IN: Review: Bacall does well here - especially considering this is only her 2nd film. This one is often overshadowed because it falls between 2 great successes: "To Have and To Have Not" (1944) and "The Big Sleep" (1945), both of which paired her with Humphrey Bogart. Granted this one is not up to par to the other movies but I think through no fault of her own. I think there was some miscasting in having her portray a British upper-crust lady. No accent whatsoever. I think all the strange accents were distracting - Boyer was certainly no Spaniard. It was hard to keep straight which country people were from.

I really liked the black and white cinematography. Mood is used to great affect - I especially liked the fog scene. The lighting also does a great job of adding to the intrigue and tension.

Bacall is just gorgeous. Boyer just doesn't fit the romantic leading man role for me - so he and Bacall together was a little strange. Not great chemistry - and certainly no Bogie and Bacall magic. But I still really liked this picture. There is great tension and it moves along well enough. I must say I found the murder of the little girl quite bold for this period film.

Katina Paxinou and Peter Lorre stand out as supporting cast. Paxinou as the hotel keeper is absolutely villainous and evil in her portrayal. Her one scene where she laughs maniacally as Mr. Muckerji is leaving after exposing her as the child's murderer is quite disturbing. Lorre also does quite well in his slimy, snake portrayal of Conteras - a sleazy coward to the end. Wanda Bendrix also does quite well in portraying the child Else - especially considering this was her first picture and she was only 16 at the time (though she appears much younger). Turns out she later married Auie Murphy which proved to be a short lived, tempestuous marriage.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: I recently rented the animated version of The Lord of the Rings on video after seeing the FANTASTIC 2001 live action version of the film. The Lord of the Rings live action trilogy directed by Peter Jackson will undoubtably be far better than George Lucas' Star Wars "prequel" trilogy (Episodes 1-3) will ever be as the real fantasy film series of the 21st century!

I remember seeing the animated version as a child, and I didn't quite understand the depth of the film at that time. Now that I have read the books, I understand what the whole storyline is all about. To be sure, some of the characters are quite silly, (Samwise Gangee is particularly annoying, almost as much as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars Episode One, (AWFUL!)) but, I have to say it follows the book rather closely, and it goes into part of book two, The Two Towers. The good things are that the action is somewhat interesting and some of the animation is quite remarkable for it's time. The bad things are that it ends upruptly halfway through The Two Towers without any result of Frodo's quest to destroy the one ring, and the animation looks quite dated compared to today's standards.

Overall, not AS bad as many say it is. BUT, the 2001 live action version is the new hallmark of The Lord of the Rings! At least Ralph Bakshi took the script seriously! Peter Jackson has said that the animated version inspired him to read the books, which in turn caused him to create one of the greatest fantasy series ever put on film, so we can at least thank Ralph Bakshi for that matter! I'll take the animated version of Lord of the Rings over the live version of Harry Potter anyday!

A 7 out of a scale of 1-10, far LESS violent than the 2001 live action version, but NOWHERE near as good! For diehard fans of the books and film versions of The Lord of the Rings.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Tatie Danielle is all about a ghastly old hag who torments her loving and oblivious family out of sheer spite. There's a bit of subtext that might be about France's colonial past but it's mostly just Danielle doing the sorts of things (like deliberately abandoning a small child in a park) that would soon have a man picking up his teeth with broken fingers. Sadly, that doesn't happen here. It looks good and the acting is fine and there's nothing really wrong with the concept but it's just so SMUG. God, does this movie love itself. Pity it isn't nearly as clever or as funny as it thinks it is. The only impetus in the show - sorry, movie - comes from Danielle getting nastier and nastier, and the only surprise comes from watching the increasingly improbable ways she does this. That's right: just like in a sitcom, which is what this is, with the added 'bonus' of delusions of grandeur and a 110-minute running time.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: Unfortunately, Jean Eustache (1938-1981) belongs like so many once leading French film makers nowadays to the great unknown ones whose movies are hard to find and are not released on international DVDs. Since we have a good old-fashioned video-store in Tucson, I had the chance to watch this 3 1/2-hour marathon masterwork that is not boring for ten seconds.

Since we speak here about one of the most discussed (and most controversially discussed) movies of all times, let me tell you my impression that the endless dialogs, originally typical for the early "Nouvelle Vague" of a Jacques Rivette or Alain Resnais appear almost ridiculous in this movie. The dialogs are basically monologues, mainly the longest ones spoken by Jean-Pierre Leaud. The most characteristic feature is that the intersections of the speeches of two people is almost zero. Leaud, or his character, Alexandre, pleases to tell more about himself than about the topics he is seemingly to speak. Therefore, one can hardly speak about communication in this movie. It is well possible that the director had a gargantuan satire in mind against the idle running of the once so hotly discussed political and sociological ideas, but the type of man Alexandre exists to all times, we find him already in Petron's "Satiricon", which work has actually great resemblance with "The Mother and the Whore".

Alexandre does not only nothing, but he has developed an own kind of metaphysics about the absence of acting, at least acting in the sense of responsibility toward the society whose part he is. He mocks at the people who run to work at 7 c'clock in the morning, when he is just busy having his last drink before he goes to bed in the apartment of one of his girlfriends from whose money he lives. He is unable to speak one sentence without quoting one of the leading thinkers between Nietzsche and Bernanos. Especially Sartre who is shown quickly in the French intellectual cafe "Aux Deux Magots", where Alexandre, too, is sitting all day, must serve as excuse for the life-style of Alexandre and his colleagues, because they suffer existential crisis from bourgeois nausea. However, the intellectual speeches of Alexandre seem to be rather pseudo-intellectual, and the sentences and quips he cites seem to come rather from a dictionary of quotations than from his actual reading of the respective books.

It is true: This movie demands an extremely broad European knowledge, especially the connoisseurship of French existentialist philosophy and there consequences to the 68 student revolution movement, but if you have this knowledge, than you will enjoy 215 minutes of your life by staring amazed into the TV and crying out with laughing like you have probably not done it since a long time.
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive