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Glock22
The Others
Malèna
Dogville
Forrest Gump
King Kong (1933)
The Ghost and the Darkness
Empire of the Sun
Braveheart
The Girl Next Door (2007)
King Kong (2005)
******2008******
Malèna
The Others
Dogville
Forrest Gump
King Kong (1933)
The Ghost and the Darkness
King Kong (2005)
Braveheart
La Vita è bella
Empire of the Sun
2014
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1) Malena
2) Dogville
3) The Others
4) King Kong (2005)
5) Venus
6) The Woman in Black (2012)
7) King Kong (1933)
8) The Mummy (1932)
9) Forrest Gump
10) The Girl Next Door
2016
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1) Malena
2) King Kong (2005)
3) Venus
4) The Others
5) King Kong (1933)
6) The Mummy (1932)
7) Dogville
8) Forrest Gump
9) The Lost World 1925
10) 12 Angry Men
2018
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1) Malena
2) Venus (2006)
3) The Others
4) King Kong (2005)
5) King Kong (1933)
6) Dogville
7) La vita è bella
8) The Mummy (1932)
9) The Woman in Black (2012)
10) Compliance
2022
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1) The Others
2) Malena
3) King Kong (2005)
4) Venus (2006)
5) The Woman in Black (2012)
6) Dogville
7) The Mummy (1932)
8) Compliance
9) The Ring (2002)
10) The Lost World (1925)
Reviews
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Toilet of Dr. Calamari
I arranged the reviews for this movie by rating, and got an interesting surprise: the lowest rating given by a reviewer to it at the time of writing was "4" stars. I hope after I give it its first "1" star review that Cesare won't come and cut my balls off!!
This film is considered by most to be a "classic", a "masterpiece" and a great example of the art of "expressionism". I agree !! BUT ONLY if the English languages changes and they create a new dictionary in which "Classic" means "Primitive", "Masterpiece" means "Failed" and "Expressionism" is synonymous with "Hilarious".
I sat through what seemed like 9 hours of stupidity, over-the-top acting and mind numbingly exaggerated facial expressions, holding myself from firing judgements before I see and comprehend the full work. This was a truly hard task, especially that I had to watch it on three parts on three different days because every time I ran the Kino DVD and watch for a while, I lost any desire to stay awake and fell asleep. I swear this did happen to me, not a figure of speech. And boy o boy was I rewarded at the end? That would be a "yes", if you consider a spit right into your eyeball by someone who has just eaten a chili-dog a "reward".
Let me get to the point cause this thing does not deserve more time than I have already wasted on it. By the end of the film, I was left with no possible logical explanation for what might have took place. But reading the fans' comments, I found them to be under the impression that either of two scenarios could make a satisfactory explanation:
1) The Direcotr is in fact Caligari himself who is a murderer (or the mastermind behind Cesare's killings), and Francis is wrongfully incarcerated by the director to keep him from telling the truth.
This is impossible and quite a dumb explanation indeed, because in that case there would still be other reliable people who have seen the respected director doing the sleep-walking show in the fair. This is in addition to the policemen who went into his tent and found the dummy placed in Cesare's box while the real Cesare was out killing. Did director put those witnesses and the police in the mad house too? Silly, ain't it?
2) The other explanation fans suggest is that Francis is insane, he did (or didn't, same thing) commit the crimes himself, and he has imagined the whole thing about the innocent director being Caligari the homicidal maniac. To support this explanation, they refer to how the settings and decor looked real only in the beginning (when Francis starts telling the story) and at the end (after he finishes it), while in between settings looked surreal and fantasied.
This explanation is impossible too. If Francis was making it all up, then his story would have ended with something that happened to him that lead to the present situation (him in the mad house and the director free as a bird). For example his story would have ended with something like "and of course they took the director's word over mine and falsely accused me of being insane and here I am in the crazy house and no one listens to me". But how exactly would his story end with them finding out the truth and locking the director in the cell? What the hell is Francis doing in the mad house then?
As for the settings being surreal in his story but realistic outside of it, this is simply a mass hallucination of some kind among viewers!! Right after they discovered the dummy and Francis went running after Caligari into the mad house, and while we were still watching the story from the madman's point of view, we see the mad house as real as it gets using exactly the same setting as used after Francis finishes his story and we are back to "real" world. And when Francis is restrained and locked into a cell at the end of the film, we are back to surreal settings/decor!!
People are giving it high ratings for its historical and sentimental values, but a fair and subjective look would find it to be nothing more than a very tedious and boring work that does not make any sense. Some movies could still entertain you even after you put logic and meaningfulness to sleep, but this film fails on this level too, and for the life of me I could find absolutely no trace of the anti-authoritarianism theme allegedly hidden in it. Authoritarianism in Germany one year following its defeat in WW1? Wow!! I've seen die-hard movie fans go too far before, but never as far as to write a new history that fits their wishful thinking just to claim the superiority of a movie!!