Terrific movie. Of special note is Renee Zellweger, who plays a spectacular character.
Tag Archives: film
wedding crashers
Saw Wedding Crashers last night. Pretty funny! Decent story, too, I liked it.
charlie and the chocolate factory
Just watched this tonight. Wow, weird. And all the Oompa-loompas being played by the same guy? Kinda freaky. And the oompa-loompa dancing was off the hook. Wild. Updated songs were actually kind of cool, the songs are sort of an expected part and it’s nice that they’re not entirely as cheesy as the old movie. Depp wasn’t as disappointing to me as he apparently was to some reviewers, conversely Highmore was not as terrific, although I do think he did a very good job. Sets were fantastic, the Wonka-Jackson connection didn’t seem as pronounced to me as to certain reviewers, and overall it was a great movie.
I pity the poor kid who had to wear the young Wonka appliance.
maria full of grace
Okay, I have to admit it: I’m a sucker for foreign films. Maria Full of Grace is a very good Spanish-language film about a Colombian girl who takes a job as a drug mule to the U.S. It is interesting and well done, but I was surprised that her employers weren’t very rough on her at all. How close to the truth? I don’t know.
collateral
I love to see comic actors crossing over successfully into drama. Jamie Foxx is great in Collateral, which plays out to be a very good thriller.
war of the worlds
Saw War of the Worlds last week, at the ever-popular but totally lame Seymour Cinemas. I really don’t understand why all my friends like to go there, it’s not much closer than any other theaters nor any cheaper, but it’s definitely crappier… Anyway, War of the Worlds was alright. It’s good, solid Spielberg filmmaking, but the script isn’t where it’s at it. It’s hard to criticize Spielberg, all his movies have a solid feeling: well-directed, every shot carefully chosen. This was no different in that respect, but the main characters pretty much accomplished nothing, they were just bystanders. Even their very survival was simply a concatenation of extremely lucky and far-fetched circumstances, with one of the characters inexplicably reappearing at the end even after having disappeared towards certain death.
land of the dead
Just saw Land of the Dead completely unexpectedly tonight. The original idea was to see Fantastic Four, but I’m glad we didn’t because it looks like trash and this was more fun anyway. The movie itself was… interesting. Interesting in that it wasn’t as bad as I expected a crappy horror film to be. The plot still sucked balls, but the premise of the world of the film would actually be an interesting and feasible basis for a sci-fi film: a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives in small, protected enclaves while the bulk of the world is overrun with zombies. Kind of reminds me of that Final Fantasy movie. They mustn’t have been there too long, though, if they were able to find supplies so easily. You’d think they’d start running out after a little while, what with the zombies being kind of unproductive and all. Production quality is actually very good, which I guess is what happens when you give lots of money to an experienced director. Acting is hit or miss. John Leguizamo is the man, but that evil millionaire-in-the-clouds dude is a total bomb in the acting department. The story isn’t really all that bad in its basis – the idea of the zombies slowly learning is, like the world, interesting. Unfortunately, it was translated idiotically on screen, as some zombie inexplicably becomes less than mindless (or should I say more than mindless?) and then the ending is rather stupid and unsatisfying, to put it mildly. Truth be told, I’m just not at all one for horror films, but I do have to give this one some credit. Go see it with some friends if you want to laugh a bit and watch the girls jump. ;)
batman begins
Just wanted to quickly say that I saw Batman Begins on Monday night and enjoyed it a lot. I’ve only seen bits of some of the other ones, so I don’t know how it compares, but I thought it was a very good action movie. On my own little mini mental ranking scale of movies, I would put it as the type of movie that is a quality, enjoyable movie. Because, to me, there are movies that are good and amazing and spectacular, and then there are movies that are just solid, well-done, and enjoyable, then those that are kind of stupid but fun, and then there are the butt ass stupid movies like Son of the Mask. Sorry Joey, just had to grind that in…
mr. & mrs. smith
Saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt last night. Bottom line, it was fun action comedy that I enjoyed a lot. I do wish, however, that Vince Vaughn had played in it more, his scenes were the funniest (“Mom! We’re on high alert here! I could have killed you, you don’t even know!”). Also, the kiss and make up between Mr. and Mrs. was rather abrupt and would’ve helped the movie by being more sincere. The bit about the job that they both took on was kind of confusing to me, I couldn’t understand a lot of the dialogue in that section and didn’t really understand who the kid was or what they were each trying to do. The ending fight was completely ridiculous and a little unsatisfying because of it, it made a kind of lame conclusion. I enjoyed the Fight Club reference on the kid’s t-shirt when they caught him. IMDB credits list Efren Ramirez (Pedro Sanchez from Napoleon Dynamite) as being in the film, but don’t list a role for him and I don’t recall ever seeing him. Angela Bassett is similarly listed, I think the list is a little wonky. Anyway, enjoyable film, check it out.
The Longest Yard
What a stupid movie. Not as bad as some, I guess, and mildly entertaining, but over all pretty stupid jokes and use of the storyline.