rauldiul Reviews

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

You got it all wrong

[10/10 · 12 April 2013]

The whole film-noir facade inevitably surrounding Bogart -and also Sydney Greenstreet- can no doubt compel anyone to approach this movie in a kind of vigilant and even serious stance.

The entire cast is wonderful because it is exactly how it should be: we stand before the story of an adventure, with it's fantasy, it's mentions of exotic places, with it's unreal ending, interactions between characters, and the key dialogs forming part of this kind of fairytale.

In this tale our main character is always right, he always manages to slip past dangers. There are fights and there are deaths, but there's no violence in this film.

Is it really noir? Really? It's a brilliant film, surely, and made to be enjoyed in the simplest way possible: the way that Bogart does... having fun with it.

The Samurai (1967)

Should have been silent

[7/10 · 27 March 2013]

Amazing camera work can only go so far...

This is not a great film, one gets the feeling that Jean-Pierre Melville's incredible insight and flawless direction goes somewhat to waste on this one.

The scarce dialogue is so dim that the main feeling is that it just gets in the way, and only achieves to point out a quite dull script.

One thing is mystery and another is countless minutes of Alain Delon climbings stairs, walking, unblinking...

Interesting, entertaining film to watch, just doesn't really get to you.

Serpico (1973)

"You could always give that money to charity..."

[10/10 · 2 January 2013]

Nobody likes Serpico. Nobody is supposed to like him, he's not the sort of character most of us can relate too. A weird, absent minded, righteously-nagging (in a way) voice that begins to burrow into the police bureaucracy like if it were its own conscience.

Yet he is the good guy, he fights, he commits his life, he sacrifices his future wife, his friends, his health, to make right.

This film stings. Would we have done the same? This movie is so real it's bitter, like life itself.

Lumet has crafted a brilliant jewel that stands out among all cop movies.

Atlantic City (1980)

Great entertainment

[7/10 · 1 January 2013]

This is a fun movie. The cast is great, the story has a bit of everything: wit, emotion, love, action... and the pace is just right.

What makes it all "fit" in a way is the "Atlantic City atmosphere". It just works to glue it all together (helped of course by the great direction). And when all the parts in a film click together, good quality cinema is always made.

It's actually really hard to create a movie about an old man who goes back to his "gangster" life and succeed in making it believable. There are funny moments, there are nervous and sad moments, this movie entertains.

Why should we ask more of it? Anyone could enjoy this film. I'm surprised it doesn't have many ratings.

On the Waterfront (1954)

Great acting makes it all worthwhile

[7/10 · 1 January 2013]

This is not a really original story, nor is it actually believable at some points -I'm mainly thinking about the cheesy ending, which made me think about other "Disney-kind-of-movies" that stand up so high in the great-films-in-history ladder (Eliot Ness' Untouchables maybe?).

I'm not saying it's badly directed, on the contrary, it moves perfectly along the action and never let's you get bored. Although there were a couple of scenes where the music didn't seem to fit with what one was seeing (and that's usually something very rare in any movie, no matter if it's good or really bad).

L.J. Cobb and Karl Malden were brilliant, as usual, but the performance that the striking and young Marlon Brando awards us with overshadows anyone, and I mean anyone, because the overall acting was great.

I mean... you could make a duck direct a movie and with Marlon Brando in it, it would be watchable.

But looking at this film in a more general manner, it just isn't one of the "great ones", I really don't know how it managed to get 8 Oscars (not saying it didn't deserve a couple...), and I'm pretty sure it won't last for long in my memory.

It's a not too memorable story burnished with some magnificent acting: watchable, sure; enjoyable, of course; more than an 8/10 and 8 Oscars? oh my no...

Harakiri (1962)

Beyond its time

[10/10 · 22 December 2012]

This is a genuine, unique and sincere samurai film. The flawless direction Kobayashi presents to us depletes all criticisms. The prudent pace the story moves in is in itself the depiction of the samurai society: the extreme respect, the omnipresent rituals of courtesy, the will to listen to your foes, the patience.

The key in the greatness of this film -my favourite samurai film, personally- lies in the meticulous (negative reviewers would have to say here: "painstaking") representation of the relationships between these people who live for and by an immutable code of honor,and how the story ends up telling us that, in the end -for better or for worse- man is above any social principle or code. Hanshiro Tsumogo (the main character) is, after all, only demanding an apology for the way the young Motome Chijiiwa was treated, but we see how arrogance stands in the way of the samurai code, and he's left empty-handed.

On the other side of the coin, Motome Chijiiwa's act of love for his wife and son, which involves his total humiliation, again defies the samurai code.

"After all, this thing we call samurai honor is ultimately nothing but a facade." says Hanshiro Tsugumo after recounting his story. Not facade in the sense of fictitious, but in the sense of superficial. Because there may be hundreds, thousands of different cultures in the world, but in the end we all love the same way, we hate alike, we envy in the same manner...

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

The amazing faces of Peter Sellers and Stanley Kubrick

[9/10 · 5 September 2012]

Comedy is such a hard thing to make, but Kubrick just manages to merge the utterly surreal (like the scene with General Jack Ripper blowing away that enormous machine gun, or the phone call to The President himself from a phone booth, located in a military base!) with deafening hard-stone problems that we sure have even today -the nuclear kind of problems- and a great depiction of the kind of military men who used to command -IF they still don't do it now- the USA's army, these obsessive, sometimes ignorant, and bearing an insuperable willpower men that would throw gargantuan numbers of victims to the air (20 million!, 150 million!) just to preserve their nation's spirit, their nation's honor.

Bravo for Stanley, giving birth to a film that while treating the most flagrant type of issues (specially since this picture dates from 1964) can be thoroughly enjoyed by a little kid.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Cult-seeking insipidness

[5/10 · 27 August 2012]

Terry Gilliam's picture gets off to a surprisingly dull start, two eccentric money packed friends (each with his own neophilosophical views on life and drugs) driving to Las Vegas, no worries, only psychedelia.

Anyone who tries to justify the whole meaningless of the movie will advocate surely the spirit of the Gonzo journalism merged with the spirit of the total drug liberation, and sure, one can make such a film, a film with no point, that doesn't want to teach a lesson, just show you what the experience is like.

But, if so, this film fails in this endeavor too, never really gripping the spectator nor getting you inside of the action.

Both Depp and Del Toro, without doubt at least above average actors, seem impaired here by the whole charade of their delusional experiences, which, on the other hand, feel repetitive and vaguely conceived.

One should not come to this film expecting to receive any ideas to think about, or any deep emotions to be touched by, and, if on the contrary you really feel like watching two people partying in Las Vegas, I don't see why this movie can be any different from a lot of teenage-centered comedy movies that are popular nowadays.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Sublime

[10/10 · 26 August 2012]

Glengarry Glen Ross is a masterful creation not to be missed by any film lover. This is an unique movie where the almost non existent plot and the limited scenery (almost every scene takes place either in an office or in a bar) are eclipsed by some of the most powerful acting one could ever experience in any film (credit goes, of course, to the immense cast that they managed to put together).

Of course, anyone who has enjoyed films such as Dog Day Afternoon, Twelve Angry Men, or even Reservoir Dogs, will find this kind of play-based or resembling-to-a-play movie really entertaining, if not just plain brilliant. It's hard to understand why it's not sitting on the top with these other mentioned pictures. There's not a scene too long, there's not a scene too many. And it is believable.

To sum up, if one can stand a movie without big explosions or eerily long Hollywood kisses, this film represents a high point in the late XX century's acting, and should be considered, in my opinion, in any "Top movies" list.