A Tale of Two Cities (1935) 9/10
Ronald Colman's signature role anchors one of the best of the classic Hollywood literary adaptations, with a brilliantly economical script and tremendous production values. The revolutionary sequences, credited on-screen to Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur, provide an exciting turning point to lead up to the legendary finish.
Bedlam (1946) 7/10
Karloff and Anna Lee stand out in Lewton's story of an 18th-century insane asylum, with some terrific atmosphere in the tunnels and cellblocks of the madhouse. I wasn't always very clear on what was going in the somewhat disjointed script, so it took a while before I could get into it.
The Good Earth (1937) 7/10
The first half didn't do much for me, but once the revolution comes and threatens the main couple, the pace picks up quite a bit. The whole chaotic sequence ending in O-Lan's narrow escape from being shot for looting is particularly effective, and the famous battle with the locusts is a strong sequence right near the end.
The Naked City (1948) 9/10
A sharp script and lots of great location shooting are the main standouts in this influential crime-movie classic. Lots of colorful characters and supporting bits of "life on the street" are combined seamlessly in the story-telling, and Mark Hellinger's narration is one of the best written running voice-overs in any movie of this type.
David Copperfield (1935) 9/10
Star-studded Dickens adaptation is kind of A Tale of Two Halves, as the second half is more episodic and doesn't seem all that connected with the first half, though there are still some great scenes. But the first half is just astounding, one incredible scene right after the other. It's hard to imagine a better cast for all those different parts, with W.C. Fields, Edna May Oliver, and Roland Young (in an unusually slimy role for him) standing out among the adults. And Freddie Bartholomew as the young David is amazing--that's got to be at or near the top of any list of all-time great kid performances.
title: voices of a distant star
rating: b
comments: nice melancholy anime short (~30 minutes) with some great visuals. the story was a bit dis-jointed (apparantly out of production necessity), but all-in-all very well done by one guy on his home pc. the english dub didn't feel quite right though ... especially the male voice.
I've yet to run across an anime film that I like. The good news about this one, is that many of the things I dislike about anime are not problems here. The bad news, is that other fatal flaws exist in it.
On the positive side, the character animation here is much better than in others I've seen (the backgrounds in Miyazaki films are gorgeous, but the characters are another story). And here, the Japanese characters actually look Japanese.
Unfortunately, the story is just a gore-filled mess. Too much violence, too little interest.
There may be an anime film out there I'll like, but I ain't holding my breath waiting for it.
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
Lon Chaney plays a man who escapes from prison after serving 15 years so that he can seek revenge on the one who sent him there. On the outside Chaney takes disguise as a crippled man and soon comes face to face with the daughter who believes his dead. His revenge idea takes a bump in the road when he learns that his daughter is to marry the son of the man who sent him to prison. There's a lot of good and a lot of bad in this film and I probably should have only given it a two-and-a-half star rating but the final fifteen minutes are so incredible that I went ahead and gave it a full three stars. The film only runs 50 minutes and the first twenty are pretty much standard revenge ideas. We see Chaney rant and raving and then we see him start to carry out his plan. This type of stuff had been done countless times before 1922 and that includes Chaney's very own The Penalty. The reason the film works so well is due in large part to the incredible performances. Chaney is wonderful here and it's nice to see him play a cripple since he probably didn't some of the same acting as in the lost film The Miracle Man. The supporting cast of Ralph Lewis (the man who sent Chaney up) and Edith Roberts (the daughter) add great strength. While the first part of the film is totally by the numbers stuff, the final act goes in a whole different direction and becomes very touching and moving. the ending alone makes this one worth searching for. Noah Beery co-stars.
Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925)
Stan Laurel plays Dr. Pyckle, a nice man who takes his own formula and turns into the mean spirited Mr. Pryde, a man who likes playing pranks on children. This spin on the Jekyll and Hyde story is pretty funny, although it really doesn't have anything that makes it stand out.
11/23/06
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
I last viewed this when it was in the theaters and I've taken down the grade a full star. The film just didn't work as good for me last night. I think I enjoyed it so much the first time because it was rather raw with its over the top and graphic language but this time around I really didn't laugh at it. The cast does a terrific job as usual and Woody Allen's writing (and directing) is top notch.
White Water Summer (1987)
An experienced country guide (Kevin Bacon) takes a city boy (Sean Astin) and three others into the woods where he's suppose to teach them but soon his mental state comes into question. This is certainly a guilty pleasure of mine and a film I watched all the time as a kid. I was shocked to see it on television early in the morning so I watched it again, which was probably the first time in 15+ years. The story is stupid and simple but if you're a fan of Bacon and Astin you should enjoy it. It was a little shocking to watch a PG rated film with such strong language including the word "fuck" being said. The PG-13 rating was around when this film was released so I wonder how this got a PG rating as its certainly not for younger kids.
Blood Freak (1972) BOMB
An incredibly bizarre Christian/Drug/Horror/Moral film, which is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen. It takes a while to explain but the film starts off with a good-hearted biker (Steve Hawkes) who gives a Bible worshipping woman a lift back to her house. At her house, the woman's whore sister is throwing a drug party and tries to seduce the biker. That fails but the biker soon cracks and smokes a joint, which turns him into a fiend. Later, he gets a job at a turkey farm where two scientists pay him pot if he will try a new drug that people can put on their Thanksgiving turkey. This drug, mixed with the pot, turns the biker in a half turkey/half man monster who goes on a rampage. Without question there are a couple laughs here and there but this is a really hard film to make it through. Everything in the film is horribly done and there really isn't anything going for the film but it remains a cult favorite. Actor Hawkes would have his career ended a couple years after this after his was caught on fire while shooting another movie. He got in the press again in 2004 after his pet tiger escaped from his home in Loxahatchee, Florida. The tiger was shot by the Wildlife Commission, which set off a storm of controversy. Six days later Hawkes' home caught fire and burned to the ground but all the animals were able to escape.
Day of Thanksgiving, A (1951)
Well meaning but rather silly and overdramatic educational short about a family who can't afford a turkey on Thanksgiving yet they explain why they're still thankful. As a said, a silly moral film that offers some unintentional laughs.
Cry Danger (1951) 8/10
Dick Powell plays an ex-con just out of jail for a crime that he claims he didn't commit, and he finds himself entangled in a continuing series of set-ups and attempts to take him down. The best thing about this one is the terrifically acerbic script, wonderfully played by Powell and a strong supporting cast, including Richard Erdman and William Conrad. And while the twists and turns of the plot end up being a bit much, the ending is very crisp and satisfying.
Escape From Crime (1942) 5/10
Extremely short (51 minutes) B-movie about an ex-con who tries to go legit as a newspaper photographer, but his involvement with some crime scenes threatens to pull him back in. The story isn't bad, but the cast isn't too great, and it's too short to work anyway. Apparently it's a remake of a fuller-length Cagney movie from a decade earlier, Picture Snatcher, which I assume is probably a passable entertainment, since a compelling star and enough time to flesh out the story seems like it would be sufficient to get this decent-enough plot concept to work.
The Exterminating Angel (1962) 9/10
It didn't take me too long into this one before I realized what Bunuel must surely have had in mind: "aha, it's a comedy!" The darkly humorous farce of a bunch of upper-class twits turning against each other in an inexplicably absurd situation is pure Bunuel, and maybe (though I haven't seen anything he did in between Los Olvidados and Viridiana) the first time he took that particular approach in one of his movies, complete with an enigmatic title--who exactly "the exterminating angel" is supposed to be is never explained, much like the never-defined "discreet charm of the bourgeouisie" or "obscure objec-t of desire."
What strikes me as the most impressive thing about this movie is how it manages to be so cinematic in spite of being almost entirely set in one room (no surprise that it was adapted from a play), which is quite different from the freely moving visual flourishes of Viridiana or Belle de Jour. Bunuel's acute sense of pacing over the course of the whole thing, and the precise timing within the individual scenes, seems to be what makes this one work so well.
Angel Face (1952) 7/10
Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons star in Otto Preminger's take on a disturbed young woman from a well-to-do family. The story moves along well enough, albeit without much sizzle, until a dramatic turn halfway through suddenly cranks up the intensity. A fairly silly sequence of courtroom scenes follows, but it all leads up to a pretty stunningly nihilistic ending.
Easy Living (1949) 5/10
Victor Mature and Lizabeth Scott star in the story of a pro football player who faces a forced early retirement from health troubles, while his materalistic high-society wife is on the verge of leaving him once his star fades. Not a bad pair of leads, but aside from a few decent scenes here and there, the script just isn't compelling enough to keep it interesting, and there isn't much of anything standing out in the visuals either. A fairly dull effort from Jacques Tourneur, who doesn't seem to have been well-suited for this kind of script.
Casino Royale (2006) 8/10
A mostly spoiler-free review here in the discussion thread.
I liked most things about this film. I don't think this is really all that revolutionary in that there have certainly been previous films with a more realistic and non-gadgety Bond (e.g., From Russia With Love, License to Kill, etc.), and the Bond franchise has been 're-booted' many times (each new Bond has done so at least once). And while this does go further in taking him back to his early 00 days, each previous Bond has always been a step back in time to one degree or another (if not, Bond would be as old as Connery now). As a major Bond fan, I'll be adding this to my collection, but, as with most of the other films, I do have my qualms.
1. The opening song. Boring. Instead of Goldfinger, or Live & Let Die, we get A View to a Kill.
2. Q (or R). This film wasn't gadget free at all. It's just that Bond started out with them, rather than having them introduced by Q or R. I hope they keep realistic gadgets, but bring back the character.
3. The black & white intro. I've thought about it and thought about it. I still don't see what they were trying to do, and it either didn't succeed, or it's something that I don't like.
4. The Bond theme. Here I do get what they're trying to do. I understand why they left the theme til the end. But, that doesn't mean I like it. Music is incredibly important to a film, and this felt in many ways like Never Say Never Again. In other words, a Bond film that wasn't really a Bond film. I hope they got this out of their system, and make liberal use of the theme in future films.
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
My wife and I went to see Casino Royale at the theater, cause we were in Houston at her parents house for Thanksgiving, so we had a babysitter. We get home, and her father wants to watch one of his favorite movies, Harold & Kumar. Go figure. I found it disgusting, stupid and disgusting. And watching it with your wife and father-in-law is a surreal experience.
City Lights
My son loves Chaplin, and he had picked this out and loved it. At 6, he's just about good enough to read all the subtitles fast enough, though an occasional word or two still throws him. Great film!
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
As Luck Would Have It
This French film, about a 50-something gay professor who finds himself saddled with a teenager because of a government snafu, has its heart in the right place, but ultimately doesn't come off as anything close to believable. For starters, you'll never convince me that a magistrate is going to find a guardian for a kid by opening a phone book and pointing at a name. Furthermore, there's no reason for the lied to and discarded lover to give the main character a second thought. And there's no reason for him to be as worried about people finding out he's gay as he is.
It Came From Outer Space
Fairly standard 50s sci fi/creature film, complete with all the cliches that genre carries. The main character is doubted several times, townspeople become possessed, everything takes place in the isolated Arizona desert. The thing is none of it can even hold up to the better sci fi/monster films of the decade, namly It! The Terror From Beyond Space. This may be somewhat of a classic, but it's nothing we haven't already seen.
For Your Consideration
With about 20 minutes left, the entire tone of the film changes from the quest for an Oscar nod to the sadness of a career and life not being everything you want it to be. The actor who gets the funniest lines here is Fred Willard as the co-host of a Entertainment Tonight-type show. The satire will be lost on audiences who don't care about the machinations on Hollywood sets. But then, those people aren't the ones going to see this, now are they?
Despite being my fourth time watching this film, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in the correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio and, in fact, the VHS copy I’ve owned for some 17 years showed a few distracting instances of pan & scan – which I was too naive to notice when younger (I have to say that I hadn’t viewed the film in 13 years at least!). Frankly, because of that factor alone, I would have preferred not watching it at all – had I not wished to complement the film I had watched the day before i.e. Vittorio Cottafavi’s THE HUNDRED HORSEMEN aka SON OF EL CID (1964)!
While initially I felt that director Anthony Mann (who made some of the most remarkable noirs and Westerns in the previous two decades) had effectively sold out in making 4 big-budget Hollywood spectaculars in a row – the others being CIMARRON (1960), THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1964) and THE HEROES OF TELEMARK (1965) – I was keen to revisit EL CID after reading film critic David Thomson’s essay on Mann (counting it among his finest achievements) in “A Biographical Dictionary Of The Cinema”.
Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren are arguably at their most handsome as the legendary Spanish warrior and his bride; I’d even argue that Heston’s role here is his best ever – certainly more mythical than his Oscar-winning turn in BEN-HUR (1959). The great cast also features Raf Vallone (as the King’s lieutenant and an admirer of Loren’s, but who eventually repents and becomes Heston’s ally); John Fraser, Gary Raymond and Genevieve Page make an usually ‘modern’ and, therefore, very interesting royal triumvirate; Massimo Serato as Heston’s jovial right-hand man; as well as the likes of Hurd Hatfield, Michael Hordern (playing Heston’s disgraced father) and, among the Moorish lines, Frank Thring, Douglas Wilmer (whose loyalty to Heston for having spared his life reflects not only on the characters’ respective codes of honor but also on the depth of the writing itself) and Herbert Lom (as chief villain Ben Youssef, creating a memorable character out of only a few speeches and in spite of being garbed from head to foot in the typical Muslim outfit!).
The famous one-on-one duel between Heston and Christopher Rhodes and the sprawling battle sequences – courtesy of the great cinematographer Robert Krasker (who had done similar duties on HENRY V [1944] and won an Oscar for THE THIRD MAN [1949]) – are stirring even when viewed at a disadvantage (to which one should add the softness of VHS when compared to DVD and the somewhat faded colors!). The magnificent score is unmistakably the work of celebrated composer Miklos Rosza, who was virtually a fixture for this type of film. As I’ve mentioned, the impressive script is highly literate and the plot so completely absorbing that the first half actually flies by; the latter stages feel a bit choppy because it zips through the Cid’s career (suddenly appearing already a renowned conqueror – older, bearded and with a scar across his face!), but this is made up for by the climactic struggle – capped by an unforgettable and truly haunting finale. The scene where Heston and Loren share a romantic idyll inside a barn while in exile, only to be met by swarms of followers as soon as they emerge, is as moving as the famous chorus of “I’m Spartacus!” in Stanley Kubrick’s SPARTACUS (1960); ironically enough, that particular film was begun by Anthony Mann but was summarily fired (for his o
