“Some of our blood at least is the same. Ain’t that supposed to mean something?”
Let me just say up front that I know next to nothing about the people living in the Ozark Mountains. I have never stepped foot in the Ozarks. I have never met a hillbilly. My knowledge of hillbillies comes from The […]
Posted on September 1st, 2010 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews | 3 Comments »
“Aren’t we all supposed to be kin?”
Let me just say up front that I know next to nothing about the people living in the Ozark Mountains. I have never stepped foot in the Ozarks. I have never met a hillbilly. My knowledge of hillbillies comes from The Beverly Hillbillies and Deliverance. For me, the word […]
Posted on August 7th, 2010 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews | 12 Comments »
On April 30, 1989 Sergio Leone died - 21 years ago today. To commemorate Leone, my favorite director, I am posting this tribute to Once Upon a Time in the West, my favorite film. It’s an epic film, and so only an epic post will do. So strap on your holster, load your six-shooter, grab […]
Posted on April 29th, 2010 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews | 7 Comments »
“Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I’d tell them the truth and they still wouldn’t believe me, so I prefer to lie.”
Plot Summary: A troubled youth, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) turns to a life of petty crime and delinquency.
Review:
The Four Hundred Blows was neither the first nor the last film to deal […]
Posted on May 16th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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“If anything in this life is certain - if history has taught us anything - it’s that you can kill anybody.”
Plot Summary: Sequel to The Godfather compares and contrasts the two Corleone dons, flashing back and forth between Michael’s (Al Pacino) consolidation of power in Las Vegas, Miami and Cuba in the 1950’s and […]
Posted on April 4th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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“God, I’ve got more in common with these gooks than I do my own spoiled-rotten family.”
Plot summary: A racist white man protects his Hmong neighbors from a local gang.
Review:
Early in 2008 Eastwood released Changeling, a dreadfully overlong stinker whose hack direction displays an amazing fidelity to melodramatic cliché. The film has, among other things, missing/murdered […]
Posted on January 17th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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“Nobody cares but me”
Plot summary: Private eye Philip Marlowe attempts to get to the bottom of his friend’s supposed suicide in this offbeat adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel.
Review:
It doesn’t take long to realize that Altman’s The Long Goodbye offers a very skewed vision of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: the first time he steps outside his apartment door he’s […]
Posted on January 10th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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Tracy Flick: “None of this would have happened if Mr. McAllister hadn’t meddled the way he did. He should have just accepted things as they are instead of trying to interfere with destiny. You see, you can’t interfere with destiny. That’s why it’s destiny. And if you try to interfere, the same thing’s going to […]
Posted on November 30th, 2008 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews | 3 Comments »
“New York Herald Tribune!”
Plot Summary: After killing a cop with a jump cut, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s Bogart-imitating anti-hero hangs out with his American lover (Jean Seberg).
Review:
Breathless is invariably the first film that leaps to mind whenever the subject of the French New Wave is broached, no doubt because it epitomizes the philosophy, aesthetic, and revolutionary spirit […]
Posted on September 28th, 2008 by Mat Viola
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“Squeezin’ that watch ain’t gonna stop time.”
Plot Summary: After notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Glen Ford, Russell Crowe) is captured, a down-on-his-luck rancher, Dan Evans (Van Heflin, Christian Bale), escorts him to the town of Contention, where they hole up together in a hotel room and await the arrival of the 3:10 train to Yuma which […]
Posted on August 9th, 2008 by Mat Viola
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