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EagleSpit
8-10 stars are for significant, classic films.
5-7 stars are for enjoyable-- good(5), very good(6), and excellent(7) films.
1-4 stars are for bad to mediocre films.
TV shows I rate relative to all TV shows of that genre(e.g. sitcoms, crime dramas, etc.). TV episodes I rate relative only to other episodes of that particular show.
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Reviews
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Get the '78 Director's Cut
Weird how watching people getting whacked is a lot easier than watching bad burlesque. The '76 cut has a lot more of the burlesque and leaves out some plot points which are important. The gangsters have more screen time in the '78 version, and their menace is more palpable.
The Cinéma vérité style captures the feeling of the time amazingly well. You can practically smell the stale cigarette smoke, and immerse yourself in a glorious underworld of seed and squalor.
There are some thematic parallels with the "The Seventh Seal": the dancers are innocent like the jugglers, and Cosmo is their brave Knight, comforting them while they all go to their doom.
The Leopard Man (1943)
Cat Copycat
It's a beautiful film that works better as art than as entertainment. The expository sequences are pretty lifeless, but when Tourneur's vision kicks in, there's nothing better: the contrast of brightly lit safe interiors with the wild outer darkness, which creeps under the door in the film's most horrible moment, with a thud and a growl. The victims are locked out with the darkness, locked in with the darkness, the darkness finally embodied as a hooded procession against an artificial twilight. The low budget and left over sets are always apparent, but never diminish the rock solid sense of place. Best seen in a really hi res copy, the photography is crystal clear and gorgeous. Except, oddly, for one out of focus shot of the leopard.
Smile (2022)
Some good scares
The grin is scary, and you don't know when it's going to show up, so it makes for some good jump scares. I get the feeling that the rest of movie was constructed around it as an after thought. The plot rehashes the "pass the curse" theme which originated with the M. R. James story "Casting the Runes", later made into the film "Night of the Demon", and revisited in more recent examples such as "Drag Me to Hell", "The Ring" and "It Follows". Those are all good films, but the plot line is starting to get a bit dusty. The movie is at it's scariest at the beginning when it is more subtle and suggestive, but once the plot unfolds it loses its edge.
The score is first rate.
Nosferatu - Phantom der Nacht (1979)
From Schreck to Schlock
Grainy, flatly lit scenes shot with a jerky hand held camera in touristy locations devoid of atmosphere fail to create any illusion or suspension of disbelief. Herzog's insistence on realism falls flat, because ironically everything looks fake. It's just actors in costumes and makeup(they couldn't even be bothered to extend KInski's white face paint onto his neck). The constant continuity errors add to the sense of amateurish ineptitude. There are one or two good scenes, but overall it's just banal and dull. It has none of the austere, mystical beauty of Dryer or Murnau, none of the opulence and humor of Coppola. I've always held Herzog in awe, but this is just bad.