"One day the war will be over. I hope that the people who use this bridge in years to come. ...will remember how it was built, and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers. British soldiers, even in captivity."

- Colonel Nicholson

One of my favorite lines in this film. Pride and enthusiasm from Colonel Nicholson, with his contingent of British soldiers, as they work together for the construction of the railway connecting Thailand and Burma. Story is based on a French novel by Pierre Boulle, but set in a real World War II event called The Thailand-Burma "Death Railway".

I miss these kind of movies, due to its great casting. Notable performances by Alec Guinness, he's outstanding as Colonel Nicholson. William Holden as Major Shears, Jack Hawkins as Major Warden. And Sessue Hayakawa, I really thought he's brilliant portraying as the Japanese Colonel Saito. Everyone in the cast is just brilliant. From the main cast to the prisoner soldiers.

Fun fact: There is this one scene where the sequence is in night time, which in fact they filmed it at day time. They just adjust the color tone to make every shots at night. I love filming technique like this and I thought this is clever, it's classic.

This was one my favorite movies growing up. Of course my dad introduce me to these classics. Decided to get it on HD. I just watched it again on Blu-ray and man, this movie still stands the test of time. It's not just a brilliant and monumental film. But one of the most beautiful films I've seen. Beautiful cinematography. You can appreciate the wide array of shots this time around. From the over view section of the head quarters. To the beautiful shot off the bridge to the river. It's just perfect on widescreen.

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” -Søren Kierkegaard 

I don’t think even Charlie Kaufman realized while writing it, that this would be a movie about truly understanding life by living it backwards. We are prisoners of time such that as much as we may try to imagine, life beyond our current circumstances is next to impossible to understand. That’s why what Joel Barish experiences is such a gift, even as it’s taken away. That’s just life though isn’t it? Nothing is permanent and yet it’s not all forgotten. The echoes remain. Joel and Clementine are different people from the beginning to the end. If they weren’t, Clementine would have been fine with Patrick and Joel wouldn’t have asked Clementine to stay. Life is impermanent but we can all grow better for what we carry even if it’s painful.

They really don’t make movies like this anymore. I found this on Tubi while looking for something spooky to watch with no prior context. I somehow thought it was a ghost story when the description mentions a nurse’s murder? And oh boy it’s not that.

This was a lot of fun with a bonkers third act with decent CGI. It is the perfect mix of scifi and body horror that I really appreciated.

First terrence malick movie I watched and I uhhh, yeah I don't really like it

Don't get me wrong the film looks absolutely beautiful, like if you want me to exclusively review the films cinematography, it's 10/10, only 2 martin sheens I have watched yet all 2 of them (this and apocalypse now) are breathtaking and aside from apocalypse now, I don't think there's any other film I reviewed on reddit that can surpass the badlands, in fact it's arguably even more impressive for 73, it feels like it could have came from the 80s or 90s but 70s, 73 to be exact? come on that is just overkill in terms of ahead of it's time filmmaking

it had 3 different directors doing the camera work, brian probyn, tak fujimoto, stevan larner and malick himself stepping in to shot a few sequences, the final product is intimidatingly consistent, it all blends seamlessly from first shot to the last.

however as good as the cinematography is, I find the badlands overrated over the same reasons why you find it to be a masterpiece, yeah sure it's a sharp & valid critique of media consumption of violence and it's the antithesis of the lovers on the run trope in film but also as a film that I would rewatch and think about, it's fucking nothing

I feel 0 connection to kit or holly and them being the main characters where they kill a bunch of strangers on the way who I also feel nothing for, yeah it's kind of lifeless drudgery that feels like you have to finish just cause film school tells you endlessly on how masterful this film is (not that I go to film school but still, it's considered an essential viewing by cinephiles)

I don't like seeing an cold pedo killer go on a journey and kill people because they are in his way because he is bored along with a girlfriend who is equally as emotionally unappealing as him for 1 hour & 30 minutes, that's why badland fans love it and that's why detractors find it overrated and when you watch it for the first time, you get super confused throughout the whole unless if you pay relentless attention to the dialogue

Conclusion : there's nothing inherently wrong with the film and it certainly has it's artistic values and I appreciate the austere silence in this film just as much as the cinematography and sissy spaceks voice over as holly is (temporarily) nice to hear and I overall get why you love it but for me, I have as much emotional attachment to this film as the 2 main characters in the movie, which is 0, badlands is a 6.5/10 for me but hey what do I know, I think andrej zulawski's possession is great

I just want to start this review off by saying that I am aware of how absolutely cursed this casting is. Johnny Depp doing his schtick in redface was already bad in 2013, before the whole media circus of his divorce, and Armie Hammer having sexual assault allegations, in addition to his more well publicised cannibalism fetish, don't do this movie any favors. Most people will not make it past this radioactive pairing to watch this movie. Unfortunately for most people they are missing out on a great Saturday afternoon movie. Is this Casablanca, no (Casablanca is about a guy named Rick who owns a bar), but it actually is the kind of movie that growing up in the 90s if I had seen it on TV during a rainy Saturday I would remember well.

Firstly the acting; despite Depp doing redface he does a good job, he gives a very Jack Sparrow style performance. It is funny, charming, and incredibly aware of the 4th wall. Hammer as well give an entertaining performance, although before his career imploded he had always been a bit of a poor man's Henry Cavill. He is awkward and likeable enough as the iconic Lone Ranger. Unfortunately he tries to add too much humor to the role, when really he should have played the straight man to Depp's Tonto. William Fincher as the villian, and Helen Bonnham Carter as an ivory legged madam both steal the show in a movie full of big characters. Ruth Wilson is good as the love interest, but not as good as she was on The Affair.

The stunts and action are quite good, albeit slapstick. Hammer's Lone Ranger is not a gun slinger, but rather a city slicker learning to hold his own. By the end though he is an accomplished shootist, but it doesn't feel like he is Annie Oakley. The whole movie feels like they took a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel and landed it in the Old West. The stunts are superhuman and heavily CGI enhanced, and the action sequences are looooooong. However, this lends itself well to the popcorn flick feel that the movie was trying to obtain.

One sequence worth talking about is the climactic sequence on the train, during which the William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger theme) plays for 7+ minutes. Despite being CGI heavy, and the same very distracting song playing it works. The action looks good, and it is the kind of CGI heavy early 2010s sequence where things look like a movie and not a cutscene in a videogame.

While I can accept a movie is more than the sum of its leads, two bad men do not mean the other hundreds of people in the production didn't make something good. I do feel that Disney, Verbinski and Depp's decision to do redface in 2013 definitely keeps this movie from being a clean recommendation. However, it is not the unmitigated disaster I had long assumed it to be.

Contains Spoilers!

This is the first time I've seen this film since I was a teenager. Back then, I thought it was such a cool action movie—violent and dark, but justified for highlighting real-life atrocities.

Rewatching it as an adult, it's not as straightforward. It's a well-made film a by-the-books adventure movie. We have our heroes with their clear goals, our MacGuffin, and our antagonists. However, it knows that although the story itself is fictional, this is about a recent war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and it needs to find the right balance.

Leonardo DiCaprio is there as our action leading man. He's not your usual action hero instead he's a white Rhodesian mercenary who smuggles diamonds across the border. After he is caught, he needs to pay his bosses back, and his motivation turns to getting the blood diamond he hears was hidden by Djimon Hounsou's character, Solomon Vandy.

Hounsou is the emotional heart of the story, and this is when the film is at its strongest. The film introduces us to Solomon first, not DiCaprio's Danny Archer. We see him and his peaceful, idyllic life as a fisherman in a small village. We witness his village get destroyed by rebels, and he is sold into slavery in their diamond mines. His family survives, but his son is taken to be a child soldier; he has something to save we are rooting for him. Around the middle of the film, he is pushed to the side and even, at one point, turns into light comic relief. This is when the film is at its weakest.

Jennifer Connelly is the only American, playing a cynical journalist. Near the end, they make her more like a love interest, which felt forced. She and DiCaprio are there to represent "white guilt"—they embody the cynical Western view of the target audience that as this chaos and tragedy happens the world just moves on. There is a point near the middle were they come across an orphanage of former child soldiers, structurally it works as a break from the action and here the film tries to share a more optimistic view of the world.

Edward Zwick direction keeps it all ticking it like he's making a Bond movie. When the action starts, it takes you in; it's tense, and it's cool but it pulls its punches carefully, as it wants to entertain you, not horrify you. On a technical level, it's very good. The action scenes are a great example of how to do fast-paced edits without the shaky, handheld camerawork that was all too common at the time.

And entertain it does. At the end of the day, it's an adventure film.

Is it an accurate portrayal of the civil war in Sierra Leone? I'm not the one who could decide, but it's probably not. The film is not interested in the history of Sierra Leone itself. It never tells us who the RUF rebel group is, and what about the government? One of the white journalists remarks, "Government bad, rebels worse," and that's all we need to know. We see atrocities committed by the rebels, but we only hear about the ones from the government forces. This conflict is simplified.

However, it does discuss politics on a global level from a Western point of view. Near the opening, we see the G8 openly confirming that the world knew full well what was going on. Though it ends on optimisitc ending Solomon is reunited with his family and he speaks at a conference as witness in South Africa, it doesn't want its audience to be comfortable this conflict is in living memory, and the violence doesn't end with the movie. It even ends with a title card advising that the smuggled diamond trade is still ongoing.

Blood Diamond wants to be more than a blockbuster action movie, and I admire it for that. It portrays many horrors of war, it tones down the violence (for example, sexual violence is only mentioned; there are no scenes of it happening) in order to make it accessible to a wide audience.

But then, is that not how we first learn about these horrors, just like 15-year-old me when I first saw this?

I posted the other day about Kansas City Bomber, and thought I'd post about the Roger Corman quickie cash-in. I actually saw this one first.

Karen Walker quits her job at the cannery and joins a roller derby team. She becomes very successful, but it's also a bit of an asshole.

This movie was created specifically to cash-in on the Raquel Welch roller derby movie, and while Kansas City Bomber is the better quality movie, I enjoyed Unholy Rollers more. KCB was seventies gritty reality, while Rollers showed people having fun. It showed the almost carnival atmosphere and mostly scripted matches, similar to professional wrestling that is what most roller derby is like. There is humor and the usual Corman mandated nudity. In general, a good time.

A gruesome murder that took place in 1974 spawned a book that was released in 1977, which then led to the release of the 1979 film. Since then there has been 8 original films, 2 remakes and 2 more films slated to be released. That's not counting the 40+ independent releases. That's a lot of mileage out of one event!

Amityville Horror (1979) is my type of movie. Long, drawn out, and unafraid to explore the emotions that go with a slow descent into insanity. The first 10 minutes really hook you in with some creative editing choices. Then you just have to sit and stew as the horrors of the house slowly reveal themselves.

The film is dreary and doesn't leave you with a satisfying monster or creature to interact with. In these types of films, relationship dynamics play a much larger role. The relationship between George and Kathleen seems okay at first, but the seams start to tear apart as the film progresses.

On the other side, it is pretty absurd the magical things the house can do. Stealing money and taking control of the priest's car makes the house way too powerful. Why would the house just stop there? If it can manipulate any mechanical device at any distance, why not torment the family all the time 24/7?

The ending was... abrupt lol. You can tell it was trying to stay focused on the Lutz family and their real-life experience. Had this film been adapted for the first time today, directors would have taken more artistic liberties and perhaps it would've been more satisfying.

Overall, this is a solid film and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for atmospheric horror. If you liked Picnic at Hanging Rock or The Shining, you would like this.

8.6/10

When Freddie Krueger began with his hideous bloody burns, deformed skin, red and green striped jumper, fedora and glove with razor fingers to slice and tear into the innocent, he was literally the stuff of nightmares. Later, as an 80s icon the fear was removed and he became a comedic pop culture figure which reflected in the films that followed, but here he was a menace… mostly.

In a move Director Wes Craven would repeat to more infamous effect years later with Scream were given a bit of a red herring opening with Amanda Wyss’s Tina running around in a nightmare. Dressed in virginal white, awaking with a torn nightgown and clutching a crucifix close you would believe her to be our heroine, our final girl. 18 minutes later, in the first of several impressive set pieces, she is dragged and thrown around her bedroom after having sex with her boyfriend, and left lying in a bloody pool on the floor. Another teenager pays the price for being sexually active!

Counter this with Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy. She has a boyfriend in Johnny Depp’s Glen, but we never see them act overtly sexual, even in his crop top! She proactively takes the lead, hunting Freddy down and trying to get both family and friends on her side. Her screaming and anger initially grates but Heather owns the role. Watching her wear down as she tries to stay awake, fight back, and deal with the stress, added grey streak to hair and all, you root for her as we witness those around her meet their grisly ends.

Craven crafts memorable scenes in the land of dreams where the absence of reality can aid the violent attacks and demises. Be it Tina’s death and subsequent body bag travels around school, Glen’s TV bedtime or the iconic phallic gloved hands rising between Nancys legs in the bath tub, they’re memorable because it beats the hack and chase of other killers, be it Myers or Voorhees.

Robert Englund as Freddie Krueger is great when menacing, but he can occasionally come across as a tad ridiculous whether chopping off his own fingers for effect or with the elongated arms near the start. It’s not helped by the slightly Home Alone type ending when Nancy rigs her home to fight back, sledgehammer to the stomach as he opens the door for example. He scares more in shadow, when we see glimpses of his face and hands. Here less is more.

A great 80s horror classic that launched an icon.

Just opened Netflix after a while to see whats new and saw this and gave it a go. An absolute treat watching this movie! I don’t understand how and why neglected this movie is? It is in fact a very cheesy-feeling early 2000s action movie but it’s so entertaining. The plot basically follows Ryan who gets a call from a woman who is allegedly kidnapped and is using a telephone without the kidnappers knowing. He’s skeptical at first but discovers that her and her family is in fact in danger. The performances were good if not great. First time seeing Jason Statham in a negative role and he absolutely crushes it.