Movie Review Thread

[Puzz3D]

The Blue Light (1932) written, directed and featuring Leni Riefenstahl is an allegory about man's encroachment on natural beauty. It's a simple story and somewhat slow moving, but told in an artistic visual style with impressive cinematography and lighting. The final act picks up the pace and is very well done, and features climbing scenes presented in a very effective montage style. The freestyle rock climbing looks quite dangerous to me, and Leni Riefenstahl appears to do all her own climbing just as she apparantly did in Arnold Fanck's "mountain" pictures. This movie doesn't usually get good reviews because up until now it hasn't been generally available in a good quality print, but the recently released DVD has a good image quality German sound version with English subtitles. I was hoping that a blue tint would be used to show the blue light, but that wasn't done.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Brick: Really awesome. Like Dashiell Hammet except set in high school.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of kazahkstan

Excellent. He manages to keep up the humor throughout the movie. Also, quite a lot of it is unscripted.

[Beirut]

MI:3

A porker, but still better than MI:2. Why Tom and the film studio and their collective billions cannot take advantage of the MI theme and make a honking good spy movie is beyond me. Cruise said he wanted romance in the story. What a shmoo. As my buddy said, Cruise simply does the Top Gun movie over and over. Top Gun, Top Bartender, Top Lawyer, Top Samurai, Top Spy.

Mind you, there were a few very good scenes in MI:3. Loved the way he got over the wall at the Vatican. That was just neat. (Even though it was ripped off of James Bond.)

[Puzz3D]

Flags of Our Fathers (2006) directed by Clint Eastwood, based on the well researched book of the same name by James Bradley, is a drama which tells the true story of the men pictured in the inspirational photograph of the flag raising during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The movie is very well done and extremely faithfull to the book which was exhaustively researched by the son of one of the flag raisers. Interestingly, his father never spoke of the war, wouldn't speak to reporters, never told his family that he had won the Navy Cross and didn't display the picture in his home. The reason why is made clear by the movie. James Bradely found the Navy Cross and newspaper articles about the flag raising in a cardboard box in the attic of his father's house after his father died, and decided to write a book telling the story. My mother, who was 16 when WWII started, said this was the first WWII film she's seen which depicted the people as they actually were. I recommend the film, and I also recommend the book which additionally covers the childhoods of these men and more details about the other men in the marine platoon.

The Departed (2006) directed by Martin Scorsese is a crime drama already recommended by Spino. It's outstanding filmmaking with a powerhouse cast who all give excellent performances. It's a rewrite of the foreign film Infernal Affairs (2002) with more complex characters than in the earlier film and a new character added. The screen play is great, and the narrative moves along fast and twists and turns never lingering in any one place. Highly entertaining for the full 2 and 1/2 hours. I would expect this film to win something at the Academy Awards.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: A classic. Best western ever made.

Lord of War: I'm not that interested in gun running and have no desire to watch a documentary about it or learn the history. The previews should have made it clearer what this was. Quit halfway through.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

LOTR: Return of the King Extended Version t'was a major improvement over the old one. dunno know why they had to take scenes out from the original. all great imo.