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Reviews
The Lady Eve (1941)
Pure delight....
Two week ago, I saw "The Lady Eve" for the first time. Having seen a great many classic films in my 26 years of existence, I had never seen a Preston Sturges film. Major reasons has to be that :
A. Dutch and Belgium TV channels almost never broadcast a film that's more then 20 years old and if they do it's either a. "Gone With The Wind" b. "Ben-Hur" or C. "Doctor Zhivago".
B. The BBC never broadcast them.
But after reading hundreds of books about film and seeing dozens of documentaries, I of course know, who he was and what films he made. So I bought both "The Lady Eve" and "Sullivan's Travels", just to see how good these films really were. And I have to say they were both equally perfect screwball-comedies.
Henry Fonda was great in one of his rare comic performances as Charles "Hopsie" Pike, I wish he had done more comedies. Babara Stanwyck graces the screen as Jean AKA the Lady Eve. I had seen William Demarest before in a couple of supporting roles, but I had never really noticed him before this movie, he was hilarious.
But was else is there to say this movie. It's a great screenplay, all the actors are on great form, besides the three mentioned before, we have Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette and Eric Blore.
A pure delight
10/10
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Truth, beauty, freedom, love
I finally got around to see this film, I thought it would be a good film, boy, how wrong I was, it was a great film.
It's a love story, but not only about love for another human being, but also for the love of art. Art in any sense, music, cinema, architecture, etc. Whichever form.
All is being brought to us by the almost forgotten form of cinema, musical. The film-musical had it's prime during a time of depression and war, which main purpose was to give a little joy to the people. During the fifties and sixties, they tried to make them a little bit more serious or to take big Broadway productions to the screen. But by the summer of love the musical was as good as dead.
So now we enter the 21st century and a whole generation doesn't know what movie-musicals are all about. They have never seen films with Gene Kelly - Judy Garland - Fred Astaire.
What Baz Luhrman did was great, create a modern day version of "Singin' In The Rain", a film packed with modern classic songs. "Moulin Rouge" is the same concept as "Singin' In The Rain", old songs covered in a new story. The only distinction is that Baz Luhrman also gave the old songs a make-over. So we have a musical for the MTV-generation. It was a bold idea which happened to succeed perfectly.
Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor and Jim Broadbent were wonderful. The art-direction, cinematography and costumes were spectacular and the choice of music terrific.
In my eyes you can only hate this film, if you loath music or cinematography. But for me these forms of art are a basic human need, just like oxygen, food, water and love.
"Moulin Rouge" a lust for the eyes and ears. 10/10
Loser (2000)
Of course it's "The Apartment"
This is a simple modern version of "The Apartment", something which everybody who's ever seen it will see. There's a hint to it. Mena Suvari's character's name is Dora DIAMOND. Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter on many of his classic films name is I.A.L. DIAMOND. A coincidence, i think not. But overall it's a decent teen-comedy, but NEVER NEVER compare it to The Apartment.
6.5/10
Cast Away (2000)
Hanks' Tour de Force
Just saw this movie a couple of hours ago. Let me get straight to the point. This movie is not good, it isn't bad either but it doesn't deserve the attention it's getting. The first part (introducing the character(s)). We meet Tom and Helen, Tom is a sleazeball yuppie who only cares about his job, Helen euh... has no character. I didn't care about either one. The second part (plain crash) this was good, but not as good as the "ALIVE" plain crash, but it had it's moments. The third part(Tom only on island part 1). This is were the problems lie. It's very very slow, it's all about the nature cinematography (if you want to see this, please rent or buy THE THIN RED LINE) it was nicely done but not perfect. Tom Hanks is a good actor, but I simply do not care if, I know he is alone on the island, I know he will make a fire, I know he will learn to break coconuts, I know he will make an imaginary friend, (all seen in the trailer), but there's NOTHING more. This trailer ruined the entire film. That's why this part is very boring. The third part (Tom on island 4 years later and escaping). This part I enjoyed, we see a man who was spend 4 years of his life alone, of course he's cracking up, wouldn't you, but this part isn't long enough, In the beginning we only see the first weeks/months of his solitude, if you really want to see character development it had to be spread out more over the years, not only the first and last month. The last part(Tom and Helen meet again) some good parts (his sleeping on the floor/his disinterrest for being wet and the towel he gets) but mainly bad parts. The dialogue with "Stan" for not being with him when his wife died, and the scenes with Helen Hunt. So what do we got : Tom Hanks' role was good (oscar-nominated worthy, not winning) and another Robert Zemeckis film I just didn't get a real good feeling about.(Forrest Gump and Death Becomes Her being the others)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Why, please tell me why....
What is everybody crying about, of course it's not THE ULTIMATE MOVIE, we all were waiting for?? But how could it be.
But I want to give it a second shot. I'm not gonna watch it anymore till the Episode III has arrived. And only then I want to watch it again, Episode I - VI back to back. Then maybe you've forgotten about in the 12 hour marathon, or you'll see that it's the boring beginning of an otherwise great, extremely long movie called "Star Wars"
I hope so....
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Best Of The 90's
The Shawshank Redemption is the best film of the 90's. And probably the most beautiful film ever. For a long time I thought Pulp Fiction was the best of the two, but as time goes by I've learned Shawshank is the better.
This is a film that will be remembered and loved for all-time. It doesn't matter if you see this movie today, next week or in 10 years time from now. It will always have this effect on people it has right now. It took a while for audiences to really appreciate this film, because they didn't understand that "hope is a good thing", but knew that "life was like a box of chocolates and didn't know what we're going to get" later that year.
"Hype is a bad thing, maybe the worst of things"
The only bad thing I can think about is the dutch translation for the novel by Stephen King which is "De Ontsnapping" and I'm NOT going to translate it for all those who haven't seen it yet, cause it gives away the final twist.
I hope more and more people will love this film. I hope films like this will be made. I hope
Rating 10/10
Forrest Gump (1994)
A wonderful movie, but...
I really liked Forrest Gump the first time I watched it and I still do like it.
But can someone explain to me why it won 6 oscars, including best picture and best actor, in the same year that The Shawshank Redemption & Pulp Fiction were released. Forrest Gump is a good movie but it isn't in the same league as TSR or PF. Will the academy ever apologise for this mistake and many others? I think they should.
Tom Hanks was good, but the real winner was Morgan Freeman. Robert Zemeckis did a great job, but what Quentin did.....WOW. Forrest Gump is a wonderful film, but in this year against Pulp and esp. Shawshank it shouldn't have won.
This (Forrest Gump) is a great indication that the academy awards don't always get it right, this comes mainly through the hype which surround some movies therefore maybe the oscars should be held a year later when the hype is gone. (Titanic vs. L.A. Confidential another example) Then the real winners will win hopefully.
1994 was a great year but the academy got all the main oscars wrong (best actress was Natalie Portman for Leon), what a shame.
Nevertheless my rating for Forrest Gump is 8/10
The War Zone (1999)
A surreal experience
I first saw this picture last September at a little film festival, starting at midnight, the movie they should have been showing was an anvant-premiere of The Blair Witch Project. But they couldn't get the print in time.
Therefore we had an other film THE WAR ZONE. The theater was almost sold out and at the end there was just 10% of the people watching. It had no subtitles yet and this was not the subject that people were suspecting. As I sat there, with a friend, who had never in his life seen an arthouse film, we were astonished by this wonderful film. It was a surreal experience, first people who thought it was the wrong film stood up then the ones who couldn't understand the English accents without subtitles then the ones who couldn't stand the subject of rape and incest in the middle of the night. And me and my friend watched it and loved it. A few years ago he thought the greatest movie ever was Jumpin' Jack Flash. And as for me, I think it was just a brilliant film from one of the greatest actors of the '90s Tim Roth. It's a movie that will be forever in my memory.