Bullet ReviewFollow

Perhaps that was it with me and Apcolypto. I am a granulated ASU history major and I liked its feel for the era. Personally I liked Gladiator with Russel Crowe but I thought it was overrated. The scene where they pan thru a live ancient rome with the Colesium intact mmmm /chubby. The story is decent and worth a 3 star on its own for entertainment, but add on what it brought from the Roman timeframe in imagery and it is a 4 star flick.

Of course I am weak like that generally any movie that shows boobs gets an automatic 1 star for that alone from me. God knows I have stayed up late many times growing up, pre such easy internet access ****, watching some god Awful movies late on Cinemax Friday nights just for that 1 star.

I've always hated fans of Arbus more than Arbus herself.

Sorry Totem, but are you calling 90 minutes of a completely topless Eva Green "horrible"??

It's like I don't even know you anymore, man...

The wife and myself have one like that, called Solaris. We usually refer to it as "Make no damn sense" flick.

I have a friend that measures bad units of time by Dances With Wolves..."Man, that date felt like it was 2.5 dances with wolves long."

Nexa

Well, it took me forever but I watched In Bruges while here in VA for the week. Someone above called it good but not a must-see and I agree with them.

Plot: Good. Kept me interested. Was a little slow moving at times but in your standard indie/arthouse style which really just means that every moment wasn't filled with gunfights and lasers and car chases. A few predictable moments but nothing too bad.

Acting: Pretty good. Nothing spectacular but nothing that took me out of it, either. The funny parts made me laugh and it had a pretty good low-key comedic vibe through most of it. The only thing that really took me out was the inclusion of Jordan Prentice, aka "That dwarf you always see in the movies who isn't the one from Austin Powers". I suppose it's not his fault but seeing him just makes me think "Hey, it's that one dwarf..." Colin Farrell apparently didn't bother me half as much as he did Smash.

Everything else was fine. The soundtrack was standard tinkly piano fare you hear in indie & artsy films. The scenery was nice to look at. If you enjoy mob/gangster type flicks, don't mind dialogue in your films and can put up with Colin Farrell, I say go for it. It won't change your life but it'll probably entertain you for a few hours.

Edit: Apparently, I was thinking of Peter Dinklage when I was referring to the dwarf who I always see. Which I guess means that I think dwarves all look alike.

Edited, Dec 26th 2008 4:56pm by Jophiel

The Darjeeling Limited, Sweeny Todd.

Apocalypto was flashy, but I've seen better
Atonement was awesome, and I'm really not even into those types of movies. It really just makes you stop and think.
Princess Monanoke was excellent as well, and I also recommend Howls Moving Castle.

Kazaam.

I think Saitothe... was really referring to "Letters from IWO JIMA" in his second film, not the JONWIN classic "Sands of Iwo Jima" The first film in which he died.
The Jonwin film was very good action for its time, solid acting from a lot of folks.
"Letters from Iwo Jima" was an interesting view from the Japanese side. Well done, I watched it when it was first broadcast on TV and caught parts of it again.
If you have an interest in WW2 these two films are not a waste of time. Unless you are looking for nudity and hot sex.

I'll toss out a few reviews:

Flags of our Fathers:

An "Ok" film. The biggest problem I had with it is that one of the major plotlines really wasn't that interesting (either to me as a viewer or the public as portrayed in the film, which may or may not have been the point). That the picture was staged when snapped rather than being the actual "first" time a flag was planted on that hill didn't really matter to anyone at the time, and just wasn't that interesting in the film either. When watching the film, it almost felt like they originally intended to do more with this, but edited it out, so you're left with this half-plot that doesn't really go anywhere.

As a story about reluctant "heroes" it worked pretty well. I guess what threw me was that this film tried to be half about the war (lots of combat scenes, mostly in flashback), and half about the political/propaganda side, and how the main characters didn't think of themselves as heroes, but had to play the part for the war effort. It was an interesting dynamic, but didn't work for me that well. Eastwood clearly wanted to have lots of combat scenes, but without an actual plot revolving around them, they were kinda displaced and disjointed.

There are better films out there about war heroes dealing with the aftermath of combat, and there are better films out there dealing directly with combat. This film tries to balance the two and fails at it IMO. Should have gone one direction or the other IMO.

Not a waste of an evening, but I wouldn't buy it or anything.


Sweeny Todd:

This was actually a fun film (in a twisted way). The cinematography is great and captures the feel of the play pretty well. When I saw it in the theater, it was amusing to see a couple of families who apparently didn't realize that this wasn't a cute Disney film by Depp. Seeing parents dragging their kids out of there within the first 15 minutes as this truth dawned upon them was worth the price of admission all by itself. I'm not sure how much therapy they'll be paying for though...

It loses a lot on a smaller screen though. I watched it on DVD and it just didn't have the same feel as it did in the theater. The story is still there, and just as viciously fun as ever, but it was clearly filmed with a large screen in mind. Lots of busy stuff on the screen going on, in dim dull colors. All tends to get lost on a TV screen.

This is one of those films that if you haven't seen, it'll probably be worth renting. If you like it, get it for your collection. You have to be in the right frame of mind to see it, and some people will just not like it no matter what, but that's true of most good films.


The Hulk:

Just saw this recently on blueray (*cough* BD! Hah!). I agree with the Ed Norton appraisal, but then the man is pretty brilliant at just about everything he's been in. In terms of plotline, this was the film that the earlier Hulk movie should have been. If you were at all a Marvel follower, that earlier work was just "wrong" on many levels. This version did a very good job of fitting into the classic Hulk character and a clear direction Marvel is going towards a future Avengers film *and* managed to pay homage to the TV series as well (even had bits of the music in there on occasion).

The acting was mostly good, but honestly who watches the Hulk for acting? I didn't really get either Ross character though. Jennifer Connelly was a much better choice for Betty than Liv Tyler (sad that she got stuck in the "crappy" version of the Hulk). Hurt really just kinda sucked at General Ross. I suspect he never could quite figure out if he was supposed to be playing a truly bad guy, or just someone obsessed a bit. He alternated between wanting to protect his daughter and not caring if she was in the line of fire if it got what he wanted. Honestly, that was the one glaringly "bad" part of the film. That character just didn't work the way it was portrayed. To be fair, the original comic book character was pretty one-dimensional, but you'd think they'd have drawn on some inspiration more recent than that. They kinda tried to do this at the end of the film, but it still fell flat.

Norton's take on Banner was just about right IMO. The "Banner on the run" aspect of the classic Hulk storyline is one that most people will relate to, was a good choice for this film, and he pulls it off. He's a bit "clever" about it (always has a wink and a swagger to him, doesn't he?), but that's Ed Norton for ya...

Obviously, if you're a comic book fan, and/or just like action flicks, you'll likely love this film. There's enough of a character plotline in the film to carry it (although just barely). Roth was great. It's pretty clear from the deleted scenes that they were originally going to go with a much more detailed and explained plot, but Roth did such a good job with his gradual descent into insanity that they felt this could carry the main storyline (and it honestly does). It's a simple storyline, but it works in this context. And in the broader Marvel storyarc they're moving towards, it fills the role it's supposed to.

That the picture was staged when snapped rather than being the actual "first" time a flag was planted on that hill didn't really matter to anyone at the time, and just wasn't that interesting in the film either.

Haven't seen the film, but I suspect the premise would be interesting to those who have even a minuscule level of concern about the influence of propaganda and how rarely it coincides with reality.

It's apparent why you'd be bored it, of course.


Just saw this recently on blueray (*cough* BD! Hah!). I agree with the Ed Norton appraisal, but then the man is pretty brilliant at just about everything he's been in

He sucks. He's ludicrously overrated, self aware, and incredibly boring to watch. His last interesting performance was in Fight Club. Everything he's done in this century blows donkey.

Pride and Glory sucked. He sucked in the Hulk movie. He was painfully bad in the Painted Veil. The Illusionist was a rarely seen battle of overacting talentless hacks attempting to upstage each other, but I'd have give the Sopping Wet Douchebag Trophy to Norton. Giamiti put forth a noble effort, but you just can't out Douche Norton for two hours, no one can. Well, I take that back, perhaps if the entire cast of Entourage worked as a team...

Returning to Norton sucking: He sucked in Down in the Valley. He sucked in Kingdom of Heaven, although at least the mask kept me from having to see his face shouting "Ohhhh!! I'm in anguish ova hea!!! See my anguish!!! I have Leprosy, have I mentioned??"

He was outshone by FUCKING Markie Mark in The Italian Job, even though he had by far the better role. I could go on, but I'm about to puke just thinking about the guy.

Nexa and I watched Slumdog Millionaire this weekend, it was great. Hannah went to see Desperaux with her dad, but I haven't heard her review yet.

Red Dragon.

Awful. Fiennes was the only thing memorable about that movie. Norton made Jodie Foster look like a genius with that completely forgettable Reeves-like performance.