Change Your Image
anonymous124
"But yeah HAIRSPRAY has a better chance than Gone Baby Gone."
-RCTJediMaster
On the eighth day, God made Days of Heaven.
[10.0] 1. [days of heaven] [1978] terrence malick [9.9] 2. [jules et jim] [1962] francois traffaut 3. [fanny och alexander] [1982] ingmar bergman 4. [the third man] [1949] carol reed 5. [ran] [1985] akira kurosawa 6. [fitzcarraldo] [1982] werner herzog 7. [la battaglia di algeri] [1968] gillo pontecorvo 8. [crimes and misdemeanors] [1989] woody allen 9. [la strada] [1954] frederico fellini 10. [apocalypse now] [1979] francis coppola 11. [el esp�ritu de la colmena] [1973] victor erice 12. [north by northwest] [1959] alfred hitchcock 13. [the grapes of wrath] [1940] john ford 14. [ugetsu monogatari] [1953] kenji mizoguchi 15. [the last wave] [1977] peter weir 16. [suna no onna] [1964] hiroshi teshigahara 17. [le notti di cabiria] [1957] frederico fellini 18. [nashville] [1975] robert altman 19. [il buono, il brutto, il cattivo] [1965] sergio leone 20. [baraka] [1992] ron fricke [9.8] 21. [la r�gle du jeu] [1939] jean renoir 22. [the conversation] [1974] francis coppola 23. [the thin red line] [1998] terrence malick 24. [shichinin no samurai] [1954] akira kurosawa 25. [butch cassidy and the sundance kid] [1969] george hill26. [all quiet on the western front] [1930] lewis milesone [9.7] 27. [the piano] [1993] jane campion 28. [hiroshima, mon amour] [1959] alain resnais 29. [the fountain] [2006] darren aronofsky 30. [det sjunde inseglet] [1957] ingmar bergman 31. [midnight cowboy] [1969] john schlesinger 32. [28 days later] [2002] danny boyle 33. [topio stin omilichi] [1988] theo angeloupos 34. [manhattan] [1979] woody allen 35. [the manchurian candidate] [1962] john frankenheimer 36. [the mission] [1986] roland joffe 37. [a woman under the influence] [1974] john cassavetes 38. [roman holiday] [1953] william wyler 39. [don't look now] [1972] nicholas roeg 40. [picnic at hanging rock] [1975] peter weir 41. [cyrano de bergerac] [1990] jean-paul rappeneau 42. [miyamoto musashi/zoku miyamoto mushashi: ichij�ji no kett�/miyamoto musashi kanketsuhen: kett� ganry�jima] [1954-1956] hiroshi inagaki 43. [citizen kane] [1941] orson welles 44. [bringing up baby] [1938] howard hawks 45. [2001: a space odyssey] [1968] stanley kubrick 46. [the godfather part II] [1974] francis coppola 47. [la grande illusion] [1937] jean renoir 48. [jean de florette/manon des sources] [1986] claude berri 49. [les enfants terribles] [1952] jean-pierre melville 50. [raging bull] [1980] martin scorsese
51. [the spy who came in from the cold] [1965] martin ritt 52. [the defiant ones] [1958] stanley kramer 53. [the unbearable lightness of being] [1988] philip kaufman 54. [the crucible] [1996] nicholas hytner 55. [chelovek s kino-apparatom] [1929] dziga vertov 56. [captain blood] [1935] michael curtiz 57. [la stanza del figlio] [2001] nanni moretti 58. [annie hall] [1977] woody allen 59. [la belle et la b�te] [1946] jean cocteau 60. [nosferatu: eine symphonie des grauens] [1922] f.w. murneau 61. [men with guns] [1997] john sayles 62. [the slender thread] [1965] sydney pollack 63. [cool hand luke] [1967] stuart rosenberg 64. [the phantom of the opera] [1925] rupert julian 65. [marathon man] [1976] john schlesinger 66. [sounder] [1972] martin ritt 67. [gunga din] [1939] george stevens 68. [judgement at nuremberg] [1961] stanley kramer 69. [aleksandr nevskiy] [1938] sergei eisenstein 70. [underground] [1995] emir kusturica 71. [12 angry men] [1957] sidney lumet 72. [sunset boulevard] [1950] billy wilder 73. [in cold blood] [1967] richard brooks 74. [breaking away] [1979] peter yates 75. [sen to chihiro no kamikakushi] [2001] hayao miyazaki
The ones who don�t enjoy themselves even when they laugh, oh yeah. The ones who worship the corporate image, not knowing that they work for someone else, ohh yeah. The ones who should have been shot in the cradle, *POW*, oh yeah. The ones who say �Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail, so to speak�. Oh yeah. The ones who say �We Italians are the greatest he-men on Earth�, oh yeah. The ones who are noble Romans, the ones who say �That�s for me.��oh yeah. The ones who say: you know what I mean, oh yeah. The ones who vote for the right because they�re fed up with strikes, oh yeah. The ones who vote white in order not to get dirty. The ones who never get involved with politics�OHH yeah. The ones who say �Be calm�calm.� The ones who still support the king. The ones who say �Yes, sir.� Oh yeah. The ones who make love standing in their boots and imagine they�re in a luxurious bed. The ones who believe Christ is Santa Claus as a young man, oh yeah. The ones who say, �Oh, what the hell.� The ones who were there. The ones who believed in everything. Even in God. The ones who listened to the national anthem, oh yeah. The ones who loved their country. The ones who keep going just to see how it will end�OHHH yeah. The ones who are in garbage up to here: oh yeah. The ones who sleep soundly, even with cancer, oh yeah. The ones who even now don�t believe the world is round, oh yeah, oh yeah. The ones who are afraid of flying, oh yeah. The ones who have never had a fatal accident, oh yeah. The ones who have had one. The ones who had a certain point in their lives crave a secret weapon: Christ�oh yeah. The ones who are always standing at the bar, the ones who are always in Switzerland. The ones who started early, haven�t arrived, and don�t know they�re not going to, oh yeah. The ones who lose war by the skin of their teeth. The ones who say: everything is wrong here. The ones who say: now let�s all have a good laugh. Oh, yeah. Ohhhhh yeah. Ohhh yeah.
Age: 16
Location: Boston
Gender: Male
Political Affiliation: Democratic Socialist
10 - **** [flaws are too small to notice, one of the greatest films ever made]
9 - **** [flaws do not really change the impact of film]
8 - ****/***� [flaws are there but rest of film ovverides it]
7 - ***� [very good film]
6 - *** [good, worth seeing if you have the time]
5 - **� [not really worthwile; large flaws]
4 - ** [more flaws than anything else]
3 - *� Don't waste your time
2 - * [awful]
1 - � / [zero stars] [one of the worst movies ever made]
Best I've seen of 2006:
1) The Fountain 10/10
2) Children of Men 10/10
3) Little Miss Sunshine 10/10
4) El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) 9/10
5) Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) 9/10
6) Letters from Iwo Jima 9/10
7) Inland Empire 9/10
8) The Departed 9/10
9) Half Nelson 9/10
10) Dave Chapelle's Block Party 8/10
11) The Queen 8/10
12) The Last King of Scotland 8/10
What I've seen of 2007
Once 9/10
Gone Baby Gone 9/10
Sicko 9/10
Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End 9/10
Le Petit Lieutenant 8/10
Ocean's 13 8/10
Waitress 8/10
Zodiac 7/10
The Namesake 7/10
Away From Her 6/10
The Darjeeling Limited 6/10
Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix 6/10
Hairspray 6/10
Evening 6/10
Becoming Jane 6/10
Ratatoille 6/10
Amazing Grace 6/10
In the Valley of Elah 5/10
Death at a Funeral 5/10
The Nanny Diaries 5/10
La Vie en Rose 5/10
Shrek 3 4/10
[pre]Planning to see - 2007:
28 Weeks Later
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
Blame it On Fidel
Bug
Eastern Promises
Half Moon
I'm Not There
In Bloom
Interview
Into Great Silence
Juno
Margot at the Wedding
No Country For Old Men
Rescue Dawn
The Savages
Stephanie Daley
Sunshine
Syndromes and a Century
There Will Be Blood
This is England
The Wind that Shakes the Barley[/pre]
Laureen Hobbs: Don't fuck with my distribution costs! I'm making a lousy two-fifteen per segment and I'm already deficiting twenty-five grand a week with Metro! I'm paying William Morris ten percent off the top, and I'm giving this turkey ten thou per segment, and another five to this fruitcake! And Helen, don't start no shit about UBS again! I'm paying Metro twenty-thousand for all foreign and Canadian distribution, and that's after recoupment! The communist party's not gonna see a nickel out of this goddamn show until we go into syndication!
Helen Miggs: C'mon Laurene. The party's in for seventy-five hundred a week of the production expenses.
Laureen Hobbs: I'm not giving this pseudoinsurrectionary sedentarian a piece of my show! I'm not giving him script approval, and I sure as shit ain't gotten him into my distribution charges!
Mary Ann Gifford: [screaming] You fucking fascist! Did you see the film we made of the San Reno jail breakout, demonstrating the rising of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure?
Laureen Hobbs: You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass! I'm not knockin' down my goddamn distribution charges!
Great Ahmed Kahn: [fires off his gun through the ceiling] Man, give her the FUCKING overhead clause. Let's get back to page twenty-two, number 5, small 'a'. Subsidiary rights.
10 Ladies:
Mia Farrow
Holly Hunter
Gong Li
Giulietta Masina
Frances McDormand
Jeanne Moreau
Gena Rowlands
Audrey Tatou
Emma Thompson
Liv Ullman
10 Gentlemen:
Daniel Day Lewis
Robert Downey, Jr.
Errol Flynn
Cary Grant
Alec Guiness
Trevor Howard
Klaus Kinski
Toshir� Mifune
Paul Newman
Al Pacino
How do other Oscar Buzzers picture me?
Pink hair?
-Amanda Departed
[4eyes]
-Mike Kiddo
heavily wrapped in winter clothing.
-forbobtopoopon
Has drive and expertise, but puts them to use in all the wrong ways. Thick eyebrows.
-Cloak-of-the-Apocalypse
Some hot guy from Boston I met at a Red Sox game a few years back. I was drunk that night.
-chubbit
a greek, soccer player (don't ask)
-greypheonix02
Regular ole guy.
-Fred-Buttersfield
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/cinemaniac86/IMDb/home.jpg
-Cinemaniac
A less angsty Holden Caulfield. In thirty years: http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d37/BrunoJA/012.jpg
-BrunoJA
Oscar Buzz Lists Their UNIVERSAL JOYS:
1. Entering a warm building from the cold 2. Walking barefoot in the grass 3. Warm rain 4. A Greyhound 5. Chocolate, chocolate-chip muffins 6. Receiving an unexpected present for no particular reason. 7. Cute animals 8. Panettone with ice cream. 9. Warm fresh laundry 10. Am�lie Poulain's smile. 11. Pizza (all kinds). 12. A young woman's hands 13. Beautiful women (yeah, I know that's shallow and superficial and politically-incorrect, but what can I say...) 14. Soft toiletries 15. The air before a storm 16. A mother's hug (corny, but true, especially for those like me who are far away from their moms...) 17. Choral music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18. Cold water after a hearty workout 19. The other side of the pillow 20. Angelina Jolie's lips 21. Extra sleep 22. Getting your back scratched. 23. Shoulder massages 24. Not Angelina's lips, which are ass ugly 25. Warming one's hands over a radiator 26. Sex. Masturbation. Marijuana 27. Making a kid laugh. Its infectious 28. Hot chocolate with whipped cream 29. That moment just before you fall asleep or after you wake up when you're not quite thinking but are simply enjoying the essence of falling asleep/waking up. 30. Listening to "Tales from the Vienna Woods" by Strauss without distractions 31. The aroma of a great wine just before you take the first sip (knowing how good it will be from that smell). 32. Alcohol. 33. Girls who don't wear any underwear. 34.The moment when you're watching a great movie and realize and think "This is a great movie" 35. A butterfly flying alone among the the skyline and traffic of the city 36. Accidentally setting something on fire 37. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division 38. MOVIES! 39. The pleasure of hating who has won an Oscar, and getting to piss people off with your anger. 40. The 1st chug of ice cold water, after playing basketball for endless hours in 40 degree weather. 41. Laughing so hard it hurts.
Thanks who all who contributed to this list!
The profile is over.
Reviews
Joan of Arc (1999)
Quite Definteley One of the Worst Films I've Ever Seen
As the film rolls past we catch the faces of many a Hollywood has-been. The last generations finest reduced to roles of utter humiliation. They do not give good performances. They look embarrassed and defeated and all too aware of their surroundings. Only Peter O'Toole has a spark of life in him - God knows what he was thinking when he took this role, he can't even save the scenes where he's the only one in the frame, and despite the fact he is one of the most respected actors in Hollywood, the makers of the film feel too above him to let this happen more than once or twice. Too bad. Instead, they fill the frame with Leslee Sobieski, who takes herself, the role, and this ridiculous, cliché ridden made for TV movie like she planned to upstage Maria Falconetti. Points for effort, but she doesn't attain much more of a performance than most porn stars do. She manages a grimace here and there, usually just before a battle. Then the camera cranes dramatically up and down and to the side while lots of people fight. 8 year old boys will be ready to praise because, whatever comes in between, there are battle scenes.
Joan of Arc does not fall into the category of "so bad it's funny." It is not funny. It is simply bad. It is not filled with clichés - it IS a cliché. A cliché extended over several hours, and nearly unbearable to watch at that. Shirley MacLaine, a long way from "The Apartment," makes a brief, very dramatic cameo - the kind where we first see her feet step out and then the back of her head and finally her face. But she doesn't actually get to do anything besides some violent coughing. She exists to give the film some air of credibility, I suppose.
The last section of the film, like many Joan of Arc movies past, does indeed use the actual dialouge Joan spoke during her trial. The 1928 film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer was built entirely around this one section, and it was a devastating, brutally told real-time drama of unflinching power. The very same dialouge is used in this film, yet it is acted so terribly, and presented so blandly, that it's hard to believe they could focus on the same subject.
Save the wonderful Mr. O'Toole, there is no redeeming quality in this film. It is indeed one of the worst films ever recorded onto celluloid.
Dances with Wolves (1990)
The Last of the Great Hollywood Romantic Epics
Very few films get better the more times you see them. Dances With Wolves is that film - for me at least - or one of them. I specificy me because the last time I saw this was when I was a young'un and today I am delighted to discover a film that is just as beautiful and moving as I remember it. I was judging it for its pure surface value then - and now I could judge it on that or anything else - on every level this film manages to succeed. It is one of the last of the Great Hollywood Romantic Epics tailored for for the spiritual grandeur of John Ford. Luckily for us, director Costner happens to be Ford's near-exact size. It's sad Ford died 17 years before the release of this film, because it is one while watching, one wishes Ford had seen it too. You know he would have been pleased.
This was also that brief point in Kevin Costner's career where he was suddenly likable, and charismatic, and INTERESTING. Wow! Dances With Wolves is to Kevin Costner as is Wonder Boys is to Michael Douglas. Here he brings it together with a superb directing job that finely rivals Martin Scorsece's work that year on Goodfellas. Many have called Dances' win one of the worst, but I'm fine with it winning. Both this and Goodfellas are near perfect films in completely different ways, and some days I have a hard time deciding which is better.
When Hollywood has neglected the subject of the Native Americans' plight (there are a few notable exceptions, such as Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" and "Little Big Man") this film officially does all that has been missing justice in one grand, beautiful film. It begins with a spell-bindingly ridiculous sequence where Costner somehow fails to commit suicide riding a horse in front of enemy Confederate lines - it climaxes thrillingly, a battle on the creek where we twitch furiously happily every time our Sioux take down another Union'er. It ends with the devastating tragedy of a historical fact. David Lean died in 1991, and I have to wonder whether he ever saw this film too. This film is very much the mix of Lean and Ford, and I can't imagine any two director's who could be more perfectly combined. There are empty spaces in their works that could be filled by the others' - and thanks to Kevin, the space is filled.
It wins Oscars for
Best Supporting Actor - Rodney A. Grant Best Original Score Best Cinematography Best Costume Design
and Nominations for
Best Picture (and on some days I give it the win) Best Director Best Adapted Screenplay (see Best Picture) Best Actor - Kevin Costner Best Supporting Actor - Graham Greene Best Art Direction/Set Decoration Best Sound Best Editing
Inland Empire (2006)
Isn't it Strange What Love Does?
Isn't it strange what love does? There is simply no point looking for meaning and symbolism in a David Lynch movie - its simply not there. The images presented are not meant to be interpreted, they're meant to provoke a reaction in the viewer, an emotion. With David the emotion is almost always horror and fear. I can think of no other director who is better at it, or, for that matter, any director who has even attempted it the way he does.
Take, for instance, the first line of this review. It means nothing and makes relatively no sense in relation to the rest of the review. But even knowing this now a small part of your subconscious considers me "clever" for putting this line in which is also the line from the song used in the trailer (and movie). You have to force yourself and your brain to acknowledge you were wrong in the first place and I am actually a stupid putz.
Now feel free to expose me for who I am for that ridiculous line, but do NOT - not, I say! - do this in a Lynch movie. For those of you that have not been to his world before, here's some advice. In watching them, you are standing at the Event Horizon. Do not resist it. Simply allow yourself to be pulled in. Stop trying to make sense of it all - isn't that what ruined 2001: A Space Odessey for you? Stop trying to form your own reactions and emotions. Allow the film to take control, to choose which reactions and emotions will be pulled from you.
Be warned: this is a looooonnng movie. Think the longest movie you've ever seen and multiply it by 2. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some.
"Mainstream" audiences don't know how to react to a movie like this: most humans like to be in control of their own senses (so yes, this is, in a way, a movie for stoners). They resist the tug. And I have advice: Don't be afraid. You don't have to run away from the black hole. Because, eventually, after this very long time, it will spit you out again, and, to give thanks for your attention, it allows you to taste your world again, and you can look upon those petrified three hours of your life and laugh. Because, after all, our world isn't anything like David's. Is it? Now I haven't seen all of David Lynch (in fact, I really need to catch up) but this is probably his Lynchiest movie to date. Think the Lynchiest moment of the Lynchiest movie he made, and extend it over a three hour 15 minute period. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. I mean, every half an hour we are treated to what should be funny but is strangely disturbing: a room of humanoid rabbits who say things that do not correlate to the last and next spoken sentences, and a laugh track to boot.
The synopsis, if you can call it that - the movie only remains "plot driven" for the first 45 minutes or so: After a number of false beginnings, we meet an actress, Nikki (Laura Dern, Lynch favorite finally given "her role") who appears to have just moved in: a bizarre lady (Grace Zabiriskie, another Lynch favorite) invites herself in to "greet the new neighbors." She says strange things that seem...relevant. In about an hour or two hours or so. In fact, everything in the second half of the movie you think you've seen this somewhere before in the first half. The film is oiled with a sense of Deja Vu.
Nikki just gets a role in a movie directed by "Kingsley" (Jeremy Irons), costarring "Devon," (Justin Theroux, another Lynch favorite) a notorious bad boy from the tabloids. Nikki is married to someone very important who suspects her of everything and is extremely threatening to his wife and Devon.
Kingsley, during a script reading, tells his actors the movie had been attempted to have been made years before, but it was not finished because the lead stars were murdered in ways uncannily similar to Nikki and Devon's life.
Nikki eventually gives in to Devon's advances and what follows is The Lynch. That is where the plot ends. Nikki meets all the past women of Devon's life in a closet, "8 1/2" style, who show her Laura Dern playing different women who are all in trouble in similar circumstances, but is a completely different women each time. Instead of allowing the sequences to flow together Lynch gives us a *jolt* each time until we're begging for mercy.
I've never seen a film that is able to so vividly recreate what it's like to dream. Wes Craven came close with some details from the first and last of the "Nightmare on Elm Street Series"...but not really close to this. This is, basically, after the plot leaves us behind, a very, very long nightmare. Inland Empire is one of the scariest films I have ever seen.
And yea, Laura Dern is good. This is one of the greatest performances of the past few decades. She's incredible. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some. And then some.
There's nothing to be afraid of, children. Because, eventually, the movie ends, and you can walk out of the theater. I would never see this movie again, but I'm glad I've seen it once, and it's highly recommended. We are allowed to taste our own world again, and it's a relief and escape because our world isn't anything like David's.
Right?
Topio stin omihli (1988)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
Edit: could whoever two people are responsible: what exactly did you find unhelpful about my review? Thanks.
When I first saw this film it was a random pick out of the library that looked interesting. I had not ever heard of it or read a single review. When I saw it I was convinced that it was one of the best and most beautiful films I had ever seen. Later, when I checked too see other reviews, they were all nasty and gave the film a very painful treatment. Worried, I went to see it again - had I overpraised it? Had I missed some flaws? No, I was right, and I'm sure the people who disagreed were wrong now. The film is still one of the best films ever made. It has been said to be a blend of Fellini and Traffaut - that is a fairly good description on the grounds that it is about kids (Traffaut) and has some fairly Fellini-esquire moments (noticeably, one scene where the children escape a police station because everyone in the station and on the street are frozen in time watching the snow fall). But it wouldn't be fair to neglect Theo Angeloupos (probably spelling error, sorry) own incredible style, one that still seems fresh after many years because of the films obscurity it has been scarcely imitated. The gorgeous photography (by Yorgos Arvanitis) strays almost completely from close ups - in fact, there may not be a single close up in the entire film.
The story centers on two children who run away from their single mother in search of a father her mother says lives in Germany. In reality, we hear her mother say in the beginning of the film, he does not exist. The older adolescent girl overhears this but refuses to believe it, and she takes her much smaller brother on a road trip to the north Greek border. Over one winter they wander through snowy landscapes starkly contrasted against the industrial cities and highways. They almost starve several times, they are occasionally pursued by police, at one point it is implied that the adolescent girl, Voula, is raped. At many times during their journey they encounter a friendly traveling theater actor who gives them rides. The whole film the children are searching for their father, the "Landscape in the Mist" - it can only exist if you imagine it. Sadly, Alexander and Voula do not accept the actor as a father figure, because their determined journey says their father is in Germany, not Greece. If only they had!...unfortunately, it would not have made a difference - the actor has been drafted into the Greek army.
Towards the end of the film they watch with amazement as a helicopter pulls a giant statue of a god-like hand out of large river and flies it towards the faraway city - I wouldn't be given this scene so shamelessly away if it weren't for the fact they show it in the poster anyway...the spoiler warning is also up. But it's really there for:
SPOILERS HERE
At the end of the film the Alexander (the boy) and Voula attempt to cross the Greek border by rowing a boat across the river. They are spotted from a watchtower and fired upon. The next morning, it seems they have crossed the river and are wandering through a hilly place where it is so misty they can hardly see ten yards ahead of them. A lone, leafless tree becomes visible and they wander towards it. The camera does not follow them. Fade to black. Have they successfully crossed the border? Have they been shot and died, and reached some kind of afterlife? It's not clear, but we celebrate their victory that they have finally discovered the impossible: a landscape in the mist.
THE SPOILERS ARE OVER...BUT SO IS THE REVIEW!
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
As the story goes, during the filming of "Rebel Without a Cause," specifically, the knife fight between Jim Stark and Buzz, they were using real knives. On set, Corey Allen, the actor playing Buzz, accidentally cut James Dean with the knife. Director Nicholas Ray yelled "cut" with prompted a furious Dean to scream "Don't ever cut when something real is happening to me!" It wasn't the only stunt-double less scene in the film - Dean also injured himself on camera in the scene where he punches the desk.
It's the realness of "Rebel" that makes it so watchable, so ageless. I'm not sure there is a single generation of teenagers that doesn't identify with the scene where Dean half yells, half moans, "You're tearing me apart!" The entire film is shot at eye level. There are moments of dialog that so perfectly capture what its like to be a teenager that you want this film to be preserved for people to see in thousands of years to come.
The protagonist of this film and its notoriously famous and over-parodied title is Jim Stark, aka James Dean who was killed in a car accident before the release of this film, and before he was nominated for Oscars for his other two films: East of Eden and Giant. Jim is picked up in the opening credits of the film for being drunk. When his parents come to pick him up they are more or less fairly light on him and suggest they just move again. Jim, however, is hoping that for once his parents will punish him - it would show they at least CARED. At the police station he encounters a variety of interesting characters, including Judy (Natalie Wood), Plato (Sal Mineo) (who is in for killing a kitten) and a sympathetic cop named Ray Fremick (Edward Platt). Moving into the new school, Stark begins on a field trip to a planetarium where the lecturer's chief topic is man's insignificance in the universe. Great.
From there he is joined by nervous Plato, who looks up to him for daring to shush the leather dressed Buzz, leader of a gang that includes, among others, Judy and a very young Dennis Hopper, credited as "goon." Outside the planetarium, Jim encounters Buzz slashing his tires...which leads to a knife fight between the two...which leads to a very dangerous game of "chicken..." Can you see where this is going? After a sort of semi-climax, the film suddenly sort of calms down, and we watch the three apathetic teenagers Jim, Judy and Plato happily playing around in the set of "Sunset Boulevard" where Jim and Judy sort of semi-adopt poor Plato, who is in serious need of a mother and father figure. But if Mineo seemed more interested in Dean than just "the father figure type" that's no accident either...Mineo would later become an outspoken homosexual and admit he had a crush on Dean during filming. Indeed, many scenes it looks like his refraining to kiss Dean right on camera.
But if these kids seem apathetic, perhaps its because the people and society who raised them are. It is the casual and disturbing actions of the cops at the end of the film that solidify the political statement, when reality hits them very hard.
Countless arguments have been made back and forth on whether this film argued pro or anti conformist. On the pro side, some point out the scene where Jim is horrified to see his father in an apron, and suggest he wants his parents to "conform" to what the typical image of a parent is. However, I disagree with this. The scene at the end where the father says he will become "who (Jim) wants him to be" shows that he is so apathetic he doesn't even realize the real reason Jim is upset, or the more important issue at hand. Jim is the Rebel With a Cause, who sees the apathy of the adult world and refuses to conform to it, who sees the apathy and confusion of gangs like Buzz's who seem to rebel for no reason at all, and Stark refuses to conform to them either. Along the way he also, as many film-rebels rarely do, sticks up for the underdog Plato and makes a compelling father figure.
The best scene comes when Buzz admits, shortly before the "chicky race," that he likes Stark. Stark asks: then why are we racing? Buzz's reply? Everybody does.
Can anyone not like this film? Better question...: can anyone not identify with some part of this film? I'm not sure the question can be answered but I might be able to answer it myself. And all it took was one screening.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I'm writing on what I consider the 30 greatest films of all time. They are written in no particular order)
The film begins quietly. The time: The Depression. The setting: The Dust Bowl. The screen is filled with empty space, lonely and windy, as the camera keeps its distance from all of the characters. A man convinces a truck driver to give him a ride, even though his boss doesn't permit it. Finally we see their faces up close. The hitchhiker is Tom Joad (Henry Fonda). Some way to their destination Joad tells him he just got out of jail. The truck driver gets nervous. Joad says "Bet your just dying to know what I was in for, well I'll tell you." It's his stop. As he gets off, he yells behind him "Homicide!" He got into a fight with a man when they were both drunk, and the other pulled a knife, and Joad killed him.
This is how we are introduced to "The Grapes of Wrath," a dark, lyrical and beautiful film that seems light years ahead of its time. An outspokenly socialist film, one may be surprised to find out the director, John Ford, was a republican capitalist. He did leave more of the incendiary parts from the book out, and toned down much of the original books anger, but there is still much of the same work here. The film is sad and gripping in the way it handles scenes like the one where they bury the grandfather on the way to California. His wife wants to buried with him, but they have to continue. Hundreds of miles away in California, the grandmother dies and they bury her. The sadness in this scene is underplayed, without too much weeping or excessive Hollywood-like tragedy, and it works. Death has become something these people are used to. But the depression destroys them in the way it separates them. Separation is something they are not used to, because they have lived in the same place for generations and generations.
The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joads, who are kicked off their land and whose homes are destroyed like everyone else's, to make way for a huge field that will profit a wealthy landowner. Some refuse to leave. One man hides out it the fields, his family gone to California, not accepting he has to leave the land that was fought for and built by his great great grandfathers. When Joad encounters him, he is a little insane.
The Joads, like many other families, get fliers advertising work for farmers in California. So the 9 of them and Casy the ex preacher (played brilliantly by John Carradine) pile into one truck which they worry could break down any minute. On the way there, they are warned at a camp from a man who received the same flier, and says they gave out twice as many fliers as they needed men, the work was taken, and if you did get it they would put you under inhuman conditions. They head on anyway and arriving they find he is more or less right. Once in, they are not allowed out, and are guarded by armed guards who tell them they will shoot them if they leave the house when its not work time. Joad escapes and finds Casy trying to organize a union. For doing so, he is shot by cops as he stands surrounded, with his hands raised. Joad helps the whole family escape.
The next time they are incredibly lucky and are taken in by an FDR lookalike who treats them benevolently and kindly, and offers good pay. Just when it seems everything is going to turn out, Tom Joad's past catches up with him and he has to run away, alone. He bids farewell to Ma Joad (Jane Darwell, who won an Oscar for best supporting actress):
I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beating' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eating' the stuff they raise and living' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
So will we, Tom. So will we.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I am writing on the 30 greatest films of all time. They are written in no order) I'm not sure if there could possibly be a more fitting title for this film than "Apocalypse Now." The famous opening scene shows a line of trees for about a minute as we hear helicopters chop-chopping in and out of the frame. We begin to hear the first notes to The Doors' "The End" and as the first words are spoken the entire forest is hit by napalm and bursts into flame silently. Then it fades on one half of the screen to a shot of Martin Sheen's face, and the helicopters are really the ceiling fan? "And all the children, are insane! All the children..."
The first lines spoken in the film is Sheen narrating "Saigon. (expleteive). I'm still only in Saigon." He continues to narrate his life story. How he fought in Vietnam, went home. Couldn't stand being away from the jungle. Only word he said to his wife was yes to a divorce. And now he was back here. Still only in Saigon. "Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter." Sheen, drunk, tears apart his room and cuts himself punching a mirror. Having fun yet? The next morning he is in luck - HQ gives him a top secret mission up the river into Cambodia, to kill a Green Beret colonel who has lost his mind and commands his soldiers to commit atrocities while they worship him as a king. Willard narrates: "I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's memory - any more than being back in Saigon was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine." Shoot, who wrote the narration? Because those are pretty classic lines. Make a good Sig but it has to be under a hundred characters. Here's something probably under a 100: "charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500." He is sent up with Chef (Fredrick Forrest), Mr. Clean (a 14 year old Larry Fishburne), Lance (Sam Bottoms) and Chief (Albert Hall), who are all (except Chief) young and inexperienced soldiers. In the films most famous scene, they are chauffeured to the mouth of their river by Robert Duvall and his air Calvary, who bomb a Vietnamese village to clear the area for surfing. The famous detail is that the helicopters are blasting Wagners "Ride of the Valkeries" as they attack the village.
From there the film descends, one scene after another, into a world of chaotic insanity and madness. One of the most memorable scenes is when they pass the last American outpost on the river. Soldiers carrying suitcases swim into the river desperately, crying out "take me home!" When Willard goes onto the crazily lit bridge (we only see his face every time a flare goes up) he asks a soldier who the commanding officer is. The soldier looks horrified and replies "Aint you?" Finally, the film reaches the end of the river. Only a couple of the men are left. Men hang from the trees and skulls decorate the sides of the river. Heads and severed limbs and graffiti (one which says "Apocalypse Now") cover the ancient temple. The beret, Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) recites poetry and Willard is disturbed to discover the many parallels between him and Kurtz. Kurtz's biggest admirer is "The Photojournalist" played by Dennis Hopper, who says things like "You don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him...he's a poet-warrior in the classic sense." This is a stunning film to watch, and what is more stunning I can see this again and again and again and never get bored of it.
Original or Redux? There isn't much difference between the two versions. You might want to see Redux for an interesting new way to look at the film (the scenes have been rearranged into a different order) but I would see the original first, which stays closer to the novel on which the film is based, Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
"Arresting a man for murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500"...good line.
Days of Heaven (1978)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I am writing on what I consider the 30 greatest films ever made. They are written in no specific order.)
Recently I saw a screening of this at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA. The 70 mm print quality wasn't very good (in fact, it was plain crappy - some of the frames were so messy it was hard to see what was going on) but it was worth seeing the film a second time, this time in theater. Cinematographer Nestor Almendros' stunning visuals deserve to be witnessed on the big screen. This is one of the best photographed films of all time. It should be noted that Haskell Wexler, who is credited in the end credits with "Additional photography" claims he did much of the film, and, as told by Roger Ebert, has pointed out to him at least 50 shots which he claims were his. The Oscar went solely to Almendros.
The film is like a dream. After leaving it, you stumble around sleepily not sure what to think. You can't remember much of it unless you really concentrate. I'm not sure how this is done. The actors voices drift in and out and don't always align with their mouths. It could be a flaw but it could be deliberate. Almost the entire film was shot at "magic hour" which is just after a sunset or before a sunrise. The choice to have Ennio Morricone score the film was a stroke of genius - the "wheat fields" theme is one of the most haunting ever composed. This was Morricone's stage in transition from his spaghetti westerns, now moving on to his more traditional (yet still exceptional) scores for films like "The Untouchables" "The Red Tent" "The Sicilian Clan" "Excorsist II" "The Mission" and "Cinema Paradiso." In showing his remarkable flexibility Morricone has revealed himself to be one of the greatest composers of film or otherwise in the New Age.
It's the earlier 20th century, sometime between 1915 and 1930. In Chicago, a landscape is covered in soot, trash, and coal. Hundreds of people out of work continually pull in and out of trains, always looking for new jobs that will only last them a couple months. One train goes to the Texas panhandle, where wheat blows in ocean like waves and silhouettes of workers shuffle past the skyline of sunrise, pulling locusts out of the wheat. This is how we are introduced into Terrence Malick's incredible "Days of Heaven," which is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good. To say the least. When I occasionally am asked to make a ten best list I find myself quite often listing Days of Heaven as the best film of all time. It could be.
Its not likely you'll find it in most video stores, if I were you I'd do what I did and just buy it off Amazon.com. Unless you're idea of a great time at the cinema is "Star Wars: Episode 2" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" (not to dis Pirates, Depp is a great comedic actor and its entertaining enough) then I doubt you'll regret it. Even the meanest of critics eventually warm to its stunning tapestry of visual and poetic beauty. And yes, if you've seen a Malick film before (like "The Thin Red Line" and "The New World") then its much the same style, slow, elegant, much of the dialog in voice over. This time, however, A) its considerably shorter and B) all the narrating is done by a girl named Linda (Linda Hunt), whose brother and his lover are the center of the film.
They are played by Richard Gere and Brooke Adams, who were shockingly enough both neglected by the Oscars that year (the only Oscar that film would pick up was for Cinematography - it remains the only Oscar a Malick film has ever won). In the first scene of the film we catch a glimpse of Bill (Gere) getting into a fight and running away with Abby (Adams) and his little sister Linda (Linda Manz). They board a train for the country and work in the wheat fields. There, a rich, shy, dying farmer (Sam Shepard) who lives nearby sees and falls in love with Abby. Bill, who is posing as Abby's brother, suggests they get married so when the farmer dies they will be able to live on the plantation. I don't like to reveal synopsis's, so I will continue no further.
Instead I shall describe one of the best scenes in the film, one where a plague of locusts floods the farm. The Farmer sends all his workers out to try and kill as many as possible in a bonfire, which eventually catches to the fields. The fire spreads out in a circle and the field, which, once beautiful, has turned into hell. The frame is filled with fire and smoke and we see the silhouettes of the workers trying to find a way out of the fire, looking for a place they might be able to jump through. Finally the camera cuts back and we see the entire field, a large portion of the middle blazing furiously. And a horse carried cart wagon runs around in circles, the back ablaze, spreading the fire wherever it runs. Malick's Christian socialist themes are noticeably at work here, especially in a horrifying shot of a machine that has lost control and caught fire, plowing forward over terrified workers. Once a symbol of agricultural produce and technological advancement, it has betrayed the species that created it and is bent in destroying them.
You could die in a freak accident tomorrow, so please make sure you see this film as soon as possible.
Suna no onna (1964)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I am writing on the "30 greatest movies". They are written in no particular order) For a "30 Best" Films list, this is a bit of an unusual choice, but I would have it no other way. Long after seeing this, the lonely shots of sand, water and wind remain in my memory. This is a haunting film that refuses to be forgotten.
The film grabs us in as soon as it begins. An entomologist (that's bug collector to you) is wandering some lonely sand dunes near the ocean. Already anyone who has appreciated films like "2001" and the Terrence Malick films for their stunning visual beauty will already be interested in this film. Hiroshi Segawa's cinematography beautifully captures the dunes in somewhat fuzzy black and white photography. Am I ranting? Maybe. This film probably deserves a bit of a rant.
That night he is offered a place to stay by some local villagers, who have him stay with a somewhat strange woman...I'd rather not tell you more of the plot, and encourage you to avoid reading a synopsis of it. Because this is a movie, something happens that is not great news to out entomologist. Its more fun if you let the events play out in front of you however, so I'll leave it there.
...which also means I'll have to keep this review more or less pretty short. One of the most haunting images in this film involves the entomologist in ragged clothing, stumbling away in the desert, not quite sure where he's going or if he wants to get there.
Behind the camera, the entomologist is played by Eiji Okada (Hiroshima, Mon Amour), and the title role is filled by the wonderful Kyôko Kishida. The film was directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, who, in a rare and great Oscar surprise, was nominated for Best Director.
I hope this film isn't too hard to find for you. However long the search, its worth seeing.
American Graffiti (1973)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I'm writing on the 30 greatest films of all time. They are written in no particular order)
"Jesus, what a night!" -Terry "The Toad" Fields
The first song played in American Graffiti goes as follows: When the clock strikes 2 and 3 and 4 if the band slows down we'll yell for more we're gonna rock around the clock tonight we're gonna rock rock rock till broad daylight we're gonna rock we're gonna rock around the clock tonight
and around the clock we go. The film starts at sunset and ends as the sun rises the next morning. Our characters: 4 teenagers, 2 of them on the verge of going off to college. Richard Dreyfuss is in turmoil and doesn't want to go. little Opie Ron Howard (about to release a new film, The Da Vinci Code, in May) is the class president and boyfriend of the head cheerleader and is obsessed with getting away from this Midwest "turkey town" but Cindy Williams, the cheerleader, isn't so eager for him to go. Then you have Paul Le Mat as a James Dean wannabe drag racer who accidentally ends up with a bratty 13 year old in his car. And Charles Martin Smith plays Lucas' autobiographical role as the dorky kid who ends up the luckiest, trying to lie his way through a date with the only Oscar nominated cast member in this film, Candy Clark, who plays s Shirley MacLaine type adorable-but-not-too-bright girl. And we have cameos by Wolfman Jack and Harrison Ford, who didn't want to give up his carpenter job for this film (he was paid more as a carpenter.
The setting is 1962, a year that was still mostly grounded in the innocence of the 50's but beginning to show the first signs of rebellion. The writer director is George Lucas, before his name could have ever been attributed to the phrase "Star Wars." The film broke and still sets the record for biggest budget/box office margin. It was nominated for Oscars for best picture, director, and screenplay. The music is completely unoriginal, featuring what must be a record for least amount of film time without music playing (that record may have been beaten by Koyaanisqatsi). The 45 songs used are by Booker T. Jones, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, David Allison, David Bartholemew, The Beach Boys, Max Freedman, Fats Domino, Frankie Lymon, Sherman Edwards, Jimmy Bowen, and more. The film is delirious, hilarious and fun, and may just leave you a little dazed as the sun begins to rise. You can't see this film and not think about it. I was never impressed by Star Wars, but if Lucas makes another film, I would gladly see it if it comes even close to the sheer genius of "American Graffiti."
The trivia to this film is quite interesting. see IMDb's page for it, especially the "disasters" bullet. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069704/trivia
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
Sometimes a film comes along that moves us in ways we don't see coming. Films like Imitation of Life, and Cinema Paradiso. I cried during Cinema Paradiso. There. I said it. Happy? I'm not going to say it again. And mind you, I didn't cry a lot, just a little bit at the end.
Just try and watch it yourself and not cry. Because nostalgia is the saddest thing in the world.
It has a happier beginning though. Cinema Paradiso begins sometime in the 40's in a small Italian town where the priest censors out kissing from all the imported Hollywood films (he calls it "pornography"). The theater projector, Alfredo, is the one in charge of cutting the scenes out. And a little boy named Salvatore visits often to ask if he can run the projector himself and maybe steal a few of the edited clips. A bag of them in his room catches fire and nearly destroys his home. His mother instructs Alfredo never to let Salvatore near the theater again. At first, he does. But the boy's love of the movies brings him constantly back, and Alfredo's heart warms to the boy.
In one of the more magical scenes in the movie, a small crowd gathers outside the theater when the theater is full, asking to see the movie before it gets too late for them to stay up. Salvatore watches as Alfredo removes the back of the projector and uses a mirror to reflect the movie onto the wall of someone's house, where the audience brings chairs and watches contently.
Salvatore grows older. As a teen, he mainly runs the projector, (the theater is no longer censored by the priest - now it occasionally shows porn), takes photographs and falls for a wealthy new girl in town. The film is predictable in plot, but not predictable in the way it makes us follow it s storyline eagerly. The film is scored by Ennio Morricone (who reuses a theme or two from "The Untouchables") and is directed by Gieuseppe Tornatore. After a stint in the army, Salvatore comes home and finds the town lonely, desolate. Alfredo tells him: "Living here day by day, you think it's the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything's changed. The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time... many years... before you can come back and find your people." Alfredo tells him to leave and become a movie director...and never look back. Salvatore does so, and we cut to him in his 40's or 50's, when he learns that Alfredo died. And so he returns home.
Some films are great because they are filled with nostalgia for a forgotten era. Like the popular teen films "American Graffiti" and "Dazed and Confused" which were homages to eras the directors hadn't forgotten when everyone else had. Cinema Paradiso is so filled with this nostalgia that you feel as if you had lived in this small Italian town yourself. You can almost smell the sweaty theater in summertime. The "Cinema Paradiso" screens Jason and the Argonauts, Humphrey Bogart films, and plenty of small, mostly forgotten Hollywood romances. It also screens joy, love, disappointment, sadness, nostalgia, friendship, laughter, and magic.
"Cinema Paradiso" is a film for the ages, and for all the ages.
The Third Man (1949)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays on what I think are the 30 greatest films of all time. They are written in no particular order) (yes, I know one of the facts supplied in this review is deliberately wrong, I put it there to preserve a great twist.) God, I love watching "The Third Man." I love getting excited whenever Holly Martins is getting chased down ruined post war Vienna streets, set to a ironic, mockingly cheerful Caribbean style zither music. And I love our first shot of Orson Welles, one of the greatest movie moments of all times. I love watching the chase down the sewer every time I see it, the voices echoing down a hellishly wet dungeon. I love pretending I don't know the twist that comes later on in the movie, like it was the first time I saw it. I love the moment when the camera tracks a cat down the streets onto the feet of someone in the shadows. Is it the Third Man? This is a perfect mystery, not to complicated that you wonder you missed an important detail when you decided to take a leak halfway through, or too simple that you guess immediately the twist that is coming later.
It's a British production set in post war Vienna, which is in ruins, about a poor, simple writer of cheap novelettes like "Showdown at San Antonio Flats" named Holly Martins. (More than once he is told that he's "quite popular here in Europe.") Martins is looking for an old friend named Harry Lime who had offered him a job from Vienna. As Martins arrives, he is informed by a neighbor that he is 10 minutes too late - Harry Lime is dead. At the funeral he meets a British police officer named Calloway (not Callahan!) who tells him that Lime was mixed up in a crime racket. Martins spends much of the movie trying to clear Lime's name, which is difficult because the witnesses have jarringly different accounts of the accident in which Lime died. I won't tell you any more of the film - in fact, don't read any other reviews of this before you see it in case you find out something - this is a great film to just let play out in front of you.
The Third Man stars Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, Alida Valli as Lime's girlfriend (who Holly inevitably falls for), Trevor Howard as Calloway, and, in a show stealing role Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, who appears entirely in flashbacks. It was directed by Carol Reed, who won his Oscar (probably undeservedly) for "Oliver!". The only Oscar this film won was for cinematography (that is definitely this films award).
Just try and see The Third Man and not love it like I did. I dare you.
La battaglia di Algeri (1966)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 essays I am writing on the 30 greatest films of all time. They are written in no particular order) One thing that is amazing about La Bataglia d'Algeri (or The Battle of Algiers) is how amazingly well it lures you into caring so much exactly what happens to its Muslim Revolutionaries while giving them little to no screen time. The main character "Ali La Pointe" hardly says anything throughout the entire film, but we sit on the edge of our seats wondering what will happen to him next.
The film was made by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, with the enormous cooperation of the Algerian government. Pontecorvo also hired Italian composer Ennio Morricone for scoring the film's music, which is based on traditional Muslim folk songs (Pontecorvo had been impressed with Morricone's score for "A Few Dollars More") One of the main actors of the film, Saadi Yacef, essentially played himself under a different name, and was also the one who wrote the autobiographical book on which the film was based. The film was shot in documentary style black and white, hand-held looking. One of the more amazing things about this film is that not a single bit of documentary or newsreel footage was used in this film, which the credits points out. Its almost hard to believe the whole film isn't a documentary. You see shots of bombs going off at derby's that look so realistic you wonder how dangerous they are.
The film was nominated for Oscars for best director, screenplay, and foreign film. It also won the FIPRESCI prize and Golden Lion at the Venice film festival. It was banned in France upon its release (surprise!) It was screened for the Pentagon's staff in 2003 because of its uncanny parallels to the current War in Iraq.
The film follows, from 1954 to the liberation of Algeria, the attempts by the native Muslims, who are confined to their own quarter (the "Casbah"). Racism against Muslims and those of darker skin is incredibly high in Algeria, one of the films most disturbing scenes involves a shooting of a police officer. Tenants of an apartment building poke their heads out of the windows, hearing the sirens, and point at a random old Muslim beggar (who did not commit the crime) and yell "it's him! it's him!" soon it seems everyone on the street is screaming at him, yelling racial epithets, pointing at him. Terrified, the man runs for his life and is arrested by a passing police car. Reading a report on him, the police chief takes some friends with him and plants a bomb outside his wife's house in the Casbah. The blast kills many people, and the Muslim's retaliate. Three women disguise themselves as Westerers to get past the check point. Another one of the more chilling scenes involves the women, each carrying a bomb in their hand baskets, examining their would be victims. A child eating ice cream? A bunch of teenagers dancing to pop music? Relatives visiting some friends in Algeria? The film does lean towards the Muslims, probably justly so. But is mostly a non biased film that manages to play its mournful theme on the bombing of a Western café as well.
Eventually the paratroopers are brought in to crush the opposition, and the character of Colonel Mathieu is played by the only major French actor who would work on this film, Jean Martin. Martin mostly acted on stage, this was his first major film role. He was strongly against the French in Algeria and cheerfully agreed to do this film. He plays a chilling character perfectly, carefully avoiding the use of the word "torture" so his methods of interrogation don't sound too harsh.
Ever since the War in Iraq this film came out in a special 3 disc special edition DVD set, digitally remastered by Rialto, along with a booklet describing the history of the actual revolution and the making of the film. It's definitely worth buying. And the film is definitely worth seeing.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 comments I'm writing for the 30 greatest films of all time. They aren't written in any specific order.)
2001: A Space Odessy. To be blunt: I first saw this when I was 11, and hated it. I hated every single second of it. I nearly fell asleep plenty of times, and, watching it again, I'm surprised how many scenes I don't remember originally. The version I had rented was a video cassette, which meant it was "panned and scanned" or "fullscreen". Which means half of the movie was missing. I don't even blame myself for hating it - there are some films that just SHOULD NOT BE PANNED AND SCANNED. If you aren't seeing the whole movie, its just not the same. Films like 2001: A Space Odessy, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Lawrence of Arabia contain incredibly beautiful visuals and deserve high attention for them.
More recently I saw 2001 on TCM, which is the GREATEST CHANNEL EVER, especially during Oscar season. Citizen Kane, 2001, The Graduate, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Lost Weekend, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, The Philadelphia Story, The Best Years of Our Lives, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Dr. Zhivago, North by Northwest, The Sting, Dr. Strangelove, Paths of Glory, Lust for Life, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, American Graffiti ALL IN ONE MONTH. Considering I recorded most of those movies, which were all letterbox, without commercials, uncut uncensored, I now have a great "DVD" quality (on videocassette) of classic movies.
I was stunned. Since I tried, and failed, so hard to understand the plot of the film last time, I just WATCHED it this time, and in front of me was one of the most beautifully constructed films of all time. The scene of the ship docking to Strauss can be watched endless times. Believe it or not, this might me one of the most ENTERTAINING movies of all time. Many films, after you see them a few times, lose interest because you know what's gonna happen next. 2001 has no real plot, but it does have stunning visuals, and unless you have incredible photographic memory then seeing this film anytime is like seeing it for the first time.
True, there are some parts you can laugh at (whenever the monkeys get excited and start jumping in the air, I say "4 more years, 4 more years!" and that gets a laugh out of anyone nearby). But this is ultimately a beautiful film. Made 3 years before A Clockwork Orange, the films share a visual style that make them Kubrick's 2 best. Stunning, amazing to watch. Without a doubt, one of the 30 greatest movies of all time.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The 30 Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(part of 30 comments I'm writing on the 30 best films ever made. They are written in no specific order)
The simplest and best thing about Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi dialect for "Chaos" or "Life out of Balance") is that there is not a single word spoken throughout the entire film. The critic Roger Ebert (of "Siskel and Ebert", also only critic to win Pulitzer prize for film criticism) wrote a bizarre review in which he only gave it three stars because of a bunch of opinions he believed Reggio held (like, "it would be better if there wasn't man at all") that he felt were silly. But these are opinions that couldn't possibly be expressed without words. Koyaanisqatsi is much simpler than that - it shows, through a series of images, a world before man, quiet, slow, and beautiful. Then modern times rushes in, an incredibly fast paced, crazy marathon of people that seem never to stop. I have to criticize Ebert again, who complains that if the film is trying to show a bad portrait of mankind, then why are the images of the cities beautiful as well. Reading this, one has to ask "But where, Roger, did you decide this film was trying to show a bad portrait of mankind? You're contradicting yourself." Yes, the destruction of nature is horrifying, but Reggio also allows us to look at some beautiful aspect of the cities too, like the reflection of the sky on the polished windows. There are numerous shots looking down on sprawling city streets at nighttime, sped up incredibly fast so you see cars shooting down the the road, briefly stopping at red lights where other cars fly by them, and start up and fly forward again. I am reminded of the old middle school videos taken from microscopes where you see little organisms shooting around pointlessly. Where, exactly, are they trying to get to? Koyaanisqatsi is not, as Ebert suggests, a film about how mankind is evil, but just simply a warning. The film shows us the past, and the present, and eventually the future, leaving us a warning that if we continue in the direction we are going, getting faster and faster, things must just explode, a Herzog like prediction that if we continue our rampage against nature, then it will destroy us to return to the beginning.
Many of the images involve shots that are sped up or slowed down to show stunning beauty that we wouldn't be able to see with our own eyes. "Through God's eyes" we see the shadows of clouds painting the dusty landscapes, a "waterfall" of clouds that fall down the side of a mountain, a shot mounted on a car as it speeds down a highway, sped up nearly 20X as fast. And impossibly high shot flying over New York City. Numerous shots of buildings being demolished. A nuclear weapon being tested in a southwestern desert. A room of T.V.s exploding in slow motion. Bridges being demolished. Huge, foreboding telephone line towers making cage like cobwebs over the landscape. Even with some of the most beautiful images caught on camera, the film would be nothing without the score of the wonderful Phillip Glass, who here has written perhaps the best soundtrack of all time. The before man sequence is slow, repetitive, and beautiful, the invasion of man is jarringly horrifying, and will likely haunt you. The chorus of man strikes an ironic and satirical look on the city, which also boasts impossibly fast played up and down scales that would become Glass' trademark in later films. As we see the fate of mankind played out in the last shot, a chorus of low voices chants "Koyaanisqatsi!... Koyaanisqatsi!... Koyaanisqatsi!... Koyaanisqatsi!..."
"Life out of Balance!... Life out of Balance!... Life out of Balance!... Life out of Balance!..."
Les quatre cents coups (1959)
Greatest Films Ever Made, Continued
(2nd part of 30 reviews of the films I think are the 30 greatest ever made. Being 2nd has nothing to do with how good it is compared to the other films) Atoine Doniel is one of the most likable heroes in the history of cinema. And by likable, I don't really mean "likable" so much as a character everyone identifies with in some way. He is the rebel with a cause, a 12 year old who isn't so bad behaved as he has very bad timing. When a centerfold is passed around class, the teacher catches him with it. When he creates a shrine to his idol the poet Balzac, it catches fire.
I have not seen any of the other "Antoine Doniel" films, and I don't want to. It was probably a mistake to make any more - the film ends perfectly as it is, and its better off left alone.
Doniel lives in a small, cramped apartment with his two parents who are constantly yelling at each other. He occasionally gets along with the father, but more than often he is treated unfairly by both. The film follows him through many misadventures, that go from skipping school and running from home and stealing a typewriter. By the end we're cheering him on and no film manages this better.
I'd rather not write any more about "The 400 Blows" (or "Les Quatre Cents Coups" which is short for a French idiom - "faire Les quatre cents coups" "to raise hell"). Instead, I'll let you see it and watch the events unfold before you. It's not at all boring, I'm 14 and loved it. This is not only one of the best, but my favorite movies of all time.
The Mission (1986)
One of the greatest films ever made
(This will be the first of 30 essays on films that I believe are the 30 greatest of all time. Being the first written has nothing to do with the standing against the other films)
Recently AFI released a top 25 list of best film scores written. It was a terrible list, with predictably the emotionally detached but hummable Star Wars at #1 and Gone With the Wind at #2. It doesn't get much better from there, but it did have "Out of Africa" (John Barry) and "The Mission" (Ennio Morricone) (although On Golden Pond and The Pink Panther are also good, they are not top 25 material)
It may be the only thing "The Mission" is remembered for - that theme "The River" (Vita Nostra) that is used occasionally in film trailers. Oh yeah, and that notorious scene at the beginning where the guy is sent down a waterfall is bound to a cross.
That scene, of mixed horror and spellbinding beauty, is a lot of what "The Mission" is like. Being as critical as possible, The Mission is one of the greatest, and certainly one of the most beautiful films ever made.
The synopsis: The setting is the 17th Century, South America. Our Protagonist is Jeremy Irons, a priest who, unlike the Hollywood stereotype of "villanous priest," is really quite pacifist - Ghandi-style. I generally find Christians annoying, but I might just get along with this guy. He sets off, alone in the jungle, to start a mission to try and convert the natives to Christianity. He climbs the cliffs next to the waterfall and at the top runs into some naturals and manages to avoid becoming the guy in the opening scene by playing an Ennio Morricone theme on his oboe.
Another character has to come into play here, and its Robert DeNiro. After Irons has successfully set up a small mission and befriended most of the naturals, he runs into DeNiro, a slave trader who takes some of the naturals captive. This time the camera follows DeNiro who inevitably kills his brother in a fit of jealousy. When Irons meets him later in jail, he is ready for redemption, so Irons, and another priest played by some guy called Liam Neeson (!) take him up the cliffs with them, DeNiro carrying a huge pack of armor. DeNiro mercilessly drags himself up out of self hatred. After making it to the top (barely) he feels redeemed and becomes a priest of the mission.
I won't tell you the rest of the plot, but it involves Irons, DeNiro and young Liam trying to save the mission from Portuguese soldiers who would like to solve the problem of the naturals by enslaving them.
The Mission was made by the people who made "The Killing Fields" which is a great film, but not as great as this. If Chris Menges' photography in The Killing Fields was pretty, in The Mission its stunning. If Roland Joffe(director) had an Axe to grind in The Killing Fields, he has an army of axes to grind here. If Haing Ngor was great in The Killing Fields...well, DeNiro is maybe not quite as great as Ngor, but still worthy of a huge amount of attention.
And "The Mission" had a WAY better score than "Star Wars"