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You heard it right , "Shichinin no samurai" IS without doubt, the worst movie I've ever seen. Being a movie fanatic myself and an ardent supporter of IMDb's highly accurate rating system, I've decided to watch this so called "masterpiece". I've already been exposed to the movies of the monochrome era and never did I come across such an awful production. The main reason why this movie is hyped so much is because it is one of the first foreign movies introduced to the Western audience and obviously provided some relief from the monotone of mainstream Hollywood at that time. Slumdog Millionaire, another example of a foreign film which somehow turned out to be in tune with the likes of a typical Western viewer, managed to sweep most award ceremonies despite it being branded as below par by many critics. This is what I call a "hyperbole chain" where one person agrees with another just because the appreciating community is in majority and he or she feels that they don't know how to properly analyse a work of art even though their intuition is right just because a few connoisseurs elevated the status of it due to the same effect.

This might have been a trend setter at that time and I do agree with the fact that it has introduced the film industry to many new concepts and technologies. But it is still a strict no-no from my side as it wouldn't compare with the best movies of our generation.

1/10 as I couldn't go lower!

Let me start by saying that this movie is a technical marvel. The genius that Welles brought to this production is virtually unmatched in the history of cinema. The deep focus shots with two layers of background. The crane shot in the cottage that goes through the window, into every room in the house, and then seamlessly outside again. The transitions. The shots from such a low angle that the ceiling is visible. The sound. Welles is the consummate director, and there will never be his equal again.

But the movie itself is crap. It's boring. It goes nowhere and takes FOREVER to get there. We have an unlikable tycoon that everyone hated and we know nothing about him, then we sit through flashback after flashback after flashback after flashback for THREE HOURS watching a newsreel reporter NOT discover the meaning of his last words. That's the movie.

And then we see it. It's supposed to me a monumental twist ending that makes us gasp. But in the end it made me go, "WTF?" It's a freaking sled. Who's last words is a freaking sled? Did we even notice the sled three hours ago? Why not a scene where he got the sled back? Why not have him tell his friend that he got his old stuff from when he was a kid? Why didn't he visit it just before the end of the movie? We didn't have any indication that the sled was that important to him. It's just an awful ending, so much promise but with no delivery at all. Worst of all, the whole world knew what his last words were. Wouldn't the guy chuck it in the fire, read the freaking sled, and go, "Huh, that must've been what he was talking about."

As "Orson Welles Guide to Directing a Motion Picture" it is absolutely essential; as entertainment it sucks.

Francis Ford Coppolla, Harrison Ford, Marlon Brando

and any one else worth mentioning,

cuz I don't really remember anyone, well its easy after 3 hours of FREAKING NOTHING.........

"The horror" "The horror" "The horror"

This teaches me a lesson, all that glitters is not gold. Believe me I tried to like it (just the another guy who commented), I thought that maybe there was something that I missed, I tried it again, but couldn't go all the way cuz suddenly it stuck me............

"The horror" "The horror" "The horror"

I stood up then walked a bit, sat down for a while, called a friend of mine, then watched this movie a little bit more,

"The horror" "The horror" "The horror"

I suddenly remembered Seinfeld's one episode where Mr. J.Peterman goes to Burma and becomes crazy and then I understood why he said "The horror" "The horror" "The horror"

did this review make any sense, well exactly like the movie it didn't..... Can Francis guess what's up my mind, hell no. Same here buddy..... Greatest film ever made my ass...... The only thing this movie is good for is PUNISHMENT............................

One final time with feelings

"The horror" "The horror" "The horror"

...Did we even notice the sled three hours ago? Why not a scene where he got the sled back? Why not have him tell his friend that he got his old stuff from when he was a kid?...

an ardent supporter of IMDb's highly accurate rating system

zedz wrote:Exactly. That initial "Rosebud" scene is just about the only common denominator between every single flashback - it's repeatedly, subtly referred to, even though the narrator of the moment and his or her interlocutor don't suspect its significance. And the other common denominator, which is the other half of the film's character puzzle, is the suspiciously similar, suspiciously throwaway personality assessment offered by most of the witnesses. Welles used to play down this stuff as a gimmick, but Mankiewicz meticulously worked it into the script, and far from being a parable about a person's supposed unknowability, Kane's psychological portrait is laid out in detail if you're prepared to do the modicum of work required to piece it back together after the filmmakers' artful deconstruction.

Zot! wrote:Yeah the Rosebud business does seem a bit like cloying melodrama left in for the average moviegoer looking for "closure". I'm convinced it would have worked better if it was excised, but the film is impressive regardless.

Roger Ryan wrote:

Zot! wrote:Yeah the Rosebud business does seem a bit like cloying melodrama left in for the average moviegoer looking for "closure". I'm convinced it would have worked better if it was excised, but the film is impressive regardless.

What I like about how "Rosebud" is handled is that it doesn't provide closure in the traditional sense since we are introduced to so many more questions about Kane that cannot be explained by his last word. The sled reveal both answers the superficial question posed by the sensationalist newsreel manager and reminds us that lives cannot be properly presented in a soundbite or headline. The "No Trespassing" sign is far more important to the theme of the film than what is thrown into the furnace.

zedz wrote:Well, for better or worse, I think this is a misreading of the film, even though I can understand why Welles would be flattered by it and want to promulgate it. 'Rosebud' the sled is not the explanation of his character: it's the scene it refers to that is -

Spoiler

The day when he feels he was abandoned by his mother. The guy isn't defined and broken by his sentimental attachment to a sled, he's defined and broken by being rejected by his mother, while he was out playing with that sled. Briefly, his fundamental problem in later life stems from this 'transaction': he wants to be loved (to substitute for the betrayal of this originating love), but he can't love in return (because his originating love was betrayed), and so he defines his relationships in terms of stunted proxies for love (this is horribly simplified, of course!). If you pay attention to the testimony of the witnesses, almost all of them hit on a different aspect of this in their reminiscences (e.g. "love on my terms" - relationships reduced to transactions), and, as noted, they all make unknowing reference back to that fateful day, even though only one of them actually is aware of it. The filmmakers are going out of their way to emphasize the significance of that scene - even if we can't really be aware of that on a first viewing - and in such a highly wrought film you need to explore that kind of painstaking patterning. And the tragic irony is that while he believes his mother's 'betrayal' was an expression of greed, it was in fact a (desperate) act of love, since it was the only way a trapped woman could protect her son from his (presumably abusive) father.

Yes, it's melodramatic, but it's also uncommonly nuanced for the period, and the material is beautifully worked into the film by Mankiewicz and Welles. It's certainly subtle enough that a lot of viewers would rather take the side of the glib and somewhat clueless reporter (the film's structuring irony isn't that there's nothing for him to find; it's that he is unable to join the dots and find it the way we in the audience can) than pay attention to the patterns of the narrative.

Murdoch wrote:And you have the reporter in the final scene denying that knowing what Rosebud meant would have explained "everything," followed by the reveal of the sled, which is brilliant as the film denies the artificial closure of the final shot, adding a much greater ambiguity to Kane's death because as the reporter says, "It wouldn't explain anything, no word can explain a man's life."

I fell Asleep watching this movie, 21 August 2005

Well i was watching this movie for whatever reason. And it was so boring and the people don't even talk in it. and i don't see how film was entertaining in 1927. i never fall asleep on the couch but i did while watching metropolis. A rich guy wants to be a slave so he can be with a girl. Thats about the time i fell asleep when i woke up i put in Edward Scissorhands instead and That was a good movie and i didn't fall asleep to it. I don't know what else to type for ten lines i hate this stupid rule do i have ten lines yet no i do not ahhh! I need ten lines to finish this review i think i almost have ten lines i think i do!

Botom Line In 1927 maybe

Now a days Terrible movie who watches these kind of movies anymore!

I'm currently 65 minutes into Rosemary's Baby, and I'm becoming fed up with the movie's lack of plot advancement. Unless it picks up soon with a satisfying climax I may give it negative score.

Isabelle Huppert has problems. On a recent telecast for the César Awards (yecch) she came out looking enbalmed in a black lace number with black lace pasted onto her cheeks like sideburns. She barely spoke, looking as if she was so coked out, and the audience applauded her like she was Queen Catherine de Médici. It seems that she loves to take on roles where she can "let go" and be violent, so I assume that she has a Robert DeNiro complex. This film was so pretentiously contrived, a kind of francophone "Reservoir Dogs" with good furniture and din-din "sur la table". Bisset would do well to stick with French deodorent commercials from whence she came. None of the characters was well-developed, nor the hokey dialog, nor the plot, nor the dreary cinematography, and Huppert prancing around like a Eurotrash psychopath. The French can look so pale and wan when they don't make it down to the Midi for some sunshine. I'll remember to stick with Rhoda reruns instead of Isabelle Huppert movies. "Rhoda's Wedding" episode is about 200 notches higher than this tripe.

Just another french failure. The first hour and twenty minutes of this film are some of the most boring screen minutes you're likely to find anywhere. To say that the running time of this turd has been padded, is to insult padded running times the world over. The only interesting part of the movie starts at 1:42:00 or so and ends at around 1:46:00, so as to bore you for another 6 minutes. The main reason I watched is because I always thought Jackie Bissett was super hot, and she still was in 1995, but unless you have dedicated your life to seeing all her movies, you should definitely skip this one! Terrible!

knives wrote:

Isabelle Huppert has problems. On a recent telecast for the César Awards (yecch) she came out looking enbalmed in a black lace number with black lace pasted onto her cheeks like sideburns. She barely spoke, looking as if she was so coked out, and the audience applauded her like she was Queen Catherine de Médici...Huppert prancing around like a Eurotrash psychopath

Writing in TruthDig, the venerable Time critic Richard Schickel strikes out against Mr. Malick’s “twaddling pretenses,” seeing them as the latest example of what he calls “The ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ scam,” after Alain Resnais’s quintessential art film of 1959.

For Mr. Schickel the problem with “The Tree of Life” is not just that it isn’t a good movie (“inept” is his succinct appraisal of Mr. Malick’s skill), but also, more seriously, that it gets the medium wrong. Movies, Mr. Schickel writes, “are an essentially worldly medium, playful and romantic, particularly in America, where, on the whole our best directors have stated whatever serious intentions they may harbor as ignorable asides. There are other ways of making movies, naturally, and there’s always a small audience available for these noble strivings — and good for them, I guess.”