TODD HAYNES’ FAR FROM HEAVEN – A MINI REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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An aesthetic and thematic masterpiece for director Todd Haynes, who brilliantly recalls the work of Douglas Sirk with this passionate, exquisitely mounted melodrama. Sterling performances from Dennis Quaid, Julianne Moore, and Dennis Haysbert, with sharp supporting turns from Patricia Clarkson and Viola Davis and James Rebhorn. Ed Lachman’s primary-color-rich cinematography frequently pops the eye, from the bravura opening crane shot, all the way through to the studied camera placement and deliberate pacing, this is an extraordinary evocation of a lost genre, while simultaneously operating as a stirring piece of emotional storytelling. Features a gorgeous and soul-stirring score by Elmer Bernstein. I can’t wait to see the upcoming film Carol, which seems to be some sort of companion piece to Far From Heaven.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S THE DARK KNIGHT – A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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At this point, there isn’t much left to be said about The Dark Knight. The film grossed almost a billion dollars worldwide and its critical acclaim vaulted its director, Christopher Nolan, into the upper stratosphere of big-budget filmmakers. It’s a masterwork of comic book moviemaking, talking iconic imagery and filtering them through the prism of a Michael Mann crime epic, and featuring a tour de force performance by Heath Ledger as the most sinful of all superhero antagonists, The Joker. While I will always prefer the epic nature of The Dark Knight Rises (flaws and all, it’s my favorite in the Nolan series), there’s something so lean and tough-guy-poetic about The Dark Knight; it really does feel like Heat featuring men in masks. Picking up right where he left off after his excellent franchise re-boot Batman Begins, Nolan essentially made his first effort look like a student film by comparison, and that’s not to knock Begins, because it’s a wonderful piece of entertainment, a movie that reimagined Batman for a modern, more visceral style of storytelling within this particular genre. And what’s particularly awesome, and where the film is better than The Dark Knight Rises, is that The Dark Knight is both epic and intimate; this is a massive crime saga, taking cues from the aforementioned Heat and Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, but never forgetting to stay true to the intense character dynamics that have made this universe of costumed freaks so especially memorable. By placing Batman and all of his cronies and adversaries in a real world setting, no matter how stylized his Gotham City is, Nolan was able to fashion a trilogy of films that felt all the more tangible and immediate, something that not one, single Marvel effort has ever done, with the possible exception of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Batman, again played with gritty determination by Christian Bale, who brought stoic seriousness to his dual performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman, is caught between his own sense of vigilante justice, crossed with deeper psychological issues. In The Dark Knight, the Nolans and David S. Goyer, stacked the deck with his arch nemesis, the Joker, played with such menacing glee by Ledger that you have to just assume that the preparation and performance might have affected his psyche; his posthumous Oscar trophy was indeed fully warranted, and not some nonsense done for sentimentality or good-faced-publicity as some dunderheads have suggested in the past. The plot is multi-layered, convoluted yet not impenetrable, and steeped in crime movie mythology that speaks both to classic film noir and the graphic novel roots that Nolan favored. The Joker is out to bring down Batman, while also trying to put a stranglehold on Gotham’s City’s overall criminal element. From the steely, Mann-esque precision of the film’s opening bank robbery sequence; you get the sense that Ledger’s Joker isn’t a playful clown, but rather, a certifiable psychopath. The way he licks his scarred lips and the way his sinister cackle fills a room with eerie rage are just two of the ways that Ledger left an indelible mark on this classic comic book icon; I wonder if any other actor will be up to the challenge in future installments. Harvey Dent, an excellent Aaron Eckhart, is trying to clean the streets up from city hall, and Jim Gordon, played with low-key integrity by Gary Oldman, is working his way up the police chain of command. Various gangsters figure into the plot and there is a morally complex chain of events that figures into the film’s gripping climax. But the real show is the duel between Batman and the Joker, and it’s here, with two of the comic-world’s most beloved characters, that The Dark Knight really excels.

Nolan, reteaming with his phenomenal cinematographer Wally Pfister, bathed the film in shadows and blacks; this is a dark movie, both in theme and in appearance, but in the end, serving a stylistic and narrative purpose. The tragic nature of Harvey Dent is highlighted in a powerful character arc that exposes the many faces (literal and metaphorical) to the character; Eckhart’s performance was one of his absolute best. And then there’s the film’s major action scene, occurring at the half-way mark, which is a towering triumph of choreography, seamless CGI integration, and old-fashioned movie magic. By the end of this haunting and beautifully crafted piece of explosive entertainment, the viewer can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. The Dark Knight was one of the first superhero films to never feel like a traditional superhero film, and the topical, real-world grounding that Nolan infused into his trilogy has been felt on other, future projects from a variety of other filmmakers. And yet, at the end of 2008, the old farts in the Academy felt like dissing one of the most successful films of all time, which was truly a shame, because the film stands as a genre centerpiece, and a reminder that art within this particular canvass is still attainable even when toys and lunchboxes are being considered; rarely does big-budget, summertime filmmaking become this successful at fusing all of the creative elements together.

MICHAEL BAY’S PAIN & GAIN – A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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What if a “real movie” looked like a Michael Bay movie? Pain and Gain is that project. This is Bay’s best work as a storyteller and filmmaker. In fact, it’s his only “film,” as he’s made a career out of making “movies.” And that’s fine. Sometimes, we need silly fun to clean the palette or to just admire in the way of aesthetic beauty, and in terms of Bay’s visual abilities, it’s inarguable that he’s a master of composition, camera, color, texture, atmosphere, and pyrotechnics. He’s at the top of the class when it comes to “blowing shit up and making it look fabulous in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen,” as The Rock, Bad Boys, and most especially, Bad Boys II, are genre touchstones, and I’ll always go to bat for The Island and the first Transformers. But make no mistake – Bay’s special brand of visual insanity is absolutely head-spinning when it wants to be, as almost always, he’s capable of astonishing visual sights. His use of saturated primary colors, all vibrant and slick yet still with some grit packed in there (hello, Tony Scott…), has influenced commercial filmmaking over the last 20 years. I’ve had a long, off-and-on obsession with this man’s robust filmmaking technique, as I think there’s a level of cinematic dynamism that is impossible to ignore.

But, with his long-time passion project Pain & Gain, Bay proved that he actually DOES have the ability to tell a multi-tiered story, complete with flawed and unlikable characters with smart pacing and witty dialogue. I also loved the upending of the idea of the classic Bay Hero, which is one of the most unique aspects of this fresh little black-comedy crime caper. The script was credited to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier), and it’s clear from the start that this won’t be another easy-to-digest popcorn movie or a $250 million toy commercial posing as a summer blockbuster. All three lead performances (an unnervingly stone-faced Mark Wahlberg, an extra-agitated and creeped-out The Rock, and Anthony Mackie providing some great moments of dim-witted comedic levity) are fantastically gross, while the movie revels in nastiness and a foul, wrongly-idealized version of the American dream. Tony Shaloub is viciously nasty, Ed Harris dominated the final act with a gruff performance of coiled masculinity, and there’s a great cameo from Michael Rispoli, who I always love seeing on screen. This was the movie that Bay forced Paramount to make in between Transformers entries, and it’s the movie he had been keeping in his back pocket for years and years. And it’s not hard to see why; the project is based on a true story, the Florida locale plays to Bay’s sexy visual strengths, and the characters leap of the screen. Whether or not you like them at all is your business. The script isn’t afraid to get down and dirty, as it‘s very clear that Bay felt energized about the notion of making an honest-to-goodness story without having long-lead conversations about marketing tie ins and lunch boxes.

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PTS Presents Cinematographer’s Corner with KEN KELSCH Vol. 1

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Podcast

KELSCH POWERCAST

kelsch ferraraPodcasting Them Softly is honored to add Ken Kelsch, as the latest cinematographer to our series, Cinematographer’s Corner. Ken’s work helped shape my love for film with his frequent partnership with one of my absolute favorite filmmakers, Abel Ferrara. They have worked together on twelve films, starting with their first feature THE DRILLER KILLER, BAD LIEUTENANT, DANGEROUS GAME, THE ADDICTION, THE FUNERAL (which he was nominated for best cinematographer at the Independent Spirit Awards), Abel Ferrara’s segment in SUBWAY STORIES, THE BLACKOUT, R-XMAS, THE NEW ROSE HOTEL, CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS, 4:44 LAST DAY OF EARTH, and finally one of the very best films from last year, WELCOME TO NEW YORK. Ken has also collaborated with Stanley Tucci’s directorial efforts, THE BIG NIGHT and THE IMPOSTORS. Ken has shot the first two seasons of the television show, MEDIUM and friend of Podcasting Them Softly’s latest feature film, Eric Red’s 100 FEET.

ROGER SPOTTISWOODE’S THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Being a product of the 1980’s, there are more than a few under the radar gems that always made me smile (for one reason or another) or that kept me entertained. Based on the novel Free Fall by J.D. Reed, The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper was one of those titles that I found myself watching on cable (or was it HBO?) repeatedly, never truly understanding it, but enjoying it nonetheless. It’s always been on the back on my mind to revisit, so I sought it out, and low and behold, it’s nearly impossible to find. So I recently purchased a Hungarian Region B DVD for the film (no American disc release has ever occurred, to my knowledge), and despite the fact that the movie was lensed 1.85:1 and then presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio (thus losing visual information), I had to check it out again. The disc transfer looks to have been processed in bowls of urine, which is a shame, because the image looked overly yellow in numerous spots and the cinematography, in general, is consistently eye-catching. As for the movie, it’s exactly as I remembered it being – a raucous, wild, totally crazy little action adventure that took a real man and real situation and turned the entire thing into the equivalent of story you’d tell at a campfire, or an urban legend that takes on a mind of its own.

Released in 1981, the film centers on wild-man aircraft hijacker D. B. Cooper (Treat Williams in a unique role), who made off with $200,000 in 1971 after leaping from the back of a plane over the Pacific Northwest. The script imagines what it would have been like for Cooper to hide out and attempt to evade capture by law enforcement. Jeffrey Alan Fiskin’s incident packed screenplay fictionalized most of what happened during Cooper’s escape, but that doesn’t prevent this offbeat item from being undervalued if a tad obscure; Fiskin’s other scripting credits include Cutter’s Way and Tony Scott’s pulpy thriller Revenge. John Frankenheimer was the film’s original director, and would later denounce the entire production. He was replaced by TV journeyman Buzz Kulik just before shooting began. Then, after the movie was well into production, Kulik was fired, and replaced by final collaborator Roger Spottiswoode, who would be the only director to receive an onscreen credit. The film has an interesting, sort of ramshackle visual aesthetic, heightened by a jaunty, honky-tonk-ish score by James Horner. A sort of lark that would never get made today, the performances by Robert Duvall (as an insurance investigator) and Williams anchor the film with a level of class and conviction, Kathryn Harrold was a total knock-out, and while the overall lightheartedness of the entire endeavor is apparent from frame one, the various action scenes are briskly shot, cut, and executed, especially the opening sequence complete with a real sky-dive done before the era of CGI laziness kicked in.

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas–A Review by Tim Fuglei

by tfuglei, posted in Film Review

 

SavingXmas

As anyone named Kirk Cameron can tell you, Kirk Cameron’s got it all figured out.  A faded sitcom star from the 80s, he’s remade himself into something of a one man cinematic cottage industry; thanks to an aggressive religiosity he’s pumped out a variety of ‘films’ that are light on things like acting and production value but heavy on evangelical finger-wagging.  His smug mug is actually the perfect front for a denomination known for a general tenor of “I’m right and you’re wrong” moralizing and agonizing mental gymnastics applied in the service of proving the Bible to be an inerrant history of civilization.  I’m cautiously optimistic that his wins—previous film Fireproof brays that it’s “the most successful independent movie in history!” on the DVD case—will result in some right wing sugar daddy bestowing a few million on him that results in cavemen riding dinosaurs across the silver screen, but until then we are left with the no budget likes of Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas, a holiday classic in only the loosest sense of the term.

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas is actually a narrative film in only the broadest definition of the form.  Our hero starts the proceedings by directly addressing the audience in his best Bing Crosby mode, fireside and pontificating about the complexities of rectifying the Christ in Christmas with the supposed pagan trappings that the holiday has picked up over the years.  We’re then introduced to Cameron’s brother in law, toting the leaden name Christian, of course, and told he hates the crass commercialization of this most serious of holidays (most theologians worth a crap would tell you that Christ’s resurrection, celebrated on the equally heathen-stained Easter, is actually the one you should keep your eye on).  He marches out of a Christmas party set in a bland suburban McMansion and populated with an ethnically diverse group that doesn’t appear to actually know each other to pout about all of this in his car.  Kirk follows him out to set him straight with 40 minutes of bizarre speechifying.  The good news is that viewers who find themselves flummoxed by complicated plots can ease right into this low mileage beauty and hit the road; there’s actually no story, so to speak, aside from what I’ve described.  We are treated to about two scenes of what might be considered a subplot with a jive-talkin’ co-worker of Christian’s who is about two steps up from a full blown minstrel show, but otherwise it’s just Kurt explaining away Christmas trees and Saint Nick as righteous biblical figures, wholly appropriate to the message.  It’s a bizarre exercise, delivered with relentless sincerity, weak stabs at humor and no attempt to actually entertain the audience.

Before you know it, 55 minutes have passed and Kirk’s run out of sermon, and out of movie.  The pair pull themselves back inside for an extended dance sequence and a bit more speechifying to drag the exercise towards something approaching feature film run time, but nobody’s fooled.  While I don’t begrudge anyone their faith or their right to make a living, Cameron and his cohorts have left a rather large stain on the venerable holiday film genre, much as his Left Behind series did on the disaster flick and Fireproof on the romance movie.  It’s not an understatement to call Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas a war on film itself, and I can only recommend its viewing if alcohol and sarcastic company are both in plentiful supply.

 

A chat with actor Peter Onorati

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Pleased to bring you my latest interview, with veteran actor Peter Onorati. Peter has appeared in many films including Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, Rocketman, Shelter, The Last Ride, Postcards From The Edge, Blood Deep, The Last Ride and more. He’s also acted in Television shows including Sex And The City, Tales From The Crypt, CSI, NCIS, Monk, Crossing Jordan, ER, Batman Beyond, The Wild Thornberries, The Outer Limits, 24, Blue Bloods, Sons Of Anarchy, Castle and many more. Enjoy!
Nate: You have done quite a bit in life, before and besides acting, including playing football. When did you know you wanted to be an actor, and knew it would be something you would enjoy doing indefinitely?
Peter: I really never thought about acting until I was challenged to take a 1-night stand class in comedy in NYC, which turned out to be a class in Improvisation. At the time, I had my MBA and I was the Director of Marketing and Research for 3 of McCall’s magazines and dating a childhood crush who was the Art Director of one of the magazines. After the 1-night class I was asked to join an Improv group in NYC that ended up being called Port Authority Theatre Ensemble or Pate (pronounced Pattay like the French word). The Group was named so because NONE of us were in the acting business and we came together from as far as Boonton N.J. (me) and Queens and the boroughs. We were indeed very much like a Pate. We played all he shit-holes in NYC for a few years and competed in the Improvisation Olympics in Chicago at Second City. I met a starving actress in the group named Jeanette Collins who was classically trained in Improv and who had moved to NYC from California. When my childhood crush broke up with me Jeanette took pity on me and dated me. Soon after I had some of my research published in Advertising Age and was being sought after by some big package good firms like P&G. I let my boss at McCall’s know and she decided that I wasn’t worth keeping so she made my life miserable for a few months. During that time Jeanette said “I think you could be an actor” to which I replied “Yeah, so I can have 4 jobs and starve like you?” When I subsequently removed the ice-pack from my eye, I decided to try acting. I walked into McCall’s and quit and within 2 weeks was on hold for a national beer commercial. Within about 2 years I had made more money as a commercial actor than I did as a Marketing Exec and I got my first break in TV on the last season of Kate and Allie. From there you can check my resume cause there’s too much to type.
 Nate: Who are some actors/filmmakers whose work you enjoy and maybe have inspired you in your own work? 
Peter: Actors who inspire me: DeNiro (whom I worked with in my first big movie Goodfellas) Robert Duvall, John Casales, Christian Bale, John Garfield, James Gagney, Spencer Tracey (too many to type) – Filmakers/Actors – Redford, Stallone, Clooney. Barry Levinson, Scorsese (again too numerous to type)
Nate:  You have a very rambunctious, energetic nature to your work; many of your characters have a vitality that lights up the screen and commands attention. Is this something you consciously have done with practice and training, or do you think it comes out of your own personality?
Peter: Most of what I do comes from me. I have no real formal training as an actor so I have nothing to draw upon except my own life experience. For better or worse, there is always a huge piece of me or somebody I loved or hated in what I do. Let’s face it, I have no other resources.
Nate: 24: how was you experience working on this show? 
Peter: My experience on 24 was GREAT and would have lasted longer except for the way this stupid business works. I am an acquaintance of Jon Cassar the Exec Prod (he has subsequently climbed on board with a script I co-wrote to be the Exec Prod.) They offered me that role and that doesn’t happen too much to actors at my level. However they did not make it a “Regular Role” and lock me in. (probably because they didn’t want to pay me). So in the middle I was offered a 4 episode arc on Desperate Housewives and took the guarantee over the possibility of more episodes of ‘24’. So as most of the stories of this business go, ‘24’ called me for more eps but I committed to Desperate Housewives so I did no more.
Nate: You have done a fair amount of voice work in your career. How did that come about, do you enjoy it, and how does it compare to acting in front of a camera in live action? 
Peter: As one who got kicked out of Catholic School in 5th grade for mimicking the Nuns and Priests, I never thought I’d make money doing exactly what I did wrong so long ago.
Nate: I remember a little film you did called Shelter, with Kurtwood Smith and Costas Mandylor, who played your brother. You stole the show as the hyperactive Greek mafia boss. Any memories from that one, and how was the experience? 
Peter: One of the best experiences of my career. Not only did I get to sit across from the great Charles Durning but I got to do something actors at my level NEVER get to do. Unless you’re Dustin Hoffman or Christian Bale, you never get to do maladies or accents. The writer/producer and the director let me speak in Greek and do the Greek/American accent at my suggestion for the character. This is unheard of for us guys at the lower levels.
Nate: Any upcoming projects you are excited for and would like to mention? 


Peter: Nothing in acting right now. I have had some success writing and have put together some strong and interesting packages for my work. Actually I am writing something right now with my wife ( in 30 years together we haven’t done this) She is part of a writing team Collins an Friedman and has been everything from Exec to Co-Exec producer on shows since we moved to California.
Nate: Some of your favorite roles you have played over the course of your career so far?
Peter: I love ALL of my own series. They gave me a sense of security and a long term approach to finding my characters. I specifically loved doing a show that my agents and managers kept me from doing for a while as it was not “the thing to do”. The show was Walker Texas Ranger and I had a BLAST and Chuck was incredibly congenial and respectful of my ideas for my character. I can’t mention all the special jobs that stretched my chops like “Harry’s Law” and the joy and fatigue that accompanied the work. I guess that when I’m not working like most actors I feel unaccomplished. When you come to this town it’s all about the trophies and the P.R. but when you’ve been here as long as I have, you realized it’s a major accomplishment just to raise a family, put your sons through college and stay in your house. So I guess I made out ok.

IVAN PASSER’S CUTTER’S WAY – A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Cutter’s Way is so underrated it’s almost a joke. Terrific script by Jeffrey Fiskin, who also adapted Jim Harrison’s Revenge for the late, great Tony Scott, gritty and propulsive direction by Ivan Passer, and boasting an absolutely ferocious performance by John Heard (probably his best work) as a disabled Vietnam vet and a fantastic Jeff Bridges as best friends who get mixed up in a murder mystery when one of them accidentally witnesses a guy disposing of a dead body. Heard’s emotionally fragile and physically beleaguered character then gets an idea that might push stuff over the edge; I’m really trying to avoid any spoilers or too much of a plot description because this movie is so consistently awesome and I’d want anyone unfamiliar with it to track it down and have as little of an idea as possible about what they’ll see. Based on the novel Cutter and Bone (and released at one point under that title), the film premiered in 1981, and went criminally under the radar at the box office due to lack of marketing and confusion/turmoil at the studio; the film’s Wikipedia page highlights what happened to this cinematic diamond in the rough. Happily, Cutter’s Way has picked up cult status over the years, and it’s easy to see why. The material is politically charged without being preachy, it’s tense and terrific when it comes to action and dramatics, and the performances all sting with authenticity and force. Jordan Cronenweth handled cinematography chores, and as usual, the results were wonderful, while the score by Jack Nitzsche hits all the proper notes. The film has a tone that feels more 60’s/70’s rather than the 80’s, and the ambiguous nature of the narrative is a key highlight to the film’s success. Honestly, make it a double bill with Karel Reisz’s phenomenal and equally underappreciated Who’ll Stop the Rain, and then come and thank me for telling you to do so!

Edward Zwick’s Legends Of The Fall: A Review By Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Edward Zwick’s Legends Of The Fall is sweeping Hollywood grandeur at its finest. It’s a raging typhoon, one part family high drama, one part war film, wrapped in a nostalgic, old world romance that hearkens back to the golden age of cinema. It’s an epic as only the pictures can show us, blowing a gust of storytelling wind at us and depositing us on the endless plains of the 1900’s, in the monumental Rocky Mountains of Montana. The story focuses on Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins, gnarled nobility incarnate), living with his three sons in the desolation of an old world making way for a new, as the four of them deal with love, loss, war, nature and interpersonal conflict in a story that plumbs the chasms of human nature and spits out characters that bleed raw feeling, reach out to one another in the clamour of a nation only just being formed (like the land itself), and clash in tragic harmony, spanning years in their lives and showing us desperation, grief and brotherhood. Brad Pitt, in the fiercest performance I’ve ever seen him muster, plays Tristan, Ludlow’s half Native son with a wild streak a mile long and a kinship with the tangled wilderness he calls home. Aiden Quinn plays the middle brother Alfred, a reserved, analytical type. When their younger brother Samuel (Henry Thomas), arrives home with his beautiful fiancé Susannah (Julia Ormond) sparks fly between her and Tristan, and an immediate rift is formed in the family that Ormond sees all too well, but cannot deny her love for Pitt. Samuel is a fragile, easily traumatized man, and when the boys are driven from their lands to fight in the war, it dampens his soul with a ruining force of horror that leaves him scarred forever. Tristan, being almost animalistic at heart, sinks into the carnage of combat with the keen resilience of a wolf, and is transformed in a different fashion. This to me is the penultimate sequence of the film, as it strays from the picturesque grandeur of their life before, removed from the world of conflict, into the sheer reality that befalls a country in formation, representing a loss of innocence so to speak. Neither of them are the same after that, and the cracks in their brotherhood only etch further after tragedy befalls Susannah, blackening their idealistic home life as well and tainting the memory with aching sadness. Tristan tries to move on, either to wrap the hurt in a cloak of new events, or because his instinctual nature spurs him on, but he almost seems to be cursed, and more hardships step into his path as well. I don’t want to deter you from seeing this by laying all this doom and gloom into my review, because it’s actually a very beautiful film to see unfolding, it just deals with incredibly tragic subject matter that will leave you breathless with tears, like Titanic, or Romeo & Juliet. Pitt.. What can I say. He’s outstanding, giving Tristan the fearsome gaze of a wounded animal, and the love struck longing that’s shot down by fate, turning him into a prisoner of his own ephemeral love for those who are taken from him. It’s my second favourite of his roles (it’s hard to top Twelve Monkeys) and he shines in it like a silver star over the Montana horizon. Montana itself basically screams to be pored over by a camera, and the cinematography will make you feel every gust of mountain air and gasp at the looming crags and sun dappled glades that leap out from your screen at you. It’s one of the last of a dying breed: the romantic epic. Like Titanic, or Gone With The Wind and Doctor Zhievago before it, it posses that untouchably bold quality that showcases emotion, tragic happenstance and deep longing all set in a breathtaking setting that is meant to move and astonish you. A classic.