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Torn Curtain (1966)
The master had lost his plot ...
This is definitely one of Hitch's most forgettable movies - I just watched this again after a long time and just feel the urge to make a few comments.
Good things first: there are a few highlights even in this one - the famous killing scene at the farm is a Hitchcock at his best, and Wolfgang Kieling as Gromek, the smiling villain, steals every scene he is in.
So much for the good part - now for the annoying things:
The story: Oh come on, Paul Newman's false defection to the East on his own, to get hold of a formula that he manages to lure out of a brilliant East German professor within minutes? OK, it's the famous McGuffin, but I have seen 50 better ones in Hitch's movies ...
Tha acting: There is no chemistry between Andrews and Newman ... both leave a very bored impression and I failed to really feel anything for their characters.
The scenery: Granted, this one is 40+ years old and Matte painting was still very common, but the whole picture has such an annoying studio look that I just couldn't take it seriously.
"East Germany": A couple of minutes' research would probably have helped in the believability department - this is so far from East German reality as it could possibly have been - BMW taxis, West German cars on the roads, a fresh defector running around on his own, operating a fake bus to transport people who want to escape, fresh tomatoes as the offer of the day - and finally: Volksarmee soldiers holding up buses and robbing the travelers ... hello?
The language mix: Good thing to use German actors for most of the German parts, but there are so many smaller roles with Germans being played by non-native speakers that it just sounds ridiculous.
There were many other details that just didn't fit - overall, a real poor achievement of the master ...
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Fun, but ...
Just saw the latest Die Hard installment and am a little bit surprised about the raving reviews and the Top 250 ranking ... I was not exactly disappointed by the movie and thought it was entertaining as expected - but this is by no means Top 250 material (and I expect it to drop out as soon as the rest of the voters catch up with the probably less critical Die Hard fans ...).
Willis again is great in his role, and the clash of generations between him and his hacker buddy makes for a lot of funny dialogue. Also, the action is fun to watch - however, there are too many letdowns to make this a real success.
Overall, it had too much of a comic book character - granted, the characters are larger than life, but for me personally this only works to a certain degree.
Firstly, it is so ridiculous when the hero is being shot at by professionals with automatic guns at fairly short distance and gets away - the car is perforated by bullet holes, but the people in the car remain unharmed ...
Then, I really get annoyed by all the hacker and computer nonsense - there is so much cyder-crap in the movie that I won't even start listing it.
Finally, the scene with the F-35 fighter just ruined it for me - this was so over the top that it was laughable ...
To sum it up, I would say: funny, but forgettable ...
Inland Empire (2006)
An Alan Smithee Film?
At least it could have been worse ... but only if it had lasted even more than 3 hours ;-).
Let me get a few things out of the way first: I am a great admirer of David Lynch's early work, up to and including Lost Highway. I like movies that are not straightforward, that make you think and that leave space for your imagination and interpretation. And I consider myself to be open-minded and willing to wander off the beaten track ...
Having covered this, I must say that this was one of the rare occasions where I was dying for the movie to (finally) end - I left the theater thinking "what the f***?" and quite honestly if I had to put a headline to the whole thing I would call it intellectual masturbation.
Maybe Lynch is just having a laugh, viewing Inland Empire as an experiment to see how far he can go with audiences - or it is a revolutionary new concept in cinema where the director just supervises shooting and the audience explains what this is about in forums like this.
One of my spontaneous thoughts after watching this was: had this been the debut film of a rookie director fresh out of film school, my guess would be that he/she would be continuing his/her career making movies at children's birthday parties or silver wedding anniversaries.
Then on the other hand, maybe I belong to the minority of dim-wits who just don't get it - I can not rule this out. However, looking at the majority of raving reviews here, there is one thing that I would really like to find out: how many of those reviews are based on a genuine appreciation of the movie, and how many were written because it's just so en vogue to celebrate Lynch films and you better not admit that you came out of the theater thinking "geez - I didn't get it ..."
I would love to do an experiment: show 3 hours of CCTV or traffic cam material, taken randomly from a department store, office building or a traffic light on a deserted road, and add some opening titles stating "Directed by David Lynch" - my bet would be this film would earn an average vote of 7.8 here and lots of interpretations/explanations, all starting with the statement how great the lack of narrative helps the deeper meaning of the movie.
But maybe this finally is the ultimate Alan Smithee film - and I must admit that it left a deep impression in urging me to write this long comment ;-)
Stalingrad (1993)
Slight disappointment
Even though there is no doubt that this movie gives you an impression of the cruelty and hopelessness of the soldiers involved in the battle of Stalingrad (and any other battle in any other war, I would assume), it fails to be remembered as a great motion picture as well, because from my point of view it is just too cliché-ridden - some examples (*** SPOILERS ***):
- the officer who remorselessly sends one of his soldiers on a suicide mission during battle - the young, first-time front soldier who loses it and shoots his own comrade - the ultra-correct young officer and the weathered old soldiers - the human moments when the German soldier gives bread to a Russian on the battlefield - the over-evil Nazi officer - the soldier who shits his pants during battle - the guy who learns that his wife is leaving him via a letter she sends to him - the obligatory suicide mission that is undertaken with the main characters surviving
... and so on - I believe that all of these things have really happened, but if they all hit you within a few minutes, the whole thing gets ridiculous and looks like 'the compressed Stalingrad in a nutshell'. With each new cliché occurring, I found myself thinking: Yes, that was exactly the one that was missing and that I was waiting for ... sometimes less is more, I would say.