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The SaintApr 10th, 2011Posted by The Saint on
1001 Movies

A couple movies I watched a while ago, but just now getting to writing something up on them.

The Natural
Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs a man with a natural talent to play baseball. The movie tells the story of his journey to the majors and what happens to him along the way. I was expecting the beginning that dealt with his childhood to last longer. It came of as “There are there things you need to know about his childhood. Check, check and check, moving on.” After that, the movie flows well through the story it is actually trying to tell. The story isn’t that complicated, but I enjoyed going along for the ride. And surprisingly,
[spoiler title=”spoiler “]I was ok with fireworks going off when he hits the last home run.[/spoiler]

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Wow! And I thought Assassination of Jesse James was a long movie that was slowly paced. I understand the story it was telling why that means it needs a slow pace, but Assassination at least looked amazing along the way. You really don’t need 80 minutes to show that her life is uneventful and routine. Followed by 80 minutes of things slowly becoming more out of place. The last 40 minutes were not bad because I was waiting for the point when she breaks. In the end, the climax of the film was just as quiet and sedated as the film.

Manhattan
Proportional to his catalog, I have only seen a few Woody Allen movies, but of those, none of them have done it for me. The ones I have seen all seem to be telling the same story of him being an awkward jewish man and dealing with a sexual relationship. And it makes me uncomfortable to have to think about Woody Allen and sex at the same time. All that being said, I think I enjoyed this the most of the movies of his I’ve seen. I like how he used the black and white in various scenes, especially the one in the planetarium.
[spoiler title=”spoiler “]I also thought that fact that Yale didn’t tell Emily the full story about the affair was a nice touch. Issac was shocked when he realized it, like the audience, but decides that it is not worth going into.[/spoiler]