Mark's Movie Reviews 4 Fun

(If you haven't clicked on my website tab at the bottom of each of my posts, please do so to understand what this is all about).

I'll be using this thread to direct readers to the reviews I've written for our Classic Film Club (Movie Reviews 4 Fun).

Background:

We started by listing 10 films, watching one a week, writing our comments in the form of an unofficial "review," which we've been posting on our website, and then we post comments on our message boards. As of this writing, we are on our 13th film out of 20 listed. However, we have just switched from one film a week to one film every two weeks (those who've wanted to participate found it difficult to watch the film and write the review in one week).

I'll be directing readers to only my reviews. Please understand, there are at least two reviews (sometimes more) for each film. If you'd like to read those reviews as well, click on my website tab at the bottom of any of my posts.

Please feel free to comment on the films, my website, my reviews, someone else's reviews from my website, or whatever, on this thread. I'd like to feel like at least one person is reading this and enjoying it.

If you see a film on our upcoming list that you'd like to watch (or re-watch) and submit your own review, we'd love your input.

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NEW (as of 1/24/05): Quick Reviews #10

Okeally-Dokeally!

Double Indemnity (1944) Directed by Howard Hawks - Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson

Mark's Double Indemnity Review

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Diabolique (1954 - French) - Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot - Starring Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, and Paul Merisse.

This is the horror film that inspired Hitchcock to make Psycho.

Mark's Diabolique Review

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Sweet Smell of Success - (1957) Dir. Alexander Mackendrick - Starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

Mark's Sweet Smell of Success Review

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Bringing Up Baby (1938) - Dir. Howard Hawks - Starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Mark's Bringing Up Baby Review

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Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Dir. Robert Aldrich - Starring Ralph Meeker

Mark's Kiss Me Deadly Review

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THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) - Dir. John Sturges - Starring Yul Bryner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, and more.

Adapted from Akiro Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI

Mark's The Magnificent Seven Review

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Those are some original reviews, alright. I like the style that you use. Very cool. I sure hope you decide to stick around Mark. We need you!

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Thanks

The Killers (1946) Dir. Robert Siodmak - Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O'Brien.

Mark's The Killers Review

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SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON - (1964) - Dir. Bryan Forbes - Starring Richard Attenborough and Kim Stanley.

Mark's SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON Review

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DARLING (1965) - Dir. John Schlesinger - Starring Julie Christie

Christie won the Best Actress award for her role in this film, beating out Julie Andrews for THE SOUND OF MUSIC, who had won for MARY POPPINS the year before.

Mark's DARLING review

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THE SILENT PARTNER (1979) Dir. Daryl Duke - Starring Elliot Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York.

Mark's THE SILENT PARTNER Review

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Is that your tenth and final, Mark?

We just finished our 13th film, so there are three more before I am current. After that, they will be posted approximately every two weeks.

Why, are you getting tired of them?

Personally...I like reading them. I've seen almost all the movies you've reviewed, so it's fun checking out someone else's perspective. It's also refreshing to see some reviews for the old classics. Glad to have 'em here.

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955) - Dir. Charles Laughton - Starring Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish, Shelley Winters.

Mark's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER review

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THE WILD BUNCH - Dir. Sam Peckinpah - Starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Bo Hopkins, Jaime Sanchez, Strother Martin, Albert Dekker.

Mark's THE WILD BUNCH review

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Great thread...

This was the first one of your reviews that I read but I'll view the other ones too later.

What is making this film so great besides the groundbreaking technique of showing violence is how it depicted the Vietnam war through a western movie. During this time era you couldn't make movies explicitly about the war in Vietnam and that's why Peckinpah chose to set his movie in Mexico. The gang symbolizes the american soldiers in Vietnam and the mexican rebels are symbolizing vietcong. The shootout in the end is said to be symbolizing a massacre in Vietnam where american soldiers killed women and children ("You bitch!" Pike sneers before he shoots a woman in the film), even if it's unclear if this is really what Peckinpah had in mind.

I think the symbolism of the film is amazing. He did it again with Cross of Iron in 1977 which, at least according to me, is about the american setback in Vietnam and the desillusion and bitterness of the american soldiers, only it is seen through the eyes of german soldiers in WWII. Great movie just like The Wild Bunch.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.