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Rope, a review by Tom

Title: Rope
Year: 1948
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: PG
Length: 77 Min.
Video: Full Frame 1.33:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Mono, German: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish

Stars:
Dick Hogan
John Dall
Farley Granger
Edith Evanson
Douglas Dick

Plot:
James Stewart stars with Farley Granger and John Dall in a highly-charged thriller inspired by the real-life Leopold-Loeb murder case. Granger and Dall give riveting performances as two friends who strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills, then proceed to throw a party for the victim's family and friends - with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. As the killers turn the conversation to committing the "perfect murder", their former teacher (Stewart) becomes increasingly suspicious. Before the night is over, the professor will discover how brutally his students have turned his academic theories into chilling reality in Hitchcock's spellbinding excursion into the macabre.

Extras:
Featurettes
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Trailers

Technically a fun film to watch. Playing it like a stage play with long shots. Great camera work switching between the different parts of the set. Great acting. The conceiled cuts are very obvious but for its time a good achievement.
But I didn't really like the story. Two men who think have done the perfect crime, but make the stupidest mistakes. I know it's part of the characters presumptuousness, but it didn't work for me.

And is this plays in real-time, the party was awfully short. Probably about 40 minutes long. Those poor guests who probably were longer on the road then the party took.

And did one of the lead characters also remind you of Ben Affleck?

Rating:

(From Alfred Hitchcock Marathon on July 4th, 2009)

Knowing, a review by Dragonfire

I went to see Knowing last month.  It was entertaining overall, but not exactly what I was expecting.

in 1959, a time capsule is buried to mark the opening of a new elementary school.  Inside the capsule are drawings from the students.  After the ceremony to bury the capsule, one of the students disappears.

Fifty years later, the capsule is going to be dug up.  Caleb is a student at the elementary school.  He is being raised by his father John, a professor at MIT who is still grieving the death of his wife. When the capsule is dug up, the students at the school each get an envelope that is to have one of the drawings in it.  The one Caleb gets is just a paper full of numbers.  John ends up noticing something by chance and develops a theory about what the numbers mean.  That sets him off on a mission, which leads him to meeting Diana, a woman connected to what is going on, and her young daughter Abby.

Some time is taken to set up the time capsule situation in the past before focusing on things going on in the present with Caleb and John.  Knowing works as a decent thriller for the most part, though it could have been better.  There are some suspenseful moments that work well.  The page full of numbers provides a little bit of mystery since it isn't clear what they mean at first. That ends up being figured out fairly early, though there are still things to figure out by the end of the movie.  The mystery surrounding the numbers is eliminated for people who have seen the trailers though since they clearly give the explanation.  I hate when that happens.  Ultimately, there aren't that many surprises in the movie and certain things are rather predictable, which was a bit disappointing.  I didn't like the ending that much, though I suppose it was logical with what was going on.  Something just seemed wrong about it to me.  There are unusual things going on throughout the movie which add some interesting moments.  The unusual elements of the movie aren't going to appeal to a lot of people though.  One or two subplots were introduced and then they didn't really go anywhere.  None of the characters were overly interesting.  The actors were fine, though nothing that special.  Nicolas Cage is fine.  His fans may find something to like about the movie.

I was entertained by Knowing, but it could have been better. 

 

I did get a review posted on Epinions.

Knowing



(From Knowing on May 5th, 2009)

Fear Itself Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

2. Spooked
While on a stakeout in a haunted house,  a private eye hired by a mysterious woman is forced to confront the demons of his past.

Stars:
Eric Roberts
Cynthia Watros
Jack Noseworthy
Larry Gilliard Jr.
Liam James

My Thoughts:
This is one of the few that I have seen before. Spooked is the second one to air... so this one is actually in the right spot in the set. It is one of the good episodes... I enjoyed it quite a bit. Though I will say it was a little on the weird side. But it has a good ghost story atmosphere to it. Definitely worth watching.

My Rating:

(From Fear Itself Marathon on December 28th, 2009)