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quetzal77
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Saw (2004)
Incredible
I bought this movie just thinking that I was going to watch the usual trash gore movie. I found instead a new version of seven, less psychological, but very well designed and with a really surprising finale. OK, the plot is cheating on the spectator, but, what the hell, it's a movie, it's fun to feel stupid sometimes...
Dark, creepy and, what I like, not great names to make a good movie. Absolutely rent or buy this one if you like thrillers.
The only question I have is about the killer. How could he study all of those mechanisms of death? Looks like he was a kind of mad artisan and with some tech-knowledge background. Furthermore, the masks and puppets he uses are very peculiar too. Did he have all that spare time? Well serial killers apparently have...
Novecento (1976)
Too ideologically biased
Bertolucci is for sure a talented director. but as for many artists who are great with images, lacks of original content.
this movie is depicting fascists as sexual perverts and maniac killers. and the model that should substitute them is the communist one. where the communists are full of good feelings, perfect ideals and capable to create a perfect society. that is not what happened in the real communist countries, where a form of even worse fascism took form. this movie will even justify the killings of many white partisans by the hands of the red ones, as in the end make the viewer see the new government as another way of fascism and landlord society to take power. people who never studied the Italian history will not understand what really the fascism has been for Italy. many crimes were committed by some fascists, but not fewer than thos committed by the Italian communists that were concerting to take power with the help of Moscow.
to come back to the movie, well, great actors, especially the ingenuous Depardieu, who was giving himself in those years to all of the movies that were lacking of ideological originality, as some ferreri's movie (ciao maschio, l'ultima donna), but that still has a great physique and that is perfect to incarnate the sane and robust farmer to counter with a De Niro who is representing a society who is weak and decaying.
some bucolic set and frames are beautiful as painted pictures.
This movie has anyway to be seen, if not for its political accuracy, for what can offer: a surface analysis of a country that is undergoing great changes after which, as always, somebody will win and somebody will lose.
Braindead (1992)
Black humour
I'll be very synthethic. The direction of this movie was amazing, with a pair of very imaginative and hilarious sequences. The movie is a triumph of blood and bodies dismembered, but not for a moment I felt really disgusted (try to watch nekromantik, that is anyway a movie I liked). I was captured by the creativity in the use of the body parts. The only critics someone could move to this movie are about its not being scary and for my personal taste for not very appropriate music. But it's not a scary movie, it's a bloody black humoured comedy and about the music, well, who cares! 10/10
Funny Games (1997)
Disappointing
The first thing to say is that the choice of actors was perfect, because the two psychotic guys, especially the thin one, were stimulating all my repressed violence for all the duration of the scenes in which they were involved, since the very first appearing. Beginning with their gloves and horrible short pants. Who wouldn't have liked to crush the legs of the bad guy? And what about the moments in which our beloved hero was talking directly to us or rewinding the tape? I was going to explode of anger for the stupidity of the scene itself and for the disappointing fact that after finally scoring a point the referee was simply telling me that the goal was not going to be validated! Under this aspects the director did a good job. But I don't think that a movie about violence should generate other violence. Horror movies are full of violence but are generally blatantly fake, and that kind of violence, even if gratuitous is a sort of harmless fun. Movies like Clockwork Orange give us some antihero who we sympathize for, but there is some deep analysis of the phenomenon of violence and it's a movie that makes you think and is beautiful as a piece of art.
I think that the old cathartic function of drama representing reality should still exist, otherwise we end to watch movies like this that have no point and that maybe could be used for some kind of "reconstruction of the facts" in a tribunal. 5/10 because it succeeds in capturing me, but it does in the wrong way.
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975)
A really Disturbing one, but not gratuitous
I saw the movie some time ago. And still remember some of the kind of repulsion I felt during the vision of this movie. And I ma used to see all of the trash movies of the cannibal, gore, grand guignol trend.
But here we are projected in a weird atmosphere, where actors act with no passion, as automatons, while living the worst psychological and physical tortures. But this is a movie about the horror of power when it starts to be abused by those in charge. So more than a movie about the Italian Fascism it's a movie about all the fascist forms of power(in Italy the same tortures fascist committed during fascism, were then committed by the communist partisans towards the end of the war, and not only against the black-shirts).
Anyway this is a movie with high political content and it must be praised for the courage of an author, Pasolini, who has always been an independent intellectual and especially in a country like Italy, where, if you don't "belong" to something(left or right) nobody will listen to you, many were the critics of his work and this explain why his best works are still underrated. A must see, even if still not recommended for people with a weak stomach.
Frenzy (1972)
Comic actors'debt
I loved the narrow settings in this movie, this always been near of the camera to the actor's faces. Some sequences are pure fun (the potato truck, the escape, the wrong guy going the wrong place just to be seen by the wrong person while going away from the murder scene). Somebody didn't appreciate the murder and rape scene, but we are in the seventies, cannot go back to the movies of the 40's, where nothing or little is revealed by the camera. In today's movie we can even see penetration scenes!and still not consider them porno movies, but "art" that shows the truth! I think what Hitch shows us is a perfect balance between the nothing and the too much. But what I loved most in this movies are the 3 sequences about our Police Inspector eagerly eating some traditional english dish and then trying to find a way to eat the eatable at home with his wife's prepared french gourmet delicatessen. I found them irresistible, maybe cause I am living in China and sometimes it happens to me to be compelled to manage the sea cucumber or the jellyfish or these "there's not so much meat,darling" dishes, and I think that people like Mr Bean owe more than a dinner to this Scotland Yard Inspector.
La dolce vita (1960)
should I believe in rankings?
I don't wanna comment the movie, that is an absolute masterpiece, even if I know that sometimes Fellini is hard to digest. But I think that having your own style is a great thing when doing good cinema (that's why I like Greenaway, Lynch, Hitchcock, Tsukamoto because even if maybe sometimes they don't make perfect movies, always follow their ideals, their atmosphere, their way of intending cinema; they invent or reinvent something). Then I don't find this movie in the best 250 voted by the popular jury I belong to too. And even if I always respect democratic processes, well, let's just say... I hope it can climb the ranking soon! I had to hold myself back from being rude towards those people who gave bad votes to the movie. I always thought art is an objective thing! At least in its highest achievements.
The Eighteenth Angel (1997)
already forgot it
the only thing I still remember of the movie is the stupid pentagram that looks like a Christmas decoration(somebody already wrote about it, I know). Ah, the good accent of foreign guys when speaking Italian: Hopkins was ridiculous when reciting in Latin-Italian in Hannibal. Maybe that was the only aspect they concentrated on while doing this movie and still I don't understand this etruscan book idea where it came from. For what I remember the etruscan civilization was many years before Rome itself was founded and was conquered by Romans before the coming of Christ. So why this weird link. If there's some good history teacher, please help me solve the question. At the moment I left all of my elementary school books in Italy
Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
This movie is a real nothing
I am the kind of person that always watch movies not in a snobbish way. I always try to find the good in a movie, I know that cinema isn't only Fellini or Bergman, sometimes you need that, but sometimes you just want to have fun with a trash b-movie (I love horrors, but even some stupid comedy can do). Then I find this movie, it looks like the demential comedy that has plenty of invention and think can be ok. It lasts almost 2 hours and I only laughed once! (the scene of the false navel). Beside that I couldn't find the movie funny. Maybe it's telling us something about finding a job and I am so happy a got one, cause on the contrary this movie for sure would have furtherly depressed me! I'll show it to some friends of mine to test their IQ. The one who laughs more won't be my friend again.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Evergreen
The first time i watched this movie I didn't appreciate it, because of some prejudice I had towards the person who recommended it to me. After years I had the occasion to recommend it to a 3 years old child to make him understand that not only Disney can make good cartoons for children. And I loved it and so did the kid. And every time he came to my home asked me to play the movie (Italian version, but very good even compared to the original)and it was like a drug, every time I was continuing to watch again and again the film and was never tired of it. Why? Simple, great music and interpreters, nice plot, perfect characters and beautiful, simply beautiful to see. If somebody can inform of something similar in circulation, just tell me please.
M. Butterfly (1993)
Life is cruel
Well, I watched the movie time ago. But it really shocked me.The most atypical Cronenberg movie, but with the same obsessionating theme of body methamorphosis returning. It's one of the most tragic stories I ever saw in a movie.With a perfect Jeremy Irons in the role of the crazy desperate and betrayed lover. Interesting how he believes to be the father of the child...little experience? If it's true that is based on a real story, hope this detail is just an add of the movie! Anyway, if u like tragedy, even if u hate Cronenberg(I actually love his movies), have to watch this one!
No se lo digas a nadie (1998)
Surprised
Well, I am not that fond of latino-american cinema. I could say I am ignorant about it. This movie ended in my hands in a casual way, I was curious, and don't ask me why, I like movies about gay. This movie is great. The main actor fulfills his role in a perfect way, specially about his being confused, not well defined sexually, and in general for what concerns his life as well. The plot is(or should be)dramatic, but doesn't let you feel despair, even if maybe in some moments is too superficially light(when the father kills accidentally the indian and when Joaquin leaves his friend dying in the car, seems nothing happened!).The fighting against his own nature to accomplish other's people desires or just to feel normal people in this movie is very realistic, I think, and everything is accompanied by vivid colors and a veil of irony. The final scene, even if obvious is very funny. I was surprised, but maybe just because ignorant!