesn't work as well . Every moment he's on camera , whether in the early years in Boston and Harlem as a thug or as X himself in full public figure mode on stage and behind closed doors , it's a reminder why he's the star he is . It's simply one of his very best performances , full of subtlety and wit and bigger-than-life bravura moments that usually ( though not this time get Oscars . It's a period piece , it's a history lesson , it's a biography , and a testament to the possibility for a person to change . But above all else , Malcolm X works as a movie , and it's watchable in that big-movie-event kind of way without the usual drawbacks . |
509,665 | 453,068 | 91,983 | 10 | an above-average rom-com script crossbred with juicy pulp fiction , great stuff | Why can't more romantic comedies be like this ? This question came to me while watching Something Wild , a little sleeper from the mid 80s from Jonathan Demme about a seemingly typical 80s NY businessman , Charlie ( Jeff Daniels ) who gets whisked away by a ' free-spirit ' " Lulu " ( Melanie Griffith ) . Well , probably because most people who watch the very typical romantic comedies probably don't watch it for the same reasons that those who love Something Wild do . There's maybe something to keep going through the dirge of crap that are among the films of decades and decades of romantic comedies , but it's finding one of the nuggets that counts ( Love Actually , from 2003 , is another one for example ) . And , perhaps , there might be a darker sensibility , or more thought put into it , in enjoying Something Wild . It's a lot like Id-gone-Wild , in a sense . In the world of Something Wild , we're brought along with characters on a situation that would seem surreal on a Bunuel level ( i . e . bourgeois brought along into the realm of sin and desire by some free-will temptress of the ' lower depths ' ) , but there's a reality to it , a kind of down-to-earth level about the characters - and , more importantly for this , the actors playing them - and it elevates it past being either too strange or just too quirky . It's just about right , which is tough to dol you feel like cringing as Lulu calls up Charlie's boss while teasing him incredibly in the midst of kinky sex , but it's also so funny in how it all comes together that you just don't care , at least , enough , that it's anarchic . So while it's enjoyable , at least on first sight , as a sort of freewheeling existentialist romp , like a French sex comedy clipped over on the 80s ' greed-is-good ' motto , it has dark undertones that soon get darker and darker , thanks to Ray Liotta's Ray , who is Lulu / Audrey's real husband . At this point we feel like we're suddenly plopped into a pulp fiction piece , with the ex-con bad-ass going to town against the would-be rebel and his girl gone awry . But at the same time , for what Demme and his wonderful screenwriter have , it all works . What helps exponentially ( if that's the word ) is that Demme doesn't stray either into anything not honest within the boundaries of this situation . It might seem like a risk people wouldn't take in real life , or that the violence is pumped up to , again , pulp fiction territory , but in the logic of the piece - of the tricky deceit and the push-and-pull of the triangle of Charlie / Audrey / Ray - it's just awesomely achieved . Again , the performances are a big asset to the film's suceess . Daniels matches very well that line between playing it innocent and the straight-shooter , the guy we're supposed to identify with as stuck middle-class citizens with families and green lawns , and as a rebel who just has to let some free will into his system now and again . Griffith is in one of her very best , not acting too precocious or annoying , and conveying in the little bits of ' regular ' Audrey ( i . e . the scene at her mother's ) that there's more than meets the eye . And Liotta is so great that it's probably no wonder that he ( maybe unfortunately ) got typecast as a psycho . There's actually complexity that Liotta gets to , and in a way doesn't make Ray totally unlikeable ; he is the villain , of course , but there's a charm that is like the ID unraveled completely as a guy who shoots guns , robs stores , and hits on girls whenever he can . All three make up such a terrific combo here . It's crazy , it's awkward , it's a rip-roaring time , and it's even got heart too . For those who are tired of spoon-fed tripe by the studios , it's an excellent escape into one of the most unconventional ( but most pleasantly genre-tastic ) of the past 25 years |
510,635 | 453,068 | 734,815 | 10 | one of the few truly inspired series finales in TV history | What a way to go out on a bang ! The series finale to Twin Peaks is not only superb as an episode in tying together loose ends in an entertaining way , it transcends what are usually the limitations of the TV medium . David Lynch directed the episode , which is obvious from every single minute that was shot . It's a lot more like the most surreal art-film shot by a European cameraman than your typical prime-time network finale . We see finally , as has been hyped for the previous episodes , the Black Lodge , what could almost be considered the truest form of a haven for the dark side of the universe . Cooper finds that the map will show him how to follow Windam-Earl , who's kidnapped Annie , Cooper's new love , to bring the worst evil imaginable . Passing sycamore trees , we finally enter what is the ultimate labyrinth as dictated by Lynch and company , where we see old " friends " ( the Man from Another Room , the room service man at the Great Northern , Laura , Mr . Palmer , the Giant , et all ) , and see the most frightening outcome imaginable . In one of Lynch's most staggering displays of bravura directing , the Twin Peaks finale is alternately hysterically funny ( the wrap-up of what happens at the bank ) , dramatically exquisite ( the mess over at Donna's ) , plain goofy in its obviousness ( Nadine's come around reminds me of the climax of Muppets Take Manhattan ) , and absolutely thrilling in how only Lynch and Frost can pull it off . Everything from the lighting - going so over-the-top with the flashing lights and the slow-to-fast pacing - to the sound design , to the completely out-of-this-world turn of performances by everyone in the Black Lodge , it all just clicks so well that it gives one who's already very used to Lynch's wild theatrics the chills . Indeed , the very end left me feeling the same way I did the first times I saw Lynch's best work in Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive : it makes total sense , even if it makes no sense all the same . And yet , the emotional impact is concise , direct , and with a punch that's undeniable . Meanwhile , it's all on TV , not in a cinema , where one would expect to see such artful craft and simple touches of visual wizardry . Wow , Bob , Wow . That's all I could say once this ended . |
510,953 | 453,068 | 117,951 | 10 | One of the Best films of the 90's | This film has almost everything - Sex , violence , drugs , language and Iggy Pop . The novel of this film is completely a waste of time , but when it is put on the screen like this ( especially by Danny Boyle ) it gets good . The actors are electrifyingly good , especially Ewan McGregor's breakthrough performance as a Scottish youth who's trying to get off heroin . His journey to get off drugs is funny , sad , and thought provoking . And only in this film can you have a man swimming in a toilet . |
509,885 | 453,068 | 60,647 | 10 | A remake of the Big Sleep as only the " Girl and a Gun " man can do it | It's probably a given to note one of Jean-Luc Godard's notorious Godard-isms , likely the one that everyone knows even if they haven't seen a Godard picture : All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun . While this is a pointed reference to the simplicity possible and / or inherent in the gangster picture or noir , and about how inexpensiveness should be taken usually into consideration . But at the same time , I think a picture like Made in USA or even something like Band of Outsiders or Vivre sa vie emphasizes that Godard was really the one to go for this in the only way that he could : all Godard needed to make a movie was a girl ( his girl , pre Masculin Feminin which was immediately after Made in USA , Anna Karina ) , a gun ( or sometimes more than one ) , and Jean-Luc Godard . Because , really , a girl and a gun is fine , but in the 1960s , with this man at the helm , it was just a little bit more . Called by the director himself as a " remake " of the Big Sleep , which perhaps makes the best sense of all , this is the hardest to find of the French New Wave wild-man-poet-anarchist's films not just with Anna Karina but in the 60s in general . Interesting , since this is , to my somewhat biased estimation ( biased in that this was , to me , his absolute prime period before his very hit or miss period in the decades to follow ) , one of his most entertaining " B-movie " movies about movies . And not just about movies , but also about living with oneself , the politics of France , Walt Disney , and things pop culture flavored all around . This is another in a line of pictures Godard made that was very anti-capitalist while at the same time embracing to an extent ( if only ironically ) the images and names and attitudes of American pictures and pulp fiction and comic books and other things . There's such an array of references that at the theater I saw this film at , the Film Forum in NYC , they had to put up a glossary-key to fill people in . And as much as it's a love letter to wild quips , eccentric characters , guys in trench-coats and hats , Nick Ray and Sam Fuller ( especially them as providing Godard's " love of sound and image " as noted at the start ) , bright colors filmed in wonderful Technicolor , stretches of time filled on a tape recorder about French politics , and to the dark and warmth of American B-movies , it's also a fine goodbye to Anna Karina . Here , as pretty and tough and contemplative as ever , going through some classic Godard scenes like when she and the detective who may have killer her character's lover explain to the camera what they are saying in a scene instead of playing it out , or just lying on the ground in a moment of existential upheaval , Karina shows how good she could actually be . While not her very best - I'd save that for Pierrot le fou and Vivre sa vie - it's a very memorable performance , and one that , like everyone else in Godard's films , knows so well about the performance as she's performing , that the " fiction " itself becomes wrapped around in the very documentary-like act of filming the movie . And that last part , I think , is the handle for this time period for Godard . What was essential to his craft , when it clicked just right , was that he could master together his love of quotations and pop-culture and movie references on top of a daring and sometimes wacky exploration of reality and fiction . Made in USA us based on a Donald Westlake crime book about a woman looking to find out who killer her man , but in Godard's hands the very act of this plot , joyously convoluted as the best possible homage / remake of Hawks ' Big Sleep as could be outside of Coen brothers , is subjugated to scenes where actors talk to the camera about what they would normally just say to each other in a scene , or when they make point of , of course , that it's just a movie . It may be a " B-side " in the Godard 60s cannon as a NY Times review pointed out , but damn it all if it isn't one of the most enjoyable B-sides in all cinema . |
508,557 | 453,068 | 60,268 | 10 | seen it just once : it's one of the most unusual , and unlikely dark comic masterpieces , of the 60s | Roman Polanski steers a film along in one location or kind of place with just a few characters like it's nobody's business . He's one of the most brilliant at it , at being able to veer away from making things static and stagey with a possible chamber piece like Knife in the Water or Death and the Maiden . Cul-de-sac is no exception , but it also has the distinction of being one of Polanski's comedies - however here , perhaps , it's the most successful and masterful of them all ( albeit the others I can recall are Fearless Vampire Killers and Pirates , which are good but lessor works ) because of his trust in the purely existential horror of the situation . I was laughing to the kind of harrowingly funny situations the characters would get into , or the strange awkwardness of such things as a little kid wielding a shotgun and cursing or watching poor Jack MacGowran stuck with a bullet in his belly in the getaway car as it slowly sinks in the coming tide . But lest not forget that as with many other Polanski films , for all of his own ferocious and oddly subtle command of a lens ( most notable is the 7-minute long take on the beach which is only fluid inasmuch as the characters slightly move about in the setting ) , the performances catapult it into uncharted territory of eccentricity and brilliance . Lionel Stander , for one , gives maybe one of his definitive performances in a career of minor character actor parts ( i . e . " you might remember me as Barman in Once Upon a Time in the West ) , characterized by his gravely voice and quintessential tough-guy-noir face and demeanor , playing one of the criminals taking over and hiding out in the 11th century castle of Donald Pleasance and Francoise Dorleac . Pleasance and Dorleac are also perfectly cast as seeming caricatures ( Pleasance's George as the meek and mild-mannered retired worker and Dorleac as his dripping - with - French - sexy - and - slightly - crazy wife ) who peel back layers of their characters as it goes along . At the least , it should be noted , it's an incredible career highlight for the underrated Pleasance and an intriguing and nasty turn from Dorleac . Cul-de-sac is a howler of a black comedy , with pitch black jokes involving a dead body and his burial , the untimely arrival of a bunch of George's bourgeois friends , and ending in a crazy purging freak-out from George . Sometimes single lines stand out ( Stander delivering " Mental retiring or something " is classic ) , or just a sudden physical motion , and Polanski is always there to add some taut level or even claustrophobia . But what is richest of all in the film is the implications on the human capacity for choice and cruelty . Throughout George is made a point of ridicule , mostly by his own wife , for not being manly enough to stand up to this grater-voiced thug and is not helped by him first appearing - as a funny / personal in-joke between husband and wife - in lipstick and a dress , and we see both his entire spectrum of personality and psychology along with the wife and Richard ( poor MacGowran , as mentioned , is relegated mostly to being laid out on a table pontificating as a yin to Richard's yang ) . If there could be a word to apply to what unravels in Cul-de-sac morbid would probably be the one to use in describing the bulk of the picture . And Polanski , no stranger to morbidity , transforms his picture into a bizarre , troubling and , very morbid and complex examination of what lies beneath a simple film-noir ; it's very funny , very tragic , and satisfying as 60s cinema could get . Only drawback : lack of decent prints in the USA and lack of access to videos make it near impossible to see the picture as originally intended or in good condition . Thankfully , it's so good that one can forgive finding the occasional bootleg with so-so transfer quality . |
508,940 | 453,068 | 25,316 | 10 | one of the great light-hearted romance comedies | Frank Capra's It Happened One Night was a film I saw a few years ago , first and only time ( though there will be other viewings to come ) , and it's never left me . Not exactly on a big profound dramatic level like a lot of other films of the 30s - including Capra's It's a Wonderful Life - but it's got such an air of confidence to its light-hearted comedy , and the winning combo of Gable and Colbert . The story is pretty simple , which is good so as to allow for this odd couple to bond and grow in behavioral terms ; Colbert is spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews and she's just tied the knot , and Gable plays reporter Peter Warne . She jumps ship and Peter follows . It becomes a road movie soon after that ( including the famous " leg " bit that's been a staple of male fantasy even up to today to a certain degree ) , and Capra gets his fun in showing these two characters as being so right for each other for all the wrong reasons . In that sense it's the prototypical romantic comedy , one that we've seen perhaps far too much today and parrotted without a lick of the whimsy Capra gives it . But it's also a big credit to the stars that they keep this tale uplifting ( it was the depression after all ) , and they're simply magnetic personalities to fill up such identifiable personas . It's terrific . |
508,728 | 453,068 | 106,179 | 10 | even in its lulls , this was one of the best shows on prime-time TV | The X-Files was , regrettably , not a show I was die-hard about when it was airing week after week in my youth / teen years . I would catch an episode here and there , be entertained , but also think ' this episode isn't TOO much different from the other ones ' . The film that came out as the spin-off of the series did spark my interest more , however , as having a full arc even for someone as just a casual fan . Then as the series went in its latter days , I did tune out ( thinking , ' why's Robert Patrick on the show , all this Scully baby-drama , etc ' ) . However , as the show now goes on in syndication on the various cable channels , and I have refreshed my awareness of the first season as quasi-background , I've become rather addicted ( minus the Patrick episodes , the lulls mentioned earlier ) . Sometimes what draws me in is the occasional , unexpected morbid humor . But mostly its in how the stories on the show , while of course sticking close to being ' TV ' , are the more engrossing the more you know about the characters . And there are some very inventive episodes regarding the unexplained , the bizarre human characters , and of course the UFO's and other assorted visitor folk . While I'm not as immersed in the show yet as with shows I've been watching since a youth ( Seinfeld , Simpsons , South Park , Daily Show ) , part of the fun of getting further and further into the episodes is seeing the comparisons , of what's gotten better or worse , more intriguing or less . Much like the inspiration of the show - All the President's Men - the more you see of what can't be explained , the more you can't stop finding the truth . Hokey at times , sure , but also a cult-delight . |
508,742 | 453,068 | 421,460 | 10 | can't say much about the original talk soup , but this ' new ' version is great brain candy | The Soup has become one of those nifty little pleasures of cable TV for me recently . To say that it's a guilty pleasure might be a little hard to say , as it is basically just a summary of all of the weird , crazy , delirious , whatever-you-call-it , and plain bad and near offensive TV of the past week . So to say it's a guilty pleasure would mean that it's sort of wrong on a level to watch the show , hard to admit . But the whole program is like a full-on pop culture version with a little more goofiness of what the Daily Show does in its first eight or nine minutes of reviewing clips . It's satire , though of a fairly low denomination where very cheap graphics , sometimes lame jokes , and lots of tongue placed in as many firm cheeks as possible end up squeezing out jokes . It's hosted by Joel McHale in a very smarmy , sarcastic manner , but he makes it work for what it's worth , and one becomes sort of adjusted to what his shtick is after a while . Ironically , McHale has his work cut out for him , because the clips are sometimes very funny on their own , without really a word or gesture or gag to add to it . Reality Show clip-time , Chat Stew ( " so meaty " ) , What the Kids Are Watching , and Clip of the Week are among the regulars , and in this dire swamp of pop culture and other TV - sometimes stretching to international lengths with Spanish soap operas and inexplicable Japanese shows - is never-ending . If anything as time goes on , there's almost too much to choose from . There are new categories created each week by McHale and his writers , two of them being funny by themselves in just having no other choice but to make fun of where the Soup itself broadcasts from - the E network ( Lets Take Some E ! is one new segment , as well as a whole list of those un-Godly tabloid TV shows like E . T . and Access Hollywood ) . It's basically a fun way to spend half an hour on a Friday night or Saturday morning , and as someone who doesn't really watch much TV and tries , sometimes without success , to avoid bad TV even when it's ironically good or horrific celebrities and people on reality shows I shouldn't give a damn about , it's a great little treat . |
509,553 | 453,068 | 381,681 | 10 | what fascinates and interests almost works to annoy the viewer , but Linklater does come closest to Bergman here | Before Sunset provides us not so much a sequel as a continuing development in the lives of these characters , who are starting to embody the neuroses and deeply-held desires that neither want to admit to until it's at the most crucial and tragic of times . Jessie ( Ethan Hawke ) and Celine ( Julie Delpy ) , who first met on a train in Vienna in 1994 , meet again nine years later as Jessie has published a book which is based on that night they had together . He's in Paris , they meet again , and before he has his plane back to the states they talk , and talk , and talk , and unlike in the first film there are no asides . It's just two people who at first talk about concerns that came up for them the first time , if a bit more pragmatic : what it is to have concern over the environment , to live in the USA , to be involved enough in a relationship . There's even a moment of deja-vu where they talk about reincarnation and a respect for faith if not an embracing of it . But then we also get to see something much deeper in each side that Jessie's book and mere re-appearance for Celine brings out a memory that has become hyper-realized , and vice-versa . Like Bergman's films , in particular Scenes From a Marriage ( if not as wholly successful because of its short running time here ) , Linklater provides us with characters who have no problem saying what's on their mind , in the immediate sense anyway . Jessie is even more digging-in with his cynicism and wit , and Celine with her opinions on the world at large , family and on past relationships . But when it comes to getting at their connection , it's very fragile and even unattainable because of each side's own flaws . If the two of them were happy , to be certain , there would be no movie , but it's the characters ' connection to that one night in Vienna , and the second meeting that was supposed to take place six months later and never happened , and how it cripples their own romantic lives that becomes very interesting yet shallow at the same time . Perhaps this is the best way to show how smart , functional people become dysfunctional in their respective social stratospheres - Jessie is married and with a kid , but not very happy in it , and Celine is in bad relationship after bad relationship - but the singular , glossy night of years past has become a bitter shrine of sorts amid their respective neuroses . Linklater shares that incredible Bergman quality of cutting past the already sharp intellect to the emotional matter of the parties , even if it doesn't feel totally complete ; I want to see how their story might end , however obvious it should and probably would be . One knows this could never work in real life , aside from the practical-side of it all , yet it's this that makes it all the more watchable . This , plus the incredibly natural repore of the actors , as Hawke and Delpy , as to be expected , seem like they aren't even on a script but are being filmed by Linklater on the fly as his camera captures the given-luscious scapes of Paris in afternoon , and the dialog is still as fresh and inviting as ever . If it lacks anything from the first it's an greater sense of the possibility for romance , since this time the sense of romance is entangled in loss and questions that Celine and Jessie want answered , however conscious they want them answered or not . But as with the first one , I still loved being around these two , who can expound a mouthful on a subject that we all might talk about , almost shockingly similar ( one bit I liked a lot was Celine's story of going to Poland ) , and then in a slight cloud of romanticism . It ends ambiguous , maybe too ambiguous , as I found myself saying ' huh , what ' , but it ties into what Jessie tells the reporters at the press conference early in the film : one may take away something from this tale , or someone else another , but there it is , clear as day . Before Sunset is a straightforward romance , and proud of it , being both straightforward in romantic connection and as sharp as anything you'd never find in your local cineplex . One of Linklater's best . |
508,979 | 453,068 | 64,116 | 10 | Maybe Leone's second best behind GB & U - sophisticated weaving of techniques from past westerns into an near-mythic treatment . . . | Sergio Leone's the master of the spaghetti western - hard to refute that - and with Once Upon a Time in the West he goes for taking the skills he formed in the ' Dollars ' trilogy ( inspired by the likes of John Ford ) into a stylistically complex work . The story as well ( by Leone , horror director Dario Argento , and Bernardo Bertolucci ) slips the lines together without a flaw . The four main characters - the suave , quiet Harmonica ( Charles Bronson ) , the determined and sexy Jill ( Claudia Cardinale ) , veteran outlaw Cheyenne ( Jason Robards ) , and the worn , chilling hired-killer Frank ( Henry Fonda ) - each get enough screen time by themselves or with each other to get the story going along , with the interweaving perfectly in sync . And Leone's in luck - his actors all turn in top shelve work , with Bronson proving himself to be cool on par with Eastwood , Cardinale highly formidable as the first female lead in a Leone film , and Fonda creating one of his most memorable works . Fonda's Frank draws you like no other actor could have in the first scene he appears . A viewer can hardly believe he would set the story into motion like he does ( looking into those blue eyes in the trademark close-ups ) , that is until the gun gets pulled . With all the performance in check , Leone creates a technical masterpiece . In a sense , Leone here created a film in the sense that Quentin Tarantino created Kill Bill - the later made a film about the conventions in grindhouse / martial-arts films , and Leone made a film about the conventions in the John Ford westerns ( the commentary on the DVD goes into detail on this ) . But , like Tarantino , Leone isn't just creating a compare / contrast show with guns and landscapes . You don't have to have seen all those archaic westerns to get what Leone's doing here , since it's original in craftsmanship and how some turns are taken . The craftsmanship , by the way , is anchored by the likes of cinematographer Tonillo Delli Colli , with similar and not so similar angles and pans and shots to GB & U - it's almost arguable that he should've deserved his lifetime achievement award simply for his three collaborations with Leone . Also , Nino Baragli and Carlo Simi deserve massive credit here . Along with a great vision comes other great people to work with , like Ennio Morricone , who has another score that's so evocative and in tune with Leone's mind-set it was created before filming even began . This is the kind of work that could turn on a non-western fan onto the genre - though I would recommend GB & U as the introduction to this man's view of the 19th century in America . One thing for certain - you'll have to see it twice before you can truly pass judgment . |
510,654 | 453,068 | 110,005 | 10 | a tale of two girls , with a certain passion for life , and each other | Heavenly Creatures may be the best film I've seen so far from Peter Jackson , even after having gone through the Lord of the Rings , King Kong , even Dead-Alive . His film is loaded with so much that it's hard to classify it as one specific thing , and its psychological complexities make it something special . One way to describe the picture is that it's about the stirring friendship-cum-relationship of Pauline ( Melanie Lynskey ) and Juliet ( Kate Winslet ) in 1950s New Zealand . Another way to describe it is showing the other side , the much darker side , of a coming of age story , where youth have to come to terms with realities , with horrific results . And even another way is that it's another in a big line of independent films that work on the relationship between fantasy and reality , or rather the practical need for abstractions to try and not get too close to the mundane , and then the all too hard to accept realities around the characters . But there's another way to describe it too that I like best , and that also marks it as something even more special than some might realize - it's one of those rare , sensational takes on what it's like to be in that dreadful cocoon of an age at 14 and 15 , when hormones go completely insane , parents are more of an enemy and force to be reckoned with than a helpful , compassionate side like when younger , and at times the world seems like it could end at any moment if something changed for the worse . This is where I think Jackson strikes it hardest and most fulfilling , even as the other descriptions are not un-true at all . In this case , Juliet and Pauline are at that age , and when they first meet they first connect very strongly , being outsiders in their class , though completely in tune with their fantasy life of romanticized worlds , knights , an opera singer , and ( some ) male movie stars . But this becomes complicated more once they first get briefly separated due to Juliet's illness , and when they meet again there are suspicions from both sides of the family ( ' homosexuality ' is shown in a close-up shot of the mouth of one of the father's saying it , as if it's like the plague ) , and the dysfunctions of Juliet's side end up drawing things to its very tragic end . Along with the substance being at a very high quality , of a script that deftly combines the elements of lush fantasy mixing and matching - sometimes without discerning - through a powerful subjective viewpoint , mostly through Pauline , there's unexpected scenes that are touching . For example , there's a scene where she reluctantly loses her virginity to a boarder , and through this she keeps cutting back and forth in her dulled state to clay knights . This is a motif , I suppose , that is expounded upon alongside the narration from Pauline , which adds her subjectivity to a fault . And all the while the objectivity becomes pushed aside , or at least is questioned . What is it to be so different from how everyone in this 1950s time views their uncommon bond ? Whether they are or aren't lesbian is up for debate , it's left ambiguous even when its put up-front in the last twenty minutes . And all the while , Jackson directs it stylistically with the same verve he had with his early films , though balancing the wild fantasy with the grounded reality ; he's even playful with it , however dark , which includes a great tip-of-the-hat to Orson Welles and the Third Man . All the while , too , the performances by the two leads are stellar . It's actually shocking to see Lynskey not get better roles since , as her Pauline is totally defined and made real and , at least in some sort of emotional way at times , relatable or sympathetic . Winslet , meanwhile , has one of her best here , as the more outward one personality-wise of the two , who is even more immersed in the fantasy than Pauline , but has a vulnerability that is crushing . Everything combines together then - the direction , the writing , the performances and the actual mixed psychology behind it , and it becomes quite memorable . It's not a very easy picture to watch at times , and its implications are disturbing , but it has more guts and determination to tell its story full-on than many others I can think of . |
509,040 | 453,068 | 963,207 | 10 | hard-edged , take-no-prisoners satire at its finest ; Carlin's best in almost 10 years | It might be a stretch saying this as a die-hard Carlin fan , but the material , both written and as performed , in It's Bad for Ya is some of the best late-era material yet . At 70 Carlin bounces back from the level of despair ( and some of the stumbles in the act itself ) from Life is Worth Losing to a special that is firmly structured but loose and playful - or as much as the " old f " can get - and is continuously , ceaselessly , funny . And funny as in reminiscent of what some of us had going on when watching Back in Town or ' Diseased ' the first time . The material , even if sounding at times a tinge of the previously done ( i . e . the whole bit on children in school and camp like the Children segment in Diseased ) , is always fresh and with such a sting of truth to everything that it scalds the mind while ( here goes ) tickling the funny bone . Going from the topic of death ( how long to wait to scratch off a name from the book ? six weeks , unless if on the computer scheduler ) , the facets of communication , looking down from Heaven , spots of God ( naturally ) , kids , and just troublesome gestures involving hats in religion and if people really have " Rights " make up the bulk of the special , centered around the premise that what's bad for you , plain and simple , is BS . Total , complete BS , which as we also learn ( or if you've really learned it you're like the kid waiting at the street corner for a week following dropped off not-quite randomly by the parent ) holds the country together . Carlin isn't necessarily angry though , even if disdain seems to spout out at most turns , even just to observe how horrifying children's teeth coming in look . It's skepticism tinged with the feeling that everything is NOT going to be " fine " . What it comes down to is this : Carlin is to dirty , witty , cautionary stand-up comedy what Yoda is to Jedis everywhere , which is a small spark of hope via crystal clear wisdom in a world where it's pretty damn hard to get any . At the least , we get classic GC - outrageous lines and bits from the man's 13th ( or is it 14th ) comedy special , including as far as an eyebrow-raising observation on people who play Mozart music during a birth ! |
508,543 | 453,068 | 64,106 | 10 | not entirely Hitchcockian thriller / melodrama , but somehow in a class of its own | When Claude Chabrol , the French director of many thrillers and dramas and other genres , is at his best when subtly but forcefully pulling the rug out from the viewer . This isn't your usual case of a romance story criss-crossed with a serial killer thriller . In fact , we're not made very much aware that there is a serial killer - save for a few mentions here and there - until halfway through the movie , and by the time we are it's full-throttle in a kind of expertly manipulated suspense , not in the usual sense but through an ominous musical score by Pierre Jansen and a movement of fluidity with the camera that tells the story sort of conventionally but not at the same time . It's a small , master's class in subverting the genre by making us care so much about the characters even as we know they're doomed from the happy opening . That's not to say that Chabrol has made anything that can't be enjoyed by one looking for a good entertaining thriller first and foremost . If anything the opening of the movie is what lures one in perfectly , as it's a very jovial in this wedding sequence one sees guests school-teacher Helene ( Stephane Audran , Chabrol regular ) and butcher Paul ( Jean Yanne , perfect as the butcher ) , enjoying themselves and making good conversation . This stretches out into the first half of the film ; a friendship develops around food that Paul brings over , and it's only when Paul thinks its time to go the ' next step ' that he's told it can't be because of a past horrible relationship that Helen faced - horrible in the sense of disappointment . There's a disconnect emotionally that is left open , thus , going into the second half of the film , where finally we see what some of us would be waiting for : the serial killer plot . There's a string of murders involving women , and one of them - the bride from the opening - is a shocker not exactly for the revelation itself , per-say , but how Chabrol builds up to it . At first it's seen as the most suspenseful thing in the film so far as Helen leads her class along a mountainside and stops to have lunch . The music is playing right here , and it's really chilling for how simple it lays out the tension , like a weirdo standing across the street in a black cloak acting suspicious but , at the same time , too subtle to pin down . This adds to the sudden shock , then , after the music stops and finally the reveal happens via blood dripping on the kid's sandwich . This , however , is just one example of Chabrol's calm mastery as a director of the material . It would be one thing to go on and on about the eerie absorption of the camera-work , which goes between conventional stylization ( for a French film of the period ) and poetic editing and framing . Or to go on and on about the stunning work turned by Audran ( going between an entire emotional palette , as it were , from happy to sobbing to frightened to pale and shot to hell ) and Yanne ( also great at what he's meant to be , our male protagonist and , sadly , eventual antagonist by default ) . But it's the emotional struggle that makes this compelling above all other good reasons to recommend . The Butcher posits a relationship that is platonic , naturalistic , and genuinely interesting ; these aren't cookie-cutter characters but well-drawn and with things that make them identifiable even as they , early on , seem to go on about trivial things not related to the plot ( a little like a Woody Allen movie ) . Then , when it switches gears bit by bit and the paranoia increases , by the time the climax comes it becomes very , ultimately , tragic . Chabrol goes to lengths to reveal , simply , the soul of a man one should not feel any sympathy for . That one close-up in the car ride to the hospital is one of the finest climaxes I might ever see in a movie from Europe , even anywhere . And damned if isn't representative of what Chabrol can do as a craftier but no less true-to-his-art member of the Cashier du cinema filmmaker club . |
507,925 | 453,068 | 106,226 | 10 | As Absorbing and magnificent as any other Scorsese film | Martin Scorsese is definatley one of the greatest directors of the past century and with this work , he proves ( along with Kundun ) that his verizons span beyond his classics like Mean Streets , Raging Bull and GoodFellas , though those works are some of the best in the American history of film . Here in the Age of Innocence , Scorsese depicts ( with the help of Edith Wharton's novel ) of a time in New York when things when things were elegant , though also brutal in the deep . Daniel Day Lewis plays a man who is torn between marrying a woman he likes ( Winona Ryder ) and making her family happy as well , or choosing a tempting woman with a free mind ( Michelle Pfieffer ) . This could sound like Arthur in the 19th century , but the director handles the material so carefully it works very well along with fine performances and excellent photography by long time collaborator Michael Ballhaus ( who also provided my favorite scene in movies in the Cobana long shot in GoodFellas ) . One of the best films of 1993 . |
508,990 | 453,068 | 67,140 | 10 | One of the best westerns / war films made in the 70's : brutal , violent , funny , poetically tragic , etc . . . | With Fistful of Dyanmite ( a . k . a . ' Duck , You Sucker ' , a . k . a . ' Once Upon a Time in the Revolution ' , the second part of a ' trilogy ' ) , legendary Sergio Leone puts together something experimental , even more so than the other films in his catalog . Here he now deals with war , but he still has the crime elements of his ' dollars ' films ; it somehow makes a very clear cut balance between bits of comedy within the tragedy worked in the story ; it isn't very brutal , but it is graphic in the genre sense of the time . It's also one of his best films , if you happen to see it within its full running time ( like most of Leone's films , this suffered drastic cuts in American versions , reducing critical character points and other Leone surprises ) . A Leone film , however , can only be as strong as the leads pushing it up , as in the dozens and dozens of westerns and other films that inspired Leone . Here he uses two character actors ( for the most part of their careers ) , but indeed very good and astute ones at playing their parts . Rod Steiger , who has been in classic films like On the Waterfront and The Pawnbroker , here is slightly like a maturer version of Tuco from The Good , the Bad , and the Ugly : he's still a bandit , with pillaging and beating and raping his way across the countryside , but he's also got a family to look after , who within his anti-hero heart are the most important things to him . Steiger's Juan is usually either surprised , quietly delighted , or agitated off to certain degrees . He plays this for all it's worth , but he also finds the best notes in the moments when he brings out laughs , and in the more sorrowful moments later on in the film . There's also James Coburn , veteran of many , many films , given one of the great themes of any character in a Leone film by composer Ennio Morricone ( there's some sort of instrument or distortion of one in his theme that calls for complete , unusual attention on the viewer ) . Coburn's Sean ( err , John , depending ) is a character with some ghosts , perhaps , in his past , and who unlike Juan is more interested in ' other ' interests . Although Juan tries not to notice it until the sequence at Mesa Verde ( which I won't reveal ) , Sean has been through a revolution in Ireland , and understand more or less what happens with it . He brings in Juan , after a rather strange yet hilarious encounter , into his web of revolutionary fighters , which doesn't go over to well with him at first . As their story unravels , Coburn still plays it like a pro , being the straight character to Steiger's very theatrical-like performance . He doesn't quite have the mystery an Eastwood or Bronson had in the other Leone films , but he does carry a certain quality about him that puts him in a needed place in the Leone cannon . Speaking of which , one must not over-look how complex a film like this is in some ways . Leone was not originally the director ( it went through the hands of Peter Bogdanovich and Sam Peckinpah before coming to him , coincidentally the opening scene with Juan is a cool homage to the Wild Bunch opening ) . Yet somehow he puts his stamp , and wonderful mark , on Fistful of Dynamite . This time more history is worked into the film - unlike the civil war acting like a harsh backdrop to the more ' fun ' elements of the adventure in The Good , the Bad , and the Ugly , the war in this film affects the main character , and adds a serious tone to an otherwise standard genre picture . The Steiger character , along with the audience , gets a look at a massive amount of death , or rather the images of the dead : a tower filled with soldiers blown at night , the powerful pans and camera moves across the bodies , real combat , and the suggestions of what goes into the revolution . But its not just the violence of battles that get into the film , its also the personal attitudes during the revolution - the bourgeois vs the peasants ( one of Leone's masterstrokes at close-ups in montage is displayed when Juan is on the train with the near monstrous American wealthy early in the film ) . Leone manages to work in various and cinematic explosions , in-depth or testing close-ups , and sweeping long shots of soldiers , landscapes , and struggle . Coming back to Ennio Morricone's score - this time , Morricone experiments with some styles of his talents . As when Leone uses a funny , almost cartoon-like , image above Sean from Juans ' eyes of a ' Banco ' sign ( akin the a ' dollar ' sign above cartoon characters ) , Morricone adds a church organ and choir to go along with it . There are also the uses of themes throughout the film , as in Leone's other films , that act like striking , beautiful calling cards . The opening theme is pounding ; Sean's flashbacks are given the sumptuous qualities that go with the best ( and worst ) nostalgia ; the scenes with action and suspense , though almost a little standard , still work far better than many standard score of today . Fistful of Dynamite is entertainment on an epic scale , with a broader and somewhat deeper sub-text , and it comes out with flying colors . Some may not take to it ; it could be argued that Steiger , much like Eli Wallach , isn't very convincing as a Mexican bandit , or that the shifting in tones is a little much , even conventional in a weird sense . But it's hard to argue the sense of control that Leone has over his environment in the film , the assuredness of style , and that at the least the parts are greater than the whole . For me , it's a film I've seen twice in one week ( once to soak in and get more of the enjoyment , the second time to get even more out of it , and to notice the visual details ) , and I hope it gets better the next time around . |
508,417 | 453,068 | 86,984 | 10 | De Palma's lurid and outrageous thriller hits all the right marks as more of a satire or parody than a full-on thriller , and magnificently so | With Body Double , Brian De Palma has another of his " Hitchcock rip-offs " , but in quotes as it's the easy critical thing that's already been said by others . The film is really a lot more cunning than that , and has a level of cunning wit that one could more associate with De Palma's early comedies that felt very much about skewering the style being homaged as opposed to incurious methods . If one looks at it as much as a big wink and a nod to films like Rear Window and especially Vertigo , with a lot of direct jabs at Hollywood and the whole method of acting and pretending , there's a lot on the table . It's also tasteless in its outrageous depictions of sensuality and seduction , not just sex which gets a lot of wicked moments that veer almost totally into what's being made fun of , and has a huge " gotcha " ending that works specifically for its shock value . It's own self-consciousness is a huge asset , as when De Palma is at his best or at least most assertive , in this case pushing the taboo of mixing regular dramatic fiction with soft-core porno to a limit that's gleefully pushed against . It's not even that one can't take it sort of seriously as a work of kind of pop-art , as in taking in the outlandish brilliance of a much better-than-average paperback book , because De Palma is on his toes the whole time in crafting a melodramatic thriller . There's even an experiment in tension which starts as an long homage to the ' following ' sequences in Vertigo , but then building to a high crescendo and then to another . In fact , Body Double is silent for a lot of the time , but as something that is worked into the main character . Craig Wasson is a perfect foil for the events that unfold around him as the " witness " to all that comes before his watchful eye in a befriended man's apartment . In what is , to be sure , fairly typical material for the director with the basics of the substance , the story calling back to Hi , Mom and Sisters especially ( hence as well the connection to the knowing dips into comedy , of which both of those could be considered as ) , though this time the ' hero ' is a of weakling with panic attacks at the moment to act , albeit already an actor . A murder is witnessed following a pivotal plot point and high-flying moment of romance ( again , calling attention to its over-length ) , then the dive into porno comes around . It's trashy , sure , but why shouldn't that make it more enjoyable if one's to get the kidding and sharp sensibility after a while ? Wasson himself , looking a bit like a double of Bill Maher sometimes , has the expression of terror in his eyes himself , and a kind of strange guts needed to pull off a hilariously flawed pawn . De Palma also intentionally casts to type with both women and the villains , one for each being more deceptive ( i . e . Henry's Brouchard and Shelton's Gloria , who are very much like " movie " caricatures from the craftiest and most seductive of film-noir ) , and with one ' villain ' called the Indian , donning a face that's a riot just to look at , who at one point engages in a murder including the most blatant phallic imagery in any murder scene from the filmmaker . But , again , it all works exceptionally for rhythm and a sort of momentum build into even the smaller moments . As cheesily 80's as it is , I loved the whole music video Relax , where occasionally as De Palma almost makes us forget that a movie is being shot within this scene , the camera shooting Wasson and Griffith comes into view in a mirror . But that's just a sly joke , as opposed to the scenes where suspense and humor get the back and forth treatment , where you aren't sure whether to laugh or cringe or look at the screen through closed fingers peeking out . I can actually understand some of the negative criticisms of Body Double . I probably wouldn't be so forgiving of it being so proudly ' B-movie ' while appearing to be a big Hollywood crime-drama , if I wasn't at least intrigued on the outset from the sensibility behind it all . ' Guilty Pleasure ' comes to mind as a defense , but I should digress into what it really comes down to - either you'll go along for a De Palma atmosphere that is wild and cynical and full of rough-edges , or you won't . In other instances with the director I've gone for the latter , but this isn't one of them . One of the best of 1984 . |
510,795 | 453,068 | 192,335 | 10 | the humility of execution , or how Fred Leuchter got in over his head | Fred A . Leuchter is a man whom you want to despite , to hate with all your being . It's easy to do . How could a man be so foolish and ego-maniacal ? He was already fortified with a solid career as an engineer who helped manufacturer and supervise the more ' humane ' developments of the electric chair , lethal injection , hanging , and gas chamber methods of capital punishment . On that point , whether or not you agree with the death penalty , he worked as a professional ( or at least in his mind he did , to where he was contracted all over the country ) . But then came the neo-Nazi / holocaust denier from Canada who drafted Leuchter - a man who never faced defending such a man ( albeit he still to this day believes any person has a fair right to a defense , and still albeit in Canada ) - to go to Poland and Germany , dig up some samples off the fronts of the walls in the dilapidated concentration camps , and see if gas was to be detected . He brought back samples ( undercover ) , gave it to a scientist , who found there were no traces of gas . Imbued by this , he wrote the ' Leuchter Report ' , and then everything went to hell . . . In Errol Morris's film of Mr . Death , Leuchter is portrayed in a very complex manner . You're not sure what to make of him going from scene to scene ; he knew what he was doing was for science - he professes also to this day to not be anti-Semitic , this despite his appearances as a guest speaker with " Revisionist History " groups - but he wasn't the right person for the job , if the job should've even been considered in the first place . As the scientist at the Massachusets facility Leuchter ( not saying what really for ) brought the samples said , there wasn't enough real data to prove or disprove anything about what was in the walls . Also , Leuchter didn't do his homework on matters surrounding the camps . Any filmmaker might've just focused on this portion of Leuchter , as his most notorious moment which was his own undoing ( no more career , no more wife , reduced to trying to sell half a lethal injection machine ) . But Morris has the first half hour of the film as an utterly fascinating dissection of the mechanics and physics of cooking a man with electricity , or the gears of making sure that injecting a man's death is by all means ' comfortable ' . He's a guy who drinks , astonishingly , 40 cups of coffee , smoking 6 packs a day , and seems perfectly normal . With this prelude , we're given what seems to be another of the honorable defectives in a line of Morris films ( i . e . Gates of Heaven , Vernon Florida , Fast Cheap and Out of Control ) . So by the time the Leuchter report story unfolds , he comes off as , in a way , more pathetic than really evil . As one of the other interviewees observes , he's not naive ( hence the money he was paid and the notoriety he soaked up before the big fall in reputation ) , and he also believes in free speech and the right to a defense , so on and so on . He's certainly not a man one would usually want to have a cup of Joe with . But pure evil ? Mr . Death is one of Morris's most peering and uncompromising documentaries , and this time his profile of this not-quite tragic figure allows for him plenty of room for contemplation - not about if the holocaust didn't happen , lord knows Morris isn't out for that , and I'm sure he would believe the jury is in , but about the dangers of pride in one's work ( i . e . " Leuchter wasn't Sherlock Holmes " ) , and as well about the nature of execution itself . We're given the plethora of chilling visuals from Morris's great abstract sensibility : extreme close-ups of flesh being prepared to get killed , of Leuchter preparing in one of the execution rooms , of him just walking down the side of a highway out of focus ( lit wonderfully , most of the time , by Robert Richardson ) . And , of course , the head-on close-ups where we're getting the full scoop right between the eyes . It adds to a sense of mild-mannered terror , at least in the Leuchter bits , even when he's talking like a rational being ( which is off and on ) . What strikes the most about Mr . Death , however , is how Leuchter justified himself by either providing some human decency , or in providing facts . Both have the tinge of delusion , more or less , and at the same time an earnestness in how he views himself in relation - clinically - with his subjects . How human , exactly , is Leuchter himself ? His marriage happened almost on a lark to get away from his mother . He rarely cracks a joke . He's almost reminiscent of some side character no one thinks about in some science fiction film . And you never want to look away from him . Eerie |
508,249 | 453,068 | 86,979 | 10 | WOW | I saw this film for the first time tonight and even though it is a re-release from the original 1984 feature and not new , I found it to be one of the best films I've seen his year . It is ingeniously done by It's actors and It's first time film-makers , Joel and Ethan Coen who bring such a disturbing film it makes Fargo look like Carebears . And keep in mind I walked into this film without no knowledge of the story or characters , so that ( and the people working on the film ) made it entertaining . The story is very complicated , but it involves a wife ( Frances McDormand in a comanding first role ) who is cheating on her husband's ( Dan Hedaya is very good ) bar worker ( John Getz ) . So , Hedaya gets a sleazy hitman guy ( M . Emmet Walsh ) to kill her wife and his lover . But then it gets pretty messed up after that , and even though it takes place in Texas , it isn't a Chainsaw Massacre . But , don't also be expecting a film that is cuddly also . The picture is helped along the way not only by It's acting , writing and direction , but also by It's cinematography by now director Barry Sonnenfeld , who brings in a almost personality to the camera ( like in the Coen's Raizing Arizona ) and makes this film that much better . Definately a must see , especially for film-noir fans . |
509,859 | 453,068 | 60,196 | 10 | Sergio Leone's penultimate Italian-western ; a film that gets better with each passing year . . . | . . . and though those last several words could also be attributed to Leone's " Once Upon a Time " films ( West and America ) as well as the other pieces in his trilogy of films with Clint Eastwood - Fistful of Dollars and For a Few More Dollars - arguably this is the most ambitious and spellbinding one of the bunch , and one that has inspired ( i . e . Quentin Tarantino , Sam Raimi , Robert Rodriguez ) and will most likely continue to inspire filmmakers and fans into the 21st century . There's something in The Good , the Bad , and the Ugly that's nearly ( or perhaps is ) mythical in it's craft , certain scenes come off as being more than relevant and exquisite for that scene / sequence - it transcends into aspects of humanity . For example , in the first part of the film ( this is after the extraordinary introductions to Tuco , played by Eli Wallach , Sentenza or ' Angel Eyes ' , played by Lee Van Cleef , and as Blondie by a year old Clint ) , Joe gets Tuco out of a hanging , which is something of a regular practice for them , but Joe decides to leave his ' buddy ' out in the desert to walk the rest of the way back into town . A little later , the situation gets reversed , as Tuco has a horse and water and Joe doesn't , and they both go to cross the desert . Leone decides to not follow Tuco coming back to town as much as he follows in earnest Tuco and Joe going across that desert , as Joe starts to burn and dry up , going towards a story that will soon unfold . There is something to these scenes that I can barely describe , that they're executed in the mind-set of a Western , but in the abstract Leone lets the audience know this is a story that is bold and bigger than life . What makes much of the Good , the Bad , and the Ugly such a huge success is the trust Leone had in his own style he spun into his own after the first two westerns , his trust in his collaborators , and in his leading players as well . I , for one , had to mistakenly figure out that it is near depressing to watch this film on a regular VCR tape due to the pan & scan process . There is such a clear , distinct visual scope that Leone and camera director Tonino Delli Colli achieve that it's practically a must to get the DVD ( preferably the extended version , which was Leone's original cut more or less ) . The editing , too , is unique in many sequences ( the climax is the most noted and memorable ) . The score , with usual collaborator Ennio Morricone , is one of the landmark movie scores , and themes , of not just in the western genre but in all movie history . And the three main players who take on the screen have their own chops to show off : Eastwood , technically , was playing a Joe that took place before Fistful of Dollars , yet by this film had it down to a T ( it's still my favorite performance from him , despite having few words and reactions ) ; Cleef's cold , cunning Angel Eyes steals the scenes he's in ; ditto for Wallach , who gets under the skin of his co-patriots as much as he sometimes does under the viewer's . Overall , The Good , the Bad and Ugly , is an entirely satisfying western , at least one of my five favorites ever made , and it's an endearing bravo to all who were involved . |
508,900 | 453,068 | 67,116 | 10 | what Friedkin set out to do , he accomplished tremendously ; Hackman's at a peak | Although not the very best film of 1971 , The French Connection packs enough of a wallop to continue significance as a serious , but un-shamefully entertaining , thriller . William Friedkin , the director , has said about the film that he wanted to " infuse the documentary style . " And in this rare time in Hollywood when the flood-gates opened , no one stopped him . This works for fascination on the technical side at the start , that all the edits in certain sequences ( chases and such , not the notorious one ) , and particularly how they're filmed by the two significant cameramen , Owen Roizman and Enrique Bravo ( the later the lighting cameramen . There were other films , mostly in Europe , that were making movies like this , but there is also this implicit urgency that Friedkin is conveying here as well ; it's gritty , sometimes in the action there's so many chances of spontaneity that it can practically do no harm . But without going into detail about the specifics of the good in the style , one only has to look at the strengths in the story . For its time it broke ground in dealing frankly with the street / drug scene and its networking , even as by now there are thousands of TV programs and movies that show similar stuff every week . Yet there is a purity in it all too , where the story is so focused upon there isn't too much time for deep character delving and such . This doesn't make a problem for the actors though , as the actors fit the type like pegs . Gene Hackman , in his first Oscar winning turn , is Popeye Doyle , a cop with recklessness and total professionalism as one of the two key cop roles ( the other , of course , Dirty Harry ) . It may not be Hackman's best , or some might say it is ( whatever ' best ' means ) , but it is one that compliments the film , essentially down the line and not un-willing to take prisoners . Roy Scheider is also well cast as Hackman's partner , with enough to do during Hackman's ' big ' scenes . The surprise success in casting is Fernando Rey of Bunuel's films , who is one of the convincing old-European elegant big-time drug dealing business man in all of the films that followed it . It's almost as if the same character from those Bunuel films wasn't in a surreal-mode . This is just one of those ' cat & mouse ' movies that clicks . For some the parts may even be greater than the whole ( and they're practically on all highlights reels of clips from 70's films nowadays ) , and for others it may even prove more satisfying than it was for me . |
508,987 | 453,068 | 29,583 | 10 | the Dwarfs steal the show , but there's much to see in this ground-breaker of cinema | To call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a classic goes without saying that practically everyone has called it such . It is a great film , but there are certain factors that make it so , and without them the film could've gone the other way and become important more for its technical breakthrough ( s ) than for the content . The fact is a story with the utmost simplicity like Snow White , the chief characters - Prince Charming , the wicked Queen / witch , and of course Snow White - are all very basic , simple , if not one dimensional than basely two-dimensional characters . It's appropriate , to be sure , as it is based off a Grimm fairy tale . Despite the beauty and charm of the early scenes , its really on par entertainment-wise with the Silly Symphonies Walt Disney produced in the 30's . This also goes without saying that Snow White's run through the woods is one of the highlights of the film , still bringing a sense of terror and the surreal for the adults in the audience ( if you're a little kid it could be one of the scariest things you've ever seen ) . But then - just as Snow White settles into her little ' hide-out ' in a house she thinks occupied by messy , orphaned children - we're introduced to the seven dwarfs , and this is where the film picks up most of its energy , laughs , and complete and total balance . In a way , not to analyze too deep for a filmed fairy tale , they each represent the different sides of men , and so it gives the film the appropriate human dimensions it needs ( in this , also setting up practically all the hand-drawn Disney films of the next seventy years or so ) . It's tempting to say which are my favorite , or whom I got the most enjoyment out of . There would be three , two for more obvious reasons , one for subtle ones . Dopey , who is almost a perfect re-incarnation ( in Disney Dwarf form of course ) of Harpo Marx - he's a lovable idiot , with barely two sounds in the course of the film , who ( and I hate to sound sappy ) brings out the laughing kid in anyone . Grumpy , who I found to be maybe the most complete character in the film , has attitude to spare , and gets comic bit after comic bit happen to him from the animators - and yet , there is heart behind him , and when its revealed in key parts of the film , they act as the most emotional points . There is also Sleepy , who also barely says a word , but who's physical movements are really divine little moments among the big , inspired musical numbers . Indeed , there are little moments throughout the film that help make up the greatness : the mood and atmosphere in the Queen's dungeon of witchcraft ; the scene where the dwarfs go to sleep ( a fly that rests on Sleepy's nose ) ; the traits given to the animals in the forest ( that little turtle is hilarious ) . All these parts help to add to the basic structure of the story - Queen wants the good looks , goes after her once the hunter fails , gives her the poison apple , then it goes even more predictable from their ( though in a good way ) . The detail of the animated scenes , the backgrounds , the visual effects , are often mesmerizing . And the songs , which were some of the most standard I heard from the Disney oeuvre as a kid ( they were always on those Disney ' Sing-along ' videos ) are still whimsical most of the time . Then there is also the icing on the cake - the voice of Snow White , Adriana Caselotti ( who got contracted into this being her only film role , based of producer / uncredited director Disney's insistence ) , brings something to the film that's hard to describe , except to say that it's , well , serene . Even if she's not the strongest character , her main goal of making people around her feel good and inspiring happiness makes her watchable , and in a way lovable . It's a very curious , though important , factor that she ( and Prince Charming and the Queen pre-witch ) are animated very traditionally , apart from the cartoon-like dwarfs and animals . Its a reminder of the film's , and Disney's , strongest success - that as an imagined and visualized fairy tale , the representation is strong , and touching . In the new century studios move away from hand-drawn animated films , but it's a good idea to look back to the early Disney films , if not for just nostalgia ( or to watch with your kids ) to get a sense of the experimentation , the purity of it . It remains one of only several animated films , from any country or style , to have the crucial elements come together - music , voice-talent , usage of colors , and cinematography . |
509,143 | 453,068 | 257,360 | 10 | At sixty five , Nicholson turns in his fourth best performance in his career : | ( possible spoilers ) Jack Nicholson is truly one of America's best actors from the 20th century , and in the new milennium he was in the quite under-rated The Pledge last year , and now in About Schmidt , and proves that he is still one of the greatest treats to look for in the film system . His work in Alexander Payne's third film and second adaptation is deserved enough for a fourth Oscar , which could make him ( rightfully so ) the first male to win three best actor Oscar . While I know the Academy Awards in the long run might not account for that much ( ie giving best picture in 98 to Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan ) , it would solidify him as an icon . Nicholson is Schmidt here , and every scene has him included , which is the most crucial part of this first person tale , as we get it all from his perspective ; this is an unconventional approach by Payne , as that he could've told the story from the daughter's perspective as a woman forced to cope with the loss of her mother and the pressures of marriage , but instead he goes the best route and tells it completely from Warren Schmidt's perspective . Warren is 66 , an Omaha , Nebraska Insurance Salesman retiring at the start of the picture , who can't forsee much of a life ahead , and after the death of his wife , he sees even less - this prompts him to drive his newly purchased winnebago along a few stops to try and figure out what his life has meant before his daughter's marriage . Nicholson is one of those actors who can reveal subtle and not so subtle details about the character right in the eyes , the legendary eyebrows , and face in general , and that alone makes Warren a lonely , sad and searching character , but we also get a greater sense of his inner self as he writes personal letter to a child he is sponsoring in Africa . These scenes when we hear is written narration are the most crucial as they show funnny and sorrowful details that we might not entirely get from Nicholson's complection . This is a strong move from the actor and director / co-writer . Another smart move is making the supporting cast as convincing as the lead , which is comprised mostly of Jeannie ( Hope Davis ) , Warren's daughter , her soon-to-be ( Dermot Mulrooney , in full mullet ) , and his family , which inparticular showcases Kathy Bates as the mother , a true eccentric from the mid-west . We can see , in full humor of course , Warren's added distaste and resentment , and this adds another level to Nicholson's performance . About Schmidt brings Mr . Shark-grin his 4th best performance behind Cuckoo's Nest , Easy Rider , and The Shining , and is a fantastic reminder of the Jack from the early 70's in general , in spirit and self . And when the last scene with the retiree is revealed , it is well earned , because there is never a moment when Nicholson hasn't acted totally honest to the character of Warren , and the goal is achieved . One of the very best films of the year . |
510,888 | 453,068 | 40,092 | 10 | was well worth it to seek out ; one of the most powerful Italian dramas of it's time , possibly any | It could be something of a challenge to be fair to L'Amore as a whole if one of its two shorts , one titled ' The Human Voice ' ( script by Jean Cocteau ) and the other titled ' The Miracle ' ( original script by Federico Fellini ) , sold short of the other . But in the end , one only slightly edges out over the other , and not by much , which is really saying something in this case . Italian neo-realist icon Roberto Rossellini changed gears , to a point , after bringing forth his ' post-war ' trilogy of films ( Roma Citta Aperta , Paisa , Germany Year Zero ) that would catapult him into worldwide recognition . This is essentially a small film , in a way smaller and even more ( considering his previous trio , amazingly ) simplistic in storytelling terms and scope . Instead of war's anguish coming on as the main dread of the existences of the characters , here there are only two key characters for the two stories respectively , and played by the same actress no less . This could be a gamble for Rossellini , putting so much faith in an actress to pull off two quite different roles ( well , maybe not TOO different , there are some underlying qualities to both ) . Anna Magnani , however , was worth the gamble for him . This is proved right off the bat with ' Voice ' , where Magnani , for 75 percent of the film's running time , is in either medium-close up or close-up by Rossellini's elegant , probing ( without seemingly to try ) lens , as Magnani's character has a long , painful , and ultimately confessional conversation with her love who has left her . This is off the bat something that most can identify with ; we know what it's like sometimes to be in a room and over-hear an outpouring of emotions through the walls ( or sometimes ourselves talking in these conversations ) , practically wanting not to listen at all . But Cocteau understands that a conversation like this can be made into a kind of extraordinary poetry of sorts , by stripping away at the seams of the human soul ( err , voice in this case ) , and aided by the right person to pull it off . Magnani , therefore , works because she conveys so much in her expressions , her eyes and of course voice , all without having to go into soap opera hysterics . Even towards the end of the film , where some of the momentum is lost , Magnani is like some force that you can't look away from . This notion that Anna Magnani is in this overall project almost like her own vehicle , as Scorsese has said in his film My Voyage to Italy ( which inspired me to seek this out to start with ) , it's un-thinkable to see anyone else play either of the two roles . This is especially so in ' The Miracle ' , different from anything else Rossellini had done up till that time ( I could be wrong , I haven't seen anything he made pre Roma Citta Aperta ) in that it takes place in a time unknown . It could be present day , or hundreds of years ago . It's a fable , with its story origins in a budding cartoonist , Fellini , who also appears here in his one and only acting role as a kind of Vagabond ( and quite a suave looking one , ho-ho ) . Magnani plays the peasant woman , perhaps not altogether in her head , and believes as he passes by she has seen St . Joseph . She stops him , she praises and rambles , he offers her wine , and she passes out . Cut to another time in the future , and she discovers she's pregnant . Never had sex ? Hmm . . . The Miracle , a film that got in a heap of controversy , and in the process changed a vital point of how films were allowed to be shown in American cinemas from the 50's onward ( a little historical fact few know of today ) , is to me perhaps one of the most powerful ' fables ' I've ever seen , at least from people like Rossellini and Fellini ( the later made a great career out of fashioning them out of almost nothing ) . It is also a very telling story about religion and faith , and to my way of thinking still holds a relevance just as meaningful today as back in the later 40's and early 50's . The peasant woman turned homeless that Magnani plays so beautifully ( for such a simple character there is enough nuance for two performances ) holds onto faith because , frankly , it's all that she has . She gets berated by all the townsfolk - particularly the religious folk for having a child out of wedlock and under such strange circumstances - yet nothing gets in the way of her own determination of what she thinks is true . Even if you don't have a belief in Catholicism or even just religion , the film has an impact because of elemental questions Rossellini is trying to raise . I can't say what they are here , as they will bring different answers for the individual viewer . But the fact that Fellini and Rossellini are stirring up such thoughts among such touching and near-perfect acting and stylizing ( there's even a slight touch of humor in the early scenes with Fellini ) and not forcing them on the viewer , not to sound catchy about it , is a miracle in and of itself , and one of the director's best films taking into account the two as L'Amore . . . Be advised though - as of now this film is EXTREMELY hard to find , and only after many months and more money than I'd care to say I discovered a copy on video , so only if you feel a strong urge to see the film ( likely , as with myself , from having seen the clips from My Voyage to Italy ) would I recommend it . But if you do , it could serve a very rewarding experience . |
510,833 | 453,068 | 110,074 | 10 | the ultimate screwball / Frank Capra comedy , done over like no other by the Coen brothers | For a while I didn't really feel a need to check out the Hudsucker Proxy , probably for a childish reason ( the name sounded like a pharmaceutical company ) , especially strange since many of the films by Joel and Ethan Coen are some of the greatest made in the past 25 years of American cinema . But somehow , like the hoola-hoop , as shown in this film , it came around to me and I have to profess how amazing it all works so completely as a hysterical and hyperactive stylized comedy and as an example of homage going through a blender to come out with a fresh vigor . Its interesting this was in competition at the 1994 Cannes festival against Pulp Fiction , as the two of them carry a similarity ( albeit the film that did win did deserve it ) in the total lack of abandon for adhering to normal conventional storytelling , but at the same time staying rigidly controlled in how to USE conventions to a delirious advantage of making it more outrageous and infused with the best brio possible from the actors . For the Coen brothers , it's taking a big leap from the 44th floor - or is that 45th , with or without balcony - and it one's ready to go for the ride it's a lot of fun while having a small but effective point made about people at work . The premise is pure Hollywood farce : an average dim-witted schmo named Norville ( Tim Robbins ) becomes the president of Hudsucker industries after unwittingly saving the life of Sidney J Mussburger ( Paul Newman ) , and even has a good idea for a big product " for , you know , the kids " , which is a hoola-hoop . But it sounds fishy to news reporter Amy Archer ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ) , who goes undercover in a not-too-hard way into his office ( You're a Muncie girl ? ! ) . In the typical Capra fashion - matter of fact very much a mix and match of It's a Wonderful Life and Meet John Doe ( right down to the attempted suicide by jumping off a building ledge ) - we're given the naive innocence of American optimism , and then the layers shown clear as day of the cynicism , and more crucially the ugliest side of capitalism , undermining the more optimistic aspects possible . But there's always the goofy wink and the very fast and wacky nod of little things going on in a scene adding up to a lot ( don't drink that so fast while getting your ear chewed off by Archer , Norville ! ) . And then there's the direction and cinematography and production design and music and so on and so forth , given the jolt of eight cups of coffee and a rigorous reworking of how to go through montage ( through photos as well as in progressing the narrative , like Norville's transformation into an uncomfortable egotistical president from humble schmuck ) . If it weren't so spot-on in its efforts to make pure absurdity at about a five-second rate , then the style would probably become way ahead of the substance quick . There's just so much going on with the ' vision ' - ironic considering their hero's simple genius in creating practical things - that the filmmakers are about as ambitious , if not more so , than they were later on with O'Brother , Where Art Thou , and going a step further than Raising Arizona in how every character , to a minor degree or keyed to 11 , is zany or self-conscious in some respect or another . But they pull it off not simply because all of the departments are rich in pulling all of this together , it's also the cast too . It surprises all the time to see Tim Robbins when he's given a wonderful character to tackle , but it's even more amazing to see how not only is it such a 180 turn from his other well-known role from 94 ( the Shawshank Redemption ) , but that ( very ) arguably it might even be better and at least matching the range that the Coens go for in their work . He's perfectly clueless and " imbecilic " in the early scenes as a foil , and then as he goes through his transformation he embodies a Capra hero and , as dumb as he continues to be ( can one feel bad for an obnoxious elevator operator ? ) , one can't help but root for the fool to win and stay alive . Meanwhile , Paul Newman plays such a dastardly one-to-two note heel that it's just dazzling to see him play it with just a touch of irony to the old villains of old movies and to still make it his own . And Leigh , adopting the Russell speed from His Girl Friday , is also amusing when she gets the chance ( watch her reactions to the reincarnation dialog with Norville during the party ) , and holds her own against Robbins . And per usual , the Coens flood their film with recognizable faces : Charles Durning ( his re-appearance in the climax is a laugh riot , fake halo and all ) , Steve Buscemi ( beatnik ) , Bruce Campbell ( newspaper stooge , oddly enough not the funniest side character even with the doodle he draws ) , John Mahoney ( typical newspaper publisher , matching Leigh's vocal speed ) , and even Peter Gallagher as a pop singer ! Filled with enough little visual gags for two movies , the various jokes ranging from nuanced to just plain bad puns , and many of the most obvious in-jokes to old movies told with ( semi ) straight faces I've ever seen , it's a wondrous work of parody ; even if the film won't really strike the viewer too hard , it's hard to deny the love for the films the Coens are lightly yet swiftly skewering . The Hudsucker Proxy was not worth waiting so long , quite the opposite , it pains me to think how long I wanted to see this for such an unreasonable reason . Then again , there's always second chances . |
508,738 | 453,068 | 51,566 | 10 | a kind of small , nifty absurd / surreal film-making | I saw this Roman Polanksi short on the Criterion collection DVD set , and it's definitely one of my favorites of his . It shares a lot with silent comedy , but it's a little more peculiar within its own conventional quirkiness . It's all about two men , and a wardrobe , as the title all too blatantly makes clear . But what ends up being surprising , funny , and even touching to an extent is where the wardrobe gets taken around to . They can't seem to get it really anywhere , and the destination of the wardrobe seems to be undetermined . It's really all a big excuse to showcase a mixture of silent-film comedy with an underlying message that could be read into . What's it like to bring along something or someone that is just very out of place ? This becomes all the more evident as the two men try to rest it down at some places , only to find they have to take it back up again and keep walking . I loved the bits of business that happened , but even just as much the light whimsy that's given to such a strange scene . What's more surreal than two men carrying a wardrobe along a beach ? And the music by the great composer ( who's best work is in Knife in the Water ) Komeda , gives the picture just that perfect quality that lends itself to being memorable still . It's 14 minutes of cinematic bliss for Polanski fans , and for a student film it's got a genuine lot of creativity , humor , and a point that is not lost amid the tact of entertaining to no end . |
508,509 | 453,068 | 51,554 | 10 | not sure if it's the most absolute " faithful " Dracula adaptation , but it's my favorite | Has there even been in the history of British horror such a clash of the titans ? Peter Cushing , a man who has super-high cheekbones ( more-so as he grows older , see : Star Wars ) and a face stern enough to scare schoolchildren silly , and Christopher Lee , a man who is somehow able to combine the everlasting creepyness of the Bela Lugosi Dracula with that of the somewhat charming and seductive Dracula of 1979's Frank Langella , only have their big title bout at the end of the picture as the classic villain / hero Dracula / Van Helsing face-off . It's well worth the wait , as the director , Terence Young , aided by a group of skilled and consummate professional craftsmen make what is not just a great Hammer movie but a great movie period . This is what one wants in a Dracula movie all-around . It might have some bright lighting in some scenes ( indeed the British aren't always fans of shadows or anything experimental when it comes to simple talking scenes ) , and as he one very minor liability Lee isn't quite in it as much as one might hope for ( his appearances are limited , but this may also be due to the short running time ) , but this is what essentially is the Bram Stoker myth made into hard-edged and occasionally very funny flesh and cinema . It's one thing that the script has no fat on its bones and makes us care about the characters with limited exposition . If anything it resembles a true-blue B-movie more-so the big-budget studio production . But it's another that the performers , all more or less classic British pros , make it so worthwhile . It's almost inarguable that Peter Cushing and Lee deliver two of their key performances in their careers . For Cushing he gets to deliver line after line with the kind of conviction and earnestness that would make other actors crap themselves , and he even casts a kind of bad-ass mold once or twice . For Lee his dialog is limited , which is just about perfect for him : we might not get a " I don't drink . . . wine " line , but we don't need it for this story . Dracula's presence is enough , and on that count Lee's performance is something of a minor miracle . Every actor ever playing Dracula must look at him in this movie , there's no getting around it . Matter of fact , anyone wanting to get another peek at how Dracula can be done with style and class and real chills and spills ( and , oddly enough , tasteful and fun for the kids ) , must look here . Period . |
509,090 | 453,068 | 102,293 | 10 | one of the few true must-sees for fans of B-movies , Kung-fu and Grindhouse flicks | It's almost inane for me to give a film such as Riki-Oh : The Story of Ricky a rating of , but why carp ? This kind of film reminded me , in a sense , of what Mel Brooks once said regarding his films " I rise below vulgarity " . Mark my words , folks , you'll rank this as one of the five most ( pointlessly ) violent films ever made . That it is also one of the funniest kinds of flicks to see with a bunch of friends either laughing out loud or grinning at how over the top it gets adds to the appeal . In a way you have to look at this as being an homage of those anime series like Fist of the North Star ( indeed , this is one of many , many films made from Magma comics ) . Because as its protagonist IS like one of the kinds of characters of that film I mentioned , where there were completely unexplained though somehow permissible scenes of graphic decapitations , holes punched randomly through people's heads and body parts , shredding ( i . e . LOTS of gore ) , you got to let things slide IF interested . And wouldn't you know it , it's also a political statement as well ! Boy have those Capitalists done a lot in the ten years time between the film's release ( 1991 ) and when and where the story takes place in the movie ( 2001 , under complete prison rule ) . It's brutal and sadistic , and only the ultra-powerful and practically immortal Riki-Oh can save the prisoners from the Warden and his torturous , barbaric ways . Basically , you watch a film like this - as with Brooks - to see how far it might just go . It's really go-for-broke as far as the action goes , or maybe ( from their point of view ) the sky's the limit as far as cheap , amazingly outrageous sequences go . There is also one of the funniest mid-sections of a film you may ever see , if you're a fan of the genre ; as Riki-Oh has to face his first real challenge in the prison , saving a man chained to a cross , and almost entangled in his enemy's intestines ! In short , this is really nothing more - and it certainly doesn't pretend to be anything more - than a true cult-classic where everything is taken so seriously , and the effects are so unbelievable while still being completely obvious , so that it's sure for a good time . Just know what you're getting into it ( they used to play a clip of one of the goons heads getting smashed years ago on the Daily Show ) . |
509,257 | 453,068 | 170,232 | 10 | quickie that acts as a sweet prelude to Lunacy's interludes | This is merely one minute long and it's climax is just what it sounds like : two pieces of bloody-as-hell slices of red-meat getting it on and humping with strings attached . It's dirty and lightly crazy , but it all works because you actually forget most of the time Svankmajer is working with the strings . There's even a bit of tragedy at the end ; by the time we've spent this , er , one minute with these charming and delectable pieces of part-cow their ultimate demise on the frying pan is kind of sad . What is also great about the film is that one can see it as the prelude to what would be one of the director's crowning achievements - the dancing meat preludes in his film Lunacy . Check it out if you can get the Jan Svankmajer DVD collection of shorts ! It's one minute that is so meaty it's , well , juicy , and stringy . |
508,593 | 453,068 | 67,085 | 10 | still the most experimental film Herzog ever made ; pretentious nonsense or close to slowly riveting poetry , you be the judge | It would be something to try and tell someone what Fata Morgana is very simply about . Or , maybe it isn't : Herzog goes to the Sahara desert and nearby villages to film assorted landscapes and the locals . But this is just the broadest stroke . It's a feat that you either surrender yourself to , or you don't . He gets into the form of the world around him entirely , without a story , bound only to certain aspects of written poetry , as his camera ( shooting on supposedly discarded film stock ) wanders like in a pure travelogue . One might even jump to that easy conclusion , as he puts up these immense landscapes , then moving to more rough civilized culture ( though not the actual ' normal ' culture itself ) , and to a point levels too abstract to be able to convey properly here . Sometimes it takes a while to get along , close to a purity through the " creation " section , but a purity in how parts are manipulated either by nature or by broken-down machines . Soon the narration , readings from the Popol Vuh ( who , by the way , does the music for most of his films ) , with the gradual procession of actually highly stylized shots adds a whole different level to it . It's a hybrid film , and it's not easy , but the rewards are what best comes closest to Herzog's idea of " ecstatic truth " , images he's been out for his whole career . One wonders if the images end up , by the time the second section , Paradise , leading along the words spoken , or if it's the other way around . You're eyes are moving along with the stills and pans , and the wording is close to being religious writing , but there's also the music choices , how the bizarrely spare singing and low-key classical music goes together with Leonard Cohen and Blind Faith . I think each side ends up complimenting the other , and it's something that still seems like it shouldn't work . Perhaps that's the draw to it , the chances taken in going through desolate wastelands and the smallest run sections of any kind of civilized life ( in this case the shacks of the desert ) , that make it so fascinating . If only for the cinematographic sense it's a marvel , too indescribable for the casual photography fan because of molds of technique , and some of the strangest images of any Herzog film . There's pans , there's long-shots , there's hand-held while driving by the towns , there's a bus dozens of miles away that via mirage seems only a couple , there's full-on close-ups of fire and a man holding a reptile and talking about its radar ( truly classic gonzo comedy ) , there's people holding still in fake poses , and a man and woman playing inane music . But , most importantly , it ends up feeling , at least for me , natural for the personal nature of the approach . I'm sure only Herzog would know for certain why he made this film , as opposed to the simple ' how ' ; he was already filming Even Dwarfs Started Small , and he ended up going through many perils to finish it . Yet this is what makes Fata Morgana such an amazing feat - it will appeal to one depending on what someone brings to it in actually watching it . It's definitely unsettling , but there's the temptation to want to see it again very soon after , just to experience all of the ideas and realities turned abstracted strange vibes ( yes , the word ' vibes ' applies here ) . It's one of the truly spectacular " art-films " ever made . |
509,221 | 453,068 | 64,040 | 10 | aside from his later crime films , this is Melville at his best , and usual challenging self | Jean Pierre Melville , writer / director of Army of Shadows , has said in interviews that the book of which he based his movie from is considered THE book on the French resistance in the second world war . While I can only speculate as to this film being THE film of its category , as I've yet to see other films on the resistance , it sets quite a high standard for painting a very calculated , perfectly cool ( or cold on your POV ) piece of film-making on the subject . It's basically as if Melville , having lived through the period - this being perhaps an even more personal film than his other crime films - still takes on some of the true knacks of what he does in the rest of his oeuvre . Taking characters who go by codes of loyalty , professional as can be , and in a true underground in society . However this time their opponent being the Germans instead of the police the stakes are raised . Even as a couple of parts in the middle seem to shake with the deliberate pace Melville sets a couple of times , the main core of the story and the characters is remarkable , and honest in a dark , bleak way . Lino Ventura is at his best as Gerbier , a main man in the French resistance movement , who gets more involved in the proceedings following a brief prison-camp stint ( the escape from which is one of the most daring in any film ) . The film is fairly episodic , however encompassing a group of the resistance people , including Mathilde ( Simon Signet , very good as always ) , Le Masque ( Claude Mann ) , and Jean-Francois ( Jean-Pierre Cassel , at a peak as well in his own way ) . Some of their operations are simple , like retrieving weapons or finding more support through certain channels . Though here and there some payback is in due to the traitors . This becomes a higher issue as the film rolls into its final act , as alliances come into question , and the real ties of humanity together are tested in the midst of the German occupation . As usual with Melville all of this is told , in its own way , fairly simply - almost clinically - by Melville's camera . There are some zooms here and there , some very intense camera positions ( though not awkwardly ) , and exciting when need be . At the same time , there are some scenes like a short scene on a beach ( all blue ) or a few others at night or in different lighting modes that are the best Melville's done in the midst of a color scheme used perfectly to correspond with the mood ; it works just as well if not better than how he uses it for his crime films . But one of the pleasures of seeing a film like this by a real kind of maverick of European cinema is seeing how much room he gives for his actors . These are not performances that become over-sensational in the slightest . On the contrary , what adds sometimes to the tension in some of the scenes , or the outright tragedy , is how the actors just play as they do professional-wise , sometimes with what's not said meaning more ( and how the Melville gets these quiet moments is fantastic ) . Featuring a superlative musical accompaniment by Eric De Marsan , this is one of the best directed anti-war films ever made . |
508,007 | 453,068 | 71,487 | 10 | Bunuel walks a razor line between comedy and tragedy , coming out with few marks as always | Luis Bunuel's final film from an original screenplay ( by him and collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere ) , The Phantom of Liberty , befuddled me so much more than the other Bunuel films I've seen that I had to turn it off after twenty minutes , thinking I'd get back to it at some point . I finally did , and it turns out to be maybe not one of Bunuel's absolute best , but it has many memorable moments in his twilight years as a surrealist master . The strange thing is about this film , and I've come to realize it more after seeing Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie again recently ( my favorite feature length film of his ) , is that there is such a line that is walked , like a tightrope walker holding an elephant in one hand and a thumbnail in the other , that one wonders whether this should be taken totally seriously or just with the general hysteria and ( crucially ) absurdism that laces much of Bunuel's work in his post Mexico period . Sometimes , much like with The Exterminating Angel , it's a little frustrating , even once one understands that having no structure to the film is the point . For example , in one of the segments that make up the film's loose structure , a woman is visiting a group of Priests out in a house on the outskirts . Much of this sequence is rather serious , dealing with a young man's lusting for an older woman , the rousings and thoughts of the old priests . . . and then it suddenly , finally , breaks up the tension with an S & M gag ! This is very tricky ground that Bunuel covers in the film , and for the most part he ends up pulling it off . At times I wondered if a film like this would work in other hands . It wouldn't ; there's a sense of pacing that makes the film seem rather serious , but ( as it says on the back of the original video box ) it owes as much to Monty Python as it does to the old-school 20's surrealism that got Bunuel up off his feet and into the cinema scene . Sometimes I laughed cause I felt terribly uncomfortable , other times because there was a real pay-off . But in reality , the Phantom of Liberty is the kind of film where many times you just stare and go ' huh , what ' ? And I mean that as a compliment . By the way , the film also has two other interesting factors to note , one about an " infamous " scene that did leave me laughing hard , and another more of historical note . The scene where the rich people sit around the table , toilets as their seats , pants down , doing their business , is true absurdism at a peak of intelligence . The other note is that if you wonder if this structure has ever been repeated or expounded upon , Richard Linklater's first film Slacker comes closest , though with a much different tone and style of comedy . Here , we get the upper class , religion , old-time armed forces ( gotta love that statue slap the guard in the 19th century segment ) , and the struggle between keeping with dreams or reality , or both . This is the kind of film that almost puts me off with its irreverence , but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't stunned and amazed by the audaciousness as well . |
510,432 | 453,068 | 404,203 | 10 | Field proves himself to be a veritable force of importance in the drama genre | Maybe I'm a sucker for this kind of arena of drama , dealing with adulteries and infidelities , or at least when then they're done with a level of believability that doesn't cross into soap operas . But going into Little Children , that's really all I expected to see . I got that , but I also got more than I would've hoped for : Little Children is one of the best examples in American movies of the dysfunctional suburban complacency and need for escapism since American Beauty ( if not , perhaps , the most accomplished in dealing with fractured characters ) . The ' little children ' of the title include a married man , Brad , and a married woman , Sara ( not married to each other of course , played by Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet ) , an ex-cop turned ' community-action ' watchman ( Noah Emmerich ) , and a sex offender / flasher ( Jackie Earle Haley ) . Their lives become undone by nothing except from themselves , or each other , and never do the characters seem unrealistic or detached via melodrama . Field has a real knack here - and continues it from his breakthrough In the Bedroom - of cutting to the core of suburban discontent in the characters , though this time it's showing through ( major ) flaws and all , these are fully realized human beings who can't be turned away as mere clichés . The ' little children ' of the story aren't the actual offspring of Winslet with her husband ( a sometimes obsessor over wacky internet porno ) , and Wilson with his wife ( Jennifer Connely , whom Brad describes after some prodding by Sara as a " knockout " , even though he says beauty is " overrated " ) . They're the adults - supposedly - who meet at the local playground in the park , where the other women always gather with their kids , a part of life that leaves Sara always in a funk . Only when the " prom king " , as he's dubbed , arrives is there some interest that perks up from the usual doldrums of suburban malaise . On a bet Sara goes over to talk to him , the only one of the women to do so , and when she tells him quietly that they call him the ' prom king ' , she shares a kiss and hug ( the latter unintentionally ) . Soon neither one can stop thinking about the other , they become closer as they meet everyday at the local swimming pool with their kids , and when they escape from a storm into her home one day and he finds a poetry book with his photo in there , the passion erupts completely . Meanwhile as their affair becomes all that really fulfills them everyday , there's a sub-plot involving a ' flasher ' , Ronnie , who in one of the very best scenes of the film in a mix of comedy and chilling tension , comes to the pool ( after already being warned by the community for flashing himself in front of the kids at the playground ) , and when he's recognized as the face on all of those fliers all around town the pool empties out like the beach in Jaws . It would be one thing if this was all that was covered with the character , but his story is developed as well : his attachment to his mother ( Phyllis Sommerville ) , and an ill-fated date with someone nearly socially awkward as him . His fate , as well as his mother , becomes in the target of Larry ( Emmerich ) , who finds it to be his duty to stop this pervert of society , even though he himself has a dark past . As the stories of Sara , Brad , and Ronnie come to a head , one sees the formations of Brad as becoming the " bad boy " and Ronnie wanting to be the " good boy " , one can see what might happen , or rather what should happen , and all the while conventions are perfectly cast aside . So much is risky in dealing with the material in Little Children , and Field takes on the risks with the tact of the smartest dramatists . Even with the difficult choice of a narrator - a third person narrator - seems to not work , at first , and then once the stories unfold it actually works more and more to divulge the smallest details that are actually needed ( lifted right from the novel , certainly , but without them holes would be left open ) . Also fascinating is Field's bravery in two things , not making the characters too sympathetic , but also not making them into simplistic figures caught in the wheels of the script . Ronnie especially is a tricky character to pull off , but Field trusts the audience , and also trusts Haley ( in an outstanding performance ) to convey the complex nature of his sides of meaning well and just being a sexual deviant without compromise ( same with Larry , however on a somewhat different level ) . And the story of infidelity is full of nuance and psychological danger : Brad and Sara practically consider their liaison as a ' game ' , no matter if the signs come up to Connelly's Kathy ( the dinner scene with the two couples , a tremendously acted bit from all involved ) , yet it's all escapism in the guise of fear of the dead-end that are the parts of their lives that are dreary and crushing to their spirits . All the while Wilson and especially Winslet never break from their characters's souls , and for the latter I would imagine that in a perfect Oscar world she could get the award . By the end , even in little bits as a writer myself I might have passed by or lessened , I knew I had seen a real gem of a truly American drama . American , I mean , by it displaying figures that could only come out of that part of American life where mothers / wives and fathers / husbands without direction fold into dissatisfaction of that " something " missing , be it Brad watching the skateboarders or Sara with her unused English degree ( err , Madame Bovary connection ) , and the bittersweet possibilities of escape and something better becomes overwhelming ( and , if you're Ronnie , there almost is no escape , which makes his plight all the more heart-wrenching ) . |
507,942 | 453,068 | 60,176 | 10 | A Museum movie , sped at just the right speed for the time , resonating brilliance today | Michelangelo Antonioni's utlimate movie , Blow Up , looks at the life of a swinging photographer , captured in a non-funny un-like Austin Powers manner , as he gets involved in a number of events , including a woman played by Vanessa Redgrave , who adds dimension in the intenseness in slow progression . An essence is captured here as well , generated from these people's lifestyles , that is what Antonioni does more than anything ; this was also seen in his 1960 work L'Avventura except that showed characters in emtpy detail and this shows them in fascinating observation . Masterwork throughout , but not for the impatient at heart , film-buffs should find this a delicacy . Kudos to the director and to photographer Carlo DiPalma . |
509,702 | 453,068 | 94,562 | 10 | Altman on the campaign trail - seamlessly scathing humor , peerless observations , a must-see | Robert Altman and Gary Tredeau were a good match , and according to the DVD interview it makes a lot more sense than the simple notion of ' well , Doonsbury is a funny comic , Altman makes some funny movies . ' As the two say and agree upon , it has to do with scenes , the behavior allotted not in a very rigid story structure but in what can be done just in one scene . Although the structure has to fit into half hour time slots , it's as epic in its own area as Altman's own Short Cuts , or even Band of Brothers in creating a world unto itself , as stark and true as possible to being there in person . As it ends up happening with Altman there are scenes that get cut into other scenes , perfectly , without a beat missed . Oh , sometimes a door closes and a door opens sort of cut might happen , which is fine , but as far as editing goes - which Altman says is when he starts to get much more in control as opposed to the loose approach to letting actors improvise ( and with this , aside from the back-room scenes and really specific ones , there's a lot of it even for a production like Altman's ) - it's much stronger than for a regular television show . Which is interesting since it sometimes has that long feeling of an Altman shot here and there , or one that is held for longer than one might expect in a TV show ; one crucial shot being when Jack Tanner ( Michael Murphy ) is shot unawares by a camera looking through a glass coffee table as he gives a passionate monologue to his campaign team after a bad day . Shots like these , or when two characters have a conversation for a stretch of time ( i . e . Tanner and the governor Bruce Babbit talking along the Potomac ) should be self-conscious , but they aren't . And other times the trademark Altmanesque approach to shooting is actually spot-on for a kind of soap opera quality to the proceedings that ends up lending itself to comedy more than the melodramatic moment of revelation . It's a great moment of comedy , for example , not merely in the look between Stringer ( Daniel Kincaid ) and Joanna Buckley ( Wendy Crewson ) as he knows it's Dukakis's campaign manager who's been sleeping around with Tanner , and likewise she knows he knows , but how the shot goes , a quick zoom in on each other's eyes , as if the audience didn't know - which of course we do - and the light touch of theme music in the background . Tanner ' 88 is also great entertainment as far as being able to expect " For Real " reality , to quote an episode , as Tanner encounters real politicians , for the most part not knowing that it's a fictional show ( Pat Robertson , for example ) . We know how this will all end , but the question of the how and when is what strikes up drama and madness in equal measure , as if even in the most predictable means it adds to the appeal ( new campaign supervisors on how to speak more forcefully and with strict attention , then the scandal ( s ) , awkward campaign stops , a not-quite assassination attempt as one of the funniest asides , dissension from reporters ) . And touches of irony help along the way , like how Veronica Cartwright's reporter , who at first is not getting much of the scoop , and how she soon acquires the fired former camerman on Tanner's inner circle ( let go for an uproariously stupid montage video on drug legalization , taken mostly from Tanner's notebook ) who shoots like many a pretentious reality-TV cameraman - and then also reports first on the affair scandal to boot ! I also liked how Kitty Dukakis got figured into the actual storyline , as opposed to just another throwaway political figure . And all the while Murphy is a total pro - robbed of an Emmy severely in fact - and there ends up being more for him to do as an actor , in playing a sympathetic but flawed character who as TJ describes about his running for president is like a " lifestyle choice . " Pamela Reed , Cynthia Nixon and Ilana Levine make up the principle female characters , all with their own pragmatic , optimistic , and just frustrated views on the campaign trail , and they're great to have in the midst of an otherwise predominantly male cast . It's important that they too are right on the ball with Murphy at just saying the right things when diverting from Trudau's script . Suddenly it doesn't feel like we're simply seeing a fictional account of a debate between Tanner , Jesse and Dukakis , but it's more immediate than that . Even more-so than Primary Colors we're given a first-hand look at the process , the ugliness and dirty side , the idiots and mistakes made consistently , the cynicism and irony , and how the media and politics are inseparable and insufferable depending on the beat . And it has the immediacy of news while keeping a hold on the multi-dimensional framework that Altman mastered in his career . Taken as a whole work it is very long , but worth every moment of extra characterization , and ever extra song performance of the theme ( my favorite was the hair metal version at the fundraiser in Los Angeles ) , and it's one of the most insightful , amusing , and superlative works from a quintessential American director . |
509,156 | 453,068 | 60,390 | 10 | Truffaut adapts a hard edged , frightening , and hopeful futuristic action / drama | This is one of the most exciting , incendiary , and poignant films of Francois Truffaut's career . Any problems that happened off the set ( fueds between Truffaut and star Oscar Werner ) are not prevalent here - this is a film that with its style captures the kind of thought process behind Ray Bradbury's classic futuristic cautionary tale . I read the book in high school , and loved it , but hadn't seen the movie till recently . It was hard to remember most of the book ( coincidentally a theme in this film is remembering what books give us ) , but I remembered the major points - Guy Montag ( here played by Werner ) is a fireman , putting out books with fires . Like a gestapo rooting for prisoners for the concentration camp , they ransack homes they find suspect , and torch all the books in sight . The thought behind this , the boss says , is that books are what tear people apart . Instead , television is the enlightenment of the masses ( sound familiar ) . Montag doesn't question much of this until he meets a woman , Clarisse ( Julie Christie , curiously enough in another role as Montag's stagnant , common wife ) , who tries to instill Montag a meaning with books . This also flies over his head until he meets a professor or other , who somehow also stirs the bug in Montag . He starts to slip a book here and there during the fire raids , and is drawn in . It leads up to a kind of revolution in Montag's mind-set , where to run away from it all is the only choice left . These scenes are filmed with an intensity and urgency that is trademark in Truffaut ( i . e . most of 400 Blows , certain parts of Jules & Jim ) and on a sensory level gets to one almost above most other regular thrillers . We care about Montag , the sort of empty vessel that is starting to fill in , and it leads up to a somewhat funny , but rewarding finale . Truffaut , learning from one of his masters ( Hitchcock ) , not only gives Bradbury's story that extra push in certain scenes ( and certain restraint for psychological effect , i . e . scenes at Montag's house with his wife ) , there is a certain originality that gets to the viewer emotionally . During a couple of key scenes when the firemen are burning up the books , in particular with an old woman with the biggest hoard of them , he presents a montage of close-ups , all the various books and pages burning . This is a directness that would not have been found in Hollywood at the time , and it brings out the sense of loss that clouds over this society in the film . While many of the satirical points in the film are Bradbury's , and the ring truer today than ever before ( control , suppression of intelligence , control of the Government with the media ) , Truffaut's job of filming it is key and ultimately very successful . There are also the performances turned in ; Werner , maybe not as good as in Jules & Jim , makes a believable Montag , even through his struggling English ; Christie , juggling between two completely different characters , pulls it off ; Cyril Cusack as Montag's boss is like one of those villain roles that often gets overlooked in polls , as he really gets you to despise this character . One must also not overlook Bernard Herrmann's tense score , and eye-popping cinematography from Nicholas Roeg . |
510,974 | 453,068 | 443,706 | 10 | not your typical serial killer movie ; it's mystery about mystery , and with plot not as paramount as character and mood | David Fincher is back in action after a five year wait that is , at least for me , well worth the gap . Zodiac tests the boundaries of what can really be done in a genre that by now - and ironically by Fincher's own doing with Se7ven being such a huge success - has almost run its course . He reinvigorates it in a very deliberate , powerful manner by making this true story , like JFK , about what it is to investigate , and how investigating something like a murder ( or in this case murders ) has to be unraveled in a way to get one not even enveloped as to the end result but the process . It's epic length , or at least at 156 minutes really feels epic in scope , and it was the right decision not cut too much more out than Fincher did . But with this time given he is able to pay in many a suspenseful scene , and - to make another famous cinematic comparison - like Lang's M really becomes more fascinated by the process of how to make a criminal investigation a purely cinematic endeavor . It's also one of the year's best films . One of the things , for example , that had me impressed was the structure , of how plot itself was meant to be intricate and with all of the points of a case made to be important - hence all of the ' two days later ' or ' twelve hours later ' or ' a year and a half later ' . We're getting the bulletin points , sure , but its a specific choice in how to follow the two sides , those at the San Francisco Chronicle ( with the primary leads being Jake Gyllenhall's Robert Graysmith and Robert Downey Jr's Paul Avery ) and with the police department ( Mark Ruffalo's Detective Toschi ) , and how they interconnect and lead off into making this one big puzzle . It becomes a puzzle to which Graysmith , who ended up writing a book about the murders that never really got a person convicted for the crimes , becomes absorbed to the point of blocking everything else out of his life . This happens actually four years after the last main batch of letters were sent by the zodiac killer to the press , but this too adds to the intrigue and possible futility of Graysmith's personal investigation . He's not a reporter , but it's not about getting the main even exactly caught , but to , as he says , ' look him the guy in the eye ' . It goes without saying that everything evidence-wise in the case , of course , is circumstantial . Aside from being top-notch in the realm of intelligent police procedurals , as well as a story of investigative journalism gone awry , Fincher puts on his a-game visually as well . It might not have the overload of visual tricks and inventive gags that Fight Club had , but within what Fincher needs he makes the picture as strong a directorial feat as he's ever done , maybe even his second best . The control of mis-en-scene is one aspect , and it's appropriate to note the usage of the opening studio logos like the 60s / 70s logos , as it sometimes feels like watching one of those movies , while , of course , commenting on them as well ( i . e . Dirty Harry movie scene ) . And also the little shots that stick in your mind , like the aerial view on top of the Golden Gate bridge , or those shots with the zodiac's handwriting super-imposed montage style over the scenes . His control is ever present , but not making it unbearable either ; it's all about the story here , and character , and he keeps the darkness in close , precise check , and makes it maybe even more effectively " moody " as a noirish thriller than Se7en . Now , as for Graysmith , he's the one that ends up bringing out what is for Zodiac that center of making it about the " journey instead of the destination " as the saying goes . That cliché shouldn't be something to snort at , however , as it's a journey where since we already know what will come at the very end suspense has to come out of situations , and out of the finding , losing , and possibly attainable commodity of information . It's almost one big comment on those results-oriented police pictures , and I often felt more gripped and interested in individual scenes , moments . Two of my favorite are when Ruffalo's detective and Koetas's officer interrogate Leigh , where you think you know conventionally ' this is the killer , this is him ' , but it is not . . . or is it ? Fincher keeps one guessing , as well as in another scene where Graysmith visits the former organ player at the silent theater Rick Marshall , who may or may not be the killer , was the projectionist ( when they go into the basement especially is a classically charged scene ) . And there are other factors that make it sensational as well . It's another turn by Downey Jr where there's subtleties that only he can bring to a character like the flawed Avary . Gyllenhall's also a perfect choice for Graysmith , where naive ambition and interest get conveyed well early on , and then equally believable as the one-track-minded private investigator who pushes buttons but gets results . And the soundtrack is especially a keeper , with " Hurdy Gurdy Man " used to awesome effect for the opening July 4th scene and in the last scene ( it might even send chills down some people's spines ) . It's never too slick but always an inviting trip , and it questions what it is that a serial killer mystery should be while giving it flair and a personal mark of distinction as a work in and of itself . Who is zodiac ? A form of evil , perhaps , and a form of evil that one might just want a glimpse of , if only , as opposed to the whole found and captured result . |
511,011 | 453,068 | 1,245,104 | 10 | excellent , uproarious throwback to 40's Disney shorts , with a touch of Looney Tunes | This is a wonderful homage / recreation of the kinds of shorts kids used to go ape over back in the 1940s . It starts off with the opening titles , which are a direct reference to those shorts of old ( not like the usual PIXAR shorts ) . Then it thrusts into the situation with total glee : a magician is having trouble with his rabbit for a very simple reason - the rabbit wants its carrot NOW , and won't get it . Then a series of totally over the top gags occur , making the usual rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick seem like kid's stuff in comparison . While it's ingenious and clever and all that and a bag of carrots , it's also a good mini-homage to the spirit of Looney Tunes shorts . There isn't too much missing except to replace Bugs in place of the cute white rabbit . Its sweetness is quintessential Disney stuff though , and its a great little addition at the start of WALLE . Don't miss it ! |
509,584 | 453,068 | 48,641 | 10 | One of the most literate and satisfying of all romantic comedies | Ingmar Bergman's dramatic forays capture what is very essential to great dramas - the key emotions should be expressed like poetry , flowing to a rhythm even if it's somber and tragic . He uses this emotional logic with his actors for this comedy of manners and the heart ( pre-Seventh Seal ) , where he has his screenplay wonderfully unfold the character's amusing feelings on love , sex , and dealing with the opposite gender , all the while making sure his players know the words and the music . Here he has Gunnar Bjornstrand , a regular later on , as a lawyer who has a son and mistress , but also pines for an actress who may not fancy him as much as she used to . Harriet Andersson , also a regular in other Bergman films ( a key one being Cries and Whispers where she played the dying woman ) , appears as a young , joyful woman , who even gives the lawyer's son , a priest , a bit of lust here and there . In fact , Smiles of a Summer Night is Bergman's most joyous film , though that's not to say there can't be grand moments of joy in his dramas and reflections on god . But in this film , he shows how he is a filmmaker quite competent to skillfully accomplish a story of real people in real romantic whimsies , and at times ( such as a quick scene on a bed with two giggling , laughing girls ) reveals his views on humanity are truly not as bleak as some might think . Assuredly a must watch for fans of the director , yet one may want to watch a couple of his dramas if they're just starting out on his films ( depending on the mood - personally , this would serve as a great pick-me-up as opposed to the stark Cries and Whispers ) . |
508,332 | 453,068 | 109,830 | 10 | One of the best films of the 90's | Winston Groom's Forrest Gump was a novel that was complicated , but ( Oscar winning ) director Robert Zemeckis brings events together with visual effects that boggle even George Lucas . And leading the film in this odyssey of American life is Tom Hanks playing Gump ( he won his second Oscar for his portrayal ) in a film that shows one man who goes through many events in history to find the one he loves . Well done , well acted , and well directed to pythagorean procision . |
508,288 | 453,068 | 443,693 | 10 | Herzog's ' 2001 ' , or the closest you'll ever see of Herzog doing an IMAX doc | What a strange experience to see Werner Herzog's documentary / drama / whatever movie the Wild Blue Yonder , particularly on the big screen . But it's the kind of strange experience I didn't regret in the slightest . This is a practically great film of visual magnificence and imagination , where Herzog , still on his never-ending search for adequate & new images ( unlike , as he says , ones that are overused or boring in the mass media ) , makes his ' science-fiction fantasy ' into one that blurs the line between fantasy and reality , between what is expected . Actually , I didn't really have any idea what to expect , and until I read a review of the film in the NY Times , I thought much of the film raised a lot of questions for me . Is what Herzog showing us for " real " , as it were , or just all fantasy ? Apparently , he was able to obtain ultra-rare NASA footage from a flight with a crew out in space , showing their mundane times up in their shuttle , and , more crucially , an under-ice Antarctica expedition of the " planet " that the film is sort of about . Seeing the trailer to the film though , and from what I remembered from it , was what really through me off . In fact you might take a look at the trailer and have no idea what the hell the picture is about ; all you see are interspersed images of underwater and space flight , and Brad Dourif as Andromedan alien talking to the camera in weird language . But seeing him in the film it's not weird at all . Indeed Dourif , for the sort of spaced-out but totally all-together-upstairs alien-man that Herzog presents us with , is perfect for the role , and is the best performance ( so to speak ) that he's delivered in quite a number of years of his long , terrific career as a character actor . He tells us of his time on his planet , then coming here , and then finding out that the government - after doing a bad thing unearthing the Roswell crash landing - are planning to seek out planets unknown in space . He sometimes narrates , sometimes appears on screen - and at one point delivers a speech about how human beings screwed themselves over in domesticating pigs , stirring up civilization as we know it - and it's sometimes very , irreverently funny , though never insincere or untruthful in his way . But Dourif isn't the only reason to see the movie , and I was glad that Herzog chose to not keep it all about him , or ' it ' , or whatever . Actually , there's an equally weird if somewhat more scientific explanation for certain ' worm-holes ' and ' holes ' and such by an astronomer ( Franklin Chang-Diaz ) that reminded me of my astronomy class in college only far more , uh , ' interesting ' . It's in-between these quasi-interviews that we get the real VISUAL side of the picture , and I put those words in caps for a reason . This is really extraordinary , if imperfect , in terms of capturing sights that some of us have never seen and most of us really haven't seen much outside of National Geographic channel junkies . We get the views into space , which are balanced with the shots inside the spaceship ( all taken by people from NASA , though at first I couldn't tell if maybe Herzog had a little extra budget going ) . There's even a really incredible moment where certain sights are shown from deep space , which may just be gasses or brightly colored formations , but they're really stellar . And then come the shots under ice , which at first I couldn't believe totally how they were done . In this case , in a sense , Herzog is even better as an editor this time as opposed to just getting the images down . He has to choose what to get through all of this via DP Henry Kaiser ( who also deserves a tremendous amount of credit ) . But there are little moments that stunned me , even after I knew where the location really was . For example , during the ' Tunnel of Time ' scene , where the astronauts go through a sort of " portal " through the ice up to who knows where , they almost seem to turn into particles or other and the disappear . It's really breathtaking for that moment . And then , in true Herzog fashion , he ends the film on nature itself , of which his Andromedan comments ' this is the new prehistoric age , hundreds of years from now ' . This all being said , the Wild Blue Yonder wont appeal much for everyone , least of which for those stuck to the normal bounds of logic and such . Truth be told , I didn't find everything completely awe-inspiring with the long-stretches underwater and in space , and the musical accompaniment is a mixed bag of sweet violins and overbearing signing ( which maybe is the point , as it sounds alien ) . Plus the side of the Stephen Hawking / X-Files sort , where Andomedan Man and physicians respectively come off as being too paranoid ( albeit an alien of course ) and too confusing with the formulas & numbers . Still , if you're a fan of Herzog , or even just into science fiction , its surely worth the look , and if not on DVD even better on the big-screen . It might even be one of my favorites from the director , at the least in his docu-hybrid form of film-making . |
509,108 | 453,068 | 848,557 | 10 | Shoot the Dead ! Shooting , and shooting , and shooting away | George Romero's Diary of the Dead should be looked at as much as your typical ' kill - the - brain - to - kill - the - dead ' zombie movie as it is a multi-faceted comment on media itself . In a sense this is Romero's 21st century remake of Night of the Living Dead , only replacing the original EC comic style with a form of a movie within a movie , with a sort of twist . We've seen many a documentary , as of late , chronicling the " big issues " , only this time Romero is mocking those overtly preachy theatrics of MESSAGE written all over montage sequences ( albeit Romero does want to make a comparison between a the destruction of a post-apocalypse with the disaster of Katrina , which isn't too out of place ) . Like Godard , Romero is being self-conscious with his technique and the medium itself , and then reverberating back with what he's got going on . He's making a horror movie as are the film student characters , but not one without pointing the finger at the medium itself and how it makes those around it complicit in capturing devastation . ' Diary ' is as in-your-face as ' Night ' was , with the same lot of desperate characters in the midst of their ultimate test of rationalization ( staying alive when all dead come back to life to kill ) , yet there's just enough more bile , enough scathing barbs at the audience obsessed with digital technology and web videos and so on and so on , to keep things very interesting . But of course if one were just given messages one would get bored . So Romero makes his Diary unreasonably entertaining as well - probably with crazy moments of wit and over-the-top bits of blood and guts and body parts and killings as Dawn - to counter his experimental style . The cast of characters are filming a horror movie of their own , with an undead mummy about to attack a hot young college girl , and then " CUT ! " and , of course , there are actual zombies . But through Romero's technique of making this a trade-off of horror and documentary , he's still able to make a Romero movie as opposed to something like a Redacted ( even if that has more in common with ' Diary ' than the much compared-to Cloverfield ) . As if in a giddy act of a man in his golden years , Romero lets loose on new ways to kill people and reveal guts , and at the same time revisit some of his most potent themes from previous films . There are the typical tough black characters ( this time a kind of small militia of National Guard who've turned quasi-black panther ) , the rough rednecks going torturous with their " target practice " , the token drunk guy in the group of student filmmakers as an echo to ' Day ' , and the juicy bizarre beats that we all love in Romero's work ( i . e . the deaf Amish guy with a chalkboard , a nice lot of dynamite and a scythe ) . To be fair , I was probably more pleased with the end result , as I am one of those " fan-boys " for Romero's work ; and to be also fair , Romero has always been experimenting in his career , from the artsy vampire flick Martin to the spin-off apocalypse flick The Crazies , even an obscure documentary he's done before Diary about OJ Simpson ! To this fan's thinking , what he does in Diary isn't any less than what one would expect from a true auteur in the genre , but the technique may also push some fans away who just want a regular narrative without the gimmicks or the self-conscious attitude ( i . e . the narration , the whole " The Death of Death " documentary conceit ) . But Romero does something even more daring : he points his finger harsh , and at times hilariously , at the form of zombie movies themselves , from the ' mummy ' horror movie made within the movie ( " If your dead you walk slow " , a character says after the " CUT " as the mummy actor gets mad ) . And this tactic helps Romero with his fans on one front - it is , indeed , a " step-up " from ' Land ' , on all fronts of intelligence , execution , and balls-to-the-wall thrills and spills . |
508,473 | 453,068 | 113,677 | 10 | One of the most entertaining films about film-making ever made | Steve Buscemi may or may not have been the first choice by writer / director Tom DiCillo for the lead role of Nick , the director behind the three ( err , one ) film ( s ) being made within the film Living in Oblivion , but it works so well it's impossible to see anyone else in the role . Buscemi , who is one of the prime character actors of the past fifteen years , has that range of being grounded , of being out of control , of being funny , and of being sincere even in the strangest circumstances . His character , as the quintessential indie film director of the film , tries to keep some control on what goes on , but as is seen , things don't go quite as planned . Living in Oblivion is one of those little delights for a film buff to see , or perhaps of a particular film buff . On a personal level I connect with some of this as I was a production assistant on indie films that were not far off from this . DiCillo , whether or not you've been in situations like this ( which most of us haven't ) brilliantly captures the coldness on a set , the uncomfortableness , the technical difficulties , and just the plain old emotional toll that goes on with the film-making process ( notably , when it's under a million dollars being made ) . That it's a comedy of errors helps a lot , and that you never really know which way the story will turn at times . The film is split up in three acts , the first ( for me ) being the strongest and most affecting , as Nick tries to direct Catherine Keener's Nicole Springer in a heartfelt talk with her mother . Multiple takes bring on more woes , until Nick finally snaps ( one of the funniest scenes perhaps in any film from the 90's ) . The other two segments come closer to being as great , one being a slick scene involving a buff man and Nicole , and the other being a very strange dream that has some kinks to work out . I've seen this film now several times , and the first time my enjoyment was more in the surface comedy of it all , and of course the performances . But with each passing view I get more and more what film-making , and what makes ' indie films ' or just films in general , so appealing - there's drama , but there has to be some humor to get in the seams ; there's romance , but not always in the ways you'd expect ; when it's realer , more power to it . The ending also , while maybe the weaker part of the film , is still charming , and gives an idea as to what pleasures can come from such chaos on the set . I love it . |
508,302 | 453,068 | 174,852 | 10 | one of the most personal pieces of Holocaust documentary film-making | What can I say that hasn't been said by others who have come across this essential document of the survivors of the holocaust ? It goes beyond any kind of rating ; watching the people on screen tell their stories , and re-connect with their haunted roots , is about as captivating as it can get , genuinely so , enough to not want to look away . The stories from the five survivors is just enough to make it a crucial piece of history , of something that will survive past their years as their own talked-of memories of what they saw , the people they saw murdered including their families , of being stripped of humanity and more deeply for their souls . The actual footage of almost ten years ago of inside camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen is equally powerful to see . But it's another that other interviews are included with the likes of an ex-Auschwitz Nazi doctor who didn't go along with his other sadistic colleagues ; the American soldiers who were appalled to discover what they thought contained German prisoners of war to be thousands of Jews ; the one US Congressman ( at the time ) to survive the holocaust . The history of this period of the early to mid 40's has become abstracted in the view of society , something so enormous it's even more staggering that similar practices go on in other countries today . The notes of what Hitler did is given notice in the film , but the facts are more as a back-drop for what the Last Days focus is . By director James Moll going in for these women's stories , of what they lost and tried to regain , is just as important to see in its own light as Schindler's List as a dramatization of the facts . It's not too much a wonder it got the best documentary prize at the Oscars . Executive produced by Steven Spielberg ( speaking of ' Schindler ' ) and the Shoa foundation . |
509,014 | 453,068 | 48,728 | 10 | a big , classy , glossy and enormously entertaining " A-List " Hitchcock movie | To Catch a Thief is , as some others have noted , a kind of antithesis to Alfred Hitchcock's own Psycho . It's not that Hithccock put any more or less work into them ( although I'm sure ' Thief ' had a higher budget ) , but they reveal to sensibilities that aren't remotely similar . I mean this though as a compliment ; Hithcock's film is lavish and lush with colors of those beautiful locations and settings on the French Riviera , and made as a fantastic vehicle for its two stars , Cary Grant and Grace Kelly . It's almost an ode to glamor of the period , and to a outlook on this particular story that's necessary . Another director could have made a decent thriller , maybe a very good one . But Hithccock is after a kind of art here that has " POP " in big capital letters ( not the Andy Warhol type , something more to his liking ) . It's a lot of fun , too , which is the most important thing , as it allows for the two stars to play off on one another in the style that I'd compare to Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep , only here they aren't trumping the convoluted story . Matter of fact , this might be one of the least-probing or psychologically complex of Hitchcock's prime thriller ; it's about Robie , a reformed cat burglar ( also called the Cat ) , who is accused of a string of new jewel heists by a copy-cat ( no pun intended ) in France and goes on the run to clear his name - by spotting over Frances and her mother's plot of jewels . When will the burglar strike again ? To say that it's not very psychologically probing is maybe half correct ; we do get a few rich scenes where Jessie or the French girl Danielle try and figure on what kind of guy Robie really is ( Frances quips coyly , " The Cat has a new kitten " ) . But like in North by Northwest , it's not really about getting too deep into the thick of things , save for the aspect that Robie is reformed after doing his tour of duty in the world war . Hitchcock is more interested in behavior and the finesse and class and , of course , sly humor that his actors play with the material . And mentioning North by Northwest , it's important to note that Grant is tailor made for this kind of part , where he's charming and suave and knows just how to dig in that extra line in the right moment , and of course we ( us males ) want to be him . And Kelly never looked more gorgeous , a fine counterpoint for that great vista that she takes Robie to midway through the picture . This isn't to say that with all this slick , studio film-making that Hitchcock loses his way with suspense . On the contrary there's some great work here on that front , too , from the chase going up the hill , to that one big gasp with a certain murder at night , all the way up to the climactic scenes , it's really some of the Master's best work . Just don't go expecting it to be a SHOCK fest . |
508,656 | 453,068 | 71,562 | 10 | One of the best sequels ever made | The Godfather part 2 gets very close to the title for best sequel ever made , but not quite . Even so , I would rank this among the superior films to follow up on another and still be as strong and appealing and dramatically satisfying as the former . The structure of the film is also very important as it jumps back and forth between two stories of Corleone's without any disconnected feelings for the audience . Both could work as perfect single films on their own ; together it's like a double album of the dark side of crime and the perilous nature of rising up in America as an immigrant . It's spectacular in many ways , masterpiece in fact , and has become as important as the first one ( it is the only sequel to win an Oscar for best picture in those terms ) and the acting all around is well-knit ( even the pioneer himself Lee Strasberg is on hand as Roth ) , the score is possibly better in some ways to the first film , and most of the scene work is fantastic . One thing that attracted me to this film is also what I believe is one of the all-time great breakthrough performances in any film , as Robert De Niro as Vito Corleone has all of that confidence as an actor without channeling too much Brando . If there would be one reason to see the film and recommend it it would be because of him , as he gives one of his tour de force career turns in that streak of one after another in the 70s . Pacino is practically as good with enough lines that are realistically grounded but also highly quotable at times ( the " in my home " bit is priceless ) . John Cazale , by the way , is also an element to make the film work as one of two performances that he'll be remembered for twenty years down the line ( the other being Dog Day Afternoon ) . In short , it's just a very well done picture . |
507,843 | 453,068 | 94,517 | 10 | one of the great ' cult ' TV shows of the past twenty years | It's a shame this show doesn't get much airplay anymore , but when it was on I tried to watch as regularly as I could . To this day the show affects the way I watch certain movies . And , really , they make it so that it's the ONLY way I can watch some of these movies . I could maybe see myself seeing a bad monster movie or an undercooked message sci-fi tome or something that was made with ( stolen from a grade-schooler's ) lunch money and put shoddily to celluloid , but not too often unless in the company of a lot of friends and a mood to heckle . Instead , this show basically does it for you , and though it seems all improvised bashing and goofing , it is definitely all written out , from scene to scene the observations are by a team of professionals - more or less - and the wit is at best scabrous and at least worth a few chuckles . The method is so ingenious that they've made it actually really enjoyable to see some of the worst drek ever contemplated . Some of these for me in the past have included , but not been limited to , Manos : The Hands of Fate , The Hellcats , The Sinister Urge , a Godzilla movie , a Cuban missile crisis movie ( I forget the name ) , Mixed-up Zombies , and many others I can't remember . The only drag comes in the in-between filler segments , with the sort of dialog that really can only be classified under ' banter ' . But when Joel / Mike , Crow and Tom Servo get their critique on , it's very , very funny more often than not . And now that more and more of them are popping up on DVD , the bad-movie night choices are endless , if ironically daunting at the promise such bad movies made fun of well can bring . |
510,876 | 453,068 | 74,958 | 10 | Not just the sharp-as-a-tack dialog , but the key performances and the look of the film are enduring | This is one of those works that is emblematic of what can be done with a director who knows his craft and chooses a style that is both controlled and not controlling , a writer who can let out some wild scenes and incredible exposition and make it practically believable ( maybe more so today ) , and a cast that understand their creative forces at work . After seeing the film I was actually struck just as much , for example , by William Holden's performance as I was by Peter Finch , though the latter usually gets most of the credit ( and rightfully so , in an Oscar-winning turn beating out De Niro in Taxi Driver if one can believe that ) . But then one has to take into account their different levels of skill in their performances , and how they both deliver even more than what is required . Holden , for me , is just as good here as he is in his best work ( Sunset Blvd , The Wild Bunch ) , but in the role of the worn-out , dedicated professional who in his own way has had about as enough bs that can be taken as the main character . Yet Holden also knows his performance needs to be more reserved , and as his story gets more complicated he has to make some subtle choices as perhaps the only really sane person in the film . His work here is accomplished in the style of one sense , while Finch , who plays a character going back and forth between being totally nuts and knowing more than anyone else out there in TV land , takes his role with a heedless abandon . In short , this is one of the more fearless looks at the media ever presented on film , and it's even more relevant today perhaps than when it was first released . It's sad that not only did Lumet and Paddy Chayevsky think that what they were doing ( aside from the ending ) was all true , but that as the decades have passed since Regan's to-do with changing the rules of journalism , it's gotten worse . It was actually kind of shocking to see one or two of the revelations from Finch in some scenes , and the connection made in the 3rd act with Saudi Arabia is one of my favorite parts of the film ( particularly the speech by Ned Beatty in one of the all-time great one-scene roles ) . News , basically , now is like everything else on TV , where you get what you pay for via the advertising , but not as it should really be with the news as it is . Howard Beale , basically , is like one of those ultra-symbollic ( but relatable ) characters in movies , in a demented way like Stewart in Mr . Smith Goes to Washington , where the truth has to be spoken by someone , but who in America will listen ( or , ironically , who won't if it's shelled out right in front of the cameras ) . In other words , this is one of those films that does ask a viewer to think about what is being shown - an ' informed ' public ( which is growing less and less as the media becomes smaller and more controlled via government and regulations ) - while still providing acting that sticks and lines of dialog that are among the best in 70's films . Faye Dunaway is the female counterpart to her older male stars and is just as good , being like a very cold , typical businesswoman who only makes things feel like she does , as if something was lost in youth . Duvall is also good here , if maybe not at his very best , in a role as a TV exec . But there are bit parts that are really good too , like the black female militant member who complains at a meeting about the grosses of showing footage on TV . And in a small way , like the films of Brooks and Monty Python , Lumet understands how to film things very realistically ( though the style appropriately changed from start to finish ) so that the satire within can spring out . Even an over-the-top scene like Beale's first Mad-as-Hell speech works on this level . Overall , this is a really amazing film , with enoughs scathing , dark material mixed with the truth that should and isn't presented to those who rely solely on programming . " Because you're on television , dummy " are the last words Beatty says to Beale in their scene after Beale asks " why me ? " By the end , as the film reaches its ultimate climax , one might wonder if his question is relatable to all TV , not just the news . Why is it what you say to people through this abstract medium important , or not ? The answers , looking at how the news is run now , should be obvious . Maybe Lumet's best outside of his more ' urban ' films ( i . e . Serpico , The Pawnbroker , Dog Day Afternoon ) . |
510,630 | 453,068 | 82,517 | 10 | It's good to be the king | That's what Mel Brooks must be saying all the time , especially after this film . This is one of his funniest films that looks at history instead of parodying other films . Great fun , as we look at The Stone Age , The Ten Commandments ( thats probably the funniest part ) , The Roman Empire , The Spanish Inquisition ( that song is hilarious ) and the French Revolution ( not to mention the look at History of the World part 2 featuring Hitler on Ice , A Viking Funeral and Jews in Space ) . Hilarious all around , but only if you like this type of humor . |
510,501 | 453,068 | 71,604 | 10 | This is to the Vietnam War as Bowling for Columbine is to Violence in America | Peter Davis ' Hearts and Minds does it's best to try and get both sides of the issue on America's military involvement in Vietnam , and like Bowling for Columbine the film can be accessible to an audience on each side of the coin ( though with this film Davis isn't in front of the camera at all ) . This is perfectly filmed in the end credits sequence in which a march is being held for Vietnam veterans while the protesters line the adjacent streets . What makes the film all the powerful is that there isn't a bias going on to either side - while one scene will show a Vietnamese civilian being interviewed about how the devastation from the bombs have ruined his family and home , another will show prisoner of war George Coker explaining things to American children . In the end what gets Hearts and Minds to the level of great documentary film-making is that all of the footage of old speeches and old military movies , and all the interviews with various political figures and Vietnamese personnel , all add up to delivering an objective stance for the viewer . The facts of which are presented as such : America went into Vietnam , left their mark , and while America had two sides to the issue so did the Vietnamese , and that's what made the whole deal one of the most controversial topics of the 20th century . Overall , this is an intelligent and compassionate look at the effects of War in general . |
508,763 | 453,068 | 113,749 | 10 | Cool Comedy | Kevin Smith's Mallrats is quite an amusing picture . Some might go as far to say as it is not as high to standards as his last pictures ( and sadly I slightly agree ) , but that still doesn't matter with Smith at the helm . In fact , he can be better at writer / director / Silent Bob than any other one in America when he tries hard enough . The film circles on 2 slackers at a mall where they hang out ( Jay and Silent Bob also preside with Jedi powers ) who want to get their girlfriends back after they dumped them . Their escapades in one day is similar to Clerks without the black and white , but by no means is it better than Clerks . I wish it was , but it doesn't grab you as much as Clerks did . Still , Mallrats is a cool , hilarious comedy that is great for parties , or sick days . |
509,335 | 453,068 | 785,532 | 10 | Carpenter gives us his take on Roe v Wade . . . well , not exactly , but it's a nicely gruesome thriller | John Carpenter doesn't quite reach the comeback high he got last year with Cigarette Burns , the first in his entries in the Masters of Horror series . But it's definitely a showcase for him to display his storytelling panache on a typically grisly and hell-bound tale . He gets to also mix a few elements from past pictures with something that almost borders on being formula for some horror directors following Rosemary's Baby . The story starts out with the kind of weird , religious ambiguity of They Live , as we're thrust into a story that has implications that really are , at least at the start , beyond our thinking . But then we enter in Assault on Precinct 13 mode , as the ' good guys ' ( err , the doctors who just want to keep Angelique , played by Cailtin Wachs ) away from her crazed , God-abiding father Dwayne ( Ron Perelman , always a pleasure to see in a role as un-relenting grim and hard-edged as this ) , which then turns into a gun-blazing blood-bath . And finally , we get the element of the Thing , which , of course , is a ' thing ' that baffles everyone , except for the audience . I'm sure that even if I didn't know the basic premise of Pro-Life , I would've figured it out anyway after the first five , ten minutes . Part of the opening ambiguity is a little random - that Angelique happens to be picked up after running through the woods by doctors working at a women's medical clinic - but from there on it is pretty thrilling work done , and pretty graphic . The make-up and special effects from Gregoy Nicotero's team , per usual , are top-notch , and being on the ' anything-goes-type ' of cable channel doesn't hurt either . If anything it also provides Carpenter - via his writers - to have one of the most cringe-worthy scenes Carpenter's ever done , which is Perelman's own ' abortion ' on a certain doctor as penance for something that happened to one of his kids . Some of this , too , is quite funny , mostly with the demon baby and the circumstances around it ( i . e . when Angelique's water breaks , it ain't exactly water ) , plus the baby itself . Whether it's meant to be funny or not I can't say , but there's no mistaking that underneath some of this terrifying and harsh subject matter , is Carpenter making his own satirical jab at the abortion issue ( and what side he really takes could be anyone's call , though the reverse of the title is what I'm leaning towards ) . Unlike Cigarette Burns though , Pro-Life is not without its liabilities - some major ones in fact . One of those is Cody Carpenter's musical score , which in spots isn't bad but in its repetitive mode ( over half an hour of a rhythmic beat that only stops at a certain point ) , and it detracts at time from the total potential of the true excitement ; his father has proved to be much better at maintaining this kind of score for the material . And the ending , while not a total disaster , is very strange to me , and had me with a look on my face like ' uh , OK ' . I suppose it ends up fitting into a kind of twisted catharsis for Angelique's situation , but even for the amount of disbelief needed it's a big leap to take . But all this aside , I was very glad I got to see one of the masters of modern horror having his fun with the material , and giving some good screen time for such Perelman , who it could be argued gets to steal his scenes however in such a style that works for the demented , voice-guided character . |
509,025 | 453,068 | 55,499 | 10 | One of Bergman's best works : tragic / poetic / remarkable | The first part of a ' religious ' trilogy of films released from 1961-1963 , Through the Glass Darkly may be the most accomplished of the three , and has the literary qualities of some of the best authors while still sticking to a character-driven story about mental drought and bewilderment . All four members bring out the heart of Bergman's message , with Andersson playing Karin in true sincerity and passion for the plague of her mind that has brought a cloud over her and her father , husband and younger brother ( a woman with three generations of men ) . Some might digest the speculation on the inter-relationship of god and love with insanity , yet it is undeniably a masterwork by a artist filmmaker . |
509,488 | 453,068 | 71,615 | 10 | Are you experienced ? Jodorowsky's ambitious Rorschach motion picture tests human's connection to spirituality , and cinema | How does one start describing writer / director / star / master-of-ceremonies Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain ? Sensational , outrageous , in-your-face , ( the much overused phrase ) one-of-a-kind , hilarious , self-indulgent , dangerous , and enlightening could be some words , and there could be more . But these are just symbolic of what one goes into seeing the movie . And what is it to see a movie , to experience it , Jodorowsky , I think anyway , is essentially asking ? What about faith , or belief that there can be a way to surpass mortality and live forever ? Is there truly any basis to become more than just flesh and bones and organs and love and hate and desire and greed ? Perhaps , in the end , it might just be art itself . The Holy Mountain is one ( bleeping ) crazy art-house picture experience , where the filmmaker asks it's audience to either go on the journey and be open to whatever he's liable to let out of the floodgates of his consciousness , or if to be closed off then to might as well leave . So as it goes , really , with organized religion , which his own character Jodorowsky plays - the Alchemist - could be identifiable as . As I left the theater I kept on thinking about what it is to put total trust and confidence in a " master " , someone who seems to have all the knowledge and experience to take people to higher planes . At the core , is what the Alchemist can do for the nine " planet " representatives any different than what a priest or a rabbi or a monk can promise ? There is a level of intellectual stimulation , aside from the obvious emotional connection to the immense level of surrealism , that keeps one from thinking that this becomes all weird for its own sake . Unlike El Topo , however , Jodorowsky this time is much more in control of his own delirious dreamscapes and , in a sense , the genuine consciousness he creates in his Holy Mountain . He gives us , at the start , something a little much akin to El Topo with piling on Christian symbolism and imagery like its got to get into our heads right away . This part , actually , might be somewhat weaker in comparison with the rest of the film , if only because one wonders where the hell this is all going ; a Jesus-figure , who comes into a village loaded with circus ' freaks ' and gawkers at such ' freaks ' , and is put into plaster-casting to make more Jesus figures , which he demolishes except for one which he carries with him for a little while . There's more than just this , but for the first twenty minutes , which is practically silent and without dialog , we get immensely rich but sort of free-form symbolism , some that is great ( the scene with the frogs in the representation of the Spanish conquistadors is absolutely uproarious ) , and some that isn't , like a strange scene in a church . But soon Jodorowsky moves it along to ' Jesus ' entering the realm of the Alchemist , and going under his tutelage ( and learning how , mayhap , gold can be the end result of literal excrement ) , learns about who the other members to go on the journey to the holy mountain will be . It's here that Jodorowsky digs deep into the nature of the period he was filming in and how fascinating and perverse human beings can be . These other members are all shown in vignettes to be " manufacturers " , for the most part , of weapons , clothing , architecture , political espionage , and as a police force of a sort . More than ever Jodorowsky throws out the outrageousness to eat up , and really it actually never shows ( and maybe it's just me as a jaded 21st century guy ) to be as shocking as one might expect . Yes , it's extremely violent ( watch out for your genitals , by the way , when around these folks ) , extraordinarily sexually charged ( sex machines anyone ? ) , and meant to be in poor taste and so over the top you don't know what is up or down . At first , I thought it couldn't get much better , as far as sheer surrealist entertainment value goes . Yet as the last section develops , as the Alchemist takes his pupils to the mountain to meet their promised fates , there's more depth than I would have expected , even from all that preceded it as already containing cast quantities of rich socio-political-sexual commentary and prodding knife stabs at correctness . Religion itself , as Bunuel did in the past , is questioned very strongly and seriously , however still in the context of Jodorowsky having his own subjective approach . Of course , the director - who happens to be at the top of his game here stylistically , second only to Santa Sangre as perhaps his most accomplished effort - did become a shaman himself to make this movie , so there is a level of legitimate connection to what religion says to provide us . At the same time , Jodorowsky is , all the same , questioning what it means to submit yourself to indoctrination , to " nothingness " as the Alchemist says to his pupils in their trances . It's not just Christianity that needs to be taken with a grain of salt , although that is very significant in the final section ( the ' monster ' over the boat , for example , has a lot that can be read into it , ala sin ) , but that it has to be in the person to understand what immortality REALLY means . The final revelation at the table on the mountain nails it on the head , and suddenly ( or not so suddenly ) things become clearer ; the final lines by the Alchemist ( or rather , Jodorowsky himself ) , make it a very poignant end to what has been a delirious , hilarious trip into consciousness expansion . . . In a word , or a few , what it means to ' experience ' a film itself , and once it ends , you step back into some kind of reality . The Holy Mountain is a true love it or hate it movie . I loved it , even as I still wonder what the hell it is I just saw / felt / heard / experienced , and of course if it should be believed . |
508,103 | 453,068 | 60,028 | 10 | where no TV shows have gone before ! ( always wanted a log-line like that ) | Star Trek is one of the true zeitgeists of TV history , a show that is about as unlikely to be popular as imaginable , but it caught on to the audience eventually , and today , half a dozen more series ( not counting the animated Star Trek TOS ) , ten or so movies , and a mind-boggling number of Trekkie conventions , have come out of its wake . To be honest , I'm not a usual " Trekkie " - I'd probably turn down an offer to go check out a convention , or pose questions about episode 2 . 5 and what cre # 5 wore on the planet next to blah-blah . But even when the show gets corny - and it gets corny and cheesy and reveling-low-budget often - it attempts to surpasses things that make it melodrama into the realm of smart science fiction . It's rousing action and daring-dos , and it also probes in questioning form here and there the nature of the universe , of man in conquest , dominance , subversion , submission , mind-melds , monsters , Platonians , ships-that-are-she's , evil goatees , and so on and so forth . I know , I sound like I'm not taking the show seriously . But as a piece of pop entertainment it can be as absorbing as anything that was produced in the period or since . Through the cheap sets and the very " plastic " special effects , and even through William Shatner , who can ham-bone at times like it's some kind of manic art-form ( just watch the last episode of the series - before it was canceled - as Kirk's soul is taken over by a jealous ex-lover in hysterics , or the " ship-called-she " episode ) , it has good storytelling , and strong ideas expressed from time to time . One can't admire the episode when McCoy goes nuts and gets transported back to depression era America , and the hand of fate falls down hard on Kirk and Spock . Or the much heralded classic first featuring Ricardo Montebaum , who has just as much sneaky charisma as in the movie ( minus the fake chest ) . Or when Sulu suddenly went all Errol Flynn in a manic state . Or even . . . well , this could go on a while . Suffice to say Roddenberry had it right : get some good writers , make things always punchy with dialog and situations of peril and the most asinine moments become enthralling TV . And , in a strange way , the original series carries a pathos with it , a charming quality with the stories and the characters , as well as some creative uses of mind control and the misuses of power , by the enemy or those on the Enterprise , that might be a little absent in the other series . While the acting quota might have been higher with Picard and the others , Kirk , Spock , and McCoy and all the others allow their stars to fill their shoes proudly , with many scenes that end up surprising those that expect the same shtick every episode ( Nimoy crying , or singing , is enough to give belly laughs for about a week ) . In retrospect , it might be difficult to differentiate how much of the show works as legitimate science fiction theater and how much of it is fun cause of the ' so-bad-it's-good ' quality that has it just a notch above most MST3K movies . But Roddenberry and the Star Trek crew straddle that line wonderfully , allowing moments of guilty pleasure and real delight in a series that worked , in its - ish episode run , consistently . It's the kind of show that you may start watching on TV a few minutes after it starts , and it sucks you in , as if in some Vulcan mind-meld . |
508,347 | 453,068 | 109,707 | 10 | one of the best films of 1994 | Here is an example of film-making elements coming wonderfully together , in a package that can entertain the usual moviegoers and give the movie-geek his or her money's worth . That it is also perhaps the most well-rounded of Tim Burton's films , with enough does of comedy , drama , and movie-within-movie stylings , to fit two movies is an added plus . He tells the story of Edward D . Wood Jr ( Johnny Depp ) , who may or may not be the most well-known bad filmmaker ever to exist with enough humanity and care to not make it at all parody , even if there is comedy interspersed . His story is one that is actually quite the same of most filmmakers , who want to make it somehow and have big dreams and lofty visions . Though taking into account Wood's preclivaty of wearing women's clothes ( particularly the angora sweaters ) , hanging out with transvestites and other undesirables , and his best friend is a thought to be dead ex-horror icon ( Martin Landau as Bella Lugosi , in a richly deserved Oscar turn ) addicted to methadone , the path of his story is rather unconventional to say the least . But the style of the film is quite ingenious , with rich and cool black and white photography , a finely moving and appropriate score ( though not by Danny Elfman ) , and touting an all around best-in-show cast . Depp especially has a lot of fun playing this man , who may or may not be close to how he was in real life ( from what I've read about him it's a fairly close depiction ) , and his portrayal of Wood is not at all cheating and is , in some scenes , really touching . The ones that stick out for me are the ones with Landau at his house , and filming his one scene from Plan 9 From Outer Space , but the ones with him on his ' sets ' , filming such drek with the passion and ambition of the greats , is really refreshing to see . Ed Wood is quite the biopic , showcasing Burton in another maturer form outside of films like Pee Wee and Batman , but with the same knack for entertainment . After all , how can you dislike a film with Tor Johnson , Elvira , and Bill Murray desiring a sex-change operation ? |
508,866 | 453,068 | 71,249 | 10 | what can they really want with the head of Alfredo Garcia ? | At one point Warren Oates's character Bennie asks this , and it may or may not be a rhetorical question at this point in the film . By this time several people are dead , though more on the way , and he's lost the love of his life and any sense of self-worth . Then again , maybe he never had much of it anyway . But the question still stands - what was Alfredo Garcia ( " Al " as his head is called by Bennie as he has him in the passenger seat of his car ) really in the grand scheme of things ? He's bounty for El Jefe , a wealthy Mexican rancher who sees a scandal in his daughter becoming " involved " with the notorious Garcia , and asks not too bluntly to bring his head , period . This leads to Bennie becoming involved , who is basically a drifter barfly who plays piano and has it in him to want a lot of money really bad . Bad enough , as it turns out , to bring along Elita ( Isela Vega ) along for the ride to find the grave he's been buried in after a car accident . But , as it's not too surprising to see in a Sam Peckinpah film , a form of hell breaks loose . . . actually , when it comes down to it , a form of purgatory . The question , as one might gather watching the film , is more directed to the soul than anything ; how much is life worth ? It's incalculable , is Peckinpah's thesis , I think , and it's this aspect of how life can lose its value in an instant that gives his film allegorical lift . It's not just a question of the loss of life that brings some of the most extraordinary parts of ' Alfredo Garcia ' . This was one of Peckinpah's most personal projects - the only one he had final cut on - and here and there I got the sense that it's as much a nihilistic plunge into the blackest despair in murderous revenge as it is a pulp fiction kind of take on film-making itself . Peckinpah , therefore , is appropriately mimicked through Oates ( it's easier to see after watching a documentary on the director , though even without that it's pretty clear this has to be based on someone ) , as a desperado who at first is fine with selling himself out , as it were , but then as his trip goes darker and more violent and without a slice of hope - with the money turning to moot as the casualties pile up - the worth of a job well done , or what a job entails , comes into question . Peckinpah dealt with a lot of s in the movie business , and one could perhaps make parallels to the gun-toting Mexicans on his trail , or even the men who he's supposed to report to with said head , as producers or studio execs . But without all of this in mind , even as it adds a bit of fascination to how Benny's fate unfolds , Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia works on the levels that Peckinpah's work at its best does : it reveals violence and murder as the most unglamorous , frighteningly quick and graphically empty thing known to man . And while Peckinpah isn't quite as successful as in the Wild Bunch of corralling a perfect array of the devastating effects of shoot-em-ups in his brand of subversion , he comes close to that same level of ironic exhilaration with Bennie's path . He even does his best to fit in a depressing love story between Benny and Elita , as they can't leave one another but all the same Elita just can't understand why he needs to get that head . It doesn't help matters that she almost gets raped - in a one-of-a-kind scene involving Kris Kristofferson in a role unlike any other I've seen him in - and is ready to call off their engagement . . . until there's the incident at Garcia's grave . From there on in , love is no longer the issue but - getting back to the ' soul ' theme Peckipah's after , about loss . Lots and lots of loss . And all the while Oates makes this a quintessential turn in his career . An actor in more TV shows than I could even attempt to watch , he took on this role , which doesn't allow much for easy sympathy or sentiment , and makes it completely compelling . Some may take issue with him , as well as with Vega in the role of Elita ( and , in truth , she's not the greatest actress out there ) , not to mention Peckinpah's own warped view of humanity as taken in the film . But it's a fearless turn all the same , and by the end I couldn't see anyone else in the role , for that moment in time anyway , where Oates had a parallel wavelength with Peckinpah as to the vision of the picture . All in all , Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is about as grim and almost ludicrously hopeless , but it has some of the grittiest moments in American 70s film-making , where being uncompromising just goes with the territory . That it also gets the mind going on what it means to be self-destructive or to lose one's soul , or to just be a filmmaker , is a very good plus . |
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