Few people claim Casablanca as the greatest movie of all time; in fact, it's not even the best product of the Epstein family. That honor goes to Theo and the 2004 Red Sox. And rarely do film scholars get involved with the sort of nonsense that constitutes greatest movie of all time stuff. Of course, the prestigious Sight and Sound poll, done every ten years, does solicit vote from critics and scholars, and Casablanca receives only three votes--not enough to qualify in the top fifty films.

It fares better with directors, though, recieving eight votes, which securely places it in the top twenty.

I wouldn't place it in my top one hundred, but that doesn't mean it isn't a great movie by any standards.

I watched The Fighter this morning. I was hooked from the opening credits of them walking through the streets and "How You Like Me Now" blaring through my system.

I was pretty sure that I was going to wish the Hawkes had gotten BSA nod for his role in Winter's Bone, but Bale was beyond amazing in this movie. He seemed perfect in the role in every way.

I also really liked the boxing scenes (for the most part), which could have been a pretty big hiccup if they'd been done in a shoddy way.


Of the 10 BP noms: I have 127 Hours (coming in a couple days), Black Swan, and King's Speech left.

great movies can mostly be fun and entertaining, a lot of comedies are pretty simple. Casablanca tells a pretty simple story, but a lot of the choices that characters had to make in it were pretty complex. Bogart and Bergman were really good together, the grimace on Bogart's face when he sees her character for the first time, is very memorable. Their story may not have appealed that much to you, but it is widely celebrated as one of the most romantic movies ever. And while a lot of characters are mostly caricatures, they are very well made and all the character actors delivered effortless performances.

I also think Bergman was mostly being modest with her comments

My point is, the fact that it's NOT the greatest movie of all time does not preclude it from still being a really great movie. I just wonder if you still would have given it a B and not an A if you hadn't been expecting it to be some major revolutionary masterpiece.

Fwiw, it's often ranked at or near the top of greatest screenplays of all time.

Well I gave it a B. It's not like i gave itban F.

I guess I was surprised on two fronts. I am probably the biggest fan of romances and have several in my top 10 all time list but I didn't really get engaged with the one in Casablanca.

Watched Shutter last night.

Shutter is well-regarded in horror circles, or rather foreign horror circles, and I must agree that this movie from Thailand is one of the best movies I have ever seen. I know that there is an American remake, but why would I bother watching a remake of what, as far as I can see, is a perfect horror film.

The story starts up with a drunk couple who hits a pedestrian. They drive off. The guy is a professional photographer, and his pictures are getting ruined by images of entities.

Fortunately for the prospective viewer, I can't write anything more, because yes, the film is that full of surprises. The movie continuously messes with your perception of the reality created in the movie: is it an illusion or is it real?

Simply put, Shutter is one of the best horror films I have ever seen, and I wouldn't blame anyone for calling it the greatest horror film ever made. Weighing in at 90 minutes, the movie gets right down to business and takes its time to explain the back story, which is ultimately shocking, unusual, and breaks your entire perception of the movie. What a great twist at the end. Very few horror films make me scared, and this one, despite having little to no basis in reality, actually frightened me.

Anyways, it is on Netflix instant watch.

A couple movies I watched a while ago, but just now getting to writing something up on them.

The Natural - Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs a man with a natural talent to play baseball. The movie tells the story of his journey to the majors and what happens to him along the way. I was expecting the beginning that dealt with his childhood to last longer. It came of as "There are there things you need to know about his childhood. Check, check and check, moving on." After that, the movie flows well through the story it is actually trying to tell. The story isn't that complicated, but I enjoyed going along for the ride. And surprisingly,


Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - Wow! And I thought Assassination of Jesse James was a long movie that was slowly paced. I understand the story it was telling why that means it needs a slow pace, but Assassination at least looked amazing along the way. You really don't need 80 minutes to show that her life is uneventful and routine. Followed by 80 minutes of things slowly becoming more out of place. The last 40 minutes were not bad because I was waiting for the point when she breaks. In the end, the climax of the film was just as quiet and sedated as the film.

Manhattan - Proportional to his catalog, I have only seen a few Woody Allen movies, but of those, none of them have done it for me. The ones I have seen all seem to be telling the same story of him being an awkward jewish man and dealing with a sexual relationship. And it makes me uncomfortable to have to think about Woody Allen and sex at the same time. All that being said, I think I enjoyed this the most of the movies of his I've seen. I like how he used the black and white in various scenes, especially the one in the planetarium.

Limelight - Everyone raves about early Chaplin movies but I think I may enjoy his talkies more. The Great Dictator (amazing), Monsieur Verdoux (wonderful), and now Limelight (incredible). It's the story of an aging, washed up comedian (an autobiographical role from Chaplin?) who saves the life of a desperate young woman who attempts suicide. They fall in love and decide to get their careers going (she is a ballerina). Throughout the movie Chaplin keeps trying to push her away because he feels that since he is old and going to die soon, he think it would be in her best interest to marry someone younger. However, she loves him with all her heart and refuses to accept it. Chaplin's resurgent career is very rocky whilst she becomes a star. The movie ends with a pretty funny routine by Chaplin with Buster Keaton himself (!) as his sidekick. It then ends on a pretty heartbreaking note. Great movie.

(side note: I see why Keaton's career ended when silent movies did. He has a horrible voice.)

Le Ballon Rouge - a very short (~35 minute) movie of a little boy who finds a red balloon (or does the balloon find him?). It's mostly just sight gags and physical comedy (similar to Jacques Tati's style) but it's a pretty cute, amusing movie. Eventually, the other boys see the balloon and try to take it. When they realize they can't take it they just pop it (ugh, humanity). Then the day is saved when hundreds of balloons poor out onto the streets. Very nice, I approve.

Thug: in The Natural, it wasn't fireworks that went off at the end, but the lights exploding into an electrical rain-storm, thanks to Roy knocking the ball into one of them.

Much more realistic.

Yes, yes. I apologize for the inaccuracies and it's too late to edit.

I just watched 13 Assassins - a Japanese Samurai period piece -

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/i...t/13assassins/

not released until April in theaters but available on demand (and in HD) on my Cable network so I paid $10 to watch it at home tonight - (which, shoot, isn't much more than expensive then two people in a theatre)

Very similar to "Seven Samurai" in the idea of a small group taking on a big group but the enemy is the brother of the Shogun - the penultimate battle is incredible and I may try to cram it in one more time in the 24 hr period I'm allowed to watch it On Demand - definitely worth your time if you're a fan of the genre

Don't recognize any of the actors but it's definitely one of the best modern period pieces I've seen

RB

A Single Man



This film singlehandedly convinced me I need to watch the films our cinephiles like John Cole, Dominic, and hotdog recommend. I have never before seen a film with such obvious yet fluid and effective directorial choices. This is a masterpiece.

Great movie. Bale is an incredible actor. I knew right after the first scene that he was going to portray a crackhead with amazing accuracy.

I thought A Single Man was a great movie, but many complained that it was all style over substance.

I have watched it three times now, and don't understand that criticism.

Hey, they said the same thing about the amazing Hunger, so what do they know?

Maybe they are just poking fun at how obviously stylized the film is. Haters gonna hate, and they love to pile onto something no one can deny. Yes, it has a ton of style. But to say it has no substance? Some of the stuff is directly lifted from the book. Are they also claiming the book had no substance? Sheesh. I am with you. I thought it was well executed in both departments.

Recently watched:

Whatever Works - Woody Allen's latest (as far as I'm aware) movie. Started off very promising, but got boring and very predictable quickly. Larry David is awesome though - it's priceless to watch him yell at kids who suck at chess.

North by Northwest - I had high expectations for this movie, and I wasn't exactly disappointed, but it could have had a bit more substance. However, I felt it kept a decent level of suspense even after the "reveal". Also a reminder of what an incredible actor Cary Grant was.

The Virgin Suicides - I didn't read the novel, but I'm pretty sure that it either isn't fit for a movie adaptation or Coppola screwed it up. Boring and predictable, although perhaps the first movie since Interview with the Vampire where I didn't hate Kirsten Dunst.

The Life of David Gale - The more I see of him, the more I enjoy Kevin Spacey, although, as I've mentioned in the movie cliches thread, one of those movies that starts off with the ending for no apparent reason. Good performance by Kate Winslet as well. Spacey plays a philosophy professor and DeathWatch activist who sits on death row awaiting his execution after a series of events which involve him being framed for rape and then (supposedly) murdering a fellow DeathWatch member. The movie has a very real feel of place and, in my opinion, didn't get overly judgmental on the death sentence while critiquing it.

The simple answer is: lotta morons in this world.

A Single Man is a great film. I posted something about it earlier in this thread but can't find it because it's about a gazillion pages long. To summarize: In terms of style, I thought Ford's use of sound design was excellent. His choice to selectively exclude and include sound effects was very effective -- particularly in the scene where Firth receives the tragic news, then runs across the street to Moore's house in the rain. This is the best acting I've seen from Firth. He's essentially asked to carry the first fifteen minutes of the film on his own, as much of his time on-screen is spent in solitude, and boy does he succeed. I'm not sure how I feel about the color phasing/shifting. The color shifts and changes very subtly within a scene -- especially when Firth interacts with the young student. I see at is a representation of Firth's conflict between engaging and disengaging in life -- he's on the fence between suicide and hanging around. It's an interesting decision, but I found it a bit distracting. Great film.

Pretty good for a first time director? Of course, Ford has "directed" quite a bit during his life, just not films.

Have you read Hamlet lately? North By Northwest might be one of the finest movies ever made about acting itself and what it means to be a star. There's a great dissolve near the end of the film in which Grant's face is superimposed on Mt. Rushmore. Now what could Hitchcock meant with that shot? And Grant's face is given further prominence when he shaves with the tiny razor. Oh, it has plenty of substance, but it needs a more active reading. It's also great fun, too.

Wow. I can't imagine who the "they" are who said this.

People without taste.

I really liked it, but I think it had a lot to do with my growing up in the 70s and being able to relate to the music and mood of the times. One of my favorite soundtracks.

Delving into this beast of a thread for the first time since I saw the infamous Enter the Void last night at the awesome Red Vic theater in SF. Thoughts:

This film has giant, gaping problems. Yes. I hated Paz de la Huerta's entire character, though I didn't mind the monotone hyper-realist acting from other characters. It's an hour too long, and everyone I saw it with had the same thought of the last LOTR movie, where 5+ times you just know it's going to end, but it doesn't. Most seriously, I really dislike how effectively the first-person shooting gets us intimately close with the protagonist Oskar--and then he becomes a non-character for two hours, and a film that felt like it had a propulsive center becomes totally unmoored.

But I loved it. 2001 is boring in places and too long as well. That doesn't make it not brilliant. I was floored by Gaspar Noe's talent in a way I haven't been in a long, long time. There were probably ten distinct shots or sequences in the film that I'd consider among the most impressive I've ever seen. It was similar to Russian Ark, which I also love, but much more visceral and engaging. I'd use adjectives to describe it that would usually set off alarm bells for me: meditative, abstract, postmodern. It was just so engaging on a physical level--the visuals, the audio, and how they interact.

A major part of the experience was seeing it live in a crowded theater. The audience's emotional shifts were tangible. Several times, a character would say something (Linda's "I'm having fun!", Oskar's "I just did some DMT") and the audience would laugh--but different than any other laugh I've ever heard. One person would chuckle, and others would slowly realize it's OK to find humor in this mindf***, but by that time the moment was over. It was an amazing exercise in communal thinking. Like the greatest theater, randos among the audience and my friends could not stop talking about it for hours afterwards.

If you are lucky enough to live somewhere where a cinema is playing Enter the Void, see it. I would see it again, for sure. Solid A.

EDIT: I should mention this was the unedited cut Noe prefers, including reel 7, putting it at about 2:45 run time.

His prior experience "directing" shows through. You could take almost any still shot from the film and use it for an ad campaign. The visuals are that effective.

Ryan,

I loved the color shifts.

Terra em Transe (1967) - It's a movie about a couple political candidates in a fictional country in Latin America. One is the incumbent conservative leader, and the other is the idealistic liberal challenger. The liberal gets elected and quickly reneges on everything he promised in order to get elected. The main character is a writer who is friends with both candidates, but becomes disillusioned by the political process. There's no allegory here, the movie is pretty much straight to the point and pulls a lot of punches. If you hate politicians, you'll probably love this movie (or hate it because of how real and to-the-point it is with the political landscape).

And on top of that it has some very creative directorial choices, it had a french new wave feel to it I thought (or maybe I'm just confused).

Either way, it's a really good movie, and if your screen name has the word "clovis" in it, I bet you'll get a real kick out of it.