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Reviews
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024)
A whirlpool of silent dram
This may be a good viewing experience for couples who refuse to interact with one another. For anyone else, the acting seems wooden and prone to empty pauses. That's right. Empty pauses. ... The talent is there but the direction is lost in ennui. Alienation, though, requires a release, to refill the emptiness. But that has hand happened here so far Unfortunately, I sense that the denouement might be rather a predictable formula rather than a capable rendering of complimentary vacuousness. Too bad, because given the talent it is lost. I stopped caring. Too bad, because I really like many modern spy dramas, but this just seems to be a version lite of the depths of previous and more well written spy concepts that involve more to accomplice that strange symmetry.
Opening Night (1977)
What a sweet, and dark, film!
Just watch it! That smoochy kiss by Peter Falk was soooo loud however, but I understand why.
There were parts of this grand film where I thought of other great film couples, like Bogart and Hepburn, or Liz and Dick. There were other moments when I realized Gena was brilliantly showcasing the depths of a woman truly on the verge. And, there were moments when I thought of my favorite directors, of the neo-realist Rossellini, the gut grabbing Pasolini, and the majestic Antonioni and realized how Cassavates should also be in that grand crew.
Just watch it. Enjoy the quality that seems to now be something so distant that it must be maintained.
The Big Parade (1925)
Wow-za .What an ending!
Thank you Brad Pitt! I only discovered this gem through his supposed homager to John Gilbert in Babylon 2022. The last 40 minutes are so are breathtaking. I can just imagine my emigre grandparents watching this on the Big Screen 93 years ago. Jim, Melisandre, Slim, and Bull will not be forgotten. The transition to talkies made many of these actors and actresses lost, and the the fates of the Biz left many to cruel endings--RIP Slim. I watched it without any sound whatsoever because the score is still being kept under copyright wraps. The cinematography is excellent, and Griffith Park never looked so good. See it! Wowza!
Night Raiders (2021)
It is not a Disney/Marvel production
Yes, I know this film is a bit lo-fi, yet the acting leads are superb, the story a bit too believable--especially in terms of recently uncovered nightmares of Indian schools, and the malicious tech right on target. Was there a bit too much left from he editing room intact: YES. But some of these actors probably worked their whole lives to get into a wide-distribution release. I appreciated the film on many levels and would hope other viewers would as well.
Zeros and Ones (2021)
Multifaceted nihilism
This film attempts to capture the despondency and the emotional chaos of the early pandemic. If you give it a chance and let the images sink in, as Hawkes lurches through a world teetering on apocalypse, submerged violence, and decaying prophecy, perhaps you will find the quiet momentum of the sound and image as lovely as I did. It is not an action film, though, if you want that rewatch a Bond or Bourne film. It is an artistic expression of despair, and perhaps in the end, a expression of the vibrancy and fragility of life.
David Makes Man (2019)
Each episode dives a little deeper
Really impressive performances and very important themes make this series a sometimes wrenching yet crucial exploration of the alienated psyche in the present USA. This show could not have been made and distributed before today, sadly, because of biases even if it was always very needed. The only downside are the predictable echoes of David's frequent time traveling. But it does give a modicum of that sci-fi edge that current black cinema is expanding upon as it reinterprets that vision in a speculative way.
The Counterfeit Traitor (1962)
No war but cold war
This is one of the overlooked classics of cold war cinema, not because of when the plot line took place, during WW2, but for when and where it was filmed. Berlin, 1962, right after the Berlin Wall went up, right when the Soviets were attempting to package their authoritarian nightmare as an alternative to Western-style liberal capitalism. This film is an allegory that attempts to place the communism of East Germany in the same brutal and vicious category as the Third Reich. And, who knows, maybe the Hollywood propaganda dept was correct. The 1958 book, which I still need to read, was based on a true OSS character at a time when the CIA was reinventing itself as a guardian of Western democracy and capitalism.
Lili Palmer is extraordinary, Holden competent and direct, and the Nazi youth in Hamburg truly scary. even without the all but forgotten Cold War symbolism, a very good film.