Monday, December 22, 2008

Some Recent Viewings

Into The Wild (2007) - Very enjoyable, beautifully filmed true story about a man that abandons society in order to live in the wild. It has a lot to say about finding genuine happiness and meaning in life. Directed by Sean Penn who's proving to be quite good behind the camera. I heartily recommend this one.

Silent Hill (2006) - Based on a computer game... not usually a good idea. A film that begins as a noble attempt at horror but gets worse and worse as it progresses. By the film's end, it becomes an over the top, B-grade, gore fest. There are too many stupid looking monsters in this movie for it to be in any way scary, and the script and music don't help either.

Rear Window (1954) - I watched this after watching 'Silent Hill' and it was already a better film after the first 10 minutes. Really cool story about a man, confined to his house, spying on his neighbours, and becomes convinced one of them has murdered his wife. The suspense is as well executed as anything made today. Scratch that - it's better than most films made today. Hitchcock always impresses me and this is surely one of his best. A real classic.

5 comments:

Mikey Lynch said...

Rear Window - this is almost exactly the point where films stop being old and become normal!

It's weird watching the whole multiple-stories thing, for what may be one of the first mainstream times in cinema.

Anonymous said...

Completely agree about Rear Window. A brilliant film in every sense. Silent Hill is such a shame given the first 2 games of the series were so good. Do yourself a favour and get them now, though you'll probably have to find a playstation one to play them on. Do it anyway!

Cabernet Leather said...

Maybe I will Christian... My Playstation gets quite lonely these days.

Re: Rear Window - I know! I was amazed at how "modern" the film seemed. Such a groundbreaking style.

The Librarian said...

I loved rear window. It was one of those films that they had in the University of Tas library and I got out b/c I was bored, which turned out to be ( as Mikey explains why) a style much borrowed and carried into modeern film making. Very watchable and good story.

I have had some recommendations for "into the wild" now - breaks all the "stupid movie" assessments I got from other people.

Will put it on my list.

Thanks for your reviews- good to have some things to watch so that I don't star blankly at the dvd boxes when I get around to visitng the movie shop.

Ta Pryderi!

Cabernet Leather said...

No worries, Amy.