Movie Review Summary

I did it! I set out to watch a list of movies at the start of the year and that is exactly what I did. Along the way I was disappointed with some movies and pleasantly surprised by others. I stopped writing reviews quite a few months back so I thought I would do a couple of summary reviews now that I have finished. Sit back and enjoy as I take you through a brief discussion of my journey -

Casablanca
It was so long ago now that I watched this movie. Best to read my original view though in hindsight I may have given it a higher rating than the 6.5/10 I did at the time. Out of all the movies this is the first one I will watch again.
Original Score: 6.5/10
Watch again? Yes I will
My fav scene:


Fight Club
This was one of the movies that disappointed. I had heard so many people rave about this movie so it was a shame to me that I hated it (see my original review for the reasons why)
Original Score: 3/10
Watch again? No

Gone With The Wind
Now this is a long movie and was quite enjoyable. See my original review for this movie.
Original score: 6.5/10
Watch again? probably not - it is too long

Breakfast at Tiffany's
Another classic movie which I enjoyed. It was my favourite of my list for quite a while.
Original Score: 7.5/10
Watch again? Yes

Goodfellas
I had no expectations for this movie and it was ok. I have no more to say than what I said in my original review
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? unlikely

Fargo
I wanted this movie to be better than what it was. It was over the top black humour which is what has made it so popular to the public. It didn't impress me much.
Original score: 5/10
Watch again? I probably will

Citizen Kane
This is an Orson Welles self indulgent bore-fest. I really can't say much more than I wrote in my original review. In hindsight I would give it a lower score.
Original score: 2/10
Watch again? not even if I was paid.

The Godfather
Having previously read the book, I may not have liked this movie as much as I would have.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? if it was on TV

The Godfather: Part 2
I was disappointed with this one but maybe that was because I didn't have subtitles for the Sicilian parts.
Original score: 4/10
Watch again? Yes with the subtitles next time

The Godfather: Part 3
Universally regarded as the worst of the 3 Godfather movies and very different to the other I found. It was ok.
Original score: 4/10
Watch again? no

Jaws
I liked this movie much more than I expected. I did a full review when I watched it.
Original score: 7.5/10
Watch again? yes but not in summer

Some Like It Hot
Not a bad movie. It certainly had it's funny moments. Maybe I rated it a bit too high though.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? yes

The Maltese Falcon
I just didn't get into this movie at all.
Original score: 3/10
Watch again? maybe to see if I was just in a bad mood when I first watched it.

The Usual Suspects
Now this movie I did enjoy.
Original score: 8/10
Watch again? yes

The Revenge of the Nerds
This was a fun movie. I didn't say much about it in my original review and I don't have anything to say about it now. I did enjoy it though.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? probably

Singing in the Rain
This movie is a lot of fun. Lots of singing and dancing and an enjoyable story.
Original score: 8.5/10
Watch again? absolutely
One of my favourite scenes -


To Kill a Mockingbird
A really good movie that deals with racism. I can't remember much about this movie now but I did give it a good score at the time.
Original score: 8.5/10
Watch again? I will

Trainspotting
This is a tough, gritty, dirty movie about drug addiction. i did enjoy it.
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? probably

Schindlers List
This was the movie I put on my list that I really didn't know whether I would be able to handle it. I had read stories about the holocaust and they had made me angry and depressed, so I wasn't sure whether this movie would do the same. Schindlers List is great because it does make you angry and scared and sad and outraged, but it is also uplifiting and gives you hope. it got the highest score of all the movies I reviewed (equal with Ben-Hur)
Original Score: 9/10
Watch again? not in a hurry even though it is great

Silence of the Lambs
Another movie which I had previously read the book. I really enjoyed the movie, particularly the acting by Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? some day

Life of Brian
I'm not really a Monty Python fan so I was never likely to give this movie a high rating. It has it's funny moments but overall it wasn't my cup of tea.
Original score: 5/10
Watch again: not anytime soon

Rambo First Blood
This is probably the movie that surprised me the most. I expected it to be a killfest but the body count for this movie is only 1. The story was much more involved than I anticipated and Stallone was surprisingly good as an actor.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? yes

Rambo First Blood Part II
I expected this to be an implausible let-down after the first, but again I was pleasantly surprised. More killing in this one but the story was still good.
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? yes

Rambo III
Again I expected this to be the weak link in the series and again I was pleasantly surprised. The story is good again, and importantly it is plausible.
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? yes

Raging Bull
About the only thing I remember about this movie is that the characters do a lot of arguing and yelling at each other. I found it a bit boring.
Original score: 4.5/10
Watch again? no

A Streetcar Named Desire
I found this movie to be completely boring and useless. Nothing ever really happens, none of the characters are likable or memorable and as such I was disappointed with it.
Original score: 3/10
Watch again? no way

Aliens
Unbeknown to me at the time, this is the 2nd movie in the series, so I watched them in the wrong order. I spent ages looking for Aliens 2 without any luck. I then realised the first one is called Alien and the 2nd is called Aliens. The movie itself was ok but the horror genre is not favourable to me.
Original score: 5/10
Watch again? not likely

Alien
This was my favourite of the 3 Aliens movies I watched. Again, not a movie genre I like but it was ok nonetheless.
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? probably not

Alien 3
Stayed true to the series and was less scary than the others if I remember correctly. It was ok.
Original score: 5.5/10
Watch again? only if I watched the others again

Casino
Violent movie and an engaging story which is based on a true story.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? yes

The Deer Hunter
I found this movie to be pretty boring. The first hour is just a waste of time. Really the only good bit of this movie is the Russian Roulette scene. It is hard and unnerving to watch. Here is the scene -

Original score: 4/10
Watch again? not likely

Apocalypse Now
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning". I didn't like this movie as much as I hoped I would. Many well known and very good actors appear in this movie (Martin Sheen, Robert DuVal, Marlon Brando) but I just didn't take a shining to it. I did have the redux version which includes many extra scenes which made it longer and a bit more tedious.
Original score: 4.5/10
Watch again? perhaps

Taxi Driver
I did write a full review on this movie, just read it.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? I would but I'm in no hurry to

It's a Wonderful Life
This is the kind of movie I hoped I would come across when I started out. It is an old black & white movie, character based and a feel good story. It did get slightly bogged down at times which is why i didn't rate it higher.
Original score: 8/10
Watch again? yes

The Exorcist
When it came out in the 70's this was regarded as the scariest movie ever. What appealed to me was the storyline. As I have said, horror is not a genre I like to watch so this rated well considering.
This was my favourite scene though it didn't really fit into the rest of the movie because she didn't leave her bedroom at any other stage.


2001: A Space Odyssey
I wrote a review on this movie because it is so incredibly boring. I found a clip for the ending. 9 mins it goes for but don't worry, you can watch it without it giving anything away, it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It is just plain weird. I dare you to watch all of it -

Original score: 0/10
Watch again? only if I find the right drug to accompany it

Scarface
"Say hello to my little friend". I liked Scarface quite a lot. There are no boring bits and I ended up absolutely hating the character played by Pacino.
Original score: 8/10
Watch again? I'm sure I'll watch it many times again

Psycho
Not as good as what I expected. Having said that I knew nothing about the movie before I watched it. I had known about the shower scene but not much else about it. The thing I didn't expect is that the movie starts out in a completely different manner to which it ends up. Suspense is kept up throughout.
Here is the famous scene -

Original score: 5.5/10
Watch again? probably not

The Philadelphia Story
A good character based movie with a few twists and turns. Not the most exciting or enthralling story but it was enjoyable.
Original score: 5.5/10
Watch again? probably not

Lawrence of Arabia
This is another long movie but it was enjoyable. The story kept me interested all the way through which is a good thing for a movie that goes for well over 3 hours.
Original score: 7/10
Watch again? only if I have enough time

Ben-Hur
And yet another looong movie. The effects and stunt work were quite brilliant in this movie. It reminded me of an old version of Gladiator. It was a little bit gay I thought at the time of watching and when I read about it afterwards it was mentioned that the 2 lead characters were supposed to have been gay lovers in their teens. They hadn't mentioned this gay character undertone to Charlton Heston because they figured he wouldn't have agreed to play the part of Ben Hur if they had.
Original score: 9/10
Watch again? maybe in instalments

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
I think this is the first movie I have ever seen that stars "The Duke". It is also the first movie that he calls people "pilgrim". The movie was ok, wasn't boring anyway.
Original score: 6/10
Watch again? I probably won't

Great Expectations
To be honest my expectations for this movie weren't all that great. It is a Charles Dickens story, and a good one at that. I enjoyed the posh talk and ye olde language. My 2 big gripes with this movie is that we see the young Pip (the main character) as a kid, then it says 6 years later and he looks like a 40 year old man. That's because the 21 year old Pip is played by the 38 year old John Mills! The other gripe I had was that the movie was flowing along nicely and then it just seems to end really quickly, like in 10 minutes. It's almost as if they ran out of money so just ended the movie as quickly as possible. I literally thought to myself - that can't be the end, it is just getting interesting. It is for these reasons I gave the movie a poorer rating than what it could have received.
Original score 6/10
Watch again? not for a while

Dave, my mind is going... I can feel it.

Well it has finally happened. I was actually hoping it would happen, and with only a handful of movies left to go, I thought it may not happen, but it has.

This weeks movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Made in 1968, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick and winning an Oscar for best effects in 1969.

So what am I so excited about? This is the first movie I have reviewed that I am going to give a big fat zero. A duck egg, donut, nada, zilch, zip, nothing, nought. It is hands down one of the worst movies I have ever seen. After 10 minutes I thought I should turn it off and give it a score of one. I give it a zero because I really wish I had done just that. The first 5 minutes of the movie is just a black screen, the next 25 minutes is monkeys running around making monkey noises. Then we have 20 minutes of watching space ships. Then 20 minutes of normal movie happen, then it just gets weirder and weirder. I actually left the movie playing and went off and did other things several times, including writing this review. I felt like I needed to be on drugs to watch it but I wasn't sure which one I needed. Probably the same one Stanley Kubrick was on when he made this rubbish. The movie itself could be described in terms of being a drug. The first 3rd was a sedative which made me sleepy, the 2nd 3rd was valium and the last 3rd was LSD or acid. I had no idea what was going on.

The story is basically in real time, so when they are preparing to get into the pod to go out into space, we follow them down the hallway, down the stairs, get into the pod, buckle up, start the incredibly slow pod launching mechanism and then drift painfully slowly into space. This all takes 25 minutes. That is no joke. You think to your self -WHY?

Never at any stage, while watching this movie, did I think -

• this is a good movie
• I can't wait to see what happens next
• this story is building to something big

Ok, I will now look at the positives. The effects for the time (1968) are actually quite awesome. The space scenes, spacecraft and interiors would actually still hold up today in a movie. The screens and monitors in the movie would actually have been more advanced than they really were in the year 2001. So Stan had excellent foresight. Unfortunately those positives aren't even a spit in the ocean compared to the negatives.

The Rating -

2001: A Space Odyssey - zero gravity

You talkin' to me?...

Well it has been a while so I thought I'd have a go at writing another review. The movie I will review is Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, a very young Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd and directed by Martin Scorsese. The movie was released in 1976 and was nominated for 4 academy awards and didn't win any. It is about a taxi driver (no surprises there) played by De Niro who drives around and picks up people, takes them to where they want to go, and collects a fare for it. The End. So that is the simple plotline and really about as in depth as I will go with it. Apparently Travis Bickle (the taxi driver [played by De Niro]) is a Vietnam Vet and he suffers from loneliness and insomnia. The weird thing about this movie is that not a real lot happens but I never got bored. In fact I actually wanted the movie to go longer which is really weird for me. As it is it runs for just under 2 hours. I think the reason I liked it was because I kept on thinking to myself - "something is going to happen". The Travis Bickle character is a loose cannon and the chances were that he was going to do something interesting at some stage, other than drive a taxi. In the back of my mind was the fact that I fell for exactly the same thinking in the movie Citizen Kane where that "something" never eventuates. In Taxi Driver it does eventuate. I won't give anything away but it becomes violent at the end. I got the feeling that the movie was just getting interesting when it ended - that is why I wanted it to go longer.

In summing up, I think this movie is more likeable by people who look for depth in movies, in this case how a man struggles with loneliness and alienation. If you read some of the other reviews about it they go in depth about such things and how the movie contains hidden meanings and metaphors as a reflection on how a man can be lonely in one of the biggest cities in the World, blah blah blah.... For me I like a movie to be entertaining. If I have to think, I'm probably not being entertained. If I have to search for the hidden meaning in a movie then I pretty much definitely am not being entertained. However, this movie had enough in it for me to be entertained and I think it would probably be my favourite De Niro movie (other than Meet The Parents - a movie where I could leave my brain at the door when I watched it).

I read that De Niro is a "method actor", meaning he immerses himself in his character when he plays them. For this he apparently drove taxis 12 hours a day for a month to prepare for the role. Personally I think it was a waste of time (though he probably made some good pocket money). Though he does drive a taxi for a lot of the movie, it isn't what it is focussed on. The taxi driver character is just a metaphor for the struggles of man juxtaposed with the bright lights and hussle and bussle of .... blah blah blah. I think I'm becoming a real movie critic!

The Rating -
Taxi Driver: 7 taxis

note: ratings are becoming a little bit difficult now as I compare them with previous movies I watched. I was going to give this 6.5 but noticed I gave Casino a 7. I enjoyed this as much as that so that is why it gets a 7. I probably didn't enjoy it more than Casablanca, but as it was the first movie I reviewed perhaps it now deserves more than the 6.5 I gave it at the time.

Should I continue?

I will try to continue watching one movie per week but the reviews are taking too much of my time. If you want me to continue writing reviews let me know and it might motivate me to write a review every now and then.

We've got bush

I watched The Revenge of the Nerds. I liked it. I could relate.

The Rating-

Revenge of the Nerds : 7 pens in my shirt pocket

Who is Keyser Soze? ...

I have my theories on that, but more later.
This week I review The Usual Suspects, made in 1995 and winner of 2 Academy Awards in 1996 - Kevin Spacey (best actor in a supporting role) and Christopher McQuarrie (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen).
First thing I have to say is that I really liked this movie. I also have to say that this was the first of my movies that I watched during the day. In fact, I watched it early in the morning so I wasn't tired and gave it my full attention. After watching it I immediately wanted to watch it again to see if I could pick up anything new or anything I might have missed in my first viewing. I am still thinking about that movie now, a day after I watched it.
The plot is a little bit complex for me to try to explain so I will give the basics - 5 men come together to do a few jobs together and are then ordered to do a hit by the almost chimerical Keyser Soze (now that is very basic). Nobody knows if Keyser Soze actually exists, but everyone fears him nonetheless.
I will now talk about some of my theories ... if you haven't seen this movie you should STOP READING this review now!! It will contain spoilers and will completely ruin the movie for you. But do watch it and come back ....


ok so only people who have seen the movie are now reading? ...



I will continue then.
There are quite a few discussions around about who Keyser Soze is, or if he is even real. My theory is that he is real and he is Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). The biggest clue to this is right at the very end when the fax image comes through and it looks like Kevin Spacey. We also find out that he is not really a cripple as he has made out, but fully able bodied. At some stages I thought that Keaton may be Keyser Soze but we know from the start that he gets killed by Keyser Soze (not that I remembered it was Keaton at the start).
My other thought was - did verbal Kint make up the whole story? We could never really know if his story is real or not as we are seeing it all through his eyes anyway - that is the way he wants the police to see it. But the thing that suggests to me that his story wasn't made up was the fact that Kobayashi picks him up in the car at the end. So we know that the Kobayashi character is real so it is safe to assume that the rest of his story was real or mostly real. But then again the cop who interviewed him notices that the names he gave him were all on labels on items in his office. He realises that the story he just heard was all made up and that he had been "outsmarted". Argh so much to think about, and that has been exactly what I have been looking for in these movies. Very well written, and even better without a clear conclusion so that I can analyse this movie until they put me in a mental home.
Would love to hear what everybody else thinks?

The Rating -

The Usual Suspects - 8 men in a police lineup

Another Bogey...

This week I review The Maltese Falcon, whose main star is Humphrey Bogart. I had heard of this movie before I started doing my reviews, but I didn't know who was in it and wondered who would play the role of Mario Fenech. I just realised that most people who read my reviews probably wouldn't get that little joke ... Mario Fenech is a former rugby league player who comes from Malta. His nickname is "The Maltese Falcon" or "Falcon". The movie was made in 1941 and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and came away with nought. The plot is rather complex and I probably still don't completely understand it so I won't even bother to try to explain it. It is one of the things I didn't like about this movie, but only one. Humphrey Bogart, to me wasn't a very good actor. It seems to me that he is like Hugh Grant and Matthew Perry when they act, they don't actually act, they are just themselves. Bogey talks tough, acts tough and smokes cigarrettes - just like he did in Casablanca. There is no acting here. Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade who is based on Humphrey Bogart. The pace of the story is too fast for my liking, the sets are forgettable and the characters are just ok. The female in the movie is talked about as a glamour girl, so shouldn't they casted one for the role? Mary Astor, to me, is nothing special to look at at all. The amusing thing for me in both Humphrey Bogart movies I have seen is that if he has a love interest you hardly know it. You know how much Bogey loves a woman by how much he hits her. If he only hits her a few times then you know he's found a keeper.

Maybe I should watch these movies in the morning because even though I started watching this movie just after 8.30pm I was fighting off the sleep by 9. Even at the end, when I thought there may be a plot twist or something exciting happen, my eyelids gave in on me and I had one of those micro sleeps. Maybe I did miss something exciting but I don't think so. The only good thing about this movie was that it only goes for 90 minutes. The bad thing is that even that was too long for me.

To the ratings -
The Maltese Falcon : 3 falcon statues