November 2011 Recap

Here we go...

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die - As seen in November 2011
1) Daisies (1966 - Vera Chytilova) 6/10 - It still stands out as a very strange, but also very well imagined piece of artwork. Not something I'd call a favorite, but it's worth a look.
2) The Cow (1968 - Dariush Mehrjui) 5/10
3) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966 - Sergio Leone) 10/10 - Who am I to give an '8.5' to such a masterpiece? This was fantastic and one that I'm sure is a shoo-in for the next TOP 20.
4) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968 - Sergio Leone) 10/10 - Definitely the best of the three Leone films I watched. I've been replaying certain, key scenes over and over in my head since November 8th.
5) Once Upon a Time in America (1983 - Sergio Leone) 9/10 - It wasn't quite as powerful to me, on a personal level, as the Westerns were, but still packed a major punch. Also, after some thought, I just didn't like the cast choice of James Woods AT ALL. Not sure why.
6) Goldfinger (1964 - Guy Hamilton) 7.5/10
7) My Night at Maud's (1969 - Eric Rohmer) 8.5/10 - I may not have been able to identify with much of the subject matter that was expressed through the dialogue in this movie, but the characters actions spoke louder than their words and it's much more than a dialogue driven picture.
8) Point Blank (1967 - John Boorman) 6.5/10
9) The Shawshank Redemption (1994 - Frank Darabont) 10/10 - I said what I needed to say in my review.
10) Come Drink with Me (1966 - King Hu) 2.5/10
11) Deliverance (1972 - John Boorman) 8/10 - I went just a tad overboard on my original rating, but it's still a great picture!
12) A Hard Day's Night (1964 - Richard Lester) 6/10
13) A Touch of Zen (1969 - King Hu) 4/10
14) Pretty Woman (1990 - Garry Marshall) 7.5/10 - Pure fluff churned out of the Hollywood machine, but one out of ten times that actually works on me.
15) Gilda (1946 - Charles Vidor) 4.5/10

NON-1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die - As seen in November 2011
1) 8 1/2 (1963 - Federico Fellini) 4/10 - If you read my previous review for “8 1/2, that sounds very much like a man who wanted desperately to like Fellini’s “8 ½”, however, it just didn’t work for me this time around. I’ve read several different Fellini fanatics cite that you’re either a pre-8 ½ Fellini kind of person or a post-8 ½ Fellini kind of person. I guess you can mark me down as a post-8 ½ Fellini guy. Maybe the person writing that review just hadn’t seen the artist that is Fellini experiment with color films yet and had yet to be blown away with the way the artist thrived with the use of color pictures. Or maybe the person writing that review had just watched “La dolce vita” and ANYTHING that followed that up was certain to be a breath of fresh air. This time around I found “8 ½” to be mind-numbingly boring! By the time the end rolled around, I just didn’t want to be in the world of this picture any longer. Sure, there are some key scenes and certain bits of dialogue that are really well put together, but for the most part this movie about a man confused by his career, his loves and his life in general, left me wanting it to end. In some ways it’s intriguing, at times you want to unlock some of the obvious mystique of this movie, but for the most part I simply didn’t care. However, I do love and always will love the ending. The scene where Guido finally breaks down to Claudia is a great a great bit of dialogue – very heartfelt and the ending, with the characters of Guido’s life coming together for a grand finale, is just that – grand! But in the end, I was too bored and I feel that “8 ½” may have an expiration date on my DVD shelf.

2) Twilight (2008 - Catherine Hardwicke) 6.5/10 - Color me impressed! Now granted, I wasn’t too thrilled about peeping the “Twilight Saga”, but in short, it was far exceeded my expectations. There are a few things I know about modern Hollywood pictures. I know that they’re never going to push the envelope too terribly far, I know that the better looking you are the better gigs you’re going to get, I know that there’s a 99.9% chance of a happy ending and I know that if a film rakes in big bucks there’s high odds that we’ll see a sequel. I also know that when it comes to modern Hollywood, the snootiest of the film snobs will always take an artsy foreign picture over a modern teeny-bopper hit. However, I’m open-minded enough to realize that sometimes Hollywood can hit the nail on the head and churn out an impressive piece of work. Before I continue, let me make it clear that I have NOT read the “Twilight” series of books, so all of my observations are toward the film. What they’ve done here is taken two subjects that aren’t normally bundled in the same ball – vampire myth and modern high school teens – and the end product was a very interesting, very solid story. You had all the crucial elements: action, drama, a beautiful love story and heck, they even rewrote the vampire mythos and included they’re own, new, modern myths. No longer does the vampire transform into a bat and swoop in, but now he drives a Camry. No longer does the vampire dress in all black and dawn a cape, but now he leaves the top two buttons of his cool, new, Gap shirt undone and bares his chest. And no longer is the vampire a bad guy, but rather a hero. For what it is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with “Twilight”. It didn’t have to look mesmerizing, it didn’t have to have pitch-perfect dialogue and it didn’t have to be a masterpiece. It was always going to be a film that appealed to a certain demographic and in that respect, they NAILED it. Actually, they more than nailed it, because they’ve appealed to me and I don’t think I’m a member of their key demographic. The actors were all solid workers and hell, if people like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were paired with seasoned directors, with an original, work of art type script, I think they could really shine. The story here was also solid and never, in my opinion, did it get too over the top or too hokey. Let’s call that a write-up and bottom line: “Twilight” = not bad at all.

My God - a '6.5' for "Twilight" and a '4' for "8 1/2" - I think I just heard my film buff membership card being sliced in half!

3) The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009 - Chris Weitz) 5/10 - Despite the fact that I enjoyed the first one, I was still skeptical of watching yet another “Twilight” film. My hesitations proved accurate, as this one just wasn’t nearly as good as the original and proves once again that Hollywood should leave well enough alone. Let me just go on record as saying that nine times out of ten, I hate sequels. I am a firm believer in not trying to tinker with something that works, but of course, nowadays every movie that rakes in even the slightest of profit will be immortalized in a slew of sequels. In “New Moon” the special effects come on a little strong and the acting gets a lot worse. In the original the effects were kept to a minimum and the actors seemed like they were really trying - probably because they knew if they made this thing really work, they’d have four more paydays to count on. “New Moon”, for the most part, is really the same movie as “Twilight”, just with a different male love interest. This time around Bella falls in love with her childhood friend Jacob, who is later revealed to be a werewolf. When you start adding in all these ridiculous, more outrageous elements, it just gets too be too silly and nothing more than fodder for a teenage girl. However, it wasn’t TERRIBLE and I didn’t find myself watching the clock too much and was able to, at least for the duration, mildly enjoy it. I’ll leave it at that…

4) 8MM (1999 - Joel Schumacher) To read my DVD review for "8MM" click here.

5) About a Boy (2002 - Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz) To read my DVD review for "About a Boy" click here.

6) About Adam (2000 - Gerard Stembridge) To read my DVD review for "About Adam" click here.

7) About Schmidt (2002 - Alexander Payne) To read my DVD review for "About Schmidt" click here.

8) The Accused (1988 - Jonathan Kaplan) To read my DVD review for "The Accused" click here.

NOTE: I've included a link in my profile to my ICheckMovies.com list. There you will find a complete list of every film that I've watched from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die journey.

December 1, 2011 9:24pm