Aesthetic, wonderfully-acted masterpiece by Fiennes and Tyler
596315
This is a top-five favorite of mine.  Directed by Ralph Fiennes' sister and musically scored by his brother, this movie is based on Pushkin's masterpiece poem-novel. The photography, acting, and message are superb.  If you like this movie, please also consider Last of the Mohicans, First Knight, House of Flying Daggers, and The Count of Monte Cristo for other visually gorgeous, wonderfully-acted and -directed stories.
1534049
This 1996 film adaptation of the 1994 RSC stage production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is marvelous.  The acting is outstanding throughout the cast and the beauty of Shakespeare's language shines like a jewel.  The costuming and setting are a rather non distinct present day time.  The  stage design is quite different than anything I've seen before - quite  original and quite effective.  The woods around Athens are represented by a  blank stage with hanging light bulbs and various moveable doors about the  set.  Umbrellas are used in a number of unique and creative ways both to  denote scene changes and as the bowers in fairyland.  Also creatively used  is a doll-house.  Another unusual aspect of this production is the use  of a young boy and his dream as a framing device for the play.  The boy is  also the "Changling Child" and he observes each of the scenes and takes  part in the scene changes.  Fairyland is often the most difficult effect  for a modern director to conceive and Noble's concepts are both effective  and delightful.  The doubling of Theseus / Oberon and Hippolyta /  Titania also works to tie the storylines together thematically.  The  staging of the Pyramus and Thisby play within a play during the fifth act  is both touching and funny and again Noble's direction brings out  Shakespeare's messages about the nature of love in a most perceptive  manner.  My only criticism of the casting (and it is a very minor one)  involves the two female lovers.  As Shakespeare wrote the play, Helena is a  tall blonde.  In this production  Emily Raymond as Helena is a short-haired  brunette only an inch or so taller than Monica Dolan's long-haired brunette  Hermia.  Both actresses' performance is superb, and the similarity of their  looks does increase the confusion and emphasizes the theme of the lack of  reason when considering love.  Demetrius and Lysander are virtually  interchangeable as Shakespeare wrote them.  At 103 minutes, the play  moves along briskly and some cutting of lines must have occurred but the  cuts must be deftly handled because I didn't notice them.  All of the  famous passages are there as well as all the memorable quotes.  I consider  this production much superior to the more well known and highly publicized  lavish Hollywood 1999 production directed by Michael Hoffman starring  Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and  Stanley Tucci.
 I give this production five stars.
3844759
Michael Radford's film of George Orwell's novel is perhaps the greatest cinematic adaptation ever made from a well-known literary source, and it stands out as one of the most memorable and underrated British films of the past thirty years.  Radford treats the book neither as grim political prophecy nor as  Wellsian flight of sci-fi futurist speculation.  Instead, we are presented with the ruined world of 1948 as seen through a glass darkly - NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR done straight as a kind of medieval morality play for the post-totalitarian age.  The end credits inform us, with but a modest air of self-importance, that the picture was shot "in and around London, April-June 1984, at the exact place and time imagined by the author."  And the uncanny meta-fictional parallels don't stop there: the actors are so close to Orwell's descriptions, they practically seem born for their roles.
Resembling a gaunt, ashen-faced figure out of Egon Schiele, John Hurt is ideally cast as Winston Smith.  As Julia, Suzanna Hamilton (first seen as a lovelorn dairymaid in Polanski's TESS and then as the paralyzed daughter in BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE) has a haunting and mysteriously stirring presence.  Beyond the bluff, two-dimensional gamine of the novel, she brings a genuine warmth, substance, and fascination to her character - a little reminiscent, at times, of a young Harriet Andersson sans the continental coquettishness.  Her pale, wiry, broad-hipped body has a simple, unaffected, even startling beauty; and in her more physically revealing scenes (there are many in the film), she radiates all the tactile sensual grace of a nude by Munch or Degas.
The late Richard Burton, featured in his last screen role, is the oracular Thanatos to Hamilton's Eros.  As the grand inquisitor, O'Brien, he inhabits this shadowy and inscrutable character with more than just a sly hint of the demon-plagued Jesuit priests he portrayed in THE EXORCIST II and ABSOLUTION.  In a maliciously Swiftian twist of irony, the famous Burton voice - the voice of classical drama, of poetry, indeed, of all that is held to be ennobling and edifying about mankind's estate - becomes a subtle and precisely modulated instrument of dehumanization.  His death shortly after completing work on the film lends it a particularly cruel and all-too-human pathos.  When he says to Hurt, "you are thinking that my face is old and tired...and while I talk of power I am unable to prevent the decay of my own body," the lines in Burton's craggy, weathered face speak volumes for him.  It's an exquisite swan-song performance, patient and quietly devastating.
In addition to the superb ensemble cast, much credit is due to production designer Allan Cameron and cinematographer Roger Deakins, who shoots everything in a grainy, desaturated monochrome of blues and greys.  The stark high-contrast photography often evokes the power and purity of Dreyer and Bresson, and there is even one extraordinary shot of a battered and delirious Hurt awaiting torture that is an unmistakable homage to Falconetti's famous haircutting scene in LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC.  Also notable is Dominic Muldowney's operatic score, an ingenious and even moving parody of Elgar's patriotic overtures and Prokofiev's Stalinist anthems.  But it is Phyllis Logan (the star of Radford's first feature, ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE, and a supporting player in Mike Leigh's SECRETS AND LIES) who provides the film with one its most caustic conceits.  As the unseen voice of the Telescreen Announcer, her incessant nannyish hectoring suggests a more shrill caricature of Margaret Thatcher.
The film is impressive less for its fidelity to its source than its harrowingly vivid sense of realism, and how unobtrusively Radford manages to transcend the faults and contradictions of the novel to create an entirely plausible dystopian vision with a life of its own.  That in itself makes NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR a great and original piece of filmmaking - its seamless perfection is still practically unequaled in the English-language cinema of recent years.
155559
This is masterful and precious storytelling about two middle-aged people: a has-been actress and a homeless man whom she's bumped into on the street and mistaken for a movie director. Intrigued, hungry, and lonely, he  assumes this director's identity and they spend the day together, deceiving  each other in the most loving and heroic ways.  This movie must be watched  over and over again, listened to carefully, savored.  The poetic honesty of  the two lovers and the plight of the homeless men in the shelter where the  man lives are all interwoven and depicted so fleetingly, so powerfully,  that you'll want to stop the tape and rewind it in several places just to  get the full impact of the characters and how they influence each other's  destinies.  The scuzzy realism of the homeless shelter is juxtaposed  beautifully with the lyrical speeches of the lovers as they woo each other  with their individual stories about life and disappointment and lost youth.  But, they haven't lost hope, and that's why I adore this film.  If you  want to see a small, beautifully crafted film acted by two world-class  Shakespearean-trained British actors in the lead roles, I guarantee you  won't be disappointed.
2583612
Using absolutely stunning imagery and sets with a artistically shot work, Girl With a Pearl Earring is a beautiful picture with a relatively thin story.  Recreating the Flemish 17th century to tell the story about an enigmatic yet less than revolutionary painting might seem like little to which a story could be built about especially in comparison to "the Da Vinci Code" but this movie establishes a pretty notable plot and delivers the audience a convincing feel once again proving that good movies can be built on minimal premise if done with an attention to detail and a sense of caring.  All that being said this movie could be viewed with the sound off and still be impressive.  The costumes are very authentic and not overly garish or even too clean like we often see in period piece film.  The sets used are too well done both in the adorned homes and the bawdy and ruff taverns.  But something more is working in this film: there is a plot as tightly woven as the alleys of a Flemish walled city with as many loves, lies and secrets that any one romance film can handle.

The film painstakingly assures the viewers of the class differences between the servants including Griet, the girl with the pearl earring, the artist and his upper class clients.  This is historically accurate and well portrayed.  Though the script is relatively austere the pictures provide words unto themselves.  Using the copious Flemish and Dutch still life paintings as a guide to the style of the age it appears that the set designers may have laid the imagery on a little thick but never the less this is an art movie and a movie about art so the more allusion the better even if it is at the expense of realism.  I enjoyed the film and while the ending is less than a resolution to the plot it was effective.  Vermeer is one of those artists that, in spite of his enormous talent, seems to get less than his full share of regard in the pantheon of European masters.  I certainly think this film provides some needed recognition and is a very good period piece film.  I recommend this as a top rank romantic film and a decent art film all alike. For students of history and art history this film to provides a great background on an era though it must be remembered that this is historical fiction.  Overall very enjoyable!

-- Ted Murena
837486
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. This isn't just a typical kung fu dependent movie with only a nod to cobbling together a half baked story line.

This is an artistically and intellectually exquisite cinematic achievement with few equals.
The Tan Dun (Met Opera's The First Emperor with Placido Domingo) score is lovely.

The choreography and special effects are ethereal as is the breathtakingly subtle beauty of the sets.
2702558
Oh, i was just so wonderfully excited when i was informed that this visual extravaganza,one of Fellini's most famous, and, daring movies, was in fact getting the "Criterion's treatment"! What a perfect choice: this time, Fellini goes wild telling of Rome at its rowdy ancient times, with a formidable, and visionary reconstruction, perfectly served by the 'maestro', who doesn't worry about the budget, obviously, but creates, and, invents segments , that are truly art in motion and become a feast  for the eyes composed of exquisitely presented, designed, and photographed beauty! This is a movie that is truly one of a kind, thanks also to the contributions of an excellent, ensemble work from a first class international cast, and crew: they achieve such visuals and momentum, sometime you'd think to be watching a master's painting instead, it's that kind of luxury fascinating all audiences with the most beautiful, and vibrant colors, just stunning to look at ! And, there's hardly a dull moment in "Satyricorn": it is a delightful, and never less than compelling, Art Film you get to watch, and to taste, almost as if it was a very fine wine,  as intoxicating as it is highly dreamy. A cast of a thousand faces helps the show to take off, too, while Martin Potter and Hiram Keller,  are quite unforgettable, as the two lead characters who never seem afraid to live in the moment some of the most outrageous parties the days had to offer, but you realize soon they are tragically lost, always looking for something that isn't  clearly there: they are two adventurous young men open to all what life has to offer, but, ultimately, missing love and communion, faith and hope. After all they are portrayed as icons of the most exuberant, and most decadent days of  the fierce Roman Empire and of its greedy and deceitful society who does never stop wanting more and more, ignoring others, and rarely giving or caring, as they are selfishly way too engaged in facing the present, to be able to worry about the future! They live on, spending all the strength and wealth, brought by the power, to exhaustion, and, without remorse, but,  actually, almost consuming themselves through an array of increasingly incessant, mysterious, isolating functions, often enforcing cruel mores and laws, while a perpetuating restlessness and its visible lack of justice and sensibility, often it's haunting the narration as an omen hinting to this insane living at the search of the ultimate pleasure, as a darker sensation that is obviously suggesting the advent of much less lavish and carefree days ahead! The harrowing wild crowd however seems way too addicted to the luxury, and to a somewhat sick and insatiable desire for whatever they can get a kick out of living, to be able to expect, or even to care for the end of their foolish run. Fellini is excellent indeed in recreating that world with all of its damnation, greed, and despair that eventually will take the Empire to its ruinous fall. And, i will add that Criterion delivers as usual, and this version of the movie is restored to be indeed a true spectacle, and a joy for the eyes. If you haven't seen this movie before, this is certainly the best way to see it today, and, if you already have seen it, instead, this is the opportunity for a second (or third ..) experience of this unique piece, one of the gems encrusting the work of outstanding genius director, and true master, Federico Fellini, a man who highly, and so successfully, contributed to change the movies and their art, revealing a whole new world of winning creation, amazing and arresting visuals, finding a whole new sense of the media and ways to modern storytelling.
2525224
"Finding Neverland" is one of the best movies I've seen in a very long time.  The cast was well chosen; the actors did a great job on their own and interacted with each other successfully to create a perfect blend of personalities.  The performances were very believable and the characters' relationships played out well, growing naturally over the time span represented.  I cared very much about the characters - always the goal in films and plays, but not always the result.  A longtime fan of both Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, I was very pleased to see wonderful performances from each of them again in this film.  The children were real, fully developed characters - not just walk-ons or used as "window dressing".  Young Peter's turmoil nearly broke my heart.  The filming was beautiful throughout - even knowing the story of Peter Pan, seeing it presented to the theater audience and the private showing at the family's home, watching the first time viewers' surprise and delight pulled me into the story with a new sense of wonder.  As the title of my review states, I found this film thoroughly enchanting - absolutely worthy of its Best Picture Oscar nomination.  I bought the DVD a week ago and have watched it three times so far - still smiling, laughing and crying as the moment touches me.  This will be a favorite film of mine for a very long time.
834806
Visually The Painted Veil is an inspiringly beautiful film start to finish. Adapted from Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel and starring Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, and a bravely makeup-eschewing Diana Rigg, The Painted Veil tells us of Walter Fane, a young doctor (so many of Maugham's characters were doctors) who falls in love with Kitty Garstin, a beautiful woman from a moneyed family, who impulsively weds the doctor in order to both escape and punish her callous mother. Soon finding herself re-located along with her husband to Shanghai, Kitty is stranded on the far side of the world amid unfamiliar people and places, married to a man she does not love and with whom she has virtually nothing in common. In the wake of his wife's eventual affair with a caddish playboy, Dr. Fane forces Kitty to move with him once more, this time into the primitive countryside of the Chinese interior, where a cholera epidemic is taking human life in appalling numbers long unseen back in Europe. Where once he had been filled with passionate love for Kitty, Walter now hates himself for ever loving her, and treats Kitty with punitive coldness and disdain. Isolated, facing horrors nothing in either of their pasts has prepared them for, the couple enter an existence which tries the human spirit, and recreates each of them into something greater than either could once ever have been. Maugham's story of romantic love, betrayal, redemption and higher love is magnificently unfolded here in one of the more worthwhile novel-to-screen productions of the decade. The Painted Veil is a twenty-first-century masterpiece.
1088395
This is one of my favorite movies. The cast loved making it and it really shows. The cinematography is breathtaking in the dance sequences and the general flow of the film, with intercutting of pseudo-"Movietone" newsreels is great with never a dull moment, right until the climax of the film, which brings tears to my eyes almost every time I watch it. For me the highlights were "Heaven", "There's no business like showbusiness" and "They can't take that away from me". The whole production has a very stylish look and feel. I loved Brannagh's productions of "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Othello", but I love this one most of all.
4669357
Director Jane Campion's ("The Piano") production of the love story of poet John Keats and Fannie Brawne is really a fine film and the most beautifully filmed movie I have seen since probably "The Girl With the Pearl Earring." Unlike that film, however, which consisted of visually pleasing frames with very little action, "Bright Star" slowly but surely builds into a climax that will break your heart. The cinematography is beautiful beyond description. It is as if Vermeer came back to life as a photographer.

That Ms. Campion has given us a film about a Nineteenth Century dying poet who falls in love with his next-door neighbor that engages the most jaded of us speaks to her genius as a film director. That she is able to have the actors speak from the poems and letters of Keats to Brawne and make them believable and moving also speaks to her talent. This story in the hands of a lesser director could have sunk into sentimental nothingness, but it does not. You do not have to be a lover of romantic poetry to relate to this movie since it is about a mother who does not want her daughter to marry a poor poet who has no visible means of supporting her and a love affair that because of a mortal illness is destined for tragedy. Surely these themes are as relevant in 2010 as they were in the Nineteenth Century.

One final comment: as the credits go up, there is a voice-over of the reading of "Ode to A Nightingale." I had forgotten just how incredibly wonderful the best of Keats' poetry can be. Certainly it should be read aloud if you want to get the full enjoyment of it.
2706111
I have not read Evelyn Waugh's novel upon which this movie is based, nor have I seen the BBC mini series, so my review comes from a less critical standpoint that those who know and love the book or mini series.

The film is a rich examination of how love and guilt are often at war, the interplay of class and religious upbringing, and how incredibly difficult it is to carve out one's own happiness. The story follows the protagonist Charles Ryder (Mathew Goode), a self proclaimed atheist, as he becomes immersed in the world of the Marchmain family (stolid Catholics) and their immense and glorious estate Brideshead, from which the film draws its title. Ryder is of a lower social class: a student at Oxford, befriended by the wayward son of the Marchmain family, Sebastian. Through Sebastian, Ryder is ushered into a world unknown to him, a world that he would very much like to remain in the midst of.

Ryder is entranced by the two eldest Marchmain children: Julia (Hayley Atwell) and Sebastian (Ben Whishaw), both of whom he is in love with, albeit it very different ways: infatuation with Sebastian, followed by a powerful and heartbreaking desire for Julia. In the midst of these relations is Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), a matriarchal mother and staunch Catholic who embodies piety and power, and who knows how to use either to affect her wishes. Emma Thompson is perfectly cast, and she steals the screen in almost every scene in which she appears. Referring to Ryder as a "painter from Paddington," and "a very reliable boy," she enlists his aid to watch over Sebastian, whose homosexual tendencies have not escaped her notice. Ryder is happy to comply, unable or unwilling to see the eventual outcome of his actions.

The centerpiece of the massive fountain at Brideshead is the god Atlas, carrying the world on his shoulders. Shown in essential scenes throughout the film, it is an apt metaphor for virtually all of the characters in the film who each carry their formidable shame and guilt like a physical burden. Each seems unable to free themselves from the torments of conscience, even at the cost of losing the possibility of a happier life. Ultimately, it is Ryder who reflects on his life, an older and unhappily wiser man, asking "did I want too much?"

The Catholicism presented in the film is ugly, harsh, and at times even a straw-man to be battered apart by director Julian Jarrold. It is presented largely through imagery and implication, never allowed to have a voice of its own. Even near the end of the film, Jarrold forces Julia to speak in generalities: "I cannot turn away from His mercy," (roughly quoted). This is my sole complaint with the film, as the  decisions made by the characters and the outcomes of those decisions do not seem to line up with the attempt at a redemptive ending. There is nothing in the film to convince the viewer, much less Ryder, than faith in a higher power has anything to offer except misery.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED is an extremely well made movie. Shot with with a lovely sense of color and style and featuring one of the best Dolby Digital sound tracks I've ever heard in a drama, the movie is near perfect from a technical standpoint. I was very impressed with the visuals and the clarity of the picture (which I watched on an upconvering DVD player).

The sets and locations are also deserving of high praise. A welcome diversity of locals elevate the film from a typical period drama, and include Oxford, Castle Howard (standing in for Brideshead), Morocco, and my personal favorite, a luxury cruise liner. Art direction is also a standout, with beautiful costumes (especially those worn by Julia) throughout.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED is a challenging film for atheist and those of faith alike. The questions it asks about human nature, the fleeting nature of happiness, and the sheer difficulty of finding it, are well worth asking and well presented. Captivating throughout, this is a film worth examining closely over multiple viewings.

4.5/5 Stars.
3350160
This 1968 film is packed with intense drama, conflict, intrigue and passion. It was formerly a play by James Goodman, who adapted it to the screen, with every bit of its ruthless intrigue in the court of King Henry II in 1183 intact, enhanced by some excellent cinematography depicting what life must have been like in a world where the King was all powerful.  Anthony Harvey did a masterful job of directing, and I was captivated by the way he brought this intense rendering of the power, politics and conflicting wills to the screen.
Peter O'Toole stars as the 50-year old Henry, who is in the process of selecting one of his three sons to inherit his throne.  Will it be John, his young favorite, played by Negel Terry, only sixteen years old and not very bright?  Or will it be Richard, played by a youthful Anthony Hopkins, the oldest and most despised because his mother favors him?  Or will it be Geoffrey, played by John Castle, the schemer.  This is not a simple decision, of course.  Everybody hates each other with venom rarely depicted on screen or in life.  And perhaps the most venomous of all is Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, a role that won Katherine Hepburn, then 60, an Academy Award.  There is such animosity between her and the King that she has been imprisoned in a tower for the past ten years and is only allowed out for Christmas and state occasions.
It's Christmas now and the family is gathered in one of the King's many castles.  Henry flaunts his young mistress, played by Jane Morrow, who is the sister of the King of France, played by Timothy Dalton. Everybody loathes each other and the intrigue is ruthless and constant.  This is all shown though dialogue - dialogue so well written that I found myself cringing at the cruel insults and betrayals. All we see is hatred and more hatred.  And yet, in one of her greatest roles, Katherine Hepburn's role shines. Underneath it all, there is love. I can't possibly imagine any other actress in the role.
As the film unfolded I felt I was in the presence of genius. It's a work of pure art.  Every line has meaning.  Every gesture, every glance and every action went well below the surface of the words.  I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, not only because of the great performances, but also because of the many twists and turns of the plot.  Clearly, this is one of the most perfect films I have ever seen.  I give it my highest recommendation.  Not to be missed.
2431372
Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia" is ambitious, stunning, and revelatory. The performances are all excellent. The use of hand-held cameras gave the movie a grittier, more realistic feel than, say, "Dogville."

The early scenes at the dinner reception brought to mind the similar shakily unease of the same wedding-related dinner sequences in Jonathon Demme's excellent "Rachel Getting Married." (Although "The Silence of the Lambs" is still his greatest picture.)

Von Trier's previous film, "Antichrist," was great in the sense that it came directly from his own disturbed psyche, and without any sugar-coating just to get an R rating. That was what made it fascinating to me.

"Melancholia," however, is a truly great film, even a classic one, if I may be so bold (and I'll take that as a "yes"). It is Von Trier's best picture ("Dogville" is now in second place). Absorbing and intimate, "Melancholia" is a probing examination of what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be a part of humanity.

- Ken Johnson
663882
It's hard to put in words the essential terms which describe that brilliant masterpiece .
Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert made an eternal film. The poetry envolves the plot from start to end. The locations, the superb performances of Barrault like the mime and Maria Casares are amazing. The atmosphere you breathe since the first sequence , seems to carry us to another dimension, to that extatic experience that trascends us. When an artistic expression gets it (like Beethoven's Eroica or Miguel Angel's Sixtine ) ,  becomes unique due to its  originality. Carne gave us big remarkable films like Le jour se leve, The night visitors , Les portes de la nuit, Le quai de brumes and Therese Raquin, but none of them will reach the height of that monumental work . A must for every human being , in any age, because like a genuine masterpiece, it goes far away its historical circunstance and maintains the eternal freshness for all the eternity.
A venezuelan poet (Rafael Cadenas) said once upon a time: "The genius is always contemporean" .
And the rest is silence (Shakespeare - Julius Caesar)
2609317
Superb acting, great set design, wonderful story. Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep give amazing and heartfelt performances in this moving period piece.
3327786
From the very beginning of the film, I was struck by the vivid depictions of London life in the late 16th century.  I felt it was all so real, I was transported through time.
The actors are all wonderful, especially  Gwyneth Paltrow, and the screenwriters didn't miss a thing;  the story is  so tight and well-polished and has a thorough knowledge of Shakespeare.  It's a wonderful film, but don't knock it if you haven't seen it.