A very unglamorous view of the Italian mob, and maybe Italy in general. I don’t know if the decaying world that we see in this movie is representative of a small or large area, hopefully it’s just one city (or smaller area even), but it seems like the Camorra reaches far beyond a single city.
I had heard very good things about this and it didn’t disappoint. It still is a little distracting to watch a movie in a foreign language, you spend more time trying to read/understand the dialogue rather than getting into the movie, but oh well.
This is a collection of stories, but they don’t interconnect. Each story isn’t even necessarily complete, but it’s part of a bigger picture. They all show how the Camorra manages to control pretty much everything and how lots of peoples lives get fucked up in the process. The drug trade is getting big, power struggles are getting people killed, and the managing and dumping of toxic waste is sickening hundreds of people. There is no main story but the one that sticks out the most is the one of two kids who want to play gangster when they happen across a weapons stash. You know this will not end well from minute one. They end up robbing an arcade, hitting up strip clubs, and then finally they think they are noticed by the crime boss. Nope, he’s luring them in the kill them because they stole the weapons. The movie’s last shot is their dead bodies being carted away, so that story sticks in my mind.
There’s also the little delivery boy. You see him with an older woman and they haver a nice little relationship going. But then he is forced to be part of her murder, because she trusts him he is able to lure her out towards the mob guys. She’s a total innocent too, it’s just revenge/to send a message, but the kid knows that he will die if he does not cooperate. Not a great deal of time is spent on this story but it stands out as one of the stronger ones.
The decision to open the movie with a classic gangster movie scene of some hot shot guys being murdered in a tanning salon (the tannign salon could be anywhere guys hang out, it just happens to be a tanning salon here) is a good one. It’s the most cliched moment of the movie but it draws you in, with a slow start I may have just turned this off because I had other stuff to do that day.
I have seen most of the semi-popular horror movies of the 90’s, but this one slipped by so I turned it on Netflix instant the to her night (because it was available in HD). It wasn’t too bad. Virginia Madsen seemed out of place because it’s almost like she was slumming it to appear in this. The movie definitely benefited from having her, but I don’t know if she looks back so fondly. It takes place in what seems like a very dated time period, where computers were around but not common, that weird early 90s mix of 80s tech and early-modern tech, which is interesting and distracting at the same time. At least they didn’t have to think of some lame reason her cell phone didn’t work (small side rant: does no one in the movies charge their battery?).
It’s better than average for it’s genre, and has lots of good kills and very creepy moments (the bees in the mouth were cool). The sequels probably suck though.
This movie will fuck you sideways in the eyeballs. The visuals are amazing, and the 3D was perfect. You don’t notice that your watching CG cat people after a while, it all just feels so natural. For those reasons this is worth seeing, and why I will likely catch another matinee before it leaves theaters.
As for the script, yeah it is not the most original. And in some parts it’s pretty corny and weak. But it’s not as bad as it could have been by a long shot. Cameron at least treis to explain some of the weird stuff.
Take the floating mountains, looks awesome, and most filmmakers would leave it at that. But in this story, the whole plot revolves around obtaining a substance called “unobtainium” (groan), a superconductor worth $20 million per kilogram. Under the right conditions superconductors float (we even see a small piece of it floating in a chamber on a character’s desk), and there are lots of references to the electromagnetic field being very wonky in this area (a very important plot point for the final battle, all the radar and flight instruments go wacky), so it’s not crazy that these mountains could float, assuming they’re made of unobtainium (more groans).
And the fact that the gravity and atmosphere is not Earth-regular not only comes up, but is important to the story, it’s nice to acknowledge that these things would certainly be different on an alien world.
None of the actors do a terrible job. Zoe Saldana, who appears only through performance capture as a Na’vi, gave a stand out performance. The trailers really do not give the Na’vi justice, when you see them for a whole scene rather than a quick-cut trailer, everything just clicks and it’s ok.
This is not a great film. But it is pretty awesome. There are a couple moments where it seemed to drag, but these were few and far between. I probably won’t even buy this on blu-ray because it’s biggest selling point is seeing it on a giant screen with a massive sound system and in 3D. Cameron set out to create a groundbreaking experience, and in this he succeeded. If he could just come up with another really great script like some of his earlier works, and apply his current technical knowledge, he could make one of the greatest movies ever.
It was pretty good. I didn’t really dig the structure, they did their best in choosing when and how to flip between the stories but it was always a little weird. Each one could have been a proper movie on it’s own, especially Julia Child’s bit. Everyone did a good job with what they were given, nothing was terrible or great.
This was a little better than I expected, a cute romcom but it was actually pretty funny. Robert Duvall was good. Nothing was really spectacular but also nothing was terrible, a solid 3/5.
I liked it but I didn’t love it. It’s fun enough to watch but ultimately forgettable. George Clooney is an absolute standout, he’s usually good but I thought it was particularly good in this, especially sparkle/twinkle eye. It was a little funny/inside jokey to have Ewan McGregor not grasping the concept of Jedi warriors.
They do not disappoint in the goat department, there is definitely some staring and lots of goats. The ending was good, though I think it would have been just a little better if it cut or did a freeze frame before he hit the wall. Throughout the film they play with the idea of supernatural powers, but you never get the feeling that they’re real (The “death touch” is the best bit), so having him phase through a wall was weird but it still fit with the movie.
Not surprisingly, Pixar’s done it again. Up was great. When the “talking” dogs showed up, I don’t think Crystal and I have laughed that hard at anything ever. There was nothing about this that I didn’t like, I thought the script was very good, and I’d support a nomination for Best Picture (probably wouldn’t win).
This was alright. A dirty bomb goes off in LA while our main character is “working” from home. He’s safe from the initial blast but his wife was on her way to work at the time. After doing everything he can to try to get in touch with her, he starts to seal off his house with the neighbor’s handyman to prevent the fallout (is that the right word for this situation? I don’t think so since it’s not radiation, it’s a biological dirty bomb).
But then uh-oh, his wife made it home. Despite cops being everywhere and actually shooting a guy earlier because his car was covered in ash and he wouldn’t turn around, she manages to walk god-knows-how-far, injured and sick, only to find her husband has sealed up the house and is following instruction from the radio to keep it sealed, meaning she can’t come in. It’s kind of a big “what would you do” scenario, and this first half succeeds in building tension, showing his and her struggle, and all of that.
As the movie goes on it starts to drag, we’re still waiting for answers about what exactly is going on (none ever come, all we know is it’s a biological dirty bomb) and waiting to see if the g-men in hazmats suits will take away the wife. And then TWIST some of the virus got into the house, and since he sealed it up good with no air conditioning, it was the perfect breeding ground for some mutation. He is fucked, and his wife will be fine because she was in an open air environment. Kind of dumb but they were going for a shocking ending. So they soldier put up a big tent and pump in some gas, presumably to kill the virus, but also the dude.
It was a decent enough flick. Lots of gaps in logic and some unbelievable science, but I think the filmmakers were more focused on creating a tense reality based movie about what would happen during a terrorist attack, so they let some other stuff slide, I’m okay with that.
Totally decent suspense/action flick. You can see where it’s going really early on, but it’s got plenty of style and good performances to keep you interested.
This was the first Blu-ray I watched with the MovieIQ feature, which lets you browse info on cast and crew, get music track titles, and read trivia while you watch, a very cool and welcome feature that I used throughout (it’s the kind of movie where it doesn’t really matter if you miss a few lines here and there). It’s all scene-specific too so if you want to know who a certain actor is, you can bring up a list of just the actors in a scene to help you figure it out. This will also be very useful for the frequent query “what song is that in the background?”.
So I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from this. When this was in theaters I quickly became sick of seeing the trailer EVERYWHERE, maybe we just went to a lot of movies that month, but as soon as it started I’d start groaning. Not that it looked terrible, it just looked bleh and forgettable.
Yet I went ahead and rented it because of reviews that promised it was a really good, like a dark comedy version of Taxi Driver. I’d agree with that. The movie is much more focused on Seth Rogen’s character then the trailers would lead you to believe. He has a shit-ton of issues, and you basically get to just watch how he deals with them. It’s nothing groundbreaking but I was glad to see it wasn’t just a silly plot driven comedy with lots of cursing (that would be Paul Blart, but with fart jokes instead of cursing).
Some stuff in this movie really made you suspend disbelief, especially the ending when he shoots the guy and then walks him to the police station. He would almost definitely bleed to death, they would have just called an ambulance. But it made for a good moment with the Ray Liotta character so no biggie. Also, the big fight at the end would have landed him in jail for a long time, but he barely seemed to get even a slap on the wrist. Maybe it’s poor writing, or maybe we’re supposed to not give a shit if it’s believable. Maybe it’s all in his fucked up head (though there’s nothing to suggest that).
