Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Posted on June 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is an introverted guy who has difficulty making eye contact with people, let alone asking them out. One Valentine’s Day, on a random impulse, he ditches work and heads to the beach in Montauk, where he keeps seeing a girl in a bright orange sweatshirt with even brighter blue hair. Her name is Clementine (Kate Winslet) and, despite their vastly contrasting personalities, they spend the day together, and the next. Alas, all is not great in their world, however, and sadly their relationship ends when, on another impulse, Clementine decides to erase Joel from her memory using a little known company who specialises in a very concentrated form of brain damage. Joel opts to undergo the same procedure, but it doesn’t quite go as planned when he decides mid-operation that he might have made the wrong decision.
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Freaks

Posted on June 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

A 1930s circus has amongst its attractions a selection of people known as “Freaks” who are looked down upon by some of the other acts. Amongst these people is Hans (Harry Earles), an adult man trapped in the body of a boy. Despite being engaged to fellow “Freak” Frieda (Harry’s real-life sister, Daisy Earles), Hans is in love with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a beautiful trapeze artist. To begin with Cleopatra leads Hans on, mocking him behind his back but accepting his gifts and favours, all the while carrying on with the strong man, Hercules (Henry Victor), but when they discover Hans is the heir to a fortune, Cleopatra plans to marry then immediately kill him, leaving her his wealthy widow. Meanwhile, Hercules’ former lover Venus (Leila Hyams), who is amongst the few circus-folk who are actually kind and accepting of the “Freaks”, begins a relationship with Phroso the Clown (Wallace Ford).
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Madame De…

Posted on June 29, 2015 by jaycluitt

Louise (Danielle Darrieux) is a General’s wife who lives a lifestyle she cannot afford. We begin the film with her trying to decide which of her possessions she should sell to pay off her debts, and she opts for a pair of earrings her husband (Charles Boyer) bought her as a wedding gift. She sells them to the jeweller he originally bought them from, but to prevent her husband from knowing Louise pretends they have been lost or stolen. When the news of the supposed theft hits the jeweller, he soon returns the earrings to the General to save his own reputation, which sets in motion a long and eventful series of journeys, transactions and ludicrous coincidences that these earrings will take.
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La Grande Illusion

Posted on June 27, 2015 by jaycluitt

On a mission to re-do aerial photographs over a German base during the First World War, the plane is shot down and the two Frenchmen on board are captured by the German army and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. There, along with the men sharing their quarters, they attempt to tunnel out, but before they are able to they are shipped to an escape-proof stronghold, run by the same German officer who was the cause of them being shot down in the first place.
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The Iron Giant

Posted on June 25, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

Earth, 1957. Somewhere off the coast of Maine, a fisherman caught in a storm sees an enormous metal being – an Iron Giant, if you will – with two great glowing eyes in the middle of the sea. Understandably, no-one believes him, until a small boy by the unfortunate name of Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) comes across said giant when it gets caught up in the electrical power plant. Naturally, being a young boy, Hogarth thinks the robot is awesome, and wants to do lots of cool things with it, but he isn’t the only party interested in the giant, and when the authorities hear about him they think it’s potentially a threat from Russia.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock

Posted on June 24, 2015 by jaycluitt

A field trip from an Australian girls’ school to the nearby geographical landmark of Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day in the year 1900 goes awry when four students separate from the rest of their class to go exploring the rock. Whilst everyone else is asleep, one of their teachers heads off in search of them, but only one of the original girls returns, forcing the rest of the class to abandon those missing, including the teacher, in order to return home before nightfall. The school and town becomes obsessed with finding the vanished girls, as does a young Englishman who happened to see them heading into the rocks.
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In the Mood for Love

Posted on June 20, 2015 by jaycluitt

Two couples move into the same small tenement building in 1960s Hong Kong on the same day. Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) is a secretary and personal assistant at a travel company, working under her adulterous boss and literally keeping his affairs in order, whilst her husband is often away on business for longs periods of time. Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) is a writer whose dreams of writing martial arts serials have floundered due to lack of inspiration. His wife often works late too. When Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow begin to suspect that their respective partners are having an affair with one another, the two become close, and the chance to follow in their partner’s footsteps becomes a tentative possibility.

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The Sixth Sense

Posted on June 13, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is a troubled child. His inability to get along with others, multitude of secrets and general oddness cause his single mother (Toni Collette) to despair. Things start to look up however when Cole starts seeing noted child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who, after being shot recently by a former patient Crowe evidently failed to help, is now wary of the similar symptoms Cole is showing. Eventually, Cole and Malcolm grow close enough for the youngster to reveal his big secret, which might just help Malcolm overcome some problems of his own.

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The Phenix City Story

Posted on June 8, 2015 by jaycluitt

This post was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series over at French Toast Sunday.

Phenix City, Alabama, 1954. The city, just across the bridge from Georgia’s Fort Benning, has been at the mercy of mob rule for a hundred years. The town officials all turn a blind eye due to either being on the pay roll or fearing the consequences of standing up for themselves, with town attorney Albert Patterson (John McIntire) only getting involved for which ever side hires him in various disputes. A small band of townsfolk regularly picket and protest the syndicate, but have always proved ineffective. That is until Albert’s son and war hero John Patterson (Richard Kiley) returns home with his wife and children. Upon seeing the state of his home town, and witnessing the brutality of the mob’s men against those that dare oppose them, John sets about trying to clean the place up, but he can’t do anything without his father’s help.
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by jaycluitt

Upon returning home from a trip, small town doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) begins to suspect something is wrong. Whilst he was away, his nurse/receptionist informs Miles that he had a waiting room full of patients who all refused to tell her what was wrong, but now all these people are suddenly fine and well. Others complain that people they know aren’t whom they seem to be. On the outside everything looks fine, but there’s a feeling that something is missing. Then, one night whilst catching up with Becky (Dana Winter), an old flame back in town for the first time in 5 years, Miles is called out to an emergency. Friends of his, Jack and Teddy (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones), have found a body that seems to be in the process of forming an exact copy of Jack’s. Dun dun-duuuuuuuuun!
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