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Reviews
Amblin' (1968)
Beautiful nothing
This movie is beautifully shot, well made, and completely pointless. This film was an excellent example of how Spielberg was able to take an un-story and tell in such a way that we almost forget how terrible the movie is. The non-twist at the end with the guitar case was such a huge let-down that it left me with the feeling that I had just wasted 25 minutes of my life. It was, to me anyway, the cinematic equivalent of a Hostess Snowball; pretty to look at but utterly lacking in nutritional value. That being said, if you change the contents of the guitar case to something remotely interesting, then you have an actual movie. You can force a point out of the movie by saying that it is about how we are all just drifting in the wind. Or that the guy with the case was a poser, symbolic of our superficial society. But that's one hell of a stretch.
Fail Safe (1964)
Great!
This film is a magnificent piece of artwork, using a minimal amount of money to create a work of cinema with far more emotional impact than a movie of a greater budget. With its minimalist approach to visual effects, using hand drawn and animated radar images merely as a backdrop to phenomenal acting, the ending left me in a cold sweat. The "splice-of-life" imagery mixed with the sound of General Black's count-down made the possible deaths of millions even more real than the bombing sequence in "The Day After." In effect, it is the most emotionally gripping cautionary tale of a possible nuclear war and is even better than "Warday" by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka or "The Postman" by David Brin (the book, not the Kevin Costner abomination).
To sum it up, it is beautifully artistic and one of Henry Fonda's shining moments. A fantastic film.