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This sequel is SO much better than the original. The Bride doesn't even show up until the last 2-3 minutes, so that isn't even it. The Monster is so much well thought out...being more sympathetic and tragic a creature. But besides that...the whole endeavor is a bit more tounge-in-cheek and full of exagerated performances. We actually get a scientist more crazy and eccentric than Henry Frankenstein. hahaha. A lot of fun...in a silly/creepy kind of way.
Now...THIS movie "classic" I don't get. I was expecting to be mesmerized as I was with 1931's DRACULA, but this film was just so INCREDIBLY corny and stupid. There is no arching storyline and the monster is nothing but a bumbling child. How people differentiate this film from Ed Wood-stylecamp is beyond me. When the spoof on this film, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN,actually improves on the SERIOUS part of the Frankenstein myth...then you know you failed. Ugh. I just don't get why this film is praised so highly.
This is actually the first "Spaghetti Western" I have seen, and it is certainly enjoyable. There is hardly any plot and it is too long...but Eastwood and Wallach are fantastic to watch, Sergio Leone is more of a visual artist than a director, and Ennio Morricone's iconic theme is so brilliantly anachronistic that it elevates every single scene. That final standoff at the cemetary is gloriously overblown. Clocking in at 3 hrs long, it was a bit of a chore getting through it...but it had a lot to admire and enjoy.
This is my kind of movie. I love the concept about the Nazi's throwing all of the master escape artists from the war into the same, "unescapable" prison compound...unwittingly hording together the best prison-break minds around. Every second of this 3hr movie is devoted to the master plan of escape, with no fluff thrown in about the War or friendship. Just the escape. And it held my interest the entire time. I was a bit surprised about the morbid final moments, but surprise is always welcome. That theme is so catchy, I have been whistling it all day!!
Not quite the American cinematic masterpiece that I was expecting, but there is a lot in this classic to admire. The WRITING is some of the best I have ever heard...and probably what single-handedly holds the movie together. I also LOVED Brando's performance. Lastly, the dramatic evolution of Michael from removed GI to Mafia Don is executed flawlessly. Quite impressive.
This film has the same problem as Brian De Palma's 2006 film, THE BLACK DAHLIA. It is filled with the best actors, the most amazing production design, flawless costumes, and perfect music. The problem with this is that it makes theseperiod crime pieces feel stagey and completely artificial. It is hyper-reastic, almost to the point of surrealism. It is entertaining enough...but ROAD TO PERDITION did this genre so perfectly...so see that one instead.
***
James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's classic is as exciting and innovative as its predecessor. I still don't think it is the masterpiece that it is hailed as, but Weaver's Ripley is certainly an iconic action heroine. That shot of the aliens up in the ceiling will definitely give me nightmares. The Alien franchise, including the Alien Vs. Predator installment, is a lot of fun.
As this film, inspired by H.G. Wells, opens, I was pretty impressed with its premonition about a major war that crosses the globe. When said war lasts 30 years, wipes out most of the human race, and leads civilization into a cliched futuristic utopia...it got a little corny. I was impressed by the effects this movie pulled off back in 1936, but the acting is hammy and the message is a bit ridiculous, especially when the filmmakers were about 100 years off on their prediction of a flight to the moon. "Progress!!! Why Always PROGRESS!!! Can't the human race just relax??" See what I mean??
Nothing really happens in this movie, but with Bogart's charisma and the ridiculous quartet of Robert Morely, Peter Lorre, Ivor Bernard, and Marco Tulli...BEAT THE DEVIL is a lot of fun. I think they were all trying to figure out how to stake claim to an African Uranium deposit while stranded in Italy, but the movie is about how clueless brilliant people can be, how anxious being stranded can make people, and how interchangable love and marriage can be. No grand scheme lke other Bogart movies; just simple, enjoyable, light-heartedness.
** 1/2
Oh my God!!! It's CORTISONE!!! This is one of those medical paranoia movies where a timid family man takes Cortisone for a life-threatening disease, only to turn psychotic. I guess this is because the drug was discovered only a few years before th film, because today, people inject Cortisone pretty readily to help sore knees. The whole movie reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Bart takes Focusyn, and goes a bit bonkers, but wants to protect his regiment. It is a bit silly, but I can't say that I wasn't entertained. Oh...and is that Walter Matthau??
It is strange that soon after seeing the masterful CITIZEN KANE, I witness another Orson Welles film that pales so thoroughly in comparison. The story is pretty simple...where Welles plays a Nazi war criminal in hiding and Edward G. Robinson is the FBI man hell bent on discovering him. I even liked Welles' performance...but there is no "big scene", no elaborate direction or set design...and ultimately...nothing distinguishing.
Truly horrifying, truly grotesque, and completely impressive. I feel like I have seen movies like this forever...movies where an alien life form can take the form of humans, and humans become increasingly paranoid about each other. Never before has it been done so well as in this film. The make-up effects could be cheesy and silly in a lesser movie, but John Carpenter makes them nightmarish. I can't believe I had never seen this film before.
*** 1/2
I was thoroughly surprised by this movie. I thought this movie was going to be an adventure about prospecting for gold...not the archetypal expression of greed, mistrust, and an almost Shakespearean tragedy. Bogart is quite a bastard in this film, and I loved Walter Houston as the grizzled, old prospector. This isn't an adventure movie at all...it is a deep, psychological exercise showing how money can corrupt and pervert friendships. Very impressive and classic.
I loved 2001's VANILLA SKY, which Cameron Crowe made as an almost shot-for-shot remake of this film, OPEN YOUR EYES. I think I even like the Spanish original more than VANILLA SKY for a few reasons. First, the explantion is spelled out at the end much more clearly, and even though I figured it all out at the end of VANILLA SKY, it took a LOT of imagination and work. OPEN YOUR EYES rewards you for your patience, VANILLA SKY tested it. I also LOVE Penelope Cruz in roles where she speaks her native Spanish, it makes her so much sexier and likable. What a fantastic movie.
Very Simple, very disturbing, very exciting...and after seeing DELIVERANCE, I am never going out into the Wilderness or visiting the Deep South ever again. I also will forever detest the sound of a banjo. But in all seriousness, this was a grotesquely entertaining film.
The 1950s were full of corny Sci-Fi features. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is one that has a bit more brain behind it...and more than its 2008 remake does. There isn't much action, and most of the film has Klaatu just talking to humans and trying to get a grasp on who they are and how they act. Sometimes the relentless dialogue gets tedious, but this film, directed by the great Robert Wise, is entertaining enough to not be pigeonholed into that B-Movie status.
****
Amazing cinematography, brilliant acting, PERFECT screenplay...but the Best Movie Ever Made?? I don't quite agree with that, but I can completely understand why it is usually chosen as such. The legend about Orson Welles, only in his mid-20s, having carte-blanche from his studio, came up with this Masterpiece.It is interesting that a movie without sex or violence, about a media mogul and his life, can hold such interest. The flashback nature of the screenplay is its brilliance, and I'd be pressed to find a better photographed film, EVER. I get it. I finally get the hooplah over CITIZEN KANE.
**
Some movies are timeless classics, but others are classics for their time. The previously seen THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is a timeless classic, obviously dated, but no less entertaining and not that different than a movie of its kind made today. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is a classic for basically setting the foundation for a whole genre of horror movies, the Zombie movie. However, even though it may have been shocking and frightening in its time, the movie is too silly and too tame to really withstand the test of time. As a movie-lover whose appetite for Zombie films has previously been sated by 28 DAYS LATER and Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, Romero's original opus just doesn't do much for me.
***
I now understand why Woody Allen is always talking about how he is inspired by Ingmar Bergman. THE SEVENTH SEAL is the first film I have seen of Bergman's, and it certainly has a kind of Woody Allen feel to it (of which I am VERY well versed). In Allen films, people sit around talking about life, death, and god...and comically absurd things happen to them. In THE SEVENTH SEAL, people sit around talking about Life, Death, and God...and dramatically intense things happen to them. Watching Max Von Sydow (did this guy ever NOT look 70 years old?) play Chess with Death is a pretty iconic image, and the setting of a plague torn Sweden post-crusades is quite a environment for people to start believing that the Apocalypse is nigh. Well done, if a bit uneven and rambling at times.
When I think of THE WIZARD OF OZ, I remember how incredibly YELLOW the Yellow Brick Road was. Now, when I think of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, I will think of how GREEN his tights were. This film is just fantastic, full of ridiculous swashbuckling and with a saturated technicolor palette that just exudes fantasy and fun. Now I know where MEN IN TIGHTS gets its inspiration...it is from Errol Flynn's performance as Robin Hood. I just ate this movie up, with some great stunt work, production design that looks like a very ornate Rennaissance festival, and some well placed humor throughout. I mentioned THE WIZARD OF OZ before, well I believe this film is in the same league. Great Fun!!!
