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Josh Sadfie recommended Bicycle Thieves (1948) in Movies (curated)

 
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
1948 | Drama
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"You know, it’s tough to really summate your favorite movies, and it changes so often based on your vibe and things like that. When I w­as thinking about it, I was trying to think of what are the movies that continually show up in the top 10. And I landed on The Bicycle Thief – or Bicycle Thieves; sometimes people say “thief,” sometimes say “thieves.” [Director Vittorio] De Sica’s Bicycle Thief is like a north star project for me. First of all, it’s arguably the greatest film in the father-son series. It’s one of the bits of neo-realist masterpiece. The way that De Sica aligned it with his casting and the themes of his movie is always an inspiration. The fact that he saw Lamberto Maggiorani at the audition, that he showed up with his son – he’s a factory worker who showed up with his son – he immediately said, “Oh, this is the guy who needs to play the character.” And the fact that he cast the kid, Enzo, off of the street while they were filming, who was selling flowers for his father. The fact that De Sica had the vision to try to blur the lines, starting with casting and then, towards the climax of the movie he shot, he modeled his production around the release of a soccer match. So that he knew he was going to have hundreds upon thousands, thousands upon thousands of people leaving the stadium at the same time. And he would shoot around. He’s using reality as the fabric of his fiction film. And that, to me, makes it an ultimate masterpiece of all time."

Source
  
Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021)
Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021)
2021 | Horror
8
7.7 (12 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
We get a recap of the previous movie, then when the movie starts properly we see a young woman who lives alone. This woman has alarms set for different times of the day, keeps her house locked up like a prison and appears to be scared of everything. It eventually turns out it was her who the teens in the previous movie had called for help, and they take a possessed Sam to her house in the hope that she would help. Initially she refuses, but then tells them a story about her time at camp when her sister died.

We get a flashback to 1978 where a young girl called Ziggy was being accused of being a witch and constantly bullied by a group of girls because of it. She isn't a witch but it isn't long before the first attack and ziggys sister Cindy realises something strange is going on and goes searching for answers.

Just like the first it was very teen Slasher, but I enjoyed this one more than the first one. There was more murders and more gore with a shocking twist at the end. It has the feel of the Friday the 13th movies, though I did find the scenes inside the cave difficult to watch, not because of the content but because it was so dark visually.

I find the movie let's you start to like certain characters and then when they're taken away you feel all the emotions because you get attached to them, especially the final kills, which was a surprisingly powerful moment, you tend not to get that in Slasher movies so I thought that was a nice touch.
  
Changeland (2019)
Changeland (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Drama
An outright blast - a revitalizing, unfiltered tonic through-and-through. Would pair perfectly with 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘺 (2013) in elite-tier escapism pieces that so vividly believe in the curative power of getting away and living in the moment. Definitely one of the most depressing movies to watch during the COVID-19 pandemic in that it features some of the most beautiful location cinematography I've ever seen, a fucking *smashing* soundtrack + Patrick Stump score, and an absolutely infectious sense of healing and bliss delivered through an affable cast who fit spotlessly together. Reminded me a lot of something like 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘈𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦 in the best way. Just people coming together and having a good time, impossible not to fall in love with - one of the ultimate hangout movies there ever was. Huge props to Seth Green, who this was an obvious passion project for. I can't lie and say that the story here is super compelling, it isn't really - it isn't bad by any means either, but it's effectively 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 for people who don't hate themselves (minus the towering quirk). But it's clear he feels for this material so deeply that it shows through bigtime in the final product. What could have been some cheapoid DTV shrug instead comes across as a full-bodied experience because of the chemistry onscreen and belief in the picture. And of course I'm just a sucker for late-career Macaulay Culkin, who in this gets blind drunk into a Thai boxing ring wearing a pair of his signature bunny ears. Oh and also Randy Orton gives an inspirational speech. I loved this film deeply.
  
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
2011 | Action
One Shell at a Time...
Somewhere between Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (Braindead) and maybe a Troma or Roger Corman classic B movies lies Hobo With A Shotgun.

You have to be in the right mood to watch a movie like this. Watching cool practical effects means everything was performed on the set without the use of separate visual or CGI effects. These were obviously used exclusively back in the day before ILM and the many CGI effect groups which exist today. I still feel generally speaking they are more realistic and don't take you out of a scene like bad CGI does.

Your friendly neighborhood hobo gets fed up with the local town's hoodlum brothers and their father owning the police and generally making life miserable for everyone so he decides to take the law into his own hands and dispense his own quick justice. while he is at it, he also removes other scum from the Earth including pedophile Santas and convenience store bandits.

He befriends the girl toy of one of the hoodlums and she becomes his sort of partner in crime when she is not getting sawed into and generally degraded in every way.

When I was looking through IMDb at the career of now the late Rutger Hauer, I was amazed on how many truly bad movies or most I had never heard of he had done in his career. Not saying he was the best actor, but he did have screen presence (especially in Blade Runner) which not every actor has.

He will be missed.

  
A Court of Mist and Fury
A Court of Mist and Fury
Sarah J. Maas | 2016 | Young Adult (YA)
10
9.3 (54 Ratings)
Book Rating
Character Development (0 more)
Don't Let the Hard Days Win
The amount of love I have for this book is insane!
At the beginning, I wondered how weird it was that I was falling in love with Rhys only to discover that it wasn't weird at all. He legitimately cares about Feyre and that's all she ever wanted. He couldn't handle seeing her slowly disappear and lose weight and he definitely couldn't handle knowing she threw up her guts every night.
Then there's Tam-the-Tool. When these books become movies and all my friends love him, I'm going to want to rip my eyes out. Yes he was charming in book one but this book shows his shitty side and I would love to cut off his balls and feed them to him.
  
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
2017 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Funny. So funny. (1 more)
Paced well, and story made sense
Humor sometimes detracted from otherwise powerful moments (0 more)
Far from a classic, but damn good fun
I went to see Thor: Ragnarok on a whim and am so happy that I did. It was so fun, and I had no idea that Taika was the one directing it, but it made total sense once I saw the credits (watch What We Do In The Shadows for an idea of the kind of humor in this Thor).

Sometimes Thor: Ragnarok should have taken itself a little more seriously than it did, but I did not think those moments detracted from my overall enjoyment of the film. Thanks for making action movies fun again, Marvel.


Also please keep Taika Waititi on for the next one. Please.
  
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
1994 | Drama
Acting is fabulous (2 more)
Bread crumbs perfectly placed
A thinking person's film
Slow and steady but purposefully paced
Contains spoilers, click to show
What do you do when wrongfully imprisoned? Make a friend and methodically plan and execute your escape of course! At first the pace of the movie seems a bit slow but then you realize you have been sucked in to life at Shawshank. As all of the "meaningless" details get put together you see how the perfect escape is taking place right before your eyes and you might even cheer for Bobby and Red out loud.

This has become one of my favorite movies. Not only is the story and the acting great but you may find yourself questioning the justice in doing the right thing. Overall, great movie ... No matter how many times I see it.
  
Good story (0 more)
Graphics (0 more)
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Contains spoilers, click to show
Admittedly I am normally really sceptical when it comes to movies on the Syfy channel but I've got to confess I loved watching this movie. Having being besotted with all things King Arthur forever I was happy to see a film with a different spin on the legend. Alright if you can get past the cheesy graphics and notably bad costumes at times for Morganna Le Fay and Mordred in modern day Bangkok it is a pretty class movie. When the descendant of Arthur Pendragon doesn't believe in the stories he's descended from the line of Arthur it all kicks off from there. Yet the best part is when Mordred has an opportunity to redeem himself for a lifetime of mistakes.
  
WX
Weapon X: Days Of Future Now
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Recommended to me by a friend, and sadly, I don't feel like I can review this fairly. While the book itself is solid X-Men stuff and good art abounds, it's very much a coda in the Weapon X saga. A wrap up to a VERY long, VERY involved story arc... of which I have no knowledge or information. I come to the Xverse from the 90s cartoon, the movies and a handful of TPB stories like Age of Apocalypse and God Loves, Man Kills. I just don't have a frame of reference to go on with this story. I'm sure some of the events (and deaths) are meant to be epic OMG moments, but I wasn't there for all the set up, so they were left empty.
  
Radio Silence
Radio Silence
Alice Oseman | 2017 | Young Adult (YA)
8
8.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Minority Representation, fun formatting (0 more)
Great LGBTQIA representation in a YA novel
Representation MATTERS. Don’t let anyone tell you different. The two main characters in this book are GLBT – and asexual, which is a rarely-seen demographic. One of them is a WOC! And that’s IMPORTANT. We need representation of minorities in books, movies, TV, media – wherever it can be seen. So all those kids growing up, thinking they’re weird, or the odd ones out, or broken, can see themselves on the screen and realize that other people are going through the same things. That it’s NORMAL.

I also love the different formatting the author uses when representing texts, or phone calls, or the podcast that the kids create.



Read my full review at https://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/book-review-radio-silence/