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burntouthack
Reviews
Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)
No-one seems to have noticed this almighty mistake
I am baffled by the enormity of the error that features in the end titles of the film, where they refer to the peace process of, er, 2007, a whole decade out. It's so bizarre. Anyway, what can you do? I saw the film the day after finishing the book. The book was excellent, the guy a hero, and to be fair the film is fairly faithful. Jim Sturges is superb as ever, and I hope his ascendancy continues with some bigger roles as he's as good as Eddie Redmayne, Bendict et al. The film overall is a little underwhelming and didn't need to be two hours. Natalie Press v good as his girlfriend, Ben Kingsley does the most he can with a slightly nothingy role.
My Winnipeg (2007)
Not witty, just whimsical...
Meh. Whimsical/bitter reminiscing with lots of made up facts and anecdotes which you can imagine some audiences rocking with mirth to but which aren't all that clever or witty - they're just very whimsical.
eg (my spoof)
Grainy b/w shots of someone in a living room being offered a cup of tea and drinking it with a smile
Narrator: A cup of tea. A cup of tea. My mother would always offer visitors a cup of tea. What is this drink? This tea, cupped in porcelain, porcelain as white as the snow which falls outside onto our Winnipeg sidewalks? My mother served tea in a cup from a set her grandmother gave her, a cup which had come from the mayor's wife, who murdered her own sister, drowning her in a bath of Earl Grey. A drink of death. The cup of life. A cup of tea.
It's sort of like that, with a quick shot thrown in of the sister drowned in the bath of tea. 80 mins of that. Doesn't really have anything to say.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
The first Wall Street was all fun scenes - where are the fun scenes in this?
It might be "wrong" to enjoy Gekko and Fox's balla lifestyle in the original movie, but that's what you watch it for, damnit! You sure as hell don't watch it for Fox's romance with Daryl Hannah character. Oliver Stone usually hits the mark but he was never going to hit anything with this sequel's dry, incomprehensible plot. It really did feel like a three-hour film. You've got to love the product placement too - I'm talking about the Heineken in the restaurant film. I like the fact Gekko actually suggests a crappy old Heineken to LeBoeuf - the poor kid doesn't even get to read a menu, or get the choice of a decent beer! And then the brilliant shot of the bottle being plonked down! Hilarious. Sadly the rest of the film isn't so entertaining - a major disappointment.
Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)
As bad as films get
Having listened to and enjoyed Harvey Bernhard's Omen II commentary I was shocked to discover he was also behind this absolute piece of rubbish. It's like a really bad TV movie you might glimpse in the middle of the day when you have the flu and are too ill to reach the remote. I think at the bit where Michael Lerner is confronted by what I can only describe as a high school cast of Les Miserables my mouth hung open in disbelief. And then my mouth was going up and down because I was laughing so much. Dire. I don't know why I have to write a minimum of ten lines, I have made my point succinctly, there's nothing clever about all this modern verbiage.