What I'm watching

Hi all, this tumblr mainly exists as a way of tracking all the movies I've been watching and some of the initial thoughts, and general feelings, I've had about them.

5/5 - Fantastic movies; movies which need to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.

4/5 - Movies which are very good but don’t have that spark which compels you to make others watch them as well.

3/5 - Average movies; watchable and enjoyable, but nothing which elevates them higher. The baseline all movies are given before watching.

2/5 - Can be watched but really bland and forgettable.

1/5 - Minimal to no reason to watch these films. It may have some redeeming factors e.g. it’s so bad it’s good or there’s one character that’s awesome enough to make it not a total waste of time.

0/5- Total waste of time. Nothing redeemable about these films.

As with every review blog/site, this is all my own personal opinion so feel free to take everything with a grain of salt.

Also I'm Scottish so all reviews will be in UK English. Get used to theatre, colour and words ending in -ised.

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10 Best Films Watched in 2011 (Excluding re-watched films) 1, The Reader - I don’t know what it is about this film but something about it just stayed with me. It’s not one I think back on often, or even really remember particular scenes from, but the memories of the performances, the silence and the tone just resonated with me for some reason.  2, Requiem for a Dream - I watched this in January and I still find myself thinking back to scenes from this movie even now. Its impact is that powerful. 3, The Princess Bride - Epic tale, wonderful characters and insanely quotable lines. 4, North by Northwest - Fantastic spy movie from beginning to end. 5, Rear Window - This is the greatest reason I’ve found for Hitchcock being crowned the master of suspense. The tension is palpable while watching this film. 6, Roman Holiday - A lovely romance story in an interesting setting which has been often imitated but never recaptured. 7, We’re No Angels - Another feel good one, with some great performances and some wonderfully dark comedy. 8, Double Indemnity - Best example of the film noir genre I’ve come across. 9, Harvey - A feel good film with some fantastic acting centred around a character which is never there. 10, 50/50 - A touching film which has the power to make you both laugh and cry.

10 Best Films Watched in 2011 (Excluding re-watched films)

1, The Reader - I don’t know what it is about this film but something about it just stayed with me. It’s not one I think back on often, or even really remember particular scenes from, but the memories of the performances, the silence and the tone just resonated with me for some reason. 

2, Requiem for a Dream - I watched this in January and I still find myself thinking back to scenes from this movie even now. Its impact is that powerful.

3, The Princess Bride - Epic tale, wonderful characters and insanely quotable lines.

4, North by Northwest - Fantastic spy movie from beginning to end.

5, Rear Window - This is the greatest reason I’ve found for Hitchcock being crowned the master of suspense. The tension is palpable while watching this film.

6, Roman Holiday - A lovely romance story in an interesting setting which has been often imitated but never recaptured.

7, We’re No Angels - Another feel good one, with some great performances and some wonderfully dark comedy.

8, Double Indemnity - Best example of the film noir genre I’ve come across.

9, Harvey - A feel good film with some fantastic acting centred around a character which is never there.

10, 50/50 - A touching film which has the power to make you both laugh and cry.

#188 Once Upon A Time in the West After a recently married woman (Claudia Cardinale) is widowed by the brutal murder of her husband and his children, suddenly gunslingers are crawling out the woodwork to try and get the land she now owns. Leading the pack is Frank (Henry Fonda), a dangerous and ruthless killer but he seems to have his hands full with the mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) who has some link to his past. This one feels a lot like Black Swan to me, in that I can appreciate the tone, the score, the cinematography and the tension in the film as well as thinking every actor involved is giving it their all but still not like the overall finished effect. This film is often called the best western of all time but I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t like westerns that much as a genre in general but I enjoy Sergio Leone’s other works so I was hoping the same would ring true here. Maybe the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (GBU) spoilt me a bit. Fonda made his career out of being the golden boy and mister nice guy. The entire premise for my favourite film has him arguing 11 other men down on the chance that an innocent man might be killed so it was an interesting change to see him being the low down dirty criminal in this role. Interesting, but not effective (for me). There’s just something about his face that made it seem he would never actually do these things. Wonderfully acted in every other respect but I just didn’t buy it. Bronson as Harmonica however I was completely sold on. Whichever scene he was in he just owned. I haven’t had much opportunity to watch him as an actor but this film definitely made me want to check out more of his back catalogue. Cardinale is an Italian actress, so all of her dialogue was horribly dubbed over. This broke the flow a little but after a while you just come to accept it. Her character was also rather interesting. She was as much a main character as either of her 3 counterparts, which is rather rare in a western, and probably had the most interesting of the back stories. It’s always nice to see a strong female character in a predominantly male driven genre such as this. On top of this she is heartbreakingly beautiful. I’ve commented on attractive women in films in this blog in the past, and I hold true to those comments, but I haven’t been this stuck by just how attractive a woman has been since Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest. She just exudes sex appeal. I was also a little underwhelmed by Ennio Morricone’s score this time around. Personally I’d say his scores for the latter two films in the dollars trilogy (I can’t comment on the first having yet to see it) are what helped to make them so culturally iconic. Here the harmonica tune was really about the only memorable piece of music I can recall. It just never helped it reach that epic feeling the other two films achieved. At 2 hrs 40 minutes this film is long and it really feels it. I don’t want to sound like a broken record here but GBU is 3 hrs long and you are not aware of the time as it’s going on. Here I was checking the time every 20 minutes. Leone is all about the build up to violence but there’s build up and then there’s just stalling. This is definitely a case of personal opinion going against the norm but despite all the good this film has going for it, it just did not resonate with me and I would be very hard pressed to watch it again 2/5

#188 Once Upon A Time in the West

After a recently married woman (Claudia Cardinale) is widowed by the brutal murder of her husband and his children, suddenly gunslingers are crawling out the woodwork to try and get the land she now owns. Leading the pack is Frank (Henry Fonda), a dangerous and ruthless killer but he seems to have his hands full with the mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) who has some link to his past.

This one feels a lot like Black Swan to me, in that I can appreciate the tone, the score, the cinematography and the tension in the film as well as thinking every actor involved is giving it their all but still not like the overall finished effect. This film is often called the best western of all time but I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t like westerns that much as a genre in general but I enjoy Sergio Leone’s other works so I was hoping the same would ring true here. Maybe the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (GBU) spoilt me a bit.

Fonda made his career out of being the golden boy and mister nice guy. The entire premise for my favourite film has him arguing 11 other men down on the chance that an innocent man might be killed so it was an interesting change to see him being the low down dirty criminal in this role. Interesting, but not effective (for me). There’s just something about his face that made it seem he would never actually do these things. Wonderfully acted in every other respect but I just didn’t buy it.

Bronson as Harmonica however I was completely sold on. Whichever scene he was in he just owned. I haven’t had much opportunity to watch him as an actor but this film definitely made me want to check out more of his back catalogue.

Cardinale is an Italian actress, so all of her dialogue was horribly dubbed over. This broke the flow a little but after a while you just come to accept it. Her character was also rather interesting. She was as much a main character as either of her 3 counterparts, which is rather rare in a western, and probably had the most interesting of the back stories. It’s always nice to see a strong female character in a predominantly male driven genre such as this.

On top of this she is heartbreakingly beautiful. I’ve commented on attractive women in films in this blog in the past, and I hold true to those comments, but I haven’t been this stuck by just how attractive a woman has been since Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest. She just exudes sex appeal.

I was also a little underwhelmed by Ennio Morricone’s score this time around. Personally I’d say his scores for the latter two films in the dollars trilogy (I can’t comment on the first having yet to see it) are what helped to make them so culturally iconic. Here the harmonica tune was really about the only memorable piece of music I can recall. It just never helped it reach that epic feeling the other two films achieved.

At 2 hrs 40 minutes this film is long and it really feels it. I don’t want to sound like a broken record here but GBU is 3 hrs long and you are not aware of the time as it’s going on. Here I was checking the time every 20 minutes. Leone is all about the build up to violence but there’s build up and then there’s just stalling.

This is definitely a case of personal opinion going against the norm but despite all the good this film has going for it, it just did not resonate with me and I would be very hard pressed to watch it again 2/5

Top 10 Films for February, 2011 (Excluding re-watched films) Total Watched this month: 29 (21 new) North By Northwest 5/5 Rear Window 5/5 Roman Holiday 5/5 The Fighter 4/5 Percy Jackson & the Olympians:The Lightning Thief 4/5 Frankenstein 3/5 Super Troopers 3/5 Sabrina (Original) 3/5 Hachi: A Dog’s Tale 3/5 Invictus 3/5

Top 10 Films for February, 2011 (Excluding re-watched films)

Total Watched this month: 29 (21 new)

North By Northwest 5/5

Rear Window 5/5

Roman Holiday 5/5

The Fighter 4/5

Percy Jackson & the Olympians:The Lightning Thief 4/5

Frankenstein 3/5

Super Troopers 3/5

Sabrina (Original) 3/5

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale 3/5

Invictus 3/5

#49 North By Northwest Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) a Manhattan advertiser, is mistaken for American spy named George Kaplin. He spends the remainder of the film trying to track down the real Kaplin so that he can clear his name while both avoiding the police, who now think he’s committed a murder, and those that want to kill him because they think he’s Kaplin. I’m a fan of most Alfred Hitchcock films and this one is no different. In fact I might go so far as to say this is my new favourite Hitchcock film (although Strangers on a Train is up there as well). From the very beginning and right up until the very end, this film is full of suspense in the way only these types of films can be. The style, direction and locations are all fantastic leading to many of the scenes becoming infamous in their own right i.e. the biplane chasing down a man in the middle of some fields or the fight atop Mount Rushmore. The story, while containing some plot holes, is also very good. Cary Grant is just superb as Thornhill. In the beginning he reacts in the way most of us would when presented with that situation. As the story progress however, he begins to adapt as the situation requires it. This seems like a natural arc for this character and, despite the oddity of the situations, always seems like the correct approach to take. He’s also a really likeable character and funny with a lot of good/snarky lines all the way through. Eva Marie Saint plays Eva Kendall, the love interest/femme fatale, and she is magnificent in the role. I’ve heard the term sultry used before but I’ve never seen it done as well as she does. She just radiates sex appeal while always keeping our hero in check with her quick wit and charm. There’s just something about actresses from the 50’s and 60’s that just makes them so much more elegant that today’s actresses. The only thing I would really criticise about this film is the very end of it. The suspense is so high throughout that you’re really looking for a good payoff and the one we get almost feels like they ran out of time and had to finish right there and then. It’s where I wanted the film to end but it’s just really rushed. Despite this however, it’s still a great film and I recommend it to anyone 5/5 Also I found out that on the merit of this film Hitchcock was all set to direct the James Bond film Thunderball but decided to make Psycho instead. Both turned out to be great films but can you imagine if we’d gotten a Hitchcock directed Bond film with Sean Connery still playing 007? That would have been awesome.

#49 North By Northwest

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) a Manhattan advertiser, is mistaken for American spy named George Kaplin. He spends the remainder of the film trying to track down the real Kaplin so that he can clear his name while both avoiding the police, who now think he’s committed a murder, and those that want to kill him because they think he’s Kaplin.

I’m a fan of most Alfred Hitchcock films and this one is no different. In fact I might go so far as to say this is my new favourite Hitchcock film (although Strangers on a Train is up there as well).

From the very beginning and right up until the very end, this film is full of suspense in the way only these types of films can be. The style, direction and locations are all fantastic leading to many of the scenes becoming infamous in their own right i.e. the biplane chasing down a man in the middle of some fields or the fight atop Mount Rushmore. The story, while containing some plot holes, is also very good.

Cary Grant is just superb as Thornhill. In the beginning he reacts in the way most of us would when presented with that situation. As the story progress however, he begins to adapt as the situation requires it. This seems like a natural arc for this character and, despite the oddity of the situations, always seems like the correct approach to take. He’s also a really likeable character and funny with a lot of good/snarky lines all the way through.

Eva Marie Saint plays Eva Kendall, the love interest/femme fatale, and she is magnificent in the role. I’ve heard the term sultry used before but I’ve never seen it done as well as she does. She just radiates sex appeal while always keeping our hero in check with her quick wit and charm. There’s just something about actresses from the 50’s and 60’s that just makes them so much more elegant that today’s actresses.

The only thing I would really criticise about this film is the very end of it. The suspense is so high throughout that you’re really looking for a good payoff and the one we get almost feels like they ran out of time and had to finish right there and then. It’s where I wanted the film to end but it’s just really rushed.

Despite this however, it’s still a great film and I recommend it to anyone 5/5

Also I found out that on the merit of this film Hitchcock was all set to direct the James Bond film Thunderball but decided to make Psycho instead. Both turned out to be great films but can you imagine if we’d gotten a Hitchcock directed Bond film with Sean Connery still playing 007? That would have been awesome.