Obviously. It's among the top 20 films of the past 30 years.

Might be making expectations too high there, but Do the right thing is definitely very good.

Of those I've seen, and it's been a long time for some of them:

Do the Right Thing > Malcolm X > 25th Hour > Summer of Sam > Crooklyn

I should check out the others (Inside Man and Clockers for sure.) There are a couple probably bad movies (She Hate Me, Girl 6) which I'll probably never see, but he's up there on the list of underrated directors. He definitely has a distinct style of his own and that alone is an accomplishment.

Clockers is the only movie of SL that I can tolerate, and it's probably because Scorsese helped to produce the movie.

There are some truly great individual performances in Clockers... by just about every actor in the movie.

The Collector - Better than most of the "horror" films I watched this year. 6/10.

Lawrence of Arabia

My girlfriend told me she wished people would wear their Sunday best when going to the movies, like they used to. That’s what the opening blank screen of the film was telling me. Sitting in a room, and staring a black screen while listening to bombastic orchestral what-have-you is about as direct a metaphor to old money vs. new money as you can get. Lawrence of Arabia is the kind of old world film-making that I wish we still did. Several components are necessary for me to say this.

1. Quotability. This is an eminently quotable movie. “The trick is not minding it hurts” is not only a great character defining quote, but also a narrative thread starter which will remain relevant throughout. These days, dialogue is birthed leaning towards realism and a smooth conversational stride. This movie butt****s that idea to the stratosphere and has each character lay down lines like they carry around their own speechwriters who feed them finely crafted quotes all day long. I’m pretty sure when T.E. Lawrence orders a sandwich he’s met with the sickest cashier coronation the sandwich world has ever seen.
   
2. Music(of a certain kind). There’s a scene where T.E. is walking in the desert after meeting the prince, contemplating his grand move. He’s being followed by the two kids, and the score swells with emotion. The visual is basic, and low key: T.E. on a nightly stroll through the desert, determined to crack it’s code and prove his mettle with the prince, along with his own command. Minus dialogue, or action, it’s coupled with a short score that hits all emotional notes. The music was his inner monologue; and his thoughts (no doubt grand and sweeping) were conveyed with a grand, sweeping score. It was odd, perfect, and fresh. I love me some Hans Zimmer, but sometimes his score’s feel like their epic on the cheap. Same goes for so many film scores these days. Lawrence of Arabia has the type of score you can place on repeat in the background while you’re creating the next Great American anything.
   
3. The art of the set-piece. This damned movie is about the desert and we need to know what that feels like. How can you conquer within a vast expanse of dry death? Long shots own the day. Often, T.E. was introduced to the scene as a dot in the distance, walking, eventually, towards the camera into existence. The various clans needing to be united (by a white man, this just can’t be ignored) bring epic into the equation because there really are a lot of them! The latter of these is over-used throughout the history of “epic battle scene” kind of movies, yet, swaths of CGI warriors colliding into each other rarely imparts an epic feeling with the audience, while a 10 minute sequence of T.E. trekking across the desert will have me using “epic” in this review an epic number of times.

Given all this gushing over greatness I’m expected to gush over, I have to say that there is an epic failure in marrying the two halves of this story. There’s just under 2.5 hours before the intermission, and it felt like the first half of a story without overstaying its welcome. Those 2.5 hours paid respect to the process of building an epic character playing part in a world at war. Then, within 15 minutes, the second half of the movie decided that steady progression of character development was for bitches, so lets just dive into: Torture→Screw this→"But no!"→ I’m forever lonely in my greatness, dude.

The delicacy used to craft Lawrence in the first half was contrasted by the roughshod hop-scotch of his emotional arc in the second half. He goes from devoutly followed leader to arrogant bastard to tortured soul in the span of 30 minutes. ****. That. ****. All those things were true to character, but were jumped to like they needed to be gotten out of the way so the story could be finished, because a 4 hour movie is bad juju, I guess.

Aside from that. And that’s a big ****ing aside, this is a beautiful movie made brilliant by the fact that I’d go gay for Peter O’toole. Old school Peter O’Toole. Not the later years Peter O’Toole, you ****ing savages.

Random notes:

• ”My name is for my friends” is a pimp retort
• The kids are legit terrible. They were the only thing that reminded me this was a movie made half a century ago.
• The bit of British Soldiering by the general in the scene where T.E. explained how he enjoyed killing worked brilliantly. The second go around in Jerusalem, not so much.
• The scene at the Suez canal, with T.E. being asked “Who are you!” from across the river was great in that lesser movies would have had him respond, likely with a cliche line. This just lets the question linger. Pro.
• Apparently women didn’t exist in 1916

greatness is a matter of perspective... which some folks are incapable of.

I mean really, bombastic... I don't think the creators said to one another, "let's go out there and really pompous up the music because no one is ever going to listen to the Blues in the future".

I really love Lawrence Of Arabia, but always have trouble with the last major scene, the arab council. It feels like a comedown to me, compared to all the inspired stuff before it. However, I still give the movie 100/100.

most definitely... the last portion of the movie can not live up to the beginning.

but... simply from a historical perspective, if nothing else, LoA gets a lifetime pass... which I guess is in itself, the reasoning some folks can not accept

The scene where Lawrence says "no, it's not that..." when trying to explain himself is one of the greatest scenes in cinema, because it's so ridiculously rich, ambiguous and a reflection of the entire film in so few words. Breathtaking, and if you're not paying attention, it seems a minor, unnecessary scene for all that.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...dredd-1238455/

I bloody love Dredd. Though it was majorly epic in 3D at the cinema. And I'm a guy that hates 3D usually.


I've only seen 2 movies that I thought were really great movies, that benefitted from 3D - Dredd and Gravity.

here's a review and some discussion on Wheatley's mind-bending 2013 movie A Field in England

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...-film-1362465/

Nice LoA review, Thug! The 2nd half is definitely not as brilliant as the first, tho. Still, a spectacular film in every way.

Mshu,

So Mr. Fluffy Wordsmith doesn't know what bombastic means. Just embarrassing. It was a poor choice of words on my part. "Grand" is more appropriate. Oddly, Lawrence of Arabia had the type of opening which would certainly be viewed as bombastic if attempted today. But it just nailed it, in part, because it was that era of movie, but also because it followed the "live the part" coda. Some guys try to wear stylish cloths and reek of affectation, while others throw on several parts of outlandish but pull it off by force of will. If you follow through with confidence and skill, you can rock it all the same.

Dom,

Yeah. As much as my awe was stuttered some by the second part, the movie is pure brilliance. Not to be bombastic or anything, but it just goes to 11.

both of these statements are true.

Great LoA writeup/perspective, Thug.

with Tom Cruise seemingly on a heater over the past few years with some of his very interesting story choices, I was curious as to his next project...

Edge of Tomorrow.



does anyone else think this is, in some way, an homage to or loosely based on Star Trek "City on the Edge of Forever"?

FWIW, I just watched Oblivion for the first time... I found that overall it very very interesting even though it was slightly miscast and the story had some holes.

I think there in lies the issue... surely you, or anyone, can watch and opinionate from any perspective and ideology that they care to, but looking back in the past with eye of youth only taints and colors the original intent and meaning of whatever is being looked at... in this case it's LoA.

I don't think it's lack of fairness or inability to appreciate... nothing so droll. It has more to do with being able to legitimately get into the head of the message being studied.

how can we, as a viewer, hope to learn or gain an understanding of something being studied if all we can do is compare it to what we personally have lived thru or personally seen in our own lifetimes?

please do not misunderstand, I am not picking on any one person... I am just pointing out the idea that arm chairing historical perspective is not only clouded, but blind in it's views.

i don't know how i managed not to have seen the gambler until now. it's phenomenal, and right up my alley. james caan plays a guy named axel freed: an english professor in nyc, the scion of an affluent jewish family, and a degenerate gambler. caan's portrayal of him is magnetic; swagger oozes from every pore, including the follicles of his back hair. he runs up a $44,000 gambling debt, asks his mother for the cash to pay it back, then bets it all on college hoops and goes to vegas with his gf (lauren hutton) to gamble yet more. degen gonna degen.

early on in the movie, caan discusses dostoyevsky (whose novel of the same name was written--incredibly--to pay off dostoyevsky's own gambling debts) with his students: how dostoyevsky insisted on a man's right to believe that 2+2=5, and that in fact it's what makes us human. later, at a blackjack table in vegas, caan doubles down a big bet on an 18. "you're crazy!" hutton scolds. "but i'm blessed," he replies, before binking a 3. he has also insisted on his right to believe 2+2=5 and, for this moment at least, the universe has acquiesced. he's deluded, sure, but the stoic, enigmatic look on his face after the 3 peels off will stick with me for a long time.

and the ending is so wonderfully strange i can't imagine it being allowed to exist in a current movie. so the news of a remake with mark wahlberg being in the works simply makes me sad.

The Gambler is one of those mostly-forgotten classics.

Compliance - 7/10

Thought it was one of those weird, enjoyable films until I found it was a true story. How the f@ck can that even happen?

Not once but many many times!

Is it weird that I agree with your review, think the movie is fundamentally flawed... and liked it anyways? About an hour into it the ridiculousness of it all started to win me over I and surrendered to it and got a kick out of it. In the abstract sense I don't think it was very good at all.

stepbrohers is elite i has sad for you

Anyone going to see Wolf of Wall Street tomorrow? Thinking about going to see a movie, not sure between it and Hobbit. Leaning WoWS.

I compare American Hustle to The Walking Dead. A knockout finale makes you completely forget the buildup was terrible. I fear the next Russell film because the guy is full of himself at this point. We created this monster.