Hush

This must be one of the least interesting thrillers ever made!
It only runs 90 minutes and you can feel that several scenes were cut which results in a botched-up movie that never delivers. I think the movie only "thrilled" me once and even with a good job by Jessica Lange the movie failed to convince me. And the ending was definitely the worst ever for a thriller.

Helen is the young girlfriend of good-looking Jackson Baring. When Helen gets pregnant and marries Jackson, they decide to move to his hometown, Kilronan, and have a baby there. But his mother Martha, who lives there, starts to do weird things, and obviously she's not too friendly to Helen.

Blade Runner

IMDB: #97

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This is definitely one of my favourite science-fiction movies. And frankly speaking, it is not even a real science-fiction movie. The only thing SF about it, is that it is set in Los Angeles in the year 2019, and that we get a glimpse of where we will be in 10 jaar. Everyone speaks a mixture of Japanese and Spanish, it's constantly raining, there are no animals anymore but just robots...

But the movie is much more than that. It is about one guy who is looking to discover his past, and the understand what our purpose is in live. This one person is special, unique and completely different from the others. He wants to survive, even when others believe his life is redundants. The movie also opens the debate about genetic manipulation and cloning, and leaves us with the all important question: "How far can we go when we take God's place, and what happens when we create perfection?"

If you are not interested in all these philosophical questions, you can still watch Blade Runner and imagine you are watching a western where a cowboy is looking for an outlaw.

It remains one of my favourite movies.

Los Angeles, 2019: Rick Deckard of the LAPD's Blade Runner unit prowls the steel & micro-chip jungle of the 21st century for assumed humanoids known as 'replicants'. Replicants were declared illegal after a bloody mutiny on an Off-World Colony, and are to be terminated upon detection. Man's obsession with creating a being equal to himself has back-fired.

the 25 Best Movie Posters Ever

If watching a film is like having a dream wide awake, then movie posters are invitations to those dreams — a lot of weight for one image to carry. Premiere Magazine has selected some of the best examples of this art-meets-commerce form — some profound, some silly.

A great movie poster is a hard thing to find. Most posters are cut and paste jobs that don't sell the movie very well at all. A great poster should intrigue, shock, inspire & excite. It should be aesthetically beautiful or original. Above all, it should be so memorable that a single glance will be instantly recognizable.


Here is their list, of which we will publish one poster every week:

25. Gun Crazy (1949)
24. All About Eve (1950)
23. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
22. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
21. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
20. Yellow Submarine (1968)
19. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
18. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
17. This Gun for Hire (1942)
16. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
15. The Mummy (1932)
14. The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
13. The Gold Rush (1925)
12. Straw Dogs (1971)
11. King Kong (1933)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
9. The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
8. Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958)
7. 42nd Street (1933)
6. Gilda (1946)
5. Forbidden Planet (1956)
4. Downhill Racer (1969)
3. Vertigo (1958)
2. The Sin of Nora Moran (1933)
1. Anatomy of Murder (1959)

Gangs of New York

I had read quite a lot of negative reviews about this movie: too long, too violent, too superficial and last but not least badly acted.
Well, for once the critics have a point. About half of the criticism seems justified. The movie is without any question too long. 2h30 to tell a story that could well have been explained in 15 minutes seems to be a tad too long: son avenges murder of father. But this is a pure Greek tragedy, so why not make it a bit longer. And Scorcese does take his time to show us New York in 1846. If we are to believe the movie, it was not a nice time. And I have a tendency to believe the events portrayed in this movie.
Criticism that the movie is too slow, is not entirely correct. I agree that some scenes could have been shortened, but the realistic scenery and the costumes are great to look at, and make the boring bits pass quickly.
Then there was the criticism that the film was too violent. Well, i'm sure the real thing was much more violent, but I can understand that this is not your average romantic story.
But the criticsim that "Gangs of New York" is superficial, is definitely NOT true. On the contrary, Scorsese puts a lot (too much?) information in the movie, and makes it sometimes difficult to follow.
And the acting? Excellent. Daniel Day-Lewis is brilliant as Bill the Butcher and Leonardo Di Caprio knows how to act (Anyone who has seen "what's eating Gilbert Grape" knows what I mean).
Conclusion : I have some mixed feelings, but the strength of the movie is (as is often the case with Scorcese) hidden in the details.

Having seen his father killed in a major gang fight in New York, young Amsterdam Vallon is spirited away for his own safety. Some years later, he returns to the scene of his father's death, the notorious Five Points district in New York. It's 1863 and lower Manhattan is run by gangs, the most powerful of which is the Natives, headed by Bill "The Butcher" Cutting. He believes that America should belong to native-born Americans and opposes the waves of immigrants, mostly Irish, entering the city. It's also the time of the Civil War and forced conscription leads to the worst riots in US history. Amid the violence and corruption, young Vallon tries to establish himself in the area and also seek revenge over his father's death

The Tailor of Panama

This movie was a disaster when it came out, but in fact it is a brilliant spy story that tries to tell so much that it probably scared the average moviegoer.
Pierce Brosnan plays a British spy, but he does it so much better than what he did when he was still James Bond 007. Here you see what spies really do: lying, cheating, using and abusing people. And Geoffrey Rush is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best actors in the world (check SHINE, see QUILLS) and here he plays a character that seemed to be written for him: the lamb that is being led to the slaughter.
Do yourself a favor : rent this DVD, check it out once, watch it a second time, and by the third viewing you will see so much more.
Do NOT rent this if you expect to see James Bond with lots of gadgets.
Rent this NOW if you like a good story, great actors and lots of little inside jokes refering to spy stories.

John LeCarre's spy thriller is brought to the big screen. A British spy (Pierce Brosnan) is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor (Geoffrey Rush) with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife (Jamie Lee Curtis), who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Panama Canal. But what the two do is concoct a tremendous fictional tale about former mercenaries who are ready to topple the current government and are willing to work with Britain and the US to do so

The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan has a new movie. One that I cannot recommend. Ever since he made it big with "The Sixth Sense", he has been delivering movies that failed to move me. While "Unbreakable" was still bearable, self-indulgent projects like "The Lady in the Water" and "Signs" failed to impress me. But "The Happening" is even worse, since it is flawed on every level. The acting is bad (i mean really bad), the story is interesting but stuffed with superfluous stuff, the cinematography is mediocre and the dialog is corny at best, and awful at worst.

According to some critics M. Night Shyamalan has tried to make a B-movie. Well, even Tarantino makes better B-movies. I was really disappointed, and those of you who are waiting for a M. Night Shyamalan "twist-around" plot, will be equally disappointed.

It begins with no clear warning. It seems to come out of nowhere. In a matter of minutes, episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness, erupt in major American cities. What is causing this sudden, total breakdown of human behavior? Is it some kind of new terrorist attack, an experiment gone wrong, a diabolical toxic weapon, an out-of-control virus? Is it being transmitted by air, by water.. how?

Once Upon a Time in America

IMDb
Filmaffinity

IMDB ranking : #95

Once Upon a Time in America did for the gangster movies what Once Upon a Time in the West did for the Western: an epic story where the division between good and bad is not always clear, and where all the typical story lines (critics will call them "clichés" are put together. Corruption, prostitution, prohibition, large sums of money, loyalty, honour, reveng and deceit, treason and bloody settlements.

Sergio Leone delivers with this movie (original title : C'era una volta in America) a long, multi-layered and sometimes a slightly too 'heavy' movie that gives the viewer value for money, even after all these years. It is also interesting to see that he used the Jewish community as background, as opposed to all the other movies that always stigmatize the Italian maffia.

The story resembles that of The Godfather, but from the point of view of a Jewish boy growing up in New York. The fascinating way with which Leone shows us the Big Apple in the 1930's is up there among the best and the movie is a feast for eyes and ears.

The director is Sergio Leone, famous for his spaghettiwesterns starring Clint Eastwood. And it is obvious that he is using his trademark style: slow story, many close-ups, tension, blood, Ennio Morricone and some truly memorable baddies.

If you like the Godfather, you will probably like this story. If you hated The Godfather, then this is not your kind of movie..