Category: 5 Stars

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Post author By Mark A. Lester
Post date December 22, 2020
No Comments on My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Despite all the division that the year 2020 has brought us, one thing we all have in common is we all yearn for a form of escapism.

That feeling of “I need a break” has been in our fiber from the beginning (after all, God did rest on the 7^th day), yet we can sometimes forget the feeling happens for children as well. They will turn to books, imaginary friends, toys, or movies (guilty as charged to this day). It is told so truthfully in My Neighbor Totoro, easily a film I love to retreat to in times of anxiety and unrest.

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Fantasia (1940)

In just over a year, Disney Plus has unsurprisingly joined the ranks of Netflix, Hulu, and others as one of the top tier streaming platforms. It helps when you have not only a vast well of nostalgia in both film and television, but also some original content as well (perhaps most notably The Mandalorian).

Of course, the service does have its fair share of flaws, yet there is one that I find personally irritating. They have catagorized Fantasia (as well as its rather underrated sequel, Fantasia/2000) as a musical. I can understand needing to organize films (anyone who has seen my DVD/Blu Ray collection would attest to that), but I refuse to think of Fantasia as a musical. It is far more than that.

Tags Classic, Fantasia, Mickey Mouse

5 Stars Movies Vintage

All the President’s Men (1976)

Post author By Mark A. Lester
Post date October 30, 2020
No Comments on All the President’s Men (1976)

In the classic 1994 film Forrest Gump, there is a brief scene where the titular character is spending the night at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C. He calls the front desk, informing them of people with flashlights in a room outside his window “keeping him awake.”

While that is undoubtably not what happened, it was my introduction to the Watergate Scandal. Even nearly half a century later, the events that would lead to President Nixon’s resignation is still regarded as one of the biggest political bombshells the world has ever witnessed, yet it was not as if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein volunteered knowing what it would eventually lead to.

Tags 1976

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Nosferatu (1922)

“Lisa, vampires are make-believe, just like elves, gremlins, and eskimos.”

— Homer Simpson

While they are indeed fictional (unlike the very real eskimos), that does not make vampires any less fascinating. For over a century, we have seen Vampires as not only monsters, but charmers, cereal mascots, teen heart throbs, superheroes (it was announced not long ago that Blade would make his appearance in the MCU), and muppets that helped us count as kids (“Von!” “Two!”…)

Tags Classic, Homer Simpson, Horror film, Nosferatu, Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Psycho (1960)

It was a spine tingling time as a 13 year old on a Tuesday in June of 2001.

The American Film Institute was revealing their annual Top 100 list that they would do every year. That year’s was entitled 100 Years, 100 Thrills. As the countdown was concluding, I had made a $5 bet with my dad (the most I could afford at that time) over which would be number one. He was going with Jaws, while I was rooting for Psycho. By the end, Jaws was number 2, and I had won five dollars, bragging for some time afterwards.

Tags Classic Movies, Film Friday, Film Reviews, Psycho, R, Rated R

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939)

Post author By Mark A. Lester
Post date September 25, 2020
1 Comment on Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939)

I am old enough to remember the days when, as an elementary school student, the wheeling in of a TV on a cart meant a change in mood for the day (and sometimes, the whole week). Sadly, most of those times were dedicated to very below the bar forms of entertainment focused on just learning certain material (unless it was The Magic School Bus TV series).

My first real encounter with watching an actual movie for educational purposes came at the age of 13 in Mr. Russell’s 7^th grade Social Studies Class in Middle School. I can’t remember if I had seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington before then, but I had definetly heard of it. So much of this movie can seem lost on today’s youth, mostly that a political film can actually be entertaining (not to mention, as Mr. Russell let my peers know, that black and white movies are not all boring.)

Tags 1939, Classic, Claude Rains, Filibuster, Frank Capra, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Jimmy Stewart, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Politics

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Of the countless times that the Oscars have had a segment for montages (excluding the “In Memorium” ones), there was one they did that I wish they would bring back.

At the 62^nd Academy Awards (the first to be hosted by Billy Crystal), there was a surprise appearance by an even bigger Hollywood legend, Bob Hope, there to introduce a short video of cinema’s best sharing the first time they ever went to a movie. It was proper that the video used the music from the night’s eventual winner of Best Foreign Language Film, Cinema Paradiso, which brought to mind many movie “firsts” for me (first in a theater, first date movie, etc).

Tags Cinema Paradiso, Film Friday, Italian, R

5 Stars Movies Vintage

It Happened One Night (1934)

Post author By Mark A. Lester
Post date August 14, 2020
1 Comment on It Happened One Night (1934)

Undoubtedly, the romantic comedy is one of the most overused genres.

For every 90s Julia Roberts flick, we get a movie like 2010’s Life as we Know it (which, for undisclosed reasons, was once trending big on Netflix) or 2018’s The Kissing Booth (which made a sequel for reasons unknown to us smart movie goers). In this genre, it seems that you win some, you lose a lot.

Tags 1930s, Capra, Classic, Romance, Romantic Comedy

5 Stars Movies Vintage

The Seventh Seal (1957)

In the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (the 7^th one, which, considering this review, is rather ironic), there is a story entitled “The Tale of the Three brothers”.

Basically, the story shows how three brothers respond to death. Each gets three items from death: the elder wand (which wins ever battle), a stone to talk to the deceased, and a cloak to become invisible (the invisibility cloak). In the end, each brother meets death (albeit in different ways).

Tags 1957, Bergman, Christian movies, Classic, Foreign Language, Ingmar Bergman, spirituality, Sweden

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Jaws (1975)

Two men stand alone on a pier. One of them hooks a big slab of meat and throws it into the open water. Soon enough, something underneath takes the bait, along with half the pier, dragging one of the men into the depths. Then he swims for his life as the unknown entity chases after him. He gets out in time, but what was chasing him?

That was what I asked my 6 or 7 year old self one day when my dad and older brother were watching Jaws, when I walked into the room. At that time in my life, I had basically no idea what a shark was, much less what it looked like. Naturally, I had to wait and see what it looked like, but we had other things to get done that day and we stopped just before the trip out to kill the shark started. I don’t know how long I had to wait before I saw the beast, but it was on my mind for a long time.

Tags 1975, Horror, Jaws, Steven Spielberg