Of course!
One of Boorman’s best.
I like most Boorman movies, even an ecological piece like The Emerald Forest, yes even The Exorcist II: The Heretic (it had at least a few great moments), but Hell in the Pacific is an exception. Don’t know what it is with this movie, I saw it twice, the second time to check if my first impressions were right. This second viewing dates from more than ten years ago, so I can’t be too precise about things I didn’t like, but I remeber I found it an incredibly boring film.
Altman’s Pret-a-porter. Good, funny movie but so overlong. All the catwalks and interview scenes start to bore after a while. Great all-star cast including Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Anou Aimee etc.
Women Behind Bars.
Jess Franco sleaze fest according to alot of people, but found it a little tame myself. Whats the film about, not sure really as lost interest after the first 10 minutes.
[quote=“ENNIOO, post:2484, topic:1923”]Women Behind Bars.
Jess Franco sleaze fest according to alot of people, but found it a little tame myself. Whats the film about, not sure really as lost interest after the first 10 minutes.[/quote]
Ain’t it at least erotic?
Second try with Where Eagles Dare
After missing the first 5 min I watched the next 25 or 30 min before I fell asleep again. Well, better than the 30 min from the last third which I watched a few weeks ago. Most likely only while at this point of the film the plot hasn’t started to become dopey.
But I will go on when it is next on TV.
Not really for me, but then again it takes alot for me to find anything erotic these days.
Dear me.
" The Girl Next Door" there aren’t too many laughs in this disturbing, anger inducing and very moving film. a kind of much darker side to " Stand By Me" and impeccably acted by a mostly young cast of unknowns. it is depressing and not easy to watch and will haunt you for days afterwards. shows that the worst kind of monster is human. 8/10
The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Fascinating subject. Wonderfully shot, great production values, and well made. A tad bit boring maybe and the main character was a little unlikeable.
[size=14pt]Non si sevizia un paperino [/size] Lucio Fulci 1972
Feel like a housewife this days after cleaning the kitchen in the afternoon and put the litlle girl to sleep (not easy I tell you), was able to go to the must watch pile, and choose this one, glad I did it, great film.
The initial scene remind me of a typical Portuguese film (not a good thing most of the times), but the story could be without any problem brought to a Portuguese scenario (or Spanish for that matter, a real south european story).
Some amazing scenes the lovely (say real LOVELY, men what a woman!!!) Barbara Bouchet seducing a 12 year old kid (hello hollywood try to pull this one out in this days), kids getting killed with no mercy, talk about political correctiness, that’s why I like films from that period of time, this was no independent or some strange unknown students mavericks production, this was an normal (well almost) production and film.
The story it’s well displayed, Florinda Bolkan looks really menacing (a great actress BTW), and the scene where she’s killed brrrrrr… simply amazing, Millian looks like other actor that I don’t know (it’s in this things that a real good actor can be seen)
This theme of suspicion and misunderstood of the cosmopolitan big cities world and it’s peoples, towards the rural underdeveloped and with it’s own costumes world, and vice versa it’s very well made.
This ain’t really a Giallo more of a thriller, but who really cares it’s agreat film, well paced, well made characters development and also very mediterranean, very true, with that highway image being the connection between two diferent worlds. Who as me has lived or know this type of rural world, with it’s own believes can really connect to this film and it’s characters.
Fulci made some great films (among some turkeys) but he did know his trade and this film it’s the prove of that, if there was any doubt
Highly recomended
Very good film. Agree that this is some of Fulci at his best.
Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
This is the first time I’ve seen a traditional Kurosawa film. And with all the respect Kurosawa gets, I’m not dissapointed. Great film. Though I briefly lost interest during the mid section. Most scenes in the movie are very long and feature little camera movements. Maybe some John Frd influence there? The opening scene for example is around 25 minutes long! Good film all the same.
[size=12pt]Family Plot[/size] (1976, Alfred Hitchcock)
Have been watching those late Hitchcocks lately (and reviewing them for a Dutch site), so this was the logical conclusion of this enterprise. While some films of this period turned out to be better than they’re reputed to be (Topaz, Torn Curtain), and one (Frenzy) ranks among the man’s best movies, this simply is a mediocre film. Hitch was at constant odds with his screenwriter, who had a dark thriller in mind, while Hitch was more thinking of a lighthearted movie. As a result Family Plot isn’t exciting nor particularly funny. Some potentially good scenes are marred by silly jokes and the tension that is (finally) built up in the last half hour is nullified by a sudden, laughable conclusion. Barbara Harris and William Devane overplay their parts, and only Bruce Dern gives a solid (if somewhat typical) performance.
Hitch’ penultimate movie, Frenzy, would have been a far better conclusion of his career;
Tend to call it Family Dud.
[quote=“korano, post:2493, topic:1923”]Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
This is the first time I’ve seen a traditional Kurosawa film. And with all the respect Kurosawa gets, I’m not dissapointed. Great film. Though I briefly lost interest during the mid section. Most scenes in the movie are very long and feature little camera movements. Maybe some John Frd influence there? The opening scene for example is around 25 minutes long! Good film all the same.[/quote]
For me, watching Ran was like being hypnotized, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. One of my favourite movie of all time. Rashômon was a bit of a disappointment though, but maybe that’s because I was expecting it to be as great as Ran. I wish Kurosawa’s films were available in libraries or video clubs around here, 'cause those Criterion(s) are pricey!
Public Enemies
An odd one. It’s pretty good, but all the elements were there for a top-notch gangster movie; somehow Michael Mann fails to make them gel.
Johnny Depp was fine as Dillinger, the charismatic career criminal (yes, this is very much the folkloric version of Dillinger), but Christian Bale is anonymous as his FBI nemesis, Melvyn Purvis. I like Bale a lot, but he was miscast here and it cripples the movie. We learn next to nothing about Purvis; in fact, characterisations across the board are paper thin (Dillinger excepted), and for that the script bears most of the blame.
The action scenes are good (but not outstanding – Mann can and has done much better), and the period design is first rate. Photography, using digital cameras, is variable. Exteriors look fine, but sometimes the interiors, especially if more than a couple of people are on screen, look cramped.
There are some outstanding scenes displaying Dillinger’s audacity (no doubt these take great liberties with the facts, but this is friction, not a documentary). There are two exciting prison breaks and a great scene towards the end when the character walks brazenly into a police station and explores the offices of the “Dillinger Squad”. Balls of steel.
For a modern historical film, it has some glarring inaccuracies. First, I don’t think it was Purvis who killed Pretty Boy Floyd (who died after Dillinger, not before as is shown in the film). And Baby Face Nelson (great Stephen Graham) was not killed at the Little Bohemia lodge or by Purvis. He did, however receive countless gunshot wounds after killing many FBI agents, then returning home to die in bed from his injuries (gives the Nelson family a good name ;D, I ought to know).
I initially was a little unaffected by the action scenes. But I liked them better the second time around. But the film does seem to be lacking something. It feels like there is little emotional involvement and like you said, pretty much no characterization aside from dillinger. AND Christian Bale is indeed miscast. His heavy English accent is hard to disguise and sound sall the more phony with a fake Southern accent which he can’t pull off.
I guess the film-makers felt the need to compress as many details as they could, to give Purvis more involvement in the case for one thing. It’s odd, though, because they used a reputable historical study of Dillinger’s life and crimes as their primary source.
The Night of the Sorcerers (La noche de los brujos
Some expeditionists go to Africa but not far from their camp there is a tribe that practices voodoo, the women are captured by the tribe, tied up and whipped and then beheaded at the altar only to return as Vampires scantily clad in leopard skin!
I found this one to be really slow, some nice shots here and there (some of the slow mo with women running through the trees reminded me of Rollin for some reason) but overall a slight dissapointment considering it’s De Ossorio.
