Lot of old movies of late. I will just try to list some off the top of my head. A long post with short opinions......
The Artist (2011)
Though
Hugo pays homage to the same silent movies as
The Artist, as a movie, I like The Artist better. While the opening scene of Hugo made me wish I had bought the 3D BR, it did not impress me like The Artist did. Perhaps, if I had known who George Mellies was
before seeing the film, I might have appreciated Hugo a bit more. Even then, things would have turned in favor of The Artist due to Uggie the Dog, which is a better performer than the dogs in Hugo
. For instance, the 'sound' scene where every object and person makes sound other than George Valentin and a few other scenes stand out for me (in
The Artist). The plot of The Artist reminded me of Singin' in the Rain towards at the end though.
Elite Squad 1 (2007) and
Elite Squad 2 (2010)
About a special police force called BOPE and the drugs and corruption in Brazil. I may be the odd one out, but I liked the first a little better than the second. The second has a better budget, has a larger and powerful enemy and equally good, but the first one felt more personal to me, may be a bit more realistic.
An interesting trivia about the first film
This film was already a best-seller almost three months before its official release. Illegal copies of what the director called the "3rd cut" flooded the streets of all major capitals in Brazil, for the equivalent of five dollars a piece. Criminal investigation revealed that the original DVD was robbed in the Company Drei Marc, which does the subtitles. According to estimates at least three million people watched the bootleg version, which is six hundred thousand more than it managed during its theatrical run.
Der Untergang (2004)
Excellent performance by Bruno Ganz as Hitler. For the first time, Hitler on screen was not a one dimensional monster. He was a normal human being one moment (kind and concerned about people in private), but would erupt the next (saying German people brought it on themselves and should sacrifice their lives), fall into a delusion of victory one moment and accept the reality the next.
Das Boot (1981)
From one German WWII film to another. I had postponed seeing Das Boot for so many years now as the idea of a story about a German U-boat with a running time of over 200 mins was not intriguing. I've watched the first 5-10 mins quite a few times before settling on another film. But, this time, with sufficient breaks, I managed to sit through this wonderful film. Usually, longer films make me wish they were shorter. But, from my experience with the Director's Cut of 'Das Boot', I am already thinking about ordering the even longer and complete 282 minute 1985
Mini-series version. I liked it that much!
Network (1976)
Like Das Boot, I had no interest in a movie about TV Network! But, this movie is different. I usually prefer to watch three minutes of rain drops falling than hear pages of dialogues, but as an exception, I like this film because of it's dialogues - be it the 'Corporate Cosmology' preaching or the parting one between Max and Diana. 35 years after it's release, I can still draw a parallel between the breaking news chasing TV Networks to UBS.
Metropolis (1927)
Watched the 2010 restored 145 minute version. The newly found footage footage appears with black bars and a much poorer quality compared to the rest of the movie. While in some places, the lost scenes simply add continuity or scenes that do not matter, there are certain missing pieces that adds to the understanding of the story line. Though I've not watched the 2002 restoration or the Moroder version, I am doubtful they will be as complete as this one. I admired it in parts considering when it was made, but overall it fell a
little short of what I expected.
Also liked :
On the Waterfront (1954),
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
Harold Lloyd (2 movies, 3 in queue)
I honestly did not know who Harold Lloyd was until I saw
Safety Last! (1923) because it kept turning up in iCheckMovies lists.
Girl Shy (1924) has better story and moments than Safety Last.
In the silent movie era, Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character can draw both a burst of laughter and tears out of you within the same movie. Among others, Buster Keaton was great with physical comedy and deadpan expressions. I think Harold Lloyd is on a similar level with his films - funny with risky stunts, though much less slapstick. Most of his physical humor essentially goes with the story line and does not fall into 'slapstick for the sake of it' humor.
Gonna watch "The Kid Brother", "Speedy" and "The Freshman" later on.
Ernst Lubitsch (3 movies)
I've watched
Trouble in Paradise (1932) sometime back and liked it for being different than the rest.
I had watched the Mel Brooks' version of "To be and Not to be", but not the original. Only recently did I get a chance to catch the original version of
To be or Not to be (1942). I like the original better. It is a comedy, but serious when it needs to. In the same manner, "The Shop around the corner" is better than it's inspired counterpart "You've got mail". The story lines are more streamlined and the supporting characters are well fleshed out in both the originals.
Did not like
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
I "get" the message such films convey (
Post WWII, Cold War - we need to stop arms race!). But, it's hard to picture an alien who looks like humans - right down to internal organs (based on conversation between doctors), advanced enough to learn English through 'radio transmission' (why not French, Japanese, German, Tamil, Hindi etc.,?), comes in an impenetrable space ship hand in hand with a robot that can destroy planets (why do they always land in US? One of the reasons I like
District 9 is because aliens land in South Africa
)...only to get shot by a bullet? Why? Won't inter-galactic agents expect hostile fire from things far advanced than... bullets?
I am ok with the 1950's setting, the special effects (though Fritz Lang did a better job in imagining 'Metropolis' years earlier), but I could not connect with the film at all. On the other hand, I liked
Invasion of Body Snatchers (1956) better than this, so it's not the 1950's or the effects.
Dracula (1931)
Bela Lugosi's performance is good (or at least his staring eyes highlighted by the lighting), but the movie lags behind Frankenstein, another monster movie which came out in the same year. It is not even half as good as Nosferatu which came out 9 years earlier and based on the same story. Murnau's was a scary monster, this one is a joke. For instance, if I was Dracula, I'd have killed that Prof Van Helsing for his annoying accent right away than let him find me!
The Thin Man (1934)
May be I have seen too much of crime solving dramas of late. It was not on the expected lines, but at least it's a decent, watchable movie compared to Dracula + it has Myrna Loy.