Recently Watched Films

Further exploring Kubrick. I've gone from mixed feelings on him over the last year or so to having a great appreciation for his work. This one was really good, much more so than I anticipated. It's a three hour movie, but it really didn't feel like it. 

Darkly comic, sometimes slapstick, an absolute farce and 100% hoot. 

And also:

Disney Revisited #3:

Strictly speaking, number 3 should be Fantasia, but since I've never cared for that movie or have any desire to see it again, I've gone straight onto Dumbo. 

Dumbo is considered a problematic movie today because of the crows and their racial stereotyping (though many including black people have defended the crows). One of the shorter Disney features, Dumbo hits the nostalgia factor well enough, but I never felt that it was one of the best Disney movies, though the pink elephants sequence is excellent. For some reason my memory of that part placed it in the much later The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I was quite surprised when it came along in this movie. 

Do you have a favourite method of er... revenge? I particularly like the locusts myself. The second one is also worth a look, but not quite as good. And Vincent Price did a comedy mad scientist movie called Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, which is loaded with slapstick comedy but falls a bit flat.

Decent but uneven 70s cop flick. A few big names, and a couple of big-names-in-the-making in the cast. The first third is pretty good comedy-drama, the second third falls a bit flat, and the final third is where a lot of the action is. I read the Ed McBain book many years ago (who also happens to be the screenwriter Evan Hunter), and I hate to have to say it because it's such a worn cliché, but the book was better.

An all-star cast before they were stars. C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, and then throw in Leif Garrett and Tom Waits, and that's a hell of a lot of star power. Throw in Francis Ford Coppola as director, and you have one hell of a good teen gang movie. The soundtrack is also excellent, all present and correct for the mid-60s setting.

Closely Observed Trains (1966). Quite the little genre mash and very quirky. 

Very good supernatural thriller from Brian de Palma. Did slow in some places for me that prevents me from including it among his very best, but it is still perhaps a bit underrated. 

Kubrick's second film. Not very well rated by many, but I thought it was pretty solid, if somewhat standard. A massive improvement on his debut feature Fear and Desire as well. 

The Killing though, is Kubrick's first claim to have produced an actual masterpiece within its genre. The final sequence when it all goes pear shaped (which isn't really a spoiler since villains weren't permitted to get away with it in movies under the Hayes Code in Hollywood at the time) is especially spectacular. 

A bittersweet finale to the Toy Story saga. Somewhat feels unnecessary since the first three films made a great trilogy, but it was entertaining with some surprisingly dark moments (Toy Story has had those since the original, but I expected by now that they'd have been completely phased out). 

I was recommended this on here a long time ago but I've only just had opportunity to see it. It didn't disappoint. Darkly brilliant. 

Satirical sci-fi thriller from the 80s and definitely feels like a product of its time. Decent enough, but dated and with some pacing issues.