What a surprise! Citizen Kane is again voted all-time best American movie.
Another day, another list.
This one seeks to itemise the 100 best American movies ever made (stifled yawns!)
Film critics from around the world were polled by the BBC with each being allowed to pick their 10 faves.
No matter how many ‘experts’ contributed, these lists remain highly subjective and are mostly more interesting for what is excluded. Continue reading
I was prematurely dismissive about There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous movie. I only really appreciated its quality and power on second viewing. I strongly suspect that the same will be true of The Master and certainly feel inclined to reserve final judgement until I’ve had chance to see it again.
The film’s opacity and lack of plot mean that there is a temptation to dismiss the universal critical acclaim it has garnered as hype and it is clear that,beyond the smart press, it has already divided ‘ordinary’ punters. It has been branded as a Marmite movie, something you’ll either love or hate.
If asked the question ‘what is it about?’, the most typical reply would be that it is a veiled study/satire of the birth of scientology but this seems a bit reductive to me. As it raises philosophical issues about the nature of madness, rationalism and existentialism, dismissing it on the grounds that there’s no narrative arc seems to me to be a superficial reading. Continue reading
After recently being reminded of the brilliance of Magnolia, I was curious to see this movie which director Paul Thomas Anderson made a couple of years later and before his equally masterful There Will Be Blood
It was a bit of a let down in that it shows all the signs of having been made while suffering from a mighty hangover.
After the complexity of Magnolia’s interwoven plot lines and ensemble cast, not to mention the epic three plus hour length, I can’t blame Anderson for wanting to take on an idiosyncratic love story which is both simpler and shorter. Continue reading
Watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 movie, Magnolia, for the second time confirmed that this is one of the real masterpieces of modern cinema.
After the critical and financial success of Anderson’s low budget ‘Boogie Nights’, New Line Cinema gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted for his next project. He rightly realised that this was a Citizen Kane moment that was unlikely to be repeated. He abandoned any notion of restraint and gave expression to the blooming of ideas that make up the multi-faceted drama which is epic in scope and full of memorable scenes. His subjects are BIG issues like dying, love, betrayal, regret, denial , guilt and truth. One of the key themes is expressed by the unknown narrator near the end – “We may be through with the past but the past isn’t through with us”. Continue reading
The universal critical acclaim that greeted ‘There Will Be Blood‘ led me to expect a classic to match and even surpass ‘Citizen Kane‘. The themes of the two movies are not so dissimilar with the tale of an anti-hero driven by a single minded greed and ambition to madness and isolation.
Daniel Day Lewis is quite rivetting in the lead role of the ‘plain speaking oil man’ but ultimately having to carry the movie for over two hours proves that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
What really lets the film down is the abrupt and unnecessarily crude finale which looks very much as if director Paul Thomas Anderson was so intent on ending up with a dramatic closing scene that he is prepared to sacrifice the patient character study that precedes it.
It’s a fine movie but not the masterpiece its made out to be.
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