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CROUPIER
Clive Owen (from some British soap...or was it an ITV drama?) in a Mike Hodges film. Super British stuff, never what you expect and very clever. Good performances all round. Owen plays a writer who takes up a job as a croupier to pay the rent. Lots of impressive shots - It's kind of like a British Casino in part. You think its gonna be gangsta - and then you think its gonna be thriller - and then you think its gonna be morality play - and then you...well, you get the just of it. Always confounding, endlessly inventive and slick as fuck.
WAY OF THE GUN
Talking of slick, the guy who wrote and directed this is Christopher McQuarrie, the one who won an oscar for his Usual Suspects script. His brother was the adviser for all the gunplay/weapons stuff/military manouvers in the film, which will probably mean more to you if I say he also advised on Heat. A-ha. Film stars Benicio Del Toro and, fuck, I can't remember the other guys name, but he's good in it, as is James Cann, who steals the show with a kick-ass performance as an aging mafia bag-man, playing it with understated menace and a super-cool head ("one thing you can tell about a guy of my age in this profession: I'm a survivor"). The film is slick, the script is almost faultless, and, if, unlike me, you don't see it coming, the ending will surprise you. I liked this film cause of all the cool one-liners and its lack of any definition of an absolute morality - Think Mexican standoff. This film is just cool, it never really reaches any kind of resolution and thats the point. It's like a hard-boiled version of a Tarantino script, directed by Sidney Lumet. But really, its hard to describe, or compare, it's out there and worth seeing.
NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN
Loved this film. Andy Garcia and Ian Holm give great performances, and the directing by Lumet is assured and simple. This film just rocks. A simple storyline, allowing for some amazing acting. Some great set-pieces. The ending is heart-renching and made me cry. Garcia really gives the performance of his career here. Lovely looking thing too. (The film I mean).
KARATE KID
Of course, just a great film. Don't diss it or risk rebuttals. I mean this. "Wax-on, wax-off".
POINT BREAK
Amazing powerhouse directing by Kathryn Bigelow, which manages to make full use of the overtly-shallow acting abilities of the triptych trio of Keanau Reeves, Patrick Swayze, and Gary Busey. But the shit acting really doesn't matter because this film is meant to be about surface readings and looking great and a shallow sense of the earth (represented as deep - OHHHHMMMMM!!!) and not thinking too much and it's just so damn cool. Great action the way it should be done, amazing set-pieces from start to finish, a brilliant genre-bending script, including the dumb one-liners ("and when you hit the top? Man, your balls go as big as grape-fruits!"). I could watch this film once a month and not get bored, which makes the director even more deserving of credit considering who she's working with - She manages to make the actors an advantage to the film. It's just cool. It makes you want to take up surfing. |
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