Fargo - Film for the 30th of November - it's the best!

Working in Melbourne in 1996. I was looking around for something to do one night, and stumbled into a theatre with this film playing. Turned out to be one of my very favourites. Certainly my favourite Coen brothers. One of things not often pointed out about this film is the soundtrack. Curious Scandanvian sounds. I think it is supposed to evoke the Scandanvian heritage of this part of the US.

See it! You will enjoy it!

From the BBC Review:

"Frances McDormand is tremendously endearing as Marge Gunderson, a determined, keen-nosed cop who never gives up even though she is heavy with child, a characteristic that surely must be unique in the history of movie sleuthdom. The excellent Coen Brothers, Ethan who produces and Joel who directs, return to their chilly northern roots for this outstandingly quirky thriller which turns out to be an extremely engaging black comedy. The wintry settings are vivid, and make much of local idiosyncrasies. For instance, ordinary folk in Minnesota have an odd, sing-songy Swedish manner of speech, full of laconic sentences ending "Yah?" and the Coens have great fun with the dialogue. The plot concerns a slimy car salesman (William H Macy) who has hatched a ludicrous kidnap scheme in which his wife is supposed to be held to make her millionaire father cough up a ransom that will solve his money problems. "

Warning: There is some violence in this movie

Click on the Reviews below:

BBC

San Francisco Chronicle

26th of October - 'Children of a Lesser God' - My Favourite Film of the 80's

William Hurt, I have to say, is my favourite actor. His ability to communicate subtlty of emotion is extraordinary. In 'Children of the Lesser God' he plays a teacher of deaf children. He uses 'unorthodox methods'. Perhaps some of us had a teacher who stood out in our memories as being particularly able to relate to our needs. If so, this film will have resonance for you. At its heart though, this film is a love story. Love, between Hurt's character and a deaf woman - Marlee Matlin. There is a scene where she asks him to show her what music sounds like. Such intensity of emotion - Wonderful! This 1986 film also turned me onto my favourite Bach Piece 'Concerto of two violins' (used in the aforementioned scene).

From the Washington Post:

"The trick of telling a love story is deceptively simple: You find a core of romantic energy so strong that nothing -- not the events of the story or the circumstances of the characters -- intrudes. And that's what "Children of a Lesser God" does. This is romance the way Hollywood used to make it, with both conflict and tenderness, at times capturing the texture of the day-to-day, at times finding the lyrical moments when two lovers find that time stops.

And almost incidentally, one of the lovers is deaf. James Leeds (William Hurt) plays a teacher of the deaf who, bouncing from job to job after a stint in the Peace Corps, finds himself at a school that Sarah (Marlee Matlin) used to attend. One of the school's brightest graduates, she's now a janitor there, mopping floors and cleaning toilets. She's a sensuous beauty, but what really captivates Leeds is her spitfire spirit, her stubborn refusal to learn how to speak."

Note: There is sexual content in this movie and some profanity - so I guess you have been warned now :)

Click below for film reviews:

Washington Post

Variety

The Rear Window - Classic Suspense for 28th of September!

My favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. I first saw it 20 years ago. It has one particular moment that I remember well where your jaw drops with the suspense. At that time the whole room went 'Ohhhh....'. A brief synopsis is given by a post on the Internet Movie Database:

"Photojournalist "Jeff" Jeffries is confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, and the entire story takes place in the courtyard adjoining the rear of his apartment, all events being seen through his eyes. Jeff believes that a murder has been committed by his neighbor Thorwald and sends his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella to investigate"

Click below for Film Reviews:

Roger Ebert - Chicago Suntimes

Salon Magazine

'Room with a View' is the film for 31st of August

Okay we all saw it years ago... but there was a reason for that wasn't there? Think of all the things that you love about Tuscany in your imagination, and watch this film to be taken there.

Film Reviews:

Apollo Film

Roger Ebert - Chicago SunTimes

Film for July 27th - Grizzly Man

James Berardinelli, who called the film one of the ten best of 2005, said:

"Grizzly Man addresses some esoteric themes. Is there a line between man and nature? Did Treadwell see himself as more bear than man? Were the liberties he took by initiating such close contact with the bears 'disrespectful' (as one Native American puts it) to the natural boundaries between a predator and its potential prey? Certainly, Treadwell found a clarity in the wilderness with his beloved bears that he could not achieve in human society. And he died the way he wanted to (or, as one person states, 'he got what he deserved'); unfortunately, he took someone else with him. Grizzly Man is compelling material from start to finish."

Won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Documentary/ Non-Fiction Film

Won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film

Won the San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary

Won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival

Won the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Documentary

Won the Anugerah Seri Angkasa 2008 Angkasapuri.

Reviews:

James Berardinelli

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

BBC

Hitchcock time!! - Vertigo - Film for the 29th of June

One of the thriller masters' classics.

Plot Outline: A San Francisco detective suffering from vertigo investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

From the San Francisco Chronicile: "Perhaps the less people know about ``Vertigo,'' the more it can be appreciated. Its mysteries are beautiful and pained, to be savored. In its dark heart, the film is a sorrowful contemplation of love and the veils that manipulate sexual passions. It is a taste of romantic obsession, of flirtation and deceit. And it is a cold rumination on voyeurism, the heart-racing but somehow twisted excitement people feel when they spy on others. Aren't moviegoers voyeurs?
``Vertigo'' is the coolest study of dizziness ever made, and the theme is laid out in the stunning gimmickry of its opening titles by Saul Bass, which depict spinning images through which an eye peers -- the eye of the voyeur, the eye lost to longing for hopeless, unattainable beauty."

Film Reviews:

Edinburgh UniversityFilm Society

San Francisco Chronicle

Chicago Sun Times

Movie for the 25th of May - Pitch Black - Scary, Exciting & Cool!

Time for a change. After the Classic 'Lawrence' of last month, I thought it was time for a good pop-corn, put your feet-up Movie. Got monsters, action heroes, space....what else do you need. Oh, yeah, a pretty good story line.

Andrew O'Hehir from Salon Magazines review included:

"Packed with razzle-dazzle special effects and fueled with aggressive, hyperactive cinematography and a pulse-pounding narrative that never lets the tension subside until the final frame, "Pitch Black" is the movie of the season for sci-fi and horror fans..... It's a tightly constructed genre picture, combining the best paranoid thrills of the "Alien" series with the setting of "Mad Max" and the anti-Utopian future of "Blade Runner." "

Reviews:

Salon Magazine

James Berardinelli

You have to see this - 'Lawrence of Arabia' - Film for 27th of April

The 1962 winner of the Academy Award for best picture. Steven Spielburg called it 'a Miracle of a Film'. This film is regarded by many as one of the greatest ever made. Words like 'breathtaking', 'stunning', 'unparalleled' - flow from nearly every review.

"Based on the autobiographical writing of British officer T.E. Lawrence during World War I, Lawrence of Arabia depicts Lawrence (played by then-unknown actor Peter O’Toole) as a lieutenant lacking any sort of military discipline whatsoever. Bored with his assignment of coloring maps for the British Army in a dimly lit headquarters building, Lawrence jumps at the opportunity to be re-assigned as an observer for an Arabian prince fighting against the Turkish army. Lawrence quickly sees just how caring and great these desert dwelling people can be and ends up rallying the various tribes together to fight the Turks and help the British turn the tide of World War I." - from Filmcritic.com

Film reviews:

Fimcritic.com

Chicago Sun-times

Washington Post

Film for the 30th of March - O Brother, Where Art Thou?

This funny amusing, road trip through the 1930's south, is compelling viewing. What draws me to it is the music. The soundtrack to this movie won the Grammy award for 'Album of the Year' in 2002.

"The tale, which includes references to the epic throughout, has three escaped convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Evans) overcoming various obstacles in retrieving a load of loot Clooney has supposedly hidden. Of course, things go awry in classic, semi-bizarre Coen brothers style. There’s a meeting with a one-eyed Bible salesman (John Goodman), a chance encounter with an overly sensitive Babyface Nelson, and a flirtation with fame when the cons become hillbilly singers. Oh, and I forgot to mention encounters with the Ku Klux Klan, the excitable governor of Mississippi (a hysterical Charles Durning), three very sexy sirens, and a load of spirituality." from Pete Croatto (FilmCritic.com)

To Read Reviews on this film click on:

FilmCritic.com

BBC

Washington Post

Film for the 23rd of February - A River Runs Through it

(click on photo for a larger view)
Based on a novel by Normal Maclean, with a wonderful screenplay, by Richard Friedenberg, this true story involves two brothers, Norman (Craig Sheffer) and Paul (Brad Pitt), who grow up in Montana, near the Blackfoot River with a minister for a father, Rev. Maclean (Tom Skerritt). Through the family practice of fly fishing, the father attempts to instruct his boys in God, life, love, and the pursuit of Earthly perfection.

(Taken from 'Home Video Review' - http://www.homevideos.com/revnclas/20.htm )

For other reviews check out:

Roger Ebert – from the Chicago Suntimes

Timeout Film Review

Reel Reviews