Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

I've never seenIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but I'm long over due for a rewatch of the first 3.

Hook and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, never seen them, I probably well some day.

The BFG...not seen it either, maybe I try?The Adventures of Tintin, which I always think is a remake of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, wish it was!

Twilight Zone: The Movie - I'm not sure which segment was "Kick the Can"...the best and you'll probably agree is the one with William Shatner on the plane.


A.I. Artificial Intelligence, I've seen this it's good in parts, but too long and too bloated to be effective.

Léon: The Professional (1994)
Léon (original title)
Director: Luc Besson
Writer: Luc Besson
Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman
Genre: Crime Thriller

About: Mathilda, a 12 year old girl from a dysfunctional drug dealing family, finds herself an orphan after her entire family is killed by vicious drug dealers. The lead killer just happens to be a cop(Gary Oldman) who deals drugs on the side. She's taken in by Leon (Jean Reno) who's a professional assassin. They then form a close and sometimes strange bond....eventually he agrees to teach the 12 year old to be a killer.


Thoughts: Very interesting and a very, very different type of movie! I thought young Natalie Portman did an amazing job of acting. I really liked her in V for Vendetta but had never seen her when she was a kid actor, and could she act up a storm!

Mathilda was a great character too. I really liked Jean Reno also, last time I seen him was in The Big Blue, I didn't like that movie but I thought he was pretty good in it and here he's even better.


On the other side of the fence, so to speak is the evil drug dealing cop who ordered Mathilda's family executed...and he's looking to finish the job! Gary Oldman plays the wildly, over the top cop with so much zest that you might just root for him, but don't!...as he's really really bad. But as an actor he's really really good!


Léon: The Professional was well made movie and looked great, even the soundtrack was very efficient. The subject matter is not generally what I would watch but I have to say the film makers did a fine job with the movie and it certainly has it's charms.

Attachments

     

I forgot all about War Horse. I didn't know it was a Spielberg movie.
I never saw it either, but I did read the book! It's a short book that can be read in just a couple days (longer than a short story, but shorter than the typical novel).

The interesting thing about it is that it's told from the horse's POV: the twists and turns his life takes as he ends up "serving" on different sides during the Great War, the other horses & animals he meets and the humans he grows to love (as well as those who aren't very nice). So I always wondered how the movie portrays the horse's point of view (assuming they didn't go the "Babe" route where the animals talk) - that is, if they do tell it from the horse's perspective.

Director: Mike Nichols
Writers: Calder Willingham & Buck Henry (screenplay)
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross
Genre: Comedy, Drama

As I was watching this I realized it was more than just a coming of age movie. The Graduate is an anthem to a generation. In 1967 the Baby Boomers were entering into adult hood, and there were millions of them! The were the biggest single generation ever known, Baby Boomers were born right after the returning WWII soldiers got busy and made babies and made babies and made babies. It was a huge spike in the birth rate in America during the mid 1940s to the late 1950s...And this film is symbolic of the Baby Boomers and their changing values, which was called the Generation Gap.

The film shows Ben (Dustin Hoffman) as being adrift in life and questioning the established order of things. Ben doesn't want the status quo, he doesn't know what he wants out of life.

In the opening scenes the director switches from showing him alone and isolated (like in the photo I used) to the party scene that shows extreme close ups of adults grabbing and pulling him all different directions. The adults in the film are all called Mr or Mrs while the young people go by their first names, emphasizing the Generation Gap. The adults advise him to go to Graduate School, to get into plastics as a career, they want him to be like them.

Symbolically there was a generational war going on in the 1960s with the baby boomers emerging self awareness movement...with 'hippies' at the fore, which put the younger generation at odds with society (their parents generation). And that's what the film explores.
Today it's hard for us to feel that aspect of the film, but back in 1967 young people felt this movie gave them a voice. That what made it so important.

I didn't like Dustin Hoffman's performance. He seemed to be acting as if he was mentally slow. He played it too odd and too geeky. I mean after he touches Mrs Robinson's breast he starts banging his head into the wall, like he's having a break down. And yet in the movie he's suppose to be the Captain of a sports team, just graduated from college and from a rich home.
That kind of person would be more self confident than the way Hoffman plays it.

I havent seen it for years but I agree. He came across as a bit intellectually retarded.

I read one of his bios after seeing that movie and from what I recall Dustin said he played himself ie. he was a dork and a virgin, and was absolutely terrified of Anne Bancroft.

I didnt like War Horse at all. Infact it took me 6 attempts to get through it. Seemed like more of a cheesy young teen flick to me. Bitterley disappointing because
1. Horse: check
2. war drama: check
right up my alley.

I was so disappointed I could have cried. That was my final straw for Spielberg and couldnt even utter his name again until the Tintin movie.

You can skip Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but the first 3 movies are always worth watching.


"Kick the Can" is the segment with Scatman Crothers, where the old people become young again.

Yes, the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" segment is definitely the best, but in the movie, it was John Lithgow, not William Shatner on the plane. Did you see the episode of "Third Rock from the Sun" with Shatner that joked about their connection to that segment?

Several people have told me that I should watch War Horse, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I guess the trailer just didn't interest me much, so it keeps getting pushed back on my watchlist.

Did you see The Adventures of Tintin? I don't think it's anywhere near the top of the list of Spielberg's movies, but I thought it was a great movie.

Yes and I really loved it, thus the mention in the previous post because I joked with Mr D that Spielberg redeemed himself with a story about a boy and his dog after War Horse.

I watched The Adventures of Tintin for the Animation Countdown, and I liked it so much that it made my list.

Isnt it great, gb. I mean it looks fantastic but it was just so utterly charming. We couldnt take our eyes off it. And someone on the writing team sure knows dogs.

My guess is that you'd like The BFG. Putting aside the fact that it was one of the worst title choices in the new millennium, and that Spielberg was trying to capitalize on his earlier abbreviated title, E.T., this was a film of immense charm.

Mark Rylance gave a voice over performance for the ages, and the little girl was meltingly cute. The technical aspects were amazing. Fantasy can wear thin, but in this case it was well within delight.

~Doc

Glad to see here Your revs of Leon and The Grduate

LOVED your review of this movie, Citizen...I loved what you said about all the adults being referred to as Mr and Mrs and the college kids are referred to by their first names. Never thought about that. I never thought about it until you wrote it, but Benjamin's ineptness during his first sexual encounter with Mrs. Robinson is kind of hard to swallow...are we supposed to believe this guy graduated from college without having sex?

Maybe I'll watch BFG then. Hope it isn't too much like E.T., I really disliked that film.

Loved this review too, Citizen, I agree with everything you've said. This was my first exposure to Portman and the AMAZING Gary Oldman.

Totally agree...that movie sucked.

I've been watching and rewatching some Tom Cruise movies. I mostly liked War of the Worlds. I should watch it again, as everyone else seems to hate it

I really enjoyed WotW.

Speaking of rewatching Cruise movies, Days of Thunder was on tv late last night. Terrible (although I've never watched it in full).