Freek Bes

VIP

6

Innovative in many different ways, though it also pioneered a lot of shit (from bad imitators of its style to synthetic looking action scenes to the over the top stuntwork that’s found in every blockbuster nowadays).
Not that I’m holding that against this film, it actually gets most of these things right.
I really like the action, cinematography (the green tint for the Matrix was a great choice, which I believe was something they added in later cuts), music, story and characters in this.
The philosophy stuff is a nice side dish, it’s not as overbearing or overcomplicated as in the sequels.
It’s also not nearly as deep as some people pretend it is, just complex enough where it gives a lot of people the impression that this is some mindbending, experimental filmmaking, when in reality it’s not.
It’s just a very well executed action film that’s a little more conceptual than most of the stuff that came out around that time.
The acting, however, is a bit of a mixed bag for me.
Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving are excellent (which is odd, Hugo Weaving is hamming it up big time and that shouldn’t work given what the other actors are doing, but it does), but the two leads are very stiff and often miss the mark in selling their dialogue.
I imagine that must’ve been the big trade-off for the Wachowskis; Carrie Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves are great with the action stuff and a lot of what they do is in camera, but they’re not the greatest actors.
Taking that bullet was the right choice in the end, though.

8.5/10

Almost the whole time I was watching this movie (including the bath-scene with Margot Robbie) I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.
I'm not a numbers guy nor do I know all the terminology in American banking and mortgage systems and most of it looked like watching some kind of alien language. In the end though I knew what happened, I saw people warning us for what was about to happen and watched it all crumble down when it did happen.

All in all though it's an excellent portrayal of a system that is quite frankly a big con, stripping away money from those "below" with people at the help that don't really know what they are doing. An intricate web of rules, regulations, lingo, faces and characters who don't know the full picture. I think the movie quite nicely mimicks this chaos in the way it is set up, the catchy camera movements and often loud and noisy environments the scenes play out in. Here's a famous face that will teach you plebs what it's about, "let's simplify this for ya" so you're lured in.

Despite it's dry subject, the vast amout of stuff I personally didn't fully grasp it is a very enjoyable movie that will keep you hooked till the end.

Oh and it took me about at third the movie to realize Brad Pitt was that one guy.

This is a very weird movie, but not by its content. Hard to tell whether it was worth watching.

Visually it's nice, extremely clean and ordered. But 90% of what happens has absolutely no interest. Family picnic. Wife showing the garden to her mother. Some random conversations. Dictation of work letters. Administrative work. It is very boring, soporific even.

The only interest comes from knowing who those people are and the whole context, and the contrast with the banality of their lives, with the clinical simplicity of administrative decisions.

The whole camp is hidden behind a wall. There is just a background noise, far away, muffled, some cries, some gunshots. And the chimneys smoke.

Among what is banal but extremely shocking by the context:
- The mother complaining she could not get her neighbour's curtains.
- The commander getting a new post, but her wife complaining about losing her garden
- The sales pitch of the new generation crematorium
- Being so happy that the plan is named after him that he calls his wife in the middle of the night
- Ashes used as fertilizer in the garden

The only small moments that acknowledge the violence are:
- the wife, upset, threatening the maid that she could have her incinerated just like that
- the commander having a young girl sent to his office
- in the commanders meeting, the word "extermination" is said once, but all the rest is just logistics and quotas

At the end, a cutscene shows people cleaning the camp, and it takes a while to realize they are cleaning the current day Auschwitz museum, I guess showing the continuity of mundane tasks in all circumstances.

So in the end, this is definitely a work of art that succeeds in what it's trying to achieve. However the boringness is what makes it special, and you can't avoid the fact that it is mostly boring. Not to watch when sleepy or tired.

Barbenheimer: Part 1 of 2

This is the kind of film I really don’t want to criticize, because we don’t get nearly enough other stuff like it. However, mr. Nolan has been in need of an intervention for a while now, and unfortunately all of the issues that have been plaguing his films since The Dark Knight Rises show up to some degree here. Visually it might just be his best film, and there’s some tremendous acting in here, particularly by Murphy and RDJ. However, it makes the common biopic mistake of treating its subject matter like a Wikipedia entry, thereby not focussing enough on character and perspective. As a whole, the film feels more like a long extended montage, I don’t think there are many scenes that go on for longer than 60 seconds. There’s a strong ‘and then this happened, and then this happened’ feel to it, which definitely keeps up the pace, but it refuses to stop and let an emotion or idea simmer for a while. There are moments where you get a look into Oppenheimer’s mind, but because the film wants to cover too much ground, it’s (like everything else) reduced to quick snippets. It’s the kind of approach that’d work for a 6 hour long miniseries where you can spend more time with the characters, not for a 3 hour film. I can already tell that I won’t retain much from this, in fact a lot of it is starting to blur together in my mind. There are also issues with some of the dialogue and exposition, such as moments where characters who are experts in their field talk in a way that feels dumbed down for the audience, or just straight up inauthentic. Einstein is given a couple of cheesy lines, college professors and students interact in a way that would never happen, Oppenheimer gives a lecture in what’s (according to the movie) supposed to be Dutch when it’s really German; you have to be way more careful with that when you’re making a serious drama. Finally, there are once again major issues with the sound mixing. I actually really loved the score, but occasionally it’s blaring at such a volume where it drowns out important dialogue in the mix. I’m lucky enough to have subtitles, but Nolan desperately needs to get his ears checked, or maybe he should’ve asked some advice from Benny Safdie since he’s pretty great with experimental sound mixing. My overall feelings are almost identical to the ones I had regarding Tenet; Nolan needs to rethink his approach to writing, editing and mixing. This film as a whole doesn’t work, but there are still more than a few admirable qualities to it.

Edit: I rewatched this at home to see whether my feeling would change. I still stand by what I wrote in July, though the sound mix seems to have been improved for the home media release. It sounds more balanced and I didn’t miss one line of dialogue this time around. I’m slightly raising my score because of that, but besides that I still think it’s unfocused, overedited, awkwardly staged and scripted etc.

5.5/10

The second installment in Mike Myers's gentleman spy parody is something of an ugly duckling when compared to its siblings. Tossing away the more grounded themes and aspects of the first film, it dives headfirst into a sea of slapstick and never comes up for air. It's not a bad movie, nor is it unfunny; it merely dips into the well of recurring gags from the original too frequently and deals unfavorably with a tough set of growing pains.

The reverse time-travel elements are half-baked and don’t work, a shortcoming which the movie itself acknowledges by literally telling the audience not to take things too seriously. That may make for a good standalone punchline, but it doesn't solve the problem and as this follows in the footsteps of an excellently-written first film, it’s tough not to expect more. New cast members Mini-Me and Fat Bastard are brilliant additions who steal the spotlight every time they're on-screen, but Myers and flavor of the month Heather Graham never really connect as a duo. Simply going through the motions is good enough for a few laughs, but it's missing a lot of the invariables that made the series so successful to begin with.

Based on a classic slice of short fiction by HP Lovecraft, this long-incubating adaptation is an overly flashy, effects-laden blend of sci-fi and horror. Nic Cage plays a semi-retired family man whose isolated upstate farm is struck by a meteorite, which then evaporates and causes all sorts of bizarre changes in the surrounding environment. Pink trees, mutated animals, unexpectedly abundant harvests, that sort of thing.

Among the afflicted is Cage himself, who revels in the chance to amp up every last one of his craziest on-screen tendencies. My god, what a Cage-being-Cage film this is. He's howling, he's gesticulating, he's painted in blood and cackling, he's... suddenly and inexplicably changing accents? I'm not sure how much direction he took here, because it looks like they just focused the cameras and kept rolling while their star actor did whatever felt good, with the occasional interruption from family members or special effects showcases. And, as perversely entertaining as that can be, it doesn't merit a film unto itself.

The scraps that surround those indulgent bouts of overacting are awfully scant, narrow and underdeveloped, like the worst '80s straight-to-video productions. It's trippy, but pointlessly so. We get cryptic prophecies and arcane imagery as props, mere window dressing that's waved around and then forgotten. Even the visuals can seem laughably dated, particularly the goopy, absurd creature effects. Catch the highlights when they invariably wind up on a YouTube gag reel - they're almost as funny as Cage's out-of-context lunacy in The Wicker Man - but do yourself a favor and skip the rest.

[7.2/10] There’s an animation “ghetto” in the United States. For a long time, almost anything featuring a cartoon character was considered something for children. And while shows like The Simpsons have proven that the greatest television show of all time could be one composed with pen and ink, and Pixar has shown that animated films can make a dent at the Oscars, there’s still a baseline assumption that if you see an animated character, and they don’t start cursing or doing something ribald within a couple of minutes, what you’re watching must be for kids.

Watership Down, then, is an odd duck. On the one hand, it’s seemingly aimed at children, with its story about rabbits leaving their warren and facing trials and tribulations once they do. (My first reference point was Once Upon a Forest. It has some cute characters, its own little world, and the call to adventure that emerges in so much kiddie fare.

And yet, it’s also a very adult film. On a surface level, there’s a fair amount of blood and death in this one. This isn’t a sanitized Disney ecosystem. Hawks snatch their prey off the ground, bulky rabbits get into bloody duels, and snares and shotguns leave more than a couple of rabbits on death’s door.

It’s those things that would make me reluctant to show this 1978 film to any actual children. It’s not that kids can’t handle a little intensity -- lord knows the classics from my childhood like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast have their fare share of high tension moments -- but there’s a realism to it, a rawness to it despite certain impressionistic flourishes, that makes these moments scarier and liable to linger in the bedtime worries of younger viewers.

But that’s also part of what makes Watership Down unique. The general visual quality of the film is half-nature documentary, and half-pop up book. While drawn distinctively, the rabbits here look and move more like the real thing than, for example, Bugs Bunny, or even Thumper from Bambi. There’s some of what looks like rotoscoping that gives the viewer a bit of the uncanny valley effect, but for the most part, these bunnies feel real in a way that many of their cartoon brethren don’t.

At the same time, the backgrounds they play on are sumptuous. The image of distant hills, or flowing rivers, or gnarled rabbit holes all create settings that grab the viewer before our heroes really interact with them. That’s a good thing, because the framing and layering of the images stands out, with the rabbits seemingly more superimposed on many of their environments than genuinely interacting with them. Still, the look is unique and captivating, and lends to the storybook quality of the film.

That’s especially true in the brief scenes where the film departs from that realism and instead embraces a more symbolic art style. The image of the black rabbit, the montage set over Art Garfunkel singing “Bright Eyes”, and especially the initial scene telling the fable of the rabbit, allow for more flourish and ornate elements, that contrast from the main style of the movie and give a nice otherworldly quality.

That helps when juxtaposed with the realistic bent, which extends beyond just the imagery used. One of the most unique things about Watership Down is the way that it creates a genuine and distinctive culture for the rabbits, one that feels appropriately foreign and in some ways, inscrutable, as opposed to the “it’s mankind, except using animals” that some furry friend movies opt for.

There’s a complex society at play, with hierarchies, terminology, and specific concerns. The rabbits we follow encounter any number of different societies, from their own staid warren, to the seeming equivalent of a death cult, to farm rabbits in captivity, to a military government, each with its own character and vibe. There are unique terms, with religious or cultural significance. And there’s even a creation myth, the one we’re introduced to at the beginning, which seems to pervade the thoughts of the protagonist whether cool-headed or prophetic.

Which provides the other reason that Watership Down feels more adult than its critter-featuring competitors. The film is, at a broad level, a meditation on death. The overarching narrative, laid out by that opening segment, is of rabbits constantly running, constantly moving, to escape all the myriad dangers and predators in their way, until they can run no longer and must face the black rabbit, the spectre of death. It’s there in the moments when the rabbits prematurely mourn their bulky protector; it’s there when Garfunkel asks how the light that burned so brightly suddenly burns so pale, and it’s there when Hazel, the main rabbit, greets the black rabbit as a friend.

It’s heavy stuff for a kids’ film, often foregrounded even if done with a fairly light touch. There is weight to the events and incidents that populate the film, if for no other reason than the fact that death is not simply some abstract and uncontenanced phantom, like so many Disney villains who fall from a great height with nominally ambiguous but clear fates. At every level, Watership Down is engaging with the notion of how we live, how we go on and scratch out lives for ourselves, when death’s shadow is always lurking around the edges of the frame, a sense that our lepus cousins share.

There’s also the sense of a specific political or social allegory that I was not immediately able to grasp. The nature of these societies gave the sense of a particular kind of commentary not readily identifiable to viewers in the distant year of 2017. But that just adds to the sense that while the movie may be accessible to children, there’s much more going on under the hood than a child could understand.

That’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s easy to imagine young viewers being scared and scarred by the more gruesome or harrowing scenes in Watership Down, and missing the broader observations and thematic material at play. But there’s also the sense in the film of pushing the boundaries of that “ghetto,” using the medium to express something profound, something mature, at a time when people still believed that cartoons belonged solely in the funny papers. It’s film like Watership Down that helped pave the way for Inside Out, and Rick and Morty, and Don Hertzfeldt, and anyone else who’s used the endless possibilities of this medium to not just entertain, but graze the sublime and poignant.

Often decried for being unsuitable for children (presumably based on the ridiculous notion that animation is purely for children), this is a film that can be appreciated at the right age for not talking down to its audience and presenting some pretty weighty themes. Whilst many project their own adult sensibilities onto how children might react and deem the film inappropriate, for adults of a certain age, however, it is one of those memorable film experiences from childhood that did not leave you mentally scarred, much to the surprise of modern viewers. Rewatching the film as an adult, it is one of those rare occasions that those memories of seeing the film from childhood remain untainted. Rosen deserves a lot of credit for ensuring that both the cruelty and beauty of nature were given equal footing in the film when it would have been so easy to create an animated film about talking rabbits that pandered to the audience. He never shies away from depicting both the sudden, unexpected nature of the violence and the physical and mental consequences of it - it's a cruel world out there and nature is often unforgiving, his characters often bearing the wounds and scars to remind us. In doing so, he immediately endears us to the central characters, with Bigwig and Fiver, in particular standing out. Equally, whilst the violence is presented in a realistic way, Rosen doesn't dwell on it - life goes on and characters move on too. There are haunting images to be sure that the very young should probably avoid - an abstract sequence of rabbits being poisoned and a particularly memorable villain still disturb. But in context they lend the film an edge and a tension that is often missing from animated films. With a stellar voice cast, beautiful artwork and a memorable score (even without the famous "Bright Eyes" sequence), this is a film that reminds people that animation is medium that can work for everyone.

The Hunt by Thomas Vinterberg, and if you haven't already seen his film The Celebration, I'd highly recommend you check it out. When it premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Mads Mikkelsen took on the Best Actor award, and I can't really argue with that, because the level of suffering and desperation we see from this character is more than convincing.

The film follows the main character Lucas, who works at a local kindergarten. A series of unfortunate coincidences leads one of the adults to believe that he sexually abused one of the children, and I don't want to spoil too much, but eventually leads to mass hysteria within his community.

And I gotta say, as a person with a penis, this movie terrifies me. To think that human beings are, by nature, so crazy that entire lives can be ruined by nothing more than a lie, is a harsh reminder of the dangers of group mentality and mass hysteria. And it's all delivered extremely well; even the child performances being nothing short of superb. And it's even crazier to think that events like this actually happens. Most prominently in the eighties and nineties, where crazy news reports would actually tell people that Satanists had invaded their day cares.

Anyway, like I said, it's a really ballsy subject matter, but regardless, it's a great film, and it's hard to imagine it could have been delivered in a better way.

Two major components to this review: structure and impact. I will use inline spoiler tags, but note that I do not consider facts about the true events to be spoilers. It's a biopic—we know what happened. But if you don't, be warned that I will "spoil the ending", as it were, and stop reading now.

Now, then.

This is an important story. We all know what happened to the plane, and we all know what usually happens to aircraft whose pilots attempt to do what Sully pulled off. The story of the cra— I mean, forced water landing, itself is amazing. The whole process is so incredible, and this movie captures everything from the initial bird strike through the last boats carrying passengers to shore. I thought the story of the landing itself was done very, very well. This movie is worth watching on the strength of that portrayal alone.

I did have some major objections to the structure, though. They're probably not unlike @LuckyNumber78's complaints…though I'm not coming at this from the perspective of a screenwriter, just as a viewer.

Specifically, the most insulting sequence in the entire film to me was the beginning, which seems like it's throwing us right into the narrative, but turns out to be a just a dream (if it wasn't given away already by the aircraft trying to fly through Manhattan, grazing skyscrapers on its way to a fiery crash). That put me in a pretty skeptical mood for the rest of the film, and for good reason—lots of sequences turn out to be Sully's daydreams/hallucinations/imagination. They were not managed well, in my opinion. That's not to say I object to their use; just that they weren't done well in this film.

The whole temporal flow of the film is pretty unhinged, actually. Though it technically follows a single event from start to finish (the NTSB investigation), even that continuity is disrupted in places. The film retreads certain events, and includes a few others, for no discernible dramatic purpose. And even when it does buckle down and get on with settling the NTSB investigation once and for all, the climax reeks of half-assed attempts to make it "Hollywood suspenseful" that just fall flat. (I mean most of the final NTSB hearing, if you're wondering, where evidence like the report on the left engine shows up at the last minute.)

To be quite honest, I waffled between a 5 and a 6 on this one, not because I didn't find the film compelling, but because it doesn't work structurally. I get that there's an element of metaphor in how the film is laid out, and I appreciate it, but for a film like this it's really not in the story's best interest to keep the audience guessing at what's real. I finally decided on a 6, but only because the true story deserves more than a 5.

I would like to start off with the fact that I read the book.
Did I enjoy it? Yes, but I didn't cry.For me the book was just cute,at some parts funny and I did enjoy it,I didn't love it as some people did BUT I did like it. I didn't cry at all though.
I liked the movie better to be honest, I didn't cry but I almost did at some parts.

There is, in the movie as well as the book, one part that I found really bizarre. The part in the Anne Frank house, it's supposed to honor the people that died and they just start making out! That is wrong on SO MANY LEVELS.

It was a good movie, no lie and I would watch it again but one thing that was completely unrealistic was the way they speak. I do understand that it was written by an adult but it's supposed to be in the mind of a teenager, not Shakespeare. They use all these words that no teenager these days would use, for example in the trailer of the movie Gus says:

...I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable...

NO TEENAGER WOULD SAY THIS!

"The Northman" is very impressive, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's especially good. It's visceral. It may be very very historically accurate, by today's lights. The battle choreography is estimable, shot in long takes with little editing. A number of excellent actors do a lot of really fine work in the parts that have words. The vistas are dark, suggestive, beautifully filmed. It has all that in its favor.

"The Northman" is also Very Serious. It is Very Very Serious. It's SO VERY Serious. There is not a moment of levity or self-awareness anywhere, ever. By the time someone in our audience finally giggled, because you have to sooner or later, it's all so completely preposterous, we all fell deathly silent. Was this the moment when the mood would be finally, ruinously broken? And it wasn't, though it was close - there really is too much about this that works to let it all fall apart completely.

In that moment, though, I realized that I had been willing myself to stay locked in for a while, trying to ignore the fact that this movie had derailed long since, about when it went from being a low-tech muddy "Dune" kind of thing and went over into "Hannibal" territory. In other words, I had been doing the hard disruptive work of pretending that this was Serious, Quality Stuff. But no, people, no. That's the movie's job, not mine. The movie should be giving me a terrific and unexpected ride, not asking me to push it uphill. If I have to sit there and hope that it doesn't shatter completely into pieces, it's already a loss. I'm not here to eat my spinach because it's good for me. I want to watch someone's brilliant work, not sustain it.

When we eventually reached the final showdown, in which two naked men scream incoherently and batter one another with swords and shields on the shadowy fiery skirts of an active flowing volcano, I was long past caring. My personal movie had ended an easy 20 minutes earlier. I'm not kidding about screaming incoherently either - there is no dialogue. It just goes, "AAAAAHHHH!" smash "RRYYAAARGH!" smash "WRRRHYYOOOOGHHHH!" smash, for like ten minutes. Or maybe it's five. Or three. Whatever. I thought it would never end.

There really is a lot of good stuff that works in "The Northman," and maybe one day when I'm home with a good beverage and a comfy chair I'll watch some of it again to look at Robert Eggers' layouts and some of the marvelous and unexpected performances. Maybe. Until then, what the movie mostly did was remind me, over and over and over again, just how amazing "The Green Knight" really was.

An extremely solid farewell for the Craig era.

Though not a prefect Bond film by any means, it has a great deal to like - with a few forgivable foibles.

What's to like?

• An intriguing setup and another time jump for Daniel Craig. This time at least 5 years has passed from the last outing. This gives us something to work with and opens the door to a few curveball.

• (spoiler) The first section up until Felix Leiter's demise was excellent. Loved the Cuba section and the backstory had been paced well up to that point. The pacing throughout is very good - but from that point on I felt a few things could have benefited from some backstory or explanation and that was absent.

• (major spoiler) The surprise offspring. Excellently done. He knows despite what he is told. And for a short time, he has a true meaning in his life. Very touching and I think they didn't overdo it for sentimality. They just let it breathe naturally and it worked well.

• The direction and cinematography were fantastic. Original shots and use of really grand sets and views. Well done to all involved, it looks great.

What's not to like?

• (spoiler) Who is the nemesis exactly? It looks like Scaramanga's Island, and Dr No's lair inside. He talks of his father being an assassin yet he isn't actually named. Would it not have been wiser to name him clearly and wrap up Blofeld and the others with a bow? Or would that be too final for Bond and it run the risk he never gets another film outing...?

• The replacement double-0. Didn't exactly have the same skills as Bond did she? If an old Bond was far superior, it leaves you fretful for the future of the 00-programme...! She redeemed herself towards the end but I didn't warm to her at all as she was unnecessarily combative and the soften came too late and limply.

Overall
A few more explanatory sequences would have been my only requests. It's hard to undo the damage that Spectre did to the Craig franchise (it really is a stinker of a film) but they did well to pull the realism lever back towards Skyfall.

A worthy send off for Craig. A brave way to end any Bond film.

The next guy to carry the mantle will benefit from a slate wipe just as all other Bonds have. I hope the producers refrain from the slow degradation into nonsense that plagued Brosnan and now Craig.

The evidence of this is that perhaps they are finally learning their lesson.

I can't wait to rewatch this when it gets home release.

8.25/10

Bloody Hell!!!!!! What a send-off to Daniel Craig's Bond.

Literally, one of the best films I have seen this year and I have to say one of my favourite Bond films, the action was beautiful and the story had me on the edge of my seat which the previous outing did not do for me. I have to say the reason I think this film is so great is it is the most unique out of all of the Daniel Craig films with pretty perfect directing from Cary Joji Fukunaga and also using the older films prior to Daniel Graig being used to inspire the films action, humour and just characters in general.

Also, I have to say the acting was great in this film as Daniel Craig (James Bond) is one of the best and he brings emotion to the character that no other Bond has, Lea Seydoux (Madeleine Swann) was used much better in this film and I believed her fear/love, Lashana Lynch (Nomi / 007) was a pleasant surprise as I am not a fan of hers but she had such great chemistry with Daniel Craig and sad we won't see them together. The biggest surprises were Christoph Waltz (Blofeld) who was a nothing villain in the previous film but in this, he just felt so much better even though he didn't have much screen time and Ana De Armas (Paloma) who really stole the show in her one scene and she literally had me in stitches but also was freaking badass.

Thank you Daniel Craig for giving us such a great outing but also thank you to everyone involved who made sure this film does not only do justice to the character but also the franchise, I think old fans and new fans are going to love this film. Please see it in the cinema as it was a beautiful cinema experience.

It’s funny to know that this movie was intended to come out before the pandemic, because by releasing it now it might provide some unintentional food for thought for the morons who believe that a certain virus was actually conceived in a lab.
I genuinely wonder if those people will read that far into this film, I’d find it deeply amusing.

The good news is that there are definetely a lot of things this does better than Spectre.
The action is memorable and way more visceral (though it doesn’t quite surpass the Mission Impossible Fallout bar) and the characters are generally more interesting.
I loved the women in this in particular, they all have distinct personalities and they’re not flawless human beings or overpowered (e.g. Ana de Armas is bubbly and fun, but at the same time she’s inexperienced and chaotic), like some blockbusters tend to do.
At the same time, we shouldn’t pretend that this film invented strong female characters for Bond, especially after we’ve had Eva Green and Judi Dench.
Meanwhile, James Bond himself has a very satisfying arc in this film, which isn’t too dissimilar to Tony Stark’s arc in Avengers Endgame , with a bold pay off in the third act. I’m happy that this film gave us confirmation that Mads Mikkelsen didn’t end up castrating Bond during that scene in Casino Royale.
It’s paced very well, more like a traditional action film and less like a drama, which was the case for Skyfall and Spectre. Don’t let the runtime intimidate you, it doesn’t feel longer than 2 hours.
And finally, the whole thing just looks great, it’s produced excuisetely. The cinematography isn’t quite Skyfall level, but Roger Deakins is an impossible bar to clear for any cinematographer.

Unfortunately, this film really struggles with its tone, bouncing between some cartoony stuff and very dark, dramatic moments.
It wants to honor the traditional Bond stuff, but at the same time it can’t let go of the roots of the Daniel Craig iteration, which makes it feel like an uneven artistic vision, because the foundation of Craig’s Bond rests on this idea that this isn’t the traditional Bond.
It’s going for the same tone as Skyfall, meaning its pretty serious, while also incorporating some campy stuff with the plot and the villain (but never going into straight up silly territory, like Spectre).
The problem is that you could still take the villain and the plot seriously in Skyfall (Bardem is still scary despite the camp, the hacking plot feels grounded), and that isn’t the case here, the plot goes too much into sci-fi territory for that.
Also, Rami Malek didn’t leave much of an impression on me, the accent is wonky and he feels like a stock villain (very much like Waltz in the last film). There’s not really an interesting motivation there, or an interesting evil plan. It’s a campy and theatrical plan, and it feels very familiar.
Finally, this film can be fairly predictable at times (for example: Matilde being Bond’s daughter was extremely obvious, but they still try to somewhat play it as a twist. The same goes for Lea Seydoux being framed in prologue.).

So, it’s good, it pushes the creative boundaries of what a Bond movie is in some ways, which is the best stuff.
But I kinda hope they bring in someone with a fresh, fully realized artistic vision to really shake things up again for the next reboot.

7/10

Ps for the Bond producers: please, please make a spin off with Ana de Armas’ character.

Financial troubles at MGM meant that there was a four year gap between Bond films. In that time they’ve shaken things up a little, brining Sam Mendes in as director, Thomas Newman as composer, and Roger Deakins as cinematographer. With those credentials, this is a film that shows promise from the get-go.

Bond gets shot in the field by a colleague who accidentally misses her mark; he gets out alive but is presumed dead and uses this to go into retirement. In the mean time a terrorist hacks into the MI6 building and manages to trigger a gas explosion, setting off a blast right in M’s office. Bond learns of this news and feels compelled to go back into the field in order to catch the villain.

Skyfall marks the 50th anniversary of the Bond franchise, and it’s a sentimental film in a lot of ways. We are constantly reminded that ‘sometimes the old ways are the best’. There’s an attempt to meld the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Bonds, the result is steeped in nostalgia. Admittedly some elements are quite heavy handed (at one point Bond uses the DB5 from Goldfinger…) but for the most part Mendes manages to lend an air of the old films to the Daniel Craig era - something which wasn’t even considered when Brosnan was in the role.

This reconciliation of the past with the present is a central theme in the plot. Javier Bardem plays the villain, Raoul Silva, an ex-MI6 agent scorned by what he saw as a betrayal by M, many years ago. It’s an old style revenge story brought together with a modern, technology based attack. Bond goes back to his childhood home, Skyfall, in order to lead Silva onto familiar ground; a literal trip back in time.

Actually the final third has to be mentioned since it’s easily the weakest part of the film. Some have joked that it’s James Bond meets Home Alone and although harsh it’s not far from the truth. Bond drives up to Skyfall with M and together with the gamekeeper they booby trap the house, awaiting Silva’s arrival. It’s a well executed scene but the whole premise and driving force behind it don’t really make any sense, and it’s a sloppy way to end an otherwise solid story.

There are issues all the way through with the plot, but it’s all details and nitpicking. It doesn’t make sense, for example, that they would connect the prison door system to their computer main frame. The whole thing rests on this in a way, but it’s forgiveable and easily written off as a necessary evil to keep the plot moving. However, when it all goes down at Skyfall, ALL of these issues are brought back to the forefront.

As to the performances, Casino Royale was a great turn for Daniel Craig but Skyfall is the film where he seems truly relaxed in the role. He effortlessly conveys quiet intelligence mixed with raw anger and of course brute strength. Surely he’s put any doubts about the casting choice to bed.

Mendes also exploits Judi Dench to her full potential. She’s one of the great actresses of our times but never seems to get to be involved as much as she should. Here she’s almost a co-lead and plays a pivotal role in Skyfall’s success.

In other supporting roles, Ralph Fiennes gets to play with a well constructed cliché-turned-on-its-head role, Ben Wishaw gives a fresh take on Q & Naomi Harris is a little awkward in her new Moneypenny role but she’s probably a good choice. The real wasted talent is Berenice Marlohe, the ‘Bond girl’ of the film. She’s so interesting and exotic and is absolutely captivating on camera. She’s disposed of in what feels like 5 minutes. Completely absent and sorely missed is Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter, a classic character he played so well in the last two films.

The Craig films have all so far comprised of solid action sequences and Skyfall is no exception. There’s another technical aspect of note though, the cinematography. Roger Deakins is one of the best in the business and his work here got him an Oscar nomination. It’s a well deserved nod, too; the sequence in the tower block is thrilling and innovative. The scenes in the casino are pure eye candy and set the mood in a way nothing else could.

This is a huge step up from Quantum of Solace and Mendes’ confidence means we aren’t bombarded with constant action sequences. Skyfall is a film made with love and care, and really gets the franchise up and running again. It’s a shame that the final showdown leaves such a bitter taste in our mouths.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/09/27/skyfall/

[8.4/10] The Matrix plays different to me now than when I was a teenager, which is as it should be. The philosophy that blew my mind in middle school seems a little rote as an adult. The omnipresence of dialing phones as the bridge to cyberspace feels a bit quaint. And the dark heart beneath the prosperity and anti-authoritarian/conformity speeches seem a little outdated when more of that dark heart has been on display in modern society and we’re more worried about unseen pockets of hate that metastasized on the internet than we are about the web as a mean to strike back against the system.

And yet, The Matrix still “slaps”, a word that is appropriately du jour now but likely to become passe in twenty years. While the film’s approach to special effects and adoption of wire-fu became so influential that it became ubiquitous, there is still such tension in every set piece. While the film’s questioning of what counts as reality and choice and control feels a little freshman philosophy class, this is still a film with something on its mind. And the premise of a boundless digital world, controlled by A.I., after our old one was brought down by our own hand, is still enough to power a film like this.

Those factors, and the unmitigated style oozing out of every frame, make The Matrix just as memorable, if not necessarily as deep, when returning to the film twenty years later. The story, which I once found compelling, if not outright inspiring as a teenager, feels a little rote now. Maybe it’s just that we’ve had beaucoup chosen one stories since then, but the whole “you’re him, Neo” routine comes off much more staid and standard when your movie is sandwiched between Luke Skywalker and Buffy Summers on one side, and Aang and Harry Potter on the other.

What’s more, The Matrix is mostly one big long introduction. In an odd way, it feels a lot like a phase one Marvel Cinematic Universe film, where it’s devoted as much to establishing the main character of a soon-to-be franchise as it is telling a plot-driven story from start to finish. Most of the film’s runtime is about what The Matrix is, what happened to lead humanity to this place, and a lot of exposition and ruminations on the nature of experience and truth beyond any full blown narrative developments. We basically get Neo being brought into the Matrix, learning about “The One” and then, in the last half hour of the film, the plot obstacles actually pile up. It’s a personal journey or a pilot more than a full-fledged story on its own.

Beyond that, the acting seems far shakier as an adult than it did when I was a kid. Keanu Reeves’s lines in the film became the stuff of memes before memes were really a thing. While occasionally grazing profundity, the script is full of action movie one-liners and platitudes than even the more seasoned performers have trouble making sound convincing at times. And even Hugo Weaving, whose mannered performance is one of the most memorable in the film, feels like he verges into Shatner-ing at times.

And yet, those elements, which would sink most films in my estimation, are more than counterbalanced by the aesthetic brilliance, the intense fights, the unmitigated style, and yes, the thoughtfulness baked into an otherwise standard “he is the chosen one” tale. It’s striking on rewatch how much of The Matrix is about choice. There are some strong themes about mental liberation, about what we perceive versus what is real, and the way that what we believe informs what we’re willing to see and experience. But choice is at the core of the film’s ethos, about deciding what kind of person you want to be, what kind of future you want to have, despite fate or destiny or predetermination, that permeates the film and emerges in monologues from both the good guys and bad guys.

Plus, it’s just a damn imaginative and durable premise. The Matrix was not the first work to prophesize a digital world, or an omnipresent artificial intelligence, or virtual reality as a refuge from a battered real world. But the film combines all of these elements into a setup that works, with infinite possibilities that can spring from it. As much time as the script spends establishing how things got to this point and what the rules of this universe are, it’s compelling just to learn more about this setting and see its limits and possibilities dramatized before the actual conflict kicks in. Frankly, I’m shocked that, despite the polarizing reaction to this film’s sequels, we haven’t had a reboot or reimagining or late sequel based on the potential to reuse this film’s premise alone.

But even if the premise wasn’t as good as it is, even if the film didn’t have more on its mind than the average actioner, the visuals and direction alone are enough to make it worth giving The Matrix another spin. While some of the CGI doesn't pass the eye test as well in 2019, the writer/director Wachowskis still make all those groundbreaking skirmishes stunning whether or not you can see the seams. Beyond the famed bullet time sequences, which still stand up today, the fight scenes are directed, blocked, and edited almost perfectly. There’s enough cuts to liven up the shot selection, but we get to see enough sustained combat and movement to understand the geography of the showdowns and believe our heroes as masters of their trade. There’s a lot of borrowing going on here from East Asian films that use the same approach, but the Wachowskis deploy it masterfully. The use of the virtual setting and the longer cuts amid the fireworks help find the middle ground between the impossible and the believable that makes Neo and Morpheus and Trinity’s battles so damn captivating.

At the same time, there’s just oodles of style in this thing. There’s the obvious washed out green sheen to everything, an omnipresent color grading that signifies sci-fi dystopia before we’re two steps into the film. The black leather, monochromatic aesthetic feels timeless, with distinct looks for even the more short-lived members of Morpheus’s crew. And the larger than life actions by our heroes and villains -- impossible firefights, wall-walking evasions, daredevil leaps -- are all done with the right amount of slow motion, musical accompaniment, and virtuosity to make the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar seem like the coolest people in the world, whether you’re 13 or 30.

The Matrix isn’t a film with a powerhouse plot or indelible performances (give or take Laurence Fishburne) or deeply-sketched characters. It’s a film with high-minded themes, an outstanding setup, and unbelievable action and aesthetics that elevate beyond less successful fare and make it a stone cold classic. It may not rock my world the same way it did when I was a teenager, but even today, the film is enough to get my blood-pumping at the same time it gets me thinking. That combination lets the film soar even after its innovations have become commonplace, because nobody’s quite topped the Wachowskis in their ability to marry top notch, jaw-dropping action with general audience appropriate but still thought-provoking ideas.

Let me start this off by saying that this sequel did not feel outside of what we remember.
Blade Runner 2049 maintains the mood and feel of its predecessor. The visuals, the sound... the dystopian future, it's all there.

| FIRST THOUGHT |

I love writing reviews, it comes somewhat naturally to me after watching something that I learn to feel passionate about.
This movie taught me to be passionate.

But... it's really hard for me to express judgment. And I'm going to explain why:

Actually, it's very simple. This was a 3 hours movie. Of these 3 hours, 2 were simply... air. Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't always negative, like in this case. It was refreshing air, but still... it doesn't (at first glance) hold anything on the plot.

Because of this, the viewer (me at least), is left with a lot of questions, the picture doesn't explain itself. Also; as a side note - you most definitely need to watch the first one. The great majority of the runtime is inexplicably useless.

The longer it goes, the longer it begins to add new stuff, and then some, then it seems somehow related to what's actually going on, but right after it deviates the actual story on an ideal from the characters involved, that at a certain point, evaporates. I'm really conflicted about this because it looks to me like the screenwriters and director wanted to leave all of this to theory and the fans.

Why is this confusing? Because it's a very strange mixture of linear narrative and non-linear narrative. One is focussed on one objective, the other starts a bunch of other objectives and then it simply dies. No explanation was given, no closure was given.

And this is aggravated by the fact that it's a 3 hours movie, of which 1 hour of the actual story is spread and mixed amongst 2 hours of absolutely nothing. VISUALLY IMPRESSIVE NOTHING. A VERY INTERESTING BUNCH OF LITERAL VOID.

This is actually the only thing I did not like about the movie. Which, again, if you are like me and enjoy movies that aren't patently explaining themselves, it's not a bad thing. I just feel like it could've been much more interesting if they explained somehow what happened to all the side characters, or just cut them out.

|STORY & ACTORS |

Aside from what I've mentioned before, the more "linear" part of the story is actually not that bad. It's nothing impressive. A part of what I said earlier connects to the fact that this movie constantly keeps juggling between what is real and what is not. Be it by robots, or actual reality that the characters are living. So it came out pretty obvious that the movie would have a twist at some point, somewhere. I will admit that I did not get it until the very end, so, don't be discouraged.

Ryan Gosling was great, also because he as an actor was perfect for his role. Being so that he has this way of being and looking conflicted, and so it portrayed really well on the protagonist.

Harrison Ford had less value to this movie than he did in the last Star Wars.

Jared Leto's character is a mystery to me, but he did a phenomenal job talking random shit.

All of the other actors, Jared Leto included, were there to push the story forward (or to add random bullshit) and that's it. They did a fantastic job, but unfortunately, as mentioned above, at first glance it looks like they don't mean shit.

| CINEMATOGRAPHY |

The movie is visually pleasing, it's bliss for people with OCD. It's perfectly round and at the same time perfectly square. It keeps smooth lines combining great color combinations in the palette, and utilizing great solid colors at the same time.

As I said before it holds perfectly a spot near its predecessor, the mood and feel are almost identical. (Having watched the first one only an hour before going to the theater to watch this one)

I have to say, this one looks A LOT, like A FUCKING GIGAZILLION LOT more gruesome and splatter than the first one. The fighting scenes are brutal, they do not go into dramatic effects, they just are what they should be. A punch in the face, exploding heads and blood.

There is no doubt that this movie looks fucking amazing.

It sounds amazing as well. It has a collection of deep, pure sounds. There is not a lot of music, but when there is it's powerful and present and it makes you wake up and amaze. Same goes for the special audio effects: I have watched it in ATMOS and I have to admit, they did not utilize it at all, except for one scene later in the movie, but the way it goes from absolute silence to seat trembling sensations it's really amazing. The sounds were so powerful I could literally see the movie screen shake and the subwoofer hit made the whole room shake.

I would also like to add that in the Italian version, you can clearly see that they used "incorrect" words grammatically, they used a lot of anglicisms, I guess they've done that to express how language is evolving? It's actually current of our generation, I see a lot of people adapting English words in Italian, so I was very impressed by that.

| FINAL THOUGHT |
I feel like everyone needs to understand, before watching this movie, that you need a time, a mood and a place perfectly fit to sit for a 3 hours movie that it's going to feel like a 6-hour long journey into colors, shapes, and absolute "living" silence.

This is NOT a Marvel movie, there is action, well-done action, but it's not about action. You need to sit, relax and don't think about time, because, trust me, it's going to fuck you.

Please like my comment if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.

Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If you think I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.

On Twitter, I review the entire world -> @WiseMMO

Half-way through the movie I kinda have predicted where the direction of the twist is taking, so I just wondered how it would exactly unfold. Comments that expect the film will explain how and why Eloise is experiencing vision I think miss the point of the film completely, as it's never been about thoses technicalities, but Eloise's empathy and experience as a girl finding something that she always dreams of (London in the 60s) yet at the same time completely alien to her (the harsh life of girl moving out to big cities), with focus as the experience of woman. The rape scenes were made to be very personal and frontal, especially in contrast to Eloise' own experience with John. Likewise, the point of the film is not about making the boundaries between hallucination and reality very clear-cut, as we're supposed to see through Eloise's eyes.

I think Edgar Wright does a good job in the dream/mirror sequences, however as the film goes on it kinda removes the mirror aspect and put Eloise as mere audience, which is a bit unfortunate to me, as the mirror sequences were the film's strongest point. Also really liked the hallucinotary visuals and of course the costumes. Everything and everyone looks beautiful here, really a pleasure watching Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy perform. The haunting part of the second half is not the film's strongest point, although narrative-wise it makes sense (explaining what actually happens and Eloise's descent into madness), but I wish it could be visually extrapolated a bit further as I thought the hauntings were confined to Eloise's room. The climax is also not the film's strongest point, a bit cliched even, but I suppose getting very personal with Eloise's experience works out in the end, as I was kinda sad with the climax after I grew attached with Eloise's fondness of the 60s, including her photos of her mother and grandma.

Ted is THE poster child for the fact that every great concept doesn't automatically become a guaranteed winning project once it leaves the drawing board. This movie SCREAMS "Here's a great idea, but we just didn't know what to do with it." Whether it was because of lack of imagination or too many tokes on the community bong, nobody will ever know.

Having a movie about a real-live Teddy Bear existing in the every day life of a 30-something underachiever sounds like a winning formula. However after the first few moments, the movie stalls, the dialog gets stale quickly and the majority of the story revolves around Ted getting high and/or trying to bang shallow, attractive women (even though Hasbro didn't include on him full, working equipment) while the main character tries to balance his 4-year ongoing relationship with a woman completely out of his league and his life-long Thunder Buddy (Ted).

Lewd, crude and rude, Ted does little to entertain beyond the limited soph-moronic humor. Unless you are a rabid fan of Family Guy or the 80s Flash Gordon, live in or around the Boston area or think it's funny to hear the F-word every other second, this one won't be for you.

There is a pit in my stomach as I write this. Great films stick with you. Great films provoke a reaction. Oftentimes it's joy, or a sense of tragedy, or some lingering glimpse of profundity through art. But other times it's horror; other times it's disgust; other times it's skin-crawling revulsion that makes you wonder if there's any happiness to be had in a world where these sorts of things happen.

And Trainspotting is a damn good film. It features stellar performances (from its lead in particular), an inventive visual sensibility, and story that continually yet artfully punches you in the gut through the whole run time. And because it's stuck with me, because it's provoked a reaction in me, I'm not sure I ever want to see it again.

It's not because Trainspotting is a tragedy. That element is certainly in there, with innocents left to suffer for reasons beyond their control. But mostly it's because the film is about terrible people, people who take advantage of one another, people who have no reserve in hurting someone else just for the fun of it, and people who see the opportunity for one of them to break out of that cycle and cannot help but drag them back into the muck. No, Trainspotting is not about tragedy; it's about fatalism, about unavoidable doom brought on or encouraged by a twisted bliss that you inject into your arm.

But that horror sneaks up on you. The opening third of the episode or so feels like a comedic, slice-of-life look at Scottish heroin addicts that doesn't feel so far away from a sitcom setup, with relationship troubles, buddies bonding over their shared successes and failures, and the folks at the center of the story just generally messing around and living their lives with a sort of reckless abandon that is equal parts dumb, funny, goofy, and more than a little gross.

From the beginning of the film, it's clear that these are not good people -- shooting dogs with pellet guns to get them to bite their owners, stealing sex tapes from their friends, and bloodying random patrons at the bar and getting into fights over it. Sure, these guys are shits, but they feel like mildly amusing, mostly self-destructive shits, who get into the standard kind of shenanigans that wouldn't feel so out of place on a much rougher version of Friends. They have relationship troubles and come up with wacky schemes and come back 'round to hang out and make their roughly-hewn sense of it all.

And then that goddamn baby dies.

It's hard to think of a more horrifying image I've ever seen on film. It outstrips every horror movie and piece of cinematic brutality I've witnessed in terms of the pure, gobsmacking awfulness of it. The camera pans across the poor infant's body. It lingers just long enough and then, in keeping with the grammar of cinema, cuts to our protagonists' reactions, lulling the audience into a false sense of security that they won't have to see it again. But then the film cuts back, it doesn't let the viewer off that easy or attempt to elide the sickening nature of what's taken place.

That's the turn in the film. Renton's voiceover says as much, explains that something changed after that point, but it's also a wake up call within the film. The boyish roughhousing and rowdiness and hijinx of the character's we're introduced to in the first part of the film are not harmless or victimless. They are the silhouette of the disease that casts the shadow, that gives these awful people license to continue being awful, to continue to ignore and turn away from the harshest things in the world because there's a vial of euphoria waiting to keep them from it, to be as selfish as to even jump in line ahead of the woman with the most grief in the race for that chemical distraction. These are not charming rakes who are charming in their incorrigibility; they are terrible human beings who do terrible, terrible things and an engage in whatever behaviors are necessary to avoid having to face how terrible they are.

The rest of the film is a parade of those terrible things. It's hard to know whether heroin is the cause or merely an accelerant to them. There's no origin story for Renton and his pals here. When we see them off of the junk, they may not be robbing or stealing, but their not exactly saints either. Begbie never touches the stuff and might be the worst of them. He and Sick Boy take advantage of Renton in London when neither of them is using and pull him back into the life he'd nearly escaped. Heroin didn't cause the horrible events we witness in Trainspotting. It didn't make these people; it just made them worse.

It made Renton worse because it provided him a means for avoiding ever having to emotionally confront the pain he's caused and the selfishness of his actions. the standout sequence in the film is his detox, full of a phantasmagoria of that guilt and fear and horror that he'd found a way to keep from himself coming back at him full bore in a flash of images, whether they be the spectre of AIDS, the image of poor abandoned Spud, or unnerving, devastating baby. There are a number of fanciful sequences in the film that convey the dreamlike quality of a man able to avoid the worst things in his life because of heroin -- whether it's diving through a toilet bowl that turns into a pristine sea, or overdosing on his dealer's floor while his POV is surrounded in velvet--but in that moment where the drug is escaping his system, those visuals curdle into a nightmare.

The coda to that nightmare is Tommy, the seeming one good man among Renton's acquaintance. Through Renton's shining influence, both by stealing Tommy's sex tape and letting him try heroin, not to relieve Tommy's pain, but because Renton needs the money for his own habit, Tommy ends up addicted, infected, and eventually dying a miserable death while Renton does nothing to fix his mistakes.

In a film whose balance consists of a parade of horribles, that development and the poor innocent child left to perish while its erstwhile caretakers are awash in a neglectful euphoria stand out as the most tragic. But the film's final act may be its most dispiriting. Because for a while, it seems like the nightmare works. That Renton, who's had every opportunity and bit of help his friends--Spud in particular--did not, is at least, it seems, finally able to escape. He moves away. He has a job. He's made a clean break.

But it's not to be. He cannot separate himself from his friends who reinforce his debauchery, who lead him back into misery and thievery and self-destruction and the heroin that makes it all seem tolerable. Trainspotting is not just a story about some bad folks; it's the most effective anti-drug PSA ever created, that shows the awful, stomach-churning trajectory of these people's lives and the depraved, hopeless way that they continue to try to eat one another when their escape of choice is involved. It shows the way it makes them desperate, uncaring, unmoored from life or decency or real happiness, not through fear or exaggeration, but through an unflinching (if stylized) depiction of where this road leads you, what the people who can't "choose life" choose instead to escape the button-down existence they either don't want or can't have. It shows the ugliness at the core of who they are, the parts of their souls that have festered and rotted under the guise of that chemical reaction, and in visceral terms, makes you want no part of it, or them.

Twilight becomes both much more funny and much more bearable when you are familiar with the genre and take it as the film equivalent of a shōjo manga or otome game, including all the same tropes. Under these criteria, it's actually a pretty fun movie.
Hot Take: If you can tolerate James Bond movies but this one somehow makes you feel weird, perhaps it's because you're more used to or more comfortable with male fantasies of sexual desirability. Either way, I used to hate Twilight because I felt superior to all the stupid girls who liked it. Now I just accept it for what it is: wish-fulfilment. Sure, Edward would be a creepy stalker and borderline abusive if not for story mechanics that tell us he can be trusted because he's a good guy, but that's the beauty of fiction: in real life there's no such thing as "good guys" and "bad guys," but in stories, there is. Similarly, James Bond would be a serial sexual harasser if not for the fact that all the women he encounters are super into him, but again, that's the beauty of fiction: they always are, and we know it's okay for him to be a dick sometimes because he is, you guessed it, a good guy. And yes, there's some weird puritan ideology here about the dangers of male sexuality, but that's still a hundred times better than for instance the subtext of Bram Stoker's Dracula (which, funnily enough, is about the dangers of female sexuality).
So, once more for the people in the back: Twilight is silly, implausible, and often ridiculous. And that's absolutely okay.

That being said, things I like about this film: the great way in which it captures teenage awkwardness (which I find hilarious and at this point have to believe is intentional); the fact that Bella just accepts he's a vampire because it's the most logical conclusion, and there's no drawn out "I can't believe this guy stopped a car with his bare hands, I'm going to tell everyone about it - oh no, no one believes me!"; the quotability of so much of the dialogue (coming close to the SW prequel trilogy in that department); the absolute dead-pan way in which everyone delivers their lines ("It's like diamonds. You're beautiful." - "Beautiful. This is the skin of a killer, Bella."); The way literally no one looks like they want to be there; the fact that Bella does not seem to be able to fully close her mouth; the implication that vegetarians are "never fully satisfied"; Seemingly endless scenes of piggyback rides (now I finally know why they never actually show how The Flash carries people - it just looks so fucking weird); the shot of Bella's father rolling his friend in the wheelchair right in front of the stairs leading up to his house, followed by a cut so that it's never explained how he actually got inside; the fact that Bella just seems absolutely chill with everything ("I don't sleep." - "Never?" - "No, never." - "Okay.").
Things I don't like about this film: how everyone takes it so goddamned seriously. Oh, and that there is absolutely no instance of "What are you?" - "A waitress."

Arguably the movie with the most (male) film stars ever assembled. The cast is nothing lees than astounding. The film not so much. While other war movies paint the same picture that war is senseless, this movie questions not only war but the movie itself. I first saw A Bridge too Far when I was ten and was immediately struck of how bleak it ended. Then saw it in my 20s again and looked for something more than just story. Maybe it was a fine film regardless of story. It wasn't. And now being 42 I was seeing it again and the whole movie seems just as pointless. I know, some purpose of the movie was to show how pointless war is in itself, but as I said before countless other war movies have made that before without making the whole movie about nothing. Allied forces trying to capture bridges in Holland, suffer heavy casualties, have to retreat, ending up right where they started and a whole lot of people died for nothing. Yes, that's war and I guess this absurdity is depicted here. I'm just wondering if this could have been handled better. Showing war is absurd without sacrificing the integrity of the whole film. Longest Day could. Saving Private Ryan could. Hacksaw Ridge could as well. This falls short. Too bad. The cast deserved better.

This is more a film, I think, which is about aging and repeating your past than anything else. Sure, the characters are older, but I cringe a lot as Boyle has chosen to have them repeat some of their "fave lines" from the first film, 21 years later, for no apparent reason.

The slow parts move best, for example, where Renton visits his father, despite that one being sappy. The "new girl", basically a Renton, doesn't bring much to the table.

However, Robbie Carlyle steals the show; where Ewen Bremner's "Spud" previously did, by being a comedic maestro with his movements and druggy cadence, he is now converted into a caricature of himself - and yes, I am aware that druggies who have been on dope for more than two decades tend to turn into caricatures in more ways than one - while Begbie offers more. A lot more.

Carlyle's acting is so strong that even Begbie's most obvious characteristics - e.g. as displayed where his son stands up against him by wanting to go to college to learn hotel management instead of joining his dad in a life of crime - turn interesting. He's a tour de force.

Still, while this film is interesting and entertaining, it is too much of a parody of itself to become a truly interesting introspective. And the plot turn at the end was really a bit too tell-tale and boring to me.

Imma go off and say that I am truly ashamed of myself for rating this masterpiece so low the first time I watched this. Schindler's List in no way deserves a 6! I remember wanting to give it a 5 out of 10 when reviewing this. I had said I found the film dull. What the fuck? That day I put Schindler's List on, I was cooking therefore not really focused on the story of the film. I re-watched it today and I am truly amazed. Engaged in every single scene. Every single shot so beautiful; disturbing; authentic.

Schindler's List's cinematography is on point. Spielberg, whom was and still is one of Hollywood's most influential directors of all time and is known for his science fiction films, captures the brutal environment of the holocaust brilliantly. He truly demonstrates his talent, leaving the audience in awe of his ability to create a film so entirely different, completely opposite from his original or pre-shown aesthetic and work. Not to mention that the Holocaust is such a sensitive topic and Spielberg who is a part of Jewish culture did a job so well that this film he took a risk with is now actually an additional win for him.

The film's screenplay is amazing, for all of the recognition that Schindler's List has received is totally, completely deserved. The story of Oskar Schindler was portrayed extremely precise and Liam Neeson's acting is expertly done. In fact, every single actor in this film is fucking amazing! The extras are even worth watching in this film.

Directing; screenplay; production; costume design. All of these are extremely stunning. Seriously, no flaws at all! A film that demonstrates that even at the most horrid, brutal times; even around the most wicked and malicious human beings, there can still be a flash of hope and kindness for these individuals.

Masterpiece. Truly captivated this time—with a first time being unfocused by choice and then wrongly reviewing the film—I am astonished.

[9.9/10] How do you go about capturing something as immense and horrifying as the Holocaust on film? It is an event that stretched across countries, with an unimaginable, unending array of horrors, that feels too big to be contained within the feeble confines of celluloid. But Steven Spielberg and his team somehow manage it, by going big and going small.

Spielberg gives us avatars for the different sides of this experience. He gives us Itzhak Stern, to channel the desperation, the resourcefulness, the unceasing fear of the Jews driven from their homes and then forced into camps. He gives us Amon Goeth, to symbolize the utter inhumanity, the callousness of the people who carried out such atrocities, who saw their captives and victims as less than human and acted accordingly. And he gives us Oskar Schindler, and with him, the arc of a man who goes from seeing the Jews as a means to an end, of profit and personal gain, to helping them a little when he can, to realizing that he’s sold his soul and trying to do everything he can to buy it back.

Through these central figures, Schindler in particular, the film brings grand, wide-ranging concepts down to earth: the dehumanization of the Jewish people, the different shades of wanton cruelty visited upon them, the gradual realization of their plight by the world, the good works that created light in the darkness, and the bureaucratic state that treated the harvesting and expungement of human lives like a series of numbers on a ledger.

But he also stretches beyond those avatars, to capture the horrors of one of humanity’s great shames as a series of chaotic, disquieting events that affected massive numbers of people. Spielberg’s camera does not shy away from panic, the tumult, the hiding, the casual deaths doled out in the streets in the “liquidation” of the Krakow ghetto. It doesn't flinch from the masses of people loaded into trains, stripped and prodded and treated like animals, and falling apart as families are split up, spouses are separated, and parents see their children blithely led to the slaughter. It holds the tension to the last when a group of Jewish women are disrobed, shaved, and sent into a shower, uncertain whether they are being disinfected, or sent to their deaths.

Through all of this, Schindler’s List provides a sea of familiar faces, individuals who are less fully-developed characters, but still given personalities, connections, quirks, and specific hopes and fears, that make them more than the indistinct mass of humanity their Nazi tormentors see them as. They are distinguished just enough to make them memorable, relatable, recognizable, but their concerns, their reactions and mere persistence or faltering within these stomach-churning events, are real and universal enough to make them stand-ins for the broader horrors faced by so many like them in the Holocaust. The film expertly balances their humanity and the way they represent the humanity of so many other, saved or caught or lost, in the Third Reich’s mortal machinery.

The film, in fact, treats it like machinery. That’s not to say there is pure dispassionate indifference here. One of Schindler’s List’s most intriguing choices is its treatment of Amon Goeth as someone profoundly real and expressive -- in his boorish laughter, his twisted affections for his conscripted maid, his brief and faltering attempts to own the power of mercy -- but also someone with no shred of empathy in him, for whom murder is either an idle sport or a mundane necessity of his job, until the very suffering or salvation of the people under his watch becomes one extneded joke.

But at the same time, the editing and framing choices emphasize the efficiency, the bureaucracy the meticulousness of the Nazis as they processed the Jews into fungible goods and slave labor and ash. Spielberg returns repeatedly to the images of the “listmakers”, the names being typed onto pages, the stamps that dictate life or death, the regimented memorialization of letters and numbers that either allow humble, blameless Polish Jews to hang onto their lives, or condemn them to an untimely death.

This is not the rush of the battlefield or the fog of war or the uncertainty of combat. It is the systematic extraction and extermination of a people at the hands of the state, done with governmental imprimatur. It is one of history’s greatest horrors regularly delivered with the desultory indifference of a civil servant.

At the same time, Spielberg and company take pains to show the contrast between the lives led by the German officers and private businessman who thrive on this murder and forced labor, and the beleaguered Jews struggling simply to survive. The film juxtaposes the lavish parties Schindler joins with the S.S. officers, and scenes of the squalor of the ghettos. He contrasts decadent pleasures of the flesh and of stunning artistic displays, with private beatings by officers who hate the cause of their own twisted feelings, and life events eked out by Jews in captivity. Without ever having a character speak out to condemn this disparity, he lets the disparity speak for itself in the distance between the casual horrors of mass enslavement and extermination, and the flush, spoils-of-war indulgences of those who profit from it.

That’s aided by the black and white aesthetic of the film. That choice certainly bolters moments like when a colorful flame juts back into the monochromatic world of the film, signifying the traditions carried despite the time they were almost snuffed out, or Schindler recognizes the red coat of a little girl that helps spur him to recognize the abominations of these acts and the humanity of the people who suffer under them. But it also allows Spielberg and director of photography Janusz Kaminski to make light the focus of their images.

The flash of gunfire illuminates and identifies the killings that take place in the Krakow Ghetto. The light that shines on Schindler’s face as he leans out of the shadows to comfort Helen Hirsch after she describes the terror-filled unpredictability of Goeth’s arbitrary murders cuts a contrast in the us vs. them divide. And it creates a stark beauty but also a grim frankness to swaths of liberated refugees walking down a hill, or clothless people forced to run in circles so they can be examined, or the bursts of smoke and ash that signal the ending crush of human suffering practically automated. It makes Schindler’s List feel older than it is, whilst channeling the dark realities the film unflinchingly confronts.

It confronts them with the crowds of Jews, the lists of names, thrown into the mortal whims of men who view them as subhuman, to be killed, abused, utilized, or saved. It confronts them with the story of a man who comes to see that invisible machine, the input and output of war, and laments his myopic part in it, and changes enough to save whom he can whilst decrying the more he might have saved. And it confronts us with the unimaginable scope and brutality and lost humanity, channeling the experience into a visceral three hours of trials and loss, of shameful joys and undeserved deaths, of regimented destruction and unsanctioned survival.

It is, in a word, a masterpiece. It is a hard watch, but also a film that accomplishes the impossible -- it captures the all-encompassing maw of the Holocaust, the acts that called into question our very souls as a species, the kindesses and losses that helped to affirm them, into a film so attuned to make us recoil, that also makes it impossible to look away, to cover our eyes, or do anything but reflect and remember what was done and what was lost.

Stern: “The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.”
Stern: "Diese Liste ist etwas absolut Gutes. Diese Liste ist das Leben. Und rundherum, um ihre Ränder ist das Verderben."

First of all, I am not a fan of both, the genre and the length (3 1/4 fucking hours!).
However, this movie is a qualitative masterpiece. Spielberg made some serious thoughts on how he wants to construct this movie.
Many things are great. It is well-written. The scenery is great, nice that they could film in Kraków. It is formative. It is a serious topic and a good message.
The movie just feels like it is real. You do not notice that it is actually a film.
This is because many things are so realistic about this movie: The actors do not act staged, there are so many characters who talk and are somehow important which makes the movie very dynamic. It is also more realistic because it is uncut. People get shot, you see blood, they fall to the ground, it is okay - thank god it is not censored.

It is not just one storyline. Since the different time leaps in WW2 make the movie also more dynamic and particularly more diversified.

There are also some scenes which are quite funny which has not to be a bad thing in this case. Examples:
The crazy old man who thanks Schindler for the workplace.
The piano man who plays piano while everybody else gets shot in the house.

For a movie from 1993 it is a lot better than some movies released nowadays and many movies can learn from this movie.

By now you've probably seen the rating. Yes, that's right - I've given what is widely regarded as the best sequal of all time a "7".

This movie had very little of what made the first movie so good. In my book the most interesting part of the first Godfather was the transformation of Michael Corleone from pacifist to head of the family. "2" featured the difficulty of both running the family and trying to legitimize their business. The result, from my perspective, was a mish-mosh. The movie never did have any flow. In fact, when it ended I almost fell off my chair. There were few high points in this movie the ending certainly wasn't one of them.

The worst part of the movie were the flashbacks. I understand that part of the reason to visit Vito Corleone's childhood and early life was to contrast his style of leadership with that of the heavy-handed Michael. Other than that, I really had no interest in seeing a 13 year old future mobster. The result was an already fragmented plot being torn apart that much more to take trips down memory lane (and a 2-disk movie to boot). It seems to me that a prequel would have made more sense. The only positive was that we got a break from Pacino's constant brooding. Quite honestly, I've seen better Sopranos episodes.

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It said a few think about society but nothing new. I know people are evil. I know institutions can be hypocritical, experimental and evil. I know about gang mentality. What's left? The only interesting moment was the family dynamic after Alex was released and that only lasted one scene. Alex wasn't even a complex character like he could have been. He goes from sick to cured to victim with nothing interesting in terms of actual personality - oh but he likes beethoven, yeah great. This is structured more like a fairy tale than a movie for grown ups. This movie seems to have the view that the hypocrisy of power and violence is genuinely interesting and clever enough to base an entire movie on. Clever social predication? Hardly. Maybe about a degenerate society but many movies predict that as a usual plot idea. I'm sure people don't care as much in those cases. What about all the wrong predictions? Where are all the posh talking kids listening to beethoven and raping? What was the logic behond that anyway?? Why does the future still look like the 70s?
What bugs me is the arty veneer to try and give some intellectualism. Beneath the flesh, boundary pushing violence for the time and nonsensical classical music (especially the edgy Nazi beethoven scene), it's a very basic story. It's not Alex or the violence that bothers me but the fact it's shallow and overrated

before trying to write a couple word for a review, I bother myself reading other people's review which is pretty amazing, considering some people said sobbing after the ending and the other said this movie is boring and looks a bit dull, this however a movie that if you try to look from different perspective will give you different sensation and interpretation also this movie is not intentionally trying to break people's heart after watching it but its rather intended to show how war looks like at microscopic viewpoint of two children who desperately trying to survive in the midst of chaos, separated from their parents whilst witnessing the true horror of war, pretty much war movie is about bloodshed, bullets flying, explosion, warcry, soldier and etc that closely related to war itself but "Grave of Fireflies" wanted to present the audience, the image of how the terror of war impact the very miniscule level of life despite who causes it what reason behind it, or who win who lose. boring or not, sad or not this movie is more than worth watching not just as entertainment but as a remainder that this kind of situation still happens now and we are still fortunate as the audience not as those "two kids"