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Reviews
Le notti di Cabiria (1957)
Nights Of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria saw Giulietta Masina get the award for best actress in the European version of our academy awards.Like Bette Davis in 1937 and 1938 who was nominated for in Human Bondage and lost an award everyone thought was hers only to win on her next nomination for Dangerous.Masina should have won for La Strada in 54 but won on her next nominated performance in 1957 for Nights Of Cabiria the awards people obviously not wanting to be seen as having missed the boat twice in three years.That being said Giulietta put in a performance worthy of award status.Cabiria a streetwalker has her own home, a small bank account,and is fiercely independent.She has the same hopes and dreams of everyday middle-class people.She and her friend Wanda seem to want a normal life but have somewhat resigned themselves to making the best out of the life!She takes pride that her and Wanda whenever possible try and get picked up at the higher class locales,that she has only slept under a bridge once or maybe twice,and the fact that she staunchly refuses to accept a pimps protection.she would like to have real love in her life but is practical about her expectations,partly due to negative experiences of such.The cinematography makes you feel like you are in Italy as Fellini takes his camera to the streets of Rome and her provinces.There is no pre-fab Hollywood sets here.Cabiria like Gelsomina will remain in your mind and heart long after this film has been watched.
Attack (1956)
Attack
This was one of my all time favorite war movies it was not done on a grand scale like The Battle Of The Bulge,or The Longest Day.The fact is it centers around a particular national guard unit near the end of world war11,but still when the nazi lion still had teeth left in which to bite.The movie does a great job of showing that just as human beings are varied in their character and temperament,in times of extreme danger,and I cant think of a more dangerous situation than being in a war and being asked to actively participate in it people can and did respond in many varied ways At one extreme was the strong consistent courage shown by Sergeant Costa the Jack Palance character and the continual cowardice shown by capt. Cooney played by Eddie Albert.The company is put into one situation after another where Cooney's failure to act in support of his men is costing valuable lives unwarrantably.Costa has to pull the chestnuts out of the fire repeatedly before they burn as cinder.This eventually becomes too much for Costa and the rest of the men who plead for Cooney to be kicked upstairs.Costa then vows that if Cooney fowls up one more time costing him any more men he will retire Cooney himself permanently.the climax sees it happen again with Costa a survivor willing himself beyond injury or death itself to carry that threat out against a man he hates worse than the enemy. There was some great performances in this movie most notable Jack Palance Eddie Albert,Buddy Ebsen,Lee Marvin and William Jaeckal.A side note Eddie Albert received the congressional medal of honor only one of 12 men to do so in the war he was a real life veteran of war who would have had to seen it all.
La strada (1954)
La Strada
I enjoyed this movie immensely. The acting was superb. Anthony Quinn was an selfish abusive brute,its funny but being a child in black bottom in the fifties i witnessed my mother and aunt falling prey to these type of men.The lack of economic opportunities and abject poverty that plagued post war Italy could be found in Negro communities here at that time.That said people made a living as best they could stompano-Quinn way was as a one man circus act of a strongman,gelsomina-Masina was his assistant given to him for some money and in order to have one less mouth to feed,by a desperate mother.The film to me conveys how under the most dire of conditions people will seek to be loved,and harbor hope and dreams of some sort.The film also conveys innocence that could be found in acts of kindness, a budding plant,or a child-woman like gelsomina,and how depending on the fate of who we deal with can cherish,or destroy that innocence!
The Sterile Cuckoo (1969)
the sterile cuckoo
This movie touches something in all of us that i think Lizzie minnelli brought to the service so well she deserved an Oscar nom in her first performance.Most of us at some point in our lives,often when young have clung to love,or been clung to-to tightly.The result often being the other person at some point feels as though they cant breath they feel suffocated.This creates awkward moments and much introspection as we question what does love truly mean does it mean I have to be with you and know where you are 24 hours a day.Does it mean i let go my friends because you don't seem to like them. I'm a male who gets sad every time I see this movie.All of us have felt loneliness and come across some people who are plagued by it.Lizzie Minnelli ,and Wendell Burton showed the dynamics of young love and all its bittersweet ironies.This movie reminds us of being young and breaking up with someone you at one point cared deeply for.
Il gattopardo (1963)
the leopard
i came to this movie with a lot of great expectations first off i'm a true Burt Lancaster fan and i heard visconti was one of the best foreign filmmakers of his day.this was one of the most boring movies i ever saw.there was way too much time spent showing how wonderful it must have been to have been an aristocrat if it was that boring give me the peasantry.the superficial contrived airs of the ballroom party-goers was a long wasted piece of film.they kept talking about the great Italian patriot Garibaldi about his revolution and the impact it had on them.to do what continue on in their boring pretentious lives.these people looked and acted as if they never passed gas in their life.any attraction the opposite sex showed for one another was stilted and stiff to say the least.what was the movie trying to impart it sure wasn't trying to entertain.
White Heat (1949)
white heat
One of the all time great gangster flicks of all time. Unlike others that were made in the 30's and 40's that have become dated,White Heat is timeless.Remember a young Tupac Shakur in the movie juice watching the final climax of White Heat on a small table top b/white TV jumping up hollering man i want to go out just like that.The performance of Cagney as a mother fixated psychopath was deserving of an Oscar nom.The supporting cast was excellent,Steve Cochran aka Big Ed Virginia Mayo aka Verna sounded out the true nature of their relationship by the subtle movement of their eyes,and the wicked half smiles-no words being said letting you know Big Ed wants the gang leadership and the sultry blonde moll that came with it Cody's wife The scene where Cody gets the news in prison that mom had been bumped off sets in motion a violent psychotic breakdown that connects with the animal in all of us in some degree so that you find yourself cheering him as he beats down one guard after another,like bowling pins before finally being subdued the pace exhilarating,acting superb the script tight White Heat is a timeless gangster classic