60/60 Review #26: Citizen Kane.

It's considered the greatest film ever made. Between the cinematography, writing, and acting, everything is seen as a masterstroke of cinema. This, ladies and gentlemen, is my official review of... The Room. OK, kidding. But seriously, Citizen Kane is a loose biographical take on the life of William Randolph Hearst, a man who rose as one of the greatest publishers in the world with the New York Journal and entered an epic war with Joseph Pulitzer's World. Coincidentally, Kane is played by Orson Welles, who was the inspiration for the voice and mannerisms of The Brain in Pinky and the Brain. Needless to say, I was so waiting the entire time to hear Welles drop a "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over The World!" (You thought I was going for a War of the Worlds joke, didn't you?)

Joking aside, I can see why many consider this to be the greatest film ever made. The first big noticeable thing is the cinematography. Doing a bit of research, I found out that Citizen Kane didn't come up with all the fancy angles and whatnot--instead, it studied many films that came before it and all the masterful things already done. Then they put almost every single one of these tricks in the movie, making it a film with the most masterful techniques than any other. For instance, almost every scene has everything in focus, background and foreground. I noticed this before I even realized I had. Even at the beginning when a young Charles Kane is playing in the snow while his parents are giving him away, I noticed how busy everything was, how every inch of the screen was being used to show something--anything--in clear focus. Then I noticed the interesting camera angles; besides just fascinating choices, there were quite a lot that were shot at an upward angle toward the ceiling, something apparently rare for its time (due to sets not having ceilings and whatnot). And more. So much more.

The next big thing I noticed was the script, the dialogue, and the acting. Between the witty comments, the talking over each other, the basic plot, and the overall story structure... it reminded me a lot of The Social Network. And I'm not just saying that because of this. But I won't get into a comparison in this review. To me, the dialogue wasn't in and of itself outstanding; don't get me wrong, it's an incredibly well written film--that's what it won an Oscar for, after all. I felt it was the acting that actually took that dialogue and made it fantastic. And I know this isn't technically part of what I'm talking about in this paragraph, but I thought I should mention here that the makeup and stuff they did for the aging process was completely superb.

But here's where I start giving my negative side. The opening scene is great, even giving us an amazing shot through the glass globe. But then there's about a 10-minute newsreel segment that gets old pretty dang quick. Thankfully the movie picks up and gets really fascinating for the next 45 minutes or so. I loved the flashback technique the movie uses to move the story forward, and Kane's rise to power is both fun and entertaining. The next hour or so, though, starts to lose me. It might have been a more original story for its time (at least in film), but today, I've seen this story a thousand times, so it got slightly boring to me. And because I already knew what Rosebud was going into the film, the mystery wasn't there to keep me enthralled.

So this movie is considered the greatest film ever made. But is it? Or is it just the greatest movie of its time? Certainly in the more technical aspects, Citizen Kane is masterful, and it has inspired many films today (this isn't a camera thing, but did you know that the look and construct of Malfoy Manor in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was actually based on and/or inspired by the Xanadu mansion?). Personally, I feel that the movie is certainly the greatest of its time; however, I do not think that it is the greatest movie of all time. I did enjoy it. I do respect it. I do see where people come from when they speak of its greatness. But if you take away the fancy cinematography and the fun story structure, you have a story that's not really my bag. And despite the great acting, the story just didn't hook me all the way through.

Note: Because of this film's status, I think it deserves special treatment with 2 ratings. First, the "quality" rating, which indicates how I feel it ranks with all the technical things I've mentioned. Second, the "entertainment" rating, which will tell you how I felt about this movie, well, entertained me. So here you are:

QUALITY

Royale With Cheese


ENTERTAINMENT

I Am McLovin!

(P.S. I suppose if you averaged them together, you'd get a Keanu 'Whoa', but I don't think this film deserves one simple rating. It's too complex for that and leaves me with emotions too conflicting for that. So I'll leave you with what I gave.)

LKMYNTS: Pontypool.

I'd heard about this movie here and there, but I didn't know anything about it beyond the title. But recently I was looking for a new movie to check out that I might enjoy but hadn't exactly heard all about. A Little Known Movie, as it were. And that's when I stumbled upon this film. And I'm so glad I did. The best way to describe it is as a zombie movie... without zombies. It follows a controversial radio host, Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), who had just been recently fired from a big job and is now working in the small town of Pontypool. He works along with Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) and Laurel-Ann Drummond (Georgina Reilly) at this tiny station. But not long after they start their day, they start getting word of a riot at a doctor's office... and then how the rest of the town starts going crazy and killing each other. They slowly learn that there's a virus being transmitted by the English language using trigger words that turn people into crazy, murderous beings. So now they're stuck between going over the radio and figuring out what's going on or staying off the air in fear of transmitting more of the virus.

The movie could easily be split into three parts. The first part, which is the first 20 or so minutes, is kinda boring and could have been maybe 5-10 minutes shorter. It introduces us to the characters, which is nice, but then it just keeps going with nothing of importance happening. But if you can make it through the first 20-25 minutes, you're golden.

Because that leads into the second part, the middle 40 or so minutes that is a lot of the best parts of the movie. This was inspired by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast hoax. No visual horror is shown during any of this, and it's some of the creepiest stuff in the whole movie. It forces you to use your imagination by just listening to people calling in to the radio station and describing things. There are totally intense parts during this segment, even if you never see a thing.

Then you have the third part of the movie, the last 30 or so minutes. This is where the actual visual horror comes in. The crazy people show up at the radio station, there's a small amount of gore, and it shows all the survival and hiding and all that. This part of the film is pretty good, as well, especially the ending.

Now, you can't call these things zombies. Even the writer and director both said they aren't zombies. They call them "conversationalists." These things go through stages of forgetting words, then incoherent babbling, and then all-out destruction. And I love the reasoning behind what can cause the virus with the language and all that. And it's great when you know a couple trigger words, but you see certain characters not hearing the words because they're focused on something else going on at the moment.

There's some good comedy in the film, mostly from Stephen McHattie, whose character is a bit of a douche, but in an endearing kind of way. And I loved his voice--perfect for the radio host. And apparently he's reprised his role from an actual radio transmission that they did in the UK a la War of the Worlds (via Orson Welles). And that transmission is actually included on the DVD, which is pretty cool. So if you've got an hour to kill, you can actually just play the audio of the radio play and listen to that (it's pretty much the movie, but without the other bits not broadcasted).

Overall, the movie isn't perfect, but it's still really good. I'd definitely recommend it, especially if you like a more old-school imagination-necessary type of horror film. It's a very talky film, but it keeps you engaged. Good movie, good acting, good suspense, good creepy factor, good ending... and even the credits are cool, because over the credits you hear radio broadcasts and whatnot have the after-effects of the Pontypool outbreak. Though after the credits, there's a very strange and seemingly unrelated clip that really doesn't make any sense, especially in the context of the movie. But besides that, the movie is really good.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. I actually just realized this movie was directed by the same guy who did The Tracey Fragments, which I just finished watching via Netflix maybe a week ago... review forthcoming... but a completely different type of film (this one's better).)