yourhumbleservant99's Reviews

The Story of King Midas (1953)

8/10

11 May 2006

Ray Harryhausen would later go on to work on special effects in some of the most famous monster movies of all time (Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and many more). This short retelling of the Greek myth of the greedy King Midas is different from such work, because it is entirely animated with stop-motion techniques - no real actors appear. Because of this, some of the facial expressions can be quite primitive, especially when transitions between expressions are necessary. But despite some of its flaws, this is quite an enjoyable little movie, with heart and wit. If you don't know the story of King Midas (which is quite famous) he gains the Golden Touch, which (as the name implies) turns everything he touches to gold - and he finds out that it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

I'm not sure if this short is available on the DVD "Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years". I saw it on the GoodTimes DVD, "The Greatest Sci-fi Cartoons of all Time."

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The Huffless, Puffless, Dragon (1964)

3/10

pretty straightforward propaganda piece

11 May 2006

Although it's available on a GoodTimes "Best of Sci-Fi Cartoons", I really have no idea what this short has to do with sci-fi, since it consists of dragons, which are usually thought of as fantasy. The storyline of the cartoon is super-basic, consists of the nasty clique of dragons, complete with head bully "Dragoon" and sleazy females, all of whom celebrate cigarettes. Meanwhile, our hero, the individualist and non-conformist, "Dragknight", refuses to have anything to do with the clique, and eventually defeats Dragoon at arm-wrestling and racing, which obviously proves that smoking is bad and evil.

The quality of the animation is - well, let's be generous and say pretty worthless. The jazz music may be of interest to aficionados, but the recording quality is equally poor. This one is easily missed for those who aren't interested for historical reasons.

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Tramway (1966)

8/10

Simple, but telling of emerging talent

18 March 2006

Warning: Spoilers

Kieslowski, who would go on to become one of the most famous of all European directors, made this as a student film. The story is simple and is a variation on a theme which has been repeated many times before and since - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back. Where it is notable is (characteristically of Kieslowski) its attention to detail and sense of place. As it is silent, it lacks Kieslowski's use of music to set mood, which can be seen in another, roughly contemporary, student short, "The Face".

This short is available on the DVD of "White", and the two movies are interesting to contrast with each other. Both are concerned with romance, but in the short running time of "The Tram" Kieslowski could not, or would not, offer any neat answers . . . the final image is the young man running, chasing his love interest, leaving us unsure whether he has a chance of catching her, much less what might take place when he does. Both "The Tram" and "White", then, play on the fear of realizing your love for a partner just as that partner has left your life.

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Café Bar (1974)

7/10

Fascinating

14 March 2006

This short is identified as a "brushstroke animation", but I'm not sure exactly what that means. The style is clearly different from that of conventional animated movies, because movements are not as closely synchronized from frame to frame, resulting in some herky-jerky action, not to mention a really bad hair day for the heroine.

The story is simple - a man and a woman walk into the "cafe bar" together, and they converse in gibberish while daydreaming in fairly stereotypical terms. The story is not the main interest, at least for me - what kept my attention was the attention to how we perceive and idealize ourselves. Each of the pair imagines themselves in impossible situations which allow them to do incredible things. Their imaginations, in this case, prevented them from seeing each other.

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Hukkle (2002)

2/10

Just plain strange.

3 December 2005

This movie is amazing - amazingly incoherent, that is. Every scene plays like one from a completely different movie, and although certain characters reappear, what connection is intended to be inferred is left up to interpretation. We wander from point to point with absolutely no idea of why, and as it becomes more and more ridiculous (there is a scene straight out of The Matrix, complete with outdated special effects), one can do nothing but stare at the absurdity of it all.

Don't get me wrong - the lack of a story or of dialogue doesn't per se bother me much, it's just that Hukkle tries way to hard to not only be beautiful but also meaningful, and utterly fails. It is pretentious and unsatisfying. Watch it only if you're in need of a good laugh.

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Hope (1970)

7/10

Thought-provoking and confusing.

25 October 2005

I didn't know what to expect coming into seeing Umut, only having heard that the critical consensus is that this is the best Turkish film ever made (don't know if that's true). Taken as a whole, this is a challenging film to explain. It is divided between neo-realistic photography and settings, and a story which ends almost surrealistically. It is the story of poverty as injustice, but also poverty as the result of the inaction or foolish actions of those who are poor. It may be read, also, as a comment on capitalism at large, or a comment on masculinity, or a religious commentary, or all of the above, or something else entirely.

Artistically, it is stunning. The available-light photography captures the streets of the city and the dawns on the plain with simplicity and poignancy. However, it isn't perfect - in my opinion, it is weakened by poor acting on the part of several characters (including the primary character's wife especially), and the stock which I saw (on Tour at the Freer gallery in Washington D.C.) had several distracting gaps of several seconds each.

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