Tag: review

I’m not really sure how to react to Doubt. Should I think that Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysious is infallible or inflexible? Is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Father Flynn guilty or innocent? Is Amy Adam’s Sister James ridiculously cute or hilariously naive? What was the point of all that?

I watched the movie and wondered is there a moral to this tale? Beyond the standard fare of pedophilia in the Catholic church, what was the intent of the movie? Sure Sister Aloysious could’ve been less of a stick in the mud, but is Father Flynn really guilty? It described the changes going on in the national character, and that in the face of it, you stick to your morals if you can stomach it. The story took place in the 60s, after the death of Kennedy, as civil rights took to the fore. It makes for a compelling milieu, if only I could care about it.

Sister Aloysious reminds me of the sisters at my Catholic grade school: stern and frightening in their anger. She made me laugh recognizing her character from my past.

3 of 5 stars

What’s so special about a dog? Marley & Me has the answer. Of course, all dogs in movies are special, and your dog is also special. Dogs in general are special except Cujo and that mutt of yours that shat and pissed everywhere in your house while tearing things up. Of course, that can also describe the adorable Marley.

It’s a movie of how a dog touched the lives of its owners as they grew from a couple to a family. You know how that works: meet cute, go over the good times, show the trouble with the dog, go over the bad times, the kids show up and overtake the dog, they grow up, they grow older, the dog grows older, the dog will die. Then the lights come up and the little girls behind you are sobbing their eyes out.

Dogs are special. This movie isn’t.

3 of 5 stars.

There’s a lot of fancy CG effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. There’s the site of a Brad Pitt growing younger as he ages. There’s a riveting attack on a German U-boat. There’s a wonderful, old-timey gag on lightning strikes. And there is Cate Blanchett — young and old.

There was the CG effects, and it dominated every scene of the movie to a point that I had to think about what wasn’t real and was. Then I thought about how they pulled that off. Did they put Brad Pitt’s head on a kid? A midget? Or was he completely built up as a CG model like Neo in the later Matrix films. The most intriguing CG was the your Cate Blanchett. How did they graft her face on that body so seamlessly? Or did they digitally stretch and shape her to look young and svelte?

The effects really got in the way of the story. It was a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but was mainly written and adapted by the guy who did Forest Gump. It shows. Benjamin Button seemed to go from one thing to the next just as Forest did. So the story was rather meager. It was filled with love, but was so boring.

And it was long. The problem was that Brad Pitt is in his 40s and when he reached the look of his natural age, the movie was already two hours old. We followed that dude to the grave and it felt like it.

It also had an unfortunate framing device of the old Cate in the hospital dying and her daughter (Julia Ormand!!!!) reading Benjamin’s diary in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina bears down on them. You get too worried about the present to enjoy the past. I’m hoping Julia Ormand made it out of New Orleans to safety.

Just not that good and intriguing. A disappointment from Fincher (!) whose last film was very, very good.

2 of 5 stars.

I am a Slumdog Millionaire only because I know the answers to the questions you ask. I don’t know everything. I know enough from my experiences, and not enough from my lack of experience. I am street smart if not book smart. I am lucky that things that happened to me are things that are easily to remember: the worst outhouse in Mumbai, the religious riots, Fagin, the three mouseketeers, etc., etc. I use this too my advantage. If there was a wall with pictures on it, I would’ve used that too. I am smart that way. I am a slumdog millionaire, and I know that my answers are correct because I am loved.

So it was written.

4 of 5 stars.

Australia is as big as the continent and takes as long to get to the end
as it does to get from Darwin to Sydney. Now I don't really know if
that's true, but it sounds like something you would say to make your
opening statement sound masterful. I don't know about the geographical
relationship between the two cities, and I don't know if it would take
just three hours to travel between them. Go google-map it and find out.
I just needed a hooky opening line for this review.Australia's hook is that Nicole Kidman, a bonafide aussie, plays an
English lady who arrives Down Under to pursue her dead husbands dream of
being a cattle baron. Just like other Westerns of the American Old
West. I can think that Kidman tries to tame the wild Outback, but it is
the Outback that she breaks her and she embraces it as she embraces the
young heart of the aborigine kid. Kidman starts as the classic duck out
of water. I think she would eventually become like Barbara Stanwyck in
Forty Guns, "a high riding woman with a whip," but only in my dreams.Then there is the sexiest man alive for 200x, Hugh Jackman. Water
caressing is sun baked body. Whew. Who wouldn't fall for that? He
should've been dumping the bucket of water on himself for the entire
movie. The girls would've loved that.The movie is long, but moves. The cattle drive does wonders to make it
work. Yet, the commercials and the trailer led me to believe that this
was Pearl Harbor all over again. The attack on Darwin were pretty much
over in minutes and appeared in the finale. I expected more.Overall, it is a much better movie than I anticipated it to be. I don't
think it would go on to be an Oscar contender, because it felt too much
like a Lonesome Dove or other CBS sweeps week western. 3 of 5 stars.

Twilight is the movie version for the first book by Stephanie Myers in
her teen-angst vampire series. It already has an intended audience
built into it, one which I am not part of. I've seen most of the
adaptations of book series: The Lord of the Rings (the gold standard),
The Chronicles of Narnia (boring), Harry Potter (exciting). This is the
first that I have not read any of the books upon which the series will
be based. I am an outsider which colors my reaction to the movie.I don't really care for vampire stories. They are not my usually
scare-fest fare. I prefer haunted houses and ghosts stories to creep me
out. The only vampire story I like is Stephen King's Salems Lot,
because it had a haunted house, the old Marsden place, in it, and it was
sufficiently creepy enough to keep me up till the break of dawn like
many of the ghost stories I read at the time.So vampires kind of bore me. They are too emo for my taste. The lead
vampire in the film is too broody and conveys his angst with furrowed
eyebrows. He reminded me of Brenden Fraser. Then there is the head
vampire who reminded me of Tom Cruise's vampire Lestat. This was a
brilliant casting decision. Although, less broody than the lead
vampire, his angst was summed up in his choice of becoming "vegetarian."
Why must I want human blood?The movie probably satisfies the fans of the book. They get to see the
characters in the flesh which they could only do in their imagination
until now. I now understand how it is to be an outsider to these fan
movies. I can't fathom what emotions the readers of the book are
investing in the characters and story of this film, but I know that
theirs are assigned with great heart. I can't really give a good
review, because I don't really care about the story. As a movie though,
it seems to be an opening chapter: incomplete and waiting for the next
to arrive. I don't think I want to see the next one.2 of 5 stars.

Quantum of Solace jumps right in where it left off two years ago. At least that’s what I thought, because I have only seen Casino Royale once in the theatres many moons ago.

I like the Bond girl who fits the classic Bond girl mold, Strawberry Fields. She doesn’t tell us her first name. She’s against Bond at their first meeting like the loyal henchwoman of Bond nemesis of old. Yet, she hops into the sack with Bond, and fatally winds up metaphorically being dropped into the shark pit or killed by the bad voodoo. She learns that you shake your ta-tas at Bond then you’ll take a dirt nap.

I really don’t have much to say about it, but maybe I might watch this on DVD more than its predecessor.

3 of 5 stars

Changeling is another Clint Eastwood flick that may be prestigious enough to warrant an Oscar nom if it was a better movie. It’s another of his explorations into the darkness of man á la Mystic River or Unforgiven. Yet, it wasn’t at first. It seemed to wander from theme to theme without a care.

I thought it was Angelina Jolie’s annual Oscar entry. Then it became a police procedural focusing on the corruption of the LAPD. Was the LAPD really just a bunch of no good thugs? Are they still? Are all cops just criminals with badges? Then the movie became about the Mira Loma serial killings. What?

One thing going for this movie is that it was short for a 140 minute movie. I was intrigued by how all the themes were introduced then twisted away for the next theme. The director’s slight of hand made it three films in one. It should’ve ended with the cowboy telling us the dude abides. We’re all LA now…. Who is the changeling?

3 of 5 stars