I wish more musicals would get released like this after their runtime in theaters for people like me who have no way to see them live.
I wanted to love this so much, but it just felt... Empty. The characters didn't connect at all and the Fantastic Beasts themselves felt like an afterthought to the franchise they're actually trying to build.
Overall a watchable movie with some charming moments but damaged by a muddy story and atrocious pacing. I expected more from the HP universe.
Ouch.
The visuals are breathtaking, as already shown by the trailers.
ScarJo is trying, you can tell that she wants this to be her new franchise.
It's edited quite nicely, it's got a (simple) story, and it's coherent.
So where did it go wrong?
One of the problems is that it takes away all of the philosophical depth from the original.
Well, that means you can still enjoy it from a simple action flick perspective, right?
Good luck with that.
This film has such a ridiculous amount of exposition, that it badly hurts the enjoyment of the film.
Many sequences consist of characters just talking to each other, and explaining the plot.
Things are definitely shown, but then the filmmakers don't think we're able to put two and two together, and hence add another explanatory scene.
As a result of that, the film doesn't take its time to develop the characters, meaning you won't care about them.
Top it off with an awful performance from Juliette Binoche, and you have your modern style over substance film.
3.5/10
Probably never seen that many proposals, marriages and pregnancies in one film, but I loved it!
I'm a big fan of Pixar films, but this new animated division of Disney, which crafted Moana, is superb. The quality of the art is clean and georgeous. The personal idiocyncristic movements that capture each character are reminiscent of the work of the great animator Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away). This animated movie is a gem, must see movie. Beyond it's technical excellence, the story is full and unique. Disney gets a new princess (OK... Chief's daughter). Children get two new songs with which to drive their parents crazy and replace Frozen (on repeat). The Asian Pacific is brought to life. Both children and adults will love this picture. I'm a fan. I give it a 10 (spectacular) out of 10.
That guy who said "age becomes you" to Colin Firth. I appreciate him.
Could the ugly, untalented gays please report to the principal's office?
I was really disappointed by this sequel. I enjoyed the first movie as it developed the theme of polishing a diamond in the rough, an unlikely but likeable hero, with wit and clever direction and writing. This second film did the opposite, it celebrated the crass and the writing was bad - there were huge holes in the story lines, and the character arches were undeveloped or fractured by missing/unwritten elements. The heros and villians were silly without comedic intent. The only bright spots were Taron Epstein, Mark Strong and Haille Berry's rapport, and Jeff Bridges. Colin Firth's character was butchered by the writers, Elton John' s part was unnecessary, unexplained and poorly executed, This movie is just BAD, and a waste of time. I give it a 3 (bad) out of 10. [Comedy?, Action, Adventure, Spy}
If I was 12 and it was 1986 I'd have given it a 9/10 and watched it again already
I really hated this movie, the characters were poorly constructed, especially the male characters. All of them manipulate Elle throughout the whole movie, telling her what to do and pushing her around when it suit them.
The worst part for me though was how lightly they treated Noah’s violent side. Lee wondering if he had hit Elle was incredibly painful to watch, and when he slams the car to make her come inside she really does seem frightened. He is a violent character that doesn’t change at all, just says a few nice words at the end to “make up for everything”. Lee gets some sort of redemption by helping Elle, but Noah doesn’t, and I don’t think that’s the message we want kids to get from movies like this one, that your boyfriend loves you because he gets into fights “for you” or that he manipulating you and other people around you is something sweet and a proof of how much he cares about you. That’s wrong, and this movie take on that is completely horrible and misleading.
Holy shit that was a waste of time. And i even skipped a bit
7.5/10. Dan Harmon, creator of Community is known for several things -- his trademark bottle of vodka, his tendency to spill his guts to audiences full of strangers, but also his story circle. The story circle is a device that Harmon uses as a blueprint for nearly any story he writes or supervises. It offers a series of steps to telling a story: 1. A character is in a zone of comfort; 2. But they want something; 3. They enter an unfamiliar situation; 4. Adapt to it; 5. Get what they wanted; 6. Pay a heavy price for it; 7. Then return to their familiar situation; 8. Having changed.
Brooklyn is basically Story Circle: The Movie. Eilis may not have the best life in Ireland, but she is comfortable there. But she hopes and wants for a better life than she can expect to have in the Emerald Isle. So she moves to Brooklyn, a situation whose unfamiliarity is hammered home from the first Irish immigrant she meets on the boat, to her fellow boarders who snip at her a bit, but also guide her through her new surroundings. She slowly but surely grows accustomed to her new home, with its different social mores and customs. She eventually has a good job, a future in accounting, a boyfriend, and the good life her sister wanted for her when she helped send Eilis to America. But just as she grows comfortable in that new life, she pays the price not being able to be home for her sister's funeral or to comfort her mother in person. Eventually, she's able to return home, but as the film makes clear in its third act, she is much different person now then when she left it.
That's not meant to be a criticism of the film. That type of adherence to story structure does lead to a film that feels conventional, and in truth Brooklyn is a feel-good story that is as interested in a film experience that feels like slipping into a warm bath as it is in proceeding through its simple-but-sweet coming of age tale. The notes are familiar, but the melody is beautiful, and the audience goes home happy.
At one point, Eilis offers her beau, Tony, an adjective to describe herself -- amenable. And it's the perfect way to describe Brooklyn It's a very amenable film, happy to lean into the soft hues of the past to tell a love story, and immigrant story, and a bildungsroman, in gentle tones that provoke smiles and sighs as Eilis finds happiness, love, and fulfillment despite her initial reservations and homesickness.
If I have a criticism, its that Eilis's journey is almost too successful. For all the accusations of unrealistic perfection leveled at Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Eilis is a paragon of good fortune throughout Brooklyn. Nearly everyone she meets in Ireland and in Brooklyn short of the prickly Miss Kelly likes her and helps her to feel more comfortable in whatever her current surroundings are. To boot, she becomes successful at nearly whatever she sets her mind to, from working at the department story, to courting, to her burgeoning skills as a bookkeeper.
But that's not to say Eilis does not face challenges in the film. Hers are challenges of conscience rather than the standard plot obstacles we expect our cinematic protagonists to leap over. The crux of the film is Eilis returning to the land that she thought had nothing there for her, and finding that she was wrong, that there is good work, and friendship, and family, and a nice boy with a good future. Suddenly, the life she forged across the pond, the one with her husband, and her studies, and seems distant, something that unexpectedly has to compete with the renewed comforts of home. The choice the film stakes out -- whether to take the stronger, more confident persona Eilis has built back to Ireland and start a life there better than any she hoped to be able to enjoy, or return to the place that made her into that stronger person with the man she pledged her love to.
The problem is that as well as the film sets up that choice, and lays out compelling elements on both sides of the equation, it glosses over the conclusion in a somewhat unsatisfying fashion. While the touch of Miss Kelly's would-be blackmail is nice, it seems abrupt that after all the time the film spends setting up Eilis's hometown as somewhere that Eilis has a place and could be happy, one harsh woman is enough to send her back to New York. There's subtext about an iron fist hiding beneath the velvet glove that's been offered to Eilis since she returned to Enniscorthy, but it's hard to see it anyone besides Miss Kelly, with everyone else in the town seeming a bit pushy and presumptive, but also genuinely enamored with the young Ms. Lacey. Her confession to her mother is a quietly powerful scene, and the breakup letter she gives to her Irish beau feels like too easy way to resolve that relationship, but more than anything, it just feels odd that one mean old crow is all it takes to convince Eilis that she could never have a life in a place that, despite the vows she's tried so hard to put out of her mind, seemed to welcome her with open arms.
Still, the scene where Tony finds Eilis waiting for him and the pair embrace is a sweet moment, even if it doesn't feel totally earned given what motivated Eilis to come to that point. But it's a lovely image in a film full of them. Brooklyn is awash in muted pastels and primary colors, that give the past a gauzy hue that catches the eye and conveys the sense of a sweeter, simpler time. It's also a supremely well-shot film, that shoots Eilis and Jim Farrell at the beach having a conversation with their romantic companions framed in between them in the distance, conveying the subtext of the exchange. It's also a film keen to use subtle touches to show changes in Eilis's mood or perspective, from the simple act of wearing her bathing suit under her clothes that impresses her friends back home, to the letters she shoves in a drawer to signify the way in which she's putting Brooklyn out of her mind. None of these techniques is so subtle that the viewer will miss them, but the film takes the old admonition "show don't tell" to heart, and succeeds well with that principle in mind.
In the end, Brooklyn is a fairly simple story. Girl leaves home. Girl makes a new life with success and romance. Girl returns home, seeing the beauty of what she left behind and has to choose her new life or her old one. But the film's pleasures come from the sweet stillness of the moments in between, of the temping worlds the film creates on either side of Eilis, in the recognizable steps of maturation, of change, that Eilis goes through as she moves past her homesickness, past her reticence, and eventually, past the girl she used to be. Brooklyn is an aggressively amiable film, that breaks little new ground, but covers the familiar territory with such a pleasant, charming air, that it can be forgiven for making few new steps.
Original, most likely impressive for the time, but not my cup of tea.
The problem with this movie is that it's almost exactly the same as the original and is therefore pointless. Even with the fact it took place in the modern era, it still felt like the same movie. Yes the effects were "better" but that doesn't make it more interesting. Chloe Grace Moretz didn't even bring anything new to the role other than being way too attractive to be believed as a pariah.
Great cast. Important story, well told. I give it an 8.5 (great re-telling). I have to confess that a couple of times this year I've been a little taken aback by dramas produced as period pieces, when I can distinctly remember seeing the events televised live. The things that remind me that I'm an old woman.
I am so freaking in love with this movie and my heart is mush. No mean girls, supportive characters everywhere, and female friendships ftw. I only regret that I was dumb enough to not read the book first.
I honestly don't understand all the hype and high scores and positive reviews on this movie.
To start off, the 20yo "high school students" are nowhere near believable, but at the same time they're such stereotypes-on-legs that one feels the urge to just punch them in the face. Not only their personalities, but their every single interaction as well is so sterotypical and predictable that they're literally painful to watch.
Once they get into the game, it doesn't get any better. The fact that they're sucked into a game only serves to negate any and all sense of danger they may face during the "adventure": with three lives, you just know that whatever happens to them will have no consequence whatsoever - if anything, they manage to utilise "death" as a game mechanic to help them along the way; heck even their weaknesses become strengths, if not just butts of jokes. Their transformation only goes the most predictable way too: turning into their own "inverse" versions, with one or two character traits preserved to make everything else about them a joke. The world itself is poorly utilised as well: the source of the main dangers isn't nature but bandits on motorcycles, with some bad CGI animals only occasionally getting in their way. Even the story is non-existent, with a huge timeskip after a short intro, because gods forbid they actually continue where it was left off, or just bring it to present days right from the start.
The actors at least try to make an effort to do something with their characters, but quite frankly the ensemble of a muscle-brained G.I. Joe, a middle-aged unkempt Indiana Jones, a black valet, and Lara Croft has too little originality to it (ie. none) for those efforts to make much of a difference. Not to even mention the pilot, who couldn't be more generic if he was actually cut out of cardboard. But hey, at least Jack Black gets to play a teenage girl.
I'm not sure who felt that making this movie was needed. I'm not sure who thinks walking clichés and d××k jokes constitute a "fun family movie". Take away the title, and there is quite literally nothing to see here that stands out from any similar "lower tier" flick - none of which ever gets this ridiculously overrated.
That's the way to make a period movie!
No lingering shots of the expensive, beautiful sets & costumes.(But they are still noticed) no slow, drawn out clippety cloppety horse carriages,.
not a single dull moment.
Gorgeous, riveting, hilarious, heart-warming
It's has some, dashings (but not full on) of those 'Moulin rouge' madness scenes.
Filled with the cream of British film industry.
This is a parody of rom-com and a good parody imo will maintain genre. it's stupid easy to make a comedy parody of everything. See things like Epic Movie and Date Movie. But a good parody of horror films will also itself be a horror film see Scream and Happy Death Day both excellent horror films that lampoon aspects of horror films. I think what sets this movie apart from other parodies is that it does a very effective job at being a romcom. It doesn't take itself seriously which is what you expect but there's a level of sincerity that you don't expect.
It's super hard to pull off a song and dance number in a movie and not have it be super cheesy. Few films do this that aren't all about singing or dancing (Step Up, Pitch Perfect). But the number in this movie manages to be legimately fun which surprised me. Rebel Wilson is Rebel Wilson most people hate her I find her charming enough. Hemsworth plays a one note character that's on screen enough to be funny with his constant "You're beguiling" but not so much that you get annoyed with him. If I had known Priyanka Chopra was going to be in the movie I might have skipped it. I'm not a fan of her as a person. Also I learned she looks terrible in extreme close ups. When you pull out just a little bit she shines. She's a good looking person, a mostly decent actor and she has a top notch voice.
If I cared about Adam Devine personally I'd be scared for his career becoming one note but here he's pretty toned down. Which helps him a lot.
Plotwise I have a big problem with the opening scene after the prologue where Nat has to get a note off her door and give it to her neighbor. It's filmed so badly you can barely tell what's going on. WHich is that he's hot and girls are constantly leaving note for him but they don't know which door is his so she ends up with notes on her door. It's a weird problem that makes no sense but at least they do a callback to explain it at the end. But beyond that the plot doesn't try so hard to make sense. Which is a good thing. It's just walking the path of the romcom you the audience (more than Nat) try to figure out which tropes are going to make it in and which ones will get left out.
It was a fun ride that didn't overstay it's welcome. A light airy movie that didn't leave you empty. Congratulations we have a date movie.
Predictable but all these Cinderella movies rope me in. To see the wicked stepmother get what’s coming to her. Plus Kat Decker is completely likable.
I thought we were past manipulative love interests. I really did.
25th Hour tells the story of Monty Brogan's last day of freedom. He was convicted to 7 years in prison for drug dealing.
Edward Norton plays Monty and he never disappoints me. He is always capable of doing a great emotional performance. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper play Monty's best friends, both gave very strong performances.
There are such remarkable scenes in this film like the powerful "make me ugly" scene. Barry Pepper together with Norton made that scene so authentic, it's beautiful and the amazing "mirror" scene where Norton blames basicaly everyone in the world for his fate. The final scene is also powerful, when a father dreams about a much brighter future for his son.
The connection with 9/11 events are very strong. New York City like Monty, will never be the same again. He can't run away from his fate, he can't undone his mistakes in life, he really is going to prison. It's real.
I had high hopes for this movie since it has two of my favorite people in it but I was still surprised by how great the movie was. Funny, smart and elegant both in cinematography and writing, it’s just amazing. I won’t stop recommending it.
The Finest Hours, Disney’s (yes) old-school recreation of “the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Rescue” starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck who portray the generations ingenuity and sensibilities as they are thrown into the usual genre tropes of unwavering disaster and relief.
The film is a parallel story of daring from Pine’s straight-shooting, small-town Coast Guard coxswain, Bernie Webber, and Affleck’s tanker engineer, Raymond Sybert, separately thrust into roles of authority amidst overwhelming danger. Although a man of few words, Affleck, makes his character the most interesting on screen.
The main premise of the story is on a February night, not one, but two oil tankers have been sheared in two. Most rescue teams have gone to one ship, when news of the seconds reaches Pendleton. The Chatham Coastguards new station boss Daniel Cluff (Eric Bana), orders Webber and a small crew into the storm on what is described the local fisherman as a suicide mission, but Webber, with something to prove to his past sets out.
The tanker sliced in two, and with little hope of survival, Sybert has become the captain of sorts to the surviving crew; although many are not keen to follow his orders. Like Webber, he is an outsider, his home is his ship. In one of the most interesting scenes Sybert responds to a shipmate who dismisses him for being a lonely man with no family, after saving his life, responds with the simple “I’ve got a life just the same as you”. Syberts side of the story is a series of ingenious ideas to help buy as much as time for someone, whoever might be out there, to rescue the him and the crew.
Most of the remaining story follows Webber battling through the storm, but the visuals are far from impressive, large waves in just a sea of blackness, but perhaps this is all you have of evidence of a storm at sea? The 3D adds further unnecessary darkness, and no real depth.
The film is a nice touch to the story and certainly an enjoyable watch, if only to wonder what could be next for Webber, and what brilliant idea Sybert might come up with next.
A solid 8/10 and a recommendation to see in 2D only.
The wet dream of every white man with a savior complex.
I know it's terribly predictable to quip "the book is better", but it is. None of the actors fit right, the scene transitions are terrible- unnecessarily choppy like every other scene was deleted, and the parts that are suppose to be comic relief are so obviously set up to be comic relief they fall flat.
UUURGH!!! Just give us ANOTHER full feature film already!! Just when I start getting into it, IT ENDS!!!
Diamantino is a fable about a Portuguese footballer, as thick as he is talented. We follow his fall from glory into the pit of naïveté he lands in.
Diamantino is a children's film for adults, and reminiscent of many indie films from the 80s (specifically Arizona Dream and I've Heard the Mermaids Singing) in its simplicity and charm. The visual story telling is engaging, but the script writing less so with plot lines cut short and scenes that should've been.
Still, Portuguese actor Carloto Cotta plays the titular role with so much grace and beauty that it rubs off on the film itself. His performance is an obvious score, which makes the film his victory.
watching Hepburn talking so adorable
