I write about movies here and maybe sometimes some other stuff but mostly just movies. If you are looking for the old Cineblog postings because you are compiling a book or whatever, you can find them here.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Topkapi (1964, Jules Dassin)

Doesn't hold a candle to his 1955 masterpiece Rififi. Still, good fun and entertaining to see the heist that Mission Impossible stole from (as intricately and carefully plotted and executed as Rififi's.) I appreciate the desire to lighten the mood and bring a little humor into this film, but I just felt like that fell flat and those bits didn't really work. Also some pretty beautiful cinematography from Henri Alekan, who has a semi-weird IMDB filmography.

Sin City (2005, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez)

Hey I had a redirect from the old cineblog to this site that I accidentally deleted recently. Sorry about that. I also haven't seen much in the way of movies at all lately, but here's a couple.

I had never read the books by Frank Miller, although I had been exposed to them a bit in the past by comic book loving friends, and knew enough about their look and feel that I knew what movie this was about 20 seconds into the trailer. I feel like by combining three of Miller's stories into one movie, this became a bit of overkill after a while. It was just so overwhelming. But as a filmic representation of a graphic novel, it was pretty much awe-inspiring. A delight to look at (if not necessarily experience) even though I feel the structure of the way the acts play together feels a little forced (although its not exactly unsatisying either.) I'm fairly mixed on this at this point, but I wouldn't mind another viewing to help me clear things up either.