Classic Movies And Great MusicAndrew Conway (576)  Romancing The Stone Film ReviewPosted Thursday, February 28, 2008 (191 days 13 hours ago.) Viewed 41 times. Romancing the Stone is an American 1984 action-adventure film.Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. This film was one of the best adventure/humor movies of the eighties. Not only did it boost the star rating of Michael Douglas, it helped launch Kathleen Turner into stardom. It also was Robert Zemeckis's first box office hit as a director. The plot of the movie revolves around romance writer Joan Wilder, played by Kathleen Turner, who travels to Colombia to find her kidnapped sister. In time she falls in love with a soldier of fortune [Michael Douglas] and the two become romantically involved as they search for a precious stone which the kidnappers want. The beginning of the film shows Joan receiving a package from her dead brother-in-law. Soon after the package arrives she gets a frantic call from her sister Elaine[Mary Ann Trainor] informing her that she has been kidnapped and needs the map from the package as ransom. Joan flies down to Columbia but she gets lost on the way to her destination. But eventually she runs into Jack T. Colton [Douglas] and offers him some money if he would help her find her way to Cartagena. He helps her to elude a few unsavory characters who seem to be following her.Oneof these villains just happens to be the leader of the secret police who is responsible for her brother-in-laws death. The other two zany characters are Ralph [Danny DeVito] and Ira [Zack Norman]. Jack uncovers the map that Joan is carrying and after some convincing she agrees to go after the treasure. They agree that after finding the treasure they can then give the worthless map to the kidnappers. After some unbelievable escapes, they eventually find the treasure which turns out to be an enormous emerald called the malevolent. Zolo and Ralph steal it from them but then the Colombian police show up. After getting the stone back from Ralph, Joan and Jack get separated but agree to meet at Joan's hotel in Cartagena, but when Jack doesn't show up, Joan starts to get worried. She then meets her sister's captors[Ralph and Ira] and turns over the map. They are interrupted by Zolo who knows that the map is worthless. Zolo's men are holding Jack who refuses to disclose the location of the emerald. Zolo uses Joan as bait and tells Jack that if he refuses to disclose the emeralds location he will be forced to feed Joan to the crocodiles. Jack relents and gives up the gem and tosses it towards the crocodiles.Zolo catches the stone but his hand, along with the gem, ends up in one of the crocodiles stomach. A gunfight ensues between Zolo's men and Ira's men. This allows Joan, Elaine and Jack to escape. After a prolonged fight with Zolo's men, Ira and his men escape, but Ralph is left behind. Zolo catches Joan and Elaine. Joan tries to kill Zolo with his own switchblade,but Zolo blocks the thrown knife with a piece of wood. After Elaine faints from the sight, Joan pleads for Jack's help. He must decide whether to save her or hold onto the croc which has ingested El Corazon. He decides to try to save Joan by scaling a rock wall to reach her. However, he arrives moments after Zolo falls into a pit full of crocodiles. Seeing that the women are safe, Jack leaves to pursue El Corazon once more. Joan then returners home to New York where she is confronted with lonely feeling towards Jack. She writes a hit novel based on her recent adventures. But one day, as she is returning home she is confronted by Jack,who is wearing crocodile skin boots, waiting for her in a sailboat that is parked on the main street in front of her apartment. It seems that Jack managed to catch the croc who had swallowed the gem. The croc had suffered a fatal case of indigestion from swallowing the gem. The ending is a not so typical love story showing Joan and Jack kissing on the deck of the Angelina, which was named for Joan's fictional heroine, as the trailer that the boat rests on drives off into the streets of N.Y. City. Andrew Conway is an author, a musician, and a classic movie buff. 
Permalink Comments (0) Vertigo--The Best Film That Alfred Hitchcock Ever ProducedPosted Thursday, February 21, 2008 (198 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 27 times. Vertigo is another one of Alfred Hitchcock's best produced movies that was released in July 1958. It's a Hitchcock thriller that you have to see from the very beginning. The film features James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes and tells the story of a retired policeman who falls in love with a mysterious woman he has been hired to follow. Although it had mixed reviews on its first release, it has since gained in esteem and is frequently listed among the greatest films ever made. I think that it was the best film that Hitchcock ever produced. San Francisco detective John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) develops acrophobia after a fellow police officer (Fred Graham) falls to his death while trying to save him during a rooftop chase. His acrophobia causes vertigo. He is forced to retire from police work, and is unable even to stand on a step-stool in the apartment of his friend Marjorie Wood (Barbara Bel Geddes) without being paralyzed by fear and dizziness. He is eventually hired as a private detective by one of his old friends who wants his own wife Madeleine,who is played by Kim Novak, followed. He informs Scottie that he thinks that his wife is suffering from some sort of mental illness or demonic possession. Scottie follows Madeleine to a cemetery where she is seen visiting the grave of a woman named Carlotta Valdes who had killed herself one hundred years earlier. Madeleine wanders around as if she is in some sort of a trance. Scottie is strongly attracted to Madeleine. He follows her to Fort Point at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge where he observes her jumping into the San Francisco Bay in what appears to be a suicide attempt. She is saved by Scottie and returns with him to his apartment. They end up taking a trip to see the coastal redwoods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. She confines in Scottie that she has dreamed of Mission San Juan Bautista and he takes her there in an effort to conquer her dreams, but she suddenly runs into the bell tower, climbs the stairs, and appears to commit suicideby jumping off the tower to her death. Scottie suffers a nervous breakdown and runs away. At the inquest that was looking into Madeleine's death, Scottie is accused of negligence but is cleared of prosecution. Elster is seen reassuring him when he tells Scottie "we both know who really killed Madeleine" referring to the fact that she was possessed by Carlotta's spirit. Scottie eventually ends up in a mental hospital where he sufferers from terrifying nightmares. His friend Midge tries her best to comfort him but soon realizes that he is still in love with Madeleine. After leaving the hospital Scottie continues to visit the places where he and Madeleine used to visit together. Then one day he notices a women [Judy Barton] who has an uncanny resemblance to Madeleine. However she is quite different in her mannerisms than Madeleine. Scottie follows her to her hotel room where he finds out that she is a single working women who is from a little town in Kansas. She tells Scottie that she moved to San Francisco to start a new life after a series of failed relationships.But after Scottie leaves she writes a letter confessing that she was in fact Madeleine. Elster had hired her to act as a mentally unstable false Madeleine. The women who fell from the tower was in fact Elster's real wife who was actually dead before her husband had thrown her form the tower. Elster had hired Scottie knowing full well about his Vertigo. He knew that Scottie would never be able to climb the stares of the tower. He used him to corroborate his claims of his wife's suicidal tendencies. But Judy then tears up the letter almost as soon as she had written it. She has come to the realization that she has fallen in love with Scottie. Scottie becomes obsessed with Judy and insists that Judy even dress like Madeleine. At first she protests, but eventually given in to the man she loves. Scotties eventually becomes suspicious of Judy when he notices a red jeweled pendant that he remembers that Madeleine used to wear. Judy insists that she had inherited it. He then forces her to go the Mission Juan Bautista and forces her to climb the stairs up to the tower again. He wants her to re-enact the scene in which he failed to save Madeleine. He demands that she tell him the truth and Scottie discovers that the emotional experience has conquered his acrophobia, as he has now climbed to the top of the tower. Judy pleads with him and tells him that she is in love with him. Then suddenly a shadowy figure appears at the top of the stairs. Judy backs away from the shadow and steps off of the tower edge and plunges to her death. The shadow turns out to be a nun. Scottie who is still in shock, stares down at Judy and realizes that the emotional shock has cured him of his vertigo but was the cost worth it. This is one of the few films that I had watched more than once, It may have been the combination of the plot, along with the superb acting abilities of the stares, but I would rate this as the best Alfred Hitchcock film that I had ever watched. It's a film that holds you in suspense from the beginning to the end. Andrew Conway is an avid author,writer and a classic movie buff. If you love watching movies or just listening to great music, then visit:
Permalink Comments (0) Lost in Beijing Movie ReviewPosted Tuesday, February 19, 2008 (200 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 101 times. Lost in Beijing is a 2007 Chinese film directed by Li Yu and starring Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, Tony Leung Ka Fai, and Elaine Jin. It had its international premiere at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2007. It was produced by Laurel Films, a small independent production company owned by Fang Li and based in Beijing, and it was released internationally by the French company Film Distribution. Distribution in the United States was picked up by New Yorker Films. Lost in Beijing is actually the first movie that has come out of China,in my opinion, that is of high quality film. It kind of reminds you of a movie made for T.V.. It is a look at modern-day life in China's capital. It is centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife. A poor migrant couple and a wealthy couple living in Beijing and how their lives are intertwined through a set of unfortunate and disturbing circumstances. Liu Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) and her husband, An Kun (Tong Dawei) are a young migrant couple from the northeast of China who have moved to Beijing for a better life. Pingguo and An Kun live in an apartment eking out their existence working menial jobs. An Kun works as a window washer, while his wife works in the Golden Basin Massage Parlor as a foot masseuse. Golden Basin is owned and operated by Lin Dong (Tony Leung Ka Fai), He is also from the south of China. His wife, Wang Mei (Elaine Jin) practices Chinese medicine. Very soon, the two couples find themselves headed for a collision course. Pingguo's best friend, Xiao Mei (Zeng Meihuizi), assaults a customer, she is quickly fired by Lin Dong. Pingguo, wishing to commiserate, takes her friend out and promptly becomes drunk on bai jiu. Returning to the Golden Basin, she passes out in an empty office. Lin Dong, seeing the vulnerable Pingguo attempts to make a pass, which quickly turns into rape, a rape witnessed by the window washer. An Kun begins a campaign of harassment against Lin Dong and attempting to blackmail him for 20,000 RMB. When Lin Dong ignores the furious husband, An Kun goes directly to Wang Mei who ends up seducing him. Soon, it is discovered that Liu Pingguo is pregnant but nobody knows who the real father is. Lin Dong, however, sees in Pingguo an opportunity to make things right with his barren wife as well as to settle things with Pingguo and her husband once and for all. Soon, the two husbands have concocted a scheme wherein An Kun initially receives 20,000 RMB for his mental suffering. As the baby is carried to term, Lin Dong becomes more and more attached to the idea that he will at last be a father. When the baby is born however, An Kun discovers that it is indeed his child. Unable to turn down the money, however, he manages to convince Lin Dong that it is his son, allowing him to collect the 120,000 RMB. Seeing how happy Lin Dong is with the baby,An Kun grows increasingly jealous and attempts a kidnapping of the child. An Kun then attempts to repurchase the child, but Lin Dong will have no part in this. Meanwhile, Pingguo who had taken a job as a nurse maid in Lin Dong house, decides to take the money and the child and walkes out the door. The film ends with both Lin Dong and An Kun broken down on a busy Beijing highway after starting a search for Pingguo. Li Yu's tale of prostitution, blackmail, and rape in modern-day Beijing has been plagued with censorship problems. The film also found controversy for what some critics described as "gratuitous sex scenes.After nearly a year of delays, the film was finally banned by Chinese authorities in January 2008, but the Chinese people have been able to view it online. Except for the perplexing ending, Lost in Beijing is quite an enjoyable film and I would recommend it just for the entertainment value alone. It does drive home the fact that no matter what society you may come from there are still some basic instincts that every human has. Andrew Conway is an author,writer and a classic movie buff. If you love watching movies, classic sitcom's or just listening to great music, then visit: www.Ultimate-Free-Downloads.com http://www.ultimate-free-downloads.com
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