Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) The Third Man
One of the finest films ever made, Carol Reed’s The Third Man stars Joseph Cotten as a disillusioned fiction writer and Orson Welles as an enigmatic war profiteer in post-war Vienna. Particularly striking for its high contrast black and white cinematography and Anton Karas’ indelible zither musical score, The Third Man was written by novelist Grahame Green and it consequently has the satisfying dramatic structure of a great work of fiction. Welles’ character in particular is unforgettable: a charmingly amoral rat whose final, frenzied moments are captured with a doomed grace by Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker. Welles’ “cuckoo clock” speech, though in no way an accurate recitation of the history of a timepiece, is one of the all-time great movie monologues, delivered with supreme confidence and undeniable sleeze.
2.) The Red Balloon
A childhood classic, you probably first watched Albert Lamorisse’s tale of a boy and his balloon in grade school. The simple story of a French child who discovers a curiously strong-willed helium balloon on his way to school, The Red Balloon is probably one of the most charming and heartening films ever made. Despite its truncated running time (35 minutes), there is enough visual wit, drama and pathos in the short film to sustain several lesser features. Lamorisse’s film seems to capture the very essence and innocence of childhood, its wonder, its simple pleasures and the infinite beauty and imagination of the world during that time. It is also a beautiful film about Paris, documenting the city post-WWII in sections where rubble and debris were still prevalent. The film’s overwhelmingly grey palette clashes perfectly with the colorful balloons, making them seem like the only real living things in the city.
3.) Kansas City Confidential
A hard-boiled, gritty film noir that was the inspiration behind Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Kansas City Confidential stars noir leading man John Payne as an unlucky truck driver who’s falsely implicated in an armored truck robbery. Payne follows the real suspects to Mexico where he discovers that one of the criminals is a retired policeman out for revenge. Co-starring Lee Van Cleef (“Dollars” trilogy) and Jack Elam as two of the criminal gang, this tough flick directed by B-movie veteran Phil Karlson, is one of the best examples of ’50s noir. The amorality of the characters, the sparse and unadorned set design, and the cynical edge to the picture are all indicative of classic noir tropes.
4.) Weird Science
One of John Hughes’ most outrageous films, Weird Science is about two teenage boys who create “the perfect woman” with the aid of their home computer and a fortuitous lightning strike. Totally silly premise but the film works, mostly because of the way Hughes handles the woman (whom the boys dub “Lisa”), played by the absurdly beautiful Kelly LeBrock. But the best thing about Lisa is that she’s clever, willful and has a great sense of humor about being a life-sized, lightning-zapped Barbie doll. The two nerds are too intimidated to actually make a move on her and as the story progresses, you realize that they’re learning a little bit about how to treat real women (i.e., not as mindless sex objects) through the tutelage of the one they created themselves. Weird Science also features on of the all-time greatest Bill Paxton performances as Anthony Michael Hall’s boorish, gap-toothed brother Chet.
5.) Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Chan-wook Park first entry into what would become dubbed “The Vengeance Trilogy,” Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is 2002 Korean thriller/revenge flick starring Kang-ho Song (The Host, Thirst) as a father who seeks justice against a young deaf man named Ryu who kidnapped and accidentally killed his daughter. Park’s film is an intricate, complex web of action and reaction, decision and consequence. Most of these actions are desperate, impulsive, violent and lead, unavoidably, to more violence. It’s a never-ending cycle that entraps the main characters and from which there is no escape. Initially, the film is told from Ryu’s perspective. He is a totally hapless character, who’s driven to do terrible deeds in order to pay for a kidney transplant for his sister. Accompanied by his radical activist girlfriend (Doona Bae, Cloud Atlas), the pair embark on a doomed plan against this boss (Kang), which results in their violent demise.
…
If you’d like to suggest a website or film that’s screening for free, leave us a comment below.
