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karlericsson
Lists
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The most underrated actors and actresses
The most underrated directors of all time
The most overrated directors of all time
The directors are listed from the most overrated to the least overrated.
I have gotten wonderful comments (see below) and would have liked to comment on them individually but then I have to give up my credit card number to imdb and I'm too paranoid for doing that.
I will change my commentaries on the directors, partly as an answer to the wonderful commentaries I have received and also make a list of the most underrated directors of all time, which will open up for people to criticize my favorites.
Again, I must send my love to all who have taken the time to comment on this list. Sometimes, I have been touched to tears, at least almost. You are all lovely people, even those who disagree.
i have added my list with the greatest bull....artist of all time and guess that this will be something to bite on for many. Incidentally, I do not believe that, for instance, Goethe is overrated. Schiller most probably but not Goethe, even if he too did some kissing up to power.
actors that brought me to the movies
actor, actresses and directors that kept me away from the movies
working class heroes of direction
Reviews
Naked Alibi (1954)
The stars is for the stars, not the story
About 20 minutes into the film, we get the explanation for the killers behaviour - he's a nutcase - case closed.
Why look any further seems to be the idea of this film.
Well, not quite. The nut case proves to be bent and known in other towns for suspected criminality.
So, I added yet another star.
And Gloria Grahame is a knock-out as always.
Simon syndaren (1954)
The best Swedish film ever!! Sweden - the country without shame (since they have not released this film)
13 years ago i wrote my first Review of this film. My rating has gone up since, because it had still not been released - not in any format.
This film is my most wanted film. There is nowhere even a gliimpse of it. It's as if it had never existed. It's as unreal as if "Citizen Kane" was nowhere to be found.
I urge anyone to release it - pronto!!!
Orfeo (1985)
what a mess!!
I mean the Music or what is supposed to pass for it. It's recitatives, one after the other and no arias whatsoever. It may be the first opera but what a mess!
Disharmony upon disharmony - incredibly boriing!
I bought the blu-ray because of Claude Goretta and there's nothing wrong with the performers or direction. What it lacks is taste, a taste to determine between Music and farting. Unfortunately, Goretta is not alone in lacking such determination, alas.
Incendies (2010)
what a mess!
From beginning to end this film is a mess. Who would write in her/his will that their Children should endanger themselves to find out what does not have to be found out since it is already known?
How can anybody be so completely stupid to film a script like this?
The imdb-users know nothing about film - that is obvious - or they would never have given this film more than one star.
It must be tough to do anything with a crowd like that determining what is good and what is bad.
Angmareul boatda (2010)
This is what happens when you don't pay the writer.
Fantastic production values with skilled actors and all you could want in that department.
But the most important department is the script and the plot and where there is none of that as in this garbage you end up with horse-s-t.
What a pity and what a bummer for all these skilled workers!
About Time (2013)
forgot about groundhog day?
20 years Before this film was done, there was Groundhog Day. That film had an almost religious following. It only had one person Everything happening to and there was only one day which was lived over and over again until that perfect day, which, i Believe, was the reason for the religious following.
This film blunders through a similiar topic 20 years later and the only thing that's been added is a s-tload of stupidity.
Back Street (1932)
Propaganda directed towards slaves
This film has nothing at all to do with love but all to do with "Don't p... on me and tell me it's raining".
In a society where there is no rich and poor, a society of real love and not the present swinery, this story would be totally impossibe.
That a woman can love as selfless as the heroine of this film might be quite possible but in a decent society without rich and poor it would never have to turn out in this sinister way.
Instead we are left with a piece of propaganda directed to the poor woman who Believes herself to be hopelessly in love with a swine. This is exactly where the rich want the poor - totally dependant and happy for every Little Crumb that tricles down the rich man's table.
Walk a Crooked Mile (1948)
Dennis O'Keefe and Louis Hayward - what a wonderful team!
The buddy film was not invented with Newman and Redford. Long Before, these two actors hit it off together splendidly.
As far as I know, they sadly never repeated the experience. What a pity!
The plot takes second seat in all this. You really root for these two guys. Maybe Gordon Douglas drew a Little from his experience with Laurel and Hardy - I don't know but the Chemistry between O'Keefe and Hayward works to such delight.
The film is otherwise the usual cloak-and-dagger in which the heroes are in reality the villains and the other way around. Don't bother about that.
Izgnanie (2007)
a feminist field-day
Oh, see the poor woman so depressed over, well, nothing really.
The man, so confused by the swinery that we call society, does not understand.
But he is to blame, yes sir.
And the confusion lives on and there can be no understanding because that means that the woman must give up her feminist preoccupation and try to imagine the slavery of her man and who wants to do that?
Instead she wallops in her own confusion and finds a way to blame the man for her suicide that she cannot avoid in her fantastic preoccupation with herself.
A feminist field-day indeed - total and utmost confusion.
The Fountainhead (1949)
why cooper? Why Vidor!!???
King Vidor made The Crowd and Our Daily Bread. It's impossible that he couldn't smell a faschist from a mile away - so why did he do this Movie?
I guess he desperately needed Money or maybe it was a deal, similar to that that made Elia Kazaan betray his friends a few years later. Who knows?
What we know for sure however is that Ayn Rand was a real Stinko and her views only possible in a deeply fascist society, which the US society Always was and still is. I refuse to explain further because it is impossible to explain the self-evident without dirtyin one's hands in the process.
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
the best Frankenstein ever?
This is a Comedy and a parody and still it isn't silly. That's what all Frankensteins Before this one were with the obvious exception of The Bride of Frankenstein but that's Another story. The scientific part of at all is of course ridiculous but that is what to be expected and the film makes no excuses. The actors play it all in the best Hammer manor, which is as if it all was Shakespeare or worse. Peter Cushing is not among the actors, which is good in this case because then the film would have taken off in totally different direction and lost most of its humour.
Two Lovers (2008)
complete stupidity
It seems you can make actors do just about anything, regardless how stupid and this film takes the cake. A man condescends to go out with a woman who is in love with Another man to check out if that other man is serious about her.
That's when I stopped looking. Instead I began to fantasize about a film that unfortunately has not been filmed yet (and probably never will) about a man who meets a woman with whom he has a sexual relationship in the worst Rocco Siffredi-manner and THEN goes out to dinner in the above mentioned manner.
I don't long to see that Movie either since I Believe that women get too humiliated anyway - why would they otherwise try to get rid of their humiliation by putting a man in fool's (harms) way (that's when they tell you they want you to be their friend - some men have found a remedy against that in that they convince such women that friends Always have sexual relationships since that proves their friendship. Later they will not bother much about being friends, provided that the friendship in renewed now and then.)
Relationships today are truly very sad. Women get humiliated in sex and then try to sell the humiliation down the river to the next man who is stupid enough to truly love them until he gives up and becomes a swine like all other man today or he just stays the fool which is just as bad.
You Don't Know Jack (2010)
false ears!
I cannot remember any film about a character of real Life or just a character that does not come from the comics where an actor has used false ears to play the role, especially when his original ears are not that much different in the first Place (but different enough for me to spot it). Was it Pacino's commitment to the role or was it an acquirement by the director or some other people - that, of course, I do not know. Most people don't spot the ears and for most people putting on false ears was totally unnecessary. Nevertheless this is what I Think is most staggering in this performance.
Twin Peaks: Part 12 (2017)
a bud of decency?
In this episode there is a scene where Harry Dean Stanton gives a man 50 dollars and free rent at his car park for not Selling his blood to get Money for food. The American system, best referred to as the swinery, upsets any human being with just a shred of decency left in him or her. Because of their weapons the ruling Americans now forces other nations to be as indecent as themselves by promoting their lackeys to the throne of these other nations. Life is short and when you get older it becomes more and more apparent. Harry Dean Stanton plays an old man who still seems able to see - often what other people fail to see. Now Lynch has been very spoilt by the swinery and therefore has a hard time to free himself from it - that's one theory. The other theory is that the swinery Controls Everything and that it is very difficult to get anything passed it. Well, in this episode there was at least a Little glimpse of decency.
Twin Peaks (2017)
psychological trick
David Lynch claimed that it was a mistake to reveal the murderer in the first seasons in Twin Peaks and that he had rather left the question unanswered. This worries me when seeing this series now, when he is in total Control. There's no question that he is a very able director. Previous films has shown this (not all of them though). What worries me is that he has found out a very cheap trick and is milking it for all its Worth. Why do we find detective stories or who-done-it stories so interesting? Well, that is what nourishes our minds. Lynch found out that we can keep the interest up for a long time if we pose intriguing questions. When we then fail to deliver any sort of answer will not mean much, so Lynch seems to have thought, I'm afraid. If so, then what saved him Before were the producers that did not allow him a director's cut and insisted on some kind of answer. I hope this is not the question with the present series. Intriguing questions have been posed in abundance already and although they are also visually intriguing, I'm afraid that is not enough if that will be all. I hope this series will not end in a magnificent catastrophe, but so far I cannot tell. The real brilliance is not in the question but instead in the answer, even if it is insufficient. The answer Always shows you where you stand and where you are heading. It may be naive but it is Always honest.
Well, my worries proved to be correct. There are no answers here at all, not even naive ones. The catastrophe is now a fact. Lynch made The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart. That's impressive. Especially the first 2 films are. Then he discovered something about the human psyche and how it is drawn to mysteries and used it in Twin Peaks in the first 2 series that, in a way, are just as bad as this one. The answer brought in the final of series 2 was a pretty desperate one, a twenty-five cent answer to a million dollar question. With this series he does not even provide the twenty-five cents, which, in a way, is kind of cheap.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
warning, this is horror!
If this is appealing to many of the youths today, it explains more than I care to know about. What a horror of propaganda! Is there any films about youths today which do not dwell on homosexuality? There has been no serious debate upon this in society - just more or less tired acceptance of it all. Once it was forbidden, then it was suddenly wanted behavior and there was no debate in between. To be sure, at least so do I think, society should not interfere in what goes on between consenting adults. To love somebody of your own sex is always better than no love at all. Nobody should have to feel ashamed or miserable about it. But to have to propagate it like something desirable? I think that needs to be debated and this film does not do that. It just invites to swallow it all like all the other lies you are made to swallow. This is very tiring indeed.
The Confirmation (2016)
Yes, a remake of the Bicycle Thieves
One reviewer has insight-fully recognized this film as a remake of the Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio de Sica. I'm impressed by his insight but not by his judgment.
You see, even a bleak copy of the Bicycle Thieves will make a good film as long as there is still a scene in it resembling the slapping scene at the end of the Bicycle Thieves and there is such a scene but my impressing reviewer missed it because it is not as broadly laid out as the mentioned scene in the original but very touching and thoughtful nevertheless.
In this scene the father does not get slapped. On the contrary, he is slapping somebody else but in the midst of this slapping he is interrupted and made to realize that the thief that he is slapping is a family man just like himself, driven to desperation by poverty and he cannot go on slapping the man and instead he forgives him. This is great Cinema and makes this film a worthy remake of the Bicycle Thieves and its end scene.
Hats off.
Special Correspondents (2016)
A most accurate description of the USA
Everything in news is fake and propaganda - so why risk your neck for it? I sincerely hope all journalists "sent out" on dangerous missions learn how to stay at home and fake it, risking nothing. It makes no difference anyhow. Nobody Believes what they are reporting, because everybody knows that if anything of it was true, then it would probably not be allowed and censored Before reaching out.
This is the reason why I rather Watch films then I Watch the news if I want to know what's going on. When everybody says it's fiction, then maybe some of it is true, whereas when everybody says it's true it cannot possibly be so unless it's so obvious that it is impossible to deny, in which case you do not need the news telling you.
In other Words: This is satire at its best.
True Grit (2010)
Erlenkönig
The most famous (not the very best though) poem in the German language is "Der Erlenkönig". It was written by Goethe and Schubert put Music to it (not his very best Music either). The poem is about a man that rides home with his dying son in his arms, the son hallucinating about the 'Erlenkönig' a mythical figure beckoning him to join him (which means Death and which the father is very well aware of).
Towards the very end of this Picture, it is like seeing the Erlenkönig reenacted. A rather bleak remake hereby gets a gigantic boost.
John Wayne was no actor and a person with rather abominable political views (which he sadly was not aware of) but he was a great star. Jeff Bridges is a formidable actor but, curiously, he is no star, which great actors seldom are. Great stars Always play themselves and their roles are just different sides of that self (Clint Eastwood is Always Clint Eastwood and whenever he attempted to act the results were catastrophic).
Furthermore there might be added that the Music in this film is far better than that in the original and with the end in mind that was, IMO, reason enough to do this remake.
I Am Wrath (2016)
revenge respecting no position
OK, I'm exaggerating somewhat giving this a 10 but i have to balance the skulduggery bad voting badmouthing this Movie because it attacks people in Power. Unfortunately it's a fairy-tale. The good guys almost never are well-trained and coming out from combat-forces. Those are usually the bad guys. But even if it is a fairy-tale it still leaves a warm feeling and a thought, like in Taken, that the bad guys sometimes hit the wrong guys and get their come-up-pens. Why I give this Movie extra Points is that the revenge does not shy away from the highest positions (the last guy in the line might just as well have been the president or maybe even higher up - the people behind the president). That's a nice touch, somehow.
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)
10 for the beginning, zero for the end
Surprisingly honest beginning showing what a swinery capitalism is. Then Everything turns silly and Lloyd does what he has done better elsewhere.
I'm not surprised it turned out that way though. Had it continued like the beginning, we would have had the best socialist Comedy ever perhaps. That could of course not happen in a film financed by capitalists. Pity anyway.
Begins in decency and ends in a snore - that's the size of it. And for the rest, I would have to say with the utmost sincirety, I guess, I would have to say: Yada, yada, yada, umpa and so fill out my lines - jaussa.
The Longest Ride (2015)
so full of bull
Bulls do play a part in this Movie but not as much as they are part of the script.
Again, it's all about the American Dream, disguised as a love story this time (or maybe it's Always a love story as Chaplin sings in "The King of New York": When I Think of a million dollars, tears come to my Eyes.).
Here we have the Young honcho, who, guess what?, wants to win, well, well, well. This time it's about riding a bull but it could be about anything really just as long as it is competition.
And then we have the old man, who happens to be a Jew, by the way, so I guess we can expect some Money appearing even if it's only in the end.
I don't know when exactly the "best Before"-date expires for this kind of bull but I guess a poverty-stricken 40+ year old will have less reason to cheer this film than a fifteen year old, which seems to be the target for this fantastic melodrama.
Knight of Cups (2015)
was soll dass?
Was soll dass? is German and means as much as: What the heck is the meaning with this garbage? How anyone can choose to participate in this piece of bull is beyond my comprehension. I like to comment on the Review I read, that prompted me to write this. In that Review the author writes that the films grows on you the longer you Watch it, presumably with an open mind. Let me Point out that this is the way most minds work: trying to find meaning in Everything. Knowing this, you should Always take the position of letting a piece of art CONVINCE you, even if you are reluctant to becoming convinced about anything. That's art! A comedian, who wants to know if he is any good, does not perform in front of pot-smokers. He performs in front of depressed people, who are forced to laugh because he is so good - if he is that good.
Jalsaghar (1958)
The sensible review
If you are not from India and find the cast system an insult to humanity and if you can tell music from noise or hypnotic sounds, then you will probably, as I, have a more sensible view on this film and its virtues than an inbred Indian of the Brahman cast (the most privileged cast). Actually, you cannot really say that this film is a defense of the cast system but it is also not an attack on it. To attack the music in this film and call it noise is, I admit, to put your chin out. Real music is a mystery not something that you dance to. The mystery is how music can make a better human being of somebody, who, through the music, reaches feelings, so overwhelmed by goodness and humility, that they sweep all that is evil out of a person as far as that person allows it and, indeed, experience the music.
For sure (and that is why it is always provoking to attack any noise calling itself music) the mystery is not solved, so that you can tell why this music makes you feel and why this other music does not make you feel. The part that has to do with memories can easily be sorted out and leave the mystery intact. This does not mean that the mystery cannot be solved or, if it is solved, is solved in such a way that it ceases to be a mystery, which is expected by any solution of a mystery. We may understand a lot about why music makes us feel what we feel and still not be able to invent new music after some kind of formula. The kind of music that is done after formula will maybe make us dance but will not make us touch God.
When judging music, I judge the feelings awoken by it. People may call themselves music lovers and, for sure, have a music library that in quantity is most impressive but when they talk about music it is obvious that they understand something quite different to what those understand who cry to music because it is so moving. Maybe that is the most evident sign of a music lover, crying to music because being deeply moved, but it is, by no means, a sure sign, because swines can also cry when they are not allowed to be as swinish as they want to be. On the whole though, you can start your investigations with those who cry to music to come closer to understand the mystery of music.
The music (noise) presented in this film is not something you cry to unless you have childhood memories connected to the music. It is a music however, that easily puts you in a hypnotic state in which some interesting experiences are possible as, for instance, a deeper understanding of Indian way of life. But, unless this way of life makes you cry per se, you will not cry to this kind of music and only to its lyrics, if these are touching enough.
In all honesty, I would now have to name music that has touched me to tears (so that I can be attacked in turn). I will have to choose music without lyrics because that is what all this is about. Therefore it will be classical music.
The Unfinished Symphony by Schubert. The Fifth Piano Concerto by Beethoven (not all movements). The Sixth Symphony by Beethoven (not all movements) Interlude from Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni Nessun Dorma (I don't know Italian so I put it here in spite of lyrics)
and much more but not more than 20 hours of music at the most through out the history of man. Allowing lyrics to the music, the number of hours is, of course, much larger.
Back to the film. Well, it left me rather cold, i'm afraid. I have no sympathy for the rich.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
senile film in senile times
The story is basically the same as in the first Star Wars but what was good with the first Star Wars that was made was not the story, which was on the level of a bad Punch and Judy show, and instead the philosophical content that shone through here and there and, of course, the presence of Alec Guinness.
Here, the bathwater is kept and the baby is thrown out. It's a senile film for senile times, looking much the same at the face of it but having nothing inside with which you can make Contact.
Yes, we are living in senile times, living as if we had learned nothing. The same murderous bunch of scoundrels are in charge but the protests are directed elsewhere. People join them because they are convinced that "Hey, you only live once so try to have as much fun as possible no matter the corpses you have to climb over to get there".
The same good and evil is fighting in this film since the evil was never erased allowing for a higher polarity of good and evil esteeming from the good that was left but could not be realized as long as the lower polarity was allowed to go on.
Total material equality - that is the next step, not this garbage.