This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Antares
1
« on: February 04, 2022, 08:09:24 PM »
2
« on: January 02, 2022, 09:16:28 PM »
Wunderland (2018) 5/100, Hurricane (2018) 60/100 - YouTube tossed a pair of war films at me last night from 2018. I'm not going to say much about them, but I would like to say this...Films about World War II are no longer necessary! Everything that has needed to be put on film concerning that war has already been done and directors and screenwriters who are the grandchildren of those who fought in it are not qualified to give those events an honest rendering. The former film is so poorly written, acted & directed, it boggles the mind that someone put up the amount of money necessary to make it. Historical inaccuracies at every turn and some mind numbing wokeness thrown in to make it a complete shit sandwich. The latter film really makes me long for the hallowed war film days of Tora! Tora! Tora! or The Battle of Britain. You know, when they used ACTUAL airplanes from the era to create the flight sequences. CGI air battles are comical and defy all the laws of physics. A better story for this film and Stefanie Martini doing her best imitation of a fully clothed Kate Winslet.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
3
« on: December 28, 2021, 11:15:05 AM »
The Beatles: Get Back (2021) 60/100 – Observations from a lifelong Beatles fan. First, this really didn’t need to be just shy of 8 hours in length. While I love the voyeuristic fly on the wall aspect of watching the Fab Four in their creative processes, I know I could have cut this down to 3 hours max. To have access to over 60 hours of film and be left with a bloated documentary that only shows mere moments of their brilliance is such a disappointment. It’s a shame that film doesn’t exist of them making the "White Album", where a lot of the discord that would eventually lead to their dissolution, took place. This smacks a bit of being a whitewash by the two surviving Beatles by putting a happier face on the time this project was being made. Let’s face it, McCartney and Yoko Ono took a lot of heat in the years post-breakup for the band’s demise. Here, we really don’t see much of the bossy McCartney which caused a long friendship with George Harrison to disintegrate. And Yoko Ono barely elicits one emotion throughout the length of this film. You do get to see her shrieking like a banshee, which really became trying and had me hitting the + 30 seconds button like Tommy playing a pinball machine. Michael Lindsay-Hogg at one point in the film says, “There’s a lot of good stuff in the documentary, but there’s no story.” This film kind of makes it look like Lindsay-Hogg cooked up the turmoil through edits of the fights that must have taken place, to make his film more interesting, but are nowhere to be found here.
As for the music, it’s the only moments in the film where your attention is being held. The payoff is the eventual concert on the rooftop of the Apple building and it doesn’t disappoint. Here’s a band that hadn’t performed live for over 3 years, yet it looks like they never stopped. The sound is rich and full, showcasing why the Beatles were leaps and bounds beyond the talents of mere mortal bands that were their “contemporaries”. And finally, I like many others around the world, believe that Phil Spector butchered the album. Hearing them do these amazing songs in a raw form, without Spector’s intrusive “Wall of Sound”, amply illustrates what the world lost when the four went their separate ways after Abbey Road. The real beneficiary of the breakup was George, who was always my favorite Beatle, as he went into the studio and recorded “All Things Must Pass”, the album that released Harrison from the chains of bondage that the Lennon-McCartney partnership had forged. Neither John Lennon, nor Paul McCartney ever released an album post-breakup that reached anywhere near the strata of this seminal work from the “quiet Beatle”. I’m now glad that they never reunited; Harrison needed the freedom to be himself, without his Beatle brethren.
One thing the documentary lays waste to is some of the things that Lennon said in his Playboy interview about the session. Paul didn't write Get Back as an attack on Yoko Ono, nor did he look at her when he sang the line "get back Jojo...Go home!". There's a moment early in the first episode where Lennon hasn't arrived at Twickenham and Paul is just piddling around on his bass and you see the framework for the song being hatched in Paul's brain. Throughout the first and second episodes, you see Lennon & McCartney adding new lines to the song. There's no malevolence towards Ono in this part of their creative process for the song. The things Lennon conjured up in his head for that interview never happened and probably was due to his discouragement at how his career was turning at that point. I've never blamed Ono for breaking up the Beatles. I think the Lennon we all saw in the mid to late seventies was her doing, but not when he was still in the band. In fact, I've seen other video of Linda Eastman adding her two cents in where it wasn't probably needed. She could be seen as "Yoko"ing Paul with her opinions too. The Beatles broke up because George was tired of only getting his allotted two songs on an album. There's another moment in the documentary where he bemoans the fact to John that he has enough songs to fulfill his part of the next 10 Beatles albums. You can sense his frustration at this fact and the result would be "All Things Must Pass". And he's right, the first two albums in that three album release are all quality songs that would have made his statement prophetic.
4
« on: November 09, 2021, 12:57:55 PM »
The Woman in the Window (1944) 78/100 - Engaging film with great all around performances that is only let down by the weak plot device at the end. Joan Bennett was an actress that Fritz Lang used in a few of his films from the forties, so he must have liked her. We've all heard the old Hollywood adage, "The camera just loves her", and for the most part, this is true with Bennett. But there were a few times, when she was filmed in right profile and the results were less than flattering. I'm surprised that such a seasoned director would not catch that in the dailies. Don't get me wrong, Joan Bennett was an attractive woman, but those times I mentioned, it reminded me of that running gag on a Seinfeld episode, where Jerry's girlfriend looked completely different when the lighting changed. Another thing that was an amusing side attraction to the film, was the use of two child actors from the Our Gang series in brief roles. At the beginning of the film, Mickey Gubitosi (Robert Blake) is cast as Robinson's son. About midway through the picture, a newsreel film is shown with a pudgy boy scout with a noticeable lisp. The boy scout was played by George "Spanky" McFarland. As the story moved along, I was in high anticipation of seeing Alfalfa, Froggy or Buckwheat make an appearance.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
5
« on: July 16, 2021, 04:37:13 AM »
Kansas City Confidential (1952) 75/100 - For 90 minutes this film slowly and methodically moved its way up to the top tier of the noir/crime films I've ever seen. But then, in the last 3 minutes, it shits the bed completely. I couldn't figure out how the story was going to play out and obviously, neither did the director or the screenwriter. Maybe it was the Hays office that made them tack on such a saccharine ending, and if that's so, then we the film loving community were robbed of what could have been considered a masterpiece if they could have kept the edginess that purveyed throughout the story, all the way to the end.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
6
« on: July 12, 2021, 01:23:17 AM »
A Film Unfinished (2010) 84/100 – It’s been a very long time since a film disturbed me as much as this one did. I’ve watched many films & television shows about the Nazi “Final Solution”, but those were made after the war had ended. The film used in this documentary, was shot by German photographers for an unfinished propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto. Four reels of film without a soundtrack, just a silent testimony to one of the darkest moments in mankind’s history. The purpose of that propaganda film was to juxtapose the positions of the different classes of Jews living in the ghetto and the hypocrisy of the wealthy and their indifference to the suffering that surrounded them. It’s all manipulated by the SS and there’s a surreal sense of morbidity amongst the faces of the various Jewish “actors” who are forced to participate.
When the film focuses on the footage from the ghetto, it horrifies, nauseates and makes you squirm in your seat. When it turns to the actor re-creations of testimony from one of the cameramen who testified at war crime trials in the sixties, it loses its focus. The inclusion of these scenes doesn’t make any sense and really adds nothing to the narrative except a similar sense of manipulation on the director’s part. One of the most fascinating aspects of this documentary is the “found” footage of outtakes from the 30 day film shoot. It allows you to bear witness to the staging of scenes for the cameramen and just how much effort was spent on its production.
In the end, one has to wonder why Goebbels never had the film completed. If you look at it from the chronology, maybe Goebbels was finally told by Himmler about the Final Solution. The production and filming took place in May of 1942, five months after the Wannsee Conference. By then, there was no need to placate the thoughts and feelings of those Germans who still had a conscience. The Nazi juggernaut was still rolling, but soon to be slowed at Stalingrad. Or maybe Goebbels saw no need to add another layer of guilt upon the populace as the German tide was being turned.
As I mentioned earlier, the subject matter is extremely disturbing. And more than likely, this is a one and done for me. But there is one moment I have to share with you. It’s towards the end of the film and on the fourth reel, they’re showing what was done with the daily deliverance of the dead from the sidewalks of the streets. One of the survivors is shown watching the film. She averts her eyes many times as the bodies are slid down a makeshift slide into a mass grave. She finally thrusts her head forward and utters the following line as she bursts into tears, "I'm so happy I am human again and can cry.".
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
7
« on: March 21, 2021, 12:51:43 AM »
The Right Stuff (1983) 55/100 - A great film when it focused on Yeager and Edwards Air Force base. Then it starts to take liberties with the truth when it switches to the seven Mercury astronauts. At this point, it downgrades from great to a good film. After Alan Shepard's sub-orbital flight into the upper atmosphere, it assassinates the character of a man who died in Apollo 1 and wasn't around to defend himself after the film's release. There's a reason why Gus Grissom was selected as the commander of the first Gemini and Apollo flights. He was regarded by the other six Mercury astronauts as the most talented pilot and engineer of the group. And it is here where I found the film reprehensible. The last hour becomes a bloated mess of garbage.
I remember my father coming home from the theater after seeing it in its initial run and he sang nothing but praise for it. But he really didn't know the history of early manned space flight like I did. Growing up in the sixties, I lived, slept, ate and breathed everything NASA. So when it came on HBO a year later, I sat and watched it with him. I didn't know much about Chuck Yeager, so I really liked that section of the film. But when it turned to NASA, I started pointing out the mistakes being made by the director, to him. When it got to Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 sub-orbital flight, I nearly blew a gasket. When the film was finished, I asked him if he still felt the same way about it as he did after seeing it in the theater. He shook his head and said no. I kind of felt bad for ruining the film for him, but if you're going to make a historical film, especially about something so special, you don't get to take "liberties" with the story. This film does not deserve the praise that is heaped upon it.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
8
« on: March 18, 2021, 02:55:22 AM »
The Big Country (1958) 84/100 - When one hears western film fans talk about the great films of the genre, William Wyler's grand epic is very rarely mentioned. I've watched this film on very many occasions, because it has a few things I deem necessary for a film to be considered a classic. I'll start to watch it, with no intention of sitting through the nearly 3 hour running time, but I get drawn in. Not only does it have a good screenplay, but you get to watch two supporting actors steal the film whenever they are onscreen. I can't think of any other actor who so richly deserved an Academy Award for a performance as Burl Ives did in this film. Each time I watch it, I marvel at how at ease he is and how much depth he pours into his portrayal. The other actor would go on to lasting fame on the small screen on the seminal TV western, The Rifleman. In that show, Chuck Connors played a righteous man who shared a ranch with his young son. In this film, he plays the opposite kind of character, a drinking, womanizing, lying and in the end, cowardly cowboy. The scenes and the dialog between Ives' and Connors' characters are the most electrifying moments in the story. With each successive viewing, I bump it up a bit in my rating. More people should see this, it's one of Wyler's best.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
9
« on: March 05, 2021, 03:01:42 AM »
Sergeant Rutledge (1960) 50/100 - For the life of me I cannot understand the amount of respect and admiration afforded to John Ford by cinephiles around the world. For every good film he made, you have to endure half a dozen mediocre or truly bad films. This one falls somewhere between mediocre and bad, the only saving grace being Woody Strode's performance as the title character. The rest of the cast have all kicked up an extra notch in histrionics and over the top melodramatics. One of the key roles in the film is the prosecuting attorney Captain Shattuck, played by Carleton Young. The name may not sound familiar, but two years later, in a much better Ford western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he utters the best line of dialog in the film; "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." But here it seems like he had spent a few too many nights with a grandchild watching Snidely Whiplash from the Dudley Do-Right segments of the Rocky & Bulwinkle Show. If he had worn a mustache, I expect he would have twirled it a few times when he hurled accusations at Rutledge on the stand. While I applaud Ford for taking a stance against racial inequality, all while segregation was the standard in a good portion of the country, one has to wonder why he felt the need to have one of the minor characters seem as if he was one of Stepin Fetchit's ancestors. It was as if Ford just couldn't go all in on the storyline and had to have one minstrel type character to appease those with small minds. As the film was winding down I felt myself asking the question, "How could he make such a seminal western two years later, when it appears his directing abilities are on life support here?" I have six more Ford westerns to sit through in the next few weeks and I thought that this was going to be the best of the bunch. Well, you know what they say about one rotten apple in a bunch. I hope I'm wrong.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
10
« on: February 25, 2021, 12:41:36 AM »
'Doc' (1971) 62/100 - I thought I had seen every offering of the OK Corral shootout, but this film popped up on my YouTube suggestion page. If you can suspend disbelief in regards to the historical aspects, and that suspension would be have to be strong enough to build a bridge with, this was an OK movie (pun intended). There’s only one aspect of the film that is truthful, and that’s that Holliday suffered from tuberculosis. And in sporadic moments of the screenplay, that fact is tossed in to pad out the narrative. There’s really no stand out performance and Dunaway is wasted on a clichéd and poorly written character. She really only gets one good line in the film, but it is the best line of dialogue in the movie. When one of the Earp wives comes to the house where she lives "in sin" with Holliday, to talk her into becoming more “respectable”, her retort of “If I’m kneelin’, I’m definitely not prayin’”, is priceless.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
11
« on: February 23, 2021, 03:48:42 AM »
Ladybug Ladybug (1963) 78/100 - If you were born after 1970 this film probably would not do anything for you and would appear extremely anachronistic. But if you remember those "Duck, and Cover" short films they'd show you every once in a while in grammar school, then this will resonate strongly. Made in the year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film deals with the paranoia and fear every one of us lived with in the foreboding days of the Cold War. In some ways, it pre-dates Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe as a psychological treatise on the impending doom off all out nuclear war. But being a small budget indie film, this one builds the tension through small instances of perceived imminent annihilation. It reminded me a bit of The Lord of the Flies and somewhat of an episode of The Twilight Zone. The acting, most of which focuses on children is par for the course in terms of when it was made. Some of the kids are good, some are wooden. The standout performance is from Marilyn Rogers, who should have gone on to bigger and better things.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
12
« on: December 23, 2020, 01:31:13 AM »
Merrily We Live (1938) 68/100 - It has its moments, but the inconsistencies in the screenplay keep it from coming even close to classic status. The premise would work with a bit better timing by some of the actors. But it's worth it just to watch Clarence Kolb steal every scene he's in. The scene with the staircase is priceless as I thought for sure it was a stuntman standing in for Kolb. But in this one extended scene when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns around and you see its Kolb, you're amazed that a man his age, could pull off such a great bit of physical comedy. I'd only recommend this film for his performance, he shows some of the skills that made him such a successful vaudevillian comedian for close to 40 years, prior to his film career.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
13
« on: December 18, 2020, 12:50:29 PM »
The American Experience: Freedom Riders (2010) 85/100 - You just can't beat PBS when it comes to making entertaining, educating & enlightening documentaries. For me, this program and their Nature program are the two best shows they offer. This episode delved into the civil rights protest that began in Washington D.C. and ended in New Orleans in 1961. Started by a relatively new group to the movement, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), two small groups of blacks and whites would take a trip through the Deep South on Greyhound and Trailways buses to challenge the segregationist policies that had been outlawed by the Supreme Court in the landmark Brown-vs-The Board of Education case in 1954. Although the southern states had complied in their educational systems to the mandate, separate but equal segregation was still deeply entrenched in all other aspects of daily life in the Deep South. Lunch counters, rest rooms, hotels and in this case waiting rooms in bus terminals were still divided according to a person's racial background. The documentary delves deep into the many aspects of their protest. The training in the beginning to the riders to what seems to them a tolerable level of abuse which would be hurled at them by southern whites. It also touches upon their naiveté alongside their courage to embark on such a trip, without any protection as they plied a non-violence approach to the protest. Looking back at it now, you have to wonder if today's youth could muster up the courage that these people showed, especially once they reached Alabama. If you know nothing about this event from the early Kennedy years, this is a great place to start.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
14
« on: October 02, 2020, 10:44:14 PM »
Dementia (1955) 65/100 - After I finished watching this, I perused a few reviews on various websites and a lot of people mentioned David Lynch being influenced by this. I haven't seen enough of Lynch's films to comment either way, but I got a vibe of L.A. Confidential. You get the seedy side of Hollywood, with the gamin being portrayed for a moment as a call girl, the twisted cops following her and the pimp. Was it scary, not at all. In fact, there were moments where I almost turned off the sound, because as talented as Marni Nixon was, hearing her wail like a banshee for minutes on end, started to grate on my nerves. It has its moments, but at an economical 61 minutes, there's just not enough to keep it interesting.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
15
« on: September 20, 2020, 12:36:44 AM »
A Page of Madness (1926) 65/100 - This must have been a hell of an experience to view in 1926. Some truly amazing camera work, but without the use of a Benshi narration, it's just a series of rapid fire edits with no narrative. As I was watching I thought of someone with a deck of cards, rifling through them with one finger and they all had pictures of insane people on them.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is
|
Show Posts