jaysilentbob37

I'm not entirely sure what to say about Glengarry Glen Ross without dumbing it down to blind praise. It's easily in my all time top 20 films I've ever seen, and it gets everything right. It has a dream cast and a level of intelligence that's unheard of in movies these days. Need lots of action and cheap thrills? You'll most certainly hate it. Do you enjoy high quality dialogue in your movies? Then it's like porn. Better than porn actually, seeing how you can watch Glengarry Glen Ross over and over and it will always be just as great.

This awkwardly titled classic comes from a play by David Mamet, who also wrote the script. It's a dark, profane, bitter, and cynical story about an office full of sleazy, lowlife salesmen (Pacino, Lemmon, Harris, and Arkin) who's job is to get in contact with cold potential customers (leads), and pass off what's essentially uninhabitable swampland as prime real estate. The job is naturally an exercise in futility, as most of the men are performing very below average, despite their most desperate efforts. The fact that the good leads are being held back by their boss (Spacey) until management sees some results isn't helping either. The situation is a humiliating paradox, that becomes outright desperate when a manager (Alec Baldwin) comes to the office from headquarters and announces a motivational sales contest that will mean prizes for the winners and unemployment for everyone else.

The characters are developed to perfection, and it is their words and reactions to the situation at hand that make this film such a work of genius. Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), has nothing to worry about. He's pretty much always been the top salesman at the office, treating his sales more like tangent-laced seductions, one of which we see working effortlessly. Unfortunately for everyone else, Roma's guaranteed victory narrows down the potential winners. The other guys have varying, but equally desperate reactions to this.

Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon) is the oldest of the salesmen, and while he was once Roma's equal, he has been seriously slipping in his age and hasn't closed a sale in a very long time. He's in a desperate family situation, which is unspecified, but clearly severe enough that he can't afford to lose his job. He starts by trying to bribe their boss, Williamson (Kevin Spacey), and when that doesn't work, he tries to worm his way into the home of a family who are just as set on buying nothing as he is on selling anything. It's painful to watch, even though the character is unlikeable in many ways.

And then there's Dave Moss (Ed Harris) and George Aaronow (Alan Arkin). These guys have never been near the top, and now their expendability is here to haunt them. George spends the night listening passively as Moss pontificates on everything wrong with their office, which may or may not turn out to be justifying a robbery. Because the next morning, the office is found burglarized. And although Moss was the only one to verbalize his desire to do so, everyone has a reason to. The morning after the robbery, these situations all come to a head and the men are all exposed for the backstabbing scumbags they really are, particularly when Roma's customer from the night before shows up intent on canceling the sale.

The dialogue sizzles. It is some of the best dialogue Mamet ever wrote, which is saying a lot. Every actor sinks into their role, and it's hard to single out a stand-out performance aside from Alec Baldwin's ten minute appearance delivering an unforgettably cruel and venomous speech. Jack Lemmon, most well-known from classic movies like The Apartment and Some Like it Hot, is hard to forget in this movie with a character who is incredibly unlikable, yet still sympathetic. Everyone plays a shade of unlikable in this film, but as far as characters you'll love to hate goes, Kevin Spacey's Williamson takes the cake. He has the easiest job in the office, and he treats his employees like his position makes him more important to the company. He is a complete tool in every way, and when he screws over Roma, you can bet that Al Pacino will dish out the verbal assault to end all verbal assaults ("Who told you that you could work with MEN?!"). It's a completely satisfying moment, as memorable as any of Pacino's best moments from The Godfather, and it's all the better since you totally feel that Spacey's character deserves it.

I could gush over this movie scene after scene all day. It's not so much a movie that appeals to me on a personal level as it is one that plays like a great piece of music. The dialogue is as pleasurable to the ears as great music, and the movie has a stagy yet lyrical quality that sucks you in and doesn't let go. It's one of the most fast-paced films you'll ever see, with two very distinct acts. The movie is over before you know it. Even if it bores you to tears, it'll be over before you realized you were bored. Overall, give the movie a chance. It's the best compilation of writing and acting since 1976's Network.

Martin Scorsese is the epitome of the modern filmmaker. My idol if you will. The guy puts his all into everything he touches. His energy and attention to detail are rarely matched. And he consistently churns out one solid movie after another, with even his lesser works [(Gangs of New York (2002), Shutter Island (2010)] standing out above almost everything else that comes out in terms of quality. While his movies are consistently solid even if not always perfect, more than a few have stood out as timeless, essential classics that will forever go down in film history. Goodfellas (1990) and Taxi Driver (1976) are widely noted as being arguably the greatest films of their respective decades. His greatest masterpiece, Raging Bull (1984), follows in this tradition. It's the best movie of the 80's.

Scorsese brings us the life of middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, one of the least likable protagonists in cinematic history, in a way that makes us fully sympathize with him. That alone is a testament to Scorsese's power as a director, but it's also no coincidence that Scorsese's holy trinity all star Robert DeNiro. Without DeNiro, there'd be no Raging Bull, literally and figuratively. This is a passion project between two friends that went a long way, and that passion shows in every beautifully crafted image. And Robert DeNiro's performance is the stuff of legends, easily one of the top five performances ever caught on film. If LaMotta had been played by anyone else, he most likely would have come off as a soulless thug, not worth caring about. DeNiro plays it differently.

Jake LaMotta is a born champion in the boxing ring, with a knack for fiercely annihilating his opponents. He is becoming a true star in the sport. Life should be good. But it isn't, and it never really has been. Jake LaMotta is a completely insecure and self-destructive individual with a brutal temper. His friends and family, though they care about him, are always on their toes and watching what they say around him. His emotional instability causes him to destroy his relationships with everyone close to him. He truly thinks that he loves his wife, Vickie, and she honestly wants to see the good in him. His brother Joey stands by him, isn't afraid of him, and tries to keep him in line while managing his boxing career. But when Jake begins to suspect that Joey and Vickie are having an affair, the rage that leads him to the top in the ring begins to seep into his personal life, worse so than ever before. It may even mean the last straw for the eternally patient Joey.

The story works because it explores the soul of a hopeless misanthrope without judging him. You feel like you better understand certain people after experiencing Raging Bull. Jake is as three- dimensional as characters come. Despite his inability to be a good person, his desire to do good is always clear. So is Jake a bad person? More a pathetic one. He's his own worst enemy, and that's why we can't completely fault him. This is what Scorsese and DeNiro clearly understood. The movie doesn't tell you what to think of him, and DeNiro doesn't play it any certain way. Raging Bull simply is LaMotta's life, and DeNiro is LaMotta.

Contrary to popular belief, Raging Bull isn't really a "boxing movie." The boxing scenes occupy only a few minutes of screen time, and there is no big match to determine the fate of the characters. It's a character movie, and boxing is the only thing that keeps the character going. As far as the fight scenes go however, they are as good as they've ever been done. The black and white cinematography compliments them very well. It emphasizes the splattering blood which appears as black and thick as Hershey's syrup. Also different from other boxing dramas is the lack of crowd participation in the fights. Rather than focus equally on the drama in and out of the ring, Scorsese's camera puts you right in the ring with the fighters. Every punch is felt, and as brief as they are, the scenes leave you feeling bruised. They're as raw as it gets.

I could pontificate on this movie's endless list of quality attributes for pages and pages. I'll close by saying that Raging Bull is quite possibly the greatest movie from the greatest living filmmaker. It's cinematic art at it's highest form, a tone poem, a character study, and a biography all flawlessly rolled into one majestic package. Unless you're offended by raw language and uncensored depictions of the uglier side of life, there's essentially nothing to complain about when it comes to Raging Bull. 10/10.

Stanley Kubrick, whose legendary, chilly style is so distinct that you can tell a Kubrick film no matter what genre he tackled. The Shining, inspired by (I won't say "based on") Stephen King's classic novel, is Stanley Kubrick's stab at straight horror. A master of making the audience uncomfortable even in his non-horror films, Kubrick fully disregards all the normal conventions of horror and films a genuinely frightening story in his own unique, deeply dark and often downright uncomfortable style. With a classic performance by Jack Nicholson that is simultaneously hilarious and bone-chilling, and a pervading sense of dread brought on by the gorgeous use of location, no movie has the power to truly, deeply disturb me every time I watch it like The Shining. It's a perfect horror film.

The story involves the dysfunctional Torrance family, Jack, Wendy, and their little son Danny. The intense Jack is a recovering alcoholic and aspiring writer who takes a job as winter caretaker at the isolated, prestigious Overlook Hotel, the disturbing past of which doesn't bother Jack in the slightest. Upon arrival, the troubled Danny discovers that he has psychic powers; he can see things from the past and future. This power is called "shining," and it seems to be in full effect in the hotel. Danny is terrified by what he sees, and rightly so. Unfortunately, he is too young to understand what he's seeing, so he can't warn his parents.

He doesn't really have to, as the hotel's demons, or perhaps simply the claustrophobia and isolation, seem to be taking a more sinister toll on Jack. Stuck with his family whom he can barely tolerate for nearly a year in a place with no alcohol, his temper gets gradually worse. When Wendy becomes scared of the hotel and suggests leaving, Jack is furious to say the least. He then meets (or does he?) the former caretaker from the hotel's sordid past who kindly suggests a harsher, more permanent way of dealing with his family issues.

The Shining is an enigmatic film. We can never tell whose point of view we are witnessing the events from, or if we even are at all. There is as much to suggest that the Overlook is simply haunted as there is to say the characters are claustrophobic and hallucinating. This consistent ambiguity results in a deeply unsettling tone where for much of the time, we aren't sure what we're afraid of. The simple idea of three people alone in a giant isolated hotel is creepy, and as the camera follows the characters around the Overlook, we sense danger around every corner.

As far as scares go, the film isn't all atmosphere. Say what you will about hidden messages and menacing camera-work, The Shining's relentlessly visceral nature alone is where its powerful immediate impact lies. There are some legendary shocks here. The elevator scene. The baseball bat/typewriter scene. The room 237 scene. Special mention should go to the two little girls for being among the only horror characters to literally keep me sleeping with the lights on. Kubrick pulls these scenes off with the most masterful sense of timing, pacing, and atmosphere. There is gore in the film, but it is used sparingly and to maximum shock effect.

The performances are odd, but looking back, I couldn't picture anyone else in any of the roles. Nicholson is basically playing himself in a lot of ways, and as over-the-top and hilarious as his performance is, it is also truly scary. Nicholson the actor seems to be really enjoying acting insane; his fun rubs off on us, and we laugh with him, and at his over-the-top nature; but his insanity is never doubted, and his sense of fun rubs off on us making us feel almost complicit in Jack's rampage. Shelly Duvall is rather annoying as his wife, although I think that was what Kubrick was going for. It's more believable that he'd want to chop her up than if she was a stronger person. For the record though, she is very good at conveying deep, helpless terror when the scene calls for it (with the help of Kubrick's intimidation). Danny Lloyd does good as Danny, which is remarkable as at such a young age, he didn't know he was making a horror movie; he's as believable as such a young actor can be, and his performance works because his innocence is the real thing. Scatman Crothers steals every scene he's in as the hotel cook who befriends Danny; he's just such a charming, likable guy who brings a little relief from the grimness of the storytelling, without taking away from it; his role proves darker than mere comic relief. I should also mention that Philip Stone's performance as "Grady" makes a more terrifying impression in two scenes than most actors do in whole movies. For such a polite gentleman, there is something so off about the mere presence of his character, that you never feel comfortable; the mere expression on his face during the bathroom scene still keeps me uneasy late at night.

The score, the cinematography, the editing, the lighting, the sound... I could never stop praising this film. It is my idea of a perfect horror film, perfectly blending claustrophobia, gore, psychological terror, ghostly imagery, and mind-bending weirdness to create a film that's as nightmare-inducing as it is brilliant. 10/10 The Shining is rated R for disturbing images and terror throughout, some violence, nudity, and language.