What an amazing experience to see The Adventures Of Robin Hood 80 years after its original release. How can one explain the longevity of its relevance. Relevant in every department. Acting to start with. Errol Flynn was not considered a great actor, never an Oscar nomination or anything like that. Bette Davis was always frustrated for having to work opposite him rather that Laurence Olivier. But, look at him now, 80 years later - Erroll Flynn' s performance is as fresh today as the day he filmed it. Compare that with Oscar winner Russell Crowe's Robin Hood (2010) - Russell Crowe even had the impertinence of mocking Erroll Flynn's version. This bit of tribia kuind of depressed me after the high of seeing again this Michael Curtiz's masterpiece. Here, everything works. Other than Erroll Flynn - even if when's he is on the screen is difficult to pay attention to anyone else - we do. Mostly because Claude Rains, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone and the rest of the sensational cast. This adventure film will continue to captivate audiences for years, decades, centuries to come.
Reviews
12 Reviews
God's Own Country
(2017)
Men In Love
24 February 2018
What a wonderful and unusual experience, to see a film without knowing anything about it. Before I knew it I was in Yorkshire. The silence was deafening, emotions unspoken. Then, Josh O'Connor - a miraculous actor - I didn't know who the actor was and that helped enormously to get sucked into his world - exterior and interior - and to live his experience fully. Alec Secareanu produces the perfect emotional blow. Roughness and tenderness in a stunning, totally believable performance that, I know will live in my mind forever. They changed me somehow. I was forced to look at something in a different way, without preconceptions. Gemma Jones and Ian Hart. complete this masterpiece that I intend to see again tonight with a group of friends who, like me, don't know the first thing about the film, other that I loved it. Francis Lee I'm joining the chorus with a heartfelt, thank you.
Fathers & Daughters
(2015)
Seizures and Tears
19 January 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Okay I got it. Director Muccino must have found a profitable vein and he's exploiting it in a rather shameless fashion. The script, very much like in "Summertime" "The Pursuit Of Happiness" and "Seven Pounds" is an expositional tear jerker with characters who explain themselves with every line of dialogue.
Russell Crowe has his first seizure within the first few minutes of the film and then he has others, I don't know how many but it felt like 400. So at the end we have a 2 hour movie out of a tiny idea swollen by an infinite series of cliches that includes, I'm not kidding, a musical, romantic montage when the young lovers first meet. The extraordinary Janet McTeer has one scene and the extraordinary Jane Fonda, one or two. So this must have been an expensive production and in fact Fathers and Daughters has everything , cast, looks, settings, everything except real thought and original ideas.
Summertime
(2016)
Charmingly childish.
17 January 2018
Let me start by saying that I enjoyed it even if I knew, I sensed that I was told the story as if I was a child. a very young child who needed repetitions for clarity. The characters talk and explain themselves with a writer's tone. None of it makes any real sense and yet I stayed with it, mainly because I was intrigued by Brando Pacitto as a character and as an actor and I was totally enchanted by Joseph Haro. They create a vibe that was contagious even if remains at the periphery of something. I haven't been able to get into Gabriele Muccino's world yet. His preppy characters are as far from a mystery as anything I've ever seen and the dialogue is pure TV but I have to admit I'm glad I saw it.
Smith and Bottoms, what a pair.
15 December 2017
I hear that Alan J Pakula was loved by his actors. I'm sure that's true and Love And Pain And The Whole Damn Thing made me notice, made me feel the love of Pakula for his actors. Here he has Timothy Bottoms in a performance of such beauty that I don;t understand why he vanished, specially after this film and The Last Picture Show. Maggie Smith builds, with Timothy Bottoms, a romantic crescendo more clear and tangible to us, the audience, than to them, those character walking at the verge of the abyss. Beautiful, smart and unforgettable.
California Suite
(1978)
Maggie Smith Says "Bizarre"
15 December 2017
That's the one thing I remembered about this Neil Simon comedy, Maggie Smith saying "That's not funny, that's bizarre" I had never heard the word "bizarre" like that. Bee-zaaaarr, or something like that but Maggie Smith uses it brilliantly as an irresistible comic tool. I remember being kind of put off because Maggie won an Oscar for this over Meryl Streep for The Deer Hunter but, watching it now. I understand. Maggie Smith is fantastic and her marital banter with Michael Caine is a total delight. The movie, as a movie is a whole other story. Flimsy and dated with a musical score that may remind you of some of most generic TV movie. Jane Fonda is great, Elaine May and Walter Matthau, hilarious but it also has Bill Cosby, hard to watch now and a hilarious Richard Pryor. Herbert Ross directs respectfully but without any cinematic ambitions. Maggie Smith and Michael Caine however make the whole thing worth it.
The Last Adventure
(1967)
Friendship, Robert Enrico style
31 October 2017
A splash of something fulfilling, moving, romantic, heartbreaking. Robert Enrico is one of the unsung masters of film. His movies are not destined for a Godardian audience but not even the purist film scholar can be indifferent to this. Alain Delon is at his most natural and human. That on its own it's just gorgeous. Lino Ventura is sublime as the older friend who needs the other but at the same time gives him all the freedom in the world because, as it happens with true friends, he want what's best for the other. The entrance of Joanna Shimkus into their lives is totally intoxicating. She doesn't enter to interfere in Delon and Ventura's friendship but to reinforce it. How beautiful! She's perfect. This film deserves a new life. I know it's difficult to find but it's well worth the effort.
7 Women
(1965)
Anne Bancroft stars in John Ford's last film.
23 September 2017
For a film nut like me. 7 Women offers a plethora of pleasures. Patricia Neal was suppose to star but ill health made her unavailable. Anne Bancroft took over as the drinking, smoking, swearing saint. and all the aspects of this complex character are totally real in Anne Bancroft's face. She arrives to the Mission in China like a benevolent tornado. The spectacular Margaret Leighton is the head of the Mission and she plays it like a raw nerve, Among the other women, Flora Robson, Queen Elizabeth to Laurence Olivier's Michael Ingolby in Fire Over England, brings a voice of reason that reassure us, Betty Field , Kim Novak's mother in Picnic, among a gallery of memorable characters, plays the pregnant middle age woman who offends the Christian mission for having had sex with her husband under their roof. Mildred Dunnock, Anna Lee and even Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, Sue Lyon is part of the Mission. On the other side, the villains, that offended so many people, John Ford casts his longtime companion Woody Strode. I understand and even accept all the criticisms listed in the reviews of this pages but, somehow, I can put all that aside and enjoy the plethora of pleasures that it offers.
Legend
(I) (2015)
The Hardy Twins, what a treat
25 August 2017
The original film about the subject "The Krays" (1990) had Billie Whitelaw as their mother and, somehow, she dominated my memory of the film. Here the twins have a mother but she is, on the film, a distant character and that's what I missed here. I missed their interaction. She clearly had a massive influence in their characters but in Legend, those pieces of the puzzle are unfortunately missing. But, Tom Hardy compensates for any flaws. He is extraordinary, twice. The twins are total individuals, totally two people. What they carry in common is a sort of sexual danger, one explicitly the other implicitly but both as powerful. They dare us to get close. Amazing performance(s)
Full Metal Jacket
(1987)
Full Metal Jacket 30 years later
28 June 2017
Strange, as I sat to watch Full Metal Jacket for the first time in years, what I remembered most was Lee Emery's Sgt Hartman's rantings and Vincent D'Onofrio. In fact, it was Vincent D'Onofrio's Pvt Lawrence, known as "Gomer Pyle" that made this Stanley Kubrick film, truly memorable. I'm noticing this more and more as I get older and revisit old films. The performances, certain performances, even in supporting roles allow a film to keep growing with the passing of time. Full Metal Jacket a shattering film or I should say, two shattering films. The first part, the training, the intro is a masterpiece practically impossible to match up, so, the second part doesn't match it. But, still. A film-experience. Vincent D'Onofrio's performance even more powerful now, 30 years later. Enormous! The British skies over Vietnam is another reminder than an artist's eye knows no boundaries.
Midnight Cowboy
(1969)
Love Story In The Periphery Of Hell
27 June 2017
Two desperate characters meet. It's not a meet cute in the classic sense of the word but it's not far away from it either. It's also a melodrama, operatic but hidden in a reality that can't possibly be real. Dustin Hoffman is as bold as Bette Davis in a Warner Brothers melodrama. Amazing. And Jon Voight? - He wasn't the first choice, Michael Sarrazin was. Jon Voight plays his whore with a heart of gold with the decency of a Mary Astor in another melodrama from the the 40's. I've seen Midnight Cowboy 5 times, the first time in a theater, three other times in VHS or DVD - Last night I saw it in a huge screen in the house of a friend. HD I believe and, Oh my God. I wept. I was taken over completely by this two devastating, truly devastating characters. John Schlesiger the director, a genius. British by birth but he showed us an America that most people didn't know existed, not even Americans. This is a film for the ages.
Breaking Bad
(2008–2013)
Addicted: Meth or Math.
27 June 2017
Drug wars, meth, the lot. I thought no thank you. I kept hearing how good it was and I kept saying: "No thank you" Last January I got sick, one of those illnesses you can't quite figure out. Maybe it was pre and post election depression, I don't know. But I stayed in bed for almost 10 days and then it happened. I saw the first episode and I was immediately and I mean immediately, hooked. I saw the entire series in 9 days. Voraciously. Now I had time to reflect. Why I wonder. When I think about it the first thing that comes to mind is not a thing it's Bryan Cranston. I know the concept was superb as was the writing but Bryan Cranston made it all real. His performance, the creation of Walter White will be studied in the Acting classes of the future. He is the one that pulls you forward - as well as backwards and sideways - then I realized that his creation acquired the power that it acquired, in great part thanks to the extraordinary cast of supporting players. I could write a page for each one of them but I'm just going to mention Aaron Paul. I ended up loving him. I developed a visceral need to see him find a way out. Well, what can I tell you. I know that one day, maybe when my kids are old enough, I shall see "Breaking Bad" again. I can't wait.
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