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Reviews
Across the Tracks (1990)
Greatest Film Ever Made...
...okay, not really. But still, this Ricky Schroder/Brad Pitt production (made when Schroder was the bigger name) has all the after-school special charm of...all those after-school specials that I forget the names of. The story is cliched and the characters are simplistic, but if you don't take it too seriously and pretend your high school track team is watching it on the way back from state championships or something silly like that, you might actually have a great time with this movie. If you actually want to see a real movie and not something that is just fun to laugh at, I wouldn't recommend it. Great for bigger, slightly intoxicated audiences, especially if they are runners. Also great for people who love incredibly sappy stories of brotherly love.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
A stunning, captivating look at the corruption of the 1950s LAPD that proves that film noir masterpieces can still be made.
The Maltese Falcon. The Third Man. Double Indemnity. The Killers. All are brilliant pieces of film noir, cinematic masterpieces that envelope the viewer and make him/her wish that they too could be involved in the lives of the elegant cops, robbers, and everything in between that they watch...even if it means getting shot at, accused of anything and everything and, of course, beat up by crooked police officers. All are also from the 1940s. Enter L.A. Confidential, Curtis Hanson's brilliant detailing of the corruption of the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1950s. From the opening credit sequence's Americana shots to the pinstripe suits, retrospective soundtrack, and oh-so Michael Corleone fedoras, the set and costumes are exquisite, mixing the glorious with the gloriously ugly and masterfully juxtaposing the glamour of the setting with its dirty, seamy underbelly. Russel Crowe (homicide), Guy Pearce (homicide), and Kevin Spacey (vice)are equally spectacular as the triumvirate of honest cops who go up against the baseness and big muscle of Los Angeles' rackets. James Cromwell plays police chief Dudley Smith to perfection, and Danny Devito turns in a solid performance as Sig Hudgens, the Hush-Hush magazine writer who is mixed up in something...we just don't know what. Kim Basinger is both gorgeous and utterly convincing in her rendition of the Veronica Lake look-alike prostitute who captures the hearts of a few too many people. The plot is meandering, skillfully woven, and appropriately deceitful. It is mesmerizingly suspenseful and worthy of the highest praise. Much credit to James Ellroy, whose novel inspired this first-tier work.
L.A. Confidential is one of the strongest, if not THE strongest, films noir to have come out of the new school. Beyond that, it shows what modern cinema as a whole can be--an involving, enveloping walk, jog, or sprint through a situation that moves the viewer to want anything but to go back to his or her actual life.
Shichinin no samurai (1954)
An undeniable essential of the cinema
Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, "The Seven Samurai", is, arguably, the greatest film of all time, in league with "Citizen Kane", "Rules of the Game", "Battleship Potemkin", and "The Seventh Seal". It details the samurai-led defense of a small, poor Japanese village that is raided by a ruthless band of brigands. The story is a simple one; seven hungry samurai lead the farmers in defending their village for three meals a day. It is held up by stellar acting, beautiful cinematography, and the brilliant direction of Mr. Kurosawa.
Citizen Kane (1941)
Undoubtedly the greatest American film ever created.
Citizen Kane, the film, is many things. It is a brilliantly crafted series of flashbacks and remembrances. It is an engaging story of a dynamic man in a dynamic world. It is a remarkable statement for the wide range of time periods that it covers. It is a deceptively simple story centering on perhaps the most meaningful word in all of moviedom. Behind all that, Citizen Kane is the American cinema. There is not a major director today who has not been influenced by the genius Orson Welles put forth in his debut masterpiece. The film centers around a group of reporters investigating the origin of the dying newspaper tycoon (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst), Charles Foster Kane's last word: Rosebud. The movie begins with an unforgettable newsreel montage summarizing the man's life.
From there on, the viewer is thrown into a gloriously chaotic world of flashbacks upon flashbacks, in which the viewer slowly learns just about everything about Charles Foster Kane's enthralling life. From his trying childhood to his rise to power to the pinnacle of his success to his marital difficulties to his fall from grace, the story of Charles Foster Kane is presented for the viewer in a way that few other movies can offer: magically. Citizen Kane, undeniably, is THE triumph of the American cinema, and one of the greatest films every created.