Double Indemnity has all of the ingredients you expect from a quintessential film noir - a smouldering femme fatale, the classic antihero, hardboiled voiceover, shadows in spades and fast, snappy dialogue - but it's so much more than the sum of its parts. With this film, Billy Wilder created something very special. From the moment it opens, with Walter Neff entering his office well after hours to record an impassioned confession on his Dictaphone, to the moment he staggers out again with vain hopes of crossing the border into Mexico ("you'll never make the elevator", Keyes' matter-of-fact prediction), I was spellbound again. It's always a treat to revisit this film, never more so than on the big screen, which was a first time for me.
It's a pretty straightforward story about an insurance salesman led astray by the bewitching wife of his client, roped into his murder, staged to look like an accident, for a huge payout made all the more enticing by a double indemnity clause (double the money in the case of a train accident). What brings it to life is Raymond Chandler's sizzling screenplay, adapted from James M. Cain's novel of the same name, and a couple of stellar central performances by Fred MacMurray as dapper, smooth-talking Neff and Barbara Stanwyck as the irresistibly stylish Phyllis Dietrichson, the fiery dame with a heart of ice ("I'm rotten to the core"); she only has to dangle her anklet at Neff on their first meeting to reel him in like a fish on the line. The real show stealer though, is Edward G. Robinson as Neff's boss, Barton Keyes. His haphazard manner belies a razor-sharp mind, alert to all the little details of the case, which ultimately prove Neff's undoing. He gets all the zingers in this and finishes on top, though takes no pleasure in it - there's clearly a lot of affection between the two, right to the end. As so often in film noir, the shift in power is signified by the ritual of the cigarette lighting - throughout the film, Neff is always the one with a match at the ready to light Keyes's cigar, but in the final scene, the limp cigarette in Neff's mouth is lit by a resigned and weary Keyes.
But it's as much about the world the characters inhabit as the characters themselves - Joseph Seitz's cinematography is so on point. It might not have the deepest contrast of all noirs, but the way the light filters into the dark interior spaces is brilliantly done, the shadows of Venetian blinds and palm leaves angle around the room like knives and echo the shadows gathering in Neff's head, the deeper he gets in. The sets are fantastic too - from the straight lines, glass doors and open architecture of the insurance office in downtown LA to the Dietrichson's dreamy palm-fringed colonial villa in Beachwood Canyon, the picture is soaked in old Hollywood glamour.
I love it all. For my money, film noir doesn't get much better than this. A stone cold classic.
That would depend on your personal film viewing history. CK is easily the most perfect film ever made as Wells took the cream of the crop to make it. Died at the box office, was almost strangled by Hearst and all his cronies and essentially murdered Wells career. The fact that he made it at all is testimony to the last american director with a backbone. Should never be watched today unless followed up by RKO 281
Then again after the diatribe for liking Darkest Hour take my opinion with a large brick of salt
I watched it for the first time a year or two ago and wasn't blown away. It was certainly good and worth the watch, but I wouldn't rate it anywhere near the top of all times.
This was not a film Bergman himself was satisfied with, at least not just after the shoot had wrapped - he's quite scathing about it in his diary from the time. Some years later though, he wrote: "Seeing After the Rehearsal now, I find it much better than I had remembered. When you have struggled with a bad shoot, the dispiritedness lingers." It worked pretty well for me, though not as the black comedy it was originally conceived as, more as a meditation on age and experience and a meta exposition of stagecraft. A one-location shoot, After the Rehearsal was a made-for-TV movie, set back stage at a theatre production of Strindberg's 'A Dream Play'. Veteran director, Henrik Vogler, lost in his thoughts, is surprised by the entrance of his young lead actress, Anna Egerman (played by the gorgeous Lena Olin), who comes in on the pretext of looking for a lost bracelet but who actually has feelings for Vogler she wants to confess. Despite his initial reluctance, Henrik is drawn into a an hour of verbal sparring, reveries and revelation. Distance is a recurring theme - the receding distance to death, the distancing effect of time on memory, and the insurmountable distance between youth and old age. As with any Bergman film, this chamber piece is emotionally demanding, but amply rewards your investment with engaging, naturalistic performances and eloquent dialogue; albeit with a slight tendency towards self-indulgent melodrama. It's a bare bones reminder of the power of acting and writing alone to create great drama.
I'm risking sending my horror fan cred up in flames here, but I have to come clean and fess up that this was a first time watch for me. Dug it, obviously. This came along a few years after Friedkin's biblical grudge match but is cut from the same cloth of Antichrist-made-flesh, Gnostic Italian priests and horrified parents. The actual Antichrist in question, Damien, is absent from the screen for long periods but his sinister remote presence is always felt, giving the film a sinister vibe throughout, helped enormously by Jerry Goldsmith's ominous Gothic score. When he is on screen, he's a suitably malevolent little prick. As the story goes, a young Harvey Spencer Stephens punched the director in the nuts during casting to seal the deal.
One of the main things that struck me is how damn stylish the film is - there are some lovely death set pieces, priest popsicle and suspended animation of course, but the highlight had to be plate glass window decapitation. There's style here that would make an Italian envious. Gregory Peck, Lee Remick and David Warner are all good value in their respective roles, with Peck's given an added layer of cathartic significance due to the real life tragedy of his own son's death a year before the film was made. I don't know whether it's just because I have the travel bug, but I always like it when characters have to journey abroad for some reason. Adventure time! Here Thorn and Jennings embark on a little travelogue that takes them to an obscure Italian graveyard, then on to see the ultimate mystic in the biblical heartland to collect a bag of portentous knives.
All in all, a really satisfying horror that plays it straight down the line and delivers the goods. And every film is made better by having at least one defenestration in it.
I watched it for the first time a year or two ago and wasn't blown away. It was certainly good and worth the watch, but I wouldn't rate it anywhere near the top of all times.
I typically infer from most "greatest" lists that they are factoring in things like how much a given film innovated at the time (some films have introduced new visual vocabulary that is now commonplace in film but was at one point revolutionary) and I think they try to gauge how much a film has impacted other filmmakers, and thus the culture of film as a whole, and they give films extra points for taht. Go back and watch some of the greats now and you may not able to be as impressed as you could have been, had you watched them at the time they came out... I think that's just the way it is sometimes. But I always enjoy watching them and reading up on what a film was like to watch (what cinema used to be like) at the time it came out, it can give a wonderful perspective on different times and places (including our own, where films that amaze us today will perhaps someday be hum-drum to the next generations).
The Revenant is a feast for the eyes... Amazing cinematography.
Recently watched it again.
Excellent...
acting
soundtrack
sound mixing
camera movement
special effects
Etc
I hope to see more films from the Revenant director in the near future. Sure... it's hard to believe that someone can survive that long in the freezing wilderness, but it is such a subversive film!
It seems more fitting to be an episode of the twilight zone. I won't spoil the plot, but plot has an interesting take. The pace of the movie is slow, and nothing revolutionary or ground breaking, just keeps you interested throughout with the story. This movie has similar feel and pace as The Martian. In a way, it was The Martian before The Martian, if you know what I mean. Definitely worth a watch.
It seems more fitting to be an episode of the twilight zone. I won't spoil the plot, but plot has an interesting take. The pace of the movie is slow, and nothing revolutionary or ground breaking, just keeps you interested throughout with the story. This movie has similar feel and pace as The Martian. In a way, it was The Martian before The Martian, if you know what I mean. Definitely worth a watch.
I liked it since story had a pretty good twist, and I like stuff that has weird twists like episodes of The Twilight Zone or somewhat, Black Mirror. Scifi is an interesting genre. I like Philip K Dick's imaginations. George Orwell's 1984 or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, imagined distopias. I think Sci-fi has lots of great imaginary stuff.
At this point, I feel that George Lucas should have run the show as he's the most experienced with it, and although the prequels didn't turn out to the level of the revolutionary, first 3 trilogy, I think he would have done a better job than JJ Abrams. I starting to get that the Post-quels(Episodes 7,8, and 9) is just an empty shell of the orginal 3 trillogies. It is merely trying to apply the same formula that has worked in the original or trying to mimic the design and feel, but in the process, it has no substance. This doesn't work, we are merely seeing the best of the original trilogy being applied to the new postquels without a soul. There hasn't been real character development or any really interesting character dynamics happening. Nobody like Han Solo, or just the way that the original cast just worked with a fantastic hero story formula with interesting twists. Up to the first two of the postquels do not, and I have no hope for the last one. Disney hasn't improved the franchise, and going down-hill as far as I see it. They probably see it more of a money making franchise than making the movie like back in the late 70's, early 80's, with a fresh director to take on something original, and has no idea how the audience will take it.
The 80's movies just had these formulas that worked, and it turned out to be stuff you watch over and over again. These days, I don't know if it's a millennial generation crap, but movies seem soul-less and they don't have replay value.
The last two of the trilogy is missing real character dynamics, as the characters seem more independent. Well, characters don't have enough character either, feel really ordinary. Also, characters are just not interesting at all. It's just a shell, that's all it is, an illusion of being Star Wars, but doesn't have the soul of Star Wars.
The story was bla, the jokes were corny, There much greater CGI used with more of that jar jar binks crap. I guess people will still watch it for nostalgia values, but they really don't bring back the feeling that the original did. It's just not original. Rotten tomatoes and Metacritic has it for 90% to 85%? Did they get paid off? Perhaps, it maybe more interesting and original for those sees the film with fresh eyes than with nostalgia of the original.
I think the bad of recent trilogy is Kathleen Kennedy being involved. She should have no control over the creators. Creators should be given most freedom.
I would have liked to see what James Gunn(Guardians of the Galaxy series) would have done with the new trilogies. He does character development and group dynamics pretty well. He has that sensibility of 80's movies.
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Rotten tomatoes and Metacritic has it for 90% to 85%? Did they get paid off? 
Perhaps, it maybe more interesting and original for those sees the film with fresh eyes than with nostalgia of the original.
