Movie Review Thread

Million Dollar Baby
First rate movie. Put shortly and without spoilers, it's about an elderly boxing trainer who first refuses but eventually agrees to train a woman as a boxer. The plot is predictable for the first half, that changes when later in the movie it focuses on ethical issues. Intensly dramatic, and the acting is superb (starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Hillary Swank)
Also it should be said that despite the obvious association with the Rocky movies, boxing is about the only thing they have in common.

@Mouz: the first Star Trek movie was just terrible (in my opinion), mostly because it expects that you can sit in awe for over 3 minutes looking at special effects that were good thirty years ago without noticing the film is moving at crawl pace. Movies 2 and 6 were top notch though, if you haven't already watch those.

.
I agree with the opening scene being stupidly long. But it's not terrible for me; as I say, just another episode but too long.

Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece. Clint and Freeman are, well, Clint and Freeman; and Hillary Swank rocks!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Don't watch if you're addicted to happy endings.

.

All the king's men Based on the Robert Penn Warren novel. At least that's what they say.
I'm very disappointed. For me R.P.Warren's "All the king's men" is one of the greatest American novels and I was expecting something very special. Sean Penn as Willie Stark was... pathetic. Not to mention Antony Hopkins as Judge Irwin.
If you love this book as much as I do, don't watch this grotesque. Don't.

.
I have a DVD of All the King's Men that I haven't seen yet...

***

Yester-evening we watched Cassandra's Dream. A near-perfect Woody Allen movie (not a comedy) with a brilliant British cast and the story passing in/around London. Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor (especially the prior) are praiseworthy on the lead while Hayley Atwell and Sally Hawkins no less in the supporting roles, both being gorgeous just to look at notwithstanding. :kiss2:

The plot outline on imdb is inaccurate, ignore it. Wikipedia has a nice plot summary and factoids: Cassandra's Dream. (Beware spoilers!)
.

Sally Hawkins had a leading role in the very well done BBC adaptation of the Sarah Waters novel Fingersmith (2005).

.
Noted. Thanks. :bow:
.

Hmm, just saw Charlie Wilson's War. I'd say it was a pretty good movie, and was rather enjoyable. I particularly like the character of Gus, that was a pretty interesting character, no doubt. Also, the ending was pure classic, though not neccessarily to everyone's taste.

Ace In The Hole (1951) is a very good film noir drama directed by Billy Wilder about a down and out reporter, powerfully played by Kirk Douglas, who is hoping for a disaster or tragedy to happen so that he can use the story to boost his career back on track. It may well be based on events surrounding the 1925 West Virgina mining disaster which trapped Floyd Collins and was reported upon for 17 days. The theme of the news media capitalizing on bad news to boost its business because that's what sells (hot copy) is still relevant today. This film was recently released on a Criterion DVD with excellent picture and sound quality.

Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), original title Night of the Clown, is a drama written and directed by Ingmar Bergman which is set in a traveling circus and deals with the themes of betrayal, guilt and humiliation. The opening sequence which visually and concisely presents the theme has its roots in Sergei Eisenstein's montage style. The bright white lighting in this sequence is intentional and used to convey the harshness of reality. You'll note the sexual metaphor represented by the cannons. Despite the dark theme, I find a positive message about life in this film which I don't think was Bergman's intention. I saw this film in the 1960's and it made a strong impression on me, and, although I had completely forgotten the narrative, that impression resurfaced when I watch the film again recently. The film has recently been release on a Criterion DVD. The musical score under the opening credits is rather jarring, but this doesn't continue in the film. Harriet Andersson is quite stunning, and the black and white cinematography is outstanding.

Nabbeun namja - Bad Guy (2001) by Kim Ki Duk, Korean with English subtitles.

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/aj6293/bad_guy.jpg

Continuing on my quest for a decisive understanding of the female psychology, I watched this movie tonight, by chance. I didn't expect it to be educational, matter of fact I was looking for a night off, after a heavy night. What I found was a pretty frank and upfront analysis of pair bonding between a young college girl and a gangster. Remarkable movie which spans the love-hate relationship between two improbable lovers (by the traditional sense). I cannot really say much more at this time, since there really isn't much to say, the movie speaks for itself... it is excellent.

TRAILER

.
These jap/korean girls will kill me someday. :shocked:
.

Maybe I missed it because I didn't understand the significance of the picture that she finally pieces together on the beach, but I don't think the college girl was in love with the Bad Guy (2001) even at the end of the film. I think director Kim Ki Duk is pointing out a social problem, and the psychology is that of the bad guy rather than the victimized college girl.

Meh... I never liked those Asian movies, though they often have good or interesting topics. The overall movie quality is usually lacking. Reminds me of that Japanese movie about school teenagers sent to an island to kill each other. What was that name again? AH, Battle Royale! What terrible acting it has.

Anyway, I saw a classic (again this one) yesterday: The Longest Day. It is decent, it is decent. And it never ceases to entertain me. War movies is the bomb, and it is nice to hear them speak in the original languages instead of English with an accent (unless they're REALLY supposed to speak English).

.
Hemingway's For whom the Bell Tolls with Garry Cooper & Ingrid Bergman*
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier
The Last Mitterand with whomever playing old Frankie doing it monumentally

*Haven't checked the names; might have confused somebody else with her.
.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mouzafphaerre

[COLOR="Wheat"].*Haven't checked the names; might have confused somebody else with her.
.

---

No you're right; it's Bergman. :yes:

.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Coincidentally saw a moment of Angelina on the Azeri state channel while zapping. :kiss2: Fun, lightweight, pointless movie. Brad Pitt looks like a man (thought it was somebody else at first). Add the fact that the dialect of Turkish spoken in Azerbaijan sounds hilarious to us, their western cousins, and it wasn't really a waste of time.
.

watched "The Godfather" recently.(can ever get enough of it!)awsome movie

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bijo

Anyway, I saw a classic (again this one) yesterday: The Longest Day. It is decent, it is decent. And it never ceases to entertain me.

---

Yes, it's treasure chest with lots of memorable vignettes. The paratrooper trapped on the steeple of St Mere Eglise is my favorite.

The film is very like A Bridge too Far, although the latter is the better movie IMO. What both films catch is the sheer scale of WW2, with even individual scenes of heroism or horror dwarfed by the vast size of the conflict. Modern war films tend to focus too much on the action hero and despite their technical virtuosity (e.g. Saving Private Ryan), don't catch the essence of the thing.

The Longest Day is a very good war movie. Once again I find myself agreeing with Econ.

My favourite part is the bit with the Free French troops attacking the jerries in the casino. The way it starts looking over the shoulder of one guy and then pans out to reveal several battalions rushing through the town, blasting away, is one of my all time fav scenes in a movie.

Simply breathtaking.

:2thumbsup:

Sounds fair, but a film like SPR is not just about WWII: it goes into detail about a certain subject and so on. The lack of the portrayal of the large scale of war is only good in this case as the movie is highly effective. It shows more drama.

By the way, that early scene in TLD when the paratroopers just hit the ground and they look up into the sky as they hear planes and this other passing unit does so too... that one's also memorable! It is actually almost funny how they don't recognize the enemy.

Still got a trauma of the poor guy landing in a well.

National Treasure 2
Very similar to the first. It doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table, so it's not as original, but it shares the first show's strong points and did not disappoint. Not bad as sequels go.

Ajax

.
Yazı Tura*

It makes me glad finally to see Turkish movies which are, well, movies at all! ~:) Still in a moderate, maybe cowardly way; this one shows you a little part of what the glorious Turkish army and the ugly war going on for a generation will do to two unrelated, ordinary, simple youths. Both get crippled in a landmine explosion, but the real trouble will begin when they are back.

Very well played, well written -with a few glitches here and there- and well filmed. The music drowns though, and is at times alienating. There are some moments that would best be kept dead silent.

Usage of language (Turkish, Greek) and local accents (that of Kappadokia) is impressive. Successfully and correctly done with real speakers or excellent actors.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

No happy ending. Cold, real life.

* head or tail
.

Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. Made in 1993.
This is a movie about a lawyer (Becket, played by Hanks) who is a homosexual and has AIDS. He's fired from his job in a big lawyer firm because of this (although his employers say it was because of sloppiness at work; Becket did have a clearly visible mark on the right side of his forehead). He goes to see another lawyer, Miller (played by Washington), who is homophobic, and at first does not want to defend Becket. After seeing him being discriminated at a public library, he agrees to do that. Between the beginning of the film and the beginning of the trial, about 10 months have elapsed (more or less).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the end, Becket suffers an attack in court (because of AIDS), and has to be rushed to the hospital. The trial continues, and Miller wins the case. However, Becket dies before the end of it.

The last five minutes (approximately) of the film shows pictures of Becket's childhood. In the movie, Becket's family completely supports him.

A beautiful movie. Touched me right to my heart.
Everything is great; the story was well written, Hanks and Washington acted superbly, the music (Springsteen, Streets of Philadelphia, at the beginning and especially Neil Young at the end, with Philadelphia), the rest of the actors (Banderas plays the gay lover of Hanks with credibility; even the 'evil' characters had some humanity in them)... A must see for everyone, although it really is emotional.

----------------------
Another few good movies I've seen recently are The Terminal, Road To Perdition (both with Hanks) and Runaway Jury (John Cusack, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman).

The Terminal , directed by Steven Spielberg, with Tom Hanks who plays Viktor Navorski, a Krakozhian (fictional ex-USSR country in Eastern Europe) who goes to New York. However, his country suffers a revolution and civil war (that goes on for nine months or so). This means that Navorski can't go to New York, but he can't go back to Krakozhia either. He becomes stateless, and lives in the Terminal for as long as it takes. He befriends the airport staff (except Immigration Officer Dixon, played by Stanley Tucci) and eventually meets Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

He explains to her why he's in New York. His now-dead father, a jazz fan, saw the "Great Day in Harlem" photograph and vowed to get a signature of all 57 jazz players. 40 years later, all but Benny Golson have signed, and Golson plays at the Ramada Inn, 161 Lexington. That's where Navorski wants to go, to get Golson's autograph, because of a promise he made to his father. He eventually gets there, meets Golson, who's about to play. Musical interlude, after which Navorski exits the Ramada Inn, hails a cab, and "goes home".

A nice little movie, just perfect for Hanks to play, I think.

Road to Perdition is a gangster movie, kind of like The Godfather, but which concentrates more on the father/son relation. Hanks, the father, doesn't want his offspring to become a hitman, like him. It's good too.

Runaway Jury is a courtroom drama, in all basic terms.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There is a twist though. Hoffman plays a lawyer in a woman against gun industry case. He advocates the woman's side. Hackman plays a jury consultant for the gun industry side. His typical methods are to find everything on the potential jurors, so he can pressure them, as "everybody has a weak point", into giving Hackman the verdict he more or less wants.
What he doesn't know is that John Cusack, one of the jurors, is influencing the jurors in a way as to vote for the woman, and against the gun industry. Meanwhile, Cusack hustles Hackman into giving him 15 million dollars, because Cusack says he will give Hackman the verdict he wants. Of course, it's a con, and Hackman loses the case.

Another good movie, with some measure of suspense.

All four of those I've seen in the past week; all of them are, in my humble opinion, must-sees.

.
Seen Philadelphia and the last part of The Terminal. The latter was, IIRC, loosely based on a true story, too much loosely as is the habit of Holywood. Didn't strike me much; all available drama stuff dumped into a single story. ~:wacko: Philadelphia was good, except being too melodramatic, which is also a Holywood pattern. Worth the time nevertheless for Hanks & Washington if nothing. :rtwyes:
.

Jason Bourne, what a character. Great movies. From start to finish they are full of twists and turns, action packed, mind-blowing!! :rtwyes:

.
Just seen the Hitchcock classical The Man Who Knew Too Much (the 1956 remake with Jim Stewart and Doris Day) on TV (for upteenth time). :rtwyes:
.

Into the Wild was, quite simply, the best new movie i've seen in over a year.

After graduating from college Christopher McAndles (or something like that) gives away all his money to charity, changes his name to Alexander Supertramp and heads off across the US, trying to find purity and a life far away from consumerism. The end point of his journey is Alaska, where he tries to live off the land. Based on a true story.

This really is a great movie. The main character isn't exactly likable, at least not to me, since he is just a little to naive and idealistic. But he is understandable. He's just another flawed human being like the rest of us. Possibly the best thing about this movie are the characters he meets along the way. Just normal people leading their lives and trying to find happiness.

And the cinematography is fantastic.

:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

I just have to say that Into the Wild was quite easily the worst movie I'd seen in over a year.

The plot was utterly predictable and in parts cringeworthy, and it dragged on for at least an hour longer than necessary.

Otherwise, what doc_bean has said about the story is entirely correct...it just isn't particularly interesting, and drags on and on and on.

~:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sapi

I just have to say that Into the Wild was quite easily the worst movie I'd seen in over a year.

The plot was utterly predictable

---

I knew the story beforehand, the plot wasn't the point of the movie.

Quote:

---

and in parts cringeworthy,

---

Hmm, depends on how you look at it, I can certainly see why you'd think that. If you refer to the rambling of Alex himself, I feel that that was mostly the point, he's naive and maybe just a little bit stupid when it comes to life.

Quote:

---

and it dragged on for at least an hour longer than necessary.

---

The three of us that went to see it all agreed that it didn't feel overly long, while it was a long movie.

Quote:

---

Otherwise, what doc_bean has said about the story is entirely correct...it just isn't particularly interesting, and drags on and on and on.

~:)

---

It's certainly not for everyone. I do dislike pretty much anything released in the last few years, so 'm probably not the average movie goer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by doc_bean

I knew the story beforehand, the plot wasn't the point of the movie.

Hmm, depends on how you look at it, I can certainly see why you'd think that. If you refer to the rambling of Alex himself, I feel that that was mostly the point, he's naive and maybe just a little bit stupid when it comes to life.

---

Yeah, I think you're right in saying that it was mostly intended; I just tend to have a thing against movies which do rely on such things as a plot device (as true as they were in this case). I think it was especially true in the case of Alex, as you said, as he persevered in carrying through a plan that everyone knew from the beginning would turn out to be a mistake. As true as it might be to life, I find it very difficult to emphasis with, for lack of a better word, 'stupid' (probably more correctly naive), characters, and in a film like Into the Wild, which was focused so much around the one person, that can be a bit of a game breaker.

Quote:

---

The three of us that went to see it all agreed that it didn't feel overly long, while it was a long movie.

---

I guess it's a matter of taste; of the three of us who saw it, two thought it was too long. If the movie had had a more coherent plot rather than just being a collection of memoirs (based, I assume, on those people that the original author of the book had been able to track down, and on Alex's diaries), it might have been a bit easier to justify the length, but as it was it was hard to definitively say that each section 'added' something, imho.

Quote:

---

It's certainly not for everyone. I do dislike pretty much anything released in the last few years, so 'm probably not the average movie goer.

---

:beam: