Thriller & Mystery > 1958 Thriller & Mystery > H > Hitchcock, Alfred

Have YOU Got VERTIGO?

Advantages: One of Hitchcock's best
Disadvantages: Minor plot holes

Vertigo is a pretty famous Alfred Hitchcock film. It was released in 1958 and starred James Stewart and Kim Novak with support from Barbara Bel Geddes (who went on to famously play Miss Ellie Ewing in Dallas for a decade or so) and Tom Helmore. John Ferguson (Scottie) is a retired police officer who developed vertigo during a chase when a colleague fell to his death from a rooftop. He has severe vertigo and it causes some complications in his life ...
...mission and because of his vertigo Scottie is unable to save her and is consumed with guilt. Sometime later Scottie spots a woman called Judy who looks a lot like Madeline and starts to date her. He then starts to suspect that they are one and the same woman but how can this be? Madeline was elegant and refined whereas Judy is coarse and somewhat vulgar. What is the truth behind Scottie's confused thoughts? Can he trust his once sound judgment to ...

anonymili 07.10.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Vertigo (DVD)

The dizzy height of Hitchcock's success

Advantages: Suspenseful, beautifully filmed
Disadvantages: None for me

...best film, I have seen Vertigo many times, yet each time manage to find something else in it that I didn't notice before. This time is no different. It is a perfect mixture of suspense coupled with the unexpected, great acting and direction. If you only watch one Hitchcock, this is the one to watch. Scottie is played by James Stewart, an actor that I have seen in many films and like without thinking he is outstanding. In Vertigo, he gives an almost ...
...he is apparently suffering from vertigo where I felt that his performance was a little over-exaggerated. Apart from that though, he shows that he is more than just a pretty face and really can act. Kim Novak, at first glance, is nothing more than eye candy as the confused Madeleine. She certainly does look good, sticking to classic cuts and plain colours that exentuate her beauty. However, there is more to her than this. Although sometimes guilty ...

sunmeilan 21.10.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Vertigo (DVD)

Action-packed with some witty dialogue but still flawed somehow

Advantages: Quite thrilling when it gathers pace, seemed an authentic depiction of London, some humour
Disadvantages: Something about Downey Jnrs depiction of Holmes didnt work somehow, not for all ages/the squeamish

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson start out by catching a serial killer who dabbles in the the supernatural, an evil man called Lord Blackwood who is sentenced to death, indeed Watson confirms he's dead after he's hung. Things take a distinctly sinister turn, however, when they discover than Blackwood has apparently risen from the dead and Holmes recalls what he told him before he was hung, which indicated that more ...
...actor (Robert Downey Jnr.) played Sherlock Holmes, while an English actor (Jude Law), played his right hand man, Dr. Watson. Now of course I knew that before I went to see the movie, infact I quite like Robert Downey Jnr. as an actor and I have enjoyed some of his other movies and the fact that he plays the main character was one of the main reasons I wanted to see it in the cinema but there was something about him playing this role that I just didn't ...

IzzyS 27.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Sherlock Holmes

What goes around comes around..

Advantages: Enigmatic
Disadvantages: Perhaps too long

...I wouldn’t say this was in that impact category but certainly a quality piece of film. The drama begins with the return of thirty-something award winning war photographer Paul Harris (Mathew McFadden) to the small rural town of Steimer where he grew up, his first visit for 17 years. The night bag over the shoulder arrival is for dad’s funeral, mum long returned to the Earth, Paul’s relationship with big brother Andrew (Colin May) still not good after ...
...As per normal in these movies Paul has awakened ghosts from his and others past on his return, none more so than a long lost relationship with Penny (Miranda Otto), the reason, we discover later, he skipped town. Deciding to stick around and sort out the family estate, his brother begrudging Paul’s promised third of the Will & Testament, the rest going to an unnamed charity, things take an unexpected turn in his closed world with the arrival of a ...

thedevilinme 22.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of In My Father's Den (DVD)

About as fun as being stuck in the Channel Tunel

Advantages: Acting
Disadvantages: Yawnnnnnnn

The dust-cover proudly states that this is the best film of the new millennium! They obviously haven’t seen Brazilian Girls Go Wild In Cancun then. I took both films up on their boasts and I can confirm there was only one winner—and I didn’t need the subtitles. Talk about over rated. I had heard good things about Hidden; it had won the Palm De Or` in Cannes no less. But it’s French and so that means its going to be very talky and actor centered, ...
...the limited and predictable script. For a movie pushed as a mysterious thriller the only mystery here is how it won anything, dribbling out to a very disappointing finish. One broadsheet even voted this film of the decade?? The movie opens with a single static shot of the front of one of those comfy urban secluded houses in a nice middle class Paris superb. From across the street we observe the house panacea and everyday movements in the street ...

thedevilinme 20.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Hidden (DVD)