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Almost as Good as The Magnifice ...
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smithco
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"I finally saw Seven Samurai. It is undoubtably a great film. Though by the intermission came around, I was thinking that it is not as good as The Magnificent Seven (1960) A lot of people may want to fit my neck for a rope for stating that, but that's what I was thinking. For me, comparing the two is an excercise in comparing great works. I hope that my opinion here is not constued as a dislike for Kuosawa's masterpiece. It seemed to me that The Magnificent Seven surpassed Seven Samurai in four areas. First is the pacing. I doubt anyone would notice if forty minutes were cut from Seven Samurai. There's a lot of scenes of people staring at each other, scenes that repeated exposition of the story, and a lot of extraneous battle preperation scenes. Generally, the pacing of The Magnificent Seven is a lot tighter: the same story is told just as effectively in much less time. Second is the dialogue. The snappy banter of the characters in The Magnificent Seven is very entertaining ... " [More]
Almost as Good as The Magnifice ...
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smithco
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"I finally saw Seven Samurai. It is undoubtably a great film. Though by the intermission came around, I was thinking that it is not as good as The Magnificent Seven (1960) A lot of people may want to fit my neck for a rope for stating that, but that's what I was thinking. For me, comparing the two is an excercise in comparing great works. I hope that my opinion here is not constued as a dislike for Kuosawa's masterpiece. It seemed to me that The Magnificent Seven surpassed Seven Samurai in four areas. First is the pacing. I doubt anyone would notice if forty minutes were cut from Seven Samurai. There's a lot of scenes of people staring at each other, scenes that repeated exposition of the story, and a lot of extraneous battle preperation scenes. Generally, the pacing of The Magnificent Seven is a lot tighter: the same story is told just as effectively in much less time. Second is the dialogue. The snappy banter of the characters in The Magnificent Seven is very entertaining ... " [More]
Eastern Promises Could Have Bee ...
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"Increasingly, I find myself losing patience with movies that fill themselves with violence and gore.Eastern Promises could have been a great movie. The directing is fine, the setting visually appealing and the acting is extrememly good. I stopped watching it after about twenty minutes. Every few minutes, there is a scene filled with gore and the gore prevented me from enjoying what should have been an otherwise great film.I think this sort of film begs the question, "Who is the sort of person who wants blood over a good story?" Is it some jevenile mindset? Or is it a severe desensitisation to what we should find horrifying? " [More]
Brillant and lousy all at the s ...
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"D.O.A. is an interesting film. On one side, Maté prioneered some brillant shots and the premise is absolutly genious. But, at the same time, it is a B-movie, and there are plot holes (since when did he carry a gun?) and the acting is overly melodaramatic. " [More]
A film with style and substance
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"A really enjoyed Sin City. It falls just short of a perfect score for me, but only a sliver short. The only flaw is the overuse of gratuitous gore. Had a few of the splatter scenes been done off camera, the film would be on my all time favourites list. I suppose directors all too often forget Hitchcock's lesson on how effective chocolate syrup can be. I have a hunch that this is all the result of including Tarentino as a "guest director". I never liked Tarentino's films, precisely because the guy has no understanding of how to convey violence with any subtlety.Aside from heavy use of blood and dismemberment, everything else in the film works fantastically. The style is original and unique. The recreation of the black and white with splashes of colours was risky. And, as we learned from films like A Scanner Darkly, it isn't enough to be different; a film that explores a new style has to pull it off amazingly well. Miller and Rogriguez recreated the comic's feel brilliantly ... " [More]
Not Nearly as Good as it Could ...
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"I found A Scanner Darkly to be a bit of a disappointment. It should have been a really great movie, but at the end, it wasn't anywhere near what it should have been. Before I continue, I should note that I saw this one on an airplane -- not the best viewing conditions. So take this critique with a grain of salt for that reason.I found that the story and the acting was very good. This is one of those rare instances where the presence of Keanu Reeves does not ruin the film. Heck, I was surprised to see that he actually turned in a decent performance, almost as good as the one from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. And the other actors were quite good too, all far better than usual. Though, it does speak to the quality of the casts' talents that they play stoners better than other roles.However, it wasn't long into the movie that I started to get distracted by two things. Firstly, it seemed that the sound engineering was botched. The actors were often speaking in low, conve ... " [More]
Is the ending worth it?
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"I really loved watching The Illusionist. Despite a somewhat predictable romance, it has great characters performed by some great actos.However, I was watching this one on the plane, and the plane landed just before the ending of the film! I got cut off just as the police chief was about to make his confrontation with the prince at the end of the movie. So, while I've almost all of the movie, I still haven't seen that last little bit.Is it worth renting this one just to catch the ending scene? Any non-spoiler reviews of the very end from those who have seen this one would be very much appreciated. P.S., I finally did catch the ending when it was cable the other day. As pointed out, the ending is predictable, but I did enjoy the way it was directed. I'm glad I finally saw the full film. " [More]
A Touch of Moustache
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"About 10 minutes in to watching Touch of Evil, a thought occurred to me: Charlton Heston doesn't look particularly Mexican. Most of the "Mexicans" are white actors with a little darkening make up and a silly sliver of a dark moustache. Quite frankly, the moustaches look ridiculous.Touch of Evil is a great movie, but the fake Mexican moustaches are distracting. " [More]
1967 - Year of the Definitive J ...
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"Hopefully the recent release of the new Casino Royale will prompt some to watch the 1967 version. Considering that so many Bond "fans" try to cover up the existence of this old classic, it may be that it stays buried. What a tragedy.You see, the 1967 production of Casino Royale is actually an art film. But it's an art film that is under no circumstances to be taken seriously. Every step of the way, the film is a strange combination of comedy, surreality, and just plain confusion, all built upon the improbability of the James Bond mythos. But, that's actually the point of the film. The whole thing is an exercise in craziness. The goal was to take the user from the comfortable convention of the English gentleman spy into a world that completely fails to hold any coherency. It does so slowly, at a walking pace. The layers of incomprehension are slowly added and woven in, all using the suspension of disbelief needed to enter into Bond's world in the first place.All too often C ... " [More]
The Sand Pebbles: Another Examp ...
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"The Sand Pebbles is one of those unconventional war movies that deserves far more recognition than it gets. Both for the performances and the matter that it treats. The eight Academy award nominations are well deserved, that it did not win any of them is very much undeserved.Once again, Steve McQueen turned out a brilliant acting job. A cool, quiet unassuming navy engineer with more backbone than any other sailor on the ship. If there's three things Steve played well in his career, its characters that are cool and quiet, characters with a lot of backbone, and making all those cool, quiet, steely characters unique. And it's not just Steve that pulled off a great performance in this one. In this film we get the shining performances from the supporting cast. In particular, we get to see a young Candice Bergen shine as the love interest. It's a good reminder that she was a talented actress prior to her career of poking fun at Dan Quayle.And the historical matter is quite intere ... " [More]
Steve McQueen can do No Wrong
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"I'll start off by putting my bias up front and centre. Steve McQueen and all his movies are great, without exception. So if you don't share that bias (though I can't imagine how), you may disagree with my thoughts here.Once again, The Cincinnati Kid has a great performance of cool from Steve, and this is being a movie about poker, cool is exactly the only way to play the role. Somehow, this film pulls off great drama from gambling, even though it does tend to hit the clichés a little hard here and there. And it doesn't at all hurt that there's lots of screen time dedicated to letting Ann-Margret and Tuesday Weld look good.My only gripe with this film is that the very beginning and the very end just do not fit with the rest of the film. This is a very rare occasion where Norm Jewison seems not to have gotten it right. The very start is a fast-paced escape scene. It's another great set of action-acting and some stunts from Steve; however, the fast paced action-packed entry ju ... " [More]
12 Angry Men is Great Cinema
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"12 Angry Men is one of the great exemplars of cinema. There are no car chases, no kung fu, no special effects and no love interest. The film is set nearly entirely in one jury room and all the excitement comes from the great performances and brillant deliveries of the actors. The film relies entirely on the talent of the actors, and not one of the twelve misplayed their parts. In this film, we also get to enjoy two of the great classic film actors play off each other; Henry Fonda and Ed Bagley create a lot of friction on screen and that generates a great drama. " [More]
MirrorMask is a Visual Masterpiece
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My Ponderings on Cinema
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"MirrorMask is absolutely one of the best films I've ever seen. It wasn't long after I started to watch the film that I realised that it is in no way a formulaic, Hollywood movie; it is not simply classified into a grenre and somewhat defies description. It is innovative and daring in its style.This movie is entirely built on a viual experience. In every scene, the colours, the sets and the backdrops are stunning and delightful. Every cinematographer needs to watch and study this one. And the visual aspects are paired agains a brilliant and very effective, gypsy-circus-jazz soundtrack.Here is a film that is fun, delightful and extraordinary. It deserves every accolade put upon it. And if nothing else, we should all uphold this film as an example of how great a film can be when the creators decide to throw away the tired, old, movie studio formulas. " [More]