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Grex > Cinema > #44: Movie Reviews for the Summer of 2001 |  |
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| 25 new of 284 responses total. |
bhelliom
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response 112 of 284:
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Jul 13 19:03 UTC 2001 |
Whoah, Meg . . .
<Searches for her bottle of Midol to pass on to the Megan. Doesn't
work for her anyway.>
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danr
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response 113 of 284:
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Jul 18 01:40 UTC 2001 |
Silvia and I went to see AI last night. We both agreed that it should
have ended when the Ferris wheel fell on David's helicopter. The rest
of the movie seriously detracted from the movie.
I honestly couldn't believe it when I heard the narrator say, "And then
after 2,000 years..." Silvia said, "It just seemed like it was 2,000
years."
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ric
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response 114 of 284:
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Jul 18 13:41 UTC 2001 |
I was actually going to be pissed if it ended there.
I have to wonder though... what powered him?
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danr
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response 115 of 284:
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Jul 19 01:54 UTC 2001 |
Ending it at that point would have been better than dragging it out
with no real point, don't you think?
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mary
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response 116 of 284:
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Jul 19 03:00 UTC 2001 |
The movie should have ended when the mother abandoned the
robot child in the woods. She then would have gone home to
live with an imperfect child, who likewise would not have
been able to meet all of her needs. Or her boy would have
died and she would have been back to square one. Or she
would have found out her real son was now a robotic substitute.
Or... anything but the schmaltz of a robot that wanted to
be a needful human.
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fitz
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response 117 of 284:
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Jul 19 09:02 UTC 2001 |
The Score C
The painstaking planning of a career safecracker (DiNiro) is complicated
by his need to team up with an insider (Norton) for information about the
layout and alarms protecting a smuggled French national treasure. If he
steals well, he will win back the heart of his estranged girlfriend
(Bassett) who disapproves of criminality and he will pay off the mortgage
on his jazz club. Jabba the Fence (Brando) is the catalyst, pushing DeNiro
to do the robbery that seems destined to flop.
The production values are good, but the sets are all shadows. In the
Batman movies, this was cool: In The Score it just means that DiNiro
prefers trac lighting with mini-floods. The denouement is sufficiently
exciting, but the plodding planning of the robbery overwhelms the rest of
the movie.
The movie will likely fit well when it is reformatted for the television
screen, but I'm not certain how the shadows will appear. (Well, there's
nothing lurking in them, anyway.) I paid matinee prices and I think
broke even. This movie really did need its major stars: With a
different cast, I think far fewer would bother taking a chance on it.
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eeyore
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response 118 of 284:
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Jul 19 20:08 UTC 2001 |
saw Leagally Blond.
I was actually really amsued by it. It was deffinately worth seeing for the
amusement and humour. :)
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ric
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response 119 of 284:
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Jul 20 03:13 UTC 2001 |
I love Reese Witherspoon. :)
Mm.... Cosmo....
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mooncat
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response 120 of 284:
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Jul 20 12:43 UTC 2001 |
Managed to get to the Fox Village theater last night to see Chocolat.
It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it a great deal. (Even if I was
craving chocolate afterwards).
Lena Olin and Ms. Binoche (whos first name is escpaing me) gave
wonderful performances. It was a bit odd to see Carrie Anne Moss as a
prim and proper widow when last I saw her she was Trinity in Matrix...
That and Johnny Depp was just yummy as the 'river rat' Roux.
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edina
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response 121 of 284:
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Jul 20 13:27 UTC 2001 |
Juliette Binoche - Oscar Winner for "The English Patient"
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brighn
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response 122 of 284:
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Jul 20 14:29 UTC 2001 |
Moulin Rouge: Background comments: (1) I generally dislike musicals [although
I liked Evita]; (2) I didn't care for Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (the one with
Leo diCap). I wasn't intending to see Moulin Rouge, but we ran into some
friends while we were shopping, and to make up for hitting them (*rimshot*)
we went and had dinner and movies with them. I almost suggested dinner and
skip the movie, but I"m glad I went. I highly recommend this movie;
unfortunately, it's slipping under the radar now. Kidman and McGregor are both
excellent singers (none of Banderas' clunky heavily-coached stuff), Leguizamo
is his usual hilarious/irritating self, and the visuals and arrangement are
all well done. Hearing a montage of pop songs (from Elton John to Nirvana)
arranged in musical fashion was also a trip.
complaints: The visuals go overboard in several spots, leaving the viewer
seasick. It didn't effect me as much as my compatriots; I wonder if this is
one advantage to only having one eye. ;} I didn't care for the tragic story
line, and would have preferred comedy/romance throughout, but I also realize
that Luhrmann was trying to incorporate fin de siecle plots. There were also
a few parts that reminded me of why I disliked Romeo + Juliet: Kidman's tragic
ending, especially, is way overacted, but it's from McGregor's perspective,
so that justifies it somewhat.
------
On DVD:
Bounce: (In my best "Guys on Film" voice:) HATed it. Unlike Flying People
Hidden Wires, we actually sat through all of Bounce, mostly because the set=up
was somewhat interesting. By halfway through, though, it was obvious that the
filmmakers had painted themselves into a cliche: Guy misleads gal to get into
her life for some superficial reason, guy falls in love with gal and fails
to reveal secret, secret gets revealed, gal throws guy out, guy finds some
way to make a completely inappropriate public plea for forgiveness, guy's life
collapses but gal forgives him. PLEASE. The guy in this case doesn't even have
the schmaltzy but requisite "love is all you need" epiphany; he doesn't change
significantly, he just manages to sell himself to the gal. I like Affleck's
work; I like Paltrow's work. Dogma and Shakespeare in Love are two of my
favorite flicks. Bounce was overacted, pretentious, and superficial. And far
too emotional without any real depth to the emotions.
Snatch: My opinion of Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels was similar to my
opinion of Romeo + Juliet, and had I known Snatch was by the same guy as Lock
Stock, I would have avoided it as quickly as I'd've avoided Moulin Rouge if
I'd known about R+J. ;} In both cases, I'm glad I was ignorant going in
(actually, it was in my head that Snatch was made by the Trainspotting people,
which is why I didn't see it in the theaters). While Snatch took a bit to get
going, once Brad Pitt's character enters the fray, I was into the flick. The
accents made sections hard to follow (although I was able to keep up with the
Pikeys as much as with everyone else). The boxing visuals are well done. there
was some of the zip-zoom camera work that I didn't like in MR either, the
freeze-speedzoom-freeze business that makes me think of stylish car ads.
Overall, though, an enjoyable flick.
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mooncat
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response 123 of 284:
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Jul 20 14:53 UTC 2001 |
RE #121- Yeah, that's her! <grins>
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jiffer
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response 124 of 284:
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Jul 20 15:11 UTC 2001 |
RE: SNATCH ON DVD... if you go to the subtitles section, you can
actually have the subtitles for the pikey bits. I found it vastly
amusing. And don't you be dissin' Guy Richie... even if he was stupid
enough to marry Madonna... bastard!
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brighn
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response 125 of 284:
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Jul 20 15:21 UTC 2001 |
Yeah, I watched a bit of Micky with the subtitles on, after we'd seen the
movie all the way through. I found that I'd missed more than I thought, but
I still think it's fun to try to fig it out without the cheats. ;}
I wasn't dissing Guy Ritchie. I was dissing Lock Stock. the most wonderful
person in the world can produce crap, and the shittiest person in the world
can produce worthy things. I've never met Ritchie, and the only thing I really
know about him is that he married the Material Girl and made a couple of
movies.
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edina
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response 126 of 284:
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Jul 21 21:23 UTC 2001 |
I don't get how you can like "Snatch" and not like "Lock, Stock" - to me, it's
the same style of movie. One had Sting, another had Brad Pitt. (BTW, random
trivia - it was Sting and Trudie Styler who introduced Ritchie and Madonna.)
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brighn
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response 127 of 284:
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Jul 21 22:21 UTC 2001 |
I don't get how you can get that someone can like one movie and not like
another movie in the same genre. Ther's not the SAME movie.
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bdh3
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response 128 of 284:
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Jul 23 08:16 UTC 2001 |
Saw _The Tailor of Panama_. Ripped off for the 2$US tickets not to
mention the 10$US or so for 'eats and drinks'. Thank allah was not a
'first run' theatre. Enjoyed every minute and wonder why I didn't spend
big bucks $US to see it 'first run'. How did I miss this? After
pissing away mucho more bucks $US on other stupid stuff? A film
adaptation of a Le Carre' novel with Le Carre' getting 'screenwriter'
credit. Awesome. I don't think he bailed out of this one and it is
obvious. Gosh, you'd think Mr. Carre' was actually a 'spy' or something.
There was to my mind only one 'misscasting' and only in that it violated
the 'Raul Julia' rule. But even that is and sorta must thus be
dismissed, sorta. There is only one 'do' that I have a problem with
and whats-her-name says I am full of shit so I guess...
A totally non-spoiler positive review -(SPOILER - hit stop at this
point!!!!)
never mind.
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vidar
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response 129 of 284:
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Jul 23 21:17 UTC 2001 |
What I saw of A.I. I liked.
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mary
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response 130 of 284:
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Jul 27 21:52 UTC 2001 |
"Planet of the Apes", the one which opened today, is a waste of talent.
The script is cliche ridden, through and through. The only thing more
boring than the characters are the fight scenes of which there are far
to many. We're talking dull here, I mean *really dull*. I found myself
making out my grocery list about an hour into it.
More than anything else this film needed an interesting script.
What a shame they didn't find one before making the movie.
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eeyore
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response 131 of 284:
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Jul 28 02:34 UTC 2001 |
Just got back from seeing America's Sweethearts. I really liked it!! The
cast was amazing...aside from the main four, it also had Seth Green, Stanley
Tucci, and Christopher Walken. And Hank Azaria. For the most part, it was
extremely funny, and Steph and I spent the whole thing being highly amused.
Go See it. :)
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ashke
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response 132 of 284:
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Jul 28 06:22 UTC 2001 |
I saw America's Sweethearts for my bday, on Thursday, and I agree, it was
great, we ended up laughing through almost the whole thing, and I need to see
it again, because parts of it, I missed dialogue because of laughing.
However, Meg, on the preview they show Cusack and Roberts in the back of a
car, laughing, and I can't remember that in the actual movie, nor the scene
in the preview where Roberts belittles Zeta-Jones about not reading books,
and she comes back with reading all 4 harry potter books... Did I miss it,
or did these not exist in the final cut?
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swa
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response 133 of 284:
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Jul 28 06:59 UTC 2001 |
Were you *actually* making out your grocery list in the theatre?
I loathed the original "Planet of the Apes" movie, having read the book, which
it resembled not at all. I think I'm the only person on the planet who didn't
like it. Anyway, it leaves me with no desire to see this one.
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ric
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response 134 of 284:
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Jul 28 13:34 UTC 2001 |
Maybe this one is closer to the book... it is, after all, a "re-imagining"
instead of a "remake" (according to Tim Burton)
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ric
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response 135 of 284:
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Jul 28 14:56 UTC 2001 |
We watched "Gattica" last night.. a movie about a relatively near future where
gene sequencing is common, complete, and nearly instaneous. Children are
genetically manufactured instead of conceived. Children born the old
fashioned way are referred to as a "faith-birth", a "god-child" or a
"de-gene-erate".. or an in-valid.
The story is about an invalid who fakes his genetic identity in order to go
up in space.
This film was fairly low budget, and the DVD audio was HORRIBLY dubbed, to
the point that it was VERY distracting.
The movie was still pretty interesting though
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remmers
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response 136 of 284:
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Jul 28 15:28 UTC 2001 |
Re #134: A "re-imagining", eh? Seems to me a re-imagining should
be at least somewhat, um, imaginative.
To be fair, the new "Planet of the Apes" has a couple (but no more)
redeeming qualities. The apes are more ape-like this time: They
can talk, but they also swing from trees and use a lot of ape-like
body language. And Charlton Heston's cameo as an ape is mildly
amusing, with its references to his NRA involvement and his final
speech from the original movie.
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