Reviews

This is a slick, witty documentary on the Kansas Board of Education's 2005 vote on whether or not to allow intelligent design theories to be taught in the state's public schools alongside theories of evolution. The filmmakers do a great job of neatly presenting the main arguments and key players on both sides, and nicely deflate the tension by allowing humor to the come to the fore. Both sides are shown as intelligent, with well-formulated arguments, and yet also prove to be obstinate, self-deluding and prone to bullying and name-calling. It's informative, and in a way also quite depressing, becoming a sad, mocking document of this seemingly interminable discussion. Given the nature of the format, which is a basically a condensed record and play-by-play analysis of a pseudo-courtroom debate, the doc can be a bit talk-heavy and lag in places. Its impact may also be diminished by the Kansas BoE's 2007 decision to overturn the verdict. It is ripe for creating post-screening discussion.

After enduring a patience-testing opening scene that quickly establishes that this film will be comprised of poor visuals, clunky dialogue and inexpressive acting, I watched on for another twenty minutes as the meandering, clichéd plot churned through the gears without any semblance of reality or spark of imagination. To give the film a chance, I skipped forward a couple of scenes, but things had only gotten worse. The sound was particularly poor, and the lighting in some interior scenes appears to have been inspired by Victorian-era fog. This is a talky, meandering film that I couldn't finish. I wouldn't subject it to any audience

I was lent this film on video and was told that it was 'the first film of the French new wave', which is interesting because it's actually set in the ivory coast. It compensates its amateurish look and dubious acting through a very enjoyable and often amusing script and a relaxed yet intimate style. Revealing and engaging.

There's already enough praise for this near-perfect film on here so i won't waste time saying things others have said more eloquently. I just happened to watch both rear window and eyes wide shut recently, and wondered if anyone else had noticed the numerous similarities between the two films? The theme of voyeurism, and the way the two great (greatest?) directors lure into replicating the star's observations and mentality is the most obvious link.

However, the first connection i noticed was the use of colour in the films- both are consistently placing orange and blue together throughout, especially in rear window. Are these the colours of voyeurism? or paranoia??? Kubrick also used oranges and blues alot in the shining, another film which explores the themes of observation, (self-created) illusions, reality and paranoia (the 'overlook hotel' anyone?). I'd really like someone to discuss the colours used in these films and their effects with me, as i basically have little knowledge of what these are supposed to represent.

Beyond the colour scheme, there is also the remarkable similarities between Grace Kelly and Nicole Kidman in appearance and manner- knowing how meticulous kubrick was i can't help but think he perhaps cast Kidman with this in mind.

Which brings us to Tom cruise, and where my argument either fails, or is perhaps inhanced, depending on your view of the films. James Stewart gives perhaps the most charismatic performance of his brilliant ouevre- while Tom Cruise is almost unbearably shallow, egotistical and repulsive. However, i think it could be argued that the two protagonist's have many connections- both are vain (Stewart's character has his own photos all over his house and seems a touch conceited when discussing his career), stubborn, and perhaps, and this only implicit in eyes wide shut, impotent- Stewart's physically unable to move, and the film cuts with the implication that he and kelly will have sex one night, but then in the morning it doesn't appear that they did. Could be argued that both films centre around the imaginations and intellectual compensations of frustrated men, who attempted to reassure their masculinity by by looking for adventure? The crucial difference is that in eyes wide shut nothing is resolved, and no one is satisfied, and that in rear window Stewart is vindicated, everyone (including the audience) is satisfied, and all is resolved- hence we feel enjoyment and are not left feeling uneasy for complying with his voyeurism, while at the end of eyes wide shut most people are left feeling manipulated and dissatisfied. hmmmmm....

I just saw pickpocket for the first time last night, and thought it was the best bresson film i've seen- the others being l'argent, balthasar, and an early one (possibly about a prostitute?) of which i can't remember the title. It's a minimalist masterpiece- only kiarostami's 10 has taken a step onwards and stripped cinema even closer to its essentials- which has more than one moment of transcendence, through a decisive act breaking the compulsive repetition- felt both by protagonist and audience. the only point i have to add is that i found it very hard to stop comparing it to crime and punishment, american gigolo and taxi driver. It's incredible how bresson makes the lesser crime of stealing seem just as immoral as a brutal murder, and the film is sufficiently cinematic and different from its obvious thematic source that it is incomparable to dostoyevsky's novel (which happens to be my favourite book). However, i think the combination of schrader's identification with, and admiration for, both bresson and the russian master, when combined the psychological mastery of scorsese and the uniformly excellent acting of taxi driver make it the better film. Is this perhaps because it gives the audience more sensation, and therefore more to react to, than pickpocket? In this it is closer in tone and style to crime and punishment and notes from the underground, and also perfectly encapsulated a period of time and social mentality just as dostoyevsky did. however, these points are largely irrelevant, for without pickpocket these links would not exist; and without bresson, cinema would have been severely impoverished.

Every point is perfectly nuanced, every second is both important and yet enjoyable; a complicated, subtle, brilliant film, which has never been bettered in its depiction and dissection of a people and society at a particular moment in time.

having this movie in your top ten best films of all time is like saying the greatest pieces of art ever painted are the ones they put on hotel walls. Maybe this is true in a sort of egalitarian, democratic and mind-numbingly banal way. A thoroughly ordinary film, that has been embraced by men who want to cry, have faith, and have equilibrium. Which is nice.

Now that the Coen brothers have brilliantly tackled existentialism and psychoanalysis in the 'zen-noir' The Man Who Wasn't There, it is interesting that Barton Fink, far too often ignored for a film that is actually one of the best of the 1990's, had already ventured deep into the darkness of the mind. Both films are similar to Vertigo in their mercurial destruction of the audience's pre-conceptions, and the spot-on performances given here by Turturro, Goodman, Lerner, Davis, and especially Tony Shalhoub enhance a daring, marvellously paced film directed with a perverse brilliance. As ambigious and challenging as the portrayal of the ego/super-ego it contains, it has one of the most electrifying last 30 minutes of any film ever made.

it's nearly the end of 2001, and 'Reqiuem for a Dream' is still, as far as i am concerned, unchallenged as being the best so far in the 21st century. See it for a second or third time, it just gets more hypnotic as the delusion of its characters becomes evident in every second of action, visuals and dialogue.

Punishingly and brilliantly effective; the closest anyone has come to beating Taxi Driver in its creation of a wholesale psychological framework of dreams, paranoia, and a self-inflicted hell on earth.