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David Schwartz recommended All That Heaven Allows (1955) in Movies (curated)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

1955 | Classics, Drama, Romance

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Movie Favorite

"Is there a greater, more suggestive and bittersweet movie title than All That Heaven Allows? (Well, yes, there is, Yasujiro Ozu’s I Was Born, But . . . , but that’s another story and another great Criterion disc.) Sirk dug beneath the surface of idyllic American small-town life in the 1950s, and the surface has never been more beautiful than in this Technicolor nightmare of conformity and the repressive nature of community and family life. It’s Freud vs. Walden, as pettiness, jealousy, and repression pair off against a bohemian vision of rural tranquility. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose brilliant essay on Sirk is included as an extra, remade the movie as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and it was also the model for Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven and Sanaa Hamri’s not-too-shabby Something New."

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Christiane Amanpour recommended We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam in Books (curated)

"The flip side of the “The Sorrow of War,” this book is a brilliant and telling account of one brutal battle in Vietnam from the American perspective. Moore was the commander of soldiers who were airdropped into the jungle, only to be promptly surrounded and massively outnumbered by North Vietnamese troops. The reporter Joseph Galloway had rare access to the troops, witnessing this desperate battle for survival. I love it for the story of heroic journalism. It is why I so admire books like “Once Upon a Distant War,” by William Prochnau, which is the Vietnam war seen through the eyes of legendary correspondents like Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, Peter Arnett, and others of that generation, providing stark evidence of their courage and fearless contributions to history and truth."

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Jane Lynch recommended The Big Lebowski (1998) in Movies (curated)

"The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges – I almost put Starman down, too, but I really think I kind of don’t remember the movie so much because I haven’t seen it in so many years – but I love Jeff Bridges, and I love the movie he just did. What was it called? Crazy Heart, he’s great in that. But, I mean, there’s something about The Big Lebowski and that combination with the Coen brothers sensibility, which, he nailed that down. I don’t know exactly what you’d even call that, but brilliant. I loved his performance in that, and I loved John Goodman, and I loved Steve Buscemi. And you know who else was great in that, was Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was really good in that movie, too. Yeah, great, great, great fan of that movie."

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Darren Fisher (2454 KP) rated Songs the Lord Taught Us by The Cramps in Music

Jan 15, 2021 (Updated Jan 15, 2021)

Superb Cramps Album

The first Cramps album I bought around 84/85. I had never heard their music but read a lot of articles about them in the music mags. They sounded intriguing and their song/album titles alone sparked my interest. I loved their deranged brand of rockabilly swamp fueled songs and relentless energy. There isn't a weak track on this album and the cover versions are inspired and brilliant. The Cramps also opened my eyes (or maybe that should be ears) to countless other artists solely on my wanting to hear the original songs.
Also... Produced by none other than the legendary Alex Chilton (of The Box Tops and Big Star). Rock n Roll doesn't get any better than this. Long live The Cramps...! 😎✌

Album Highlights:
Garbageman
Sunglasses After Dark
Strychnine

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Awix (3310 KP) rated La Mala Educacion (Bad Education) (2004) in Movies

Sep 18, 2019 (Updated Sep 18, 2019)

Another striking movie from Almodóvar's late 90s-early 2000s imperial phase. The complex plot resists easy summary, but concerns the makers of a film adapted from a story based on a (fictional) case of child molestation by Catholic priests - but not everything is quite as it initially appears to be. Flashbacks and the film-within-the-film echo and repeat each other; the line between them eventually blurs and vanishes.

Brilliant performances again, especially from Gael Garcia Bernal, and a fiendishly convoluted and clever script that never loses track of the seriousness of the issues involved: not for the first time, Almodóvar seems to be channelling Hitchcock in a very warped way. Less humane and optimistic than his other films, with a more ambiguous ending, but still a hugely impressive piece of cinema.

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Nickg24 (492 KP) rated John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) in Movies

Aug 30, 2019

Weakest of the trilogy but still enjoyable

So this movie picks up right where chapter 2 ended with john going on the run.A brutal first 20 minutes of action follows (the library scene is brilliant) but once that is over the story starts to get a little dull.Everything feels rushed with john going from one country to another, then the massive fight scene with halle berry and 2 german shepherd dogs which felt like it had so much going on in it that you just couldn't keep up with it.

But thankfully once john is back on home soil things improve again leading up to the big finale at the continental hotel.All in all another excellent addition to the franchise and things are set up for a fourth movie to come along in the future