| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Umberto D. - Unrated |
Vittorio de Sica's Umberto D. is an Italian neorealist film. This film depicts an old man, Umberto Dominico Ferrari, who is trying to make ends meet. He lives off a pension and the lady he rents a room from is threatening to kick him out. He tries selling a bunch of stuff to get the money he needs to pay his debts, but he only manages about a third of what he needs. He decides to kill himself, but he has a dog that he doesn't want to abandon. Like de Sica's more famous Bicycle Thieves, this film is an Italian neorealist film. The main character is nobody important and his struggles are typical of people in post-War Italy. The film consists of mainly non-professional actors (as far as I can tell this is the only film Carlo Battisti, the man who played Umberto D., ever appeared in). The film is also filmed on location which is another characteristic of neorealism. While this film is generally not as well-received as Bicycle Thieves, it is still a fairly well-regarded film. I actually liked this film better than Bicycle Thieves as I found the main character rather likable. People who do not particularly care for dogs probably wouldn't like this film since the dog is rather important in the film. Overall, this film is nearly flawless and probably the best Italian film I have ever seen. 95/100 A |
November 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Roma, città aperta (Open City) - Unrated |
Roberto Rossellini's film Rome, Open City (Italian: Roma, città aperta) depicts the German occupation of Rome during World War II. In the film there is a priest who helps the Italian resistance. This film is one of the early examples of an Italian neorealism film. While current scholars tend to consider this film more melodramatic than neo-realist. Despite this, it has many of the notable characteristics of Italian neorealism - the film focuses on ordinary people; it has a loose, episodic story structure; the camera style is simple; there is an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract ideals; etc. While I suppose this is a decent example on neorealism, I was rather disappointed in this film. The only other neo-realist film I've seen is Bicycle Thieves, an outstanding film, and I was hoping this film would be of similar quality. While I suppose it did a good job at what it was trying to do, I just didn't care about the story at all. The only thing I liked about the film was a stretch of a minute or two which led to the iconic shot of one of the main characters being shot. I should comment that the current DVD releases of this film are terrible and this could have contributed to my poor opinion of the film. There were large portions of dialogue in Italian and German with no subtitles making the film quite difficult to follow. Criterion is working on a release of the film which would almost certainly do a better job with subtitles. Perhaps the film is worth a rewatch at some point. 40/100 F |
November 13, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Laura - Unrated |
Otto Preminger's Laura is a film noir film about the murder of the title character. Prior to the start of the film Laura has been murdered and the police are trying to figure out who murdered her. About midway through the film a plot twist has Laura being alive and someone else being murdered at her house while Laura was away. The film then shifts to deciding who was murdered (this was quickly resolved) and ultimately who killed the actual victim. The film stars Gene Tierney as the title character along with Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and a few others. While there was nothing particularly bad about any of these characters, they didn't really do anything that stood out to me. Prior to Tierney's appearance of the living Laura, the character seemed rather interesting. Tierney was not all that exciting and was a rather forgettable femme fatale. The other characters came off as equally boring which hurt the film substantially as a good noir film requires memorable characters. Stylistically, I didn't find this to be a great example of a noir film. While it did have low key lighting, flashbacks, detectives, etc., it wasn't quite as well-done as other films. Major portions of this film took place in the middle of the day or in lots of light. There weren't any scenes that took place in near darkness. The femme fatale wasn't a villain at all in this film and her role wasn't all that important after it was discovered she was alive. This film was, and still is, received rather well. It was nominated for several Academy Awards and won for best black and white cinematography. The film is often ranked amongst the better film noir films but always behing classics like M, The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Blvd., and Double Indemnity. 70/100 C- |
November 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Apocalypse Now - R |
Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now is an epic war film depicting the Vietnam War. The film is very loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. In the film, the protagonist is sent on a secret mission (which does not, nor will it ever, exist) to assassinate a fellow American soldier "with extreme prejudice". The colonel to be killed has gone crazy. The majority of the film depicts the protagonist and his crew on a boat going up a river before they finally encounter the colonel. While Marlon Brando is the first actor listed in the credits, he didn't have much of a role in this film. Brando plays the colonel to be assassinated but he doesn't even appear in the film until there are about 25 minutes left. Due to his immense weight gain, Brando is never really shown in the film. Most of the time he is on camera he is in heavy shadow and only part of his face is visible. This sort of adds to his character's mystique. Martin Sheen plays the protagonist and he's probably the star of this film. While not the most interesting film ever made, this film is nonetheless pretty good. The film does a pretty good job showing how everything becomes more and more insane as the boat travels down the river. In this regard it is similar to Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God. The film, like Heart of Darkness, alludes fairly substantially to Dante's Inferno. The cinematography is pretty good as well. This film took a notoriously long time to finally premiere and prior to the premiere it seemed like it would get terrible reviews. This was not the case as the film won the prestigious Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won two Oscars. Sight and Sound magazine named this film the best film of the last 25 years. I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's still a pretty good film. 83/100 B- |
November 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Cidade de Deus, (City of God) - R |
Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund's film City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a crime drama film. The film depicts around 20 years of the life of a boy living in one of the slums of Rio de Janeiro known as the City of God. While just about everyone associated with him is a violent gang member, the protagonist is not a criminal and dreams of being a photojournalist. The film is a sort of coming-of-age film as it shows the character growing up and the troubles he tries to overcome. Overall, the film's plot tends to be mostly outstanding. The film stars mostly a bunch of no-name actors who grew up in the slums of Brazil, some of whom in the actual City of God. In this respect the film is a lot like Bicycle Thieves and just like in that film the acting tends to be rather good. Given the dearth of world-renowned films from Brazil it goes without saying that this is one of the better Brazilian films ever made. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards (amazingly, it was not nominated for best foreign language film) winning none. The film is well-received by critics and fans alike (it currently ranks 16th on the IMDB's top 250 film list). While the film probably isn't one of the 20 greatest films ever, it is well-deserving of all of the accolades it has received and is certainly one of the better films of this decade. 92.5/100 A- |
November 10, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Lady Vanishes - Unrated |
The Lady Vanishes is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best-known British films and by far the most well-received of his films I have not yet seen (all of which are British). This film is set in a fictional Central European country with most of the action taking place on a train. The female lead meets a woman but that woman seems to vanish. When the lead asks about the woman she was with nobody has any recollection of her and a doctor convinces her she was probably hallucinating due to a blow to the head. Eventually all sorts of clues show that she did in fact meet such a woman and something wrong was happening on the train. The film is a fairly typical Hitchcock film and has some spy thriller elements and a MacGuffin. The film stars Margaret Lockwood as the female lead along with Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, and a host of others. I'm not terribly familiar with any of the actors in this film but I think they made a pretty believable cast. They played their parts fairly convincingly and I can't think of any cringe-worthy moments in terms of their acting. Overall, this film seemed very typical of an Alfred Hitchcock film and that is certainly a good thing. This was the penultimate film he made before coming to the United States and this film seems a lot more American than the other British films I have seen. The ultimate solution to the plot was somewhat confusing and never really answered which is fairly typical of Hitchcock's work. In addition to the MacGuffin, the film has several other Hitchcock elements such a train, eating scenes, a Hitchcock cameo, and a bunch of other stuff. This is far from Hitchcock's greatest films but it is certainly a good film. 86/100 B |
November 8, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog - Unrated |
Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 silent film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (often referred to as just The Lodger) is a murder mystery of sorts. There is a Jack the Ripper-type murderer in the town who kills blonde women on Tuesday's. At the same time a rather suspicious man rents a room from a family and it appears he is the murderer. The viewers eventually learn he is innocent and his sister was the first murdered girl. My main problem with this film is the identity of the actual killer is never revealed. Similarly, the killer's motive is never revealed. The source material for this film has the lodger being the murderer, but studio executives wouldn't allow this as the actor playing the lodger was quite popular at the time and portraying him as a murderer might harm his reputation. Several later Hitchcock films had similar changes and I think they were detriments in all the films. While this was actually Hitchcock's third film, he often considered it his first. Hitchcock spent some time before his career as a director working with filmmakers in Germany and it shows in this film. The film is heavily influenced by Expressionistic filmmakers like Murnau and Lang. The film also contains several themes that would recur throughout Hitchcock's career. The film contains a cameo by Hitchcock early on, it depicts an innocent man on the run, and it throws in romance during a murder mystery. Overall, I didn't find this film particularly enjoyable. It seemed like almost everything that happened until the end of the film was rather pointless. While the ending got a little more exciting, the aforementioned problems don't really help make up for a rather dull film. The film may incorporate quite a few elements of Hitchcock's later work, but this has a long way to go to compare favorably to Hitchcock's better films. 60/100 D- |
November 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - Unrated |
F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (often referred to as just Sunrise) is generally referred to as one of the greatest silent films ever made. The film is about a guy whose mistress convinces him to drown his wife and make it look like an accident. The man is about to throw his wife off a boat but suddenly decides he loves her. His wife freaks out that her husband was going to kill her and when they get to shore in the city she tries to run away. Amazingly, she forgives him rather quickly and they become very much in love and have a wonderful evening on the town. While rowing the boat back across the lake to get home, there is a terrible storm and the boat capsizes. The man gets back to shore and thinks his wife is dead. His mistress is thrilled thinking their plan worked perfect but he is furious at her and tries to choke her to death. While doing this, his wife's body is found and he runs to see if she is alive or dead. The film ends with the man and his wife laying together in bed as the sun rises. Stylistically, this film is Murnau's attempt to bring German expressionism to an American film. The film has all kinds of enormous sets that create an exaggerated, fairy-tale-like world. Unlike films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the sets in this film come off as fairly plausible. The film also has some fairly long tracking shots and makes ample use of forced focus. It is also worth noting that there were very few intertitles in this film. Apparently Murnau used very few intertiles in his films and once made a film with just one. The film is also one of the first films to have sound on the film rather than have an orchestra play. Today, this film is very well-received. In the most recent critics poll by Sight and Sound Magazine, this film is tied with The Battleship Potemkin as the greatest silent film ever made and the seventh greatest film of any sort. The film won two or three Oscars depending on how you count (Janet Gaynor won best actress but in the first year of the Academy Awards, actors were judged on all films they appeared in that year - 3 in Gaynor's case). While I can appreciate certain aspects of this film, I found the plot less interesting than The Battleship Potemkin and I don't think the expressionistic style was as well-done as in other films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This is certainly one of the more important silent films ever made, but I don't think this film has much to offer for the typical viewer today. 70/100 C- |
November 3, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Great Expectations - Unrated |
David Lean's Great Expectations is a film based on the Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The film is about a boy named Pip and follows him from childhood to early adulthood. In the film Pip's parents are dead and he lives with his sister and her husband, a blacksmith. Pip falls in love with the adopted daughter of a very wealthy woman. A mysterious benefactor arranges to transform Pip into a gentleman and he hopes to win the girl's love. Notable actors in this film include Alec Guinness, John Mills, and Jean Simmons. Of the actors in this movie, I was most impressed with the acting of Marita Hunt who played the rich old lady (Miss Havisham). Unlike most films based on novels, I have actually read this book (just completing it yesterday). The first half or so of the film follows the book reasonably closely omitting only a few key scenes. After that I was less impressed as quite a few scenes that were fairly important in the book seem to be completely ignored in this film. In the book Pip is nearly killed by a man but this is completely excluded from the book. The film's ending is also vastly different from that of the book. While the last chapter of the book advances the action about 10 years, the ending of this film does not move into the future and the message at the end is completely lost. I appreciate that it is difficult to fit a book that can run in excess of 600 pages into a film under 2 hours, but I think this could have been better. Overall, this was worse than I expected. The film did win two artistic Oscars and it is probably well-deserving of those as some of the set design in this film was quite good. The film itself was generally praised as well, but I'm not sure it is all that praiseworthy given that it wasn't particularly great, and it was a generally mediocre adaptation of a very well-known book. 70.5/100 C- |
August 22, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Watchmen - R |
Watchmen is a film based on some comic book series of the same name. It's about some super heroes who wear masks. I've never heard of the comic book and I had little desire to see this but someone was watching it and I got stuck seeing it. I don't particularly care for movies of this genre so I wasn't particularly interested in this film. For what it was I suppose it was decent. My main concern was the fact that it was like 2.5 hours which seemed like a very long time for a movie like this. This movie has good special effects and everything but that's about it. In a few years nobody will remember this movie or care about it. 64/100 D |
August 15, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) - Unrated |
Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan) is a story based on the Swedish ballad "Töres dotter i Wänge". The film is set in the middle ages. A girl is sent to church to deliver candles. On the way to church she is raped and murdered. The father of the girl seeks revenge. The film isn't action-packed despite what this summary may indicate. The film moves along rather slowly and didn't come off as particularly interesting. Of the actors in this film, I am most familiar with Max von Sydow who played the girl's father. His role in this film wasn't quite as prominent as his character in The Seventh Seal and I didn't think this performance was as good. Like every Bergman film I've seen, this film is rather deep and the plot doesn't really do a whole lot. The film addresses myriad of themes such as Christianity, Paganism, vengeance, the occult, questioning of religious faith, sexual innocence, justice, and the nature of evil. The film also poses several moral questions to the audience. While I don't necessarily mind a film that is rather serious in nature, I feel like this film could have been more interesting. I have seen plenty of films that address lots of themes while at the coming off as an interesting film. This film fails in that regard and for that reason I cannot recommend it despite the accolades this film received. 60/100 D- |
May 28, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse - Unrated |
Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) is the story of a police inspector's attempt to stop some criminals who are counterfeiting money and murdering people. The inspection gets kind of weird as the criminals seem to be ordered around by a guy named Dr. Mabuse who is in an insane asylum and will not speak or do much of anything. This film is actually the second film in a trilogy of films pertaining to Dr. Mabuse, but the other two films aren't particularly famous. I thought this was pretty interesting although the ending seemed kind of underwhelming. For an early sound film, this film is particularly noteworthy for its rather sophisticated use of sound. Like Lang's previous film, M the sound techniques used in this film are rather advanced. Both films make use of leitmotif, a recurring musical theme pertaining to a particular place, person, or idea. The film also uses sound that is misidentified by the audience (a pocketwatch spring unwinding, intended to simulate a telephone's ring; a gunshot masked by the sound of car horns; the ticking of a bomb changing to a spoon tapping on an eggshell). The film also had some pretty advanced special effects considering the time it was made. While this film is certainly pretty good, it does not live up to Lang's M which is a vastly superior film. This may be more enjoyable than Lang's Metropolis, but realistically it's not as good as that film either. This is definitely worth viewing, but this won't go down as one of cinema's masterpieces like the aforementioned films. 81/100 B- |
May 19, 2009 | N/A | |||
| L'Atalante - Unrated |
Jean Vigo's film L'Atalante (sometimes called Le chaland qui passe) is about a newlywed couple's trip aboard a ship called L'Atalante. The husband is a ship captain and takes his bride, who he has only known for a short while, aboard the small ship to deliver cargo. The ship stops for a few days in Paris and the couple ends up in a fight. Personally, I thought this plot was about as boring as any film I have ever seen. Despite my hatred for this film, it is generally very well-regarded. I'll admit that the film makes use of all sorts of fancy camera tricks for 1934. Despite these technological achievements, I had problems with how many sequences seemed like a silent film. Quite often there were rather long sequences without any sound with a slowed down frame rate that looked like a silent film. Given that this film was made quite a while after the end of the sound era, I found it rather difficult to ignore these aspects. The film is also celebrated for being a Precursor to the French New Wave. The film has several aspects of that movement, and many prominent New Wave directors suggest they were heavily influenced by this film. This film, like other New Wave films, doesn't have much in the way of a plot. Unlike some of the other films I've seen, it was quite obvious that there was no plot while watching this film as everything about it left me quite bored. Overall, I doubt very many people would enjoy this film. This film is important, but I'm not sure being important alone makes a film great. I've seen plenty of important films that were interesting to watch but this film was not interesting at any point. 29/100 F |
May 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Anatomy of a Murder - R |
Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder is based on a real-life murder in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the story, a man rapes a woman and her husband later murders that man. The murderer's lawyer argues that the murderer was driven by an irresistible impulse and is therefore not guilty by reason of insanity. I thought the trial portions of this film were quite good, but did not particularly care for anything that took place outside of the trial. The film stars James Stewart as the defense attorney. While he was pretty good in this film, this is not the best I've seen him. The film also stars a few other people such as George C. Scott, all of whom are pretty good. I was particularly impressed with Joseph N. Welch's performance as the judge. This was Welch's only film as he was best known for being a lawyer during the Army-McCarthy hearings. This film is notable for being one of the early films to challenge the Hay's Code. The film deals with then taboo themes such as rape and uses language that was pretty coarse for 1959 standards. The film is also noteworthy for being a particularly accurate look at how the legal system works. This is likely due to the fact that the story is based on a true story which was written by a Michigan Supreme Court justice who was a lawyer during the actual case. My main complaints with this film were that the non-trial portions seemed to go on way too long. While the trial itself was pretty good to watch, I wouldn't rank this as my favorite trial movie either. From the beginning of the film the viewer pretty much knows what the result of the case will likely be. There are no surprise twists at the end of the film and there is nothing particularly surprising that takes place during the trial. I suppose this makes the film more realistic, but I found the surprises in Witness for the Prosecution much more entertaining. This is a decent movie, but not the best film of its genre by any means. 73/100 C- |
May 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| La Strada (The Road) - PG |
Federico Fellini's film La strada (or The Road) is about a girl who is sold to a guy who performs circus-like acts. The guy (played by Anthony Quinn) is quite cruel to the girl. They perform a bunch of acts together and make some money. Most of the film deals with their relationship, or lack thereof. At one point they join a circus and Quinn's character gets in a bunch of fights with someone. Later on the film they run into this guy and Quinn kills him leaving the girl devastated. I suppose the film has some artistic qualities and deeper meaning, but I hated watching this. The two main characters are played by Anthony Quinn and Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina. I didn't particularly care for Quinn in this film. Part of this is due his character being one I didn't care for. Also, I didn't particularly care for his speaking voice as he has a heavy Mexican accent while speaking Italian. Normally I don't notice accents in foreign-language films, but I found his particularly irritating. Masina's performance was pretty good, but I didn't care about her character all that much either. The film also has a significant role played by American Richard Basehart. He sufficed in the film and I don't really have a lot to say about him. Stylistically, this film is a famous example of Italian Neorealism. The film is set amongst the poor, working class and is shot on location. Unlike many neorealist films, the main actors here are professionals and Quinn was already quite famous having won an Oscar two years before. The film depicts everyday life although the story here isn't all that typical so I'm not sure how everyday this film really is. The only other Italian Neorealist film I have seen is Bicycle Thieves. Of the two films, this one is vastly inferior. Overall, I would be hesitant to recommend this. While I hated it, this film was generally very well-received. It won an Oscar for best foreign language film and won the Silver Lion (runner-up) at the Venice film festival. Perhaps my dislike for this film comes from not having seen much of Fellini's work. This is only the second Fellini film I have seen (8½) and this film left me with a similar reaction. 61/100 D- |
May 13, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Eyes Without a Face - Unrated |
Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) tells the story of a girl whose face has been badly disfigured in an automobile accident. Her father, a famous surgeon, attempts to restore her face through a face transplant. In order to get donor tissues, his wife abducts attractive young women who are then murdered in order to take their face. Despite the surgeon's best efforts, his transplants end up being rejected and he must get more faces to work with. Overall, I didn't really care for this film. While mostly a horror film, the film did address some science. In 1960 the idea of a face transplant was rather imaginative as any sort of organ transplant was rather difficult to perform in 1960. Today, face transplants have taken place, but they are quite rare. The film proposed some ideas for how to overcome transplant rejection which are now quite wrong. Still, you can't really fault the film for this. The only thing praiseworthy about this film would have to be the makeup and effects. Considering the age of the film, I thought that the effects of removing faces from people and the faceless people looked pretty decent. Modern day CGI could no doubt create more realistic images, but this was still pretty good. Still, some fancy effects won't make up for this film. The doctor attempts to come off as sympathetic as he loves his daughter and wants to save her, but it was hard to sympathize with him because his daughter wasn't the least bit interesting. As the film progressed I found myself not caring about the daughter at all and being more attached to the victims who were at least somewhat interesting. This film received mediocre reviews upon its release and is now regarded as a decent film. I'm not sure why exactly I decided to watch this, but I wouldn't suggest anyone else sees it. 50.5/100 F |
May 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Star Trek - PG-13 |
Before I say anything, this movie is the first time I have seen anything that has to do with anything Star Trek related. From what I understand, this film is the retelling of some events in the Star Trek universe. It gives backstories to a bunch of major characters and introduces some sort of alternate universe. I'd go into more detail, but given that I am not the least bit familiar with how Star Trek works, I won't bother. Overall, the plot here was reasonably entertaining, but nothing special. As I am not a fan of Star Trek I can't comment on how this compares to any of the other films. I think this film is supposed to be family-oriented but it did involve a lot of complicated modern physics which probably goes over the head of most of the viewers. The film spent a lot of time talking about black holes, singularities, event horizons, wormholes, and other things of this nature. As I am somewhat familiar with modern physics, this wasn't too complicated to me, but I think this might confuse a lot of viewers. I would also like to complain that the ending was rather unrealistic in the sense that a ship crossed, or was at least very close to, an event horizon and then returned to earth shortly after they left. This is of course impossible as time becomes infinitesimally slower as one approaches the event horizon so the crew should have arrived millions of years in the future. This isn't particularly important, but I felt like mentioning it anyways. For someone like me who knows nothing about the Star Trek franchise, this film is okay. For fans of the franchise, I have no idea what they should think about this film. I found it perhaps slightly better than the average film, but nothing particularly great. It had some pretty good special effects, but it seemed like they were often at the expense of a meaningful story. 76.5/100 C |
May 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Wages of Fear - Unrated |
Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur) is about a group of foreigners living in a South American town. They are all pretty miserable there, but have no way of going home. The first half of the film shows how miserable they are. There is an oil company, Southern Oil Company (SOC), in the country. About 300 miles from where the story begins, a fire breaks out at one of the oil fields and they have no way of stopping the fire without nitroglycerin. The SOC headquarters has nitroglycerin, but has no way of safely getting it to the oil fields. Because they do not want to danger their union workers, they accept volunteers to deliver the nitroglycerin, which will be transported in oil cans. The job will pay $2,000 a person and four people are needed to deliver the two trucks. The rest of the film deals with their voyage across the poorly-maintained roads. This is reasonably dramatic as nitroglycerin is highly explosive and will detonate spontaneously if disturbed. While the majority of the film was indeed dramatic, I wasn't overly impressed. Of the actors in this film, the only one familiar to me was Véra Clouzot who had a supporting role in the film. She is the real-life wife of the director and starred in another of his films, Les diaboliques. The acting in here was fine as the actors did indeed come off as nervous and scared as their journey went on. As the film wore on, I thought it got rather dull. The difficulties encountered by the protagonists became more and more complex and I found their solutions more and more unrealistic. I also found the ending rather stupid and feel the film should have ended a few minutes earlier when the main story was completed. While Henri-Georges Clouzot's film Les diaboliques is one of the best films I have ever seen, this film is not. It certainly has some dramatic moments and good special effects for 1953, but it is far less entertaining than Les diaboliques. 70/100 C- |
May 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Jules and Jim - Unrated |
François Truffaut's Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) tells the story of two friends, Jules and Jim. The film takes place just before, during, and just after the first World War. Early on in the film the two meet a woman, Catherine. Jules soon marries her and war breaks out. After the war Jim comes to live with them. The marriage has failed and Jules gives Jim his blessing to marry Catherine. Eventually that doesn't work out so Jim goes to Paris to marry someone else and Jules and Catherine remain together. After this it becomes sort of a back-and-forth love affair. Despite all this, Jules and Jim remain the best of friends. Overall, I did not particularly care for this despite my fondness for the previous François Truffaut film I saw. This film stars several French actors I have never heard of. The actors playing Jules and Jim are pretty good, although nothing terribly exciting. Jeanne Moreau, who played Catherine, was actually very good and her character was by far the most memorable part of this film. This film is of the French New Wave and employs several stylistic elements of this movement. The film makes use of frequent tracking shots which are made a little different by filming from a bike to give kind of a bouncy feel. The film makes heavy use of wipes and masking. The film also adds some stock newsreel footage and freeze frames to further the stylistic effect. While this film is one of the more famous examples of the French New Wave, I wouldn't recommend it. Like Breathless and The 400 Blows, this film is rather existential and nothing particularly important happens during the film. This film is also a love story, as was Breathless. Unlike those two films, there was nothing that really made me care. While Catherine was certainly an interesting character, the title characters of Jules and Jim were not. They came off as rather unexciting and I never really cared for any of them. Despite being kind of interesting, Catherine was not someone I cared much about. Combine all this and you end up with a movie that isn't particularly exciting. It may be famous and philosophical, but in the end it fails to do the primary job of a movie which is to entertain and it is well-deserving of a pretty low score. 64/100 D |
May 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) - Unrated |
François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) tells the story of a young French boy. His parents lead busy lives and don't have much time to notice him. The boy's teacher typecasts him as a troublemaker and his parents assume he'll forever be a failure. While the boy does does misbehave often, there are moments in the film when he genuinely tries to do a good job. Despite these efforts, he is still punished as these good intentions are interpreted as further misbehaving. While this film did not have very many particularly important events, I found the plot rather engaging. The star of this film is played by 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud. While I generally despise child actors, particularly ones playing leads in the film, I found Léaud's performance to be quite impressive, perhaps the best of any child actor I've seen. There are several other important actors in this film, but Léaud's performance is the one that stands out most. Stylistically, this film is a prominent example of the French New Wave and features several characteristic aspects of this movement. First, the film employs quite a few tracking shots. Some of the most memorable scenes in the film, including the famous ending, feature a camera on wheels tracking the movement of the actors. Furthermore, the films is mostly existential in nature. Rather than focusing on a particularly memorable series of events, the film takes a close look at the conditions of the existence of the main character. Overall, I found this film rather enjoyable. Not only is the film's basic premise enjoyable, but the stylistic and thematic elements are equally worthwhile. For these reasons, the film is now regarded as a rather important film in the history of cinema. Based on what I have seen in this film and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, I must say I find French New Wave films quite enjoyable. I would regard this film as slightly inferior to Breathless, but not by much. It is definitely worth seeing for those that have not yet seen it. 92/100 A- |
May 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The 39 Steps - PG |
Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps is perhaps the best-known and most well-received of Hitchcock's British films. This film, like many other Hitchcock films is a spy thriller. Early in the film a woman is murdered and an innocent man is presumed guilty. He spends the film running from the police while attempting to figure out who is responsible and what secrets the murdered woman knew. The plot in this film is rather similar to Hitchcock's later films Saboteur and North By Northwest. The lead in this film is played by Robert Donat. His performance is fairly decent, but it isn't his best work. The film also stars Madeleine Carroll who is adequate in her performance. While this film is not nearly as good as some of Hitchcock's American films, it is still a solid film. It contains several Hitchcockian elements, most notably the MacGuffin in the form of the 39 Steps. This film is better than the rather similar Saboteur but falls well short of North By Northwest. Considered one of the greatest British films ever made by any director, this film is worth a watch for just about anyone. 77/100 C+ |
April 27, 2009 | N/A | |||
| American Beauty - R |
Sam Mendes' American Beauty is the story of some people in a suburban town. The film mostly focuses on the life of a family, particularly the husband, and the people in their life. The husband is tired of his job and falls in love with his daughter's best friend. The wife is trying to be a successful real estate agent and eventually has an affair with an even more successful one to advance her own career. Their daughter is insecure with herself and eventually discovers a love interest. Overall, I found this film to be rather interesting. The lead role goes to Kevin Spacy. In this film he was fairly outstanding and would win an Oscar for his performance. His wife, played by Annette Bening, also does an excellent job. Her role probably wasn't significant enough to win best actress, and she did not win losing to Hilary Swank. In addition to the two leads, I found the supporting cast to be quite good as well. Overall, this film is mostly about the lives of somewhat ordinary people. There are a few themes here and there but I don't think they are particularly necessary to enjoy this film. This film was highly successful winning five Oscars including best picture. This film was just a best actress Oscar shy of becoming just the fourth film ever to sweep the five main categories. I'd recommend this to most anyone although young children and very easily offended people might want to skip it. 87/100 B+ |
April 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Lord of the Flies - Unrated |
Lord of the Flies is based on the famous novel of the same name. Unlike most novel-based movies, I have actually read this novel. Like the book, this film tells the story of a group of boys aged 6-12 on an uninhabited island during World War 2. Their plane has crashed and they are the only survivors. They attempt to build a society while they await their rescue but the society quickly falls apart. While mostly faithful to the book, this plot played out rather dully while it was vastly superior in the novel. The film stars a group of people who were not, and still are not, famous. Generally I don't care for children as actors. This film is no exception. The children do a decent enough job, but none of them were even close to award-worthy. My main problem with this film is the deviations from the novel. While it is expected that a film will deviate from a novel some, the deviations in here seem quite odd. Simon, one of the most important characters in the novel, is fairly irrelevant in this film. His encounter with the Lord of the Flies, perhaps the most important scene in the book, is mostly omitted from the film. To a viewer who is unfamiliar with the book, this film offers no reason as to why it is titled Lord of the Flies whereas the book makes that quite clear. In addition, Roger, another important character in the book, is barely mentioned in this film. The film is a little less violent than the book largely due to the fact Roger is barely involved in this film. There are other notable omissions or changes, but I will not mention any others. This film goes to show that unless the film is quite famous, films based on famous literature don't generally work. Some of the most important pieces of literature in history (most notably the over 400-year-old Don Quixote) have never been given a decent film adaptation. This film is yet another example of a poor attempt to transform a well-regarded book into a movie. It failed. I would suggest that fans of the book skip this and I would strongly discourage anyone not familiar with the book from even considering watching this film. 42/100 F |
March 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Raging Bull - R |
Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is a film based on the real-life story of boxer Jake LaMotta. The film depicts his fighting career, his relationships with people, his jealousy, and how his life falls apart. Despite the fact I don't care for boxing at all, I found this film rather entertaining. Playing the lead in the film is Robert DeNiro. This film is generally regarded as perhaps the best piece of work DeNiro has ever done, and I can see why. His performance was nearly flawless and he was awarded the Oscar for best actor. In the supporting role was Joe Pesci who was also very good. He was nominated for an Oscar but did not win. This film was also awarded an Oscar for its editing, and I would say the editing in the film was quite good. The boxing scenes were very well put together. In addition, I found the cinematography in this film to be rather well done. While no longer much of a technical achievement, the film is shot in deep focus throughout which created some pretty interesting visuals. Combining the visuals with the editing created a film that was pretty appealing from an artistic standpoint. This film is often regarded as a modern classic. Sight and Sound magazine routinely puts this film in the top-10 list of films ever made and the magazine says that this is the best film made since 1980. While I found the film quite good, I'm not sure if it is worthy of every last bit of praise it gets. Still, it's a good film and a must-see for DeNiro or boxing fans and probably most cinema fans. 90/100 A- UP NEXT: Who knows. |
February 28, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Jazz Singer - Unrated |
The 1927 film The Jazz Singer is about a jazz singer. It stars Al Jolson and the story is loosely based on his own life. A young Jewish boy comes from a line of Jewish cantors. He wants to be in show business and is disowned by his father. He becomes successful and tries to win his father's forgiveness. The story itself wasn't particularly interesting. This film is generally remembered as the first talking picture. While this film did indeed have spoken dialogue, I'm not sure this is the first non-silent film ever made and I'm not sure this isn't a silent film. First, the sound-on-disc technology had been around since the early 1920s. D.W. Griffith's short Dream Street features synchronized dialogue. The 1926 feature film Don Juan features pre-recorded sound effects and a musical score, but no spoken dialogue. The Jazz Singer went a little further than those works by having both synchronized dialogue and being feature-length. Still, most of the film is silent with intertitles. There are six musical numbers which are sung. In the middle of two of these musical numbers is a brief bit of dialogue. The first time Jolson talks to the audience who is not supposed to respond and the second time he has a conversation with his mother although most of what she says is unintelligible. Overall, this wasn't a very good movie. I'll give it some credit for revolutionizing talking pictures, but it probably gets too much credit for this to begin with. It's worth seeing for those who want a very early example of a sound film, but given that it is mostly silent I wouldn't consider this the first real talkie. 66/100 D UP NEXT: To be determined. |
February 7, 2009 | N/A |
216 ratings
167 reviews
