# 151 Smultronstället (1957)

Smultronstället is a movie by Ingmar Bergman about an elderly physician who travels to another city to receive an honorary degree fifty years after becoming a doctor. Throughout the whole film we see his dreams (most of them are nightmares) that touch on though-provoking subjects, such as human existance, death, and loneliness.

I apologize for saying that, but I think that Bergman was a very weird man. I've only seen a couple of his films, but Cries And Whispers (aka Viskningar och rop), a movie that I had to watch and review for my Ethics class in college, totally creeped me out. So I wasn't expecting to like any of this film, but, to my own surprize, I found parts of it quite enjoyable.

My favorite part was the dream in which the main character is in classroom, taking an exam. He looks into a microscope and sees nothing. He reads the text from the blackboard, but cannot comprehend it. I've seen this in my nightmares so many times! I know there's a deeper meaning to this scene, but it struck me how accurately Bergman showed people's fears in the movie.

But it's not all pessimism. During the trip the main character meets a variety of people, including a girl and two young men accompanying her, all of them being optimistic, fun-loving, and, in my opinion, they make a big impact on him. There are a lot of interesting ideas represented in this movie, so it's worth seeing at least once in a lifetime.

Favorite quote: "Me and my wife are dependent on each other. It is out of selfish reasons we haven't beaten each other to death a long time ago".

Interesting fact: Cinematographer Gunnar Fischer says that several scenes had to be shot indoors due to Victor Sjöström's poor health. "We had to make some very bad back-projection in the car because we never knew if Victor would come back alive the next day." Nevertheless, as long as Victor was home by 5:15 P.M. each day, "and had his whiskey punctually, all went well."

# 150 Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Witness for the Prosecution is a courtroom drama with a trial of a man accused of a murder based on a book by Agatha Christie that I've never read. The subject matter is very interesting to me because, besides being a movie critic, I'm also a lawyer.

I can't say that the movie is flawless, as most of the actors were overacting quite a bit. Which is, by the way, very common for an old film. But one actor that really stands out in this movie is Charles Laughton who playes a master barrister. The way he talked, his gestures and facial expression reminded me of one of my college professors (an aging attorney) so much that it made me like I was in classroom again. Laughton looked very realistic, as well as the whole hearing.

Dietrich was pretty good too, I haven't seen any of her movies before, and she made a very good impression. I'm starting to think that Billy Wilder is a genius. He's made so many good movies, including Double Indemnity and Some Like It Hot, and having seen Witness for the Prosecution, I'm really looking forward to seeing more of his films.

I adore movies with a twist at the end, and I guess I have to thank Agatha Christie for this one. There are surprises throughout the whole movie though, and I'm not sure that all of them came from Agatha Christie's plot, so even if you read the original short story, it's still worth seeing.

Favorite quote: "I am constantly surprised that women's hats do not provoke more murders".

Interesting fact: Unsure if he could play a man with a heart condition, Charles Laughton (Sir Wilfrid) staged a heart attack in the pool one day at home. His wife, Elsa Lanchester (Miss Plimsoll), and a houseguest panicked and pulled him from the water, at which point he explained his trick. Elsa's reaction has not been recorded.

# 149 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

The Bourne Ultimatum concludes the trilogy of movies about a man who volunteered for a top-secret CIA project that transformed him into a highly-trained assassin. After getting shot he loses his memory, but his past continues to influence him. In this movie the main character finds out about how he became Jason Bourne.

I was reluctant to see another guy movie, but having watched all of the Bourne films in one week, I have to say that the trilogy has come together very nicely. Matt Damon did an excellent job portraying Jason Bourne. He is not particularly my favorite actor, but the trilogy made me change my mind about him. It is very rare that an action film delivers good performances.

The pacing is perfect for an action film. There aren't any slow parts, but it's not too fast either, so you don't have to keep pausing and rewinding to figure out what's going on (yes, sometimes I have to do it to understand the plotline). Those of you who have been reading my blog know, that I hate hand-held camera, but this time the shakiness didn't irritate me. In fact, it even made me feel like I was part of the scene, which is what the effect is intended to do.

My only question concernes the fact that out of all Bourne movies, only Ultimatum made it on the list. If I were to rate these three movies, it would be #1 - The Bourne Supremacy, #2 - The Bourne Ultimatum, and #3 - The Bourne Identity. But whatever, the movie is still good.

Favorite quote: "If you were sitting in your office, we'd be having this conversation face-to-face".

Interesting fact: Since the opening scene of the film takes place directly after the ending of The Bourne Supremacy (2004), yet the production time difference was several months, it was January in Moscow. This would have been too cold and Berlin was chosen as the location of the shoot. The fake snow was made using paper and foam, and took an excess of 5 hours to cover the entire set.

# 148 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Here I go criticizing another classic. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is based on a true story about two bank robbers who are being hunted down for one of their train robberies. They escape to Bolivia, but it doesn't stop the posse that is following them, and they end up getting killed.

The main problem of this film is that it's very boring. I couldn't help thinking how overrated it was every single minute while I was watching it. I don't like westerns that much, but this one was one of the least entertaining of all the westerns I've seen in my life, I just couldn't wait for it to end. I don't even want to mention all the countless clichés that are in this movie.

Still I have to admit that the style itself was pretty good. I liked the way the editing was done, specifically when the main characters were on their way to Bolivia, and also at the end of the movie, before they got shot. I thought that the photo sequence was great. Still it wasn't enough to make me enjoy this film.

Some of the dialogues were really good, but most of them were lost in translation, so I had to re-read them on IMDb to catch up. May be if I had watched the movie in English, I would have liked it more, but the problem is, I never want to see it again.

Favorite quote: "If he'd just pay me what he's spending to make me stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him".

Interesting fact: Katharine Ross enjoyed shooting the silent, bicycle riding sequence best, because it was handled by the film crew's second unit rather than the director. She said, "Any day away from George Roy Hill was a good one."

# 147 Life of Brian (1979)

Life of Brian is Monty Python's feature length movie about a man who was born on Christmas night in a stable and kept being mistaken for Messiah. For those of you who don't know, Monty Python was a British comedy group from back in the day that had a great impact on modern day comedy.

I haven't heard so many good jokes in a very long time. It's hard to pick out just a few that I liked the most, but I'll try. The first one is when the members of "The People's Front of Judea" are sitting in the amphitheater, and one of them announces that he wants to be a woman and to have babies. Then one of the men says that it is symbolic of their struggle against oppression and another man says that it is symbolic of his struggle against reality. Well, the whole conversation was very funny.

Another one of my favorite scenes is when a Roman centurion is trying to correct Brian's Latin grammar, and help him write "Romans, go home" instead of "the people called 'Romanes' they go the house", and forces him to write it a hundred times. The third one is when one of the members of "The People's Front of Judea" says that apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, the Romans have never done anything for them.

Monty Python is a group of very talented people. Their dialogues are full of satire. Besides, they deliver a very solid performance, especially I would like to note Michael Palin who portrayed Pontius Pilate and eleven (!) other characters. One good thing about comedies is that they don't age as much as films of other genres. Unfortunately there isn't many comedies on IMDb Top 250 list, and in my opinion, there is too few good comedies out there, but this one was awesome.

Favorite quote: "Life's a laugh and death's a joke".

Interesting fact: In the interview section of Monty Python's Flying Circus: Live at Aspen (1998) (TV), John Cleese confides that, since there were massive protests against the movie from all denominations of Christianity, he would joke with Michael Palin: "We've brought them all together for the first time in 2000 years!"