The friend zone has been taken to a whole new mechanical level.
While still funny and immensely entertaining, I confess I was a little disappointed with Deadpool. With this character, they had an opportunity to make a completely ridiculous and nonsensical superhero movie, and what we got as another generic plot following the tired origin story / damsel-in-distress formula, with a bit of crude humor and 4th-wall breaking mixed in. I almost wonder if that was the cost for finally getting this movie made.
The Imitation Game was a fairly typical and good biopic, even if it did stray a lot from the reality of the events. Turing definitely wasn't the lone wolf who single-handedly cracked Enigma he's portrayed as being, and was in fact supported by thousands of people, with many playing integral roles that don't even get mentioned in the movie. Most of the dramatic conflicts in the movie are just completely made up, with the real Turing being well-liked by his colleagues, not being so in the closet, not having issues with his superiors, never being threatened with getting fired, having entirely different bookends to his relationship with his fiancee and a far less "simple" end to his life. In fact, Joan Clarke never experienced such pressure from her parents and women in Bletchley Park outnumbered men four to one, so a major part of her role was practically fiction and just "hurr, women had it so tough back then" which, while it was indeed the case, isn't something that this particular story should be representing.
Of course, this is a dramatic movie so it does make sense to have some artistic liberties taken but at this point the entire movie's "based on a true story" only so far as its plot synopsis is accurate. In adapting it to a movie, there were also a number of unconvincing contrivances and convenient coincidences to move the plot along, with your typical chance happening causing a eureka moment, as well as entirely downplaying his homosexuality, presumably to appeal to a larger (older) audience. Now, excusing all the historical inaccuracies and keeping in mind it is meant to be just a movie, it's still enjoyable. Cumberbatch is fantastic, even though Turing's personality is largely exaggerated, and the rest of the cast are good too, even if the story doesn't care about any of them. Desplat's score's great as usual and there was a surprising number of comedic moments which I wasn't expecting at all from the promotional material. There was too much repetition of aphorisms and wink wink casual mentions of things that had happened earlier in the movie which all seemed pretty forced. If you're okay with biopics completely misrepresenting their historical figures, it's a pretty good movie.
As someone who actually lives in Mexico, and has a 12-men strong Policias Federales group parked just outside my office with machine guns and a freaking tank (yes, a small tank with 2 50mm turrets), and my fair amount of dead bodies seen around in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Sonora, many kidnapped (and lost forever) friends, this movie is one of the best I've ever seen about the War On Drugs. The third act is too constrained, but understandable as this is a movie made for an American audience. I wonder if you guys can tell the difference between Mexico City (where most of the Mexican scenes were shot) and Ciudad Juarez or Nogales, because you can't film there at all. The situation here is worst than anybody can imagine, and I just have to look outside my window. I'm looking forward for the next movie with Del Toro's character.
Lost in Translation was a slow but beautiful movie. It's pretty understated and subtle, with very nuanced performances by Scarlett Johansson (whom I don't usually like; apparently she was 19 when she made this) and Bill Murray. Probably one of the best romance movies I've seen, though definitely not for everybody.
Lost in Translation was a slow but beautiful movie. It's pretty understated and subtle, with very nuanced performances by Scarlett Johansson (whom I don't usually like; apparently she was 19 when she made this) and Bill Murray. Probably one of the best romance movies I've seen, though definitely not for everybody.
I absolutely loved "The Witch" and was excited to see what director Eggers could do with two great actors and his great attention to detail and obvious talent.
Well, turns out - not much.
"The lighthouse" has fantastic cinematography, set decorations, costumes, and Dafoe and Pattinson are really digging into the material with gusto. The problem is that there's no discernible plot, nothing that happens on screen is particularly interesting, and it builds up to nothing.
Probably the most disappointing movie of the year for me. I hope for his next movie, Eggers pays as much attention to the plot and story as he does to veracity of the setting and the characters.
This movie has a certain tone and ring to it. It carries the mood through out the story really well. I felt the longing and the pure boredom of being old and forgetful. And I got excited with the possibilities of Frank's robot. It is really well made. If you liked... Safety Not Guaranteed, you'll like this too.. this one's a bit slower. It'll serve you well if you are having a slow pondering day.
Jordy comment is exactly right.
For the first part, I was really thinking this was a parody movie. I was expecting something original coming out of it, either as "yeah this Matrix 4 is a pure joke" or something deeper and well thought.
But no, nothing new came out from there. it became an EXACT copy of 1/2/3 but packed in a single movie. From part 2 onwards, you will just be like "wow I remember this scene from Matrix 1/2/3". I think it was intended at being more like nostalgia stuff than anything new really, some dialogs are actually telling you reality :x
Also, my main complaint is, while 1/2/3 were a full circle and left us with a lot of open questions which was up to us to think about and imagine, This 4 fills everything, but in a disappointing way. Leaving a lot of gaps or turning the plot to facilitate the story without really explain where it matters, but explaining a lot where no one care.
I always rate good so 7, but far from amazing
A thoroughly competent, but ultimately flavorless film. The acting is solid, the story is well-paced, and the major characters have defined arcs, but it's all executed in such a generic, perfunctory manner that the entire thing left me cold. The cheesy dialogue and generic archetype characters certainly set the film back, but at the end of the day it's a very solid film that never rises above being solid. It's pablum. The pablum is well-done and it's all technically sound, but it's also tremendously uninspired, checking the boxes for a prestige picture without adding anything new or interesting to the standard tropes it employs. Quite a disappointment for a film I was really looking forward to watching.
It's a good movie, but certainly not the RomCom deconstruction that every critic has labelled it.
Not as funny as a film with Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin really should be.
Loved it!
Ok... The thing is this: Just forget the stupid story with the dog. No... Forget ANY story - it simply has none. BUT this movie is a piece of art in the category of action movies. Think of Kill Bill without any story and add even more coolness. ;)
Fellt like it stopped halfway through. Not that good.
This will probably be among the most well liked Oscar contenders, it's a very accessible crowdpleaser with clever writing and comedy. The scenes satirizing the exploitation & commercialization of black art are easily among the film's most entertaining moments, but it loses steam whenever it cuts back to the stuff about Monk's personal life (despite some pretty great acting by Sterling K. Brown). I also found the filmmaking pretty average; the locations and cinematography are decent but lacking in vision or personality. The acting's generally pretty good, but it probably would've been better if some of the wackiness remained more understated. It all leads back to the same issue for me; this needed a more experienced director at the helm (e.g. I'd love to see Spike Lee's version of this). The writing carries it a long way but some of the watered down choices make it feel more like a disposable streaming film than it should.
5.5/10
The film was very predictable, but good.
Hanna is a badass with no eyebrowns.
While this film had a lot of promise, I had a hard time getting past the overall darkness of the film. With mentions of a "War on God" and some of the pure torture found in this film, I couldn't help but wish that I hadn't went down this path placing such vivid imagery in my mind of such gruesome acts. Because of this and this alone, I can not recommend this to others though I am sure that in this day and age, many will find this as entertaining.
I always like Wan directing movies and his creativity in camera movements and the concept of this movie truly benefits from that. But I always felt he made mainstream horror, accessible to watch and, therefore, for genre fans not so pleasant. In this movie he tries to keep that mainstream but get closer to the fans with some heavy gore. While that is nice, that’s the lazy approach. A genre fan also like the drama and the mistery in the category. And on that it fails a lot. While the movie is playing around moving from one style to the other, it’s was always obvious to me who and where the evil was since the opening scene. Getting to know better why and how should always be there to the tension on the story. It’s hard for me to accept the hero reversing the roles at the end and even harder that the person that can explain the origin is totally ignored in the end. Seems that the movie doesn’t take the mythology serious and only uses it for the visual show off (and does that brilliantly)
Great, gripping and captivating movie! Amazing cast and direction. The editing was seamless between all the different viewpoints and the switching between the cast and original footage of the riots was poignant. I wasn't expecting to be hooked right from the beginning but it was surprisingly adrenaline-pumping for a court room movie.
There were a few embellishments in the movie, some to exaggerate (Jerry Rubin being seduced by a female undercover agent) and some to understate ( Bobby Seale's treatment was far worse than what was portrayed), some events were switched around as well for better storytelling purposes. Regardless, Aaron Sorkin managed to capture the restlessness and agitation of the environment during the trails and the utter injustice of it all which is the crux of the matter.
Overall, I enjoyed watching it and would definitely recommend it to friends. Personally, I think it is also a very apt movie for these times where I'm sure many of the younger generation can relate to the dissent and the desire for change.
