Public Enemies (Mann) - 1/10
Read my review above.
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I've been thinking about it a little more and I'm starting to like the ending. The film is sloppy moment-for-moment but it ends up just as dark and abrupt as it needs to be. What begins as personal odyssey (and a truly lived one at that) ends up in mayhem. You can say that this is indicative of his transformation but that's not really the case, is it? Landis is sloppy but his movie does feel lived, personal, if myopic. Griffin Dunne is underused. It's a film that needs a sharper sensibility for what could very easily be a trainwreck of incident, surface invention, and ingredients, it works. I think about the ending now and I kinda laugh.
"How's the despair?"
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Mister Tee
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I'd really looked forward to this movie back in '81 -- I'd been a great fan of Animal House -- and the coming attractions had made it seem like a mostly goofy take on the werewolf genre. And, for much of the way, I found it lived up to that promise in a modestly satisying way.Sabin wrote:An American Werewolf in London (Landis) - 6.5/10
What's up with this ending? This ending falls short of being a dark joke and just seems totally pointless. I like this film. It's an amusing comedy about a total jackass running rampant through a foreign city. I wish Griffin Dunne had been given more material.
...but I was shocked by the sudden level of violence and mayhem in that final scene. It was as if Landis had no idea what sort of universe he'd established up till then; it came to me as complete betrayal. I left the theatre disgusted.
I know, Landis is now viewed as a total hack, and complicit in a couple of kids' dying, but at the time I thought he had a promising comic touch. Not after this.
Looking for Eric (2009) - shocked just how much I liked this. Cantona's performance is a low-key pleasure, there's plenty of Loach grit in the second half, some genuine big laughs... and Steve Evets - one of those where-the-hell-have-I-seen-him-before? actors - is brilliant.
Gone Baby Gone (2007) - second viewing for a film with a much stronger first half than second. Casey Affleck is terrific, of course.
Happy Together (1997) - haven't seen this for years and barely remembered it... utterly beguiling.
Gone Baby Gone (2007) - second viewing for a film with a much stronger first half than second. Casey Affleck is terrific, of course.
Happy Together (1997) - haven't seen this for years and barely remembered it... utterly beguiling.
I'm not all that good at taking really gory stuff, but I adore this film, among the wittiest, paciest and most charming horror movies I've seen. I agree that Dunne is underused, but I love what he's given, great TV character actor John Woodvine is a deadpan delight in a rare movie role... and Jenny Agutter in this film is one of my handful of true straight crushes!Sabin wrote:An American Werewolf in London (Landis) - 6.5/10
What's up with this ending? This ending falls short of being a dark joke and just seems totally pointless. I like this film. It's an amusing comedy about a total jackass running rampant through a foreign city. I wish Griffin Dunne had been given more material.
An American Werewolf in London (Landis) - 6.5/10
What's up with this ending? This ending falls short of being a dark joke and just seems totally pointless. I like this film. It's an amusing comedy about a total jackass running rampant through a foreign city. I wish Griffin Dunne had been given more material.
What's up with this ending? This ending falls short of being a dark joke and just seems totally pointless. I like this film. It's an amusing comedy about a total jackass running rampant through a foreign city. I wish Griffin Dunne had been given more material.
"How's the despair?"
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Precious Doll
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Earthquake in Chile (1975) Helma Sanders-Brahms 6/10
Bolt (2009) Byron Howard & Chris Williams 3/10
Proof that the Academy should get rid of the animated feature category.
Vinyan (2008) Fabrice Du Welz 1/10
Broken Blossoms (1936) John Brahm 3/10
Thirst (2009) Park Chan-wook 6/10
Bolt (2009) Byron Howard & Chris Williams 3/10
Proof that the Academy should get rid of the animated feature category.
Vinyan (2008) Fabrice Du Welz 1/10
Broken Blossoms (1936) John Brahm 3/10
Thirst (2009) Park Chan-wook 6/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981, dir. Bob Rafelson) 5/10
A con man drifter worms his way into the marriage of a Greek immigrant cafe owner and his sultry, sexually voracious wife in Depression-era California. A remake that is worth it alone for Nicholson and Lange's first sex scene -- all wet panties, sprinkled flour and baked dough. Watch out for Anjelica Huston's utterly random cameo as a lion tamer.
The Night Porter (1974, dir. Liliana Cavani) 7/10
Charlotte Rampling plays a Holocaust survivor who encounters the Nazi prison guard (Dirk Bogarde) who'd made her his sexual slave during her confinement, working as a night porter in an upscale hotel in Vienna years later. The two resume their relationship, precipitating a doomed fate foretold from the beginning. Perhaps one of the most thorough examinations of a dom/sub relationship captured on film.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1976, dir. Anthony Page) 4/10
Based on Joanne Greenberg's autobiographical novel of the same name, this is a film you watch from the beginning thinking you've already seen it (and you have). A low-rent version of 'Sybil' meets 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (whose success coincidentally allowed for the greenlighting of the funding for this piece of trash). If this was the first film I'd seen with Kathleen Quinlan, I might never have seen another one of her works. What a highly annoying, self-indulgent, over-the-top performance. And poor Bibi Andersson looks like she'd rather be anywhere else.
It's an essentially negligible experience except for some, at times, fascinating supporting performances, particularly those of Diane Varsi, Signe Hasso, Sylvia Sydney (an actress I never thought I'd see punched ruthlessly in the stomach) and Susan Tyrell, whose mid-film show-stopper should most definitely be added to the musical version, if there ever is one.
Edited By flipp525 on 1246555622
A con man drifter worms his way into the marriage of a Greek immigrant cafe owner and his sultry, sexually voracious wife in Depression-era California. A remake that is worth it alone for Nicholson and Lange's first sex scene -- all wet panties, sprinkled flour and baked dough. Watch out for Anjelica Huston's utterly random cameo as a lion tamer.
The Night Porter (1974, dir. Liliana Cavani) 7/10
Charlotte Rampling plays a Holocaust survivor who encounters the Nazi prison guard (Dirk Bogarde) who'd made her his sexual slave during her confinement, working as a night porter in an upscale hotel in Vienna years later. The two resume their relationship, precipitating a doomed fate foretold from the beginning. Perhaps one of the most thorough examinations of a dom/sub relationship captured on film.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1976, dir. Anthony Page) 4/10
Based on Joanne Greenberg's autobiographical novel of the same name, this is a film you watch from the beginning thinking you've already seen it (and you have). A low-rent version of 'Sybil' meets 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (whose success coincidentally allowed for the greenlighting of the funding for this piece of trash). If this was the first film I'd seen with Kathleen Quinlan, I might never have seen another one of her works. What a highly annoying, self-indulgent, over-the-top performance. And poor Bibi Andersson looks like she'd rather be anywhere else.
It's an essentially negligible experience except for some, at times, fascinating supporting performances, particularly those of Diane Varsi, Signe Hasso, Sylvia Sydney (an actress I never thought I'd see punched ruthlessly in the stomach) and Susan Tyrell, whose mid-film show-stopper should most definitely be added to the musical version, if there ever is one.
Edited By flipp525 on 1246555622
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
This man meaning Desplechin or Magilla?
The 'Burbs (Dante) - 6/10
Well meaning. I like the idea of it more than the actual production. It's goofy, goofy, goofy. The scene of Hanks physically throwing his hospital bed into the back of the ambulance is some of the funniest comedy I've ever seen him do.
Joe vs. The Volcano (Shanley) - 8/10
This film is a mess. But it has a romantic madness to it that I love. It peaks before his quest begins but I really like this film's groove.
The 'Burbs (Dante) - 6/10
Well meaning. I like the idea of it more than the actual production. It's goofy, goofy, goofy. The scene of Hanks physically throwing his hospital bed into the back of the ambulance is some of the funniest comedy I've ever seen him do.
Joe vs. The Volcano (Shanley) - 8/10
This film is a mess. But it has a romantic madness to it that I love. It peaks before his quest begins but I really like this film's groove.
"How's the despair?"
Love this man.Big Magilla wrote:A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Despelchen) 2008 6/10
Acting and production values are good but this is ultimately just another dreary tale of a dysfunctional family, somehow erroneously classified as a comedy. It evolves around the need of a woman for a bone marrow transplant. The woman, played by Catherine Deneuve, is not particularly pleasant or nice. She claims to hate her black sheep middle son (Mathieu Almalric) and not know her emotionally disturbed grandson (Emile Berling), the only two family members who are compatible, as she smokes and smokes and smokes while trying to choose between the two or even undergo the transplant at all.
Last year's other two high profile French imports, Tell No One and Ive Loved You So Long were far more satisfying IMO.
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Big Magilla
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Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais) 1961, 9/10
You were expecting I would hate this movie? Who do you think I am, Pauline Kael or one the Medved Brothers? Nah, I loved this movie I've heard so many bad things about I've been dreading watching it for decades.
For starters, the art direction and cinematography are intoxicating. It's like taking repeated leisurely strolls through an elegantly appointed museum.
The story is what you make of it. Was it a dream? Was the narrator making it all up to seduce the woman or did she really have trouble remembering him and where they had met just a year before? Maybe I've seen too many episodes of The Twilight Zone or The Seventh Seal one too many times, but for some reason, I chose to believe he was Death coming to take her. Having chosen this interpretation for myself at the outset, I just relaxed, enjoyed the view and smiled through the whole thing.
You were expecting I would hate this movie? Who do you think I am, Pauline Kael or one the Medved Brothers? Nah, I loved this movie I've heard so many bad things about I've been dreading watching it for decades.
For starters, the art direction and cinematography are intoxicating. It's like taking repeated leisurely strolls through an elegantly appointed museum.
The story is what you make of it. Was it a dream? Was the narrator making it all up to seduce the woman or did she really have trouble remembering him and where they had met just a year before? Maybe I've seen too many episodes of The Twilight Zone or The Seventh Seal one too many times, but for some reason, I chose to believe he was Death coming to take her. Having chosen this interpretation for myself at the outset, I just relaxed, enjoyed the view and smiled through the whole thing.