Classic Review: The Seventh Seal (10/10)

           Ingmar Bergman gave us an incredible film here.   A knight goes wit to wit against death in a game of chess to buy himself more life.  The movie takes a very philosophic bend, and takes us through the thoughts that every human has thought since nigh on the beginning of mankind.  Is there a God?  Why can I not perceive him with any of my senses?  Yet, why can I not rid myself of the thought of God?  No point in this film can be looked at with a glance; every scene is a deep well of meaning, and every character meant to show us a different way humanity deals with the inevitability of death.  There isn’t a moment to miss.         

               

Set in medieval Europe, we are confronted with a world obsessed with the end.  Religion is at its peak of making noise; the plague travels the land and leaves nothing but death, boils, and terror.  Amid this horror, a knight returns from the crusades convinced that the ten years he spent there at war were worthless, and left with no faith in God.  Death comes knocking, but the knight cleverly challenges him to the ultimate game of wits, chess, since he had heard in ballads in tales that Death plays.  During a reprieve in the game, Death gives the knight a chance to do one last deed on earth to search for meaning. 

               

During this search for meaning, the good knight meets many people, sees the death the plague has caused, and we are generally given an intense view of how people handle life.  From love of family, to lust for the opposite sex, to an empty marriage, to a thief just trying to keep his mouth filled with bread and beer.  All the time Death is looming over him and everyone he meets, with all their lives hinging on that chess game.  We see the knight revel in his contest with the ultimate opponent, and we see him despair when there are no alternatives left.  We see a witch who wishes she could see the devil so badly that she potently imagines him, and is in fact disappointed when the knight cannot also see the devil in her. 

               

                There’s more than enough examining I could do of this film.  Every scene is worth examining, there’s no doubt about that.  But the main thing to take away is that the movie shows the sadness and absurdity of life, and the different ways humans deal with it.  We are shown lust, love, comedy, despair, and reason.  In the end, all of these techniques fail and everyone dies. There’s no escape from it.  So what is there to do?  We need look no further than the one set of people that survive.  The happy family with a child.  They’ve escaped the horrors of both life and death, jealousy and lust.  So, rather than sink into despair over our inescapable demise, the movie shows that happiness can be found amongst ourselves, and that other people are where we can find joy.  And in the end, there’s nothing wrong with joy. 

                The film is shot brilliantly.  The characters are always framed to show off exactly the way they’re supposed to feel to us, looked down upon or looked up at. The technology is very limiting in most aspects of film making we think of, even when compared to other old classics this movie feels a bit more primitive.  However, it’s never distracting from what we’re being presented with, and even gives it a more respectable feel, as though the film were coming straight from the Middle Ages that are being shown to us.  The sound track is a little bit distracting at times, as it tries to give an intense pacing that the film doesn’t really allow for.  Still though, none of this detracts at all from the quality of the writing that so brilliantly displays the human condition to us, which is exactly the goal of this film and it accomplishes it perfectly.

                I feel a bit bad giving out two perfect scores when I’ve only written 3 reviews thusfar, but what really lies at fault here is that I decided to see good movies. There’s nothing else to do with Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece than to give it a perfect score.  The lack of technology cannot take any points away from it, and the story is both gripping, entertaining, and more meaningful than I care to talk about at any more length.  This is a movie you must see, take an hour and a half to sit and consider your own life, because as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living, and this movie forces you to consider your life and how you handle its end.  Even the simple painter in the film knew this was important, and you would be completely remiss in not seeing this complete 10/10 classic. 

(IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/)

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Classic Review: Patton (7/10)

Patton is a movie that’s been on my to do list for a long time, and as good a movie as any to be my first classic review.  A character study like no other, Patton follows the tale of the most battle hungry, mad-dog general America ever had the pride to produce.  Over this three hour long saga we watch Patton emerge victorious in Africa, Sicily, and finally in the very heart of Europe.  We see how the Germans feared him all the way up to the man they called genius (Rommel) and we see how the Allies feared him even more, or at least his temper and unrestrained tongue.  But this isn’t a review of the man; it’s a review of the movie.

There’s no real plot to be found here, but that’s good.  This was set out to be historically accurate from the beginning, and to really get inside one of the most famous American general’s head.  But, this is the major thing that stopped me from completely enjoying the movie.  It simply isn’t entertaining.  It’s powerful, it’s interesting, but it isn’t entertaining.  I’d almost call it a documentary.  And in that area it excels. 

George C. Scott delivers his famous performance brilliantly.  We are completely able to see the struggle Patton constantly lived with, between his own ferociousness, his foolish actions when not in combat, his odd beliefs, and his passion for war both past and present.  All of the other actors on screen truly shrink to insignificance which is exactly what this movie demands of them.  We’re not here to worry about his friend Bradley or his rival Montgomery.   At no point do we see a side of Patton we aren’t meant to, the performance is flawless and I am left respecting the character, and yet understanding his flaws. 

The brief action scenes give us the best sense of the way the war looked through Patton’s eyes.  There’s no focus on the individual soldier, there’s no focus on heroes, simply the movements of the troops and the command of the setup, Patton’s own role.  This is an interesting departure from the majority of war movies we are presented with, where we get the common man’s view of the battlefield and see his trials and struggles.  Patton presents us with the view from the top down, a view I haven’t seen in any other movie and at that it is quite interesting and worth watching. 

As a war movie this does not stand out.  It will not thrill you with action or drama.  What it does do is impart respect for an historical figure that cannot be denied.  We are shown the way one man fought for his rightful place in history, and struggled to be able to keep his own flaws from getting in the way of his serving the world the only way he could, as a commander.  This epic film teaches you everything you need to know about Patton and gave me a soft spot for him on the list of famous soldiers.  If you’re looking for a fun time watching a movie, this isn’t the place to go.  But if you’re looking to get deep into the character of one strong, foolhardy man, this movie does it flawlessly.  I recommend seeing it once, but in the end, it’s probably best to keep it to only once.  Patton earns a 7/10 as a movie, but earns  a 10/10 as a character study. 

(IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/)

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Patton (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

New Review: Avatar (10/10)

James Cameron has astounded me. Avatar is a huge movie in almost every sense of the term. The technology that this movie represents is impressive, everything that went into it was well thought out, and the world that this movie builds is marvelous. Marvelous isn’t a word I like to use a lot, I like to keep the big words in reserve for things that really deserve and boy howdy does Avatar ever deserve it. I literally cannot say enough positive things about this piece of cinema.

Ok, a quick plot summary to tell you what we’re dealing with here. Humans discovered another world with life on it, a mere 6 year trip away. It’s worth making the trip, though, because the mineral “unobtainium” (yeah, we’d probably call it that) is present here and is worth a stunning $20,000,000 a kilogram. The world, however, is an incredibly harsh climate, so a military presence is necessary to protect the mining outpost. A scientific station is also present to give the mining some legitimacy, where biologists study the alien life. Our main protagonist is brought on to work for this scientific outpost as an Avatar pilot, the Avatars being a strange crossbreed of humans with the local populace that can live and function on the planet surface with no trouble and are controlled remotely. The local populace that they are modeled after, however, is not pleased with the intrusion of aliens on their land, and is forced to fight for their lives when the company is willing to go to all out war in order to secure the best mining areas. The hero bonds with the locals through his Avatar and looks to save everyone from the terrors of war. A pretty classic story I would say.

Now before I get ahead of myself, I won’t say it’s perfect. The storyline is obviously simple. Everyone and their auntie has already made the connection to Dances with Wolves, but it is startlingly similar. The acting is completely par for the course, but mostly that’s because they weren’t given very many important lines to work with. There aren’t many character driven scenes at all, and you know what? All of that is completely fine. It doesn’t matter that the story is simple, it doesn’t matter that the characters have been seen before, it doesn’t matter at all because that wasn’t the goal of this film.

Avatar is truly a piece of cinema, and I’ve explained in my first post that there is a difference between a movie, a film, and a piece of cinema, and on that scale this is strictly a piece of cinema. The world that James Cameron created is what makes the movie move. Every setting imparts a certain emotion, either fear when the landscape is threatening, strict awe when we see the world from the back of the flying creatures, or touching harmony when we’re presented with the glowing night time. With that, I’d like to compare this to a very different movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Sergio Leonne’s masterpiece is a very different movie from Avatar, that’s clear. GBU was all about subtlety of actor’s emotions and simple men acting on an epic quest for independence. But of course it can be picked apart and go deeper and yadda yadda yadda. But the real key to the emotion of the film isn’t the characters, it’s certainly not the dialogue, and it isn’t the story. It’s the setting. At the very beginning we’re confronted with a completely desolate ghost town, and yet this is where Tuco is having his dinner. A lonesome farm house, the wide reaching desert. These locations of absolute misery and destitution set up the way we feel about the characters, the true grit that is revealed in them.

Avatar sets out with the same goal in mind; that is where the emotion in this movie comes from. And in this regard it is a complete and utter success. Every setting change, from the human’s prim and proper compound to the floating mountains make this movie tick completely and perfectly. If there was a complex storyline or characters that called for attention at every turn, the movie would be overwhelming and distracting. Instead we are treated to a visual masterpiece, and I for one was completely moved by every event in the story, even if I had seen it in other places before. Not only that, but I was unable to expect what outcome certain tensions would have. It was very up in the air what Cameron would do with the storyline, as he has enough respect as a filmmaker to force us to expect unusual and brave twists and turns here and there.

The technical aspects of this movie are hard to even mention. Cameron had entirely new camera and projector technology created specifically because he wanted to see a perfect view of the world, Pandora, that he created. The cinematography is, therefore, intense and always gives us a startling view of the world. The soundtrack was unremarkable, but not in any way distracting. Actors worked well in their role, I would say the movie was excellently cast.

All in all, you can probably tell this is an immensely positive review. I think James Cameron was completely successful in every goal he set out with in this movie. It is entertaining, exciting, and managed to move and sway my emotions every way he wanted. I cannot recommend seeing this movie enough, simply to appreciate the cinematography and world that this film creates. I give it a completely honest perfect 10/10, as I don’t think there was anything that could have made me enjoy it more. It’s as good as a movie gets, and I pray it makes enough money to encourage humanity to take a second visit to the world of Pandora, so that we can see where else that wonderful world can take us.


(imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/ )

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Phantom Menace review (not mine)

Ok, I know I'm supposed to start posting my own reviews, but first I wanted to show off this amazing review of the Phantom Menace I found. This is completely worth watching for the full 70 minutes, because not only does he accurately pick the Phantom Menace to pieces, he also splashes in a bit of humor along the way that I at least appreciated. Anyway, here's the link.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/12/17/watch-this-70-minute-video-review-of-star-wars-the-phantom-menace/

Pick up a Phantom Menace DVD from our friends at Amazon!

Star Wars - Episode I, The Phantom Menace (Widescreen Edition)

FIRST!

Ok everybody, I've finally decided to start posting my film reviews to the web. I've been wanting to do this for a long time and just plain old never got around to it. I'm not going to start with a schedule or anything like that, but it is my goal to post a review every Sunday. It's going to be a mix of new movies and old ones as well, whatever I happen to be watching. If I manage to keep this going for long enough, I may start going to the cinema every weekend to watch a new movie to review, but we'll see what happens. For now, I'd just like to clear up one thing I use for evaluating movies, and that's my categorization.

I think moving pictures either fall into the movie, film, or cinema category depending on what drives the emotion of the picture. Movies use the plot to drive the emotion, film uses the characters and specific dialogue and acting to drive the emotion, and cinema uses the setting and cinematography to drive the emotion of the movie. I'll use the words interchangably for instance "This movie is a film" or "In this film..." so don't worry about my word choice unless I mention it specifically. Just saying. Anyway, I hope I get plenty of readers!

On a side note, I'd like to link to my account on IMDb. Here you can browse the ratings I've given movies and tv shows over the past few years. I'll be posting snippets of my reviews on their site, so do enjoy!

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=31735918