Goodfellas and Jaws

I had my new friend Karyn over to watch these two with me. We discussed them, exchanged funny comments and so on. Its nice watching movies with friends, I’ve really missed it! Anyways, I’m going to use Karyn as an excuse for my reviews being short and crap because she distracted me from my note-taking!!! Both films neither of us had seen before which was good.

Pulp Fiction, Apocalypse Now and Taxi Driver

I thought there was no point doing three separate posts as I pretty much watched these movies back to back to save time. I have one more film to watch tonight and it will probably be Fight Club which I will review separately.

Heat

Awwww. I was disappointed by this movie. Very disappointed. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. You’d think it would be an awesome film but it just didn’t click with me. Well, I only started to really get into it 2 hours into the movie which is never a good thing. I don’t know exactly what it was but I found myself a little bored and not caring about any characters for 2 hours. Then, it was only during the last 50 minutes that I started to get excited and care about the characters.

Pacino is the cop, De Niro is the ‘bad man’ and him and a group of other guys rob stuff. That’s pretty much the plotline.

Once Upon a Time in America

This movie is about the lives of a group of Jewish mobsters from when they were teenagers robbing the drunk to men stealing diamonds. Its very good but, in my opinion, could of done with a little more editing. However, I know this movie was edited without the director’s permission and turned out to be crap so I know that it needs to be longer to ‘work’ but I could see areas that weren’t needed.

The editing sequence at the beginning of the movie had me confused and a little frustrated. It goes backwards and forwards in time but it doesn’t quite work as we don’t know the faces well enough to make the connections. I don’t know whether this is meant to be or not but it didn’t leave me impressed, just confused. I do like it, however, when a movie starts with the audience asking questions. This movie had me asking “they’re looking for Robert De Niro! Where is he?! Where is he hiding?! Why are they after him?!”

There isn’t as much blood as Resevoir Dogs but there’s still a little bit of it. The bullet wounds are nasty but its ruined by the blood looking like paint and therefore laughable.

I hated a character in the beginning because he was a cold-blooded killer. Its remarkable that I felt so much towards character that I didn’t know the name of and who’d been on screen for less than 5 minutes. He gets shot and I was like “YAY!!!!!”

The make-up on the actors to make them look ‘old’ is incredibly good [better than this Harry Potter crap we’re getting… they’re meant to be 37 not 67... dumbasses…] but at the same time, I could tell where the makeup started and the real face finished.

.

In my opinion, there was too much about the past, about them as teenagers. I know it is there to give us a true feeling of their history, ‘friendship’ and relationship with women but it could have been done in a shorter way. Its not bad, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored at all but I just found myself being picky [I want to be a film editor after college so is this a good thing?]

Reservoir Dogs

I feel bad that its taken me so long to finally watch this film the whole way through. I’ve seen the classic torture scene in film studies when we were doing shocking cinema. I didn’t even know how the storyline went or anything so its nice to finally be able to say I’ve seen it. For those who don’t know, the film is about the aftermath of a robbery gone wrong and blood.

Love the beginning where they’re all talking about what Madonna means in her song ‘Like a Virgin’. All except two are in identical suits which makes me immediately think they’re ‘bad men’. I don’t know what it is about men talking about what Madonna means that makes me smile.

“You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.” LMAO! Best line ever.

Even though it’s a pretty boring topic, I loved hearing Mr Pink’s opinion on tips and the whole tips discussion. I think that’s a sign of great scriptwriting when you can turn something boring into something very interesting.

Oh my God, the slow-motion walking clip with their suits and sunglasses… I think if it were done now-a-days, it would be a mockery but for some reason I found myself thinking “Damn… they are so freaking cool…”

How did he get shot?! Starting the storyline with the audience going “wait, what?! How?!” is a great idea. And, like I said before, I didn’t know the storyline so I wait “how did he get shot?! I knew they were dodgy people! They must be gangsters or something.”

Love the aliases being colours. Its really clever to get a group together who don’t actually know each other, dress them up identical and no one knows each other’s real names and stuff… it’s the perfect way to commit a crime!

The scenes are rather long but they work because we get details as well as it staying mysterious.

Love the pose of Mr Pink on the floor and Mr Orange standing over him, both with guns pointed at each other. It says so much, it feels very iconic to me.
“Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?” HAHA! Loves it. Its just how I feel about those dumbass teenagers who are all talk and grr they just piss me off.

I found myself feeling really sorry for the kidnapped copper…

The torture scene. Now, I have notes somewhere all about this scene and technical crap but… like I said, its somewhere and I can’t find it and I think I may of thrown it away. Anyways, basically, the reason this film is so iconic is not just because Mr Blonde is mental, but because of the happy song in the background. There is a word for this but its completely left my brain so whatever. I love it when the song is the opposite to the visual, like in horror films when you have those child songs whilst something sinister is happening. Creepy stuff! Also, there’s the whole ‘hearing is worse than seeing it’, especially in this scene… when the camera turns away… and you hear the torture… yeah, that’s worse than seeing it!

OMG NO WAY! Mr Orange did not just do that! WOO!

Wait… HE’S the rat?! NO WAY!

Copper: “This f***ing guy slashes my face, and he cuts my fucking ear off! I’m fucking deformed!” Mr. Orange: “F*** YOU! F*** YOU! I’M F***IN’ DYING HERE! I’M F***IN’ DYING!” bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh, yes, along with bucket loads of blood [which actually looks real, for once] there is truck loads of swearing. Not for the innocent ears.
Its interesting to hear the robbers and their stories and they were good till it came to the rat and his story and it was too long, got very boring. They should of kept it short, like the others.

So yeah, awesome film, and its even more awesome because its technically an independent film! Hurrah!

129/212

Kate
xoxo

Dirty Harry

Clint Eastwood?! In a suit?! Where’s the horse?!

The killer left the shell casting. Dumbass.

This movie is just filled with quotes!!! “When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher’s knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross!” bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

I love that as Harry shot the bank robbers, he was still eating his hotdog. Only Clint Eastwood, John McClane and Gene Hunt could get away with that.

I’m sorry, I know it’s the 70s but my God, they could of used something better than bright pink paint for blood.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” Classic. And I loved that he repeated it at the end of the film too but its changed from being comical to being very sinister. I actually knew this ‘speech’ before I watched the movie because Ryan Stiles said it on Whose Line Is It Anyway? as Carol Channing. I love that people can know lines from a film without ever seeing it, I think that’s an incredible achievement!

I don’t know whether it was intentional but whatever, I loved that as soon as we see black bank robbers, we then see a black doctor. I know racism was big in the 70s so I thought it was great of them to show that the stereotype of black people being criminals is not the case at all.

Doctor: Sure, Harry. We can save the leg.
[takes out some scissors]
Harry Callahan: What are you going to do with those?
Doctor: Going to cut your pants off.
Harry Callahan: No. I’ll take them off.
Doctor: It’ll hurt.
Harry Callahan: $29.50, let it hurt.

I didn’t like the casting for the killer. He’s a great actor and does psycho well but he just looks too young! He looks 12!</li

I looked it up and Clint Eastwood was 41 when he made this movie!!! 41!! He looks damn good for 41! And with the most gorgeous hair ever!

After Harry is called a peeping-tom after looking through a window, his ‘partner’ Gonzales says “I’ve another thought about why they call you Dirty Harry…” it doesn’t seem as funny in typing but in the movie it is. Espeically as moments later, he misses the killer opening a door because he’s watching a naked girl through another window through binoculars.

Boo at Die Hard 3 for stealing the plot line of getting directions via telephone booths from Dirty Harry!

Another reason why the actor playing the killer was a bit wrong was because when Harry stabbed him, he makes the most hilarious facial expression and noise! It just doesn’t work because it feels like he’s playing him comically rather than mental.

I don’t know if its because I’ve watched too much Ashes to Ashes and therefore think about the mind of the criminal but I caught on pretty quickly that the killer killed for pleasure rather than for the money. Especially as he was able to take money twice and didn’t do it either times. And it really, really annoyed me that the killer was all like “OMG YOU TRIED TO KILL ME! WHAT THE HELL! I WANT MY LAWYER! I HAVE A RIGHT!” its just… ergh, it made me hate the character that little bit more and I was just begging for Harry to kill him there and then or shout at him at least.

The killer’s not old enough to drink, he’s 12!!!

I loved the shot of Harry on the bridge. He’s just standing there, watching the bus. And it’s a wide shot so you can’t see his face but you can totally tell its him. He just has this presence! Also, who else could it be, lol. But what’s even more amazing and awesome is that Mr Eastwood did his own stunt! He jumped from the bridge and onto the bus! Good on him!

Great film, can see why it’s a classic and how it sparked so many great cop movies and shows.

101/212

Kate
xoxo

Seven

After watching Seven on DVD, I then watched brand new South Park and it was the best episode I’ve ever seen and I now have South Park on the brain and therefore this review will probably not do the film justice. Sorry.

The first shot is of Morgan Freeman so I can tell straight away that the movie is going to be great because it has God in it.

I loved, loved, LOVED the title credits! Loved the close-ups and the editing and how perfectly imperfect it was!

The death scenes/crime scenes are very vivid, not for those with sensitive gag reflexes.

In most cop movies, if there is are two main characters, one black and one white, the white one is the professional, smart one and the black one is the goofy one. Not in this one! Hurrah! Freeman is the smart one and Brad Pitt is the slightly goofy one [only very slightly… he’s more goofy than Freeman but I wouldn’t say the character is actually goofy… if you catch my drift…]

I love the 7 Deadly Sins, I find them fascinating to the point where when a group of us had to write a play for drama class, we chose to base our characters on the 7 Deadly Sins.

Freeman’s character does good old detective work with looking stuff up in books whereas Pitt just sits there, thinking he knows everything and tries to work it out with his mind, beer and sport.

“Yell fire, not rape.” I’ve heard this so many times, I guess this is where it came from. Its sad that its actually true.

It has Dr Cox in it before he was Dr Cox!

The plot and writing is just amazing and ingenious. I love it when the killer is so smart and thinks everything through! I normally hate that the detective finds the clues so easily but for some reason, I totally believe that Morgan Freeman would find them clues.

The suspense is so subtle that I didn’t even realize I was in suspense until the bullets went off and I was jumping out of my seat! Amazingly done!

This movie is a great advert for torchlights.

Dad made a comment as we watched it that you can tell the director was quite influenced by Blade Runner in a few scenes and I really know what my dad means so look out for Blade Runner refrences.

The ending… with the box… I unfortunately knew what was in the box and therefore I felt it ruined it for me but now I really want to watch the film again with someone who’s never seen it before and just watch their reaction to it all.

Somerset: This guy’s methodical, exacting, and worst of all, patient.
Mills: He’s a nut-bag! Just because the f****r’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda!

96/212

Kate
xoxo

The French Connection

I think the only reason I’m not going to say that this was really boring is because it reminded me so much of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. And I only wrote two notes which were ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘happier than Gene Hunt’. I know that The French Connection is probably one of the inspirations for Life on Mars but I saw that first so I link them. It is unfortunate, I guess, that I’m too young to know some connections from one movie to another or links in TV shows.

This is basically my review for this movie because I didn’t really right anything down for it. Its basically just a long TV crime show. And Gene Hackman was great, as he always is.

81/212

Kate
xoxo

True Romance

I loved this movie, I thought it was clever how it manages to waver between romance and thriller and back again. I also loved the little cameos of famous actors who would normally be leading men but instead had no more that 10min airtime. Now, my brain has suddenly shut down so my review will probably A. not give it justice to how good it is and B. not make sense. Apologies in advance.

Funky opening music.

Our two main characters fall in love which started over their love of movies. That’s how I want to find love, in the cinema! The pair are so sweet and adorable together, they’re just totally made for each other. She’s the sweetest girl who has bad luck with jobs [she was a call girl when she met him] and he’s an adorable film nerd who works at a comic store. And normally I roll my eyes when people in movies fall in love after knowing each other one night but for some reason, I totally believed them in this and believed that they had fallen for each other in one evening. It made a nice change from freaking Disney ‘what’s your name? We’ll be married in the morning’ s**t.

It’s CRAZY!Gary Oldman! However, he is on the fine line of being awesome crazy and incredibly annoying crazy. He plays a white pimp who talks and acts like a stereotypical black guy. I hate it when white people do that [my brother does it, ergh, hopefully he’ll grow out of it… “I’m a gangster” no you’re not, you’re a tall white boy who cuddles his mummy when he’s got poorly tummy]. Anyways, CRAZY!Gary Oldman manages not to completely p**s me off so he still remains cool. Also he has dreads which is also weirdly cool on him. Then he kills Samuel L.Jackson who has about 3 lines and I guess that shocked me because I’d of thought he’d been in it till the end but then I realized that these big stars only have small roles in the movie.

Elvis lives! Well, in Christian Slater’s head. And I loved that you never see ‘Elvis’ completely; he’s always either not in focus or you only see him from the neck down but you just know its him.

Slater’s character’s sunglasses are Elvis sunglasses. They’re pretty damn cool in a Halloween costume kind of way.

He kills for her and its ‘so romantic’. I can see why a guy getting into a fight with another guy over a girl is romantic but killing is a bit… extreme… no?

OMG! His dad is the bomber from Speed!! Then the dude from The War At Home and My Name Is Earl is in it too! I think that’s one the things about the little cameos by people, you can go “OMG its him!” and then he’s gone! I don’t know why but I love tiny parts for big stars, it just shows how awesome they are!

I loved that he could just say ‘hello baby’ like Elvis to his friend [dude from The War At Hom] on the phone and his friend knows exactly who he is! I love that, when friends know each other so well that they know who it is just with two words!

I thought there was some good music where the dad knows he’s about to die and you can see it in his eyes but he tries not to show it but the music tells it all, that he knows its his last couple of minutes. Amazing what music can do, isn’t it!

OMG ITS BRAD PITT! Now, let me just say this, I’ve known a few stoners but Brad Pitt is the best stoner I’ve ever seen. He’s totally out of it and has about 7 lines, two of which I find to be quite legendary, he‘s all buddy to this guy and totally relaxed and stoned then the guy leaves and he‘s like “Don’t condescend me, man. I’ll f****n’ kill ya, man.” when he looks like he couldn’t kill a fly even if it landed in his eye. And then another time when the others are leaving, “Hey! Get some beer and some cleaning products!”

There’s a scene where she gets really beaten up and its horrible to watch, especially as the blond and injuries look so real! Then after a while, she finally gets him with fire then stabs him then shoots him then whacks him. The whole scene is so emotional, probably the most emotional scene I’ve ever seen in movies. I could totally feel what she was feeling, it was so powerful. She was killing him, crying hysterically and getting the hitman [dude from The Sopranos] back for beating her up. Its just so damn powerful. I went from ‘you go girl’ to feeling complete and total pity for her.

I thought it was very symbolic that there is a scene where everyone is shot dead except our main couple and the dude from War At Home and the whole room is covered with white, pure feathers. I don’t know why I think its symbolic but it just felt it to me.

I don’t know how the couple got away with it but after everything they went through, I don’t even care that in real life they’d get caught. They have a son and he’s the cutest, happiest little boy ever! And they name him Elvis, how cool!

67/212

Kate
xoxo

The Departed

This movie is about how one can be a rat in two very different ways. You have the police’s informant [DiCaprio] who is put in situations that would make you think he was the bad guy if you’d just walked in on the movie. Then you have the bad guy’s informant [Damon] who is in the Special Investigations Unit and would be, at first glance, the good guy. It sounds weird as I can’t really find the right words to put it but trust me, its incredibly clever.

Jack Nicholson’s iconic voice is one of the first things we here. This man is like Robert De Niro, as soon as you see or hear him, you know its going to be a great movie.

It is very realistic in terms of violence. You see and hear the gun, you see and hear the blood. Be prepared for that if you ever choose to watch this movie. If you faint at the sight of blood, best watch it already laying on the floor.

Its got two people whose names I can’t say properly thanks to Team America which is Matt Damon and Alec Baldwin. Both are great in this movie though Damon pisses me off slightly because there are times when I don’t know whether he’s pretending to be happy or is just doing some shit acting. Leonardo DiCaprio is awesome as always.

DiCaprio is bashed for having a criminal family record after having done nothing wrong himself, Damon just wanders in and gets a job even though he’s been working for Nicholson since he was something like 11; its not fair.

There is one scene that really made me laugh; Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg’s ‘your mum’-esk banter, it was pure comical genius. I can see why Baldwin is praised for comedy [though I’ve never seen 30 Rock or whatever its called.]

I’d say that for two thirds of the movie, Damon and DiCaprio are always linked but never actually interact. Its like they’re always together but never in the same room, if you get me. Damon may be on the screen but there is also the presence of DiCaprio. Hope I’m making sense. It was good, that’s what I’m saying ^_-

Nicholson’s codename is ‘dad’ or ‘pop’. He is the father figure for both Damon and DiCaprio and this is why they trust him so much. Nicholson uses the fact he is older than these men to his advantage and becomes their fathers. Very clever. Sneaky and mentally horrible, but clever.

Oh my God, this film has the most amazing looking desert ever! I’m not entirely sure what it is [and neither are the characters] but it looks kind of like a tower of brownies with chocolate things poking out of it and its at least a foot tall. It looks so delicious and made me want a brownie tower too. It is my birthday soon, actually… mum, you’re reading this, do you remember the desert? I think I watch some of this movie with you? I don’t want a cupcake for my birthday cake anymore, I want a brownie tower!!! OK, I’ve written too much about a desert now. I’m such a girl!

Nicholson is a different gangster leader. He actually gets involved and does stuff himself as well as getting others to do his deeds. There is one scene where he tortures DiCaprio even though his tough guy is in the room. By the way, that scene is very painful to watch. You find yourself wincing and holding onto your left hand and wrist. Ooooooo… so painful…

There is a lot of cross-cutting editing. We see two things happening at once and we also get comparisons between the lives of the two types of rats. We are constantly reminded that we are seeing two sides and two points of views.

Tehehe, there is a scene when Damon calls DiCaprio for the first time and as soon as Damon pressed the ‘call’ button, my phone went off! I jumped out my seat then started laughing; for a moment, Matt Damon was ringing me. [For those who care, it was one of those scam people. Knobheads. Sorry for my language but they are.]

At the end, I jumped and said “OOOOOO!!!!” about 3 times! Its so unexpected! I have seen this movie before but I must of changed the channel over before the movie ended because I never saw the end and now I realize I should of! Its so unexpected and I found myself going [highlight if you want to know the ending] “OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED LEONARDO DICAPRIO! THOSE BASTARDS!” I’m sorry, I watch too much South Park. >.< By the way, the blood spurting out of people’s heads looks freakishly real even though I’ve never seen someone’s head blow off.

Good film. Scorsese never lets you down!

27/212

Kate
xoxo