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Lists
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- a compulsive appeal
- a good mix of pathos & humor
- dramatic accessibility
The term “Auteur theory” is credited to the critics of the French film journal Cahiers du cinéma, many of which became the directors of the French New Wave. However, according to New York University professor Julian Cornell, the concept had been around for a while prior. The Cahiers critics simply refined the theory.
Reviews
The Odyssey (1997)
Runaway Odysseus
The wanderings of Odysseus capture the mythological world of the imaginative narratives of those pioneering Aegean sailors who opened up to the west by sailing in ancient sea routes full of mystery and danger. The Odyssey is therefore a syncretism of various Mycenaean traditions. Do not fail to notice that Homer poeticly depicted the first mass shooting. Veteran goes to war, winds up isolated for years, watches all his friends die, only to be a hobo in his own lands. So he conspires to get a bow without a background check and he shoots everyone! Unfortunately the movie misses every point whereas the same director (Konchalovsky) succeeded in thunderingly visceral fashion with Runaway Train (1985).
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)
A visually impressive period piece
The movie boasts with terrific performances and gorgeous production design. It is indeed old-fashioned, but far from reactionary, as Tsar Nicholas irresponsibly ignores both what he's doing to the Russian people, and the danger of the tyrannical potential of revolutions. Communists hungrily fight for power. We eagerly partake of the homey life of maybe the dullest , most alienated Tsar. Schaffner directed a rarity, an intimate epic telling the fascinating story of the downfall of the Romanov Dinasty. A splendid history lesson, and a treat for the eyes. One of the best in its genre, managing historical romance & intelligent history observations under a lavishly recreated period decor. BTW On stage Michael Jayston was perhaps the b est Professor Higgins, while Janet Suzman was perhaps the best Cleopatra.
The Room Next Door (2024)
The room next door is only a metonymy, there is no metaphor here
A very difficult subject is addressed in a frank and at the same time subtle way. Dialogue, lighting, camera, directions and acting are OK. The director is a veteran. The resxult however is an uncomfortable and unnecessary film that I cannot recommend. In La Habitación De Al Lado, Almodóvar deals with death through the bond of two friends. When one has to help the other in the decision of euthanasia, philosophical, political, religious and loving reflections emerge. What is life? What do we do with condemned life? This ain't pure aesthetic narrative elegance, the dialogues lack power , an unterminable and very theatrical, stagey mano-a-mano takes place. The chemistry between the two protagonists is most restrained & least nuanced, challenging the viewer in the face of a pseudo-taboo theme, namely illness and inevitable death.
Honor Among Lovers (1931)
Cheesy, cheap, and crummy
My greatest curiosity would be to know the psychology of the producers & authors of the script of this ridiculous, cheesy melodrama. The protagonist is an amoral, rich playboy, an anti-marriage Don Juan. The heroine, the victim, is a fool who marries the wrong man at the wrong time: a murderous thief and an arrogant man. What a terrible movie, it has pseudo romance & risqué businesses, and fortunately a wonderful support from Charlie Ruggles as a rah-rah raccoon coated drunkard. Like a bad soap? You'll love this. Essentially it is just trash made for women, although written by a man, directed by a woman and starring a Betty Boop lookalike (Claudette Colbert) and (then a ham) Fredrich March, who would later improve his talent through Les Miserables, Best Years of our Lives, Jeckyll & Hyde and Seven days in May.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
The full monty vs. The sacred chalice
It's not intelligent. It has a low taste for jokes. It's considered a landmark but it is merely awful. Nobody is funny - Innes, Gilliam, Idles, or Cleese. This is an example of poor script, terrible play, vain efforts of being funny, just being utterly silly, stupid, senseless, clueless. A stew of unfunny skits and blunt jokes. Maybe my tastebuds for movies had already evolved by 1975. It had its black-comedy moments , though very brief. Let me tell you a funny joke instead: ¨A photon is going through airport security. The TSA agent asks if he has any luggage. The photon says, "No, I'm traveling light."
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
To prick oneself or not to prick oneself, that's the question
If you're masochistic, you'll subscribe to the fake belief that the 7th Art must be painful, then please watch Requiem. The director's intention is clear: to upset you, to extend you a kinda message and instill a kinda hate of addictive behavior. He concocted a kinda exploitation flick, a kinda midnight movie for future generations. To be fair, he has a kinda knack for stylem akthough too self-conscious, too dark, too unaware of his descent into the core of an addictive personality. In the end the movie goes where 'n' movies have already been and tells us nothing we don't already know. A shout out to the chincheiros!
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Bastards and glory don't mix well
I wonder if this film showed a Palestinian squad scalping Jews or marking their foreheads with the star of David. Such issues are not trifle. Not all Germans were Nazis deserving the wrath of Jehovah. Hateful approaches like this would hardly qualify as anti war propaganda. The message is disturbingly wrong. I like several Tarantino films, regardless of violence, mannerism or biased humor. But putting Vermacht foot soldiers in the same basket with SS and Gestapo officers is VERY wrong. In this besotted reverie, real-life villains Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels are played as grotesque jokes. The Basterds are played as exaggeratedly tough Jews. The weirdest cartoon is the Nazi-killing Lieutenant played by Brad Pitt. The film is terrible - though I watched it in a borrowed pirated copy - but the long stretches of wicked dialogue, the humor in the violence and the outsized characters strutting across the screen make Basterds boring, ridiculous and incredibly insensitive.
Léon (1994)
Too manipulative for my taste
Leon is an assassin and lives in the apartment next to a family who work hard. While this family's daughter Mathilda is out on an errand for Leon, he witnesses the entire family slaughtered by corrupt police. Mathilda's father has cheated with a lot of drugs, and the whole family has to pay for this betrayal. 12-year-old Mathilda is the only survivor in her family, and she pushes Leon to take care of her. She also wants to be a "cleaner". Leon is skeptical, but he accepts to have her live. Mathilda discovers that Leon is illiterate and teaches him to write. The corrupt police know that there is another daughter, and thus it is not safe for Leon and Mathilda to live in Leon's apartment. They start a life on the run in New York, and the killers get ever closer. Finally, the inevitable hour of reckoning occurs. This is a VERY minor film in the thriller genre. The relationship between Leon and Mathilda is VERY sentimentally portrayed. Leon is an assassin, yet sensitive and vulnerable. This is a movie I would never see again.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Action, more action, no real plot
What story there is, is ridiculous "we've just run through an amazingly savage gauntlet that killed most of us. We can't go this way, let's turn back around and run back through it with some pretty ladies... A chilling indication of a destructive trend in films. The director keeps this desperate chase through the desert. But what feels liberating becomes monotonous. What made the original Mad Max great was that despite the violence and shocking moments, there was heart! You could see the motivation and the specific moments were evident that were going to change the man forever. We could understand why he chose to channel his rage and we also saw glimpses of the man that used to be. Despite the shocking violence we still routed for him and we understood his personal pain, the evolution to MADMAX unfolded and we could relate to how a good man could go down this path. So what happened here, there is a story, but it lacks depth and isn't related to the title character.
Hook (1991)
Only for those who may suffer from Peter-Pan-Complex
There are rumors that Joel Schumacher was the real director of this film, just like those rumors that refuse to die that Spielberg was the real director of "Poltergeist". Does it matter? "Hook" is a bizarre, corny and over-the-top effort by whoever directed it. The message "you're never too old to change your life" is delivered with a Spielberg-style hammer.
The film is horrible, stupid, childish without a shred of intelligence. Nothing makes sense. Cheesy dialogue, clichés and even continuity errors. It also doesn't seem appropriate for a film rated with parental guidance. The only good thing is Dustin Hoffman. Spielberg made a politically correct film by excluding the Indians and making the Lost Boys multiracial. But the original story was written by a Scottish writer who would never have thought of populating his play with multiracial Lost Boys. Spielberg made a mistake by deviating towards the new formula. If Robin Williams was good as an older Peter Pan, Julia Roberts was terrible as Tinker Bell. James Barrie would have hated this movie. One of the points Barrie made in his Peter Pan is that childhood is a special time, but eventually there comes a time when everyone (except Peter Pan) has to stop being a child and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. At the end of Barrie's play, Wendy cannot return to Neverland, even though she wants to, because Neverland is reserved for children. This movie is typical of the selfishness of many in the Boomer generation. They rob their children of the specialness of childhood by refusing to give it up. Barrie would have hated this.
Creepshow (1982)
I'm not a fan, why feel like a creep ?
George Romero collaborates with Stephen King to prove their fondness of Terchuckle (Terror + Chuckle), or the combination of pseudo-thrills plus pseudo-humor. The film has no fun. Supposedly Creepshow is horror for grownups. But not everything the fans of each horrormeister hoped it would be (it is not, for example, in the same league as that old anthology film, Dead of Night) King's stories are nothing special, and with the exception of the final entry, nothing in the film is particulary scary. Horror purists will object to the failed levity. Romero and King mean to be unsophisticated while they maintain a kind of sense of humor. Their characters, story lines and images are just one-dimensional. Creepshow is a faux naif horror film: too arch to be truly scary, too elemental to succeed as satire. For anyone under 12 it's improper. For anyone over 12 there's no pleasure in seeing two alleged masters of horror deliberately working beneath themselves. Other King & George Romero Collaborations were Knightriders (1981), The Word Processor of the Gods (1984) · and Creepshow 2.
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
A major disappointment.
Fine cast, possible story, plenty of action, plenty of martial arts, lots of suspense. Sounds like a winner. I did stay to the end, but hated it. Why? Because the idiot director used the movie hand-held instead of the steady-cam. The immediate result is motion sickness. Hollywood needs to announce long and loud whether a movie is shot hand-held. That way, we don't waste our money on it. Shaky cinematography ruins anything. The trend is a total annoyance, and the death knell of any movie. Any close up or emotional shot is so jittery, that it is practically unwatchable. Even the close up of items that the audience should read are done in 'shaky cam' mode. It's brutal, bad work overall. Lord, I miss stable tripods and smooth crane work. I cannot focus on characters or story when the image is painful to the eye. The frenetic sound track wasn't an improvement on the overly tense experience. On top of this, there were a lot of shots which were not well focused at all. Since cameras automatically focus these days, they must have gone to quite an effort to film in this style. In the action sequences, each camera shot lasts maybe 2 seconds maximum. The upshot is that every time there is an action shot you get half a second of out-of-focusness, then the shot gets brought into focus but the cameraman is jumping about...
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Hand-held cameras and zero head-held ideas
What really dismembers the movie is the direction and the editing. If you can imagine Oliver Stone on meth, you'll get the general picture. This is simply, supremely nauseating. Brace yourself for motion sickness: there isn't one single static shot in this film, which would be all right if the nervous "style" served a purpose. Unfortunately, all is manages to accomplish is to make the viewer nauseous, a feeling compounded by the total lack of interest generated by both plot and characters. It's a lousy trend to shoot every insignificant scene of a film from five different angles and edit it as if you suffered from Parkinson's disease. Reducing each shot to a nanosecond of screen-time is an effective way to hide any mistake or continuity break, as well as script deficiencies: the viewer simply does not have the time to spot the mistake or try and make sense of what's actually happening in a scene, and just doesn't care because nothing makes sense anyway. Even the car chases are so chopped up that they are devoid of thrill or interest. The "trendy" director really ought to effectively not induce nausea in such a primary way. I am always sensitive to hand-held camera shots à la Glauber Rocha, and this was awful. EVERY frame is jumpy. As to content, the title "The Bourne Identity" actually had meaning: just who IS this amnesic guy? Even the name "Bourne" adds symbolic weight. This one is called Supremacy. Why not Superiority? Hy not Equality? No one can praise the performers, although Matt Damon was good as Ripley and as the guilt-ridden junkie in "Courage Under Fire." The plot is dismissible. It has something to do with Russian oil, but boils down to one long chase. The camera is ataxic. I can't remember a single scene in which it held still. It wobbles pointlessly all over the place or it focuses on some unimportant object like a venetian blind while the action takes place elsewhere... Come on...
The Sound and the Fury (2014)
Frankly, Mr. Franco...
Faulkner isn't unfilmable. The story of Temple Drake wasn't bad. The Hamlet with Paul Newman & Orson Welles wasn't ludicrous. But any work is unfilmable if adapted by a talentless mediocre director. In this case, the fault of the film's issues stem completely from James Franco and not with the difficulty in Faulkner's writing. I do hope that after two failed outings the actor will learn to leave Faulkner's masterful works alone. (Although I wouldn't be surprised to see him try his hand at adapting one of the author's works again). There's herein a mild sense of a formerly rich family's fortunes dwindling, economically and emotionally, but the sections don't add up to a whole - something more than the sum of parts. The movie suffers from a paucity. Faulkner's book, an oblique and complex tale of the American South's festering decline, hasn't so much been reworked for cinema as simply dumped on the screen in handfuls, and the result is a swirling mess. The movie is a folly that fails to capture the weird, entrancing, often maddening ambiance of the great writer's elliptical masterpiece, and its surfeit of half-baked film-student flourishes and needless cameos occasionally give it an amateur-hour feel.
Éducation sentimentale (1962)
A literary massacre
The beginning of the film is most confusing, there are a ton of characters and we never really get a proper introduction to them. Barbara just disappears halfway through. I would've liked to see more of her. I know that nouvelle vague is far from a homogeneous movement, but still, this one stands out a lot and to me looks a lot like what Truffaut used to call "cinéma de papa"
It is a film for Jean Claude Brialy , Dawn Addams and Marie Jose Nat , not for the Flaubert novel as source. Alexandre Astruc ditches his former "camera pen " style which spawned memorable efforts such as D'Aurevilly's "Le Rideau Cramoisi" and Maupassant's "Une Vie" . "Education Sentimentale" finds the director succumbing to the Nouvelle Vague vices: hollow characters, loose screenplay ,"deep" "serious" "meaningful " conversations,self-centered persons who do not even realize there is a world outside. Stupidly adapted from Gustave Flaubert , Astruc made the same mistake as Vadim filming "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" :transposing a work from another century to his era . In the sixties , a story which was absorbing one hundred years before may become banal ,as common as any (platonic or not) adulterous relations . Ill acted by Brialy, Auclair and Nat, but, it's boooooooring. I have read the Flaubert book. It is a masterpiece. But of course Astruc was a supporter of the autheurism concept thing. Anyway, I was hardly surprised to see how banal and boring this ambition was. There is of course a general distrust towards the bourgeoisie to be seen here , but no potential edge. Actually the whole film is anodine. We have the undecided woman that needs to be saved from her oppressive life and husband, we have the clingy and needy model who needs anyone who treat her mildly seriously, we have the good young, sensitive man that is dying to do it for her. Come on...
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Sheer garbage
Not everyone can be Merchant and Ivory, too bad this team didn't realize this. The pseudo-audacious style that made "The Piano" so uncompelling and expendable is another Frankenstein's monster here, and it runs away with Campion's film. The result is incomprehensible. Actors are stranded walking around opulent sets saying lines, while Campion pulls out every trick in the book to confounding effect. One of my favorite novels thus became a most pretentious movie. The camera work is over ridiculous. Entire scenes were shot with an actor's half face in close-up like a videcoclip. Kidman was awful. She weeps in every scene, while Isobel doesn't weep at all in the book. Malkovich was of course an excessive ham. Seamstresses may appreciated the production, but that hardly moves the plot onwards. All the art of the masterpiece book was carefulle removed by a moron director. Dismal. A disappointing mess. Kidman had an Austrailian (non-American) accent throughout and sported a full head of red pubic hair. No need for that. She teases three men who are all clamoring for her affection, all of whom may have had their own personalities and characters but you won't know as it didn't seem important to include such detail. Malkovich speaks camply in a consistent whispering single tone, similar to serial killers. He is completely ill equipted as a seducer both physically and mentally but then again Ms Archer has about the same kit, therefore the question is, does anyone care what happens to empty boring people, in an empty boring film? A supporting character had that a contrived, horriblyh spoiled nasal Californian accent, instead of saying 'never ever' they say 'Navaar Avaaaar'. Wow. If you've read the book, don't see it. If you haven't, you'll probably love it! Archer is a complex, beautiful character, assertive and a dreamer, if slightly naive. She is slightly uncomfortable in the new setting of England, having just moved there from America after her parents died, and the last thing she would do in front of her uncle is cry! There is a subtle way to show internal psychodramas, but Jane Campion never, never, never can find it.
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Stick to Tim Burton's or even Walt Disney's version
Hollywood expected the film to appeal to young audiences, but the popular consensus was otherwise. Most of the blame for this disaster falls on the three directors (Norman McLeod at the forefront), whose incredibly disastrous work ignored the absurdity of the original plot. The budget was generous, with attention paid to sets, costumes and makeup. Lewis Carroll was missing. Alice was missing. Wonderland was missing. The humor is fake and the treatment of any aspect of literary origin is unsatisfactory. Incredibly, the film is short. At first glance, the efforts were noticeable, but not in the right way. The superstars of this eccentric production are completely and simply unrecognizable, buried under pounds of makeup or suffocated in uncomfortable costumes.
Hamlet (1969)
An absolute shame
By far the worst Shakespeare adaptation ever, in terms of production and stage design. The performances are mediocre. The cast speaks directly to the camera. The shots are all average or close-ups. There are no long shots or said "American¨ medium shots. There is no set design. Everything is absolutely terrible. The director was already famous and made notable films, such as Mademoiselle, Tom Jones, The Border.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,
Laughter in the Dark,
A Taste of Honey,
A Death in Canaan,
The Loved One,
Blue Sky,
Look Back in Anger,
The Entertainer,
Red and Blue. But his Hamlet was an absolute shame.
Moby Dick (1930)
A mediocre costume ball
This pseudo-version of "Moby Dick" is an insult to all involved. It starta with a different line from the famous "Call me Ishmael". Atrocious performances, including from Barrymore, a major ham that not even Hawks could handle in "Twentieth Century". This is an example of how far Hollywood went for its money-making purposes. The language is ugly and unpoetic, Ahab became a taciturn, blasphemous and obsessive psychopath who wants to kill the white whale just because his bride (!!!) rejected him because the animal had provided him with a wooden leg. There is also an evil brother who wants the bride for himself. In short: a ridiculous costume ball more suited to a samba-enredo at the Sambodromo stadium.
As Amorosas (1968)
Playing in a tender manner the amoroso style of the drama
Khouri's movies were very introspective, with characters questioning life. Unfortunately - among his best ones - 'As Amorosas' has not been restored. The quality of image and sound on DVD is simply terrible. "We are people who cannot be absorbed, not by the world, not by anyone.," says Rita Lee in the picture. Off the record she said that ¨- my love-hate relationship with Khouri continues - I can't believe that with all the talent he had, he insisted on focusing on the drama of the existential emptiness of the bourgeoisie, especially with so much going on at the time!¨ The time was the rebellious 1960s.
Ripley (2024)
Cinematographer Robert Elswit elevated it to something else
RIPLEY is a landmark. Highly contrasted b&w photoography, static tableaux, minimal pans and tilts. A half dozen dolly shots over eight-hour-long six episodes. Tableaux, extreme closeups, montage, repeated visual patterns. Architectural compositions. Fifties b&w still references. Stiff posture, minimal expresion (although Andrew Scott's line delivery is somewhat repetitious). Nothing in Zallian's Curriculum Vitae (or Netflix's for that matter) would have led one to expect this level. Ripley is a stylish series, like a masterclass in black and white photography. No, that's not a typo. I do mean photography, even though it's technically called cinematography.
Glass Onion (2022)
Relegated to the small screen & the indiscriminating spectator
Daniel Craig reportedly told Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at the 'GLASS ONION' premiere that the standing ovation they got proved that it should get a full theatrical rollout. When Sarandos said it wasn't Netflix's model to do that, Craig replied "Your model is ¨outdated¨!"The thing about Glass Onion on Netflix streaming is you could just see on here all the posts from people who were like, "I watched the movie for 10 minutes and gave up." So did Yours Truly, by the way, for your information. Is my sheer indifference insulting to the Craig man? Perhaps. Benoit is no icon. He is a cartoonish, unfunny caricature. He is indeed to be relegated to the small screen.
The Masked Singer (2019)
We're not amused
I'm sticking to the Brazilian version of the franchise bought by the Globo Organizations and starred by popstar Ivete Sangalo. Useless B$ is the concept behind the show. From now on I'll refuse to watch another episode of this poorly produced, poorly edited, and arguable form of television "entertainment". The fake audience is ridiculous. I think it's really sad how far from good taste viewers have gone. This show is trash, but like The Voice and others, it's turning the society of watchers into a bunch of robots. How can a TV show expect you are so stupid? You must keep & protect your brain cells and never get dumber. The fact that it's rated only 5.8 on IMDb website page releives me for now. I have a sneaking suspicion that all the performers respond to a casting call, with their contracts stating how long they'd be staying. I believe the "winner" is negotiated by agents. Have you noticed how many of the performers are also part of the usual soap opera "celebrity" gang? And the judges are plain disgusting. What a bunch of smiling idiots, barking for approval like attention-starved puppies. Their guesses are either 100% scripted, or they are indeed very dumb.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Less intriguing than watchable
Convinced by a child, Superman decides to force peace, present himself at the Un ited Nations to declare his intentions appreciatedly, and steal all the atomic weapons on the planet by launching them into space. According to IMDb customers, this is the worst movie I have ever watched, together with ¨Cats¨. Well, I beg to disagree. The Man of Steel herein crusades for nuclear disarmament and meets Lex Luthor's latest creation, Nuclear Man. The movie means well. The cast does their thing. It's far from perfect, but it's not very worse than Superman III, Man of Steel, and Batman v. Superman. FYI As of 2024, Lex Luthor will create a clone of Superman in 'SUPERMAN', which will be played by David Corenswet. The clone will be Ultraman. The film will be inspired precisely by 'SUPERMAN IV: QUEST FOR PEACE'.
Cats (2019)
The movie turned out a hot mess, storywise
But it's still the brilliant songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) & T. S. Eliot (lyrics). Most of the cast are good singers ( especially Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy) and the new song "Beautiful ghosts" is alright. Nothing EXTREMELY wrong with the film as it's just as a Jukebox Musical ... it literally exists to attempt a narrative around songs, so it's fair to say that the soundtrack is *better* than the rest of the film. FYI Donald Trump used to play the song "Memory" from "Cats" when he was having a meltdown and wanted to calm down. Well, the US may owe its existence to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn...