TFD's Film Reviews

[Bullitt68]

Originally Posted by TFD

La Haine (Matthieu Kassovitz, 1995)

I've had this recommended to me before, but I don't consider it a priority. And about Do the Right Thing: I don't think it's very good. I don't really think Spike Lee is very good outside of Malcolm X, to be honest, and Do the Right Thing shouldn't be a priority for you, IMO.

Originally Posted by TFD

Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai, 1992)

This is the next film of his on my list. I was recommended Chungking Express and absolutely loved it. I think you should watch that one next before going to what many consider his masterpiece, In the Mood for Love. Not because it's better, but because it's more straightforward, while In the Mood for Love is somewhat conventional, just containing bravura cinematic techniques.

Originally Posted by TFD

Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)

I see this on IFC every once in a while but just go right past it. Next time I see it, I'll try to record it. Sounds very interesting.

Originally Posted by TFD

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Yuck. One of the most overrated films ever made, courtesy of one of the most overrated filmmakers.

For all of the [unwarranted] praise Lean gets for his three epics, I think it'd all be better-directed to his earlier films. Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter, Great Expectations (far and away his best film), and Summertime are all much better films.

The Bridge on the River Kwai I find to be excruciating and Doctor Zhivago similarly so. Lawrence of Arabia is a little better than both, but still not very good and grossly overrated IMO.

Originally Posted by TFD

I have always hated vast, dry landscapes, notably deserts and canyons and the like. It is for this reason that I have always had a slight aversion to Westerns.

Stop watching John Ford's crap and check out the magnificent Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone if you've yet to do so.

Originally Posted by TFD

I saw Ben-Hur, the other most famous epic, for school two years ago, and it was a torturous experience. It’s not that it is not visually impressive; the chariot scene remains great technical filmmaking. It’s that it is so achingly melodramatic. It seems as if it prolongs its scenes because it has the budget to do so. I realize that many viewers say the same things about Lawrence, and yet Lawrence has a story to tell that isn’t simplistic and archetypal. It is ingrained in an intricate historical framework. Its characters are more complex; the narrative frequently constricts potential outcomes and then presents new ones. Its acting is not so theatrical or reliant on an almost Shakespearian sense of character self-awareness. I see the plot developments in Ben-Hur as conveniently predetermined; in Lawrence they are believable happenings that carry real dramatic weight.

Ben-Hur>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>Lawrence of Arabia

Originally Posted by TFD

I seriously need to see Dr. Zhivago, Great Expectations and Brief Encounter.

And Summertime. One of the innumerable great performances from Katharine Hepburn and a very touching story of love and love lost.

[TFD]

I absolutely cannot wait to see Chungking Express. The Criterion Collection DVD looks excellent. Wong Kar-wai has a very good chance of ranking among my favorite modern filmmakers.

[Bullitt68]

It felt, to me, like a throwback to the old Hollywood romantic comedies, if not in tone/execution, just in the way I felt while I was watching it. Just a supremely fun and enjoyable film with great characters and a damn good Korean cover of the song "Dreams" by The Cranberries.

[TFD]

I'm already positive I'm going to like it. If it's anything like Fallen Angels in style (and based on the short clip I've seen of it I know it is), then I'm sure it will be great. Something I read that's interesting is that Fallen Angels was intended to be the third story for Chungking Express, but it was made into its own feature length film.

Also I hate to say it, as I didn't say it in my last post, put John Ford >>> Sergio Leone.

[Bullitt68]

Originally Posted by TFD

Also I hate to say it, as I didn't say it in my last post, put John Ford >>> Sergio Leone.

Oh, give me a break. I'll take Sergio Leone over John Ford and Clint Eastwood over John Ford every day of week.

What Leone films have you seen?

[TFD]

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West.

Both were great, but neither make my top 100. I'd put them at about the level of Ford's Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath. But Ford's How Green Was My Valley easily makes my top 100, and given he has a much larger filmography than Leone, I'm expecting more great things from him than I am from Leone, though I'm expecting Once Upon a Time in America to be phenomenal.

[Bullitt68]

So you've seen the two greatest Westerns ever made and put Ford above Leone? Don't call my Tarkovsky opinions when you pull out something like this

Once Upon a Time in the West is, IMO, his best film, and it's a mindblowingly unbelievable film. No Western ever captured the mythology like Once Upon a Time in the West, and even more so than Shane, it's the perfect synthesis of everything that is the Western.

And The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, while not quite on Once Upon a Time in the West's level, isn't too far off, and easily eclipses any other Western ever made.

Stagecoach in the same league? Oh, God

But yeah, Once Upon a Time in America is absolutely phenomenal, and with A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dynamite, and Once Upon a Time in America, Leone can have a very strong case made for being among the greatest filmmakers ever, and he trounces Ford with such embarrassing ease.

[TFD]

What exactly do you have against Ford? His films obviously aren't as violent, cynical, muddled, or realistic as a Leone film. But they are always gorgeous to look at, and they much better capture the mythology and iconography of the American frontier; hell they are actually filmed in authentic American locations. I don't think this specifically makes them better than Leone's films, but they speak greater about the extent to which Ford captures the American West, as opposed to an Italian filmmaker's personal vision of it (this coming from the guy who loves foreign films).

Ford just has the most gorgeous cinematography of any Western filmmaker, and his stories are so intoxicating in their American purity. I love them so much.

[Bullitt68]

Originally Posted by TFD

What exactly do you have against Ford?

As a man, I think he was a real cocksucker and I have no respect for him whatsoever. As a filmmaker, I think he's fine. Totally competent, and he made some decent films, but the fact that so many people over so many decades have lauded so many of his films as among the greatest ever made and the fact that so many people rank him as one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time, it just gets me riled up since I don't feel he's deserving of such praise.

Originally Posted by TFD

But they are always gorgeous to look at, and they much better capture the mythology and iconography of the American frontier; hell they are actually filmed in authentic American locations. I don't think this specifically makes them better than Leone's films, but they speak greater about the extent to which Ford captures the American West, as opposed to an Italian filmmaker's personal vision of it (this coming from the guy who loves foreign films).

Yes, Ford captured the mythology of the American West, but Sergio Leone captured the mythology of the entire Western genre. He took everything made iconic by Griffith, by Ford, by Mann, and he touched on every last thematic element ever covered by any Western filmmaker, but he did it with a cinematic style wholly original and wholly his own, and any one of his Westerns blows any and every Ford Western off the screen.

Originally Posted by TFD

Ford just has the most gorgeous cinematography of any Western filmmaker

Just viewing the showdowns in either The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West should dissuade you of such crazy talk

[TFD]

Why do you not like Ford as a man? From what I read about him he sounds like sort of a playful asshole kind of guy who had a real love/hate relationship with most people.

To be honest he reminds me a lot of John Huston.