What a weird choice for a title, the main character being a pianist is not even close to the most interesting thing about the movie. Regardless, this is excellent, there’s so much raw emotion in it. I love how the directing gets grittier and snowier as the film goes along, it creates this sense of increasing dread. No real complaints, I think this is pretty much perfect despite being light on subtext or complex morality. Perfectly acted, well paced, good sound design, interesting characters, it’s all very well done. I like seeing Andrien Brody in a serious, dramatic role like this, because I’m mostly used to seeing his quirky side in Wes Anderson movies. Overall, I couldn’t help but occasionally compare the film to Schindler’s List in my mind, and I think those comparisons are generally pretty favorable.
9/10
I’m more into the technical side and scale of this, because in terms of writing it is the definition of a sanitized, cheesy, commercial crowdpleaser. Not a lot of meat on the bones with this one, I can’t believe this got Best Picture.
6.5/10
This movie was made about 100 times in the 2000s, however people always single this one out as special and better than the other ones. I’m not sure why, because while it might be 10% classier than American Pie due to the actors involved, this is still mostly lowbrow, cringe and obnoxious. Relatable and true to reality perhaps (I certainly talked like that at that age), but if your only hook is that characters can’t go a single line without using the words dick, cock, pussy, vagina, sex, or you name it; you have no movie as far as I’m concerned. Not that I’m against raunchy comedy in concept, but there’s only so much you can do with it. Most of the jokes and set-ups in this movie are very obvious and dumb. It only really comes to life when Rogen and Hader are on the screen.
4/10
You know what you’re getting into at this point. It’s lowbrow Raging Bull, or UFC/WWE for people who think they’re slightly above that stuff. I liked the previous 2, but this one leans a little heavy into cheesy, melodramatic territory, which is exactly what I don’t like about the original Rocky franchise. The story, like almost every installment in this series, is very by the numbers and predictable (so much so that you kinda know the entire plot after the opening scene). There are a few interesting ideas boiling under the surface, but they don’t entirely come to fruition (the effect of Adonis’ profession on his daughter; the social distance between Adonis now and his former life). A lot of the movie is elevated by the three main performers, who are all way too good for this material. The directing is okay-ish, I think he did a good job with making the fight scenes feel brutal, but there’s nothing special about the cinematography or music. In fact, I was a little annoyed by the amount of string arrangements that are played during all the most obvious dramatic moments, which is such an obvious, cheesy call. There’s also surprisingly little tension in the first half due to our main character being on top of everything and having nowhere to progress, so it drags in places. Easily the worst of the three if you ask me, though still better than anything Stallone managed to put out.
4.5/10
Much like Shutter Island, this is Scorsese being silly, which is not necessarily my favourite Scorsese. It’d probably serve the material better if this was hammed up just a little more, because some of the writing goes into camp territory. Yet despite all of that, it still manages to create a decent amount of tension and it leaves you with a few things to chew on. De Niro’s performance is excellent, and all of the other actors are pretty good as well (besides Jessica Lange’s occasional overacting). Visually it’s a bit by the numbers (a little heavy on the shot/reverse shot set-ups) with most of its style coming from the editing choices and music. It’s a fun genre movie, but easily in the bottom tier within Scorsese’s own filmography.
6/10
“Now that’s using your head” is the kind of punchline only Arnold Schwarzenegger could get away with in an 80s action movie. Also, can we please go back to the production techniques that were used on Andor? This looks like shit.
This is a lot of fun. It earns so much credit because of its style; the editing, cinematography and music are very clear highlights and immediately stood out to me. The acting’s also really good across the board, even Asap Rocky gives a pretty decent performance despite not being a professional actor. There’s a lot of good comedy and unique scene ideas, however some parts of it are predictable and forgettable. It’s a story you’ve seen before, but one that manages to be creative within that formula. Not all of its stylistic choices work for me though. For instance, I thought the narration was completely unnecessary. I also kinda wish it stuck with its 90s hiphop aesthetic, for example I thought the Korn song didn’t fit the vibe of this film at all. Overall, this is easily recommended. It’s one of those rare summer films that actually manages to be funny and entertaining all the way through, not just for 10-20% of its runtime.
7/10
I don’t trust people who dislike this.
This movie will make you appreciate Hot Fuzz and 21 Jump Street. It’s completely formulaic and predictable, with most of the comedy not even being close to hitting the target. There’s an occasional laugh to be found between all the dumb and annoying stuff, however I’m pretty sure this movie would be a lot more entertaining with Sam Jackson and The Rock in the leading roles. It’s very fratty and loud, like this could only come out during the time where The Hangover got popular, because in many ways it feels like it’s directed by Michael Bay or Todd Philips. Filmmaking ranges from bland to bad, and most scenes are simply dull.
3.5/10
A modern update of a classic Hitchcock type film. It’s very meticulously edited and directed, and I like how every character is ever so slightly offbeat, it makes the film that much more mysterious. There’s a great sense of place and atmosphere, which is often heightened by the score. In fact, I think it’d make a great double feature with Shutter Island just based on the vibe alone. The mystery is intriguing and tense, but also predictable and obvious at times. Moreover, it gets increasingly schlockier and far fetched as it goes along, so much so that it was asking me to take leaps I didn’t want to take as a viewer. Some of the pay-offs are very silly and unsatisfying. It’s also generally just too conventional of a story, it’d probably be more memorable if it had a stronger subtext, because as it stands it’s nothing more than a mediocre crowdpleaser.
5/10
A b-movie that’s elevated immensely by its aesthetic. It manages to create this interesting expressionist art style without feeling like a Tim Burton rip off, it’s certainly fun to look at. Highly influential too, it’s the kind of aesthetic that was copied by a lot of bad movies from the 2000s (e.g. Underworld series, a lot of bad comicbook movies like Daredevil). It also has a fantastic soundtrack, because it includes all the 90s bands you want to hear during a movie like this, such as Nine Inch Nails, Pantera and The Cure. The obvious weakness comes from the fact there’s not a lot of detail that makes the story or characters all that compelling. It’s very simple, surface level stuff. The acting’s generally not that good either, and there’s a lot of lofty, overwritten dialogue. Combined with Dark City, you can just tell that this director was bound to fall off at some point. He’s like a Zack Snyder type; pretty good visually, but lacking the other skills needed for a great director. In that sense, going with a simple story might’ve saved the movie from becoming too convoluted.
5.5/10
Fantastic, certainly among the best sci-fi films of the ‘80s. Within 5 minutes you know who’s directing this, it’s just so Terry Gilliam in every way. It’s quite a challenging one, as well as highly eccentric and idiosyncratic, but very rewarding and conceptual in the end. No real complaints besides the first act being a tad messy.
8.5/10
Surprisingly weird and quirky, it’s not quite the thing you expect from a mainstream animated film.
You can tell it’s not a Dreamworks or Illumination film, but it also doesn’t quite fit with the Pixar formula. It’s certainly way too layered to be just a simple kids film, in fact I don’t think there’s much for kids to latch on to here. Some of the concepts it tackles include environmentalism, identity, mythology and religion, and it doesn’t hold back with its messaging, genuine artistic risks are being taken. There are also a ton of references and jokes that will fly over the heads of most kids, which certainly made the film more enjoyable for me. I like its animation style (good colour, interesting use of light, I really like the harsh, ugly textures that are used on some of the animals) and it’s aged pretty well. The music’s also great and the voice acting is solid. It even took me a while to recognize who’s voicing the main character. As for negatives, I think some of the humour is poorly executed, and it didn’t need to be this long.
7/10
Very entertaining, I got major Tarantino vibes from the dialogue, acting styles and western setting.
The cinematography is phenomenal, it definitely should’ve been recognized for that by the Academy.
The problem is that it’s hard to develop interesting characters over segments that only last about 20 minutes, I feel like at that point you’re better off making a short series. The way everything clicks together into a narrative is a bit thin, it feels more like a collection of loose ideas. This is even more amplified by the tonal inconsistency and unequal pacing between the segments, it doesn’t flow together like a singular experience.
Yet, despite those obvious structural issues, this is an interesting ride that’s never dull.
6.5/10
Another thriller that was massively overhyped at the time of its release.
It reminded me a lot of The Guest; it’s simply too predictable if you’re paying attention, a lot of the character motivations are dumb, contrived or don’t make any sense, and the filmmaking is incredibly bland throughout (everything looks like basic coverage, uninteresting use of colour and light, sound feels like an afterthought).
It’s one of those scripts that demands a much better director at the helm, because the movie generally has a hard time creating memorable scenarios or twists, and I can already tell I’ll have forgotten about most of this within a week. The ending’s a nice, ambiguous choice, though.
The acting’s fine, I don’t think anybody’s being particularly challenged.
I didn’t hate watching it, there’s nothing incompetent going on here, but it’s an average, occasionally schlocky movie that doesn’t do anything special or different.
4.5/10
Pretty much the Coen brothers version of The Shining, and maybe with a dash of Eraserhead in there.
Thematically they’re very different though, this film focusses more on the creative process, the culture of Hollywood and lowbrow entertainment.
It’s a movie that very effectively brings together the two sides of their filmography; it starts as a quirky comedy with eccentric characters, but then it shifts into a psychological, mysterious thriller in the second half.
The characters are very well written and unique, and everyone is cast perfectly. John Goodman steals the movie, which is quite an accomplishment because he’s not even in it that much, but he’s such a great presence.
The cinematography and editing are also very precise, especially next to other films that came out around the same time. Roger Deakins proves again that he’s a genius. No real complaints, but it’s also not a movie I’d put among the best films of their filmography.
8/10
Very good. It’s an intriguing story with great characters, solid acting and some challenging subtext. It’s very much a classic noir without any bells and whistles, but when the execution is this good, why would you add anything?
The cinematography in particular feels very far ahead of the curve, most of this looks like it could be released in the 90s without looking dated. I like the very consistent colour palette and precise, dramatic lighting, reminding me of films like L.A. Confidential.
My gripes with it are pretty minor. There’s an exposition recap that I thought was unnecessary, and maybe I would’ve liked to hear more of the score (which is surprisingly dissonant), but this is still a great film that deserves to be talked about more often nowadays. Very much deserving of its classic status IMO.
8/10
I think movies like this are the reason why my dad thinks horror movies are schlock made for teenagers.
I just don’t buy this entire the set-up, I think it’s incredibly lame and stupid. A lot of the tension building is achieved by throwing in this annoying, overbearing background music when nothing’s actually happening. All of the characters are flat and devoid of personality, they don’t even pretend to do the effort by making everyone a single quirk stereotype (like an 80s horror movie). The dialogue and character motivations are also really weird. Whiny, teenage angst was the name of the game in the year 2000 (in particular in pop culture), and some of the characters in this movie capture that very well, but sometimes it’s heightened to a degree where it becomes comical. The only thing that’s more comical are some of the death scenes, some of which are so grotesque and far fetched that you can’t help but laugh at it. The camerawork is adequate, but unspecial. I really could’ve done without the constant flashes and lightning, it felt a little over the top after a while. The only thing that’s surprisingly solid given the kind of movie that it is, is the acting.
3/10
The kind of intriguing puzzle where you immediately want to discuss with other people how everything fits together after seeing it.
I love how much faith David Lynch has in visual storytelling, there’s little to no handholding through exposition, leaving just enough breadcrumbs to connect the dots.
It’s a movie that comfortably fits in that late 90s paradigm of films that critique masculinity and films that use the concept of a fake reality/unreliable narrator (the protagonist literally says: I like to remember things my own way, which I think is the key to understanding most of this movie), while also standing out because of its unique Freudian angle.
The soundtrack is incredible, most of the filmmaking is quite impressive but there are some choices that I’m not huge on (some weird editing, they make a clear effort to point out early on that the ‘mystery man’ is real, when he’s clearly just a representation of something else) and the acting’s very good (if the first act seems stiff and awkward to you, that’s intentional).
8.5/10
Kinda lame, contrived and stupid, even by kids film standards. It doesn’t even feel like something worthy of the Disney Channel (despite being lit like one of their films), it’s more like proto Illumination Entertainment.
Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s entirely fair that the visuals of Marvel’s recent output are getting compared to this. Sure, their effects are of similar quality, but Marvel movies wished they’d be half as imaginative as this.
The camerawork and set design prevent it from being complete shit, it’s the only saving grace of this film.
It’s also a very good example showing that casting high caliber actors goes a long way for kids films, because it’s often required to ham it up to a certain degree, and a lot of actors can’t do that without making it suck.
3/10
Pretty good story, and just the filmmaking alone puts it over the 2013 remake in my book. Sure, the sound effects and use of music can be clunky, but the camerawork and lighting are so much more adventurous than in the remake. Nevertheless, there are a lot of things that make it a tough watch nowadays. The acting and dialogue are really bad (Spacek’s the only one who’s alright), and just about every character fits one of those 80s highschool movie stereotypes. It’s also pretty light on horror until the climax, but once you get to that point, the pay-off is definitely worth the wait. All in all, it’s not worthy of its classic status, but still a fine watch.
6/10
I have the feeling its main character inspired at least a dozen other movie protagonists.
Its best asset is easily the soundtrack, and stylistically it has aged pretty well in general, some great, atmospheric visuals in here.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take nearly enough risk with the storytelling. It’s a very straightforward police procedural that doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Because of that, it has lost a lot of its charm with age, certainly more so than a lot of other classics from the New Hollywood era.
I also don’t like the fascist messaging we have going on in here. Sure, a lot of action movies have fascist undertones boiling under the surface. But when you look at a character like Batman, it kinda works because he operates in a world where everyone and everything surrounding him is compromised. Here we have a protagonist who places himself above the law because it’s an inconvenience to his job. I might let that slide if they’d let it hang in the background, because that’s what most action movies end up doing (ignore the moral implications of what you’re seeing), but this thing makes a very conscious effort to constantly draw attention to the fact that our protagonist needs to be dirty in order to do his job well, it integrates it into the story and rewards him for it.
So, while that part of the movie hasn’t aged well, there are still a lot of good scenes.
6/10
I stop being entertained by these whenever people stop shooting each other, which is about 75% of the movie. The acting, dialogue, worldbuilding and plotting are so horrendously bad, which could still make for a nice guilty pleasure if it at the very least has fun with itself, but it wants to be serious and cool so bad. It’s like one of those direct to dvd/streaming action films that isn’t aware of the fact that it’s schlock, just with ridiculous good action scenes (I still want Keanu to feel less invincible, but that’s a minor thing) and more of a budget. Whenever I watch these I just wish that Stahelski would abandon this franchise and direct second unit for Bond or Mission Impossible, way more suited to his talents.
With his third film, Spike Lee made what I consider to be a masterpiece.
It’s something that’s both emotionally gripping and intellectual, and it feels so far ahead of its time, especially when you compare it to the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy that came out in the same year and tackled similar themes.
I also can’t get over how good it still looks, and the Criterion remaster probably helps in this regard, but the visual choices of the film are so good. I love the sunburned look, which I’m pretty sure is meant to represent the rising tension in the neighborhood metaphorically.
What else is to be said? It feels like a movie that’s written by an anthropologist after years of research (this thing predicted gentrification), it has such a thorough understanding of its subject matter, it’s both funny and subtle, it has Public Enemy needle drops, it has great performances, it has everything I’m looking for in a movie.
9.5/10
A visual masterpiece, and the characters & acting are quite good, but it’s kinda lacking in depth.
The story of it is quite basic (sure, it’s a fairytale, but we’ve got tits and blood in here, so did the conflict need to be this black and white?) and emotionally it doesn’t try to do too much. Two of the big scenes really fell flat for me (sex scene & musical breakdown), partially because the execution felt silly, but they were also a lot more heightened than what the rest of the film seemed to be going for. I like how it ends, but it doesn’t accomplish all that much. Conceptually, all I’m really seeing here are some basic ideas about social outcasts and relationships that can fill a void in someone’s life. This thing might be R-rated, but that’s not much deeper than your average kids film. I do very mildly recommend it for those aforementioned visuals though, in terms of set design, practical effects and cinematography it’s really something special.
5.5/10
Not incompetent, but corporate and soulless.
Watching it back to back with the original will make you understand how filmmaking can make all the difference.
Doesn’t really feel like a Scorsese film (besides the needle drops), or a late 90s film for that matter. The harsh white lights that pop up everywhere were a little off putting at first, but it helps with the fever dream feeling the film’s going for. I wonder if this is the film that inspired Spielberg for the look of Minority Report, regardless I think it’s done more tastefully here. Nick Cage is very good, he doesn’t go as big with his performance as you might expect considering that it’s about him going crazy. The problem is that it doesn’t really stand out besides that, it’s a little more on the forgettable side of Scorsese’s filmography. It’s all done with competence; I like the grit and dark humor, the second half bangs, but it still can’t escape the feeling of being a lesser Taxi Driver.
6.5/10
Park Chan-wook. This man manages to cram an insane amount of personality in his directing and editing, it’s something that you normally only get out of animated movies (or maybe a Tarantino/Wes Anderson joint).
Everything just feels so meticulously planned and storyboarded.
The story’s good, definetely above average compared to the average police procedural, but not as strong as some of Park’s other films. It reminded me of Basic Instinct, but where that film is aiming for superficial adults, this is more intelligent and artistic.
Love the music, acting’s great, it moves along very nicely, kinda hard to find any major flaws besides the mystery element not being as strong as it could be. It ends very well though, it’s the kind of ending that hits in all the right ways.
7.5/10
Simple, effective, but a little too straightforward and predictable to really blow my mind.
Still, I like what it's saying about migrants, marginalization, postcolonialism, etc.
The cinematography still looks excellent, but the score hasn't aged as well.
7/10
This has some really weird subtext, not sure how it was perceived in the 90's but it certainly hasn't aged well.
It's definitely not something I'd recommend to someone with adult experiences and feelings, because this thing is kinda insulting as soon as you put any critical thinking into it.
The 5 is mostly for the craft, but it's very ill-conceived.
5/10
