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I've been a little nuts and haven't updated for either of these films. I thought the dialogue in The Big Sleep was great and I loved both Bogart and Bacall. Unfortunately, I'm not really one for caper movies and I did drift off a few times.

Last week I watched the Jean Cocteau version of Beauty and the Beast . I really enjoyed this film, except ( Read more... )

I keep forgetting to write about Gates of Heaven , which I watched before Christmas. This is Errol Morris' first documentary. It's a strange little documentary about pet cemeteries. Morris starts by telling the story of a pet cemetery located outside (L.A?), which then had to be relocated. Another entrepeneur decides to take over the cemetery and ( Read more... )

I decided to make 2 movie lists. One list consists of my top movies released in 2009 and the other includes my favourite films that were created in other years ( Read more... )

Sometimes I really love the Great movies project because I see something really great that I might have missed watching. This week, that movie is Ali: Fear eats the soul , a 1974 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this film. It's the story of a German woman in her 50s who falls in love with a ( Read more... )

This 1966 Ingmar Bergman film is my second Bergman. I thought it was brilliant. It tells the story of a mute woman who is a former actress, and her nurse. It's shot in black and white and is incredibly arty. The lines between the nurse and the actress blur until the audience is not sure who is crazy and who is sane. Are they the same person? Who ( Read more... )

My Darling Clementine is a 1946 Western by John Ford. It's an extremely iconic and archetypal Western and I was surprised by how many things I'd heard of that appear in this film. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the OK Corral, the town of Tombstone...- they're all from this movie. The story of the fight at the OK Corral between the Earp brothers and the ( Read more... )

A woman under the influence is the first Cassavetes film that I have ever seen. My ideas about Cassavetes are completely biased and built up by the Le Tigre song "What's your take on Cassavetes ( Read more... )

City Lights was my first Charlie Chaplin film. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. This little film follows the adventures of the little tramp as he falls in love with a blind flower vendor. She believes he is wealthy because he has a wealthy friend who gives him money. I don't want to give away any of the details, but I really found that I ( Read more... )

Roger Ebert claimed Written on the Wind was one of the Great movies; I just found it really annoying. The 1956 melodrama is an over the top soap drama about a rich oil baron brother and sister and their dalliances with a close family friend and a wife. Everything is over the top- there's an annoying soundtrack and the colours are somewhat lurid. ( Read more... )