My Movie Matinees (with Mini-Reviews) from 1 Jan. 2006
Sunday 1 January 2006 Robots (2005) Aggressively 3-D animation, garishly primary-colored, very clever ideas, dialog, references to other movies, singers, etc. Funny, at times very, with a 'feel-good' plot offering constructive optimistic life lessons for youngsters. Some of the humor, however, is quite risque and may not be suitable for kids of a certain age (the really young won't grasp it, but 6 to 12 year olds may be prompted to ask embarrassing questions). Rating: 7.5 / 10
Monday 2 January 2006 Apollo 13 (1995) Most of the nasa-speak goes right over most people's heads (including mine), and, of course, it faces the huge dramatic impediment that very few of its audience won't know how the story ends, but it still mangages to be gripping, thanks to fine acting, directing and writing. My favorite line: "We just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driver's seat". That radio blackout at the end goes on for just a tad too long, I have to say (even if it's the truth). Rating: 7.5 / 10
Tuesday 3 January 2006 Alexander (Director's Cut) (2005) Man, talk about intense. A long movie that seems to flash by in not much more than an hour, but is actually well over two hours. The story is well told, with effective use of flashbacks, and is reasonably historically accurate (according to what I remember of my history reading). The battle scenes, especially the battle against the elephant cavalry, are wonderfully well staged, photographed and edited. The amazing thing is that the battle scenes are not the movie's most dramatic. The death of Alexander's father, and Alexander's own death scene, are incredibly dramtic with an almost unbearable level of intensity. Good one Oliver Stone. (There is a quite well-known actor in this whom I utterly failed to recognise. When his name came up in the end credits, I said, "... ...... was in that? Who was he?"). Rating: 8.2 / 10
Wednesday 4 January 2006 Black Narcissus (1947) - Has the deserved reputation of being among the most beautifully photographed Technicolor movies ever made. Worth seeing for its ravishing visuals alone. But on top of this it tells a fascinating story of more than usual psychological depth. A group of nuns are sent to establish a school and medical dispensary in a derelict 'palace' high in the Himalayas, but the palace has has a past - and so do the nuns. Rating: 8.5 / 10
Thursday 5 January 2006 Ladder 49 (2004) This is a straightforward 'Life of a City Firefighter' story, it has no ambitions beyond being a tribute to firefighters and it realizes that ambition very competently. Joachim Phoenix (played the evil Emperor Commodus in Gladiator} and John Travolta both handle their not too demanding roles with ease. Rating: 7 / 10
Friday 6 January 2006 The Italian Job (1969) An incredibly youthful looking Michael Caine heads the cast in this still-enjoyable crime caper movie. The late great Noel Coward does an amusing turn as a crime boss who is only slightly inconvenienced by having to run his empire from inside prison. Every caper movie has three sections: the planning/recruitment/training, the execution, and the getaway. The getaway in this one is still famous and no doubt gave a substantial boost to the sales of Morris Mini-Minor and Mini-Cooper cars. (From the mid-60s to mid-70s, one in four cars on the roads of Australia was either a Mini-Minor or a VW Beetle.) Warning: the plot of this original is only slightly similar to the plot of the 2003 movie of the same title. Rating: 7.2 / 10.
Saturday 7 January 2006 Bride of the Gorilla (1951) Despite having been written and directed by Curt Siodmak, and despite the presence of Raymond Burr, Tom Conway (brother of George Sanders) and Lon Chaney Jr, this is firmly located at the lower level of B-grade movies. Rating: 4 / 10. [See also my first posting in the comments section below.]
Sunday 8 January 2006 Skeleton Key (2005)I won't give it away, but the basic plot will be familiar to most avid readers of sf/horror/fantasy fiction - even H.G.Wells did a version of it, and there was a version in one of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episodes. The version in Skeleton Key is very well presented and will provide a fine horrible surprise for anyone to whom the basic story idea is new. Gripping, with good acting and a very spooky setting. The 'fright' moments are mostly effective. Fans of the horror genre should love it. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Monday 9 January 2006 Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) Not as clever as it thinks it is. An action-comedy with elements of True Lies and the 'Jason Bourne' series. Two expert, high-tech, secret-agency-employed assassins happen to marry each other unbeknownst [yes, it is a word] to each other and (incredibly) to their respective employers...you can probably guess the rest. Some well-done action scenes, but best watched with tongue in cheek - if you think you must watch it. Rating: 6.8 / 10
Tuesday 10 January 2006 Brewster's Millions (1985)
Wednesday 11 January 2006 Gammera the Invincible (1966) Typical, cheaply made Japanese monster movie. Giant turtle [sic] is released from ice by nuclear explosion, wreaks havoc, flying [sic] around the world to do so, is deeply loved [sic] by cute little boy, and, to be saved from human vengeance, is at last rocketed to Mars [hic...I mean sic]. Very amusing fx. Rating: anywhere from 2.0/10 to 7.5/10, depending upon your artistic preference.
Friday 13 January 2006 Wild, Wild West (1999) Best thing about this is Kenneth Branagh's villain, a Southern gent who happens to be an insanely vengeful mechanical genius. In my memory he completely overshadows the two proto-Secret- Service officers played by Will Smith and Kevin Kline. Comedy western that, despite it's eccentricities, fails to be anything special. Rating: 6 / 10
Saturday 14 January 2006 Attack of the Monsters (1969) Imagine my pleasure when this turned out to be another Gammera movie. An alien automated spaceship takes two young boys to a planet devastated by monsters created by its own inhabitants, who intend to use the boys as space-rations for their invasion of Earth, until Gammera turns up and takes on all baddies, monsters and all. In one hilariously bizarre scene he attacks a knife-blade-snouted monster by repeatedly striking it with his groin. Victory achieved, the boys re-enter the spaceship and the Big Jet Propelled Turtle carries it back to Earth in his mouth for the triumphal happy ending. Have a few beers and laff ya ass off with this one. Rating: 7 / 10
Friday 20 January 2006 The Atomic Brain (1964, a.k.a. Monstrosity) I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writers of Skeleton Key (see above) were 'inspired' by this very pedestrian version of the idea. The ending would have been much better if the dog had got hold of the cat. Rating: 4 /10
Saturday 21 January 2006 She Gods of Shark Reef (1958) Not one of Roger Corman's (King of the El-Cheapo B-movie Directors) better efforts. Forget the attempt at a story, and look upon this, if you must look upon it, as an experiment in visual art. The photography is very high contrast, and this, combined with the tropical jungle and wave-chop backgrounds, and the broken patterns on the costumes, makes for a rather abstracty-arty effect. Trouble is, after about ten minutes your eyes begin to ache and then to rebel - but I rushlessly put down my own eye's [sic] insurgency and saw it through to the bitter and tearful end. Rating: 4 / 10.
Monday 23 January 2006 Batman Begins (2005) I'm amazed this got made (ANOTHER BATMAN SERIES!!!) - but I'm glad it did. It is hands down the best Batman movie ever (well, yet). And what makes it so good? Not the acting, fx, editing, music -though, of course, all those components are good or better. No, what makes it the best is the screenplay - it embodies a full, concise, and always engaging telling of the story - with pacing that is very near perfect (so much so that you hardly notice the lengthy running time). If the follow-ups are even nearly as good, this will surely be the definitive on-screen Batman series. Rating: 8.4 / 10
[For various reasons I've been missing my movie matinees lately, but I hope to get back to normal now.]
Tuesday 31 January 2006 The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) You know, this isn't half bad. Evil crook, desperate prison escapee, girl who loves bad boys, coerced scientist who does it all for his hostage daughter, henchman who wants to believe evil crook's lies are true, technique for invisibility that goes wrong, and a very neat ending in which the scientist states his moral dilemma then looks directly at the camera and asks "What would you do?" Rating: 5.9 / 10.
Wednesday, 1 February 2006 Aliens of the Deep (2005) A wonderful (and I use the word emphatically) documentary about exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in two-person submersibles. I won't even attempt to describe the beauty and the wonder of the life-forms to be seen - some of which live by chemosynthesis, unlike the other 99.9 percent of life on this planet which depends, directly or indirectly, upon photosynthesis (hence the movie's title). Alright, just one, I can't resist. There are myriads of shrimp-like creatures that swim from extremely cold water into extremely hot water (from volcanic 'plumes') and back into extreme cold as if there wasn't a bit of difference. Director James Cameron and two of his brothers are members of the expedition (which I suspect was largely financed by Cameron). Thrown in, there is a speculative thread about exploring the ocean thought by scientists to exist beneach the icy surface of Callisto, one of the giant moons of Jupiter. The CGI work on this thread is superb -as is all the photography. A must-see if you need persuading that the real world is far more wonderful than the fictional. Rating: 8.5 / 10.
Thursday 2 February 2006 Amadeus - The Director's Cut - Part One (1984).
Friday 3 February 2006 Amadeus - The Director's Cut - Part Two. In its year this won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Milos Foreman), and Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham), and deservedly so. The good news is that it is still a great movie that could easily hold its own against anything being released these days. If you don't already have an appreciation of Mozart's music, this movie will go a long way towards giving you one. And the (probably largely fictional) tragedy of Antonio Salieri is presented with meticulous care and powerful persuasion. Well...there it is. Rating: 8.7 / 10
Saturday 4 Februaury 2006 The War of the Worlds (1953) In the novel, Wells was critical of religion and had a clergyman character who was less than heroic. In this 1953 movie version, the U.S. was still the sort of place where the clergyman character is a hero who sacrifices himself in an attempt to communicate with the alien invaders. What's more, the happy ending is credited to 'God in His wisdom'. In the recent Spielberg version I can't recall that there was a religious character or much mention of God. This 1953 version might have been a little scary in it's day (SF Fan No.1 Forry Ackerman says he "didn't dare breath for 90 minutes"), but not any more, and especially not after Spielberg. Still well worth watching. Rating: 7.5 / 10
Tuesday 7 February 2006 Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) I'd like to know how American listologists feel about this movie these days. Rating: 8 / 10
Saturday 11 February 2006 Hard Rain (1998) Underrated action/crime movie. Possibly the wettest movie ever made. Impressive fx, must have cost a packet to shoot and been very uncomfortable to act in. Morgan Freeman stands out as usual but in a rare bad-guy role - though his character isn't the worst guy in the story. Lots of leaks in the plot but it dosen't quite sink. Rating: 7.2 / 10
Tuesday 14 February 2006 Queen of the Amazons (1947) A trite story and c-grade acting is supported (if that's the word) by very liberal borrowing from the stock-film library. Well, at least the editor earned his money. Rating: 3.8 / 10.
Thursday 16 February 2006 One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942) - Part One.
Saturday 18 February 2006 One of Our Aircraft is missing - Part Two. True story, apparently, of the crew of British bomber 'B for Bertie' [no, really], who are forced to bail out over German-occupied Holland. How they are helped to escape back to Blighty (Britain) and how five Dutchmen were executed in reprisal. Primitive fx but engrossingly told story. A prime example of wartime movie propaganda. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Wednesday 22 Frebruary 2006 Pianeta degli uomini spenti, Il (1961) a.k.a. Battle of the Worlds. Veteran actor Claude Rains and a supporting cast of voice-dubbed unknowns do what they can with a very thin story involving an unlovable scientific genius who saves the world from an alien invasion. Whoever patched together the electronic music score and whoever okayed it - I hope they never worked again. Come to that, I hope the director got a real job too. A trial to watch (except for Rains) and torture to listen to. Rating: 4.01 / 10
Thursday 23 February 2006 We Dive at Dawn (1943) I don't know, but the details of submarine operation look very realistic. The story and characters are pure wartime propaganda. The quality of the acting performances varies quite a lot, but John Mills as the skipper makes it look easy. The strongest sequence is a bold attack on a German-held Danish port to obtain fuel and stores. A pretty good WW2 submarine movie. Rating: 7.3 / 10
Tuesday 29 February 2006 Sink the Bismark! (1960) Pretty good account of the career of the WW2 German battleship Bismark . Agrees with historical accounts I've read except the very ending. I've read that the British ships abandoned the German sailors and left them to drown because they were told German submarines were approaching. Rating: 7.2 / 10
Wednesday 1 March 2006 Hello Dolly! (1969) - Part one.
Thursday 2 March 2006 Hello Dolly! (1969) - Part two. An almost-great musical, and I really do want to leave out the 'almost'. And I can't say why I'm leaving it in. Great [see] singing - if you mean Streisand's - great dancing, in the alarmingly athletic style of director Gene Kelly - and great comedy from all the cast. The music itself [clue here] is only occasionally great - so I guess that's why it's only an almost-great musical. Rating: 7.9 / 10
Friday 3 March 2006 Von Ryan's Express (1965) - The Great Escape on wheels. No, nowhere that good. But an okay boys-own-adventure sort of war movie. Sinatra's acting is very flat - he deserved shooting. Howard's acting has more character, but he didn't deserve to escape. Rating: 6.2 / 10
Tuesday 7 March 2006 Out of Time (2003) Denzel Washington plays a town sheriff who's been set up to be prime suspect in a murder. He and his wife are divorcing, but she's the detective heading the murder investigation. He has to take out the evidence against him before her team finds it. Clever story, well told. Rating: 7.2 / 10
Wednesday 8 March 2006 The Naked Jungle (1954) George Pal produced this very unusual blend of science fiction and romance. Eleanor Parker marries Charton Heston by proxy without having met him and is delivered to him at his cocoa plantation in the Amazon jungle. They don't get on. But then a huge swarm of soldier ants overruns the region and in fighting this invasion they find love. The end. Made when mother nature could still be unquestionably depicted as Enemy No.1 Rating: 6.8 / 10
Saturday 11 March 2006 Elephant Walk (1954) Made in the same year by the same studio (Paramount) as The Naked Jungle, and with a quite similar plot. The plot's a bit thicker this time, though. The heroine has two men to contend with romantically, and two natural disasters to survive - a cholera epidemic and an invasion of her Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) tea plantation home by wild elephants. Interestingly, this time nature wins and the reconciled couple decide to rebuild out of the elephants' traditional 'walk'. Rating: 7 / 10
Between 11 March and 25 March:
Demolition Man (1993) - A cleverly written movie that actually has some philosophical interest is spoiled by way, way, way over the top 'action' scenes. Would have been better if *less* money had been spent on it. Or perhaps a cut without such extended moronic 'fight' scenes. Way more violence than is needed to provide a contrast with the "pussy-whipped...sissified" (but very funny) future society in which it is set. Actual rating: 6.7 / 10, potential rating: 8 / 10.
Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Great opening gag is so good they do it twice - and it works twice. Much fun is made of (i) suburban life in Britain and (ii) the zombie movie genre. Every character is either a born loser or a zombie or both. Might even become a classic British comedy. Rating: 8.2 / 10
From "30 Show Value Pack - Comedy":
The Stolen Jools [a.k.a.The Slippery Pearls] (1932) - Various stars play 'themselves' in a totally non-serious investigation of a theft of jewells belonging to one the studio's leading ladies. Rating: 6.6 / 10
The Music Box (1932) - Laurel and Hardy deliver a piano. One of the pair's most highly rated efforts. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Busy Bodies (1933) - Laurel and Hardy pay a disastrous visit to a lumber mill. Famous scene in which their car gets sawn in halves. I liked this one - lots of funny little gags. Rating: 8 / 10
Fresh Fish (19??) - Laurel and Hardy buy a second-hand fishing boat and attempt to re-fit it - with, of course, disastrous results. Stan Laurel is particularly funny in this one. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Between 25 March and 3 April:
Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) Technically this is a burlesque - an exaggeration of the questionable aspects of its subject - and it is certainly not a gentle burlesque. It is so extreme as to be quite bizarre. Not everyone appreciates this mode of humor, but I found this example very funny. Rating: 7.8 / 10
The Life and Death of Peter Sellars (2004) Warts and all biopic of one of the 20th century's most brilliant comedians. Geoffrey Rush's performance of what was surely a very difficult role is worthy of high praise. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Chariots of Fire (1981) A great film about sport, a great film about the time it's set in, and a great film about the British class system. Ian Holm steals the acting honors as a coach. If you've seen it years ago, believe me, it's worth seeing again. Rating: 8.3 / 10
Logan's Run (1976) One of the last of the 'old wave' of science fiction movies - before Alien surged in on the new wave in '79. Laughable miniatures fx, uninspired acting - even Peter Ustinov seems wooden. But the story is well told, and, not least, we get an eyeful of Jenny Agutter. Rating: 7.0 / 10
Silkwood (1983) High grade acting by Meryl Streep brings out the best in Cher and Kurt Russel. True story still moves one to pity and anger. Rating: 8 / 10
The Ipcress File (1965) A laid back (well, laid back for the British), sedately paced but engrossing spy story starring the immortal Michael Caine and a bunch of familiar British faces no longer active. Among the better examples of its genre. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Tuesday 4 April: Archive of War - Night Bombers (1981) How did I come to buy and watch this documentary? For months I have doing research for a lady I know whose first husband was an R.A.A.F (Royal Australian Air Force) pilot attached to an R.A.F bomber squadron in WW2. They had been married two weeks when he was sent to Europe. He was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber which was lost with all its crew on a raid on Berlin one night in August 1943. There has been no trace found of the plane or any of its crew since that night. He was 21, and the ages of the six others aboard ranged from 19 to 35. Five of the others were British, one was Canadian. During the war, more than 55 000 (fifty-five thousand) members of Britain's Bomber Command were killed, most of them aircrew. More than 3 000 of them were Australians. This documentary consists completely of unique color footage taken at a British airbase and aboard a Lancaster bomber during its sortie to Berlin in 1945. It covers 24 hours at the base, including the amazingly complex preparations that were involved in staging a concerted attack by bombers from that base and scores of others on the same night. It was dangerous just accomplishing takeoff in one of the bomb and fuel loaded planes, and some were lost in abortive takeoffs. Hundreds of planes (occasionally around a thousand) could be involved in an attack, and in the crowded skies on the way to and at the target, collisions happened, and sometimes bombers were struck with bombs dropped from aircraft above them. A sortie to Berlin, if completed, took over seven hours of cramped, freezing, and, of course, highly dangerous flying - Berlin being a very heavily defended target. Most losses were to German night-fighters. The DVD includes stills, a documentary about the Avro Lancaster aircraft, a documentary about the Spitfire fighter, and an obituary of the maker of the original film, H.I.Cozens.
Between 4 -18 April:
The Party (1968) - Blake Edwards directed Peter Sellars in this laid back comedy that was clearly (to me) inspired in part by Jaques Tati's classic M. Hulot's Holiday . Sellars plays an Indian actor mistakenly invited to a Hollywood producer's wife's party. He's an accident-prone walking disaster area and gradually reduces the occasion to a foamy chaos - while winning the heart of a pretty French singer. Lots of laughs if you can enter into the spirit of what was, even in the 60s, an innocent style of comedy. Rating: 7.8 / 10
Great Expectations (1946) - Still the best cinema adaptation of a Dickens novel. David Lean directed a dream cast, including John Mills, Jean Simmons and Alec Guinness, in a no-expense-spared production. So many fascinatingly bizarre moments. One of the great treasures of British cinema. Rating: 9 / 10
Old Gringo (1989) Rating: 7 / 10
The Longest Yard (2005) Rating: 6.8 / 10
They Came from Beyond Space (1967) Rating: 5.8 / 10
MAY 2006:
King Kong (2005) - Horribly bloated, like the ripe corpse a giant gorilla, but with some truly spectacular sequences. Tries to be all things to all viewers: period drama, comedy, cinema self-satire, horror, at-sea action, on-land action, in-sky action, moral parable, tear-jerker. It's just too much. Favorite throw-away line: "Hey! Fay's a size four." "Yes, but she's doing a movie for RKO." Rating: 8 / 10
Out of Africa (1985)- A very literary chick-flick, very writerly biopic (= the truth embroidered), but masterfully well done. A dominating performance by Meryl Streep puts her male co-stars in the shade - as is appropriate. Rating: 8 / 10
The Wasp Woman (1960) Rating: 4.4 / 10
The Ladykillers (2005) - Ethnic comedy of the highest order. I love this movie. It is at least the equal of the British original. Another triumph for the Coen Bros. Rating: 8.4 / 10
War and Peace (1956) - I've never read the novel, but a reviewer at IMDb who claims to have read it twice praises this movie for staying with Tolstoi's plot. That's about all it can be praised for. Audrey Hepburn gives her worst ever performance, and so does Henry Fonda. The battle scenes look exactly like what they were, carefully but unimaginatively staged 'spectacles' with truly pathetic fx. The only almost good sequence was Napoleon's famous retreat from Moscow. Rating: 6.2 / 10
Horrors of Spider Island (196 ) - The kind of movie that used to be shown at drive-ins and the local movie-house of disrepute. A cast of wannabe starlets, late 20s going on 50s, and one man, survives a plane crash at sea and come ashore at...[I hope I haven't made this sound the least bit attractive]. Rating: 4.1 /10
All the President's Men (1976)
Death on the Nile (1978) - Terrific all-star (almost) cast, clever Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie) mystery, brilliant (literally) on-location photography. Rating: 7.9 / 10
By Dawn's Early Light (1990) - One of the best of the outbreak-of-WW3 genre. Dr Strangelove without the satire. Made for TV but better than most cinema movies on this topic. Still very relevant - even if the Soviet Union is defunct. Rating: 7.9 / 10
Murder on the Orient Express (1974) - Albert Finney is so bad as detective Hercule Poirot that he comes very close to wrecking this movie. Really makes you appreciate Peter Ustinov's interpretation of the same character a few years later. The rest of the cast of old-time stars makes it worth watching. But good luck trying to understand what Finney is saying. If you buy this on DVD, make sure it has English subtitles. Rating: 6.8 / 10
Sommersby (1993)
Along Came a Spider (2001)
The Lion in Winter (1968) - Think Shakespeare in collaboration with Machiavelli and you get some idea of the bitter flavour of this excellent filmed play. Peter O'Toole is amazing as King Henry the Second of England and is equalled by Katherine Hepburn as Henry's queen. Anthony Hopkins is here too as the eldest of Henry's three sons. Talk about your dysfunctional families. And a very young Timothy Dalton (well before his turn as James Bond) plays the king of France. Rating: 8.6 /10
Soylent Green (1973)
The First of the Few (1942) [U.S. title: Spitfire] - Biopic of the aircraft designer R.F. Mitchell, who designed the Supermarine Spitfire, the fighter plane that won the Battle of Britain, about which battle Winston Churchill said, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Not at all a bad movie, considering it must have been made quickly and under wartime conditions. Leslie Howard produced it and acted the main role, ably supported by David Niven as a test-pilot. Somewhat ironically, Howard died not much later in the war when a plane he was passenger in was shot down over the Bay of Biscay. Rating: 7.2 / 10.
A coupla Joe Dante movies:
Inner-Space (1987) Rating: 6.9 / 10
Spies Like Us (1985) Rating: 5.9 / 10
Star Trek - Generations (1994)
Two femfilms with African connections:
The Constant Gardener (2005) A chick-flick based on a novel by top spy-genre writer John Le Carre, involving deadly doings in Africa by an evil drug company, opposed by a strong-minded heroine (Rachel Weisz) and her apparently clueless diplomat husband (Ralph Fiennes). Rating: 6.8 / 10
The Interpreter (2005) More deadly doings in Africa and at the U.N. in N.Y. Heroine (Nicole Kidman)is matched with recently widowed Secret Service agent (Sean Penn). Rating: 6.9 / 10
JUNE
A brace of David Lean films:
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Ryan's Daughter (1970)
Two nasty characters:
Single White Female (1992)
Marathon Man (1976)
A filmful of nasty characters:
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Salinue Chueok [a.k.a. Memories of Murder] (2003) - A Korean serial killer movie based, apparently, on a real case. Inevitably a 'police procedural', but the police procedure in this case, if accurately depicted, was criminally incompetent. It is the 1980s, and while girl after girl is attacked, hogtied, tortured, and left to die in agony, the police allow their frustration at their inability to get a lead to turn them against each other and to victimize and almost murder the one likely suspect they do find. They eventually realize that they have a probable eye-witness, but this only leads to further frustration. The killings stop, but the case is never solved, and, several years later, the film ends with an exquisitely painful twist of final frustration when one of the cops, now a businessman, returns to the scene of the first crime (a covered section of roadside drainage ditch) and meets there a little girl who has something appalling to tell him. The whole movie is very well done and pulls no punches. Rating: 8 / 10
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot [a.k.a. Mr Hulot's Holiday] (1953) - I splurged on a set of four of Jacques Tati's wonderful films (the other three are Jour De Fete, Mon Oncle, and Playtime). Tati made comedies that have a minimum of dialog and a maximum of sight-gags - although his sound effects are also a big part of the fun. Tati's general theme in all his films is the collision of past and future. In this particular film that theme is muted. It's about a holiday long-weekend at a very small seaside resort in the early 1950s. There are plenty of sexual references - it's a French film - but they would offend only the deeply prudish. The character M. Hulot is central to most of Tati's movies and was played by Tati himself. His comedy-type is the good-hearted walking disaster area - he innocently and politely makes minor mayhem wherever he goes. The comedy style is simple, unhurried, and very charming. See this one if you see any of Tati's works. It's not his most remarkable (Playtime gets my vote), but it is his most delightful. Rating: 8.4 / 10
The Gathering Storm (2002) - Or how Winston Churchill spent the 30's. Actually this is quite a good slice-of-biography/history, with some excellent British actors led by Albert Finney who does an amazingly convincing Churchill (a performance light-years ahead of his abysmal Hercule Poirot). Tells in intimate detail of Winnie's political and domestic/marital problems, which in both cases were almost terminal. Ends with the outbreak of WW2, his vindication as an anti-Nazi, his mended marriage, and triumphant reinstatement as head of the British Navy, shortly after which he became Prime Minister. Rating: 8.1 / 10
Flight of the Navigator
The Man Who Knew Too Little
Gigi
S.W.A.T.
The Descent (2005) - A chick-flick which is also a superior horror movie. A gaggle of girlfriends go on a cave-exploring holiday but find themselves not where they expected to be and then hunted by...something. Played completely realistically, without a trace of tongue-in-cheek. There are a few of the expected "cheap thrills", but most of the thrills are not cheap, they are very horrifying (and gory). Being a chick-flick, it is also about the relationships of and between the characters, which are developed side-by-side with the developing horror and suspense. The movie could also be classified as a horror/science-fiction hybrid, a la Alien , and that is the point of view from which it is most open to criticism.
Flightplan (2005) - I'm a big Jodie Foster fan, and I feared being let down by this movie. But my fears were not realized: this is an excellent thriller in which Jodie gives a very strong performance. It is not "Panic Room in the Air", as some half-wit at IMDb called it. The themes of the two movies are entirely different. There's an old British movie, So Long at the Fair (1950), in which an English girl and her brother visit Paris (for an 'Exhibition') and stay at a Paris hotel. After a couple of days her brother disappears, and everyone at the hotel denies his very existence - even his *hotel room* has disappeared. I won't tell you how that turns out, but the theme of Flightplan is similar. One of the best airborne thrillers around. Rating: 8 / 10
A Sound of Thunder (2005) - Based on the noted short story by Ray Bradbury - the same story that was made fun of in one of the Simpsons Halloween specials (the episode in which Homer discovers time travel while trying to mend his electric toaster, flashing back to the age of the dinosaurs and altering the present in weird ways). This movie apparently got the thumbs down from most viewers (less than 4 / 10 at IMDb), but I think it's grossly underrated. It's worth seeing, especially if you're a fan of the story. Rating: 6.9 / 10
The Hustler (1961) - It's been so long since I last saw this, but some of the scenes had stayed with me, locked in my memory. If you don't think a great movie could be made about a pool-hall hustler, you need to see this. True, it's a bit dated now, but it still packs a punch - several, in fact. All the acting is near faultless - I'm talking Paul Newman, George C. Scott, Piper Laurie, and comedian Jackie Gleason in a rare dramatic role. A triumph also for director Robert Rossen. My memories of it are so vivid I would have sworn it was in color - it's not, it's b&w, but that doesn't matter at all. Do see this, even if you're not a big fan of Newman (I know there is at least one fan here :-) Rating: 8.4 / 10
Barry Lyndon (1975) - My third viewing of this film, and I've come to the opinion that it is one of Stanley Kubrick's three greatest works - after Dr Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hypnotically paced, strikingly photographed, accompannied by one of Kubrick's most brilliant selections of available music. A story is told of human misery in the midst of great artistic and natural beauty. This contrast of misery and beauty becomes increasingly sharp as the tale progresses. The film won Oscars for photography, musical adaptation, set decoration, and costumes. Visually fascinating, morally depressing, and realized with immaculate craftsmanship. Undoubtably a cinematic masterpiece. Rating: 8.8 / 10
[NOTE: THIS LIST IS NOW IN RETIREMENT AND WILL EVENTUALLY BE ARCHIVED. I AM STARTING A CONTINUATION LIST.]
Today, for better or worse, I was wedded to a belated Christmas present which consists of 50 allegedly 'classic' allegedly 'sci-fi' movies on 12 DVDs. Here is the thrilling list of titles:
The Lost Jungle (1934)
White Pongo (1945)
Queen of the Amazons (1947)
Prehistoric Women (1950)
Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
Unknown World (1951)
Planet Outlaws (1953)
Mesa of Lost Women (1953)
Menace from Outer Space (1953)
Robot Monster (1953)
Phantom from Space (1953)
Crash of the Moons (1954)
Killers from Space (1954)
The Snow Creature (1954)
Warning from Space (1956)
She-Gods of Shark Reef (1958)
First Spaceship on Venus (1959)
Hercules Unchained (1959)
The Wasp Woman (1959)
Horrors of Spider Island (1959)
The Wild Women of Wongo (1959)
Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
The Witch's Curse (1960)
The Incredible Petrified World (1960)
La Regina delle Amazzoni (1960)
Assignment Outer Space (1961)
The Phantom Planet (1961)
Ercole Alla Conquista di Atlantide (1961)
Battle of the Worlds (1961)
Eegah! (1962)
Hercules the Invincible (1963)
The Atomic Brain (1964)
Ercole Contro I Tiranni di Babilonia (1964)
Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964)
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Gammera the Invincible (1965)
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1966)
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1966)
They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
Destroy All Planets (1968)
Kong Island (1968)
Attack of the Monsters (1969)
Mind Warp (1972)
War of the Planets (1977)
Invisible Strangler (1981)
Blood Tide (1982)
The Galaxy Invader (1985)
Laser Mission (1990)
I will have the very dubious privilege of viewing and mini-reviewing them over the coming months. The first one (5th on the list) is up today.
glad to see I'm not the only one who thought the skeleton key was a pleasant surprise.
Over and over again I have been choosing to and talking myself out of buying that 50 sci-fi movie set... along with a few other ones, i believe there is a horror and western sets as well... Teenagers From Outer Space has to be one of my favorite movies, unfortunately it's been so long since I saw it, but it's great(and despite the title, not in THAT campy ridiculous 50's sci-fi way, although it does have it's moments).
So far I haven't been decidedly bored, but I've watched only three of the fifty. I look upon them as fifty potential comedies that happen have the secondary genre of sci-fi - though if any of the ones that have 'Hercules' in the title is even remotely classifiable as sci-fi I'll be very much mistaken.
This page shows the not unimpressive range of the 50-movie mega packs. And I think there is a link for each that gives the full list of titles.
I'll be defending the '66 adam west batman to my grave... so far every 'serious'(action) batman movie has dissapointed me immensely... and that is all but the one I mentioned.
You don't explicitly say whether you've seen Batman Begins. If you've reviewed it somewhere I want to read your review.
i have seen half of it... it was the second of a double feature at the drive-in... I gave it a chance but left... hence no review(hard to legitimately review half a movie... didn't like it one bit though.
I know I can be blunt with you without giving offense. It sounds to me as if you are determined not to like any Batman other than the '66. Maybe the *real* reason you walked [drove] out was that you were threatened by how good it was?
I may be determined not to like anyother... it's possible... but i think it's a matter of taste... I just find action superhero movies(tights and sidekicks and the whole bit) to be corny... a movie making fun of super hero action movies however is fantastic... I'll give you that, maybe I have a predetermined bias and liking an action batman movie may not be possible for me no matter how good it is... but I was most definitely not threatened by how good it was, I'm not saying it might have been good if I were more open-minded, but I left because I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of things others were ooo-ing and awe-ing... it's just the way those things work out... the other reason I don't think that is the case is because this is the batman movie I gave the fairest try to, because insomnia was soooo good, and momento wasn't bad either, I thought maybe nolan could pull it off... So i really think I at least gave it as good a shot i could(which may be not very much of one)
I think I can see where you're coming from. Sometimes action movies make me laugh too (and looking back on BB it was risky that way to cast Liam Neeson in that role after his Jedi role in Star Wars - might easily have turned out laughable). On the other hand, sometimes I'm able to just ignore my inner critic and enjoy a movie as if through the eyes of child - or perhaps see it as the director intended it to be.
One thing I neglected to mention in my mini-review of BB is how well this screenplay brings out the psychological aspects of the story. It can be immensely liberating to face your fears. But then notice how the screenplay follows up (you might not have watched this far) with a villain who has developed an artificial fear magnifier and requires Batman to overcome his fears a second time. A very nice touch that, I thought.
it's not that the concepts you mention are bad concepts... they are just dealt with in a detached, unrealistic, magnified way in every superhero action movie ever made...
my inner critic just won't shut up!
Can't something similar be said about the western genre - aren't its superheroes unrealistically magnified, their skills, virtues and vices exaggerated for the sake of entertainment?
aaah yes, but for the most part they are anti-heroes, or not heroes at all, at least in the ones I enjoy. Their stories are told on a much smaller scale with much more real consequences. Clint eastwood gunning down 30 people in a border town for some extra cash is a lot different than spiderman saving 30 kids on a train from a flying goblin... but you do have a point there, it's just not exactly the right one... my love of westerns and spaghetti westerns is a lot like the way you described seeing a batman movie as if you were a kid... Specially with the spaghetti westerns I do find myself laughing at things joyously while others laugh it off as ridiculous... it's just a matter of opinion what gets your inner-child fancy going... and superheroes doesn't do it for me.
Tuesday 7 February 2006 Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) I'd like to know how American listologists feel about this movie these days. Rating: 8 / 10
Very, very good! It's one of my favorites.
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington is very entertaining, I thought. Capra at his very best what-America-should-be-like mode. If you want to understand how Americans view themselves (again, in my opinion) it is essential.
It is probably why the United States Senate is still able to filibuster which is unfortunate.
I think I am sooo looking forward to your review of Eva, la Venere selvaggia. (Is it dubbed? Would that matter one bit?)
According to my dubious recollection Aliens of the Deep was almost completely Cameron-backed (leveraged?) It's the last installment of his post Titanic director's block trilogy. I think that Cameron and his brother developed and patented several different camera technologies for these movies.
This all brings to mind the question(s): Why the heck isn't Cameron directing/developing Aquaman:Atlantis is Burning or taking over Namor:The Movie from the unfortunate Christopher Columbus or even doing the seemingly perfectly CGI-designed Manimal:Late Night Revenge?
I wonder if dgeiser13 has noticed that has Battle Angel has been pushed back to 2009! That will be an even dozen years after the Titanic evidently sunk his career.
Yes, ideals are important - even though the road to hell is paved with good intentions - and Capra did a great job of showing America its ideals, in this movie and particularly in It's a Wonderful Life (did that make Jimmy Stewart the model of America's ideal man?).
So why is the filibuster unfortunate these days?
Kong Island - I'll get right on it. Hope I don't get lost on it.
I don't blame Cameron for not wanting to become a latter-day Jacques Cousteau. And, since you've raised the Titanic, didn't Titanic make a big fat profit? I haven't looked it up, but I got the impression it did.
I know that the Jimmy Stewart in my mind's eye is from It's a Wonderful Life. I also know that the film was not beloved until it entered the public domain. But didn't every Hollywood actor born around the turn of the century become "the model of America's ideal man"?
The filibuster allows conservatives to block, for lack of a better word, "democracy." It destroys consensus, promotes gridlock and slows progress and progressivism. By definition I think that these are things that everyone is against.
King Kong Island sounds awww-suumm.
I think that Cameron might just want to be a latter-day Cousteau. He certainly seems unable to do anything else. I imagine that within a decade we will see him in Howard Hughes-style flippers made from Kleenex® boxes, calling himself "Bobbie Buoy Ballard" and muttering about hypothermia.
What do you do as soon as you've established yourself as the best big-budget director Hollywood has ever seen? Evidently you go deep sea fishing for more than a decade. I fully expect to see Cameron climbing rusty harpoons to stab at the bloated corpse of Orson Welles if he doesn't get a new movie out soon.
Just think of it: From Piranha Part Two:The Spawning to Titanic in sixteen years. Then eight years of nuthin'. With nuthin' in sight. Thar' he blows up...
Columbus is making a Namor movie?
Well...I liked his Harry Potter movies and Rent, so maybe there is hope...
After all, Brett Ratner's X-Men 3 trailer looks kick-ass, and Ratner isn't exactly the cream of the crop.
"Columbus is making a Namor movie?" Not anymore!
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Chris Columbus could film the phone book... and it feels like it.
I haven't seen Rent (and won't until someone comes up with the security deposit) in spite of the fact that I liked a Secret Santa track from the movie... maybe the stage... whatever. As for Harry Potter: I saw HPs III-IV before I saw HPs I-II. I'm glad that I did. I wish I'd never discovered Columbus.
I haven't seen the X III trailer but I have to say that if it doesn't look awesome then we are all Doomed.
Be that as it may. I'd rather see geniuses stumble than idiots soar.
In further zombie-related news: Zack Snyder is the most recent director to ascend to the throne of "Future The Watchmen Director." I will reserve my judgement until 300 comes out but until then... Yipee?
Damn it! I have personal reasons for not wanting Watchmen to be made (let's just say I have some...ambitious...goals, unless they get Aronofsky back, which I am all for).
But, Zack Snyder? Well...um...I seem to be one of the few who couldn't stand the Dawn of the Dead remake. Hm.
Thanks for your opinion, and for (I suspect) drawing Odysseus's attention to this.
High-speed internet service: $14.95 a month.
Large bowl of aglio e olio: 57¢.
Taking time to respond
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So glad you liked The Descent! I like your musing on evolutionary traits. Hey, another theory, can't remember if I covered this elsewhere: instead of the whole thing being a coma-nightmare, the other interpretation is that Sarah finally goes mad in the caves and kills everyone.
BTW, dayfornight was the original sharer, not darktremor.
Hey, I just rewatched The Hustler too! Damn, what am I going to do when Newman retires?