LAND OF THE PHARAOHS
1955
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by William Faulkner, Harold Jack Bloom, and Harry Kurnitz
Spoiler alert: well, the pyramid gets finished, but moderate otherwise
Showing posts with label Howard Hawks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Howard Hawks. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Monday, June 25, 2018
Cardboard Science: Some form of super-carrot
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD
It's not often that the forerunner of a trend is actually one of its best examples, but then there's The Thing From Another World.
1951
Directed by Christian Nyby and/or Howard Hawks
Written by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht, and Howard Hawks (based on the story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr.)
With Kenneth Tobey (Capt. Patrick Hendry), Margaret Sheridan (Nikki Nicholson), Douglas Spencer (Ned Scott), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. Arthur Carrington), and James Arness (The Thing)
Spoiler alert: moderate
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Reviews from gulag: First, the news in brief
While I was away, I had the opportunity to watch what I suppose one might as well call a "few" movies. Here's some of them, in bite-sized form. Or maybe two or three bites, because if there's one thing even moving to Pittsburgh can't beat out of me, it's my awful long-windedness. Today's subjects: Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, Network, and Good Night, and Good Luck.
CITIZEN KANE (1941)
Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies, and a newshound (William Alland) seeks the story of his final words. He never solves the mystery of Kane for himself—although we are privy to more than he—but he learns through conversations with the great man's friends that he was human like the rest of us, even if he didn't know it.
Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is very likely the single most overrated film made in the sound era. But that says more about the overreaching critical reevaluation of it—the reevaluation that eventually snowballed into its acclamation as the long-running Best Film Ever on just about any critics' poll you'd care to look at—than it could ever possibly say about the quality of the actual film itself... which is, of course, simply deliriously high. Yes, fewer pictures have been more talked-about than this one, and Kane has been just about talked to death: its spectacularly well-appointed deep focus compositions; its beautiful lighting schemes; its monumental art direction; its bitterly humorous satire, so viciously on point it might have been slanderous were everything bad not based at least in part on something true; and, of course, its extraordinary lead performance by Welles, taking William Randolf Hearst only as the starting point for his creation of the saddest man in the world—the man who thought he could buy happiness. So, no, maybe it wasn't particularly close to the best movie ever made, not even back in 1941. But Goddamned if it isn't still absolutely Great—even after all those decades it spent, condemned to be The Greatest. Maybe now that Vertigo is the Best Film Ever (an even worse choice, but never mind), we can enjoy Kane for what it is and always was: entertaining, moving, human, and expertly-crafted, too.
Score: 9/10
Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies, and a newshound (William Alland) seeks the story of his final words. He never solves the mystery of Kane for himself—although we are privy to more than he—but he learns through conversations with the great man's friends that he was human like the rest of us, even if he didn't know it.
Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is very likely the single most overrated film made in the sound era. But that says more about the overreaching critical reevaluation of it—the reevaluation that eventually snowballed into its acclamation as the long-running Best Film Ever on just about any critics' poll you'd care to look at—than it could ever possibly say about the quality of the actual film itself... which is, of course, simply deliriously high. Yes, fewer pictures have been more talked-about than this one, and Kane has been just about talked to death: its spectacularly well-appointed deep focus compositions; its beautiful lighting schemes; its monumental art direction; its bitterly humorous satire, so viciously on point it might have been slanderous were everything bad not based at least in part on something true; and, of course, its extraordinary lead performance by Welles, taking William Randolf Hearst only as the starting point for his creation of the saddest man in the world—the man who thought he could buy happiness. So, no, maybe it wasn't particularly close to the best movie ever made, not even back in 1941. But Goddamned if it isn't still absolutely Great—even after all those decades it spent, condemned to be The Greatest. Maybe now that Vertigo is the Best Film Ever (an even worse choice, but never mind), we can enjoy Kane for what it is and always was: entertaining, moving, human, and expertly-crafted, too.
Score: 9/10
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