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DJay888
Reviews
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Not a Gangster Flick
This is to everyone who gave this film a poor review, saying that it is masquerading as a gangster picture or that the dialogue was improvised. If Cassavetes heard you saying the film belonged in the gangster genre he would have cried. And he said that himself. He admitted that the plot was that of a crime film, but as a whole the film is not about the crime. It is about the people surrounding Cosmo and the way they interact. It is about love and the lack of love as that was all Cassavetes was interested in. When he is going out to the bookie's house we do not focus on why he is going there, we focus on the people that are around him or that he talks to on the phone. The crime theme is only to set up the downfall of Cosmo's character, which is how he ultimately loses some of the love he had in his life. As for the dialogue being improvised, there was only one scene in which the dialogue was improvised (when Cosmo goes to his girlfriend's house after being shot and talks to her mother). There was only one film that Cassavetes made that was almost completely improvised which was Shadows (another great film). And anyone who calls Cassavets an amateur or says his visual style is amateur is completely false. The scenes I'm guessing you are referring to are the ones filmed on the hand-held camera (by Cassavetes himself). Here he is going for the raw style and loves to get as close in to his actors as possible so we can see their expressions clearly and become uncomfortable and more involved in their emotions. That is probably my favorite thing about Cassavetes filmmaking, especially here, is that he does not move the camera if someone steps in front of it, and he allows his actors and camera to move freely with one another. "Chinese Bookie" is his best.
Giant (1956)
The Great FIlm
Thirty minutes into the film, it surpassed PTA's "Magnolia" (another American epic, despite what viewers say) as my favorite film of all time. There is nothing not to like about this film; unless you dislike long movies, then you should not be watching this anyways. I have not enjoyed watching actors perform this much in a long time. This was the first film I had ever seen Rock Hudson in and I was blown away. He handles the time span of the film perfectly, as does Elizabeth Taylor. They actually pull off being older people. They may not look completely convincing, but the way they move and talk is magnificent. I read a review where he said that the make-up was horrible and that the older characters looked like the younger characters, but that is what worked for the film. It's not about how they look, it's about how they carry themselves and how they mature.