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Hollywood Movie Reviews.........

 
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Faraaj73
post Sep 14 2009, 04:56 PM
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Out of the Past (1947)
Required viewing


Jeff Bailey (in an early starring role by Robert Mitchum) is a man hiding under an assumed name and trying to start a new and quiet life. There is something in his past - a woman and a betrayal that he ran away from. But he is a courageous man who when confronted with the past does try to do his best to come clean.

Whit Sterling (a charmingly scruple-less Kirk Douglas) has been double-crossed by Jeff in the past but has the gall to call him up for another favour in order to clear the past.

Kathie Moffat is a selfish woman who both man love(d) and who can double cross anybody. Jeff puts it best "you're like a leaf that the wind blows one from gutter to another".

Whether for noir fans or for fans of 40's Hollywood movies, Out of the Past is required viewing. There are a number of factors that go into making this a perfect movie. The most striking is the dialogue. There are countless quotable lines. Less than half of them have made it onto IMDb. The plot is very intricate and yet all the characters are developed fully. The entire cast is uniformly excellent and believable. The direction by Jacques Tourneur is just as good and atmospheric as in his horror classic Cat People. There are several moments that will have your heartbeat racing and you are constantly amazed at the witty dialogue.

My favourite scene was when Jeff has breakfast with Whit at Lake Tahoe. Kirk deserved an Oscar just for that 5 minute scene alone - he is so cool and shameless. For me this is very high on the list of all time great movies! Needs to be seen several times.....


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Faraaj



Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo

There is only one better thing than music - live music. - Jacek Bukowski

I hate music, especially when it's played. - Jimmy Durante

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. - W. H. Auden
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Faraaj73
post Sep 14 2009, 05:00 PM
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Les enfants du paradis (1945)
Definitely a contender for greatest film


As a film buff for well over 20 years I've seen pretty much all of the acclaimed classics of cinema. So, the odds of adding another classic to my top 10 or 20 or 50 all-time favorite list are slim. I had completed little more than an hour of Les Enfants last weekend when I knew that even if the rest of the film went downhill (which it didn't!!!) it would be in my ratings alongside other favorites like Lawrence of Arabia, Double Indemnity, another great French film Le Salaire de la Peur, The Seventh Seal and a handful of other classics.

There is nothing I can criticize about the film. If the length of three hour sounds excessive, I would say that the three hour flew by. This is a marvelously entertaining film with varied art forms - the theatrical, the mime, poetry - seamlessly combined to make a complete story. It alternates from love story to tragedy to comedy and at each moment the mood it captures is never false. Only superlatives apply in describing the acting. I had heard the name Arletty before. Now I'll never forget it. And she was the third best actor in the film. For me the actors playing Baptiste and Lemaitre (both based on real historic characters of the 1840's) gave among the greatest performances in cinema history. I could appreciate the magic of Baptiste's mime and Lemaitre's theatrics even though I can't speak french and had to rely on subtitles (not for Baptiste though!).

There are many magical moments in the film. The first mime by Baptiste reenacting to the police and the crowd is great cinema. Lemaitre first seeing and flirting with Garance is another. Oh, there are too many. I've just mentioned two from the first 20 minutes of the film! The entire film is a joy from beginning to end...


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Faraaj



Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo

There is only one better thing than music - live music. - Jacek Bukowski

I hate music, especially when it's played. - Jimmy Durante

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. - W. H. Auden
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simplefable
post Sep 14 2009, 10:14 PM
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Faraaj..now you piqued my interest. I still remember with awe the three hours which flew by..when we watched Lido Show in Paris...so many art forms coming off one after another was breathtaking ! We couldnt even wink comfortably with a thought that we might something precious...
Now, got to acquire this Disc...ASAP. smile1.gif

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Faraaj73
post Sep 15 2009, 11:14 AM
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QUOTE(simplefable @ Sep 15 2009, 02:44 AM) *

Faraaj..now you piqued my interest. I still remember with awe the three hours which flew by..when we watched Lido Show in Paris...so many art forms coming off one after another was breathtaking ! We couldnt even wink comfortably with a thought that we might something precious...
Now, got to acquire this Disc...ASAP. smile1.gif

SF

I should point out that I've actually written the above reviews much earlier (on IMDB). I'm basically copy-pasting them on now...this is just to clarify the "last weekend" remark in the Les Enfants review.....if you felt awe watching Lido, you'll certainly love Les Enfants du Paradis. This film is routinely listed as one of the critic top 10s. It is said that in the past 64 years there is not an evening that Les Enfants is not playing in some cinema or other in Paris!


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Faraaj



Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo

There is only one better thing than music - live music. - Jacek Bukowski

I hate music, especially when it's played. - Jimmy Durante

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. - W. H. Auden
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mmuk2004
post Dec 17 2010, 06:22 AM
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Shutter Island (2010)



As usual, I am embarrassingly behind times as far as new releases are concerned. Just saw Shutter Island. It is about two federal agents who come to a remote island that hosts insane criminals to investigate the disappearance of a woman who is charged with drowning her three children.


Leonardo is a war veteran, now a federal agent, who had witnessed the release of the prisoners of Dachau, and is traumatized by that experience and seems to be battling with the private tragedy of his wife’s death. He is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of the woman’s disappearance and is struggling alongside to exorcise his private ghosts. Gloomy and atmospheric, the film, set in the 50s is redolent with the miasma of fear and distrust of the red scare, the post war trauma of the war veterans and transposes it effectively into the genres of the noir and horror.


Scorsese is as capable of playing with a genre as the Coen brothers and Tarantino, but there is an intensity in his use of the genre that is different from the self-consciousness with which Tarantino or the Coens use it. (My apologies for lumping them so summarily together …for the purpose of this review only!) The film is campy at times, the surprise ending is sort of hinted throughout the movie, but Scorsese gets into the mood of the film…into this tale of horror, guilt, confusion and terror are woven his usual themes of guilt and confession/revelation.


It is a haunting film and it leaves some questions unanswered, the power of the film does not lie in the final revelation but in the sense of nightmarish reality that the film creates… that the film compels the audience participate in.


This post has been edited by mmuk2004: Dec 17 2010, 06:24 AM



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mmuk2004
post Dec 17 2010, 06:29 AM
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Faraaj, just read your post on Out of the Past... while making Shutter Island, Scorsese had insisted to his crew that reviewing Out of the Past and Vertigo were crucial to understanding the mood of Shutter Island.

This post has been edited by mmuk2004: Dec 17 2010, 06:29 AM



"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)

"There are no facts, only interpretations."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

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Faraaj73
post Dec 18 2010, 02:41 AM
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QUOTE(mmuk2004 @ Dec 17 2010, 11:59 AM) *

Faraaj, just read your post on Out of the Past... while making Shutter Island, Scorsese had insisted to his crew that reviewing Out of the Past and Vertigo were crucial to understanding the mood of Shutter Island.

Madhavi

I hope you've seen Out of the Past. As you could tell from my review, I am a fan.

Apart from Out of the Past and Vertigo, other visual influences I clearly observed in Shutter Island were The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (probably the greatest silent film) and Jamaica Inn (an early Hitchcock film). In fact, some reviewers on IMDB even suggested that Shutter Island is a remake of Caligari.

I've virtually stopped writing reviews on IMDB although I recall I used to enjoy making a pitch for films I loved...


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Faraaj



Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo

There is only one better thing than music - live music. - Jacek Bukowski

I hate music, especially when it's played. - Jimmy Durante

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. - W. H. Auden
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Faraaj73
post Dec 18 2010, 02:45 AM
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Here's my take on Shutter Island.

Scorcese has often been called America's greatest living director. Certainly with classics like Mean Streets, Taxidriver and Raging Bull to his credit decades ago, and others like Goodfellas and Gangs of New York in the intervening year, there is much weight in holding him in such high esteem, along with the expectations that come with it. My first impression with each new film since Goodfellas has been that its lesser Scorcese. He appears to have fallen from the lofty standards he set early in his career. The themes of the film do not have the gravitas one expects of a Scorcese film etc. On first viewing, I felt that way about both Gangs of New York and The Departed. Second and third viewings changed my opinion and I now know both films to be classics and the Scorcese magic is self evident.

Shutter Island, which is a big move away from the broad range that Scorcese normally works within, is a horror-thriller film - well, more thriller than horror and thus more mainstream than his usual fare. The only other mainstream Scorcese film that comes to mind is Cape Fear. While I was never impressed with Cape Fear, the original B&W noir classic being far superior, I readily admit to loving Shutter Island from the first frame.

People forget that Scorcese is the original film nerd and his understanding of cinema and the great masters is unparalleled. In this visually enchanting masterpiece, I saw clear shades of King Kong, the Val Lewton films of the 40s e.g. Isle of the Dead, Hitchcock's Vertigo and North by Northwest and of course the expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. However, it was all of a piece with a clear visual style that gelled and worked. There are remarkable set-pieces littered throughout the film - too many to mention. The performances are uniformly great. While, De Caprio, Ben Kingsley and Emily Watson are all acclaimed, Mark Ruffalo is less well known and shines in this, his best role since Zodiac.

I won't go into the plot details but given that this is a thriller, suffice to say that there is at least one major plot twist. I've seen several reviewers commenting on and emphasizing the big twist. Many saw it coming and disliked the film, others couldn't see the twist coming and loved the film as a result. I think that basing your opinion on the plot twist misses the point. With the large number of thrillers that Hollywood churns out each year, I don't think is a plot twist out there that hasn't been covered threadbare by multiple films. What is important to me is the visual sense and style, which is present in Shutter Island in bucket-loads!

This post has been edited by Faraaj73: Dec 18 2010, 02:46 AM


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Faraaj



Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo

There is only one better thing than music - live music. - Jacek Bukowski

I hate music, especially when it's played. - Jimmy Durante

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. - W. H. Auden
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