Movie Confessions Blogathon

I don't usually do these Q and A type things as I like to stick to reviews but as I was browsing some of my favourite blogs I noticed that Eternity of Dream had taken part in this Blogathon created by 2012 Lammie Best Blogathon runner-up My Film Views, a blog I wasn't familiar with but is also very good and worth checking out. So here are my confessions...

Which classic movie don’t you like/can’t enjoy and why?
I'll probably get a few negative comments for this but I don't like Blade Runner. I thought it was really boring. I wanted to like it because I'd always heard how great it was and I like Ridley Scott and Sci-Fi. One day I'll go back and reassess it. I'm also not that keen on The Godfather but love The Godfather Part II.

Which ten classic movies haven’t you seen yet?
Going off the IMDb Top 250 in order I haven't seen...
Casablanca
Sunset Boulevard
North by North West
Citizen Cane
M
Ameile
Chinatown
Some Like it Hot
The Lion King
Rashomon

I admit there are some pretty big omissions in there and trust me I'm trying to rectify it. I only saw Psycho for the first time this week.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

High School senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) decides he doesn’t want to go to school so tricks his parents into believing he’s ill. Having a day off, Ferris persuades his hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to join him in downtown Chicago for the day and the two of them pick up Ferris’ girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) on the way in Cameron’s dad’s ‘borrowed’ Ferrari. Hot on the tails of Ferris and his friends are Dean of Students (Jeffrey Jones) and Ferris’ sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) who is angry that Ferris keeps getting away with skipping school.

Ferris Bueller is one of those films which when I tell people I haven’t seen they look at me like I’ve just called their grandmother a whore. It seems to be one of those film which a lot of people absolutely adore and now I’ve seen it I agree with them that it’s very good but I wasn’t enamoured with it as much as many people are.

Burlesque on Carmen

Charlie Chaplin’s 13^th Essanay film is loosely based on Georges Bizet’s famous opera Carmen and stars Chaplin as Darn Hosiery, a Spanish Officer on watch at a popular smuggling point. Local barman Lillas Pastia (Jack Henderson) persuades an attractive gypsy girl, Carmen (Edna Purviance) to distract the guard while they smuggle their goods. Despite having no interest in the man Carmen uses her charms to distract Hosiery who ends up in a love quartet for the gypsy’s heart.

Burlesque on Carmen is an above average Essanay picture and features some nice subtle comedy as well as the usual trips, kicks and pokes. It also features the first noticeably decent performance from Chaplin regular Edna Purviance.

King of New York

"You guys got fat while everybody starved on the street. Now it's my turn"

A New York drug lord Frank White (Christopher Walken) is being driven in his limousine back into the city following his release from prison. His crew are busy taking out a rival Columbian gang who have been encroaching on White’s business while he’s been away. Once he’s back White wastes no time in taking out more of New York’s crime lords and cements himself as the King of New York. Disgruntled that they are never able to get charges to stick, a few wild Police Officers decide that the only way to stop White and his gang is to take them out.

Featuring an impressive cast which alongside Walken includes gangsters Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito and Theresa Randle with Cops Wesley Snipes, Victor Argo and David Caruso the film is a tale of good vs evil, but as you’d expect the lines between the two are blurred. Although not in the same league as the likes of Scarface, Carlito’s Way or Serpico all of which share themes with this, it is a decent gangster picture.

Psycho

"A boy's best friend is his mother"

Having embezzled $40,000 from her employers, Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) flees in her car. After narrowly escaping the clutches of a suspicious Police Officer she pulls into a quite motel during a heavy rainstorm. The owner Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) greets her warmly and explains that they don’t receive many guests due to the freeway being moved. After offering Marion supper at the house he shares with his mother, Norman has to then retract the offer following an off screen argument with the old woman… A few days later when Marion’s disappearance in noticed a Private Detective (Martin Balsam) tracks her movements to the motel but he too goes missing. Fearing the worst Marion’s boyfriend Sam (John Gavin) and sister Lila (Vera Miles) head to the motel to search for the missing woman.

Psycho contains one of the most famous scenes in all cinema history as well as one of the most recognisable scores and most unexpected and shocking twists. Even without these three key elements though it would still be a five star film.

Intolerance

"The cradle endlessly rocking"

Having come under attack following the release of his 1915 masterpiece The Birth of a Nation D.W. Griffith wanted to show in his next picture that intolerance of people’s views was just as bad and created one of the seminal early silent movies, Intolerance. The story follows four completely unrelated but thematically linked stories, each with the theme of intolerance. The story given the most screen time is a contemporary story of crime and suffering. Perhaps the most famous strand is the fall of Babylon while a story of Jesus’ crucifixion and one revolving around a 16^th century French massacre are given less time but are nonetheless integral to the story.

Despite its age and overlong runtime the film remains one of the great classics of the silent era and is frequently mentioned alongside some of the greatest films ever made.

In Time

"For a few to be immortal, many must die"

In the near future the human race has managed to genetically engineer itself to stop aging at 25. Once you reach 25 though you are given one year of time until your death. As a result time becomes currency with people able to exchange, rob and work for it. Society has been divided by social class into various time zones and it is in one of the poorest zones that we find factory worker Will Salas (Justin Timberlake). Salas lives day to day in the ghetto, never having more than a few hours to live. After the death of his mother (the totally hot Olivia Wilde) Will saves the life of a 104 year old with a death wish. The old man gives Will all of his time he but is then hunted down by Time Keeper (Cillian Murphy) under suspicion of murder. Will travels to the prosperous New Greenwich where he meets heiress Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried). When the time keepers catch up with him, Will kidnaps Sylvia and the two go on the run.

There is a very interesting idea somewhere in this film and occasionally it attempts to shine through but is often hampered by poor dialogue and an obvious, much told story.

The Dark Knight Rises

Spoiler Free

The final part of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy finds Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) broken, physically and mentally, eight years on from the events of The Dark Knight. Wayne has become a recluse, staying away from the limelight both as a Billionaire playboy and masked vigilante. Wayne is temped out of retirement though through a combination of curiosity about a wily cat burglar called Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and the threat of a powerful anarchist named Bane (Tom Hardy).

I’ve never been as much of a fan of Nolan’s Batman films as some people although I did like Batman Begins and really enjoyed The Dark Knight. Going in I’d avoided all spoilers and reviews but expected that I would enjoy the film. I was wrong though. I didn’t just enjoy it but thought it was one of the best, if not the best film I’ve seen so far this year. Nothing prepared me for just how good this film is.

Project Nim

"Nim Banana Eat"

Project Nim is a 2011 Documentary feature about the life of a Chimpanzee called Nim Chimpsky. In 1973 the two week old Nim became the subject of a Columbia University study that attempted to ascertain whether or not Chimps were capable of communicating with humans in the form of sign language. Nim was bought up as a human by a variety of people based at the University and eventually learned 125 signs for the likes of ‘eat’ ‘play’ ‘Nim’ ‘hug’ and ‘cat’ and was able to string the signs together to form basic requests such as ‘Banana eat me Nim’. Once Nim became too old to be handled he was returned to the Primate Institute in which he was born but then had a traumatic final fifteen years.

I remember studying Nim for A Level Psychology and being fascinated with the idea that Chimps could communicate in this manner. Since that time I have become interested in anthropology and primatology and while I’m no expert, I wasn’t shocked or surprised by any of the incredible things that Nim was capable of. Had I come to the film with no knowledge of Nim or the study I expect I would have enjoyed the film more than I did.

The Debt

"The truth stays in this room, between us"

In 1997 an Israeli journalist is at the launch of her new book. The story is based on her mother’s (Helen Mirren) first assignment as a Mossad agent in which she and two other agents captured the Nazi War Criminal “The Surgeon of Birkenau” (Jasper Christensen). The plot then shows what happened in East Berlin in 1965 and reveals there is much more to the story than the published account.

The film goes back and forth from 1965 to 1997 but stays in 1965 for the most part. We watch as Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain) arrives in Berlin and takes up her role as a field agent along with David Peretz (Sam Worthington) and Stefan Gold (Marton Csokas). The trio successfully track down the old Doctor and capture him before a problem with his extraction means that they have to bring him to their apartment and find a new means of escape. The film is full of surprising twists and revelations which along with some great acting and terrific script make a dramatic thriller.