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Reviews
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Massively overrated
Reading through the other reviews, it appears I should be previously aware of some enormous controversy over this film: I fear I'd never heard of it until I saw that it was on TV and got a good imdb rating.
Apparently I should be offended for some reason, but I just found it all rather dull.
It makes the unforgivable mistake of trying hard to be wacky and zany, but not accompanyingly funny. I did chuckle occasionally to be fair, especially when the speccy kid dropped the Panzershreck (sp?) and it went off.
The naivety of the general idea the young woman would have been super safe if she'd just gone outside once the Russians arrived; well, history tells us all we need to know about how that went in Berlin.
On the plus side, the weaponry in the closing reel was mostly accurate, even a glimpse of an stg44, which almost made the previous 90 minutes bearable.
Oh, and the two young actors' acting was faultless, as it goes.
The Changeling (1980)
Uses every ghost story cliche imaginable... but very effectively
As per title, this film uses every haunted house cliche you can think of, but does it very well indeed. Almost as if a very talented painter was painting by numbers.
The only slightly jarring aspect is that the ghost seems increasingly hostile towards George C Scott's character, despite him doing all that he reasonably could.
Shades of Darkness: Feet Foremost (1983)
Well-crafted ghost tale
Like the rest of this series (N. B. now available on YouTube) this ghost story is light on special effects, jump scares, and all the other paraphernalia that I'm very happy without.
This one starts by rather labouring the Aren't Rich People Awful angle, but mercifully this fades as the tale goes on and is replaced by a rather well-crafted story.
Though the ending is slightly... convenient.
Well worth a watch. Apart from anything else, our heroine is quite beautiful.
Dracula (1974)
Dracula's not angry with you, he's just disappointed...
On the plus side, this is probably as faithful to the original book as any adaptation I've seen.
On the minus side, and the one thing that has really stuck with me, is that throughout the film, irrespective of whether his star is on the wax or wane, Jack Palance looks somewhere between crestfallen and perhaps constipated.
Perhaps I've been too long schooled on Christopher Lee, but the overall impression I got that either Jack Palance (or his Dracula) was disappointed with everything he saw.
The Day of the Locust (1975)
Baffling - did I watch a different film?
While I appreciate that this is one of those films Serious Film Enthusiasts are meant to like, and thus will be immune to criticism from the likes of me, the version I watched was an absolute stinker.
None of the characters were remotely sympathetic. I don't mean that in a simplistic "Who were the goodies/baddies" way; they were just completely uninvolving and without any depth.
The biggie: Karen Black as a beautiful starlet that every man she meets is throwing themselves at? Pull the other one. Boss-eyed and whiny. Was she cast as some kind of bet? I suppose it was the 70s, a decade when seriously plain women could be film stars.
Musical score: John Barry? You'd never know. Was he ill? A huge chance to invoke the period with music was wasted.
Two marks out of ten then:
1. The visual evocation of Hollywood in period was excellent.
2. The 'incident' that triggers the simply bizarre ending (again, I did wonder if the director did this for a bet) is the one time in the film I actually perked up. 'Asking for it' doesn't even begin to cover that one.
BBC2 Playhouse: Mrs. Acland's Ghosts (1975)
Why don't we make them like this any more?
First point - crucially - is that this play and the rest of the series are available (in somewhat rough form ) on YouTube.
It's a nuanced and unsettling ghost story, or is it? Not a million miles from The Turn of The Screw in that respect.
Like the rest of this series it's greatly aided by haunting flute incidental music, and in this case by a luminously beautiful leading lady (Sara Kestelman).
It's a 70s TV play so the production is on a shoestring, but otherwise I really can't fault it.
Angel on My Shoulder (1946)
Rating purely on the lighting
Plenty of other reviews cover this film; I just wish to draw the viewers' attention to the fact that - in my view - the lighting of this film is pre-safety b&w at its absolute best.
The way the speaking characters' eyes are light, while even their lower faces are in shade is a delight to behold.
I note the cinematographer- after a long, undistinguished career - only made one more film, before going to TV struck me as surprising, as it's rare that I'm impressed enough to look them up.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Struggling to understand the high ratings
Having read through the other reviews, I am genuinely struggling to engage with the numerous 9s and 10s.
Insofar as I can see a pattern, the smattering of low scores like mine emanate from the UK. From this vantage point, this film looks utterly ridiculous. The scenery shooting, the apparently vast miners' cottages, the bizarre pseudo-irish accents... I'd be interested to know how this film was received in the UK at the time.
I can only assume the high scores come from Americans who watched it years ago and have an enduring fondness for it, because to a modern eye it looks and sounds ridiculous.
Quite apart from all that, the plot is on the level of a daytime soap.
The single scene that engaged me was the relatives/friends (? By then I'd lost track) popping in to the school to give the teacher a boxing lesson. The rest washed over me, to be sure, so it did, etc.
On the subject of it beating Citizen Kane to the Oscar... I'm no fan of Kane as I find it singularly lacking in heart... but this? Words fail me.
The Misfit Brigade (1987)
Not a great movie adaptation but...
...my main reason for adding this review is speculating on why so many of the more positive reviews mis-spell Sven Hassel's name in the same way ('Sven Hassle').
Seems legit...
EDIT:
Aaaaanyway, so this turned up on UK TV and I watched it again after a long interval.
Back story: I was an almost fanatical fan of the books in my teens. I tracked this film down on rental in about 1989 when I was about 16, rigged two VHS players up and made a copy.
Boy was I disappointed. The book it wasn't.
Watching it again after ~33-34 years, it's nowhere near as bad as I remembered. Sure, it's no Saving Private Ryan, but it does make a decent effort with an obviously microscopic budget, the tank scene is... spirited I suppose. David Carradine and Oliver Reed chew the scenery in a satisfactory way.
And despite what the other reviews say, it actually makes a fairly good stab at capturing the atmosphere and spirit of the book. Square-jawed German heroes these are not.
Finally, I note now that the actor that plays Sven was also the young blond Russian soldier in Cross of Iron, a thematically similar - albeit far superior - film.
A slightly surprised 6/10.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Like a bad Citizen Kane, unsurprisingly
I am going to refrain from explaining the history of this film as, helpfully, about 75% of the other reviews do that.
In brief the handful of so-so reviews have it bang on to me.
- It's a very dated story about a handful of deeply unsympathetic characters, who act in quite bizarre ways towards each other. Our 'hero' is without any redeeming features that I can see.
- In the first reel you are blasted with a character shotgun; perhaps I was already losing interest but I'm still not sure who some of the middle generation of characters actually were after they were smeared over me in about thirty seconds.
- Agnes Moorehead's performance is widely lauded, I thought it was scenery-chewing.
- As a result of the editing it is a very disjointed film, with most of the important stuff happening off screen or not being mentioned at all. If I was one of the characters I would have been very tempted to break the 4th wall and say "hang on, why are we poor now? Why were we rich? Who's that guy over there? Who just died?" Though frankly, 88 minutes of this was enough for me, so thanks RKO.
But... technically it is in places wonderful. Use of light and shadow is as good as the best 40's films, albeit a little gloomy here.The first long scene with a potted history of the family is wonderful. The set is a masterpiece of gloomy gothic.
So how does it compare to Citizen Kane?
Clearly it's not as good, but in some ways it has a remarkable similarity. I am old-fashioned and I need at least one character in a film who I can root for, and in that way these films are the same: in both cases there is a lack of heart to the way any of the chief characters are realised, almost like Welles has a blind spot for seeing the need for this.
Kane - stand by to hate me - is also IMHO a little oddly paced in places, spending a long time on fairly insignificant incidences then skipping over others.
Now, imagine the heavy editing had been done to Kane and not Ambersons... which would be the better film?
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Genuinely baffled by the tiny minority of bad reviews
I just bought Blazing Saddles on DVD as I find myself genuinely surprised to be living through an age where an almost 50 year old movie is danger of disappearing, to appease the Professionally Offended.
I loved this film as a teenager; aged 47 I'm watching it for the first time in 20 years and I forgot just how consistently funny it is. It has the polish of a golden age Simpsons episode: i.e. there is no fat, just joke after joke after joke.
I've scrolled through the reviews and quite rightly almost all are 8-10/10. This truly is one of the funniest films ever made. Like all the best parodies (the first Austin Powers film is a good example) it has a deep affection for what it is satirising.
Then there is the odd 1-3 star review, most thankfully 20 years old. The common thread seems to be "OMG the baddies said the bad words!". Are some people so thin skinned that they can't cope with people in a movie who are either evil or at the start of an upward character path not being squeaky clean? I must go and read the reviews of Downfall, to see if the same kind of people are complaining the central character has opinions that just aren't acceptable in the modern world.
And racist? I guess if I was a white supremacist I might have cause for complaint as most of the white folk are depicted as utterly dumb, but to try and say that it depicts scenes of black railroad workers being mistreated and is therefore condoning that treatment... I give up.
Finally I'm baffled at the odd review claiming this is Mel Brooks' one stinker; this is the only film of his I like! It's like all the stars aligned for him this one time.
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Brilliantly shot, directed, cast and plotted
This is one of my top two films without doubt. Curiously the other (The Devil and Daniel Webster) also features a jury of the dead: read into that what you will.
It is brilliantly shot. The colour is vivid, lurid and generously used. The black and white in heaven is strikingly lit and shaded; the art deco feel of heaven is inspired. The shot of the heavenly receptionist framed by the shining clock is one of my favourite ever.
Michael Powell is one of the greatest directors ever. Not a moment of celluloid is wasted, nor an opportunity missed.
David Niven has his best role ever, Marius Goring as comic foil is wonderful, Roger Livesey is authoritarian... I could go on.
The plot (without spoiling it) treads a very careful line between David Niven being a fugitive from the afterlife, and a man suffering hallucinations. So fine that on repeated watching, I still don't know which I think I am minded to favour.
Finally, I am a big, ugly emotionless man, who has never shed a tear at a funeral in my life, but the first five minutes of this film when David Niven is still alive makes me cry without fail. Which has to be worth something.
Frankenstein's Army (2013)
Creature design alone makes it worth watching
Clearly filmed on a budget of about what my car is worth, a large portion of that budget was evidently spent very effectively on designing and realising the monsters encountered in the latter part of the film.
They are imaginative, and well executed, and for that reason alone I highly recommend it. As some have commented in the message boards, anyone that has played many first person shooter games will recognise the influences clearly, without naming names...
The film other than that is fairly what you would expect. It doesn't do anything exceptionally wrong, though the characterisation is scanty at best. There are some wonderful black comedy moments scattered in there. Look out for the moment when an attempt to remove the helmet from a soldier with a head injury, for example.