Okay, okay, it's not a threat to displace David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, nor Christopher Nolan, but Body at Brighton Rock is WAY better than most of the gainsayers contend here -- heaping stark, cold disdain upon this film, which is an allegory of the passage from childhood to maturity concentrated in under twenty-four hours. Seems that most of the vitriol is about the initial silliness of the main character, but the childishness is a vital element, a droll and banal beginning to a quest -- to discover inherent yet inchoate virtues deep inside, and slough off childish fears, to survive even the worst that life (and one's own anxieties) can throw at the unready. So, if the viewers take in the film on the film's terms and go with the flow, as silly and lame as the first half hour may be, they will start to appreciate how even the most inept and vapid youth may find inner resources beyond her own wildest fantasies. You GO, girl !!! I say that to our film's protagonist, and the director, (with all respect and no ill intent to "dis" with the gender reference). I mean it !!! Great Work!
Reviews
13 Reviews
The Empty Man
(2020)
Almost a Good Film, Lost in the "Noosphere"
15 October 2021
The first 110 minutes of this film were riveting, engaging, exciting and praiseworthy for thrills, scares, horror, and suspense/thriller - all without triteness, but rather a good dose of originality. It is difficult to describe, but this feeling has hit me a just few times before - where a really great film just keeps running on and on after the impetus is stalled, and the movie magic turns to tedium. Thus the final thirty minutes, had it been editted to ten concise minutes, might have brought us a 9 star film, rather than 4. I for one simply was dismayed by how much the final scenes just ran the gamut of too long and tendentious. I suppose the premise of inner revelation that main character's life has been hollow and meaningless, needs to be tortuously and torturously temporizing, but I prefer it done without torturing my patience. Sorry. By the way, I have enjoyed and loved many much longer films in my day. Not this one.
There Be Dragons
(2011)
There be Factions; a unique take on the Spanish Civil War, and a good priest.
1 September 2018
How could a film written and directed by the award winning director of "The Mission" get panned so badly by critics on his more recent effort? So many films get bi-polar critiques, that is, when there are mostly 9 or 1 star reviews and few in the middle. Usually inexplicable, but not this time; I can explain why this is so with this flick, because it's a good. romantic, well crafted film on the one hand, while it turns off politically left-of center folks, compelled to trash it, since they are used to seeing the Spanish Leftists portrayed on film as angels, or innocent victims, who were forced to do unsavory things only after Franco got mean to them. They can't handle the truth. "There Be Dragons" shows the warts and the virtues of both sides, fair and square, even highlighting the romance undergirding Leftist idealism, but since the main impetus of the story is to discover whether one particular priest is really a saint, it only touches on the war, seen from the aspects of both sides, about half the time. I was not alive during the war, but I wonder if it was really necessary to massacre nuns, cloistered monks, and parish priests by the thousands. ( They only show one priest summarily executed in this film, while they also show the summary execution of union organizers.) Franco would never have gotten started if the Left had not tried to turn Spain on it's head the very minute they took power. Woody Allen got it right in his film, "Bananas", in which the Leftist guerilla leader takes over, and he declares that "...underwear will be changed daily; underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can...check." Give an inch, take a mile, was not what Orwell saw. George Orwell wrote THE book on this war, "Homage to Catalonia" as an eye witness to the idiotic factions on the Left, where Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists were more brutal to each other than they were to the Falangists! Is it any wonder that they lost?
Does Father Josemaria deserve his canonization? The film will give you its take, while it scans the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity in Spain's turbulent times about 80 years ago.
By the way, I found the score off-putting at times, but what do I know?
After Earth
(2013)
After Earth: Pre-teen Approved, but for Seasoned Viewers, So-So.
19 July 2018
Having enjoyed this sci-fi, boy-grows-to-manhood story with my 11 year old son, I had to take his reaction into consideration. After Earth has serious shortcomings, and the unreadiness of Jaden Smith to take on the main character role and prevent the audience from noticing that he is indeed acting (by his over-acting) is the one major flaw. As a moral tale, or an heroic fable, it seems plenty good enough for the less sophisticated audience, especially when its better qualities are weighed in: there is the expert direction by M. Night Shyamalan, a feast of diverting special effects, and a hackneyed but effective plot culminating in an exciting climactic struggle, over self, and over doom itself in many forms. Its nomination for "Worst Movie of the Year" is a disgraceful pile-on for crowd following show-offs. How about worst movie of 2013 with a budget over $130 million? -- OK, maybe a nomination, but not a winner, even then. So why all the disdain? It is burdened by the regrettable appellation of "vanity project", which may be forgivable if your vanity project is Citizen Kane or Gladiator, but here Will Smith left his jaw open for the upper cut of envious wannabees and the aforementioned pilers-on. He asked for it, and he got it, Royal Flush style. Anyway, if you want a sci-fi film your 10 to 14 year old children will love, this film is fine, and the family values promoted, if in a bit ham-handed way, are still valuable for teens and pre-teens in our doubt-filled post-modern epoch.
Lion
(2016)
Miraculous, Disturbing,Rivetting, Incredible, Life Affirming, Beautiful
22 February 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Lion is certainly not the greatest film of all time, nevertheless, it is one of the few that engaged and amazed me, hence my ten stars. I have no illusions that the story was not simplified, homogenized and depicted to make its point, yet the kerygma of this stranger-than-fiction biography is indubitably true, and what a heart rending story it is! Along the way, the audience is given a slice of the hard life in low-caste and demimond India, and discover some idea of how many children there are abused and neglected. Out of this horror, just one little miracle, so unlikely, offers up the joy of hope and the promise in mere survival, if one persists in pursuit of truth. If any film earned the right to a happy ending, it is this one. If any single human ever deserved a good outcome, it is the protagonist in this film, not for his (their) good acting, but for the real life tragedy incredibly erased, out of a sudden flash of memory.
(How much we take for granted in the First World, complaining that the electorate and politicians don't do enough for citizens and resident aliens who suffer relative want or injustice. What a joke our real-enough problems are by comparison! The agony in the slums of India, or North Korean slave labor camps, or Syria, and many more such countries, makes a homeless person in America much closer to Jeff Bezos than he would be to those wallowing and dying in Third World squalor! While we freak out over the potential that mother earth is being hurt by too much anthropogenic emissions, there are real people, by the hundreds of millions, suffering torture, extermination, starvation and callous neglect in dozens of nations around the world.) This fine film, Lion, shows us how good we have it here, and how much help the truly desperate need. It touches on many other points, too. Some characters clearly are led to extremes for survival, but others are evil for mere easy advantage or gain, and also, the adoptive brother demonstrates the limits of kindness and love for the unfortunate few who suffer brain trauma or psychosis, as a caring Australian couple do their best to help two boys, but only one surmounts his stumbling blocks. To sum up, all I can say is "wow!"!!
I close on the music of Sia, "Never Give Up", played over the end credits. Talk about icing on the cake, this made me wonder how often we walk away with positive dharma in our heads when the music adds to your already high opinion. It is the ideal lyric and music for the film. I have no problem with marketing when it drives more people to such a film, to promote the hope inherent in life, striving, and following Sia's call to "Never Give Up."
Black Hawk Down
(2001)
My second favorite war film of all time
21 January 2018
Ridley Scott blew me away with this tragic and heroic work on 1993s troubles in Somalia. Having been entranced as a ten year old boy viewing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, I found even the better war films since wanting by comparison. These two films are utterly differnt in myriad ways but this; they a perfect on their own terms, executed so well, and engrossing -- so engaging that one ought to go away only disatified that one could not have lived through it in person, although the violence is a bit much for REALLY wishing you'd been on the scene, with limbs flying about and such.
I can't adequately describe how this film was so effective, to even dare compare it to the incomparable Lawrence. Every scene just worked. So much battle action pervades, you might think, "what is the differnce between this and a Van Damme or Chuck Norris picture?' Fair question. All I can say is the acting is fantastic and the action scenes are directed by one of the truly brilliant auteurs of cinema. This is Ridley Scott in his finest hour, and if he were to make movies for a thousand years....THIS will be his best picture!
Incredibly Inspirational
17 February 2015
Dinesh D'Souza has outdone his prior excellence in his new effort, which is not only well produced and directed, but written with a profound insight into the means and ends of those who want the USA to appear evil, rapacious and vapid in every aspect, hoping they can rebuild it into their own warped image. But he shows that Leftists are not only plain wrong, they would only succeed in ruining the best hope the world has ever seen. Of course our founders and every generation has made mistakes, but we are still the best large nation ever conceived of and best in result. This is the best documentary that I have ever seen and one of the most inspirational movies of my long life, because his refutation is a stunning salute to all that is good and beautiful about America!
The Man Who Would Be King
(1975)
Best Adventure Movie of All Time?
17 January 2015
If you rate foremost by sheer entertainment, then yes, for me this John Huston gem is arguably the best adventure put on film, ever. I love Apocalypse Now, and Lawrence of Arabia, and several classic films perhaps even greater than this Caine/Connery collaboration, but this could best all the greats for sheer fun. I can understand that Huston's other masterpiece, "The African Queen," might appeal more to women; the interplay between Hepburn and Bogart was incredible. The love interest in The Man Who Would Be King is deliberately cold and minimal, in part because it is the ultimate "buddy movie", which might be pejorative, but not intended so. It's a transcendent buddy movie, part epic, part comic, part morality tale. It seems strange that 1% of critics were underwhelmed. When positive consensus is that close, one has to wonder how one or two "experts" could diverge so much from the glories piled on by the many critic worthies, like Roger Ebert, who adored it: I trust him more than some half-baked know-it-all form Variety for appreciation of the art of film making.
Based on a Rudyard Kipling short story, itself inspired by the true story of Josiah Harlan in mid-19th century Afghanistan, it is the rare film that is better than its own source material by any measure. Also, you can find dozens of great movies starring Michael Caine, but here is one of the handful of really great movies that did not squander the massive talents of Sean Connery. For this last reason alone, The Man Who Would Be King is a must- see.
Based on a Rudyard Kipling short story, itself inspired by the true story of Josiah Harlan in mid-19th century Afghanistan, it is the rare film that is better than its own source material by any measure. Also, you can find dozens of great movies starring Michael Caine, but here is one of the handful of really great movies that did not squander the massive talents of Sean Connery. For this last reason alone, The Man Who Would Be King is a must- see.
Shameless Re-make, Squander Talents
13 July 2014
I had high hopes sitting down to watch Treasure of the Golden Condor, thinking that it might have been an inspiration for the Indiana Jones films. George Macready got the film off to a rousing start with his subtle yet vicious machinations, which he applied with aplomb throughout. Had the editing, directing and other actors been up to his level, the film could have been great, but I found it to be a shameless ripoff of the 1942 film, Son of Fury, starring Tyrone Power and George Saunders. In fact, it is a virtual line by line aping of the first film, with the tired recipe of switching out one exotic locale for another, and adding color. (If any of you readers ever saw that old Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy film in which their movie studio is always shooting the same scene over and over, even the dialogue is identical, and only the uniforms of the bad guys changes, then you know what I mean! If not, the fact that such an old memory pops up over Goldon Condor...) Perhaps I am biased because I was taken aback 10 minutes into the film, with a deja vu broadside on my cranium, but I decided that as long as they top the first film, well, OK. Macready gets honorable mention, but come on, who could top Saunders as a villain? The color and cinematography were a plus, but in every other aspect, this film is an atrocious disappointment. Anne Bancroft's take on the calculating Comtesse de Malo was fine, but too brief; I think the cutting room floor has taken most of the nuance from her relationship with Cornell Wilde. The whole movie ended up no better than a go-through-the-motions remake.
Paranormal Activity
(2007)
Avoid this film at all costs! The horror is so boring it might kill you!
30 October 2013
I gave this a 2 because I have seen a fair number of movies made for more money that were not any better. However, that is a mere curiosity. I confide that I have written a couple reviews for movies I love, but for this dreck so foul I found the impetus to declaim before all you who are fortunate to have up to now missed out on this stupefying movie! The low budget results in a very poor sound quality: I had to watch the movie at jet engine take-off volume because my partner could not make out what the characters were saying. This made it torture to watch AND to hear. I want to be scared, not tortured, but Paranormal Activity offers precious little scariness, yet countless annoyances, the sound being only one of many. I won't continue with details. Just trust me, one who rarely shares his opinions -- this is at best an absolute waste of time.
Lawrence of Arabia
(1962)
Rivals The Godfather and Citizen Cane
17 March 2012
Warning: Spoilers
The American Film Institute awarded Peter O'Toole the distinction of greatest performance by an actor in the history of cinema for his performance as Lawrence. Also, director David Lean and crew picked up more all-time top tens for this film than any other. So you might ask why it gets less sustained adulation than other top tens? As General Murray says in the film itself, the war in Arabia was "a sideshow of a sideshow", even at the time. Also, it has no parts for women, unless you count three seconds dragging off the mens' leftover food, and four seconds of ululating from a distant hillside. I suppose I can understand why female movie buffs are less enthralled by this all-guy war adventure than I am. Nevertheless, this all male cast put on a 'sideshow' which outshines all but (perhaps) a precious few films in all of cinematic history. The depth of character, the transcentental scope, the, well, every mystical art of film making is there for the viewer to drown in an ocean of genius, if they wish. I could wax on for an age about it all.
I was only ten years of age when my mom took me to see this in 1962, and I was affected so utterly by Lawrence as David Lean and O'Toole created him, that I could not endure to see the film end after three hours. (The director's cut is longer for you lucky DVD owners). In the final reel, as Lawrence hitches a ride in a motorcar back to the port where he'll return to England, he sees a few Bedouins riding their camels and he takes a long look back once they pass. At that moment, knowing that, like Lawrence, I was about to leave the romance of war in the desert too, I felt a bond so complete that no hero would ever replace Lawrence of Arabia for me. As Lawrence approaches 50, I have been a cinema fan ever since; but of the thousand odd movies I've seen, although some do come close, this is my favorite movie ever.
I was only ten years of age when my mom took me to see this in 1962, and I was affected so utterly by Lawrence as David Lean and O'Toole created him, that I could not endure to see the film end after three hours. (The director's cut is longer for you lucky DVD owners). In the final reel, as Lawrence hitches a ride in a motorcar back to the port where he'll return to England, he sees a few Bedouins riding their camels and he takes a long look back once they pass. At that moment, knowing that, like Lawrence, I was about to leave the romance of war in the desert too, I felt a bond so complete that no hero would ever replace Lawrence of Arabia for me. As Lawrence approaches 50, I have been a cinema fan ever since; but of the thousand odd movies I've seen, although some do come close, this is my favorite movie ever.
Pious Subject, Poor execution.
13 March 2012
I am a fan of movies about faith, and will confide that faith and spirituality make great themes, although I prefer Roman Catholic subjects. Here is one par excellence, about The Little Flower, Saint Therese, the newest and youngest Doctor of the Church, acclaimed by the late Pope, Blessed John Paul II.
I bought this on DVD at a store, influenced by the cover art which was both gorgeous and sophisticated, so, what a fake out to find the film itself so banal and insipid; it was just barely watchable, just endurable enough to determine if it would remain bad and boring through to the end. Yes, it was bad. Not as bad as "One Night with the King" (2006), about Queen Esther saving the Jews, but that was the worst movie of all time. Be warned, many devout people with good intentions vote on this site and run up the points for bad religious films. I know a score of "5" is fair warning, but both of these films got around "5.8" -- not even close to their just deserts, as the Esther film would only rival this Therese as an unintentional parody of a real movie, whereas Therese's panegyric is too boring even for that. Therese deserves a much better movie than this in English. There are two very good French films about her. You may have to wait a few years for one without subtitles, for those of you folks disinclined to read and watch films simultaneously. Btw, is that a sin? Well, maybe not, but making a mind rotting movie about a great saint ought to be!
I bought this on DVD at a store, influenced by the cover art which was both gorgeous and sophisticated, so, what a fake out to find the film itself so banal and insipid; it was just barely watchable, just endurable enough to determine if it would remain bad and boring through to the end. Yes, it was bad. Not as bad as "One Night with the King" (2006), about Queen Esther saving the Jews, but that was the worst movie of all time. Be warned, many devout people with good intentions vote on this site and run up the points for bad religious films. I know a score of "5" is fair warning, but both of these films got around "5.8" -- not even close to their just deserts, as the Esther film would only rival this Therese as an unintentional parody of a real movie, whereas Therese's panegyric is too boring even for that. Therese deserves a much better movie than this in English. There are two very good French films about her. You may have to wait a few years for one without subtitles, for those of you folks disinclined to read and watch films simultaneously. Btw, is that a sin? Well, maybe not, but making a mind rotting movie about a great saint ought to be!
E.T.
(1982)
Mystifying treacle causes instant diabetes to susceptible sentimentalists.
25 May 2008
OK, "E.T.: the Extraterrestrial", is not horrible, but that which is "off" about it is especially irritating. Steven Spielberg chose to ground ET too firmly in the more banal aspects of the early 1980s zeitgeist, which might creep out a latter day viewer from the get go -- at least it did me. Of course much of this was well done, but it seems only mass hypnosis or some kind of "groupthink" can explain what makes this flick so incredibly popular when it is so very average. Everything Mr. Spielberg ever made is far, far better than this treacly, saccharin-coated kid movie. I have to give it a 3 star to make up for so many undeserved tens. There is no doubt that this movie achieves it's tens because it pulls so well on the heart strings of a fair number of viewers. That's all very well to a point. Coming away from a two hour investment in edification should leave one feeling better, in one way or another. I would admit that my review is infected with an unfair bias but for the fact that I am usually biased in favor of including entertainment along with mere art, especially in comedies, of which ET is one, in a very broad definition (look it up!). "Forrest Gump" comes to mind as a comparable treacly-saccharin movie that I absolutely loved. At the end of the day, I can't put my finger on it; maudlin can be tolerable in the right package, but not in E.T.
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