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Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)
I finally understood.
15 years ago, I watched the film, did not understand it, and gave it 4 stars. Over 10. Today, I watched the movie again. It is well shot. I still give it a 5/10 rating. I finally understood the movie, but thought we were not meant to be. And I did not cry once.
This movie has a good scenario. It has the little feints that does its movie viewing experience good. But it committed a cardinal sin in being boring. The only way the boredom escapes the viewer is if the latter were artificially invested in the movie. The tragedy of your first love, blah blah, is that you don't know it is not your last, yak yak yak.
There is emotional manipulation in the movie. What is more, it was clumsily done, trying to be chaste and unearthly with Morricone's great music as its veil and the perfect cinematography as its perfume. There is only one way a couple can be eternally and furiously in love with each other. And that is if they both have a lifelong crush on each other. Since such an occurrence is even more unlikely than winning the lottery, the entire premise is shot with dishonesty and bed time story level drama.
I have already dissed Cinema Paradiso, and have praised it a little too. Salvatore the kid was a better actor than the youth. The culminating problem I had with his role is that the middle aged version is played by Jacques Perrin, an actor not in the same league as Noiret, but who is very well suited as the leading man in a romance. But his role should have been played by someone with darker skin. Perhaps there were no candidates as such available? Make of that what you will. Maybe the French for once stayed firm in their stance.
The ending is one of the best scenes in the history of cinema, there's no doubt about it. Perrin, with fake and too lush tears down his face, emotes with delightful sorrow at the montage of the censured bits of film. It reveals the secret of his success. I have little to add to the review. My rating of 5 stars means I see it as an average movie kissed by greatness. And grossly overrated.
Bullet Train (2022)
I watched this movie and was disappointed
There is something about this film that is vacuous. There is a complex plot in this film but it goes nowhere and the ending seems cheap. Kotaro Isaka, the author from whom this story has been adapted has made it big, since book to screen adaptations are where the real money lies.
The movie was entertaining to me but only because of the cinematography, and some of the angles of the camera. Brad Pitt seemed finished by Burn After Reading, where I thought his looks would fade. That was in 2008. The fact that he is still being the main man is a surprise to me. I like him enough to go through this movie with a sort of tolerance.
The edgy music accompanying action scenes has been done enough for it to lose its primary authenticity, but this way of building up the contents of a film is not so seamless that it becomes a trope of its own. Music and movies do not complement each other, else Indian romance films would be more popular.
I did not get into this movie expecting Matrix like action, but it seems weird that the gun fights are so bland here. The highlight of the movie for me was the Reddish Wedding scene. That was cool. The actors give a performance that hints that they are having fun. It is only sad that the actors playing the White Death and his family are so miscast.
Overall this movie grew on me, believe it or not. I intended to give it 2, then 3, finally settling on 4 stars. I am now only an honorary moviegoer, but want more good movies like this. Despite the blandness and my rating, this is a movie that is half boredom, half complacency. Its plot, and its concept, and really just the casting of Brad Pitt make it a piece of art that will leave a trace after fading away.
Turning Red (2022)
Pandering, but salvageable
It seems like new Pixar movies and I have a disconnect. But I still enjoyed the movie. There wasn't simply an imagination rampant enough to bring the necessary visuals to fruition.
A mere 90 years ago, my grandfather was born. He had a harsher life than mine. Though he didn't have any instinct worth bringing over here, his existence paved the way for his grandsons to connect to the internet, and watch movies and share opinions of them. You get the picture. My gramps could have gotten luckier if he had been born in the late 70s.
All of this type of musing is absent from Turning Red. The relationship between the smart parent of Meimei and her own grandmother is not explained, or even glossed over. We are given mere crumbs, which is cruel since the table had been set for a serious breakdown of Chinese culture.
There are no memorable lines in this movie. There are few interesting 'shots' and commendatory angles being exercised, and frankly, I don't understand why, unless this film has been in development hell. Of that I know nothing.
The script for this is disappointing. There is not enough crazy gags to paper over the cracks in the story. So unless a viewer is very young, he or she will find that something is wrong in this animation. The idea for the script itself is not exciting. The plot barely covers a 20 page children's illustrated book.
If Pixar cannot deliver for me, then cinematically I'm in big trouble. I better start paying more attention to the flops of Altman and Fellini etc before getting myself excited for a brand of animation that has expended all of its ideas by Toy Story 4.
I love to read about other cultures, me being Non American Indian by stock. The Chinese live all round me in my country of birth. I am not being unfair to this movie. I am just expressing my pressing thoughts before I forget them. I think though, that another team of creators better take a shot at Chinese themes next. While it is true that writers are a dime a dozen, Disney has spread itself so thin on output for the content guzzling Disney+, that even at a dime a dozen, Disney is probably underpaying their writers. A neat trick this... make a resource so scarce that it becomes a luxury, then ignore the needs of the company for fresher and more expensive blood.
Prey (2022)
Not a Mary Sioux
This movie was very well made, with flaws that are only pertinent to my viewing experience. But I still want everyone (and their dog) to enjoy this movie. I have watched the Red Letter Media review, and despite that the movie experience was better than many movies with better casting, crew, and a bigger budget.
Comparisons with Predator 1 fly out of the tepee the minute the movie changes gear, which it does rapidly. The dialogue was at the service of the script, the latter making the former secondary anyway. That aspect of understatement was desirable, and is not a criticism.
The French dialogue in the film was badly dubbed over. I remember thinking that if a language as relevant as French has been so ill spoken by the white characters, a bunch of well cast troglodyte bunglers, then what chance is there of the native - Comanche - language being riddled with errors?
Like I said, negatives like the above are just me being nitpicky, and me being rusty, since it has been months since I watched a proper movie.
Prey is a movie that will stay with the collective of cinephiles for years. It is the type of movie that lies in the Goldilocks zone between commercial rubbish and awful and distasteful Oscar bait movies. For such a movie to have been greenlit, scripted, and directed competently is a small miracle.
I really loved this film. It renewed my faith in the order - tentative as it is currently - that is emerging from the chaos and mediocrity that passes for moviemaking in Hollywood.
This is the generation of moviegoers who have got accustomed to CGI being in their art. That is excellent progress. Kids who see CGI in their cereal commercials, their movies, their games, will be receptive to the honest and relative low budget of Prey. I knew that a day would come when people would no longer bang the CGI Bogeyman drum, and Prey's effects are very well done. My 7/10 rating is thus because I am a fair but not easily impressed movie watcher. So do watch Prey if you have time to spare.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Best War Film I have seen.
I watched this movie over two days. The acting was superb all round. The direction was the last creative gasp by Steven Spielberg. I had absolutely no problems with the bookends like scenes. They were meant to evoke emotion from us. The biggest disappointment is John William's work. He is unrecognizable here. Glad that the movie did so well at the boxoffice. Tom Hanks was phenomenal in this great film. I rated it 9 stars.
Kaguya-hime no monogatari (2013)
Who put the moon out there? Why does the cow jump over it?
I'm getting tired of these fantasy ridden movies that mirror a lot of ambiguity yet always talk about the same things. This is not of the same ilk as a Miyazaki film. It's not even a proper Japanese movie. It's an American movie, it's a Discworld movie, a Neil Gaiman fantasy novelization. It's a hippie movie disguised as a Ghibli picture. The major gripe I have about the whole affair is the way the story is derailed by the caprices of the magic which comes to mess up the kernel of heartfelt purity that had set off the movie.
The birth of Kaguya is the best example of a supernatural act. It's familiar and unquestionable. Unlike later occurrences, you never doubt it's a dream sequence or a metaphor. The concept of miracle births have been drilled into us so soundly that we accept the childhood and disillusionment of Kaguya. What happens after the princes have failed in their quests is nothing but the admission (insert gratuitous box office joke) of the filmmakers that they have run out of imagination. This movie didn't make the splash it was no doubt vying to get and the anonymity that beckons will be very much deserved.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Eats Shoots and Leaves
I keep being amazed how much in the minority I am. There has been universal praise for this movie. It's slowness didn't bother me, not after the first 15 minutes. Why is it that the slowest movies need to go beyond a run time of 2 and a half hours?
Brad Pitt got upstaged in the acting department by Casey Affelck. His creepy smile and cowardly climax is part of history, destiny, and folklore. I've never found a modern Western gloriously lit and shot. If you're gonna portray the horses, the landscape as part of the cast, and portray women as things, you should make it a priority, resolution, or memo to pay close attention to the cinematography. Watching a drably shot Western is like watching a 3d film with one eye closed.
I don't have any sympathy for either Robert Ford or Jesse James. The film stupidly makes us want to take sides, only to wink to throw the message in our faces that we don't get it. Despite the sheer shine on the surface of the movie, I felt it to be a bunch of footage cavalierly strung together. Each scene where there's tension ongoing feels like an isolated short movie the length of a commercial, surrounded by the narrator giving us info that sometimes is needed, but never is interesting. I'm giving this Western 2 stars. It's far, far away from dethroning the actual masterpieces of the genre. Hope this review has been of help.
Smultronstället (1957)
Swedish actresses were far cuter than Hollywood ones then.
I was caught unawares by the mellifluous verbiage of the Swedish language. The guy playing Isak had a lilting, singsong voice that held one's attention. I managed to understand most of the movie, which is a direct one despite its symbolism, or rather because of the symbolism. The thing about Isak is that he doesn't seem very much sophisticated. His fear is visceral but there's no raw insight to back it up. Maybe he was a simpleton in a gentleman's clothing. I didn't understand the reason for the title though. Regardless, Wild Strawberries didn't come even close to dislodging 12 Angry Men as my favorite movie of 1957, let alone the best film of all time. Ingmar Bergman, I must say, had something new to show, but he didn't show it, he said it. That's his sin. Hope you've found this review useful.
The Social Network (2010)
Facebook for Dummies
At some point in the movie I smiled and thought I wasn't going to hate The Social Network. At that moment I had the rating at 7 stars. It's down to 6 because I found the manipulative herding by the movie annoying. As things got more mundane and people got richer, the story was about making Sean Parker the bad guy and Mark Zuckerberg not a good guy, but someone trying hard to be an a-hole. Rashida Jones' character tells us what to take away from the movie and that's not cool.
In the beginning I thought being exposed to Zuckerberg's mouthpiece and seeing the inner workings of Harvard was going to be intimidating. Zuckerberg seems to disappear from his own movie after some time. The power politics of Harvard were glossed over. For the success story of the youngest billionaire currently, there was not much debauchery on show. Now I'm not someone who watches movies for the sex scenes - I think not one sex scene looks credible, hot, or believable in films - but not one aspect of the film is focused on. The blame for this lies firmly at the director's door. Give me something to remember the movie, to make it stand out from other, sometimes better ones. Where's the guy who directed Se7en?
Now I don't use facebook. I'm intimidated by the games online and I'm disappointed by the interface whenever I happen to view a facebook home page. I didn't know who the founder of the company was before this film came out. The film's best asset was trying to make things ambiguous. It's a vehicular product that does not inspire me to write a good review of it. You know what, having rethought about what I've seen, I'll just downgrade the rating to a 5. Sorry for the awful review. Ta.
The Theory of Everything (2014)
Where's the 'Brief'?
I don't know how much research has gone into making The Theory Of Everything. I don't know whether the walls and indoor decoration of Hawking's home were not only of the same time period but also pat to the last detail. Maybe the children of Hawking, in the movie, resembled the real Hawking's children. Maybe not. The point is, in this case, it doesn't matter how accurate the film was. That is because there is no real underside or revisionism or whitewashing, or cherry picking, in the very fabric itself of the Universe, er, I mean of Hawking's life. Everything is above board. Because of the lack of seediness in Hawking's life, the film comes across as quite authentic. Because most audience can know, they maybe can't all of the time, but they can know when they are being thought of as idiots. The Theory Of Everything respects its audience.
It was a fine decision to omit the early years of Hawking's life. Hawking might have had a normal childhood, but being insanely precocious, he must have been lonely. But given that most biopics want to include a duality of the man in private and the public figure, Hawking's childhood isn't relevant. To compare, The Imitation Game did correctly to show us young Turing's childhood problems and his abortive romance with Christopher. Like the 1982 movie Gandhi, The Theory Of Everything shows us the defining moments of Hawking and his triumph as a physicist.
These days the Oscar nominated movies have been gaining quite good soundtrack music. In these very average times, this is the one bright spot. The movie itself didn't move me. I don't know what the director could have done more. I think every shot was well calibrated and there must have been much thought and deliberation behind each decision. But one thing's the pity is that the physics, the subject matter and the touchy subject of atheism were not given more than a superficial whirl. The strongest scene was when Hawking is struggling in putting his sweater on and he has this epiphany that helps with his work. Such moments were rare. I must also say that the guy who plays Jonathan missed a chance to shine in a prominent role. He was not a very good actor. The performances could have made this movie better, but it was not to be. Hope this review has been helpful!
Boyhood (2014)
Childhood's end
I think that boyhood is made with the American audience in mind. It's more American than Captain America and war movies like American Sniper. The way Mason's childhood shaped and led to bigger things was alien to me. Which should have guaranteed me a fun watch. But a movie of alien people who themselves are ordinary in their own mind and in the mind of the director is boring. The message this movie wanted to translate is purposefully ambiguous, which is itself a tired old trick that made millions for filmmakers during the years, intended for people who don't know better. When you've watched a documentary about the Masai, you've seen everyone one of them.
Boyhood had a sort of happy ending because Mason is a success story, he's young, handsome, and down to earth. The last few shots of him with that girl were significant. If Mason could stop rambling about meanings in life, he could have a normal manhood. But at least it's unlikely he'll make the same mistakes as his parents. It's a fact that in the film, Mason is repeatedly, cheerfully told he's an accident. That was one of the things that confused him. For some reason, the director decided to film a series of songs strategically placed in the movie, so that the lamest ones are at the beginning - Ethan Hawke is NOT a singer - and the polished songs are at the end. I think the saddest thing in the movie business is a director trying to share his musical taste with his audience. Always reminds me of Elizabeth Town, remember that?
Working class America is so violent and coarse and disruptive. I guess there's messed up stuff in any society. As a film, Boyhood will dazzle most teenagers who watch it. Now I'm not saying the movie's fans don't include adults of all kinds. It does. What I'm saying is if you find Boyhood groundbreaking and profound, then you're naive and exploitable easily and have a gullible mind. You are all of that, if only as a fan of cinema.
Interstellar (2014)
A shadow of what a masterpiece is
I don't know why there are so many gushing reviews of Interstellar here. Well that perplexed feeling looms over most of the contemporary movies I've watched this year. What this movie did, with its naked emotion and soaring music (some of it pretty good), is not convince me that Interstellar is a very good movie, but instead remind me of the genuinely great moments I've experienced watching other visual media. Interstellar was a conduit for me.
So till now no Nolan film has dethroned Memento as the best film of the director, IMHO. Interstellar elicited few thoughts from me. I was not moved by it. But I can appreciate some of the craftsmanship that went into its making. The film was like the stream of consciousness product of a boring and blunt mind. I was not compatible for this and 99% of movies, something worrying for me if I aspire to remain a cinephile. But like I said, I could appreciate the pacing and the fact that time flew by quickly, almost 3 hours of it. Gone, like that. If only I could be part of the smiling and awestruck majority of the fandom.
I think I speak for everybody when I say that nobody below the age of 10 didn't see the major twist - no other word for it - and didn't guess who the ghost was. OTOH, few people could have picked up on the importance of the watch. After that moment, when the movie was winding down, things began to look indecently glorious and silly. Too much of a happy ending, except for poor John Lithgow. The eureka moment was not one for the writing team. The concept of time travel is often smart when the time machine is not a machine. Of course, in storytelling jargon, a time machine is always a device! But this movie is very much a product of its period, and it seems geared up to be appreciated across several generations. I can't see Interstellar be waylaid by anonymity. But that's not praise from me, but simply facts. Cold hard facts, because I felt nothing. Hope this review has been useful to you.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Love is blind, but only before a marriage.
Silver Linings Playbook was a very pleasant surprise, and I say this with complete and utter understatement. It felt so good watching the film that I'm thinking I could have upped my rating a tad. Among all the movies I've seen recently, this one was the first one, the first American film that felt like a complete product, or work of art. After a golden generation of overachievers, there always comes a lesser generation struggling to find their calling. Their style. David O. Russell - I haven't yet read the book - adapted a love story that reached to me at a time when I wasn't looking for a romantic movie.
I didn't even know the genre of the movie. And I think the threadbare first half of it, lit up whenever Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) appeared, was a successful exercise in making a gritty romantic comedy. I liked how shameless the script was. The words never got vulgar, despite the grimdark subject matter. I knew something interesting was happening before my tired, jaded eyes when Tiffany asked Pat to have sex, and he refuses. We do have a glimpse of Tiffany's bare back, reflected from a mirror. The real flash of brilliance is that the mental illness of the two main characters, does two things. It provides a plausible reason for Tiffany falling in love with Pat. Secondly it provides an opportunity to sidestep the pitfall researching mental ill health for the sake of psychoanalyzing misery, pain, deprivation, alienation, and lust. The decision to say no both to sentimentalism and cynicism meant that the filmmakers simplified their task.
The best decisions are also the simplest. The casting director could have chosen any guy for the role of Danny. Instead they chose Chris Tucker, a guy who is no longer credible in any role he plays, walks by or flies over. Instead of trying to bulk up the lean running time of the film by introducing Tiffany's mum and her own issues, we get only what's important. This is reflected by the empty, renovated garage where Lawrence and Cooper will practice their dance. Lawrence says she thought of putting a ballet barre there. I loved this movie. It felt good watching it. As soon as I realized Lawrence and Cooper will not copulate, and do drugs, I realized I was watching a chick flick, but I forgot the set up quickly and didn't care if it was a feel good movie. Not what I even dreamed of, but it was retrospectively the best film that I could have seen. The characters of Tiffany and Pat are going to live happily ever after. Tiffany says that she didn't want to have children. Smart girl. Hope the review has been helpful to you.
Whiplash (2014)
Get Back
I'm going to strictly avoid using expressions with musical terms, or that's what I would say if I knew several. Whiplash left me puzzled. It was maybe a labor of love, being a pet project of writer-director Damien Chazelle, of whom I've never heard of before. The movie seems to be an indie film with a staple of an action movie thrown in for good measure. A car accident, viscerally shown. Lately since the noughties it has been easier to show car crashes. So I'm assuming this one was thrown in to appeal to a wider range of fans.
There are a few things I don't understand about the movie. Like the drum kit is one of the loudest and least quiet instruments of all. So how can the father (Paul Reiser), be so surprised about Andrew's virtuosity? Also The kid, the trumpet player, who 'supposedly' was playing false, really WAS playing false! All these little surprises didn't gel with me, because a) They were stupid b) They would work only if the hero was less smart than a comatose monkey, which in the movie, he was c) they shouldn't have mentioned Casey hanged himself because it's a distraction and you think he should have been the subject of the film d) the twists prevented us from knowing more about Andrew.
The regrettable thing about Whiplash is that there is only one person who got the perfect amount of limelight, treatment, and attention, and that was J.K Simmons. The others got the same level of detail, which was wrong. Andrew is shown as a boy playing drums, and before that at a family dinner. He also dates a girl briefly. He is a very quiet lad with his band and with his girlfriend but surprisingly smart-Aleck and runs his mouth like a machine gun when the story asks for it. Not my tempo. That's all I had to say, hope you found the review helpful.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over.
One way of looking at this movie is to wonder if Jordan Belfort, played quite decently by DiCaprio, was right in his successful stint, and a loser in his downfall. If you're a human being, and you're not part of the richest 1% of the USA, you WILL feel jealous of Belfort. Even if you're a Buddhist Amish.
But that's okay because though I did envy Belfort's wealth, I was not green with jealousy, and I didn't feel jealous about his wife, played by the popular Margot Robbie, who I thought had a too stringy body with ropy arms. I'm content with the fact that at once time, a girl prettier than Robbie had a crush on me. And I also believe, that I eat better food than Belfort.
Now let's talk about Martin Scorsese. I loved Taxi Driver. His masterpiece. The Wolf of... is better than Raging Bulls, a movie that I happened to rate 4 stars here. That was under my old rating system. Nowadays if I have to re rate my movies watched, then I'd give Raging Bull 2 stars, just to make the comparative thing work.
Scorsese is behaving like a menopausal cozy mystery writer. He's churning the same movies, serially. He has nothing new to say, which is frightening, because there are quite many current, younger directors in Hollywood drawing inspiration from his movies. It's sobering to realize that right now, there are directors in America and abroad, taking these terrible movies and making an inferior shadow of them. My two cents! Hope you found this review useful.
Lincoln (2012)
Awful
I had stupidly convinced myself that Spielberg is currently underrated. I was toying with the idea of giving War Of The Worlds and Minority Report a try. Lincoln was mostly a terrible movie. I admit I didn't understand parts of the history being shown. That doesn't make my opinion valueless.
I have been able to like books and movies that I don't understand in full. Not understanding a movie and giving a movie one star are sometimes not related. I loved e.g Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and rated it 10 stars. After I rewatched it a few times, I understood it completely. That moved the movie's ranking to my 2nd most favored film. What would have happened if I had watched Lincoln to the end? I would have been so irked at myself for wasting my time. My review would be hateful. I'm convinced Lincoln would have floundered at one star.
My skills for evaluating actors and rate them are blunt and not trustworthy. I cannot find greatness in Daniel Day Lewis' performance. Like American Sniper, and Captain America, this film is imbued with American patriotism. It's a label that doesn't wash with me. I didn't go far trying to read David McCullough's John Adams. History, when combined with fiction, condenses into a different genre. After having seen Lincoln - for one hour - , I'm more amazed that so many people dare not retell what happened as it happened. Because I abandoned this movie, I cannot be very erudite on the subject at hand. But I'd be glad if some found my review helpful.
The Imitation Game (2014)
Another Game the Brits Invented
Like most films about gays, The Imitation Game is a nod to loneliness. I found Cumberbatch quite capable in the role of Alan Turing. I think, replacing an alternate end, where we see Turing commit suicide instead of seeing him elated, with soaring music, stole the film's thunder. I would have said that this is typical Hollywood. It's not an American film. But its imprint is there.
Cumberbatch, a favorite actor of mine, sensibly reigned in his deep voice. I have the suspicion that he did many things for the first time. He used muscles in his face that he never used. This film, regrettably is not the work of a master. The director did everything well, but didn't excel in any of the scenes. His cinematography is questionable, with the same dull colors indoors or outdoors, in offices, or pubs. He cuts away when the camera should be on Alan Turing. He overused Desplat's adequate music for the first act.
Young Alan Turing was a good cast. I will remember his stint in this movie. Charles Dance, horribly directed in the anonymous Robin Hood and Last Action Hero, finally shines through(I didn't watch him in Game Of Thrones). Kiera Knightley as Joan Clarke lost an opportunity to impress. I hope she will stop turning up in movies by the time she loses her looks. She has nothing else to hold on to. All in all, this is the best movie that I've seen recently. Let's hope for the better. I'm glad if this review was useful.
Melancholia (2011)
Glad that it ended
The director here shows his hand as one being dealt by the ghost of Kubrick. The latter influenced Lars Von Trier a lot, and inspired him in taking on this project. Just like Kubrick, the current director likes to cast actors of the non scenery chewing type. Actresses rather. Remember Dogville? von Trier heralded the decline of Kidman and now Dunst.
His films are brave. But stupid. And meaningless. It's ironic that the most low budget way to shoot a disaster, end of the world movie, is to show rich people waiting to die. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that the location where Justine's(Dunst) wedding party was filmed had subsequently been rented out to bangbros.
But watching two hours of melancholia beats watching two hours of porn. Did you see Dunst's nakedness? I have the feeling Dunst will age gracefully and not succumb to the knife or to implants. She was a favorite actress that I enjoyed watching in movies better than Melancholia. But many fans will watch Melancholia because we get to see a lot of her without distracting dialog.
I have not a lot to say about this movie but that doesn't mean I typed whatever that came to my head. Indeed, I withheld quite some thoughts, which I would have shared had this movie been any good. The final shot was very well done. Hence the additional star(no puns intended). Unlike Kubrick, von Trier cannot afford to cast cheap unknowns, another amusing paradox. I have been curious about Melancholia ever since it came out. I'm relieved to have seen it. Once and finally. I'm glad if this review has been of any help.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
The early bird gets the worm but the early worm gets eaten
Birdman is the type of movie where behind every word of the script, there's an excuse for the way it is...the script demands it. I was not entertained. I would have rated the film one star. But the end, where I realize that the film is about two things, the lack of talent in Hollywood and Broadway, and the existential crisis of an actor.
The jokes in the movie are not funny. Making them, and keeping on making them, to me, was a mistake. All things considered, Birdman DID win Best Picture. Most Best Picture winners during the last decade drove me out of the front of the screen.
Making of jazz music such a pathetic show, was another negative. The surrealism of Michael Keaton flying or of the dialog where the question of embitterment and forgiveness are dealt with, belies a tired imagination. I am fine with absurd movies, but they must never outstay their welcome.
It seems that with each year, we get a crowd of people who know a lot about movies, but being young and not finding their image in the past, want the current crop of movies to be as great as the Greats. These people are never tired of repeated tricks. It seems as if they wake up with their memories wiped out. True, some can support their movies with great dissertations. But where's the perspective? Where's the sense of proportion and why is the very act of entitlement for the present such an absurd act in itself? I knew movies have gone the same way as the music but I didn't know it was THAT bad.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
I didn't hate it
I've seen this movie and now I can say I was surprised a lot of times. I was surprised how good the CGI was and how well the orcs looked. I also had no issues with the newfangled camera and the resulting cinematography of this slightly mundane movie.
However, I, who have not been watching many movies recently, was laughingly stunned at how flabby Legolas's featured looked. It was quite distracting, with everyone involved pretending that Legolas looked about as same as in 2003. I'm looking at you Peter Jackson, casting directors, make up artists.
Bilbo aka Martin Freeman made a good impression whenever he appeared. His acting was as if a famous painter had made a paint by numbers job. You can only work with what you're given and I wonder whether Martin was thinking how wrong a direction this Hollywood film was taking and how many of his roles in English, small budget movies were better than this sleepwalker's dream career booster. His tics and mannerisms were too put on and repetitive to escape notice, if not criticism. Despite everything, I think some thought had gone into the Hobbit's role and Martin appeared with enough regularity for me not to understand the protests against him being underused.
The dwarfs had their moments. The best of the actors was Balin, whose one scene with Bilbo was better than even the capable Richard Armitage. The unexplained - but explainable - use of Elvish, and Orcish dialects provided a few funny moments, and to me, served little purpose. Galadriel's draining clash with Sauron smacked of the ridiculous.
Now I'm going to take a leaf out of Peter Jackson's book(not Tolkien's) and finish quickly without rounding on all the aspects. Bard and his people(and Alfrid) were cut off from the movie abruptly. There was no focus on the distribution of the treasure. Kili and Tauriel romance deserved one eye-roll or ten. That's about it.
PS - For the first time in my life I'm finding reviewing movies not only fun but also easy. Much quicker and easier than reviewing books, where one really has to put one's memory to work. I'll think about possibly reviewing regularly. I thank whoever found my review useful. Cheers.
Planet Hulk (2010)
Another One Bites The Dust
At the time of writing, there have been 16 reviews of this film on this site. The best of them was alanrayford's, who is now among my list of friends. I recommend you to check his insightful reviews. He was the only one to mention the burnt child that Caiera was unable to rescue.
Sorry for not repeating the plot points in order, but I'm not here to do that. I haven't read the Planet Hulk comics, so I had no expectations that way. But I have seen the dreadfully funny All Star Superman(1 star). These two movies share the same director. I'll be very surprised if he manages to make a good movie in his career.
If you like action scenes, especially those of comic book movies, you still may or may not find those in this film engaging. There is a lack of imagination, variety, suspense, and pacing. But there's a lot of action, I concede that.
There's a hint of inter species romance-or more?- between, firstly the Red King and Caiera and then at the very end, between her and the Hulk, where they almost share a kiss. In that same extract, the Hulk closes its eyes, brow furrowed. Quite quaint. I couldn't get the logistics problems of Hulk getting serviced by a humanoid alien race out of my head. I'm off to write a fan fiction in this regard. Marvel please don't sue me.
All-Star Superman (2011)
Hahahahahahahaha!
I'm one of those people who having enjoying a so-bad-it's-good movie, still give that movie a low rating, and after watching this dross, I have half a mind to petition for this site to have a zero(0) rating. This...ahem...movie, amply deserves it.
A few months ago I asked for recommendations for newish Superman comics. One of them was All Star Superman. Sigh. I don't think Superman comics are compatible with my sensibilities, let's put it that way. I also think Batman both in comic book form(Dark Knight Returns) and in Nolan's offerings, are absolutely laughable, so I'm not a Bat fan either. I'll still try to wade through the myriad comic books regarding Superman because there must be something that will click with me. Superman is supposed to be a very alien but also very down to earth type of guy. This should make him interesting and also be identifiable with.
Then why, if this is the resume of a new fangled comic book, why did I find Clark Kent a sissy and even more ridiculous than the much maligned Tobey Maguire's emotive Peter Parker in Spider Man 3? Note to the director; close ups of your character acting abashed or some kind of thoughtful or whatever, that may go down well in a comic book(and in my humble opinion it rarely does, actually) but do avoid this in a movie, especially given this Clark Kent's resemblance to a kid with cookies stuffed in his face. Frankly he doesn't even look like a character from anime. He instead resembles someone from "amar chitra katha"(google it).
I have no idea what timbre is ideal to voice Superman so I'll give Denton the benefit of the doubt. Lois Lane however falls flat in the hands of Christina Hendricks. What's more, the former is drawn very, very plainly. If this was a real actress she would never get cast as one of the leads. Hey I've just realized something. This movie took 76 minutes from my life. I think I'll cut this review short, okay?
There were a few, surreal, times when I honestly thought the dialog between Superman and Samson and his pal were intentionally funny. They were utterly ridiculous, beyond cheese. I don't know what to make of the Ultra Sphinx. Why give him that tail, groan.
I had always thought that the best Superman story had to lack one crucial ingredient, Lex Luthor. He never should be a threat to Superman, no matter how rich, intelligent, and ruthless he is. Parasite and those Kryptonians had bizarre cameos. Same for Martha Kent. This movie makes Harry Potter movies seem independent of their source material. And those robots made by Superman, oh my! They irreparably remind me of the relationship between God and humans. Superman gave them not only intelligence, but also remorse, the wish for atonement? Laugh out loud!
But the biggest laugh was reserved for that 10 watt Sun, Solaris."Mercy!" That will be the last word.
Tôkyô monogatari (1953)
My first Ozu film
I watched Tokyo story early this morning and I was, I think, receptive and sat in front of the screen with an open mind, not knowing what to expect from the(so I've been told)the great Japanese director.
The film's print is not the best, and on reading the trivia for the movie, I understood why. There are older films with better visual quality(technically speaking), but the shots are imbued with imagination and restraint.
I found my concentration wavering during the first half hour. Nothing seemed to be happening, and I was mentally scribbling a '5' for Tokyo story. But then my curiosity was piqued. I wanted to know what was going to happen to the main two characters. By the time the plot became evident I was hooked. The minutes passed quickly by, and at the end I was surprised that the film exceeded two hours.
I was very satisfied with the way this film reveals itself without being too blatant. There is a certain honest subtlety about Tokyo Story that compels me to show respect for Ozu's effort. I am now eager to try more of his filmography. Not equal to Kurosawa's best but still a very good movie.
14 Going on 30 (1988)
I Liked It!
This is a fantasy movie and it's the main actor Steven Eckholdt who makes it work and makes the whole premise be believable. He plays the role of a teenager who becomes an adult overnight, literally. The similarity to Big is not that much distracting. Eckholdt tries to woo his teacher and stumbles on the way till he succeeds, sort of. The main actor gives off a lot of boyish charm, because in his head he is still a teenager, of course. The ending is supposed to please everybody. But for me it works. I haven't seen this movie in a long time but I remember it quite vividly. I gave this film an 8, partly for nostalgic value. I say go for it if you want a break from the normal romantic comedies.
Kika & Bob (2007)
Surprisingly good!
I watched about 10 episodes of Kika and Bob, and I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. Kika is a little girl who, during a tornado, attempts to save her cat which is perched on top of a tall building. She runs to get help from Bob, a fireman. The two try to save the cat but fail. Not only that but they are also taken away by the tornado to foreign climes, and their episodic adventures consist of trying to get back to their land.
During their adventures they have choices to make. These choices are highlighted as multiple choice questions, and Kika and Bob try these alternatives one by one. There are usually 3 choices and the outcomes of the 'bad' choices are shown. Gradually the duo are able to reach another country where their adventures continue in the same format. It's a fun watch and the animation is noticeably good. I'm recommending it.