MacSwell
Bio: Nice beaver
Featured Reviews
Check out MacSwell's...
| 95 97% |  |
The Celebration (1998) - Rated 06 Sep 2020
"The rough Dogme style is a brilliant framework for such challenging, uncomfortable drama, bringing to the screen an uncommon immediacy and realness. Vinterberg brings matters to the boil with the careful patience of a master craftsman, and his film becomes heart-poundingly tense once it gets going, while still finding the time for the odd blackly comic aside to test its squirming audience even further. Every reaction is completely genuine to its character, and each actor perfectly cast."
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| 50 25% |  |
The Steel Helmet (1951) - Rated 16 Feb 2020
"The script often resembles the work of an amateur playwright, the editing during the combat is dreadful and some of the actors are so wooden they're growing leaves. Still, Fuller's tribute to the US Infantry generally sustains entertainment in spite of its many shortcomings, thanks in part to Gene Evans' grizzled lead performance holding it all together."
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| 65 51% |  |
Joker (2019) - Rated 15 Jul 2020
"Joker too often goes beyond being just a Scorsese homage, instead lifting a lot of its best content from the superior films of a superior filmmaker, and its presentation of mental illness is less profound than it is simply timely. The general aesthetic achieved is glorious though, and Phoenix’s blistering performance proves yet again that he is one of Hollywood’s most capable actors."
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| 75 72% |  |
Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) - Rated 23 Jun 2020
"Fassbinder’s first is all style over substance, but the simplicity and nonchalance give it a coolness that many of its French New Wave influences try too hard for and completely miss. As such, the narrative thinness is easily overlooked, as the laid-back aesthetic, particularly that of the central trio walking down the street accompanied only by the sound of shoe on stone, is sufficiently entrancing."
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| 40 13% |  |
The Stranger (1946) - Rated 23 Sep 2020
"Welles’ superb acting isn’t matched by the other cast members or his own direction, but it’s the final script and ruthless editing that really let this down. Thanks largely to studio interference, there’s so much that feels lost or unexplored, a severe lack of natural rhythm to a story that’s already clumsy and insincere, and no real tension or character arcs. Nazi war criminal Franz Kindler really ought to be one of film noir’s most enduring villains."
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| 25 5% |  |
The Great Gildersleeve (1942) - Rated 19 Feb 2019
"There's very little that can be said to be "great" about Throckmorton Gildersleeve, a petty, mean, mendacious blowhard who somehow also manages to be completely unlikeable. It certainly doesn't help that Peary's substandard slapstick or Scooby-Doo giggle stand in for a punchline at the end of most scenes - his is the kind of lazily written schtick that might have stretched a smile or two in the '40s but couldn't possibly entertain a modern-day audience."
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| 50 25% |  |
Wizards (1977) - Rated 06 Oct 2017
"The animation is substandard and the characters absolutely stink, yet there's something oddly enjoyable and compelling about Wizards in spite of this. It exceeds its limitations just because it's so unusual and tonally wild, with Bakshi's incorporation of bloody battles and real Nazi footage into a childish fantasy backdrop yielding some weird, psychedelic results that do occasionally impress."
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| 40 13% |  |
Speak Easily (1932) - Rated 06 Sep 2020
"It’s a sad thing to see silent film’s brightest talent reduced to starring in such drab material. Keaton, in the midst of battles with alcohol and studio heads, and with no creative control, shows only crumbs of his comedic brilliance in a buttoned-up role. Thelma Todd is the only cast member who shines; Jimmy Durante stinks."
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| 65 51% |  |
Panic in the Streets (1950) - Rated 06 Sep 2020
"Widmark is a great actor but a fairly bland lead part means that it falls to villains Jack Palance (in his screen debut) and Zero Mostel to give the film its spark, and both rise to the challenge admirably. The title is a little misleading in its promise of excitement or frenzy though, as the subdued story plays out like a standard crime procedural instead of doing anything memorable with its bubonic plague angle."
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| 85 87% |  |
An Inn in Tokyo (1935) - Rated 15 Jul 2020
"The striking balance of childhood innocence against parental tribulation provides the emotional backbone to Ozu’s final silent, achingly capturing the humanity of a single father unable to provide for his two young sons. Filmed with just a handful of actors, simple props and threadbare sets, the lack of anything resembling a budget makes its portrait of desperate poverty all the more effective, and the end result all the more admirable."
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