Atonement

Origin: UK/France(Working Title Films, Relativity Media, Studio Canal) 2007
Length: 130 minutes
Format: Color
Director: Joe Wright
Producer: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster
Screenplay: Christopher Hampton
Photography: Seamus McGarvey BSC
Music: Dario Marianelli
Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Romola Garai, Brenda Blethyn, Vanessa Redgrave, Saoirse, Patrick Kennedy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juno Temple, Peter Wight, Harriet Walter, Michelle Duncan, Gina McKee, Daniel Mays, Nonzo Anozie.
BAFTA: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster (best film), Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer (best production design)
Oscar: Dario Marianelli (best original score)
Oscar Nominations: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster (best picture), Saoirse Ronan (best supporting actress), Christopher Hampton (best adapted screenplay), Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer (best art direction), Seamus McGarvey (best cinematography), Jacqueline Durran (best costume design)
Links: BAFTA Wiki, Atonement Definition, Atonement Film Wiki, Atonement Novel Wiki

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The typical British costume drama is constructed with carefully wrought language and an intermingling of different classes of people and is the basic setting for many British movies. Joe Wright's Atonement expands this basic form to include a memorable portrait of romantic love, albeit with a final twist. No doubt this expansion is helped along by Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Ian McEwan's celebrated novel, a meta fiction about historical memory and how point of view constructs reality. Thusly, Atonement tells a story about misunderstanding and class distinctions, but adds a war-time set piece to ground social intrigues in historical fact, all while inserting an autobiographical confession to change our perspective by movie's end. Gone is an easy fix, allowing betrayed lovers to reunite. Gone, too, is the simple-minded idea of offering forgiveness that heals all wounds.

The Wolf Man (Matt)

This is a classic example of an old film that can't hold my interest. I mentioned this in my last review (Freaks). I watched this film and honestly I was just bored. If I wasn't watching it for the reason of writing this review, I would have turned it off halfway through. The story felt slow, and that is a little crazy if you consider the entire film was only 1 hour and 9 minutes long.

That said, the movie wasn't all bad, there were a few things that I liked. The first being the sets, which I thought were fabulous. You just don't get scenery like this anymore. The black and white film did a great job of bringing over the creepy atmosphere that the film was trying to create. There was lots of fog and lots of dark. The forest was obviously filmed on a set, but I liked the effect it gave. There weren't many trees but the ones that were there were all creepy. The castle was also quite stunning. The furniture inside it was just amazing to look at. Everything was very ornate and luxurious looking.

Another piece of this film that I enjoyed was the actress that played Gwen, Evelyn Ankers. She was a doll in this film. She made the movie much easier to watch.

Overall there was a lot about this movie that I didn't like. It wasn't paced well, the acting wasn't that great, and the story was not exactly what I would label top shelf. I'll give this film 3 hairy Lon Chaney Jr.'s out of 10.

~Matt

Freaks (Matt)

I wasn't sure what exactly to expect going into this movie. I had read up about it on Wiki, but I had purposely avoided any plot summaries save for the very basic ones. While doing my research I read about the horrors of the film. I read about how the movie was banned in many countries and is in fact still banned in some states. Now granted, these bans are not enforced at all. They are comparable to those lists of weird laws that you'll see around the Internet every so often. You know what I mean, it might be illegal in some states to drive a tractor on Sunday, or maybe it's illegal to tie a horse up backwards to a doorknob or something like that. What this made clear however, was that this movie was looked at as sort of an abomination. Perhaps, to throw around a fashionable term, it was the grindhouse of the 30's.

It was hard for me to determine what, if any, point the film was trying to make. In most of the scenes the freaks are portrayed in a sympathetic manner. They are humanized and shown doing normal activities. On the other hand they are also showcased by the camera with closeups and fairly long shots. The camera shows this purposely and it feels as though the camera is showing them to us them as being freaks as much as it is saying "Hey, these guys are people too!". It was a little confusing in that regard.

Another aspect of this movie that caught my mind was the speaking. There was more than one comment made during the viewing that it sounded as if they were talking in a different language. In some cases this was true, as I think there was some German being used intermittently. However the English was very dated. It was hard to follow what they were talking about throughout much of the movie. They used a dated slang and on top of that the sound quality wasn't all that great. This actually helped me pay attention to the movie because I had to focus in order to understand what was being said.

I liked this movie. It's not very often that a film that is dated this far back can actually hold my attention, and this one did. The story was interesting, the characters were interesting, and the um... deformities... were interesting. I'll give it 7 squawking duck ladies out of 10.


-Matt

The Wolf Man(John)

I can sum this The Wolf Man up in one sentence. It's very much a movie you might see on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

And that's pretty much what my buddies and I did throughout the entire movie. There were perfect campy moments where you could not help but add a little quip to what the character was doing or saying. This was not a terrible movie by any stretch. But there were things about it that couldn't hold my interest without making fun of the movie.

The first thing was the campy-ness. I knew the movie was going to be campy before we even started watching it. But it seemed like everyone knew the entire legend surrounding werewolves. And, what woman in her right mind would go out with a guy that blatantly told her he was spying on her with his telescope....C'mon. The acting was pretty over done with flailing motions and weird faces. And, I know this was probably a low budget film, but the town the film was shot in apparently had a population of maybe 15. And there were no kids to be seen at all. I guess they were smart enough to get out of Dodge before the werewolf came.

I liked the special effects. They were rudimentary, but they got the idea across. And Lon Chaney's werewolf mask was pretty awesome. And, while the fog effects were a little too much, it created a very ominous feeling that set the mood pretty well.

I would recommend this movie be seen with a group of friends. It's definitely a movie that can be enjoyed while making fun of it. If I had watched it by myself, I don't think it would have been enjoyable. I probably would've fallen asleep.

I'm giving it a 4 out of 10.

- John Murphy

Freaks(John)

Freaks was definitely freaky. I can only imagine what audiences in the 30s thought of this film. I think terrified would be the correct term. I've seen quite a few horror films and I felt very uneasy watching parts of the movie. The scene at the end where Cleopatra was being chased by the freaks was probably the most intense scene of Freaks.

The story was pretty good. The movie opens with a little teaser and then we go into a flashback to get the main story. Hans was a likable character and Cleopatra and Hercules definitely pulled off the antagonist roles. The supporting characters were pretty good as well. The man with no arms and legs impressed me with his ability to light a cigarette using only his mouth. And Phoso the Clown demonstrated his kindness by not discriminating against the freaks.

The music created the perfect atmosphere for this film. One moment it was lively circus music, the next you feel the impending danger that lurks just around the corner.

The sound quality was not the best. I know it's a 80 year old movie, but it was really hard to understand what some of the people were saying. I supposed I could have turned subtitles on. I was also not "hip" to some of the lingo that was being used. People in the 30s spoke an entirely different language than we do today. It was quite interesting.

Overall, this was a pretty good movie. The creepy vibe is definitely there, the story is not the worst and the actors pull of their roles for the most part.

I give it a 6.5 out of 10.

- John Murphy

The Wolf Man

Origin: U.S.(Universal) 1941
Length: 70 minutes
Format: Black & White
Director: George Waggner
Producer: Jack J. Gross, George Waggner
Screenplay: Curt Siodmak
Photography: Joseph A. Valentine
Cast: Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers, J.M. Kerrigan, Fay Helm, Lon Chaney Jr., Forrester Harvey
Links: The Wolf Man Wiki, The Wolf Man Trailer

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The figure of the wolf man - that bipedal, cinematic version of the werewolf archtype- first took center stage in Universal's Werewolf of London, starring Henry Hull in a role reprised decades later by Jack Nicholson in Wolf. Shortly thereafter, Curt Siodmak finished the screenplay for what was to be Universal Pictures' latest horror classic - following Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy - The Wolf Man, directed by George Waggner. In what still remains the most recognizable and cherished version of the myth, Lon Chaney Jr. stars as Lawrence Talbot, an American-educated Welshman who wants nothing more than to be cured of his irrepressible lycanthropy.
Makeup king Jack Pierce devised an elaborate yak-hair costume for Chaney that would come to serve as the template for countless Halloween masks. What distinguishes Siodmak's story from previous werewolf tales was the coded emphasis on repressed sexual energy as the motivating force behind Talbot's full-moon transformations. The success of Waggner's picture led to four more Chaney-driven Wolf Man films in the 1940s alone. Dozens of imitators, updates, takeoffs and spoofs have since followed.

Le Voyage dans la lune (that's French for "This is the best we could do")

OK, after watching this maybe this site's name should be changed to
'1000 Movies You Must See'. I couldn't keep up with the plot of this "movie", it was so confusing. It was here and there and then back over here. It was like watching Lost, but with better special effects. The other posters said that this was a silent movie. Sacrebleu! I'm not sure what "movie" they were watching, but the one I watched had some second rate Jacque Cousteau voice actor talking during the entire thing, way to go Jack! The original music video for "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins (which this "movie" was based on) was so much better. Overall, I'd have to give this "movie" a quatre out of 10.

See the original film here: Tonight, Tonight

--Moclab le Grand

Freaks

Origin: U.S.(MGM) 1932
Length: 64 minutes
Format: Black & White
Director: Tod Browning
Producer: Tod Browning
Screenplay: Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins, from his novel Spurs
Photography: Merritt B. Gerstad
Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles, Rose Dione, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton, Schlitze, Josephine Joseph, Johnny Eck, Frances O'Connor, Peter Robinson
Links:Freaks Trailer, Freaks Wiki, Spurs Wiki

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Originally conceived as a horror film, Freaks has also been known throughout the years as an art-house film and as a documentary because of it's realism as expressed in its use of "real freaks". Freaks remains to this day a very under appreciated film. Tod Browning, director, also directed the original version of Dracula. However, this film is considered to be the most remarkable film of his career.

Reaction to the film was so intense that the studio was forced to cut it from a length of approximately ninety minutes to just over an hour. Today, the parts that were removed from it are considered lost. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for 30 years. Beginning in the early 1960s, Freaks was rediscovered as a counterculture cult film. In 1994, Freaks was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The chanting of "One of us!" is not uncommonly used as a reference to the film.

Papillon (Matt)

Papillon

When I was a kid I had an Alvin and the Chipmunks tv show on VHS. I think this was one of their holiday specials, one of the valentine's day ones I think, but that's not important. What is important is that in the middle of this tape one of the commercials that ran was an ad for this movie, Papillon. I remember seeing that advertisment a lot, as I watched this tape over the years, and for whatever reason the ad really stuck with me. All that it consisted of was a still image of Steve McQueen, the actor that plays the character Papillon, staring over an ocean from a washed up old tree trunk. That's all it was. There was some music playing and a deep booming voice would begin talking about when the movie would play. It never mentioned the plot or anything else about the movie. Just the name of it and the time. The result of this is that my 10 year old self would try and imagine what the movie was about. I thought maybe it was about a shipwrecked sailor surviving on an island, or maybe he was a treasure hunter out looking for hordes of gold and jewels. Nope, I was wrong.

This movie was much more graphic than I anticipated. I have never seen anything featuring content of this type from the seventies. The movie was released in 1973. They specifically reference hiding things in their butts, they talk about masturbation, they show beheadings, heck at one point the main character takes cocaine! I was amazed that this type of content was shown back then. This could be largely due to my lack of seeing many movies from that period of time though.

Aside from that, the movie held my attention for it's full run time, which was around two hours and thirty minutes. That is pretty amazing when you take into consideration how little dialoge that there was in the film. The acting and the cinematography were top notch. I could feel the humid heat that these poor prisoners were experiencing. I was experiencing the dark, lonely, and hungry solitude that Papillon was going through while in solitary. It was very well done. Both Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman were amazing in the film.

I would definately recommend givng this movie a watch, however put the kids to bed first eh? It's a little rough for em.

I'll rate this movie 8 failed escape attempts out of 10.

~Matt Hurdle

Papillon(John)

I thought this was an excellent movie. I can understand why the film got the Oscar nomination for music. The combination of sound and music just sucks you right into the film.
Compared to other films, there is little spoken dialogue and you would think this could be a detriment to the film. But, it conveys exactly what it means to. In particular, the scene where Steve McQueen's character spends 2 years in solitary hit me especially hard. He portrays a man who is slowly going insane perfectly in those scenes. Dustin Hoffman did just as well with his portrayal of Dega. He was able to display a weakness to the character but also display a humorous side as well as a resourcefulness that kept him out of trouble....mostly. The movie was pretty graphic which pulled me in even more. Papillon is about two and a half hours long, but I really didn't notice too much. I was in the movie the whole time.

The ending of the movie was a little bit weird. The movie is based on a book which is supposedly a true story. But, some of the things that happened at the end of the film really perplexed me. They seemed really odd and out of character for Papillon. However, the loose ends were tied up and overall this was a really good movie.

I'm going to give it a 8 out of 10

-John Murphy

Papillon

Origin: U.S/France(Allied Artists, Corona-General, Solar)1973
Length: 150 minutes
Format: Technicolor
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Producer: Robert Dorfmann, Ted Richmond, Franklin J. Schaffner
Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo, Lorenzo Semple Jr., from the novel by Henri Charriere
Photography: Fred J. Koenekamp
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Cast: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon, Anthony Zerbe, Robert Deman, Woodrow Parfrey, Bill Mumy, George Coulouris, Ratna Assan, Willian Smithers, Val Avery, Gregory Sierra, Vic Tayback, Mills Watson, Ron Soble, Barbara Morrison, Don Hanmer, E.J. Andre, Richard Angarola, Jack Denbo, Len Lesser, John Quade, Fred Sadoff, Allen Jaffe, Liam Dunn
Oscar Nomination: Jerry Goldsmith(music)
Links: Papillon Trailer, Papillon Wiki , Papillon(Novel)

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J. Schaffner's Papillon is a male love-story-turned-adventure tale. It opens with Steve McQueen(Papillon) being sent to a French Guyana prison for a crime he didn't commit. There he meets Dustin Hoffman(Dega), another convict. The film continues with their struggles to escape the prison. Touted for its musical score, Papillon is more of a confrontation between man and nature than it is an action film. The film was also known for the lack of dialogue. The film's impact instead comes from the sheer force of imprisonment.

Le Voyage dans la lune

Wow, what a gem of a movie. This is the oldest movie I've ever watched and I had more fun watching it than I have with a lot of movies made today. The sense of adventure that Georges Méliès managed to create with such old technology is astonishing. I particularly enjoyed the beginning scene, in which the professors are debating the trip.

The sets were also captivating. The moon was quite amazing to look at. It reminded me of being young and imaging what the moon was like, and made me want to let my imagination go free.

I also want to mention the acting. The film is silent, so there isn't any voices coming from the actors, however the way they moved was interesting. All of their movements were exaggerated, and this, alongside the fantastic settings, gave the film a very cartoonish feel. I can only imagine what it would have been line to actually see this film when it was new. I wonder if audiences back then thought that it was real, and that these people really did go to the moon. At the very least I'm sure many of the children that saw it thought so.

I would definately recommend it. It's short and you can watch it on the YouTube links posted by John in his earlier post. It's quite a lot of fun.

- Matt Hurdle

Le Voyage Dans La Lune(A Trip To The Moon)

Origin: France(Star) 1902
Length: 14 minutes
Format: Silent Black & White

Director: Georges Méliès
Screenplay: Georges Méliès, from the novel Le Voyage dans la Lune by Jules Verne
Photography: Michaut, Lucien Tainguy
Cast: Victor André, Bleuette Bernon, Brunnet, Jeanne d'Alcy, Henri Delannoy, Depierre, Farjaut, Kelm, Georges Méliès

Links: A Trip To The Moon(Part 1), A Trip To The Moon(Part 2)

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This movie is thought of as the first sci-fi movie ever made. French director Georges Méliès, having talents as an actor and a magician, used this movie to experiment with cinematic techniques that had never been used but are now considered commonplace such as: superimposition, dissolves and various other editing practices. Most films around this time were nonfiction tales about daily life. Méliès broke away from this and created a film that has become the origin of sci-fi movies.

Watch the entire film using the links above!

Well, this movie was actually entertaining. I didn't think it was going to be good simply because it's a 107 year old Black and White silent French film, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's amazing to see the astronomers travel to the moon in a huge gun, which is not far off from how we travel into space now. Jules Verne was a visionary and Georges Melies definitely conveyed this in his film. I can also see where many modern sci-fi films have used this same formula. Mission to Mars is one that comes to mind. I would say the only criticism of this film is the age of the film, and obviously this is something that can't be helped. If you are a person who is interested in the sci-fi genre, definitely give this one a watch.

I give it a 6.5 out of 10

- John Murphy

Welcome Movie Lovers!

Welcome to the Must See Movies blog! In this blog, we give a general synopsis of a film, watch the film and post our thoughts on said film. We're hoping that this blog is of interest to many people. This is something we've been wanting to do since we were kids and we think it's going to be a lot of fun.