Reviews

I was at the screening at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Yes the 35mm print was bad, most likely from the print that it was copied from.

The negative is long gone I believe. Most annoying was the buzzing sound track in several reels. Picture for the most part seemed sharp though.

Aside from the interesting production design of the futuristic sets,the film was a bore. Endless songs that came and went. One song was about the romance of two house flies !!! Whaaaat !

Incredibly bad dialog and really bad acting. No threat to Metropolis. Am I the only one that had this reaction?

Saw Hugo at the Arclight Hollywood last night. This is a wonderful film, the best that I have seen in years.

See it in 3-D as it is the best example of 3-D that I have seen.

This is a film that adults will enjoy. Most important is that it is Martin Scorsese's love letter to cinema. If you love cinema and its history, you must see Hugo.

Whether the film succeeds financially or not, is not important, its still a masterpiece.

Future generations of young moviegoers will finally learn something about the history of cinema.

PICK-UP SUMMER (Pinball Summer) was shown as part of the Grindhouse Film Festival at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles March 9-10, 2007. This film among others was chosen by Quentin Tarantino as a favorite from his personal 35mm collection. I saw him briefly in the lobby of the theater and he said that he saw this in 1982 when it was first released. On Friday night when I saw it in a packed house, the mainly young audience got the jokes (lots of laughter) and had fun with the film. Obviously inspired by other teen films like THE VAN and THE POM-POM GIRLS, this film revolves around a Pinball Machine (remember them?) tournament. Not too shabby...

How many producers does it take to screw up a movie? In the case of The Black Dahlia it takes 21 "producers". I counted the credits to be sure. I guess all 21 producers didn't notice how phony the flame bars were in the opening fire scene. The only producer with any real credits is Art Linson. Perhaps what this film needed was a single producer, director, writer team that could focus on the story. And how about that acting? Johanson was miscast as was Swank (although Swank is generally a good actress in other films). The plot is convoluted beyond anyones general concept of the Black Dahlia story. I was told that this film was a real disappointment by my friends who saw it in a theatre, so I watched it on DVD and almost walked out of my own living room. On the positive side, the photography, production design and the music were acceptable. But is it just me or does most of the dialog sound like clichés from other film noir films? As others have pointed out this wanted to be L.A. Confidential or Chinatown, but came off as a poor imitation. To bad as I really wanted to love it...