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Michael-11
Reviews
The Cold Equations (1996)
Good central theme marred by unnecessary variations.
I haven't read the story of which other users are bemoaning the destruction so I didn't go into this feature with any preconceptions. I still didn't like it.
The central -- and undoubtedly short -- story in this movie is good: How do you cope with an inevitable death? How do you cope if you're the agent of that death? The recipient? When this movie followed that small, tight core it was good. When it strayed from that core, delving into "corporations (and/or bureaucracies) are evil" territory (with a smidgeon of a Messiah complex thrown in for no good reason), it was bad.
In the end I found the time I spent watching this movie to be wasted.
Das Boot (1981)
Wow.
It would be too easy to stumble over superlatives while writing about this movie. I'll try to avoid this trap.
Never before has a war movie so moved me as did Das Boot. No WWII-era film before it has. None of the "Oh My God I'm A Monster" Vietnam-era films has. Watching this movie has made me feel sympathy for a class of soldier I had hitherto considered contemptible.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Citizen Kane (1941)
What the - expletive deleted - was so good about this film?!?!
All my life I've heard how great this film is. All my life I've heard that this is *the* masterpiece of cinema. Finally I get a chance to watch it. I hated every second of it. I found *NO* redeeming qualities to it whatsoever.
From the opening "let's do painfully clumsy exposition in a really bad, really loud, really obnoxious faux newsreel" to the painfully obvious identity of Rosebud this film was a dog. The only thing that kept me from falling asleep while watching it was the annoyingly loud, nasal voice of (I think) Joseph Cotten. (It may have been Everett Sloane. I lost track through sheer ennui....)
It's possible that I'm just "not connected" to the era or style of Citizen Kane, but I pretty much have to rule that out. I like many movies contemporary to Citizen Kane. (Casablanca and Key Largo leap to mind immediately.) I've also enjoyed several movies made by and/or starring Orson Welles. (Touch of Evil leaps to mind in a big way here.) I just found this movie annoying and irritating.
This was probably the second-largest movie letdown of my entire life.