Author Topic: List of Shame REVIEWS  (Read 209976 times)

Bill Thompson

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2011, 09:12:06 PM »
That just hurts, Bride of Frankenstein is an example of classic horror film making from a true legend of the horror genre who everyone seems to always forget when they talk about the greats. It's such a deep film too, damning humanity all the way to hell with its theme. It covers much the same ground as Frankenstein, but it has more bite, moves at a much better pace and has a flow to its narrative that is instantly appealing.

Antares

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #11 on: April 05, 2011, 10:35:57 PM »
Les diaboliques (1955) 4.5/5 - Wow!!! If all the films in this dictation are going to be this good, I'm going to blow right through my list of shame. At first, I thought Vera Clouzot was a little wooden, but as the film progressed, I realized that she was so supposed to appear detached after living with such a bastard of a husband. Simone Signoret and Paul Meurisse were both excellent in their roles, but the one character who made this film for me was Charles Vanel as Fichet, the retired police inspector. I can now see where they got the inspiration for the Columbo character. Every moment he is on screen, he is just annoying enough that I felt that the two women were going to find away to do away with him also. Great acting, a screenplay with enough twists to make a bag of pretzels and one of the best scenes of horror I've ever witnessed in a film. They say that this was the scariest film before Psycho was released in 1960, and while that film has two very scary scenes, both of the frightening moments are manipulated through the use of music to add to the fear and tension. For me, less is more, and the climactic horror scene in this film works better than the two in Psycho, because of the lack of music. It's pure imagery which forces you to feel the fear that Christina is experiencing in that moment. This is definitely going into my top twenty of all time.
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Bondo

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #12 on: April 05, 2011, 10:41:08 PM »
Hmm, I wonder what you might dictate to me. ;)

Bride of Frankenstein is an example of classic horror film.

I'm not entirely prepared to concede that Frankenstein and BoF are horror films. I guess the concept is horrifying but it never seems to be a film that tries to scare. I felt zero sense of tension.

Bill Thompson

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #13 on: April 05, 2011, 10:42:58 PM »
I'm not entirely prepared to concede that Frankenstein and BoF are horror films. I guess the concept is horrifying but it never seems to be a film that tries to scare. I felt zero sense of tension.

Horror films are not always about scaring, or creating suspense. Quite often they are about atmosphere and the exploring of themes through a horrific veneer, a lot of classic horror is based off of this idea.

1SO

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2011, 11:18:19 PM »
Wow, Antares, I feel like I watched a completely different film.

Antares

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2011, 11:36:10 PM »
Wow, Antares, I feel like I watched a completely different film.

Twists that have lost pretty much all their impact because they've been used in other films. 

But I can't fault a film for being an original and an innovator. These twists work in this film. Sure I figured out what was going to happen, but it made me all the more curious to see how they were going to pull it off. And that final scene with Meurisse is pure cinematic terror.
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toro913

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2011, 10:19:40 AM »
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) 8/10
This is the 7th Miyazaki film I've seen and if I were to rank them it would fall 5th (above Castle in the Sky and Howl's, below Spirited, Mononoke, Kiki and Totoro). It definitely feels like a precursor to Mononoke, the dichotomy between nature and the machines, the environmental message, the female character who is in touch with nature. While not as great as Mononoke in my opinion it is still a fantastic film with great visuals (anything inside the sea of decay), creature design and at least one well developed character to help add some stakes. The biggest weak point in the movie was definitely the war between the two non-valley tribes, it was so underdeveloped that the movie just dragged at the mere mention of it.

smirnoff

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2011, 10:26:28 AM »
The Day of the Jackal
(Fred Zinnemann, 1973)

Excellent. Maybe a little too methodical, I found it long, but it's that careful step by step pace that makes the film what it is so I can't really complain. Remember that great sequnce in The American when Clooney constructs the gun, well Day of the Jackal is like that the whole way through.

I appreciated the unrecognizable cast and shudder to think of how the film would've been changed by having either Roger Moore or Jack Nicholson in the role of The Jackal (which according to wikipedia was a consideration). I also shudder to think what a remake of this film would be like (oh, wait. I saw it and kind of had a good time). I greatly prefer the original of course.

The size of the guns tell you just what kind of films they are.

Both cool but totally different attitudes (i.e. American, English).

oldkid

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2011, 10:33:34 AM »
Seven



Wow.  What a fantastic film.  Morgan Freeman was soooooo cool, he even was dressed like Alain Delon.  Any movie is improved with Morgan Freeman, but he was especially awesome in this film as the worn out detective, ready to retire and live on a farm.

The atmosphere was perfectly oppressive.  It seems as if Nolan took a page from this film in representing Gotham City, but the chaos, danger and oppression was even stronger here.  Fincher gave every scene a powerful emotion.

One weak spot, I felt, was not giving enough time to Gweneth Paltrow to develop her character.  By the climax of the film, I still didn't feel like I really knew her enough to grieve.  The other weak spot was Brad Pitt.  Yeah, he plays arrogant well, but not in a sympathetic way.  I just didn't care too much about his character in the end.

Overall, fantastic film.  For noir picks, maybe up there with Chinatown, but not as good as Third Man. 4/5
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FroHam X

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Re: List of Shame REVIEWS
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2011, 10:36:23 AM »
Seven

Wow.  What a fantastic film.  Morgan Freeman was soooooo cool, he even was dressed like Alain Delon.  Any movie is improved with Morgan Freeman, but he was especially awesome in this film as the worn out detective, ready to retire and live on a farm.

The atmosphere was perfectly oppressive.  It seems as if Nolan took a page from this film in representing Gotham City, but the chaos, danger and oppression was even stronger here.  Fincher gave every scene a powerful emotion.

One weak spot, I felt, was not giving enough time to Gweneth Paltrow to develop her character.  By the climax of the film, I still didn't feel like I really knew her enough to grieve.  The other weak spot was Brad Pitt.  Yeah, he plays arrogant well, but not in a sympathetic way.  I just didn't care too much about his character in the end.

Overall, fantastic film.  For noir picks, maybe up there with Chinatown, but not as good as Third Man. 4/5

A lot of people don't really like Brad Pitt in this. Even Brad Pitt has spoken about some poor acting choices in the movie. I have no idea what anybody's talking about. I think he's great. And at the end, I don't need to grieve, it's the shock that gets me. And I still find it shocking. The high emotion of that penultimate scene is amazing.
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