Barry Lyndon

A Stanley Kubrick film that hasn't really gotten recognized as widely as a lot of Kubricks other films.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the movie is over 3 hours long and doesn't exactly have an action packed plot.
The movie is divided into two halves. They're called (in MUCH fancier terms) How Redmond Barry aquired the name of Barry Lyndon and The Unfortunate Events that Barry Lyndon underwent as he fell from his high position....I just totally butchered that, but you get the idea.
The first half of the movie, we are introduced to the main character, Redmond Barry. He's an Irishman and, because of some love issues and a staged murder, he has to leave Ireland. From there he joins the British army...from THERE he ends up running away, getting caught up in a lie, and is forced to join the Prussian army. He works his way up there in the army and is assigned to spy on this...guy (yah, I totally forget his status).
When Barry discovers that the man he was sent to spy on is a fellow Irishman, they stick together and end up cheating rich men out of their money.
Eventually, they're found out and forced ro leave the country...where continuing to cheat men out of money with cards and Barry decided he needs to marry rich to continue the lifestyle he wants.
He finds a rich Lady (Lyndon)...and she falls in love and they're married.
The second part is after they're married. Barry kinda turns into an asshole at the point. He is extremely cruel to Lady Lyndons child with her previous husband, and totally favours his own child with her.
Long story short, (yah right...I suck at summarizing) he kinda abuses his stepson in front of people who he needs to impress in order to keep himself socially high...
Slowly he falls from the lifestyle that he was used to, without securing himself with any financial stability...the stepson comes back, challenges him to a dual, which Barry loses...and is sent out of the country to leave his mother alone...
I can see how people may consider this movie extremely slow and boring...it is really really long, and it didn't hold my attention as much as I would have liked, but I dis feel like every scene had a lot of work put into it.
I haven't read the novel it was based off of, but I get the feeling like what they kept from the book was done really well, true to the details of te book.
I have no idea why I feel like that...but, I dunno.
It was interesting...but I think someone interested in the 1700's time or in Kubricks film will really enjoy and appreciate it.

7.1/10

Apocalypse Now

Mkay. So…last night I watched Apocalypse Now. Loooooong movie. Bad idea to start watching it at like 1:30 in the morning lol. You’ll be up all night…Not that I wouldn’t have been anyway :P
So, basically, this Captain in the Vietnam war is sent on this secret mission sort of thing. It doesn’t technically exist…it’s to eliminate one of their own men…a Colonel who has apparently gone insane and is controlling a huge amount of people.
My favourite character was the camouflage guy!! I loved him…and he saved da puppayy XD
Speaking of which, I totally got distracted and have no idea what ended up happening to the puppy…I don’t know if I’d want to know…
I wasn’t a huge fan of the Captain…he seemed a little too cold…I mean, I guess its kind of understandable.
He’s being sent on this mission…to destroy one of their own men, basically because mankind find it incredibly difficult to be able to accept something that they can’t understand and can’t control…in this case Kurtz. Anyway, bam. He gets ‘eliminated’, a scene that I really enjoyed.
I liked how they kept Kurtz in the shadows for the first two thirds of the confrontation. It reminded me of the Elephant Man, how we’re kept from seeing his face until we were well into the movie…
Anyway, that was random.
I liked how they flashed back and forth from the Captain interrogating Kurtz to a scene with a tribe sacrificing a bull.
Which I found out a little while after watching the film was actually real. They got this local tribe, and filmed them during one of their rituals, which included the sacrifice of a bull…they didn’t stage it…they documented it…intense shit.
I also loved how the farther the Captain’s boat made it down the river the crazier and more hectic things became. The closer he got to Kurtz, the more chaos ensued.
It was different than the typical war movie…It reminded me more of…Full Metal Jacket maybe?
Where it focused more on the psychological aspects of the war then most war movies do, which is great, I like that.
Ohh…and I finally got to hear where the famous line “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning” came from (:
Speaking of quotes…another one I liked kinda just popped into my head. Spoken by Kurtz, about a snail scrawling along the edge of a razor…lemme find it.
I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving.

8.5/10