Welcome to the new profile
We're still working on updating some profile features. To see the badges, ratings breakdowns, and polls for this profile, please go to the previous version.
Reviews5
Dewey-5's rating
Fridge is set in a Glaswegian slum, where a homeless couple struggle to free a child trapped in an abandoned fridge. The action unfolds simply, with indifference and misunderstanding, compounded by the couple's own alcoholism and vestigal existence, leading towards a potential tragedy. The photography and performances are beautiful and compelling and natural. There is no sign of artifice, just anger and indignation. These are people who do not ask for pity or even understanding, just that they be allowed to live their lives unjudged and undisturbed.
This is compelling, beautiful film making, which has not left my mind since I watched it.
This is compelling, beautiful film making, which has not left my mind since I watched it.
Bumped into "The Fountainhead" last night. Ouch!
I had been curious to see it for a while. It was briefly re-released in the UK at the beginning of the year. Certainly Ayn Rand is an interesting author, and the combination of King Vidor, Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey couldn't be all bad, could it? Actually, it could. Turns out that Rand wrote the screenplay - big mistake. There is no dialogue in this film, just actors woodenly delivering speeches to each other. And what speeches - arguments against any kind of community or co-operation between humans.
It's ironic that the lead character, Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), is an architect. Architects build structures for humans to use and to live in - yet the film seems to propose nations based around the individual, i.e. welcome the United States of Ayn Rand, population 1. At one point in the film, villanous rival architects propose despoiling Roark's design for low-income housing by adding balconies and "human touches." Roark, upon seeing these "human touches," serenely dynamites the buildings which would have provided housing for thousands. (Even more ironic: Roark's brilliant designs are identical to the enormous social housing projects that are now inner-city America's killing fields.)
I found it disheartening that this film was made by Warner Brothers. In the '30's, Jack Warner and his brothers made films which uniformly championed the struggling masses and the little guy. Here is a film dedicated to a philosophy which sticks up a middle finger to the great unwashed, instead choosing to celebrate a Nietzchean superman. This is a film written by someone who clearly despises their audience. Luckily, it's so badly written and acted that its unpleasant message is deflated by the hilarity of its own self-importance.
I had been curious to see it for a while. It was briefly re-released in the UK at the beginning of the year. Certainly Ayn Rand is an interesting author, and the combination of King Vidor, Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey couldn't be all bad, could it? Actually, it could. Turns out that Rand wrote the screenplay - big mistake. There is no dialogue in this film, just actors woodenly delivering speeches to each other. And what speeches - arguments against any kind of community or co-operation between humans.
It's ironic that the lead character, Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), is an architect. Architects build structures for humans to use and to live in - yet the film seems to propose nations based around the individual, i.e. welcome the United States of Ayn Rand, population 1. At one point in the film, villanous rival architects propose despoiling Roark's design for low-income housing by adding balconies and "human touches." Roark, upon seeing these "human touches," serenely dynamites the buildings which would have provided housing for thousands. (Even more ironic: Roark's brilliant designs are identical to the enormous social housing projects that are now inner-city America's killing fields.)
I found it disheartening that this film was made by Warner Brothers. In the '30's, Jack Warner and his brothers made films which uniformly championed the struggling masses and the little guy. Here is a film dedicated to a philosophy which sticks up a middle finger to the great unwashed, instead choosing to celebrate a Nietzchean superman. This is a film written by someone who clearly despises their audience. Luckily, it's so badly written and acted that its unpleasant message is deflated by the hilarity of its own self-importance.