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Munich - 4/10
Disappointed with this film. So much material to work with, and they missed the boat completely. I didn't like that the Mossad agents were portrayed as touchy-feely menschs trading cooking recipes, guffawing over family idiosyncracies, and celebrating the birth of newborns. They overdid it. These are hitmen goddammit, not Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau. And I also didn't like the half-baked throwaway attempt by the director to show the humanity of the terrorists and their supporters rooting for them back home. 10-15 seconds of camera time for propriety, to show them applauding or crying or mournfully embracing loved ones whatever, then scene over. This could have been a great movie.
The Godfather - 9/10
Now here's an honest, compelling, exciting movie portrayed with style and realism - the polar opposite to Munich. Where the former deals with suspense and murder and violence as if its a made-for-TV docudrama, this movie has no such reservations. Marlon Brando single-handedly makes this movie what it is...one of the best, most watchable, most enjoyable gangster movies ever made. By far the best of the series. It's interesting to watch the young, innocent, dashing Michael Corleone - college grad, war hero, civilian - actually turn out to be the coldest, most ruthless, most psychopathic Corleone of the bunch.
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - 9/10
Almost perfect mainstream American movie. Not only is Jack Nicholson phenomenal, but so is the rest of the cast. One the one hand, a heartbreaking, terrifying movie...on the other, a hilarious, life-affirming triumph of the human spirit. The fishing trip scene is 30 minutes of movie heaven. I've seen this movie many times, but I caught something hilarious for the first time, during the fishing trip: While McMurphy introduces all the other inmates to the dock boss as "Dr" he introduces Harding as "Mr." And Harding returns it with a dirty look. Hehe!
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