Sort by
Listing Movies
Display Movies
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Nothing is written.
Filmmaker(s): David Lean

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.

A Vision that Defines Itself man has an inner drive that makes him peculiar and intense. He goes to the desert and falls in love with it and its people. Gaining powerful sponsors, he has a grand vision that he accomplishes by inspiring and directing...


Published December 10, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Madman? Monster? Murderer? Scientist?
Filmmaker(s): Fritz Lang

After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.

Viewer Possession comment is on the fully restored Criterion edition.) I see that my comments on the Mabuse films have been deleted. There was an IMDb era when any offended reader could exact revenge by successfully complaining of scores of comments. But I guess that's apt...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
8½ (1963)
A picture that goes beyond what men think about - because no man ever thought about it in quite this way!
Filmmaker(s): Federico Fellini

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

The Petaled Swirl of Influences am generally not a fan of Fellini: his early work is too sentimentally trivial for his talent, and his later work is just lazy. But in this film, he reaches more than one height. In terms of basic worlds, it is...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
Annie Hall (1977)
A nervous romance.
Filmmaker(s): Woody Allen

New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditsy Annie Hall.

The Story about the Story is an intelligent man who worries about the issues of film-making. The primary concern, the very first problem, is always to decide what the relationships are among the audience, the camera, the narrator if any, and the characters. Woody was on...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
My Brilliant Career (1979)
Filmmaker(s): Gillian Armstrong

A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.

Transucent Space, Layered Face a life in film brings an experience like this. Its oddly tense in some dimensions and relaxed in others and the balance between the two seems distinctly Australian. I hadn't seen this when it was new, and I'm glad. Seeing a...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
The Tenant (1976)
Apartment for rent: Quiet building. Furnished. 2 rooms. Previous tenant committed suicide.
Filmmaker(s): Roman Polanski

A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.

Front Window a pretty old dude, old enough to remember the taste of Oreos and Coke as they were 50-55 years ago, when every taste for a kid was fresh. I wish I have somehow set some aside then is some magical suspended locker, so...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)
Filmmaker(s): Wojciech Jerzy Has

During the Napoleonic wars, a Spanish officer and an opposing officer find a book written by the former's grandfather.

Geometric Cosmology now, you already know that this is a collection of stories and what makes it novel is the relationship among those stories. Many stories have stories within them. Many stories are mirrored. Characters and sets in one story appear in another, sometimes in...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Extraordinary! Hypnotic! Beautiful! Masterful!
Filmmaker(s): Alain Resnais

In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.

Annotated Image -- Constructed Memory of the most influential films ever made, and must be seen on that basis. You create your own life by collecting Borgean memories and adding pieces from this film will greatly enrich your viewing of later, safer films along the...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
She was lost from the moment she saw him.
Filmmaker(s): Karel Reisz

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

Narrative Folding environments, two of the century's greatest film actors, one of the half-dozen or so best modern playwrights and Fowles' experiment in parallel narratives. Fowles' work was pale compared to Nabokov's "Pale Fire," for instance in building a convoluted, layered narrative, but is comparable...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
Blade Runner (1982)
Man has made his match...now it's his problem.
Filmmaker(s): Ridley Scott

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

Offworld Truth the mid-seventies, I exchanged a few letters with Phil Dick, who had then dropped his obsession with parallel, valid visions and had developed a similar obsession with created realities. This concern maps well to the wave of film theory that was sweeping the...


Published December 9, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
Tagged: , ,
preloader image