This is one of those infamous movies that has earned an enormous reputation yet few people seem to have actually seen. And the reason it became so infamous is simple: cannibalism. However, having now seen it, I can tell you there is more to this movie than that.
The story is that of the wife of a brutal and vulgar mob boss, tired of his attitude and his superficial universe, decides to take a lover who is everything her husband is not: cultured, respectful and distinguished. However, the mob boss eventually finds out and has the lover killed. But the wife isn't about to let him get away with his crimes this time and, with the help of the cook, forces him to eat the body of her lover, before killing him.
Now I do realize I just told you the whole story but here's the thing: it's really not a film you watch for the story. Hell, all most people know about it is how it ends. And really, if the film focused solely on the story itself, it really wouldn't need to be longer than half an hour and you wouldn't lose anything in terms of plot or character development. I would really call it an art film as it's the kind of films you rather watch for the execution. And I must say the execution is very good. The cast is excellent and the visuals are superb, which is interesting seeing how the whole film takes place in just a few sets and almost entirely inside the restaurant and always from the same angles, giving it a very theatrical style.
Food is used as symbolism for pretty much everything from social status to sexual attraction to culture levels. I have even seen people refer to it as a satire of Thatcher's policies... which to be honest I don't see at all. The point is, you can read it in many different ways and even if you take it at face value, it remains a very enjoyable film for its artistic value alone. I was very pleasantly surprised by this. It is not nearly as pretentious or boring as I feared it might be and it seems to me to be very much aware of how bizarre it is and unlike many similar films, doesn't think of itself as more important than it is; it feels like the director just wanted to make a good film and wasn't in the "look how edgy and controversial I am! Admire me!" mindset many arthouse directors have. And for a movie which, as I said earlier, doesn't need to be more than 30 minutes long story wise, it never feels like it's dragging. The over two hours it lasts went by very smoothly to me.
Also, it's most definitely just me but it reminded me of other works that I like. The story of the mob boss convinced he can buy himself a culture by purchasing and consuming expensive and tacky stuff and aping high class mannerisms without actually understanding, let alone appreciating any of it reminded me of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and the mob boss' behaviour, vulgarity, wealth, aggressivity, corpulence and even accent all reminded me of -of all things- The Penguin from Batman, especially the Arkham games version. Seriously, a vulgar wealthy mob boss who convinces himself that he is the apex of class because his money somehow buys him a standing and destroys anyone who opposes him, that's Cobblepot. And I must say there's something oddly enjoyable about seeing to hours of Cobblepot.
So yeah, all in all, I'd say if you're not easily offended by gross imagery, I recommend it.
Yet another classic I had never seen, the world-famous comedy by Stanley Kubrick. An American general gone insane decides to order his soldiers to launch a nuke on Russian targets because of some crazy conspiracy theory he came up with. Of course, the US government is panicked at the end of starting a nuclear conflict against the USSR, not to mention that to make matters worse, it turns out the Russians had been secretly developing a doomsday weapon as a safety measure against such attacks and it would destroy all life on Earth and render the planet inhabitable to potential survivors for almost a century. As a result, American and Soviet authorities must figure out a way to stop the planes headed towards Russia before it's too late.
As you may have already gathered from this summary, the whole thing is a satire of the cold war and the ensuing arms race as well as the concept of mutually assured destruction as a way of ensuring peace as it shows that all it would take is one nutjob to blow the whole thing sky high. The thing in question being the Earth. I am not sure what to say of such a famous movie other than it does indeed do a pretty good job of satirizing the cold war and people's fears at a time when they told themselves "you know what? Maybe we don't actually need enough nukes to destroy the world twenty times over", as well as other aspects of American society and policies, like that time an officer warns Captain Mandrake about potentially getting into trouble with Coca-Cola as if it were scarier than getting into trouble with the US military and government, or Dr. Strangelove himself being a former nazi scientist presumably saved from the Nuremberg trial thanks to Operation paperclip.
Being a Kubrick film, it is also lovingly shot with very memorable and larger than life characters. Although I don't think it's his best work (that would be A Clockwork Orange), it is an amazing movie and I think I won't say any more to avoid spoilers. Yes, I know it's a classic, I know it's over 50 years old but screw that, there are still people who have never seen, such as myself not two hours ago.
Next time, won't have socio-political satire but we will... er... stay with... cold... yeah okay, those two have nothing common and after all, they don't have to, it's just that I found it funny that for a while, the movies I reviewed had common themes and I was hoping to continue the trend. It's Slap Shot.
The Lucha Kittens: you know they'd beat your favourite tag-team.
This is a sports comedy-drama in which a failing hockey team finds a second team by becoming violent and provocative ("wrestling shit" as they say multiple times in the film), which apparently is unusual in hockey, a sport famous for having fights as part of the game and where crushing opponents against the walls is legal, or at worst earns you a penalty of a few minutes.
Once again, being a sports comedy this isn't exactly my type of films to begin with. I don't downright dislike those but, much like teen dramas/comedies, I often find them entirely too formulaic and predictable (the fact that the two genres often overlap does not help). To be fair, this one doesn't really follow the usual clichés, but I still didn't find it all that great. Perhaps it would have helped if I were more of a sports guy and if I knew more about hockey (all I know about it comes from NHL 2002 ) as it does have a few moments that made me laugh but for the most part, while it's not necessarily a bad movie, I felt rather bored and uninvolved, especially considering the main characters... they're kind of assholes and I didn't feel any reason to root for them.
On top of that, the film really didn't need to be two hours long. I mean, it takes a solid half hour to really give us any kind of plot and I felt it had too many sub-plots that added nothing to the movie, which is especially jarring as the film's apparent moral (a dirty win isn't worth winning) feels really tacked on, almost as an afterthought; it could and should have been established earlier because as it stands, it seems to be saying "sportsmanship can kiss it, cheating, dirty tricks and attention is what victory is really all about".
So in conclusion, maybe it'll do more for you than it did for me if you're a sports fan and if you like sports movies but to me, aside from a few moments it was very much "meh". Definitely the weaker of the two hockey-related comedies I've seen for this thread.
Next time, we'll go way back in time with a film about gang violence made at a time when it was very much a common threat of everyday life in America, Scarface: the Shame of a Nation.
The Lucha Kittens: you know they'd beat your favourite tag-team.
As you may have gathered from the title, the film is about gang activities in prohibition-era America, with a story told through a thinly veiled fictionalization of Al Capone and several key events in his life.
The film was made not only to condemn these actions but also to alert both the public as well as authorities on how out of hand the problem of gang violence had become, as shown by the message opening the film, directly telling the audience to demand that their government actively fights it. And in that regard, it is a very well made film. As often in gangster films, it depicts the rise and fall of a mafia boss and I think it does a good job of showing how hollow and meaningless "success" is in that environment, not to mention Paul Muni gives a very good performance. Almost too good in fact as Scarface, for a brutal mobster who is obviously meant to be villainized, is oddly endearing at many times in the film. Granted one could argue the filmmakers meant to show how such a terrible man could seduce people around him but he still comes off as an anti-hero of sorts at times (which makes it not so surprising that Capone himself supposedly loved the film).
Still, the film does do a good job of showing the shallowness of such a lifestyle, where respect is only a façade until the next guy kills you, where your only worth is a physical one and where in the end, everything and everyone you love ends up destroyed. In fact, it's the fact that story itself works so well that makes me wonder why the makers of the film decided to include some of the less subtle condemnations of organized crime. At some point the film even pretty much comes to a close to have some characters repeat to us what was said in the opening message and to urge viewers to take actions to force the government to take actions. One of the characters is seriously staring directly at the camera while going on a discourse that is blatantly the director's. The story was working well on its own so why bother with something like this that ends up making it feel forced?
But still, it remains a good film and I hardly touched on the visual style, which is also excellent. I especially enjoyed some of the ways they got creative with usual clichés, like when we have pages of a calender flying by to show the passing of time... except it's overlayed on a shot of a machine gun being fired. Finally, I would like to give a special mention to Ann Dvorak, who portrays one of the most interesting female characters in that era of films.
Next time, we will check out... er... something. Sorry, I don't know much about it other than it's famous and has a reputation for being weird, it's The Seventh Seal.
The Lucha Kittens: you know they'd beat your favourite tag-team.
As you may have gathered from the title, the film is about gang activities in prohibition-era America, with a story told through a thinly veiled fictionalization of Al Capone and several key events in his life.
The film was made not only to condemn these actions but also to alert both the public as well as authorities on how out of hand the problem of gang violence had become, as shown by the message opening the film, directly telling the audience to demand that their government actively fights it. And in that regard, it is a very well made film. As often in gangster films, it depicts the rise and fall of a mafia boss and I think it does a good job of showing how hollow and meaningless "success" is in that environment, not to mention Paul Muni gives a very good performance. Almost too good in fact as Scarface, for a brutal mobster who is obviously meant to be villainized, is oddly endearing at many times in the film. Granted one could argue the filmmakers meant to show how such a terrible man could seduce people around him but he still comes off as an anti-hero of sorts at times (which makes it not so surprising that Capone himself supposedly loved the film).
Still, the film does do a good job of showing the shallowness of such a lifestyle, where respect is only a façade until the next guy kills you, where your only worth is a physical one and where in the end, everything and everyone you love ends up destroyed. In fact, it's the fact that story itself works so well that makes me wonder why the makers of the film decided to include some of the less subtle condemnations of organized crime. At some point the film even pretty much comes to a close to have some characters repeat to us what was said in the opening message and to urge viewers to take actions to force the government to take actions. One of the characters is seriously staring directly at the camera while going on a discourse that is blatantly the director's. The story was working well on its own so why bother with something like this that ends up making it feel forced?
But still, it remains a good film and I hardly touched on the visual style, which is also excellent. I especially enjoyed some of the ways they got creative with usual clichés, like when we have pages of a calender flying by to show the passing of time... except it's overlayed on a shot of a machine gun being fired. Finally, I would like to give a special mention to Ann Dvorak, who portrays one of the most interesting female characters in that era of films.
Next time, we will check out... er... something. Sorry, I don't know much about it other than it's famous and has a reputation for being weird, it's The Seventh Seal.
Great reading, I think all the hand wringing about morality and addresses to the camera make more sense in the context of how controversial the issue of film violence, particularly violence in gangster films, was at the time. This film's release coincided with the emergence of the production code (adopted by the studios as a guard against state censorship boards and other kinda groups like that). There's an essay about that here: www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/hollywood.html
In 1931, director Howard Hawks' Scarface, the first movie in which a gangster uses a machine gun, attracts the attention of Will Hays. Hired by studio heads in 1922 to fend off charges of industry immorality, Hays has developed the Motion Picture Production Code, later known as the Hays Code. The code aims to sanitize movies -- no nudity, suggestive dancing, miscegenation, ridicule of religion, illegal drug use, or "objectionable" language -- and it also demands unsympathetic portrayals of criminals and minimal detail when brutal crimes are shown. Scarface offends Hays on almost every count, and the ensuing struggle over the film is characteristic of the role of the Code in Hollywood production.
Director Hawks refuses to alter Scarface in response to Hays' demands, but producer Howard Hughes eventually defers on certain points. Hughes changes the title to Scarface: The Shame of the Nation, and adds Hays' suggested prologue that describes the film as an "indictment of gang rule in America." In addition, an entire scene is inserted to address the Code's concerns, in which citizens confront the newspaper publisher, frustrated by all the publicity gangsters receive in the press.
Hays does permit scenes that hint at title character Tony Camonte's incestuous feelings for his sister, but insists on altering the ending of the film. In the original ending, Tony struggles against the police, despite a fatal wound. In the next version, completed by an unnamed director, a repentant Tony begs the police for mercy. The officers refuse, then gun him down to the cheers of the gathered crowd. Hays wants more than this implied judgment, and gets yet another ending, in which Tony is sentenced to hang by a judge who pronounces him "vicious" and "evil."
Next pick: les parapluies de cherbourg (1964)
Last Edit: Apr 15, 2014 18:03:52 GMT -5 by kidglov3s
Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Apr 15, 2014 18:07:31 GMT -5
Fair enough but I feel that the opening message was enough. Or if anything, it would have been better had the director just come out to give his two cents at the end of the movie once the story was over. I have seen other films that do it for works on controversial topics So I figured the practice was fairly common for some time and I feel it wuld have been more effective than having the film come to a sudden stop in the middle of the action.
The Lucha Kittens: you know they'd beat your favourite tag-team.
) as it does have a few moments that made me laugh but for the most part, while it's not necessarily a bad movie, I felt rather bored and uninvolved, especially considering the main characters... they're kind of assholes and I didn't feel any reason to root for them.