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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 12 November 2011 08:14
(A review of
Derailed)
Honestly, I have nothing against Jennifer Anniston. Indeed, I think she is actually really charming and I'm pretty sure she is quite talented but, unfortunately, she keeps playing the same characters in the same boring romantic-comedies over and over again. This time, it is quite obvious that she tried here something else, just to prove she is actually able to do it and honestly, even though I praise her effort, it didn't work out very well for her, I'm afraid. I mean, Clive Owen and Vincent Cassel were both very convincing here and they delivered some strong performances giving some dramatic ground to the movie but Jennifer Anniston wasn't really believable whatsoever and was frankly rather miscast here. Furthermore, even though the story was pretty entertaining and engaging for most part of the movie, since it is a Hollywood thriller, they basically had to add a lame twist ending which kind of ruined the whole thing for me. Every time I see such an ending, it makes me wonder, why do they think that such a ludicrous and unbelievable conclusion will benefit a picture ? I guess it has to do with the shock value "Oh my God! I really didn't see this coming!" Of course not, since it doesn't make any sense... A part from that, it is honestly a rather well-made and pretty entertaining thriller, above all thanks to the always amazing Owen and Cassel, and if you like the genre, it is actually worth a look, especially if you are curious to see Jennifer Anniston trying something else.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 11 November 2011 11:23
(A review of
The Princess Diaries)
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since it featured Anne Hathaway's breakthrough début performance, I thought I should give it a try. Eventually, for a rather typical Disney feature, I thought it was not that bad after all. Indeed, Anne Hathaway and Julie Christie were both really charming and they provided some decent performances. Of course, the story was rather pedestrian and completely predictable but, even though it follows a well-known formula (the ugly loser chick becomes a gorgeous princess...), it did it really well and, as a result, I was rather entertained throughout the whole thing. Concerning Anne Hathaway, even though you might not like her (myself, I’m not a huge fan), you can’t deny that her career has been pretty impressive so far starting with a Disney feature to her first Academy award recently with ‘The Misérables’ and with some nice roles in between like Selina Kyle in the last Batman flick. To conclude, it is nothing mind-blowing whatsoever but, in this genre, it is actually not bad at all and I guess it is worth a look, especially if you are a fan of Anne Hathaway.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 11 November 2011 09:54
(A review of
Immortals)
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[Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]’ it seemed that Tarsem Singh could become one of the greatest visionary filmmakers at work right now. At that point, he had made 3 movies and they were really amazing to look at and his 3rd feature was not an exception. Indeed, the costumes, the set dressing, the special effects, everything was just quite gorgeous and some shots were some impressive cinematic paintings. However, like with his directing debut 'The Cell', the story turned out to be rather underwhelming. Basically, it was some rather generic Greek action flick, similar to '300' or 'Clash of the Titans' but it was pretty weak and the dialogues were just really tedious. Fortunately, the action scenes were pretty neat but there were not so many of them and all the scenes involving the characters just talking to each other were rather boring and lacked dramatic strength. The first time I saw it, it was in the theater and the awesome visuals made it possible for me to forgive the weak story. However, I re-watched it later on the small screen with Nick, my step-son, and the lack of strong plot and interesting characters was even more obvious so the whole thing was after all definitely nothing mind-blowing whatsoever. Still, it remains a gorgeous movie to look at and, just for that, I still think it is worth a look.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 10 November 2011 10:52
(A review of
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement)
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from the first movie but, I have to admit it, it wasn't bad at all after all but since the first installment was rather successful, it was quite obvious that a second movie will follow. As usual with sequels, you should always rather lower your expectations but, still, I thought that this one was just really worthless. Indeed, unfortunately, they didn't manage to improve the formula, in the contrary. The main issue is that the whole charm of the first movie was that she didn't know she was a princess so how can you go further with this character ? Eventually, they found a really contrived and boring plot about her finding a suitable husband withing 30 days. I mean, this gimmick has been done so many times before and I always find it an uninteresting and obnoxious concept. On the other hand, once again, Anne Hathaway and Julie Christie were both really charming but they couldn't save this flick from total boredom. To conclude, I didn't like it at all, I thought it was pretty bad and you should avoid it, expect maybe if you are very very young....
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 10 November 2011 09:18
(A review of
The Killing Room)
Nowadays, I have Netflix and Popcorn and not only I have since then an endless selection of movies to choose from but, as a result, I have become slightly more picky regarding the movies I watch. Before, I used to watch pretty much anything as long as it was starring one or two actors I was interested in and, as a result, I would sometimes end up watching some really obscure features. This movie was a perfect example. Indeed, I have never heard of it before but it was a very cheap DVD so I though why not have a look ? Basically, it turned out to be one of those cheap psychological thrillers and it strongly reminded me of 'Cube' and 'Saw'. I did like the scenes inside the 'room' which were pretty tense and rather well acted but I didn't like much the scenes outside the 'room' as those scenes tried to add some mystery to the whole proceedings but they failed miserably. Eventually, the biggest mistake they made was that they tried to make it all sound very smart and clever but I wasn’t really convinced. I was above all amazed by how dumb the ending was, when you discover the whole 'concept', and how contrived this project actually was. To conclude, it was not completely worthless but it was still pretty average and eventually, not really worth a look.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 9 November 2011 11:09
(A review of
Ride with the Devil)
Since I'm a huge fan of Ang Lee, I was really eager to check this flick even though it is definitely one of his most obscure features. Eventually, it did take me a while to get my hands on the damned thing and I wish I could say that it was worth the wait but, unfortunately , it turned to be his most disappointing directing effort I have seen so far. I mean, it was definitely nice to see Ang Lee trying another genre, the Wester/costume-drama, the cast was also pretty interesting (Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jim Caviezel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey Wright, Mark Ruffalo, Jewel Kilcher, Tom Wilkinson) and they all delivered some solid performances. Unfortunately, even though, the directing was solid, as usual with Ang Lee, there was a big issue with the story. I mean, it was nothing really awfull but it was still pretty generic and it was definitely nothing really mind-blowing whatsoever. At the end of the day, I didn’t care much about the characters and/or what they were going through. Still, even though the whole thing was rather disappointing, I still think it is actually worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ang Lee's work.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 9 November 2011 10:15
(A review of
The White Countess)
First of all, to be honest, I'm not a really a huge fan of costume-dramas. Indeed, in my opinion, the characters in such stories are in fact always shallow, annoying and rather uninteresting. However, even if I usually don’t care for the genre, I have to admit that James Ivory manages most of the time to make his characters actually quite fascinating to watch and this movie was a fine example. This time, it took place in Shanghai, just before WWII and I have always been fascinated by this rather obscure page of history. Furthermore, the directing was really good with some really nice set-dressing and I just loved the mood they managed to create. Ralph Fiennes was, as usual, really strong and even though I have before never been really impressed by Natasha Richardson, I must say that she was really convincing in this movie. In my opinion, the story was rather generic but interesting enough and above all, thanks to Ivory's expertise in this genre, it was really compelling to watch. To conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, I actually really liked the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 8 November 2011 01:33
(A review of
Body of Lies)
I already saw this movie (in fact, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released) but, since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. Back in those days and, in fact, still right now, Leonardo DiCaprio was and is one of the most interesting actors at work and I wasn't really surprised to see him making a movie at some point with the great Ridley Scott. To complete this awesome combination, you had Russell Crowe so this flick definitely had some potential. Well, first of all, as usual with Ridley Scott, the directing was fine and there were a couple of really solid action scenes. Furthermore, DiCaprio and Crowe delivered some decent performances and I thought they were both fairly convincing. Still, even though it was pretty good and certainly entertaining, I can't say the whole thing really blew me away after all though. Indeed, like most of the movies directed by Scott, the visuals were fine but the story was rather shallow after all. I mean, the plot kept me interested but there was definitely something missing though. The main issue was that Roger Ferris was doing his best to work with the locals but, each time around, his boss Ed Hoffman would ruin all his hard work and this gimmick was repeated time and time again. It was also a poor idea to have the main character getting involved with an Arabian local girl. I mean, everything else about the main character was really convincing, except this part which was obviously added to humanize this guy but I think it would have been more efficient to only show him as a puppet at the mercy of his superiors. Still, I thought it was well made, I enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ridley Scott's work.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 8 November 2011 12:38
(A review of
Knowing )
Since I'm a huge fan of 'Dark City' and since, according to Roger Ebert, this movie was one of the best released in 2008, I was really eager to watch the damned thing. However, it turned out that Ebert was in fact the only person who was actually postive about this movie so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Well, after watching the damned thing, to be honest, I don't really understand why Roger Ebert was so enthusiast about. I mean, I have to admit it, it was definitely an interesting mix of different genres such as science-fiction, thriller, horror and even the disaster genre. Furthermore, I must say that the special effects were pretty awesome and the directing was in general pretty decent, as expected from this director. However, I wasn’t really impressed by the story, I’m afraid. Indeed, this tale was just so preposterous and I had a hard time to understand the motivations of the lead character, except for moving the plot along. There were here and there some of the brilliance displayed in 'Dark City' but it never reached the level of this great underrated classic. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is decent science-fiction flick and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Alex Proyas's work.
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Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 8 November 2011 10:03
(A review of
Too Tired to Die)
Nowadays, I have Netflix and Popcorn and not only I have since then an endless selection of movies to choose from but, as a result, I have become slightly more picky regarding the movies I watch. Before, I used to watch pretty much anything as long as it was starring one or two actors I was interested in and, as a result, I would sometimes end up watching some really obscure features. This movie was a perfect example and the only reason I watched it was because it was featuring Mira Sorvino. Indeed, I had never heard about this movie but there was definitely a pretty cool cast involved (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Imperioli, Ben Gazzara, Gretchen Mol). Well, basically, it turned out to be one of those quirky indie comedies with some colourful and excentric characters. The makers tried to make it all charming and more or less clever but it didn't work out very well in my opinion. There were also some obvious references to 'The Seventh Seal' but this flick never reached the level of Bergman’s masterpiece. Indeed, the directing was way too average and I thought that all the actors gave some rather poor performances., expect maybe the always dependable Jeffrey Wright. To conclude, it was not really bad but it was still rather weak and it was not really worth a look eventually.
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