Flawless filmmaking on a deeply flawed subject
933569
This review is for the Synapse Special Edition.

This is probably the greatest film ever made. Its only real competition may be&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Citizen-Kane-Two-Disc-Special-Edition/dp/B00003CX9E/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition)</a>and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Seventh-Seal-Criterion-Collection/dp/B001WLMOL4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Seventh Seal (Criterion Collection)</a>.

Let's get this out of the way - the choice of subject matter (promoting Nazis) for the greatest film ever made is, regrettable, to say the least - but that in no way tarnishes its artistic greatness or can deny its impact. This film transcends any subject matter. In case you don't know, this is a propaganda film for the Third Reich and shows various events and speeches, and the German cityscape, people, and countryside. It's an odd movie and very expressionistic. Not what you'd normally associate with a propaganda film.

It is one of those rare films that resounds throughout artistically. It does so in a truly epic fashion. It's every bit as operatic as Wagner. It fuses audio and video in a way never seen before and rarely seen since. Just watch the opening descent sequence. It's jaw dropping. The music and the visuals are still inspiring. It conjures the descent of a god from heaven. It is truly the work of a master of the craft.

Then watch the longshots. There aren't ANY cameras visible. Also, the staging (the films' speeches are almost entirely staged) of the speeches and the marches is mesmerizing (and obviously inspired several Star Wars scenes, btw like the throne room, etc). You can see visual quotes from this movie in hundreds, perhaps thousands of other films, a testament to its enduring filmic legacy.

Features on this DVD include a commentary by a history professor, who serves to put everything in the proper historical perspective. It's pretty interesting if you're intrigued by WWII history or propaganda.

The windowboxing, I honestly do not like very much, I preferred the full frame.  I'm assuming the original was Academy 1.37:1 and this was done to avoid cropping to 1.33:1. Personally I find it profoundly more annoying to look at so much black space, but some purists obviously find this to be important. If you are one of them, take note. If you're not, this is something that may bother you about this edition. The quality of the film transfer is quite good, though.

An absolute must see for any student of film. For cultural historians, ideally seen paired with Capra's series of Allied propaganda films&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Why-We-Fight/dp/B000NHHDZK/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Why We Fight</a>.
2848318
A simple, straight-forward, true, and deeply moving story. Beautifully filmed, with honest performances.  A polished, shining gem.

The premise here, that a boy's single parent, his father, abandons him to the foster system, would have been worked to death by Hollywood with a maudlin script, over-wrought emotion, and cheap, if flashy camera work.  This film should be one for students of the art who genuinely want to honor the craft rather than exploit it.
3315186
Steve James has created a master work of a documentary that is riveting, depressing, exhalting, in a demented way, and unwavering in its verite styled focus.  A disturbingly ignorant extended family with a central character (Stevie), living in Southern Illinois do on a daily basis what you've only heard about in Deliverance and/or Trailor Park Trash type jokes until now.  The film suggests, in its construction, that they are all Victims of a system which leaves so many lost in a reality based only upon superstition and primal emotion.  Learning is apparently eschewed.

Living in Santa Monica, CA and being college graduates my wife and have only faintly understood, until seeing this film, what has led a nation to embrace an inarticulate drunken (with power) cowboy as its chief executive.  "Stevie" is  the most powerful statement that I have ever seen on film regarding the phenomenon of the American rural dilemma which has foisted W. upon us.

In our nation, at this time, this movie suggests to me that we have arrived at the sad cultural truth that superstition and ignorance will trump reason and erudition every time.  When I hear diatribes on hate radio (otherwise referred to as "talk radio") dismissing secular humanism as a banal sin these days I no longer wonder why.  I just think of "Stevie."
1144624
Anonymous takes a popular conspiracy theory about the identity of Shakespeare, mixes it intelligently with some clever parallels in his plays and gives the audience one of the strongest historical thrillers in years. The film moves around timelines mercilessly, introduces a range of characters quickly and doesn't do anything to spoon feed or talk down to the audience. It's extremely well plotted and gives the viewer plenty to think about, even if you never believed the rumors about Shakespeare in the first place.

Considering this comes from the director of The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 BC, the movie also demonstrates a near-perfect use of computer graphics sequences that recreate a long-gone era flawlessly (it's truly hard to believe these aren't elaborate sets). This is aided by the production design generally to illustrate one of the richest backdrops for historical fiction that I've seen in years.

So was this really directed by a Hollywood elite who couldn't be named for political reasons so he handed it off to a much less capable director? Probably not but if this really is Roland Emmerich's work, in reality I have to commend him on producing one of the best films of the year. It well-paced, thoughtful, meticulously plotted - and really should have been up for an Oscar.
1884405
I happened to see this film in Paris, with a largely Muslim audience. My esteem for Paul Greengrass as a director and writer is so profoundly deep that I can give you no other recommendation than that even those superficially unsympathetic to the colonial bravado of the present US regime were moved to stunned silence and mute weeping.

Greengrass is the finest political docu=drama film maker since Nikos Costa-Gavres, whose increasingly accurate portrayals of what may have gone on behind the scenes of political murder made him a target in his own Greece, as well as Pinochet's Chile and Nixon's Amerika. Greengrass has distinguished himself as a first rate film director, and especially as an unflinching witness to truth with his remarkable BLOODY SUNDAY,  the very best film about what started all the bloodshed in the latter half of the 20th Century in Northern Ireland. That film upset all the guilty parties: IRA, UVF, Sinn Fein, DUP, the Brits. Innocent people were gunned down in the name of religio-political extremism. No less an authority on such matters as Jesus Christ himself warned that religion and politics don't mix. At all. Ever. He paid for refusing to politically galvanize his followers to the will of either the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin or the Romans with his life, and the world's been bollixed since.

In the case of 9/11, disenfranchisement led to the usurpation of religious devotion to further an extreme fanaticism, whose motives as practiced in Afghanistan were extremely less than pure. Innocent people board a plane to go to work, go home, go visit, as uninvolved with the circumstances that led to the grievances as any group of people could be. Within minutes, at the scene of mid-air murder, they were ushered to the threshold of the ultimate ethical choice. Socrates could not have imagined a more profound moment. Men and women of the crew lay dead or dying, their throats slashed. Word had come to the passengers that they were being abducted to further more carnage as had already visited a couple of thousand busboys, waiters, potwashers, cops, firemen in NY. Their response went beyond mere heroism. To give up one's life to prevent many others from dying innocently is a sacrifice of such profound reverence that all the politics on either side of this issue are humbled.

Greengrass takes raw material from various accounts and in his cinema-verite, real time style crafts the movement of courage and reverence as it rises to the task at hand. There is definitely a second hijacking going on here as well, and the Muslim actors who portray the villains do so without pandering to stereotype. And maybe that is what rattled the crowd in Paris. It must have struck the audience that how and why religious tenets that were at one point meant to direct the human spirit to the contemplation of the more essential Being could be pornographically corrupted to contemplate and execute mass murder is cause for profound sorrow. And that's as true for Islam as it is for Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism. I'll give the Buddhists a walk on this as they seem to have gotten the point of non-violence.

In Greengrass's film, there is cause for tears and cause for admiration. It is painful to see the recognition of the fate before them among villains and heroes alike. That life should come to these choices is tragedy for Humanity, not just a nation or a cause.

Where is the solution? As one Muslim gentleman said to me on the way out, if these passengers could find the courage to revere life and make the ethical choice, can not we also find the courage to make the ethical choice to meet and resolve our differences. Of course, years ago, this very man had authored a song called "Peace Train."

Go see this film with your family.
4657789
My thoughts are torn over "Skins," one of the few films to chronicle the sad, wasted lives of Native Americans and the bloody history that has informed the misfortunes of nearly an entire culture.
 Directed by Chris Eyre, the movie undeniably has powerful scenes, not the least of which is the closing image, which involves a debasement of Mount Rushmore.
For me, the lasting image from "Skins" is the sight of a local (Gary Farmer) killed by a bear trap set by neighbors. A disbelieving reservation cop (Eric Schwieg) wants an explanation for it -- the bear trap, why nobody answered the obvious calls for help -- and there is none. Not plausible, anyway. So many of the Natives' problems have their roots in something, whether it be a history of abuse or lack of opportunities, but they do not justify much of the mindlessness that has invaded the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Eyre knows that, and to prove his point he makes that cop, Rudy Yellow Lodge, a vigilante who beats criminals and burns down Nebraska liquor shops in his off hours. His efforts, essentially, are just as fruitless as anything else: The drunks still get drunk, the reservation remains mostly hopeless, and the brutal past cannot be changed.
Which brings me to the other side of my thoughts: "Skins," while powerful, is poorly made. The editing, the documentary-style camerawork, some of the acting -- it's simply left wanting. Given the subject matter on the table, the absolute dead-in-the-eye importance of it, it probably sounds like quibbling to criticize production values. Nevertheless, I mention it, because it stands in the way of a better film. You look at "The Fast Runner," an amazing achievement shot on a similar small budget in far harsher conditions, and you get an idea of what "Skins" is lacking. "The Fast Runner" is a masterpiece film generations will return to. Some have hailed "Skins" that way, and it'd be nice if that were true, but the proof isn't on the print.
 When "Skins" does work, it's usually because Graham Greene is onscreen. Greene is Rudy's older brother, Mogie, a relentless-if-remorseful drunk, a failed promise apparently wrecked by a tour in Vietnam. He ambles around the package stores just across the border in Nebraska when he's not working his brother into a frenzy; the fun ends when Rudy torches a liquor store while Mogie's inside trying to left some booze.
 That happens at the halfway point, and "Skins" then shifts into nothingness. The bear trap scene aside, not a lot happens in the movie's final half -- Rudy and Mogie acknowledge the big fire, but never work themselves up over it, while Mogie tries to make peace with his teenage son (Noah Watts). Basically, the last 30 minutes are an elongated "final days" sequence for Greene.
 The final scene is the attention-getter most remember. I admit, it's well-conceived, but the execution of it is amateurish. If you understand editing, you'll wonder why, when the movie's only amazing camera shot is revealed, this shot lasts, at most, two seconds. It aptly sums up "Skins," a movie with a lot to say, and poor visual strategies in which to tell it.
381278
This film is Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece and one of the top movies of the last 50 years.  It develops out of very unlikely material, and is entirely a product of Kubrick's driving, single minded will and control.

Based on a William Thackery novel, the story is what used to be called in art and literature, "the rake's progress" -- take a low born rascal through a series of fortuitous episodes which land him in wealth, then watch his bad character unmake him through another series of episodes.  The set-up reinforced social stereotypes inherent in the British class system; low bred men are inferior.  Thackery was bigger than that, of course, but like all artists was a man of his time and the crack in the product widens with age -- here, the assumed genetic and social inferiority of an Irishman.  Then you have fascinating stuff like decades long European wars, but nobody much is taught about this anymore.  Kubrick picked a deck heavily stacked against him for this tour de force.

And cinematic tour de force it is -- all shot in natural light, narrative (other than adjusting the 1st person voice of the novel to 3rd) straight out of its time.  Nor does Kubrick update moods, dialogue, social assumptions like Amadeus -- he gives you a film that looks like it was actually shot 2 centuries ago, and impresses you with the absolute alienness of many of the characters.  You are hit with how changeable human society is, and yes, very cooly distanced.  Thus the pacing and emotional distance appall many viewers, who think this is because the picture has "dated"  -- no, it was intended and designed to be exactly the way it is.  To not understand this is to not understand the movie; one's dislike may be very genuine, but Kubrick's intentionality has a grand subtle effect:  the tables are turned on Thackery's social determinism.  And the film is so faithful to Thackery that Kubrick here delivers a major lesson:  the only difference is placing a camera in it.  One must remember that Kubrick started out as a photographer and that art is central to his entire ethos and point of view.  Thus too, the silent but spectacular visual message goes, pictures now make us appalled by the tragedy of war, by the realities of racial and social discrimination -- the camera itself is at  near the root of many modern revolutions.

While the rake remains a rake, O'Neal brings wit to the part under Kubrick's tutelage and a large degree of empathy.  Barry Lyndon -- a character now captured on film, no longer just the page -- is seen caught in an invisible social matrix, not only in the assumed inferiority of his origins.  The camera focuses uncompromisingly on lords, kings, soldiers, ladies, 18th century con men, roadside bandits -- all.  The mercilessness of the whole enterprise would be wholly unpalatable but for the splendour and fullness of life recreated here, and the fire of Kubrick's eccentric passion to portray it.

Memorable scenes are too many to catalogue; every performance is great, some despite the distance of time and vision are absolutely wrenching.  Child actors, a Kubrick specialty, were never used better by him.  If, all said, the film lacks the glow of love and humanism, the compensation is heavy wisdom and a startling piece of learning.  With this film, Kubrick establishes the camera not only as a step forward in technology, but a teacher fit to take its place next to the pen, the violin, the artist's canvas.
3514749
The West Virginia mine war is an essential piece of a history that is left out in most accounts of the period.  For an explanation why this and most other labor conflicts are conveniently ommitted read James Loewen's "Lies my Teacher Told Me."

Even without reflecting deeper philosophical and historical trends, the story of Matewan and the mine wars stand alone as a fascinatingly true event.  In fact, even if the story was made up it, the entertainment value alone would make it worthwhile. The film is exciting and poignant, rife with memorable moments (the hillbillies saving Joe from the Baldwin Felts).  Sayle's does an amazing job capturing the flavor of West Virginia "holler" country (employing several local actors and contributors). Furthermoe, as others have mentioned, the cinematography is excellent.

Strictly from a historical perspective, the film is rife with foibles.  For example, the 14 year old preacher and his mom were thread into history as an artificial linchpin. On a more picky note, the historical Matewan would not be surrounded by beautiful mountains (the film was shot in the New River Gorge.) Instead, the hollows at the time were treeless and repugnant from timbering--first by timber companies, then by the railroad companies to build tracks, and finally by coal companies to build towns and tipples. That being said, the central events were delineated with pinpoint accuracy.  Also, the plot and screenplay made vivid the underlying themes and surrounding context of the time.

Some commenters have complained that the portrayal of the workers vs. owners and operators was too simplistic and biased.  Whatever Sayle's personal politics may be, the capitalists were truly that ruthless.  Obviously unions are also prone to flaws, but I thought Sayles shed plenty of light on this fact by showing the racist, xenophobic, and violent elements.  Also, there wasn't much of a "communist" element ever in Southern West Virginia.  What trifling Marxist sentiment that did exist was introduced by the Italian immigrants.  Just because union leaders "preached" themes reminiscient of socialism (resisting exploitation, working class unity), doesn't mean they were controlled from Moscow.

Unfortunately, the West Virginia mine war was a microcosm of American History for the time (and maybe even today).  Huge corporations pulled the puppet strings of local, state, and even the federal government.  The state police and even the Federal Army were sent in to break up the strike before the mine war was over.  What is more amazing, I did not know that the largest labor uprising in American history occurred in WV until I took a class in West Virginia History.  Being a resident in the state, I was shocked to hear that the federal gov't used chemical and aerial warfare against its own citizens.

Most of the major "war" elements happened after Matewan (in fact, the battle of blair mountain was triggered by the assassination of Sid Hatfield).  For a in depth non-fiction account of the period, read "Thunder in the Mountains" by Lon Savage. For a historical fiction account, read Denise Giardina's "Storming Heaven."  Like Matewan, "Storming Heaven" is historically accurate to the point of describing the themes and happenings, however it too is given fake characters for coherency.
1685272
engaging story; superb acting; wonderful cinematography
1107550
I'm amazed that this masterpiece of film art isn't available on DVD.  It should be.

Even without the benefit of music this must be one of the most rivetting films I've ever encountered.  It is a fairly literal adaption of "Mc Teague" by Frank Norris, a realist author who straddled the last century.  It is brilliantly brought to the screen by Erich von Stroheim, a Hollywood director of considerable merit who fell out of favor with his boss and with the system in general.

The film's extreme length made it impossible to screen successfully and the many attempts to pare it down were well-meaning but doomed to failure.  Nevertheless, what remains is still wonderful to look at with some electrifying performances and a deliberate, inevitable pace.  ZaSu Pitts was a remarkable actress who was hampered with a jarring voice when the talkies came around.  Her dramatic ability needs to be experienced to be believed.  Gibson Gowland is also wonderful in his role as Mc Teague.

There was a reconstruction of what the film might have aimed at, using
still photographs for the missing footage that is not very successful in the long run.  The original film, cut up so badly, is still extremely successful.  I would recommend it to anyone interested in film but why it is currently unavailable is a mystery to me.

Curtis Stotlar
1410172
Don't be deterred by anyone dismissing 'Hourglass Sanatorium' as a disjointed exercise in excess.  Yes, it demands patience and a willingness to find its wave-length among its visual and thematic vicissitudes.  However this is a puzzle box of a film that trusts us to draw upon our own perceptions, biases, educations and politics to decipher its wonders.  Yet there's nothing random here -- each sequence, transition and contextual reference to ethnic and class struggles is precisely plotted.  Director W. Has immerses us in a dream-state/nightmare, wandering a dolorous landscape that few filmmakers are able to accomplish (think of Altman's "3 Women" and "Fellini Satyricon".)  Each set-up, choice of lens and angle drives us on towards Has' parallax view of socio-political mania.  In the end it commits the sin of running 15 minutes longer than required to create its impact and it will most likely vex the majority of contemporary audiences, who demand a pre-fab plot-line.  Still if one can find its rhythm and measure, they're in for an unforgettable "nachtmare".
(This comment is based on the restored blu-ray DVD import: tech specs are A-1.)
2619328
The over long Valley of Elah delivers its anti-war sermon with all the subtlety of a sledghammer.  Trust us, we get it.  War turns people into creatures their parents don't recognize.  It always has and it always will--that's what war is, and several much better movies have addressed it, like The Deer Hunter and Born on the Fourth of July.  If VOE had contented itself with being a murder mystery and character study and let us draw our own conclusions on the order of The Hurt Locker, it would have been a much more powerful film.  As it is, we're bludgeoned by both the main plot and an unnecessary subplot about an Army wife who is terrified of her husband.  Throw in an element about how the flag is flown just in case we missed things the first time around, and the message becomes borderline insulting.

Inspired by a true story as is most fiction, the gist of the plot is that Pvt. Mike Deerfield has gone AWOL shortly after returning from combat in Iraq.  His father Hank, who just happens to be an ex MP is alerted to Mike's status by a phone call from the base attempting to locate him.  Hank solves the case despite the obstacles and lack of enthusiasm he gets from the Army and the local police and some very painful information he unearths. And oh, yeah--did I tell you the Army and the local police weren't helping much?  The title comes from the Biblical location of David's epic slaying of Goliath, but I have no idea what that has to do with this story.

*Spoiler Alert*
What is given the buildup for a grand conspiracy turns out to be a squalid, pointless Saturday night crime rather easily solved.

That said, this movie is a must see for the splendid acting which makes the weak script irrelevant.  Charlize Theron is a wonderfully understated detective, Susan Sarandon is heartbreaking as Mike's mother, and Josh Brolin is a splendid good ol' boy police chief.  The standout however, is Tommy Lee Jones' exquisitely nuanced performance.  As Hank, Jones manages to balance and make believable an experienced investigator's exasperation with incompetence, a father's guilt, love and pain, and a soldier's discipline.  It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen and thank goodness the director had enough sense to spend a lot of time on Jones' face.  At best, this movie would rate two stars for script alone, and three stars only without Jones' stunning performance.  See this movie for the acting alone.  It's worth it.
3409082
There have been a few films in the past decade presented outside of the adult film industry that included graphic sexuality, almost all from Europe... though to my mind this is the first to show such honest and warmly sensual sexuality. If you've actually made genuine, heartfelt love to someone, you're not likely to be offended by anything you see or hear. Just the opposite.

But aside from the nudity and surprisingly graphic nature of what goes on, there's so much more here. There's a political message that needs to be told, and it's delivered with a calm and easy hand.

The heroine (Now) is a creature of intelligence, genuine love and simple, unquestioning compassion the likes of which one seldom finds in film, or for that matter in life. The leads in this small cast effort let loose and express real emotion in a way that almost convinces you that they're lovers in real life, though they only met after being cast.

Writer and director Phillipe Diaz has created a small masterpiece. The scenes are long and languid, the script is conversational - this is how people actually talk to each other. Above all else it's difficult to imagine another actress bringing this story to life as exquisitely as Shari Solanis, whose performance is worthy of an Academy Award, though this will never happen.

Very, very highly recommended to those with open minds and open hearts. I can honestly say that after watching film both as entertainment and as an essential art form for over four decades, I've never seen anything quite like it. Unforgettable. Perhaps even a turning point in contemporary cinema.
2605344
Akira Kurasawa may be the greatest director of all time and it is very presumptuous of me to attempt to rate this film.  I had seen it several times on TCM and decided that I needed to be able to see it frequently to try and discover all the nuances of this extraordinary film.  Basically, Kurasawa uses some of his best company actors, notably Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Minoru Chiaki with cinematographer Miyagawa and musician Fumio Hayasaka to create one of the best films ever made.

The story of a rape and a murder is told through the eyes of three different people, three different points of view and three different realities or truths.  The viewer must decide what really happened and whether what happened really matters in the overall scheme of things.  Are people and events ever really what they seem to be on the surface?  The black and white cinematography is dazzling, the music brilliant and the plot unfolds in a very masterful way with the viewer forced to look more carefully at the inherent qualities of truth and at the nature of humanity.

This is a marvelous film with great commentary so that even the uninitiated need not fear a lack of understanding.  This great film is available at Amazon for a great price...an offer you cannot refuse!

Susan Johnston
2962506
I think it is easy to get the wrong idea about this film. It is about so much, and much of it is uncomfortable to watch in many ways. If you focus on what might be considered the 'biggest' aspect of the story, you might just miss what is really important about it.

Part of what makes 'The Constant Gardener' hard to watch is that it is so well done. Shot and edited in a gritty, almost documentary style, I felt like I was watching something that was, in ways, more intimate and more real than I should have been seeing. It's a hard illusion to pull off, but here it is accomplished admirably well. Fine performances by all the actors, and in particular the leads, Ralph Fiennes and the stunning Rachel Weisz in her best role to date, make this a compellingly authentic film, one that is difficult to extract yourself from once you are in it.

On the surface, 'The Constant Gardener' is about Western pharmaceutical companies and the lengths they will go to to get their drugs to market before their competitors. This is an unstated evil in our culture, a secret we all know about but do not speak of, and this film makes a bold stab against it. Ralph Fiennes, as Justin Quayle, spends much of the film following his dead wife's trail, uncovering the dirty deals and dangerous (sometimes fatal) practices of one such company and one particular drug, and it just seems the more he digs, the worse it gets. It portrays well how Western companies abuse the vulnerable state of many African nations, where the people there do not get the medications they need and how big drug companies take advantage of this. This alone makes it a hard movie to watch.

At its core, however, this is not just a political movie with a point to make. At its heart, 'The Constant Gardener' is a moving story of the love between two people. In following the trail of his wife Tessa after her death, Justin revisits his relationship with her.  We see how they met and how their love grew, and we see the passionate woman Tessa was -- passionate about many things. On his journey, Justin rediscovers his wife and his love for her, and he discovers just how much she loved him as well. He learns, along the way, how he could have loved her better. The ending, while sad in a sense, is also beautiful and very moving. It's the only way it could have ended to complete its story.

This is a movie about secrets -- political secrets and the secrets of global economies, but also about the intimate secrets lovers keep, between one another and from one another. Though it may seem like a political story on the surface, it is really the story of a passionate love between two people, one which doesn't end even in death. Though it may be uncomfortably intimate at times, in the end it is a beautiful, heartbreaking film, and worth watching more than once.
846817
In all too many films, I find myself let down because the writing is so bad.  Some of the very worst are by directors who also want to be writers but who can't really write. When I find out who they are, I thereafter avoid their films. I never trouble myself with thoughts like these in seeing a David Mamet film though since he is first and foremost a writer.  As usual, he brings his superb screenwriting skills to this vehicle, which he also directed, and turns it into pure gold.  He places William H. Macy front and center as a film director who is trying to bring a film in on budget in New England although disaster looms on every front.  I frankly never thought Macy could be a funny, ha-ha kind of actor but he is absolutely hilarious as this director with a bunker mentality. I also never thought Philip Seymour Hoffman could play a romantic lead but in this film he does so admirably with Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon.  Hoffman is the writer on the film and Pidgeon becomes his muse and support system in one as she takes over his heart.

Alec Baldwin plays himself as an obnoxious movie star and is also perfect doing so. He brings the chief conflict into the film, the prospect of the film's being shut down because of his penchant for bedding underage girls.  Perhaps the most brilliant casting of all though is David Paymer, as producer Marty, who is perfect in every scene as the Machievellian man who will do anything to reach his end goal, bringing the film in. This film reminds me of Preston Sturges' "Travels of Sullivan," a masterpiece of screwball comedy.  Mamet is not really known for comedy but rather for incisive drama.  You'd never know that, however, from seeing this film.  You'd think he'd been doing comedy all of his life.  The only other comic film of his that I can recall is "Things Change," also a superb film.  All of Mamet's work is a must-see for me and I am rarely disappointed with the results.

Visit my blog with link given on my profile page here or use this phonetically given URL (livingasseniors dot blogspot dot com). Friday's entry will always be weekend entertainment recs from my 5 star Amazon reviews in film, tv, books and music. These are very heavy on buried treasures and hidden gems. My blogspot is published on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
984928
This movie really fits the word "mysterious."  I have never seen a film as many times, and each time derived a new meaning, a new insight out of it. One watches it once simply to figure out what happens, ie, the breakup of a marriage, and a second to start picking up the signs of why the couple drifts apart.

Calendar satisfies on so many levels: as I heard Arsinee Khanjian's voice pleading with her photographer husband to pick up the phone, my breath stopped - her voice conveys such pain, so much emotion, and she is half a world away!  It is a beautiful film that shows 11 Armenian churches and one pre-Christian temple, gorgeously lensed.

Egoyan, as many of you may know, is regarded as one of the pre-eminent directors out there today, and in Calendar, it's obvious how he earned his stripes.  He mixes monochrome(and rough looking video) with more refined 35mm film, but the effect is completely coherent; it doesn't feel pretentious at all.

But what steal the show are the performances.  Arsinee Khanjian has a wonderful performance as a soulful woman who takes a chance at love.  Atom Egoyan plays a modern photographer who is an emotional void, a cipher.  Ashot Adamian plays the guide who attracts Khanjian, who opts to stay in Armenia after the picture shoot is done.  There is one scene, however, which sent chills up my spine: At a derelict castle, a man who only speaks Armenian recounts an incident of its history.  I don't speak a word of the language, but his voice, his inflection, and the way Khanjian listened and what she says to her husband are completely riveting.  There are no subtitles, no explanation of what the old man says, but it is a brilliant scene hinting at the power of language to convey happenings of long ago.

There is a theme Egoyan is chiseling here: how modern life drains out the soul from people.  All the characters are of Armenian descent, but Egoyan, the most westernized character, seems bland, colorless, without real thoughts (which gets pointed out in the pagan temple scene.) Khanjian, Adamian and the man at the castle seem much more self-possesed,  more in touch with some vital and passionate current.

In twenty years, this movie will be regarded as one of the classics of cinema.  It is deliberately enigmatic, not easy to figure out, but yields a treasure box of wisdom.  Please see this film for yourself and get as much meaning from this gem as you can.