biopic – Excess of Opinions

Forever Enthralled

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:53:11 +0000

imbued with the kind of heavy import and reference that is mostly lost to a viewer who isn’t Chinese and doesn’t intuitively understand the significance of its characters and events. still, it’s very pretty and nicely-acted with notably stunning costume and set design. i found the dialog super cliche – but this could be a problem of subtitling?

altogether gorgeous, but unfortunately not enthralling for even 2 1/2 hours, much less forever.

John Rabe

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:28:19 +0000

Schindler’s List In China!

powerful and devastating, perfectly choreographed down to the last detail with flawless acting, but has a small uncomfortable whiff of “hey, everybody get off our German balls about the Holocaust! the Japanese did it TOO, dammit!!”

Raging Bull

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:20:11 +0000

i’m not at all sure how i got to this point in my life without having seen this, but holy crap. that was a helluva thing.

i had NO IDEA there was a time when Joe Pesci could act. no idea!

one does need to watch this with one’s time machine vision, as it’s definitely dated, not to mention it’s been ripped off and/or parodied many times in the intervening decades.

The Sound of Music

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:03:27 +0000

this just never gets old for me.

Erin Brockovich

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:50:13 +0000

Mostly just okay, but y’know, it’s Julia Roberts. Co-starring the cleft in Aaron Eckhart’s chin.

Being John Malkovich

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:37:03 +0000

so weird and cool and all like postmodern and shit.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:24:00 +0000

requires _extreme_ patience from the viewer – i couldn’t recommend it for most, frankly, and i don’t think it will work on the small screen.
a very quiet, powerful bit of character-studying that has stuck with me. genius, intense music, cinematography and acting.

American Gangster

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:17:01 +0000

well-done, with great performances all around, frankly, not absorbing enough to justify the long run-time. Would have made a killer HBO mini-series.

Gorillas In The Mist

Big Mouth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:35:26 +0000

massively formative for me as a teenager, and this shit holds up really well, too. perhaps a bit too…flattering of a biopic, but Dian Fossey was amazing so who cares if you wanna kiss her posthumous ass a bit?

Cadillac Records

Big Mouth — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:04:48 +0000

pretty goddamn good – a standard music biopic (although perhaps a tad more fictional than most). Adrien Brody turns out to be the weak spot, but everyone else is terrific, most especially Jeffrey Wright (and when is he _not_ terrific?). they let everyone do their own singing, and it’s good. even Beyonce did a a helluva job. Columbus Short and Eamonn Walker both stole every scene they were in.