TM2YC's 1001 Movies (Chronological up to page 25/post 481)

[Gaith]

I loved Collateral in the theater, but when I revisited it a few years ago, the third act indeed dragged on and on and on...

 

[TM2YC]

Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Country: United States
Length: 128 minutes
Type: Musical, Romance

It took me a few attempts to get through the acclaimed 'Moulin Rouge!' back in the early 2000s. Baz Luhrmann use of hyperactive, seizure-inducing editing, cacophonous sound mix, overlapping dialogue and voluminously camp acting style was a very off putting proposition but once I finally dug in and watched the whole thing I almost enjoyed myself. I was quite taken with the soundtrack CD at the time. Watching it again, 20-years later, I'm back to being irritated. Everybody is frantically playing to the gods (deliberately) but in extreme close-ups, half the cast can't sing, most notably Ewan McGregor. He has no chemistry with Nicole Kidman, who herself has none of the seductive allure her character is supposed to have and both of them are far too old to play the naive young lovers the script describes. The editing is so off putting, it's too fast, over worked, some of it doesn't even match continuity wise and Dutch angles, snap zooms, whip pans and speed-ramping are constant. At one point there is a shot of a character simply writing his signature and that's got speed ramping and soundFX applied to it to make it more exciting. The visuals do look incredible, there is barely a frame that isn't one of the most dazzlingly lit shots you'll ever see. Plus you can tell it's done the old way, achieving contrast through expert lighting and building colour with costumes, set designs and gels, on 35mm. Nowadays they'd just chuck the film into the computer and crank up the colour on the grade and it wouldn't have the same lustre, or balance to the skin-tones. I respect the work and artistry that obviously went into creating this unique fantasy style, I love looking at it on pause, I like individual moments but I just don't really enjoy watching the film.

 

[TM2YC]

Wings of Desire (1987)
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: United States
Length: 127 minutes
Type: Germany

Although it's widely known as 'Wings of Desire', the German title 'Der Himmel über Berlin' translates as "The Heavens over Berlin", either works. Bruno Ganz plays one of a number of angels who silently observe the lives of Berliners and hear their inner thoughts with fascination. It's mostly shot in stunning black and white but occasionally switches to colour to indicate "reality", outside of the angel's experiences. Much of the film is in this poetic, benignly voyeuristic mode but it has several amusing diversions. Ganz hangs out at 'Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' and 'Crime & the City Solution' gigs. Peter Falk appears as himself, shooting a post-war film in Berlin, while being regularly recognised as 'Columbo'. It's revealed that Falk is a former angel, who now lives as a human actor, so he can experience the pleasures of smoking cigars and drinking coffee. It's a lovely idea that I kinda want to believe is true. The 127-runtime was perhaps a little excessive for the minimal plot but it's a beautiful film unlike anything else.

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Director: John Ford
Country: United States
Length: 123 minutes
Type: Western

(Not counting some cameos and documentaries) This was the last of a long line of John Ford/John Wayne Westerns going back two decades to 1939's 'Stagecoach'. Sadly it feels about a decade out of date in 1962, the era of the French and British New Waves and John Cassavetes. Woody Strode's portrayal of Wayne's black sidekick 'Pompey' is uncomfortable, he acts like an obedient dog. It's particularly unfortunate when Strode had just done a proud, powerful and relevant performance in Stanley Kubrick's 'Spartacus', then back to playing this kind of backwards "yessum" role. These problems aside, the other performances are first class from Wayne and James Stewart and the story is brilliant. The "man standing up to a bully" aspect of the plot is a well worn Western trope but the focus on the evolution of American democracy in an emerging frontier civilisation is very interesting.

 

[TM2YC]

Broadcast News (1987)
Director: James L. Brooks
Country: United States
Length: 133 minutes
Type: Romantic-Comedy, Drama, Satire

'Broadcast News' is both a proper grown-up rom-com and a biting political satire of news production. Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt play a trio of workaholic, neurotic TV news staffers, grappling with their ethics in the face of budget cuts and a trend towards sensationalism, plus feelings of professional inadequacy. The main focus is on Hunter, as force-of-nature news producer Jane but Brooks gets all the best sarcastic one-liners. It's basically a perfect movie, why haven't I watched it earlier?!

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Philadelphia (1993)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Country: United States
Length: 126 minutes
Type: Courtroom-Drama

I first saw 'Philadelphia' at school just after it came out on home video, no doubt because of it's positive educational value on the subjects of AIDS, race and sexuality but it was welcome to be exposed to great cinema too (and be excused regular classes for a couple of hours). Tom Hanks plays Andy a fast-rising lawyer in a top firm who is fired when his bosses discover he is gay and dying from AIDS. Denzel Washington plays Joe a tenacious but lower-rent lawyer who reluctantly agrees to take on the case. Andy is fairly saintly but Joe is more complex and portrayed as initially deeply homophobic and ignorant about the virus. So the fact that he chooses to fight for Andy anyway when nobody else will, really shows what kind of man he is, plus he changes his views across the film. The antagonists, the law-firm top brass who fired Andy, are also portrayed in a grey light, some exhibit shame and sympathy beyond their prejudice and one can be seen attending the wake at the end. Jonathan Demme uses his trademark straight-to-camera technique, making it almost impossible to not feel drawn in. The film is bookended by Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia' and Neil Young's 'Philadelphia', two of the best songs ever nominated for an Academy Award. It's a shame only one could win and it went to Springsteen. The ending montage of Andy's childhood 8mm home movies, set to Young's song breaks my heart everytime. The scene where Hanks waltzes with is medical drip to an Opera record is extraordinary. It's shot with a slightly elevated view and the flickering red of the fire eventually envelopes the scene beyond the confines of reality, so we know were not only experiencing empathy through Joe's eyes but also seeing into Andy's imagination and emotions.

 

[TM2YC]

There's Something About Mary (1998)
Director: Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly
Country: United States
Length: 119 minutes
Type: Rom-Com, Gross-out-Comedy

I saw this Gross-Out-Comedy back in the 90s like everybody else but I couldn't imagine why it was worthy of inclusion in the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' list. But when the opening shot pans down onto proto-Punk oddball genius Jonathan Richman playing his guitar and acting as the film's "Greek chorus", I thought "Oh okay, maybe there is a bit more to this one than I remembered?" (I was lucky enough to hear Richman play a small London venue about 10-years ago). I usually like my comedy smart and witty, so I never liked the vulgar 90s "gross out" genre, which the Farrelly Brothers defined but 'There's Something About Mary' is actually a genuine, heartfelt Romantic-Comedy beneath all that, which I did enjoy. Ben Stiller plays such a sweet, nervous but dreadfully unlucky guy that you root for him. Where as Matt Dillon's sleaze-bag P.I. is so gloriously awful that even when he's really trying to be nice, he still can't hide what an insensitive scumbag he is. His dead-dog-on-fire scene made me laugh uncontrollably, the rubber dog puppet looks just convincing enough. Warren, a character with learning difficulties is borderline offensive and some of the humour is in poor taste but the overall positive lesson of the film is that good people treat people with disabilities like people, so it gets away with a lot. Cameron Diaz as 'Mary' certainly looks stunningly beautiful enough to be believable as a woman every man would go crazy for. However, the idea that just because "she likes beer and football!" she's the ultimate male fantasy is pretty shallow... oh and it's mentioned she's a doctor or something but we don't need any scenes about that because who wants intelligent conversation? The 2-hour runtime is far too long, do we really need that whole sequence with the hitch-hiker in the middle which has nothing to do with the rest of the plot? You can understand why this film had so many imitators, it was the 4th highest-grossing film of 1998, surpassing many expensive blockbusters.

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Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Director: Bob Rafelson
Country: United States
Length: 98 minutes
Type: Drama

The casually cruel and emotionally abusive way Jack Nicholson's Bobby character treats his girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) in the first 15-minutes left me unable to sympathise with him for the rest of the film. Plus he's a less intriguing person once it's fully revealed who he really is and he has no development after that. He's running away at the start and running away at the end. Still, 'Five Easy Pieces' is all very well acted and directed and the unusual cast of characters held my attention. I swear the oil derrick sound-effect used 24-minutes in is exactly the same as the one used for the garbage-masher in 'Star Wars'.

 

[TM2YC]

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Director: Blake Edwards
Country: United States
Length: 114 minutes
Type: Romantic-Comedy

This film can only really be reviewed in two parts. Firstly, it's rightly considered one of the greatest Romantic-Comedies of all-time, from a Truman Capote novel no less. Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly is unforgettable, she's the definition of a sexy, charming, effortlessly glamorous, ditzy, bohemian Manhattan socialite. She's always dressed in a way that has never gone out of fashion (in Stylish dreses designed by Givenchy). The party she hosts for about 100 movers-and-shakers in her tiny apartment is a scream. I loved when Holly's absurdly long cigarette holder accidentally sets fire to a woman's hat but before anybody can tell her, she's already put the fire out by knocking over a drink. The script has to do a high-wire job of making it crystal clear to the audience that Holly and George Peppard's Paul sell their bodies for money, without actually being able to say that due to 1961 censorship. The theme song 'Moon River' is one of the greatest ever written and composer Henry Mancini weaves it all the way through the score to a beautifully romantic effect. The ending with the cat in the rain makes your heart melt. The film looks gorgeous too, it's almost a perfect movie, except...

Secondly, we must address the portrayal of Holly's Japanese neighbour by Mickey Rooney in exaggerated buck-toothed "yellowface" makeup. It's one of the most jaw-droppingly racist and horrifying things you're likely to see in a mainstream film. I first became aware of it's infamy before I'd actually heard of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' because there is a scene included in 1993's 'Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story', where Bruce and his white-girlfriend walk out of a screening of it. Obviously it's not funny in 2021 but it's difficult to wrap your head around how anybody found it funny back in the 60s. Since then, the producers, Director Blake Edwards and Rooney himself have tried to blame each other for it. He's only in the film about 5-times but every time it sucks all the joy and fun out of the movie. We need an alternate edit of this film that cuts his scenes out.

The scene from the Bruce Lee movie:

What a song!:

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Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Director: Martin Brest
Country: United States
Length: 105 minutes
Type: Action, Comedy, Crime

You can see why 'Beverly Hills Cop' was such a crowd-pleasing mega hit at the box-office. The comedy zings, the action is fully-loaded and it bright and colourful too. Eddie Murphy is sensational, he's sarcastically funny, super cool and anti-authoritarian. Harold Faltermeyer's uber 80s Pop-Rock score gives the film so much energy. BHC is like Blaxploitation but done with a glamorous A-picture budget but it's also got that "working classes taking the pompous ruling classes down a peg" appeal that has worked for audiences since the Marx Brothers.

 

[catferoze]

He's only in the film about 5-times but every time it sucks all the joy and fun out of the movie. We need an alternate edit of this film that cuts his scenes out.

I absolutely adore Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that awful performance is one of the all time worst. I would love to see such an alternate cut! Maybe I'll make a go at it after finishing my current project. Though I wonder how long it'll be before seamless replacement of an entire performance like this becomes feasible.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Initial reviews of Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' were mixed and it bombed badly, then the utter genius, Oscar glory and stellar box-office of the follow up 1991 narrative sequel 'The Silence of the Lambs' overshadowed it some more but it's been critically reappraised strongly since then. I'd not watched 'Manhunter' since the 90s, so I was curious to see if did hold up well now. Sadly not, it's a decent serial-killer drama on it's own merits but nothing that special compared to the superior TSotL. The synth score is overbearing and the production design is very dated to 1986... and I love synth scores and 80s movies. Tom Noonan is the highlight as the serial killer, every movement of muscle in his body is creepy and awkward, yet he elicits sympathy too. William Petersen is a little too intense as the hero, Dennis Farina is horribly miscast and as much as I love Brian Cox, his Dr. Hannibal "Lecktor" is not in the same league as Anthony Hopkins. It's an interesting performance though, very relaxed and direct in an off putting way, as opposed to Hopkins' controlled and vampiric interpretation. I watched the Theatrical Cut, rather than the Director's Cut.

^I've always been one of the biggest fans of this film. I love Mann's directing style, if not always the end product. So many early Miami Vice vibes here, this is more of an exercise in tone than a thriller. It's about the audience sinking in to the creeping feeling along with Will, feeling the visceral vicarious empowerment of stalking the helpless victims whilst simultaneously being creeped out and disgusted at our own enjoyment. It has probably been trampled on by all the true crime programming to come out since...we're all just too desensitized to this anymore. But I love every performance in here, especially Cox. He's doing something totally different than Hopkins did, more subtle. It's more conventional on the surface, but I think it's also very special and I remain curious about what a trilogy of films with him as Lector would've been like...
(The theatrical cut is pretty butchered, especially with the horrible editing at the end. I have the 131 minute extended composite cut, which fares much better. The ending still comes off rushed, but I'd give it a watch if you can see your way back around to it someday.)

'Collateral' feels like a B-movie script, elevated by an A-list Director (Michael Mann) and a quality cast.

Totally agree with you here though. I don't get the people who heap praise on this film. I feel like they need to watch more Mann movies and see what he can really do.

 

[TM2YC]

I absolutely adore Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that awful performance is one of the all time worst. I would love to see such an alternate cut! Maybe I'll make a go at it after finishing my current project. Though I wonder how long it'll be before seamless replacement of an entire performance like this becomes feasible.

I was half watching to see if the performance could be cut from a fanedit perspective. It would be tricky because there are no cutaways in some of his scenes but in others where he calls the cops on the party, you'd only need to include Pauls's end of the conversation. I'd have a go at editing right now but I don't B@T's on blu-ray (just PAL DVD).

Cox. He's doing something totally different than Hopkins did, more subtle. It's more conventional on the surface, but I think it's also very special and I remain curious about what a trilogy of films with him as Lector would've been like...

Yeah, it's more in line with the grounded creepiness of the serial killer interviews in something like 'Mindhunter' (which is tangentially related to the Hannibal characters). It would've been very interesting to see what he did with the expanded role in Lambs.

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Next up a re-watch of a film produced by Michael Mann...

The Aviator (2004)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: United States
Length: 170 minutes
Type: Epic, Biopic

I loved Martin Scorsese's the 'The Aviator' when it came out, then I've re-watched it many times and I enjoyed even more on this latest viewing. John Logan's script and Thelma Schoonmaker's editing do a masterful job of making all the elements of the Howard Hughes story coalesce. His strained relationships with women (most importantly Katharine Hepburn), his struggles with debilitating OCD, his ambitious aviation projects, his controversial films, his management of TWA and his battles with Pan Am, all flow together like crests and peaks of the same waves. It's one of those (nearly 3-hour) epics that you can effortlessly get lost in on Sunday afternoon. Since Orson Welles' Kane character was partly based on Hughes, it's easy to see parallel's between this and Welles' film. The way Kane brushes off the warnings of his financier by quipping "(losing money)... at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years" would slot right into 'The Aviator's portrayal of Hughes and his relationship with his money men (just switch newspapers for planes). The difference is, Hughes emerges with his principles and pioneering spirit intact and remains loyal to his friends and colleagues but Kane betrays everything. If you're used to Alan Alda playing the wisecracking hero, then you should see him play the calculating villain here, dubious Senator Ralph Brewster. The two sequences where Alda and Leonardo DiCaprio's Hughes face off are electric. Cate Blanchett dives 100% into her portrayal of Hepburn, she's got the look, the mannerisms and the distinctive voice perfected but gives a touching performance too. Scorsese's decision to use (then) new digital grading to give the first 52-minutes a 2-colour red/cyan palette to simulate early colour film, gives 'The Aviator' a unique look. Being a Rufus Wainwright fan, I enjoyed his cameo as a nightclub singer but this time I noticed his father and sister also play singers in later scenes.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
it's rightly considered one of the greatest Romantic-Comedies of all-time, except...

We need an alternate edit of this film that cuts his scenes out.

I had the same introduction to this film as you, and the same horrified reaction when seeing more of Rooney's performance. I don't have any love lost for rom-com's though, and found what I saw of Hepburn here to be aloof and hard to rally behind. I'd love a fanedit of this if it were possible to eliminate her landlord from the story. Then I could give it a proper chance. Ironically, it's absolutely worshipped in Japan, where I think a lot of people probably haven't actually watched it. Hepburn's images from the film are still used in ad campaigns there today, and Japanese women (including teens!) often quote her and specifically her in this film as their most-idolized style icon.

 

[TM2YC]

Hud (1963)
Director: Martin Ritt
Country: United States
Length: 112 minutes
Type: Drama, Western

'Hud' is a bleak modern Western but also feels like a Noir anti-hero drama. Paul Newman plays 'Hud Bannon', the arrogant, bitter son of a decent old rancher played beautifully by 30s movie star Melvyn Douglas. Brandon deWilde (who was the kid from the classic 1953 Western 'Shane') plays Hud's nephew, who looks up to both men for guidance but ultimately must choose between the two when an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease threatens the ranch. Hud and his father could be seen as being symbolic of the old "an honest days work" frontier spirit, giving way to new ruthless, "greed is good" capitalism. Famed Cinematographer James Wong Howe makes the real Texas location shooting look magnificent. The dialogue in the film is notably well written, it seemed like every time anybody opened their mouths, Hud had some little dismissive comment to throw back in their faces. I was slightly distracted by how much the 40-year old Patricia Neal looked, sounded and acted like Captain Janeway from 'Star Trek: Voyager'.

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The Thin Red Line (1998)
Director: Terrence Malick
Country: United States
Length: 170 minutes
Type: War

I remember this being marketed as "Hey you all loved that action-packed 'Saving Private Ryan' from 6-months ago, well here's another WWII film that kinda looks similar". So I think a lot of people got mis-sold on this 3-hour philosophical art-film. It did manage to just about recoup it's $52 million budget, so I guess the marketing worked. Terrence Malick expertly builds the tension and drama across the first 2-hours, beginning with placid scenes of Jim Caviezel on beautiful sandy beaches, then the US troops slowly advance, ever closer to the enemy, through tall grass where a shot could come from anywhere, until the film finally explodes with action and violence. I don't think there is a single shot of the Japanese soldiers for 90-minutes, the US troops can't see them, so we don't either. It has a very different approach to 'Saving Private Ryan', which hit you in the face with the horror of war from the first scene, showing the grit needed to charge into that wall of bullets. 'The Thin Red Line' is more about the kind of courage needed to advance over the hill into the unknown when you don't have to, when the orders are questionable and when somebody else could do it instead. SPR took place in a grim, grey world of mud and rubble, where as TTRL is full of saturated colour, clear turquoise water, bright blue skies, golden sands and waving green grass, it's like the soldiers are invading paradise. The large number of characters and lack of any real main protagonist works perfectly due to the memorable all-star cast and momentum of the linear forward-advance plot. However, once the objective is achieved, Malick spends almost another hour on the characters sitting around musing on life. Arguably the film should end when Elias Koteas' Capt. Staros leaves the picture, he's the only one with a solid narrative arc. The first two thirds are one the greatest war films ever made, the last third drags it down. I think this is due to Malick shooting loads of film, deleting most of it and then deciding what to shape it into afterwards. Adrien Brody infamously thought his central character was there "to carry the movie" but discovered his role had been chopped down to a few shots when he watched the press screening.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I'm on record as just not clicking with Malick movies, and I found this film also self-indulgent and interminable. I was also much younger then so....I'd be interested in rewatching if you did a cut down fanedit.

 

[TM2YC]

^I'm on record as just not clicking with Malick movies, and I found this film also self-indulgent and interminable. I was also much younger then so....I'd be interested in rewatching if you did a cut down fanedit.

I was more impressed on this re-watch but I remembered TTRL as being the last Malick film that wasn't completely "self-indulgent and interminable". His next one 'The Tree of Life' went off the deep end IMO. A lady at the cinema screening I went to stood up at the end, turned around and said "Did anybody else know what the hell that was about?!" to which everybody laughed.

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Titanic (1997)
Director: James Cameron
Country: United States
Length: 195 minutes (3 1/4 hours)
Type: Historical, Romance, Drama

I remember the build up to 'Titanic's release in 1997, with talk of it being so expensive (the most expensive ever at the time) it could potentially bring down the studios involved, having gone over budget by a cool $100 million. It's the only film in the 'top-50 most expensive films ever' list to not be made in the last 16-years, plus only five Marvel and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films have cost more when adjusted for nearly a quarter-century of inflation. There were news reports of James Cameron rebuilding a large portion of the ship at full scale, remaking the lavish interiors in the original materials, shooting on the real Titanic wreck, pushing the limits of 90s CGI and a runtime exceeding 3-hours. It felt like Cameron was sailing full steam towards his own iceberg, so the $2 billion box-office, 11 Oscars and worldwide No1 hit single must have come as a relief. I also vividly remember going to see it at the cinema and one specific moment: You see a wide shot of the Titanic's upturned stern, from which a tiny figure falls and it goes on and on, magnified by the height of a large cinema screen. It elicited an audible exclamation of shock from the audience. It was FX blockbuster film-making on a scale nobody had seen before.

Watching it again, it really holds up. It's more of an epic Romance film, than a disaster movie, although the practically real-time sinking at the end is still astonishing. The love affair between Rose and Jack is strong enough to hold up the film even the ship didn't sink. I thought the 20-minute present-day introduction was unnecessary at first but as the film progresses and concludes it adds a strong sense of the whole movie being the magnified recollections of a grand old lady's passionate youth. So Jack is unfeasibly dashing and everything is just a little brighter, bigger, more colourful, more romantic and more exciting than reality. The CGI FX broadly hold up very well but just don't look too hard at some of the little digital figures walking around the ship's deck, or at some of the water physics breaking round the hull. I was marvelling at some of the cross-fades between the dark, flooded and corroded Titanic wreck and the same angles of it pristine, lit up and filled with life. They're so perfectly executed that I couldn't quite work out how it was done. The fantastic first shot of Rose, with the camera panning down from a crane onto Kate Winslet's face revealed beneath the rim of a giant hat, as James Horner's magical score bursts into life, is one of the all-time introduction shots, leaving the viewer in no doubt that this is our main character and life-changing adventure awaits them.

Sadly, James Cameron has only made one film since 'Titanic' and is still working on those 'Avatar' sequels he's been promising for the last decade.

Oooh goosebumps 0.15 into this clip!:

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Groundhog Day (1993)
Director: Harold Ramis
Country: United States
Length: 101 minutes
Type: Romantic-Comedy, Fantasy

The brilliant directing/writing of Harold Ramis and the range of Bill Murray's performance make this such a joyous and powerful Romantic-Comedy classic but this time I was so impressed by the editing. The careful way editor Pembroke J. Herring builds up the timeline and world of Phil's day in the first run through, then a highlights real for day two, then he knows he's got the viewer anchored and can drop in a mere line, or shot and trust we'll get the context and meaning. It's implied that Phil is stuck in his time-loop purgatory for years and has exhausted every avenue of experience but all this is conveyed in less than 2-hours. I wonder if anybody and everybody in the world when confronted with this situation would ultimately come to the same realisation that making everybody else happy is the only way to make ourselves truly happy. The concept has so much tantalising potential that you could turn it into a long running 'Quantum Leap' meets 'Twin Peaks' TV show, where a whole episode could be devoted to simply how he steals the bag of money, for example. Something that is presented to us with just Phil's solution, leaving us to imagine how much trial and error he went through before hand. I'm sure there are plenty of plot holes if you looked too closely but the only one that stood out to me was that the elderly security guard who lost the bag of money probably got fired and/or arrested in the weeks after Phil's magical day where he made everyone else's lives better. It's a just a shame that despite all the hard work of everyone involved to make you laugh, the funniest thing in the film is always the groundhog living in a real place called "Gobbler's Knob".

 

[TM2YC]

All About My Mother (1999)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain
Length: 104 minutes
Type: Drama

Cecilia Roth plays Manuela a single mother who loses her teenage son when he's run over chasing an autograph from famed theatre actress Huma (Marisa Paredes). This leads her to take a journey back into her past in Barcelona to find the boys father, Lola a transvestite (like the song). Most of the film is about all the lives she encounters, touches and brings together before she ever finds Lola, including Huma, a nun played by Penélope Cruz and a transgender prostitute called Agrado (Antonia San Juan). Agrado is definitely the best character, full of sardonic humour and attitude. We first encounter her being robbed and/or viciously beaten by a customer, so Manuela wacks him over the head with a brick but in an instant Agrado switches to helping the guy find first aid. The film has many such moments of unexpected compassion. As usual, Pedro Almodóvar fills the frame with vibrant colour, particularly red.

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Talk to Her (2002)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain
Length: 112 minutes
Type: Drama

Benigno is the carer for a beautiful female dancer who is in a coma, then he befriends a writer who is watching over his similarly comatose girlfriend. The Benigno character is a creepy stalker (and possible rapist) so I don't know why the film expects you to feel sorry for him, or to like a character that likes him. I think you're supposed to view him as an awkward but harmless romantic but I was only surprised when it wasn't revealed that he'd mummified his mother like Norman Bates. Add to that a couple of secondary characters who are bullfighters and you're not giving me anything sympathetic to work with. Pedro Almodóvar's usual flamboyant, colourful visuals were also subdued, so I didn't even have something nice to look at. The recreation of a silent movie was pretty cool though.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I haven't been able to access Almodovar. I find his films usually feature unreasonable, neurotic women and misogynistic, forceful men that I actively dislike and don't want to watch. It's a key difference between making complicated characters and anchoring your films with detestable ones.

 

[TM2YC]

Raising Arizona (1987)
Director: Joel Coen
Country: United States
Length: 94 minutes
Type: Crime, Comedy

Considering this was only the Coen Brother's 2nd film and first comedy, they arrive with their distinctive brand of eccentric humour fully formed. The world of 'Raising Arizona' has got a hint of Werner Herzog's 1977 film 'Stroszek' about it but much funnier, less grounded and more joyful. It's credit to Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter's sympathetic performances that they can make their characters abducting a newborn child seem totally innocent and almost forgivable. Carter Burwell's yodelling/banjo score is absolutely delightful.

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Fatal Attraction (1987)
Director: Adrian Lyne
Country: United States
Length: 119 minutes
Type: Psychological, Thriller

'Fatal Attraction's massive success led to a spate of sex+death softcore erotic thrillers in the early 90s like 'Basic Instinct', 'Body of Evidence', 'Dead Calm', 'Disclosure' and 'Indecent Proposal' but the emphasis was much more on the titillation, 'Fatal Attraction' looks like a more serious and plausible movie in comparison. Initially I felt a bit disconnected with the idea that happily married 'Dan' (Michael Douglas) would choose to swap out his charming, sexy, classy wife 'Beth' (Anne Archer), for Glenn Close's crazy haired, 80s-fashion-victim 'Alex' but it soon becomes clear that the movie is about him having a "moment of madness" which he regrets almost instantly, well before Alex turns into the proverbial psychotic "woman scorned"/"bunny boiler" figure (this film is where the 2nd term comes from). One could easily read this as an anti-feminist "oh look how the nasty harlot is treating this poor guy" but I saw Close's character as more of a pro-feminist avenging angel. As a warning to unfaithful men, cheat on your good lady wife and Alex will hunt you down and f*ck up your whole life! In that way it's a bit like a twisted version of 'It's a Wonderful Life', as Dan learns to truly appreciate what he's got by nearly having it taken away. Alex is nuts but most of what she says is 100% right, so a lot of time you're thinking "Yeah Dan, you do deserve this". I appreciated how grounded the drama was (until the end) and kept imagining how this premise would be overwritten and amped up today with ludicrous stakes, mind games and plot twists.

 

[TM2YC]

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
Director: David Zucker
Country: United States
Length: 85 minutes
Type: Comedy

I was always more into the short lived 'Police Squad!' TV show (I had it on a home taped VHS), than the movies and watching the first film again I can see why. A lot of the jokes are more tasteless, less intelligent, less subtle and there are fewer of them than in the show or 'Airplane!'. Those were more about tricky wordplay, clever sight gags, spoofing genre conventions and a million puns, where as much of the movie humour is just slapstick (very well done slapstick though). In the show Leslie Nielsen is playing it 100% straight, in the movie it's only 80% straight, with 20% 4th-wall breaks, overplaying the jokes and mugging for the camera. The more serious Nielsen keeps it, the funnier he is. Also the 50s/60s cop show parody elements are much looser, Nielsen's hard-boiled-detective voice-over gets infrequently used and the movie just becomes a silly farce by the end. George Kennedy isn't as good as Alan North and O.J. Simpson was always terrible as Nordberg (again Peter Lupus was better), even before he became distracting for other reasons. Maybe I've just watched this movie too many times, so I'm enjoying the jokes less and seeing more of the flaws. It's still a pleasure to watch though. "Nice beaver!... thank you, I just had it stuffed" makes me laugh every time and the gag about Drebin shooting after his own out of control car is wonderfully executed. Priscilla Presley is perfect casting as the Noir love interest and Ricardo Montalban could not be a better villain.

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Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Director: John Hughes
Country: United States
Length: 103 minutes
Type: Comedy

When rewatching some of these sort of films which are about teenagers rebelling against the older generations, you do wonder if they are going to have the same impact on you when you're not that age any more. Happily 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' is still a total gem. I'd forgotten how much of the movie hinges on brilliant comedic cross-cutting between the different groups of characters and how little of the runtime (percentage wise) actually follows Ferris. It doesn't feel like that because everything in the movie happens because of him, or has been inadvertently instigated by his presence. Big chunks of the film follow Dean Rooney (a quite brilliant Jeffrey Jones, getting every bit of juice out of every laugh) who is trying to catch Ferris, his sister also trying to catch Ferris out, his parents, fellow students raising money for his "illness" and a few hilarious cutaways to two valets joyriding in the Ferrari Ferris has left in their care. The big message at the end is about Ferris' best friend Cameron gaining the courage to confront his distant father about caring for said Ferrari more than him. Having looked up the car in question, a 1960s Ferrari 250 GT California which can sell for as much as $15 million, I am inclined to sympathise with the father after Cameron totalled it. The huge Chicago parade scene with Ferris at the centre miming to John Lennon's raucous version 'Twist and Shout' cannot fail to make the heart soar. I do love The Dream Academy's beautiful instrumental version of The Smith's 'Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want' which plays during the art gallery montage.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

 

[mnkykungfu]

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
Those were more about tricky wordplay, clever sight gags, spoofing genre conventions and a million puns, where as much of the movie humour is just slapstick

Totally with you! This has always been my least favorite Zucker Zucker & Abraham film, even back in the day. I STILL love Kentucky Fried Movie though, which is such an underappreciated gem of theirs. Granted, I'm a Bruce Lee fanatic, so that probably has something to do with it.

Happily 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' is still a total gem.

Amazing film, all your points are so dead on. Also Charlie Sheen doing some of his best work here. Also the origin of the band "Save Ferris", who were a great little ska throwback group.

 

[TM2YC]

Charlie Sheen doing some of his best work here.

Oh yeah, I forgot Sheen's scene. Like a heroin addicted James Dean. So good.

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Goodfellas (1990)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: United States
Length: 146 minutes
Type: Crime, Gangster

I never get tired of watching 'Goodfellas' because it seems to get even better every time. All the elaborate steadicam shots would look more astonishing if they didn't feel so natural and freely improvised (which of course they absolutely were not). Ray Liotta's voiceover sounds so cool and seductive. The jukebox soundtrack is unrivalled, featuring some of the greatest songs ever recorded (e.g. George Harrison - What is Life, Harry Nilsson - Jump into the Fire, Derek and The Dominos - Layla... to name but a few). I love the way the pace starts off relaxed, in tune with the sunny nostalgia of the 50s but becomes exponentially more frantic as Henry's life and addictions spiral out of control, then just ends wham-bam with a 4th wall break. The underlying theme of the newer generation of gangsters being more ruthless, cruel and undisciplined than the last seemed clearer than ever. The fact that Paulie refuses to even own a phone at the start of the film, or to deal drugs, then it's the younger Henry talking on the phone about a drug deal that finally brings everybody down. I don't think I'd realised before how closely the scene where Spider gets shot, resembles the early scenes with the young Henry. It's an indicator of how degenerate they have become. I knew 'Goodfellas' was based on real people but reading up, it seems pretty close to the main facts. The cameo from Scorsese's mother is adorable (playing Tommy's mother) and I noticed Scorsese's father makes the sauce recipe from 1974's 'Italianamerican' in the prison scene. The entire cast of 'The Sopranos' must be in 'Goodfellas, unless they were in 'The Godfather: Part 2'... or both! Probably Joe Pesci steals the show but pretty Lorraine Bracco is formidable too. It's amazing how the tension of Pesci's iconic "I amuse you?" scene still works when you already know how it ends. It's such a scary, unpredictable performance that you almost think "maybe this time he won't be joking?". I'm going to have to rewatch 'Casino' again very soon to get another hit of this level of film-making brilliance and acting prowess.