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SHREK 2 (2004)

this sequel has nowhere near the wit of the original, and all it does have are a bunch of random references to pop culture...but it sure is cute and fun to watch. i think the hairball scene is one of the funniest things i've seen in a while, cuz i have a cat and that was so what my cat looks like. i don't have much else to say because there isn't really much to say anything about.



as a completely random side note: popcorn flavored jelly beans are disgusting.

Just absolutely brilliant! This is what an experimental film should be like. Hitchcock's direction is stunning. What a movie, especially with such impeccable performances. Simply blew me away.

Meh... Rope was exciting in some points, but didn't hold up to any of my expectations... Psycho, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Notorious was better IMO... I like the cast though...

Comments pending.

Boy, did Alfred Hitchcock love playing with that camera. Few directors who are as experimental have achieved the success of Alfred Hitchcock. Take, for example, "Rope" and "Rear Window", two movies with a number of similarities, but executed so differently. Both take place largely in one set. Both involve a murder, and it's James Stewart figuring out what happened in both of them. Both were, in large part, experiments for Mr. Hitchcock. He had wanted to film a play, and in 1948 the opportunity came his way. Arthur Laurents wrote "Rope" for him, based on Patrick Hamilton's play, which was, in turn, based on the Leopold and Loeb case. Two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) kill a peer for the intellectual thrill of it, then hold a dinner party for the corpse's friends and family. The dead body is stuffed in an antique trunk upon which dinner is being served. For Hitchcock to squeeze suspense out of such a situation is old hat, so he gives another famous trick on top of it. He decided to film the movie in one continuous take, cutting the camera only when film ran out - roughly every ten minutes - by zooming in on somebody's back until the screen is momentarily black. (I never see it mentioned, but I did count three unnatural cuts - not to take away from the success of the experiment, however.) Not only did this heighten our suspense by making us a participant at the party, if gave Hitchcock new ways to draw out that suspense. There's a nice sequence near the end of the party that focuses solely on the trunk in the foreground, and a long hallway in the background. Just off camera we can hear the party breaking up. During the long sequence, the housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson), clears the trunk off, then carries in a load of books to be put in the trunk. With each approach we wonder if this time she's going to open that lid. Earlier in the evening, as an old college professor (Stewart) begins to suspect his ex-students have been up to something unappetizing, he subtly interrogates Mrs. Wilson. The camera backs away, and it becomes standard party background noise. But we see Granger's Phillip get more carried away by anxiety and drink, and we see him over-react to everything anyway, and suddenly our knowledge makes us worry that Stewart's getting too close to the truth. Granger's performance as the killer who needs to get drunk to cope with the situation is over the top in a classic way. He's having fun, so he doesn't come off as too stupid or annoying. There's a nice bit in which a character shouts the name of the recently deceased upon entering the apartment. As the camera sweeps into the room we notice, almost casually, Phillip's hand covered with blood and holding a broken glass. We realize it was an involuntary reaction to hearing the name. John Dall as Brandon is right on as the arrogant college intellectual. I've known the people who think less of you just because you have no Nietze on your shelves (never mind whether they've read theirs or not), and I fully believe them capable of murder. Stewart is really only a supporting character. He does little more than talk about murder, then recant his words. It's the presence of Stewart that makes the role work, though. Hitchcock needed someone the audience would have instant respect for, and he found it. Oddly enough, in his next outing for Hitchcock, Stewart played a largely inactive role as well. But then the role just called for him to sit. In 1954 they re-teamed for "Rear Window". This time Stewart plays L. B. Jeffries, a photo-journalist confined with a broken leg to a wheel chair. With nothing else to do, he spies on his neighbors through their windows, and believes he sees a murder. The film is set entirely in Jeffries' apartment, however, most of the action takes place outside. How did Hitchcock do this? He had a beautiful courtyard built around which were many windows - or, actually, stages upon which we'd spy little plays being performed. In addition to the mystery's solution, by movie's end we're happy to see the conclusion of Miss Lonelyheart's story, Miss Torso's story, and the newlyweds and the songwriter as well. Hitchcock has given us a number of movies in this one, which makes sense since he was trying to compare the voyeurism of Jeffries to that of the movie-goer. Suspense is built with excursions by Jeffries' girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) to the murderer's apartment. We watch as the monster attacks her, then we hear him - his pace slowly plodding - coming after Jeffries. It's one of Hitchcock's best payoffs that this monster is even more afraid than Jeffries is. And I can't discuss this movie without at least mentioning the fact that Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" is the most beautiful thing ever put on film. If that's not reason enough to see it, I don't know what is.

Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart would have been well known for their collaboration in this film were it not for the work that they did in Rear Window and Vertigo. These three films delve deep into the darkness of human nature, considering what we are capable of. Rear Window shows how our worst imaginings might be true; Vertigo shows what can come of our relationships when we try to possess each other.

Rope, a brief and focused work, unravels the dangers of a cavilier regard for human life. Brandon and Philip are two young bachelors in the comfortable class who kill one of their friends for fun. Jimmy Stewart plays their former school master, Rupert Cadell, who put the idea in their head. For you see, Rupert likes to tell people of his theory on murder. Specifically, murder of the intellectualy inferior is quite alright. He never thought anyone would ever carry out such a horrid philosophy.

Brandon not only carries it out, but throws a party to celebrate, inviting those who know the victim. As the night wears on, the tension builds. Will they get away with it? Philip is less sure of this than Brandon and with joy we get to see how it all plays out.

The film, based on a play, is shot in one act and with sustained camera shots giving it a very taut feel.

Killer's Kiss (Kubrick 55')


The Man Who Knew Too Much is Hitchcock's remake to a film he made earlier in his career in Britain that goes by the same name. Even though I have not seen the original, I have a feeling Hitchcock's decision to make it an hour longer wasn't the right one, since I felt that the film was a little over long. Hitchcock also changed the film's starting location from Switzerland to Morocco. The Man Who Knew Too Much I found to be Hitchcock's ultimate self important movie. I don't think I have ever seen so many references to Hitchcock pieces in any of his other films. Hell, Hitchcock even gets to place his loved composer, Bernard Herrmann, in the film. He also pokes of the original film by making a joke about Switzerland. All in all, The Man Who Knew Too Much has some really good moments, but they are too far and few between to make it a Hitchcock classic.

Rating: 7.0/10

Alfred Hitchcock is such an amazing director with a such a gift for the vision of how the final film will come out. Wonderfully acted by everyone, the claustrophobic setting adds to the tension of the film, a touch Hitchcock has used before and since. This was his first film in color, and his first with Jimmy Stewart. Extremely well written, interesting art direction and vivid characterizations.

***/****

Pro: The long takes...and the dark screen cuts. Stewart. The end. The fear of discovery.

Con: I wasn't a fan of the two college leads.

One of the more interesting and different Hitchcock films I've so far to see, Rope is a grand experiment in style and structure. The great director's first color film was done in real time and the story and camera are restrained to one room in an apartment. The timing trick manages to give the film real pace and helps build a tangible fear that is key to the film's dark, disturbing nature. The film plays with the themes of guilt and classes that are touched on in many of Hitchcock's films, but few of them is such a focused manner.

Two college friends (probably lovers) kill a third of their old roomates from school simply because they've convinced themselves that, as intellectually superior beings, they have the right to stretch their artistic boldness to all arenas, even murder. The film plays out as the 2 throw a party with, of course, the friends and family of the dead boy the main guests, all unknowingly treating themselves from the trays laying on the trunk serving as his coffin. The centerpiece of the partiers is their old college professor that had filled the boys' minds with the very superiority ideas they've put into practice. We're left to wonder not if he'll figure it out, but if he'll awe at the artistic audacity of his students or come to terms with just how strange, condescending, and wrong his ideas were.

The director's dark humor is played up throughout by the killers who make vague jokes about the fate of their punctual friend who suddenly has gone missing. James Stewart, as the professor, brings the whole thing around by first playing up his theories but slowly showing the horror of the event by suspecting the act and then by taking the act and his theories on morally.