Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Ha, that and the Godfather movies which I also haven't seen before.

I think I remember you saying you haven't seen those... but it's STILL catches me by surprise to such an extent I almost get a heart attack every time I hear about it.

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Director: Sally Wainwright
Writer: Sally Wainwright
Cast: Finn Atkins, Charlie Murphy, Chloe Pirrie
Genre: Biography, Drama

The back-story of the Brontė sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne who wrote some of the greatest literature in the English language...including Jane Eyre & Wuthering Heights.

This original made for British television film covers the Brontė's troubled home life, including their drunken reckless brother Branwell and their aging mild mannered father, who was a retired reverend.

We learn of their struggle to gain financial security as the family was struggling for money. With a bold plan by the three sister's to each write novels...and..get them published, all in a time when the idea of a woman author was laughed at.


For fans of the Bronte's novels...I didn't find the script that engaging, though I did enjoy it, especially the authentic looking sets. The film makers went to great detail to get the clothing and the Brontė's house, which they duplicated in the countryside of Yorkshire England. The result is, you feel like your back in the middle of the 19th century.

I guess I wanted more character development, but maybe that isn't fair as during the middle of the Victorian era, people were much more subdued then they are now, especially women didn't speak out. But then there's the Brontė sisters who dare to dream that they can succeed in getting their novels published. Which they did!


What really stood out was the fiery, self destructive behavior of their brother, who took to beating his own father for a few coins for a drink, at the local pub. Even though the film never said this, I'm of the impression that their brother was the impetus for Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

A must see for fans of the Brontės
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Director: Irving Pichel
Writers: Gwen Bristow, Lenore Coffee (screen play)
Cast: Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent, Natalie Wood
Genre: Drama, Romance

Orson Welles is a newly married, young American who goes off to fight in WWI. During battle he's horribly disfigured by an explosion and captured by the enemy. He wishes to die and refuses to identify himself, believing that his wife (Claudette Colbert) will be better off believing he was killed in the war, which she does believe.

Twenty years later at the first stirrings of WWII he returns to America to escape the Nazis. In America he is hired as a chemist and runs into his former wife who's now remarried and is raising his son, whom he's never meant.


Damn! this is a good movie! I've always been a huge fan of Claudette Colbert, she's so good in everything she's been in. I hate to say this but in the very beginning of the film when a young Orson Welles is with his newly wed wife, Orson didn't have much chemistry with Claudette. I was fearing that this wouldn't be a role he could sink his teeth into...

But then he transforms as the 20 year older man who's lived a lonely life in Austria, all while secretly missing his wife. Orson nailed this performance! I would say it was because the transformed character he played was close to his theatrical roots. He played it with great solitude and sadness as a man who could not tell his former wife that he was indeed her husband from twenty years ago.

Natalie Wood is very good as a child actresses here and her scenes with Orson were touching. They were both good together and Natalie's character is critical to the story.

Tomorrow is Forever has a deep moral meaning that was important for war time America. I won't say what it was, but it did resonate with me...and the film works on many levels.

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Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

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I don't remember Signs well, but I do remember not being very impressed.

Do you believe crop circles are mysterious, or perhaps created by extraterrestrials?

I believe they're a place I can pull my truck next to and take a leak in without anybody seeing me.

Don't know if anyone will get this - but I felt Signs could have been a good metaphysical / spiritual movie about synchronicity and religious mysticism if it was made without the whole alien invasion. I think those aspects appealed to me most before the big climax. Of course, I don't know how you'd bring together Meryl swinging away and the water without the aliens. but that would be up to a writer like... oh... M. Night Shamalamb!

Question: was "tin foil hat" a term BEFORE this movie, or did it come into usage BECAUSE of this movie?

Ha!

Signs is entertaining, it is absolutely silly though. M Knights cameo kills me every time, it's so dumb.

Not sure when it became a source of ridicule but i'm sure it was before Signs.

Yup, good idea. I was thinking that was how the film was going to turn out before the aliens are actually seen. I think it would have been better as you suggested. Oh, forgot to say in my review, it bugged me that Mel sees an alien in the cornfield then goes into the house and doesn't say a damn thing. But that's not as bad as Mel finding an alien in a closet (ha!) BUT not telling the cops. What was wrong with Mel anyway?

I didn't know what he looked like when I first saw this in the theater - so his cameo didn't register to me as anything but a bit part for a cast member.

(Isn't there one movie where he appears only in the reflection of a glass door or something?)

He was an Episcopalian Priest. I had to look that up after the movie because I couldn't figure out why everyone would call a minister "father" (they'd call him "reverend" or "pastor") - and he was obviously not a Catholic Priest seeing as he was married and had kids.

Don't know but i know he's just a guy on the phone in The Happening, you only hear his voice.

Director: Joe Dante
Writers: Richard Robinson & John Sayles (story)
Cast: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies-Urich, Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller
Genre: Thriller-Horror

Producer Roger Corman is the king of B budget thriller movies. Roger has a whopping 411 producer movie credits. As far as I know that's more than any other movie producer, ever.

And the thing with a Roger Corman produced movie is, regardless of who directs it, you know it will be one of those Corman movies. I mean that in a good way! Nobody makes cheesy fun & cheap movies like Roger Corman, and Piranha is one of his most successful films.

Clearly the film is a 'rip off' of Jaws, actually after the huge success of Jaws a number of similar movies appeared to cash in on the watery horror craze. At one point Universal Studios was going to sue Roger Corman over copyright infringements but changed their minds when reportedly Steven Spielberg watched Piranha and loved it. He called it the best of the Jaws rips offs.

Bradford Dillman was originally unhappy with his character's 2D nature, and asked writer John Sayles why his character was so thin. Sayles responded that Roger Corman regularly did not use good actors in his film, so he deliberately didn't elaborate on characters. But since Dillman was a "real" actor, he was more than happy to enhance his character's depth.

So...the piranhas look pretty real, I love the fast action edits that make them look like a pack of razor blades with fins, all coming at you at once! And they make this god-awful sound that was reportedly done by placing a dental drill under water, yikes!

Roger Corman had only one thing to say during the making of this film....MORE BLOOD! and so they did. There's lots of creepy fun, half eaten people and the little kids at summer camp being eaten alive has to be seen to be believed.

Popcorn anyone?

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I love Tomorrow Is Forever, but I don't think there's any other movie that has an ending that I both love and hate so much.

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OPEN FLOOR.

I didn't think anyone else had seen this one. Yeah, I have to agree the ending is powerful but very sad.