Reviews

This was one of the most poinant lines of the film, neatly summarising the general mood and feeling of the characters.

A lot of people think that this is an anti-war film, which to some degree it is. More accurately, however, it could be labelled an anti-army film. Interestingly enough both views could be maintained without there being any real warfare displayed on the screen. This is a measure of how powerful the film is.

The fighting which we see is actually between the various prison officers and convicts. The film does not simply divide them into opposing groups, but rather explores the differences and tensions between the people who are in power and those who are subject to it.

Like 'Full Metal Jacket', many years later, this movie is a condemnation of the dehumanising process soldiers are forced to go through in order to survive the army. Military prison, as we learn, is a further step down into the merciless and brutal world of the army.

If 'The Hill' was made today, the violence we see would undoubtedly be more explicit and obvious. However, this does not take away anything from the original , as it is the mental torture more than the physical suffering which is portrayed so well in Lumet's work.

It has aged fairly well, mainly due to the accomplished and original way the film is shot and the script is written. Camera angles to induce feelings of dominance, claustrophobia and pressure are utilised perfectly as are the varying degrees of light and dark contrast which accentuates the blazing sun. Every actor is well cast and gives well judged performances, most career bests. Those that stand out are Bannen, Hendry, Connery and Andrews.

At the core of the film is the struggle between Andrews and Bannen's respective characters for ultimate authority in the prison. The bittersweet ending shows that Andrews' charcter, although shaken, will still reign in the hellhouse of a military prison.

Superb, thought provoking film, that rewards the viewer for staying with it as the powerful ending is reached.

Let me start by saying I am a big Star wars fan, but on this occasion the critics are right I am afraid. I was very disappointed on the whole, for the following reasons.

a)Lucas has always wanted a computer animated alien as a main character in one of his films. I hope after this one he reconsiders. I realise this film was aimed towards young children but still the character of Jar Jar was intensely annnoying to me. Of course the computer rendering of the character was accomplished but you can still tell it's computer graphics. The actors seldom recognised his presense and struggled to not appear like they were looking through him rather than at him. What is so wrong with an actor in a well made costume? After all Chewbacca passed it off very well.

b) There is nowhere near enough of the dark side of the force in the film. Darth Mawl and the future Emperor are hardly in it and too many unanswered questions are left concerning the existence of the Sith and their future. As a whole the film is far too biased towards the good. The most interesting parts of the first trilogy were always involved with the dark side and evil and that was missing in this episode.

c) The robots which are deployed to wipe out the the resistance on Naboo are altogether too soft. We are talking about robots with blasters and computer reflexes who hardly ever hit anything and act as lightsabre fodder for the jedi. They should have been made a bit more useful and capable.

d) I couldn't help thinking that this story was a bit petty compared to the other films. I know it is a starting point but the story was all over the place, jumping from one place to the next with little continuity. Accidents and coincidences seemed the main devices in developing the plot. The only significant event relating to the later films was the discovery of Anakin everything else seemed trivial and unimportant. Maybe the fil will be seen in a better light when the 2 following films are released, but as a film standing on it's own it is poor.

e) The performances were another area which did not live up to the Star wars standard. Ewan McGregor tried too hard to sound like Alec Guiness and Jar Jar's voice was irritating to the ear. Liam Neeson was ok and Natalie Portman sounded suitably reserved and royal. It was all too average though. The 2 characters who might have livened up the dialogue were not given enough to say, namely the Sith lords.

f) The direction was also lacking. The film was a bit of a mess and that falls at Lucas' feet. Maybe he is too close to the story and doesn't appreciate what the audience sees. He probably shouldn't direct the next film but produce and oversee it. He needs someone who can take a step back and see if the film flows and works as a whole, not just as part of a larger story or a set up for later events.

However it was not all bad. The pod racing scenes were excellent and the final fight scene with the double bladed lightsabre was well done. These two scenes made you think this is how the rest of the film should make you feel, but sadly it didn't.

I was disapponited, I had come to expect more from a Star Wars film. It won't stop me going to see the next installment but my fever has definitely been somewhat quenched. the only thing that will put me off completely is if leonardo Di Caprio plays the older Anakin, that would sound the death nell of the saga.

The variety of characterisation on offer in this film is one of its main strengths. It is a film in which everyone has a favourite, and I am no different.

Of the main characters Mr Brown and Mr Blue have the most minor parts. Mr Brown looks slightly out of place compared to the other cool people round the table. He looks slightly like a nerd but makes up for the fact with the wonderful Madonna speech. Mr Blue has a couple of witty lines but nothing special and we never even see him die on camera so, for my money, he is the weakest character in the film.

Moving on to the more prominent roles, Jo and Nice guy Eddie don't have that much screen time but make every scene count. Both actors give career high performances with some really sharp dialogue. 'Because you're a faggot, alright' and 'Why don't you tell me what really happened' are respective highlights for the pair.

Now regarding the big four; Mr White, Mr Blonde, Mr Orange and Mr Pink. Mr White maybe has more lines than most but can be considered the straight man of the film, the action and the other characters revolve around him. We are led to believe that he has more experience than a lot of the others but he quickly gets riled and loses his head in several parts of the film. Ultimately Mr White is a humanist and 'good' as far as this group goes but he loses everything and for that reason he is not the best. Mr Blonde is the most thouroughly evil of the characters and , for me, no amount of coolness and toughness can cancel that out. I loved it when he got killed, he deserved to die. Some of my friends liked this character but I thought he was portrayed to be a sick twisted man who was a necessary sacrifice to the plot. He's not the best by a long way. Mr Orange, in opposition to Mr Blonde, is a cop and essentially a good guy. He plays his part well and his instinctive error of jugdement killing a woman can be excused. He has sacrificed himself for the good of the cause, he is the rat. In the criminal underground of this film you are led to believe this is the lowest of the low. However, we must remember that all the others are the real scum, they rob and kill innocent people and cops. They have strange rules and codes which most live by 'Kill any real people ?. . . No just cops' but they are still scum. Just because this is the only view point of the film we must not forget that. However this does not mean these criminals cannot be cool and even liked. Therefore Mr Orange can never be the best, because he is the rat and cannot be admired because the film is from an entirely different and biased viewpoint.

This leaves us with Mr Pink who, in my opinion, is the best of the bunch on the criminal terms the film sets out. He is the only true professional in a crew who are all suppose to be so. Although he does whine a bit and he is a bit soft at times, backing down to Jo and Mr Blonde, he is the only one who keeps his head and has the strongest will to survive. He comes the closest to getting away and we never see him die, we hear shots but he might have got away with the diamonds. He cares about himself and only himself but that is the only way to survive in this film. He does not pretend to be anything else and for that he should be commended. Mr Pink may be a faggot alright, but I think he is the best of the colours on their own twisted terms.

This film does nothing special it doesn't have any special effects or groundbreaking ideas. It is a family drama that benefits from superb direction, casting, writing and acting.

Many people won't have heard of this film at all and it isn't often seen repeated on the tv, but it deserves a lot of respect. It's critical acclaim was massive but it is still underated.

Redford's direction deserves special mention I feel. There a few first time directors that handle a movie in such an accomplished way. His direction is recognisable throughout the film and always subtly done. Mary Tyler Moore was an inspired piece of casting in the role of the cold unforgiving mother. Donald Sutherland gives a powerful yet understated performance as the caring father and Timothy Hutton is every bit as full of pain and angst as James Dean ever was. It desrved its Oscars and it was good to see that a film of such quiet quality can be appreciated by the industry. Wonderfully observed and simply told the film keeps you gripped from start to finish. I was amazed when I first saw the film that I hadn't heard of it before. Hopefully it won't be too long before the rest of the world catches on.

If Speilberg made Jaws nowadays, when he can afford to make a movie to the cost of a small country's entire yearly budget, then the cinema would have been robbed of one of its finest moments.

The main difference is that I am sure you would have seen the shark much more and that, of course, is a bad thing. The thing that scares the most is not the sight of something horrible or frightening but merely the thought. People who prefer books to films often say that books require much more imagination. Well what else is at work in the early scenes of Jaws, where you don't see the shark at all, but your imagination. Arguably the most chilling scene is the opening one when the girl gets savagely ripped apart. The only indication of a shark is the fact that nothing else could throw around a person like that but a great white.

The weakest scenes, in my opinion, are near the end when the shark actively attacks the boat and we see far too much of what is a pretty average model. If Speilberg had the backing and money he had now he would have made an entirely different film and I would say an inferior one to this classic.

Much of the plot and story comes from the fact that the shark cannot be seen and is being hunted down. How many great scenes would have been lost if it became a gore fest or an action adventure like so many of today's pathetic offerings ?

Maybe I am not giving Speilberg enough credit. He is a great film maker and would have seen the benefit of suspense to his movie rather than outright graphic horror. It is the idea that a shark that big could be out there that put many people off swimming in the sea for a long time.

As we saw in the sequels even the same formula, handled in the wrong way, didn't work. Forget the sequels, Jaws is probably the best true thriller ever made made by one of the top directors and starring a perfect cast. And remember a shark the size of a bus could be out there somewhere, we don't belong in the sea !

Few films genuinely shock me nowadays, but this did. It is horrible yet fascinating, it fulfills the morbid curiosity which is in us all whether we want to admit it or not. There have been other films about serial killers but none as desperate or dark as this masterpiece.

It is the unrelenting mental will of Spacey's character that chilled me the most. His utter insanity was matched only by his ingenuity and discipline. His character is one of the most truly evil in film history, forget hannibal lecter !

The whole film is brilliantly made, the performances are great, even from Brad Pitt, and the atmosphere is wonderfully set, but there are two particular things which, for me, set this movie apart.

The first is the way in which the city setting they are in is every bit as all consuming and intimdating as Spacey's character. People are swallowed up and spat out in this world, no one counts. It reminded me very much of an Alan Moore graphic novel called 'Watchmen' in which a character called Rorschach becomes a vigilante to clean the streets of the 'scum'. Spacey's character is somewhat like this striving to show people the evil that surrounds them. The irony is that his methods are wholely more evil than anything he wishes to illustrate.

The second is the ending. Never has there been an ending like it to my knowledge. It is hard to describe how it makes you feel. There is no way he can lose, you feel cheated whilst still appreciating the cleverness of the manufactured situation. It leaves you with nothing exactly reflecting how Brad Pitt's charcter must feel at this moment. The film leaves you bewildered and mentally fatigued.

However the perfectly handled ,and completely unique, ending completes an awesome film.It is very downbeat and critical of humanity, Morgan freeman's character re inforces this in his final line, but there was a place for a film such as this and Se7en filled it.

I don't know about anybody else but I love it when you are watching a film and you can clearly see the time and thought that has gone into individual scenes. I also love it when you watch a film several times and each new viewing brings out something that you have not noticed before. The Graduate is clearly a film which falls into these two areas.

Watching it now it is hard to appreciate how original and groundbreaking the movie would have been in 1967. However, it does stand up amazingly well to today's slickly made films. It is an film full of ideas, both about the story and the way the scenes are shot. For that reason alone it is up there with the best Hollywood can offer nowadays. The cast give a perfect performance right down to the most minor part, the writing and screenplay keep the story flowing at just the right pace and the direction in each scene is flawless. There are too many classic moments to pick out just one for particular attention, but the scene where Ben tells his parent s about marrying Elaine then leaves as the toast pops up is fantastic.

Yes, it is a film about the confusion of youth about love and loss of innocence, you can read into it on many different levels, but when all is said and done it is a damn fine entertaining film.

When you analyse this film there is not much to it. A simple story about conformity and rebellion. There are no great set pieces no amazing stunts and no special effects. It is just a supreme example of a star, and his presence on the screen, being entertaining. This is not to demean the other actors in the film who all give good performances and the writing and screenplay are also good, but I doubt if the film would have been anywhere near the cult classic it has become without Paul Newman in the lead role. He is the ultimate anti-hero. He does not seek the attention and the adulation but cannot help but receive it. His role is one of passive rebellion right until the end. He accepts his fate at the end and becomes an inspiration and a myth to the other prisoners who do not have the strength to emulate him. Even though he dies at the end this is a feel good movie. It leaves you uplifted, but not in the crude way today's films often do it is a very subtle film. Paul Newman is that rare thing a true film star who can truly act.

I was interested to see that at the Oscars, when clips were being shown of all the films that have won the best picture prize down the years, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest received by far the loudest cheer when it was shown. The reason for this must be that people in the film industry, who are involved in film making on a daily basis, appreciate this outstanding piece of cinema and what it took to make it. It boasts a perfect cast who all give flawless performances. When I first saw the film I truly thought that some of the cast, such as De Vito, were actually mentally handicapped. Of course, the two main performances are superb but they are given excellent support by the rest of the cast.

The scene where MacMurphy is speaking to the doctor for the first time has to go down as one of the most realistic and natural scenes in the history of cinema.(You didn't weigh the chain did you doc ?) This film is an example of what cinema can accomplish and an inspiration to future screenwriters. It should be on everyone's top ten list.