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deejtee
Reviews
Triumph des Willens (1935)
1934... and it took 5 more years to notice a megalomaniac?
Stunning movie - with the benefit of between 11 and 70 years hindsight a stomach churning movie. I only hope that 'right thinking' people wanted to be sick in 1934 too. Certainly the speeches, let alone the OTT militaristic and leader worship imagery, make it only too clear what was to come. How come it DID take a further 5 years (7 years for slow starters) for other countries to notice - surely this movie wasn't just shown in Nazi sympathisers homes ???
As a work of art/propaganda a fantastic piece of work for any time let alone 1934. Just imagine what it would have looked like in colour!
Worth watching for anyone who hopes history won't repeat itself... but notices other national(istic) leaders enjoying the pomp of militaristic adulation and claiming 'god' is on their people's side.
Matchstick Men (2003)
It's a con job... (spoilers)
...that this movie has been rated highly.
Totally predictable culmination(s) to the movie.
Would have been fun if there had been some real fun along the way but there wasn't. Not worth the time though there have been worse (eg Captain Corelli's Mandolin springs to mind). 3/10.
I Capture the Castle (2003)
Charming entertaining and thoughtful 1930's romance
Had the pleasure of seeing a preview of this with the director and a producer at the Odeon Hemel Hempstead of all places on 8 May.
Do NOT be put off by the trailer shown on British cinema screens over the last few weeks - its poor technical image quality is NOT representative of the movie in any way. Instead watch the (presumably American) trailer on this site.
The central heroine - Cassandra - is a delightful new young actress and totally carries your interest through the movie and her convincing development from a naive teenager to a woman learning about the world and men.
Tremendous production values with some super rustic/castle scenery as well as a beautifully staged 1930s London environments make for an entertaining couple of hours likely to appeal to anyone from teens to OAPs (who remember this teens from the 1930s!).
Enjoy it while you can - though presumably as a BBC Films production it'll be on the small screen soon - big screens are better!
Nothing earth shattering but good ENTERTAINMENT!
Charlotte Gray (2001)
One of those movies the 2x 4x 8x 16x DVD button was created for
Not even worthy of a wet-Sunday afternoon C5 slot I'm afraid.
Take one gormless girl, add two competing handsome hunks (one home, one away), mix in a land of franglais where the locals say "good morning Madame" without a single sub-title and you wonder why the heroine had to know any French to become a spy... the kind of spy who keeps saying "what's your real name" while breaking the next person's cover and rushing up to warn the next safe house as the Bosche may or may not have got there before her.
Add in some duplicitous Vichy french (hiss hiss), some evil *ard Germans who even take Jewish children and you'll be wondering whatever made you rent twaddle like this.
Reminds me of that story of a very poor Anne Frank's Diary production where the audience were motivated to shout out 'she's in the Attic' when the German first came on stage.
I'd be shouting out Goodbye FilmFour if this is the best you can waste your production £££ on - and come to think of it unfortunately it was the best they could waste their £££ on and hence goodbye FilmFour :(
A shame...
Central do Brasil (1998)
Wonderful movie
If you ever need a movie to prove that a movie doesn't take a blond bombshell and a leading man that needs $10m to make it worthwhile then here it is.
Magnificent photography, a storyline that is SO based in a world of reality, and performances from the main two protaganists that are just WONDERFUL.
HOLA!
Regeneration (1997)
A movie about The Great War that is A Great Movie
Although based in a country house in Scotland, it has universal appeal as a movie to make you think about war and about PEOPLE and their personal experiences of it. Jonathan Pryce is MAGNIFICENT. Where is his Oscar, after all even the US had noticed there was a world war by 1997 !
D-Tox (2002)
D-Tox ? It's enough to make you take to the bottle again!
Remember Ice Station Zebra ? Well that movie had the excuse it was made over 30 years earlier. Add guns and snow and what do you get ? frozen stiff! Well that's the level of acting on display here in my view. And as for plot well I won't waste your time trying to explain it cuz frankly they don't waste your time on it in the movie either cuz it's rather simple.
I know the German chancellor gets upset if you talk about hair dye, but does Stallone in his late 50's get equally upset ?
This movie did nothing for me - I'm so glad I saw it on a DVD I won and didn't spend any of my own money on it.
Unfaithful (2002)
Saw free as a preview free - just as well it's worthless
SPOILERS coming up - but hey it was spoilt already.
Well I stayed to the end - some oldies left concerned that some of the sex scenes were becoming brutal. Wasn't a full cinema unlike many previews and I soon learne why.
Gaping holes in the narrative and pictures: eg (1) 'just phoning you to find out where you are' 'oh, come over' =hangup. Durh where ARE you ? (2) Oooo I feel SO sexy let's get in the bath with you - I will be wearing my swimming trunks though!!! [NOTE to film editor, just because the male lead is over 50 you don't have to show us he won't bare all!] (3) Lovely old fashioned worn unvanished creaky floorboards so they'll be completely impervious to any bloodstains as long as I spend a few minutes rinsing them with water (4) Laurel and Hardy are the cops prepared to drive an hour out of town (each way) on a weekend to make enquires about a murder, so if I say my wife's told you everything she knows after you prove she's lying with your second question, you'll just * off and leave us to our crass 1+1+1 family life while they go back to their stage comedy routine (5)
FILMGOERS: If you want to see how a family can be affected by distance (physical or mental etc) between the couple and their children and the affect a relationship and a death can have on them and what family members are prepared to do for each other then watch the MANY HUNDREDS times better THE DEEP END.
Crazy/Beautiful (2001)
Save your time and watch paint dry, now that's entertainment by comparison!
SPOILER : Guess what: Rich spoilt bitch meets all good wrong side of tracks guy - shake for 90 minutes and see where the fairy tale ends. Makes you understand why your DVD player has a 4x 8x 16x 32x button - just in case you weren't sure how it'd progress. Worst movie I've seen for years. Makes me want to reassess others I thought were poor now!
The Thin Red Line (1998)
At last - a war movie that makes you wonder how you'd cope.
A stunning movie. A whole host of characters, perfectly shot/edited and soundtracked.
At last a movie that makes you think. A movie that gives one an idea of how each individual soldier (and officer) has to cope in their own individual way with not just war but existing as a warrior, of fighting with his comrades, against 'an enemy' whose disposition and intentions you just do not know.
Only two slight blemishes for me with too well known actors appearing for total cameos: a 30 second grotesque John Travolta scene and a rather cliched 30 second George Clooney scene (although that WAS the intention of that scene, he carries way too much baggage to carry it off properly).
Can't imagine why I hadn't seen this before. One of the movie greats.
In the Bedroom (2001)
Saw this one week after The Son's Room and preferred that movie.
Strange how nothing like this comes along for years, then two appear at my local cinemas within a fortnight.
In the Bedroom has, like The Son's Room, a son's death as its central theme.
I did appreciate the acting in this and understand why it got award nomination recognition, but found overall the Son's Room an overall more satisfying (but disturbing) movie.
If you want to be reminded-of/alerted-to the sadness of children pre-deceasing their parents, then watch The Son's Room rather than this.
The Shipping News (2001)
Competent movie that entertains but never involves.
A movie that's filmed in 'overcast' with a hero whose life is 'overcast'.
Competently done, with only a few jarring non-sequiturs (eg driving a car at speed in an unknown heavily snowed/iced landscape just feet from vertical cliffs, when next morning the local town has no snow), but without any real ENGAGEMENT for me.
I watched, I was entertained, but I never truly believed in the central character. As I saw it as a freebie from The Independent newspaper, I don't resent paying zilch to see it, but wouldn't go out of my way to watch it, knowing now what it's like.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
A competently made movie but hardly Oscar worthy
It was only when I left the Cinema that I realised I'd been in there for nearly 2.25hrs, so that must be a sign that the movie wasn't dragging, however to me this wasn't a movie worthy of Oscar nominations.
Russell Crowe certainly acts a different role to his 'Gladiator' one, but personally I couldn't identify much with either his genius in economic theory (which was perhaps 30 seconds of the film) or why he was worthy of a residential ivy league professorship when acting barking mad.
Entertaining but not great cinema.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
2001 version of the 2WW movie pap they produced in the 1950s
I made the mistake of watching this utter pap soon after watching a REALLY good movie about the Italian 2nd World War years and the frailty of an italian male faced with a beautiful women - ie Malena.
For some reason the DVD I watched seemed to have cut the scenes where the Germans eat babies for breakfast while the Italians sing high opera and the locals enjoy another day of sunlit island paradise (while a few of their sons gnash their teeth about the infidel invaders), but you just knew the scene was coming any moment now!
Hopelessly miscast leading figures, a completely creaky plot line and direction that varies between glossy travelogue and amateur war movie does NO justice to any of the Italians who were massacred on the island.
eg Penelope Cruz's has a 20+ year crush on a local fisherman but never found out he couldn't read/write! Enough said.
I hated it and was in 2* 4* 8* 16* speed mode by the time the German stukas precision bombed the areas around the heros...
2 out of 10.
Malèna (2000)
Engrossing and beautifully photographed successor to Cinema Paradiso
When I saw Cinema Paradiso about ten years ago I was captivated. Little did I know that the director would return to a similar story in 2000 and outdo my expectations again.
An intriguing story that follows the love, lust and confusion of a Sicilian teenager as he matures from 'short-shorts' to long trousers during the Second World War years.
Setting the global WW2 background in radio newscasts, the town society and gossip is beautifully captured both visually and orally as the years pass by.
Your thoughts run from the naive teenager to the mother-hen-pecked local lawyer to the old deaf schoolmaster.
Underlying it all is the reaction of the town - polarised between the lustful men and the jealous women to the beautiful wife of an Italian officer. A division seen from the eyes of the teenager as his trouser length grows and the adherence to Il Duce waxes and wanes.
As I say, if you thought Cinema Paradiso was good, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen Malena. Wonderful (Italian) cinema.
PS Oh and surprisingly the Italians speak a language called ITALIAN so we Brits have to read the English subtitles - and a damn fine thing too!
Thirteen Days (2000)
Showed me why I was glad to be a child at the time of the crisis.
An interesting story line (presumably largely based on history) but came across as a bit too much of another vehicle for Kevin Costner to be the man behind the throne (cf JFK).
There were some interesting concepts of just how much of the 'buck stops here' with the person of the US President and the way he did/does/can control the military machine. However it quickly became a 'good JFK' and 'bad military' cliche.
In my cinema the last reel was projected with the framing wrong, so we saw the bottom 20% of the frame at the TOP of the projected image and hence the top edge of the image was central screen. Suffice it to say that just about EVERY shot on that reel has a boom microphone bouncing around above the characters. At first I thought we were meant to be watching documentary footage with the news-crews filming the protaganists, but then I realised we were just watching unprofessional cinematography.
I give it 5/10 - they tried and tried hard, but didn't really succeed.