Silent Classic Movie Review: The Thief of Bagdad

Douglas Fairbanks was the original big screen cinematic swashbuckler. By the time he starred in and co-wrote The Thief of Bagdad – which is perhaps his greatest achievement – he had already played Robin Hood, D’Artagnan, and Zorro. To play a title character in a story from the 1,001 Arabian Nights was just icing on the cake. Two years ago I enjoyed Fairbanks in Robin Hood along with live musical accompaniment. At the time, I thought that movie was an impressive feat of sets, action, and stunts, but then The Thief of Bagdad, quite frankly, dwarfs it in scope.

Classic Movie Review From My Collection: Lawrence of Arabia

When I look at a movie like Lawrence of Arabia I see a lot of similarities between it and any number of big studio films made in the modern era. It’s epic in scope and in length. It’s filled with awe inspiring visual and big action sequences. It is historically based, but not particularly deep, insistent on keeping viewers on a short leash so as not to turn anyone off. Perhaps some of that last observation would not have been true for audiences fifty years ago. Maybe the ways in which Lawrence of Arabia is presented as a difficult and not entirely honorable character were especially complex in 1962. At the time his possible homosexuality and masochism could only be subtly alluded to.

The Last Emperor Movie Review: 25 Years Ago

The Last Emperor was released in New York and Los Angeles 25 years ago last month, but received its wide release in December 1987. So I revisit the film in between the two months. Look for a new 25 Years Ago review later this month when I take a look at Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.

What a strange film is Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. Twenty-five years later it still has a powerful resonance. It remains a gorgeous visual piece with remarkable costumes, art direction, and set decoration. It helps that the production was given unprecedented access by the Chinese government to film in the Forbidden City. I’m not sure any set could stand in as effectively for the real thing, which is imposing with its mammoth surrounding walls and impenetrable gates that keep the young emperor locked away for all of his youth. But here is a historical epic about a man who is not a hero. He made no great impact on a way of life, or any government, or even a great number of individuals for that matter. Although the story is about the man who happened to be the last imperial ruler of the old feudal China, it is really a historical view of a China in transition to a Republic and then a Communist state, with a passive hero at its center.

War Horse Movie Review

Having plumbed the depths of WWII era stories, I suppose it was just a matter of time before Steven Spielberg worked his way to World War I. The source material for War Horse seems almost destined for Spielberg territory. Originally a 1982 children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo its themes include childhood dreams and lost innocence as seen through the prism of violence and the torment of war.

Interestingly, the central viewpoint is through the eyes of a thoroughbred named Joey. There is a principal human character, a teenager named Albert Narracott and played with unending earnestness and wonderment by Jeremy Irvine. The early scenes are through Albert’s eyes as he sees the foal born and follows him growing up until he’s brought to auction, where his father (Peter Mullan), a veteran of the Boer War with a bum leg and a drinking problem, overbids on him as a plough horse just to spite his wealthy landlord (David Thewlis). Emily Watson is Albert’s stalwart and sensible mother. Their livelihood in jeopardy if they can’t make their rent, Albert sets his sights on breaking Joey and having him plough a new field. And goshdarnit, wouldn’t you guess that he breaks that horse, and that horse defies the odds and miraculously ploughs that field. But bad luck strikes again and Albert’s father sells Joey to the army, readying themselves for war with Germany.

Classic Movie Review: The Godfather Part II

At the time it was made, could anyone have imagined that a sequel to The Godfather would possibly be anything near to the quality and sophistication of the first film? And yet Francis Ford Coppola surpassed his own film in many ways with The Godfather Part II. It is wider and more epic in scope, covering both the rise of a young Vito Corleone in 1920s Little Italy and the decline of his youngest son Michael 30-odd years later. It covers the ground both before and after the time period in which the first film is set.

Classic Movie Review: The Godfather (Special 200th Posted Review Edition)

This reviews marks the 200th full length movie review I've posted to this blog since I began it in April 2010. When I hit my 100th earlier this year, I marked the occasion with a review for Pulp Fiction, followed by a scene-by-scene analysis of the film. Starting next week, I will begin posting a similar analysis for The Godfather.

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is regarded as such an important cinematic classic that it’s easy to forget what a bold undertaking it was and how unconventional Coppola decided to make it. Here is  adramatic and violent story, epic in scope, that begins with a thirty minute wedding celebration that has very little plot advancement, no action, and introduces about twenty key characters. The payoff comes later when we feel like we know these people like our own family.

Troy Movie Review: An Ancient Classic for the MTV Generation

This review was first written and published in May 2004 for a website that no longer exists. The unusual structure is a remnant of that site's requirements.

Synopsis: Paris (Orlando Bloom), a Trojan prince and son of Priam (Peter O’Toole), robs Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) of his beautiful bride, Helen (Diane Kruger), while on a peace envoy. Menelaus demands vengeance. With the aid of his brother, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), they mobilize 50,000 Greek soldiers to set sail for Troy. For Menelaus it is a war of pride in defending his manhood. For Agamemnon it is a war of conquest and the fulfillment of his desire to rule over all the kingdoms within his grasp.

The story is based loosely on Homer’s The Iliad. The two major players in the Trojan War are Hector (Eric Bana), brother to Paris and fiercest soldier in the Trojan army, and Achilles (Brad Pitt), the seemingly invincible Achaen warrior who leads the Myrmidons into battle. Of course, Achilles and Agamemnon are at odds with each other the whole time which presents a problem for the domineering king, who needs Achilles’ army to win the war.

Scoop: Troy is a film that bears little resemblance to anything classic, least of all The Iliad. Even less than the resemblance of O Brother, Where Art Thou to The Odyssey. Sure, all the major players are in attendance: Achilles and Hector; Menelaus and Paris; Priam and Agamemnon; Ajax and Odysseus. But the film plays out like someone in Hollywood summarized the Cliffs Notes of Homer’s epic poem. All the important plot points are touched on, the one-on-one battles between Hector and Ajax, Hector and Achilles, Paris and Menelaus are highlighted, but there the similarities end.

Movie Review: Rachel Weisz Stars in Agora

*Agora opens next Friday in New York with a possible wider release later. It played throughout Europe last year becoming the biggest box office success on the Continent in 2009. It also won 7 Goya Awards (The Spanish equivalent of The Oscars) and was nominated for 6 others.

It’s said that one of the most difficult things to present on screen is the process of writing. Of all the arts it is the least visually kinetic and generally either a bore to watch or otherwise presented unrealistically. Well I can now say with certainty that there is another art form even more boring in its screen presentation: that of the ancient mathematician philosopher.

This is rather unfortunately what Alejandro Amenábar (director of the wonderful assisted suicide drama The Sea Inside and the haunting The Others) has attempted to do with Agora, the story of Hypatia (Rachel Weisz, trying her best to make the most of weak material), a brilliant female mind and university teacher caught in the center of a man’s world and the tumultuous time when the Roman Empire was succumbing to the forces of Christianity.