Noah’s Barks pages relating to films, movies, etc. Most are imported reviews from Criticker, a site with a 500-word limit. Please keep that in mind. There are many reviews yet to be imported!
To avoid clutter, anime movie reviews are kept on the anime page.
The only reason I can think of why The Hudsucker Proxy isn’t seen as one of the better films from the Coens is because its spitfire dialogue is so fast and witty that it’s easy to miss a ton of…
Sure, The Killing is a notable and influential blueprint for many future heist movies, but so many of those heist movies to come would be far more entertaining and better written than it. The running time is just too limited…
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a John Cassavetes character study where a strip club owner is caught between his personal motivations and a mob hit job. Ben Gazzara puts on a fantastically subtle performance and hides his true…
The Maltese Falcon succeeds as well as any mystery could by making nearly every single character a suspect. Anything could happen at any time, and everyone is involved in one large plot roped around one titular bird. Second-guessing every character’s…
The “series of unfortunate events” plot and dark humor through irony that’s so constant in the Coens’ writing starts to run very thin. It’s frustrating to know how every scene, how every line of The Man Who Wasn’t There will…
If there is a cult theme here, it’s the cult of Paul Thomas Anderson; devotees so enamored by the excellent cinematography and intense performances in The Master that they believe there must be something more to it all. The Master…
There’s some incredibly harsh imagery in The Neon Demon, complete with heavy, sharp, contrasting colors. This sleazy gloss accompanied by Cliff Martinez‘s distorted synthesizer compositions made me immediately think the movie had potential to be a favorite. But the style…
Kieślowski captures accurately the experience of dealing with the cold, dreary government bureaucracy. Which means The Office, a five-minute short film, is every bit as painful to watch as it is to go through the machine. Just as I wish…
An overtly sultry, affectionate tribute to several significant scenes of pop culture: horror and science fiction B-movies and—my favorite—glam rock. Tim Curry steals the show as Dr. Frank N. Furter. It’s impossible to keep your eyes off him—for many reasons.…
The themes on mortality aren’t of any particular insight, but The Seventh Seal‘s heavily sullen atmosphere invisibly weaves a dark shroud over a revived and stoically breathing portrait of a suffering 14th century Europe. Not without its share of duller…
2016’s ‘The Shallows’ attempts to convert the classic horror-thriller shark attack formula into a slow-burn survival story. Will it succeed?
The Shining is an expedition into the labyrinth of the id. Stanley Kubrick turns a ghost story into a tale about the very real demons of domestic abuse. Jack Nicholson kills it here, subtly revealing from the very beginning his…
David Lynch’s unexpectedly, intensely sentimental The Straight Story doubles both as a tale of redemption and an empathetic and fair tribute to a more conservative era gone past, as reflected by one of many men who define it. Though as…
The last of Polanski’s claustrophobic “apartment trilogy.” The themes start to run thin this time around. The mental deterioration is stronger in Repulsion, and the paranoia is much more real and sensible in Rosemary’s Baby. Though Roman Polanski does a…
I’m heartbroken. Not because of the story of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but everything else. I love musicals and thought its concept of every spoken line being sung was brilliant. I saw the bright, blooming colors and that this was…
Just knowing there’s a twist is bad enough. Why can’t people just keep their damn mouths shut? After all, The Usual Suspects is a lesson in such. Thanks to some very impressive editing, the exposition itself feels like the action.…
Unforgettable ending, but what makes a truly great twist-film is when the scenes before it are strong enough to distract from the surprise and hold up on their own. The Vanishing is always engaging, but it’s mostly because of the…
I recommend the Director’s Cut of The Warriors as it adds a few scenes that make more obvious its playfulness and pulpy influences which offsets the questionable machismo and misogyny. That aside, this is a great mini-classic with surprisingly good…
The Wicker Man is instinctually disturbing and aided by an amazing folk soundtrack that’s alluring to the ear but conveys dark desire when contextually examined. It’s a perfect allusion for the clandestine nature of Summerisle. The Wicker Man potentially comments…
There Will Be Blood is fantastic but can’t shake the feeling of wasted potential. The setting is underutilized and could’ve expanded on Daniel Day-Lewis’s character, grounding him in a historical realism. John D. Rockefeller is a controversial figure this could…
Juliette Binoche does a remarkable job in displaying her characterization through her responses to her environment rather than dialogue. Equally due in part to the story’s emphasis on music, Three Colors: Blue is an affective, humanistic drama for all senses.
I try to share my thoughts on every movie I watch, but Three Colors: Red has me tongue-tied trying to express how I feel. As I watched what first seems to be another lovely human drama in this great trilogy,…
Lacks the humanistic drama that made Three Colors: Blue so affecting, but Three Colors: White succeeds in its own special way with its unique sense of comedy. Thanks to the 90-minute runtime, the storyline never develops at a dull pace,…
Awesome, haunting stuff but I’ve noted in my other reviews that I’m a big fan of Akira Kurosawa‘s characterization through dialogue and there isn’t much of that in Throne of Blood. It has an extremely modest runtime for his career…
Touch of Evil is a gigantic, ruthless bore for the first half, making no effort to have an engaging hook: a murder mystery about a case where the victims or the crime itself don’t actually matter. The main story about…
Comes a little too close to glorifying drug-induced hedonism, but Trainspotting saves itself eventually when it reveals its true, satirical nature. Leans a bit too much on playful comedy and not enough on drama for me, but anyone who knows…
The criticism Tron: Legacy has gotten in comparison with the original is baffling and makes me wonder when was the last time many of these people have seen Tron. Yes, this is a very flawed movie but it’s flawed in…
Some of the bloody imagery here is gorgeous, but most of Trouble Every Day is forgettable. The analogy of sex to cannibalism or murder is hardly anything fresh, and in its minimal approach the film fails to say anything more.…
It’s impressive and very pleasing to me as a fan that Polanski has still not lost himself after decades of films. Akin to many of his works, Venus in Fur is a single-setting psychological playground where Amalric and Seigner compete…
‘Village of the Damned’ is some solid stuff. Feels of its time in a way that makes it feel like a long ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. I’m a fan.
Visionary auteur Takeshi Kitano writes and stars in this film about a ‘Violent Cop.’ It’s less exciting than the title promises.
Watership Down is a classic adventure story with a youth-friendly aesthetic, but realizes children will eventually have to come of age and stop only watching comedies. Triumphs aren’t given by fortune but instead constant suffering full of threatening risks. The…
While this David Lynch film is a complete mess, if you’re able to embrace its blatant stupidity you’ll find Wild at Heart to be a fun, innocent, and unique comedy. Some of the absurdity and use of violence as comedy…
Oh, no! Young Frankenstein is perfectly good with nothing easy for me to pick on. All I can give this one is that it was a movie almost completely focused on laughs, and I’ve laughed harder. Gene Wilder is phenomenal,…
