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Reviews
À bout de souffle (1960)
There Are Better French New Wave Fims Than This One!
I love the French Nouvelle Vague period, and most of the films from that era are masterpieces of cinema, including many works by Jean-Luc Godard.
"Breathless" is not one of these. It is a boring film, badly directed, based on a childish screenplay, starring a young Jean-Paul Belmondo before he reached his age of acting maturity and whose style and manners move from "dramatic" to idiotic between endless bedroom conversations and changing face expressions fit to make you fall asleep.
It is worth spending 90 minutes for this movie only to see the outdoor scenes of Paris in 1960, and enjoy the beautiful face and good performance of Jean Seberg who unfortunately passed away almost 20 years later.
Man of the West (1958)
A "must see" Western classic
Some of the movies I used to love as a young boy and valued in my memories for many years, are usually dull and uninteresting when seen today, but this is not the case with the "Man of the West".
An excellent film, directed in 1958 by Antony Mann, is a "must see" not only for all Western movie buffs, but for any cinema lover and student of the "Septième Art ».
Gary Cooper acts the role of a man traveling by train to Fort Worth in search for a school teacher for Good Hope, the town he has settled in after he had escaped from his past. He is carrying some money entrusted by his community to pay for the teacher, but the train is held up by an armed band, the robbers take the money, and leave him stranded in the desolate country with the company of two more passengers. One of them is Julie London in the role of the lonely singer and former teacher who hopelessly falls in love with Cooper, and becomes one of his problems in dealing with the bandits. What's more, the band is part of the very past Cooper has run away from, and the story climaxes to an extreme and cruel collision with the outlaws and their boss played by Lee J. Cobb.
Gary Cooper gives one of the best acts of his career. Julie London fits well in the script, and Lee J. Cobb is very good as the derelict and aging boss of the band. Jack Lord as the bad guy Coaley, was later world known as Detective Steve McGarrett in the Hawaii 5-0 TV series, and the character actor Robert J. Wilke is an historic figure in the standard support roles of he villain in many western movies.
Gary Cooper, a great actor, lived only three years after the "Man of the West" to die in 1961. You must see this film which is one his last few, and a classic production worth to be part of your collection.
Catchfire (1990)
Easy entertainment, but nothing more
A young woman, Jodie Foster, is witnessing a mafia murder, reports the killing to the local police, and becomes herself a hit target by the mob operatives. A professional killer, Dennis Hopper, hired by mafia, is stalking her to prepare for the hit, but eventually he falls for her. Then, as a parody of the Stockholm Syndrome that defines a case when an abducted hostage begins to like and cooperate with the kidnapper, Jodie Foster falls for her abductor too, make love, and both prepare for a getaway.
Denis Hopper, the actor, tries to align himself with the creative ambitions of Dennis Hopper, the director. The result is disappointing, and fails to keep pace with the artistic level of a great performer as Dennis Hopper is. There is no real thrill and the script is sometimes naive and predictable. The film is saved to some extent by the performance of Jodie Foster who is not at her best, but still shines with her talent, beauty and gift. Of historical interest is the short appearance of Vincent Price, and, in a small act, of Charlie Sawn known from his great part in "Wall Street".
If you decide to spend the 116 minutes to see the film, it is not a complete loss; this movie offers easy entertainment, but we would expect much more from the director of "Easy Rider", and the actress who gave us the character of Sarah Tobias in "The Accused".
Imagining Argentina (2003)
Could be a better film if clairvoyance was out
Emma Thomson, Antonio Banderas, and the dark period of 1976-1983 in the history of modern Argentina, would be adequate elements in the hands of director Christopher Hampton to produce a very interesting motion picture without mixing any clairvoyance in the script. However, the film documents with some success an appalling portrait of the brutality of General Videla's regime, and gives the opportunity to the oblivious onlooker to get a shocking glimpse of the methods employed by the military to secure their stay in power. The core issue in the movie is the so called "El Proceso," or the "Dirty War", when almost 30,000 people were kidnapped by the regime's secret police, tortured and ultimately "disappeared" by their abductors. Some scenes, particularly the repeated rape sessions, are pretty dreadful, but they communicate the right message to the viewer and record for the sake of history what was happening in Argentina at that time. Emma Thompson in the role of the "disappeared" journalist Cecilia Rueda is always an exceptional performer. Antonio Banderas, acting as her husband Carlos, is less convincing and his act is losing impetus every time he plays the clairvoyant who can foresee what will happen to the "desaparecidos" including his wife and his daughter. You may see the film to know how it ends. It helps anyway to remember how the real history unfolded. General Galtieri replaced Videla, led his nation to a lost war with Great Britain over the Falklands, and in 1983 Argentina returned to civilian rule. Following Carlos Menem election in 1989, an amnesty law was passed remissive of the criminal acts of that period. Last June 2005, the Supreme Court of Argentina scrapped that Amnesty Law, thus lifting all protection against prosecution of the former military officers responsible for human rights abuses during the dictatorship years.
Mars Attacks! (1996)
The Worst Movie of 1990s!
It is regrettable that Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito participated in a trash movie like this. We remember them in the 1975 Oscar winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", and we cannot understand the motives behind their consent to play a part in such an awful motion picture. The fact that its total US box office count of about $ 38 m. is only four-times larger than the first week ticket count of $ 9.39 m. indicates that people have been mislead by the trailers and ads, rushed to enjoy a science fiction movie, but quickly spread the news that "Mars Attacks!" is a fiasco! One wonders why some film reviewers make such an effort to analyze and find hidden "values" in this senseless production. There is nothing to find. Some say that it is a parody of a science fiction movie. It is not! It simply is a quick setup to sell a very cheap product to uninformed viewers and make a fast profit at the same time. It could be acceptable for 10 year old kids, but the fantasy violence and some bad taste imitation of sexual scenes have rightly rated the film PG-13. It is only worth seeing this movie to just listen to the wonderful music of Slim Whitman; or, better buy the soundtrack and forget about the other junk.