The Ten Commandments- Cecil B. Demille's VistaVision 35mm spectacular, an endless biblical epic about Moses leading the Egyptians out of Exodus. A study in excess to make Peter Jackson look like a minimalist, it's a an unbelievably long, bombastic, silly, but often entertaining blend of soap opera romance, old-style Hollywood spectacle, sword-and-sandle battles, dated special effects, and colorful kitsch. It's hugely iconic scenes achieve a certain pop grandeur, but disappointingly, DeMille is no David Lean. The many matte paintings stick out, and the whole film is disappointingly stiff and dull, shot mostly in static long takes with Demille's usually stationary camera. Though seeing it on the big screen would be a cool opportunity, but in spite of the 6K restoration credits, the DCP shown by my local AMC wasn't a dazzler (presumably compressed or something) and the film's sluggish pacing didn't help matters. A classic to some, and probably plays much better on the small screen when you can pause it to get up and get food and go to the bathroom, but time hasn't been kind to it. Still, it's a cultural touchstone, and there's a certain fun to be had. Let my people go!
Freddy vs. Jason- Much better than it has any right to be monster movie mashup. Those looking for the intelligence found in the Craven films will be most disappointed, but if you've stuck with the franchise this long, that likely won't be an issue. Braindead? Sure. But way more fun than you'd expect. Screenwriters Shannon and Swift are obviously fanboys themselves, and they've clearly done their homework, and Hong Kong-bred director Ronny Yu Yan-Tai infuses the proceedings with lots of kinetic razzle-dazzle and the requisite blood and boobs. The characters are annoying stereotypes who exist solely to be killed off in gruesome ways, but it's very stylish-looking and the final showdown delivers what you expect. It is what it is, it knows what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. And for once, that's good enough.
Ben Hur- William Wyler's sweeping, sprawling, massive biblical epic, seen as a DCP at my local AMC, and not a very impressive one either, curiously muted colors and somewhat muddy. Add to that the fact that you have one of a small handful of films ever shot in super-wide Panavision 65, and they put it on their smallest, dingiest, most pissant little screen in the whole multiplex. Still, I'll never see it 70mm or even 35mm, so a cinema screen is still a cinema screen. Anyway, the film is unwieldy, uneven, sometimes silly, and occasionally dated, but also robust, bold, engaging, exciting, beautiful-looking, sometimes thrilling, and frequently awe-inspiring, and has a well-deserved reputation at the kind of spectacle that CG has all but dulled completely. The kind of thing that cinema is all about, nearly four hours that get your your money's worth the whole time. And that chariot race? Wow. James Cameron, eat your heart out. 55 years later, it's still a breathtaking knockout. I'll never get to see it in 70mm, so I guess this'll have to do.
No mods ever come to this forum, but if one ever does, they can feel free to attempt to fix the structure of that post. Don't know what the hell happened. God, we need nee forum software :(
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