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medtner1970
Reviews
Man Without a Star (1955)
One of the best western movies of the fifties
This is one of my favorite westerns. Introduced by a beautiful song, beautifully sung by Frankie Laine (I have red someone who dislike this song, for me it is an error), is the story of a man without a star, no hope or illusion for him, not a sure trail. It is like a wild blowing wind, just the movie is like a wind: so powerful is the force of this movie. It is harmonically built: all the elements are at the right place at the right moment, everything is explained in the title song. I think it is loved more in Europe than in USA, there is always some difference between these different countries' critics. Personally, I find it a masterpiece. The title song lyrics "Who knows which way the world wind blows or where the trail of tomorrow goes, for a man without a star" reflect the spirit of the plot. I discover I have nothing to say about, it is just a powerful movie like the "world wind". I am unable to describe the blowing wind, you can only experience it, and for this movie it is the same thing: experience it, maybe that for its 1'29 running time, the world wind will blow in your home.
Dead Man's Gun (1997)
Some well made episodes well worth watching
I usually see this series by night, as it is aired during these hours. In my point of view, there are episodes which are really good, and others with no significance. But the good ones,are really good! The gun of title is always present, while different characters find it on their way. Sometimes it causes misfortune, some others is a great help, it depends on the person's qualities. The episode "The Hangman" with Henry Winkler is simply fantastic, intelligent and very positive. A true masterpiece, it deals with this hangman and the reasons which made him choose this job. Simply full of human comprehension, this episode symbolism is almost religious in feeling. Some female characters lead in several episodes. Truly beautiful, if something forced, the one with Joanna Pacula as the revengeful but very human heroine:"Four of a kind" (italian title: The four aces). Her blonde haired character is inspired by the Sharon Stone role in The Quick and the Dead, but I prefer this episode to Sam Raimi's movie, which is without any significance(in my point of view). Another blonde heroine played by beautiful Monika Schnarre co-stars with a tormented gambler, during a poker competition in the intelligent "The Gambler". The series is various in themes: the revenge of a beautiful blonde heroine, the sadness of a tired loveless Calamity Jane-like woman, the perils of two nuns in "Sisters of Mercy", the horror of a mad hypnotist doctor who ties his patients in an undead situation, the redemption of a coward and his love for a young teacher, the desperation of a sleepwalker who knows he himself is a murderer during his night-walks, the beautiful ghost story of a process.... It is a truly magnificent series, I don't know why it is not very famous. The best of these tales are full of morality, not moralism, the series is modern-looking and scifi-like sometimes, but classic in spirit. The music is as good as some of these pearls. I know that watching to all the episodes may be hard, but it is necessary in order to discover the above mentioned pearls (they differs from everyone's taste). In my point of view, they are truly pearls, also considered the fact that the most of nowadays series don't consider the moral side, and are full of incoherences. The legs of a beautiful woman or furious battle scenes are not enough to make a good series. Violence is also used senseless. Henry Winkler is good both as the producer and as the actor of the above mentioned episode. So, I prefer this series to a lot of celebrated ones.
Ying xiong (2002)
All the tears in the oceans would't be enough to celebrate this masterpiece.
Please pay attention: SPOILERS all along!
I went to see this movie after a bad day, I was feeling badly. I tried to see only because of my own desperation, and I felt not great emotions, because it is a very difficult movie to follow. But after the vision, I remained sitting and thinking:"I am not sure, but it seems a masterpiece, after one watching". I know very well that emotions a movie causes are not to be considered as definitive. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon emotioned me a lot, but I didn't believe to my own tears, so I saw it soon after, then a third. So, I thought it was not sincere, lots of tricks and incoherences were in this movie, and my tears had not other motivation than illusion. I saw Hero again, and started to understand it, always looking for possible incoherences. I have not found after my sixth theater vision, and my comprehension of the movie became higher, this film seems to be simply perfect.
I regard it as an incredible screen version of Life's laws. All the fighting scenes are perfect regarding colors, but I don't consider important any symbolism. Simply, it seems to me that they directly flow by the interior feeling of any situation: I look at the first as an autumn-like situation, Flying Snow and Moon are battling in the Autumn of their lives, a premature autumn, so the battle had to be placed amongst yellow leaves, and Flying Snow got the power over autumn forces. They battle not only in the middle of leaves, but also disturbed by them. Their sorrow is an autumnal sorrow. When Moon cries I feel these cries are so powerful that they seems my own. When all leaves became red for her, with this genial music, I can't stop tears. It is right what I have red below, that the rumor of the swords is so important! Look and hear at when Flying Snow loses her sword in the sunlight, or when the Emperor sword reaches the ground ....The battle between Nameless and Broken Sword had to be placed in the water, a lake of tears: incredibly moving the scene of the tear from Flying Snow's eye, and the fact that Broken Sword cares about it and not about Nameless...When she hurts Broken Sword in order to save is life, is another moment of the highest level, especially when she turns her face toward him and then smiles. Her death turning on herself is simply impressive and to be seen on my knees. The third battles are all impressive the same: Moon is perfect in trying to defend his master, I find Zhang Ziyi perfect in her role and that her character is very important. When Broken Sword writes on the sand, and confides in his writing without trying to stop Nameless in other ways, is also perfect. He sheates his sword, and the sheat is in the foreground , then tells Moon the greatest declaration of love I have ever heard:"Give my sword to Master Nameless: Flying Snow and me will never apart, nor will our swords". The sword is the symbol for their common intentions, and he never leaves her, their swords always together! This is another point I can't stop to weep. The Chinese version has a scene in which Moon tries to kill herself in order to demonstrate Master Nameless that his Master's words are true: Nameless save her life, never seen such an intense scene, I don't know why the Italian version has not. But the culminant point is when the Emperor understands the meaning of the writing of Broken Sword: soon after my fourth vision, this time without great feelings, I repeated these three points to a friend of mine, then I suddenly stopped to avoid to weep in front of him just before saying"Swordmanship's ultimate achievement is the absence of the sword in both hand and heart, he vows not to kill: he is at peace with the rest of the world, and brings peace to mankind", I was simply unable to pronunciate these words.
The final fight between the two Masters is simply genially directed and acted: first on the desert of incomprehension, than at the top of mountains of comprehension. The veils of ignorance fall for Broken Sword during the fight with the Emperor, and the same happens for the Emperor, he understands that just a "broken sword", just what he had always considered an enemy, is in truth his best friend. He has to give permission to execute against his own feelings, because he has to obey himself to "All under heaven", and give permission with a gesture taking away a tear. After Nameless is buried "like an hero", the final shot shows the Emperor alone, in the Room of Illumination, and then a fading, everything has been told, and a new day of an illuminated era is borning...
Look at the repetition of similar gestures in every version of the story: Moon turning her head suddenly, characters who runs to arrive in time for something but always fail (Moon and Broken Sword in the second, Moon alone in the third).
I consider the last writing about "our country" not a Chinese property, but of all mankind, and after all it is secondary in respect of the greatness of this movie(do not forget that Chinese culture is such a great one that when speaking about this, it is like speaking of the entire world's).
I have red somewhere that the extraordinary Maggie Cheung(now I have my home full of her photos) declared that the director has rendered this movie less moving than the original script: maybe she is right, but what wanted, me to remain completely without tears, completely dehydrated?
This time I believe to my tears, and I am proud to weep in front of this masterpiece. All the tears in the oceans wouldn't be enough to celebrate Hero and these extraordinary director and actors.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
"I will knock him down from his pedestal" (A masterpiece)
I find this movie a masterpiece.The most important thing,for me,is that the racial problem is well discussed,but it is only an excuse to show how two men try to demonstrate their own ability in making good things.
The racial diversity only assures them a well declared diversity.Of course,it is Steiger who is fired to demonstrate he needs no help from Poitier,and this latter's infallibility makes the white face of Steiger turn scarlet .How could it be that a black man is the master of a white,so detached from personal motivations? Till when Poitier says"I will knock him down from his pedestal!",referring to the flowers keeper.Then Steiger says:"So...You are just like us!".The sudden showing of his weekness reveals that also Tibbs is full of rage,just like Gillespie.So,they are not so different after all,and this fact makes a profound relationship possible.
This movie is so full of great moments that is impossible to speak about them all.The study about the two characters' relationship is the thing I prefer about this movie.Everywhere you go you find men who want to demonstrate you are unable where they are true champions.And sometimes you have to admit with yourself that you do the same thing.Just like the "perfect" Tibbs:"I will knock him down from his pedestal!"
Thanks to all the staff of this film,thanks,thanks! This film teaches:"Look at yourself,maybe you are doing something not for the reasons you declare,but only to "knock someone down from his pedestal",so that ...you can take his place! (I base myself on the italian dubbing) It reminds me of Gregory Peck in the marvellous "The Big Country", who declares to Charles Bickford:"You make this for personal reasons,not for what you declare!" It seems to me a very important theme,maybe one of the most important ever:Truth and Lie in every men or women life.
Anne of the Indies (1951)
A woman's desperation defending her sorrow with her sword.
Anne of the Indies is one of my favourite movies.On my point of view,the central theme is the impossibility for a woman to live her own identity as a woman.She is trapped in a male identity,being grown up under Blackbeard's school: sword,ships and pirates.
When she falls in love for the first time,she is unable to express female feelings she feels.She almost ridiculise herself for her love,a new experience,and her own humiliation is exceptionally well acted by Jean Peters.Her desperation became more evident as the film goes on,above all when she has to admit herself her own sorrow after having been betrayed (this betrayal is a terrible event which destroys her under-construction female identity) and she is forced to admit her own weakness she has always tried to hide with a splendid use of her sword. The final scene with Blackbeard planting his sword on the ship floor is fantastic,because he does just the same act that every person who understand the dramatic situation of Anne-Captain Providence would have done.
I find this a marvellous movie,almost perfect:the only scene I don't like too much is the very last,when the name of her ship is cancelled from the register of outlaw ships:on my point of view,Tourneur made an error to show her again.It would have been more effective if the last time we look at her was just when she cries to Blackbeard "Come and take me,old pirate"(I base myself on the italian dubbing).
A moving film,which reminds me of the powerful acting of equally desperate Ella Raines in "Tall in the Saddle".
Anne of the Indies (1951)
A woman's desperation defending her sorrow with her sword.
Anne of the Indies is one of my favourite movies.On my point of view,the central theme is the impossibility for a woman to live her own identity as a woman.She is trapped in a male identity,being grown up under Blackbeard's school: sword,ships and pirates.
When she falls in love for the first time,she is unable to express female feelings she feels.She almost ridiculise herself for her love,a new experience,and her own humiliation is exceptionally well acted by Jean Peters.Her desperation became more evident as the film goes on,above all when she has to admit herself her own sorrow after having been betrayed (this betrayal is a terrible event which destroys her under-construction female identity) and she is forced to admit her own weakness she has always tried to hide with a splendid use of her sword. The final scene with Blackbeard planting his sword on the ship floor is fantastic,because he does just the same act that every person who understand the dramatic situation of Anne-Captain Providence would have done.
I find this a marvellous movie,almost perfect:the only scene I don't like too much is the very last,when the name of her ship is cancelled from the register of outlaw ships:on my point of view,Tourneur made an error to show her again.It would have been more effective if the last time we look at her was just when she cries to Blackbeard "Come and take me,old pirate"(I base myself on the italian dubbing).
A moving film,which reminds me of the powerful acting of equally desperate Ella Raines in "Tall in the Saddle".