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bennygillespie
Reviews
Diarios de motocicleta (2004)
Solid Coming of Age/Road Flick
Motorcycle Diaries follows the life of a young Che Guevara as he and a friend make their way through South America. The film tries to answer the question of what made a young medical student become a communist revolutionary. The
script is good, but not particularly dynamic considering the source. The
character arc is told in an amazingly straightforward manner, similar to many other coming of age tales. The look of the film combines nice combination of great locations, with decent hand-held cameras, shot on film with a nice earthy grain. The performances are strong, particularly Benal when he is one on one with sick patient. Overall a strong film worth checking, but don't expect any surprises.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
A Turning Point
Dd John Ford and John Wayne know that they had reached their twilight hour
when they made The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? Is there meaning behind
the fact that John Wayne's character is introduced to us in a coffin? Perhaps I'm reading into this further then I should. Intentionally or not this film is where this team passed their baton. The subject of the film at every turn seems to hinge on turning points of society, urban development and world views. From the
romanticized violence of the past, to the calculated temperament of the future. Through the desert villages of yesterday to the bustling centers of tomorrow. Wayne is a brute dinosaur and Stewart is the studied man of reason. The film exists in a meeting ground between the simplistic west we knew from classics
and the world of the modern western. While The Magnificent Seven, made two
years earlier set the stage for the spaghetti western, this set the stage for classics such as The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In
these worlds the gunmen are fallible and the choices they make are sometimes
irrational, with sad consequences. We sympathize with Wayne in this film in a way unlike any of his previous work. This is a must see for fans of the genre.
Killer's Kiss (1955)
First twenty minutes well ahead of its time
The characters in Killer's Kiss are B-noir clichés. However, the first twenty minutes of the film exists with the sort of atmospheric realism and flare for experimentation that only could have been found in France in 1955. Kubrick
uses hand held cameras, jagged cuts, and real locations in the same year that Mellvile was making Bob le Flambeur. The boxing scenes in particular were a
major breakthrough in subjective cinema. For whatever reason, the film then becomes a pretty standard crime genre piece (with rare exceptions). Kubrick
definitely had one of the greatest eyes of any director ever, and it is evident even here in his first film. The ending is pure Kubrick at his most demented, featuring a fight between a guy with an ax and a guy with a spear-- in a room full of mannequins!
The Red Shoes (1948)
Technicolor at its best.
While I found the plot and characters of The Red shoes simple, I couldn't help but be awestruck by the grandeur and eloquence of the production. Technicolor never looked better then it did here. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and fully taken advantage of by the directors. The performance of "The Red Shoes" which serves as a centerpiece to the film is simply one of the most impressive sequences I've ever seen. This movie also has one of my favorite cuts of all time. After announcing she is engaged to the company, a dancer notices Boris has left and says to herself he is a cruel man. We then cut to a wide shot of Boris alone in a large dark room, framed by a moonlit window. It is a stunning moment to behold. The performances are for the most part subdued and cold,
but match the tone and subject of the text enough that they are not a distraction. I particularly thought Walbrook, who played the producer, nailed a few of his more difficult scenes. The only real problem I had with the script was the ending, which felt forced and not truthful to the character of Victoria. Definitely a must for any die hard fans of lavish technicolor productions.
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
A film about moving on.
I loved that this movie takes place on an imaginary block of an imaginary city. You could say the streets represents a state of mind just like the title of
Chinatown did two decades later. Here degeneracy and addiction are the
norm. This place sucks you in and wont let go. It's here that Sinatra must face his demons when he returns home after getting clean at a rehab clinic. The film ends up being just as much about moving on from the past as it does about drug addiction.
Sinatra's junky is a bit amorphous, we never really learn whether he grew up here or what led him to his addictions. However, the story is strong and told with a nice brisk pace. There are some real memorable moments (the Gambling
sequence, Frankie coming off smack, etc). Preminger's direction is great, some subtle camera work adds a lot to a number of scenes. Elmer Berstein's score
and Saul Bass' titles perfectly set the mood. Overall, an endearing film you should check out.