12 Angry Men – Review

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It still amazes me how within so little, Sidney Lumet has managed to create something nearly as mind blowing as 12 Angry Men – because what Lumet was able to do in a single room many other filmmakers can’t seem to capture within an entire city. But among many more things that one can come to say about 12 Angry Men, the most obvious comes to mind: it’s one of the best American films of the 1950’s, let alone all time. Because there’s a great sense of tension that can be felt just from being inside of a room because of how tight it remains all throughout, for it only leaves a feeling of being drained, even the smaller actions feel so big. Among many reasons that 12 Angry Men is one of the best films of the 1950’s, let alone all time – they only begin to shine from there. But many of these reasons are already covered in many better ways, and maybe at most all I can ever do is repeat them.

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Network – Review

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Sidney Lumet’s Network is mad as hell and it won’t take it anymore. The mainstream media is set to do anything in order to boost their ratings, and that’s where Network still runs perfectly true even today. We already recognized the anger within Network‘s satire back when it came out and to this day, it remains one of the most vicious satires ever made, because today, the content which it shows is indeed still as shocking as it was back in 1976. The best way one can imagine a film like Network is to think of it as Sidney Lumet’s equivalent to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, and instead of the Cold War, place it within the context of television news networks, suddenly you’ll get the brooding cynicism that was presented here. Continue reading →