Juli's Cinema Spot

The other day my husband and I watched Casablanca . It came in at number 2 on AFI's list and I can see why. Citizen Kane was number 1 and this movie was definitely just as brilliant as that one. In fact, they are two of my new favorite movies. I have to ask myself, how did I go through 30 years of life without watching Casablanca ? Allow me to expound - Acting: Some of the accents were a little off, but aside from that, the acting was so good. Sam cracked me up and there was such great acting on the part of Bogart. My favorite scene was when he confronted Ilsa. He acted that scene with such passion that you could feel his character's heartache and anger. Plot: This storyline was much easier to follow than The Maltese Falcon . Also it was neat to see the famous scenes and hear the famous lines from this movie in their proper context. They make so much more sense now. Musical score: Very good in terms setting the tone of key scenes. Sam's playing and choice of music really a...

Last night we got around to The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. It's number 23 on the AFI list. I was really hoping to like this movie, but alas, I have to say I didn't like it all that much. Okay, I'm ducking and covering from all the Bogart fans out there. Now, on to why it wasn't my favorite. The acting - Most roles were either stilted, or overacted. I did like the actor who played Cairo, though. He was good, very believable. Music - There was too much of it and it was too repetitious. It all sounded suspenseful and I can only take so much foreboding music in a movie. Storyline - I found it too slow-moving and I got lost somewhere along the way. That was probably my fault, though, for surfing the net during the first twenty minutes of the movie. For now I'm giving this movie a thumbs sideways and so did my husband. I don't know, I may watch it again someday to see if I like it any better.. I'm almost always willing to give a movie a second cha...

So, here I sit watching The Village for the second time. I thought it was going to be a lot more scary than it was. I mean, monster, slasher wise. That's why I didn't see it in the theatre. After taking me to see The Mummy and due to the dreams I would have after watching Haunted History on the History channel, my husband strongly discourages me from watching movies likely to give me nightmares, lol! Hence the reason I'm am just now watching The Village . I watched it once last week, but my husband wasn't at home, so we are watching it again tonight. It is a scary movie, but more psychologically scary. Those are the kind of movies I like, well along with grand epics, but that's digressing. Most of the acting in the movie was pretty good, but Bryce Howard's performance as Ivy Walker really stood out. I thought she was really really good. To this point I'd not seen anything she'd been in. Hope she keeps going with her acting, she's off to a great s...

Well, after it having been out for three weeks now, we finally made it to see Revenge of the Sith and I have to say it's the best epic film I've seen since Return of the King . The main reason for that is the storytelling. I mean, if you've seen episode IV, you know who's going to survive the battle scenes in Revenge and who won't. You know where everyone starts out in Episode IV, but what you don't know is how they got there. George Lucas did a brilliant job tying up those loose ends and setting up the plots for eps IV-VI. As with the other films the musical score was great. It brought the perfect emotion to every scene. Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and Ewen McGregor were once again outstanding in their roles. Christensen's performance really stood out to me and made me want to check out some of the other work he's done, just to see him in a different role. So, those will be some of the next on my list of movies to watch. While the acting was ...