chesterfilms

the first popular release from the rankin-bass team. narrated by the great burl ives who also sings the famous title song and silver & gold. fantastic characters like hermey the elf who would rather be a dentist, yukon cornelius the self-proclaimed "greatest prospector in the north", the abominable snowmonster (a.k.a., "Bumble"), and all the misfit toys. nothing says childhood christmas like claymation.

i can't remember the first time I saw this special. I just remember always knowing about it. everything works so well. directed by chuck jones who is most famous for his work on the loony tunes shorts. you can see the similarity between some of his loony tunes from that period. especially from the roadrunner and coyote stuff. narrated and voiced by the iconic boris karloff, and the fantastically whimsical song lyrics and story by dr. seuss. it's a wonderfully redemptive story that always seems to stay relevant each year.

control is a biopic of ian curtis, singer for the late seventies band joy division. anton corbijn, who makes his feature film debut is best known for his photography and music videos. control is beautifully shot in black and white, and each shot is composed like much of corbijn's rock photography. this is anything but the feelgood movie of the summer. curtis was a troubled kid who suffered from epilepsy, and ultimately killed himself at the young age of 23. sam riley and samantha morton give fantastic performances as ian and deborah curtis. morton is especially good and is able to pull off playing a 17 year old (she is thirty). they give two of the best performances of the year. the film focuses more on curtis than on the band, but there are some great performance sequences, and they found actors who look exactly like the members of joy division. it's a downer, but a very good film.

I consider myself a film snob, but the truth is i love movies so much that i give most of anything a chance. when i heard they were making a movie based on the stephen king story "the mist", i was very apprehensive about it. i really like king's books, but many of his films have not turned out to be good adaptations. i loved shawshank redemption,misery, & the shining (kubrick's version), and the green mile, but not so much of the rest. hope sprung forth when i heard that frank darabont (shawshank & green mile) would be writing and directing. then i saw the trailer for the mist. i completely wrote it off, but like always i end up watching these things.

it's a story where a military experiment goes wrong. and a handful of towns people become trapped in a supermarket as a "mist" rolls in to town. they can't leave, because as soon as someone leaves the building, they are attacked by some unworldly creature. the set up was ok. the cast was doing a fine job, but then about 45 minutes into it it began to unravel. marcia gay harden plays an over the top, typical to king, religious crazy lady. horrible special effects, and changes from the original story started to upset me . Than two thirds through the film it became interesting and actually creepy things started happening. darabont is a good director, so his shots and performances are more interesting than a less experienced director. still, it kept a b-movie feel throughout the film.

the end of the film was completely unexpected, dark and unsettling. it was very different from the original story, but it was really ballsy. i'm giving it a 3 out of 5. not a bad film at all, but i'm not really excited about ever seeing it again.

although the 1994 remake is a charming, it lacks the magic of the original. with edmund gwenn as what may be the greatest santa in movie history, miracle's strength lays in it's cast. the beautiful maureen o'hara and the soft and sweet natalie wood. it's very inspirational and still holds up today.

it's not only my second favorite christmas movie, but it's one of my favorite movies of all time. it's almost cliché now, but the story of how one person can affect the lives of so many others is awesome to me. capra and stewart are at the top of their craft here. it's on every year. we have all seen it, but it never loses it's power. the final scene never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

i have never had much to say about michael bay. as one of hollywood's most profitable hacks, he continues to to bore me with nonstop action and has the ability to keep me utterly confused. with his constant use of 2 second cuts and shaky camera that is all the rage. anyway, today being december 7th and the 66th anniversary of the attack on pearl harbor, i thought it might be a good idea to take a look at what i like to consider a very irresponsible and exploitive sequence from mr. bays film.

lets just hope no one lets him direct 911. maybe he could do a pov of one of the planes hitting the building, or follow people down as the buildings collapse. i am not against historical films, or even recreating disasters, but there are respectable ways of doing it. i thought greengrass handled united 93 wonderfully, and even though i am not a huge fan of stone's world trade center, i felt he took care in his decisions.

Takes the universal monsters formula and turns it into a great comedy. Very fun cast!

It didn't feel so much like 3 shorts, but one film telling 3 stories. Love is the underlining theme of them all. Finding, losing, and wanting love. It's a very minimal film with very little dialog. The first story (Meant To Be) is the story of a man who's wife is in the hospital. After she passes he must cope with his lost love. So In Love follows two young girls falling in love with other, and Finding Love deals with a security guard who is falling for a woman who works in the same building as he does. He can't share his feelings with her. He feels unworthy of her because of his weight. I never really connected with any these stories. They were all three a slice of life with no back story. That part worked, but I just did not really care about any of them. Maybe I was in to good of a mood at the time to be brought down, or maybe I just didn't give it a chance. I know a second viewing will determine my final thoughts, but I'm just not sure I will ever be in the mood again.

Along Came Jones stars Gary Cooper plays Melody Jones who is a clumsy and clueless cowpoke mistaken for a ruthless outlaw, Monte Jarrad. The beautiful Loretta Young plays Coopers object of affection. Jones is having the time of his life being feared because of his mistaken identity, but soon changes his tune when he learns of the bounty on his head. Jones is hunted down by Jarred, a private investigator, and Jarred's former partners. With a smart script that is both funny and action packed, Along Came Jones is an overlooked Western gem.

What a breath of fresh air. It's always a joy to find a film that feels this real. Four men driving through the Iranian mountains come upon an unusual rock sticking out of the ground. Determined to push it off of the cliff, they begin to attract other drivers. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this film really made no effort to make much of a statement on other topics. It was a pretty straight forward story, that stayed focused on these four men. I am always impressed to see a movie look this good when it is not shot on film. The location was beautiful and it gave the film an even more realistic feel. Men At Work's greatest moment is the final shot. I won't give it away, but it perfectly brings this story to an end in a way that proves the power of a simple story.

It may not go down as one of the great westerns, but it's just what the genre needs to kickstart some new life into it.

For some reason I had it in my head that because this film was Slovenian it would be bleak. I was correct. To be fair I have not seen a film with the subject matter of human trafficking that has been uplifting, and I never do expect it to be.

Ludvik was once a champion at race car driving, but has turned to smuggling illegal Croatian immigrants into Italy. It is a timely tale that should be addressed.

It's a well crafted, yet ugly & gritty film. I was interested in what was happening throughout this whole film but It never really took off. It's subject matter, compelling and at times & sometimes hard to watch never felt like it had an urgency to it, and yet I really wanted to watch it again after the first viewing. Will it grow on me? It's defiantly not a film that one could really enjoy watching. It's dark, depressing, and has a sad ending for most involved, yet I am drawn to a second viewing. Is that a sign of a good film? Perhaps I will post a second review after watching this with my wife.

You should have seen my eyes role when Forbidden Zone started. Seriously, this is really not my kind of movie. Silly, absurd.... wait....f unny?..... clever?... fun? This is what makes a camp film watchable. It must be fun, and Forbidden Zone is nothing but fun. I don't know why I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the music. The Pico & Sepulveda sequence was one of my favorite in the film. I drive on both Pico & Sepulveda almost everyday. It's like watching a movie when they reference your hometown or something like that. Forbidden Zone is also very smart. Maybe not to the casual viewer or someone not willing to give it a chance, but with references from Chaplin to Fleischer Brothers the film should keep cinefiles grinning from beginning to end.

I really hate this movie! It is just so damn stupid. I wasn't expecting a serious or thought provoking film, but I did expect some fun. Absolutely no enjoyment from this one. It's just so annoying and boring. Every performance is terrible, Fonda is phoning it in, and NO she is not sexy in this film. The famous opening scene is just clumsy and stupid. I realize this is not really a review, but a list of all the horrible things about this film. Believe be, I could go on and on.

Has the Christopher Guest troop ruined the chances of anyone making a mockumentary without accusations of ripping him off? I don't know, but I do know the makers of Closing Escrow love Guest's films. There are funny parts to Escrow but not at the level or constancy of what Guest does. I am realizing as I write this that it is imposable to see this film with out constantly thinking of him, but you have to force yourself to not compare the film to his. I guess in the end that is where Closing Escrow fails. Enjoyable, but a poor man's Guest.

Do all good things come in fours? Apparently not. Knowing that final cut was taken away from Oliver Hirschbiegel, (director of Downfall) I am hoping a directors cut will be released and it will be a completely different film. Much tighter and smarter, but the truth is I have no idea what was added or taken away from the film. The end product I saw could very well be close to what Hirschbiegel created, so I must take the film as it is.

From the beginning, The Invasion is an utter mess of a film. To much happens to fast. The beauty of the 1956 Don Siegel version (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, one of my favorite films) is it's pacing. It has a big exciting opening, but than relaxes and slowly builds into some sort of masterpiece. All 4 film have the same basic idea, and all deal with the problems of their time. In The Invasion it's the war in Iraq. And yet this time it doesn't really say anything important.

One of the biggest problems with the film for me is the acting. I was wondering if the zombie like state had affected the cast from the beginning of the film. This gives me reason to fear that Hirschbiegel is a bit more to blame than I want to.  The plot line was so predictable. Even though I know the story from the three other films, they failed to keep it interesting. The final straw for me was the ending. I can't go into it, but.....seriously. What the hell?

All in all The Invasion is not a Terrible film. There are far worse movies you could go out and watch right now, but it is a completely uninspired and dull story that maybe should just not be told again. At least we have the fantastic 1956 & 1978 versions to revisit and experience real tension and real terror.