djross
Criticker Zealot
Member Since: 15 Apr 2006
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 54
Bio: Films receiving a score between 91 and 100 are considered to be a masterpiece.
Longer reviews: https://www.criticker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5869
X: https://x.com/DJRoss70
Longer reviews: https://www.criticker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5869
X: https://x.com/DJRoss70
Recent Ratings
Check out djross's...
Straight Outta Compton (2015) - Rated 22 Jun 2025
"I really don’t know anything about Young and Jackson Sr., but it does seem that the former has repeatedly assaulted women and the latter has repeatedly shown anti-Semitic tendencies. But even as depicted here, these don’t seem like people I need to know anything further about, and, whatever nuance the filmmakers may have claimed, it seems obvious that the film is intended as a celebration (and for that reason leaves out the most egregious biographical details). Abandoned after an hour."
Bullitt (1968) - Rated 20 Jun 2025
"Effort has been expended, and in particular in terms of camera placement and movement, and in the filming of things, but so what? I guess at the time the “forensic” approach was new (today called “a procedural”, but for some reason I dislike that substantified adjective), including the way it shows the details of the protagonist’s own life, but so little of it seems interesting, and in particular the actual story. The star is wooden and lifeless, no doubt in a partly intentional way, but still."
Splendor in the Grass (1961) - Rated 19 Jun 2025
"A beautiful small-town girl falls in love with a beautiful small-town boy but the latter fails to achieve independence and desperation results. Sexual repression and frustration cause hysteria, and this film has it in spades. Conveys a sense of the wildness of youthful desire, but everything is strained to breaking point, and if the film is affecting it’s partly just that the audience is put through a ritual of Wood all alone and suffering from beginning to end, and that’s just about unbearable."
My Brilliant Career (1979) - Rated 18 Jun 2025
"A woman feels oppressed by living at the end of the Victorian era in general and by the pressure to marry in particular, rebelling against these in the name of independence, career and culture. Some subtlety, almost in spite of the filmmaker’s intentions, and in the end a feeling that the irony of the title has not received sufficient consideration. Great to see a young Davis, but the film is not without the stilted quality to the dialogue and performances that is endemic to Australian cinema."
Marie Antoinette (2006) - Rated 18 Jun 2025
"Being a girl in the French aristocracy: it’s a tough racket. No doubt the filmmaker has her “critique” to make (mainly about the nastiness of gossip), but to this viewer the film is wholly caught between wanting to tell the world that being a rich kid is harder than you think and wanting to create a fantasy world of costumes, food and decoration for the audience or herself to enjoy. The result may be pretty but it’s like going to a party which, after about half an hour, one cannot wait to leave."
John and Mary (1969) - Rated 18 Jun 2025
"Surprisingly well-written, interesting and honest-seeming film about two people meeting and the quite specific time and place in which they do so. Mia Farrow really makes quite an impression here, and, if the film has a weakness, it’s that her character seems better drawn than Dustin Hoffman’s. Still, I’ll take this over BEFORE SUNRISE every day of the week."
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) - Rated 17 Jun 2025
"Crime drama about the difficulty of playing both sides of the street in a world where the differences between people are mostly a question of exactly how desperate they are. Well-written and performed, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, and the semi-twist ending doesn’t make much of an impact."
Knight and Day (2010) - Rated 16 Jun 2025
"A very light and sometimes quite amusing fantasy romantic comedy about a young woman who meets an attractive man with an exciting job who takes her on a world tour, through which she rediscovers herself and falls in love. The main and possibly only thought I had throughout the viewing of this movie is that another option would have been to cast Jim Belushi in the lead male role, which would have resulted in a different film, but a potentially good one – as a kind of spiritual sequel to REAL MEN."
Cape Fear (1962) - Rated 15 Jun 2025
"Really pretty lurid, and the filmmakers definitely knew what they were doing, in terms of both exploiting anxieties about crime and appealing to fascination with sexual assault. Peck lacks the weakness and ambiguity that Scorsese will give to Nolte, making this a simpler film, but it still pushes the limits of what it was possible to talk about. Generally effective, but the fight scenes at the end do go on a bit, and signify that nothing much of interest can be expected as the plot plays out."
Scarlet Street (1945) - Rated 15 Jun 2025
"A mediocre and frustrated man wonders what it would be like to actually be with a hot young thing…and thereby seals his fate. All elements are a little weaker than in the 1931 version. The final scenes make use of noirish techniques to add drama and moment, but, while it may have been somewhat shocking at the time to have a criminal left unpunished by the law, the actual ending aims for a tragic pathos that completely lacks the ironic twist through which Renoir raised his film to another level."
