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Reviews
Taras Bulba (1962)
It's for everyone who loves a sweeping spectacle of a film.
I first saw Taras Bulba when I was 13. Seeing it now (1999) I'm still impressed with this sweeping historic tale of Poles vs. Cossacks on the Russian Steppes! The Argentine Pampas was used for the Steppes and the cinematography is so grand it gets across the fierce love the Cossacks have for their land. Yul Brynner, with bold posturing and stirring statements of courage,connects you to the story as well. Tony Curtis and Christine Kaufmann provide the "Romeo & Juliet" love story. It's not everything that Nikolai Gogol presented in his classic novel, but powerful enough in its visuals alone to stay with you a lifetime.
Stigmata (1999)
Please let's not compare Stigmata to The Exorcist (1973).
Stigmata and The Exorcist (1973) both deal with possession of a person by, not to give anything away, something that talks. Stigmata uses washed out colour, rapid fire editing, piercing music score to jangle your senses. Today's video-gen will enjoy its style. The Exorcist on the other hand is all substance. It's #1 on almost every horror list, but is much more. You don't need a memory the size of a hard drive to remember back to '73 and the suspense in The Exorcist! The incredible way its subject of human possession and exorcism were handled with such professionalism. Even the subject of the Vatican in The Exorcist is treated in a more rational way, and not turned into a pot-boiler mystery as in Stigmata.
Tall in the Saddle (1944)
Seems like an RKO studio "B" western short stretched to feature length.
I gave this an average rating because I didn't like the way the story see-saws between John Wayne and two ladies. He's portrayed as a tough, misogynistic cowhand. He walks his walk and talks his (short) talk, and that has its appeal. But the script writers not only put in two ladies who both want Wayne, but a mystery which adds to this see-saw tendency. It doesn't satisfy my taste in westerns. With some editing I feel this typical RKO studio oater could have been made into a serial with cliff hanger endings. Even if John Ford were at the helm I don't think this story would have turned out any better.