The way this works is that you post a review of the best film you watched this week. It doesn't have to be a new release, just any film you have seen over the last seven days that you feel is worth talking about. Here are some rules.
1. Check to see if your favourite film of last week has been posted already.
2. Please post your favourite film of last week.
3. NO TV SHOWS!
4. ALWAYS use spoiler tags. Report any comments that spoil recent / little-known films without using the spoiler tag.
5. Comments that only contain the title of the film will be removed!
Here are some great comments from last week's thread:
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The Man Who Knew Too Much - 1934. It was probably gonna be the French Lieutenant's Woman this week but I had to send it back and Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 version of the film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" was up on deck. I think I'm impressed with how much it does in such a small amount of time. The film is only 77 minutes, but already you get the sense that Hitchcock is very aware of his ability to fill that time with the kind of themes and images in such a nice economical package. Hitchcock in this film was making the transition to sound and it was pretty much the make or break for him because of a distributor who was sabotaging his career and eventually it found distribution, but the film is brimming with all sorts of wonderful life. And Hitchcock really displays in this film a real mastery of tonal balance and the ability to ease a viewer from moments that feel very screwball to dread and fear. It also has some very, very arresting shots like the scene in Royal Albert Hall when Edna Best starts to weep because she doesn't know if she should act to save her daughter or do something to save the life of this diplomat and the transition from her face to a first person perspective and then the camera loses focus to a gun peering out from the curtains is incredible. I also enjoyed the entire set piece where Edna Best is dancing with another man and Leslie Banks ties a string from his wife's sweater to the back button of the other guy and then they begin to move through the crowd as the sweater unravels, tripping up the other guests, and then a crack and it moves to this shot of fingers around the frame pointing to a bullet hole in the window. It's just a very impressive movie in its own right and extremely expressive. Peter Lorrie is fantastic as the villain. I watched the Del Toro supplement and discovered he actually wrote a study of Hitchcock. He managed to pick up on some themes of Catholicism that I didn't pick up on watching it and compared Hitchcock wanting to put you, the audience member, instead of a spy and making it bigger like other films such as James Bond.
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For me it's gotta be Melville's French Resistance film: Army of Shadows (1969). I saw it for the first and second time this week. The film throughout uses a lot of dark blues as its colour scheme which creates not only a naturally dark setting, but a haunting one too. Accompanied by Éric Demarsan's score, which invokes dread, as well as a slight quality similar to thriller/espionage films. This seems to compliment Melville's aesthetic which is similar to his gangster films (however I have only seen Le Samurai and Le Cercle rouge so I am not sure how his other films look), with the trench coats, hats, and striking shadows (apt considering the title). Little on action (but when it's there it has your attention), big on suspense and tension; there's always a sense foreboding lurking around each shot, from the mise en scène to the characters themselves. The way the characters slowly move amongst the darkness make them seem almost ghostly figures, furthering the foreboding dread. Considering this, I believe the film is a great example of casting with Lino Ventura in the role of the film's protagonist: Philippe Gerbier. His character is middle-aged and has quite a prominent role in the resistance, yet what makes him unique is his contrast amongst other characters, particularly of his own age. Ventura acts with a young spirit for determination but also does not fall into the trap of being too expressionistic, he mostly keeps to himself and speaks when necessary. However, others around him seem to be more beaten down, not without loyalty to the resistance, but it certainly seems that hope is dwindling. For me, this is a great film that has instantly shot up as one of my favourite WW2 films.
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Miami Vice is a mood that, from the first abstract images, puts you there in the moment, makes you think that Linkin Park sounds good. Digital photography has never felt more real, the climax's gunfight operating with a sense of vérité that's greater than any 'reality' show has ever demonstrated, even in more normal environments. For a film whose title invites everyone else to look back and remember what it was, Mann took a chance to push us all forward. Rules of the game are always changing, detectives identities' ever-shifting. Notions of who, and what, you are get lost in the noise of the photography; these pictures are well and truly in motion at all time. The audience is right there with them –– to quote Blackhat: "no-one's ever gotten this close before" –– hoping that Tubbs and Crockett have a handle on it all. Of course, they struggle with reconciling their fabricated identities, with how they are and what they really want, but their brief conversation on the subject is enough to re-assure. Tubbs "will never doubt" Crockett. Neither should we. Time is luck. How privileged we are to be able to spend two hours in the lucidity of the experience, the ultimate ride-along, the defining achievement of 21st century cinema. Life is short. It'll stick with you forever.
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Submitted February 05, 2018 at 01:30AM by GetFreeCash http://ift.tt/2nDjVY4
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