Zero for Conduct (1933)

2/5

Zero for Conduct, much like Vigo's other famous movie L'Atalante, is loved by critics and disliked by me. A lot of my distaste for this movie may have come from the bad transfer, which made it impossible in some scenes to understand what was going on visually or aurally. While perhaps not removing all possibility of understanding the theme and creativity of the piece, the bad transfer certainly did remove all the pleasure of watching it. At any rate, this movie is some sort of almost surreal comedy about a group of kids who get punished every Sunday and decide one day to strike back. The camerawork is very heavy and stilted, but even so a lot of shot compositions are very well-done (especially ones with shadows). The symbolism was very often very wonderful. The sheer inventiveness and playfulness of some characters and scenes make me smile just remembering them. Even so, it was an ordeal to sit through, even at a 40-minute runtime.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0024803/

Dial M for Murder (1954)

4/5

As with every Hitchcock, this movie is suspenseful and tense from its start to its end. The concept of the plot was clever and its execution nearly flawless. Some of the shots were nicely composed and the camera movement was informative and unobtrusive. The music worked exceptionally well to both enhance the tension and set the mood. Unfortunately, I thought that the plot itself was a bit weak and a bit watery; it meandered and drifted with no real purpose or ending in sight. The conclusion took much too long and it seemed a bit of a stretch. The acting by the American was really over-the-top and quite painful to watch. Grace Kelly, on the other hand, was incredible. Quite a good movie, but Hitchcock has done much much better.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0046912/

Children of Men (2006)

5/5

Children of Men transfixed me from its beautiful opening shot and never let me down from that point on. The use of long tracking shots throughout the entire movie gave it a gritty, raw realism that made it incredibly powerful. The beauty of the piece is not just in the shot compositions and precise attention to detail, but also the manner in which such cinematic techniques are all put into practice. Everything about this dystopic future is the background because it is the setting of the story and not the story itself. That is perhaps why an explanation for mankind's infertility is never even attempted. Much of the movie is seen through windows, often barred, trapped in cars or buses. Sometimes the background is so richly textured that it is impossible to focus on the events taking place, and we drown in the abundance of information, requiring multiple viewings.

With a single event about thirty minutes into the movie a la Hitchcock's Psycho, Cuarón totally threw out the conventions of modern cinema and had me on the edge of my seat for the rest of the movie. There was no way to predict what was going to come next; anything was possible. And that made this movie truly terrifying. But the heart of this movie is the setting, the sad world our future becomes, where not even the cure to our disease can stop the bloodshed and anarchy.

The dialogue was brilliant, the acting phenomenal. Clive Owen is a magician, but he never steals the show because every other actor was awesome as well. There is one scene I can still see, in which Michael Caine is talking about Clive Owen's baby while Owen is listening in just around the corner. There is so much emotion and heartfelt sadness in that one scene that I would've been satisfied if all of the movie built up to just that one moment. And that is only halfway in; it just gets better from there. There wasn't much wrong with this movie, except that the camerawork was a bit shakier than I would've liked (although nothing so bad as in The Bourne Supremacy).

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0206634/

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

4/5

The Pursuit of Happyness follows the real-life story of Chris Gardner, a father who loves his son above all else and will do anything to stay with him. And wow, Will Smith gives a tour-de-force performance. His acting gives so much depth and complexity to his character because he's not a perfect guy who just got caught in a bad situation; sometimes he makes mistakes, he gets angry, he loses control. All of this makes the character real and sympathetic (unlike Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man). There are three scenes of extraordinary power in this film, two by Will Smith and one by Thandie Newton, and they are worth the price of admission alone.

The cinematography is nothing to write home about except for one shot, the first time Will Smith walks into the brokerage firm. The editing and directing were also relatively mediocre at best. The music was a bit over the top for me, but effective nonetheless. While never comedic, most of the movie had a sort of tongue-in-cheek feel, the kind of humor Will Smith specializes in. While it was really enjoyable to watch, it sort of took away from the painful situation of homelessness by making it seem not so bad. Also, the voice-over narration was absolutely terrible. They should've completely stripped the entire movie of narration. Or at the very least taken out the "This part of my life is called..."

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0454921/

The Queen (2006)

2/5

What a way to bring in the New Year than with a terrible movie, as is my usual habit. The Queen is supposed to be a stunning character study of Queen Elizabeth following Princess Diana's sudden death, but it ended up being a bland, plotless, meandering mess. It failed as a character study, since it spent surprisingly little time on the Queen and much more time on Tony Blair, her family, her aide, and their influences on her. I found her character to be rather shallow and uninteresting; she was merely a puppet that was being pushed and pulled by different people without fleshed-out characteristics that make her an individual. Subject-wise, it failed to interest me and did not even take the time to explain the characters and their motivations--its audience is limited to only those most interested in the Princess Diana controversy. The acting on all parts was amateurish and camera-shy, although it may be the fault of the director using poor takes. The editing was absolutely atrocious; it was almost as if they used Windows Movie Maker to do it. The music was so uninsightful and melodramatic that the realism was completely removed. In using archival footage, however, they attempted to mimic the realistic feel of United 93, but that movie succeeded on many more levels to bringing home the impact and the raw realism inherent in the depiction of true events.

The ending was surprisingly better than expected. Instead of ending on a simple, sappy note with Elton John singing Candle in the Wind, it added an epilogue scene that both gave its characters much more complexity and made a full turn-around and brought it back to the start (something I am quite fond of). The symbolism of the stag was interesting and worth analyzing. Also, the title shot gave me great expectations for the film (even though they did not live up to them). Wholly unrecommended, unless of course you are extremely entrenched in Diana pathos.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0436697/