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chandra33140
Reviews
Magic City (2012)
Miami Beach going Hollywood
I am very surprised at the good rating in this site.
As a long time resident of Miami Beach, I feel that 'Magic City' rings so untrue it's not even funny. First off, everybody is a a little too glamorous, from the room maids to the gangster , complete with alligator shoes. The accents are all completely wrong, the Cubans look more like Mexicans and their inflection sounds nondescript, which is very far from the truth, as the Cuban Spanish is instantly recognizable. Most of the character are supposed to be Jewish and they mostly look Latin, especially Ike's horny son, Stevie, and their English is uninflected.
The acting is flat and I'm being kind. The problem is that, with such a script, even Lawrence Olivier would fail. The characters are unlikable, the lot of them, and the are unreal, like cartoons, so it's very hard to care for them and their actions,especially because the episodes flow so slowly it hurts. The Sopranos character were bad, but human and they looked so real that I felt they were living next door.
The dialogue is so pitiful, I often found myself laughing at it.
For instance, during the 5th episode, when Ike catches the gangster in charge of killing l Judy Silver, the guy says: 'F...ing mosquitoes' to which Ike replies 'The state bird". Would anybody, in the heat of such a moment worry about mosquitoes? Alligators, perhaps... Not to mention that he pushes the car into the ocean from an elevation: Miami Beach is completely flat. Another goof is the sun setting into the Atlantic: I live in that neighborhood and we all know that the sun sets on the other side!
The sets are beautiful and so are the costumes, but the women all look like they spend hours in the gym every day, nothing to do with the voluptuous curves of that era. There's a lot of nudity and sex bordering on the soft- porn. It doesn't particularly bother me, but I don't like it either, as it's gratuitous and doesn't act or detract from a story I hardly care about.
The violence is cartoonish as well, big splatters of blood on dead bodies: it doesn't make you cringe, it's just a 'fait accompli'.
The actors, aside from being pretty, looks like they're bored with the show as well as the viewers. The time in 'Magic City' passes slowly and not very deliberately.
Julie & Julia (2009)
The Foodnetwork is way better!
One day a self-absorbed and whiny woman who lives in NYC on top of a pizza parlor with a really nice husband she does not deserve, decides to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's book. It is a free country, but making a movie about it is an exercise in futility: aren't there any more serious or funnier topics to pick for a movie? Who cares if Julie is actually going to complete the self-imposed task? The sets are elegant, the costumes obviously competent, the acting lightly comedic, the pace quick, but the aftertaste is bitter, because it suddenly dawns on you that you will never get the two hours spent watching "Julie and Julia' back and that you did not actually learn anything, not even to make 'canard a l'orange'.
It's Complicated (2009)
It's insulting
Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin play a long divorced couple. He is remarried to a much younger woman with a kid who will make you justify infanticide. They end up in bed together in NYC, then they continue their affair back home. In the meantime, Jane is being pursued by a nerdy architect, played by the unfailingly white-haired Steve Martin, while Jake has to put up with his wife efforts to have another baby. Everybody is white, successful, wealthy and well-mannered even in extreme circumstances. Jane owns a thriving bakery and even her employees are all white, no trace of god-forbid Hispanics, so common in California. Jane and Jake have a young son and two whiny daughters, who seem to have an idyllic relationship with their parents, no matter what. The setting is glossy, the cast amazing, the dialogue atrocious and the pace slow. Everything is so dipped in syrup it's disgusting. Nancy Meyer never again.
American Gigolo (1980)
Did they live happily ever after?
Let's follow the trend and write 'American Gigolo 2'. Julian gets out of jail and Michelle, who is by now completely disgraced, goes with him. He gets a job in a big department store selling men clothes (he can always use the employee discount), soon she finds out she's pregnant and they marry. It doesn't take much for them to start missing the life-style they left behind. Michelle's belly grows and so do the mutual begrudging and the fights. Michelle starts drinking heavily, Julian spends to much time hanging out in bars with unsavory characters. Suddenly, she decides to terminate her pregnancy and as soon as she recovers she starts actively to look for a new companion, Julian couldn't care less and in no time returns to his old trade...
What was Paul Schrader thinking when he wrote that stupid, sappy ending to a movie that, although not perfect, had some interesting points?
Love the Hard Way (2001)
It happens every day
I don't understand why this movie has been so reviled by critics and IMDb users. The obsession and descent into darkness of the nice girl Claire, depicted by Charlotte Ayanna without any annoying mannerisms, are so realistic they made me ache. Stories like hers are very common, although not everybody goes to such extremes. Adrien Brody is an excellent actor and gives an interesting performance, but I find him miscast: he doesn't really exude a life of crime out of every pore. The script doesn't actually explain how Jack Grace became the way he is. The sketchy details about his background he provides Claire could be a figment of his overactive imagination. So all we can do is watch Claire sink lower and lower, but eventually redeem herself. And is Jack 'cured' after two year in jail and a close call? Probably not.
The Horse Whisperer (1998)
Out of Montana
Technically 'The Horse Whisperer' is a good movie: competent performances, outstanding cinematography, decent character development, an emotionally charged depiction of an horrific accident without graphic details, an interesting coming of age under uncommon adversity. The best part of the movie tell us how Grace (Scarlet Johannson) gets rid of at least part of he anger and finds the strength to overcome the consequences of an accident that cost her a mutilation and her best friend life. All this takes places in the natural beauty of Montana, that certainly doesn't need corn-dripping additions such as handsome cow-boys singing songs of love under the starry sky. Things get dicey when Tom (Robert Redford), the handsome but long-in-the-tooth cow-boy who is treating Grace's horse and Annie, the strong-willed but way too uptight mother fall in love. With all due respect for Robert Redford, I think he's a little over the hill to play rolls in the hay with Kristin Scott-Thomas, who does a great job in portraying an icy career woman who slowly warms up to the apparently uncomplicated fellow. But, will it last, could it last? Not really.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Sick and sickening
Whether you are a believer or nor, Jesus was a historical figure, whose message was about universal love and peace. .It is not easy to translate such a message into an uplifting movie, especially without getting trite and corny. It is a lot easier to concentrate on the last hours of Jesus and describe morbidly and in slow motion the atrocious details of his torture and crucifixion, especially if you know the way Mel Gibson does, that violence fills up the theaters more than anything else.
I think that making a pop-corn hit out of the Via Crucis is a severe exploitation of people religious feelings. I would believe in Gibson's good faith if he didn't get any revenue out if the movie, which is not the case