25 posts tagged “movie review”

Picked this movie up because I thought it had John McGinley in it.
Seriously, the lead, Glen Hansard, looks just like him. Got home,
realized that he wasn't and, thankfully, watched the movie anyways.

The movie revolves around an Irish singer/songwriter (Hansard)
and a young Czech immigrant (Marketa Irglova) as they meet and attempt
to record a demo. Along the way a beautiful friendship is forged, great
songs are sung, and both of their worlds change a little. The music is
real as both Hansard and Irglova are professional musicians. It has a
moving, soul felt quality that instantly grabbed me. The acting was
superb. Irglova is absolutely adorable in the role and Hansard is
perfect in his role of down and out musician with a dream.

This movie was more. After I watched it, I got the feeling that
it was very important for some reason. These almost strangers came
together and helped each other out, sometimes in ways that neither would
ever have understood. It felt real and it felt pure. This movie tells
you to never give up and that it is okay to have a dream. Hansard's
character is afraid to fail at the beginning, but by the end, he, and
the audience, knows that trying and failing would still be succeeding.
This is the message I will take away. Trying and failing is still
succeeding where dreams are concerned.

Excellent movie! I have no problems telling people to rent this
one, heck buy it if you want. There is quite a bit of language in this
movie so let the wee ones go to bed first.

This movie came on ion tonight and I gave it a watch for the first time since seeing it in theaters.  This movie stars Kurt Russell as SGT Todd.  Todd is the soldier of the title and was trained since birth, with several others, to be a super soldiers.  The movie opens with a montage of different training that the soldiers went through and also different battles that they had fought in. 

Flash forward and the soldiers are all well decorated and Todd stands out as the best of the best.  The soldiers are aging and their numbers diminishing from combat.  Just in time, a new crop of soldiers show up.  This new group are genetically modified perfect soldiers.  To test the new soldiers Todd is pitted up against Cain 607 (Jason Scott Leigh).  Cain beats Todd in every test and eventually dispatches him in hand to hand combat with two other older soldiers, just to make it fair. 

Todd is left for dead on a trash planet and is adopted by the locals.  For whatever reason the ship comes back a couple of weeks later and they decide to wipe out the population of the planet as training for the new soldiers.  Todd has gained affection for these people in the two weeks, and decides to protect them while wiping out the new batch of soldiers, killing the leaders of the program, and liberating the old obsolete soldiers. 

The movie isn’t half bad.  I like the concept of soldiers raised from birth and the message that a non brain washed soldier will be a superior soldier to one that is basically a robot.  If you know what you are fighting for, you are more likely to win.  The really awesome thing about this movie is all the nods it makes to other science fiction movies.  Check out the trivia on imdb for a rundown.

Chocolate

    Chocolate (2008) is a Thai film directed by Prachya Pinkaew (Ong Bak).  This film stars breakout actress Jija Yanin.  It is about an autistic teanager (Yanin) and her desire to collect debts owed to her mother.  Being a martial arts film, you can bet that no one wants to pay.
    The plot is okay but it is somewhat clumsy.  The first time I watched it I had a hard time following what was going on in the beginning.  The rest of the movie has a lot of situations where you have to suspend disbelief.  This is okay for the fight scenes but when it is for normal plot points it can be distracting.  But, this movie ain't about plot.
    Turn the subtitles on and watch it in Thai.  The English dub is horrible.  A lot of reviews are critical of the acting, but they were most likely watching the dubbed version.  Yanin is excellent.  This is her first film and she is playing an autistic character in a rather believable fashion.  When it comes to martial arts is where she really shines though. 
    The movie itself is almost like a video game.  Each fight scene is like a level and they tend to get harder as the movie goes on.  The fights have definite homages to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li.  Yanin is the female breakout martial arts star that the world has been waiting for.  She was trained in Tae Kwon Do prior to the movie and trained Muay Thai for the movie for two years before filming and for the two years of filming.  Her acting is good, but she really shines in the fight scenes. 
    Overall, it was a pretty good film.  It is a fun movie and the final fight scene alone is well worth the rental fee, the purchase price even.  There is some brief nudity and a whole lot of violence, so it might not be for the kiddies, but any martial arts film lover is sure to like this movie. 

A Tale of Two Sisters (Two-Discs)

Let me preface this review by saying that I am a huge fan of the Korean movie that inspired this, A Tale of Two Sisters.  So I knew the twist and could see it coming from a mile away.  They dropped a second twist that the Korean version had.  Emily Browning did a pretty good job, as did the other women, but the dad character wasn't very good in my opinion  I watched the extra features to see if they mention the Korean movie.  They do and they admit to westernizing the story.  They also say that the Korean movie was very complex and they had to make it simpler.  If you are going to watch both movies I would watch the American version first.  If you only watch one make it the Korean Tale of Two Sisters. 

The Uninvited

Wanted (Single-Disc Widescreen Edition)

This movie is completely unrealistic and has laughable action sequences.  That being said, I really enjoyed it.  It was meant to be a fun action movie and that is exactly what it was.  I won't bother with recapping the story, but suffice to say that there are a lot of shootouts and chase scenes.  The acting was pretty good and angelina jolie was hot, but is she getting older?  This movie has lots of cussing, so be careful around the kiddies.  Go pop some corn, turn your brain off, and enjoy. 

Incredible Hulk (Widescreen Edition)

Watched this with the girls on Tuesday night.  I was blown away.  Sure the movie was fun, but I think it was comparing it to the last Hulk movie that made it seem like the best movie in the world.  Ally loved when he finally said "Hulk smash!"  People have asked if it was as good as Iron Man and I can't really compare the two.  They were two completely different films with different paces.  Iron Man was an origin story and Hulk was a retcon/sequel/start-over.  I will say that the movie accomplished its goal of making an excellent Hulk movie.  It is hard to feel compassion for the character on screen because he loses an aspect of his humanity in the transformation.  This movie addressed this with the eyes. The eyes, although gamma green, let all of the humanity in.  I really liked the rage and roar in this movie a lot more than the last movie.  The special effects either make or break a movie like this and they did what they were supposed to do without drawing too much attention to themselves.  I really liked it and the girls loved it. 

James, Richard, and I got together for our annual "It is close to Halloween and we need to watch some horror movies" day.  Richard made taco soup and we had plenty of other snacks.  Last year we watched 1402 and Slither both really good.  This year we watched a mixed bunch.

First was The Happening

The Happening

This one was okay.  The twist in this movie is that there is no twist.  It was an okay movie.  A little slow and sappy, but it was okay.

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeny Todd was horrid.  It was slow.  I don't know if the songs weren't any good or if the actors just couldn't sing them, but they were unengaging.  Once the blood started flowing, it looked really fake. 

Doomsday (Unrated Widescreen Edition)

This one was a lot of fun.  I mean it was completely unrealistic and kind of insults your intelligence, but as long as you turn off the science part of your brain, it rocked.  Lots of good old fashioned violence.  It was a lot like road warriors and the crew actually refrenced this in the extra features.  Just a fun movie.

30 Days of Night

This one was fun also.  I found myself quoting lines from the Zombie Survival Guide even though it was a vampire movie.  A lot of the stuff works for both situations.  That book will change your life.  I have not read the graphic novel this movie was based on so I can't compare, but the movie was good.  Lots of fun yelling at the TV that the characters were being idiots. 

Fido

This movie was excellent.  A true "boy and his zombie" kind of story.  This movie is more than a bit disturbing at points and almost makes you feel sorry for zombies.  This one is worth a watch though. 

American Zombie is a documentary about high functioning zombies that live and work in L.A.  This is directed by Grace Lee, from the documentary "The Grace Lee Project."  It is funny and makes you think.  Would you date a zombie?  Would you work alongside a zombie?  This movie forces you to ask these questions. 

Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Two-Disc Special Edition)

This movie was great.  John C. Reilly was the perfect choice to play Dewey Cox.  Sure, he doesn't look all that much like Dewey, but he sure does sound like him.  Jenna Fischer did a great job with Darlene as well.  I love that this movie showed the good and the bad.  It also explained Dewey's long absense from music.  I never knew about his father and brother and their tragic accidents.  Now, the songs make all the more sense as I see what inspired them.  I have always like Dewey Cox but had almost forgotten about him.  This movie is a great tribute to Dewey Cox, and should bring his music to the forefront again.