Reviews

Best movie ever.

There is one word to define The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. And that word is “transcendent”. This movie is not only the pinnacle of the Spaghetti Western, but it transcended into the pinnacle of the Western genre in itself. It’s safe to say it transcends that too, and can be considered one of the greatest pieces of filmmaking ever. It counts with memorable performances by three different leads, a story that breaks the “black and white” concepts of morale, and an original score that can only be defined by the word “epic”. Directed by the man responsible for the revitalization of the western in Italy, Sergio Leone, the film does an incredible job of introducing every character, and showing each and every one has a dubious concept of moral values. “The Bad”, Sentenza, or Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), is shown to be a ruthless, greedy gun for hire, but also someone who lives by the mantra of...

I am not a fan of Sergio Leone. In fact, this movie and Once Upon a Time in the West are the only movies of his that I have seen. But I think they are both classic westerns. He seems to bring out the best in his cinematographer, both for scenery and for his characters. In one review I read, he was criticized for staying with facial close-ups too long, and I would probably agree if he populated his movies with beautiful actors and actresses as many films do, but he relies heavily upon actors with interesting faces. Sometimes I feel he relies on too many shootings, and on having his gunfighters be too damn good. Two, four, six opponents? Doesn’t matter, these guys kill them all and come out unscathed. But that is part of the western movie gunfighter mystique. On a different level, I have owned the soundtrack for this movie: The Good the Bad and the Ugly, for close to 50 years. I write...

Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a classic Western film. Clint Eastwood is the Good, aka the Man with No Name, a taciturn wanderer who follows his own sense of justice. His opposite is Angel Eyes (Lee van Cleef), the Bad, a brutal mercenary who kills anyone who stands in the way of making ready cash. The film's comic relief is Tuco (Eli Wallach), the Ugly, a Mexican bandit wanted in several states who ends up inadvertently doing some good turns. At the height of the Civil War, as Union and Confederate armies battle each other in the West, these three men vie for an abandoned cache of gold coins. The film is especially memorable for its pace and cinematography. The opening scene, for example, juxtaposes closeups of anxious faces with vast panoramas of the Western landscape, and 10 minutes passes before a single word is said. It is like Tarkovsky transplanted to a vastly...

I'm looking for the owner of that horse. He's tall, blonde, he smokes a cigar, and he's a pig! It's debatable of course, since there are legions of fans of the first two films in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trology, but with each film there not only came a longer running time, but also a rise in quality - debatable of course! Here for the third and final part of the trilogy, Leone adds Eli Wallach to the established pairing of Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood, and brings all his tools of the trade to the party. Plot is slight, the three principals are on a collision course to find some buried gold, with each man having varying degrees of scuzziness, so how will it pan out? Such is the genius of the narrative, it's a fascinating journey to undertake. The characterisations are ripe and considered, the various traits and peccadilloes beautifully enhanced, and with Leone being Leone, there's...

It's a film that might scare modern audiences a bit, but it deserves the opportunity we want to give it. In addition to having a very strong film industry, Japan is a country with a very rich past that we in the West tend to devalue. A somewhat ethnocentric attitude, more typical of small minds. For a long time, the Japanese were a people divided by several feudal princes who fought among themselves, disputing power and regional influence. It was in this context, moreover, that the first contact between the Japanese and the Portuguese took place, the first Westerners to disembark, demonstrably (Marco Polo speaks of the Japanese, but he probably never went there), on the islands of Japan, where they took the first firearm, the Christian faith and a strong cultural influence: even today, in the Japanese language, there are hundreds of words directly imported from Portuguese. The film...

This is an amazing Japanese classic written and filmed without flaw. The action unfolds in story-telling within story-telling. This is a film about truth. Whose truth? That is the unfoldment. In a perverted way, this amazing piece of work has become predictive of Western corporate banking. Perhaps you'll see what I mean at the end of the film.

really fun to watch and the attention to detail is great

Ving Rhames ("Wallace") is the kingpin who provides the loosest of templates for a couple of inter-twining tales that are amusing, bizarre and sometimes down right dangerous before we get a sort of alignment at the conclusion. "Winnfield" (Samuel L. Jackson) and "Vincent Vega" (John Travolta) are a pair of dapper enforcers, despatched to retrieve a stolen briefcase. Though their manner may be precise, the execution of their tasks are usually more hit and miss, definitely messy - and frequently requiring of the specialist clean-up services of "Mr. Wolf" (Harvey Keitel). "Vega" is also charged by his boss with looking after his cocaine-loving wife "Mia" (Uma Thurman) and that flirts with dancing and disaster too. Meantime, ageing boxer "Butch" (Bruce Willis) is supposed to help the boss by taking an early dive in a fight. Instead he manages to kill his opponent! Soon he is intent on...

Insane movie! One of the bests(if not the best) Tarantino's movies!

*The cream of the crop of quirky crime thrillers* RELEASED IN 1994 and written & directed by Quentin Tarantino, "Pulp Fiction" is a drama/thriller/black comedy about two hit men in Los Angeles (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson), their mob boss & his wife (Ving Rhames and Uma Thurman) and a champion boxer who incurs the wrath of the boss (Bruce Willis). The lurid, droll tale is told in a non-linear fashion, but it's easy to follow and the final act ties everything up nicely. The dialogue's witty and the story maintains your attention, despite its 2 hour and 34 minutes runtime. The film's stylish and pulsates with energy and innovation; it understandably influenced many 90's films and beyond. I put off seeing this iconic picture until almost twenty years after its release because the protagonists are all big city gangsters or somehow involved with 'em. These are lawless people who...

errbnb News that Adam McCay is collaborating with Bong Joon Ho to retool Parasite as a Netflix series makes me positively giddy. Parasite is easily the best movie I've seen since the Big Short. Joon Ho's compelling ease of execution alongside the effortless lure of the plot's trappings had me hooked in an instant. I would have been happy watching this family fold pizza boxes for two hours. The story, like the family, takes on a life of its own, rapidly elevating to a setup impossible to sustain. The Bunuelesque occupy-the-rich scheme gleefully, blissfully ascends to lofty heights only, inevitably, to hit the fatal fan. The poor buggers ultimately find themselves literally chin deep in their own sh*t. The hotsy-totsy aristocrats, meanwhile, host a lovely garden party that flips into a tragic Shakespearean bloodbath. It's all fun and games till someone loses a daughter. (Note to the rich:...

This is VERY HIGHLY OVERRATED. The most part of the movie is foul-playing, most of those scenes seem to have been copied from the 1999/old Vijay’s movie: Minsaara Kannan [IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7562630/?ref=nv_sr_srsg_2], (Warning: This again might be a copy of some other movie as well]. “Morse code” has been used in a much better way in 2017 Ajith’s film: Vivegam [IMDB:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6878378/?ref=nv_sr_srsg_0] [Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/vivegam/] I just don’t understand what makes this movie so special that it has been appraised so highly. It is not even 10% of the Tamil movies at this level/standard. People who’re praising this movie must start watching Tamil movies instead of Korean, there are so many gems that have gone unnoticed. There is really nothing special in this movie that stands out. Cannot digest that an average movie like this has...

The working class and down on their luck Kim family struggle to make ends meet. When a friend of the son, Ki-Woo’s, who is an English tutor for the daughter in the wealthy Park family, has to leave his position, he recommends Ki-Woo for the job. Now having an "in" with the wealthy family, the Kims begin plotting the downfall of the current household servants and inserting themselves into those vacant positions, making them all gainfully employed and with money finally flowing into the household. But not everything is as it seems in the Park house or with their previous servants. This movie starts out as a comedy and quickly goes into social commentary, pointing out the differences between the poor working class family and the wealthy privileged family. The differences are ones that get commonly pointed out with the well-to-do having what usually gets termed as first-world-problems,...

What makes ‘Parasite’ so satisfying is that it commits neither error. It’s an engrossing, stylish and near perfect movie, and its underlying themes go beyond merely pointing out class exploitation to challenge the logic of capital. Though he is often juggling a mosaic of characters, themes and social issues, Bong never eschews his anarchic impulses and dark humour. It’s a movie that should be seen as widely as possible, if only so that Bong Joon-ho gets more chances to make movies for modern audiences that badly need them. - Jake Watt Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-parasite-a-bloodthirsty-and-very-funny-look-at-class-warfare Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/sff for more Sydney Film Festival reviews.

An absolutely stunning film! There is nothing to even marginally dislike about 'Your Name'. The animation is sensational, breathtaking in fact. The amount of detail, particularly in Tokyo, is insane. It's utterly gorgeous to watch. Then you have the magnificent story, which is filled to the brim with feeling and meaning. I felt everything that it intended me to. It's also paced to perfection and is told through two memorable characters in Taki (Ryūnosuke Kamiki) and Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi). Kamiki and Kamishiraishi are excellent in the lead roles. Of course I don't understand Japanese and was using subtitles, yet I still felt every intended emotion from those two. Class from them. Of the others, Ms. Okudera (Masami Nagasawa) is the one that sticks out most to me. If all that wasn't enough, you even have a tremendous soundtrack and score to boot. It really does all make for a...

They're no strangers, yet they've never met. Probably the most anticipated anime since the final film of Mr. Miyazaki. Because people know what these guys are capable of. This is one per cent sci-fi and 99 per cent fantasy. The concept is not new for us. From 'Freaky Friday' to 'The Lake House', even the recent American television film 'The Swap', you will remember a handful of names once you read this film's synopsis. Yet the film was so good, because of how well the theme was utilised. We all know the technical brilliance of '5 Centimeters Per Second' and the beautiful romance from 'The Garden of Words'. This is an excellent mix of those two. If love either of them, or both, then you will love it as well. But if you ask me, my favourite is still 'The Garden of Words' from this director. I liked this film, enjoyed thoroughly, so liking it less than that means not a bad flick. Surely a...

It has beautiful animation and beautiful characters. It is a funny, sweet and emotional roller coaster of a crowd-pleaser that manages to win your heart.

I would never take it away from anyone, but I was underwhelmed. Final rating:★★ - Definitely not for me, but I sort of get the appeal.

"Man kind was born on earth, it was never meant to die here." IT has been two days since I watched it and I still can't get it out of my head. I can safely say that it has been a long LONG time since a movie had this much effect on me after watching it. And the only thing I can think of now is to somehow Re-Watch it again. This movie was surprisingly different from Christopher Nolan's recent works because they had been great cinematic entertainment pieces catered to a wider audience with a blockbuster approach, this certainly didn't felt like that and hence the polarizing response it got. It is an ambitious project that is not meant to merely entertain, walk into it knowing that. I'll say this though, If it works for you, you'll be in heaven. The premise of the movie is that Earth is no longer capable of supporting humans on it, we must find a new home to avoid extinction. This...