Sunday 9 March 2014

this week on 100 Films

Two new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


North by Northwest (1959)
Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.
Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.
Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Fountain (2006)
it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great.
Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Movies have taught us many things, and here’s another: don’t take the train from Pelham Bay Park at 1:23. In the past thirty-five years said train has been taken hostage three times, and while once every 11⅔ years may not sound a particularly high average, I’d wager it’s higher than for most trains.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

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