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

Jacob's Ladder

Mkay. So, basically, this is about a soldier, Jacob, who was in the Vietnam war. The movie starts out in the middle of the war, they're under attack, then suddenly flashes to after the war. Now, after the war, Jacob is seeing all these creepy people and voices and shit, and he's kinda on a mission to figure what the fuck is going on.
I think this is one of these movies where you either love it or you hate it. I mean, I wouldn’t really know…no one I know personally has seen it, so I haven’t been able to talk it out with people, but I get the feeling that some people would just totally give up on it. It’s definitely not for people who are looking for a movie that serves you the answers on a platter…it brings up question after question. And when it finally seems like your getting your questions answered, BAM they get you with the big ‘What the fuck!?’.
Anyway, Tim Robbins plays the main character. I think he's a strange guy lol...Ever since seeing Shawshank Redemption, I just think he’s really funny looking! And it was honestly hard for me to get past that, it was so strange.
I didn't think that the acting was great...but the plot made up for it, it really did.
I think my favourite character was Louis the chiropractor!! He had some of the best lines. Amoung my favourite: "Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth"
Most of the film is dark...and it gets darker as it goes on (I feed off of this stuff in case you haven't noticed lol) BUT you get the dark and gory feel without an excess of actual gore. Then, when they do throw a bit of gore in, the impact is much more intense.
Usually, I would have hated the way this film ended...I won't go into great detail...because doing so would totally ruin what I love about this movie, and would be beyond unfair. BUT Jacob's Ladder actually pulled it off.
It made me feel content with an ending that I usually hate, because it just fit, and they made it work.
I dunno. I loved it though.

9/10