In about 80 minutes, this movie packs what modern gangster pictures take hours to show. Some of it may be a bit shallower, a bit more naive than others--like the gangsters in Sonatine, Gary Cooper plays the gangster as a child--but Hammett's cynicism unveils the treacheries in human interactions, especially when money is involved. (granted, this is an underworld picture, so generalizations may be inappropriate)

Not every good thing needs to be corrupted, but pinning the hard decisions on the woman just so the good guy can stay "good" seems a bit phony. Or maybe that's the bit of "hope" in this otherwise bleak picture.

People will be people--no matter who they are. Only the crowd can transcend or debase humanity.

This, to me, seemed like a miniseries that had been recut into a two hour film. Lovely, pretty, and satisfying overall, I wish it had been a little more cohesive.

The charm and music won me over, but the last 15 minutes lost me. Claudette Colbert's character is the only one I feel is respected by the movie as a whole, the other two leads are reduced to one whose infatuation leads to discarding who she is in order to attract a man and another whose love is so petty as to be swayed by lingerie. Perhaps there is an intended irony here I am not getting, I am not certain.

Competent work in service of a cheap thriller.

Frightened me to tears as a child. As an adult, it carries the horror of people acting with unreasoning malevolence, but the effect is less pronounced due, in part, to stagy acting and visuals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6dER1To33U

_All the right Noises_ is surprisingly restrained for the subject matter and time at which it was produced; an attempt to honestly look at the whys and whats of a teenage/middle age romance. Whether he's made a great picture, I don't know having only seen a few, but it seems that he could have under the right circumstances.

Without the interesting ideas inherent in the writing (e.g., how what one fears draws that one to it, and often in the worst way) and the very nice aesthetics, this movie would long be forgotten. The acting is awful, and the progression is often ludicrous. Worth watching, probably worth watching again for what it does right, but it does too much wrong to be more than that.

We all want to be the two dudes who ride by on the skateboards, making others feel good with a kind word and thumbs up, but mostly we're the kids in the class, gawking and sniggering at what we don't want to understand.

Due largely to some pretty horrible dialogue that the actors, for the most part, are unable to overcome, the last 1/4-1/3 of the movie, once it has shifted from mystery to action film, is actually better than the rest.

Every time I think I'm about to see a stereotypical Ozu static shot on the inanimate, he moves the camera, and integrates these shots directly into the scene (as opposed to the juxtapositions he later used), that is, until the end. There, however, he gets especially symbolic and brings out the sun during such a shot. Overall, a neat and quick crime picture which, though preachy in its way, eschews simple bad guys.

What _Be Kind Rewind_ wanted to be.

Absolutely beautiful.

Wrote, directed and acted in a sequel to Showgirls?!

Has followed me since early childhood like a nightmare I couldn't forget; in fact, for a long time, I thought I had only dreamed this movie (and probably, I had dreamed it, and memories of those dreams merged with my nebulous memories of the actual film). I still await the right time to watch this as an adult.

Beautiful, but obvious cinematography; Ennis' realization in Jack's house was very nicely acted, and was well worth the wait.

There's a lot to like here, but it's just so muddled.

Frank Oz, Terry Gilliam, Costa-Gavras, Joel Coen, Sam Raimi, Michael Apted, Martin Brest, Bob Swaim, Larry Cohen, Ray Harryhausen, Derek Meddings, B.B. King--an impressive list of cameos.

I'm skeptical of the genre, but the participants look to be amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEWpdLatLI

Despite a very biased perspective, what this does very well is show how people of differing opinions of what should be done work together (and how, at time, this cooperation is against ones will), and how ignorance at the top, and general overconfidence will often lead to disappointing results.

In accordance with what seems to be the wall consensus: despite certain descents into romantic comedy cliche--extreme characters, actions which only insane people would legitimately consider reasonable (and insufficient reactions to said actions), uncomfortable situations and misunderstandings--this movie actually has some decent, believable characterization (and acting), particularly with (and by) its leads.

This is the type of movie that people who argue against the necessity of a good script to create a watchable film would like: direction (and lighting and set design and acting etc.; basically: direction) makes this watchable.

I like the sparsity of dialogue, and the beginning, especially, is enjoyable for this and the music (like others say, this is total 80's homage, from the glossy night shots of Los Angeles, to the synth score and music), but overall this is not a reinvention, reinvigoration or reimagining (or whatever else) of the action/"man's" movie so much as it is a distillation.

Despite all of its flaws (which many others have noted), it was both very effective (again, as many have already said) and affecting. Even when I recognized that scenes were playing for a particular emotional effect, I couldn't help but appreciate the accuracy in the choice: I recognized the lie in them, but I saw the truth, or rather, the honesty and sincerity in them as well.

Mulcahy to Fisher: "You know every camera movement ever used in film history, yeah, I want you to give me that."

Lovely hair

It's disappointing to watch a movie which I believe portrays characters generally well, and shows a potentially interesting series of events, but which is hampered by so many lazy and cliched components as to be a trifle: worth as much to watch as to never see it..