Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

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Nice review, CR. It's a great film done during Nicholson's hot heyday. It's interesting that Kirk Douglas had starred in the Broadway production of it 10 years earlier, and subsequently bought the screen rights, but couldn't get it produced as a film. He finally gave it to his son Michael, who was able to get funding for it. It was comparatively low budget, but made a fortune at the box office. I'm sure he cut his dad in for some of the cheese..

I agree with you about Louise Fletcher as "Nurse Ratched" (what a name). She had a very strong performance. I hated her in 1975, but now I think she's "hot"...

~Doc





[center]One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

[left]Director: Milos Forman
Writers: Lawrence Hauben & Bo Goldman (screenplay), Ken Kesey (novel)
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman
Genre: Drama


Excellent review of this classic, Citizen...glad that you singled out Brad Dourif, who was clearly robbed of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.





The Ten Commandments (1956)

Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Cast: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Pagent, John Derek, Cedric Hardwicke, Judith Anderson, Vincent Price, John Carradine
Length: 3hours 40minutes
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Enjoyed your review of this movie, but I have always found getting through it a chore...despite at least a dozen efforts, I have never been able to get through this movie from beginning to end...it's just too damn long. Yul Brynner is superb though.




Moonlight (2016)

[size=5][color=#224C76][size=4][color=Black]Director: Barry Jenkins
Writers: Barry Jenkins (screenplay), Tarell Alvin McCraney (story)
Cast: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes
Genre: Drama

[size=3]

Glad you watched this movie Citizen but we're in opposite camps on this one...I LOVED the adult Chirone sequence and I think the last 20 minutes or so of this movie, when Chirone and Kevin reunite at Kevin's restaurant, is nothing short of AMAZING!!!



I won't dance. Don't ask me...
I'm not suprised You rated One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest so high. Everything in this movie is perfect. The best is the plot ofcourse, but it's the clame to fame of Ken Kesey, who wrote the book, but Milos Forman made from it masterpiece.



...I agree with you about Louise Fletcher as "Nurse Ratched" (what a name). She had a very strong performance. I hated her in 1975, but now I think she's "hot"...
~Doc
Her nurse's assistant, wasn't bad looking either

Excellent review of this classic, Citizen...glad that you singled out Brad Dourif, who was clearly robbed of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
I haven't seen all the nominations for Best Supporting Actor for 1975 movies. I looked it up and I would have gave it to Chris Sarandon for Dog Day Afternoon.


Enjoyed your review of this movie, but I have always found getting through it a chore...despite at least a dozen efforts, I have never been able to get through this movie from beginning to end...it's just too damn long. Yul Brynner is superb though.
I watched in two nights. Try that. After the parting of the Red Sea, shut it off and see the second part the next night. The first part in Egypt is the best, IMO.

I'm not suprised You rated One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nestso high. Everything in this movie is perfect. The best is the plot ofcourse, but it's the clame to fame of Ken Kesey, who wrote the book, but Milos Forman made from it masterpiece.
Milos Forman



Rules, did you ever see the Christian Bale remake of the Moses story?
It's called Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).
It lacks the grandeur and epic feel of The Ten Commandments (and of course, no "Technicolor"!) But it's got some decent special effects (and some quite obvious CGI) - it makes the parting of the Red Sea almost look believable. Bale just seems an odd choice for Moses. It adds some twists to the story that aren't in the Charlton Heston movie (and also aren't in the Biblical account). It would be interesting to watch the two in a near time frame to compare them.



Rules, did you ever see the Christian Bale remake of the Moses story?
It's called Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).
It lacks the grandeur and epic feel of The Ten Commandments (and of course, no "Technicolor"!) But it's got some decent special effects (and some quite obvious CGI) - it makes the parting of the Red Sea almost look believable. Bale just seems an odd choice for Moses. It adds some twists to the story that aren't in the Charlton Heston movie (and also aren't in the Biblical account). It would be interesting to watch the two in a near time frame to compare them.
No, I never seen it. I was aware of the title, but I thought it was like a DC/Marvel superhero type movie. I might watch it, I like Bale, though I see Ridley Scott directed it and haven't thought much of his latest work. You know I always feel bad for Ramses





Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
Director: Charles Walters
Writers: Ben Hecht (book), Charles MacArthur (book)
Cast: Doris Day, Jimmy Durante, Stephen Boyd
Genre: Musical


A small family run circus in the early 1900s called the Wonder Circus, is in deep financial trouble because pops (Jimmy Durante) can't stay away from dice games. His lovely daughter Kitty (Doris Day) does what she can to stave off the creditors. But there's a big powerful circus in town trying to steal all of their talent, the Noble Circus. Enter the new mysterious guy, (Stephen Boyd) who just might be able to help save the Wonder Circus.




Billy Rose's Jumbo marks a lot of last...it was the last time Doris Day starred in a full blown musical. It was the last movie made by a brilliant director, Busby Berkeley, who was the 2nd unit director here. And it was one of the last big musicals made by MGM....and it flopped. It was the start of the 1960s and this type of family musical had lost it's appeal to a new generation of movie goers, and were on the way out.

I wish I could say this movie that marked an end of an era was memorable, but it ain't so! The songs are mostly forgettable and the romance between Dorris Day and Stephen Boyd is something akin to warm flat beer. It's there, but it's none to lively.

Unlike the other well known classic circus movie, The Greatest Show On Earth...Jumbo doesn't have much in the way to offer in spectacular circus feats. Come to think of it, Billy Rose's Jumbo is lack luster all the way around.

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I often hear The Greatest Show on Earth mentioned as one of the worst best picture winners but I quite liked it.

The Godfather II is not a favorite of mine although I need to see it again.

Glad you enjoyed Brigsby Bear and I also didn't think much of The Glass Castle.



I often hear The Greatest Show on Earth mentioned as one of the worst best picture winners but I quite liked it.

The Godfather II is not a favorite of mine although I need to see it again.

Glad you enjoyed Brigsby Bear and I also didn't think much of The Glass Castle.
I read your review of The Glass Castle, I think me and you were on the same page. I liked it that you called it a drunken Captain Fantastic, ha! That went through my head when I watched it too. So far 2017 hasn't been that great of a movie year for me. But I probably just haven't watched the good ones yet.




Forrest Gump (1994)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Winston Groom (novel), Eric Roth (screenplay)
Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise
Genre: Fantasy Drama, Romance


"The presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson, Vietnam, Watergate, and other history unfold through the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75."

Movies are like a box of chocolates...you have to poke your finger into a whole bunch of them before you find that special one. Forrest Gump is like that lone caramel covered chocolate, that when you find it, it's very rewarding...and tasty too!

Forrest Gump
is one unique movie...There's no antagonist and there's no conventional plot structure to the story. Instead we see Forrest go through life and experience it from the eyes of a child. Even as an adult Forrest Gump is very child like in how he views the world around him. He sees life without cynicism or bitterness, his is an open book and despite his slowness he embraces life and life embraces him. He's a lucky man.

But this is no fluffy-sappy movie. We see that Jenny is the antithesis of Forrest. Jenny goes through hell in her life. She's sexual abused as a little girl, and ends up a lost soul. She's someone that life has chewed up and spat out. Life is so hard for Jenny that she tries to kill her pain with drugs. At the end she doesn't even want to live...While thousands of miles away, simple Forest only wants to be with his true love, Jenny. He can see the good in her, thanks to his own simple mindedness.

Definitely a deep movie and one that surprised me with it's sophisticated film making, and deeper than you might think story telling.

+




Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Director: Frank Lloyd
Writers: Talbot Jennings & Jules Furthman (screenplay)
Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone
Genre: Adventure, Biography, Drama

"A tyrannical ship captain decides to exact revenge on his abused crew after they form a mutiny against him, but the sailor he targets had no hand in it. "

Academy Award Winner of Best Picture 1936

It blows my mind to think that only eight years earlier the first talkies were being made. Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935 took movie making techniques, decades into the future. I mean look at that screen shot. So what! you say...you've seen many scenes like that before. But not audiences back in 1935! They must have been blown away to see real ships on the real ocean, when other movies at the time would have had a tiny scale model in a tank with rear projection, and actors on a set built to look like a ships deck.

So look at that scene again through the eyes of 1935, and you'll see how impressive it is. That's three real ships in that scene and the staging with the deckhand in the foreground and the Bounty and Pandora in the background, with a procession of row boats trailing off into the scene...All of that staging just for one shot! It really shows great care of detail. The entire movie is like that.

Audiences in 1935 were treated to on location shooting in Tahiti, one of the first times a movie did that. For many that would have been their first look at such a far away exotic place. For me what Mutiny on the Bounty achieved cinematically in 1935 is nothing short of amazing.

The story of the Bounty is a literature classic and it's a great tale and true, which to me makes it all the more fascinating. Clark Gable later said that Mutiny on the Bounty was the best movie he had starred in. He's powerful here as a man driven to the point of mutiny, he commands the screen whenever he's on. Charles Laughton as the cruel and sadistic Captain Bligh is the stuff of acting legends. Laughton is always good in his movies and here he's at his most colorful.

I enjoyed the spectacle of 18th century sailing vessels on the high seas and the epic adventure in the exotic south pacific islands.

++




Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Director: Jonathan Demme
Writers: Thomas Harris (novel), Ted Tally (screenplay)
Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney
Genre: Thriller


"A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated, manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer."


Academy Award Best Picture Winner (1992)

My favorite scenes were the interaction between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice, which were brilliant!...Especially Hannibal's cold reading of Clarice at their first meeting and his uncanny abilities of perception.

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal, he sure created a memorable character and did an amazing job of being intense, and weird, and yet likable too. It was quite the performance and he won an Oscar for it.

I really wanted to see him and Clarice have some sort of bond and that's why their scenes together were my favorite. It was a pretty great script idea that a psycho killer would respect this 'little' FBI trainee. I say 'little' because the cinematography goes to lengths to show Clarice surrounded at different times by really tall men, like in the elevator scene. That's not an accident, it shows us that physically she is surrounded by people much stronger than her, which then makes her task all the more daunting.

Jodie Foster won an Oscar for Best Actress and she was sublime in this movie! It's a pity that most fans don't give her the credit due. Her acting was always sincere (even Hannibal appreciated that aspect of her character). In Jodie Foster's reactionary close up shots to Anthony Hopkins, she convinces us, that the horror of Hannibal is real.

The music score: perfect, perfect, perfect. I was never aware of it, except the couple times I made a conscious effort to listen for it. That then makes it effective.

The sets: I'm a sucker for set detail and man is this movie loaded with cool sets! I loved the psychiatric jail where we first see Hannibal. The heavy cobble stones and rusting metal made it look like a long forgotten dungeon where these derelicts of society languished in darkness.

The second temporary holding cell for Hannibal was memorable too. It was this large cell surrounded by vastness of the otherwise empty room.

I really like Buffalo Bill's house it was loaded with weird looking stuff, one could spend hours just examining each frame for hidden details Good lighting too in there. Notice how his basement holding pit was made of the same big cobblestones that was in Hannibal's cell?

There were some scenes I didn't care for, they were just too dark for my taste. And I think it was a mistake having Hannibal be out on the run and free. I'm sure that was done with the hopes of a sequel being made. But I would have loved an epilogue with Clarice visiting Hannibal one more time, in his new permanent cell. I think they could have had a touching, yet uncomfortable moment there, as a way to reflect back on the journey they both took.

+




Gladiator (2000)

Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: David Franzoni (story), David Franzoni (screenplay)
Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama


"When a Roman General is betrayed, and his family murdered by an emperor's corrupt son, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge."

I'd only seen this once and that was first run in the theater years ago. At that time I loved it and I've been wanting to rewatch it for the longest time. And so I finally did...

I find myself surprised that I didn't love it this time around. I don't have any real problems with the movie and it was fine for what it did. It's just that in all those years my movie taste has changed considerably and what I once liked in movies, I no longer do.

Gladiator
delivers on visual spectacle and fight sequences, as one would expect from a Ridley Scott film. But I've never been into action movies or martial art films so the fighting sequences were meh for me, especially the opening fight scene. I hate that filming style of reduced frame rate, fast edits and close ups, it makes me dizzy. That technique is used to shoot a lot of fights in movies and it just feels unsatisfying to me.

Ridley Scott doesn't really focus on the underlying story. Oh sure he alludes to it and the premise of an aging caesar who wished to restore Rome to the people by restoring power to the Senate....while his son grabs power and seeks to do just the opposite, would seem to be a powerful subject, but Ridley doesn't go into that deep enough. I wanted more palace intrigue and less elephants and giraffes. Ridley loves his production design, but here it gets in the way of the story.

This time around I actually rooted for Joaquin Phoenix to win! Sure he was insecure, manipulative and incestuous...and that made him interesting. Joaquin rocks his role and was the most interesting thing in the movie.

Russell Crowe was uninteresting to me in this, just too stoic. I ended up not liking him so when all this bad stuff happens to him, I didn't even care. I was thinking what could Commodus do to get rid of him once and for all!

Like I said, I didn't hate it, but I had a hard time getting through the 2 1/2 hours, as it felt like a 90 minute story to me.





The Godfather (1972)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay), Mario Puzo (novel)
Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
Genre: Drama Crime


So, I finally watched The Godfather. Most impressively I never checked how much time was left in the film. That's amazing for me, especially as it's a 3 hour movie and usually if I'm getting bored I'll check the time remaining at least a half dozen times.

I really enjoyed the first hour with Marlon Brando, especially the wedding sequence. At this point the film reminded me of Elizabeth (1998) as the godfather was like royalty and had his own protocols for respect, while granting an 'audience' and dispersing 'favors and edicts'. That was fascinating to see. Marlon Brando's Don Corleone was like a monarch on the throne, cool stuff.

The second act was interesting as a mob war broke out and I enjoyed seeing so many stars in one movie. Damn! there's way too many to name. I swear Abe Vigoda looked ancient even way back in 1972. And on the flip side Diane Keaton never looked younger. My favorite subplot was the Johnny Fontane character who was based on real life Frank Sinatra.

I did get a bit bored by the third act. Just too many characters for any of them to become fully fleshed out and become real to me. This is what happens when a complex lengthy novel is brought to the screen: either the director has to cut characters & sub plots out of the story...or...spend less time on the development of them. And that's what keeps me from loving this film, it really needed to be a mini series to cover all the vast material in Mario Puzo's novel.

So I appreciate this film and enjoyed watching it, but I'm not sure what I will rate this at as it didn't 'speak' to me. By that I mean I don't find myself pondering the story the next day, nor did it elevate my thoughts or make me feel deeply.