Archive for the 'Shira's Takes' Category
Annie Hall (1977): Shira’s Take
I think this may be the hardest movie to write about, because I have seen it so many times and love it so much. I have trouble saying positive things about movies (a trait Woody Allen could relate to, I’m sure), so I have pretty much nothing to say about Annie Hall. But I’ll try.
Everything [...]
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Tags: Annie Hall, Christopher Walken, Diane Keaton, Shira 10, Woody Allen
Rocky (1976): Shira’s Take
Yo, Adrian! I don’t think I realized this movie actually won Best Picture until a couple of years ago. The major reason for this is that while it’s perfectly entertaining and heartening (who doesn’t like when an oafish underdog makes a name for himself?) it is also totally stupid. The only good thing about this [...]
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Tags: Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Rocky, Shira 5, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire
I should start by saying that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the only movie that I saw for the first time during this Best Pictures Project but not within the context of the BP Project. I took a class called Insanity in Film, and it was one of the requirements. I considered not [...]
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Tags: Brad Dourif, Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Shira 10
I don’t get it. How can anyone possibly think that this movie is better than the Godfather? I honestly think that this movie is worse in every way. No, scratch that. Talia Shire is slightly less annoying in this movie. But Marlon Brando’s Vito is way better than Robert DeNiro’s (though all that background was [...]
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Tags: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Shira 8, The Godfather Part II
The Sting (1973): Shira’s Take
I love watching movies I grew up on and understanding the prostitution references and homosexual undertones (which are always present in Robert Redford movies). I also love watching movies in which the screenplay and visuals overshadow the actors. I mean, it’s hard to steal the spotlight from Redford and Paul Newman, two of the greatest [...]
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Tags: Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan, Harold Gould, Paul Newman, Ray Walston, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Shira 9, The Sting
Gosh, this movie sucks.
But seriously, I feel like I did when I was forced to write about Casablanca. What can you possibly say about such a cinematic masterpiece that hasn’t been said? Absolutely nothing. So I’ll say the things that have been said by others but that come to my mind right now. I think [...]
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Tags: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, John Cazale, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Shira 10, The Godfather
First and foremost it must be said that the first half of this movie is not good. It is totally uninteresting, and the details of the smuggling plot are hard to follow. Second, there is not much character development, which is typically the most important thing to me in any narrative-based art-form. Disclaimers aside…The French [...]
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Tags: Fernando Rey, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Shira 9, The French Connection
Patton (1970): Shira’s Take
I think I should preface this by saying movies like this are so not my thing. I find Patton an entertaining character, which is what kept me awake and sane while watching this movie (other things that contributed to my not-gouging-my-eyeballs-out: Karl Malden’s adorableness and Patton’s aide Codman’s-Paul Stevens’s-resemblance to Scott Bakula). Early on, I [...]
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Tags: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Patton, Shira 7
This movie won Best Picture? Even for 1969, that’s hard to believe. There is just absolutely nothing remotely glamorous or enjoyable to watch. It’s painful throughout. From the first moment we know Joe Buck is going to ask a woman to pay him for sex through Rico “Ratso” Rizzo’s illness, we the viewers are uncomfortable. [...]
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Tags: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy, Shira 8
Oliver! (1968): Shira’s Take
Oliver! True to its punctuation, this is a very big movie–are there any musicals that aren’t? But, despite everything, it felt very slow and very long. Each song was about a minute-and-a-half longer that it needed to and had any right to be. And a number of the songs were totally unnecessary and awkward. With [...]
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Tags: jack wild, Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Oliver!, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Shira 7
While “They call me MISTER Tibbs!” has clearly become the most quoted and memorable line in this movie, I must say that my favorite was when Gillespie (Rod Steiger) said, “I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead.” Priceless.
For such a well-acted, well-written, well-shot, well-directed movie, In the Heat of [...]
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Tags: In the Heat of the Night, Rod Steiger, Shira 7, Sidney Poitier
What do I say about a movie like this? I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to watch them, because I’m about 70% incapable of liking them. Slow, consistently paced, grim in plot. Watching Paul Scofield’s performance (which, despite what I’m about to say, I thought was really powerful and great) was painful. He has [...]
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Tags: John Hurt, Orson Welles, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Shira 7, Susannah York
I think it’s around now that we’re getting to movies for which I really don’t have much to say. I mean, I’ve seen the Sound of Music, and everyone else has too. What can be said about it that hasn’t yet been said?
The photography/cinematography is great. Clearly, the Austrian and Bavarian filming locations help, but [...]
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Tags: Christopher Plummer, Julie Andrews, Shira 9, The Sound of Music
I think this is the first time I’ve watched a best picture winner in the context of this project and disagreed with my former opinion. I had ranked this movie from the hundreds of times I’d seen it in the past 5 stars, the equivalent of 10/10, on Flixter. My opinion is slightly changed.
Audrey Hepburn [...]
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Tags: Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison, Shira 9
Tom Jones (1963): Shira’s Take
I cannot help but compare this movie to Barry Lyndon, which I watched recently. Clearly, they share a mid-eighteenth-century British countryside setting, but there are far more similarities–no truly likable characters, an interesting plot executed oddly (in Barry Lyndon’s case, it was painfully nihilistic; in Tom Jones, it was quirky and silly), and this sort [...]
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Tags: Albert Finney, Edith Evans, Hugh Griffith, Shira 7, Susannah York, Tom Jones
In case our readers (what few of you we have left) have wondered where we’ve been for months, just know that Lawrence of Arabia is a hard movie to decide to sit down and watch. True to my memories and my expectations, it was very, very slow and very, very epic. But I have to [...]
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Tags: Alec Guinness, David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia, Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole, Shira 6
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