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Life of Brian (1979)
If you're intelligent and have a bizarre sense for the absurd, you'll love this movie.
I could write volumes about this beloved movie, but I won't, being limited as I am.
From what I understand, one major complaint many had about this movie is that it disrespects Jesus Christ. Nothing could be further from the truth! A college friend of mine, who's very religious, refused to go see it, believing this to be the case. I assured him that it doesn't mock Christ, so he took my word for it and went to see it.
He enjoyed it, as did the rest of my friends. I explained to him that what the movie is mocking is the fringe element, nuts who glom on to anything and everything to follow en masse. The little bit Jesus is depicted (eg, the Sermon on the Mount,) is not disrespectful in the least.
The movie is zany, looney and nutso, as one would expect from MPFC. As always, there're things going on in the background that you need to watch for, little subtle bits that this troupe is famous for.
The basic storyline is how Brian, as he's growing up, gets caught up in things going on in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. He's often a victim of circumstance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and rarely gets anything like a break. He's a likable fellow as a protagonist and you can't help but identify with him when things always go so wrong for him.
Now, some little factoids about the movie. It was filmed in Tunisia, and what the viewer doesn't know is that there were often scorpions in the immediate vicinity; they said the area was riddled with them. Something non-MPFC fans might not know is that Graham Chapman, in the lead as Brian, was also a medical doctor. He was not only the star of the show, but the physician for the cast and crew. When he wasn't in front of the camera, he'd hold "surgeries" (as the British call them) to treat people for various ailments, usually dysentery or scorpion stings.
The movie actually had TWO directors: the Two Terrys (Jones and Gilliam.) (Terry G., as they called him, was the token American in MPFC.) One more thing, before I go over the limit and write a novella: There's one scene in this movie that has NOTHING to do with it AT ALL, it comes out of the blue, it's hysterically funny. See the movie, if only for that one scene, it's worth it. You'll know it when you see it.
Popeye (1980)
"Popeye" Could Not Have Been Done Better
This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I gave it a 10/10. I originally went into it because I thought it looked cute, and thought Robin Williams was a perfect choice for the lead role (he was.) When I walked out of the theater, I was in awe. Without fail, every single actor and actress they got for the well-known roles was perfect. Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl? Who else could have done her justice? It wasn't only the cast in the movie, however. The scenery and sets, the locale, the creation of this little Sweethaven that could be Anywhere, Earth, the story itself when we meet Popeye for the first time.
A co-worker of mine, who studied film in college, said that they used "Popeye" for study as one example of a technically perfect film, going far more in-depth than I ever could in this comment. Usually when I tell people that this movie is one of my all-time top five favorites, they laugh, but when I told him, I found a fellow fan who knew what an incredibly well-constructed and well-acted movie this is.
It has some VERY minor harsh language, but all-in-all it's safe for the kiddies (who I'm sure have heard those words before), but has a lot of more mature elements thrown in for the grown-ups. That's another reason I love this flick: just like the earlier original cartoons, the muttering and mumbling going on in the background and on the sly is quite scandalous and funny, if you pay attention to it. I'm sure it's Williams' usual ad lib that he's well-known for.
One particularly humorous ad lib is when he's reading a letter, with Sweet Pea in a basket in front of him, and Sweet Pea clearly says "Baby." Williams points to the letter and says, "Yes, you're a baby, it says right here!" going along with the baby's actual word (the baby was the grandson of the producer, if I remember right.)
I don't normally like musicals, but I love every single song in this film, and have seen it so often that I can sing along to it. I especially love the Sweethaven national anthem, and Popeye's little song to Sweet Pea is very endearing.
See this film, over and over again, as I have.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Worth watching once, if you're a fan of any of the leads.
If you're a fan of any of the four leads, see this once. I am a Robert Culp fan, and I originally went into it simply to see him. When I initially started watching it, I muddled through the retreat scene, got to the restaurant scene of the four, post-retreat, and couldn't watch any more. I slammed the headphones down and said, This movie SUCKS! My sister, who's 8 1/2 years older and remembered it when it came out, laughed and told me she could've told me that, but NOOOOO, I just had to see Robert Culp.
I gave up on it for a few days and figured I'd try it again. So I got through those two major scenes, sans sound this time, and once it picked up from the restaurant and I turned the sound up, I have to admit...I began getting caught up in it.
The going back and forth between the four was entertaining and as someone said in another comment, a good portion of this is simply the great acting and the dialogue, the verbal exchanges and parrying back and forth as Bob and Carol discover things about one another, and work to whittle away at Ted and Alice about the possibilities inherent in emotion-free sexual dalliances.
Cannon's character is pivotal in a lot of this, as the outraged friend of Carol. Alice flips out when Carol casually tells her that Bob had had an affair when he was off on his last shoot (he's a filmmaker), and later wigs out again when she learns that Carol, too, had had a casual affair while Bob was gone.
As anyone who's seen the movie poster for this will know, the four end up in bed together. It's surprising how this is instigated, and very surprising how it all ends. As another comment said, back in the day, many were crying FOUL! and COP-OUT! about the ending, but I really liked the twist of how it ends. Bob and Ted, and Carol and Alice, come to a startling revelation about their situation and about their love and friendship amongst themselves. It couldn't have ended any other way in my opinion.
I gave it a 6/10, just a wee bit above middle-of-the-road. I could find no fault in the acting of the four, the basic storyline (as I discovered) was enough to grab and hold one's interest, but it's far from a "great" film as many have said. See it, just once, you'll like it.
10.5 (2004)
This movie is so bad in so many ways, I can't count them all.
I don't know why I struggled through this movie. Last year, when it premiered, the first fifteen minutes lost me when they depicted a quake in my city of Seattle doing the most unbelievable damage.
The main example is how they showed the Space Needle. The Needle is made to pivot back and forth on its base, which goes 30 feet into the ground. It's built similar to a child's blow-up punching bag, with sand on the bottom. This film showed it motionless, then suddenly cracks go up the side and it collapses.
That's just the beginning of such horrid scientific inaccuracies, that the scientists I read after this movie came out were right: this is not even science fiction, it's science fantasy.
I'm sure seismologists WISH we could just watch a monitor that shows the magnitude on the Richter scale WHILE IT'S HAPPENING! That's the second thing that drove me away from this originally.
The acting itself was acceptable, I'll admit that. I'm not an acting coach or director, so I don't know what to look for, but it seemed good enough.
The storyline itself was ludicrous as well, again in too many ways to list completely.
It's so bad. If you know anything at all about geology and quakes, I'd recommend you stay well away from this film.
Twister (1996)
Worth watching over and over, technical errors notwithstanding.
The first several times I saw this movie, I had to laugh at some of the alleged meteorological data and SFX. The supposed F-5 that they depict, I thought, was hokey as can be. I changed my mind when, on the Weather Channel, they showed a tornado and it looked almost exactly as depicted in "Twister." Okay, I have to give them props for that.
HOWEVER, some of the other effects and what's supposed to be happening was just wrong. My main example is toward the end, when chunks of fence are supposedly flying past them, and they don't get pelted by anything ONCE.
My major gripe on being unrealistic, though, was when they strap themselves to a cold-water pipe that goes 30 feet into the ground. Sure, I think a leather strap and a deeply-embedded pipe would save them, but these two, supposedly scientists, seem to have forgotten that lightning takes the path of least resistance. A cold-water pipe, out in the middle of nowhere, with two bags of water (read: Humans) strapped to it? Lightning would've been hitting that thing right and left.
Okay, more props for how the tornado looked on the inside. I was reading a great book about twisters, and the man who saw the inside of one and lived to tell the tale described it just as they depicted. This man, who's name escapes me right now, was known to be intelligent and not giving to wild tales, so people believed him. He described the lightning making the inside almost glow, and little vortices, like tiny tornadoes, oozing out of the insides. And that's how they depict this one.
The story itself I like. I love Dusty, he's awesome. I like the other characters too. "Rabbit is good, Rabbit is wise." I guess I love this movie, technical errors notwithstanding, because I've seen it at least 30 times, so that's one indicator. For those who aren't weather geeks like myself, you'll thoroughly enjoy it! Oh yeah, one more thing: the size of a tornado is no indicator of where it is on the Fujita scale. And the rating on the F-scale isn't until AFTER the storm has passed, not before it! It's based on damage caused, which is after-the-fact. So they can't just look at a tornado and say, for example, "That's an F-3." Smaller tornadoes, because of their size and intensity (think of an ice-skater pulling her arms in, making herself smaller but also spinning faster) can be an F-5. Tornadoes with big, wide bases are often way less intense. There're always exceptions, of course.