Movie Reviews
War and Peace
First I have to say something that has nothing to do with the movie itself. This is the most sloppily produced DVD I’ve ever watched. It is a mixture of subtitled and dubbed, and the really weird thing is that it seems to have been decided entirely at random. Even within one scene, a character will start out speaking Russian with subtitles, and suddenly switch to speaking English! Even ... Read more »
War and Peace
My review will be brief. I thought I had reviewed this before, since we saw it a few months ago, but apparently it slipped through the cracks. And since then we have seen the overwhelmingly better Soviet version. Not that this one is really bad. It just pales in comparison to the Russian epic. Henry Fonda seems miscast as Count Pierre Bezuhov, the main protagonist. Audrey Hepburn, as ... Read more »
Amarcord
Some days I think that Federico Fellini’s early, neo-realism films are his finest achievements. The some days I think it was surreal, dreamy, visually stunning films like this one, Juliet of the Spirits, and 8½ were his crowning glory. Some days it just depends on what Fellini film I’m looking at. For some reason I had never seen this ... Read more »
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
This is humor just about as black a humor gets. In fact, I’m sure a lot of people would not see it as being funny at all, and I couldn’t really blame them. We see a man, played by Gian Maria Volontè arrive at the apartment of a beautiful woman, Florinda Bolkan, and she asks “How are you going to kill me today?” Looks like a kinky sex game. Then he slices her throat with a razor blade. He ... Read more »
Dersu Uzala
Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала) (デルス·ウザーラ) (Japan, USSR) (1975) There never was anything that could be characterized as “A Kurosawa Film.” Yeah, he made some samurai movies and other films from Japanese history. But he also did several adaptations of Shakespeare, such as Ran from King Lear and Throne of Blood from ... Read more »
A Man and a Woman
Here is one of the fairly small number of “important” films that, for no real good reason, I just never got around to seeing. I think part of me thought, “Well, it’s a love story about a racing car driver. How special could it be?” The answer is, very special indeed. It was a groundbreaking film in terms of technique, and it holds up very well. There is a lot of use of hand-held cameras. ... Read more »
A Man and a Woman
Here is one of the fairly small number of “important” films that, for no real good reason, I just never got around to seeing. I think part of me thought, “Well, it’s a love story about a racing car driver. How special could it be?” The answer is, very special indeed. It was a groundbreaking film in terms of technique, and it holds up very well. There is a lot of use of hand-held cameras. ... Read more »
Sundays and Cybele
Translation: Sundays in Ville d’Avray I am so, so glad I found this. It is an exceptional film. It has a warm heart … and a sad ending. But it is done with such lyrical perfection. If you can stand heartbreak, see this at once.
Hardy Krüger is a man suffering from what I guess you would call PTSD. He was a fighter pilot in Indochina, and he suffered ... Read more »
Through a Glass Darkly
Literal translation: As in a Mirror” Another gloomy one from Ingmar Bergman. It stars Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow and Lars Passgård, all of them members of Bergman’s so-called stock company. Andersson is Karin, who is going down the dark road of incurable schizophrenia. Van Sydow is her husband, Passgård is her brother (and there is ... Read more »
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Vittorio De Sica won no less than four Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language film. This is the third one. And it could not be more different from the first two, Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves. It’s a three-part comedy, as the title implies. All three star Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, who often worked together, I’m happy to ... Read more »