The Princess Bride - Film Review

        The Princess Bride is a childhood classic fairytale movie from the 1980s.  It is hard for a movie to target an all age audience as well as both genders in a fantasy setting but director Rob Reiner manages to please everyone with this heart-felt story.  Great writing, editing, and a great score add long lasting impressions into the viewers mind.
The backdrop for the film falls on a old gentleman (Peter Falk) reading to his sick Grandson (Fred Savage).  The actual story takes place in the fantastical world of the Grandfather's book.  The story is a love story much to the chagrin of the grandson but soon becomes an enthralling tale of adventure with pirates, giants, monsters of unusual size, and fencing all wrapped up in a satirical comedy that will keep older audiences entertained.
William Goldman, the writer of the original novel and the screenplay, has taken classical archetypes and built heavily upon them.  The added quirkiness of the characters has given them a much larger depth and at the same time is able to find humor and seriousness.  It is hard to forget Inigo's, the Spanish sword-fighter, plan for revenge or Wesley (Cary Elwes) transformation from farmboy into the Dread Pirate Roberts.  The villains are also filled with eccentricities that break them apart from other typical villains.
Reiner was lucky to have Mark Knopfler compose an outstanding score for the film.  The track of "Storybook Love" theme plays throughout the film and has a timeless sound that feels authentic to the fantasy setting and with the addition of the singer during credits swiftly modernizes it as a contemporary love song.  The music plays well in the Cliffs of Insanity adding more tension to what would rather be a fairly slow chase.  The timing of it is also helped with some great editing.
Editor Robert Leighton manages a smooth flow between the story world and the world of the grandfather/grandson.  It would be easy to dismiss the bedtime story in place of the fairytale but the continuous cutbacks to their world shows a character journey for the young grandson that progresses smoothly with the bedtime story.
Reiner delivers on all fronts and turns what could be a children's movie into something that everyone can remember and enjoy.  Spouting classic lines and recalling the many spectacular battles, The Princess Bride remains a classic story done exceptionally well.

Jaws - Film Review

        Dun-dun, dun-dun, ta-nun. The horror genre has a few number of great scores under its belt and the creeping shark fin of Jaws finds a great pulsing beat to accompany it.  Steven Spielberg's scary summer movie hits some high notes and a few low ones but still manages an unforgettable experience that will have viewers thinking twice about swimming out to far next time they are at the beach.
Amity, a small island community, is a busy tourist spot in the summer time.  A shark attack spurs the new local sheriff into action only to be brick walled by the developers into keeping the beaches open.  The more attacks that transpire finally enables a call to action for a local fisherman and the sheriff alongside a research scientist on a hunt for the great white.
It has become common knowledge on all the difficulties the robotic shark gave the filmmakers and how it turned into a visually chilling menace with the less of it they showed.  The drawback the photographer was unable to hurdle was the poor lighting on the several night scenes that were shot.  This also could work under the less a viewer can see the higher the tension is set but leaves one wanting a little more clarity or lighting on the situation.  There are great cinematic moments and what's most terrifying of the movie is that the daytime is just as dangerous as the night.
A great script and cast push this horror story into a unique area that touches on a man's plight with his new surroundings.  Sheriff Brody is a newcomer to Amity Island and not fond of water.  A really insightful line comes when asked why someone with no love for water would agree to move to an island town.  He responds, that it only looks like an island from the water.  The gaps that are set up are executed with finesse that makes for great storytelling and a logical build up to the climatic end.
Jaws, is everything a movie studio wants.  It has all the makings of a summer blockbuster with a touch of the horror and reality of living by the ocean that makes it great and stand apart.  This one will make a person think twice before going out for a swim.

Hitchcock/The Girl - Film Compare/Contrast

A good deal of Art of Cinema touched on famous filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.  With the release of two biopics on the director being released recently back to back I decided to compare the direct to TV film, The Girl and the theatrically released Hitchcock.  The Girl, captures the relationship between Hitchcock and his lead actress in The Birds and Marnie, Tippi Hedren.  Hitchcock, also focuses on his obsessions with his lead actresses but also goes into the production troubles of his film Psycho.
It is in my personal opinion that British filmmakers go to great lengths to ensure their actors put on brilliant performances Julian Jarrold included, probably due to the fact that the theater is still a big form of entertainment throughout the U.K. the theater hones actors in their craft.  It is no surprise that Toby Jones does a phenomenal job as Hitchcock.  There is good writing and there is good performing, and to add a level of creepiness that Jones does is gripping.  At times generous and likable other times disturbing.
The Sacha Gervasi's film Hitchcock has Sir Anthony Hopkins playing the titular character and we see a more somber portrayal and not the creep portrayed in The Girl.  Hopkins heavy make up helps fade away the recognizable face and what is left is with is a chillingly recognizable Hitchcock.  Jones pulls off just a little bit more of an eccentric that makes Hitchcock even more believable and uses less makeup to look the part.
Coincidence or luck makes the movies virtually sequels to each other The Girl taking place after the events of Hitchcock. This can confuse audience members and believe the dastardly depiction in The Girl to be accurate as the overall arch of the two films shows a gradual decline.  Hopkins manages to portray a much more reserved Hitchcock then Jones and there is much debate on which portrayal is in actuality more accurate, most considering The Girl to be grossly exaggerated.
Although, the movies follow the workings of Hitchcock, the protagonist are the starlets Tippi Hedren and Grace Kelly two of Hitchcock's most famous actresses.  Through each story we see a character growth in each leading lady under the tight scrutiny of Hitchcock.  Although, Hitchcock and his wife have a certain conflict that is portrayed in both films, there is little growth to actually be of any consequence Hitchcock doing the better of the two to actually show some change.  For movies to be about the life of Alfred Hitchcock they were not really about him at all, The Girl being able to argue as to who the focus should have been on.
Gervasi and Jarrold do well with the material and with great actors to bring two excellent films to life.  Only for the sake of continuity would one care about which to watch first.  Otherwise, either serve as an interesting reflection on the master of suspense.

Enter the Void - Film Review

        "Death is the ultimate trip", and with that we find a foundation for Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void, a film exploring the afterlife and Tokyo through recently departed Oscar. The visual elements of the film push us through a journey best described as bizarre and leave one feeling as if they have taken one of the psychedelic drugs are protagonist pushes.
DMT, LSD, and ecstasy are among the several drugs that are main character uses as well as distributes.  Noe is able to give a glimpse to the dark side of the Japanese culture that is rarely seen in film.  Oscar's search for the ultimate high has come across The Tibetan Book of the Dead and as his accomplice Alex is able to explain that death is the ultimate rush.  Soon after, Oscar is shot by police and begins a metaphysical journey of out of body experience combined with a life flashing before your eyes scenario that correlates to The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
A film aimed at targeting independent film followers, Noe shoots the film entirely in the POV of Oscar.  A risky move that helps serve the psychedelic nature of the highs giving the audience a taste of the character's hallucinations.  This POV film is so off the beaten path that it is hard to sell a film like this to mainstream audiences. There is about a 5-minute DMT trip that the viewers will sit through and that is in the opening of the film.
Noe also wrote the screenplay with the help of Lucille Hadzihalilovic and in interviews mentioned a drug riddled path.  It seeps through in the work.  The actors deliver a performance that brings a sense of reality to what is usually aggrandized somewhere between sheik and gangster.  Although those elements come through in small portions the sense of aimless youth is captured well with conversations that jump from philosophical discussions on death, to the petty squabbles of friends and family, to what drug were they going to partake in next.
Death, is a universal subject matter and universal is a befitting description for a French filmmaker to shoot a movie set in Japan with an American protagonist.  An exploration of the soul and of the life after, Enter the Void, leaves a void in the viewers that will require some of their own soul searching.