duluman

This is what they call a sleeper but actually Von Sydow is an insomniac ! Very close to the Bergmanesque feelings of despair and anguish, with his actors, Max Vob Sydow and Liv Ulmann and a Colombo/esquire inspector by Trevor Howard. Closer to Bergman in any respect than it is to Hitchcock. It's in color but it feels like black and white, has a literary quality, some clumsiness (especially with the weird accents and the whole atmosphere of countryside way backwards in time and development) and a twist ending like the old Twilight Zone or Ray Bradbury mystery stories. Shot in the blazing winter in Sweden and Denmark, featuring a bravura physical performance from Sydow it's a rare and weird team up from director Benedek (veteran of The Wild One and a lot of TV), with a producing Mel Ferrer (!) and a haunting scary score who works a sound design by Henry Mancini (Mancini and Ferrer worked together on Wait Until Dark before, another creepy classic). Saw this almost 20 years ago on TV by chance, made an incredible impression that stayed with me, couldn't get hold of it but now I saw it again and was struck again. Creepy as hell and you can feel the freezing cold ! A gem waiting to be rediscovered and i have a feeling somehow that someone will mess with this in a shitty remake.

for those who did not see the original it might be a true experience. I's psychological, downbeat, darky and very serious, maybe too serious. There are glimpses of humour with the addition of Veek caretaker (Postlethwaite-reminding of Poalnski's Tenant)and John C. Reilly's real estate Murray (Rosemary's baby). It's like Salles and Iglesias took a peak at Polanski's films (including Repulsion), I wondered what kind of film Lucky Mc Gee (May) would have done of it. Unlike the first Ring remake they took this one seriously but forgot about the basic scares. It's as scary as strong a decaf coffee is compared to an Expresso. Also the Japanese have a specific thing about the water. The Americans don't, so they over float it with music and sound effects. And add some Shining to the mix. And the dysfunctional divorce. And the red jacket from Don't Look Now. Though I'm glad they did not change the ending. And being shot in Canada, wow, on set, good colors and set design, too noisy though. If you saw the original first, this one it's more of a drama with an addition of a bummer of scares and surprises (The Grudge translates better as you relocate an American in Tokyo) but it's still fun to see Tim Roth alone in the theater (a Sunday with the family at the movies ?!)

it's hard to tell you more about this film without spoiling it. I enjoyed it because I wasn't expecting what I was seeing, but an ordinary sex-drama so.... It's a pscyho-sexual thriller, in which nothing is what it seems. It features Emmanuelle Seigner, no stranger to the genre (and to nudity) in which her husband, Polanski, had directed her. And a creepy performance (did I say creepy/yes CREEPY) from Toreton (Bernard Tavernier's actor). It looks like a Pascal Bruckner meets Roman Polanski (better than Bitter Moon), like a Chabrol gone astray or Clouzot thriller (I have seen someone mentioning Les Diaboliques), but closer to Georges Franju's Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes without a face, the godfather of Dr. Phibes and more). A gem ! I am just afraid they will blow this into a Hollywood remake like they did with Nighwatch and The Vanishing.

Il Ritorno di Clint is a mediocre western, George Martin ain't so charismatic but you get to see Kinski in a part that is mirroring his Loco arch-character of Il Grande Silenzio. Long blonde hair and coolness of a bounty hunter that is not evil incarnate but helps our hero. A typical vengeance western and I liked to think that this is the Kinski from Silenzio trying to be more human now, as he is out of the white hell. The Morricone contribution is by the numbers, as he did three tons of music those years. As for the alternate title, the movie was sold of course as one of the Trinity and Ringo series, like Django, they have nothing to so with anything in between. I have not seen the original (from which you have flashbacks), the other comment is right, Kinski and Morricone are the two reasons to see this film,though Martin (who also directs) is quite cool too. There are similarities with High Plain Drifter, not only the character's name with that of the star of the above mentioned.

No way I would've thought one day, Independence Day and Armageddon will be huge classics (campy and so bad they're good) compared with this piece of tripod (tripe ) we got. The Cruise and Der Berg just got the cash (and a lot of it)and ruined the H.G. Wells novel. When Spielberg falls he really goes the whole 9 yards. Blam ! Sounds totally broken. If they really wanted to remake it they should've done it period and in England. As it is now it looks like Bush propaganda for the Land of the Brave and the Free and i am quite sure the box office of this will be significantly lower in other territories except the mighty USA. Also Steven, you had to redo Titanic this time ? Godzilla wasn't enough in Jurassic 2 ? And the film in itself it's a way too much Jurassic Park, Tripod Park, I'd say. Plus rips off Signs (and Cruise ain't Mel when it comes to suffering). What else ? Tim Robbinds wasted, John Williams rips off (Ok, pays homage to :)Bernard Herrmann big time, and we got the huge goofs of the EMP effect. Which is inadmissible unless you are a Nu Image production. War of the Frauds more or less, ET Go home, very much American politics post 9/11, thank you for the broken glass metaphor *oh, a metaphor) and that Dr. Jivago quote, sweet ! Yes, for the record, I am sarcastic. I am quite worried what Spielberg can do these days to Indiana Jones, and Cruise, god-bless M:I 3 (you can use a tripod too), what a waste of talent, money & everything ! Listen to the Jeff Wayne album instead (not the remixed one) & anyway, sensed a lot of trolls infesting the user comments here with praise Nd awe in a typical manner....???!!!!! cheap, man !

I must first say I am a huge fan of the original Frankenheimer film so I was very worried about this film but it finally it might be the best remake I've seen. Completes and updates the original and transforms it into something else. It also perfectly works in color (unlike the wasted Psycho). The actors are fantastic and the film is very Today. Very paranoid, a dark view on America as a fascist state. The plot works even better than on the original, with the global corporations and the fact that now we know so much about brainwashing.

This and The last Embrace are the most De Palma / Hitchcock Demme films. Would have been totally unbelievable if De Palma would have directed it (as he was for a moment attached)and add his updated riffs on Phantom, Blow Out and Snake Eyes. Two more filmic clues I contemplate, The Parallax View and Jacob's Ladder and a guilty pleasure, Nick of Time (that came out of The Man Who Knew Too Much). Not many people from the mass audience saw the original, that was an uncanny infamous premonition on JFK's assassination, and a film ahead its time but more a sensationalist thriller than a major political statement. The Demme version is a film of our time and a subversive piece in an age in which, as a paradox, it's harder to do this kind of film than it was 40 years ago. 10/10

Trainspotting came to mind but mostly Pusher, the Danish film of Nicholas Winding Raph. What is interesting and fresh is the characters' profession and their environment, the two brothers are shooting, as their father did, the shooting gallery is presented as the center of these people universe, around the world of block of flats in an ugly, periferic world. From sport to killing and how political choices took over lives making it no way out. It's all about the Yugoslavian war trauma, presented from the point of view of the shooter as target. Realistic, good acting, a lot of rage and a new director with something to say. Gritty and real like a cold bullet. 8/10

outside of seeing this as auto-biographical for Norrington I can see it deals with his traumatic experiences with Blade. Then it got worse. On LXG. OK, Last Minute is not The Divine Comedy and it's flawed, but wow, what a trip !!! and sure it's personal, though i got turned off a bit by the whole techno approach.. One of the best scenes in a film I've seen in the last years is Jason Issacs doing his "I got you under my skin". It's an update of Malcolm Mc Doewll doing his "Singin' in the Rain" in Clockwork Orange. Or it's not. Then later Norrington pushes further repeating it with "when a man loves a woman". Anyway, as Gene Kelly was shocked, Frank must be spinning in his grave. Or he might get the sick fun. And I am not sure Dickens would have liked the Oliver Twist bit... As for this being put in the same category with Trainspotting, Clockwork Orange and Fight Club, I can't see why people are bother, try to describe a film using normal words. Coke, acid, Ecstasy gone bad or just anger and frustration puked out ?

all fueled out and hyper-pumped out, ah, and poetry finally... ///// as for latest rumors that Norrington quit making movies, hey Steve, don't get mad, get even ! ah, and one more thing-just don't get confused about Udo Kier's performance, it's a great cameo but just a cameo, same with Stephen Dorff.

some will appreciate the camp? Unfortunately it will gross so much and will be huge enough for SS to do a second one and to hurt more classic characters. No one could do worse collections of shots in creating something that is more videogame than a videogame. Matrix is Bergman compared to this. Hugh is cool, chicks will love it, there is an opening in black and white and Sommers says he loves these characters and he basically does a homage his own way, with humour....so the film is basically an adventure comedy, more than Young Frankenstain or Mel Brook's Dracula were. These are quite restrained, artsy pictures. The VH is noisy as a tornado, blasting you & throwing you out, and it's incredibly overlong, 2h20. These guys are destroying pictures now or I don't have a sense of humour. It seems bad taste, no good sense and puke all over with CGI to fill the frame, so much you can barely take it. And pointless, and looks like a cartoon. It's a cartoon. It will be huge though....the VH is a crime against the art of movies (but who knows about that anymore ?)