Cinemaafficionado's Movie Portraits

Cul-De-Sac

In 1966 when Roman Polanski wrote and directed this dark thriller, little did he know that three years later in a bizzare life imitating art, his wife Sharon Tate would be brutally murdered by the Charles Manson clan.
In the movie, two wounded criminals hole up in a secluded beach castle, owned by an old Englishman and his young French wife.
After one of the criminals dies, what ensues is a bizzare threesome with a shattering climax.

ENJOYABLE

Julia (2008)

What can I say about an uterly ubeliveably brilliant performance by Tilda Swanson?
This performnce is what " being in the moment " is.
Tilda is Julia, a reprehansable and abhorent drunk, who, in the process of kidnapping an 8 year old boy, manages to find her sole shred of humanity.
Shame on the Academy for overlooking this incredible performance.

EXCEPTIONAL

Tilda Swinton is one of the most amazing actresses out there right now. The film as a whole was slightly disappointing for me, but her performance makes it all worth the look.

Farewell My Lovely (1975)

This was a second adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel.
A very stylish neo-noir, beautifully filmed and authenticaly directed by Dick Richards.
The cast is wonderfull and right on for the hard boiled atmosphere of the 40's detective fiction.
Robert Mitchum is private eye Philip Marlowe, accompanied by Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles ( nominated for Best Supporting Actress, 1976 Oscars ), Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton and even Sylvester Stallone makes an appearance as Jonnie.

Exceptional

Rampart

Woody Harrelson gives a performance of a life time in this gritty and unflincheable look into the life of a police officer of the notorious LA Rampart division. He is a guy that plays by his own rules as he meets out his version of justice. As he says " All the guys that caught my bullet were bad with the possible exception of some guy at the wrong end of Karma ".
Woody represents LA cops in their gory days but he is a dynnosaur and has to take the fall for his last misscariage of justice, if for no other reason than to take the heat off the rest of the Rampart Division which is in a big crises of it's own.
This movie realy portrays things as they are including his disfunctional family, who goes through much pain because of his actions.
As his daughters tell him:" Daddy you hurt us by what you do to others ".

EXCEPTIONAL

Tyrannosaur

A very disturbing movie about a very disturbed guy. Petter Mullan plays a self-destructive and homicidal drunk who just hates the world. As he is about to crumble into oblivion, he meets a woman, who on the surface is kindly and religious and she offers him shelter, which he cruely ridicules.
Little does he know that she has a dark secret of her own, tormented and abused by her sadist husband who not only beats her but totaly degrades her as ahuman being by pissing on her.
This meek amd helpful soul is pushed to the brink and she snaps, even more so than our drunk friend. He finds redemption in supporting her in her hour of need and changes his ways, thus proving that any one can be redeemed.
Very strong performances by both actors, Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman and aptly directed by Paddy Considine. If you can stomach the cruelty and hatred, a movie definitely worth seeing.

Exceptional

Tyrannosaur

Gah, I need to see that one. Some nice reviews here, keep it up.

Contraband

As good a thriller as Mark Walberg's been in. The pace is great from beginning to end, with an assortment of bad guys thrown in for good measure.
Chris Farraday ( Wallberg ) unretires, one last time, to protect his brodher in law and smuggle the goods ( counterfeit currency ) from Panama. Along the way he manages to bring in some cocaine and a Jason Pollack painting that's worth millions.
It 's a thrill a minute and unlike most Asian movies of the same genre, this one has an American ending - a happy one!

Exceptional

^ There is the original film from Iceland if interested. Contraband is a remake.

Cyclo

This 1995 film directed by Tran Anh Hung is arguably the best movie to come out of Vietnam. The colors and sounds of Hochi Minh City are richly portrayed as well as it's underbelly: the violence, flesh for hire, the atmosphere of poverty, dirt and decay.
Cyclo is an 18 year old driver of a bicycle taxi, who when his bicycle gets stolen, is forced to work for the Poet, a small time pimp, to work off his debt.
The Poet is also envolved in robberies, drug trafficking and homicides.
Although Cyclo is eager to join the gang, he is kept on the periphery, performing small errands but he eventualy graduates to smuggling dope and firebombing.
This is a visionary raw, brutal and bizarre look into former Saigon's mean streets.
Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme colorfully captures the underlying beauty of the city and the violence associated with it is portrayed in an almost poetic way, giving a very unique and lyrical feel to the movie.

EXCEPTIONAL

Montenegro

What's a girl to do? An utterly bored Swedish housewife, on the verge of insanity, elopes for a few days with a bohemian Yugoslav couple that introduce her to the raw sensuality of Zanzi Bar and the man known as Montenegro.
Susan Anspach is at her best in this 1981 quircky black comedy directed by Dusan Makavejev.

Enjoyable

The Grey

A movie about ultimate survival in the arctic after a disastrous airplane crash. A rough oil pipe line crew tries to deal with the freezing cold and their injuries but on top of that they also have to contend with a pack of vicious wolves that are picking them off one by one.
The self-appointed leader of the crew, played by Liam Neeson, is the perfect choice as his mision at the end of the world was to shoot down wolves and protect the oil workers. His rifle is gone so he has to improvise.
The story plot has a lot of gaps but the cinematogarphy and the pace of the movie keeps one riveted.
In disasters of this nature: water, food, shelter, ability to travel and be discovered are all paramount but they take second place to the ferocious wolves. Men here are at a disadvantage.
Liam Neeson, as Ottway, is very credible and puts in a stellar performance.
Considering his age, he very aptly portrays his character, burdened with all kinds of physical handicaps, which he overcomes effortlessly.
Joe Carnahan directs this movie quite well, letting nature take it's course.

ENJOYABLE

I Saw The Devil

Korean director Ji-woon Kim of the Tale Of Two Sisters fame brings together Byung-hun Lee from the Good, The Bad and The Weird and Myin Sik-Choi from Old Boy, and creates a tale of revenge plus.
A secret agent's wife is brutaly murdered by a canibalistic serial killer and the agent exacts he's own vengeance by tracking the killer and playing cat and mouse with him, repeatedly hurting him nad depriving him of satisfaction.
The killer, however, has an uncanny sense of survival and finds a way to turn the tables, at least for a while.
This is a very fast paced movie with great action and cinematography, not to mention the macabre an bizarre story line, as only Koreans know how to make.

Exceptional

Great reviews! Rampart, Tyrannosaur, and I Saw the Devil are on my to see list.

I also enjoyed Contraband and thought The Grey was ok.

For Greater Glory

Chronicles the Cristeros War in Mexico (1926 -1929) in which the then atheist president of Mexico ( played by Ruben Blades ) instigates an all out which hunt against the the Catholic church and it's followers.
The Mexican Catholic people organize a resistance, calling themselves Cristeros, under the leadership of best retired General, Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, himself an atheist that becomes a convert ( played by Andy Garcia ).
The story line is interesting but at times overly sentimental.
A few notable characters that stood out for me were Victoriano 'El Catorse' Ramirez ( the nickname stemming from the fact that he single handedly killed 14 Federales on one notable occassion ) and Lalo ( Adrian Alonzo ) , a boy with a lot of heart and great conviction.
And of course there is Andy Garcia who, like him or not, brings to life the passionate and uncompromising resistance General Velarde.

Enjoyable

The Victim

Just watched this movie on Dvd tonight. I always liked Michael Biehn in action movies so when I saw his name I got this Dvd. Well, not only does he star in it but directs it as well.
Out of some 89 videos he participated in, this was the second movie he directed and at first I thought it was a sophmoric effort, what with the scenery being chewed up in the beginning and a sloppy standard immitation of a terrified girl running in the woods, but hold on. It eventualy develops some good dialogue and action for just a thriller/horror made for Dvd, with an interesting twist in the end.
Anyway, it begins with two cops taking two strippers on a picnic in the woods.
In the end, it was kind of cool how everybody associated with this production got a photo credit.
Michael made me change my mind about this movie. Check it out!

Enjoyable

Thin Ice

I've been a Greg Kinnear fan ever since Talk Soup and he cemented it for me in As Good As It Gets.
In Thin Ice, Greg plays a sleazy insurance salesman that gets more than he bargained for when he attempts to swindle a retiree ( flawlessly portrayed by the ever consistent Alan Arkin )
The scenery is remeniscent of Fargo and the plot is like an imitation of a Cohen Brothers script so the surprise ending should come as no shock.

Enjoyable

Sacrifice

In 2010, diretor Kaige Chen, best known for directing Farewell My Concubine, The Emperor And The Assassin and The Promise, masterfully directs an epic Cinese movie with a great story line.
A general who has seen his best days behind him is jealous of a younger one that is the husband of the Emperor's sister. She is pregnant and awaiting the birth of her child.
The general conceives a plan to kill the Emperor and place the blame on the general's rival. He then proceeds to kill off the rival's entire clan.
Caught in the carnage is a doctor tending to the younger general's wife.
As he deliver's her son, she makes him promise to save him.
The doctor's own wife just had a baby son. As soldiers are taking all the newly born babies, looking for the royal one, the doctor winds up making the ultimate sacrice, giving up his own baby and wife in order to protect the royal baby.
He makes an oath to take care of the baby as his own and bring him close to his father's killer and then exact deadly vengeance, when the boy has grown old enough.
The pace of this movie is riveting and the cinematography a treat.

EXCELLENT

Oh, yes. Those were the days.