The 400 Blows, François Truffaut’s first feature film, does a wonderful job at capturing adolescence — and every minute of it will ring true for people who weren’t always on their best behaviour when they were kids. It’s one of Roger Ebert’s Great Movie picks: “The 400 Blows (1959) is one of the most intensely touching stories ever made about a young adolescent. Inspired by Truffaut’s own early life, it shows a resourceful boy growing up in Paris and apparently dashing headlong into a life of crime.” (Don’t read the whole review unless you’ve already seen the film.) Whether or not you relate to the main character, it’s difficult not to feel sympathy for him because although he gets into trouble, he’s not a bad kid; he’s just surrounded by stupid adults, at home, at school, everywhere. There isn’t much story to The 400 Blows, but it’s so well directed and acted and it all feels so genuine, it’s perfectly enjoyable just the way it is.
Doubt will undoubtedly make it to many Top 10 lists for 2008. Meryl Streep and/or Philip Seymour Hoffman will be nominated for an Academy Award for sure. But even with an intelligent script and outstanding performances, Doubt is probably too slow and serious for many viewers. It’s about a nun who accuses a Catholic priest of doing some bad things with a young boy even though she doesn’t have any conclusive proof that harm has been done. Who’s in the right? Who’s in the wrong? I don’t know. But it’s a good movie.
In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt is born an old man and ages backwards until he becomes a child. As an old man with the emotional maturity of an adolescent, he can’t go around hitting on teenage girls, so his first sexual experiences are with older women. He’s attracted to a teen aged Cate Blanchett, but he has to wait for her to grow older and for his physical self to become younger in appearance before he can act on his feelings. If they have a relationship, how long can it last if she’s becoming an old woman while he’s becoming a child? These are just some of the problems he’s up against. And I have to admit it makes for one hell of an interesting movie. The old-looking Brad Pitt is unrecognisable at first, but slowly his eyes and his mouth become more defined, his voice changes, his tiny, bent decrepit body begins to straighten out and take on muscle mass. The transformation is bizarre — it plays out with a fantastic quality like a fairytale — yet Pitt’s understated performance makes it seem real and sympathetic. For those able to go along with it, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is well worth the price of admission. Personally, I was too distracted by his ageing backwards to get caught up in the emotional undercurrents of the story, but I suspect I may have a higher opinion of the movie when I get around to watching it again someday. And I know I will.
From the DVDTalk review of Charade: “Possibly the slickest and most commercial romantic thriller of the 1960s… The movie is a perfect entertainment machine for its time…” The story has Audrey Hepburn chased by some bad guys after a fortune her murdered husband stole from them. Cary Grant befriends her, but is he one of the bad guys? It’s fun to wonder what’s really going on and to take in all the witty dialogue between the two leads. Charade is somewhat dated but always entertaining because it’s impossible to take any of it seriously.
I saw Kung-Fu Panda last night and I regret not seeing it while it was still in theatres. It’s easily the most entertaining animated movie I’ve seen in 2008. My brother said something like this about it: “Kung-Fu Panda is an animated film about a panda who loves Kung-Fu and has to learn it in a hurry to save his village from his master’s nemesis. I recommend it for kids and adults. The story is simple but engaging, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. The action scenes are incredible, intense, fast, and fun — it could make you dizzy. The animation is well done. I took my seven-year-old daughter who laughed out loud at parts, as I did (although different parts). She wasn’t scared during the intense, dark scenes. We both recommended it.”
It looks like I’m one of the few who doesn’t hate The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 2008 remake with Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly about an alien who comes to earth to delivery the message: “Stop destroying your planet or we’re going to kick your ass.” (At the moment, it’s getting 24% at Rotten Tomatoes.) The special effects look good and Keanu Reeves wooden acting style is appropriate for his character who isn’t human. The story is interesting, though overall it doesn’t gel because the filmmakers focus too much on special effects than plot. And it’s not nearly as stupid as Independence Day or anything directed by Michael Bay. So even though it doesn’t really hit the mark, it’s not a bad effort. I don’t mind it.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, is with little doubt the work of a masterful director, but that doesn’t make it everyone’s cup of tea. Jack Nicholson is hired to take care of a giant hotel in the mountains during the winter off-season with his wife and young son. Cabin fever kicks in and everyone starts going a little coo-coo until Jack goes after his family with an ax. That’s what happens, but don’t ask me what it means. From DVD Talk: “The film is really all about atmosphere. Some of the scenes are rather confusing and out-there, but the film remains terrifying for how tense Kubrick is able to make things with his use of visuals and music.” I’m not sure I’d call it terrifying either, but Kubrick is so damn good with his camera, even with something that seems entirely nihilistic as this, it’s hard to look away.
Check out the re-worked trailer that makes it seem like different kind of movie altogether.
Touching the Void is a documentary about a mountain climber who breaks his leg on a frozen mountainside and has to find his way back down to a base camp where he hopes his friends haven’t already left him for dead. It’s intense. Some may argue Touching the Void is not a documentary because it makes extensive use of recreations, but if the recreations are more affective in telling the story, then so what. James Berardinelli writes, “[It] doesn’t take long for suspension of disbelief to kick in with a vengeance. In fact, the recreations are done so well that we often forget we’re not watching a filmed chronicle of events…” We know the guy lived to tell the tale because the film incorporates present day interviews with everyone who was there, but that does nothing to ease the tension of watching it unfold. Touching the Void is immediate and perhaps even profound because I don’t know how anyone can watch it and not wonder what the hell they’d do in the same situation. I’m fairly confident most of us would be dead.
Kingdom of the Spiders starring William Shatner (just before the first Star Trek movie) is so incredibly bad it’s good — and then it’s bad again. Shatner is a cowboy / veterinarian who ends up fighting thousands of killer tarantulas that invade a dusty desert town where no one can run away fast enough to escape them. The first 20 minutes are hilarious. Then it’s just tedious. Words can’t describe it. Check out the opening scene from YouTube. Nuff said.
Jimmy Stewart plays a retired investigator in Vertigo who falls in love with a woman he’s been asked to spy on and then becomes obsessed with her. My problem is I just don’t believe anyone would act the way people do in this movie. Jimmy Stewart’s silly floating head during his dream sequence doesn’t help either, and Kim Novak looks like a clown in the second half of the movie. It’s worth a look to study Hitchchock’s direction, but most of the movie is tedious and melodramatic.
I won’t say anything about the story of Dracula because, like Frankenstein, everyone pretty much knows how it goes. And seeing how I had the same kind of reaction to Dracula as I did to Frankenstein, I’ll copy-and-paste almost word-for-word from my comments about Frankenstein. Here goes: The original Dracula from 1931 starring Bela Lagosi may be the kind of classic that gets better with each analysed viewing, but it didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t completely bored out of my skull, but I wasn’t too entertained or engaged either. It’s not a silent movie, but there’s no musical score and the acting style is exaggerated like in silent movies. Splash some intertitles on the screen, turn down the volume and have a pianist play along to the action and you’ve got yourself a fun silent movie. I’m trying to watch more movies from the ’30s, but they all seem kind of strange to me, an awkward hold-over from the silent movie era. I’m not sure what to think of them.
The original Frankenstein from 1931 starring Boris Karloff as the monster may be the kind of classic that gets better with each analysed viewing, but it didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t completely bored out of my skull, but I wasn’t too entertained or engaged either. It’s not a silent movie, but there’s no musical score and the acting style is exaggerated like in silent movies. Splash some intertitles on the screen, turn down the volume and have a pianist play along to the action and you’ve got yourself a fun silent movie. I’m trying to watch more movies from the ’30s, but they all seem kind of strange to me, an awkward hold-over from the silent movie era. I’m not sure what to think of them.
Glengarry Glen Ross is a pleasure to watch just for the excellent performances. It’s about a group of real estate agents given an ultimatum to meet a certain quota or lose their jobs. Alec Baldwin is the boss who deliveries the news like a drill sergeant (he has a similar role in The Departed). Jack Lemmon plays a sad and pathetic salesman (parodied as Gil on “The Simpsons”). Al Pacino is a slick agent who sells Jonathan Pryce property by getting him drunk, who comes in sorrowfully the next day asking to get out of the deal; it’s painful to watch the guy squirm as Pacino tries to save the deal by pretending to be his friend. Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and Kevin Spacey give equally impressive performances. Glengarry Glen Ross is an actor’s movie, and a good one.
The YouTube video shows Alec Baldwin’s entire performance (contains profanity).
I saw Tarantula a week ago and can’t remember any of it now. Let me think… Right, a mad scientist creates a solution that makes all kinds of critters grow and grow and grow. One of the critters is a tarantula that walks slowly across the landscape and somehow manages to kill people who just stand and scream instead of run away. (I know, it both baffles and boggles the mind.) And… that’s about it. It’s pretty bad even for B-movie standards.
I watched the middle section of Mr. and Mrs. Smith on commercial TV at a friend’s house a few weeks ago and enjoyed the shoot-em-up action sequences. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have chemistry and Pitt isn’t a bad comic actor. I rented the DVD last night thinking I’d see more of the same, but I didn’t. I had to shut it off about 20 minutes before the end. The best part is when the two of them start shooting at each other and destroy their house. Otherwise, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is in the same class as Ocean’s 12.
Jean de Florette was originally 4 hours long. Instead of cutting essential scenes, the director, Claude Berri, split off the second half and called it Manon of the Spring (a.k.a. Jean de Florette - Part 2). But he didn’t have to. Anyone who watches the first part of the story will want to go on to the second part immediately. Fans of Cinema Paradiso or Antonia’s Line will love it. I can’t say much more without giving it away, but it is a gorgeous film, full of engaging characters and a story that builds in its intensity and doesn’t let up until the very last scene. I wanted to go back to the beginning and watch it all over again as soon as it was finished. (Read the reviews I’ve linked to if you want to know the story, but don’t read too much. It’s best to go in just knowing you’re going to see a wonderful film.)
Quantum of Solace is a sloppy action movie that uses fast-edits to compensate for poor direction — and it doesn’t work. The action scenes are disorienting and uninvolving. Even die-hard James Bond fans might have trouble caring about anything that happens this time around. After 30 minutes of car chases, explosions, knife fights, gun fights, fist fights, etc., I couldn’t tell who James Bond was after or why. I got near the end of the movie and still didn’t know what the bad guy was all about. Daniel Craig is fine as 007. The story could have been exciting in the hands of more skilled filmmakers. But it wasn’t. It isn’t. Quantum of Solace is boring and forgettable. Skip it.
The Incredible Shrinking Man is an okay B-movie, notable only because of the special effects. A guy is enveloped by an ominous cloud while out on a pleasure cruise. Six month later he slowly begins to shrink. That’s it. There’s your movie. Eventually the guy has to live in a doll house. His cat attacks him. He escapes to the basement where, even smaller, he lives in a match box, washes under a dripping hot water tank, tries to steal food from a mouse trap, runs away from a spider — that kind of thing. It’s worth a look for the cutting-edge 1957 special effects, but it’s lacking in every other regard (even for a B-movie).
The entire movie can be viewed online at guba.com (I’ve never heard of it either).
The Creature from the Black Lagoon may be the best creature-feature B-movie I’ve seen since the original King Kong. Dramatically, it’s not in the same league as King Kong, but it’s a good action movie with enough thrills and surprises so it never gets boring. The DVD Talk synopsis (edited): “Starry-eyed scientist David Reed, adventurer-investor Mark Williams and curvaceous Kay penetrate the Black Lagoon to search for a full fossil to match the skeletal claw discovered by professor Carl Maia. But what greets them is an aquatic man-fish that takes an instant liking to the way Kay fills out a contoured swimsuit. The Gill Man decimates the supporting cast while the leads argue the best way to capture it; after he blocks their exit from the Lagoon, the wily Devonian goes a step further and claims Kay as a romantic spoil of war.” The underwater scenes (impressive even by today’s standards) are exciting and especially creepy when the The Gill Man follows the “curvaceous Kay” while she’s swimming. The creature may be a guy in a rubber suit, but it’s a pretty damn affective rubber suit. (more…)
20 Million Miles to Earth comes off as an attempt recreate 1933’s King Kong but with a half-lizard man from Venus. The stop-motion animation scenes of Mr. Lizard are fun, and some of the acting is so bad it’s hilarious, but there are too many boring filler scenes. The story never takes off. Not enough attention is given to the most interesting character: the lizard man. Watching a movie like 20 Million Miles to Earth, which was made in 1957, makes me appreciate the original King Kong even more.
The 400 Blows, François Truffaut’s first feature film, does a wonderful job at capturing adolescence — and every minute of it will ring true for people who weren’t always on their best behaviour when they were kids. 
It’s one of Roger Ebert’s Great Movie picks: “The 400 Blows (1959) is one of the most intensely touching stories ever made about a young adolescent. Inspired by Truffaut’s own early life, it shows a resourceful boy growing up in Paris and apparently dashing headlong into a life of crime.” (Don’t read the whole review unless you’ve already seen the film.) Whether or not you relate to the main character, it’s difficult not to feel sympathy for him because although he gets into trouble, he’s not a bad kid; he’s just surrounded by stupid adults, at home, at school, everywhere. There isn’t much story to The 400 Blows, but it’s so well directed and acted and it all feels so genuine, it’s perfectly enjoyable just the way it is.
I saw 