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wendyvortex
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The Painted Veil (2006)
It's a bit of a Bouquet-series-book, but it's not bad
I Watched it on pay-TV. Most of the reviews i read were quite good. It's a nice romantic story and this movie is beautiful filmed. Sometimes it's very nice to watch these kind of movies even tough the story itself stays a bit shallow. A kind of old-fashioned movie in the style of The English Patient or Out Of Africa. It lacks a bit of the strength and intensity of those two, but if you liked those you could give The Painted Veil a try. For myself i enjoyed it but i wouldn't consider buying the DVD or watch it for a second time in the near future. A bit of a in-betweener. Could have been real good if they only tried to make it more of an art-house movie you know with a real literally script. But anyway nice try.
Feast (2005)
Stupid horror movie
Reminded me very much of the second half of From Dusk 'Till Dawn (and that's the bad part of a movie i don't like at all). Stupid attempts at humor, unsympathetic characters. And movies in which people are barricading the building to keep the evil monsters outside? I must have seen that about a hundred times. To make matters even worse: when the monsters strike the camera-man is shaking his camera so much that you have to look at the poster of the movie to get any idea of how those monsters look. Also very strange: The monsters are released as some sort of government-experiment. I only learned it from the trailer which i saw after the movie. In the whole picture there's no reference to that at all. The only reason i give it a 4 star rating instead of even less is the terrible fate of the guy who delivers the beer.
Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse (1973)
Bunuel's son's Poltergeist
Unfortunately it's not a very good move. The fact that the son of director Luis Bunuel is somewhat influenced by Bunuel Sr is not more than understandably, but it's without the surrealistic magic that made some of Bunuel's Sr movies so very good. It reminded me of something like Poltergeist part 4 or something like that. Although this movie is somewhat older than the original Poltergeist-movie. Horror-fans will be disappointed for it's lack of real tension or gore-FX. Art-house-lovers will not like it because it has no good story-line or because they'll see that there's no great direction, acting or camera-works. 3 out of 10 points (very boring movie)
The Last Emperor (1987)
Bertolucci movie saved by brilliant looks
Probably Bertolucci's most well-known movie. It's understandable for it has not so many layers as masterpieces he made before (La Luna, Il Conformista) which makes this less intelligent and more consumable for a wider audience. For that i could be considered a new attempt to make something like his other masterpiece Novecento. So the life of Pu Yi is told from the beginning to the end. As with so many biography-movies that leads to a bit of a And then, And then, and then
etc-plot. So the plot is not what does make this a great movie but the camera-work really saves this. It's beautifully photographed and widely recognized as one of the films you should see on the big screen. In the Netherlands there even was a commercial where they used The Last Emperor for a cinema-advertising-campaign: The big screen, the big difference. I must say that since the introduction of the DVD i seldom go to movie-theaters any more (no noisy public, no going through bad water, at home you can smoke during a movie and stop the DVD to make a sanitary stop. Luckily it also Works great on the TV-screen. So not his best movie but for the beautiful cinematography it gets 8 out of 10 points (very good, buy the DVD)
The Exorcist (1973)
Still haven't seen the new version
Most of what i've heard that doesn't do the movie any good. So i'll go back to the first time i've seen the movie which was somewhere in the eighties. In that time i watched many of the horror-movies available in the videotheque. When i was about 14 years old, titles like Lucio Fulci's Zombie or Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust and the Faces Of Death-series were top of the bill by me and my schoolmates. During that same time i saw this movie: and i liked it. It's not so really aggressive as the titles named above. The seventies had delivered the top in gore and exploitation at the end of the era so the fact many people were furious about this movie around 1973 hahaha. But Linda Blair does give a brilliant performance as Regan. Some very strong language and masturbation with a crucifix scene will make this movie a little bit unsuitable entertainment for Christian people. For the rest 8 out of 10 points (Very good, buy the DVD)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Classic drama with Elizabeth Taylor And Paul Newman
Both Taylor and Newman deliver an outstanding performance in this movie. This is movie-drama at it's best. A few years ago the Danish movie Festen received great reviews but it can't hold out to this family-drama-gem from 1958. This one's creeping under your skin! Great direction by Richard Brooks who made a couple of real all-time-classics (check also Elmer Gantry and In Cold Blood for his other brilliant works). For me as European this is the real American art to come out of the new world. I love almost every movie which has it's screenplay by Tennessee Williams and to me that's like the real America instead of all that crap of family-movies Hollywood produced in the last few years. 9 out of 10 points (A classic!)