On this viewing I couldn't help but read it through the Heigo-Akira sibling relationship. Older brother Heigo taught Akira to never shy away from unpleasant truths, and found status and influence through his work as a silent film narrator (benshi). But when the pictures began to talk for themselves, as talkies innovated the medium, Heigo's calling evaporated and he soon committed suicide. The chapter Akira wrote on this many years later was titled A Story I Don't Want to Tell...…
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Scarface 1983
After a dozen years in the wilderness, I feel the tide is turning and Scarface is finally coming back into vogue with me. In my last few years of high school it was the only real challenger to The Godfather in my affections, but come my twenties I grew out of it. I think for me now the resurgent appeal comes down to the oldschool gangster melodrama, the vibrant sets, De Palma's measured shot choices and camera moves being on…
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MacArthur 1977
Way too hagiographic and surprisingly limited and goof-ridden in terms of production scale, and skips far too quickly through a packed decade from the Battle of Bataan to Truman dismissing his Korean command (bookended with a West Point retirement speech). It’s a heroic film with an irresponsibly flattering one-sided portrait, whereas a more complex insightful portrait in a miniseries format would have been preferable. That said, Peck carries the aviators’n’corncob pipe role well with his self-styled noble presence, and the…
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Basic Instinct 2 2006
I think it must say a lot about me that I much prefer this to the original.
Verhoeven outside his more genre-intensive trappings tends to be a nothing director to me and Joe Eszterhaz is a crass screenwriter, and their Basic Instinct was something I reject.
This one is very mid00sy reheated IP, a tad stuffy and you can feel it pulling ineffectively at restraints, transgressive is a bit beyond the confines, but it is a very stylish picture that…
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Match Point 2005
Match Point is everything I was hoping, and more. Woody serves up arguably his most delightfully rich genre reinvention, kind of like a reimagining of A Place in the Sun with a dash of Crime & Punishment.
Match Point is a curious cross-reference of influences. It has the bedrock of a Woody Allen film. The emotional energy and relationship betrayal of a Hitchcockian dark thriller. And a sliver of Barry Lyndon Irish rogue penetration of high society to it. Most of…
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Boyz n the Hood 1991
If you watch this film without a stupid foolish-looking knowing grin plastered on your face, there is something wrong with you. The match up of script, acting and direction here is sublime, creating an unbelievable sense of truth. John Singleton really hits this one out of the park.
This film also has one of Fishburne's very best roles.
You can just feel its palpable influence over urban music to come. It's all here, all the truth and all the myth.…