Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · De Laurentiis · 1986

Pass it on

Blue Velvet

29Leave it.

He finds an ear and then wants the night more than he wants an exit.

Take controlThis scores 29. Blue Velvet cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

He finds an ear in a field and follows it, a college boy treating a crime as a personal door. By day the town is lawns and robins. By night there's a singer, a criminal, and a detective's daughter. I'm not describing the cruelty. The detail that decides whether you should leave it on is simpler: he wants the mystery more than he wants to leave.

Not for teenagers, and not as a style to borrow. The neat lawn isn't proof the place is sound, and his curiosity isn't a favor to the neighbors. He could stop. He doesn't want to. If your house already flatters people for poking into the dark, this will flatter them again. You can admit the film is skilled and still keep it off this week. He wants the mystery more than a way out. That is the warning.

Journal

Keep Blue Velvet in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 29. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Sleepy Hollow

41 instead of 29

Sleepy Hollow is still a mystery film, and it scores 41 instead of 29. What you gain is courage: He stays in a town that is killing people, with no gift for it but persistence.

The eight

2
Industry
A college boy wanders in; nobody's job is what the night is about.
3
Household
Lawns stand in for home, and the night pulls people out instead of making one.
2
Piety
Nothing in him stops the looking; the mystery outruns any reason to quit.
3
Courage
He walks into danger for curiosity, not for a duty he would grieve to lose.
4
Republic
A criminal and a detective mean the town is owed a truth he mostly tastes.
2
Temperance
He wants the night more than the exit, and the film stays with that want.
5
Truth
The ear says the lawn is incomplete, and he prefers the secret to a report.
2
Stewardship
Daytime is left tidy, and the boy did not want the mystery closed.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Blue Velvet · 29IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · 20th Century Fox · 1963

Pass it on

Cleopatra

29Leave it.

The procession is the product. The affair is the plot, and the plot is not a life.

Take controlThis scores 29. Cleopatra cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

It cost enough to nearly sink a studio, and the cost is not a quality. A queen manages Rome by managing two men, and the film is interested in the managing as a pageant and a love affair. The processions are long because the processions are what the money bought. I will not pretend the length is grandeur. Length is what you get when nobody was willing to cut the entrance.

The marriages in the way of the affair are treated as furniture. That is the part a house should not absorb. Adults can look at the barge as a document of a certain kind of Hollywood excess and then leave it. Do not sit a young person down in front of four hours in which the lesson is that history is a romance with better curtains. The crowds came. The number is not the crowds.

Journal

Keep Cleopatra in the record.