Fifth about The Seventh

I Was a Male War Bride

March 15, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

I Was a Male War Bride: there really isn’t a secret for making a good romantic comedy, but it seems to have been lost over the last 60 years or so. One starts with a good, funny story (if preposterously true, so much the better); create an engaging central pair of characters; write them smart dialogue; find a good cast that can read the dialogue properly and voilà! Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan, in this case, have great chemistry and […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: romantic comedy

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People Will Talk (1951)

March 14, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

People Will Talk: great film, which has its sheer humanity as the strongest suit. Very well-written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz: the dialogue is sparkling and it requires good actors to read it well; Cary Grant made a career of screwball comedies, so he is more than up to the task, but the whole cast is uniformly great. It’s a lovely story (even if it has a somewhat contrived set-up). The camera work is elegant, non-intrusive without being simplistic.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: comedy, drama

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D.O.A. (1950)

March 14, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

D.O.A.: a rather run-of-the-mill whodunit, despite the attention-grabbing plot (or story) twist, which allows for some interesting (but ultimately underwhelming) character dynamics. The real problem here, however, is how mishandled the cast is: Edmond O’Brien is not bad, but pretty much everyone else is either stiff as a board or over-acting. Curiously enough, this film has the opposite problem that Rudolph Maté’s other film I watched recently, since this one is visually engaging at times. Read also: Union Station

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: crime

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Quartet

March 12, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

Quartet: a number of good things about this nice little, light drama. First and foremost, the acting is excellent: Dustin Hoffman, despite directing a feature for the first time, knows a thing of two about the subject (and shows some surprisingly interesting camera work); but with a cast of that quality, it would need a director trying to ruin the experience to make the acting bad. The collection of characters, fleshed out and alive, fell true to the story, a […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama

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Dead Man Down

March 11, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

Dead Man Down: not unexpectedly, but there is almost nothing about this film that justifies it. The story, both the set-up and the way it evolves, is nothing if not absolutely preposterous. The characters, if they even deserve to be called that, are unpleasant and unbelievably irrational. Maybe good actors would be able to make the main characters interesting, but there’s not one in sight here.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: thriller

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The Day of the Jackal

March 10, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

The Day of the Jackal: cold and professional thriller that, by virtue of avoiding cheap thrills and grounding the story on reality, becomes all the more efficient. There isn’t much space for character development, but with both paralell procedurals being so detailed and precise, there really isn’t much need to. Quite well edited, reasonably well acted under the good hand of Fred Zinnemann.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: thriller

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The Newsroom – Season 1

March 9, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

The Newsroom – Season 1: there are many elements to writing in addition to the story; dialogue, characters and structure are the ones I pay the most attention to. The first season fails miserably in one of those: characters, particularly the female ones, are so badly built that it almost ruin the whole experience (romantic relationships are also rather weakly portrayed, which certainly has a connection). Almost. Structure and dialogue, however, are vintage Aaron Sorkin; he obviously loves the sound […]

Categories: Non-Film Reviews • Tags: drama

Oz the Great and Powerful

March 8, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

Oz the Great and Powerful: there are no sacred cows, but when one sets up, as Sam Raimi did, to use extensively an universe so well-known and beloved as that of The Wizard of Oz, comparisons have to be made. And while the film is fun and does not succumb completely to the weight of the original work, it falls into the usual traps: the story becomes a fight against tyranny, complete with its Agincourt moment. Nevertheless, in less broad […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: fantasy

Scarlet Street

March 6, 2013 by Felipe Rosa

Scarlet Street: good little drama with noir sensibilities, mostly on the characters with (darker) shades of grey (at best). Edward G. Robinson, once more, plays nicely a character that is not his usual métier; Fritz Lang seems to able to extract vulnerability of him. Not particularly engaging visually, however; Lang has certainly much more interesting films in that regard (or in other regards as well).

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama

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