handcrafted by maryann johanson (human) | 100% free of AIs and algorithms
A film of immense power and eerie beauty, James Cameron’s Titanic could only have been made now, not because of its technical requirements but because the cultural attitudes of the era in which it is set have come full circle to concern us again today.
Braveheart has a primal, visceral power — as when Wallace, in the aftermath of a battle, stands over the carnage he’s wrought and screams in victory, nostrils flaring — that strikes straight to the heart of any warm-blooded Celt, or indeed anyone who values freedom and human dignity.
While Schindler’s List is the least Spielberg-ian and least showy of the director’s work, it demonstrates an artistry that is at times highly stylized. The film is a study in contrasts and ironies.
When Pu Yi ascended the throne in Peking in 1908, he was only 3 years old. From his short-lived reign to his arrest as a counterrevolutionary in Red China in 1950, he spent his life as little more than a pawn of those who wished to further their own agendas. Nevertheless, director Bernardo Bertolucci’s gorgeous and seductive The Last Emperor imbues this powerless and constantly thwarted figure with a resolute if melancholy grace.
Never has the chaos and horror of battle been so in-your-face, so personal, as in writer/director Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Based on his experiences in Vietnam, this is a stark, caustic account of one man’s war.
Like Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Africa is a story of time and place. Just as T.E. Lawrence’s tale could only have happened in the Middle Eastern deserts of the Great War, Isak Dinesen’s would not exist without the gorgeous vistas of East Africa of almost exactly the same time.
Is Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham, in a virtuoso performance he has yet to match) insane? Amadeus opens with an old, bitter Salieri living out his last days in an asylum, where he’s been relegated following a suicide attempt. The film’s story, and the story of his life, unfolds as he confesses to a priest how, and why, he killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Director Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi is one of the most ambitious biographical films ever made, encompassing not just more than half a century of one man’s life but also one country’s struggle for independence. Ben Kingsley is a marvel as Mohandas K. — later called Mahatma — Gandhi, doing a remarkable job of conveying the soft-spoken determination of a man who would come to inspire a messianic fervor among his people and convincingly aging himself 55 years with little more than alterations in his posture and way of carrying himself.
Chariots of Fire may be veddy British, veddy 1920s — Gilbert and Sullivan, straw bowlers, cricket, school ties — but its story is as timeless as the Olympics themselves. This is quite possibly the most lyrical, most spiritual sports movie ever made.
The French Connection is Patient Zero in Hollywood’s epidemic of blood, guts, and mayhem, the Typhoid Mary that spread gunplay, car chases, and psychotic cops throughout filmdom. Like Typhoid Mary, though, The French Connection has only a mild, nonfatal case of the sickness that continues to rage through movies. This film demonstrates how smart action movies can be, and points out how dumbed down most of them have gotten.
sample sponsored post (sponsored) - Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce quis risus odio.
