fascinating and moving – i do guess you’d need to be a fan of A Chorus Line, but i think that’s a pretty universal musical, in that it’s gritty and funny like musicals usually aren’t. the way they’ve juxtaposed footage and interviews about the original conception of the show with auditions and profiles of the revival is charming and effective. it’s really riveting and moving, and there isn’t a slow spot in it.
FUCKING AWESOME! very, very funny, and very, very gross. it definitely helps to like Sam Raimi (and i do so very much), and this is exceptionally well done. reminds me a bit of Shaun of the Dead, in that it is simultaneously poking fun at the horror genre, and being a really excellent example of it. acting several rungs above what it has to be – good on ya, Alison Lohman!
NOT the creepy Solaris-clone it looks like (which was a wee bit disappointing for me, actually), but i love a good Clones Are People, Too story. it has a compelling story, and Sam Rockwell is spectacular as always. i might have preferred a movie about what happens AFTER this one, but i liked it nonetheless – nice job, Ziggy Stardust Jr.
there is one great thing about this movie, and his name is Tom Felton.
why do they insist on making these movies without having read the book? i get that things must changed and omitted in an adaptation, i DO, but they truly don’t seem to understand what the IMPORTANT parts are, and they end up gutting the dramatic peaks in favor of pointless diversions that don’t further the plot. it’s as though the producers are so offended that the books are good that they’re determined to take every high point of the story and re-do it from scratch with no regard for how it affects the story as a whole – or toss them entirely. what kills me is that the story they abandoned was clear and simple, and they replace it with something convoluted that doesn’t have dramatic power.
there’s no funeral?! they could have wrung that theater like a washcloth, but nah, skip it. instead of having an exciting final quidditch match at the end of the year where harry finally gets to smooch ginny, they remove that in favor of a 15-minute practice at the beginning, slip that kiss in there quickly and randomly, no big whup.
i admit that all these movies are strongly hampered for me by Daniel Radcliffe and Micheal Gambon. Radcliffe is a pretty young man but has never been right for Harry, and at this point is just not a good actor – stiff and fakey with an emotional range consisting of vague amusement or PMS. Michael Gambon lacks that je ne se Dumbledore, always playing him as just some old guy, no impishness or hidden power. and how far can you go when your 2 protagonists are so lame?
the acting is great, as is the Historic Male Fashion, but Michael Mann MUST BE STOPPED – he had all the pieces to make a masterpiece, and he couldn’t even muster up adequate. criminally bad cinematography – we need to suddenly switch to hand-held video shot from crotch level for this gun battle, really?! and the made-for-TV music was cheezy. Mann hasn’t made a decent movie in over 10 years and his losing streak isn’t broken here.
STINKS. i love me some Kevin James, and really many of the actors are delightful, but this is just irredeemable. i was convinced it was originally developed for Chris Farley, but Kevin has a whole different thing to him and so this just didn’t work AT ALL.
(but KJ co-wrote and co-produced, so i guess that isn’t true, and it’s got no excuses at all)
adorable, but pathetic in its aggressive looniness, a movie that cares so much what you think of it that it trips over its own feet every 5 minutes. it’s all kind of worth it just to watch the cast for a couple of hours, but the whole thing plays like the pesky little brother of a Wes Anderson flick. 20 demerits for overuse of The Anvil Of Foreshadowing, but Adrien Brody looks made of spun sugar and Robbie Coltrane lights up a screen like Christmas morning.
i like a movie that knows itself and commits 100% to whatever crazy shit it has set out to do. Jason Statham is playing essentially the same guy he plays in Guy Ritchie’s movies, which is subtly different than the guy he plays in all his other movies. i can’t really describe the difference, except that one is awesome and hilarious and the other is just lame. THIS is the AWESOME one. this movie was so manly, i grew a beard just watching it.
NOT the Little Miss Sunshine-esque “dark comedy” it’s billed as! it’s not really funny at all – mostly, it’s a sweet and sad little chick flick that never quite takes a strong enough step in any direction to make much impact.
all the performances are truly great, and with surprisingly beautiful cinematography, but it’s not sad/funny/sharp/sweet enough by half. entirely too mild, with no risks – nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Sam Worthington is superb, but this suffered from a criminally bad script. the plot was far too thin and mostly stupid, padded with cliche dialog. everyone did the best they could, but with this script the movie should have been 45 minutes long. but Sam Worthington; holy crap, he’s good. and Ron Howard’s girl is a beautiful creature to look upon.
and you know what else? the cinematography sucked ass, and the DP deserved the reaming Christian Bale gave him. after watching this, I’M going to go kick Shane Hurlbut’s ass. everything was colored too cold and shot too close – it was like watching TV, except the Terminator TV show is better shot than this movie. had a significant impact on my already-strained suspension of disbelief.