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The Apartment (1960)
Perfect in everything-wise
Billy Wilder is a diamond in the rough. The Apartment proves this affirmation. An ever-evolving screenplay that, as one of the principles of Wilder's scripts says, grabs the audience by the throat and never let them go. The concept is amazing: a low paid worker lends his apartment to his superiors so them can ran away from their wives. It could go to a wacky comedy path if the story relayed in this premise. But not in the hands of a legend. With complex characters with clear wishes and necessities, Wilder builds a comedy that turns into a tragedy that turns into an inspirational movie. Now, put in the mix a beautiful black and white cinematography, memorable performances from Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and a precise direction from Wilder himself. Result: CLASSIC!
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
One of the best.
I pressed play hoping for a comedy. I was completely wrong, but, at the end, it pleased me a lot. You can call this one the Hollywood horror story if you want. It brings a cynical look of Hollywood, talking about how writers are seen inside and outside the industry and the toxic star machine. Sunset Boulevard is one of the best noir movies out there. Has an amazing cast of characters, an astonishing performance by Gloria Swanson as the scary and crazy Norma Desmond, a great score, memorable scenes and dialogues and exceptional writing and directing by Billy Wilder.
Hamilton (2020)
Powerful, unique.
Broadway is a very exclusive place. There, acclaimed and historic plays are interpreted for some weeks and, most of the times, stay there. Rarely, they are filmed and distributed or interpreted to other publics. Hamilton came to change this, selling not the same experience of watching in the theater, but a very similar one. In the first minute, I was hypnotized. Since then, I didn't take my eyes from the screen. Is a charming film with two acts, one better than the other. The twist of the play is on the songs from GENIUS Lin Manuel Miranda, who wrote the lyrics and composed the melody. The score is a delicious blend of Hip-Hop, R&B and Jazz. Not happy with telling a story and creating songs that have a connection with which other, Miranda added a precise humor in the lyrics, in the right moments, that made me laugh a lot. Besides that, which is too much already, I will summarise other achievements: the costumes are out of this world; the lighting is accurate; the set, although simple and relatively small, is used with intelligence and creativity; the choreographies are fluid; is well filmed, capturing all the emotion and action; directed with a smart eye and performed by a great cast, flexible and competent. After using every adjective that I know, what I can say about Hamilton is that it is a valuable production. You can be sure that this movie is the start of a new trend in the cinema industry. Is a reason to congratulate the ones involved.
Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925)
Eisenstein montage is amazing.
Battleship Potemkin is one of the most influential films of all time. Serguei Eisenstein, the director and writer, is a genius and the way he uses montage is amazing. He creates suspense and emotion with shots like he had a supernatural power. To him, montage wasn't a device like it is used today in most of the movies. For him, it was a way to communicate with the audience in general. The Odessa Staircase sequence and the arrival of the ships at the harbor are great examples of this. The former shows the tragedy of the revolution and the latter, the passion. A curiosity about this picture is that it has 1346 shots. This is the double of the average of the movies at that time. This tells how much Sergei liked and trusted this theory.
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)
The father of terror in the history of cinema.
It is a 20th century film, but it really surprised me. It's very visible and palpable the influence that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has on modern cinema. His unreal and scary visual, with sharp angles, the psychological thriller, the lighting on the sets. You can say that this one is the father of terror in the history of cinema without a doubt. Is a pioneer is so many aspects, and now I'm not only talking about the aesthetics, but also the plot. Used a lot of the things from literature, but it was the first one to bring it to the big screen. I'm not going to go deep into this subject because is a major spoiler, but the only thing you need to know is that this picture is a masterpiece from the German art movement after the first world war, that talks about the insanity of this dark period of the history of our world.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
Too many writers for a few laughs
When I saw on the paper "Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder movie, where one is a deaf guy and the other, blind", I thought to myself "I'm going to laugh my ass off with this one". Well, I set my expectations too high and the film didn't even get close. The chemistry between these two legends is amazing. Sometimes, you find yourself laughing, not at the jokes, but at how Wilder and Pryor play with themselves on screen, but this isn't enough. The plot is very basic and senseless, there isn't a character study and no creativity. Too many writers for a few laughs. I have to finish with the obvious: a blind and deaf comedy.