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Seventh Seal - ****

Dated in some aspects, the acting can be hella hammy even by 50s standards. But overall this is an incredibly powerful film about the mysteries of god and death.

But maybe a little overrated, Bergman was not a sexist, he was giving complex roles to women at a time when it was rare, but this film does have a rather uncomfortable misogynist vibe to it. The women in this film are depicted as witches, whores and simpletons, I perfectly understand the context of that since this is set in the middle ages when a woman's consent was about as valuable as a mule's.

The film is very inaccurate historically, which is easy to forgive because it's not really a period piece. It could have easly been set during the cold war era when the film was made, and one could easly visualize the film being set in the present, just replace the plague with terrorism, the crusades with Dubya's war in Iraq and the flagellants with the equally crazy religion we have today.

It's dated, mainly the acting and the music, but still highly potent in it's narrative and it's message. And the cinematography is still a marvel to look at. That final shot is especially classic.

Intolerable Cruelty - **

Has it's moments. There's a lot of funny characters, the scenes with the scary old guy are great. But overall it's quite obvious that everyone is just a joke. Clooney and Zeta Jones are good, but it's awfully hard to care about their characters. The film just dosen't have any classic characters, which is a problem because we're talking about the guys who have given us "H.I." McDunnough, Barton Fink, Marge Gunderson, Everett, Pete and Delmar, Walter and The Dude. There's just no such characters in this film to root for. Plus a lot of the humor here is outdated. Adams Rib did this kinda thing 60 years ago and way better.

Really good movie, I think it's Burton's best since Big Fish. Should have been nominated for best picture I say.

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