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Reviews
Black Robe (1991)
Beautiful cinematography, unfortunately that's all
This movie tells the story of father Laforgue(Lothaire Bluteau), a jesuit priest on a mission to convert indians into christians. The story takes place during the colonization of North America in the seventeenth century.
Regardless of how accurate and historically correct this movie is it still didn't amaze me at all. First of all the storytelling is all too slow for this kind of a movie, you almost feel like watching a movie from the 70's. The characters aren't really that interesting and very poorly written. The dialogue seems quite unnatural and stiff pretty much all the time. I suppose this was a low budget film otherwise they surely would have hired real actors. Especially first timer Aden Young and lead Lothaire Bluteau are horrible. I makes you wonder what it really took to become an actor those days. Apparently nothing considering their past and present work.
When i heard that this movie would be coming on TV i got really excited because i'd wanted to see it for quite some time now. I must i was very disappointed afterwards, mostly because i was expecting a great epic with loads of action like The Last of the Mohicans. It's unbelievable that people compare it to movies like Dances with wolves and The Last of the Mohicans because it's not even close. This movie doesn't have any action at all. I wouldn't even consider it to be an adventure film. Surely it's a story about a journey through the wilderness but it's more of a Drama then Action or Adventure.
What's then good about this movie? I'll tell you, the amazing, totally awesome cinematography of Peter James. That and the beautiful filming entirely saves this film. Also the music by Georges Delerue is good throughout the film although it lacks variation. One other positive aspect is that the natives didn't speak english which i for one were expecting in the beginning of the movie because it's quite common in these kind of movies. I think about half of the spoken language here is something else then english. One can just hope that it was somewhat like the original native language that actually were spoken among the Hurons, Iroquis and Mohawks.
At the end of the day it's not all bad. It's a decent try. It's worth renting but i wouldn't buy it.
A Perfect Murder (1998)
Imperfect murder would be more accurate
Very predictable thriller that didn't introduce anything new at all.
It's a story about a Steven(Michael Douglas) and Emily Taylor(Gwyneth Paltrow), a rich couple with marriage problems. Apparently Emily has been unfaithful for 6 months living in belief that her husband know nothing about her affair. Steven is well aware of it all and plans to have her killed inorder to save his business by inheriting her money. He hires her lover to commit the perfect crime. Her lover is their mutual aquaintance, an artist named David Shaw(Viggo Mortensen). He is a former convict and a known scoundrel.
Steven offers David $500,000,00 for killing his wife, because he doesn't have the gutts for it. Neither does David but he takes the money anyway and agrees to kill Emily. He on the other hand hires an old friend to do it. But Steven's well thought masterplan goes all wrong and Emily kills the killer instead. The police begin to investigate the crime and naturally start to suspect Steven immediately. The rest is as predictable as it appears to be.
Two things entirely ruin this movie, the huge plot-holes and the typical ending. Michael's performance is solid as usual but very similar to his roles in past. Almost identical with his character in the Game. For the first time we see Gwyneth in something else then a romantic flick and i pretty much think she should stay in that category even though she is a good actress and does a decent job in this movie. Viggo is a bad choice to play the part of David and we can see it clearly. But on the other hand his character is so poorly written and doesn't even reassemble an artist at all that i wont hold it against him.
If you want to see a movie with very little suspense for a thriller and a terrible story with an even worse ending go and rent or buy this one. Otherwise pick up something else.
Cabin Boy (1994)
Stupid, Ridiculous, but entertaining in some stupid way
First of all this movie is totally Stupid. It's a very long time since i've last seen a movie as dumb as this one. But in a strange way it still manages to entertain a little. I wouldn't quite say that it's so stupid that it's funny, because it isn't funny at all. SPOILERS It's a story about a fancy-lad(or whatever they call him) named Nathaniel(Chris Elliot) who after graduating from school is planning on sailing to Hawaji to work for his father but in a stupid way ends up on the wrong boat. He was supposed to sail with the Queen something but instead ends up sailing with The Filthy Whore. The boat is filled with drunk, filthy, smelling fishermen of whom none are the least bit funny. They fishermen loose their cabin boy in a storm because Nathaniel convinces him in the middle of the night when the crew are drunk to change the destination and head for Hawaji. So basically after that they try to make a man out of Nathaniel a´la sailor way. No one naturally likes him because he's "girly" and they intend to leave him stranded on an island but he somehow survives the tests with a like little help form Chocki a Shark-Man(a half shark - half man) who also falls in love with our beloved new Cabin boy. Then Nathaniel suddenly finds a beautiful woman sleeping in the ocean. Her name is Trina and she is trying to swim around the world, go figure. The filthy whore is in quite bad condition after the storm so the men sail to the nearest island in order to repair their ship. After arriving on the island Nathaniel decides to become a man because he is frustrated over the fact that he is in love with Trina but she doesn't seem to care for him at all so the fishermen tell him about Calli, a "woman-something" with more arms then necessary who lives in a cave on the island. He seeks her up and finally loses his virginity i think. The experience naturally makes him "Superman" and next thing you know he and Trina get their very brief moment. The crew including Nathaniel and Trina have a battle with a giant named Mulligan after that. He naturally is p****ed off because Nathaniel had sex with his wife, that being Calli. Well finally shortly after that they arrive at Hawaji and the ending becomes a typical,sappy love-story ending where they live happily ever after, although apparently not on Hawaji.
You see from the outcome of the film that the budget wasn't that high if there ever even was one. The acting is horrible especially from lead Chris Elliot. The movie is filled with terrible dialog throughout the entire film combined with a nonexisting screenplay and some very, very bad filming makes this movie a real turkey.
Meet Joe Black (1998)
Death and taxes
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I bought the ultimate edition DVD of this movie a few days ago. I had seen it once before some years ago and i must say my recollection of the movie was entirely different from what it turned out to be. I'd say in the bottom line this is a somewhat strange yet ordinary love story, it is however much more deep and serious than most movies in it's genre.
<<<<SPOILERS>>>>
It's a story about Bill Parrish(Anthony Hopkins)a man who days before his 65:th birthday begin to hear a "voice" calling to him saying; YES. He is naturally confused and terrified about this and thinks he is losing his mind. Moments later he gets an unordinary visitor. In the movie he is described as DEATH(Brad Pitt). He has come to take Bill to the other side but in order to reach Bill he naturally needs a human body. He takes the body of a young man without knowing that Bill's daughter(Claire Forlani) just recently met this man in a local coffee shop and experienced what is referred to in the movie as LIGHTNING. Death also has another agenda, he wants to experience life. In my opinion he is fascinated about Bill's intelligence and the way he expresses himself, he talks about love, passion, obsession etc. I think death finds these things very interesting and wants to learn more of life on "earth". So he decides to stay for a while and forces Bill to let him live in his house. Well you don't need to be Einstein to figure out what happens when Bill's daughter comes home for dinner and sees Joe Black, that's the name Bill gives him. Yes they eventually fall in love. I do not wish spoil anything else for someone out there who still haven´t seen this movie and intend to do so.
Even though the movie is almost 3 hours long it never gets too long. It is filled with magnificent dialogue throughout the entire movie. This is a very intelligently made movie that really gets you thinking mostly about love and death. The characters are very likable and natural. The leading performances are as we've seen several times before from Pitt and Hopkins simply perfect. Claire is also superb, she isn't just beautiful, she can also act i honestly can't think of anyone more suitable for her role. Even though this is a romantic drama/comedy of some kind it is unlike any other i've seen in that category. Those kind of movies tend to be very sappy and predictable, everything this movie isn't. It is however very tragic and sad but in a good way. Especially the ending in this movie is surprisingly good. I sincerely recommend this movie to everyone regardless of taste. I will most certainly be looking forward for more exciting movies from the amazing director Martin Brest.
Bill: Should i be afraid?
Death/Joe: No, not a man like you.
Town & Country (2001)
A decent try
I saw this movie yesterday and i am a little bit surprised of the outcome. With a cast like this(3 Academy Award Winners)i expected much more from this movie. Honestly i can not quite figure out what went wrong but something was missing that's for sure. Maybe the lack of story is one thing and the characters another. And also the fact that it didn't introduce anything new at all. The story about two men who still want to be boys is getting a bit old and predictable. All the lead characters seemed somewhat unrealistic and boring. Warren certanily didn't deliver anything new nor did Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn. Both the women were given pretty much excactly the same characters as in First wives club.
The thing that saves this movie is the performances of Jenna Elfman and Charlton Heston. Both being truly unique and utterly funny. Especially Heston delivering a magnificant performance as an overprotecting father of Andie Macdowell. Jenna does what we are used to seeing in Dharma and Greg yet there is something even beyond that makes here performance superb. Andie Macdowell is a disappointment. Her character is poorly written. Very disturbing and doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. Her mother played by Marian Seldes on the other hand gives a hilarious performance full of dirty language and profanity. Also the music is worth mentioning suitable for this kind of a movie. Better than usually.
So all in all it's worth renting on a rainy day or if you just have to kill and hour and a half.
French Kiss (1995)
One of the best romantic comedy's ever made
This is the kind of movie that makes you wanna instantly jump on a plane and get to France. Meg Ryan's performance is magnificent as Kate a woman who has it all at least in her own opinion. Until Her fiance travels on a business trip to france and meets a "Goddess". She is unable to travel along because she's affraid of flying. Well you can all guess what happen next. She takes the bull by the horns jumps on a plain to reclaim what's hers. On the plain she meets Luc an arrogant, selfconfident and nicotine smelling frenchman played by Kevin Kline. His best performance ever(should have won him an oscar). If you didn't know you would undoubtedly think he is french for real. The shots in france are totally awsome. The senary is more than breathtaking. As for the directing and editing i can't say a single negative word about it. Although the movie is very predictable it doesn't spoil anything. All romantic comedies tend to be that anyway. I think you will either love it or hate. But if your a fan of romantic comedy's in general and Meg Ryan you will definitely love this one.