From 10/21/08 - Movie #136 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
****
CUCKOO'S NEST is one of those classics that is a standard among other films in its genre. Every film that has since taken place in a mental institution owes its identity to this film. How good is it? Well, it is one of those rare films that won all top 5 Oscars (Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Actress). The only other 2 movies to achieve that were IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Not a bad trio of films. This film is funny, exciting, heartbreaking, and even scary. Most of the success is spending the movie trying to figure out if Jack Nicholson's character is faking it, is actually sick, and whether he is conscious of either scenario. Great film!!!!
This is the biggest movie I have ever seen, and I am sorry that I have never seen it on the big screen. When a movie seems to dwarf GONE WITH THE WIND, BEN HUR, and LORD OF THE RINGS...it MUST be big. Watching the desert canvas that David Lean was painting on throughout LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, I couldn't help but think that even then, the lens wasn't big enough to capture the vastness of the Arabian desert. Never before have I seen the desert as such a harsh, unforgiving terrain. I also have to mention Peter O'Toole, who plays Lawrence as a hubristic, effeminate oddball, and it is totally believable that he was able to unite the Arab tribes against the Turks. WOW!!! Simply WOW!!!!!
I avoided this film for the longest time. How could I get excited about a 4 hour epic, starring Charleton "Soylent Green" Heston, that couldn't possibly live up to all of its accolades? Well...I was wrong. BEN HUR is an astonishing film. That chariot race is one of the best action sequences in the history of cinema...exciting and dangerous to a level I never though imaginable from a film made in the 1950s. Also, Heston can actually ACT!!! I was so surprised. The plot of BEN HUR is not that different from GLADIATOR, but also has all of the Christ encounters, that never felt forced or cheesy. When/if they ever make a Charleton Heston biopic...Patrick Wilson BETTER play him, because as I sat through BEN HUR, the entire time, I thought it was Wilson on screen. It's a perfect match. 
I finally understand what Peter Jackson was trying to do with his KING KONG update in 2005 and why the 1933 version inspired him so much. This film is a marvel monster movie for being made so long ago. Also, the length is what makes it so successful. Jackson's opus was FAR too long, but now I realize how good Jack Black was as Carl Denham. Even though the stop-action animation was obviously not real, I was excited a bit more than during the 2005 version...which I was more impressed with by marveling at its realism. Just a great time to be had with this classic!! 
Yet another "classic" horror film that I was a bit disappointed in. It certainly isn't a bad film, hence the ***, but the terror that is involved in this film has really nothing to do with the demonic themes. The real scares come from the fact that everyone Rosemary trusts is plotting against her and she has nowhere to turn. This is definitely the best I have seen Mia Farrow, as she really portray's Rosemary's helplessness perfectly. I really do wish that there was a bit more Satanism in the film however. I don't know....maybe the fear of abandonment and mistrust was the whole point. If it was...it did that well. 
Stanley Kubrick is an artistic master. I don't know what happened at the conclusion of this film, but it is mesmerizing to watch and understanding it is only secondary. I guess it is kind of like the essence of MULHOLLAND DR. I was also thoroughly impressed by the special effects and camera trickery, that is more realistic than modern day sci-fi epics. Those scenes with the guy jogging around the space station? Incredible. And good old HAL...who would have thought an inanimate red bulb would become one of the most iconic film characters of all time. This film also further immortalized "Also Sprach Zarathustra" and "The Blue Danube". What an experience!!!
Is it wrong to rank a movie based solely on one scene? That's how I feel about THE DEER HUNTER. The opening act at the wedding is too long and inconsequential. The final act is a bit boring and rambling. However, that famous "Russian Roullette" scene is so incredibly powerful that it singlehandedly legitimized the Best Picture Oscar for me. It was also nice to see Christopher Walken doing something other than making fun of himself and his caricature. 
I didn't enjoy the film CABARET nearly as much as I did when I saw it on Broadway with Neil Patrick Harrisas the Emcee. The Emcee, the most popular character to come out of the play, was very significant in the play. In the film, he came across as a sideshow...and I certainly don't agree with the role earning Joel Grey an Oscar. Come to think of it...I don't really agree with most of the Oscars won by the film. That being said...its not a terrible film. Liza and Michael York do a swell job in their roles, and the songs are still fun to watch. I just wish the Nazi situation came across as serious as in the stage musical. 
This film is a tour de force by its star, George C. Scott. All I knew Scott from is DR. STRANGELOVE, and he all but completely stole that movie. As General Patton, Scott gives one of the finest performances ever. Patton is a man who loves battle, knows he is good at it, but is a bit odd in the head with his delusions of grandeur and beliefs of his own reincarnation. PATTON is an important history lesson and a real treat to see someone acting their ass off. Not only that....but he really reminded me of my late grandfather, so that helped. 
This is a dystopic smorgasbourd, full of deviant, violent psychos and dangerous, shocking behavioral modification. It goes without saying that Stanley Kubrick's direction is beautiful, but it is Malcolm McDowell's semi-comic portrayal of Alex that really makes this film shine. When poor Alex inadvertanly becomes conditioned against Beethoven as well as violence, I honestly started crying. That is impressive when such a strange movie can bring you to tears, during one of the strangest, most disturbing scenes of the film. This behavioral modification theme is SO much better than the ending of BRAZIL. 
My god this movie is long. hahaha. But man oh man am I glad that I finally saw it. This is one of the first vast epics that seem to take a lifetime to talk about a lifetime. The sets are fantastic, especially the burning of Atlanta sequence...and that scene of all the wounded soldiers that seems to go on and on is unique in its audacity. Some of the inadvertant comedy is also entertaining, like the ignorance of having the slaves happy in their job and rooting for the South in the civil war. It's solid, classic movie-making...if you can get through it all. 
I certainly don't consider this the masterpiece of sci-fi horror that most people do, but it IS impressive. The production design is top notch, the design of the large aliens are freakishly realistic, and this film contains the most intense, jump-out-of-your-seat moment you will ever see. It took me a good 5 minutes to calm down from that one...it was THAT unexpected, thrilling, and terrifying. 
Great things happen when Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci get together. This is the 3rd **** movie I have seen with those 3. I can go on and on about how great a directer Scorsese is, and how amazing DeNiro's transformation is throughout the film, but I want to mention the cinematogrpahy. RAGING BULL is the most gorgeous Black & White film I have ever seen. There is a scene where DeNiro is sweaty, in the ring, and looking up at the camera. The picture is so beautiful, a snapshot of that scene can easily hang in the MET. PIXAR could work for 10 years on a picture like that and not get the beauty nor the clarity of that single scene. Oh...and the rest of the movie is a masterpiece. 
This movie is wildy considered the first horror movie, and it is about a man who arrives in town with a little sideshow, only to start controlling a slave via hypnosis to start killing people. It is acutally quite scary, but the silent film format is a bit hard to handle plots with twists and abstract horror. Dialogue is almost necessary to portray such devices, but if you take a look at that guy in the casket on the left, you'll see how it is effectively creepy. 
You know why this 1932 film is so successfully disturbing and horrifying? Because they used real "freaks" when they made it. To watch the film populated with pinheads, people with no arms, no legs, midgets, transexuals, giants, and all other matters of weirdness is just plain hard to do...especially when none of them are in makeup or anything. The moral of the story is don't mess with Circus Freaks or their whole fraternity will attack you. I wouldn't want to be anywhere NEAR these people, let alone attacked by them. In that respect, it is a pretty successful horror film. No wonder it has been banned for decades in various countries. 
No one has made New York more iconic in cinema than Woody Allen...and no movie has epitomized Allen's love of the Big Apple more than MANHATTAN. From a technical, artistic standpoint...it is Allen's finest film. However, his strong point has always been dialogue and neuroses. MANHATTAN's plot is vintage Allen, but never quite as interesting as the visuals or the wonderful use of George Gershwin in the soundtrack. I liked seeing Meryl Streep in the film, but the presence of Mariel Hemingway, as an underage lover of Allen's, was a little creepy...especially knowing Allen's history. Still...it is a classic Allen feature. 
I watched this film after my complete adoration of CASABLANCA, and it can certainly be considered as a kind of unofficial prequel to that film. Bogart plays the same kind of bitter man and Peter Lorre plays basically the same part. The characters speak like they are poets, the film noir feel is more than tangible, and the danger of double/triple-crossing is apparent throughout. It isn't quite as magical as CASABLANCA, but it further shows me why Bogart is such an acting icon. 
It is from the Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance", this film is like a abstract dream and nightmareat the same time. With the slow-motion, fast-motion, and otherworldly imagry, coupled with the haunting score by Philip Glass, KOYAANISQATSI is one of the most beautiful films I have seen. It doesn't have a plot or even any kind of narrative structure, but watching it is like being hypnotized, and Glass's score seems to mock your own brainwaves and heartbeat. It has a strange beauty that is impossible to ignore. 
In contrast to how THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY doesn't really translate to 21st Century entertainment, THE VOYAGE TO THE MOON, a french film from 1902, does....although probably not in the way the original filmmakers thought. Watching these scientists jump around in excitement, and show up on the moon without spacesuits, only to encounter random villains that disappear with a simple stroke of an umbrella...made me laugh HYSTERICALLY. It is so juvenile and unscientific that it is a hoot. Props for the technique in making the film back in 1902, but MAJOR props for not realizing how funny it would seem over 100 years later. 
Of course there is something to be said about the earliest movies and how they were groundbreaking. Watching them now, to appreciate them, you really have to put yourself in the early 1900s and watch them through eyes that have never seen STAR WARS, JAWS, or INDIANA JONES. THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY is considered the first western, and as one of the first narrative adventure films, it is ok. I'm sure it was a marvel back in 1903, but watching it today is kind of silly. But it's less than 15 minutes long so I'll forgive it.