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Reviews
Doctor Who: Amy's Choice (2010)
It was all a dream!
I'm liking the new Doctor. I thought the Vampires of Venice was pretty good. But Amy's Choice left me shaking my head, wondering whether the magic is gone, and only gimmicks remain.
OK, it's not so bad, but come on - it's just frustrating when they set it up as a puzzle, and then the answer turns out to be "it was all a dream!" or "magic psychic seeds! (which knocked us all out before, but now I'm holding in my hand)" or "the Dream Lord was me!" I don't know, I just expected a stronger plot than that. The idea that one reality was real and the other fake never caught my attention - they both seemed real and fake enough, which ended up being the answer anyway. I don't mind magic, multiple universes, unexplained phenomena ("the universe is a big place" as the Doctor says in this episode), as long as it's done in an engaging way that makes us wonder and want to believe, instead of an elaborate setup with the resolution being "it was all a dream!"
Nastroyshchik (2004)
I feel like I wasted my time
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was turned off by the acting/directing style. I'm a native Russian speaker from Moscow, and I've seen enough Soviet/Russian movies to expect them to stray from Hollywood conventions. But whereas many Russian films push the envelope in artistry and expression, this one just sucked.
For one, the overacting was painful to watch. Not only do no Russians act that way, I don't think that any humans act that way. It actually made me think that what I was seeing on the DVD was the unedited raw reel. People would repeat their lines over and over for no apparent reason, as if doing multiple takes - except that we get to see all of it. Some of the actors themselves are old pros, and so I figured that this was done intentionally, for the effect so to speak. The lines were delivered in most unnatural tones, as if they were reading them for the first time, and didn't know where to put the accents and pauses in a sentence. But what effect this could possibly be producing, other than making me want to turn the movie off several times is not clear. And speaking of the lines, they often sound clumsy, like a direct translation to Russian from another language, or like somebody trying to make up how people would talk without ever observing them.
Also, I found the sound to be very strange. It seemed like every piece of speech was dubbed - recorded separately from the video footage and then mixed together. The voices didn't move with the actors, and their facial expressions didn't always seem to match the volume or expression of the text. It basically sounded like listening to a radio broadcast - everybody sitting nice and close to the microphone, but no dynamics or liveliness to the speech. Again, this had to have been done intentionally, but I can only fathom for what purpose.
With this in mind, my favorite scene was the silent stretch of Andrei fetching water for the bath. It was the most serene, least annoying part of the movie.
The actual plot of the script is interesting, and is really the only thing that kept me from turning this off. The script presents opportunities one after another, and the movie fails to make anything of them time and again. Despite the initially intriguing plot, I'd still say this is not worth watching.
The Jack Bull (1999)
unbearably boring
Wow, having read the good reviews on IMDb, and being a fan of Cusack, I decided to watch this movie with a few friends. I have not seen a movie this slow, boring, redundant, and dull in a long time. It's all about the script - Myrl repeats his "mission" every chance he gets, just as every other character does. It's like the writers were afraid that the viewers wouldn't understand the complicated plot (which can be summarized in one sentence), and so they have the characters reiterate it in every other scene. The characters are as two-dimensional as they come. I guess that's to be expected in a Western, but that adds to the monotony. Every time Myrl opens his mouth, it's the same old thing. Every time Ballard opens his mouth, we know what he's going to say.
Eventually we became joking among ourselves - "hey, maybe something will happen in the next scene!" But usually, nothing did. And I don't mean that I was expecting action scenes - I would have been happy with an interesting dialog, a plot twist, a historical introspection. Nothing.
I should note that the acting and cinematography were great, but that didn't help the boring script.
Take It to the Limit (2000)
If you are a climber, you must watch this
You must watch this because it is so bad. My climbing buddies and I watched this and laughed our asses off for a week afterward. Now, the movie's cheesy one-liners are part of our everyday lingo. It is the cult movie of climbing: the one that everybody loves to hate. The movie makes no sense. The climbing makes no sense. This is why it's hilarious. Oh, and also because they have a hilarious scene with a bear, which is so poorly done that it's obvious that the footage came from some other source. Oh, and I almost forgot the theme song to the movie, which I can guarantee you will be singing every time you go climbing: "Take it to the limit-limit, got to doit-doit...Watch this movie tonight, or better yet, "Screw this, let's go top-roping!"