Roberto Rosselini's Rome, Open City is an italian neo-realist film about various characters in nazi-occupied Italy, whilst this sort of film isn't really my sort of thing, I did love Aldo Fabrizi's role as Don Pietro, a priest with a kindly heart, some of the writing is fantastic and some of the violence shocking, not because of the gore there is hardly any to speak of, but because of the way it tugs at your heartstrings. Overall a good example of Neo-Realism, but I must say that I think that The Battle of Algiers is the best Italian neo-realist film in my opinion.
Richard Donner's The Omen is also a great movie, I've always been a fan of Donner (I love Superman and 16 Blocks) it's a movie that slowly creeps up your spine instead of trying to horrify you full stop and it is anchored by a great performance from the great Gregory Peck, who shows the nobility that he has shown in his other roles.
It's certainly not a very gory movie and I do wonder what the 2005 remake is like, they probably much more intense than this, it has one of cinema's greatest decapitation scenes, and the tone is much like Rosemary's Baby coupled with the whole devil-child thing as well, overall a well-made satisfying horror film, I look forward to seeing the sequels and the remake in due course.
Pete Docter's Up is outstanding, it finally got released in the UK yesterday and I was surprised by how funny it was, especially the talking dog called 'Dug', there are lots of great jokes, which reminded me that Pixar can be funny as well as magical, the opening montage chronicling Carl Frederiksen's early years growing up to the age he is at now is just spellbinding filmmaking, without words it tell us all we need to know about this man, including some heartbreaking scenes.
The 3D is rarely used to give a sense of wow, but it makes the action scenes more exciting, the voice acting is superb especially from Ed Asner as Carl (you may remember him as J. Joanah Jameson from the 90's Spider-Man cartoon) although the great Christopher Plummer is underused, on the downside the film doesn't run as smoothly as other Pixar films as lots of random stuff tends to happen and your not quite sure what's happening, but once it gets on it's feet it's a joy to behold, funny, engaging, heartwarming, now bring on Toy Story 3.
Next the silent horror movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, excellent use of colour and a great twist, but I've never truely liked most silent movies, the only one I love would be Keaton's Sherlock Jr., although the scene with the writing on the walls in Caligari is awesome as is the creepy as hell somnambulist (if you know what that means you get a cookie).
Finally we turn to John August's The Nines, this is a very interesting and engaging film that will get you looking for the number 9 everywhere you can, it's quite hard to explain but it has Ryan Reynolds playing 3 different versions of himself, a drug-addicted actor, a struggling writer and a video-games designer lost in the woods, all this has something to do with the number 9, Reynolds and Hope Davis are great in their roles as is Dakota's sister Elle Fanning, and it is a very fun movie to decipher, as August's first film as director he really impresses (he wrote Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and uhh... Charlie's Angels) overall an intelligent, sometimes funny, weird little movie.
And my favourite film from this selection is Up, although i also like The Nines very much, stay tuned for more movie reviews.
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