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Notes: Well, it definitely deserves its stellar reputation, that’s for sure. Indeed, it is probably one of the best film noir ever made and the whole thing was quite pitch-perfect. First of all, Vienna, at the end of the WWII, was a really murky place, it was the perfect spot for such a story and those chases down the sewers have become quite legendary by now. I also really enjoyed the dialogues which were sometimes almost hilarious but , above all, I really liked the fact that all the characters were far from being perfect, in the contrary. Even the main character was pretty much a loser, a writer of cheap novels who seemed to be borderline alcoholic and the gorgeous Alida Valli, probably the least reprehensible character, was also seriously naive. The only slight issue I had is that I didn’t really understand the motivations of Harry Lime. Indeed, why did he actually ask his friend Holly Martins to come to Vienna? Why did he actually show up again to meet his friend? Maybe I missed something and should check it out again at some point. Anyway, it is a very good film noir and it is definitely worth a look.
“I already saw this movie but since it was since such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again, especially since it has such a stellar reputation. Well, I’m glad I checked it out again because I didn’t remember much about it. Still, even though I really liked the damned thing, I” read more
Notes: Since I kept hearing good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Unfortunately, even though I did like it, I'm afraid I didn't really connect with the whole thing. I don't know, maybe I wasn't in the right mood or maybe it has to do with the fact that I saw it on the BBC without subtitles so I missed a bit of the dialogs. Still, like I said before, I still liked it and it is a very nice dark satire which must have been quite shocking when it was released. The thing I enjoyed the most was how sophisticate and articulate all the characters were. It was just a delight, especially compared to the abysmal figures we get nowadays. Of course, the other attraction was to see the great Sir Alec Guinness shining in no less than 8 different parts, including one woman. Man, the man was gifted, that's for sure. Still, I smiled a couple of times but I never thought it was really funny and it never really gripped me like I was hoping for. Maybe I should give it another shot in the future as it certainly deserves it.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Liam Neeson, I thought I might as well check it out, especially since it was available on Netflix. Well, eventually, I was surprised by how underwhelming the damned thing actually turned out to be. S” read more
“To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Aaron Eckhart and Olga Kurylenko, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, first of all, even though Kurylenko was displayed prominently on all the promotional material, she was maybe only 10 minutes in the w” read more
“Even though I have never been a huge fan of Lars von Trier, he still remains one of the most interesting directors at work nowadays, so I was quite eager to watch his last directing effort. Well, first of all, since von Trier had decided to make a serial killer flick, I was expecting something serio” read more
Notes: Well, it turned out to be a rather odd movie praising the virtues of alcohol, especially whisky. Sure, it was all rather innocent but it’s difficult to imagine making such movies nowadays (in fact, they did remake the very same story a couple of years ago but, unsurprisingly, it was quickly forgotten). To be honest, I have to admit I don’t have much knowledge of Ealing comedies. With this movie, the tricky thing was also that you pretty much knew everything that would happen from the very start so the main (and, as far as I was concerned, only) thing to enjoy were the colourful inhabitants of this small island. I have to admit that these characters were indeed quite entertaining but, to be honest, they were barely developed at all and I still wonder how Scottish people feel about this movie as they were portrayed as some massive alcoholics who can’t live without their daily doses of whisky. Anyway, it was still a decent watch though.
“It’s another movie that I wanted to watch for many years and since it had a solid reputation, I had some rather high expectations. Well, even if I did like it, to be honest, it turned out to be actually slightly disappointing. I mean, sure, the animation was really neat, even 10 years after this m” read more
“To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for romantic-comedies, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be based on a real self-help book which must be one of the most misguided gimmicks in the romantic-comedy genre. Howe” read more
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (1950's) (126 movies items)
Notes: Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of musicals but since this movie is a classic, I thought I might as well give it a try. As a matter of fact, at some point I read a book about movies my wife bought for me and, in this book, they developed some interesting views about musicals. Indeed, according to the writer, back in those days, there was a really rigid production code in the USA and the musicals with their mix of reality and fantasy was a way to show things that were not really allowed. With this in mind, I might give musicals some extra credit in the future but, unfortunately, I wasn’t really blown away by this one. I mean, I couldn’t help thinking that the whole thing was mostly a marketing stunt presenting Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra (who was at the peak of his popularity) together. Also, even though the dance scenes were not bad, I thought they were actually rather underwhelming. And, of course, the story and the characters were terribly fluffy and, even though I’m fully aware it is a trademark of this genre, I always find difficult to care about what’s going on.