Day 14: Inception (2010)

Movie #6 – Inception (2010) - 148 min, cert 12A.

I still haven’t managed to replace my laptop, but my wife gave me Inception on DVD as a Christmas present, so I managed to watch it on Christmas night.

The basic plot concerns Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a thief highly skilled in the art of ‘dream invasion’, a technique whereby he and his accomplices can infiltrate other peoples’ dreams and extract closely guarded secrets from their subconscious minds while their defences are down. After an unsuccessful extraction from a Japanese business man (Ken Watanabe), the subject asks them to do a job for him. Only instead of taking something out, he wants them to put something in – a deeply implanted suggestion that will cause him to break up the huge multinational corporation that he has inherited from his father. This is the inception of the title and is much, much harder than an extraction. Indeed, most people would say it was impossible, but Cobb claims to know differently and takes up the challenge. As a result, we find Cobb and his team attempting to deeper than ever before. They sedate their subject, infiltrate his dream, then within the dream they put him to sleep again and infiltrate that dream. But they go further still and we find ourselves in a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream with much cutting backwards and forwards between the various levels.

Now, the way I’ve described it makes it sound horrendously confusing, and indeed I challenge anyone to summarise the plot without doing so, but the way Christopher Nolan takes the viewer through the plot step by step, making sure everything is carefully explained as he goes, ensures that, actually, it’s not too hard to follow. I mean, sure, it requires a certain amount of concentration. You can’t take a toilet break or a quick nap halfway through and still expect to know what’s going on afterwards. But if you keep your wits about you, and accept the technological possibilities that the movie presents, then it’s quite possible to get to the end of the film having understood it all.

Generally, I like movies that make you think. And movies that ask the age-old philosophical question about the nature of reality are often the most thought-provoking. The Matrix did it with a certain amount of success, although it didn’t probe too deeply, and chose instead to wallow in its action sequences and special effects. Other movies like Fight Club and Memento have caused the viewer to look back on the film and question how much of what was previously assumed to be true actually was. It’s easy to see why Christopher Nolan came up with the idea for this film, and indeed started to write it, while he was directing Memento as the two films do seem to have quite a similar feel to them.

As for the acting, I thought DiCaprio was his usual accomplished self, but the other members of his team were left very two-dimensional. None of them seemed to exist outside of their role in the team, and I found most of them fairly indistinguishable from each other. I think that’s probably more the fault of the script than the actors.

Overall, I certainly enjoyed it. While I don’t feel the urge to watch it again immediately, I probably will at some point. I’ll give it 9/10 which leaves my personal list like this –

1.                  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

2.                  Pulp Fiction (1994)

3.                  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

4.                  Inception (2010)

5.                  The Godfather (1972)

6.                  The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Next on the list is Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. I’ve seen this, I think, once before. Probably when it was first screened on British TV. I’m not a big fan of poignant wartime dramas, but I remember enjoying this film and being genuinely moved by it. Whether I shall still feel the same the second time around remains to be seen. I fear I shall have to wait until I'm back online before I can watch it though, which could be another week.

Day 7: Pulp Fiction (1994)

Movie #5 – Pulp Fiction (1994) - 154 min, cert 18.

Another one of my favourite films, although completely different to the previous day’s. While The Good, the Bad and the Ugly uses dialogue very sparingly, Pulp Fiction throws superfluous dialogue at you in huge quantities, but therein lies a lot of its appeal. Tarantino presents his characters to you in as realistic a way as possible. When they talk, it isn’t just to propel the plot forward. They talk about random stuff, because that’s what people do. They talk about European fast food, foot massages and how to rob a bank with a telephone.

The film is split into sections (shown out of sequence). A short pre-credit sequence which turns out to be a scene from later in the movie, shown from a different point-of-view, then a longer sequence which serves to introduce the two main characters of Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) who are hitmen working for Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Thereafter, the film is split into three long sections each of which tells a different story, although all three revolve around the same set of characters, including Butch Coolidge, a boxer (Bruce Willis), Mia Wallace, Marsellus’ young wife (Uma Thurman), plus a number of other lesser characters.

None of these sections have any complex plot developments, but that doesn’t matter because that’s not what the film’s about. The movie is far more interested in how the characters react to the situations they find themselves in, and how they interact with each other, than it is with the situations themselves. I think it is this approach more than anything else that gives the film a fresh look that is unlike anything that has gone before.

The cast is nothing short of superb. It reads like a countdown of the coolest actors in Hollywood at the time, and they all put in great performances. Travolta, Jackson, Thurman & Willis are all magnificent, but it doesn’t stop with them. Ving Rhames, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Eric Stoltz & Amanda Plummer all put in great performances. The film probably raised the profiles of all of these actors to some degree. It completely restarted Travolta’s failing career, making him A-list once again, and many of the roles that Ving Rhames has done since (Mission: Impossible, Con Air, Entrapment) must surely have come off the back of this.

Much has been made of the use of swearing in the dialogue for this movie. Indeed, I believe at the time it broke the records for the sheer number of expletives in a single film. But, to me, it seems justified. It’s how you would expect these characters to talk. Anything less than this would seem somehow false, and it wouldn’t fit in to the natural feel of the movie that Tarantino has clearly worked so hard to achieve.

One thing that Pulp Fiction does have in common with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a great soundtrack. Although, while the latter has an original score written for it, Pulp Fiction uses an eclectic selection of pop songs, most of which were fairly obscure before the movie came out, but are now iconic staples which will forever be associated with it. Every song fits the mood of the scene it accompanies perfectly. It is one of the very few movie soundtracks that I have in my CD collection.

To sum up, much like the last one, I can’t say anything derogatory about this movie. It’s a classic, and I love it. Is it as good as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Probably not, but  it surely comes very close. Another 10/10 without any doubt. So my personal list now looks like this –

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
2. Pulp Fiction (1994)
3. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
4. The Godfather (1972)
5. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Next on the list is a film I’ve not seen yet, but I’ve been wanting to see it since it came out. Inception looks right up my street. Unfortunately, although I have downloaded the movie, my laptop died before I managed to finish burning it to a DVD, so I am having a forced hiatus in my challenge while I sort out getting myself a new one. Oh well, at least it means I can get round to some of the jobs I’ve not done over the last week because I’ve been too busy watching movies. Like wrapping the kids’ Christmas presents.

Day 6: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (cont.)

Movie #4 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) - 161 min, cert 15.

Another long one, but this one doesn't drag, it positively flies by. I've got nothing bad to say about this movie at all. It's been my favourite movie for many years, and it continues to be so.

The film follows the fortunes of three gunslingers during the time of the American Civil War. There's Blondie (Clint Eastwood), Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) and Tuco (Eli Wallach) - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the title respectively. They are looking for a large cache of gold coins buried in a cemetery, but none of them seems to be willing to share it three ways.

As far as I’m concerned, there is one person who transforms this film from being an above average (if a little long) western, into a glorious cinematic masterpiece. And it’s not Eli Wallach or Lee Van Cleef. It’s not Clint Eastwood. It’s not even Sergio Leone. The person I’m talking about is Ennio Morricone. I could literally sit in a darkened room and just listen to the soundtrack of this film and be in heaven. Some of the scenes in the film just wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for the accompanying music. If any other film had a sequence of someone just running round a graveyard looking for a specific gravestone that goes on for a full three minutes, you would say that was about two and a half minutes too long. But Morricone’s Ecstasy of Gold makes it work. Similarly, at several points in the movie, there are long spells without dialogue, but the void is filled beautifully by the score. There is no dialogue at all until over 10 minutes into the film, and the final shootout goes a good six minutes without speech.

But it’s not just the score that makes this film great. Delli Colli’s cinematography and Leone’s direction are also superb. There are plenty of lingering long shots of desert shanty towns and rugged plains where the actors are deliberately placed a long way from the camera and off-centre so as to make them seem somehow unimportant by comparison with the vast landscape.

And, of course, there are the performances of the three leads. Van Cleef exudes quiet malice, speaking only when required to do so. Wallach, by contrast, hides his cunning and treachery behind a torrent of words, hardly any of which are actually true, but designed to be what he thinks the people around him want to hear. Eastwood, like Van Cleef, is a man of few words, and he maintains a calm, laid-back, unflustered manner at all times. It’s easy to see why he was picked up by Hollywood as a leading man on the back of this performance.

Overall, everything about this movie is perfection in my eyes. I score it 10/10 and it jumps straight to the top of my personal list –

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather (1972)
4. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Next on the list is another of my personal favourites, Pulp Fiction. I’m out tonight on a work’s Christmas do so I don’t suppose I’ll get a chance to watch it until Saturday. But, I’m looking forward to it.

Day 5 (more): The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I managed the first hour before going to bed. Any more and I would've fallen asleep on the sofa. It's still a great movie and I'm looking forward to finishing it tonight.

Day 5: The Godfather, Part II (cont.)

Movie #3 - The Godfather: Part II (1974) - 200 min, cert 15.

This film takes up about seven years after the first film ended. In the interim, Michael has successfully relocated the Corleone family from New York to Nevada, but the ideals he had before about moving the family into legitimate business seem to have fallen by the wayside. He is now a ruthless kingpin with a thirst for power that leads him down a dangerous and violent path that will eventually alienate him from his friends and family. This story is interwoven with scenes from the young life of Vito which take place many years before the first film was set, and they show how he rose to power after being driven out of his native Sicily.


This was the highest-placed movie on the list that I hadn't seen before, so my expectations were quite high. Maybe they were too high. I have heard it said by many people that this is the rare sequel that transcends the original. Not in my book, I'm afraid.


First of all, it was too long. Any film in excess of 3 hours is unusually long. Some films get away with this because they grip you all the way through. I didn't feel gripped by this. Many of the scenes seemed irrelevant, like one in Cuba where Michael talks about expansion there, but then no further reference is made to it. Also, I was left confused by the other, entirely separate, story being told in parallel with that of Michael. This was the story of the young Vito, his youth in Sicily, and then his rise to power in New York. Don't get me wrong, I loved those scenes. I thought De Niro's portrayal of the young Vito was a masterclass of minimalist acting. The scene where he terrorises an unscrupulous landlord with no more than a handful of words of dialogue, and a few shrugs and small hand gestures is something you feel few actors could make convincing. My problem was that the fast pace of the Michael story and the slow pace of the Vito story seemed to jar against each other. Each switch from one to the other seemed to throw me off balance. I've no doubt that Coppola was presenting each story as a counterpoint to the other. Contrasting Vito's rise to power through respect, honour and a desire to help his friends with Michael's self-destruction though ruthlessness, and a thirst for power, but I would rather have seen them in two entirely different films.


There are a lot of positives about this film. The acting is once again superb. Pacino and De Niro are both exceptional and the supporting cast is also strong, particularly Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton. The soundtrack is a masterpiece and does much to build sympathy for Pacino's character, despite his escalating levels of violence and paranoia.


Anyway, overall I'd say I still liked it as a movie. Good, but not as good as the first one, so I'll give it 7/10. My list so far then continues to mirror the official one -

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Next on the list is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which is probably my favourite film of all time. So I may well watch the first half before I go to bed. You can expect a glowing recommendation.

Day 4: The Godfather, Part II

I watched disc 1 of this last night, which is about the first 2 hours. I can't say I'm massively impressed by it so far. It just seems ridiculously long. If I wasn't watching it for the 250 challenge, I suspect I would have turned it off before now. But maybe I'm judging it too early - there's still another hour and a quarter to go. So I shall reserve any further judgment until the end.

Day 3: The Godfather (cont.)

Movie #2 - The Godfather (1972) - 175 min, cert 15.

While I have seen this movie before, it was a long time ago, and I don't think I can have been concentrating because I remember very little about it. Watching it now, some of the more famous scenes - the horse's head, the restaurant shooting, etc. seemed familiar, but most of the rest did not. If yesterday's film seemed quite long, then this one at 5 minutes short of 3 hours seemed to run forever (and tomorrow's is even longer!). But the film moves along at an easy pace. It seems to move like the Godfather himself, slowly and deliberately. It doesn't rush, but then it doesn't dawdle unnecessarily either.


The film follows the progress of the Corleone family, a New York family of Sicilian mobsters, and its aging patriarch Don Vito (Marlon Brando). After he refuses to help a rival mafiosi he fall victim to an assassination attempt. He survives the attempt, but while he recovers his eldest son Sonny (James Caan) takes control of the organisation and triggers a gang war. Meanwhile his youngest son Michael (Al Pacino) who had been attempting to forge a legitimate career, also gets caught up in the escalating violence. And the film gradually and seamlessly shifts its focus from Don Vito to Michael as the balance of power shifts with it.


Overall, I did enjoy the film. Would I class it amongst my all-time favourites? Blasphemous, though some might consider it - no, I wouldn't. Although I can certainly see why it is revered so much within the genre. Coppola cleverly builds up a great deal of sympathy, and indeed empathy, for the Corleone family, particularly for Brando's character, despite the fact that they are clearly heavily involved in corruption, racketeering and murder. He does this by showing them to have virtues like integrity, loyalty, respect, a love of family values and an abhorrence of drugs. He never shows them killing, or even injuring, an innocent party. Indeed the only non-mobster  to suffer at their hands is a thoroughly corrupt cop. They are portrayed almost like vigilantes, fighting for justice and freedom, rather than the ruthless killers that they undoubtedly are.


Also, there are some great individual performances in this movie. James Caan & Robert Duvall probably did the best work of their careers here. Pacino's performance is a tour-de-force which catapulted him into public consciousness and effectively launched his own career. As for Brando himself, I must confess I'm not wholly convinced. I know it won him an Oscar and much critical acclaim, but to me he just seems to spend most of the film bumbling along, mumbling semi-coherently at the rest of the cast.  The most extraordinary thing about the performance to my mind, is that he could go immediately from playing this shambling old man, to playing the dynamic, sexually-charged part of Paul in Last Tango in Paris later that same year.


Overall I'd give the movie 8/10. I liked it, but I don't expect it to still be in my top ten by the time I get to #50 in the list.


Talking of which, I intend to try and keep track of my personal top ten movies from the ones I've seen so far, as I go along. So, as it stands now, I am in complete agreement with iMDb -

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)

Tomorrow night, I can move conveniently into the sequel, The Godfather Part II. At 3 hours and 20 minutes, it is (I think) the third longest movie in the list at the moment, so will inevitably take me two nights to complete it. It will be the first movie in the list that I have not seen before, so I will be approaching it with as much of an open mind as possible. But it has a reputation of being better that the original, so my expectations are already pretty high. We shall see.....

Day 2: The Godfather

I forgot just how long this film is. After my wife went to bed, I watched about 45 minutes then had to pause it around midnight because the dog was getting restless for his walk. When I got back about an hour later, I watched another 90 minutes before finally giving in and going to bed. I shall endeavour to watch the last 40 minutes tonight and then write a full review for the blog.

#1: The Shawshank Redemption (11-Dec-2010)

At work the other day, we got to talking about movies. More specifically about great movies. And someone told me they were trying to watch every movie on iMDb's list of the top 250 movies as voted for by their regular contributors. (You can find the list at http://www.imdb.com/chart/top if you haven't seen it.) At first I thought that was a pretty crazy idea, and that he'd never manage it. 250 is an awful lot of movies. I asked him how many he'd seen so far, and he said something around the 70 mark. That still leaves him an awful lot to see.

But when I looked through the list myself, and counted up the ones I'd seen, I totalled 97. Now I'm nearly 20 years older than him, so I've got something of a head start, but that puts me practically 40% of the way through before I've even started. Plus a lot of the movies in the list I realised I'd really like to see, so maybe it's not such a dumb idea after all. Particularly since I don't tend to go to bed till quite late most nights, and I'm often looking around for something to fill my evenings after my wife & kids have turned in, so this seemed like a good a thing as any.

Then I thought - why not write a blog about it? Record my thoughts on each movie as I see it. If nothing else, it gives me some kind of record to look back on, and if anyone else should find it interesting along the way, well there's no harm in that. But, I thought, if I'm going to blog it, then I should do it properly. I should watch the whole 250, in order, without skipping any, not even the ones I've already seen. So that's what I'm going to try and do. Of course, I'll probably lose interest in a couple of weeks and pack it all in, but then again, maybe I won't. There's only one to find out. So here goes.

Movie #1 - The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 142 min, cert 15.

This is an easy starter for me. I have this film on DVD and it's one of my favourites. That said, it's been several years since I sat down and watched it and I hoped it was still as good as I remembered. It might be worth pointing out here that I've been a huge Stephen King fan since I was at school, probably a good 30 years all told. I have every book in general circulation, and I've read a lot of them more than once. Different Seasons must have been one of the first books of his that I bought when it first came out, way back in '82 or '83. It's a collection of four unrelated novellas, other than that each title has a different season mentioned in the subtitle. The first of the novellas is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Hope Springs Eternal, and it is, in my opinion, by far the best. If you haven't read it, I would thoroughly recommend it, particularly if you haven't seen the film as the movie stuck pretty closely to the original story so there won't be many surprises in store for you otherwise. Incidentally, if you've ever seen Rob Reiner's movie Stand by Me or Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil you'll find two of the other stories in the collection pretty familiar too. But I digress, back to the movie in question.

I wasn't disappointed. This is undoubtedly a great movie and thoroughly deserves it's place at the top of the list. The performances from Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman are superb and the friendship between their characters develops over 20 years or so is entirely believable. You see them, particularly Freeman, get gradually broken and institutionalised as the film plays out. And then, of course, you get that fantastic feel-good ending that you really wanted, but somehow never actually expected. But it's not just the performances from Robbins and Freeman that delight. Both Bob Gunton, the sadistic and greedy warden who somehow believes he is doing God's work, and Clancy Brown (remember him as the Kurgan in Highlander?) as the equally sadistic, almost sociopathic Captain Hadley, give wonderfully sinister performances.

Most of the other prisoners, with the possible exception of James Whitmore's Brooks, are fairly two-dimensional, but then the director almost seems to gloss over them deliberately to keep the viewer's attention firmly directed towards the two leads and their developing bond.

The film begins in the 1940s, and continues on until the 1960s so it was essentially a period piece when it was made. This has stopped it becoming dated in any way. Also, because it's set in a prison which appears almost completely isolated from the outside word, the passage of time is easy to miss. The movie is as engrossing now as it was 15+ years ago when it was first released. At two and quarter hours, it's probably one of the longer films in the list (although by no means the longest), but it keeps the viewer's attention for the full duration, and never seems to lose its sense of direction. Every scene pushes the plot forward in some way.

A definite 10/10 from me, and thoroughly recommended.

For tomorrow night, I've got hold of a copy of The Godfather. I have seen this once, many years ago, and other than a couple of iconic scenes, I can remember very little about it. It will be interesting to see what I think of it now.