Touch of Evil

So today I watched Touch of Evil, another film that happens to be directed by and starring Orson Welles. He really does have a knack for this double-job directing/acting business, cause this film was pretty excellent. The opening scene of the movie is, (I quote Wikipedia) a "three minute, thirty second continuous tracking shot widely considered by critics to be one of the greatest long takes." And it seriously is one of the greatest long takes. I didn't open the wiki page until after that scene was over, and by that point I'd already been blown away by how friggin awesome that take was (you have to see it for yourself cause I feel like anything I say wouldn't do it justice... it's on youtube). Especially considering what it must have taken on the cameraman's part to film that entire sequence; it's a one shot continuous take that spans the course of several blocks of streets, with all that chaos of people and cars coming and going in and out of the scene. But enough about the opening. The rest of the film is good too, but I am lacking in words to describe it, so go read a real movie critic's review or wiki it or something if you're interested.

I just have to say, it was a bit of a shock transitioning from the bright, charismatic, younger Orson Welles that I got used to seeing in Citizen Kane and The Third Man, to the older, gruffer, and need I say bigger Orson Welles that I saw in this film. I mean, he made for a really good villain in this movie and all... but (and Ryan would mock me for saying this) it's not my favorite. Okay, so I'm biased for liking the younger version of the same guy simply because he's younger, but whatever.

I do find it interesting that the poster above focuses more on the couple than on the villain, cause I feel like this movie (especially the latter half) was really more about Welles' character, Hank Quinlan, than anything (although Heston and Leigh were good too). He's the one that's been touched by evil, after all. Unless I misinterpreted the title. :P

It occurred to me that I might be getting a little over obsessive about all of the list sites that I use (Goodreads, iCheckMovies, MyAnimeList, and so on), but I dunno. It kinda suits my tendency to enjoy looking up things as much as I enjoy actually doing them.