Category: Movies

Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)

Post author By Mark A. Lester
Post date May 15, 2020
No Comments on Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)

As we reach our teen years, world events start to play a bigger part in our lives in the classroom.

When I entered middle school back in 2000 (!), more people were talking about the election, only to be followed a year later by the 9/11 attacks. I can only imagine what the talks will be like with young people now regarding the COVID-19 pandemic (especially those like my brother Jackson who are in the graduating class of 2020). These were evident in my mind as I was watching Louis Malle’s Au Revoir les Enfants, a reflection of his own childhood during World War II in France.

Tags 1987, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Coming of Age, Film Friday, Foreign, Foreign Language, France, holocaust, Louis Malle, Movie Review, PG, Rated PG, World War Two

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Rear Window (1954)

In just under two months of being quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have found many ways of passing the time, and technology has certainly helped with that.

That is one of the main reasons why a story like Rear Window would not be able to be told today. There would be too much else for a protagonist to do in order to combat the boredom.

Tags Alfred Hitchcock, Classic, Five Stars, Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Jimmy Stewart, Rear Window, Suspense

5 Stars Movies Vintage

WALL E (2008)

When revisiting the library of Disney/Pixar, one gets the same sensation when going to the dessert table. Everything (for the most part) looks delicious, and there are only a few that do not agree with your palette.

Of course, there are the favorites that you dive into and that most everyone says are the best (i.e., Finding Nemo, the Toy Story films, The Incredibles), as well as others that, while sweet, don’t offer anything completely new (like the more recent disappointing Onward). Then, of course, there are those that hit you to your inner core.

Tags 2008, Chapline, Disney, Disney/Pixar, Five Stars, Pixar, Rated G, Romance, Walle

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Ikiru (1952)

Even the most casual of filmgoers have, in some way, shape, or form, heard of the name Akira Kurosawa.

The legendary filmmaker is still felt today in films both domestically and globally, having inspired people such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (shown here giving Kurosawa an Honorary Oscar). Of his films, Seven Samurai has got to be his most influential: it has been the inspiration for films ranging from The Magnificent Seven (the original and the remake) to Disney/Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. While I am still trying to work through his filmography (thank you Criterion Channel), I would argue the most moving film of his would be what he made two years prior to Samurai: Ikiru (which, translated, means “To live”).

Tags 1952, Akira Kurosawa, Foreign, Foreign Language, George Lucas, Ikiru, Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, To LIve

4 Stars Movies

Stargirl (2020)

Truth be told (which I know I must do, especially after last week’s review), I had no real intention to review Stargirl.

My only interest in the film was that it starred former America’s Got Talent winner Grace Vanderwaal, who I admit to being a fan of a few of her songs. Add in the fact that this is the 16-year old’s first film and it is safe to say that I had cause for alarm.

Tags Coming of Age, Disney, Disney Plus, Grace Vanderwaal, Rated PG, Romance, Stargirl

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Pinocchio (1940)

Over time, many a movie made for children (or anyone, for that matter) are going to be forgotten, sought after only by die hard fans and film buffs. There are movies of my own childhood that I have seen many times, yet now are known only to a few of my generation. This is even true with the powerhouse of Disney.

Had it not been for Disney Plus, certain films of lesser popularity like Oliver & Company (1988), Meet the Robinsons (2007), The Black Cauldron (1985), Robin Hood (1973), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), A Goofy Movie (1995), and The Princess and the Frog (2009) would be almost swept under the rug, especially when compared to other monolith films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), Bambi (1942), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994), just to name a few (not to mention the Pixar ones).

Tags 1940, Children, Classic, Disney, G

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Minority Report (2002)

“The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen”.

The line of dialogue from John Anderton is also his core belief, and one of the many lines of dialogue that has stuck with me for the countless times I have seen Minority Report (2002) over the years. It is a film that asks you to think long after, but not to a degree that certain films (especially science fiction) would make some viewers need to take a Tylenol. That, and it is as engaging as any film that has come out in the first two decades of the 21^st century.

Tags 2002, A Clockwork Orange, Max von Sydow, Minority Report, PG-13, Rated PG-13, Samantha Morton, Sci Fi, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise

5 Stars Movies Vintage

City Lights (1931)

In the 1910s, the world was introduced to Chaplin’s tramp, who would go on to be possibly the first recognizable character the film world ever knew.

Starring in numerous amounts of shorts, Chaplin later made full length movies with his famous mustached character: So famous, even Adolf Hitler (who was only four days younger than Chaplin) was said to have based his mustache off of the tramp.

Tags Charlie Chaplin, City Lights, Five Stars

5 Stars Movies Vintage

The Searchers (1956)

At the 92^nd Academy Awards, when Bong Joon Ho was accepting his Oscar for Best Director (for Parasite), he paid tributes to each of his fellow nominees. The first (and most memorable) was toward Martin Scorsese, which prompted an unexpected standing ovation. It was clear that Bong Joon Ho was paying tribute to a mentor.

In the filming industry, perhaps no other career is more vocal of paying tribute to mentors than that of a director. Most (if not all) have stated they have been in total admiration of a certain director that came before them, often rewatching their films almost to a degree of pure obsession. Certain names come to mind: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles, Kurosawa, Spielberg, Scorsese, Eastwood, Coppola, Lucas, Tarantino, and Spike Lee, to name a few. However, all the big named directors seem to have one person they all agree on that had influenced their career. That name is John Ford. Famously, when Orson Welles was asked the directors he admired most, he said, “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.”

Tags 1956, Alfred Hitchcock, BOng Joon Ho, Classic, Clint Eastwood, Hitchcock, John Ford, John Wayne, Martin Scorsese, Oscars, PG, Rated PG, The Quiet Man, Ward Bond, Western

5 Stars Movies Vintage

Contagion (2011)

Around the age of 11, I was sitting at a cluster of desks in my fifth grade class when two of my classmates (Mary and Kelly) were talking about something. They both were holding a colored bottle of liquid. I asked what it was. It was some form of scented hand sanitizer.

Since I was such a victim of peer pressure, I went home and told my mom about this new “fad”. We eventually had a lemon scented bottle in our down stairs bathroom that seemed to last until some point when I was in High School.

Tags 2011, Bryan Cranston, Corona, Corona Virus, CoronaVirus, Elliot Gould, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, PG-13, Rated PG-13, Steven Soderbergh, Virus