The Legend of 1900 review

 Number 221 on the top 1000 films of all time is the drama 'the Legend of 1900.'

Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince) is a trumpeter in early 20th century New York. When he tries selling his trumpet to make ends meet, he starts recounting the Legend of 1900 - 1900 was a baby found in a crate of fruit D. Lemon 1900 on the ship SS Virginian. 1900 (Tim Roth) grows up to be a virtuoso on the piano, and the best friend of Max Tooney.

Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince was the pairing I never knew I needed. I've seen Tim Roth in a few Tarantino films where he plays morally grey characters whereas Pruitt Taylor Vince has appeared in a number of TV shows like Deadwood, House and the Walking Dead. I never imagined I would see the two together especially with Roth being English and Vince American, yet they were great. They had an excellent chemistry. Considering their relationship was at the heart of this film, this was only the more important. They worked brilliantly together. The characters couldn't have been played by anybody else.

Without these two actors, the Legend of 1900 could have been a very different film. It's a story of friendship, music and two men becoming friends through their shared love of music. Without Roth or Vince, it could have completely descended into tedium or melodrama, but it remained incredibly watchable. Vince very much remains the straight man helping to navigate Roth's musical genius. 1900 spends the whole film on the ship where he was born. He is too hesitant to step into the outside world believing it to be too big for him.

Later on, Vince returns to the ship, that has since been decommissioned and has been scheduled to be destroyed, as he believes 1900 is still hiding away somewhere on it. He attempts to convince him to leave, but to no avail. Pruitt showed off his acting chops, as we see his heart break. This was a touching moment that underlined the relationship between he and 1900. 

I may argue that the film was longer than it needed to be, with some of the pacing being quite slow. At times, it was a little overly-sentimental, but overall, I did enjoy the Legend of 1900. It really took me by surprise. And it had brilliantly cast two lead actors that I never would have imagined together: Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince

Mystic River review

 Number 347 on the top 1000 films of all time is Clint Eastwood's crime-drama 'Mystic River.'

Mystic River is based on the book of the same name by Denis Lehane. It opens on three twelve-year-old boys Jimmy, Sean and Dave as they are running amuck in 1970's Boston. The cops come and take away Dave. He isn't seen again until four days later alleging he was held prisoner and sexually assaulted. Fast-forward twenty-five years and the three friends have separated. Dave (Tim Robbins) is still living with his childhood trauma, Jimmy (Sean Penn) has become a petty crook and Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a copper. When Jimmy's nineteen-year-old daughter is murdered, and Dave becomes the number-one suspect, the three friends are thrown back together.

I've always said that Clint Eastwood is a better director than an actor. Nowhere is that more evident than here. Mystic River is a taut, tight thriller that grabs viewers by the throat in the first fifteen minutes, and refuses to let go. Mystic River rightly earned Eastwood a Best Director Oscar nod.

But Penn and Robbins won the best-actor and best-supporting actor Oscars. These were well-earned. Penn gave a powerful performance as the emotionally exhausted father desperately trying to solve the murder of his daughter. But Robbins was equally good if not better as Dave. Try as he might, he couldn't put the trauma of being assaulted as a boy behind him. Becoming the number-one suspect does nothing to help his deteriorating psyche. And Robbins brought all this to the role and more.

Even Kevin Bacon surprised me. Granted, I haven't seen him in that much, but I've never rated him as an actor. Yet he brought an excellent maturity to the role. Out of the three friends, he's managed to put the childhood trauma behind him. However, also out of the three friends, he receives the least development and screentime. It is said that he has pushed away his wife in his efforts to overcome his trauma, but this plot idea wasn't as fully-explored as it could have been. When the two eventually reconciled, I couldn't have cared less.

I also thought Jimmy's relationship with his wife Annabeth (Laura Linney) wasn't well-portrayed. The actors didn't have the best chemistry. This was no better evidenced than at the film's conclusion. After Jimmy has dealt some street justice, she comes onto him in some weird faux-sex scene proclaiming him to be a king among men. It was all very cringy, but maybe it was supposed to be.

But I thoroughly enjoyed Mystic River. If only Clint Eastwood did more directing instead of acting.

Big Fish review

 Number 296 on the top 1000 films of all the time is Tim Burton's fantasy-drama 'Big Fish.'

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) is a man who has always had a story to tell. Sometimes these stories border on the surreal. And sometimes they're difficult to take seriously. As Edward nears the end of his life, his estranged son Will decides to start sitting the fact from the fiction. This is where we see a younger Edward Bloom (Ewan Macgregor) live out these stories.

This is possibly one of the most Burtonesque films I've ever seen. It was pure absurdism, surrealism and just plain weird. However, it wasn't just weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Everything was underpinned by two intertwining themes: relationship between father and son, and the art of storytelling.

As Will delves deeper into his father's life, he discovers weird and wonderful stories. These range from meeting a one-eyed witch who can tell you how you're going to die to befriending a giant who is rampaging around the local community. It doesn't matter whether these stories happened exactly the way they were told, as long as they are still told.

Stories have a wonderful way of uniting people. Nowhere is this more apparent than father and son. Sick of his father's ridiculous stories, son breaks off contact for three years. It's only his father's ailing health that reunites them. But it is Edward Bloom's love of story-telling that helps them to make amends. Bloom helps his son realises the joy which storytelling can bring everybody.

Did Edward Bloom really befriend a giant? Did he run away and join a circus ran by Danny Devito? Probably not. But it doesn't matter as long as we enjoyed the journey. And this was a weird and surreal journey that I certainly enjoyed. 

Corpse Bride review

 Number 911 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's stop-motion, dark-fantasy 'Corpse Bride.'

Set in Victorian London, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is a respectable young man who is betrothed Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) a sweet-natured, young woman. However, cold feet leads to him messing up the ceremony and running into the nearby forest in shame. While rehearsing his vows, he inadvertently awakens the titular corpse bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter.) She believes the two are now married and Victor finds himself caught between his alive bride Victoria and his dead bride Emily.

In Corpse Bride, Tim Burton blended together a charming, but strange narrative with some brilliant visuals. The animation was absolutely gorgeous if surreal at times. Stop-motion is always so impressive due to its pain-staking nature. Production for this film lasted for over a year and there were over 100,000 individual frames to be animated. But the finished product was a visual feast for the eyes. I loved the colour scheme. In the Land of the Dead, everything is so bright and colourful, whereas in the real world, everything is daub and downtrodden.

But it's in the Land of the Dead where things get really weird. Especially during the musical numbers, it was like watching an acid-trip. But it's this trademark surrealism that made this film so memorable. It was so creative; I can safely say that I haven't seen a film quite like it. And although the musical numbers are few and far between, they are catchy and thoroughly entertaining. The Remains of the Day was one of my favourites especially with its striking visuals.

Corpse Bride is also littered with acting talent. We've already mentioned Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter, but Christopher Lee, Richard E.Grant, Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney all lend their voices to this fun little flight of fancy. Johnny Depp sounded almost unrecognisable as he lacks the same accent he adorns for the Pirates of the Caribbean series or Sweeney Todd.  It was also a great script with plenty of jokes as well as some real emotional notes. I particularly loved the final image of the eponymous Corpse Bride dissolving into a group of butterflies. I thought this was a touching and elegant image.

Overall, I really enjoyed Corpse Bride. It was so creative, so colourful with some great musical numbers and voice performances. And the stop-motion animation was absolutely brilliant. It proved that stop-motion animation should be respected as much as any other medium within cinema.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street review

 Number 800 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's musical horror: 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.'

Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) better known as Sweeney Todd is a barber who has just been released from prison into Victorian London. He was wrongfully imprisoned by the corrupt judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) to steal away with his wife. With the help of pie-maker Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter,) he schemes to take his revenge, while also murdering his customers and processing their bodies into meat corpses. Timothy Spall and Sacha Baron Cohen co-star.

Originally based on the same character who appeared in the lurid penny dreadfuls that were all the rage in Victorian London, Tim Burton brilliantly captured the atmosphere and effect of these serialised stories. He created a dark, gothic world full of sensationalised violence. The colour scheme is dark and muted only punctuated by the red blood that spurts from the necks of Todd's victims. It is melodramatic and over-the-top, but that's what you can expect from such crude source material. Depp and Carter are also suitably over-the-top with their characters bordering on the campy at times.

I can respect the film for what it is and what it was trying to do, but it really wasn't for me. I find musicals very hit-and-miss and Sweeney Todd definitely missed for me. It was entertaining enough, but the songs really slowed the pace down to a crawl. Todd wasted a lot of time singing when he could have been taking his revenge on Turpin instead. And the songs were hardly the most inspired either. It was just like the character's dialogue was set to music. 

I'm sure Sweeney Todd  would excite lovers of musicals, but it really did little for me.