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.
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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.
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 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 nightmar eat 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.
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These are Kevin's viewings out of the above Steven Jay Schneider tome Archives
May 2012
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