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dolph Scott plays bounty hunter Ben Brigade , who captures outlaw Billy John (James Beast) and proceeds to transport him to Santa Cruz. On the way, Brigade rescues the wife of a station manager , and two outlaws help him defend against an Indian attack. This was director Budd Boetticher's first use of 'Scope' , and it's a masterpiece of economic action and performance ,as if he had no problem making the adjustment. This film beautifully captures the desolation of the old west and the lonesome characters who try to survive its hard way of life. All the performances are nice , and it does a masterful job showing the shifting loyalities and grand ambitions among the characters as they trek across the desert.
As writer, director and star of the film, Thornton became as close to an "overnight sensation" as it gets, quickly earning the sincere respect of his peers in all three categories . Though he's always been something of an outsider to the Hollywood machine, he's still managed to fit in quite nicely. Karl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the mental hospital since the age of 12 for having killed his mother and her lover. He soon finds a job fixing lawn mowers and farm implements and makes friends with Frank (Lucas Black) ,a lonely boy whose mother (Natalie Canerday) lets Karl move into the garage. Her boyfriend Doyle is an abusive man who torments Frank and Karl when she is working at the dollar store. As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Karl has got himself into a fix similar to the one that led to his earlier crimes. This story unfolds in many layers ,with friendship and love woven between bigotry and cruelty. Billy Bob Thornton was excellent in his portrayal . With his stooped shoulders, tight-lipped smile, jutting jaw, vacant expression and guttural throat-clearing, Karl became the butt of so many jokes back when the movie first came out that it's easy to forget what a truly amazing character - and job of acting - Thornton has pulled off here. As a director, he proves himself a master of rhythm and pacing, setting the mood and allowing the scenes to play themselves out without recourse to overstatement . This is the kind of movie that could have become very preachy, but it hasn't and that's something that I really appreciate.
The title refers to the Hindustani equivalent of "E-flat". It was part of the triology , Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) , Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha , all dealing with the aftermath of the partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with it, though this was the most optimistic film of his oeuvre. The film explores three themes juxtaposed in the narrative , the dilemma of Anusuya, the lead character, divided leadership of IPTA and the fallout of the partition of India.
Hero of this film, Bhrigu is a leader. And in due course , he is challenged and left alone by other leadership aspirants. He tells Anasuya why he is so rugged, unemotional today. He tells that on the bank of river Padma, from where he tries to see the other side, his home — another country now, where he can never go back as citizen again. Komal Gandhar is layered with cultural references — urban and folk. Heroes take names from Indian mythology —- Bhrigu, Anasuya ; the theatre group wants to find its essence in a performance of Shakuntala; Bhrigu compares Shakuntala’s sorrow in leaving behind her forest with an eviction from someone’s own space in Calcutta. Probably people identify him/herself with this movie to a great extent that it brings back the tune of nostalgia and responsibility.
The picture is the first adaptation of Charles Portis 1968 novel True Grit. John Wayne stars as U.S . Marshal Rooster Cogburn and won his only Academy award for his performance in this film. In True Grit, Wayne plays grumpy,
pot-bellied U.S. marshal "Rooster" Cogburn, hired by 14-year-old Mattie
Ross (Kim Darby) to find Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), who killed her father . She could have selected any other lawman but she chose the aging Cogburn because she believes that he has "true grit". Texas ranger Glen Campbell is also in search for Tom Chaney for a different murder. He teams up with the marshal and Mattie . But oddly enough, True Grit isn't really about plot. It's about the creation of the character. Tough old Rooster , isn't above a little larceny ,but has one stern moral code about real bad guys. And
he's got quite the colorful past as he relates tales of his younger
days to Campbell and Darby on the trail. Wayne's portrait of that fat, mean, greedy, eye-patched , whisky drinking and yet in some strange way lovable lawman will remain as one of the best performances in westerns. Kim Darby is also a surprise. She's more than capable of handling Wayne in
each and every scene. They made a very good team. Glen Campbell is not as
good as these two, but then he really isn't an actor . The photography is superb, with the hills, mountains, valleys
and forests being the real stars in this film.
B
ased on a Daphne du Maurier short story and made in 1973 , it's one of the most haunting, enigmatic and , in the final moments bloodily shocking films ever made. After the tragic death of their daughter , Laura and John Baxter take a trip to Venice in an attempt to save their marriage. There, John uses his work -restoring an old church- as an outlet for his grief while Laura relies on pills . One day, they encounter a strange pair of elderly spinster sisters , Heather and Wendy . Heather, who is blind, claims to be able to communicate with the spirit world. She convinces Laura she has seen Christine. While John dismisses this as meaningless "mumbo-jumbo," Laura goes along with it - even participating in a séance. At first , John is delighted at the positive change in wife but he soon becomes concerned that she is falling under a harmful influence. To make matters worse, he is beginning to experience strange visions. Heather warns Christine that unless John leaves Venice, he will be in great danger. Christine's mother and father are played by Donald Sutherland and Julie
Christie, and their relationship is one of the most authentic portraits of a
marriage that i have seen in any film. Watching the film, it is easy to believe that the actors are in fact
married, and Roeg's portrait of Venice, with its intelligent,
non-tourist locations, is a real vision of a real, working city . The film is drenched with sex and displaced sexual longing, given a dark eroticism by the shadow of death. In Venice, Baxter will get glimpses of a little figure in red running
away from him or hiding from him, and may wonder if this is the ghost of
his daughter. We will see the red figure more often than he does,
glimpsing it on a distant bridge, or as a boat passes behind two arches. Venice, that haunted city, has never been more melancholy than in “Don’t
Look Now.” It is like a vast necropolis, its stones damp and crumbling,
its canals alive with rats . This film remains one of the great horror masterpieces, working not with
fright, which is easy, but with dread, grief and apprehension. Few films
so successfully put us inside the mind of a man who is trying to reason
his way free from mounting terror.
The film follows the life of a donkey from birth to death , while all the time living it the dignity of being itself -a dumb beast , noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control. It begins with a lovely medium close-up of a small donkey suckling his mother's teat. The baby is discovered by Marie and Jacques ,two children with strong adolescent feelings for each other, and is taken from his mother. As years pass, family strife intervenes and Jacques is forced out of Marie's life by her angry father. So begins Balthazar's journey through life, paralleled almost exactly by Marie's miserable trek. The donkey has several owners ,most of whom exploit him, often with more cruelty than kindness.
With his unerring patience, Bresson scrutinizes and underlines each trait displayed by the film's humans. The magic of Balthazar is that he is the ultimate Bressonian character . Bresson famously used untrained actors in his films -he called them "models" and purposely stripped away all vestiges of personality so that he photographed only a bare essence. The difference between Balthazar and us is that we are smart enough to understand our destiny without being able to control it. The film's restraint is its strength -beautiful monotone images, silences , gestures all laced with a simple piano sonata that underscores the mood of the film perfectly. Transcendental and sometimes joyful, the film (in
typical Bressonian style) eventually gives way to an unbearably sad vision
of 'life .
The Cloud door features pictorial beauty , slow-building sensuality and surprising humour that combine to rich effect. A king overhears a parrot telling erotic stories to his daughter , and is angered. He desires to kill the parrot but the princess intervenes and saves the parrot's life. The parrot escapes and is trapped far from the palace. One day when it's new owner is sleeping, the bird convinces a young man to open the cage door. In return, it shows the young man a secret way to get into the palace.
One of the inspirations for the story for the movie is based on the work
of noted Sanskrit scholar Bhasa and his six-act play 'Avimaraka' . The Cloud Door is a technically sound product . Too many people are busy on making several interpretations about this film but it's a refreshing mystical little tale with stunning visuals, beautiful locales and great music.
