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Reviews
The Border (1982)
absolutely outstanding!
this film is superb on many levels. while jack nicholson and harvey keitel both have an impressively long list of masterly performances, I believe this film ranks near the tops of their oeuvres with a handful of their other performances in films like "the shining" and "the passenger" for nicholson or "the duellists" and "bad timing" for keitel. all of the supporting cast members deliver excellent performances as well. the scenery is beautiful and is shot well. both the story and the dialogue are superlative. The plot progresses dramatically yet plausibly, at no point is the viewer obliged to suspend her disbelief as nicholson's character is backed into a corner by the circumstances developing around him. The action sequences are both dramatic and believable. go watch this film.
The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Vastly Underrated Don't Listen To Tolkien Fanboys - Best LOTR Adaptation.
First of all no adaptation is ever as good as the book, especially when you're dealing with master writer like Tolkien. This ADAPTATION wonderfully synthesizes Tolkien's universe with 1970s psychedelia, aesthetics, and liberal culture. Yes - the animation and background painting is sometimes a little "rough" in its technical execution but it's beautiful none the less, and very evocative in terms of giving a unique "sense of place" to each of the scenes. Beyond the absolute uniqueness in imagery is the absolutely outstanding voice acting - acting that's FAR superior to the acting in the new live action movies. And while the cell animation might not be the most "technically proficient" animation it superbly captures the expressive bodily and facial gestures of the acting while at once not forgetting to be subtle and nuanced. The background paintings vary from traditional "fantasy" motif to outright abstraction, but the transition to abstracted settings is always motivated by the narrative and contributes greatly to the themes of the film. If you're a person who has to have extensive computer rendering in a film so that everything is visualized for you then I can see how you might not like this movie but if you enjoy superior acting, transcendental imagery, and JRR Tolkien then this film is a must see.
Britannia Hospital (1982)
Criminally underrated film!
That this movie has only achieved a rating of 5.9 out of 10 is appalling! Britannia Hospital brilliantly mixes the macabre, the comic, and the profound with beautiful imagery, wonderful production design, and Lindsay Anderson's astute sense of direction. The writing is flawless, the characters are flawless, the story is engrossing and the film is in my humble opinion the second best work of arguably the greatest director and visionary in British cinema history. I don't know who let the kindergärtners on here to vote but take my word - behind the wacky comic facade lies a powerful and intelligent film that should be ranked up there with the greatest films of British cinema.
Outland (1981)
Holds its own with the best in the genre. Outstanding sci-fi movie.
Absolutely beautiful set design, good plot, no poor performances (OK Connery's kid was annoying but he only had a few lines), good writing. Someone said that there were chunks of dialogue that don't move the plot along but don't listen to them they don't know what they're talking about. First of all, every movie has to have dialogue that doesn't move the plot along otherwise there would only be a handful of lines in any movie. Secondly, the dialogue in this movie that wasn't directed towards plot motion was directed towards character development etc. In fact, there were only a couple of instances where I thought the dialogue was a bit superfluous and the rest was surprisingly (I wasn't expecting much as this movie doesn't seem to get a lot of attention for w/e reason) well written. If you're a fan of sci-fi or just of great movies this is an absolute must see. The people who give this movie poor reviews are probably the same people who think the Bourne Ultimatum is an awesome movie.....
Keoma (1976)
Beautifully shot Spaghetti, one of the best there is...
Don't listen to the reviewers that paned this movie. Sure its got its flaws but thats part of what makes these movies so wonderful. While the soundtrack can be pretty hilarious at times it still does an excellent job of creating a very distinct and trance-like atmosphere. The characters are wonderful and the casting is excellent. Depth is given to Castellari's American west through the overtly political dialogue and plot. While some of the dialogue can seem a little sloppy at other times it comes off brilliantly. Castellari's screenplay presents a decisively brutalist view of America which the cinematography compliments. Another reviewer said Castelliari tries to pull to many directing "tricks" out of his sleeve or something to that effect. True, he does make a clear attempt to make a very stylistic film, but i don't think this is something to fault him for. For the vast majority of the film he succeeds wonderfully at this and while there may be one or two slow motion deaths too many, well, hey, no film is perfect and thats what makes this genre so charming anyways. That being said, overall Castellari makes full use of the 2.35 aspect ratio with wonderfully composed shots against beautiful countryside and directing during the action sequences (minus MOST of the slow-mo) is among the best in the genre. The costume design is also outstanding. If you're a fan of spaghetti westerns, thoughtfully composed shots, or just great movies then you should definitely watch Keoma.
November (2004)
Hilarious! Best Comedy Ever!
OK i'm really baffled by all the high ratings. "Raging Bull", that was a good movie, "Ran" that was a good movie, if you want to compare it to other low budget indies try "Primer", that was a good movie (also won sundance and was made for $8000), "November" is the funniest movie i've seen since David Lynch's adaptation of "Dune". Here's why: First, the entire movie was shot in horrible studio build ups of really uncreative and poorly crafted stages. If there was one thing that was worse than this it was the lighting. I think they borrowed it from the set of "Full House". Aesthetically the movie was horrible and looked like a cheap television pilot. The actual film minus the credits has a runtime of about 70 minutes and that includes about 7 or 8 minutes of repeat footage. The premise was unoriginal and has been done many times before (see some of the other reviews for examples). The dialog was worse than the premise and the acting followed closely behind. But you can't really blame Courtney Cox because clearly she had to have thought she was still on the set of "Friends". She wandered around most of the time looking really confused probably because she couldn't figure out why David Schwimmer looked so much like James LeGros. But if you really want to be entertained watch the movie and then read some of the good reviews people have written here...."Courteney Cox is nothing short of excellent here"..."especially when sharing a scene with Cox, who acts circles around his one dimensional performance"...."The movie was flawless, intelligent, artsy etc.. I give it a 10!! I think it was a masterpiece!"....omg my side hurts.