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Kasi Lemmons recommended All That Jazz (1979) in Movies (curated)

All That Jazz (1979)

1979 | Drama, Musical, Sci-Fi

8.5

(4 Ratings)

Movie Favorite

"Magical realism is very important to me, and here you have some wonderful fantasy sequences—including Roy Scheider talking to Death, played by Jessica Lange. And there’s so much humor in this movie. It’s very serious on one level, because the protagonist is reflecting on his own mortality and the constant presence of death in his life, but it’s also very funny. Even when the hero is having a heart attack, the movie can’t help but break into a bit of musical theater! And as someone who used to dance before becoming a filmmaker, I’m in love with the choreography—how Scheider watches it all happening and participates in it, and how sexy it is. The dancing is very of the period—it’s maybe even a little dated—but the movie itself is not. It completely holds up."

Source

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Earthquake (1974) in Movies

Mar 21, 2021 (Updated Mar 21, 2021)

Earthquake (1974)

1974 | Action, Drama

6.8

(5 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Archetypal piece of mid-70s schlock hits all the usual disaster movie beats: slowish first half introduces various characters, attempts to drum up a sense of foreboding, then everything goes shaky and there are various subplots of people struggling amongst the rubble. A tone of rugged stoicism is usually predominant.

You can almost sense the modern blockbuster struggling to be born here - high concept, low credibility, lots of special effects, John Williams score - but the film is let down by some wobbly production values and questionable casting choices. (The subtext is surprisingly reactionary and morally inflexible, too.) All the bits which make it most entertaining nowadays - Marjoe Gortner as an unhinged national guardsman, Richard Rowntree's motorcycle daredevil, Walter Matthau's dancing drunk - are the parts which are the most camp and ridiculous. Sort of entertaining if you enjoy this kind of bombastic studio silliness.

Kudos

Otway93 (567 KP) rated Holiday Inn (1942) in Movies

Dec 8, 2020

Holiday Inn (1942)

1942 | Classics, Comedy, Musical

8.1

(13 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Music (2 more)

Dancing

Cast

Story (2 more)

Modern Marketing

Length

Far from what I expected...

All my life I thought this was a Christmas film, yet today I when I kickstarted the Christmas viewing for this year, I found Christmas barely entered into it. Despite the appearances of DVD covers, the inclusion of the classic Bing hit "White Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", Christmas features in this very little.

Bing and Fred are incredible as always, but it felt like a pick and mix of songs relating to various holidays, including "Easter Parade", "Abraham" (an uncomfortable blackface celebration of the birth of Lincoln), and a song about firecrackers for the 4th of July.

Overall, even at only 100 minutes, the film was too long to maintain my interest, most likely due to the fact I was expecting a far more festive treat.

Kudos

Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) in Movies

Sep 25, 2019

John travels to Russia to find his son, intel says that he's in prison. Once he's there nothing is quite what it seems.

Where 4.0 managed to get in on some of the current trends, A Good Day To Die Hard decided it wanted to be like Jason Bourne whilst forgetting that John McClane isn't the sleek spy that Bourne is. We've gone from fun and enjoyable action films to something that takes itself way too seriously. At no point did I crack a smile, or scream "oooooooh" at the screen when one of McClane's completely ill matched fist fights goes awry.

A dancing, carrot eating villain who likes to play with his hostages... give me strength.

As for the extras on this disc you should certainly checkout Maximum McClane, mainly for the compilation of yippee ki-yays at the end.