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Reviews
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Faster la Vista Baby
First of all you should see this film before reading any reviews, not because I'm going to give you any spoilers but simply because this is a very enjoyable movie and worth seeing before discussing.
This is a film that loves being a sequel and there are not many third outings that come anywhere close to the first two movies usually. In many respects T3 is more similar in tone to Alien 3 than any other sequel, in that you get the impression that Mostow has gone out of his way to not only include the jaw dropping action of T2: Judgment Day, but also the pure Tech-Noir quality of the 1984 original and although he can't top either of these classics he gets a pretty good combination effect. With a new Terminator we get new plays on favorite jokes (don't you remember Hasta la Vista?'), new twists on familiar routines (such as the naked Arnie appearing in time for ladies night) coupled with a sense of dread and uncertainty that fits with the current fears of an unstoppable military power. Nick Stahl (as John Conner) who looks like he wondered out of Detour' (US/1945) is a deadbeat on a motorbike eking an existence on the road from town to town, he feels that the apocalyptic future he was destined to be part of has been avoided, but has left him without a purpose. Then Arnie shows up and informs him that Judgment Day is round the corner. Can he stop it this time? Is he still the savior? With Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) as (surely more than love interest!) an initially unwilling accomplice, they try to avert the coming Armageddon and outrun the T-X (Kristanna Loken) an upgraded liquid metal Terminator in NEW ultra deadly Scandinavian female form! As many other critics have pointed out there is a lot more humor in this film and Mostow may not have the masterstroke quality of James Cameron BUT he knows what this franchise is all about: 1. Trading in on Arnies' one-dimensional UberMensch acting style for all it's worth. He still looks fantastic and you can really revel in his juggernaut bravado. 2. Countering his nonhuman persona with the more human characters through humor (of which there is plenty) but more importantly independent thinking (limited as that is for Arnie) 3. The look, the style and the feel of a leather jacket (as epitomized by the choice of clothing of both Terminators) and cool dark shades.
There are a few misfires from this Uzi of a movie however but nothing that misses the central body mass. The main one being is why Claire Danes in this film? You can see that she's really struggling to get something more out of her character from every tragedy that hits her, but she just gets swept away by the next spectacular set piece. The music is dull but unobtrusive so loss there and some of the deeply meaningful dialogue moments feel like they were lifted from a daytime soap. Arnie gets in some good one liners, some of them on target but quite a few off center and that's something you feel Cameron would have left on the cutting room floor) All in all though this is the exemplary expensive summer movie you would expect with a lot of thrills and a lot of laughs. Mostow however has a put a devil of a knot in the tail of this movie and he may not be James Cameron but he deserves more credit for pulling it off with an elegiac grace.
(Vote: 8/10)
Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)
less is more
I saw this film for the first time in Oxford at an Art House cinema called the Phoenix Picture House. They had arranged for a four piece live jazz band to provide a soundtrack to this silent classic and considering that they improvised most of their score they did a pretty fine job. But it was for Louise Brookes that I saw this film.
She was magnificent. Lousie Brookes radically altered the course of film acting history with the magic of subtlety. Since its conception the cinema actor was a hammed up melodramatic animal thinking that because no one could hear them, they had to scream out their feelings with manic gestures and absurdly deranged facial expressions.
Lousie Brookes changed all that forever. She understood the old maxim of 'less is more' and put to incredible effect in this slickly ultra-modern silent masterpiece. Watch the crucial scene when Lulu is threatened by the jealous Doctor and you'll see what I mean. Her approach to acting was one of the most important influences in cinema history and her look was copied and reproduced over and over, as recently as 'Something Wild' and 'Naked Tango'.
Louise Brookes understood film as it was then, as a purely visual medium, and we will never see her like again.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The film that redefined the horror genre overnight
The Shining, The Exorcist and The Omen are all films that owe some of their stylistic approach to this film. This is the film that re-wrote the rules of the horror genre as it went along, whilst acting as both social critique and fond homage to 'The Birds' as well.
Romero set in place a steady breakdown of all our assumptions of the horror film, which he then utilised to full effect through the rest of this film and the two superb sequels that followed.
This is perhaps one of the greatest low budget cult movies ever made, certainly one of the most influential, and in its brutally harrowing documentary style conclusion a harsh statement on American racial attitudes. A statement which is as relevant today as it was over thirty years ago.
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
One of the best British films of the last twenty years
Terence Davis moving, harrowing and elegantly artistic masterpiece is one of the few Britsh films of recent years to embody a distinctly British identity. The plot involves a family wedding in working class Liverpool just after the second world war and the various episodes in the family's past dealing with their sometimes brutal and disturbed father. The beauty of the film lies in the deeply artistic composition of various shots, coupled with Davis' enduring compassion and understanding for the chararcters, especially the father played brilliantly by Pete Postlethwaite. It is an incredible evocation of family life and even though at times it makes for hard viewing, this is a film that must be seen.
Pépé le Moko (1937)
The exotic origin of film noir
Pepe le Moko marks a fundamental step in the aesthetic development of european cinema. It is also one of many great crime films of the thirties that is sadly overlooked in many critics top 100 lists.
Through it's lush sense of location and character Duvivier builds up a sweaty, exotic and complex picture of the underworld life of the Kasbah and the vast panorama of engagingly seedy characters especially Pepe le Moko, played with such effortlessly charismatic ease by Jean Gabin. But it is the rich claustrophobic atmosphere and the relentless pressure of the police that powers this film along to it's elegantly tragic conclusion. A masterpiece, and the clearest fore-runner to the whole film noir genre.