Jack's Reviews

Not all of them, but many are. I've always been interested in film but it's only in the last few months that I've realised how many classic films I haven't seen, so I'm trying to make up for that. I'm also going through some of the major seventies films in preparation for the list I'll be submitting.

I did that when I first joined; I started gobbling up classics I hadn't seen.

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The Godfather: Part II (1974)



Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast overview: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro
Running time: 200 minutes

I don't know what it is about these Godfather films. They're perfectly well-made, well-acted, and convincing, but I just can't seem to get into them like everyone else can. The acting here, for example, is terrific, and I really can't fault it, yet the plot as a whole doesn't draw me in. I'm convinced it's a problem with me, because they're all so highly regarded that others must find them to be worthy of immense praise. Now, I don't think boring is the word I'm looking for, as much as apathetic. I can take or leave them, and unfortunately that's my stance on them.

Carmine Coppola's score for this is as subtle and successful as Nino Rota's for the first, and adds the Sicilian style to the film. Pacino and De Niro, with Gazzo, Cazale and Duvall to provide excellent support, are first-rate. The script is very good. So I can't understand why I'm not a huge fan, but I suppose the end product is just not something that pulls me in consistently and keeps me hooked. Having said that, I did enjoy the split between Vito Corleone's upbringing and Michael's attempt to control the family. I enjoyed the first to a reasonable degree - probably more than this sequel effort, actually - and I'll give the third a watch, but not for a long while.

In short, this is regarded as a classic and in the handful of classic films, but I don't get the satisfaction or the enjoyment that others clearly do, so for that reason I'll have to give it a lower rating. There are some elements that drag it above being just OK, and I'd feel a bit of a moaner to give it a five or a six, so it'll have to be a seven.



Quotes
Michael Corleone: There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Michael Corleone: I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!

Hyman Roth: There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

Trivia
The first sequel to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

To prepare for his role, Robert De Niro lived in Sicily.

Francis Ford Coppola had a horrible time directing The Godfather (1972) and asked to pick a different director for the sequel, while taking the title of producer for himself. He chose Martin Scorsese, whom the film executives rejected. Thus, Coppola agreed to direct the film, with a few conditions.

Trailer

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)



Director: Milos Forman
Cast overview: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher
Running time: 133 minutes

This is one of my favourite films. It has that unique and seldom seen skill of being both uplifting and depressing in equal measure. Surrounding the character of Randle Patrick McMurphy, and based on Ken Kesey's novel of the same name, who is sent to a mental institution and leads a rebellion against a stern and oppressive nurse, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a chilling look at institutions of this nature through the eyes of someone in one.

There's some great acting here from some recognisable actors - the obvious two are Nicholson and Fletcher, both Oscar-winners for this particular film, and both were fully deserving recipients in my eyes, the former for playing a character that is witty and an outsider in a sense, and the latter for playing such a cold and firm character, but you may identify actors such as Brad Dourif in an early role, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, Danny DeVito. There's a wonderful supporting cast that adds both experience and dynamism, and makes for a film with memorable characters that you can identify with and get frustrated with in equal measure.

It's not a simple film to describe, and the very themes and messages and ideas it touches upon are themselves not simple. There are different conclusions and interpretations to be drawn from what it addresses.

Overall, this is a film that stands as one of the best of the 1970s - it's powerful, chilling, emotional, thought-provoking, everything that makes for a good film is present here, and the acting, directing and script are all terrific.



Quotes
McMurphy: What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average ******* out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.

McMurphy: But I tried, didn't I? *********, at least I did that.

McMurphy: Which one of you nuts has got any guts?

Trivia
Louise Fletcher was so upset with the fact that the other actors could laugh and be happy while she had to be so cold and heartless that near the end of production she removed her dress and stood in only her panties to prove to the actors she was not "a cold-hearted monster".

Many extras were authentic mental patients.

During filming, a crew member running cables left a second story window open at the Oregon State Mental Hospital and an actual patient climbed through the bars and fell to the ground, injuring himself. The next day The Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon reported the incident with the headline on the front page "One flew OUT of the cuckoo's nest".

Trailer

Now that rating is more like it. Love Cuckoo's nest.

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Letterboxd

Glad I've restored your faith.

Don't Look Now (1973)



Director: Nicolas Roeg
Cast overview: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland
Running time: 110 minutes

Don't Look Now, Nicolas Roeg's 1973 occult thriller, centres around an English couple who go to Venice to grieve after the death of their young daughter. The premise itself is based upon Daphne du Maurier's short story, and it's an interesting one. It was that, coupled with the high scores, that inspired me to give this a watch, added to the fact that it's a seventies film and I expected to be able to place it on my list.

Unfortunately, I don't think I will be. Don't get me wrong, this was enjoyable in places, but it seems to have a couple of things that don't quite work. Firstly, the infamous sex scene - I'm not a prude by any means, but this scene just felt completely superfluous and out-of-place, and I didn't see what purpose it was trying to serve (apart from arousing the viewer, perhaps...). This isn't a long film, but there were parts that either felt unnecessary or just there to serve as padding, and the story was, at times, hard to follow and keep up with.

I did like the Venice setting, though this isn't the sunny, warm Venice with tourist-filled streets; instead, Roeg presents the viewer with a Venice that is wintry, dark and gloomy. It serves the film well, and adds atmosphere to a film full of foreboding. The two elderly psychic sisters were effective, also - not your stereotypical horror film characters, and they again added to this foreboding and uncertain world in which the film is set.

It was a lovely idea, but it seems to have been executed here in a rather clumsy and half-baked fashion, leaving the end result as a film that is interesting, mysterious and atmospheric, yet lacking in continuity and consistency. Some of the plot events were downright bizarre to me, and left me wondering if I'd been paying enough attention earlier in the film as I couldn't work out who the characters were or where they had come from.

However, this is a decent enough film that's worth a watch or two - and it seems to have garnered good reviews from many - but I don't think it's quite as good as people say it is. It's one of those films where I consider the whole to be lesser than the sum of its parts. Some effective set-pieces, but the end product seems somewhat lacking. I did, though, feel that the Italian music was effective. Oh, and I'm not a big fan of Donald Sutherland as an actor.



Quotes
Bishop Barbarrigo: [while passing by a dilapidated church] The churches belong to God, but he doesn't seem to care about them.

Laura Baxter: One of your children has posed a curious question: if the world is round, why is a frozen lake flat?
John Baxter: That's a good question.
Laura Baxter: [flipping through book] Ah, here it says that Lake Ontario curves more than 3 degrees from its Eastern end to its Western end. So frozen water really isn't flat.
John Baxter: Nothing is what it seems.

Inspector Longhi: The skill of police artists is to make the living appear dead.

Trivia
The famous sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie was a last minute on-set idea from director Nicolas Roeg who felt that otherwise the film would have too many scenes of the couple arguing. Most of the scenes around it are improvised.

Donald Sutherland wore a curly toupee throughout the entire shoot.

Daphne Du Maurier wrote a letter to Nicolas Roeg after seeing the film, congratulating him on making such a strong film from her story.

Trailer

I'm guessing this is your first acquaintance with Roeg's unique style, which can certainly be abrasive at times.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

It is, yeah. I'm aware of The Man Who Fell to Earth, as it contains David Bowie, perhaps my favourite musical artist. Never seen it, though, even though it's on my list.

I liked it a lot more than you and found it much more effective on the whole in terms of atmosphere, it had me hooked all the way through, slightly confusing but that worked for me. The Man Who Fell to Earth is next on my Roeg/70s watchlist too, as David Bowie is also probably my favourite musical artist, you have good taste

Fair enough, we all have opinions.

What's your favourite Bowie album / song then? The guy's fantastic.

Not really an 'album' guy, more a listen to greatest hits/individual songs, probably a younger generation thing as easiest way of finding the good stuff. My favourite varies depending on what mood I am in, but I always enjoying listening to: Sound & Vision, Space Oddity, Changes, Life on Mars?, Ashes to Ashes, Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, Let's Dance, Sorrow, Loving the Alien, Young Americans and a few others. Right now I might plump for Young Americans as the 'favourite'/one I am listening to most at the moment.

How about you?

Younger generation? I'm same age as you, you cheeky sod.

Yeah, I love most of his singles and albums, though his more recent period I haven't heard much of. My favourite songs are Station to Station, Ashes to Ashes, Suffragette City, Win, Big Brother, Diamond Dogs.

I'd also recommend the albums Station to Station and Diamond Dogs in their entirety. They're fantastic.

Haha fair enough, I always try to explain to people about how I don't really have favourite albums though, although I think I probably should try and listen to them properly like all the way through, so I will try and follow through with your recommendation sometime

Sounds like you've got WAY more to learn about good music than good movies.

How dare you.

I did see you plus-one'd my Devo post. What a cracking band they were.

Don't tell me you give the great David Bowie a as well.

Rep for Cuckoo's nest!

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My post was in response to the one above mine. Did anyone read them in order?

If you haven't experienced Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon all the way through, you're missing out.