4.5 Razors

The Ninth Gate

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  • Title: The Ninth Gate
  • IMDb: link

The Ninth Gate

Roman Polanski at his best gave us Chinatown and at his worst gave us Pirates.  The Ninth Gate is a great suspenseful mystery as Johnny Depp is thrust into the world of the occult and dark knowledge.  One of Polanski’s, and Depp’s, best films.

The film opens with an older gentleman, Andrew Telfer (Willy Holt), just finishing his affairs one evening.  He then gets up from his desk and very matter of fact manner hangs himself from the chandelier of his study.  The camera pans to the books of his study for in this film knowledge can bring both power and death.

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Everything is Illuminated

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  • Title: Everything is Illuminated
  • IMDB: link

everything-is-illuminated-posterStrange.  Quirky.  Moving.  Poignant.  Wonderful.  There are so many words to describe Everything is Illuminated that I find it hard to choose them.  It is simply one of the best movies of the year.

Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) collects everything dealing with his family.  After receiving a photograph from his grandmother, he decides to travel to the Ukraine to meet Augustine, the woman in the photograph with his grandfather, who he believes saved his life during WWII.  He procures the services of Alex (Eugene Hutz) and his grandfather (Boris Leskin) who is a driver who sometimes believes he is blind and will not go anywhere without his seeing-eye-bitch Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. The trio and dog travel to try and find the small town and the woman in the picture amid the emptiness of the Ukrainian countryside.

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Young Frankenstein

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  • Title: Young Frankenstein
  • IMDb: link

young-frankenstein-dvd

Young Frankenstein is Mel Brooks’ most complete work.  Though not his funniest movie (The Producers) the movie works from beginning to end and doesn’t fall apart during the last act (Blazing Saddles); it remains as the hallmark of his career and his one truly flawless film.

The brainchild of Gene Wilder entertains and enthralls the audience for every single frame.  Wilder was a huge fan of the Frankenstein movie franchise and his love for the characters is palpable in this delicious satire.  Brooks would return to satirize other works such as Star Wars and Dracula, but those films lack the emotional connection to the originals that this one produces so effortlessly.

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