What a lovely idea it is, that there could be a whole flock of blue macaws hidden away in safety in the Amazon jungle. Currently, the rare arara-azul is mostly spotted in Pantanal, and back in the early 2000's, there was major concern they were down to the last specimens! Documentaries were produced to alert adults, books and plays for children were mandatory in schools (some Brazilians may remember fondly of Angelo Machado's book "O Casamento da Ararinha Azul"), and the preservation of this wonderful species moved us in a very special way.
So I think this is a nice addition to this effort, and also a great way to once more bring the topic of preservation and the illegal and dangerous exploration of Amazon to the attention of kids, as the macaw and the jungles of Brazil are far from being safe! Aside from that, the movie is light hearted and fun, and displays several species that are special to Brazil and our culture, and I can definitely appreciate this movie as an educational resource. I am only sorry that I decided to watch it so long after its release. It would have been useful while I was still a teacher :)
Possibly the strangest (perhaps the trippiest) version of Little Red Riding Hood ever told. The first scene already had me confused, why did the cat die? And if the cat died, how could mom go on to send the donuts to grandma? Was she trying to murder grandma and implicate Red? Just so nonsense!
All the praise this movie gets is extremely well deserved. What impressed me most though is how well done the effects were - so well done I had to check if what I had been watching was really the 80's movie and not the remake, because the effects were far more convincing than most of this year's releases! I was sure it could not be from a 30+ year old movie, but yes, it was! What a great production! And the plot, the acting, and the music were all on level with it. A truly superb movie.
Bruna was a girl who, sometimes because of her personality and temper, sometimes accidentally, took more wrong turns than right ones but still managed to turn out alright. And that, despite the path she set out on, is something admirable - she wanted to have control over her life, and she did it.
The movie was an overall nice one - not a great family option by any means, but I felt it didn't really exploit the character as much as I would have expected. Even the nude and sex scenes were not shocking or even distasteful, even for my rather prudish standards. So this won't cause any awkwardness should you watch it with friends or a date. Deborah Secco is an accomplished actress, and she played Bruna's transition from awkward teenage ugly duckling to a bold sexy woman to depressed addict very well. I think she was a great choice for the role, although her portrayal of Bruna at high school age was a tough buy for age alone (she was over 30 already, hard to play a 16 year old!). A thing to be mentioned is that I didn't think movie glamorized the life of a prostitute the way I would have expected it to either, though they did make it seem way easier than it probably actually was when she was working downtown for cheap before fame. Even if Bruna was cute and good at her trade, even if she liked it, surely there must have been really bad and difficult days that got to her deeper than a petty theft or a diss here and there, or even her adopted brother's scorn. Maybe it was the character's own need to put it aside to stay sane, or something else, but I wish her feelings towards her family at that time had been further explored too, although I liked how they chose to show her worst days at the peek of her popularity.
An interesting point the movie makes is why Bruna gained such popularity at first, and that's something I hadn't see prostitutes portrayed as in movies before - she was, despite all the stereotypes associated with her lifestyle, just an empathetic and genuine person who could connect with and understand people. And even after gaining more respect from men than most women get from their own husbands, she also shows herself as very insightful, saying "I was the perfect woman. I was there to fuck, to listen and to not complain about anything". Ironically, it was by gaining fame and perhaps bottling all those complaints up that she lost that empathy and become arrogant, announcing her doom and the beginning of that much needed dramatic climax that was slow in coming, but worth waiting for.
To conclude, I thought the movie was better than the hype and controversy around the time of its release allowed me to believe, and I wish I had watched it sooner.
I'm not really sure what the appeal of this movie is to gather a cult following. I mean, it isn't horrible, but it isn't super funny either. It's really just alright. Romy and Michele are fun characters, but their ditzy routine gets old fast and the plot is too simple and too straightforward. Janeane Garofalo was about the only thing I actually liked, but even her character is too much of a stereotype.
Considering this came out during the FRIENDS era, I think a lot of the following here comes from the fans of the show who became fans of Kudrow. So basically, unless you're a fan of either Sorvino or Kudrow, give this a pass. There are better flicks out there to waste time on.
Well, the kids were really good. That's it, though.
It would be hard to judge the movie without comparing it with the old one by the title alone, but with all borrowed scenes and lines, I fear this is impossible - and that's bad, because they're putting themselves against something quite brilliant. What I kept thinking while watching is that this is too "literal", meaning they've set up these scary scenes without setting the proper psychological mood for them, making them less than effective in scarying the audience. I missed that. Some of the scenes were really well done visually, but utterly unemotional and therefore, just not not scary.
Refreshing is definitely the word for this flick. The influence of internet and social media has been all around recent movies, but the desktop/Skype cam was new (at least for me), and the execution was great. There was tension and suspense and I was hooked. Not at all a masterpiece, but excellent entertainment!
It's unfair to compare it to Antichrist. There are similarities, yes - a psychiatrist and his girlfriend go to a cabin in the woods - but the development couldn't be more different.
Personally, I did enjoy the movie. I liked the twist at the end and I hadn't seen it coming at all. The acting is really good and feels incredibly natural, like they are not acting at all. In fact, combined with the directing and peculiar camera work, it felt strangely immersing - like a reality show that is actually showing the truth. Since it's so strangely natural, someone who isn't sucked in might think the movie goes a bit slow. Personally though, I thought it was brilliant. I was very pleased and very impressed with Brazil's ability to produce good thrillers!
Visually striking as always, but lacking in many ways. While the pacing was actually good and you never feel bored, there was essentially no story to follow at all. The armies meet and fight - that's all there is to it.
There's no build up to the fight, no preparation, and the main characters have power beyond reason - see Legolas jumping the falling rocks when he was fighting the orc that had Tauriel. He's an elf, but he's not gravity proof as far as I remember.
Thorin was a such a powerful character and he went underdeveloped, as honestly did Bilbo and Galadriel at least. I like the attention Thranduil, Kili, Legolas and Tauriel got, but Thorin's epiphany was an important moment and it was actually kinda hurried.
It was a fun watch for sure, but I have a hard time accepting this as a stand-alone film. It was more like a very long battle shot that could have been put as an extra in a deluxe edition of the DVD.
I must definitely say I enjoyed The Hobbit as a trilogy, but I wish they had edited it somewhat differently. I think it still has a lot of potential if someone decided to make a different cut out of it.
Pretty cute movie! Definetely entering my rom-com faovorites list.
A really, really pretty adaptation of the original story.
I'm surprised at how enjoyable this was. A very decent rom-com indeed.
The plot is driven by sheer dumbness. Nothing that happens is initially out of the dumb people's control, they are just initially dumb. It's annoying,
Fine, the story is not as good as the first, but it has great music that will have you singing along and it's just awesome fun! I absolutely loved it!
The premisse is very interesting and the spaceship setting is just beautiful. Jim turns into a dislikeable character pretty fast though, and it is hard to like Aurora when we feel sorry for her all the time. The dramatic climax feels like a mixture of Armaggedon and Titanic, as weird as it may sound, but it is rather exciting. The ending is of the feel-good variety, and I have no complaints.
Overall, a solid 6, which is only disappointing because the rather common story feels like a great injustice to the lavish visuals.
It's a very cute movie featuring a great main character who is a horrible person, a secondary character who was supposed to be a horrible person but goes through a believable positive development, and their lovely friendship. The soundtrack is great too, as expected from a piece with such a John Hughes influence.
I knew Shannon Purser from Stranger Things, and I was kind of expecting Sierra and Barb to be similar, since they are from the same outcast mold, but they could not be more different. I am impressed with Purser for being able to play such different personalities into the same stereotype. Also, Froseth is so pretty I do not think she is human... maybe she is from an advanced alien race, taking a vacation on Earth?
But going back to "Sierra is a bad person but a great character", oh, wow. I do not think I have ever disliked a rom-com heroine this much, EVER. Specially in a teen movie! Still, it was cute and entertaining, and Noah deserves a main role, soon. Here, it felt like he was there for decoration, which is sad, because he has a lot of charisma on-screen.
I love the book. The movie basically misses on everything that was important. I cannot believe the author actually helped adapting this.
The dialogues were so unoriginal! It was like a generic-version of a fantasy tale, they got the bones for it, but could not really flesh it.
Light and fun entertainment. Also, a very nice cast!
I do not think I will ever find tentacle monsters cute (thanks, Japan!), but this movie almost made me change my mind. Almost. The being enslaved by a human part did not help, it was so mean.
It was otherwise goofy, but enternaining. It had an interesting 80's feel to it, without pushing it too hard, like recent works have been doing. It just was not actually good.
I was glad to see Jane Levy though. I wish she had more job offers, she is way better than Nickelodeon movies.
The bad things about this movie outshine the good ones so overwhelmingly that it is even hard to remember what good things there were.
One line at the end particularly was extremely laughable, when Will Porter confronts Reynard and asks him "How do you expect me to do this with everything that I know now?" when in fact it felt like the character did not know anything at all beyond a basic "everything will be destroyed".
That is all the character has to go on. There is no relevant information on the rebels, no interesting information on the tower, the characters have no decent background or bonds, and in the middle of a huge conspiracy, we do not even understand why are there willing participants fighting for Reynard.
I do not really play video games, but I have many friends who do. The plots seem often well thought out and complete, and characters are usually at least interesting. The movie meanwhile having visuals that would already atract no one but video game fans, appears to fail these fans severely by underestimating the quality of the writing and story-telling they consume. I cannot honestly think of a single person whom I might recommend this movie to.
Some of the secondary plots, I am not sure why they were included at all, when they were not given the attention required to be properly developed. The eye candy is really the one thing this movie has got going for itself (Affleck and Hartnett were and still are extremely handsome men, but they never looked as good as in this movie, and I think neither did Beckinsale!), and that is just not enough to hold a three-hour long movie together. Taken as a lame Nicholas Sparks-kind of love story though, it really is not terrible, just seriously long.
I could not finish the film, I made it through only the first 40minutes, and that was super difficult. It was just really boring. It saddens me to see good actors in such a bad movie.
I'm commenting only because the described synopsis isn't all that fair. This is a movie not about the war, not is it about romance - it's just a story about courage and family, and a very nice one at that.
On the very same day an Austrian and an Italian family are joined in matrimony in a village in the Alps, Italy declares war on Austria, and the men are then forced to serve their nations and fight against each other. The plot is based on how they sacrifice themselves for family, even when they are supposed to be opposite sides. Francesca's relationship with Ander is romantic as much as fraternal, and his attempt to protect her later develops into nothing but the need to do what's right. It's just hardly a center piece, specially when compared to Elisabeth and Angelo and their struggle. I just hope the off synopsis doesn't put anyone off of it, as I did found this a beautiful, sensitive and very enjoyable movie and would definitely recommend it.
The first time I watched this when it was released, I was at a con, full of other fans, there were cosplayers, lots of chatting, and I didn't pay much attention. Mostly I remember a lot of cheering whenever Seiya got pounded and having many pictures taken that day. So I did have somewhat fond memories of this movie. Watching it again though... hm.
The animation is probably the best Saint Seiya has ever seen. The mood, set by the beautiful colors, shadows and textures is also something to be praised. The character design is another huge improvement over the original series, and even better than in the Hades Chapter, and overall, these technical aspects make the movie very easy on the eyes. I would say the only flaw there is the soundtrack. Several scenes seemed to demand music in my opinion, but only few had it.
The actual plot though, it was more of the same: Some god wants to harm Earth, Athena sacrifices herself to save it, the Saints fight to save her. Not that we expect anything different, really, but the development on this one is way boring, even worse than the other movies made from the series, and some of it was rather nonsensical. Marin's meeting with her brother was about the most interesting part, but I feel like I wasted my time watching the rest. Meh. Toei wasted money on this one. If only they had made the original series with the same animation quality though...
Amazing cast and acting, but unfortunately talent alone can't save a movie. With all the editing, CGI, and slow-motion the action scenes looked more like animation than live-action film. Plot-wise, it could have been interesting, but for some reason I kept counting how long until the end. The soundtrack honestly didn't help, it was bland and unmemorable. The one highlight is Queen Gorgo heading into battle, the one moment where you would actually care to look at the screen instead of checking your e-mail.
This movie is sad. Sad execution, sad production, sad plot, sad acting, and it makes me sadder because it's my favorite ghost story.
Hannah's (Kata Mara) was the best storyline, but just like every other character's, it was extremely underdeveloped. There was a lot of potential here, such a shame it was wasted. I hate saying this, but yes, this is a seriously boring movie.
The most frustrating, boring and tiresome movie ever. Completely unrelated to the book as well, and not just a few chances here and there, but really, truly, completely unrelated. It felt like an endless nightmare and I couldn't stop checking the time. I'm not sure what happened here, the first movie was so good!
