38 – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

This guy is super animated.He reminded me of the Bridges in Airplane.

Peter Sellers stars in this Kubrick classic.There wasn’t any credits after the film so i’m not sure how many characters he played but there’s at least 2.The film is about a military sergeant who’s a bit nuts,he has conspiracy theory’s about fluoride in the water and has a gattling gun hidden in his golf bag in his office,who single handily launches a nuclear war against the Russians.He issues a code which activates some 30-40 B-52’s directive of attacking Russian and dropping bombs all over the place.The president tries to stop it but doesn’t know the 3 digit cancellation code.It sounds like serious stuff right?But as the film goes on you realize that this is a dark humor,the film gets more and more daft as it nears its climax and i have to hand it to sellers he has his moments.I don’t think I’ve seen a comedy directed by Kubrick so far and it’s not all that bad,it just takes a little while to get into it.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    7.8
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     – THE MILITARY CHIEF CHARACTER IS HILARIOUS,HIS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS ALONE CRACKED ME UP.

39 – Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Rubbish.A guy who’s storming Normandy is collecting soil from different parts of the world.No only that but he carries all his samples with him into a war zone.Why not leave it back at base?Idiot.

Saving Private Ryan is about one army sergeants battle with arthritis and how he tries to overcome his crippling affliction by searching for a guy called Ryan.Not really,but i could be.What with all the close-ups of Tom Hanks’ hands shaking uncontrollably. The gist of the film is an 8 man group is sent looking for the final remaining Ryan after his 3 brothers were killed in combat.It seems a bit stupid putting 8 lives at risk for 1 but hey it’s an American film.The film has an all-star cast,so many familiar faces it’s hard to find someone you don’t recognize. The action and battle scenes really make this film.The realism along with the gore factor really makes an impression on you.In the end Hanks finds the guy and with his last words tells Damon to “Earn it” and does he?I haven’t a clue.As i watched the film there was a few bits where i was shouting at the screen.For example when they’re looking through the bag of dog tags it looks like they’re going through a bag of mirrors,light reflecting all over their faces.As far as i know dog tags are matte/frosted for the for the simple reason that if you’re hiding you don’t want light reflecting from you because the enemy might see it.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    7.9
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  NOT BAD.VERY LONG.SOME GRUESOME STUFF IN IT.

40 – Alien (1979)

Despite all the shit going down the pilot takes a minute to send a text message to his mother.

The guy that did thE subtitles doesn’t know the word ‘perfect’  he keeps writing ‘prefect’,dumbass.There’s a bit where the ship says its going to self destruct in 5 minutes so Ripley,naturally,hits a monitor with a fire extinguisher that is counting down over 10 minutes left.I hate to nit pick,but if i noticed it after 5 beers then the director should have picked up on it.yo.In the final sequences Ripley tells the other two to go get cooling fluid for the escape ship because they’ll need it.Need it for what?To freeze them?Horse shit,as far as i remember there’s is enough cooling fluid to keep a human and a cat frozen for some 50 years and they were only 10 months away from earth.Also on a foot note,Sigourney Weaver has a fine looking body,you don’t see much of it but in the last 10 minutes she slips off her clothes because they can’t be frozen for some reason and prances around in her knickers and t-shirt.I’m not complaining.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    8.6
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     – EXCELLENT FILM.SOME GOOD SETS.THE WHOLE LOOK OF THE FILM IS TIMELESS.

41 – North by Northwest (1959)

Heil Hitler.

Gregory Peck stars in another of Hitchcock films here.In this one he’s mistaken for a fictitious character made by the CIA or FBI to catch a crook selling american secrets to the soviets.He’s ducking and diving trying to avoid the cops after he’s implemented in a murder at the  U.N.But it’s not all bad.In his travels he meets a horned up blonde on the overnight train.She’s made for it.There’s quite a bit of vocal foreplay here and in the end i think he scores.If you look at Peck when he kisses or holds a woman he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.He looks like he’s just after washing them and there’s no towels.There’s a scene at 1 hour 41 minutes where a gun goes off,but they must have done a few takes because before the gun fires an extra,a kid,in the background puts his fingers in his ears to dampen the sound.I wouldn’t have noticed if the little fuckers wasn’t looking over his shoulder so many times and looking directly at the camera.Later on in the film,near the end,h e bumps into another horned up blonde.Lucky bugger.But this time he’s in a rush so he just brushes her off.It’s not a bad film as a hole but there are a couple of scenes that weren’t needed.For example when Peck meets the blonde after he’s been shot with blanks she asks if he’s okay after being shot by blanks by her.Christ obviously,and  we guessed they were blanks after he got afterwards you don’t need to spoon feed up.The last 5 minutes of the film has so many flaws it’s a joke but i’ll just leave this review at that.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    7.8
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     – HAS SOME GOOD STUNTS IN DOWN BY PECK.

42 – City Lights (1931)

Fuck you kid,now piss off before i break your face.

Sweet Jesus another silent movie. They’ve made me appreciate ‘talkies’ so much more.I’ll give you the low down on the Chaplin flick.He meets a drunk millionaire who’s trying to kill himself.The tramp saves him and goes back to his.When the millionaire comes to he can’t remember the tramp so kicks him out.The next day the millionaire is pissed drunk again and recognises the tramp and they hang out again until he sobers up and throws him out again.This happens a few times.The love interest in a blind girl that sells flowers in the street.The is courting her and wants to send her to Europe for eye surgery.The rich guy gives him $1000 for her,but there’s a mix up and the police are called and things look very bad.He gets picked up by the cops and sent down but when he gets out guess what?The chick has her eyesight back.There’s some good gags in this film,even the intro piece with the statues is well done.But by this stage i’m getting sick of silent films,i guess it’s mainly the music that’s getting to me.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    6.6
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  SOME VIEWERS WHO’VE PLAYED GHOSTS & GHOULS MIGHT RECOGNISE SOME MUSIC IN IT.

43 – Spirited Away (2001)

Flying dog/dragons and shit.

Spirited Away is another whim-sickle film from Studio Ghibli. It follows the same sort of genre as many of their others,it has spirits, ghosts, monsters, spells, dragons and curses.And like the others it features a young child,a girl called Chitiro or Sia,as the lead.The girl gets transported off to some spirit work by mistake while out on a walk with her parents.Throughout the course of the films she’s trying to save her parents and get home but there’s loads of obstacles in her way.Visually there are some interesting looking characters knocking around the bath house in the spirit place and the story’s not too bad either.There are a few bits where the plot seems to be moving a little slow,a few scenes running just a few seconds longer,but if keep noticing them then it seems to add up.I watched the dubbed version with the subs just to see which was better and i think the dubbed is better.The text with the subs isn’t as accurate as what they’re saying.A good Ghibli film,i did prefer Howls Moving Castle myself.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    7.6
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  WORTH A WATCH,ONCE.

44 – Citizen Kane (1941)

Drunk again lad.(See The Third Man)

Citizen Kane is about the life of a now deceased newspaper magnate called Charles Foster Kane.Following his death a group of journalists are trying to put together a newsreel about his life.They think it’s a little bland and to put an angle on it they try to find out what his last words,”Rosebud”,meant.Through the investigation we meet meet Kanes friends and loved ones who knew him some 50 years ago before he went into seclusion in his private paradise. Kanes parents where a poor couple living in Colorado but when a gold mines worth millions of dollars was found on their land his mother decided to have him raised by a group of people who would control his all the cash and give it to him when he was 25.Kane was like a rich playboy travelling Europe and having a time.But one day he decides to return to America and wants to have a stab at running a newspaper that the group of investors had acquired some time ago.Kane has some strange ideas when it comes to the paper.Most times printing conjecture and making stuff up to make it appeal more to the people.As the film progresses he gets quite a bit of power and revels in the public’s adoration.This is his downfall.Citizen Kane is revered as one of it not the best pieces in cinematographic history and for parts of it it is ahead of it’s time.Uses of cuts,fades,transitions and various other camera techniques that are the bog standard today were pioneered by this film.On my first watch of this film I was blow away by this one,definitely worth a watch folks.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    8.3
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  WELLES AND HIS BUDDY FROM THE THIRD MAN STAR AGAIN IN THIS.A BRILLIANT FILM.

 

45 – Modern Times (1936)

A drug search in jail for coke.

Modern Times is about the little tramp and how he has a nervous breakdown from working on an assembly line.On his release from hospital he accidentally joins a protest and is arrested for being the leader.In jail he managed to ingest a shit load of coke and in his daze he foils a jail break.For this he’s given a comfortable cell and doesn’t want to leave.But because he stopped the crooks he gets a full pardon and is let go.For the rest of the film he gets involved with a teenage orphan runaway.The try and sort out their lives and get jobs,but as always the law catches up with them and they have to flee their place of work cause the cops showed up to lift her.The films a strange one,it’s not quite a talking film nor is it 100% a silent film.There are bits a the beginning where there’s dialogue from characters but as the film goes on they use more and more title cards.That is until Chaplins big song. I’m not sure if it’s him really singing or even a real language,but it was entertaining.I did notice that his wooden shack he was living looked awfully familiar,maybe identical to the wooden cabin in his first film about the gold rush.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    7.1
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  THE TEEN GIRL LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS ABOUT 27.JUST GOOGLED,SHE WAS 26.

46 – The Shining (1980)

Is it racist to think that Scatman Crothers is a black man?Also the titles look like they were made with Windows Movie Maker.

There’s something about The Shining that seems like it’s some sort of psychological experiment on  the human psyche devised by the guys who hire him who are actually scientists.The first 25 minutes gives that vibe anyway.Where to begin with this one?I’ll start with Danny and his ‘imaginary friend’ Tony who lives in his mouth and tells him things.We learn pretty soon into the film that this Tony’s not imaginary but some sort of psychic ability that was brought on when Danny got a clout of his dad a few years back.The Shining is the type of film that deserves a re-watch,maybe not straight away but maybe a couple of years after you first watch.There were parts that i completely over looked or just plain forgot since the last time i saw it.In my mind i thought it was about a guy who went loopy and tried to kill his family.The part where he sells his soul for a drink is a key scene that i forgot about.The camera work and imagery is superb,even the opening scene with the car meandering it’s way up to the hotel is shot super well,really smooth.Anyone else who has seen the film will remember all the other iconic sets ans scenes:like the elevator blood scene,the axe breaking into the bathroom or the maze zoom from above.I noticed that a lot of the same writers/authors works are reoccurring on the list.I think this is the 4th Kubrick film,i know Chaplin is next and that’ll be his 4th,then there’s Stephen King.I’ll wait till the end until i get into that one.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    8.2
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  NICHOLSON SOLD ME ON JACKS INSANITY.BANG-ON.

 

47 – Vertigo (1958)

Man i’m so baked…

Vertigo is a weird one.At first it’s some sort of supernatural detective yarn but 40 minutes from the end it jumps to the classic Hitchcock murder-mystery perfect crime Plot.Stewart plays a San Francisco detective who,in the course of a rooftop chase,witnesses another cop fall to his death.It’s this scare that leads to him developing vertigo.As he’s can’t go near any high places he quits the force indefinitely.Just as he quits he gets a call from an old college friend who wants him to investigate his wife.Now here’s where shit goes well and truly bizarre.As strange as the plot went i had to take it all in as-is,but i was left thinking that it was Hitchcocks style.But as the story went on,and on,it was all a big hoax. I’m telling you this because i wouldn’t bother recommending this film.There was 2 or 3 good bits where they went a bit crazy with the visuals.One bit was animated like a cartoon and another seemed like an acid trip.I think it was this acid trip that put Stewarts character in hospital for some months.

IMDB RATING      –     8.5
MY RATING     –    6.9
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  COULD DO WITH CUTTING 25 MINUTES FROM IT.THE LEADING LADY WASN’T GREAT IN HER PERFORMANCE.