Archive for the ‘Classic Man Movies’ Category

Dr. Strangelove

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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I have seen “Dr. Strangelove” over 100 times which proves either I need to get a life or I have very good taste. I hope it’s the latter.

This is, quite simply, the most complete and the most brilliant film ever made. There is not one boring, poorly acted or superfluous scene in the entire movie. The performances are simply outstanding. Peter Sellers in his three roles is, as always, superlative. But George C. Scott, not generally noted for comedy, proves he is a comedic actor of the highest order.

Slim Pickens gives an absolutely hilarious performance as Major Kong. Watch how he takes his cowboy hat out of the safe, and his accent when he delivers the classic line, “A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!”

Keenan Weenan delivers an absolutely dead-on performance as Bat Guano (“if that really is your name…”) and Kubrick somehow managed to drag a riveting performance out of Sterling Hayden, not normally known as any great shakes in the acting department.

This film is gorgeously directed, paced and is literally perfect. Watch particularly the lengthy scenes in the war room, with Sellers as President Muffley delivering his lines in a flat midwestern American accent to Dimitri, the fun-loving Russian premiere.

If you have never seen “Dr. Strangelove,” you’re in for a cinematic experience you’ll never forget. You can watch it dozens of times and still laugh, still appreciate the outstanding performances and marvel at this perfect motion picture.

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Deer Hunter

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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As a young film enthusiast, it’s always unnerving to watch films and be limited to the full effect it had on the audience because it was made before your time and in a much different era. “The Deer Hunter” was no exception. But I love it regardless of that annoyance.

“The Deer Hunter,” next to “Apocalypse Now,” is by far the best Vietnam movie ever. There’s both an epic quality to this film as well as an intimacy about it. It looks at the mental, emotional, and physical toll the war had on American soldiers unlike any other film and it shows what it did to close friends and communities.

The major sequence in the beginning is the wedding sequence. Yes, it’s lengthy, but that sequence is this film’s heart. It wouldn’t be ‘The Deer Hunter’ without it. All major characters are introduced as well as their relationship with one another.

Michael Vronsky (Robert De Niro), is the leader of his pack of four brother-like friends. Michael, Steve(John Savage), and Nick (Chris Walken), are all going to to Vietnam, while Stan(John Cazale) is left in Pennsylvania with Axel(Chick Aspegren. So the wedding sequence is both a celebration of Steve’s wedding as well as a going away party for Steve, Mike and Nick. In the middle of all this, there’s Linda(Meryl Streep)who’s Nick’s fiancee AND the object of Michael’s affections.

In Vietnam, Steve, Nick and Mike are captured by the Viet Cong and are forced to engage in endless games of Russian Roulette and with the efforts of Mike, they all escape but at a cost. Steve and Mike return home while Nick is left in Saigon. Michael is reunited with Linda, but is isolated and alienated from his surroundings.They comfort each other because she is also mourning Nick’s absence as a loss. He attempts to go back to his deer hunting ways, but can’t bring himself to shoot a deer
anymore because he now knows first-hand what it feels like to be hunted.

With a visit to a Veteran’s hospital, Steve, now a maimed, wheel-chair ridden man discloses to Mike about the money he has recieved from an annonymous sender from Siagon. Mike quickly figures out who it is and rapidly departs to Saigon in search for Nick. He finds Nick reliving his Russian Roulette ordeal by gambling with his own life. Mike shows up and desperately tries to get Nick to come back to Pennsylvania and to Linda.The rest I’ll leave to those wanting to buy this movie.

“The Deer Hunter” is an emotionally charged film. It’s a gem! It brilliantly shows ordinary men who led simple lives going into the war and emerging forever scarred and forever changed by their experiences.

The Russian Roulette scenes are the most powerful and heart-wrenching. You immediately feel the tension and fear of who will live and who will die, much like the overall reaction during the Vietnam war. You’ll never forget the looks on De Niro’s, Savage’s, and Walken’s faces in those scenes. They’re a work of art created by rare emotional intensity. All three men give the performances of their careers. Meryl Streep gives a wonderful performance as well. The chemistry between her and De Niro is vivid and captivating.

Great cinematography and wonderful contrasts between peace and chaos; Pennsylvania and Vietnam. It’s a film about friendship and courage and how it’s put to the test. It’s one of the best American films. Period. You’ll never forget it.
As Mike said, “This ain’t something else. This is this!”

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The Godfather

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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When one looks over the movies that are usually mentioned as the all-time greats, there is usually some innovation, technical achievement, artistic statement, or heart-warming impression that explains the choice. I’m not sure that “The Godfather” fits any of those categories but it certainly has to be considered as one of the greatest movies of all-time. Francis Ford Coppola took an excellent engrossing, suspenseful book and turned it into a movie with the same qualities. From the opening to the closing scene, everything about this movie was carefully planned, designed, and orchestrated. It is a masterpiece of cinematic craftsmanship.

The acting is superb with Brando taking the prize in his portrayal of Don Corleone, the Godfather. His raspy voice that suggested reason while disguising intrigue was one of the many keys to the effective tone of the movie. There were scenes of violence, to be sure. However, it was the quiet, calculated moves that created a greater sense of evil. It was the implication of quiet yet ruthless planning that made the horse’s head all the scarier. Sonny (played very well by James Cann) did not understand the subtleties of evil whereas Michael (played even better by Al Pacino) did.

The music was haunting, the costume were well-done, the cinematography was excellent, the writing outstanding but it was the directing that carries the movie. I’m not sure whatever happened to Francis Ford Coppola. I realize that he had other achievements, not the least of which was the sequel of “Godfather II”. However, this man displayed a talent seldom seen. Maybe it was just the right mind and vision for the right project but it sure seemed that we would be seeing a lot more from this man.

Everybody has at least one scene from “The Godfather” that has stayed with them more than others. For many it is the horse’s head, for others it’s “the offer he can’t refuse”, while for others it may be something as subtle as the slowly closing door at the end of the movie. Each of those images appeals to us on a different level. “The Godfather” has worked its’ way into our culture and why not? It is a movie that appeals to most every movie goer from age 14 on up. It is one of those movies that you can enjoy over and over again. Each time you can appreciate even more examples of the artist at work.

Cast

  • Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone – the boss (the “Don”) of the Corleone family, Formerly known as Vito Andolini. He is the father of Sonny, Fredo, Michael and Connie and adoptive father to Tom Hagen. Husband of Carmella Corleone. A native Sicilian.
  • Al Pacino as Michael Corleone – the Don’s and Carmella’s youngest son, recently returned from military service following the end of World War II. The only college-educated member of the family, he initially wants nothing to do with the Corleone family business. His evolution from doe-eyed outsider to ruthless boss is the key plotline of the film.
  • James Caan as Santino “Sonny” Corleone – Vito’s and Carmella’s hot-headed eldest son; he is being groomed to succeed his father as head of the Corleone family. He is the family’s underboss.
  • Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen – an informally adopted son of Vito and Carmella Corleone, he is also the family lawyer and the new consigliere (counselor). He is not Sicilian, but German-Irish.
  • Diane Keaton as Kay Adams – Michael’s girlfriend and, ultimately, his wife and mother to his children.
  • John Cazale as Fredo Corleone – the middle son of Vito and Carmella Corleone. Fredo is not very bright and appears to be the weakest of the Corleone brothers.
  • Talia Shire as Constanzia “Connie” Corleone – Vito’s and Carmella’s youngest child and only daughter. She marries Carlo Rizzi.
  • Richard S. Castellano as Peter “Pete” Clemenza – a caporegime for the Corleone family.
  • Abe Vigoda as Salvatore “Sal” Tessio – a caporegime for the Corleone Family.
  • Al Lettieri as Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo – a heroin dealer associated with the Tattaglia family.
  • Gianni Russo as Carlo Rizzi – Connie’s husband. Becomes an associate of the Corleone family, and ultimately betrays Sonny to the Barzini family.
  • Sterling Hayden as Captain Mark McCluskey – a corrupt police captain on Sollozzo’s payroll.
  • Lenny Montana as Luca Brasi – an enforcer utilized by Vito Corleone.
  • Richard Conte as Emilio Barzini– Don of the Barzini family.
  • Al Martino as Johnny Fontane – a world-famous popular singer and godson of Vito.

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Das Boot

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Movies Online

The Atlantic Ocean, 1941. German U-boats are struggling to maintain mastery over the sea, challenged everywhere they turn by the British Navy. Increasing numbers of German vessels are being lost and manpower is running short. The Nazi government has resorted to sending callow young seamen out on missions that are steadily growing more dangerous. Welcome to the world of Das Boot.

Beautiful camera work and poignant dialogue draw you into the world of the captain and crew. You share with them the boredom of non-combat operations, the thrill of the chase, and the terror of a depth charge laden destroyer passing overhead.

Das Boot goes to great lengths to make you forget that the crew are Nazis, instead focusing on the human aspects of the seamen. Change the language as well as a few story elements, and these men could be fighting for any country. One sees the struggle of the men to understand what it really is that they are fighting for, their anger at being forced into such a dangerous position by a government whose ideologies many of them do not share.

Regardless of whether the crew are Nazis or not, when you hear the telltale ping of a passing destroyer’s sonar, and see the abject horror splayed across the faces of these young men, you forget that they are fighting for one of the most despicable governments ever to exist, and instead empathize, feeling every bit of their terror and suspense right along with them.

From beginning to end, Das Boot is an involving film, a must see for every fan of war films.

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Rio Bravo

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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Characters make the movie. Boring character can ruin a good story and interersting characters can make a dull movie fly. Rio Bravo enjoys both a good story, and good characters, with a bunch of fine performances thrown in.

John Wayne gives his usual fine western performance as the Sherif Chance, but it is the people around him that make this movie great. Walter Bermnan as Stumpy does a great job, A very young Angie Dickerson is frankly hotter than she ever was yet she also remains a strong character who stands up for herself and plays off Wayne well. Ricky Nelson is believeable as a young man with more sense than any that has come before him. All of them round the movie well.

Dean Martin as Dude however steals the show. In my opinion this is the movie that makes him a serious player. Dude is clearly the most interesting character of the lot, his own battles with Chance, Stumpy, Burdette and most of all himself makes the movie much more than other westerns. It is clearly superior to El Dorado which takes some doing, and superior to Rio Lobo which doesn’t.

Other than his early pairings with Maureen O’Hara I would recommend this picture as the best example of John Wayne in a pure western.

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High Plains Drifter

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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Located on the coast of southern California in the days of the Western Territory, the town of Lago stood idly by when their marshall, Jim Duncan, was brutally whipped to death before their eyes. The three scoundrals that did it are soon to be released from territorial prison and revenge is certain to be on their minds. The town hires the quick gun and ruthless gaze of Clint Eastwood, stranger with no name, to protect them.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold”. And that’s what we get in High Plains Drifter. Clint plays the ruthless, cold-hearted killer with a quick draw and a sharp eye for pretty women. He intends to serve up a dose of justice, Clint Eastwood style, to this weak-kneed community lacking backbone and a conscience. And, whie he’s at it, deliver a little something to the scoundrels who killed Jim Duncan. What transpires draws the viewer into the showdown with all the high drama of Eastwood’s better-known westerns.

The movie is very entertaining and certainly makes its point. You gotta love Clint in this old western role.

Cast

  • Clint Eastwood … The Stranger
  • Verna Bloom… Sarah Belding
  • Marianna Hill … Callie Travers
  • Mitch Ryan … Dave Drake (as Mitchell Ryan)
  • Jack Ging … Morgan Allen
  • Stefan Gierasch … Mayor Jason Hobart
  • Ted Hartley … Lewis Belding
  • Billy Curtis … Mordecai
  • William O’Connell … Barber
  • Geoffrey Lewis … Stacey Bridges, Outlaw

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo) is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film’s sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score. It is the third and final film in the Dollars trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot centers around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, Civil War battles, and prison camps.

Opening on December 15, 1966 in Italy and in the U.S. on December 23, 1967, the film grossed $6.1 million, but was criticized for its depiction of violence. Leone explains that “the killings in my films are exaggerated because I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns… The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures.” To this day, Leone’s effort to reinvigorate the timeworn Western is widely acknowledged: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema’s best representative of the Western genre film, and Quentin Tarantino has called it “the best-directed film of all time.”

Release

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was not released in the U.S. until December 1967. The original, Italian version was 2 hours, 57 minutes long, but the U.S. version was 2 hours, 41 minutes, cut 16 minutes shorter. Since the scenes were deleted before the entire film was dubbed to English, that quarter-hour’s-worth of story footage rarely was shown in U.S. cinemas, nevertheless, MGM’s 1998 U.S. DVD release includes them, in the original Italian, sans English subtitles.

Given that the Italian Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo literally translates to the English: The Good, the Ugly, the Bad, reversing the last two adjectives, advertisements for the original Italian release show Tuco before Angel Eyes, and, when translated to English, erroneously label Angel Eyes as “The Ugly” and Tuco as “The Bad”.

The film was initially banned in Norway and did not have its premiere there until 15 years later, on October 8, 1982.

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The Wild Bunch

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
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The Wild Bunch directed by Sam Peckinpah, is a 1969 Western film about an aging outlaw gang at the Texas-Mexico border trying to exist in the modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its violenc and the portrayal of the crude men trying to survive the era.

The Wild Bunch is noted for intricate, multi-angle editing, using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner, and Sam Peckinpah was nominated for a best-screenplay Academy Award; Jerry Fielding’s music was nominated for Best Original Score; director Peckinpah was nominated for an Outstanding Directorial Achievement award by the Directors Guild of America; and cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography.

In 1999, the U.S. National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the Library of Congress as culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. The Wild Bunch was ranked 80th in the American Film Institute’s best hundred American films, and the 69th most thrilling movie. In 2008, the AFI revealed its “10 Top 10″ of the best ten films in ten genres, The Wild Bunch is the sixth-best western.

Casting

Directer Sam Peckinpah considered many actors for the Pike Bishop role; Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone and Robert Mitchum were all considered before William Holden was cast. Marvin actually accepted the role but pulled out after he was offered a larger pay deal to star in Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Sam Peckinpah’s first two choices for the role of Deke Thornton were Richard Harris (who had co-starred in Major Dundee) and Brian Keith (who had worked with Peckinpah on The Westerner (1960) and The Deadly Companions (1961)). Harris was never formally approached, but Keith was, and turned the part down. Robert Ryan was ultimately cast in the part after Peckinpah saw him in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Other actors considered considered for the role were Arthur Kennedy, Henry Fonda, Ben Johnson (later cast as Tector Gorch) and Van Heflin.

Mario Adorf was considered for the part of Mapache; the role went to Emilio Fernandez, the Mexican film director and actor and friend of Peckinpah. Among those considered to play Dutch Engstrom were Steve McQueen, George Peppard, Jim Brown, Alex Cord, Robert Culp, Sammy Davis, Jr., Charles Bronson and Richard Jaeckel. Ernest Borgnine was cast for his performance in The Dirty Dozen.

Robert Blake was the original choice to play Angel, but he asked too much money. Peckinpah had seen Jaime Sánchez in the Broadway production of Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker, was impressed and demanded he be cast as Angel. Albert Dekker, a stage actor, was cast as Harrigan, the railroad detective. He died months after filming, The Wild Bunch was his final film. Bo Hopkins played the part of Clarence “Crazy” Lee.

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