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508,022 | 453,068 | 64,323 | 10 | surely one of the chilling , yet most effective , infidelity dramas ever made | Claude Chabrol is a director who has a vast ( and reputedly hit or miss ) career as one of the Cashiers du cinema alumni , and his film La Femme Infidele could possibly be counted as one of the top crop of his work . There's a control over mis-en-scene , as might be expected ( as he puts forth , unexpectedly and hilariously in a song that plays from a car stereo at one point , it's French ) , that is precise , observant , but also never overtly manipulative - it's almost so held-back emotionally that whenever a character seems to emote it's either through deception or by just the tip of the iceberg seeping through . This makes it all the more powerful , particularly because of how the ending doesn't really resolve anything except that these characters are doomed with each other . " I'm in love with you like mad , " says the husband Charles ( Michel Bouguet , perfect at that very understated , sincere and almost sinister approach to relating to people , even when seeming to be kidding ) , as there seems to be a sense of total disaster heading for both of them . But it's more of an existential sort - the law is left most ambiguous of all - and it's that which usually makes the best of dramas in lock-step with cuckolded and cuckolds and the like . If one's already seen Unfaithful , the Adrian Lyne 2002 Hollywood adaptation ( not so much remake ) of this film , then one already knows certain big pieces of the plot . The important thing though , in comparison with that film , which is still very good in its own right , is that this time we get only suggestions as to why Helene ( Stephane Audran , maybe her best performance ) is cheating on her bourgeois husband with writer Victor Pegala ( Maurice Ronet ) , and this is something that irks at Charles most of all . Idyllic comfort broken to pieces and shoved underneath is the context here , and it's with this that we see as opposed to Lyne's film a look not so much at the super-sexual and eventually melodramatic side of infidelity and the aftermath ( albeit just seeing Audran's legs is enough to get some men watching panting ) , but at complacency in the marriage and parenthood of their only child . Even if the child actor isn't very good at expression ( he says " I Hate You " and " I Love You " in the same note ) , there's always the level of discomfort in seeing the unspoken tension in the scenes with the three of them . And , if for nothing else , La Femme Infidele is a masterpiece of technique . So many shots and angles had me glued to the screen , knowing that there could be no other way to get it right . Surely the script leads much of Chabrol along his paths ( the actual moment of murder , however , is an ingenious editing trick ) , and what isn't there under the surface on screen is assuredly there on the page . But it's safe to put Chabrol on the level of artistry with his new-wave counterparts for shots like the one with Audran lying down on the bed , creeping up ever so slowly , and then cutting to a close-up , the one moment when we see just a slice of conscience . Or when Chabrol gets the emphasis of violence with a quick , simple shot of blood trickling down . Or how he balances out perspective at the house : look as the husband is watching out in the backyard at his wife , her out of focus yet still walking forward as the camera zooms a little more forward . And the last shot - following up on what has been many a decidedly Hitchcokian angle or note put forward , with a contemplative ' Vertigo ' shot of mother and son in long-view out of focus . It's one of the saddest ending shots in the history of French movies . It might sound like I'm hyping up this film up a little , but considering how underrated Chabol can be - in comparison to Truffaut and Godard and even Rohmer to an extent ( who , by the way , he co-wrote a book about Hitchcock with ) - La Femme Infidele deserves to be seen and re-evaluated not just in the context of " ah , it's French , and it's romance and tragedy . " To say that it's better than Unfaithful is an understatement , and it's only fault is that , if anything , it could be a little longer . |
509,632 | 453,068 | 102,138 | 10 | Back , and to the left . . . . Stone's second best picture behind Born on the Fourth | JFK ( the director's cut version ) is like a history lesson taught by an unconventional , usually thought provoking , and ultimately inspiring professor , transferred brilliantly onto celluloid . In fact this film , which has been put down by various critics ( not film critics mind you ) for it's lack of truth and tendency to go off on conspiracy theories . These critics , and there are plenty of them , entirely miss the point of the picture . This is the ONLY kind of film that a film maker like Stone could make , one that is a challenge to the system , one that questions , and with questions that , after such a hefty lesson , makes a whole lot of sense . JFK is in reality a film ABOUT America , about the feelings that go with a national tragedy , the assumptions , the cover-ups , the fears , control , and head question - why ? Stone makes Jim Garrison , played by Kevin Costner in one of his few superb performances , as a man who starts off believing the Warren Commission following the assassination on the day / 63 . Years later , he begins to get gradually drawn into the idea that a conspiracy could be , and after various interviews and queries , he finds that there may be more , his mind opened to the possibility of truth . He takes Clayton Laverne Shaw , alias Clay Bertrand ( played to a deserved Oscar nominated stance by Tommy Lee Jones ) , to court , that he was in cahoots with not only Lee Harvey Oswald ( Gary Oldman ) , but much , much more . Personally , amongst other small items , I agreed with two main points on JFK - 1 ) there had to have been more than one shooter for the notion of the magic bullet theory , which states that a bullet went back and to the left , not to mention that the footage that shows this , within the film by Abraham Zabruder , is kept out of public view to this day . 2 ) in the exceptional cameo by Donald Sutherland as Mr . X , when he refers to the military industrial complex , and to the fact that in other parts of the world people already were hearing the entire history of Oswald was the killer before people in the United States even knew about the man , also to the black operations , which I definitely don't doubt exist . However , by the end of the 205 minute investigative epic into the " coup de-ta " of our 35th president , even those who may question Garrison's ( as well as Stone's ) views can still see the film as a masterwork of feelings , an atmosphere of a specific time and mood of a country . The photography and editing , both Oscar winning , make the film all the more compelling , spell-binding , and very much unforgettable . Along with Sutherland's near show-stopping bit , other actors make very noteworthy appearances - Kevin Bacon , John Candy , Walter Matthau ( in the plot thickening moment ) , Jack Lemmon , Ed Asner , and especially Joe Pesci , who's eyebrows steal his scenes . Based on books by Garrison and Jim Morrs . |
508,935 | 453,068 | 55,614 | 10 | The only good Musical | West Side Story is an exception in few exceptions . I am not a musical fan , but this is a big exception . This film has more than just songs and dances ( which are really well directed by Oscar winners Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins ) , there is a lot of drama and romance , much taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . It shows 2 communities in New York's West Side that always never get along and rumble , except for 2 people , Tony and Maria who fall in love in a time of hate . This , along with a great musical score and songs by Leonard Bernstein make this a landmark with It's memorable songs and actors . Winner of 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture , Director ( s ) , Supporting Actor and Actress and a special one for Robbins choreography . Well done ( for once ) |
510,228 | 453,068 | 408,236 | 10 | about the juiciest , bloodiest good / sad musical time you'll have this year | With Sweeney Todd , one of the most notorious ( and acclaimed ) stories to come out of 19th century London England , and later as a much more acclaimed musical from Stephen Soundheim , Tim Burton crafts a masterpiece of the macabre , a work full of harsh , visceral drama , a sinister look to the picture which only once or twice takes an escape to brighter ( more elusive ) pastures , and even pitch-black humor , the kind that isn't fit for the gallows but a slice of a razor to a horrible demise at the meat-grinder . It's also a sad film , a deep sorrow that pulses in nearly every frame that Johnny Depp occupies as Benjamin Barker-turned-Sweeney Todd which pervades the wretched vengeance that he seeks following his inexcusable detachment from his wife and daughter via Judge Turpin ( Alan Rickman ) . Burton here , more than ever I might wager , deals with punishment and evil , as well as what it means to be an anti-hero ( if one could call a " Demon Barber " as such ) , and as well what a real cold-blooded villain is . The latter might be considered , more-so than Mr . T , in the form of Mrs . Lovett , who runs the place below where Mr . Barker used to run his barbershop , featuring the " Worst Meat-Pies in London . " Following a savage , quick death of a character , she comes up with the idea to hide the body , and thus also continue a lucrative profit - take the bodies that Todd slices open whilst getting their shave , and grinding them into meat pies for a whole new cult of a crowd , who end up flocking to for such bloody-good ( some pun intended ) culinary delights . Meantime there's a subplot involving the Judge , Todd's long lost daughter Joanna , and a young man who has fallen in love with her - and her with him - from behind the prison of her betrothed . And there's also a child , Toby ( talented young Ed Sanders ) , who becomes quasi-orphaned and starts to work at the meat-pie establishment . Innocence , of course , is something so fragile it can break in an instant . Almost 80 % of the film , I should mention , is sung by the actors . And while not in a kind of complete and utter show-stopping manner that is more common for Broadway , they take the completely superb songs , devilish , pondering , contemplating , scheming , and full of longing ( there's much more in the lyrics than one would expect ) and make them their own . It's a given the young Joanna and Anthony get the conventional song of young , forbidden love , but aside from that Soundheim breaks open the vein , so to speak , of the melodrama inherent in a horror story like the one here . There's even a bleak streak of humor to the proceedings , be it an extended song that distracts Pirelli ( perfect comic timing by Sascha Baron Cohen as an Italian with a secret ) , or the juxtaposition of Todd's various killings and a touching tune , or just Mrs . Lovett's descriptions of which people to take for the kill . With music and word Soundheim's tale of tragic mayhem is not without a whole lot of entertainment value , more than one not familiar with the stage version would expect . I tapped my fingers whilst blood flowed and dark looks gleamed through the dark color palette . Now , taking into account Burton's knack at surprise ( and precise ) casting choices - Depp exceeds greatly in his first musical role , giving moments of subtly in just the deadened expression on his eyes while his two-dimensional frame consumes him ; Carter has the best role to fill in the main lot of characters , as someone seemingly pleasant in her dirty Dickens way but also far more evil than she'll let on ; Rickman , for ever little word he utters , is savage in having whatever he can by hook or by crook - it should be noted how superlative Burton matches technique with the source material . It's such good directing where , as with Nightmare Before Christmas ( only here arguably more operatic ) , we get wrapped up in what should be an escapist experience of a musical with vast sets and beautifully grungy 19th century costumes and ( typically ) Gothic makeup . It's a twisted time and place of the slums of London , and Burton and his DP supplant that look of despair , where we'll see for an instant ( satirically of course ) a look at paradise on a beach in the future , or a glimpse into the past . But there's also a fully rounded human experience going on too , where it all fits in the context where it's set : realistic it isn't entirely , but everything emotionally feels on-target . One more note of the obvious , if you've already heard from critics : it contains the most graphic bloodshed of any musical I've ever seen , or even in Burton's oeuvre ( and this is from countless beheaded folk in Sleepy Hollow talking ) . It flows as if Alexander de Large from Clockwork Orange were in charge of special neck F / X . And it's certainly not for the kiddies who flocked to Charlie and the Cholocate Factory or Pee Wee . Sweeney Todd is gruesome , but with a purpose : Burton and Soundheim have made a testament to the inescapable wrath of vengeance unyielded , where figures from the past , no matter how close , will get in the path of destruction , and terror is always up behind you , cleaning your face , giving one quick swipe as if by catharsis . I loved it . |
510,342 | 453,068 | 51,207 | 10 | if there are films that are " under-rated " , this one wold be near the top of the list | After sitting through The Wrong Man , it puzzles me greatly why this film isn't seen by more , or rated as highly as some of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces . True , he does seem to be subverting his style slightly for the story , which is at the core a tragedy of a man falsely accused ( and maybe not with the same tension we'd expect like in Strangers on a Train or Psycho ) . But to me it shows him really with an experimental edge that just seemed to really strike me . This is Hitchcock going for something Kafkaesque ala the Trial , and on that level the film is downright scary at times . Though Henry Fonda's Manny Balestero is told of his charge after being arrested , the whole ' procedural ' nature of the film's story , of how the system can be the damnedest thing , makes it downright gripping . Like with the Master's other films , one can see the suspense at times almost sweating through the frame , and the kind of Cold-War era paranoia that works magnificently ( like when Manny is at the insurance office , where the plot thickens ) , along with the sort of Joseph K . quality to the lead of being presumed guilty more than being presumed innocent . But there is also something very powerful , and challenging , about the casting of the lead . In a sense Hitchcock was one step ahead of Sergio Leone , who would do something similar with Once Upon a Time in the West ( though Leone was going for a lot more twisting the genre screws ) . It's a filmmaker saying , ' look , I'm giving you Henry Fonda , maybe the most , if not one of the most , good-hearted movie stars from the 40's - Grapes of Wrath , My Darling Clementine , The Lady Eve , etc - but I'm putting him in a situation where he's in this strange scenario of not playing himself , or rather being in a society that is brutal and unflinching ' . Fonda was the perfect choice considering the material , and while it is based on a true story and Fonda is terrific at his role , that Hitchcock leaves out certain details of his innocence ( says the trivia on IMDb ) adds a certain level to the subject matter . Maybe he is guilty and we just are too gullible to think it ? How long can all this doomed atmosphere continue ? On an existential level almost Hitchcock delivers a kind of very recognizable world with the terror on a different but just as engaging level as his ' popular ' films . If Fonda is our fatefully unlucky protagonist , Vera Miles is equally compelling as his wife , who can't seem to take what has been going on with her husband . If there is some sense of pitch black satire amid the " true-story " drama of the story , she is the representation of paranoia affecting a seemingly good person . Why this happens exactly to Rose Ballestero , her descent into a kind of closed-off madness , isn't made entirely clear ( again , Kafka ) , and the conclusion to the film brings something that I was hoping would happen , and did , and makes for something far more challenging than if a standard Hollywood director would've tackled the material . Using real locations in NYC , the great many character actors that make up the police and everyday people ( there is some very good casting in the insurance office scene ) , and a musical score that is decidedly vintage Herrmann , Hitchcock uses this sort of documentary realism to heighten his own subjective approach ( all the images of prison bars , the film-noir type lighting and staging , the use of space in the rooms ) . It all works to help the story , which goes against the grain of the 50's era thriller , and it works extremely well . In fact , for my money , I would rank this among my top five or so favorites in Hitchcock's whole oeuvre . It's a bold statement to be sure , but for the particular cinema fan , this brings on entertainment on a truly dramatic scale and , until a certain point I won't mention , is unrelenting . |
508,702 | 453,068 | 55,601 | 10 | Hallelujah ! | Viridiana may be one of the least surreal films in Luis Bunuel's career , more than likely , but it has perhaps the most acidic satire in any of his 1960s work . It's a film that , actually , might be a good portal into the director's work for those who haven't seen much or any of his work ( though one could always vouch for Discreet Charm or Un Chien Andalou first ) . It's actually got a very straightforward narrative without too many punches pulled in delving into the characters ' psyches . We're given the compassionate , caring , but also very mixed-up Viridiana , played by Silvia Pinal , beautiful and kind , but in her ultra-Catholic character is someone who cannot be tempted in the least . She is , one would suppose , the most conventional character , and we're just supposed to take for granted , in Bunuelian style , that she's just like this way . No bother - this is a masterpiece of ensemble anyway , and an ensemble practically all non-professionals ( it almost seems like Bunuel picked some of them from the same village that provided Las Hurdes ) . It's bitter and depressing in its view of humanity , but it's expertly crafted all the way , and it builds towards a tremendous climax . For a while it seems like something very peculiar is going on with Viridiana and her uncle ( Fernando Rey , in only a supporting role but one of his very best performances ) , when he invites her to stay at his home but won't let here leave due to his infatuation with her . Indeed , we see - in one of the funniest bits early on - that he even tries her shoes on , and attempts to have his way with her when drugged . But Bunuel's film , for the most part , isn't necessarily as hilarious in its satire as in his other classics . Actually , it's really more of a dramatic effort here , which is all the more fascinating to me : Bunuel can pull off making what seems , at least for of the film , to be a sincere look at how a woman makes an attempt to overcome a tragedy in her family ( Rey's character's end ) by taking in vagrants and homeless folk and cripples , while her ' cousin ' takes over the bourgeois duties . On this level , Bunuel , and his screenwriters , have a fantastic control over the mood of scenes , and then spiking with little visual details things that just strike his fancy ( i . e . in the attic with the cat and the rat , or the teats on the cow , or the crown of thorns ) . . . . BUT , then there's a day when Viridiana has to go into town , and those she took in take over the joint , so to speak , and it makes the nighttime party scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look tame by comparison . This is where finally , as if in a rush of clarity , Bunuel unleashes the fury of his satire , as one sees what the kindness and support that Viridiana tried to do - if not out of the genuine goodness of her heart then as just a way to clear her religiously guilty mind-set over Rey's Uncle - completely , reprehensibly backfires . At this point one sees Bunuel at his naughtiest , most crude , and still as is a given with him , playful ( one of the greatest moments in the filmmaker's career comes when he deliberately sets up the Last Supper for the bums ) . Then , finally , one sees a very cruel and almost dehumanizing catharsis , but maybe it's not really at the same time . There is a powerful message working through much of the picture , where religion , class , attitudes are all tested in the sense of restrictions : how far is too far with temptation and free will ? For Bunuel , it can be anything , which is why the outcome of Viridiana taking in the homeless and destitute becomes her psychological downfall ( see her hair let down towards the end , and her blank , drained face at the card table ) . And yet , all through the symbolism that seems ambiguous ( girl jumping rope ) and very direct ( burning of crown of thorns ) , and with the scathing mix of sordid drama and black-as-a-bull comedy , Bunuel never loses sight of his vision , and Viridiana is a constantly watchable effort with his gracious , intuitive camera , and his sharp ear for the truth in every character's dialog . Frustrating at times , you bet , and its sensibilities on human nature , and the decisions made , make one re-think what it is to be either rich , poor , or in the middle . But it's also one of the director's best films , and a very deserved Golden Palm winner . |
509,837 | 453,068 | 824,747 | 10 | Clint's best since Mystic River , and a harrowing performance from its star . | I saw Clint Eastwood recently on the Daily Show , and Jon Stewart brought up a point I have not read in the handful of reviews I had read before going into his latest film , Changeling . Often one sees movies about civil rights , racial or ethnic , but rarely in a well-produced Hollywood picture will the topic of the history of " hysterical " women being " dealt with " come up , of the hardships of those who could be pushed around by the ( given ) crooked types at the LAPD . This isn't just what Changeling is all about , either , which makes it all the more impressive how much Eastwood , via a good writer , can accomplish . This is the kind of tremendous drama that could become daunting for any other director - any one little step one way and it could be straight-to-Lifetime glop - but the director at hand here is such a pro that he's able to put in incredible artistry at nearly every step , even when it looks as though it should be cut and dry film-making . And then there's also the cast . But first , the story , which incredibly is just " a true story " at the start , is about Christine Collins ( Jolie ) who is just a regular single working mother raising her boy in LA who one day comes home and finds her son is not around : missing . The cops barely do a thing until a few months later when another child who happens to be lost is picked up , instructed by the police to say that he's the Collins boy , and that this will all make sense as a happy-ending story . This is , except for Miss Collins , who keeps asking repeatedly a very simple but quickly angered question : where is my son ? This leads into two tangents as a film : the roller-coaster tumble and rise and tumble of a mother fearing life and death for her son - sometimes in a mental hospital where she's been committed by police - and of a child killer who may or may not have killed Walter Collins , along with other missing / abducted children . Each of the tangents are interwoven with tense and particularly dark and harrowing detail , and once put together form an inexorable link that becomes all the more fascinating in the kind of way that most horror movies don't reach . Truth can be stranger than fiction , but in this case it's just uglier , and with only the faintest of hope . Which , in a sense , works to Eastwood's advantage . It'd be hard for me to imagine many other directors grappling with the facts in the case . How much Changeling sticks to the details of corruption and murder in the LAPD ranks back then ( not surprising , of course , given the history of the force in reality and in cinema ) or the Collins saga I can't say , but so much of the picture feels vital and without compromise to suggest that it is more than likely close to real , stark tragedy . Eastwood had that perfectly with Mystic River and somewhat in Million Dollar Baby . He gets it this time again , and applies a style that is one of his most ambitious ( just on the technical side the way he and his DP desaturated the color of present-day 1928 era and of the flashbacks , which come out in some realm between color and b & w , not to mention the lighting , is completely extraordinary for a drama of this magnitude ) . And , once again , Eastwood shows his master's chops as an actor's director . Jolie , who is probably more well-renown as a star than as an actress at this point in her career , reminds the audience what she's got going for her , and in fact almost appears to underrated in any estimation ( Oscar win notwithstanding ) . She's devastating at all the right moments , but tender and vulnerable and subtle without overdoing it , and at the same time conveying the star power that the role does need . It's a near triumph , and in a sense she does better on the Oscar-bait chart than her director might this time . Also noteworthy are Malkovich as the pastor ( one of the few good-guys of the tale ) , and especially Jason Butler Harner in the crucial , role of Gordon Northcott who skims that line just slightly of hamming it up and turns in one of the creepiest killers in recent memory . It may be easy to label a Clint Eastwood picture , at least as of late , is a buzz word of masterpiece or great or classic or whatever . But with Changeling , he's made what is at once a crowd-pleasing tear-jerker and one of those stories of mothers and children and women and dirty cops that stick excellently both ways , and possibly earns rightfully a status like masterpiece because he doesn't ever go soft on the subject , never turning an eye to what lies behind certain conventions or pit-falls in a script of this sort , and will only allow the smallest , most ambiguous note of hope at the end . It's intelligent , brave work . |
510,279 | 453,068 | 117,262 | 10 | another good reason to pick up the new F for Fake DVD . . . | Orson Welles fans , this may be the best you'll get in terms of ' lock-box ' finished films from the prolific , perpetually fed over father of maverick-style cinema ( i . e . few films made in Hollywood , with Europe his only safe place for his very independent ways as an actor / writer / director / producer / editor ) . Like an author who's smaller , in-the-vault kinds of works put together by an editor into one compilation , One Man Band , like the documentary It's All True , is a sort of collector's item in and of itself . Along with giving the fullest possible glimpses ( as far as we Welles fans know ) of the films as part of Welles's un-official scrapbook , there are some revelatory insights from his longtime companion Oja Kodar , and clips from a public interview in an auditorium ( a very funny one ) that shines some light on a couple of issues . The director here is the editor , assembling the pieces at times in the essay style of F for Fake ( and this film is now included with it on the brilliantly packaged Criterion DVD ) , though not as frantic in style and purpose . Here we get something very special , in spurts , and even when the interest is a little more low-key than expected ( though fun , the novelty isn't exceptional of Welles reading excerpts from Moby Dick and The Merchant of Venice ) , one can't look away . The best parts include the intact scenes from the Deep , London , the filmed excerpts of Merchant of Venice , the little moments of Welles's odd , hilarious imitations , and the one that still could be completed , the Other Side of the Wind . That last film is maybe the most fascinating film of the lot , as it goes even further with montage and experimental style than F for Fake . It's wild , it's rambling , and I could only get an idea of what was going on , but that's all I could've asked for anyway . The veneer of Welles's personality , as well , is stripped a bit away through Kodar's insights , how he was more of a modest man than the overwhelming , megalomaniac personality people made him out to be . At the end of the day he was , as the film makes clear without a shadow of doubt , one of the true poets of 20th century cinema , and like other controversial artists his major works were practically all censored , while the minor works barely left his traveling-alongside film cans . To see a filmmaker at work , at least in retrospective , can be many things , from dull , to over-indulgent , to really passing all of that and showing a man at work . While there isn't footage of Welles at work on a set like with Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie or A . K . , the footage here compensates for that . One can see through the little bits of film done , the ones that showed his determination to keep rolling along instead of getting stuck in the past , that it isn't too much of a surprise that he got a little sick of people tipping the hat to Citizen Kane and nothing else he did in his career . His story is one of the tragedies of the artist's world , though it's good to know that he never got too depressed to not quit at the magic and voices . It's a real treat . |
508,603 | 453,068 | 75,040 | 10 | one of the great Italian films of the 1970s , a tragic-comic take on living by Wertmuller | Seven Beauties goes for about the first hour seeming to be , for the most part , a wild lot of absurd and / or fully rounded moments of wit from the physical ( moving a large dead body around a room , a broom and pail of things thrown after getting beat to the grown , and most notably stealing food while rambling on in Italian to a German in stunned silence ) , to things based just on the wild mood of Italian characterizations . After all , how can it not be when a man has about seven sisters , give or take a couple , and a house full of kids and estrogen ? But surrounding this absurdity , and the sort of smooth-operating would-be ladies man but stern-family-man Pasqualino ( Giancarlo Giannini ) , is real danger in the country , and after becoming a soldier following a series of very bad circumstances ( murder , a stint in a mental hospital ) , he also gets thrown into a prison-cum-concentration camp , where he thinks that somehow he can pull out something of emotion from the bloated brick-wall of a bh-witch German Commandant ( Shirley Stoler ) . This , however , brings on a downfall that acts as something of a purely existential crux : he'll have to live with it for the rest of his life - or some form of life he's chosen over the firing line . Seven Beauties is loaded with creativity and an original perspective right from the beginning . I loved the opening montage , where Wertmuller puts together images of Nazis and world war 2 bombings put to 70s progressive rock music and Giannini in voice-over doing some strange quasi-singing . Then the story , unfolding in appropriate non-linear form , has Pasqualino trying to avoid a firing line he and his socialist friend escape from ( he doesn't want to escape from it , but Pasqualino does , leading to the ultimate irony in the prison camp ) . Then something tricky : treading the line between making scenes really emotionally compelling in terms of the dramatic conflict - which in true Italian fashion ala Pasqualino's striptease sister , whom he fervently disapproves of - while also adding hysterical comedy on the same level . There's sincerity all the time , but also something of a wink from Pasqualino , at least at first , if only subliminally through his oddly traditional character . Then , as the prison camp scenes go forward , things become ( very ) dark with the set design being extremely stark and decayed with the buildings and blank look to the walls , and the Commandant , who as played by the scarily one-tone Stoller , a Nazi version of Nurse Ratched , minus the veneer of " we're here to help you " and replaced with the cruelest form of human connection - pure indifference and contempt that gives fascism its bad name . It's fascism , by the way , that is laced in the cracks in the story , as we see in a scene between the Socialist and Pasqualino , where he can't get his head around the idea that fascism and Il Duce aren't good providers . Behind the real human choices and lack of compassion in this world of Wertmuller's , there's the social framework that puts all these characters into this wretched existence . Giannini , all the while , is absolutely perfect in the role . First there's just the look on his face , his eyes , where early on he's the ' man ' of the family , in charge and taking names , though mostly in threats . When there's panic to be had , like in an accidental murder , then we start to see cracks in his veneer of more slick attitude . These become more pronounced in the mental hospital , including a great scene of reaction shots as he tries to have his way with a woman tied down to a bed . By the time prison comes , he's been broken down , and his pleading with the Commandant - who shows next to no emotion , whatsoever - seems all the more genuine , not so much as a con , and it's significant by making comedy in a German prison environment so uncomfortable and bleak . The last shot is key , and one where Giannini's performance comes full fold ; this is one where he goes through many emotions , through a very expressive face , ending on a blank . Wertmuller as director is fearless in her attempts to intermingle just little slices of comedy , like Pasqualino's " seven beauties " explanation . Or as he hums and whistles quietly early on at the Commandant , quietly getting her attention . Even over the top bits with the prostitute sister , or with the little flashbacks to his childhood , it's an honest comedy , that can only come out of a confident director in tone and manner with the actors . And when it comes to style , she has one of the key cinematographers of the mid 20th century on her side ( Tonino Delli-Colli ) , but it's sometimes more subtle than a Fellini , with a documentary approach to many scenes , and an editing style that's a little leaning to the conventional side when not intermingling various images and montages , or cutting to trees to transition . But there are many scenes for movie buffs to remember just in visual terms ; the prison is presented in long shots displaying the many souls lost in the deadened atmosphere of total dominance , and specifically the scenes with Pasqualino and the Commandant in her office are lit in a stark green , and later blue , add not so much the characters ' psychological mood but just a sensibility of dread and the coldness of it all . In all , Seven Beauties is a disturbing work of of minor genius , and it's unfortunate that Wertmuller is over-looked nowadays as she's one of those rare filmmakers who can tackle the sad truths of people that are faced when there's real consequences to not really being apart of anything except for oneself and so-called " family pride " . At the same time Wertmuller gets the viewer to laugh at it during the process , be it through choices in music or simply in Giannini , who's got more range than many a Hollywood actor today . |
510,807 | 453,068 | 923,752 | 10 | a truly exciting , funny , and inspiring ' sports ' movie about the players of the toughest game in the world | If it weren't for the sincerity of it all - or maybe because of it - King of Kong could be conceived of as a mockumentary . But there's no joking with these guys , which sometimes makes it a lot of fun to watch the competition between Billy Mitchell and Steve Weebie ( right way to say the name ? ) , where sycophants and idiosyncrasies fly on the former's self-spun empire / network and on the latter just your average suburban housewife and kids going somewhat begrudgingly along the ride . It's a saga though not just about them , but about the world of gaming , of the mind-set that pervades everyone from lawyers to ' Roy Awesome ' to little old ladies competing at Qubert , and the nature of competition itself . Not since Rocky - and maybe even better in its exuberance and humility - has one seen a tale of the underdog and the king played out in odds that should seem somewhat silly . But what's so amazing is how first-time director Seth Gordon plunges the viewer into this world , and it's immediately recognizable to anyone over 18 and under , well , 55 to 100 - anyone who's ever gone to play one of the " old-school " arcade games like Donkey Kong or Pacman / Mrs . Pacman or even Pong . We see how the players have to not just go into the games haphazardly by luck ; like football , there's game-plans and strategies , and like that sport there are also some obstacles that are apart of the nature of the design of the sport . There's a whole incredible facet one takes for granted , for example , about the technology of the machines , which despite being eclipsed many times over by new systems can still be tampered with , as is the case with Steve's first machine that reaches the top score , and then discredited because of a chip possibly ( or not ) being replaced or implanted in to give leverage at a non-gamer store . Yet the more slippery side-stepping for players is what's even more intriguing . Characterization can be a tricky thing for the documentary director to deal with , but in King of Kong it becomes something of a controversy left by the wayside as Billy surpasses Steve's score with a game he played recorded on videotape - while Steve set his score by an official Twin Galaxies referee ( Walter Day , to be exact , who's a character in and of himself ) - with more than a few skips right were the score should register . Saying it skims the line of reality and mockumentary comes with the territory - after a while watching Mitchell is like watching someone who's improvising as he goes along , hiding behind his perfectionist guise as a world-class champ and purveyor of fine hot sauces with his fake-buxom wife and lackeys watching every move Steve makes . Aside from it being compelling storytelling as one sees the transformation of Steve from failed baseball pitcher and drummer to a Donkey Kong ( and Donkey Kong Junior ) champ , making all-time high scores while his kids cry about their poor behinds , it's one of the best kinds of sport-genre features in years . Many times one sees this played out , and it's been parodied in the likes of Dodgeball ( " Nobody makes me bleed my own blood " came to mind once or twice looking at Mitchell , and his smart but biased cronies are like classic supporting characters ) , and the clichés and conventions get the better of the narrative . This time there's no pressure to push it into what's expected : we genuinely care what happens in this battle of the joystick , as Steve sheds genuine tears playing his ass off at all accounts of live events whilst Billy sulks away in his living room hearing the updates on his phone . As far as triumph-of-the-human-spirit stories go , King of Kong is hilarious entertainment , sometimes for all the strangest ( Day's would-be musical career ) and silliest reasons ( what's so special about the Guiness book of records , Steve's daughter asks ) , but engrossing as documentaries should get - one of the best of the year in fact . |
507,943 | 453,068 | 257,044 | 10 | A very well told coming of age / father and son / gangster picture , the best of its kind since Bronx Tale . . . | . . . although it is very difficult to compare it to the likes of the Godfather , which many critics have talked of following the release of Sam Mendes ' ( Best Picture of 99 American Beauty Mendes ' 2nd effort ) Road to Perdition . However in truth , this film takes place in a universe all its own , giving connection to Al Capone here and there and scenes of mid-west life in depression era America , yet the story with its plot and characters are what matter and Mendes and screenwriter Self know this from first frame to last . Tom Hanks gets another challenge this time ( after a retard , an AIDS patient , an island survivor and a conflicted World War 2 soldier ) , in getting a role of the likes of Michael Sullivan Sr , a expertly trained hit-man for boss John Rooney ( Paul Newman in one of the years best supporting roles ) , since his is a life that is cold and ruthless and sometimes compassionate given the circumstances , and Hanks pulls it off in his compelling fashion and it can be seen even in the more subtle scenes , like with his son Michael Jr . They go on the run when Rooney's son Conner shoots Hanks ' other son and wife , and the story unfolds from there , which includes a juicy , sinister persona sent on Hanks ' tale named Maguire ( Jude Law ) . With photography by Conrad L . Hall that ranks with some of the best so far this decade and performances made to match the edge , this is THE dramatic thriller of the season ; one of the best pictures of the year . |
508,624 | 453,068 | 67,372 | 10 | certainly not a sunny story , but it's as darkly exhilarating and ominous as any Shakespeare adaptation can get | To get the obvious out of the way - Roman Polanski directed Macbeth as the first film following the death of his wife , Sharon Tate , and unborn child at the hands of Charles Manson's gang . That factor in the film - not least of which in small details , like the first shot after the opening credits where a man finishing slaying someone looks just like Manson , beard and all - is undeniable , but it shouldn't be counted as the sole influence . Aside from the purging , as far as I can figure , Polanski was doing for himself by going all out in showing the frank and bloody depictions of violence and almost cleansing ( as Lady Macbeth would do in madness ) of blood on hands that could never come off , of the sort of psychological impact of violence and its aftermath , it was a bloody time in the world and in films . As Vietnam continued to go on , the best films of 1971 - and Macbeth could be counted as one of them - were some of the most stylish and explicit in how they attacked systems of government , corruption , and bad-ass anti-heroes or outright villains ( A Clockwork Orange and Dirty Harry come immediately to mind ) . It would practically be dishonest , in a sense , for Polanski not to show how grotesque the acts of murder that , for example , Macbeth's men do on MacDuff's family and servants , or the simple , sadistic carnage of Macbeth's final curtain call in the climax , considering the mood and controversies of the period . Compared to some of the really radical films of the year , however , Macbeth's story is as old and cherished as children's fables . Yes , children , you all remember the story of ambitious young Macbeth , prodded on by the alleged prophecies of three weird witches , who murders the king by his own ( and his wife's ) accord , and soon goes mad as power grips him into overreaching his domain and believing himself to be invincible to all but a fleet of woods . Not really too much happiness in Shakespeare's work , and all the better , as it might be his masterpiece : a saga of the frailties of the human conscience and abstractions of consciousness , where the supernatural substitutes just as well for faith in some religious calling - and a questioning and doubt throughout - and what it does to those around the Mr & Mrs who still can't cope deep down with killing a man in the dead of night . Yet even more incredible is that Polanski , as well as Kurosawa with Throne of Blood , enrich the material with the film adaptations , changing around some scenes , omitting some altogether , and offering brands of surrealism based on preferred styles . While Kurosawa stuck to the Noh method for much of his film , Polanski's Macbeth is an atmospheric milestone as far as concrete production design can go ( never once does it feel like they used a fake castle , or much of a fake set even ) , and all the grays and dark Earth colors , especially when Macbeth goes to the witches a second time , blend into something that matches the psychological conundrum of the king of Scotland and his desperate wife . But seeing Polanski take things further , with touches of the bizarre ( the floating and illusionary dagger , the drops of blood in Lady's hands , and the spectacular scene of Macbeth seeing through the windows , shot in a hazy and pirouetting camera ) , and showing what was only alluded to in strange and exciting ways - the killing scene in the bedroom feels almost like the Psycho shower scene , missed stabs and the messy quality of it all , only from the guilty party's point of view . This , plus the attention to detail in storytelling , the nuanced and gleefully over-the-top dialog provided very close to the original text , and even hand-held camera-work right out of something in Repulsion , makes this a work of daring for Polanski , not simply in the realm of elaborate fights ( though there is that ) or blood-shed ( a lot of that ) or decapitations ( one or two gushing ones ) . Though not to forget as part of the success too , aside from the director's total control of mis-en-scene , are the actors . Jon Finch , who also appeared in Frenzy , is a tightly wound loose cannon , if that makes sense , whose voice-over narration sometimes blends in with talking to himself , and the look in his eyes sometimes tells all , or perhaps not , as case might be . Although Welles and Mifune have their fair share of great Macbeth points in other films , Finch proves himself as on their same level , if only for this one moment in his career . Also very noteworthy ( albeit such a meaty part for any actress ) is Francessa Annis as Lady Macbeth , and Terence Baylor as MacDuff , and Stephan Chase as Malcolm is a very good choice . And as usual Polanski populates his picture with effective faces , strange looks that seem very conventional and at the same time all apart of the visual and mood . I loved seeing the whole room of witches , most naked ( thanks to Hugh Hefner mayhap ) , and it almost seeming as if a bare minimum of make-up was used . Bottom line , if you're looking for a hallmark of the dark literary drama , or a disturbing tale of the madness of power , or just a classic Polanski film , it's all here . |
508,438 | 453,068 | 265,666 | 10 | One of the best comedies of the year , quirky and definitely inventive | Wes Anderson's third film The Royal Tenenbaums is the best film from him I've seen ( though I haven't seen Bottle Rocket , it's an improvement over Rushmore for me ) . He and his co-writer / actor Owen Wilson have created a fictional group of characters that are and aren't like people you would usually know , in other words , it's realistic with both comedy and tragedy . Gene Hackman plays Royal Tenenbaum dead-pan as a sneaky , mostly low-down nasty yet also with a bit on conscience side he decides after not seeing his family for a number of years to come back to them with a scheme of having stomach cancer . His family includes his not exactly ex-wife ( Angelica Houston ) who is considering marrying her accountant ( Danny Glover ) , his two sons played by Ben Stiller with accurate bitterness and the other played by Luke Wilson with accurate sorrow and inner-pain , and also his adopted daughter played by Gwyneth Paltrow who is secretly the apple of Wilson's eye . Other stars include Owen Wilson as a western writer who is into a lot of drugs and Bill Murray as Paltrow's empty husband . All of these characters come together ( more or less ) to create an engaging and really amusing dramedy , full of ( possibly too full of ) creative ideas for each character , in particular for Royal which gives Hackman a chance to give one of his best recent performances . This added with some interesting cinematography and writing ( sometimes it's like watching a book on tape ) plus the best soundtrack of the year make this a good watch any time . Soundtrack by the way includes The Ramones , The Clash , Paul Simon , The Rolling Stones , Elliot Smith and a cover of the Beatles . |
508,718 | 453,068 | 496,424 | 10 | Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin ( and sometimes Tracy Morgan and Jack McBrayer ) , enough said | This show becomes addictive . Like the Office , the other current flagship comedy show on NBC ( and , very thankfully , playing back to back on Thursday nights ) , it has a curious effect on a first-time viewer : you may not entirely laugh out loud ( although it may depend on what episode ) , but it gets the curiosity going enough to want to watch more . By two or three episodes , it's a hooker , so to speak - 30 Rock is a show that even if you just start watching it at the start of the third season you'll want to see everything else that has been going on before in the previous two ( and , unlike the Office , Tina Fey's creation isn't very plot-continuity heavy save for a couple of details and Will Arnett or Rip Torns ' characters ) . A big part of this are the stars ; it's a good thing Tina Fey stars on top of writing / producing duties , because she is an underrated female comic talent - even as a straight character to comic relief like Kenneth or Tracy Jordan / Morgan she's incredibly sharp and with some nuance . And , of course , Alec Baldwin as her boss Jack : he is probably the biggest draw , and is so consistently hilarious you may need to stop and rewind if you got a DVD or Tivo to check out again some of the things he does with the character - it should be so obvious after a while , but it works , totally , without a beat lost . Add on to this supporting work from ( breakout ) character actor McBrayer as nerdy and soft-spoken Kenneth , Jane Krakowski's joyously egotistical starlet Jenna , and Tracy Morgan who finally pulls out some funny stuff after years of being off-and-on good o SNL , and you got a great show . Not to mention the guest spots from Oprah to Jerry Seinfeld . |
509,132 | 453,068 | 249,354 | 10 | Laugh your yambag off | This comedy special shows that even though Dice is not as popular , he is still over here , now . He brings comedy to the stage that hasn't been seen this good in years . He rants his usual stick about women , yambags , dry bananas and dry banana juice . Funny as hell , showing that Dice can still be unbelievable , over here now . |
508,434 | 453,068 | 82,912 | 10 | RIP Fernando Ramos da Silva , and anyone else in the film gone | Pixote is directed with barely a shred of sentimentality . And yet I more than imagine Hector Babenco owes some of his film-making chops with this film to Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist style , in particular Shoeshine ( that film , as with Pixote , takes place mostly inside a children's prison ) . And yet while I might still prefer De Sica's film if it came down to deciding between the two it's so close because it is , no pun intended , like choosing between two children . They're both marvelous works of raw drama , and with Pixote Babenco has an extra edge and harrowing quality to deal with in that this isn't filmed in conditions brought on after a world war . This is how it was in Brazil - one would see it with slightly more flair and awe in City of God , perhaps in some of the same locations - and these children were on the streets before and after the film was made . Some aren't alive some 20 + years later , for all anyone knows . The " star " , pre-teen street kid Fernando Ramos da Silva , plays the title character , a youth without a father or really any family who will look out for him , and placed among dozens of other street kids and delinquents in a reformatory for boys . The conditions couldn't be much worse , and are made even more unbearable as two children are killed one after the other by some cause of the guard duty . There's a riot , and an escape , and halfway through the film we find Pixote with a few other youths , including Lilica a practical transvestite not even 18 , and they become pickpockets , drug dealers , whatever to get by . None of this , I should repeat , is shown with a kind of ham-fisted earnestness - certainly you would never in a million years see Ron Howard or Paul Haggis direct this kind of picture - and yet there's an emotional honesty to everything exactly because nothing is trivialized . Nearly every scene is significant to showing how fragile life is for Pixote , and how he could be killed or die some way at any turn , and so without even reaching puberty yet he has to be on the level of those around him who are a little older ( though not by much at all ) and become things that will haunt this person forever . Despite Babenco's usage of a tender and mournful musical score and one or two scenes with people crying a lot , nothing feels forced . As with De Sica , maybe more-so given the consistent conditions of San Paolo and Rio street kids , he's a natural director of children , and coax's out of Ramos da Silva and Jorge Julião and others some really fine work that provides just the right touches of " cinematic " drama ( that is not so real that it becomes documentary , which isn't a bad thing per-say ) and even subtlety in some scenes . Pixote may not be as well known as it's later 21st century Brazilian films that look back on the horrors of Rio , or even neo-realist films , but it should be . Anyone wanting to get a good , hard glimpse at what it was like should seek it out at a library or other and soak in what is the best foreign film of 1981 . |
507,864 | 453,068 | 408,306 | 10 | Not your typical ' revenge / action ' movie , but an absorbing , potent look at the cost of taking lives | Steven Spielberg has here his best film - or at least the best in his ' gritty ' sort of tradition that was hinted at in the Indiana Jones films , went full bloom in Schindler's List , and matured further with Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report - in many a moon . He uses his perfected skills at maneuvering the mis en scene , using some manipulation , but dealing as seriously as possible with a tense , haunting subject . I've seen many reviewers say the film is haunting , has a haunting quality . Indeed this is true , and it is certainly a running theme in many of Spielberg's best films . And much as it was as well with his two films which he won best director Oscars for , here he deals with not so much the difficult , intensely emotional , and seemingly un-ending power struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians , but about the increasingly horrifying existential crisis for a man who to the government that hired him does not exist . This man is Avner , played with the utmost conviction by Eric Bana . Spielberg must have seen something in his eyes that could make him work in this role , and he does - when one looks at him , one can see the conflict that only grows deeper and darker as the film reaches its third act . He's been hired to track down and kill , with his team ( which includes great character actors like Matthieu Kassovitz and Daniel Craig ) , the eleven Palestinian terrorists who killed the hostages in the 1972 Olympics massacre . Things go well , at first , at least under the circumstances , as Avner also gets a little close with his ' source ' giving him the names of targets for hefty sums . But as they close in closer , and as the tension is consciously squeezed tighter into paranoia , things aren't going quite as planned . What makes a film like this work so brilliantly really is not what could be turned by another director into something more routine , and , indeed , condescending . Spielberg , when working with his rare R-rating to the maximum , doesn't shy away from giving us the full lot of what goes on in these raids , these bombings , shootings , plans of killing and striking back . But along the way he also gives some food for thought , so to speak , like an intriguing scene of dialog between Avner and a man in Athens ( not to say too much about it , though Al Green is playing in the background ) . And certain scenes rank with Schindler's List showing Spielberg with a full grasp of what he MUST show the audience , however some might find it to be eye-widening or cringe-worthy ( as it was for me ) . With his usually intuitive cameraman Janusz Kaminski , he creates this world as hellishly vivid as possible with a hand-held camera , and different color saturations for scenes ( plus the lighting , which has now become Spielberg / Kaminski's trademark for the past decade ) . And , in the end , it comes back down to what we care about with the character ( s ) , and the protagonist's story . Avner knows he has a job to do , getting paid immensely for something ( much like the Kurtz job in Apocalypse Now ) that does not ' exist ' . But the questions raised about what may or may not come of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict of course cannot be answered in the course of the film , only raised to a certain extent . If there is any message to the film - and I'm sure being it a Spielberg one there is ( and perhaps I didn't fully comprehend it on the first viewing , being wrapped up in the pure film-making aspect of it all ) - it may be that killing , taking life , even if it is OK'd by certain interested parties , will affect the soul , and the souls of those around you . That the message coincides with a taut precision with the characters , and the impeccable storytelling , makes it all the more worthwhile . The controversy around the film may be more from people who haven't see the film than those who have . Once seen , and the initial ideas of what the film might be about are gone , the story can be watched on its own terms . |
508,390 | 453,068 | 469,494 | 10 | Who has the milkshake ? | Curious that both of the two best films of the year ( the other No Country for Old Men ) - likely two of the most daring and great of American films I've ever encountered - both are measured , classically told stories of the pit of greed that encapsulates in the soulless . In the case of Paul Thomas Anderson's film , he uses a source which , as one might expect if one's read Upton Sinclair , there are as many metaphors to be had as blood . But not poorly laid metaphors at all , or ones that hit you on the head without reason or proper impact . These are the kinds that enrich a work of art , where they can be thought of later as with the themes , while in the midst of things you're just wrapped up in the solar-plexus of the story , and more crucially the storytelling . Daniel Plainview is a prospector at the start of the picture who has an image of himself , one that must never be broken . He digs for silver , then digs for oil , and strikes it rich . But he wants more . He buys up land from an Able Holiday , who's closest related Eli is welcoming , but at a price that the Lord has set ( assumingly ) . Soon there is much oil , lots of it , and a pipeline as well . Eventually , like CF Kane , he's by himself in his big , dark mansion , without a Rosebud to boot . Daniel Plainview is such a great character because he is , as played to complete astonishment and embodiment by Daniel Day Lewis ( reincarnating , ever so slightly , his volcanic performance in Gangs of New York ) , a servant to a God that leaves nothing in its wake . He and Eli , in a more-than-subtle sense , are kindred spirits : they worship their idols , one being money and one being God , but they also have a commonality , which is that what they want is never really enough , and what they want relies on those around them at their blind will . When the two , after years of " ups and downs " as Plainview says , have their final meeting in the bowling alley , it becomes less a revelation than a staggering scene of hell . It's one of the most absurdly dramatic endings in all movies . But there's also a greater metaphor , which is the oil itself ( by the way , Sinclair's novel is titled " Oil ! " with exclamation point ) . Anderson's picture is carefully constructed around a man who for capitalism is his lifeblood , for lack of a better term . The oil keeps flowing , and flowing , as does the money . But it's never really enough . There's an inherent fascination with watching a man , like Kane for example , who can never have enough because of a crucial defect in his humanity . No real friends , no real family ( a re-emerging " brother " is a big sub-plot ) , and a son who , when a tragedy befalls him , can never be apart of his own self-created image . Rarely has a character been portrayed , by the actor as well as the director , in such a way that makes him so hateful , so unsympathetic , but never one we can look away from . It's capitalism unforgiven , if that makes sense . And meanwhile , with his characters of Daniel and Eli locked in to the web of money and religion in the center , Anderson crafts a film loaded with visual beauty . He's a director known for elaborate long-takes and tracking shots , but here it's even more measured , more in tune with a classic epic , as though the Grapes of Wrath were turned on its head . The dialog cuts like a knife , the cinematography has a visionary quality that brings out the spectacle and the personal feeling ( less mood , though there's that there too ) of the compositions . And the music by Greenwood is unlike any ever produced , with strings and wailing chords that pierce right along with the narrative . Altogether , it creates in There Will Be Blood a truly horrific and yet ever so recognizable truth in the American dream . And like No Country for Old Men , none of the characters have a " happy " ending . Not that a bleak ending a great films makes . But if it fits , it should be rode out till its logical conclusion . There Will Be Blood can be called all the big words - masterpiece , classic , essential , must-see , and that it's maker is worthy of comparison now ( more than ever ) to the great filmmakers of old . But it's above anything else a precise drama of conscience , or lack thereof . It's a fine , fine milkshake indeed . |
508,528 | 453,068 | 64,276 | 10 | Best film of 1969 ; one of the best movies depicting the Hippie generation | Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper star as one of best on-screen duos of all time - 2 bikers from L . A . ( Los Angeles ) make a good score and hide the money and pretty much everything they've ever dreamed of inside one of they're gas tanks on their way to Mardi Gras . Along the way they pick up a hippie , 2 girls , a boozed and depressed lawyer ( Jack Nicholson in his real breakthrough role which he really deserved ) who finds things clearer after a little marijuana , 2 more girls ( prostitutes in Mardi Gras ) , etc . Easy Rider is a cool , immensly entertaining and flowing motion picture that often has cruel and unusual power and also often contains very potent scenes of sweeping camera movements and trippy mountain views . Hopper and company have created a real must see picture . Great performances ( Hopper and Nicholson are standouts and Fonda is almost as memorable ) matched with awesome Laszlo Kovacs photography and a ending which will challenge the audience , make this a true American classic ( ironic considering the tagline ) . Note : if it may seem as if the characters are convincing in they're doped up ways in some potent campfire scenes , it was rumored the actors were actually smoking real dope for the scenes . It worked . |
508,050 | 453,068 | 71,230 | 10 | Excuse me while I whip this out . Dead-pan funny | Blazing Saddles is one of the funniest movies to not only to come from Mel Brooks , but from cinema itself . Film stars Cleavon Little as a regular black laborer , but then a villain ( Heldey Lamarr is perfectly played by Harvey Korman ) wants to move a community out of the town Rockridge . So , he brings Cleavon in to make the people leave ( the people in town are racist including the line : " The sherrif is a nig ! " What'd he say ? " " He said the sherrif's a near ) . Funny story , funny jokes ( the farting sequence is ahead of it's time for 1974 ) and 2 breakthroughs - Madedline Kahn in a Oscar nominated performance as Von Shtupp and shines through . The other is Richard Pryor , who co-writes the script with Brooks and Andrew Bergman . Hilarious , forever . |
508,059 | 453,068 | 36,024 | 10 | still a favorite that sticks in my mind | As a kid , in general , the Three Stooges ( four if you count Shemp , who had his great moments in spurts ) were like the wise-old sages of everything that went with good comedy . Sometimes they went for satire ( like their anti-Nazi shorts ' You Nazty Spy ' and ' I'll Never Heil Again ' ) , but for the most part just went for the best , repetitive things about going after one another . But what's also forgotten though is that , when done on repeat viewings ( and this short in particular has been seen by me over 20 times in my lifetime ) , the dialog also rings of a certain wit that seems to go at something even smarter to compliment the physical stuff . It's stupid , of course , but it isn't dumb-stupid ; my parents would often crack up just as much if not more . The Stooges had good writers , and a short like ' I Can Hardly Wait ' is a bit of proof of that . Moe , Larry and Curly basically break into a kitchen to get a late night snack for themselves ( just cooking is hilarious , like with the bit of business with a certain missing ham ) , and during an attempt to eat a ham-bone , Curly gets a collision with his tooth . It then leads to his fellow Stooges having to devise ways to get the tooth out , which leads to a climax the following day at the dentist's office . It's one of the funniest of any Three Stooges climax , as the slapstick is sort of saved for more of the inspired , even intricate lunacy parts leading up to it ( like Curly's reaction to Moe in the dentist's chair ) . I don't know if it's really the ' best ' Stooges short , as it would be difficult to classify one as such . But it is one of the funniest , if only from a point of view of a certain sentimental attachment . It's goofy , but it doesn't pander to either adults or kids . In a way a short like this , among others , can be even better family entertainment than the tripe animated or new-slapstick films released in theaters . On top of this , it isn't even much dated - the idea behind a toothache is omnipresent , even if technology may have by now crept up to the dentist's office . My favorite part , by the way , is the little song Curly sings as he cuts the bread - priceless . |
509,929 | 453,068 | 131,409 | 10 | a kind of lesson maybe for film-students - a LOT of fun | I remember getting a kick of this short repeatedly when I saw Bug's Life in the theater repeatedly eight years back . Mostly because it sticks to the best rules of a little animated short like this . Less is more with the dialog , and editing and position of the camera are crucial . The filmmaker behind this , who hasn't done much aside from this short , is like a very wise film-student . In most film-student shorts , a good chunk of the goal in making 4 or 5 minute films is to put in as much information as possible while keeping it to the point and still having a story . The story here is a guy playing chess , Er , with himself , and getting into a competition to the death ( well , almost ) in having a check-mate . Geri's laughs and little facial gestures on either side are really genius in their own way , and the ending is one of those that puts a smile on your face . The music is also , in its own way , funny by way of being just a lowly accordion applying the backup to this wacky little scenario . Probably ranks up there with my very favorite Pixar shorts , worth another look on the Bug's Life DVD for sure . |
508,476 | 453,068 | 55,630 | 10 | You don't mind if I kill all of you ? " What ? Kill me if you can ! " " It'll hurt . " | Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is a not too long , not too short action film that uses its action with just the right touches of voracity and excitement , and in the backdrop is also a sense of humor to the process . If I had to recommend a Kurosawa film to someone who's never seen one before ( and might be impatient to sit through the three and a half hour Seven Samurai , or might not get the non-linear structure of Rashomon ) , I'd put this one in their hands to try out . Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune is terrific as Sanjuro Kuwabatake , a drifter of a samurai who stumbles upon a town with an assorted cast of characters , with a split between two gangs . One of the gangsters , Unosuke ( Nakadai ) , is the only one in town ; it seems , with a gun . At first Sanjuro plays each side , but when he gets beaten roughly by whom he was " protecting " , he realizes the fun's over , and it's time to fight back . Much has been made about how Sergio Leone took Kurosawa's story and characters ( most in particular being a rogue from out of town ) and made them into his breakthrough Fistful of Dollars - Kurosawa even sued Leone over the story rights . But to those who wonder whether Yojimbo is ' better ' than Fistful or vice versa need to remember one of two things - Kurosawa took the story from Dashiell Hammett's gangster novel Red Harvest , so neither filmmaker is making something really original ; and that since each film is made in a different continent , and with the slightest different sensibilities about its characters . For one thing in Yojimbo guns are scarcer than in Fistful , and there's a treatment Kurosawa has with his actors that sets it apart from the small town western scope of Leone's weapons and actors . So each film ( noticeably ) carries its own kind of visual style while working in a similar plot structure . In other words , it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges picked in the same farm ( if that makes at all sense ) . Overall , Yojimbo on its own is a lean , cool Japanese crime / action film , helmed by a master , and featuring a number of highlights to look forward to on multiple viewings . Some of those include : the scene inside Seibei's brothel ( with the women dancing and singing ) , Masaru Sato's wonderful musical orchestrations , Mifune's curiously low-key and rough performance ( which did and didn't serve as inspiration to Clint ) , and a climax that is up there with one of Kurosawa's finest battles . |
508,017 | 453,068 | 465,538 | 10 | I am Shiva , the God of Death | So are spoken as some of the most desperate words - not crazy , there's a difference - in recent movie memory . Michael Clayton is about the character trying to deal with his hand of fate , which is pretty dire : he's 45 , working for 17 years for a law-firm where he's a " fixer " , cleaning up the problems that can't be solved through simple litigations . Now he has a problem with the chief attorney , the " legend " Arthur ( Tom Wilkinson ) who has just gone streaking after one of the witnesses in a parking lot . The whole case could fall apart , but is there more than meets the eye ? Murder , wire-taps , cover-ups , bombs , and at the core the placidity of a straight-laced face ( Tilda Swinton ) , are all apart of the not-too-complicated puzzle . It goes without saying that there is a little more than some debt that Gilroy owes to Network , if only in the face-value to be taken from the characters : the weathered professional , the nut who really has ecstatic truth in the Herzog sense , the cold and exacting woman , and the guy working as a top dog behind the scenes . But where Network was as dark as satires get , if there's any laughter to come out of Michael Clayton it's only in the extremely uncomfortable moments of Wilkinson walking in a daze through Times Square or disrobing maniacally on video , or a couple of chuckles at the wrap-up climax . It's a paranoid thriller where , in reality , it's not exactly paranoia in the strictest sense : if it's really happening , then it shouldn't be something to watch out for . But Gilroy continues to build on a sensibility of paranoia , of the darkness creeping up behind the corporate facade , of the sinister presence of those men in cars and vans with total access to whatever and whenever with the target . And you thought the Bourne movies - co-written by Gilory - were tense genre pieces . What makes a film like Michael Clayton end up as memorable as it is , almost essential for those wanting to go to the movies for a serious drama without pretense or extreme melodrama , is the script and the performances . It's indeed such a strong script that it surely covers over the direction - as a directorial debut it feels like the work of a professional with countless years behind the belt , with a few notes of experimentation ( the opening rambling voice-over on the looming , still shots of the empty rooms at the office at night , and the final shot as something that breaks away from what could be a bit more predictable and instead kind of haunting ) . And it's something as literate as this that allows for actors to go for what they can do best : for Wilkinson , Oscar worthy to a T , it's both subtle and over-the-top with Arthur , at one point making a masterful stroke of carrying loaves of bread ; Swinton makes the careful act of preparation and looking at a mirror like it's everything to the character ; Pollack , solid as usual , not too much to say . Then there's Clooney . Already one of those leading men in Hollywood that has enough clout to probably get Sim City made into a movie if he wanted to , when given a serious and complex enough part to dive into ( which has been frequent lately save for the Ocean movies ) he's near perfect . I love seeing him on the brink of exploding at Arthur when he first sees him going on and on in the prison cell , or when he levels with his kid about his druggie-bum brother , or just in the way he looks frightened and unsure at some horses in a field . And the aforementioned shot couldn't be done so well by anyone else - you don't want to leave the theater even as the credits roll by , because he might do something , something slight behind the usual super-handsome exterior as he leaves the audience wanting to see more . It's an excellent genre film , but it's probably one of the few near perfect performances of the actor's career ( and yes , I include Return of the Killer Tomatoes in that group ) . |
507,858 | 453,068 | 20,697 | 10 | an entertaining , funny / sad classic | It's almost hard for me to picture what I will tell about The Blue Angel to those I recommend it to . It's a very special movie , and not necessarily for the only reason that some remember the film mostly for . Of course , Marlene Dietrich , in her debut , is stunningly sexy , in clothing in some scenes ( and the legs of course ) that must've caused some turned eyebrows on its first release . But despite her great charisma , and a certain feminine attitude that was unique for the time , there is really another big factor that makes the Blue Angel work a lot more for me than I thought . Hearing about the film , I got the impression it might be more of a vehicle for Dietrich , the inspiration for what would come in Madeline Kahn's equally memorable turn in Blazing Saddles . What I didn't expect was such a well-rounded , bittersweet kind of story going along , not to mention a sublime , powerful lead performance . It's really the story of Professor Rath , played without a cue missed ( and with some of his own ingenuity ) by Emil Jannings . Here is a teacher with high morals , and little tolerance for his College student's impudence . He finds out from a classmate interrogation that some of the kids are sneaking off to ' the Blue Angel ' , a club with dancers , music , and singing in half-naked costumes . He meets Lola ( Dietrich ) and against all his better judgment , he falls in head over heels , loses his job , and then . . . well , it might be best to leave it there . What then ensues is a sort of collision of an enriching structure from director Josef von Sternberg ( in that the unexpected occurs at times , if only in the little behaviors and bits of business with the characters ) , and Janning's acting . I loved how it sort of went past the barriers that might have stifled other filmmakers at the turn of the start of silent to sound - the musical numbers makes the Blue Angel club seem hypnotic , sensual , and a little crazy . Then the use of the camera , its stillness most times , focusing on the subtleties of the acting , bring forward the remnants of the finely-tuned theatrical acting from the silent era . What Jannings does here is make a character with a total arc , in this sort of downward spiral that soon occurs once he's made his decision in terms of how he feels vs his career . The last twenty minutes or so , when it finally comes back around for the teacher a 180 - from respected teacher to , well , you'll see - is rather shocking , and not as light and amusing as during the first forty minutes or so . But it also shows that Jannings , more often than not , is fearless in his timing and expressions . It's not a completely realistic performance here and there , but it sometimes doesn't need to be . Sternberg sets up such a mood that persists , with little touches ( i . e . shots of the statues moving as the clock chimes , expressionistic angles ) , that give Janning's enough room to do what he does . He helps make the character , who at first seems very expectable and usual ( a cranky teacher ) into someone we care about . Of course , one doesn't discount Dietrich's presence in the film as enough to seek out the film . She doesn't necessarily give a great acting turn , but in terms of just a great screen presence at times , of providing enough airs to make it clear why Janning's character is falling for her like this . That there are good supporting actors all around them is a plus as well . It's one of those rare films you might smile one minute and then get a little sad at the next . It's quite a lovely little movie . |
510,752 | 453,068 | 479,081 | 10 | a must for any Priest fan , or maybe just Metal fan in general | This DVD is fantastic as a package of vintage Judas Priest material . Included is a concert that , until recently , was only available in scratchy VHS tapes or bootlegs . The concert , from the 1986 Fuel for Life tour , is a snapshot of the band in their prime ( including a fully-head-of-hair Rob Halford ) , with such classics as Hellion / Electric Eye , Living After Midnight , Hell Bent for Leather , Heading Out to the Highway , among others ( my favorite is a number off of Defenders of Faith , the Sentinel , which is done very well in the concert ) . This might be enough for a DVD , but it's packed with enough extras to make the DVD something of a collector's item in the future . It includes all of the ' vintage ' Priest videos from the 80s , including some I haven't seen in many years ( Johnny B Goode and Hot Rockin ' two of them , the latter being quite funny ) . But this too is also included with rare BBC TV performances of rarer songs , some going back into the mid 70s when Priest were just starting out . For a band that was best seen live and loud , and whose videos were some of the metal staples of the 80s scene , this is a must-have . |
510,261 | 453,068 | 421,687 | 10 | not just for sega - one of the classic NES games from my childhood | Though if you try to find it now it will only be as a collectible or as a used item on ebay , Bart vs the Space Mutants was one of those great , if fairly simple , RPG games from those early days of video games - make that before things went past 16 megabytes or whatever it was . The simple task of the game was for Bart to kill as many space mutants as possible , without getting killed off or losing some by way of the X-ray glasses Bart used . It was before the show became as sophisticated as it would some two or three years after the game first appeared , so the humor is a little on the crude side ( maybe more than a little ) . But for kids it's a really cool trip in going through the motions of the game - if sometimes a bit difficult - and as a die-hard fan it's quite a alien-ridden treat . |
508,580 | 453,068 | 44,741 | 10 | a cinematic experience that's a near-nexus of existentialism - life , living , dying , death , and can be done while alive - remarkable | Akira Kurosawa knew how to get in touch with human nature through his art . With his visual expressiveness and storytelling , he could pierce through his subjects , even in his big and occasionally comical samurai films , and find the elemental things do work . What he probably learned off of Rashomon probably helped out with Ikiru ( To Live ) , a story of an old man who finds out he will die within a year , as both stories deal with perceptions of the significance of a life spent and a life wasted . Though that was to a different degree in Rashomon , with Ikiru Kurosawa expands into full-on existentialism . The old man Kanji Watanabe ( in a wholly believable and often heart-breaking performance by Takashi Shimura ) knows his life hasn't amounted to much as a ( chief ) clerk for the city . He knows he hasn't had a great kinship with his son . He's accepting his fate with a heavy soul . One of the tenets of existentialism is that there's free-will , and the responsibility to accept what is done with one's life . Kurosawa might've ( as I speculate , I don't entirely know ) caught onto this for his lead , and it works , especially with the little details . Such little details , unforgettable ones , have been expounded upon by other reviewers and critics , such as the drunken , sullen singing of " Life is short , fall in love my maiden " in the bar . A scene like that almost speaks for itself and yet it's also subtle . But one scene that had me was one not too many talk about . It's when Watanabe is in the Deputy Mayor's office , asking for permission so that a park can be built . At first the Mayor ignores him , but then Watanabe begs , but not in a way that manipulates the audience for sympathy with the old man . The mayor must be sensing something in his eyes , desperate and weak , however determined , and it's something that probably most of the audience can identify with as well , even if they don't entirely identify with the character . But aside from the emotional impact Ikiru can have on a viewer , composition-wise ( with the help of Asakazu Nakai , wonderful cinematographer on less than a dozen Kurosawa films ) and editing-wise the film is ahead of its time and another example of Kurosawa's intuitive eye . There are some to-tomy shots sometimes ( which could be called typical via master Ozu or other ) , but everything appears so precise on a first viewing , so descriptive . I think I almost can't go into all of them without a repeat viewing , but there were two that are still fresh in me . The first was right as Watanabe was about to sing in the bar , and there were these bead-strings looming in front of the camera . Perhaps mysterious , but definitely evocative . The other was when Watanabe and one of the other clerks are on a bridge during a dark part of the day . Both characters are in silhouette , and Watanabe gives an indication to the character that he will die soon . But for me , I wasn't even paying a terrible amount of attention to the words . The way the two are lit as they are , with the light in the background and darkness in the foreground , it could maybe give an indication of what Kurosawa's trying to say : we're all not in the light of life , but it doesn't have to be an entire down-ward spiral if the will is good . Whether you're into philosophy ( ies ) or not , Ikiru won't disappoint newcomers to Kurosawa via his action pictures . |
511,006 | 453,068 | 60,153 | 10 | HOLY INSERT-JOKE-HERE ! this is one of the corniest , awesome / camp movies ever made ! | Try not to put it too much , at all , in line with the other Batman movies , first of all . The difference between Christopher Nolan's Batman films and the 1960's TV show and subsequent spin-off movie is the difference between a hat and a boot - they both fit , but never in the same sections ( unless one likes walking on a hat or wearing a boot ) . Weird comparison ? Try some of the one-liners in this movie , man ! This is filled with so much comedy , both intentional and not so , one has to keep a tally on when things are meant to be crazy and when they just are by design of whatever's going on in the low-budget but high concept stratosphere . This is NOT your darker , Frank Miller / Grant Morrison / Alan Moore Batman work , but rather the by-product of a period where superheroes were just frigging goofy . And , hey , why not camp it up for all it's worth ? My high rating for this movie is and isn't ironic . It's got some of the cheesiest , lamest , most " what - in - Jebuz - were - they - thinking " sets and props ( the shark is something Ed Wood would've cut out ) , dialog exchanges and super-obvious stereotypes ( not the least of which on commies but also the UN room ! ) , and it looks like half of its 30-day shooting schedule was used to play ping-pong when things got boring on the set . It is at its core for Bob Kane's creation what the 1978 Holiday Special was the George Lucas's Star Wars : it's so bad it's truly and utterly awesome for every moment it can squeeze out a frame . Watch it with friends , make wisecracks right alongside the characters , make your own Joker makeup and put it over your mustache , and try and put out of your mind " HOLY ALMOST ! " BUT , at the same time , some of the writing by Lorenzo Semple Jr is , genuinely , clever and well-worded . Amid the stupidity and pandering and things that only kids would think are somewhat OK in the comic-book setting ( and even I when I saw this as a kid knew it was WAY outside of the usual Batman ground ) , one marvels at some of the puns and gags and things that work , tremendously . And to be certain the bomb gag , with Batman running around trying to bypass nuns and ducks and babies is something that is about as close to Monty Python as one could ever hope for the dark knight , and it's pure genius . The film also boasts its all-star cast ( save for Catwoman who was replaced momentarily ) , whom all chew up scenery like it's fillet mignon at the Old Homestead . The camera-person , too , is often in on the weird excitement , and has the kinds of tilted angles and perspectives one would normally see in a Terry Gilliam freak-out . Did I mention the weirdly awkward ending that seems resolved but has the air of uncertainty for no reason ? Batman is a delightful bad-movie masterpiece , a not-totally guilty pleasure that you can't turn away from for a moment but realize is everything you wouldn't want Batman to be if taken at all seriously . For its time and place it came , it saw , and it conquered a good portion of the audience for three seasons and a cheap flick . And I love every second of it . |
508,338 | 453,068 | 71,361 | 10 | an exploitation film on the surface , but really about exploitation , and done in a crazy , free-for-all satirical form | Coonskin might be my favorite Ralph Bakshi film . Like the best of his work , it's in-your-face and not ashamed of it for a second , but unlike some of his other work ( even when he's at his finest , which was before and after Coonskin with Heavy Traffic and Wizards ) , it's not much uneven , despite appearances to the contrary . Bakshi's taking on stereotypes and perceptions of race , of course , but moreover he's making what appears to be a freewheeling exploitation film ; blaxploitation almost , though Bakshi doesn't stop just there . If it were just a blaxploitation flick with inventive animation it could be enough for a substantial feature . But Bakshi's aims are higher : throwing up these grotesque and exaggerated images of not just black people but Italians / mafioso , homosexuals , Jews , overall New York-types in the urban quarters of Manhattan in the 70s , he isn't out to make anything realistic . The most normal looking creation in looking drawn " real " is , in fact , a naked woman painted red , white and blue . In mocking these stereotypes and conventions and horrible forms of racism ( i . e . the " tar-rabbit , baby " joke , yes joke , plus black-face ) , we're looking at abstraction to a grand degree . And best of all , Bakshi doesn't take himself too seriously , unlike Spike Lee with a film like Bamboozled , in delivering his message . This is why , for the most part , Coonskin is a hilarious piece of work , where some of the images and things done and sudden twists and , of course , scenes of awkward behavior ( I loved the scene where the three animated characters are being talked at by the real-life white couple in tux and dress as looking " colorful " and the like ) , are just too much not to laugh at . It's not just the imagery , which is in and of itself incredibly " over " - stylized , but that the screenplay is sharp and , this is key for Bakshi this time considering , it's got a fairly cohesive narrative to string along the improvisations and madness . Using at first live-action , then animation , and then an extremely clever matching of the two ( ironically , what Bakshi later went for in commercial form with Cool World is done here to a T with less money and a rougher edge ) , Pappy and Randy are waiting outside a prison wall for a buddy to escape , and Pappy tells of the story of Brother Rabbit , who with Brother Bear and Preacher Fox go to Harlem and become big-time hoodlums , with Rabbit in direct opposition to a Jabba-the-Hut-esquire Godfather character . This is obviously a take off on Song of the South with its intentionally happy-go-lucky plot and animation , here taken apart and shown for how rotten and offensive it really is . Yet Bakshi goes for broke in combining forms ; animated characters stand behind and move along with live-action backgrounds ; when violence and gunshots and fights occurs it's as bloody as it can get for 1975 ; when a dirty cop is at a bar and is drugged and put in black-face and a dress , he trips in a manner of which not even Disney could reach with Dumbo ; a boxing match with Brother Bear and an opponent as the climax is filmed in wild slow-motion ; archive footage comes on from time to time of old movies , some and some from the 20s that are just tasteless . Like Mel Brooks or Kubrick or , more recently , South Park , Bakshi's Coonskin functions as entertainment first and then thought-provocation second . It's also audacious film-making on an independent scale ; everything from the long takes to the montage and the endlessly warped designs for the characters ( however all based on the theme of the piece ) all serve the thought in the script , where its B-movie plot opens up much more for interpretation . To call it racist misses the point ; it's like calling Dr . Strangelove pro-atomic desolation or Confederate States of America pro slavery . And , for me , it's one of the best satires ever made . |
510,503 | 453,068 | 71,360 | 10 | Coppola's ' other ' nineteen-seventies classic ; one of Hackman's most complex performances | Francis Form Coppola's The Conversation was his only film from the seventies written and directed by him ( and made through his Zoetrope studios ) , and it is no less than a major credit to his status as a creative , successfully experimental filmmaker of the new-wave of American directors of the 70's . The Conversation is a first-person story of a surveillance man named Harry Caul , played by Gene Hackman , who's well respected by his fellow snoop-peers , but isn't always that good at it . After getting audio on a conversation between a man and woman talking about a murder , or one that could happen , and trying to decipher some muddled words in it , he leaves his door open for the tapes to be stolen , and this sets him into a paranoid state fearing a deja-vu will occur for him ( his work caused some deaths years before ) . What's so fascinating and telling about The Conversation is that its basic storyline and development is that of a thriller , yet the way Coppola uses Hackman's Harry brings to the story themes of guilt , privacy , fear , loneliness , and so forth that go to reel the viewer into the psychology of this character . The ones Harry is listening in on are important to the story , but not so much as Harry's placement on the outskirts of what else is going on in the story . A more conventional film would've gone with The Director character ( in a cameo by Robert Duvall ) , or even with the people Harry Caul listens in on . Instead we get a viewpoint strictly from the sideline , which is often harrowing , especially from his perspective . Two aspects to The Conversation really struck me on my first viewing , outside of Bill Butler's keenly observatory camera-work and the acting from the main and supporting players : the sound in most scenes is rather extraordinary for the times . Whether we're hearing the conversation in its repetitious form ( s ) , listening in on a silence about to break , or even in just a seemingly normal scene , when sounds , either diegetic or non-diegetic , come into play it's like Coppola , and his Academy Award nominated ( should've won ) sound men Walter Murch and Art Rochester , are stretching the boundaries for it , and were arguably expanding its usage before movie-goers ears . The other thing that struck me was how Coppola gets the viewer deeper into Harry's mood with surrealistic images that are all the more frightening since they seem totally real to Harry . The prime example of this would be the hotel room scene - because Harry is a sort of anti-hero , and we can still identify with him slightly on a moral level , the dream-like moments become potent , visionary . And then there's Hackman as Harry Caul - he plays him to the best of the great actor's ability , revealing levels of sorrow , bitterness , humility , and regret all with total conviction that another actor might've not grasped . By the end of the film , the viewer's been brought along on this journey via Harry , and though Coppola was the mastermind behind how it was crafted , it was Hackman to me who brought the whole experience to a sense of realism to a thriller that has illusions to spare . Whether or not the conversation hurt others or brought upon shame on The Director isn't the point , and that's how Coppola must've wanted it - he was inspired by Antonioni's Blowup , which used photographs as a man's obsession instead of sound - the point is Harry's journey through this assignment , and how it begins to whittle him down to a nub . . . One of the best films of 1974 , The Conversation also won the prestigious Palme D'Or at Cannes that year . |
508,292 | 453,068 | 443,453 | 10 | most fearless , vulgar , and successful satire of the year | Even before I saw Borat : Cultural Learning of . . . I knew what I was in for . Sacha Baron Cohen's characters on Da Ali G Show is possibly the most consistently funniest character of the lot of his creations . Just the theme music and the opening images of him running after a truck and swimming in a pool are funny . It's not hard for me to figure out why - Cohen gets what it is to lampoon current times - bring out the worst in people without even really trying . This is a tactic that is , of course , Mel Brooks inspired , as he was once quoted as saying of his film the Producers " my film rises below vulgarity . " Once you see Borat you'll see what I mean , and if you've never watched the show don't fret , you may still find it to be a truly funny comedy on its own . What's even more genius is how Cohen even figures in a storyline , however thin , to his movie . It would be one thing if it was just random vignettes spliced together , which could still make a great time . But there's a road-movie quality to the picture , as Borat and his friend Azamat Bagatov , go off to make a documentary about the US-of-A for his homeland of Kazakhstan . He suddenly comes across Baywatch - particularly Pamela Anderson - and finds his ultimate goal , to make her his wife by any means necessary ( which includes , of course , bagging her , literally ) . So this becomes the template for the picture , and which leads to not only great comic scenes , including little ones that strike up a lot of good lines and gags ( i . e . antique shop ; the " gypsey " yard sale ) , but the kind of outrageous sequences that make my sides hurt thinking about them . The rodeo , the bed & breakfast ( that might be my absolute favorite ) , and of course the " running of the Jews " . Of course , complications come along , and sad times , but there could still be hope just yet - perhaps by Jesus ? All of this outrageousness would work a lot less if not for two main factors - 1 ) Cohen has a mind that never stops , and so his Borat is always on the move with a line or a small gag that ends up becoming part of the fold of the rest of the film ( the retard line , heh ) , so the improvisation is at the highest caliber . 2 ) the people that he sets up are not even necessarily set-up all that well ; what you see really is what you get , and not without too much by way of him ' tricking ' these people . There was recently a small blurb in a Newsweek magazine where one of the people complained , after getting fired , that Cohen made him look bad . How can this be though if the person , among many others , don't get that it's a joke for a SECOND ? It's almost a shame that ( possibly ) there will never be another round of Borat material after this . Like Andy Kaufman , soon Cohen's personalities will be known all too well , and will lose their flavor . But in the meantime , we do have this film , which is a kind of near-priceless work of satire by someone who has no shame , or rather has no shame in how far he goes with the material . In other words , even if you don't think you might be much of a fan , give it a chance and see what might spark up . Borat , for all of his little quirks and un-knowable ways around him ( e . g . the result of him going to the bathroom in a mannered Southern home ) , is never really a mean person , and with one exception of a violent outburst ( you'll know it when you see it ) is a kind of bumbling fool of a character too . Still , this doesn't stop Cohen , through Borat , showing what ugly things racism and stereotyping are in America , and in a sense this is kind of like a near-masterpiece compendium of the state of America right now . That we can at least laugh at it is a good sign , and all apart of the kind of Brooksfilm vein Cohen is descending from wonderfully . JINGJAMESH ! |
509,029 | 453,068 | 75,165 | 10 | F flies | According to the description on the DVD I received of Satan's Brew from netflix this was the first actual full-on comedy that Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed . I imagine watching the film that it was something that was building up in him and basically , in a near literal expression in his art , exploded . This film is about as kinetic and sharp-tongued as Marx Brothers , as insane as the best Mel Brooks , and even has some of that completely fing gonzo sensibility that one only finds with other tales-of-writers like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which has little to do with actual writing and mostly to do with how far its creative genius will go in excess and other " shenanigans . " I can probably make more comparisons , but it might be unfair to the success Fassbinder pulls off here : it's as inspired as all of those , but it's all him , his natural excesses and big personality coming out in the cracks ( big cracks ) of the story and the character Walter ( Kurt Raab ) . Simply put , this movie is not just funny , it's hysterical . It's so hysterical that you'll laugh at yourself while laughing at what's going on on screen . Fassbinder's tale of a writer who hasn't written in years , spends all of his advance money on whores , has a lunatic brother obsessed with flies and having his way with them , has a wife whom acts more like a mother than anything ( albeit she reminds him it's been 17 days . . . no , 18 days since sex last happened ) , and then at the end of his rope financially and mentally and with a really ( more than relatively ) crazy sycophantic woman following him everywhere he goes turns to pretending he's a homosexual 19th century poet , is like a loaded baked potato . Really loaded ; you'll wonder where something might suddenly pop , until something else interesting happens - Fassbinder will write his characters and direct his actors in moments of seriousness , taking us into moments that do feel real and not just super absurd pieces of German theater . Suffice to say it helps that Fassbinder has the exact right person to play this unlikely ( very unlikely ) anti-hero with Walter : Kurt Raab has a look that is devilish , diabolical , slightly seductive and with the possibility of violence or the unexpected at the drop of a hat . He's also as funny as the material can get him to be , which includes saying random lines like to a leering restaurant patron , " Quiet , you person ! " Sometimes just his demeanor is amusing , and also frightening and highly charged ; he is in a way like the Cartman ala South Park for Fassbinder , as a figure who is pretty twisted , verging on if not just evil ( dont assume anything with that opening murder ! ) , and surrounded by a league of people who he can manipulate or feel crossed by or just not know what to do with ( his " biggest fan " whom he make walk out in the cold in a thin raincoat or stay under a friend's rug ) . Just watching him react to the brilliant actor playing so over the top the fly-fixated brother is classic stuff . Towards the end it becomes grim , and possibly stranger than ever . It's also overall not something you'll want to show your mother ( unless , you know , your mother is a Fassbinder fan or into crazy German cinema ) . But for a certain niche audience it's about as uproarious as any anarchic comedy , and in fact as beautifully directed as anything of the great slapstick or surrealist days . In this case , they go hand in hand ; it's one of the director's very best . |
510,793 | 453,068 | 86,541 | 10 | remind me never to go to Pittsburgh ! | A possible candidate for the quintessential David Cronenberg movie , this was one of the ones that put him on the map ( one of them , I say , as he had a few 80s movies before the big studio hit the Fly ) , but still speaks like few sci-fi surreal satires can do . It's chilling for some of it , and outright disturbing for most , once or twice you might feel the inclination to laugh at the absurdity of what Cronenberg and his make-up team put together , but it's really a situation where reality becomes crossed with perceptions of reality ( and , cough , hallucinations , cough ) and the real thing . Warhol called it the Clockwork Orange of the 80s , but one could make other comparisons , maybe more prevalent , like Altered States or Philip K Dick or Jodorowsky or Burroughs ( a bit of a connection , in terms of the process of a sort of machine programmed in or through disgusting elements , to Naked Lunch ) or even to today's own torture-porn situation in horror movies . They're all there for the taking to group with . But Cronenberg stands alone with this one : it's an extremely personal film for the director , while also never losing sight of what makes the strongest science-fiction crawl under our collective skins . James Woods , in a role that requires him to go from his typical smarmy self to a man in the grip of a perpetual mind-f , plays Mas Rent , who owns Civic TV - not anything very respectable , just a weirder , dirty cousin of Weird Al's UHwho comes across a transmission on one of his pirated wavelengths for a program called Videodrome . He thinks that all the torture and mayhem in the program is faked , and that it's brilliant in its low-budget form . He wants it , the real Videodrome tape . But what he doesn't know is that it's all for real , and that the makers of the " show " in Pittsburgh are dangerous folk . Soon he gets embroiled into the fold , starts seeing himself hitting women , reaching into his stomach to scratch with a gun , ' plays ' videos with his innards , and becomes a killing machine . At first this seems too much , but Cronenberg is a master at making this a multi layered examination : there's the media element , as Cronenberg was a student of Marshall MacLoughan ; there's the fetishism , and how that can become manifested through contact with the skin and , of course , the flesh ( it starts with just a cigarette burn on a breast ) ; and of course the surrealism , where like somewhere between Kafka and Lynch there is no discernible line after a while between what is not really seen and experienced and what is actually going on . All bets are off . If it's daring by itself in examining the nature of all of these things ( and I don't even imagine , I know , that this will be just as exhilarating on a repeat viewing ) , then the special effects are equally so . The first time you see Woods sitting on the couch , with the hallucinating turning slowly into just a little itch or burn on his stomach into a full gaping would , it never looks fake . Which makes the whole hallucinatory angle so rich and palpable - you feel yourself cringe right along with Max as he plunges his consciousness to the whims of men and women telling him what to do through TV and other forms . Ironically , the movies of the present in the horror world - one wonders if this is more than the usual movie fodder for the likes of the ' torture porn ' kings like Eli Roth and the Saw filmmakers - don't have anywhere the finesse and power in how the special effects convey the psychology and mood of the situations . Meanwhile , Cronenberg also makes Videodrome perhaps his best film technically , with his camera becoming part of the surreal and fetisihistic , subtly so , like when Woods and Harry have their sex scene , slow and carnal , and it backs up from them to reveal that they're in the chamber-room of the Videodrome . Or how it comments on the mania that's building in Max's head as he sits and waits for the speaker to come out in the climax . Videodrome remains some twenty-five years later a visceral movie-viewing experience , a film that many will pass off as just your typical Cronenberg fare . It's a lot more : it's like a weird , definitive statement on the things that are most of concern to Cronenberg , at least in the bulk of his originally written work . How does one make the distinction between what's imagined or thought and what is right there whipped on the flesh ? It's thought at one point in Videodrome that Max has a brain tumor . Sounds like an explanation , but after a few minutes it changes from being a plot gimmick to a sad fate . Long live the new flesh ? What about the dying flesh ? It's an extraordinary film , and I can't wait to watch it through fingers covering over my eyes ( and peeking through ) during the more disgusting parts . |
510,478 | 453,068 | 443,455 | 10 | as surreal as Eraserhead or personal as Mean Streets or daring as anything out of the 20s , all Guy Maddin | It's easy to make a film that is extremely personal to a filmmaker , or has some real level of autobiography going on . And , as a result , there's a crop of personal films out there that just are not very good , because a filmmaker will confuse their factual lives and interesting cinema as one and the same when he former may not be or is too conventional or improperly melodramatic for its own good . A strong personal story or tale of a troubled or just odd childhood is good but not enough ; there needs to be ideas , some imagination even , to keep things worthwhile as compelling cinema . Brand Upon the Brain , under these conditions , is one of the most compelling things this decade as far as personal film-making goes . And , if for nothing else , it's for the virtuosity of the person ( s ) behind the lens . I'm sure it's mostly Candadian Guy Maddin's doing how the film looks and how it moves in such a splintered way as to come about as close to how memory works ( I'm sure the excruciatingly talented editor and DP helped immensely , as no other film I've ever seen has this particular grainy but subtle and coarse and light look with the subliminal cuts all the way ) , which makes it all the more a directorial 100 meter dash with full-speed . Even if the story or the characters flat out sucked , which thankfully they don't at all , I would still be enthralled by the quality and experimentation in everything technical about the picture : how it's meant to be silent , and probably is in layman's terms , but also features narration ( the track I had was from Isabella Rossellini , who does a fabulous job as part narrator and part character absorber ) , sound effects , the occasional scream or song sung , and how it's meant to be in black and white but every so often one may see color slip in a few frames or few seconds . That it was meant to be screened as a silent film , with full orchestra and actual Foley artists and chorus and possible narrator , makes it all the more wild - it wavers between real primitive film-making and pure fantasy . Which is just as well : all of the emotions here are laid for bare , and so much so for Maddin that the protagonist - a 30-something house painter who returns to his island home - is named Guy Maddin , it includes people like his actual mother and father and sister ( not the actual people , the actors playing them ) , and many anecdotes are taken from his real life or from those closest to him ( I started listening to Maddin talk about how the burial of Father in the movie is based on his actual grandfather's burial , but decided to stop to not let too many spoilers come through : it's actually a lot more fun and fascinating to figure out what's totally real or just slightly twisted ) . This works completely because of two reasons : 1 ) the autobiographical bits are interesting and captivating enough for cinema , this torn and weird relationship between siblings and parents , and 2 ) because it's wrapped up in a made-up plot by co-writer George Toles about an orphanage and crazy experiments done for rewinding aging on top of the already amazing surrealism on display with the film-making . In short , it's not only allowable , it's required for Maddin's passion to spark through . If for nothing else , even if you hate the movie ( which I can understand , it's a like it or not enterprise , like with a piece baroque period music in several consistent parts ) , it's passionate film-making and storytelling , and it brings forth a number of unknown actors into a quantity like this . And Maddin picks well , since the actors save for Rossellini or whomever on narration have to have striking faces and be able to act completely and honestly in physical form . They also submit incredibly to any of Maddin's whims ( even the gaggle of would-be Lords of the Flies orphans ) , which include dazed / feverish sleepwalking , insatiable lusting for the same / opposite sex , brain manipulation for the " nectar " , and other mad things . It's also a great structure Maddin uses ( taken from Godard's Vivre sa vie mayhap ) as we go along like in some book that grows weirder and darker as it goes along . . . but also sadder and more touching and with moments that come as delightful almost in spite of the gloom and eerie sets and lighting and smoke and so on . Brand Upon the Brain won't be for everyone , but then how could it in the 21st century ? Maddin has crafted something out dreams and recollections and visions and nightmare and hallucinations and ruminations and ( of course ) his libido and whatever else he could out of a love for movies and a love of his family ( love enough to imbue them on screen as eccentric figures out of a dark fairy tale or science fiction opera ) , and it's something for the film fans out there who crave something out of the past to be represented with life and urgency and twists on what's expected - and at the same time , for all self-indulgent purposes , keeping true to what is solid about the emotional filmgoing experience . |
509,557 | 453,068 | 71,411 | 10 | a tribute to the endurance of man and nature , featuring a masterpiece of a performance | For a variety of reasons ( that are well known in the darker period of the director's history at this time ) , Akira Kurosawa left Japan to make a film in Russia ( Siberia to be exact ) . Instead of an epic action picture , he went to one of his other passions as a storyteller - the drama of pure humanity ( like Ikiru and Red Beard , this film follows in that vein ) . The film runs two hours and twenty minutes , but it is a kind of epic story , that does have that pulse of adventure from his other films . But this time he combines that method of a big , spacious environment in the wild with a deep character study . His craftsmanship as a ' painter ' of the frame is top-notch as always ( all pretensions aside , he is one of the masters at finding the textures and moods in a scene's look as in its character and action ) , and the use of locations brings a quality that directors today would brush aside with via special and visual effects . Simply put , it is one of , if not the , ultimate testaments to man vs / with nature , with a character that remains one of the most memorable that Kurosawa's envisioned . To give an idea of who Dersu Uzala is to someone who hasn't seen the film , picture Yoda without the ability to lift objects with his mind and to kick ass with a light-saber , but still contains all of the direct wisdom and strength that make him one with his surroundings ( and , as well , uses his own kind of ' force ' for knowledge and defense , and for attack as an ultimately final resort ) . As a lonesome hunter and drifter with a family tragically lost , Dersu comes upon a team of explorers led by Captain Aseniev ( Yuri Solomon , not the best performance but sturdy enough to sustain the physical scenes ) . He goes along with them as a guide of the sights and smells and feelings that the others just can't sense ( out of lack of experience ) . Aseniev and Dersu end up becoming friends as they brace a torrid windstorm over a bare , wintry landscape , as Kurosawa brings out one of his towering sequences ( topping anything David Lean could've drummed up for sure ) . It's always of interest to me to see characters doing things on screen , having to go against the elements that almost dwarf them in the face of nature ( i . e . Cast Away's hour and a half second act ) . Dersu Uzala seems to be of few words and mostly actions , and soon gains respect and admiration after an odd introduction to the team - he shoots with a keener than keen eye , he spots tracks , he sets up protection in the harshest of conditions , and is always a step ahead of the pack . And bringing all this out is actor Maksim Munzuk , who appears here ( like Falconetti in Passion of Joan of Arc ) in the performance of a lifetime out of an otherwise obscure and small career . Munzuk never brings anything to Dersu that isn't in his character , and he makes at least a quarter of the film's success a reality ( the other three-quarters could be attributed to Kurosawa alone ) . He can be tough , smart , funny ( in an off-beat way ) , and if nothing else , humble . But more than anything , Munzuk makes Dersu seem alive in a way no other actor could've accomplished , and also brings out the better in Solomon's performance . The story itself has a superb appeal most of the way , but it is in it's last act that ' Derzu Uzala ' reaches an intensely tragic plane . Dersu does something ( which I won't reveal here and has been discussed elsewhere on the message board ) that brings great shame to his own self-worth . In this part of the film , Kurosawa brings out what can be said to be some of the saddest moments in any of his work , however not without logic . While it was likely a major dramatic function in the novel , Kurosawa doesn't just throw these last twenty minutes or so to let steam flow out of the picture . I sensed something almost cathartic about these scenes , that rose the qualities of the rest of the story to a higher level , to one of almost spiritual in nature . It's hard to really pin-point to one who has not seen the film ( and , indeed , I have seen the film all of one time ) . But once its over , you may feel you have seen a work far more rewarding than imaginable - even in awe . |
508,904 | 453,068 | 51,378 | 10 | naturalistic to a T , cool to the bone , atmosphere and suspense pay-off | I've only seen a couple of other of Louis Malle's films , but I'm sure I'll want to see more after getting to see this in its revival in theaters . It's an ironic , tense , a little aloof and engrossing thriller that plays on a couple of expectations if not all . At times I almost felt like I was watching a darker , dramatic French-noir version of Curb Your Enthusiasm ; you're cringing in your seat at times because everything , at least for the first hour , seems realistic , and the inter-cutting between the three plot-lines ( Julien in the elevator , Florence on the streets , the lovers-on-the-run at the Motel ) . You know something bad will happen , as par for the style Malle is working in ( it's his first film , one can / can't tell if they didn't know beforehand ) . But it interested me , and kept me in my seat , how I knew things may unravel as they should in these films , and I found myself having to root for someone in a sea of anti-heroes . I mention Curb Your Enthusiasm as there is a sort of everyday occurrence that basically kicks off the plot ( in tune with the genius title of the film ) , as Julien Tavaneur gets stuck in an elevator after getting rid of Florence Carala's rich husband ( Moreau's character ) . Two kids , one more dangerous ( if a little inexplicable , Louis ) than the other , steal his car and stay at a Motel , where they meet a genial German tourist . Out of bad luck ( as it is a running theme of the play ) , he kills the German , and things get more out of hand for everybody . In fact , the plot is rather thin , leaving room for a ) suspense tenseness in the elevator scenes ( and later in the interrogation scene , superbly lit ) , b ) narrative musings by the calm Moreau , or c ) troubles of the kids . These narratives are handled well , along with the typical police procedural , and it leads up to an ending that may not necessarily have a message to it . It can't be as pat as ' crime doesn't pay ' . Moreau , in a classy close-up , says things that struck a chord with me , as did many parts of the film . It may be fate , as par for the naturalism , but is there something behind the cool veneer ? The only downside for me was with the performance of the actor who played Louis . I didn't think he gave enough to what is indeed a rather small-minded character . The actress who plays his girlfriend fares fine , but he is one of the keys to the film , and I felt a little uneasy watching some of his scenes later on in the film . But still , any fault ( s ) I had with the film were minuscule when looking at how it is overall . This is one of those films that for pretty much the whole way through had me in its grip ; I've rarely felt that watching a ' film-noir ' before , but I did feel a very small kinship to another love / lust / cold-murder film , Blood Simple , which leaped off of some of the conventions we all know and admire in these films . And the contribution from Miles Davis , who is to ' cool ' as the Beatles are to love & peace , can't be over-estimated . If Moreau gives the film a kind of downtrodden , wandering and wondering soul , and Malle gives the right look of the film with the great Henri ( Le Samourai ) Decae as DP , Davis backs up everything else . Sometimes his fast , overwhelming notes come through ( mostly as on-the-set background music ) , and his slower music is landmark stuff , but what's surprising is that he can also add suspense , like to the elevator and interrogation scenes , and the mood is inescapable . I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few filmmakers who saw this film were inspired by Malle's use of free-flow jazz to add to the ' cool-ness ' of the picture ( not that he was the first of course , but it can be spotted in many films , in particular Herrmann's score for Taxi Driver ) . I have a feeling this may be the kind of film that will play better on multiple viewings , and for now I'm content to say it was a very well-spent trip . |
507,852 | 453,068 | 82,694 | 10 | truly threatening anarchic villains and action that doesn't feel like it'll stop | Mad Max 2 : The Road Warrior ( called just the second title on the copy I saw it , just as well as I've yet to see the first Mad Max film yet ) is more often than not tremendous movie-making in a kind of exploitation style of post - apocalyptic - punk - science - fiction - action , et all , that strikes where the iron is usually hot . At the core of the film is a message , sort of , at the real cost and drive , no pun intended , for oil . It's all about that , to be sure , today , and in 1982 the case made for it makes it probably even more prevalent sci-fi than Blade Runner , also released that year . Going into it , I heard about the over-the-top antagonists ( Humungus , ho-ho ) and startling action , and I thought in expectation that I might get a really nifty biker movie . It wasn't that , but it was the first two parts . It's also got Mel Gibson in his early years in truly one of his very best parts . He doesn't have to say much , like a " no-name " Eastwood or other , and when he does the camera often tracks up fast to him , as what he has to say - one sentence and all - make up crucial turning points for the plot . And what plot is minimal , to be sure . Gibson's Max happens upon a petrol factory , where a group of people holding up with the refinery are hassled and told to give up their stash of oil by a group of road warriors led by Jason-like-masked Humungus ( Kjell Nilsson , boy can he shoot and attack and act really creepy when he talks ) , and headed up by the mohawked madman Wez ( Vernon Wells , who ridiculous and all is one of the best and most terrifying villains of any action film ) . Max , however , will help them out on certain conditions , i . e . getting his car back from them and enough fuel , by getting another truck to haul the oil away . Sometimes the acting isn't very top notch , but then why bother to carp ? Miller's strong suits are getting the right atmosphere of the film , a unique Australian wasteland in the desert populated by all outsiders - even the ' good guys ' - and creating enough sustained chaos through it all . It's suffice to say that even if you liked the first one more , it's still a worthwhile experience for the completely and unfathomably engrossing last twenty minutes as the battle wages on . At times this comes off more like a war movie ( well , road WARRIOR in the title ) , and as such Miller and his actors make it very exciting and scary in equal measures . What helps though is that a sense of absolute absurdism is underneath the very tough exterior of it all - I'm sure Miller knows how silly Humungus looks and sounds , and it's refreshing to be able to laugh at the villainous characters - at times - and even at a couple of extremely random moments . It's got Mel Gibson giving off just the right ' star ' presence , and he goes along very well as the real outsider in this struggle of the story . Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior a truly dynamic film that I want to watch again with friends . |
508,663 | 453,068 | 86,589 | 10 | Insightful and Entertaining - One of the best films of the 80's | The Wild Side ( I personally know it as Suburbia ) is a very well done film . It may not have a lot of heart or plot or other things some good films have , but it does have one thing - attitude . And that is something that counts in this type of film . It also has some good acting ( Flea makes his screen debut in this film ) and good scene design . And I think the film is insightful because it shows ordinary film buffs about a world not many of us know or want to know about - the world of punks . The film does have plenty of drama to go around ( if you don't believe me , just look at the first scene where a rabid dog attacks a defenseless baby ) and even though it doesn't have enough heart to back it up , it brings it back up with it's cool punk rock scenes , stylish techniques , and other small things . In short , besides Wayne's World , this is Penelope Spheeris ' best film yet and most likely nothing like this will come around again . |
508,889 | 453,068 | 121,765 | 10 | The final fight is worth it , but it may be the real underrated Star Wars movie | I say that comment in full understanding that this film isn't perfect ; the love story at times reminded me of something out of a Hallmark love movie , and Hayden Christensen as the padewan Anakin shows how the right looks and attitudes still need some better acting choices to make it work right . Yet , after viewing it in an almost packed theater , and a few times since at home , I am assured it is a return to form after the very good but lacking TPM . Director / Co-writer George Lucas returns to the vivacity and great visual splendor he had in his original trilogy , and thank goodness , Jar Jar Binks was kept very minimal here . This time there's room for some new creations , though more than anything it's more of a mystery movie than anything else - also one of loss . I know I shouldn't give away spoilers , and the one line summary might give away enough , but I will say that it was a better idea than I expected to see Yoda in computer animation . Oz's original puppetry can't be touched , but with all things considered the animation team and designers matched up to the work that was cut out for them . Whether you view this movie in regular projection or digital or in a full-screen TV cut is irrelevant . Lucas just filmed it in digital film to give those in digital theaters a bit more of a kick and if you see it on a regular screen won't matter in difference . Bottom line , if you felt a little cheated from Phantom Menace , this will bring back the believer in you that a story can be told in absorbing and cool fashion while delivering awesome graphics and action , not to mention a fantastic lot of new visuals that help tell a basically good story . That it still has a couple of acting ticks should try to be overlooked |
510,772 | 453,068 | 40,275 | 10 | I didn't know what to expect from this , and it's really a nifty short | They Caught the Ferry is a superb little exercise in filming and editing to maximum potential . According to the summary , it was meant as a propaganda piece against fast driving in Denmark . Going into it I had no idea that would be what it's about , maybe it would be some quick doc on ferries . Turns out it gives the director Carl TH Dreyer much to work with in little time and resources . All he has is a few opening and closing shots of a ferry , with the filler being a couple on a motorcycle . It starts off mundanely enough , not even bothering with things like really establishing character or a story . In a way it's in common with Passion of Joan of Arc by it being a simple , fatalistic situation unfolding . Like that film as well , it could just as well function as a silent work with its very brief , interesting but unimportant dialog , and it's style more akin to that era's reaches for a visual freedom . The numerous shots of the field going by , the two on the motorcycle , the intensity that starts to slowly build ( there's no music ) with what might come of these characters in pursuit of their goal . It's not too far out or over-stylized , however , and it's more in tune with cinema verite at times , bordering on it being quite ahead of its time ; shots like these pop up close to being this good in today's movies with more resources and time . Obviously not one to be seen by many as it's on a DVD with an equally obscure silent film from the 20s , but it's definitely worth the ten minutes if you got it . |
509,433 | 453,068 | 937,237 | 10 | won't be for everyone - it's an experimental drama-documentary by Brian De Palma - but it has an effectiveness in a ' lack ' of style | The legendary words of Marshall MacLoughan , " The media IS the message " , couldn't be further seen played out as in Redacted , Brian De Palma's latest film which ventures the director back into his experimental early days as a filmmaker in New York city . In his film , the media is the message , but only in part - it's about how media is used , or how subjective perceptions are taken into account , for coverage of a conflict which ironically enough has not had the kind of coverage seen in America as in the local Iraq and European media . But what stays true to De Palma as an auteur is the idea of voyeurism , or the watchers and the audience as the ones who continue to watch , and like Godard with his video experiments , Redacted is about its subject but it's also about process . Like Blair Witch Project , we're seeing things " as-they-happen " by the view-point of a camera that a soldier , Angel , is carrying and using as an in to get into film school someday . This might be enough for a film covering a horrible tragic turn of events like depicted in Redacted , where two soldiers rape a teenager and kill and burn her and her baby sister . But De Palma's story , based on real events which were " fictionalized " up to a point only for legal reasons , indicts the whole process of viewing things through the filter of the lens . Of course there are moments when the characters realize that they're on video , and suddenly they either get irate and continue acting as themselves , or they start to posture for the camera . Instead of the carefully plotted and directed shots of films like Dressed to Kill or Carlito's Way ( or , for that matter , the similar-in-premise Casualties of War ) we get the messiness of raw camera-work from the soldier , the embedded journalists , the news media covering the story , web-casts obviously out of you-tube , and as the one " official " kind of film-making a French documentary crew doing a film on the group of soldiers covering the checkpoint . It's suffice to say that this technique is almost a comment on itself , and it's one of the curious ideas behind the experiment of Redacted that makes it interesting . We know that when a security camera or when Angel's camera put on a seat meant to be shut off captures objectively what's going on - like the " what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas " scene or the plot to go after the family . But there's an inverse to this as well since De Palma is filming this with a script and with actors ( who arguably are good at being naturalistic two-dimensional soldiers ) , since there is a stylization , yet without calling attention to the self-consciousness the audience feels during this . And meanwhile , De Palma makes his anti-war film gripping in the unexpected places ; a hard-ass sergeant who gets blown up without any warning at all ; the death of one of the soldiers as revenge from a terrorist group ; the scene with Flake and Rush where they take the camera themselves and ( as proof beyond a doubt that war and repeated tours of duty have made them bat-s ) defend themselves while attempting to praise a fallen brother while one wears a duck hat . One almost hopes the experiment would work even better as one of the director's best , which ultimately it isn't . Certain tactics , like making evident the pretentiousness of the French documentary by having Barry Lyndon orchestrations playing over , or the girl on the fake you-tube site blasting the soldiers , just don't work at all . And a few of the performances could use some tweaking . But Redacted , I think , has some bad rap attached to it . It's not simply about the obvious , which is that war is hell and brings out the absolute worst out of human beings who have no control over themselves once pushed beyond reason . It's also about the means of viewing something of the ultimate routine nightmare like a checkpoint , or the rape of the girl ( so much that Angel can't even watch as the " fly on the wall " ) , or a questioning , that makes it a significant effort . De Palma distinguishes his film , for better or worse , by adding the connotation of what it means to watch , or what it means to get on record , or what it does to break the ' fourth wall ' while questioning it during it . It has the same free-form ambition of De Palma's best experimental work - Hi , Mom ! - if not much a great film in the end . One thing's for sure - it's in a rightful place playing only in one theater in New York city ; it's the kind of work that is hard to market beyond playing as an experimental piece . Ironically , as of late , it's been attacked by Bill O'Reilly WHILE it's being advertised during the show ! Talk about counter-programming for an audience that , for the most part , until it's out on DVD , won't have a lick of what the picture really entails . Message ? |
508,568 | 453,068 | 121,766 | 10 | the final installment | There's something about the Star Wars movies that have reached a grand culmination with Revenge of the Sith , the final installment of the prequel trilogy , and of Star Wars completely as a saga - the storytelling has reached a peak ( much like with the other two masterpieces A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back ) . The visual effects , the sound , the music , all of the background elements are perfectly suited to tell the story . Of course this is how it also went with Episodes 1 , 2 and 6 , but this time George Lucas has reached a peak with the visual effects that has been increasing since Episode 1 . Some of the visuals may be more formidable and concrete than others , however as a viewer I was completely wrapped in the story most of all , emotionally and even intellectually . And , of course , the challenge is to still make an entertaining , compelling film with what everyone who's seen a Star Wars movie knows is the climax - Anakin Skywalker turns into Darth Vader , and Skywalker offspring become separated at birth amid the end of the Jedi and the democracy of the republic . The journey is what counts , and it's a spectacular journey . I would even go as far to say that for one not expecting much from the ashes of the first two entries , this is not only one of the top pictures in the saga , it's also one of the best films of the year . I would dare not to reveal anything crucial to the story , except to say that the story takes shape of Anakin Skywalker ( played with a crucial bravado and intensity by Hayden Christensen ) and his path to the dark side . All of the supporting and key players - Obi-Won Kenobi ( Ewan McGregor , terrific as always ) , Chancellor Palpatine ( Ian McDiarmid , perhaps one of the key villains in recent movie history ) , Padme ( Natalie Portman , a dependable force ) , and the usual cast of characters ( i . e . R2-D2 , C-3P0 , Chewbacca ) - come together to add more to the vision of the film than I could've guessed . One of the only flaws of the past two prequel episodes was the borderline edge of falling into melodrama by way of some of the dialog and characterizations . This time none of that is on the table , as it is indeed a space opera more than anything else . And , Lucas also connects with the Shakespearian qualities of his story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker , and by doing that the film reaches even more power . To put it another way , by way of the hypnotic , strange special f / x , the chilling score by John Williams , and the strengths of Lucas ' storytelling talents that have been strongest throughout the films ( even during the Jar-Jar and Ewok bits ) , Revenge of the Sith can keep one on the edge of their seat , almost catching for breath . Would this mean that a non-Star Wars fan could come to this movie and find it a good movie ? It's hard to say , as it almost requires that you have seen one or two of the previous films . But should the film be suffice to feed the fans of the series , especially those who doubt Lucas ' mind after 1 & 2 ? Absolutely - at the least for the battle / fight sequences , two of which I would rank up there with the first Death Star attack and Luke vs . Vader in ' Empire ' . I guess it's part of that simplicity of a Saturday Matinée serial that Lucas wanted to capture that has made the saga so appealing to millions of people . This isn't exactly the most ' simple ' film of the lot , and it's arguable whether the PG-13 rating was worthy from the content . But , as some would argue for Return of the King with the Lord of the Rings , ' Sith ' does what is practically has to do - take the story full-circle and give the people a good show , while at the same time making Star Wars , as one big movie , feel all the greater . |
508,069 | 453,068 | 144,084 | 10 | One of the Best films of the year | American Psycho is a terrific film . I got a lot more than I expected from a horror film . It turns out to be a satire about a narcasistic businessman who has a hobby for killing . I wathced as Christian Bale gave his best performance yet , and I realized his vanity in the film was enough to be a psycho . I guess the killings justify the means . Still , the way I saw his life made me feel a little bit better because he is a maniac in a tie ( what other killer would talk about Sting , Whitney Houston or Huey Louis and the News before ending their life-span ) . Still , his antics are mesmerizing , entertaining , and sometimes even humorous ( in a demented way ) . One of the best of the year . |
508,482 | 453,068 | 71,315 | 10 | As coolly intense and exceptionally-staged as any detective story / film-noir of the 40's & 50's | Chinatown is a tremendous collaborative effort that produced one of the most memorable Hollywood pictures of the 1970's . Director Roman Polanski ( his last film in America , and the first he made in America after the murder of Sharon Tate ) , stars Jack Nicholson & Faye Dunaway , and writer Robert Towne , all come together to create a detective story classic . At times it slows its pace down so the viewer can think along with Nicholson's character , to take in the environment as well as the situation he's in ( i . e . when he goes to the empty reservoir , when he visits Noah Crosses house the first time ) . And the script has the perfect sense of drawing us into a story , fueled by curiosity , grit , and cynicism , and engages the viewer by its realistic dialog between the characters . J . J . Gittes ( Nicholson , in one of his best 70's performances ) is in Los Angeles circa 1933 in the line of private investigator , usually dealing with people who may or may not believe that their significant other is having an affair . Evelyn Mulwray feels this may be the case with her husband Hollis , and Gittes decides to take the case . However , this draws him into a deeper case involving the city's loss of water once Hollis - a major player in the water supply controversy in the city - is found murdered . This eventually leads him to Noah Cross ( John Huston ) , a big businessman and who also happens to be Evelyn's father . Intrigue starts to develop , as Jake's own life begins to be at risk . As a intricate , detailed detective story the film is an above-average work , with Towne's script containing the maturity , and wicked sense of humor , of a James M . Cain or Raymond Chandler novel . When the thrills come they come as being striking . And when humanity and compassion get thrown into the mix , the film reaches a whole other plane of intelligence . The last third of the film could turn off some of the audience ( depending on one's own level of belief ) , but it holds strong thanks to the performances . Nicholson doesn't over-step his bounds in any scene , finding the right notes in suggestive conversations . Dunaway is better than expected ( though I'm not sure if it's an great performance ) . And Huston's Noah Cross is one of the more disturbing villains of that period in movies . Add to it some good cameos ( Burt Young as a driver , Polanski playing the little guy in the infamous ' knife ' scene ) , and a smooth soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith , Chinatown comes out as strong piece of movie-making , and arguably one of the greatest in the crime / mystery genre . |
509,339 | 453,068 | 366,548 | 10 | what Mad Max / The Road Warrior was to the action / exploitation picture , Happy Feet is to the animated family / comedy / musical : Miller's back ! | Wow , was all I had to say after leaving this movie . I mention the director , George Miller , in the opening one line because it's of note , at least in my line of thinking , to notice where the bending-genre-conventions comes from for Happy Feet . We have seen this , to be sure , in the Babe pictures , where a pig went to great lengths to show that he was more than what his environment defined himself as . But there's even the sense of the outsider coming to save the day , against all odds , ala Mad Max in those crazy Australian films . And , like all of those previous works , Happy Feet actually works , very well , and not just for one set . Going into it maybe my expectations weren't too high , despite seeing Miller's name on the credits - his first directing a practically all-animated ( computer no less , in a time where it's as common as bugs in a tree stump ) - because seeing commercials I thought it would just be another cute kids movie . It also has penguins , which I thought would be sort of appealing , and the possibility that Robin Williams might finally get some good voice time in more than one role . Boy does he ever , but the film has much more for its whole audience , including even some political commentary amid the wild comedy and set pieces . What I ended up getting was some kind of bizarre , unique hybrid of the central concept of Dumbo ( the loner cast-aside from his world , has to use his individuality , likely an influence of the Babe pictures ) , the jukebox mania of something akin to Moulin Rouge , the facts and environment of March of the Penguins ( to be sure , as one can't separate one without the other ) , and even current events . We get the story of Mumble ( Babe voice EG Daily , and Elijah Wood ) , who is born from an Elvis impresario ( Hugh Jackman ) and a supportive mother ( Nicole Kidman ) , in a world where all the penguins sing , not just for mating but for some kind of right to live and hunt for fish . Mumble , however , can only dance , fantastically ( in style via Savion Glover behind the scenes ) , but it doesn't sit well with Noah ( Hugo Weaving ) , head of the elder penguins . He's first cast out by his fellow penguins for not fitting in , and being a terrible singer . He meets up with outsider penguins ( headed by Ramon , voice by Williams , in one of the roles ) , and tries to appeal back to the group of penguins - knowing that aliens are involved somewhere . But when he's rejected again , even more harshly , his journey to find the aliens goes on , which leads to . . . Oh , what's the use . To go on about the plot would be fruitless , but you might get the idea from reading this how silly the movie sounds - at first . But I think Miller and his team are going for a smart ridiculous spirit , one that is actually successfully irreverent for all ages , which is one of the toughest things that any filmmaker can try for . Even tougher is to see Robin Williams tackle roles and actually succeed comically . But it's his best , most rip-roaringly hilarious ( and I don't use the former term lightly ) performance since Aladdin . He goes between a solemn narrator , Ramon the penguin , and Lovelace , the possible link to everything with the ' aliens ' . The musical side of things could be a challenge too , as it is in the Moulin Rouge mode of not being at all original-songs , but done in an extreme , over-the-top manner with the visuals . Imagine dozens and dozens of penguins singing " Somebody to Love " by Queen , sounds risky , but it actually works , well . In fact , Happy Feet does what Moulin Rouge did better than that film actually went for - it's a pop-culture shake-up for characters who see humans as aliens , most especially due to a lack of food . But then there's even the touch of political commentary , which is most surprising . It would be one thing to have an over the top fantasy comedy with bits of romance thrown in ( and there's even some genre-breaking with what ends up between Mumble and Gloria ) , but it's another to be making a kind of underlying point to it all that while lost on the kids won't be lost to some in the audience . This is even something that goes back to the Road Warrior , only here it's perhaps not as explicit - one could read into the ' leader ' penguins who cast out Mumble with his ' outsider ' friends who are not at all like the others , or the significance when Mumble finally comes back from his self-imposed mission , as being like the now - and the control over what the fish does to the group . But that's only a side-bar - however interesting - for what's really appealing about Happy Feet . It's unexpectedly , even outrageously in its silly way , funny , and it's based totally on the characters , and building on it how ridiculous - yet within the logic of the picture believable - how singing / dancing penguins can be in this world . Too often , especially in 2006 , the slew of computer-animated movies for kids that just don't seem appealing . Granted , I'm not a tot anymore , but just on the level of anything in the subject matter being anything more than ' hey , they're animals , they make stupid jokes , its worth it ' is lost on me . Happy Feet stands above all the other animated pictures of this year , including Pixar's work , by delivering truly successfully excitement and absurdity in equal measure , while not doing so to a lower common denominator . I can't wait to recommend this to most of the people I know , and they're not even kids . Miller - welcome to the 21st century ! |
508,354 | 453,068 | 94,226 | 10 | still at the top of my De Palma list ; stellar cast with a tight ball of a script | Among the top five films of 1987 , and filmmaker Brian De Palma's career , is the Untouchables , a firecracker kind of Hollywood film that gives the story of Elliot Ness versus Al Capone some great panache . And it's the kind of great film that is so only through the combined efforts of everybody , not just De Palma , even as it is his vision ( sometimes playfully homage-like , as I'll mention in a moment ) , but his cast , crew , and the script by David Mamet . The cast here includes Kevin Costner , in one of his three or four passably good performances , in the Ness part ( like his later Jim Garrison role , the confident if a bit conflicted hero ) ; De Niro in a ham-bone best as Capone , with one of the more eye-opening and funny scenes he's ever done ( eg with a bat ) ; Charles Martin Smith and Andy Garcia in juicy supporting roles . And then one comes to Sean Connery , in his deserved Oscar winning turn as Irish cop turned Ness partner Jim Malone , who has the toughest words and the biggest guts of the group . It's in his work here , where he has some of that confidence of past performances into a very real character that makes it quite a piece . Aside from the sheer presence of a star like Connery on screen , there's some depth he gives to the character too , just as De Niro does with his choices as an actor ( even if his role is the larger-than-life one ) . De Palma , at his disposal as a craftsman , has good editors and camera people working alongside him , as well as Ennio Morricone on music ( a small ' yey ' emits from my mind ) . Through them his film is a slick , but not overbearingly at all , kind of 1930's Hollywood picture , with a story of the cops versus robbers , in some unconventional circumstances . The centerpiece of the climax , De Palma's homage to Eistenstein's Battleship Potemkin , is operatic and grandiose and puts the drama of what was in real life likely quite different into a spectacular sequence , is as entertaining as it could be . While it's not the only action sequence in the film , one could point to just that one sequence as being a true highlight of doing homage well . In truth it's been a little while since I've seen the Untouchables , and maybe even longer since I've seen it from start to finish ( and , unfortunately , never on a big screen ) . But I wouldn't dare to tell you not to watch it if you haven't yet . |
508,295 | 453,068 | 49,010 | 10 | one of the under-looked classics of the 1950s | I don't know much about cortisone , but from seeing Nicholas Ray's film Bigger Than Life I can have to guess that unless there have been some major medical breakthroughs in the 50 years since this came out , it should have a very huge warning label on the bottle . But it isn't really about cortisone , per-say , even as it does make its case convincingly for the times that such new drugs to possibly help save lives become a double-edged sword . The drug could be anything , it's merely a catalyst for character and story to go into completely un-bound turns . The Avery family could , in fact , be a Beaver-Cleaver household of the fifties , where ' father knows best ' is often a given and the house is as beautiful and elegant - in its suburban middle-class way - as is the outward appearances of the husband , wife and son . But the same catalyst , for the intents and purposes of the changes in all the characters , is utterly fascinating . I couldn't help but actually care about these people , as their sort of sheltered existence became un-covered like some kind of manhole into some metaphoric sewer that many of us sit in . There is something under the surface , and it's one wrong thing that can make it go awry . Ed Avary ( James Mason ) is such a man , who is a school-teacher and cab-driver operator ( on the side , keeping from his wife ) . He starts getting ' episodes ' , and has to go to the hospital . It's discovered that he has to live with a heart condition for the rest of his life , and only a new experimental drug , cortisone , can help with regular doses . It doesn't take too long though for things to start going south with Ed , and at first it just seems like he's a little more ornery , a little more on edge , but seemingly trying to still be the old Ed . But then there's his new school-teaching system , and the inducing and steadily increasing paranoia lifting the fog for him what his marriage really means . " I'm only staying now for the boy ! " he says in a rage at the dinner table . It becomes clear that he's in the psychosis state , in doing too much of the cortisone , and it lifts not only the comfort of this life , but the expectations and ideals of this seemingly calm , perfunctory existence . There were other pictures around this time being made in Hollywood , within but at the same time under the conventional radars ( Sirk comes to mind , though still unseen by me ) . Bigger Than Life is a great example of this , and Ray and Mason get right to the bones of it in the main chunk of the picture . Early on though its interesting to see how the tranquility is set up , and how the first barbs of bad things to come is sort of shielded over , to seem like it's nothing , like it'll be all OK . But the implications that both director and star raise through what they deliver through the material is staggering . On Ray's side , he accentuates things exceptionally by the deception of appearances ; it may be a studio-film , with the usual medium-shots and high-glossy lighting and camera moves , yet there's some room for expression , like the shadow that looms over Avary's son during an ultra-tense study session . His command over the style is shown here as one of his finest and , at times , even understated . Though finally in the climax he goes full-throttle , in a scene of ( possible ) horror that's given the full subjective treatment . Mason , meanwhile , is really at the top of his game , and it's extremely terrifying to see not just how far he can go into losing all touch with his own reality , but the reality of the usual in distortion . Even through the cortisone , Mason has this character come off at first as a braggart , but sort of believable at a PTA meeting ( Matthau's gym teacher friend finds something fishy though ) , and then it doesn't take too long for him to plunge head first into his dementia . A small scene like the one where he gets an extra prescription from his doctor , however , also shows his subtleties . Barbara Rush is also very good as his wife Lou , who as an actress successfully strips away the layers of the very kind , warm , and utmost dutiful wife , and has to actually , finally take charge of things , and do things she wouldn't possibly dream usually , like deception . The son , played by Christopher Olson , might be the weakest link of the three , as he has a character who is , of course , just a boy , and even more put to the extreme test by his father's downward spiral . Even with that it's still a believable turn . It's a piece of subversion that works all the better because of the hidden ambiguities of the ending . The whole facade of things seemingly being this way or another , is like one big joke on the audience . But it's not really a funny one ; Ray is in your face with his audience , and it's not in a retrospect way either . Things are not all honky-dory in the Eisenhower era , is what Ray says at the core , and at the end it can hardly be read that everything will turn out well for the family . The implications made are much more stronger and lasting than the actual perceived outcome . Will things be under control with the Avary's ? Who knows , is what Ray is saying , or that maybe we can learn from mistakes . But the fact that the facade came down like an avalanche is the point . It's even more surprising then to know that this picture is only available on bootlegs , through certain vendors , only occasionally on TV . If you can find it though , it's a real little ruby of a studio picture . |
510,399 | 453,068 | 63,611 | 10 | one of the great war films ( for the art-house ) | Shame is rather unique as a war film ( or rather quite the anti-war film ) in that it not only doesn't focus on the soldiers or politics involved ( there is politics but not how you'd think it'd be shown ) , it deals with its two main subjects as the only two beings that can possibly be cared about at all in this brutal , decaying society they inhabit . Ingmar Bergman , in the midst of his prime , and following two other heavily psychological films , Persona and Hour of the Wolf , is far more interested in seeing what the effect of war has on usually civilized beings , that it brings out the worst in them , and also in a cathartic way is a reminder of what is truly crucial in living . His two key actors are frequent collaborators and friends Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman ( as the Rosenbergs oddly enough ) , who are musicians living on a farm on an island ( not too dissimilar from ' Wolf ' when one thinks about it ) . They see the tanks roll by , and a couple of old friends already getting worn down , but they try not to put it too much to heart ; there's a sweet scene where the couple just talk , rather frankly but with heart ( all one shot , as is repeated through the film is to perhaps create a sense of being provoked ) . . . Then comes the trouble , including a fake film of propaganda made at gunpoint with the Rosenbergs , the psychological turmoil in being prisoners of war , and the terror involved with a ' friend ' in the military ( one of Gunnar Bjornstrand's most subtle works with Bergman ) . Needless to say this is not one of the easier films to go through in terms of Bergman's filmography , however for some it may be one of his more accessible works . His religious themes this time is kept very low key , even as the idea of keeping a sort of faith pervades the film's atmosphere . When there is war action it's shot in unconventional , quick ways ( via great amigo Sven Nykvist ) . And the deconstruction of the relationship between Jan and Eva is corresponded successfully with the backdrop of a chaotic kind of war-ground where the lines are never too surely drawn . In a way this film , shot right at the height of the worst times in Vietnam , is even more relevant for today ; I couldn't help but see chilling , uncompromising coincidences between Iraq and elsewhere with some of Jan and Eva's scenes with the fighters , or those ' in charge ' . The very last scene , by the way , is one of Bergman's very best , all around ( acting , directing , lighting ) . It's not the kind of war picture ( or , again , anti-war , I find little of the John Wayne spirit in this Svensk production ) that I would recommend right off the bat to my friends all into Saving Private Ryan - it has a little more in kinship with Paths of Glory , looking at the effects of the hypocrisy of war . But in reality , like any of Bergman's " genre " films , it stands alone , however one that packs a wallop for the art-house crowd . |
508,955 | 453,068 | 48,308 | 10 | great as spectacle and technical wonder , but also a heartbreaking tale of a lost woman | It is not entirely fair to recommend Lola Montes so highly , or admire it so , since even the version that screened recently at the Film Forum in NYC , purported to be the definitive restoration , is still a truncated version . The original director's cut that premiered in France in 1955 , and then to immediate withdrawal after its " disaster " of a reception at 140 minutes , is no longer available . At the least , it's a saving grace that so much has been saved in this 115 minute cut , considering how many version there are and how they vary with the running time . And , for Pete sake , if by some chance you can see it on the big-screen ( it's soon to leave the Film Forum for its second run following the re-release last October and its re-premiere at the NYFF ) , do so . The filmmaker , Max Ophuls , in what was his unintentional swan song - he died at 55 - shot the hell out of this picture , with director of photography Christian Matras taking the 2 : 35 : 1 frame with new Eastmancolor by the horns and shaking it for all it could be worth within the context of a " vibrant " 19th century costume melodrama bio-pic . The colors all jump off so splendidly , with such a force that compels one to not have too long of a blink , as to do so would be to miss on little surprises , little things that Ophuls uses in his frame which he careens and swivels and moves around with the freedom of a curious , pleasantly intoxicated fowl . It's one of the first masterpieces of the widescreen color film . But it's not just a great film in technical terms . That would be too easy perhaps for Ophuls , who uses this backdrop of the sweeping and sensational to pierce through other deeper things going on with the characters . In Lola Montes his character is someone who re-lives what has happened in her relatively short life ( relatively since she's not really " old " in the sense of being tucked away from the public's gaze ) as a main attraction in a French circus . She's an object first and person second in this context , which as one can imagine bustles and throbs with excitement and fun as only something of a cousin to Fellini could be . And yet as a person she's had quite a journey to where she's at : from aristocratic daughter given away to a marriage she has to run away from ( unfaithful husband , figures with a wife who is about as beautiful a being as could be in the immediate vicinity ) , then becomes a ballerina ( her childhood dream ) , and then . . . well , a topic of gossip and scandal , such as romancing a conductor , all ending in Bavaria with her hopes of possibly settling down squandered for good . Hence the circus gig . It's a story that's given that same kaleidoscopic view as in Citizen Kane , but this time with the twist that the protagonist isn't given the sort of " luxury " of already being dead as the story of a life is sifted through and given a LARGER-than-LIFE context . Lola's story is a spectacle , sometimes farce , sometimes legend , sometimes one of those too-much-to-believe sagas that keeps those glued to their seats while Lola also entertains with trapeze work ! And yet under the blue lights , under the costume changes and other mock-ups and even the Q & A sessions that the ringmaster holds with the audience and Lola , the soul of this woman is about as " there " as a near-empty gas tank . She may still be alive , but it's a kind of limbo that would be too insane if it weren't true and played out to full spectacle and extravaganza . As said , this is a work of true technical mastery , and there's one amazing camera move or one amazing little direction ( I just smiled ear to ear seeing in the opening how the circus performers rolled out , and it stayed for a solid five minutes ) . But , too , Ophuls has an engaging , wonderful actress on top of having a complete knockout visually : Martine Carol , who I'm not sure I've seen outside of this film , pulls out a performance that wavers between weepy , flustered , driven , elegant , tortured , calm and hiding back hysteria . It's half diva and half substantially undermined human soul , and she pulls it off like it's the performance of a life . Good marks also go to Peter Ustinov as the Ringmaster , chugging along through a script that he knows almost too well ( we get very amusing asides with one of the " little " people in the red costumes trying to get their change back from him mid-act ) , and the actor who played the Bavarian king . In Ophuls hands , they're not just other pieces of the set , but actors who work so diligently to make this all one cohesive piece . And , really , that's what makes Lola Montes ultimately so remarkable . Ophuls has moments of melodrama , maybe so much so that one will have to really love costume-period-melodrama flicks to really appreciate it ( I actually don't usually , this is an exception ) , and at the same time they all work as part of this story about what lies behind the pomp and circumstance . You can get lost from time to time in this movie , and it's thrilling to get wrapped up in it . And as well as an artistic achievement of considerable proportions , it's a really fun movie to boot . |
509,203 | 453,068 | 75,314 | 10 | A Disturbing and Powerful Masterpiece | Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is a riveting , disturbing and powerful masterpiece of a film that gives new meaning to the word " snapped " . The scenes , quotes and characters are legendary and so is this film giving breakthrough performances to Albert Brooks , Jodie Foster , and of course , Robert De Niro . De Niro plays Travis Bickle , a disturbed taxi driver who drives his taxi all around new York City going crazier every day . He also meets Iris ( AKA Easy ) played by Foster who is also disturbed , but in a not as good way . And what the story leads up to is one of the most memorable pieces of cinema ever . The film is great , the score by Bernard Hermann ( his last ) is excellent , and the feeling , and atmosphere is perfect . So , " are you talking to me " ? |
508,230 | 453,068 | 59,719 | 10 | a plum of a little film | Here is one of the ultimate tales in Christian parody-parables : Luis Bunuel , who partially made a career out of ridiculing ( though in good dramatic / comedic measure ) the church , made this film about a man ( Simon of the title ) who stands a-top a column to get closer to God . He gains the total attention and praise ( and prayer ) of the locals , who visit him daily . But a problem confronts him in the form of Satan , or rather a sultry seductress , bringing him temptations galore . When she finally brings her torment upon him to the ultimate , it takes him to the most unusual of places ( in particular unusual for a Bunuel film , who mostly has his films of this period set in the early 20th or 19th century ) . This is indeed one of the director's most carefully controlled and sometimes cringe-inducing black comedies , one that starts off so dramatically and sincerely I thought I was watching a different Bunuel - it's at first reverent and thoughtful , and if I was a Christian I would've been very moved . But as the story then progressed I noticed the utter absurdity of it all - in a way this is like a long Monty Python sketch only done with a boat-load more of subtlety to Simon's plight . This is a man in total conflict , portrayed well by Claudio Brook , very straight-faced or trying to through it all . The Devil as well , Silvia Pinal , is excellent in eliciting these dark emotions out of Simon , who has to be literally a pillar of strength for these people . The climax of the film , which you will know if you read the film's plot summary here , is one of the superb strokes of genius in any film from Bunuel - at first sight of what he does in his transition of the story is outrageous ( in the best possible way ) , then when it settles into its manic drive of the sequence it's hilarious , then exhilarating , and then finally something that is underlying in many of Bunuel's films - hipness . It's a whole collision of emotions that come with this scene , and it works as a fitting end to this strange , funny allegory-cum-satire of quasi-religious figures and their worshipers . If you find this film in your video store or browsing around online , it's worth to check out for a 45 minute view into the mind of the religious side of Bunuel : wicked , knowing , and in an ironic and touching way very understanding of what these people went through in those old times and what continues today in decadence . |
509,426 | 453,068 | 17,075 | 10 | the " first Hitchcock film " is a taut , visually expressive and even darkly funny serial killer feature | Alfred Hitchcock's the Lodger finds the master of suspense , at 27 , already with an instant knack at mounting suspense and dread , often with some startling camera movements , not to mention the moments of gallows humor . It's exhilarating to see Hitchcock , in a silent film no less , stage the implied murder of a woman by showing movement , shadow , a pause , then a seemingly over-the-top close-up of the woman screaming , then cutting to the next day or whatever . He makes a street corner look downright vicious and creepy , and I'm sure in the intended blue-tinted scenes it's something of a minor revelation on escalating the thriller of the period into art ( the version available on the most recent DVD , as an ' extra ' on the DVD of Sabotage , is acceptable at best and at worst is a travesty for collectors who might want the best musical score or digital treatment of a transfer ) . It's the classic story of Jack the Ripper , with certain names changed and a slight twist of a jealous romantic plot common to Hitchcock films - here he's called the " Avenger - and it concerns a certain lodger who goes to stay for a bit at a house owned by Mr . and Mrs . Bunting . The lodger is a funny sort of chap , hating the pictures on the wall in his room , saying ominous throwaway words during a chess game , and going out in foggy London at night . The Bunting's daughter likes him , but her fiancée , a detective , is jealous and suspects the lodger to be the deadly Avenger , out killing blonds left and right . The story , despite seeming ( at least on the DVD ) to jump around a little bit in mid-scene , is executed with a level of narrative fluidity I was surprised by . Sometimes in silent films one gets so attracted to just the visual aspects of certain compositions or the star power of the leads that the story loses its way . Here Hitchcock balances the elements , and makes for some good details along the way . There are little things that stand out as interesting techniques or little notes in the storyline . I liked the editing style when we see a crowd gather around the corpse of one of the Avenger . I liked , a lot , seeing a figure walk across what seems like a staircase , but looking upward at him . And I loved seeing a little note of romance , as a character cuts out a little heart-shaped piece of dough and hands it to Daisy ( played by , simply named , ' June ' who is a beauty ) , coaxingly , but then when not accepted right away he rips it in two . A detail like that , or a line of dialog at the end cuing the audience to something " you're toothbrush - you left it behind " makes for a nice touch too . It doesn't hurt either that Ivor Novello makes for a perfectly ambiguous character - the sort you're not totally sure of , watching his every facial gesture like it's another clue , or another devilish intonation . Compared to some of Hitchcock's more beloved classics this is sometimes a little crude in its construction , as well having to be subverted to the sound form ( one wishes a little for the big personalities of Hitchcock's 1930s British films ) . But all things considered , it's essential viewing , and shows the kind of breakthrough work that Hitchcock needed ( i . e . a hit ) that could get the ball rolling on his career in England - and not as a fluke , to be sure . |
510,832 | 453,068 | 448,134 | 10 | a modern classic in the sci-fi genre | This may just be one of those ultra - excited - after - seeing - a - movie moments , but seeing Sunshine is truly a life-affirming experience , because through all the deaths that occur , it ends on a note that is inspiring in a truthful , gut-wrenching way . Edging in as Boyle's best , and at least most visually and ideologically - ambitious film , Sunshine takes science-fiction into the realm of existentialism , and balances out the loss of immediate life with the " big picture " . This one being , of course , a star , omnipresent and as mechanical as the Icarus II ship the crew pilot to their targeted destination , reigniting what has been dying with an explosion the size of Manhattan . The characters in this film are not simply the usual lot that one sees where the characters have to go race against the clock to save the world from annihilation and there's the various personalities on the ship and would-be drama and so on . But Boyle takes on such challenges with the gusto of a modern master . The script , by the way , is also extremely rich in how we actually get completely enveloped - as a character might when coming face to face with the sun - in the constant peril because a ) they're not one-dimensional twits or walking contrivances , and b ) the suspense level is at its highest peak as far as trapped-in-space movies go since Alien ( one of Boyle's major influences , as one can tell ) . But the idea of choice , and bad decisions , and the level of monumental responsibility , is cranked up all the way for these people : that it's not just really all humanity , though there is that , and it's not just planet Earth , though of course there's that as well , but it's as if there's the complex sensation of having to put yourself totally out of the equation , that your own life and the life of the one sitting next to you are as worthless as the last breath taken from a man caught out in space without a suit ( one of the most haunting images in the history of contemporary cinema ) , because of something that is taken so often for granted and is , indeed , something quite abstract . And then , of course , is the character ( I won't spoil anything - as it said in the press packet specifically not to ) who has become totally immersed in his dementia and loss of all hope by thinking he has a direct line to God . Sci-fi films need good ideas , and in fact ideas that can reach up to the level that the director goes to with his vision , to truly succeed . On its own playing field , Sunshine is as masterful as 2001 : A Space Odyssey - and there's even one sequence , probably the only sequence from Kubrick's film that could be called super-suspenseful , that terrifyingly homages it - by navigating along the implications of humanity with a totally exceptional approach to what space has to offer . One might think looking at the sun would get repetitive , but it never is . And as Boyle and his crew go to great lengths to make this move in a seamless manner , there's many a moment of suspense and terror struck up not just by the Alien influence but by more subliminal techniques and sudden shock value ( a dream scene where Murphy drifts towards the sun is a knockout ) , with jump cuts that are as gripping as any of the infected in 28 Days Later . But after considering how much of a sensational movie this is , it fills me with seething anger to think of the double-standard that Fox is practicing in the release date . While I'm not sure how much the film made in England and elsewhere ( and by elsewhere I mean the rest of the world , the US is the last to see the film theatrically ) , it's a downright and lowdown shame that the film is being widely released the same weekend as the Simpsons movie . I plan on seeing both films that weekend if I can , but Fox shouldn't have made that decision for me , in a sense . They could have made this one of the biggest summer blockbusters - a thinking man's blockbuster , even more accessible than ( if not as heartbreaking as ) Rescue Dawn - and instead are cramming it into an already busy play-list . . . And yet this goes without saying the Fox Searchlight logo contributes to one of the greatest opening shots in recent memory . |
508,770 | 453,068 | 75,276 | 10 | the story of man's incredible / mundane downfall , in one of Herzog's best | What an unclassifiable hybrid / whatever movie Stroszek is . I'd wager it's the kind of picture that Gonzo the Great ( yes , the Muppet ) would probably make if he were from Germany and looking to make a tragic-comic look on one man's journey in the rural side of America ( after all , the last sequence would make perfect sense , wouldn't it ) . In truth , it's Werner Herzog at his most focused and un-hinged , a work of wild , original art where the tone ranges from harsh reality , documentary realism ( or so we might think ) , to drama stripped of its ' melo ' , and a brand of satire that goes beyond the usual realm and is satirical only in the sense that you know something is being made fun of . In fact , I'd say the last twenty-five , thirty minutes of this picture are the funniest , and even in these minutes there's a sense of sorrow to what has happened with Bruno Stroszek ( Bruno S . , sort of as himself , I suppose , the line between fiction and fact is so blurry that it's the only way Herzog can get things done ) and how his girlfriend ( Eva Mattes ) leaves him , and his best friend and neighbor gets arrested after armed robbery of a , uh , store in a basement next to a bank , I guess . But whatever weirdness and sort of everyday mundane qualities that go hand in hand with the film Stroszek are given a greater context . I actually had a little more interest in what was going on after having just seen Chaplin's Modern Times , and seeing how there could be a comparison made to the two . Of course , Herzog could never be one to induce the silly physical comedy that makes up the bulk of Chaplin's films , but there is a similarity that struck me , and helped make me really care about what was going on with these characters - Herzog , for all his showing the ultimate follies , loves Stroszek , or at least does not try and show him off as being a complete waste of life . And if it does almost come off that way ( Stroszek is , after all , a perpetual drunk who got released only recently from the mental hospital , and can never get steady work aside from being a mechanic once in the US ) , it's off-set by how much he even cares about the much more flawed Eva , too . He sees them in a context of society and civilization as well as just stand-alone outcasts ( outcasts being another Chaplin comparison ) not to mention the other side characters , both wretchedly cruel and mean like the Germans who bully Stroszek and beat up on Eva , or the wacky co-workers and very formal mortgage / loan people . So , in a way , Herzog takes on the other side of what we might usually find in a Chaplin effort , which includes cynicism ( at least skepticism ) , despair , and replacing morality with a truly twisted sense of humor . Not that the form of documentary , more than anything , peeks its head into the work . There isn't much story to report , aside from the bulk of what I've already mentioned - Stroszek , Eva and their elderly neighbor escape from the harsh and cruel state of being they're at in Berlin ( a brief but interesting commentary on Germany too ) , only to find in the small-town Wisconsin life not much more in line of prosperity . Soon , Stroszek is on his own when he loses his trailer-home , Eva leaves him after a drunken ramble he goes on , and of course the aforementioned botched robbery . He heads off randomly to another small town , tells his story to a random guy , and then as his truck goes up in flames , he gets caught on a ski-lift after passing by a dancing chicken . All the while Bruno S . plays this guy with no punches pulled , and is as intuitive a non-professional actor as any given others in the old neo-realist days . Eva , too , wasn't that much of an actress yet when she took on this role . And a lot of the time ( David Lynch mentioned this in an interview as he started watching the film in the middle ) it's like watching a documentary of these people , showing in all the ordinary working-class ways how they get stuck and any chance of the " American dream " gets squashed . One's never really sure who's an actor or not , but it makes no difference really . A lot of it is some of the most harrowing cinema that I've seen in a while - the tone is of a bitterness at the system , any system , and of a sorrow that is everlooming , that is , perhaps , until the ending . Remarkable then is really how much I laughed during the film . Even in the earlier scenes , when it was dreary , the sort of behavior in parts , and especially notes of the dialog , rang of the complete randomness that is all abound in Herzog's work . But one only needs to look at Stroszek to see the Herzog sense of humor working full-tilt amid the social commentary and despair . The two funniest sequences - not withstanding the armed robbery - are the auction scene ( that guy , wow , just wow is all I could say after that ) , and the dancing chicken . A big chunk of the dancing chicken scene's bizarre appeal is the music , with a true absurdity to the harmonica playing and wailing vocals . Many over the years have wondered the significance of the dancing chicken , most particularly as the ending to the picture . While Herzog himself claims it to be a metaphor for something he can't place , a friend mentioned that it could be capitalism , or the chicken as a representation of Bruno Stroszek , or of an American in general . I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions just yet , and I'm glad that way - all I know is that it's one of the funniest three minutes of film to ever come out of Europe . It's Herzog's ultimate , tragic-comic tale about a man in the lower depths of himself and his society . |
509,415 | 453,068 | 105,695 | 10 | The Best Picture of 1992 | This film is great . It won 4 Oscars ( including Best Director for Eastwood and Best Picture ) and are well deserved . Unlike some other wetserns with gun slingers and such , this one is quite different . Here , Eastwood plays a man who for years has tried to forget his past , but it comes back to haunt him after the death of one of his friends . Very important to the film genre as it is to Eastwood , making him one of the best directors and stars around . One of the best westerns ever and the best film of 1992 ( though kids might get scared ) . |
508,909 | 453,068 | 114,369 | 10 | Disturbingly effective , for two audiences | A while back I thought after seeing Seven that this is a film gets in the crowd of the macabre disturbing films including Texas Chainsaw Massacre , Clockwork Orange , Dawn of the Dead , etc . It does and then it doesn't as well . It has that kind of horrific core on display of humanities ills alongside the violent nature . But it is also a Hollywood thriller , with big stars , and on that level it's just as affecting and successful . It's almost like a crossover film by having this mystery-investigation side of the story , led by Putt and Freeman , while the investigation itself making it pretty clear its no-holds-barred moments . Fincher's work as a director here is absolute in making style serve the story . It does this and more by making grissly images of cruelness and dark vibes that would make Nosferatu cringe ( slightly ) . Story follows aging detective ( Freeman in one of his better roles ) and new detective ( Pitt does OK here , too ) who hunt down a killer who is doing it in according to the 7 deadly sins . Nailbitting all the way to the end , even when we find out the John Doe ( and if your on this site , you know Kevin Spacey plays one of the most clever villains in recent thriller history ) . Entertaining , and with an everlasting appeal that has spawned on a series of lesser films ( i . e . Saw ) , and still holding up just as strong ten + years later . |
508,750 | 453,068 | 36,775 | 10 | it's so embedded in the popular culture and cinema history its easy to forget how much fun the film is | Double Indemnity , first showed to me a few years back in a film class ( naturally ) , struck me in certain ways , and then the more I thought about it afterward even more-so . I watched it again very soon after , and of course agreed with the teacher that it was the " textbook film-noir " , practically defining the ' average Joe ' male lead , the ' femme fatale , and the usages of very specific lighting in almost all of the key night scenes ( outdoor and in ) . But through a lot of the hype surrounding the picture , it would be one thing if it had all of these qualities and then ended up being not too interesting . As it turns out not only is it that , it's also a great hoot of a story , with tongue at times placed so much in cheek the real seriousness and grit of the picture gets lost in the attitude . I can imagine Billy Wilder , after his many strained writing sessions with the master Raymond Chandler , reading the script and wondering ' should a movie from the point of view of the criminals pulling multiple crimes be this amusing ' ? At the time , perhaps , it was nothing but hard-to-the-bone thrilling stuff , with Fred MacMurray's tough , though of course clever , dialog , and the sultry Barbara Stanwyck ( and lest not forget Edward G . Robinson , who's presence in the film is enough to garner it attention right away ) . But with time maybe the film has even grown more appealing in a way ; I know that , for example , the narration in some parts was such a direct influence for the Naked Gun movies that it almost becomes funny in and of itself . But all through this its just a solid story , from Cain's novel , pumped to cinematic life and given enough vigor to last long enough to be written about as one of the all-time classics of cinema in general , not just American . It also contains the one time a man says to another man " I love you , too " and it's so humorous and keenly cool that its almost endearing . |
509,711 | 453,068 | 257,885 | 10 | I feel as though there was someone else inside of me . | It comes to mind immediately for comparison - Twin Peaks , the great cult TV show , as being what Takashi Miike used as influence for his much more ' cult ( or rather , little seen but raved in its small circles of fandom ) take on an investigation of bizarre crimes in an even more bizarre half real-half dream environment . In so much that Miike , via Eiji Ootsuka's original Magna book , does create something of an alternate reality , where the multiple personalities transfer , where the blurred vision of the girls in the room with strange incantations , and where it rains green drops , this is an accurate comparison to the notorious black lodge in Lynch's universe . But even through Miike's own acknowledged influence from Lynch ( one can see it pretty clearly in Miike's Gozu ) , it's only something of a surface comparison at best . MPD Psycho is perhaps even MORE confusing , at least at first , than TP , with the circumstances surrounding the crimes to hold a lot more mystery , and just weird fed up adult-oriented Japanese theatrics , and with its protagonist with just as many demons and past troubles as those he's after . Plus , in the world of MPD , there's no telling if the actual victim may be the criminal as well , or what might be connected or not . But all the same , as with a good whammy of a Magna ( or for that matter the average bear of a Miike flick ) , MPD Psycho is filled with incredible visual tricks and experiments , with animated bits ( the little girl drawn before our eyes ) , intentionally crude visual effects ( the rain drops , the quick visions into another personality as it transfers to another ) , and even creative censorship ; who knew that a filmmaker as outrageous and shocking as Miike could make it a riot to see private parts and ultra-bloody sections blurred out and make it work for the sake of the show ? Like Miike at his best , there are very satisfying doses of dark comedy thrown in , sometimes unintentionally ( " not your baby miss , you're just a vessel ? " ) , and sometimes with the dead-aim of Miike at his most playful ( the scenes in the big police lecture-hall where the one officer creates little clay figures he's very proud of ) and savage , like the numerous moments of unexpected violence - here toned down but still graphic in-so-much as what isn't shown , and how uncomfortable the subject matter becomes in dealing with dead-end abortions and whacked out Catholic girls . As with the most depraved scenes in Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q , sometimes one can't help but chuckle through the mayhem . Reccomending a series like MPD Psycho , perhaps , is a little trickier than in simply going on about what makes it a work where clarity in knowing what is going on - and it's not really incoherent when piecing it bit by bit , which the screenwriters and Miike end up doing very cleverly as each episode goes along ( with , by the way , an excellent turn from the ultra-cool but doomed Amamiya / Kobayashi / who knows ) - but rather if it would appeal to the average CSI type of TV viewer , or just to Miike's fan-base . In truth , I'd say for the former it's worth a shot , if only to see how Japan goes about turning the conventions of an mystery programmer on its head with levels of rough horror and chills and in-your-face satire . Though that being said , it's certainly not for anyone , not least of which for those who expect their detective stories to make sense every step of the way . This one , at least at the start , seems like a mystery coiled up in another mystery about how the bar-codes work , how they figure into the detective ( s ) and what Lucy has to do with it all , and Amamiya / Kobayashi's partner , and so on , which can be a little frustrating . However , if you love how much of a wild-man Miike can get with already subversive material , MPPsycho is for ardent fans and casual admirers a trippy concoction where science fiction , film-noir , and the aforementioned Magna combine somewhat into a sweet mini-series event . As groundbreaking as TP ? Not quite , but it's a lot of fun watching Miike create silly myth and disturbing subversion all the same . |
508,517 | 453,068 | 66,580 | 10 | One of the Best Documentaries Ever made | Woodstock is a great documentary . It is edited very well and has great spirit and music in the mix . For the generation of the time it was what symbolized them , and I think this is the perfect film for them . Edited very finely ( by the director , Oscar Winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker and the man himself , Martin Scorsese ) with many parts of the movie in separate sides in great splendor . I think this film is the best movie in which a sound track was made , and one of the best documentaries ever made ( definitely the best of the 70's ) . |
510,907 | 453,068 | 386,032 | 10 | a true tragic-comedy , balanced out to pure Michael Moore | Michael Moore , even with all of those who have lambasted him over and over again , serves a strong purpose in this day and age . In a time when democrats can whimper out of many an issue , Moore is someone who's got guts as a muckraker and filmmaker , but also as just a thinking member of the populous . The health-care crisis ( and it is a crisis , in America anyway ) is his target this time , and it's one that goes beyond the usual party politics or instantly hot-button issues like , Bush and guns . Everyone gets sick , it's a fact of life , and unless you're young and healthy and die instantly in a car crash or other you're bound to have to deal with death and the ailments that perpetually lead to it . It's not Moore's intention to find out how people get sick - that could be for a whole other movie , probably by somebody else - but to reveal two major things . how America , the only first-world nation to not provide universal health-care , makes it in the corporate interest for the insurance companies to people to STAY sick and , even crueler , to more than likely let one die than to help save a life ( and not simply for those who don't have health-care , but for those who do and get screwed as if it were with your car ) . And , how other countries , countries that the news media in this country for many years has said is wrong and bad in different respects ( eg France and Cuba ) , pretty much laugh when asked questions like " do you have to pay ? " or " how much does your medication cost . " What Moore is revealing here ever so clearly is how common sense is put to the wayside and used as an issue , at least by the government , who by the way are paid off by the insurance companies , and pragmatism is put aside for profit . There are some crushing scenes , aside from the typical human interest angles - and there may be more here than in any other Moore film , for first third it's nothing but depressing testimonials ranging from choosing which cut off finger to save to ' I had a brain tumor , and later died ' - where we see one person stand up to testify to congress in 1996 about what horrors the insurance companies allowed by way of choosing money over actual care , and maybe as one of the greatest real-life moments / tributes to fallen humanity a poor woman who's dropped off in a cab from her hospital back to the slums , shown on the security cameras as wandering around in a total daze . And what's more terrifying to contemplate than a baby ( actually two babies to be precise ) dying of a fever due to the HMO not covering enough for proper care ? It comes down to Moore having to ask a question he's been pondering throughout his research : Who are we ? What have we become ? But it would be less typical of Moore to not have his satirist's cap on some of the time , and there are many moments where Sicko is blisteringly funny , as when he showcases the " terrors " of socialism and its connection to social health-care ( featuring Ronald Regean on an instructional record from many years past ) , or just in his choice of songs ( i . e . " I got a golden ticket " ) , or in his bravest move , an exceptional balance of tragic sincerity and laugh-out-loud theatrics , in taking a group of workers who were permanently marked with major health problems left untreated due to over-priced health-care to Guantanamo Bay , the only place on US soil where there IS free health-care . As usual , Moore is top-notch in putting together freewheeling images of pop-culture and images of politicians in mock-able order ( number signs over the congressmen as to how much they're bought by lobbyists ) , and he skillfully weaves together bits of levity when he's talking with his international counterparts - Canadians included - while making it endlessly informative in an accessible way . I loved the scenes in England when we're given light on how National Healthcare works , how it all seems to work out for both patients ( who actually get paid to get rides home ) and the doctors . The same levity , of course , can revert to a creepy feeling , like hearing how the current form of American health-care got started - thanks Nixon ! A lot of this , as any great work of non-fiction film-making should do , will stir up questions from anyone who's willing to go for the simple premise that the insurance companies make things a hundred thousand times more difficult than in the other countries presented . It's always a tough call regarding taxes , and if they should be raised or not , but even if that isn't the case the posit of Sicko , an extremely well presented one , should not be ignored . Presented as an accessible entertainment while also a call to arms , Sicko is one of the most important films of the year , and maybe just as prevalent , funny , and consciousness-shattering in impact as Fahrenheit . |
510,401 | 453,068 | 389,828 | 10 | the best mockumentary of the year you won't see | CSA : The Confederate States of America just got released in maybe a few more theaters in America , after being repressed ( or just not getting the right distribution until IFC intervened ) in limited distribution . Maybe I can see why it'll be one of the under-seen films of 2006 . This is a very involving , at times disturbing , and funny in a way that you cringe & / or chuckle film , where writer / director Kevin Willmott makes a striking attack at the racism that is unfortunately inherent in American history . By making the film a rip on the kinds of PBS documentaries that Ken Burns has carved his niche in , and by turning up everything that has happened since the end of the Civil War , he has a lot to shoot at target-wise in a completely , unabashedly ironic sense . But what's surprising at times is how accurate it all is . Basic story , or is it ? The C . S . A . is America if the Union lost , Lincoln got exiled to Canada ( where all 20 , 000 of the abolitionists and people of freedom and good conscience left to ) , and Jefferson Davis became President . Oh , and don't forget slavery . In fact , The Confederate States of America is if nothing else all about the slaves , keeping them , making sure they are ALL black , including the ' mixed ' , and how their reach spreads out to Mexico and South America . Willmott skillfully mixes not only the 20th century history of hate ( Hitler for example ) and hope ( Kennedy ) and turns it all on its ear through a combination that somehow worked for me . It's not very high-budgeted , but it is authentic in that the acting is exactly how one of these TV documentaries would be like , heavy-set narrator and all . But at the same time of this kind of very sincere , dramatic approach to telling the history of this disturbing alternate world of 150 years of history , there is a very un-hinged approach to dealing with the racism of it , which is extreme considering , well , the slave-owning , Aryan-dominated confederacy won . There are brilliant little commercials dealing with products and services for white people based on either keeping the slaves from running away , or making fun of them on sitcoms . The actors used for some of these sequences may not be as on target or amazing as those in a Christopher Guest picture , and there may be one or two story holes ( did Hitler win WW2 ? ) , but where the film succeeds is in really stirring one once the film is all said and done . The epilogue to the film , involving the REAL products and places that displayed the harsh racism lasting until as late as twenty years ago ( one of them has a mention in the film Ghost World by the way ) , puts into perspective what has occurred ; you may even feel a little weird about having laughed at what happened , what does that say about me or the other people in the theater ? Laughter works , at least for this . A sharp , not-for-everyone satire that should hopefully become a satirical cult film . |
507,859 | 453,068 | 277,949 | 10 | PJ doing what it does best ; get the DVD ! | Pearl Jam have proved themselves to be one of the enduring rock and roll bands of the 90's - still together , still making moving , combustible music that finds that perfect edge of hard-rock while still appealing to a massive audience . For its own cult group , which is rather big in and of itself , a DVD like Touring Band 2000 is a given to buy and soak up multiple times , but for the casual PJ fan it's worthwhile also . Classics like ' Daughter ' , ' Better Man ' , ' Even Flow ' , and some of my other favorites like ' Animal ' and ' Rocking in the Free World ' are among the lot of over two dozen songs included . The added treat is that the songs are NOT inter-cut with interviews , like other music DVD documentaries , and that they are from various concerts giving the wide range of material . I even dug the grainy style of filming , which could get under my skin , but stays above the line of incompetent , amateur filming . The style matches the energy and attitude that pours out of PJ with every song . However , one should get the DVD for its added bonus : bonus music videos , including one in particular for a favorite off of Yield - ' Do the Evolution ' , one of their very best videos directed by Todd McFarlane . To have this on video somewhere is a big treat . |
510,179 | 453,068 | 195,658 | 10 | four of the greatest rock epics ever , all in one concert ! | To see a complete concert from the Doors is like taking a wild trip into a different frame of mind in rock and roll , when you could see just about anything on stage creatively . This concert , from 1968 in Hollywood , is the band in their utmost prime . With the Doors you get the strange , overpowering presence and lead-man power of Jim Morrison , who gets in such a frame of mind during his sets one wonders if he puts himself in a trance ( or maybe not - before ' The End ' plays , he tries to tell the lighting people to fix something , and it becomes a little comical ) . Bottom line is that the concert features the best of the Doors live , and for especially the more blues-driven rock fans , there are some great numbers of ' Alabama Song ' , ' Back Door Man ' , and ' Five to One ' . But mostly , and this was the pleasure for me , the highlights include the longer songs - the slow , pulsating ' When the Music's Over ' , the classic hit ' Light my Fire ' ( as many times as I've heard it on the radio , it never gets old live ) , ' The End ' being one of the Doors most notorious and beautiful epics , and their most stream-of-consciousness work ' Celebration of the Lizard ' which has the distinction of having Morrison's poetry overcoming the rock parts of the song . Basically , it's one of the purest rock concert videos out there , and it may even turn on some casual observers of the Doors to check out more of the non-radio stuff like ' Lizard ' and ' Spanish Caravan ' . |
509,633 | 453,068 | 101,761 | 10 | Nothing to touch the earth , not to see the sun , nothing left to do but run , run , run , let's run . | This is just a sampling of the lyrics that singer / writer Jim Morrison contributed to his group The Doors , and just this , as part of his epic piece " The Celebration of the Lizard " shows his skill as a master of the written word . He is shown in Oliver Stone's The Doors as a shy , though often obnoxious and crude , persona who self describes himself in one scene : " I think of myself as a sensitive , intelligent human being , but with the soul of a clown that forces me to blow it at the most crucial of moments . " He may have blown it in the end , but it makes for a fascinating story . As being a Doors fan , the music and words are the best character of the movie - the songs represent feelings and emotions , desires and hatreds , and other facets of life in the late 60's , are indispensable gems of rock and blues . While the Doors recorded only six albums together ( not counting American Prayer , Morrison's awesome feat of an album ) each one is still transfixed into the minds of people all over the world . It's thirty-two years since the king died , but in another thirty-two he will still be remembered . And that is a fact that Stone plays with like Travis Bickle in front of the mirror with his guns in Taxi Driver . He reveals only Morrison's known persona , and not the quiet moments . The concert recreations are grand , but there isn't more of the sweet Jim ( one glimpse of such a Jim is seen at a birthday party when he gives out gifts as " Chief Mojo Risin ) What is shown is splendid enough for his abilities - he paints a vivid picture of Los Angeles 1965 onward , with Val Kilmer in the second best acting job of 1991 ( deserved of an Oscar nomination ) , and puts Jim in the middle . He is a man who is fascinated with death , with man's wills to power , and how life gets painful without the chemicals top open the mind . Kilmer gets so much into your head in this film that by the end you'll love him , hate him , or feel wonder about him . I felt wonder about him , wonder why he looked to heroes who gave him such ideas about the love of death , wonder why he felt the need to take it to the limits . But his desires are Stone's as well , and while this isn't a perfect film , it's one that isn't easily forgotten . |
510,180 | 453,068 | 195,660 | 10 | for the casual Doors observer it'll do it's job and be interesting , but it's gold for the die-hard Doors fan | I knew that this video existed , but it seemed to vanish in the wake of videos and the call of DVDs . Luckily , it was included in the Doors collection DVD set among two other good specials ( Dance on Fire , a best-of collection , and a live concert in 1968 ) . It was my favorite of the three for several reasons , but not least of which that it tends to be less music-video-ized by director Ray Manzarek ( not that there aren't some patched together pieces , like with " the Changeling " and " The Unknown Soldier " , which is live here ) . Most of the video includes documentary footage - clips from a television special ( their last in the USA I believe ) , and two priceless live performances , the first being of behind-the-scenes on ' Wild Child ' , and the other from the special called " Build me a Woman " ( one of personal favorites ) . Even more indelible are two clips of interviews with the Doors , in particular Jim Morrison , who gives cool , intelligent words to say about the future of music , and on how his poetry fits in with the Doors . It all leads up to the title track of the video , which is one of the longer Doors songs ( and very entrancing in some ways ) . So , for the avid Doors fan , or just fan of the music from the period ( or rock in general I'd guess ) , this is a must-have . But it may turn on some too - it's a mix of blues , straight-up rock , pop , and poetic stances on life and the beyond . |
510,183 | 453,068 | 17,136 | 10 | a visual fable of the highest order - one of the five great future films ever made | Fritz Lang was constantly experimenting with ways to tell stories by way of the visual medium , and his 1927 opus Metropolis is the cream of the crop of examples of this . Perhaps it was seeing the film in the greatest possible format ( a fully restored print on the KINO DVD , filled with inter-titles to keep the story complete ) that had me appreciate it more , but even if I had seen the film on a scratchy print or with not very appropriate music ( I heard one version had a horrible rock score attached to it ) , it would still be affecting . At the core of the story , Lang and his collaborator Thea von Harbou , the sides of good vs . evil , or at least the complete lack of understanding of the powerful over the weak , is set up so strongly that even when it has it's fairy-tale type of heaviness to it , it doesn't seem to feel compromised in strength or relevance for adults . This is the kind of film that should work for anyone , young and old , as it deals with universal themes ( i . e . " The mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart ! " ) The story leaves room for the visual style to come through - Freder is the son of a kind of Imperial man over the workers who die for the machines of Metropolis , Joh Frederson . He feels the sorrow and pain of the people , and goes down to their level to be one of them . He falls in love with the most compassionate and angelic of women , Maria ( played by the beautiful Brigitte Helm , in multiple roles she plays without a fault ) , who succumbs to capture after the jealously of Freder's father . Enter the robot , a marvel of a mad scientist , who gets transposed from Maria , and becomes the havoc-wrecker of the part of Metropolis . I won't reveal too much of the story , except to mention that as a foreshadowing for Freder for the last act , as he wakes up in one scene the Book of Revelations sits in his lap . Amidst in all of this , Metropolis is a masterpiece of visual effects , camera-tricks , and of course editing ( if I wouldn't quite rank Metropolis in my all-time top ten favorites , I would rank it in terms of the editing and pacing Lang uses , which is apparent even in a permanently truncated version ) . It starts off with the image of the machine transposed over steam , and then soon moves to a vision of a city that was not far off from how it is in present day ( cars moving on roads built to the sky , airplanes flying every-which way , and mammoth skyscrapers built in extravagant ways . But it's not just the use of the models , or the sets , or the backdrops , or even the use of space and atmosphere in most of Lang's shots ( which are all spectacular ) , it's also the use of light that really caught my attention throughout the film . One thing I remember still days after seeing the film is the use of one spotlight on the character of Maria in a suspense scene ( it also appears in other scenes I think ) . It's little things like that which make as big an impact as the montages , the super-impositions of faces and eyes in the dream-like shots . And , of course , Lang's greatest innovation with the film is that in telling a futuristic story , he goes beyond his time period in stylizing . As I mentioned with the pacing being unique , it was surprising ( though maybe not as much from seeing his classic M ) that many of the suspense sequences , mob scenes / riots , chases , I knew that this is the same kind of styling that's used today for many of the most modern of science-fiction / action films . In its own way , much like Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Oddysey , it breaks the mold of conventional forms of storytelling , while not completely abandoning the storytelling form . Although Metropolis has a checkered history of being cut down by countries , and it hasn't been seen in its full form in almost eighty years , what remains doesn't seem at all dated or crude . Quite the opposite , its visual expressiveness , its use of time and character and action , and its deliberate pacing , makes it ahead of its time and influential , and at the same time keeping itself unique . It's a tale we're all familiar with , being the tale of love and compassion coming into play in an industrial , cruel world - which I'm sure was even more relevant to post WW1 Germany at the time - filmed with a mix of over-the-top melodrama , mega-budget set-pieces , and designs that confound the senses . Add the appropriate music , and you've got a classic fantasy . A tremendous film to see two , three , a dozen times over - though some of those too impatient for films without spoken words ( or by the operatic dramatic side of it all ) may become disappointed or frustrated . |
508,101 | 453,068 | 945,310 | 10 | Don't Look Back part deux | Another slice of the time capsule is what 65 Revisited comes down to - a capsule from the ' Don't Look Back ' documentary , where Pennebaker put his practically objective 16mm lens on Dylan and what might be considered his crossover period ( I say ' practically ' since it's right before his electric switch , which may or may not had happened on the tour , it might've not , I can't say yet till I listed to the commentary ) . What's so great about Pennebaker's films of Dylan - this shouldn't be considered any more or less than what DLB gave its audience which was unfiltered Zim up on the screen , is that he has the fly-on-the-wall approach . He's just there , and Dylan is just there ( or is he ? ) and aside from the beautiful acoustic performances given , we see a Dylan - even more in Revisited arguably - jovial and kidding around . A reporter asks him " What will you be doing in the future ? " Dylan says , with a grin , " Sleeping , about 60 years . " There are also the moments of downtime with Dylan and Joan Baez in a room improvising some folk tunes , or Baez just softly singing as Dylan goes feverish on the typewriter . The structure also goes a way to represent the structure , if there is any , to traveling on the road , one place merging into the next , a long continuous chain . At one point we see Dylan a little ambivalent with fans , but who's to say if he'll meet the same fans when he comes to Birmingham , or Sheffield , or some other small town ? Prophet ? Probably not , but with something to say and sing and play . It's relatively short , but you get a very cool offering as an extra on the Don't Look Back DVD ( or , if you had the chance , for one week only at the IFC in NYC ) , as there's just a little more added to the plate of Dylan-lore , and a look that strips down , if only a bit , the myth-making that surrounded Dylan in the 60s . It's raw documentary film-making at its best . |
507,840 | 453,068 | 354,899 | 10 | a wonderful romantic comedy , both light and dark , and ultimately bittersweet . | Michel Gondry has been a name branded into my movie-going consciousness ever since Eternal Sunshine , though he's also been extremely adept and unique with his direction of various music videos ( some of the best being for the White Stripes ) . After Block Party earlier this year now comes The Science of Sleep , and it's further proof of the filmmaker's need to tell of a character , and a vision , making it onto the screen in a way that has sides both touching and deranged , sweet and dark , and like all dreams they're not for those always expecting precise ' logic ' . It doesn't work that way in a Gondry film , it's more about getting something up there that sometimes is very real , and awkward , and weirdly funny , but then also scenes that ask us to peer inside of a character's brain and walk around without missing a step . It's ambitious without being too stuck-up with itself to close off viewers who might not usually go to the art-houses . But what got me really hooked into the all-too-surreal logic of the film , is how the character of Stephane ( Gael Garcia Bernal ) has his dreams become more of the reality than the reality itself . And this same perplexity makes the Science of Sleep always something trippy , but not pretentious sort of ' trip ' . It's ingenious meddling with the cinematic elements that are at his disposal . One of the great things utilized is stop-motion animation . It's truly a hard process to pull off , which is why for feature films - unlike the numerous music videos that this sort of inadvertently pays homage to while being unique on its own - it rarely is seen . But to see what the animation team , led by Lauri Faggioni , and production designers do with Gondry's ideas and script is to see something even rarer in movies from recent memory - elements many of us know , such as a horse or cars or skiing or other things , and turn them into original set-pieces and creations . All of this does have to connect somehow through the real people in the film , such as Stephane and Stephanie ( charming Charlotte Gansburg ) and Stephane's co-workers ( Alain Chabat's Guy is the funniest ) , and this is still achieved too . The story is all set-up so that it's all preamble for the real meat of the picture of the wild dreams and fantasies : Stephane gets a job at a calender factory he doesn't like , and moving back into an apartment not lived in in years , he meets Stephanie across the hall , likes her , is friendly with her , and they're even playful , but love on top of it ? The crises of work , Stephane's past , his imagined self of a TV show , and the women in his life , all begin to cross from his dreams into reality , and the distortions of this - and of his personality - take their toll . Towards the end , one might almost be apprehensive of saying Bernal still plays Stephane with him being believable or sympathetic , but maybe by the end it's not even really the point . There is a sense of loss by the end of the picture , but not a heavy one , as the drama of the story still can't give way totally to the delightful chunks throughout . This is almost like a film made for kids , but for adults more than anything ( Guy is one of those ultra-horn-dog men who even in Stephane's dreams remains as such even when Stephane wield's gigantic hands and controls the environments to bend people to his will ) . So this sort of crossroads gives something very fulfilling for the open mature viewer . It taps into what it's like being a kid , but then also in a coming-of-age sort of way having to deal with the realities that can't totally be dealt with in dreams . There's a sort of desperation in Stephane to be more than he is , and have more than he does , and he can never really articulate everything to Stephanie , who does love him to a degree , or doesn't as well . Like Eternal Sunshine - if not to a totally successful level - Gondry is looking at the inner-workings of two people and why and why not they could click together , through the fanciful times and the more emotionally tarnished ones . This substance level is upheld most of all by the images , the cinematography excellent even in the reality-based scenes where practically all is hand-held , though it's quite memorable and free-wheeling with the images in the dreams . I loved seeing the fake cars , the over-emphasized sets and figures , all putting an absurdity in the surrealism ( it might be one of those rare crosses , too , of absurdism and surrealism in modern films ) that's also very funny . If it's not really for all tastes it's understandable , and it doesn't have the more well-rounded and known cast of ' Sunshine ' . But it's bound to have me seeing it again sometime soon , just to take in some of these incredible ( in a not-CGI way ) special effects , and even Bernal's performance to a degree . One of the best pictures of the year . |
508,604 | 453,068 | 166,896 | 10 | Walt Disney Pictures presents : a film by David Lynch ; far from it being a crazy concept , it's a sweet little slice of great film-making | What a truly and unabashedly serene road movie this is . Lynch , through his co-writer / wife's script , seems to understand how simple but not so simple life and the people living in rural areas can be . Veering on part Iowa-neorealist fable and in part a truly experimental feat for the filmmaker ( eg how to match together the absurd yet sort of logically illogical comedy of everyday life with true whimsical overtones in visual style and choice in leading role ) , The Straight Story provides some measurable food for thought , however in little doses , and if there was ever a film that I might want to have playing right before I die - or even at my funeral , as some people have songs - it would be this . Rarely do actors get enough leverage out of playing kindly old people , but Farnsworth really digs down deep for something that is , actually , not too far from his real life ( the aches and pains in just getting up from his lawnmower seat and walking around were truer than just in portraying Straight , as Farnsworth had early-stage bone cancer during filming ) . Though aside from physical presence , Farnsworth makes an easy role not so easy . Beneath Straight's stubborn , well-mannered but no BS-in exterior , there's some demons he carries , mostly from WW2 , and a life lived via good times and very bad times in the history of his family shows always on his face and his fragile eyes . It's an extraordinary turn , and it's one of those career-capping performances that many actors only wish they could achieve let alone a veteran stuntman turned character actor like Farnsworth . And as for Lynch , he takes a few playfully wicked stabs at the rural life he's portraying , though playful the key word ; spouts of dramatic conflict and comedy come in the forms of a whole fleet of bicyclists riding on the other side of the road , or a woman who's hit one too many deer , or when he just has to get out of the rain - albeit there's one shot , one of the very best I've seen in a Lynch film , as Straight stars his journey and we see it from a perspective of the road as an uproarious in-joke to Lost Highway . Many crane shots and sweeping views of fields and tracking shots of the man on his mower are splendid , but it's this contrasted with how intimately portrayed the human interactions are , on levels of the goodness and occasional slow-ness of small-town folk , that scores Lynch his richest points . Although the film does end on a note that's satisfactory only in the sense that it leaves it on a " well , we made it , that's what counts " kind of level , and that it's far from being Badalamenti's best musical score overall ( some of it feels like it should accompany a Quaker Oats commercial , which maybe is the point ) , it remains a small but succinct triumph of the aging human spirit , where the light side of Americana still has its quirks via the Lynch universe , and abstraction blends into naturalism with the greatest of ease . |
509,240 | 453,068 | 90,756 | 10 | Bizarre , frightening , oddly beautiful | David Lynch's Blue Velvet is many things , but it definitely is one of the most audacious and original pictures from the 80's . It blends in humor from the good old days and macabre that would make Tobe Hooper cringe ( if only a little bit ) . It's a type of movie filled with so much style and little cinema tricks that some might not see the substance . I saw it about three times in two days to get it all in and I must say that the films themes do match the style on the surface . Beneath is something that the viewer will have to judge and I can not go into . Kyle MacLaughlin plays a regular kid who comes upon a single ear and that is the start of his search to find who is behind the cutting of this ear . He and another teenage girl ( Laura Dern in a very early role ) , or mainly by himself , he fins a possibly mentally unbalanced nightclub singer ( Isabella Rosselini ) is in danger from a hopped up madman , played by Dennis Hopper in one of his top 5 roles ever . One thing I should point out though , is that when I said it is in the viewer's hands often in this film is because Rosselini's character is alternately meant to be sympathetic , but then she does acts and wants acts done to her ( get my drift ) that will make many seem puzzled as how a woman caught in a situation like the one she's in can be so fed up . In the overall view , the film brings a compelling story brought even more compelling with awesome performances and style to burn . Some might not find the humor spread about and might feel angry ( a certain R . Ebert for example ) when uneeded satire is brought to a scene where a woman is lying naked on a lawn . But I just think it's meant to soften the shock , if only in some demented way . A worthwhile view into the perpetual dark-side of human nature , if only once . |
510,774 | 453,068 | 66,771 | 10 | a gritty , lost classic in the biker movie era | On the one hand , after watching Angels Hard as They Come , I could understand why it's not higher rated or even been seen anymore than the common garden-variety B-movie biker flick , as it is true shamelessly Corman-style . On the other hand , I ended really liking how it was executed . The collaborators , Joe Viola and Jonathan Demme , wring out plenty of dirty fun out of such violent and twisted material without ' softening ' it up like some biker movies of the period . It's got almost no characters from the ' outside ' world , just bikers , and maybe a few hippies ( and yes , one of them an out-of-place and amusingly one-note Gary Busey ) . So part of the entertainment comes from bikers just being as rough and crazy as possible . But with this the writers come up with some unexpectedly funny moments , some more harsh than others , and sometimes even commenting on some of the absurdities of the Dragons . This is done dialog-wise many times - as Viola's style isn't nearly as strong or affecting as Demme provides - and sometimes through ideas shown and it all being realistic even as its crudely artificial . One such scene , as a quick example , is when the leader of the pack General ( Charles Dierkop as a well-played maniac ) is seen from the waist up having short moment of pleasure , then as the camera pans down his motorcycle is getting a cleaning ( pun intended , but then the title itself is almost there just for a goof ) . Or in having one of the side characters , the one black character of a story , adrift in the desert , almost putting to a stop the Corman rule of there being almost constant danger & / or fights & / or sex / nudity / et all . Other ideas abound in the crazy extremities that the Dragons go through against the three Angels ( one being Scott Glenn in maybe the best ' acting ' of the film ) , including a final idea that never does come to fruition . All through , the filmmakers basically acknowledge what kind of film they're making , and don't skimp out on the early biker movies might not have dealt with , at least as much . Rape , racism , torture , pure decadence and decay in the devastation . But the factor of it all having practically a Western-movie element to it , a B-Western at that , is not thrown away for a story without focus . It's arcane and simplistic in music , usually exploitive in themes and character , and it's got the cinematic flavor of a beer soaked ashtray . But to hell if it isn't one of my favorites of its kind , if only on the most guilty-pleasure level . |
510,788 | 453,068 | 708,447 | 10 | one of the best episodes - at least an obvious fan favorite - Ricardo Montalban's finest hour ! . . . | . . . till the Wrath of Khan that is . In a precursor to one of the finest Stark Trek films , this is the episode that introduces the ' superman ' type of villain in specially-bred Khan , who came aboard the enterprise following a sort of ' dethawing ' that awoke him from sleep since the 1990s . It's a fascinating episode just on the basis of how there is almost a game made out of power , of things that aren't said but intonated about who's in charge . And the title , to be sure , isn't just something suggestive . There's a power-ideal going on there too , a Darwin thing almost . Oh sure , there's the typical facet of the villain taking over the ship and making the crew choose the captain ( death ) or him ( subservience to an Alexander-type figure ) . Sure there's the defector in McGievens , who lit by the cameramen to look like she's in an impressionist painting , and how she loses sight of her professional interest in history for the magnetism of his will when he says ( paraphrasing ) " stay or go , but do as you truly decide " . But it's all pulled off with the utmost attention to entertainment , as well as some of the usual bright food-for-though in the Trek cannon . It's also a riot just seeing Montelban and Shatner go head to head - a kind of battle of the bulge in over-acting and machismo-steel looks - and this goes without saying that this is only the first step before things really went overboard on the 1982 sequel . It's wonderful pop-iconic stuff , with dashes of humor and statements on tyranny . |
508,102 | 453,068 | 430,833 | 10 | certainly the smartest of the " talking-head " shows on cable-news TV | In a time when watching Chris Matthews , Tucker Carlson , Lou Dobbs , Bill O'Reilly and Hannity can be repetitive , boring , safe , wretched , and just downright wrong and bullying ( even if the former sometimes is OK ) , Keith Olbermann is a sublime respite . Yes , he'll make his point of view known , but an unpopular one ? I think not ; when watching Olbermann go into one of his " special comments " it comes about as close to - if not quite as classical - as an Edward R . Murrow speech rallying against one injustice or another . It's actually inspiring to see what is usually just another ' talking-head ' speaking intelligently not from some vapid " gut " ala O'Reilly , but from facts that send many Americans as of late into a tailspin . How to put such a travesty like the Bush administration into a context of articulation ( and one that isn't of full-on satire like the Daily Show ) ? Look at Olbermann . But it isn't all serious and such ; one of the great joys of Countdown is that , within the parameters of the archetype of the structure of the show . Olbermann makes his show into fun satire and moments of levity following the first half just the typical lot ( though an interesting lot usually ) of talking heads , with his " Best Person " and " Worst Person " listing , Oddball moments ( videos of crazy Santa's or deer jumping over a car as it's driving , among many , many , many other classic bits that most often would be left in the dregs of you-tube ) . He's a man that understands irony - he's not one to back down from giving a scathing comment against someone whom he thinks deserves it ( and , whatever affiliation you have , you got to admit that he can give the sucker punch linguistically like few others in cable news , and not with the rancor of some of his rivals ) . But he's also a man of conscience , and he'll reveal himself as having more lucid thoughts on a subject than one would ever expect of a Tucker or even Anderson Cooper or other . For me , it's one of the most addictive shows on cable TV news . |
509,581 | 453,068 | 40,522 | 10 | Another one to add to my top 50 - a delicate study of desperation in post war Italy | Vittorio De Sica's ground / heartbreaking motion picture , The Bicycle Thief , is based on a very simple ideal for a story - man against the elements . In this case the elements are of a society that is often cruel and unforgiving , and that a job in post-war Rome is looked on as the luckiest of good luck charms . Such a man as presented by De Sica is Maggiorani ( an actor who really is the type of actor right off the street ) , a father of a little boy who gets a job putting up movie posters along some walls in Rome . To do this he needs a bicycle , or the job will be lost , and he gets one following a pawning of linen sheets . Very soon though , the bicycle is stolen , and from there a sad downward spiral unravels for the man and his son as they scour the streets for the bicycle . While the score adds basic dramatic tension , everything else on the screen is done to such a pitch of neo-realism it's at times shattering , joyful ( scene in the pizzeria the most note-worthy ) , and with a feeling of day-to-day resonance to those who may have not even felt at or below the poverty level in their lives . Credit due to all parties involved , though I don't think the boy Bruno , played by Staiola , gets nearly enough considering his role as a minor coming of age ( that moment after the father and son leave the church nearly brought tears to my eyes ) . |
508,321 | 453,068 | 71,129 | 10 | One of the best of Italian , and Fellini's , films | Great movie by Federico Fellini that reveals in the minute details of life , even as his visions go wild . I saw the film again recently and realized how much I didn't see when I first saw it ( and reviewed it subsequently in an improper , amateurish way ) in my own youth . It's a film detailing a specific place in Italy at a specific time , and though the eccentricities of the characters that Fellini lays out ( not to mention the bizarre performances these players put in ) , it captures this time and place without fail . And unlike a couple of Fellini's other films it really isn't as confusing as I first though ; his works at times are like those poems read one year and then taken again years later work on another level . Some of the images in Amarcord in particularly are quite strange , and beautiful often at the same time ( and the director's affinity for putting at least one large , cartoonish-type woman is on display here as well ) . That it's been called semi-autobiographical isn't without its merit , but more in that Fellini is tapping into his emotions and sights and sounds from that time , however abstracted it might seem . Anyone who loves a good foreign film , and may not have seen a Fellini film , may do well to check this one out . |
510,211 | 453,068 | 407,887 | 10 | . . . Do you lie ? | The Departed is the most entertaining kind of non-stop , intense crime thriller of the year , maybe in the past few years . Some critics have said that it's the best film that director Martin Scorsese has made since Goodfellas . I understand where the compliment comes from , though I slightly resent the subtle criticism in the charge as well , meaning that Scorsese hasn't made a film as great or powerful or entertaining in over fifteen years . I would even go far as saying this is Scorsese's best since , well , Scorsese's last film , or at least since Gangs of New York . Some may forget , or maybe just not really take in , how consistently strong Scorsese's career has been overall , how he keeps on taking chances and still keeping his style so instictually ' cinematic ' ( he is possibly the biggest " film-geek " ever ) , so distinctive , and even so fresh in the 21st century , that his is a career akin to the likes of Kurosawa ( many masterpieces , and otherwise very good to excellent efforts ) . The difference though this time from some of his previous outings - and this is perhaps the correlation with Goodfellas besides the obvious of genre linking - is that it's pure , devilish fun , it goes by quickly but supremely satisfyingly over what doesn't really feel like 2 hours , and it's cast is uniformly good . Leonardo Di Caprio in particular is so impressive here - and this may be the first-viewing-buzz talking , it might be my favorite of all the performances I've seen him in up till now . Under Scorsese these past several years he's kind of grown up more and more from the oddly pubescent look to him even in his 20's . His performance as Costigan is often very ferocious and tough , but he also makes it a fully rounded character , one that he makes very much his own . He has a dark past , almost too dark to even be an informant for the Boston PD . His whole family is messed up , and there were even links to Frank Costello ( Jack Nicholson ) . So , what better way then to send Costigan into Costello's wing and see what comes out ? Then the flip-side comes with Matt Damon's Colin , who infiltrates the police department in legitimate fashion . Damon's is the flip-side as well in performance quality to Di Caprio ; while Di Caprio , even when lying through his teeth , is truthful to the bone and always believable , Damon is pitch perfect as a bold-faced liar , as he never flinches for a moment , even when caught like a deer in the headlights . And the performances end up making a sort of square , with Damon and Di Caprio in their own corners , the bulk of the excellent supporting players ( Martin Sheen , Marky-Mark Wahlberg , Ray Winstone , Vera Farmiga in a breakthrough role ) on one , and Jack Nicholson all on his own . That was the first thing about hearing of the Departed that had me psyched , knowing that one of the great stars / actors of the past 40 years was teaming up with someone with a stature and track record like Scorsese's . With Nicholson in the role Frank Costello is at first already a character to feel is the ' man ' in the room when he walks in and talks . But as far as performance goes , it's vintage Nicholson all the way , digging into it with the style , vigor , wit , charm , and all that and a bag of shark-grin chips that have made Nicholson so remarkable . His is such a dastardly character that it teeters on becoming self-parody , but both director and actor know how to reel the part in to being someone to fear , while also being someone who's a helluva lot of fun . It's worthy of an Oscar nomination , and not just because it's Nicholson in a movie . As for the director and his crew , they have assembled what could be by the bare essentials nothing more than a genre film with a premise that seems a little cooked-up . But , of course , it is a remake of a trilogy of Hong-Kong police pictures , so that may be why the premise and story feels not completely original , even as it's passing itself off as one . Yet that too didn't detract . If anything , I felt as if Scorsese was doing what very few filmmakers working today - particularly this year if you look at what's come out - don't do , which is to take material , and not just do a simple ' remake ' , but to do a re imaging , a refashioning , a full-on reinterpretation into the deeper aspects , in this case the morality and sense of loss among all of these characters . There's some religious bits put in , as it IS Scorsese after all , but this time there isn't something like in Mean Streets where it's always there in the background . Here the characters are on , like in Goodfellas , a version of hell , where things all do come to a head ; the last thirty minutes had me laughing , cringing , and mouth-agape in equal measures . In other words , go see this film , if you think it might be up your alley , and you think you were burned by Scorsese ever since he left behind modern-time crime pictures ten years ago . |
510,397 | 453,068 | 94,999 | 10 | the David Lynch film is his funniest ( though still with some strangeness to bear ) | I saw the David Lynch short film , the Cowboy and the Frenchman , not with this mini-series , but on a DVD featuring some of his other recent and early short film work . While this wasn't necessarily the most ' Lynchian ' of the bunch on the disc ( check out the Amputee or Alphabet for that ) , it happens to contain more laughs per minute than any of Lynch's other films . Often his work contains dark , almost next-to-death like black comedy that almost comes out by accident from the terror and drama that is laid into his surrealism ( and , of course as Bunuel has shown , without humor surrealism is quite boring ) . But this time the surrealism is kept to a low-key as Lynch puts more humor into the blatant , uncomfortable differences between American cowboys and an aloof Frenchman who's stumbled upon the ranch . The cowboys , one of them played by the great Lynch regular Harry Dean Stanton , can't understand a word he says , searches through his luggage to find every piece of ' French ' kind of wares around , and are just generally perplexed . Oh , and there's also a Native American to boot , adding a little more un-ease to the situation . It's the kind of comedy that would usually be found in a Jarmusch film , where cultural differences add some humanistic amusement to characters who are trying to relate on common ground . But the minimalism of it helps keep the laughs coming , and then here and there little touches come in to definitely remind us that the director has his stamp on the material ( like the singing ladies matted into the sky like in Wild at Heart or Eraserhead ) . Great art ? Maybe not , but it reaches a peak of ( light ) satire that Lynch has only sometimes reached since . |
509,998 | 453,068 | 59,807 | 10 | it can now be found on some sites on-line ; well worth seeking out as one of the best of the 60s | Jim Henson as a filmmaker sometimes doesn't get as much credit as for his main innovations with the Muppets and establishing them throughout the years as the head producer of the Henson company . But behind the genius puppeteer that he was , he was also very good at creating a style that was all his own , whether it was with the original and enlightening fantasy films he made in the 80s or with the Muppet movies . Part of what crosses over from his time with the Muppets with this rarely seen short film , Time Piece , is the pure sense of tongue placed firmly in cheek . The theme of time is one that many art films deal with ( not the least of which Bergman ) , but this film is like a collaboration between the crazier silent shorts of the 1920s and Chuck Jones . I laughed many times during this film , but it's also a marvel of - of course - timing , but also at getting the right rhythm with the images . It goes without saying that its directness in the editing , with its tempo always on step without going overboard , is some of the best I've ever seen in a short film . Little moments end up making the best parts of Henson's film , where no real story emerges aside of himself sort of being witness to the follies of the world in a very crazy manner . And it's also an exercise in repetition - a few times the one spoken word of the film pops up ( " Help " ) - by Henson , and it's always very funny . But the comic timing is explored in little themes Henson had in later films , such as food , with one of the real laugh out loud bits being when Henson and the woman eat at the table as they one-up each other . Or seeing the delirious pathway in Henson running around towards the end ( being chased , no doubt , by archive footage ) . It all ends then , to put it mildly , down the toilet ( literally I mean ) . This is a surprising film with as much invention that can be fused cinematically into its concept - showing time as being very musical in a sense , and possibly breaking the balance that it usually keeps with day to day life . It's an early gem , and its quite a stroke of luck to find it on-line or through a rare 16mm print ; one of the true unfortunates in being unavailable to the masses and other fans of Henson . |
510,212 | 453,068 | 44,391 | 10 | a movie that embraces the Hollywood studio machine while putting a harsh criticism of it | That one line summary makes me sound like I'm calling the Bad and the Beautiful a case in ' tough love ' , where director Vincente Minnelli wags his finger at what happens to some people ( cough , David O . Selznick , cough ) , while also showing too the joys of working in the business . But it's a business at its most booming time , coming out of the 40s where the producer was king , and the director had to vie for room at times to really get his vision in . Here the producer Jonathan Shields is played by Kirk Douglas as someone with big ideas at first - he even has an idea to help make a scary movie about cats even more frightening by not showing the cats ( echoes of Val Lewton ) . Soon he rises the ranks and becomes big enough to really call the shots all he wants , but it also gets in the way of personal relationships , severs ties , and sometimes even makes him out to be monstrous ( there's one shot I remember all the time where Douglas , in a big fit of anger against Lana Turner's character , seems like he's a whole foot taller with the ego almost manifested ) . The narrative of the film is a retelling by people who knew him , a sexy but soon disillusioned actress , a director who once worked with Shields but then got cut off from him , and a writer played by Dick Powell . Rashomon or Citizen Kane it is not in trying to reveal more grandiose and amazing things about human nature , but rather a supreme rumination on the good times and the bad times , possibly more of the latter . What's great about Douglas's portrayal is that through the stories from the three ex-friends and co-workers and lovers , he becomes a very well-rounded character . At the core , of course , is the producer who at the time had as more creative say than anyone else on the set . This brings some of the great scenes ever shown about movie-making , such as the moment when Amiel , the director , tries to put Jonathan in his place about how a scene should be shot , " in order to direct a picture you need humility " . Another comes with the moment when Jonathan and his soon to be ' asistant to the producer ' has to object out of just being stunned . But more than Douglas , it's also tremendous , memorable screen time for Lana Turner , perhaps in her most successful performance in just sheer acting terms ( not necessarily just in presence or style like in other pictures ) , and for Dick Powell , who with this and Murder My Sweet has two defining roles outside of his usual niche . With many sweet camera moves , a script that crackles with the kind of scenes and dialog that makes one wish for the glory times of Hollywood's Golden Age , and at least four or five really excellent performances , The Bad and the Beautiful might not be as astounding and near-perfect as 8 or as funny as Bowfinger , but it ranks up there with the best movies about movie-making , and can make for some fine entertainment even for those who aren't really interested in how movies are made . |
508,576 | 453,068 | 28,950 | 10 | Thoroughly enjoyable , memorable characters and scenes , an early classic in humanist / prison escape films | I can't deny that Jean Renoir has a genuine eye for human connectedness and moves his camera with a practical naturalness . The performances by the principal actors as well ( Jean Gabin as the working-class Marechal , Pierre Fresnay as the eloquent Boieldieu , Marcel Dalio as the subtle and happy Rosenthal , and Erich von Stroheim as the un-mistakenly stiffest and suavest of movie prison wardens Captain von Rauffenstein ) are on the money every step of the way . Perhaps my one problem ( and it's not a big one ) with The Grand Illusion is that despite it being made at a time when cinema , in particular sound cinema , was just starting out , there could've been better targets hit by Renoir . He hits on a mark with these prisoners as well as with the guards - these are regular people , caught up and made to feel like they're in the schoolyard with ruthless heads and rebellious minions . As a satire , for some reason , it works a lot better for me than a drama - at least at first . For example , when Marechal is in solitary in the first prison , this is a masterpiece of a scene in and of itself , and for some reason I wanted more moments like this . While this could be attributable to the fact that Renoir didn't film everything he had intended with his script ( lack of budget one can assume ) , there are some expectations that weren't up to what could've been met . This may be variable from viewer to viewer , which is why this shouldn't deter those interested in seeing this - this is one of those POW films that's inspired others ( i . e . Great Escape ) , but has a sort of spirit that's all it's own . On the other hand in what comes out when one takes more of a look - which Renoir allows through how watchable ( in terms of just being able to not turn off the film once it starts ) the drama does become integrated with the critical view of the characters and changing situation . It's almost TOO complex , if that's possible . One of the fantastic joys of Grand Illusion is how much there is life and energy in his scenes depicting the prisons of world war one . Like in a Fellini drama ( which it may very well have inspired for the later Italian ) , there's a lot pf love for how cinema is made itself to get too depressed with the story & characters . And like in a neo-realist film , the dialog between the people is quite realistic and interesting . Some of the supporting characters / actions may seem odd to some new viewers , although one has to take into context the period . With an awesome cameraman ( Christian Matras ) , finite music score by Joseph Kosma , and an escape scene that's almost as thrilling as what Darabont cooked up in Shawshank , Grand Illusion is deservedly so the first film released by the Criterion collection ( DVDs ) , and is a suave , nice note in film history . AND , it definitely becomes better upon repeat viewings , as these characters become more familiar , as if we're in there in the prisons with these amicable , existential beings . |
508,536 | 453,068 | 36,613 | 10 | not exactly subtle , but it is some kind of morbid comic masterpiece | My first thought as Arsenic and Old Lace ended : I didn't know Capra had it in him ! This is a delightfully morbid comedy , one that sometimes is pitch-dark in tone , but it so insane that it can do no wrong . It opens on a Brooklyn Dodgers game that goes into riot and then . . . it moves on right away to a whole other location somewhere else in Brooklyn , as the title cards reveal . We're then placed into the home of two little old ladies - the Brewester Aunts - who happen to keep not one , not two , but about twelve or thirteen dead bodies down in the cellar ( well , also one in that chest in the living room ) , much to their son Mortimer's ( Cary Grant ) total shock and wide-eyed " WHAT ! " attitude . But , hey , how can just this make a movie ? Why not also throw in a " Boris Karloff " character in Raymond Massey and his cohort played by Peter Lorre who hold up in the house and have a body of their own . And then , well , I haven't mentioned Theodore Roosevelt . . . This is one of the all-time champion madcap comedies . It starts with craziness and never lets up , not for a minute ( maybe for a second or two , and even then there's some sardonic weirdness ) , and Capra also has a great control of style when it's commanded ( i . e . the scenes in the dark , the silhouettes , the solid close-ups on Grant and Massey when they make indelible , uproarious facial expressions ) . Mostly , however , he just lets the material take over as his guide , and it's genius work . Never something that is much subtle - matter of fact , it's one of the most obvious works ever - it's like a high-voltage spoof of Hitchcock's Rope , before it was released , and themes of death , insanity , marriage , the tenderness between brothers and mothers , are put up in the air for total comic frenzy . Even Grant works wonderfully , in a performance he himself thought was too over-the-top , which might be true in any other context but here is pitch-perfect . It's got plenty of amazing quotes , more than a few moments that seem to be hip and wild even by today's standards , and there are several strands of comedy that go through and overlap and make up lots of things that are sometimes unbelievable . . . wait , sometimes ? You've got a guy who trumpets and charges up the stairs , and distrusts men who look like Taft , and he might not be the most delirious character in the movie ! It's incredible work , and one of the funniest movies ever made . |
509,445 | 453,068 | 460,829 | 10 | Inland Empire - where the stars make dreams , and dreams make stars . . . | The bulk of that line refers to a quote from the film Inland Empire - spoken in a cameo by William H . Macy as a TV show announcer - and one might be tempted to use that as the template to try and ' figure out ' what happens through the course of the film's three hours . It is indeed , especially on a second viewing , the most intriguing and useful theme for what goes on with the character of Nikki ( or Sue , depending on the scene or mood of the moment ) , as she goes through what can be described as , well , indescribable . But the line is helpful to look at what director David Lynch is most after and interested by with the film - dream logic . More over , the dream logic of life , and how it relates to the cinema , and to perceptions , and to , as the tag-line suggests , " a woman in trouble . " But all of this still can't really help me , even on a second viewing , give at all an idea of what to expect with Inland Empire . It's a dense , ambitious , graceful , crude , ambiguous , and flawed work of the highest order of abstractions put together into one big Lynchian package . And don't forget the rabbits with that . The first time I saw the film , I was more swept up into the emotional mix & match that Lynch threw up on the screen , and by the immensity of how beautiful he was able to put everything together through his DV camera ( like with Eraserhead , he plays with a form that is difficult in some ways , but inviting and exciting in others ) . The second time , I thought that it could be another excursion as Mulholland Drive was , where I could focus more on piecing whatever the hell kind of puzzle Lynch put up for the audience to possibly figure out . About half an hour into the film , however , I realized it was an act of futility to ' figure it out ' , at least in any conventional sense . But this is not necessarily a bad thing , even if it leaves the audience sharply divided as to take it : the greatest mind-bender of the new millennium , or the pretentious ramblings of a director un-hinged ? I maybe went more with the former , even as I could understand the latter ; it allows so much thought to come out of what happens in terms of characters ' behaviors , of themes that emerge , and what might seem to come together when it really doesn't . What it lacks in narrative flow it makes up for with an originality in delving into personality , and what personality even means . At first it might seem as if there's a simple story here - Laura Dern as Nikki gets the part she's been waiting for , in a film by the great director Kingsley ( Jeremy Irons ) , and with a fine co-star ( Justin Theroux , even better here than in Mulholland ) . The actors find out though in a moment of confession from Kingsley that the project they're about to work on is technically a remake of an unfinished film where on the project the two main stars were killed , as there was a kind of ' curse ' on the project called " 47 " . It isn't long after this that Inland Empire gets even weirder than before , but by weird will be totally subjective to the viewer ( and may depend as well on how much you're familiar with Lynch's world - or thought you knew what it could hold ) . Lynch then submerges Dern's character ( s ) into a landscape of suffering and bewilderment , where sub-plots possibly emerge involving a Polish circus , a murder via screwdriver , a " sitcom " TV show involving rabbits on a couch , and Nikki / Sue caught up in the maelstrom of an abusive downfall . A lot of this madness that comes through in Lynch's style , which is as audacious and remarkable and totally mesmerizing as it is going almost over the edge with its delirious need to push the dream logic and surrealism to its limits , could not be completely of worth without Laura Dern , who in particular is almost on equal footing of Lynch with heart and soul poured in . As required for looking at what it means to be an actress , or what it means to be a person , or to have a reality shattered by various un-realities , Dern is always perfect in relaying her emotions , however intense or drained or shocked or horrified they may be ( or , sometimes too , of just listening to someone , like in that wonderfully batty scene shared with Grace Zabriskie as a ' neighbor ' ) . It's probably the pinnacle of her career thus far , with everything she's ever either hinted at or shown as an actress up till now thrown up on the screen to match up with the wild demands of Lynch's own mind-set . It won't win an Oscar for her , but she should at least get a nomination , if it even means anything at this point . In a sense , this IS what acting is all about , at least for the sake of what Nikki has to do to play Sue , and vice versa , if that make sense . So on a second viewing did I understand Inland Empire any better than the first time ? Probably not by much , and I actually still felt the flaws that pecked away the first time , namely that it does go too long , becoming sluggish towards the end ( albeit with an astounding end credits sequence ) , and every so often a moment or scene felt too over the top . Yet overall , this is a film filled with so many ideas , so many visions , and so much to cast into one's mind about the nature of reality , of what it means to see an un-reality ( either through the media , or through a form , or just in front of one's eyes like Dern with the " hot " girls who dance to the ' Locomotion ' ) , and how things are never , ever as they seem . Just like Hollywood , one might say . |
508,574 | 453,068 | 110,413 | 10 | A thrilling crime film , in deep touch and care with the characters - Besson and Portman's best work to date | I sensed that Luc Besson ( director of The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita ) was , like Tarantino and many , many others before him , borrowed elements from various films and genres to create their own voice in the film . With Leon , I sensed him alluding to the crime films of France ( i . e . Melville ) , Hong-Kong ( i . e . Woo ) , and America ( i . e . Scorsese ) , and making it into his own special brand for the story and characters . That his style visually is as compelling helps a great deal . The international version ( which is the one I saw ) is a little grittier , and more suggestive , than the version most American audiences saw in 1994 and on cable . But it is also a must-see if you are planning to see the film . It's not a long movie , though it gives a good many details in its story . Jean Reno has his star-making turn ( at least for what he's worth ) in Leon - he's ruthless contract killer who will kill just about anyone for the right price . He lives out of an apartment by himself , trying his best to ignore his noisy neighbors . One of the daughters is Mathilda ( Natalie Portman , also a major breakthrough performance ) , abused by her whole family to no end . When a corrupt cop ( Gary Oldman , one of the key villain performances of his career along with Dracula and Drexl in True Romance ) goes and kills off her family while she's away , she has no one else to turn to besides the reclusive killer . She knows what he does , and she wants in . The rest of the film is about their relationship , as it unfolds professionally and emotionally , leading to a tremendous , bloody climax . One thing that struck me most about Leon is the fact that the film was more disturbing than I expected . The idea of a killer getting a pupil in a young teenage girl is unusual enough , but the way it unfolds I felt so much for her plight got to me at times . this doesn't make Leon a tear-jerker ( maybe for some , I'm not sure ) , but because of Portman's dead-on portrayal , it makes the story work somehow , and is in a way as fantastical as it is naturalistic . There are also a few scenes that stuck out as being little masterpieces of all the elements coming together . The first is a brief scene , and crucial to showing the character of Leon early on - he takes a break after his contract , and sees a movie , a musical with Gene Kelly . He's the only one in the theater , and he is completely in the grasp of what he sees on the screen . It's the perfect touch of humanity and shows his only escape is into complete fantasy . The second is when Leon and Mathilda are in a restaurant , after she has just gone through a day of training ( there's a hilarious montage that follows this scene ) . Mathilda is getting drunk off of champagne , rambling with words she may or may not mean . Suddenly , she starts laughing , and she laughs more , and harder . People in the restaurant look at her like she's nuts . Leon is , of course , embarrassed . However , I thought this was just the right touch to this scene , where the kind of father-daughter relationship going on between Leon and Mathilda is revealed . It's not exactly funny , not even really cringe worthy . It just is . The third scene is when Mathilda decides to pay a visit to the man who murdered her family . She follows the man into the bathroom , and waits . Suddenly , he ( Oldman ) appears out from behind a door . The language used , the tenseness of the two off of one another , it's simply the most terrifying scene in the picture ( aside from the first violent turning point ) . So , basically , when Leon finished , I think I realized that my reaction was this : if I had seen this film when I was younger , be it in high school or even middle school , I would've responded to it even more strongly than I do now . There's something very visceral about the nature of violence and killing , as well as the mentor / pupil relationship , that Besson really gets down pat . While some of the situations have the chance of slipping into clichés , it doesn't happen very often . Leon : The Professional , is hard-hitting when it has to be , soft and funny when it can , and does stay with the viewer a few days after it's over . |
509,447 | 453,068 | 40,897 | 10 | the Hustons and Bogart in a perennial story of money being the root of all evils - even in good men | Fred Dobbs doesn't have a nickel to his name , at least when he's in the small Mexican village at the start of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre . But whatever the situation is , he wants what he can get , and if anyone tries to get in his way he'll let em have it . We see this early one when he and Bob Curtain have to beat it out of a sleazy boss at a construction site to get their earned wages . It's then no surprise that the two of them find it the best idea to take on Howard , an old seemingly-by-gone codger who once was a great prospector , on their ideal trip to look for gold in the mountains of Mexico . But then we start to see a kind of psychological head-trip go on with Dobbs , which makes the Treasure of the Sierra Madre that much more special of a film . The main characters aren't against any very dangerous adversaries - aside from the bandits - and it's not Cowboys and Indians . In fact , getting all the gold together isn't even the climax of the picture , which is usually where one might think a conventional picture would take this story . But John Huston , the director , has none of that here . In ' Sierra Madre ' , Dobbs becomes the " bad guy " , but it's hard exactly to call him one . I'm almost reminded of Crime & Punishment , the Dostoyevsky novel , where the morality is very blurred and the character becomes a fragmented version of himself ( not to mention trying to reason out in a lack of inner monologue , as Dobbs rambles to himself ) , and as Dobbs tries to make out with the gold on his own , he meets an end that any lessor Hollywood picture wouldn't dream of going to . That Dobbs then is played by Humphrey Bogart adds , at first , to the initial confusion of the moviegoer . This isn't how it usually happens , is it , least of which since Bogart started playing " good guy " roles . But Huston knows , as well as Bogart does - who may be in a true career highlight here alongside In a Lonely Place - that a character shouldn't be just one thing . Even Howard isn't just a kind-hearted old fella , even as he is that to a large extent ( he even admits that he might have been tempted to take the money too , had he been younger ) . And in a sense Dobbs , through Bogart , is a bittersweet reminder of the American dream , where all one really wants is enough money to get by - but then how much can really be enough ? Huston is brilliant in building on Dobbs's character , as is Bogart in showing little by little how his generous and genial personality gets stripped away when paranoia and fear settles into his mind-frame . Like when the men discuss how to divide up the money , or when the ' outsider ' American comes in , the one who's definitely not invited - notice the striking body language of Bogart in relation to the other actors . Most especially , even if it's a small scene , when the three men talk about what they'll do with their share of the money - Dobbs's goals are in the short-term , unlike the practicality of Howard or Bob . By the last third of the film , if one were just looking at that set apart from the rest of the picture , one might think it's a flashback to Bogart's ' old days ' as a character actor in the 30s . Yet he's the star here , which makes Dobbs's plummet a kind of sad testament to the American dream , so called , and to the corruptibility of goods . But aside from building strongly on the characters , Huston is also a good storyteller , and his Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of the finest ' yarns ' of the 40s , albeit subversive as his other great films , the Maltese Falcon and the Asphalt Jungle , were . It's such a simple story , really , but it works because we believe in the characters , the nature of the setting , of the outside influences ( i . e . both bandits and the ' common ' Mexican peasants ) . Huston doesn't clutter up his story with any unnecessary moments , even as he uses a lot more bits to build on character than just plot . While Howard ends up being usually expository or with all the information for the other two - as he IS the most experienced like a gold-digging Yoda perhaps - the story never gets clunky . And there's a great sweep to the style of the picture too , with just the right studio score by Max Steiner , and some wonderful desert shots ( and shots of the men's varied faces ) Ted McCord . And one can't leave thinking about Treasure of the Sierra Madre , aside from considering the performances . Sure , Bogart might be at his best here , both an every-man and every-man-for-himself ( plus his own worst enemy ) , but there's also Tim Holt , who has to carry the most restraint of the three main characters , and he's terrific at it , in what was probably his best remembered role among mostly B pictures . But it's arguable that Walter Huston , John's father , steals the show sometimes from Bogart , or at least gets in enough room to stand right alongside him as a presence to be reckoned with . The character ranges from being wise , to being a cook ( like when he laughs wildly at the younger men being tired climbing the mountain ) , cautious , and always with a sense of truth and honor . Huston probably has one of the more deserved supporting actor Oscar turns here for the part , and if I had to show anyone one performance noteworthy most of all from him it'd be from ' Sierra Madre ' . Bottom line , a must-see in the realm of the western / adventure A-pictures of the 40s , with enough to say on the dangers of greed and money to last so many years . |
510,029 | 453,068 | 86,197 | 10 | long but lean , heroic but very knowing , visually gorgeous and well-acted | I'm not sure why I put off , or just didn't get around , to seeing the Right Stuff . I could take my pick , but really I was never made to sit down by my parents or in school or other to watch it , and . . . screw the excuses , I wasn't sure about a 193 minute movie about astronauts as a kid . But now having seen it it's quite clear I was missing something fairly excellent in the cannon of the " Bio-pic " . It's one of those true compelling 20th century stories , and the filmmaker Philip Kaufman cares about all of these real guys so much that it moves right over into the cinematic treatment of the characters . And more impressively considering its ensemble there's almost a key character to the mix with Chuck Yeagher , the first man to break the sound barrier who never got into NASA with all the other go-for-broke test pilots , but did taste that rush up to the sky just once - and what a rush . This is film-making of a superlative caliber . It is such a story that is told extraordinarily because of how it takes itself seriously as a historical document , but never so much so as to get in a great joke ( the kind of natural joking that people do , such as the few quips done by Yeagher in the cockpit to whoever was listening after breaking the sound barrier , which actually happened ) or some sliver of satire to the mix . It pleases both as an emotional experience , one of those rousing and inspiring tales , but it's also at times intellectual too . We see the lives of these guys , of Yeagher , Shepard , Glenn , Cooper , Grissom , and their wives too . The Right Stuff is a very human story , told with an approximate awe for the subject matter and an attitude that says " we can be epic , but we can also point out the flaws that come around in human nature . " There were so many obstacles that could have come , and sometimes did , for the folks at NASA , the scientists as well as the handful that were picked to do missions up into space in direct competition with America's foe the Russians , that all the astronauts could sometimes do would be to joke or give a hard-lined measure . We see some expected things like a big press conference , but we also see things that ring so true that they feel so real as minor events , like when the scientists are showing the astronauts the pod without a window or proper escape hatch and they all band together to put pressure on them to do it right or else the press will hear all hell ( the wording in this scene is very good ) . The veneer of pure heroism is shown for what it is , as something of not always a tricky thing ; the film was criticized by some of the original astronauts for the depiction of Gus Grissom ( if only because Grissom had passed on in tragedy and couldn't do it himself ) , but his story of going into space , and the aftermath with his wife , is important to show for the story the film's trying to tell . That's one of the remarkable things in the Right Stuff , which is giving as much equal time and depth as possible to these guys , and their wives at other times . We see Dennis Quaid's cocky pilot saying he's the best their is , and then another where he suddenly becomes like 12 years old in front of the female doctor as she speaks / laughs with his wife behind doors . We see Ed Harris ' John Glenn as the supposed spokesperson of the group , the " Dudley Do-Right " as it were , but then the slightest bit of uncertainty - not to mention a really well told drama with his wife , who was a stutterer , and stood up against being pressured by Vice President Johnson . Little details all add up in the film , and even the ones that don't entirely work ( i . e . the cut-aways to the aborigines during Glenn's flight up in space ) still carry some worth as far as being filmed wonderfully or with a strange quality that makes it fun to watch - any other director might take out the crucial detail of Alan Shepard urinating in his suit before the very first successful launch of a US man into space , but it's left in , and stronger for it . And as far as just details with the characters go , all you need to see is the kind of simple but very strong representation of death in the man in the black suit and hat who has to pay call to those who've lost their husbands or fathers up in the sky . And , thankfully for such a long running time , we're given several moments in terms of the power of cinematic technique , of showing us the subjective perspective of what those who orbit the Earth see and the views outside the windows at so many countless miles up in the atmosphere . Basically any scene with Chuck Yeagher is one of these , especially early on but then also towards the end with his absolutely stunning bittersweet moment of going up to the sky and , well , nearly dying in a last-minute jump from the plane into flames . Kaufman takes the audience into these moments , and even just quiet or interesting ones with the actors , and imbues it all with just enough importance to level off the occasional goofiness he allows his character or in the choice of edits ( watch as the chimps , being spin around in that big circular thing are cut with Glenn spinning around ) . That it's also one of those outstanding ensembles helps a great deal too . It's exciting and refreshingly bittersweet Hollywood cinema , and at the least of the must-see pictures of 1983 . |
510,490 | 453,068 | 82,307 | 10 | one of the few truly amazing Italian horror films ( at least outside of Argento ) | I've wondered having seen a few of the films by Lucio Fulci what the big deal about him was . Zombie was decent and had a couple of moments but didn't impress , its " sequel " Zombie 3 was atrocious and New York Ripper , while entertaining , felt hollow and without any real grip of terror consistently . With the Beyond it's a whole other matter , and it's finally clear what ( some of ) the hubbub is about the prolific Italian " master " of the Giallo . He actually makes , for one , the story somewhat more interesting than most horror films , nevermind Italian , as if it's a descendant of Lovecraft ; some of this , in all actuality minus the crazy gore , could make something for a Val Lewton script . But aside from the story , which in all actuality Fulci as never been totally concerned with , his powers as director are at their peak . There's things like , well , atmosphere and terror from the Louisiana locations and lighting in those subterranean quarters near the ' gate ' of hell , and , of course , the manic gore . What surprised me most of all though after the fact of Fulci more than proving himself as a near-virtuoso with the camera and moments of great suspense ( maybe not quite Argento but close enough ) , was how scary the film turned out to be . This is most recommendable of all : it's not simply one of those guilty pleasure exports in the genre , but a legitimate work of terror out of things as simple as ghosts and demons from hell and curses and " that place has been abandoned for 50 years . . . What starts from the set-up in the premise - a woman , Liza ( Katherine MacColl ) inherits a decrepit Lousiana hotel that happens to lead into one of the seven gates of hell ( or maybe all seven , I lost cont ) - unravels into a series of murders , shocks , attacks , spooky wanderings with the blind woman and her dog , shenanigans and rot at the morgue . And never once is something far too cheesy , save for one or two shots from the gun in the climax , or too far into the realm of it being " so-bad-it's-good " like in other Fulci films . This time , it's just good . So good that it should please even today's " I - can - take - anything - you - dish - out " horror fans . Although characterization is at a reasonable two-dimensional limit , it is never a distraction ; on the contrary the horror perfectly streams out of this increasingly nightmarish place where just the introduction of the blind woman and her dog in the road is one thing . . . and then the eventual undoing of her with the dog something else ( the kind of scene , I should add , that reminds one of I Am Legend only with more horror-cajones ) . And characteristic for an Itallian " splatter " pic there's gore , lots of it , usually around popping eyeballs or close-ups of gashing flesh - the sepia-toned opening crucifixion is just one such fantastically over-indulgent treat - only with the Beyond Fulci tries out some things that gain their power from the cranked-up " what-the-hell " factor , such as the little girl in the autopsy room walking back away from the flowing pool of blood / whatever . The Beyond isn't for the squeamish , or for the easily frightened . It's a movie for hardcore fans of the genre , and more specifically Giallo-geeks . Its truly a fantastic piece of exploitation-as-art , where such a scene as the ending , which would never be seen done as well as in a more average or less ambitious production , displays what a director like Fulci could do when put to the extremes of his talent . I'm not sure if he's a great director like Argento yet ( certainly he gives other misogynists a run for their money ) , but he's attracted my attention more than ever to his oeuvre . |
508,657 | 453,068 | 86,190 | 10 | Not the best , but still fun | Return of the Jedi is the last of the series ( episode 6 ) and it may not be the best of the series , but like the other films , it still is all in good fun ( and the Flash Gordon matinae serials ) . The story brings Luke Skywalker to confront his father for the second time with Emperor Palpatine helping along . Also , a group of freedom fighters ( led by Han Solo ) , try to shut down a power base on the moon Endor that is controling the second Death Star . By the way , don't forget the first half hour of the movie which shows the gang freeing Han from Jabba the Hutt . This story is just the beginning of a fun , entertaining and important film that goes just right with the other six ( or three ) sagas . |
510,195 | 453,068 | 289,043 | 10 | one of the best European horror films this decade | The key to keeping the sci-fi horror genre alive in the cinemas , as of late , is to make sure the material and techniques the filmmakers present is at least competent , at it's average creative , and at it's best something that we haven't seen before or haven't seen in such a style or form . George A . Romero did that back in prime 60s and 70s era of film-making , bringing forth one of the most memorable trilogies of all time for the genre . While many consider Romero to be on any given list one of the greatest horror directors ( I included ) , it is important to know that he too had his sources for his little independent film in 1968 , and after that was when he really got inventive , resulting in a masterpiece and a lackluster . Director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland know that if they were to cook up a yarn all too similar to Romero it wouldn't be satisfying . So , they've done what is essential to the success of 28 Days Later - they take ideas that have been in practice for many years , turn them fresh , and as the audience we feel repelled , excited , terrified , nauseous ( perhaps ) , and enthralled , but we won't leave feeling like we've seen complete hack work . What does Boyle and his team set out to do to freshen up the zombie string ? By making not in precise terms a " zombie " movie - you never hear " living-dead " uttered in this film , although you do hear " infected " and a new word for what these people have , " rage " . Indeed , this is what the infected have in Britain , when a monkey virus gets let loose on the Island , and from the beginning of the infectious spread the film cuts to a man , Jim , lying in a hospital bed , who wanders abandoned streets and views torn fragments of society in front of him . That Boyle implements atmosphere as heavily as he does with the action / chase scenes gives an indication of his dedication to the detail . Jim soon finds a few other survivors , including Selena ( Naomie Harris ) and a father and his daughter ( Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns ) who hear of salvation on a radio and decide to brave it out to find it . When they do , it's a military outpost that's without any true salvation , outside of the various military typos . Like in Boyle and producer Andrew MacDonald's spellbinding ( if that's the proper terminology ) adaptation of Trainspotting , the craft is on par ( or arguably topping ) with the story and characters , and thus it has to captivate us all the more so to care about the plight of Jim and his companions . The photography by Anthony Dod Mantle is striking , not the least of which since it was done on digital photography ( like in Blair Witch , the use of non-professional camera equipment adds the proper shading when needed ) , but also many of the shot compositions are different for such a film . The editing by Chris Gill goes quicker than expected in the attack scenes , going so fast between the infected throwing up blood , the screaming on-looker ; the new infected transforming within seconds , and then the results that follow . Mark Tildesley's production design , as well as John Murphy's music , evokes haunting , evocative moods even in the more mundane scenes . And the acting , considering not many of the actors are well-known , is more than believable for such a script . I'm not sure if 28 Days Later will be everyone's cup of tea . Some of the horror and science fiction fans out there will immediately hear of this film , see a preview or a TV ad , or even see it , and dismiss it as phooey rubble borrowed from the video-store . I can see their points of view , since I saw many similarities in Romero and some other films ( the military scenes reminded me of Day of the Dead , though the chained up Zombie in this was done for more practical reasons , and the supermarket scene is a little unneeded considering the satirical reverence it had in Dawn of the Dead ) . But what they should understand is that Boyle isn't making a 100 % original film , and no one could at this point of the genre's history . He has done , however , the most credible job he could in getting a different tone , a different setting in country , and of a different , enveloping view of the scene structures . Overall , 28 Days Later is constructed and executed like most sci-fi horror films you've ever seen , and like not many other sci-fi horror films you've ever seen combined , in a sense , for a modern audience : fascinating throughout . |
509,517 | 453,068 | 751,141 | 10 | as cool a homage to the Thing you're likely to see | A team varied between Scully and Mulder , two other scientists , a pilot , and the guy who plays Bana on Seinfeld , go up to an Arctic research post where all members have died off by either killing each other or killing themselves . They discover there's a worm - a virus - that is parasitic to the point of madness and death . The problem is , after a certain dog lashes out , anyone could be infected , but who ? This is not just my favorite episode of season 1 , but also one of my favorites from the show . The Arctic environment encloses the characters and , of course like Carpenter's the Thing , it's a lot of fun watching these even-tempered characters suddenly start to flip out in dramatic scenes . And the visual effects of the worm and its effects under the skin are cheesy , I didn't mind them at all . The drama between the characters ends up working more than it would usually because of the tension and because all of the actors ( including the Bana guy ) understand what's going on in the story . And , as usual , I loved the ambiguity of the ending . Highly recommended . |
509,280 | 453,068 | 66,921 | 10 | Definitely the best film ever made , or at least the most shockingly effective | Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is a great film , but also stubbornly so , to the point where you have to either like it or dis-like it ( as Pauline Kael said , it's from the mind of a ' mad German filmmaker mind ' , ho-ho ) . It looks into the human ways like never before ( rarely since as funny or questioningly ) in the style that only Kubrick could do . Even though it was banned from the UK and Australia , the controversy isn't compromised . The writing , direction and acting is at it's highest peak form and just when you think it couldn't get better , it gets to be the best . Also , the breakthrough performance of Malcolm McDowell gets him at the top of the British actors list in my book ( this performance most likely got him noticed in the film world ) . And all the elements surrounding him makes it perfect . Finally , the themes are terrific . The way the film shows how the government screws a regular fiend over is great . The film is provoking , if nothing else , which is what most of the great films should do , and it's my personal favorite from Kubrick . |
509,561 | 453,068 | 365,825 | 10 | Even better to see in on the DVstill topical special | Following his first few comedy specials on Comedy Central , the angriest , superb take-no-prisoners comic Lewis Black made this special dedicated to what every American ( well , almost ) can identify with - the procedures and overall stress that goes with the lead up to April 15th . His special is mostly done with Black in front of a college classroom , where his ' lecture ' consists of slides , and with scenes cut-in with him interviewing people about taxes . The special as on the DVD is far superior ( it also includes the three comedy specials that helped to bring Black to major attention as one of the top comics in America ) , as it is un-cut with the language that might have been cut down on Comedy Central . Basically , the special will be funny even for those who don't pay taxes ( i . e . too young , or just avoid altogether ) . Perhaps he's angrier in his other specials , but here he's sharper than ever . |
508,917 | 453,068 | 94,964 | 10 | shocking not just for what is shown but what is implied ; it's an act of perverse psychological trickery on the part of Cronenberg and Irons | Dead Ringers wasn't necessarily a very pleasant film experience , but it's one that did shake me to the core as I watched it , in a way that is slightly comparable to The Fly . As an auteur , which could likely be applied to David Cronenberg , he keeps pressing on with many themes that he's been working through in the bulk of his career - and if not outright themes , general ideas that can draw out the darkest and saddest drama there is in the minds of men . Duality , to be sure , and also the complications that arise through forms of fetishism , or rather a kind of strange obsession with things involving the body , touching , feeling , close to one another in ways that are truly grotesque ( in this case there is the quintessential nightmare scene where Bev sees Claire split apart himself from Eliot , his twin , by taking a bite out of the deformed connection with a vein in her mouth ) , and sometimes having to do with outright criminals ( History of Violence and Spider come to mind as those who are just right on the brink all the time ) . But there's more , probably some things I didn't quite catch on , though I wouldn't put all of it on Cronenberg for making it such a beautiful work where objective perception through the camera - a bit like a documentary in a clinical sense , as many have noted - goes on with the subjectivity that is blurred through the twins . And in typical Cronenberg fashion , there's something of an exploitation catch to start with , that soon dissipates upon a deepening of the characters . In what is one of the very bravest acting challenges , Jeremy Irons plays twin Canadian gynecologists , Bev and Eliot Mantle ( Mantle = Mental ? obvious perhaps but not too much so ) . They have some unorthodox methods , though not necessarily related to how they treat patients in the office . It's almost been a game for years , we find out , how they go between having women without them noticing . But actress Claire ( the very talented , and maybe not quite on screen enough , Geneviève Bujold ) can soon tell the difference after meeting one to see if she can have children , which she can't due to three uterus's , and then getting screwed over ( literally ) by another . But there is love between her and Bev , who is soon revealed as the more vulnerable and dependent of the two while Eliot is more confident , the ladies man , the one winning awards and getting teaching positions . It soon becomes apart of a breakdown process for Bev as she leaves him to go get work elsewhere , and soon its a spiral into drugs and delirium , including some unorthodox procedures with a ' gold ' clamp . The ingredients here could make for some truly wacky cinema , but under the hands of Cronenberg it's done to such a realistic extent that you can't escape the humility of the situations . These brothers , as well as brother-to-lover , are linked in a manner that defies general descriptions . And it's not necessarily in a very fetishistic construct , though it pops up once and again ( my favorite was seeing the first sex scene between Claire and Bev - or is it Eliot , maybe it is - when he has her tied up to the bed with hospital equipment , as it's dangerous as anything Cronenberg has done with sex on film but touching in its long takes ) . But as in Spider , Cronenberg wouldn't have it get done correctly without the proper lead , and in Irons he finds someone who has such a wide range in pure theatricality : formal grace , apprehension , embarrassment , cruelty , reckless behavior whilst on drugs , delirium , moments of quiet tension , pain , fear , anger , it's all there up for grabs . Even when some scenes near becoming a little flat almost by Cronenberg's wavering detachment Irons brings it back to something that is profound . This is something unexpected , given that some scenes have to rely on levels of dark depravity ( the first ' test ' of the new instruments during surgery ) and dark comedy even ( the question inferred about sex with a dog to a woman is priceless ) . It might come close to being , oddly enough , a definitive work from the director , even if it isn't perhaps his absolute best film . Yes , it's tone is cold and without the levels of sentimentality that could come had it been someone who went for a lower common denominator . Yet it has what most of his fans come to expect - twisted psychological drama , intense and quick shocks , and high-caliber performances to match the technical aspects achieved . It's not an easy film to love , but damn if one can't look away and not get it out of their heads once it's over . |
510,526 | 453,068 | 346,491 | 10 | like Alexander himself , the latest epic from Oliver Stone , it has it's moments of greatness , though surely not overall | The final product of Oliver Stone's decades-in-the-making epic on Alexander the great had me stunned walking out of the theater . Not because I thought it was particular great or masterful , and not because I thought it was a failure either . What stunned me was how there could be a few points in the film where I thought that Stone , like Alexander in a sense , reached heights he's barely gone to before , but then in other spots he boggled my mind with how he lost me . For example , take the second battle sequence , in which Alexander leads his weary army towards an Indian army , where Elephants stampede furiously against the troops on horses , and Alexander gets a bit of a shock ( one which I won't reveal ) . After this shock , the rest of the battle scene is tinted , with a red glaze and form that gives the scene a complete , abrasive illusionment . I can consider this to include what is best and worst in Stone's talents as a storyteller - he creates this huge , massive sequence , using multiple angles and special effects . There is also an over-load of the kind of symbolism and melodramatic tendencies that have only popped up occasionally in past Stone films . The main focus being the significance of the bird in the sky ( or King Phillip ) to be used like the shaman in the Doors , only far too prominent to be easily desired . It's the kind of battle sequence I'd like to analyze shot-by-shot sometime , not necessarily because I'd like it more , but because it's the kind of sequence that you almost never see in major motion pictures . Like Natural Born Killers ( which is one of the ultimate love or hate films ever made ) , Stone brings his unique , art-house sensibilities to a Hollywood budget and goes wild . The story he tells jumps around in revealing the rise and fall of the Macedonian . More than showing how ferocious and intelligent he was at battle ( though that and other scenes of violence take up more than a third of the whole picture ) , Stone opts to get into his psychology via parents Phillip and Olympia ( the sexy , sometimes frightening Angelina Jolie ) . This is where Stone makes some interesting ground , yet also , more often than not , doesn't know how to stick to something . A lot of the scenes involving Alexander's anger and frustration with his parents probably looked better on paper than they do on screen . And it's not necessarily the actors ' faults entirely - the repetitive usage of close-ups , and the sometimes horrendous musical score by Vangelis , adds to it being less engaging . The acting , much like the direction , tips the scale to both sides by either fitting into their characters wonderfully , or not finding what is there at all and over-playing . Kilmer was impressive at playing a cretin of a father . Jolie was so-so . Leto's was one of the least impressive performances I've seen this year ( I just could not see what affect Hephaistilon could have had on Alexander ) . Dawson and Hopkins were good , though somewhat under-used . Then there is Farrell , who for many who see this film may be what makes or breaks it for them . In most scenes , he finds the right notes and tones for his expression , the way he looks in close-ups . He does prove he can be a leading man in Hollywood . But what disappointed me was in how in some scenes he lost a grip on what he was doing with the character , and I saw less of Alexander and more of Farrell . Sometimes , I suppose , that look in his eyes would just vanish , the kind of look that has been in the major , Dionetic performances of Stones ' films ( such as Willem Dafore in Platoon , Woody Harrellson in NBK , and Kilmer in The Doors ) . Alexander , after a first viewing , is my least favorite of Stone's pictures - much of it goes to lengths with historical exposition that might have fared better to show ( three battles , even if it was a small one or in montage , may have balanced out with the other major two ) than to go on and on with . It doesn't make the mistakes of this year's Troy , but it doesn't fare much better . Simply put , Alexander the film is like the man himself - an ambitious , crazed man who ended up dividing his audience . Go see it , and know you will be challenged to love , like , or despise it . |
509,749 | 453,068 | 86,153 | 10 | One of the best Godard films | First Name : Carmen is an enthralling hybrid for director / actor Jean-Luc Godard and screenwriter ( and frequent collaborator ) Anne-Marie Mieville . After almost a decade of weird , philosophical experimentation , they took on the opera of Carmen ( the original story of which , unfortunately , I am not very knowledgeable of ) and deconstructed it with some amusing self-awareness ( " Uncle " Jean-Luc Godard at the start of the film is in a hospital of sorts , over-staying his welcome ) , while going back to Godard's olden days of movies with lovers on the run . This time the lovers meet by accident and chance - Carmen X ( the alluring and dangerous Maruschka Detmers in a controlled , if downtrodden debut acting role ) asks of her uncle Jean if she can use his beach-side house to make a film with some friends . He agrees , though not knowing she's apart of a terrorist gang that robs a bank . During the robbery she has a shoot-out , and kiss , with Joseph ( Jacques Bonnaffe , whose performance shifts from bizarre to intense and then believable ) the security guard . They hide out for a little while , becoming more involved , while Carmen knows at the same time his uncle prepares to make his comeback film after being washed up for so long , her terrorist friends are planning another scheme . The acting ranges from forceful to observant , from a little boring to a little ridiculous , but like in Godard's 60's films the actors contribute to Godard's documentary style feel ( of which he calls a documentary which is ' fictional ' ) . And Godard is able to get a few laughs during his few scenes on camera , even as he spouts a few quotes that make a viewer dig in their minds for a meaning . Accompanied with evocative and sweet late-night shots of cars and a train in Paris , are shots of the ocean , which contributes as the film's main flaw for me ( I kept on saying , yeah the sea looks nice , but what's the point he's getting at here - is it the characters or himself that likes staring at the sea ? ) . Nevertheless the compositions are no less than on par with what to be expected from Godard ( via the great Raoul Coutard and Jean-Bernard Menoud ) , and the emotionally charged musical selections from Beethoven and Bizet to Tom Waits are pulled off as a successful , often emotional experiment as the footage of the string musicians are inserted several times . Overall , ' Carmen ' , however little or much it follows it's source , is a fine piece of art-type of cinema , where romanticism and cynical humor plays as much of a role as the story . |
509,529 | 453,068 | 70,707 | 10 | My brain ! . . . That's my second favorite organ . | Woody Allen's Sleeper is one of his best films yet . The wit is , common for 70s era Allen , razor-sharp on the fronts of Woody's retorts and nervous ramblings , as well as in visual terms . Allen comes closest to taking the visual comedic spirit of the silent era , or of the first sound comedies , and making it fit perfectly into his work of pure absurdist science-fiction . There's never a wisecrack to miss , or a nod to political or social ties of the contemporary sort . In fact , there are almost TOO many sight gags to go around , like with the huge fruit and vegetables , or the orgasmatron , or the " Nose " , which is meant to be the leader of the dystopian future Allen gets thawed out of in the year 2173 . And by sort of stretching out of his New York skin , as he also did with Love and Death and Bananas to an extent ( though even more winningly here ) , there's some fresh ground to break . There's also some great team-work with Diane Keaton - the first time the two teamed up under Allen's direction . Topping this with a sensational up-beat rag-time jazz score by Allen and his band-mates ( the only time Woody's done the bit as composer ) , you've got great one-liners , great physical comedy , and superb , jokey production design . One of the best film of 1973 . |
508,747 | 453,068 | 70,698 | 10 | takes cues from Hitchcock and then takes a leap forward ; De Palma's best , most bizarre comedy / thriller | I'd have to say that this film , though sometimes just shamefully manipulative for audience reaction ( and I say that sort of as a compliment ) , is one of De Palma's very best films , both artistically and just in sheer entertainment value . It's got the low-budget quality of an AIP production , but set apart from Roger Corman's films or other films from the company . It's got such a strange , occasionally off-the-hinges , but dedicated wit that it's hard to ignore . In fact , this wit , and a good number of tight , screwed-up close-up angles , special point of view takes , and some of De Palma's trademarks ( split-screen , ambiguous villain , women in trouble , etc ) are what set it apart from being a complete Hitchcock homage . It's no doubt that the director is so in love with the Master's style that , apparently , he even times his edits and shots to go with Bernard Herrmann's music . But what sets Sisters apart from even the more macabre Hitchcock films is that since De Palma is working in a low-budget , under-the-radar , with actors with not much credit to their names , things can be taken further than usual in dealing with the psychological ' whoas ' of what goes on . This is possibly one of the most morbid tales to be told in 70's cinema . Another important aspect to Sisters and its success is the faith that De Palma has in his actors / friend Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt . They fit their roles so well one can't imagine big-name actors doing them any better ( though Salt , up until the last act , is playing it all appropriately one-note ) . Kidder's Danielle / Dominique is quite a character too , one with so much complexity her story becomes like some wild ball of string that gets unraveled with little blood-laden marks along the road . Danielle brings home a truly nice guy , Phillip ( good character actor , Lisle Wilson ) , sleeps with him , and then goes ape when she doesn't get her medicine . . . or is it her sister , Dominique ? This first half hour is like some kind of satirical , sincere kind of film-making that could make just a great , open-ended short film . But with the addition of De Palma's split screen ( possibly the best he's used it in any of his films ) , the story spins off into Grace , a reporter who gets on the case on her own to find out what happened to the body . This leads her into a very dark place , one that leads her into something so bizarre I dare not mention here . But those last fifteen-twenty minutes or so are where things become a kind of make-or-break test in a sense for the audience ; how far can one push this overtly surreal quagmire of a scene where the ' doctor ' is present in front of our two main actresses ? The ' doctor ' himself is played by William Finley , and it would be arguable that his is such a toweringly creepy , scary performance of a villain that it becomes almost too uncanny . In this climax one has to wonder how far it will go , and then it becomes clear that it's almost the point of the story to go over the edge like this . We're dealt with an already peculiar premise of two Siamese twins , one of whom may or may not be alive , and how they're let loose onto the world . Early on it seems like this might just be an off-beat , funny noir kind of story , but by the end it becomes a bit more . It takes originality to pull off some of the scenes here , or at least faith in what's written will work on screen . In a way this is the best place to see the bridge of De Palma's early black comedies ( Hi Mom , Greetings ; the neat opening TV show scene brings this to mind ) and the hit or miss thrillers that have dominated his long career . Basically , for me , this was a hit , and that it was manipulative , sordid , and left the viewer still wanting some answers , makes it as successful a wink ( if not homage ) to Hitchcok that the filmmaker has done . |
403,345 | 453,228 | 110,632 | 1 | awfully | This movie is done on a sorta drug or crazy man vision . It is disturbing and just plain stupid . One thing it does well is reflect modern violent society . It shows how sick people and the media can be ; However , they make the lead characters into heroes instead of bad guys , which bothers me . |
403,085 | 453,228 | 165,361 | 1 | Something that rhymes with it . | This movie is garbage to be kind . Do not waste your money or time . I thought it was going to be like True Romance by reading the cover but , it turns into this weird Gen x film . They try to make GenX look like 60's children but in reality we are too busy moving from one crappy job to the next . There was no real story . I fast forwarded this movie in spots because it was so bad . |
402,400 | 453,228 | 285,742 | 1 | garbage , Why did my wife rent this ? I've seen better acting on wrestling | Contains Spoilers If it wins an award it is usually a boring social message movie that has some artistic flavor to it . E T , Raiders , and other true classics will always be beaten out by Philidaphia , Ghandi , etc . Well , this film is an . Halle Barry wins an award ! Maybe it should have been an adult movie award for her performance . I mean this film was like those clips you see from the Pay TV commercials for their pornos . Billy Bob has progressed in his film career from making one weird film to another , and I think he has topped it . If he can make a weirder film than this watch out . Oliver Stone would have to write and direct it . What bothers me , this film is supposed to be anti Racist . Being of Polish background , if they ever need a jerk character , someone stupid , or a disfunctional family ( like in this one ) they use a lot of Slavic last names . They just add a Ski to it , and it will win an award . What if they made characters like this for other groups , blacks , jews , gays etc would it be socially correct ? It seems Poles , Italians and Catholics get it all the time , and they have to show Crucifixs in the houses in these movies often . Pole's have some bad sterotypes , but this movie hits way beyond that . By the way how many Slavs live in the South ? The part that gets me is there is no social message ; for the lead character is a jerk whose stupid son who just did not get in the truck and leave kills himself . It seems every time Billy Bobs character finds himself in a bind , he becomes a hypocrite and hurts someone . He hates his son so he drives his son to suicide ; doesn't need his dad's anymore and sends him off to a very awful care home . Hates his job so he quits its , instead of trying to reform it . All of a sudden he is lonely , he does a 180 loves black people and gets laid . It reminds me of many people in life who do one thing and change too another when it is convenient for them . There is no real spiritual conversion of the person here . I guess it was maybe to shock us or send a social message , where I find neither . No shock with this film , I have been so bloated with messages of violence and sex on film . The sex scenes where there only to create a rating , and an excuse for making a borderline adult film . All they needed was that NWO music from Wrestling during the countless sex scenes , and bad lines like I change attitudes lets have sex . Or hey baby its getting bigger , don't stop etc . This film lacks any direction , depth or entertainment value . I'd rather watch Stallone in Cobra at least it's entertaining , and makes more sense than this one . Maybe they call this art , I gave it a one . I would respect it better if at least they made this a sex film than hiding it behind a social message . At least Porky's did not do that . |
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