Excellent, a Must See

Best movie ever!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

"Reds" was Warren Beatty's ambitious passion project of 1981, the film that was supposed to clean up at the Oscars that year. The Academy ended up being fairly cool toward it, giving it only three awards out of 12 nominations, but it did finally recognize Beatty for his balls if nothing else by giving him the Best Director Oscar.It's a good film that holds up well, even if it can be a bit dry at times. Beatty (Oscar nominated) is compelling as Communist revolutionary John Reed, who worked tirelessly to bring a Socialist revolution to America, but he's outshone in the acting department by Diane Keaton (also Oscar nominated), who gets a chance to shed her Woody Allen persona and prove what a good dramatic actress she could be. I could have done with less of the domestic squabbling that drags down the middle part of the film, and found the parts detailing the couple's experiences in Russia to be the most engrossing. The movie has a whopper of a running time (3 and a half hours) but even at the slower parts I never felt especially impatient with its length.Maureen Stapleton won an Oscar for her fiery performance as Emma Goldman, and Vittorio Storaro won his second Oscar for cinematography (bookended by his work on "Apocalypse Now" and "The Last Emperor"). The film's other nomination were for Best Picture, Best Actor (Beatty), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson, never especially convincing as playwright Eugene O'Neill), Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. Alas, no nomination for Stephen Sondheim who provided the original score.Incidentally, "Reds" became the 13th and last film to win Oscar nominations in all four acting categories until David O. Russell added back to back films number 14 and 15 with "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle." He's the only director to achieve that feat two years in a row.Grade: A

Warren Beatty's biographical saga about Jack Reed (1887-1920), a radical USA journalist, a fervent advocate of IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), and the author of TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, running over 3 hours. REDS, scored 12 Oscar nominations (with 3 wins) and finally won Beatty an Oscar for BEST DIRECTOR among a combined 14 nominations throughout his eminent career so far (as actor, director, screen-writer and producer), undeniably can be reckoned as his most enterprising and taxing project, and is also notorious for its behind-the-scene stories such as Beatty's extravagant conceit in the director's chair and his off-screen romance with co-star Keaton (which ended right before the extended shooting days).Political elements aside, REDS quintessentially is an ode to the undying love between Jack Reed and his wife Louise Bryant (Keaton), also a radical journalist, since during most of its lengthy narrative, the latter is the unaltered focus of this epic and Beatty assiduously tells their relationship from her angle. Due to the similar political slant, they attract to each other almost instantly, when WWI edges to its end. But being labeled as an " exhibitionist" because of her feminist stance, Louise suffers from frustration to be taken seriously for her work as a writer and abetted by Jack's constant absence due to his job, she starts off a romance with Eugene O'Neill (Nicholson, who steals the limelight assertively with his trenchant dissection of their ménage à trois), the Nobel laureate playwright and their common friend, in spite of their vastly conflicting political standings. Things go downhill after they get married when monogamy stands in the way of their life, selfishly and immaturely Louise uses Eugene to get back at Jack, only to be taken aback by Jack's philandering notion of partnership.They separate for a while, until in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution, becomes the essential catalyst of their undimmed love, witnessing the revolution in the front row, and realising what a sea change their Socialist belief can make in the war-trodden foreign land, they work shoulder-to-shoulder as comrades, write first-hand reports of the revolution and return to USA with an evolutionarily reshaped prospect of life, which is also where their political ideologies diverge.Jack passionately throws himself into politics, to bring Communism to his native soil, against the widespread fear that it would also usurp the democratic government of United States, whereas Louise hold a different opinion towards the issue, as she claims, she is deeply inspired by the Russian revolution and how proletariat can stand up and takes the regime, but she is also clear- minded about the fact that it is completely another situation for socialism to bloom here in America. Soon the schism emerges in the budding but vulnerable socialist party, their love is under another critical test when Jack defies Louise's advice and accepts the assignment to go to Moscow and seek endorsement from Grigory Zinoviev (acclaimed writer Kosinski in his first film role) for his party. His journey turns out to be a disaster, he is briefly incarcerated in Finland and then as an exchanged hostage, he stays with the communist party in Russia and stands for a mouthpiece of the socialism in USA, but soon grows increasingly disillusioned with Zinoviev's policies, meanwhile his health deteriorates drastically, a final reunion with Louise seems to be an immense mercy for him.Beatty painstakingly interposes interviews of more than thirty real-life "witnesses" who personally know Jack and Louise into the chronicle account, sometimes as a voice-over juxtaposing with the story, offering sound-bites and tidbits to enrich our perspectives of them and a larger social background at then. The documentary approach is quite risky, not only it adds considerable length to the already protracted magnitude, it also takes a chance with a more elaborate editing process in the post-production, how come it failed to nab the editing trophy in the Oscar?REDS received four acting nominations in four categories, firstly, Beatty is apparently too old for the role (Reed dies at the age of 33, while Beatty was already over 40 during the filming), but if one is not familiar with the archetype, his very sympathetic portrayal is fairly engaging, we can feel for Jack's idealistic enthusiasm, his intense affection to Louise (there are at least three sex scenes to prove his prowess, even after he loses one kidney), and the root of his tragedy - his erudite perception of the society fatally conflicts with his simplistic modus operandi. Keaton, by comparison, really busts her chops to embody Louise as a flawed but flesh-and-blood human being, sometimes she is wilful, vexatious, self-contradictory, other times, she is lucid, gallant and endearing, all reflect from her imperfect visage, this is her best dramatic performance to date.As charismatic as Nicholson, the only Oscar winner among the quartet is Maureen Stapleton, finally paid her due for her fourth attempt in the category, she plays Emma Goldman, the no bullshit anarchist, whose limited presence seems rather paltry against the film's duration, and she is not even a key player in the game, but whenever she is on the screen, Stapleton seizes every opportunity to remind viewers of her progressive thinking and truculent spirit, all intrigues us to know her character more, when will be a biography film about her? Emma Thompson can nail that role. All in all, this film is an important cinematic legacy which conducts a non-judgmental and thorough account on a highly contentious topic at a tumultuous time through the lives of Jack and Louise, a commendable extravaganza, probably Beatty's best work in any aspect, and I have a taxi waiting, now...

British playwright Trevor Griffiths who co-wrote Reds was asked by a journalist in 1990 who he hated? His answer was anyone considering voting for the British Conservative Party in the next election. No doubting of his socialist convictions.However what about Lothario Warren Beatty? This actor/writer/director/producer was better known for his sexual conquests than leftist politics although he did take time out to campaign for George McGovern for the 1972 Presidential Elections. However Beatty is regarded as a typical liberal Hollywood millionaire. Griffiths is not and maybe it is him who gives the film a political centre. I can certainly see in scenes where there are endless arguments between various factions of the left and the cod bureaucracy that it is Griffiths would have had first hand knowledge with his involvement in left wing politics of 1970s Britain. Goodness knows I encountered it in the 1980s.Reds was a long held labour of love for him and this film bagged him a Best Director Oscar. You need a strong constitution to watch Reds, it clocks in at 194 minutes and although it is an epic, frankly David Lean probably did not lose any sleep over this movie and that his own epics might get downgraded and Richard Attenborough would go on to show a year later what a real epic should look like.Reds covers the life of journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and his relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) from their first meeting, their involvement with the American left movement to Reed's final days in post revolutionary Russia when he is gravely ill and after he became famous for writing the best known account of the Russian Revolution. Bryant was married to someone else when they first met and afterwards has a complex relationship with playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) the only (cynical) character who sees through the fog of romantic socialism the others are so enamoured with.To give the movie authenticity the film is interspersed with interviews from surviving witnesses who knew the people involved or were around the time period. This lends the film a documentary setting and for the time was an unusual narrative device. Something that was parodied later by Woody Allen in Zelig, a former lover of Keaton before Beatty became involved with her.The problem with the film is it's trying to do too much. It is a tragedy, it is a romance, a globe-trotting political adventure, a growing disillusionment of the Russian revolution and the efforts to export the revolutionary ideals to the USA. Beatty has bit off more than he could chew here. Actors flit in and out without establishing much of a presence such as Gene Hackman.Beatty should had jettisoned some of the story strands and unleashed a tighter film. Of course we later realised that the aftermath of Russian Revolution did not install a socialist utopia and you feel the film tries to but does not always honestly address this.This film was released in the year when Ronald Reagan became President and America entered an economic shift to the right with policies I daresay laid the foundations of the financial meltdown of 2008. It's a radical but flawed film which you do not expect to be made by a major film corporation.

Warren Beatty's 'Reds' is a sweeping and epic which mixes drama and actual interview testimonies from major social radicals of the period which are an amazing technique to fill in for exposition. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous start of the twentieth century, Keaton/Beatty are the two journalists whose equally tumultuous relationships is punctuated by the outbreak of WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution.the pair find each other swept up in the Revolution. Beatty becomes disillusioned with Communism when he sees his words and intentions controlled by the growing Soviet propaganda machine. Shot by Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro reds is stunning, it's a 3 Hour & 12 minute epic which just sweeps byjoining them are supporting cast are Gene Hackman making a brief appearance Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neil, it's far better and whole some affair than David Lean's 'Dr.Zhivago