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Reviews
The Journey: A Music Special from Andrea Bocelli (2023)
Sheer Torture set to a nice soundtrack
This was one of the strangest films I've ever sat through. I don't know what I was expecting but what I got was just Andre Bocelli and his wildy wealthy entourage riding horses through Italy for some inexplicable reason and stopping at historic churches so he can perform in the most grandiose fashion imaginable.. Nothing was candid, everything overwrought and overproduced. The music was fine but the way they brought it was an overimagined fever-dream.
The other artists who join him don't seem to know what's going on either - a couple of them seem like hostages.
At one point his daughter who is probably 10 joins him and he says they are going to sing a song together... a song that he taught her when she was a little a girl. And i think, well maybe this will be sweet and show some humanity on this otherwise completely pretentious self aggrandizing train wreck.
So she stands beside him at the piano and he belts out Ave Maria like he's performing in front of 4,000 people at the NY Met. She sings but you cant hear a note because he's in full scorched-earth opera mode.
Another time his son joins him and reads a letter to him while Bocelli strums a guitar that he produces out of thin air. They affected that this should be very moving but what I got was sheer eyeroll.
And of course he drops in on the Pope so they can chat like old friends and get that on camera.
This is the most pretentious, self-promoting mess i think I've ever seen at a theater.
Ive never been happier to see a film go to credits.
Fantastic Four (2005)
Fantastic Film
Spiderman 2 remains my champ in this genre but F4 was terrific film and probably more kid-friendly then Spidey2. I gotta hand it to Tim Story, he made a good film here, despite his heretofore limp resume.
Michael Chiklis stole the show. Major props to Jose Fernandez and Wendy Partridge... the costume designers who breathed life into 'The Thing'. Ioan Gruffudd turns in a strong performance - the camera just loves that guy.
Jessica Alba isn't going to get any Oscar nods here, she seemed real weak as Sue Storm at first - fortunately her performance picks up steam as the show progresses. No complaints about Chris Evans - he was solid as the Human Torch.
Julian McMahon was a great selection for Dr. Doom. He does a great impression of an infinitely powerful, evil mad-man type.
The film seemed a little weak at the start and finish. I didn't think they really told the story of why the team was heading into space. The final fight sequence seemed a little too quid pro quo ... the Doc Doom of my childhood always seemed to give a lot better then he got. The F4 seemed to dispatch him with relative ease.
Overall - a very good film and I'll be in line to buy the DVD.