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Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972)
Heart Of Glass (1976)
Stroszek (1977)
Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979)
Woyzeck (1979)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Cobra Verde (1987)
I think I can say I'm not exactly a fan. Many of these movies felt very long, and individual scenes often went on longer than they had any need to. I often found my self thinking "move on already, will you?" Still, plenty of interesting stuff and peculiar ideas.
Even Dwarfs Started Small is black and white, has an all-dwarf cast, and basically features dwarfs behaving badly for an hour and half. Might have made a great short film, but felt interminable and exhausting at that length. Heart Of Glass is weird, but sort of interesting. Stroszek I disliked for most part, but that final scene with chicken and a rabbit... at first I was, like, "wtf?" and then I just started laughing. Pretty damned weird ending for a movie though.
The best of the 5 movies with Klaus Kinski is, for me, Nosferatu The Vampyre. Very atmospheric and quite beautiful, and Kinski as Nosferatu is fantastic.
In Aguirre Popol Vuh's music (used a lot in Herzog's work) helps create the eerie atmosphere of alienation and descent into madness. Apparently this movie influenced Apocalypse Now.
Woyzeck was okay.
Fitzcarraldo was kinda... well, too bloody long. That whole crazy thing with the ship - what's the point? And then the other crazy thing with the ship after that as well. I mean, why actually, really do it? Herzog? Hello, hello? He sounds mostly sane and often fascinating to listen to, but sometimes I wonder if he's got all his marbles... (Btw, it was supposed to star Jason Robards, and Mick Jagger, but Robards - after almost half the movie already shot - got ill and was unable to return, doctor's orders... so Herzog had to re-cast and re-shoot... Jagger had to go on tour then and the character was dropped, and Kinski was cast as the lead.)
Cobra Verde I never managed to get into at all. Definitely the one I liked the least of the Herzog-Kinski collaborations.
My Best Fiend (1999)
Herzog's documentary feature about his working relationship with Klaus Kinski. Some piece of work he was... I don't know how people work (or live) with someone like that. Clearly he had some serious psychological issues. Unpredictable, frequently rude and raging, and actually violent. (Also a tyrant at home and according to a daughter a child abuser as well.)
I think my favourite on-set story is about the native chief, appalled at Kinski's bahaviour during the filming of Fitzcarraldo, offering Herzog to kill Kinski for him.
To be continued...
Just saw this. Simply amazing film.
I loved MY BEST FIEND. Interesting to see Kinski get tweaked out over things on the set and start screaming. I liked the bit about the "Kinski Spiral" how he positioned himself into the frame. Very clever way of giving himself an intense presence before the camera.
One of the most fun films I can think of. Utterly cool, laid back and charismatic performance from Mel Gibson. He makes everything look so damn cool, and he is visibly enjoying himself. His chemistry with the young 11-something mexican boy is very good, as dear Gibson doesn't allow any bullsh*t from him. Of course, Gibson switches on his badass mode for the climax, where no-one has ever looked so ice-cool while throwing a grenade at an enemy. 'Get the Gringo' and the recent 'Blood Father' are very epic films, and I hope Gibson will continue to make these for the next few years.
Yep! He's excellent in that, such a terrific movie that builds to an exciting conclusion.
One of my favorite Jason Statham films. Very straightforward story - bad guys threaten Statham and his daughter, so Statham demolishes everyone involved. But it's just so damn entertaining to see Statham be a badass and brutally punch/kick a lot of goons. In a few scenes Statham's specific skills are almost unreal - like when he wipes out a couple of guys in a gas station, I almost feel sorry for them given how hard Statham seems to be punching. A stellar supporting cast too - James Franco, Wynona Ryder, Frank Grillo and Clancy Brown. A hugely entertaining film, I could rewatch it tomorrow again and still cheer at Statham's various moments of badassery.
Only the Lonely , while not held in as high regard as Marty, is an incredibly charming film with great performances by John Candy, Maureen O'Hara and Anthony Quinn.
I highly recommend both
I enjoyed it, even though i didn't really learn anything new. I found the 2012 documentary Everything or Nothing to be better and more informative.
However, i was glad to see Connery and Terrence Young in this one.
I decided to continue my Film Noir / 50's classics marathon.
I always loved Anne Baxter and was always fascinated by Bette Davis.
All About Eve is one of the many masterpieces of the 50's, both Davis and Baxter deliver the performance of a lifetime and it is my favourite film of Baxter and Davis.
Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) must be one of the best written and most interesting female film characters ever.
And the same can be said about Margo Channing (Bette Davis).
Seeing this movie for the first time in perfect high definition picture quality was a real treat.
The 50's is my favourite decade for film, closely followed by the 60's. Or maybe it's a tie between those decades.
All About Eve is one of many reasons I feel this way.
The supporting cast is perfect as well, by the way. Marilyn Monroe play a minor role in a couple of scenes, nothing spectacular, but it's very interesting to see her early in her career. And boy, was she breathtakingly beautiful.
I saw the Bluray but it's title was How I Spent My Summer Vacation !
Great film, very underrated.
The scenes in the Mexican prison are really good, and Gibson has never been better!
Really enjoyed this. Made me laugh a lot. Bit patchy in places and a bit too much slow-mo CGI, but with an excellent Ryan Reynolds sending himself up something chronic this just manages to stay the right side of smug.
Morena Baccarin looks incredible in this. Loved her in Firefly but I swear she's getting younger!
Found Ed Skrein a pretty weak villain. He looked familiar then I realised it was that plonker from the bloody awful Sweeney remake!
Sicario - A very depressing movie based upon the war on drugs, it essentially shows that when something makes so much profit the solution is not always the clean one. Well acted and some exciting action moments.
One of the South Korean action flicks I enjoy a lot. So Ji-sub is one tough guy, and although this is the only action film I've seen with him, he really impressed me in this film. Once he gets pissed off by the bad guys, he turns on his Rambo mode and machine guns, stabs and suffocates a lot of goons. The final shootout is particular awesome, as the main hero looks really slick in his suit while carrying a big sub-machine gun. There's also quite a few badass fights in the the rest of the film, like when the hero takes down a group of young thugs using only one hand. These South Koreans are just so damn good in terms of action films.
Bruce Willis is back as John McClane, and as Willis is not bored, he gives one of his insanely badass, charismatic and likeable performance. From the very first moment you see him, to his last line at the end, Bruce Willis is a force to be reckoned with and just owns the screen. The action scenes are spectacular, from the intense opening shootout, to the car chase where Bruce Willis takes down a helicopter with a cop car (!), to his fight with the female villain where he swings her so hard he rips a piece of her hair, to the final truck chase where Bruce Willis manages to jump from a bridge and grab a jet fighter in mid air. A very good chemistry with his sidekick Justin Long, plenty of humour, lots of badass moments for Willis. This film is 2 hours of pure entertainment, and one of my favorites and most watched action films of the 21st century outside of the Daniel Craig Bond films, the Bourne films and 'Taken'.
Though it must be said that Die Hard 3 paved the way for a different Die Hard with more ambitious and less claustrophobic action, so it's not like Die Hard 4 wasn't already being telegraphed as a possibility in the mid 90s to act as the most audacious and action-packed Die Hard at that time.
It's also great to see McClane much older and learned in Die Hard 4, reacting to technology he finds unnatural and infuriatingly irritating to get to work. It's like watching a wild west cowboy being told by his town that it's time to hitch up his horse and take an automobile or train instead. John is lost in a world that has moved past him, and he doesn't like it.
A Good Day To Die Hard, by contrast, was a vomit inducing experience which may also have 'induced' my breakup with the then girlfriend. (Thinking about it, I may have to thank the film for that.) ;-)
One of my all time favorite films, and my 2nd favorite lead performance, behind only Nicolas Cage in 'Lord of War'. Willem Dafoe is absolutely magnificent as the world-weary, mysterious hunter sent on a mission to search for the last remaining Tasmanian Tiger in existence. His local contact is none other than Sam Neill, who is also wonderful to see as another world-weary man of the wildlife (an older, retired Dr. Alan Grant?). The frequent sequences of Willem Dafoe deep in the forest, with no dialogue, are breathtakingly shot, and feature a fantastic soundtrack. 90 minutes of pure escapism with Willem Dafoe in mysterious adventure in a beautiful, remote location.
An unusual thriller with a grandstanding performance from Ben Kingsley, a long way away from his portrayal of Gandhi!!
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
I was in the mood for something exceptional, and so put in Tarantino's 2009 antepenultimate entry. This is one of my favourite films of all time. I can't describe how impressed I was with this after I saw it for the first time. In fact, there have only been a handful of occasions when I've walked out of a theatre knowing I had just observed something special, and both this and my first watch of Pulp Fiction count among them.
Boasting an exceptional cast operating at the top of their game, this is part comedy, part historic revisionism, and part thriller. Brad Pitt is convincing as Lt. Aldo Raine, the head of the Basterds, an elite Jewish American unit which strikes fear into the hearts of Nazi soldiers by killing and scalping them. Melanie Laurent is demure and mesmerizing as Shosanna Dreyfus (aka Emmanuelle Mimieux), a Jew whose family were killed by the Nazi's. Daniel Bruhl is naive & yet strong as Fredrick Zoller, a Nazi war hero smitten in a fated fashion with Shosanna/Emmanuelle, Diane Kruger is beautiful and intoxicating as Bridget von Hammersmark, a German traitor assisting the allies. Michael Fassbender, in a small role as British Lieutenant Archie Hicox, demonstrates yet again why he would be the perfect choice to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond. August Diehl is frightening as Gestapo head Major Hellstrom.
Finally, the performance of the film and of the year goes to Christoph Waltz as SS Colonel Hans Landa, aka the Jew Hunter. There are rare times when one actor or actress is able to dominate a film in which every one else is operating at 100%, and this is one of those cases. Waltz is sheer perfection as Landa, in what is in my view the greatest villain performance since Alan Rickman in the original Die Hard. He's able to be amusing, calculating, terrifying, charming - and one doesn't know which one is going to show up in any scene or at any moment. It's this unpredictability which makes him so effective in this role. It's a truly magnificent performance.
The film is broken into a series of chapters or acts, each taking place in a different setting and with different characters. They all feature outstanding and highly memorable scenes. These include the opener at Monsieur La Padit's home, the conversation between Shosanna/Emmanuelle & Zoller, the meeting between Shosanna/Emmanuelle, Goebells & Landa, the bar scene, and the theatre finale.
I'm quite certain that the monologue by Waltz at La Padit's home (which coincidentally includes a detour about rats) inspired Mendes for Bardem's opener in SF.
Tarantino really is a master at getting the best out of his team. Whenever I watch one of his films, I feel like the actors are soaring, as if they have been unclipped or untied. It's a privilege to see, especially with a cast of this calibre. My faith in Waltz has been restored (it took a knock after a certain Bond film) after watching this movie again.
Highly Recommended!
I liked the 4th film, too. It's a bit underrated, IMO. The latest I only saw when it opened and haven't watched since. I should give it another shot. I may see something in it I didn't before. LIVE FREE, though is a blast.
This makes me want to see it again- I should get a copy.
My favorite entry, though, as unpopular as it seems to be is the 2nd film. I love the airport scenes, the snow and William Sadler. Also I remember taking my Dad on his birthday to see it, so I have nostalgic memories of DIE HARDER.