Seven Samurai

3 hours and 10 minutes long. How this movie never bored me, even for a second, is unbelievable. Looking back at it now, I can see just what an excellently made movie it was, especially for its time, but the beginning felt slightly off to me. My thoughts:

"Mmmkay, some guys are riding on horses. Oh okay, they're bandits, that makes sense, they're in shadows. Shadows = Bad, gotcha. Okay, they're leaving. Shoot, gonna have to wait for some action. Oh, now villagers. Yeah villagers are usually afraid of bandits. Wow, that afraid? Gonna kill themselves afraid? Well, there are other solutions but killing yourself isn't that bad I guess......Oh okay, gonna get some samurai instead. Idk both ways would've made a pretty cool movie.....................................................meh."

That was the first 10 minutes. After that, this movie went from one memorable scene to another, elegantly introducing seven different main characters, not including the two main farmer characters. I can't remember their names for the life of me, but I'll definitely remember how they were introduced, all of them.

The acting is a little cornball at times, but overall it definitely works. The first samurai the farmers obtain is probably the best actor in the movie, with the others just complimenting their roles. The farmers for the most part feel like they were picked off the side of a road, asked for a job, and given one in exchange for some rice or something I don't know what they'd want.

The cinematography goes from passable to excellent in some scenes. The first scene where the cinematography really did wow me was early in the movie, during a duel between a very cautious samurai and an overly excited one. Although the scene ending just as expected, the way it was presented was really well done.

The last hour is most definitely the highlight, as finally the build-up is payed off with some well-done action scenes that still hold the charm of the rest of the film. This is the movie's greatest strength, as it really shows off the director's main talent. The scenes are urgent, relentless, and surprising.

I can't honestly I say I enjoyed this movie as much as so many people try and hype it as. It is definitely an experience, though I wouldn't say the definitive experience. It's influence, however, can never be undermined. Just watching it, I could tell that every feudal Japan-era movie/show/anime ever made gathers influence from this. Even huge movies like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly almost certainly gathered influence from this (one samurai is sure to remind anyone who's seen TG,TB,ATU of the Ugly) Overall, the movie was highly entertaining, expertly crafted, and surprisingly fresh even for this day and age.

8/10.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

If there's one issue that can even compare with gay marriage in terms of controversy and division of opinion, it has to be abortion. What other issue gets religious zealots riled up in such a picket sign-waving frenzy like abortion can at the first mention of the word? As it is with forms of art, where there is controversy there are a few movies to tackle the issue with fervor on both sides of the argument.

Such is 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. In a very subtle way, however, the movie sends out a very anti-abortion vibe. The movie involves two twenty-something year old girls living in communist Romania (obviously towards the end, considering the widely spread black market-esque smuggling of cigarettes and bus tickets) attempting a very roughly-strewn plan of getting an abortion. This is illegal, very much so, though the crumbling of the government's tight control has allowed even naive young women to bend the rules. The abortion, and the process of it itself, brings about several revelations about themselves, their lives, and of course the main topic at hand.

First off, the positives. The acting is absolutely stellar. Stellar in how subtle every emotion is presented in every scene. Stellar in how sometimes the camera doesn't cut for literally 10 minutes, and the entirety of those scenes are acted in one go. Stellar in how the characters are made to be exact representations of people you could literally meet in the house next door to you, yet are still made interesting without breaking out of this shell.

The pacing is very well done, as we're slowly drawn into the situation at hand instead of the director just shoving the characters down our throat like that godawful adaption that the director's thought it would be funny to call Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It has an unusual air of tension. Just think when you were a kid and you were in school and you knew when you got home your parents would be mad about something, possibly school-related or not. That lingering feeling of something bad coming, but coming slowly, is what drives this movie. And as awful as that sounds it works wonders.

This really comes into such genius fruition during a dinner scene, which might be one of the finest directed scenes in recent history.

The negatives come with a few lines of forced dialogue, an odd beginning that definitely could've been a bit better, and the fact I had to keep looking down at subtitles when so much of the acting is in the subtle facial movements of the two lead roles.

Overall, 8.5/10. Download and watch, because there's no international release. Enjoy watching an abortion.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Seeing as this movie is based 10 years from the present year, I'm guessing in a couple we're heading for a complete and total mind-warp, considering the flying cars, severe overpopulation of chinese folk (though most of us are kind of used to that by now) and the giant chinese-speaking advertisements that will surely give those with an abnormal oriental prejudice vivid nightmares. The world of Blade Runner is not one that can be summed up so easily in words, yet for the sake of reviewing I must. The environment we are brought into from the very beginning is one of dense overpopulation, highly polluted air, and a sense of capitalism that has taken on its own form of dystopia. So right away it gives us an uplifting feeling and an optimistic look at the bright future ahead.

/sarcasm

Blade Runner, for many, many reasons, is genius in a bottle. That is, if films came in bottles. The movie, made in 1982, gives us not only a vivid and believable look at just where our planet might be headed, but also views into life, man, God, and many other facets those of us think of every day. To summarize the plot without giving anything away, is that Rick Deckard, a "Blade Runner" is assigned a mission by force to find and "retire" machines referred to as replicants. These replicants, made by the seemingly all-powerful Tyrell Corporation, mimic life in utmost accuracy so as to be used for various services, such as slave labor, militarity, and prostitution, though lacking the feelings of a normal human being. However a slave revolt on a space colony immediately makes all replicants on Earth illegal, and subject to being terminated, or retired. Deckard's responsibility is to kill 4 replicants who have come down to Earth for unknown reasons.

Although reviews, for the sake of the reader, should be short and accurate, for Blade Runner it's extremely hard to do so. For time's sake, I guess I'll say this. Almost everything in this movie is a metaphor. Every movement of every character's face represents something, every line of dialogue is there for a reason, and every character could have a movie of their own and not bore the audience in the slightest. The beauty of this movie doesn't come from getting everything the first time around, but after a few viewings, where more and more things become apparent as an intricately thought out symbol, or an intelligent view on our future.

Take the Chinese overpopulation for one thing. If our world were to overpopulate, why would Blade Runner's main culture be Chinese? The vast majority of Asian people in the world compared to any other race makes it obvious that in a state of world overpopulation, Chinese would indeed be the over-running race, leaving the rest of the races to scatter, mostly. Now, this might seem apparent now, but the film was made in 1982, and such a clever and subtle prediction in the movie just shows how genius this movie is.

Another example is when Deckard is in the Tyrell Corporation early in the movie. This scene is the only scene in the movie where the Sun is shown. Knowing this, notice how Tyrell uses his power to polarize the sun itself with his advanced window technology, just to darken the room. This very low-key symbolism could very well represent the god-like power of the Tyrell Corporation.

Performances are key in all great movies, and Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer offer characters so intriguing and complex, simply one viewing of this movie couldn't possibly sum them up. Nor could this review, for those who haven't seen the movie. So if you consider yourself a movie-goer in any sense of the word, you'll delight in these characters. Every other character is well thought out and interesting themselves, namely Gaff, the fellow police-man who's origami sums up far more than it's simplistic shape, and Rachel, an emotionally confused replicant.

I saw this movie in its newly released Blu-Ray edition, entitled The Final Cut. Although this version isn't essential to enjoy the movie, I really do recommend this. It's such a huge leap over the original Director's Cut, in every way. To any movie it's a compliment that it can be watched twice, and huge if it can be watched 3 times in a small time frame. I saw this movie 4 times in 2 months. If that doesn't say anything, hell I honestly don't know what does.

This film gets an easy 10/10 from me.

Gonna Review Movies.

The plan as of right now is to review movies. Well, there it is. A friend of mine also has a movie review blog and it seemed like quite the idea at the time, so here's little ol' me to balance the spectrum.

As you can see I've already put a bunch of work into this blog, what with making up a name and all, and just that alone has tuckered me out. So adios.