15 – Goodfellas (1990)

What do you say to a crazy woman pointing a loaded gun in your face?Whatever the fuck she wants to hear.

It says in the beginning,after a really really ugly bunch of title credits,that the film is based on a true story and for anyone who has ever watched Banged Up Abroad there is an episode that is nearly a scene by scene remake of this film.The real guy is narrating it too. Goodfellas is a descent gangster/Mafia film.As per-usual we have the regular actors like  DeNiro,Liotta,Pesci and a few other regular faces you might recognise from The Sopranos.The film is the life story of a kid who gets in with the wise guys in his neighbourhood,starts doing small jobs for them and gradually makes his way to the big time.He gets in deep with drugs after a stint inside and that’s his downfall.Well really it’s some of the women who fuck shit up for him too.Martin Scorsese directed this and had a fine cast to work with.There’s something about Ray Liottas laugh that i find funny,i was trying to find a clip of him on YouTube where he hits a toad with a golf club and there’s a half minute montage of all his laughs from Goodfellas. I noticed Samuel L.Jackson had a part in this film too.One shot,from the moment we see him until he gets killed.A whopping 46 seconds.Is there any role he won’t turn down?

IMDB RATING      –     8.7
MY RATING     –    8.5
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  GOOD BUT SOME VERY GRAPHIC/BLOODY SCENES.

 

sam l 46 seconds

19 – Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest sees his first tit.Blows the load into Jennys room-mates towel.The room-mate is awake and listening.

Haley Joel Fucking Osment,what a little shit.There’s something about his face that makes me want to punch it.The little shit can’t act.Every time i see him i’m reminded that i’m watching a film and it spoils the whole effect.Lets set that aside.Apart from that this film is excellent.The first 15 minutes i thought Hanks was over acting the retarded angle with Forrest but as the film went on i understood that he was doing something that is called ‘acting’,powerful stuff.Forset Gump is about a guy who’s waiting for a bus who starts to tell anyone who’s listening about his life story.Interesting stuff.For the first chapter he tells a black woman how he was named after a leader of the  KKK.Great conversation starter.The films got a cool story with Forest interacting with some major people and times in history.The CGI looks well for a film of its age,better than the last film on the list in my opinion but then again there’s no orcs and dragons flying about.Forests love interest is a bit of a douche.Ditching at every possible opportunity so she can fuck off and see the world.But once he’s a millionaire she lands back.The she’s off again.Then she catches a ‘virus’,it’s fucking AIDS innit, and needs Forest to watch the kid.Is it even his?The whole film has a great soundtrack,full of nostalgic hits from the different eras he’s knocking about in.

IMDB RATING      –     8.7
MY RATING     –    8.6
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  SAD MOMENTS TIMED EVERY 30 MINUTES AFTER 15 MINUTES IN.

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.

 

51 – The Pianist (2002)

The Nazi guy is executing some Jews and runs out of bullets,i’d hate to be the next guy waiting to get shot.

Now here’s a film that gets my goat. I’m not saying it’s a bad film,it’s just when you put a face on an atrocity like genocide it just makes me hate humanity. I mean this was only 70 years ago but the brutality and cold heartedness just sickens me.This film is very close to Life is Beautiful on the list,also about the holocaust,and maybe it’s by watching these two close together that has depressed me a bit.Shit,i bet Schlinders list is till to come too.The Pianist is based on a real person,who died in 2000,who managed to survive some 8-9 years of ducking and diving from the Germans.First he’s put in the ghetto,then he’s getting shipped of to the camps but a friends pulls him from the line,then he’s hiding in an allies house,then moved to another.As Warsaw gets bombed and overrun with Germans he finds himself hiding opposite the Hospital and barracks.He does get into some ropey situations but the main thing that’s going to kill him is starvation.There’s not much piano playing after the first 30 minutes.Near the end when it seems like he’s fucked,a German of all people helps him survive the final weeks of the war.Like the opening shot of Brody playing the piano it ends with him playing us out.Albeit this time to a packed concert hall with a whole symphony behind him.

IMDB RATING      –     8.4
MY RATING     –    7.8
SEEN BEFORE     –     HALF OF IT
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  SOME GOOD CASTING WITH BRODY.HIS BROTHERS CHARACTER WAS A DOUCHE.

56 – Life Is Beautiful (1997)

You wouldn’t away with this now a days.You’d be arrested and signing on the sex offenders list for life.

Life Is Beautiful is a bit of a misleading title for this film.After watching the last last 30 minutes i think a more apt title would be Life Is Shit. I’ve never seen this film before but i bought a copy on DVD for my parents once because it was popular at the time and had gotten a few awards.For anyone who doesn’t know the plot,it’s about a family who gets shipped off to a concentration camp by the Nazis./sounds sad right?The main character,the dad,is called Guido and he is a Jew. His wife is an Italian and they have a young son too that is also shipped off to the camp.The mother pleads to go with her family.Guido is a charming upbeat guy who seems to live in a fantasy,there’s something very whimsical about him.And it’s with his up beat attitude and constant games he’s playing that the whole concentration camp thing doesn’t really effect you on a personal level.Even his final moments i felt distanced from the whole thing.The film came out in 1997 but the whole feel and look of it makes it seem like it’s from the eighties.

IMDB RATING      –     8.4
MY RATING     –    8.1
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  GOOD BEGINNING,HUMOUR SEEMS A LITTLE SLAP STICK.

68 – The Great Dictator (1940)

Just shaving this womans face here.

The third Chaplin film so far on the list,i think,but the first one with sound.Chaplin looks to be in his 40’s or 50’s in this film but the jokes are still coming quick and  fast.With him being able to vocalize his jokes now there are a a lot more of them and he doesn’t have to mug at the camera for the viewer to get them,he can just add a little dialogue or a quip and leave it at that.The plot if you haven’t already guessed is pretty much a spoof of Hitler and WWI.Names and places have all been changed but everyone knows whoa nd where he’s implying.There’s a good disclaimer at the beginning that states any similarity between the Jewish barber is coincidental,mind you not a disclaimer for the Hitler-esque character but the barber,ha.The best Chaplin film on the list with quite a few bits and pieces reminding me of The Marx brothers or Groucho.Worth a watch,the end monologue where he gives a heartfelt speech to the camera about how dictators will die eventually and with them their regime.I think Chaplin was accused of being a communist after this film came out and he got into a lot of bother and left America for good to get away from it all.

IMDB RATING      –     8.4
MY RATING     –    8
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  FUNNY AND IF YOU LIKED CHAPLINS SILENT FILMS THIS IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

84 – Braveheart (1995)

You may take our lives,but you’ll never take our facepaint.OUR FACEPAINT!

When i seen Braveheart was coming up on the list i was a bit excited.It’s been about 11 years since i last saw it so it’s been a good age between viewings.I was thinking throughtout the film ‘how historically accurate is Braveheart?’.I have no knowledge of Scottish history so i have to take it at face value.I think Braveheart was one of them ‘2 films in the same year with similar plots’.It happens al the time.Hollywood gets a good script and someone passes on it and then another studio tries to race it and put a similar script together and get it out before the other one.The other film i’m talking about here is Rob Roy.There’s tons more like this: Antz and A Bugs Life,Deep Impact and Armageddon,Braveheart is a lot more brutal than i remember,i thought it was a amily drama you could watch on Sunday at lunch time with your parents.Definitely not.I seen a guy get decapitated,three guys get de-limbed.Mel gets one guys leg ala black knight in Pythons Holy Grain.If you don’t know the plot,it’s about the Scotish/English war circa 1280.It’s a good film.In the battle scenes Gibson pulls off the crazy scotsman with that look in his eye.I think this is all down to Gibson himself being nuttier than a squirrels shit.The last scene is the only one that grinded my gears.The guy that set Wallace up and was in allegience with the English is now leading the SCottish?Bollox.The lack of title credits makes the viewer less concious that they’re watching a film.

IMDB RATING      –     8.3
MY RATING     –    8.1
SEEN BEFORE     –    YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     – GOOD.AN AUSTRALIAN AMERICAN PLAYING A SCOTTISH REVOLUTIONARY.

 

88 – Amadeus (1984)

There’s not many tits in this Mozart biopic,but i think i screen grabbed the best ones.

Amadeus is a semi-biographic of Mozart.It’s by no means a Hollywood epic,it’s full of D-List celebs,some from the theatre and a couple of Thespians thrown in the mix too.It must be somewhat accurate because there’s quite a lot of Mozart’s music in it.But then again there’s the copyright issue and he’s dead so maybe anyone can use it.On the whole it’s a good film if you can get over the initial American accents of Mozart and his girlfriend/wife’s.I’d heard of Amadeus but never seen it,it’s a 3 hour trip but i don’t think it’s long when you’re watching it.There are a few opera scenes where the music gets a bit too much for me personally but besides that it’s spot on.Mozarts laughcracks me up.It a good show.Good make up and wardrobe too.The story is told via flash back and the old man version looks realistic.Now that i mention that i do have one beef to make.In the beginning Salieri when he’s a kid compares himself to Mozart and says all he wanted to be like was like Mozart and Mozart inspired him to be a musician,rubbish,there’s about 20 years between them.How could a 6 year old inspire a 12 year old when there’s 20 years between them.Watch the film and see. Salieri wishes his father dead so he can play piano like Mozart who,technically,shouldn’t whoa whao whao , hold the boat…   …i just wikipediaed them and there’s only 6 years between them.Good casting guys.Not.

IMDB RATING      –     8.3
MY RATING     –    8.4
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  THE STARTS A BIT BAD BUT ONCE YOU GET INTO IT….

97 – Raging Bull (1980)

Jake hooks up with a 15 year old girl.Raging Bull?More like UNDERaging Bull.

Another fight movie here,not so much focusing on the fights but more on the fighter,Jake La Motta.It’s all a true story too.Where to begin?At the start of the film Jake has the hots for this 15 year old,which i thought was weird because Jake has to be nearly 40.Wrong.I checked on wikipedia and Jake was only 19 but De Niro was 37 so that’s what threw it for me.Jake already has a wife when he meets this new chick,he treats his wife like shit and is the biggest douche in America in my opinion.Joe Pesci is in this too playing Joe Pesci,well actually he’s Jakes brother but in every film Pesci is the same character.It’s like he was plucked right out of Casino and dropped into this film.Jakes a good fight and hammers everyone but has some insecurities about women,oh and he divorces his old wife and takes up with the new one when she hits 18.He fights a bit,,shouts at his wife a bit and is generally a prick.When he gives up boxing he opens a club and lets little girls in and ‘introduces’ them to guys.Girls who are 14 in an over 21 club.This is all still a true story.After all said and done Jake takes up stand up comedy.

IMDB RATING      –     8.3
MY RATING     –    7
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  NOT MY CUP OF TEA.

114 – The Elephant Man (1980)

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MONKEY BALLS!AN ELEPHANT MAN!

A young American scientist develops a teleportation device  and just when he’s getting ready to try it out on himself for the first time, an elephant sneaks into the machine and alters his DNA.Nah,but really The Elephant Man is a great film.I had never seen it before but i always assumed that he was called the elephant man because in some way he resembled an elephant. Incorrect. In actuality it’s because when his mother was 4 months pregnant she was clobbered by an elephant and this is what they attribute his massive deformities too.His real name is John Merrick and he’s the perfect English gentleman but he does come across a bit camp in parts with all the ‘oohs’.Anthony Hopkins plays the part of concerned and aspiring doctor very well.It was filmed in 1980 but it’s in black and white to give a Victorian fell,much to it’s benefit.There’s one hairy scene 90 minutes in where an orderly who works at the hospital takes about  25 people from the pub and sneaks into Johns room and fucks up his night for him.The scene is made all the more worse with the circus type music playing.That’s bad.Another beef i had was  when John gets the shit beaten out of him Hopkins takes him somewhere quiet where he can rest.Where does he take him?To a fucking bell tower that some loud ass bells going on the hour every hour.One of Guy Richies regulars is in it too,see if you can spot him,he was in Lock Stock,Snatch and Layer Cake.

IMDB RATING      –     8.2
MY RATING     –    8.5
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  VERY GOOD.THE LAST SCENE HAS SOME GOOD CLASSIC MUSIC AND SOME WEIRD DIALOGUE IN SPACE.