24 – The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

jizz to the face

This my mothers favourite film.She loves all them psychological thriller type films.During the first 15 minutes i was a little sceptical,i thought Fosters acting was a bit off.But as the film progresses i realised that that was all part of the character of Starling.A great film,it spawned 2 sequels and a prequel i think.For anyone who hasn’t heard of it,it’s about a locked up serial killer who was once a psychiatrist,is he still one?, who is asked to help out with a current serial killer who’s doing the rounds.He seems to know his shit and actually met the killer on the loose once.Foster plays a cadet at the FBI academy who gets tasked with interviewing him in the hope that a little eye candy will help him relinquish some info.Hey presto it does.There’s a few famous faces here who went on to pursue parts in series like Barney the asylum guard who was in The Wire and buffalo bill himself was in Monk.I think.Some good camera work.The close-ups and cuts betweens people as they talk is super effective.I don’t think i had any qualms with the film,i did notice in the last scene where Starling is graduating that they have a huge cake with the FBI emblem on it and the woman cuts a piece that looks like about a 20th and there seems to be about 50+ people at the do.No cake for most of them it seems.

IMDB RATING      –     8.6
MY RATING     –    8.4
SEEN BEFORE     –     YES
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  GREAT ONE LINERS THROUGHOUT;TOUGHENS THE NIPPLES.

53 – M (1931)

Busted.

M is an interesting film.I said before that to be a very old film on this list you have to try to innovative and experimental with your camera shots and effects. M has a few great bits that are bog standard now.I’ll list a few,it’s some cuts that you can’t even notice that blend into the next scene(the beggars bar) or some really good tracking shots and the steady cam wasn’t around for another 50 years.Also the voice over by the detective and the imagery to go with it. M also has some original stuff that caught me off guard,namely the parts that had minimal audio.I thought my speaker had came loose from the laptop more than once.I can imagine watching this in the cinema would have been tense.The story is about a guy in Germany running about and killing loads of kids.It doesn’t mention anything about molestation or rape so i guess it’s just plain vanilla murder.The cops are looking everywhere to no avail.The people start to get hysterical and any guy with a kid is getting a hard time.The Mafia or mob decide to find the guy themselves.But they can’t look everywhere so what do they do?They get ‘the beggars union’ on the case.Beggars union,ha.As they see it no one will notice the beggars watching every where.I won’t spoil the ending but as far as i see it the killer is psychotic and not evil.

IMDB RATING      –     8.4
MY RATING     –    8
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  THE GERMAN LANGUAGE IS SO HARSH.EVEN GERMANS WHISPERING SOUNDS LIKE TWO DRUNKS ARGUING AT FULL VOLUME.AN ENGLISH VERSION WOULD BE BETTER.

90 – Rashômon (1950)

You did?I just open up Chrome and start up a Private Window and do some Googleing.

Rashômon is the name of a city in Japan that’s a bit wrecked from wars and fighting.At the gates there are 3 men sheltering from the rain.It’s bucketing down,real heavy stuff.Two of the guys were just at a trail as witnesses,the third guy is a stranger to them.The trial is for a Samurai that was found dead in the woods and I’m going to use the word Samurai as loosely as possible because this guy is useless. Anyways there are 4 people testifying at the trail with their sides of the story.Each one different form the last.Even the guy who was killed gets a chance to testify via the medium of a medium.Like when Sam jumps into Rita body in Ghost.All the stories stink to high heaven and it seems like not one of them could lie right in bed.The films works well with all the different stories and parts that are a little similar,but the overall message the director is getting across is everyone looks out for number one and everyone lies.There’s quite a bit of maniacal laughter in this film,so if that kind of stuff scares you then I’d give it a miss.

IMDB RATING      –     8.3
MY RATING     –    7.7
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     YES
OVERALL     –  NOT BAD FOR A FILMS THAT’S OVER 60 YEARS OLD.

172 – The Night of the Hunter (1955)

silhouette shot

This film’s pretty strange and by strange i mean terrible.It’s one of the stinkers on the list,how it got on it is anyone’s guess.I tried to watch this about 3 times and kept falling asleep and had to put it back a bit and do it again.The basic plot is,a guy steals $10,000 and gives it to his kids.He then goes to jail and tells his roomy,a fanatical religious buck,about it.Thief gets hung and the other dude tries to find the cash.There’s a chase between the kids and the pastor.It’s all rabbit Vs the tortoise with all these long meandering shots of a slow moving boat intercut with clips of animals and the guy chasing them on horse back.Full of religious shit,loads of singing and some really bad audio gaffs like looping screams 3 times back-to-back and other simple stuff a director would never allow in the final cut.

IMDB RATING      –     8.1
MY RATING     –     4.4
SEEN BEFORE     –     NO
RECOMMEND?     –     NO
OVERALL     –  RUBBISH.A COUPLE OF NICE SHOTS BUT DOESN’T SAVE IT.