This movie Breathless is like entering the fast-paced, rebellious world of Jean-Luc Godard, where cinema's boundaries are stretched and reshaped. It isn't just about a thief on the run with his American lover -that's what it looks like at first glance. It is therefore a manifesto for a new sort of filmmaking, one in which tradition was flung out the window and rules were made to be challenged. If you ever wonder why you feel that some movies might be…
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Blow Out 1981
It was a damm freaking experience, to be honest with you, something like which one would experience after being inside the theatre. Well, I'm still processing everything I've just watched since watching Blow Out (1981). That kind of movie just gets deep inside of you once the credits start rolling off. Excellent is the work done in generating the tension by director Brian De Palma. But what really amazes me most with De Palma is suspense laced with social commentary…
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The Master 2012
After watching There will be blood i was amazed of paul thomas The Master (2012) is one of those movies you never forget long after the credits are done. I am just speechless by this one. It is a very raw and real movie thought-provoking film which is intense and far away from all those ordinary films with a simple story line and resolution for something like that. It explores human complexity in the behavior as it tries to seek…
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L.A. Confidential 1997
Great expectations rode alongside my decision to see L.A. Confidential. Not every neo-noir crime film, nor certainly one that gained nearly unanimous approbation, then moves on to a series of nine Academy Awards nominations but just two wins. None made every promise for the kind of story wrapped in sleek noir style but against the dirty flashy backdrop of 1950s Los Angeles. It's mystery, and yet so much more: a class act of storytelling, of acting.
What really caught my…
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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 2013
There is something eternally fascinating in the idea of ordinary life interrupted by strange dreams. Most of us hide those dreams at the back of our minds - short fantasies that we permit ourselves to retreat into while commuting, working, or even lying in bed. But what happens when those fantasies crash into reality? This is what The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a 2013 movie, asked for; Ben Stiller sat on the director's chair and acted as the lead…
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Citizen Kane 1941
When it comes to the greatest films ever, one title is always thrown into the fray: Citizen Kane, an Orson Welles 1941 film. It not only survives the test of time but also ignites a ton of debates, inspires innumerable filmmakers, and sets a new game when it comes to storytelling within cinema. It's just one of those movies at first glance that will appear to be just some kind of black-and-white classic. However, after further review, it would appear…
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Perfect Blue 1997
Few movies, and perhaps few directors, have an impact on a film buff's sensibility like this movie—leaving her to ponder not just what she is witnessing but also the nature of perception itself, even the self. Among such experiences is Satoshi Kon's film, Perfect Blue—a thrilling, suspenseful, surreal psychological thriller. The movie was released in 1997 and is fresh now as it looks at themes of fame, privacy, and the very weakness of the self in this media-saturated world.
I…
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Once Upon a Time in the West 1968
Very few films transcend their genre to become something more: a myth, a legend, an epic that shapes not only our view of cinema but also the very nature of storytelling. One such film is Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. In this great film Western, released in 1968, one finds a cinematic poem, etched into the vast deserts and dusty towns of the American frontier. There one stands at the edge of history, witnessing one epoch…
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966
The quintessential Western film, whenever that is uttered, comes at once to one's mind - the 1966 masterpiece Good, Bad and Ugly, from the brain of incomparable Sergio Leone. Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach, it is not a movie experience but a tale of greed, loyalty and survival in the middle of the American Civil War. The world, almost raw, feels like the first time -and indeed, the visit to the film-a place of cruelty and…
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For a Few Dollars More 1965
There is something so magical about the untamed wildness and morality of these lawless towns and all those duels held under high noon that makes the Westerns timeless. Sun-baked and dusty landscapes have had a magnetic fascination for me forever. One of the most iconic titles under it is Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More in 1965. Being a part of the legendary "Dollars Trilogy," it doesn't tread familiar terrain but resets it. Having passed through the film recently,…
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A Fistful of Dollars 1964
It was 1964, and cinema sat at a crossroads. A serious western was in its dying breath, but a minor Italian filmmaker named Sergio Leone was about to take over Hollywood's doorstep with A Fistful of Dollars. That film did not so much appear as detonate on screen, changing the countenance of Westerns and the very face of the planet to view the taciturn, sphinxlike allure of Clint Eastwood. What began as a pitiably low-budget foreign remake of Akira Kurosawa's…
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To Live and Die in L.A. 1985
One of those cinema histories that is marked by the rise of the crime thriller genre, often merging high-stakes action with deep psychological tension, 1980s cinema stands alone, and among all that it has produced, is To Live and Die in L.A. This neo-noir is set in a gritty, raw, underground city from director William Friedkin's film version, the original novel by Gerald Petievich, which married together great neo-noir aesthetics to the pulsating pulse of the 1980s. It is when…