Reviews

This is the fifth or sixth time I've seen Once Upon a Time in America and I'm still overwhelmed. It's such an immense film, and blows me away every time I see it. This is despite knowing almost every scene and remembering many lines of dialogue before characters say it. There's just something to this that makes it all unforgettable.

Everything that could be praised is worth praising, and it would probably make for an uninteresting review to get too in-depth. So, music is obviously perfect. Cinematography: unmatched. Performances: great from everyone, but especially De Niro. He plays gangsters all the time, but Noodles is someone different - colder, more brutal, and more tragic than most De Niro gangsters (tragic in a way where I don't feel sorry for him, I should make that clear, but in the sense that he brings about his own misery so directly). I love the structure, even though those first 15 to 20 minutes are always confounding. And the set design might be the best-ever? I just love the way every interior looks in this. We don't even spend much time in places like the opium den, but the detail and intricacy of that set are astounding.

The only commentary of interest I think I can offer is that it's fascinating watching Once Upon a Time in America post-The Irishman, which is another De Niro gangster epic that's exceedingly long; plus another I love and have seen several times. The Irishman sees an old De Niro playing a younger character, while Once Upon a Time in America sees a younger De Niro playing an older character. Both span decades narratively, have ambitious structures, revolve around friendship/betrayal, explore regret and the unpleasantries of aging after a life of immorality, and also, both have something of a motif surrounding doors, and leaving them open or shut. There's also a great emphasis placed on De Niro's character making a phone call in both.

Anyway, rambling aside, this film is fantastic (and so is The Irishman). It's one of three Sergio Leone films that I think are perfect, and I wish we lived in a world where he ended up making as many films as Scorsese has.

The third episode of Succession is an improvement over the second. Like the first (also good) episode of the show, it's still a decent way away from great, but you can feel the drama kicking up a notch. Seeing Kendall and Roman in the workplace for most of the episode is a lot of fun, and this episode is kind of notorious for having two very gross/upsetting scenes in it. I think they're necessary, but they were awkward the first time I watched the show, and somehow worse the second time, even though I knew they were coming.

Logan's "return" at the episode's end is also great. You can feel things tighten when he has that scene near the end, even though he can't talk much and has to choose his words carefully. It's that growing conflict throughout the first season that eventually makes Succession become truly great; the second half of season 1 is awesome, and I'm extra excited to revisit those episodes.

Back in the day, I watched Sanjuro (1962) before Yojimbo (1961), simply because I found a copy of the former before the latter (though the former's the latter by year of release, and the latter's the former by the same metric).

Anyway, Toshiro Mifune plays basically the same character in both, but otherwise, they're not too connected. Yojimbo's got more of a focus on suspense, and is pretty light on action. Sanjuro has a few more fight scenes - it's a real joy to watch Mifune just mow down guys in the big ones. It's also a funnier film, and possibly the most comedic of any Akira Kurosawa samurai movie. Seven Samurai's also funny in parts, but gets deathly serious during other scenes. Sanjuro stays pretty lightweight and breezy throughout, all things considered.

Despite it being more action-focused and shorter in runtime, I still feel like Yojimbo is the tighter film. It's got the more engaging and satisfying story, too, with Sanjuro really just being about the prolonged rescue of an old man. Still, it's a joy to watch the main character deceive his way through a bunch of scenarios, and then resort to chopping down a dozen guys whenever his words can't get him out of a situation.

Mifune is in his comfort zone, and is fantastic. Having seen most of Kurosawa's other films since first watching this, I also appreciate the performances of Tatsuya Nakadai and Takashi Shimura much more here. The former I've always liked for how chameleonic he is, but Shimura is also so different here to how he is in Seven Samurai; just embodies a rather minor character in a completely different way, just looking and seeming like someone entirely different. Mifune could also do this, but I do like him a lot when he's being very Mifune, and he's at his Mifuniest here.

Overall, Sanjuro is better than I remembered, and almost as good as Yojimbo. A slightly slow second act aside, it's very entertaining.

Fearless Hyena continues for about 45 seconds after the main villain is defeated, which is basically an epilogue by martial arts movie standards.

I have always felt like Jackie Chan was really in his element in the 1980s and throughout a good bit of the 1990s, so his late 1970s stuff has never been quite as appealing to me. With Fearless Hyena, I felt about what I was expecting. It's uneven, but the parts that work do admittedly really work, and it's during the better action scenes where you can already see Jackie Chan nearing the height of his powers.

Fearless Hyena is very silly for the first hour or so, and I was with it for a while before getting restless. Then, the tone shifts jarringly, and I felt like the movie lost me even more. Thankfully, in typical martial arts movie style, Fearless Hyena saved the best for last, and the final 15 minutes or so were pretty great; it's basically worth a watch for that whole finale alone, with Chan's physicality being as fun to watch as ever.

It's a lesser-known film for Chan, and one where he was both director and the lead actor. It's competent stuff punctuated by a few sequences of greatness; some brief ones near the beginning and then a lengthy one near the end. It's not his finest hour, by any means, but I had a pretty decent time with it overall.

It's fun seeing Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine on screen together, but both are sleepwalking through this film, at least by their standards. Blood and Wine is a bit of a snoozy crime/thriller flick, not really excelling in any areas while also being mildly watchable for most of its runtime.

I come away from it feeling like it was very middle of the road. The only thing that's close to memorable (besides the cast) is the fact that Jack Nicholson's character has a Rasputinian number of violent things happen to him all throughout the film without ever dying. Something about that was kind of funny, because he looks pretty old and kind of frail here.