I really like Chaplin because he's just that kind of loveable charactere who gets into all types of mischief, I think I like City Lights more out of the two films I've seen. As for Scarlett she is a dispicable character but I love how it shows when people are push to the limits things that could happen, I mean her father goes insane and Ashley becomes a self-depricating loser
2001: Space Odyssey
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Rating: 4/5
After watching "2001: A Space Odyssey", I was like "WTF", then I went online to find out what the monoliths were. Then I learned they were devices that helped man evolve and I was like, holy **** the entire movie make sense now! THAT WAS AWESOME! This movie is proclaimed by a lot of people as the most boring movie ever made, I disagree, once you get use to the episodic nature, and that it's working a much larger, more grander storyline, that doesn't involve one single character, it flows better. Don't get me wrong I'm too much a child of my time to be tottally engaged the entire time. Half my reviews read... "This was really slow" because I come from a generation of video games and movies that make a **** load of cuts so it harder to focus, but over-all I was entertained and engaged. But it's a fasinating movie and I think it'll end up being like Brazil and Citizen Kane for me, the first time I watched it I thought cool but some parts were boring, and the next time will be like "wham!". To be honest I can't go any deeper than that on this film, it's just one of those movies you either like or don't like
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Philadelphia Story
Directed by George Cukor
Rating: 3.5/5
What a let-down, you think with a cast like George Stewart, Kathrine Hepburn, and Cary Grant you'd be let in for a treat but a disjointed script and misogynistic 40s values, makes this clunker that deserves to stay in the past. The plot is as follows, "Philadelphia heiress Tracy Lord throws out her playboy husband C.K. Dexter Haven shortly after their marriage. Two years later, Tracy is about to marry respectable George Kittredge whilst Dexter has been working for "Spy" magazine. Dexter arrives at the Lord's mansion the day before the wedding with writer Mike Connor and photographer Liz Imbrie, determined to spoil things." I dig the plot-line actually and it's not like I don't like romance or love stories, so that's not the case here.
The problem lies in the script and it set-ups and pay-offs. For example a sub-plot is that Hepburn father was off having an affair with a dancer in New York so Hepburn had her mother throw him out, her mother lonely now. All right there's a lot going on in this subplot such as that Hepburn motivation for marrying someone respectable like Kitridge stems from issues she has with her father and not wanting to end up with someone like that, and of course we want to see her mother happy. How is this tied up? He just shows up, her mother takes him in with open arms, and apparently women should just accept it as nothing more than men having a mid-life crisis, and it leads to a condemnation of Kathrine Hepburn's character, WTF? That has got to be the worst pay-off ever, I can see how it could fly with audiences of the 50s since women were suppose to be home-makers and all that jazz but I just thought it was sickening.
Then it has a disjointed plot and I didn't like the balance of characters. For example Kitridge enters in the beginning as a nice guy, then disappears for the entire movie, returning as a bad guy, there was no subtle change. Then there's James Stewart's character, the entire movie builds to Kathrine Hepburn and him falling in love, but apparently James Stewart's news partner is in love with him and he's in love with her(so it says). You see the implication is something that would only work with a 40s audience, because it's as if just because they work together, they have to love each other, as if that woman was destine to just be with Stewart character, there was no build up to it so I didn't feel for this relationship. The Stewart and Hepburn relationship pay-off is that, apparently because of there relationship, she calls off her relationship with Kitridge, but then because he belongs to his partner, she goes with Cary Grant. The entire movie is set against 40s ideals.
But the move isn't without it's charms. Hell the entire cast is just charming, Cary Grant gives a really great performance that I absolutely loved, he played his role so great as a person in love but in the end just wanted to see Kathrine Hepburn happy. Stewart's usual innocent guy routine never fails. Hepburn playing the strong woman is great too. The movie in the end succedes because of strong performances/strong characters so with that I begrudgely give it a 7. Because under all of the 40s ideals, these are complex characters, and I love the web that is constructed binding all of them together, and how it undoes itself by the end.
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Watched Mutiny on the Bounty (1933) and Yankee Doodle Dandy also I'll post thoughts up in a minute...