Cinema Experts

“How much courage does it take to walk out on your kid?”
Sometimes, simplicity wins over the rest. In a book, a simple story might be favored. In a meal, something simple may be what you crave. But in a movie, most people do not want simplicity. They want the whole shebang. They want a spectacle. Mostly, they aren't right. Simplicity has made many movies. Kramer Vs. Kramer is one of them.
Life was going great for New York City advertising artist Ted Kramer. He had a great job and a loving wife. No, actually, his wife wasn't so loving, for when Ted returned home late from work that night his wife, Joanna, had a suit case packed and was heading out the door. He tried to stop her, but she just got into the elevator and out of Ted's life. Well, now in addition to his job he's now got to mind the house as well as their 6-year-old son, Billy; Ted assured his boss that his wife's leaving would not affect his job performance in any way. It did however affect his performance as a father. He blew up when Billy spilled punch on his client artwork! Well, some time later Ted and Billy receive a letter from Joanna, and it was obvious from her letter that she wasn't coming back. Ted was distraught. Well, he was late coming home from work on Billy's birthday, which made Billy sore at him.
Ted was late to work one day and his boss yelled at him because he had missed a very important client meeting. When he got home, he yelled at Billy for sneaking ice cream during dinner. Then later he truthfully told Billy that the break-up between he and Joanna may have been his fault, not Billy's; Ted invited a good friend, Phyllis Bernard over that night, and well, Billy got his first look at a naked woman. When Ted took Billy to the park the following day, he fell off the jungle gym and landed face-first onto his toy plane. Ted literally ran him to the hospital where they had to administer stitches. After that, life began taking a downward spiral for Ted. Then one day out of the blue he received a phone call from none other than Joanna! They met in a corner café. At first they have a pleasant conversation but then Joanna informs him that she has returned to collect her son and take him with her. Ted would have none of it and stormed out. Well life got even worse for Ted when his boss, Jim O'Connor, took him out to lunch and abruptly fired him. Not only that but Joanna was choosing to sue for custody of Billy, and without a job, Ted didn't stand a chance in hell for winning. He hired himself a lawyer, John Shaunessy, who charged a pretty penny: $15,000 exact change. And that's if they win.
Ted was also able to find a new job. It was actually a step down from what he used to do with a considerable cut in salary but he accepted with great determination. Finally the court date, January 9, 1980, arrived. Judge Atkins presiding. Joanna took the stand and Shaunessy proceeded to question her about why she left Ted and about her other relationships and how they were failures. The next day, Ted took the stand and Joanna's lawyer really grilled him like a cheeseburger. Ted's good friend Margaret took the stand as well and she really didn't help matters. Well, the judge took some time to think it over and sure enough, one day Shaunessy informs Ted that he lost. Joanna got sole custody of Billy. How typical! Always ruling in favor of the mother. Well, Ted and Billy were just devastated about parting ways. They had a tearful goodbye when suddenly Joanna stopped by. She and Ted have a little talk and well, rather than just give away the ending, let me assure everybody that everything turns out alright for everybody!
Dustin Hoffman was very good. He earned that Academy Award. Meryl Streep was good. She also got an Oscar. Justin Henry was good too, so where was his nomination?. This movie has great drama, light comedy, and is very subtle. It does a good job of holding your attention. If you like Dustin Hoffman or Meryl Streep or movies of this genre, then I recommend Kramer vs. Kramer! A gripping film about the pangs of two divorced parents fighting over their child. I liked Ted's little speech about ruling in favor of mothers all the time. What was it about sex that makes a good parents? Why always rule in favor of the mother because she's a woman?
Kramer vs. Kramer" is a great film from start to finish. Writer-director Robert Benton has made a film that's absolutely unforgettable… 10/10

“Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Beneath his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. I love this. New York was his town, and it always would be...”
“Manhattan” does not fit the normal template for a successful film. In 1979, black-and-white photography had been out of favour in the cinema for over a decade. The film has little in the way of action, with more attention paid to dialogue and character development. Although there is humour, and the plot concerns the emotional entanglements of a group of friends, it is not a romantic comedy in the normal sense of the term. All the above points might seem to be weaknesses, and in some films they would have been. In Woody Allen's hands, however, what might have been weaknesses become strengths.
The central character in the film is Isaac Davis, a writer, played by Woody Allen himself. Isaac is divorced from his bisexual wife Jill, who is now involved in a lesbian relationship, and is dating Tracy, a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. Isaac, however, is also finding himself drawn to Mary, the mistress of his best friend Yale. Yale is married and conducting a secret affair with Mary, who is becoming dissatisfied with the relationship because Yale seems reluctant to leave his wife Emily.
The above outline of the plot might give the impression that it is all very much standard Woody Allen stuff; the emotional difficulties of a bunch of self-centred, neurotic middle-class New Yorkers. Such an impression would be, at most, a half-truth. Although Woody has dealt with similar material in a number of other films (most recently in "Melinda and Melinda"), "Manhattan" represents one of his greatest accomplishments, rising above even his own normal high standards. The main reasons for this are the quality of the acting and the quality of the script. All six of the main roles are played very well. Emily and Jill may be minor characters in terms of on-screen time, but both are important in terms of their contributions to the plot. Anne Byrne's Emily is attractive, but we can sense a certain coolness and reserve about her and understand how her husband might have been drawn to another, more vivacious, woman. Jill (Meryl Streep in one of her earliest film roles) hides her bitterness and vindictiveness beneath a veneer of honesty and truthfulness. She publishes a book which she claims is an honest account of her marriage and divorce but which in reality is merely a device for revenging herself on her ex-husband.
The other four main characters form a sort of eternal quadrilateral instead of the more usual triangle. Isaac is a nervous, insecure intellectual who uses a sort of self-deprecating humour as a cover for his insecurities. This is the sort of part that we have come to associate with Woody Allen, but he has seldom played it as well as he does here. There is perhaps less concentration on humour than in some Allen films, but even so Isaac still manages to deliver some classic lines. ("I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics"). Diane Keaton's Mary is outgoing and lively but also conceited, self-centred and something of a pseudo-intellectual. She and Yale, another self-centred character, probably deserve each other. For me, however, the best and most perfectly-judged contribution came from Mariel Hemingway as Tracy, played here not as a precociously seductive Lolita or as a spoilt brat but as a charming but vulnerable girl next door. Perhaps more important, however, than any individual performance is the way in which the characters relate to one another; it is a film where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A musical analogy might be with a quartet, where a small group play together in harmony, rather than with a concerto which is dominated by one bravura performance.
Like many other lovers of this film, I was particularly impressed by the striking black-and-white photography of New York locations, particularly in the opening scenes. As one might expect from a director who is himself a talented musician, Woody normally pays a lot of attention to his musical scores; here the music of George Gershwin, particularly his "Rhapsody in Blue", seems very appropriate to the mood of the film. These factors contribute greatly to the success of this film, but for me it is perhaps most memorable as Woody's most penetrating analysis of human relationships. It is a film that I find more in every time I see it… 10/10

“Napalm, son. Nothing in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory…”
Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is a pure example of method filmmaking. It is the true craftmanship of an essential filmmaker. The art direction, editing and sound effects are partially a small fragment which makes this film classical and memorable. What drives the integrity and semblance of the film is the storyline, acting and inner message. The inner message evidently enough is that war is hell, or in other words, hell is war. Not many directors have the ambition or the true courage to establish such a well-defined piece of art. European filmmakers wouldn't have the slightest problem of directing the film or throw in their personal feelings about the war. What is most interesting is that an American filmmaker spoke his style and the style of the film's collaborators through the continuance of the film.
The plot is fairly simple and brief, adapted by Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness. Martin Sheen plays the role of Captain Willard, a war-torn character who does not see any hope in life or humanity anymore. He has a mission and it is to capture a presumed Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who has fabricated an army of existensial soldiers on the outskirts of the Cambodian jungle. Throughout the film we encounter astonishing sequences. The most unforgettable is the dawn helicopter attacks. Robert Duvall's character Colonel Kilgore is a steady and firm example of the basic American army brain: to search and destroy and then destroy some more if it includes yourself. The children walk about the playground, oblivious to any danger. The helicopters come into view from the dawning sea; millions of sprinkle reflect from the water, we hear the helicopter's engines roar from the horizon and soon enough we are stuck in a messy attack. Throughout the sequence we hear Wagner's 'Ride Of The Valkyries'. It is method filmmaking. The starting sequence is as fascinating as the rest of the movie; a beautiful scene of palm trees blowing in the ragged wind and seconds away from being inflamed with a carpet bombing. Let's not forget the scene where the soldiers of the boat in which Sheen travels in, stop an innocent upcoming boat, suspecting them to be VietCongs and carrying artilleries. Then they spark off a heavy scene of shooting in which all of the passengers of the boat are pulverised to pieces with their crops and food savaged in the atrocity.
This film has its famous moment, some better to be kept quiet about until they come through the screen. It doesn't require any intellectual understanding, although the film is intellectually remarkable. The American soldiers in the Vietnam War jumped into the land of a fresh governmental country, aiming to protect themselves and in the end only received death and chaos for their troops and for the majority of the country they were fighting against. It was a war gone mad, like all other wars, without purpose or dignity. It was a pure act of humanity: to destroy and restore their own greedy needs. This is a film in which there is no saviour, where it is hardly possible to find hope in the gloomiest corners and where all surroundings are plagued with the infatuations of greed, anger, foolishness and egoism. As Coppola once said about the film: 'This film isn't about Vietnam. This film IS Vietnam'. He was right to the date. During the current situations of the world, where they are trying to protect their own skin, the world should try to analyse this film as much as possible and wonder about what it is trying to represent. It is a film which does not ask for applause or damnation. It asks for realism… 10/10