Another welcome surprise from an unexpected classic. However, it comes just short of being a great film.
First off, there is a vast cast of characters, yet somehow they are pretty well balanced for a film with a running time of just over an hour. While taking more time to flesh out some characters a la Seven Samurai would have made this more complete, it would have diminished the point of the film. Like most great westerns, this is less about the characters, and more about why they've been put in front of us (a welcome change from hiring who's hot in hollywood nowadays). While the plot itself wasn't all that original (should we take the law into our own hands), the places it takes us are unexpected, thrilling, and sometimes frightening.
The pacing is great, and for a short movie, it takes you to extremely different places for each act. Wellman makes a lot good decisions as director, and a handful of great ones. However, the greatness comes too far into the movie for me to classify this as an example of amazing directing. It's almost like he directed the first two acts to appeal to a broader audience, then directed the third act for aficionados who appreciate everything about a film that makes it great.
1 / 2 directing & technical aspect
1 / 2 story
1 / 1 acting
1 / 1 pacing
1 / 1 dialogue
1 / 1 living up to its genre
0 / 1 originality
1 / 1 lasting ability to make you think
.5 / 0 miscellaneous +/- point
7.5 out of 10
I don't believe I've ever been so captivated by such a deeply flawed movie as I am with Arrival. What others have written about it—with far more insight than I could—is all too true, namely that the acting is hollow at best and the plot is nothing so much as a severely frayed thread in danger of completely unraveling. It's an utter waste of one of the most creative iterations of extra-terrestrial contact in cinematic history. And yet, despite all of these reasons to dismiss this lamentable execution of the cinematic arts, I can't help but admit…I love it.
When you strip away all of the trappings and examine this movie solely for the essential story being told, you are privy to something very profound, and genuinely uplifting: how humanity's manifold foibles, when put together, might just be redeeming after all. Through the protagonist, Louise, we see the unfolding of a series of personal tragedies and yet her response to them is tempered with unflinching dedication to the accomplishment of something worthwhile, and therein she finds her purpose. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I found in this story elements of the best of Disney's heroes, Shakespeare's tragic rulers, and religious texts' unwavering commitment to the belief that there is no such thing as a meaningless sacrifice. While they all could've been done greater justice, I believe their coexistence here is cause to sit up, take note, and eschew any demands for a greater polish and fidelity to realism.
I came away with a greater knowledge of myself and a more forgiving opinion of our species as a whole, and for both of those I am grateful beyond measure. Perhaps in time I'll come to see that the imperfections in its presentation actually work to clarify some or all of these laudable aspects of the narrative,...or perhaps the magic will fade under the weight of familiarity and I'll be unable to defend it again as I have here now. Either way, the two hours I devoted to watching this movie for the first time are ones that I won't ever regret, and perhaps that's the best praise any artistic work can receive, especially in light of this particular story.
Is only me who thinks a brilliant mind would never use only cards on a access control system?
Despite not being Hughes' finest movie, Uncle Buck is still a funny, endearing and ultimately moving family movie. I slightly prefer John Candy in the hysterical Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but his performance here exudes once again a charm and love that are impossible to resist.
Easily one of the most poignant and thought-provoking movies I've ever seen. It let me to examine myself in ways I never had before, and I hope someday to see the play it's adapted from.
I don't think people are really appreciating what this movie offers. It's simple and clear, yet full of feeling. A beautiful little film to watch, it really touches those who are going through the same stuff.
― I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
― A #2, chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
― Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
― You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
― I want you to hold it between your knees.
#Classic
Another excellent Tarantino film. It keeps you on hold until the end. Amazing work in all aspects film.
A Mesmerizing masterpiece. I've seen this film and part one several times, and again just now. I don't compare this to part one, being that it's the continuation of one long movie. This film transcends the martial arts / Kung Fu genre in ways never done before and with an unforgettable uniqueness. When I think of what I consider to be Tarantino's best films/screenplays--The Kill Bill saga is in my top three. I can't write a review because too many have already been written; however, This is a must see extravaganza of violence, martial arts, incredible characters with rich development, and of course the fantastic dialogue which Tarantino seems to be unequaled in creating. Uma Thurman was a freaking beast and should've gotten an Oscar for best actress. We know that would never happen even though it would've been great if the world were a bit cooler and open minded. I love this film.
Significantly more balanced between its stylish idiosyncrasies and emotional undercurrents than Vol. 1, injecting the Bride with a fierce matriarchal stimulus, but its wonky structure still confines it from reaching narrative transcendence.
A masterful movie that is quite unlike anything else Tarantino has made, all while being a Tarantino style movie.
Top Gun is a movie that is full of cliché with a plot that follows along the lines of a blueprint that is typical for similar movies of that time. It was a movie for the MTV generation with lots of rock music. This wasn´t about the story. Teenage boys wanted to be Maverick and the girls fancied the love story (OK, probably not all of them but a lot)
It still can be an entertaining movie today if you keep that in mind. Just tune down the cheesy stuff. Enjoy the flight scenes, the soundtrack is still great and produced a lot of classic tunes.
3.75/5. I walked out of this one saying to my friends, "that was pretty good for a 10 hour film." It was a long film that wanted you to feel the length. At times, that made it feel appropriately epic, but at others that made it feel like it was alternatively being indulgent or spinning its wheels. The Revenant started strong and ended fairly strong, but had a lot of fat in the middle.
But if there's one thing it deserves credit for, it's the cinematography and production. There are so many beautiful images throughout the film, whether it be a swooping shot of a snow-covered vista, or the slow lurch of the camera as it follows Glass crawling across the ground, or the Saving Private Ryan-esque battle sequence near the beginning of the film. It was visually arresting from the word go, even if the story and pacing couldn't always keep up.
Oddly enough, the film I found myself thinking about while watching The Revenant was Mad Max: Fury Road. Both feature a fairly straightforward narrative intended to impart broad themes, but make their bones with their visual storytelling and sensibilities, bolstered by strong individual performances that vary from the depictions of quiet strength to bombast. To that end, both films eschew exposition and narrative complexity in a bid to allow the images and the performances to convey the story.
There are certainly parallels between DiCaprio in The Revenant and Hardy in Mad Max, both playing largely silent, wounded animals who are haunted by their pasts. And the key feature in each is the aesthetic choices made by the folks behind the films, where both Miller and Inarritu communicate their themes most forcefully in the visuals they craft rather than dialogue, despite notable moments in both films where the characters' lines hit the major ideas of the film in a less-than-subtle manner. There are obviously significant distinctions between the two films in areas like tone and pacing, and Inarritu and Miller have different goals and styles, but they go about accomplishing and employing them in a strikingly similar fashion.
That said, I wasn't particularly blown away by DiCaprio's performance here. It was good, there's no question, but I've more or less had my fill of DiCaprio playing these intense, perpetually perturbed men with something in their past gnawing on them. He knows how to play those notes well, but I'm just kind of inured to it at this point. By the same token, the film includes too many vignettes of Glass's survival, with many of them being too long as well. Many did little to advance the narrative or the character (the big exception being Glass and his Pawnee companion catching snowflakes in one of the film's most endearing moment), which is fine in small doses. Giving the audience a chance to just spend time with a character can work toward making them invested in his fate when the time for the narrative fireworks come. But a lot of those scenes in The Revenant felt like indulgence or even just fumfering around. They were a part of the film that cried out for a montage that never came.
Hardy, on the other hand, does a fantastic job at Fitzgerald, who sells the character's attitude and role in the story almost from the minute he's on the screen, and makes Fitzgerald's nigh-heartless, mercenary pragmatism and his open racism feel lived-in and true to the character from the getgo.
Inarrito spends a lot of time seizing on a fairly simple theme, represented with his wind and tree metaphor, and building up an elaborate, somewhat pretentious infrastructure around it. There's value in simplicity in story and theme at times, but it feels like he's trying to take something straightforward and telescope it out to unsupportable complexity and weight here, and the film suffers for it.
Overall it's a generally good, but rarely great movie, with some serious and stultifying missteps in its lengthy, middle act. It's consistently a feast for the eyes, and the visual storytelling is close to impeccable, but the ideas involved are fairly shallow and trumped up, and the performances can only do so much to make up for its flaws.
A deary long movie that was totally and utterly implausible. Nobody on earth can survive swimming in freezing water in the middle of winter, get out soaking wet and immediately light a fire.
Frontiersman has a comically shit year against an overwhelmingly beautiful backdrop.
The Oscar for Leo was well earned, as are the ones for directing and camera. Yet it isn´t among the best pictures I´ve seen. It´s not boring but it´s very slow paced with very little dialogue over long stretches. The whole tension comes from the wait for Glass to take his revenge on Fitzgerald but since you already know that will happen it isn´t much tension in the first place. And the whole side story with the indians is almost neglectable. Half an hour less might not have been a bad thing.
first 40 mins are great and then .....
I had to stop watching after an hour - the impeccable acting and superb cinematography doesn't cover for the overdrawn and predictable synopsis nor does it make up for the fact that I couldn't take any more of it. I kept asking myself "so what?"
I feel like this documentary had all the opportunities to dig deeper into several issues and it never did. It was very nice to hear the stories of these women, and the movie was pretty well made, but it did little beyond illustrating what everyone already expected.
Adam comes out to his friends and family, this movie shows how everybody reacts to it differently and how they "handle" it.
I had a great laugh watching the trailer, and that enjoyment stayed throughout the whole movie. I really enjoyed it. Evan Todd did an amazing job and he made everything feel very "safe" of some sort. I liked seeing every character their reactions because they all reacted so differently. I would describe this movie as a "feel good" movie, but one with a messages and I don't think you see that very often. It worked out great. They cover quite a serious subject, but they make it all feel rather "light". I hope to see more movies like these. They did a great casting for this movie, and I think that was a big plus to the story.
Funny and relatable story of a man coming out to his family and friends. Doesn't stint on the drama but doesn't dwell on it either. Very enjoyable.
[8.2/10] It’s easy to become desensitized to violence on the screen. Superheroes can pummel hordes of faceless bad guys, or each other. Jedi can leap into lightsaber fights from hear to the edge of the galaxy. And slapstick comedy can turn events that would cause untold pain in real life into cartoony hilarity.
But we don’t tend to think about when people become desensitized to violence not because of the images they’ve seen or the context in which they’re presented, but rather because it’s an everyday part of their lives, something they don’t enjoy or relish, but no more question or find out of the ordinary than they would bad weather.
I, Tonya, then, is a film about what it is to expect abuse in your life, both physical and emotional, to the point that you no longer question it, or even fully recognize it. It depicts Tonya Harding as someone who has heard so many times that she doesn’t measure up, that she isn’t good enough, that she’ll never amount to anything (often with physical reminders to accentuate these put downs) that she accepts any abuse in exchange for even the prospect that someone will appreciate her, will respect her, will love her.
The most devastating line in film comes in one of the montages about the early tumult in the marriage between Tonya and her husband Jeff, where she rationalizes his domestic violence away by reasoning, “My mom loves me, and she hits me.” It’s a sad, but understandable equivalence from someone who’s known nothing else, going from one abusive family relationship to another.
The grand achievement of the film is the way that it manages to approach these dark events in a manner that’s both incisive and funny. It doesn’t skimp on the ridiculousness of the world of professional figure skating, or on the shaggier side of this collection of nudniks each trying to conquer the world in their own way, but it doesn’t shy away from or compartmentalize the darker underbelly of all that lunacy either.
Part of what makes it stomachable is that we get most of the film in the form of cobbled-together recollections from Tonya and the other players, with plenty of fourth wall-breaking commentary and voice over to add a layer of cutting or knowing commentary onto these events. That device allows the film to be at a remove when it needs to, giving the audience a chance to reflect on what’s happening rather than forced to be a part of it.
But when we do feel it, it’s through Tonya’s eyes, and for Tonya, violence, disappointment, and shaming are a matter of fact thing. That’s the soft tragedy that winds its way through the film. Horrid incident after horrid incident befalls Tonya, but she seems to take it in stride, because it’s all she’s ever known, until those moments accumulate and accumulate until they’ve taken away the thing she cares most about, the thing that gave her a chance to escape that life.
That shame is personified by Tonya’s mother, LaVona, a profane battleaxe who browbeats her preternaturally talented daughter deeper and deeper into the sport. It’s a powerhouse performance from the inimitable Allison Janney, and character aided both by Janney’s stellar acting and some choice moments in the script.
It would be easy to make LaVona a pure monster, with how she degrades her daughter at every turn and resorts to physical violence and cruel stunts when she doesn’t get her way. But in scenes where she tells Tonya that she sacrificed their relationship to make Tonya great, she becomes comprehensible, though not laudable, as all great villains should be. And there’s that twinkle in Janney’s eye, that sincerity she can muster, that gives the audience just enough to wonder if LaVona means it when she tells her daughter that she’s on her side, even when she’s surreptitiously recording her in search of a scoop.
That moment is a the whole film in microcosm, a story of people seeming to welcome Tonya, to give her the attention and affection she hopes for, only to tear it away from her. The film’s nod to this is a tad overwritten, but those are also the terms in which it interrogates celebrity. Beyond LaVona, beyond Jeff, Tonya wants to be embraced by the world, and for one shining moment, her talent makes her the darling she always wanted to be.
But then, the scandal hits. An incident she may or may not have been involved with comes to consume her career and reputation, and after coming so close, after having her all-too-brief moment in the sun, she becomes a laughing stock and a punching bag, in a country of late night comedians and tabloid headline writers who help set the stage for people to either groan or titter when hearing her name. The world acts as her mother and husband did, however unwittingly, with her desperate for approval and appreciation, and chasing it until she’s smacked down into her place once more.
That sense of Tonya having overstepped her bounds is also a palpable theme in the film. There’s a steady sense of how a combination of classism and sexism hindered her at every turn. Skating is (or at least was) a sport where women were expected to act a certain way, where competitors were expected to uphold a certain spirit of grace and genteelity. Tonya met none of those criteria. She was more athletic than graceful, a woman of poverty rather than refinement, and the way the staid gatekeepers refused to let her in for this is one more misfortune visited upon her.
This all makes I, Tonya sound far more grim that it is. There is a Coen Bros. quality to the film, where a bunch of small time, bumbling crooks try to pull off a caper and fall on their faces, while laughing at the absurdity and darkness bundled up with that. The script is smart and funny, with plenty of razor sharp lines and wry observations that work on multiple levels. And the shots and sequences of Tonya’s performances on the ice capture the sense of power and achievement, using the camera as her dance partner and greatest champion, showing a talent that cannot be denied to witness, even if it can be denied on score cards.
And after all of that denial, all of that rejection, all of those painful stumbles, the final scene highlights her brief but headline-grabbing boxing career. After all, that sort of physical violence is all she knows, the irony being that she doesn’t even understand the outpouring of support when Nancy Kerrigan is “hit once.” After her lifetime of violence, Tonya is too desensitized to it to comprehend what the big deal is, or where the similar sympathy is for her when all manner of authority: from her mother, to the powers that be of the skating establishment, to the police, don’t seem to care.
There’s a recurring leitmotif in I, Tonya where Tonya constantly denies that anything is her fault. There’s the implication that she’ll devolve into self-sabotage or give less-than-her-best effort and yet pass the buck for any misstep onto a conspiracy or a bias or something else that she’s not responsible for.
And yet, the only thing she publicly accepts guilt for is the one thing for which she’s truly blameless -- the people in her life. When Tonya makes her public apology, she says she had no prior knowledge of the attack, but apologize for surrounding herself with people who did and would. It’s those people -- her mother who derided her and primed her for another abuser like her husband -- who helped shape Tonya into the person so susceptible to pursuing any manner of affection and attention, while not fully comprehending the gravity of the risk and pain to be inflicted on her in the process of seeking it out.
I, Tonya is not your standard biopic. It is dark but funny, sympathetic but not hagiographic, and narrow but fulsome. It presents the story of a young woman so inured to abuse, so used to its awful presence, that she hardly recognizes it anymore, until it keeps from the things she wants most.
My god... Does Ava DuVernay know that you can actually zoom out a camera? I've never seen so many "closeup" face shots in a single movie in my entire life. I'll never be able to get Oprah's giant-sized face out of my mind...
As for the movie itself, It's a bit all over the place. Some parts and themes are very well-done, such as Meg's journey to accept herself, while others are really half-baked (especially the relationships between Meg & Charles Wallace, Meg & Calvin, etc). Too many things just get thrown together or just suddenly happen by sheer "coincidence" without a solid lead-in or development. This could have definitely used some additional scenes and runtime to flesh characters and their relationships between each other out a bit more. Reese Witherspoon's character is actually my favorite of the 3 "Mrs."'s. Oprah and Mindy Kaling's characters definitely did not hit home.
Visuals were pretty stunning for the most part, but sometimes went a bit too overboard. Don't even get me started again on the cinematography and editing... This movie definitely had potential and I was excited to watch it, but it just misses out on some major points. It was enjoyable overall for the visual fest and seeing the world of A Wrinkle in Time, but other than that it is just an average film. I'd temper my expectations for sure. 5/10 as it is just an average movie...
Apparently this is just the third $100+ million budget movie directed by a woman. I'm not sure that Ava DuVernay's movie is going to help buck that trend...
3.5/10
This is movie is pretty much an excuse for Oprah to be bigger than everyone else in the film.
No, really.
The casting director on this should be shot. All performances felt so, very, incredibly fake. The only believable character was played by Chris Pine. EVERYONE else we come across is just awful. It could be the writing, the directing, etc, but the actors seem to be at fault here. It seemed so important to them to have a diversified racial palate of actors, that maybe they were just looking for a race, as opposed to an actual performance. I am not being racist, just look at the film and you will see what I mean.
The visuals were ok, but clearly very CGI. They didn't even try to get the lighting right on many parts, and that disgusts me for what this movie (original story from the book) could have been.
There is no development. You are thrown into these weird, unexplained characters, with a moody, but yet expressionless character (Meg). Then all of a sudden, they are on another planet, with some random dude joining them (Calvin), then suddenly the mothers (whatever the shit you call the big 3) disappear. Like. Why are they even in the movie? Idk.
I want my time back.
And YOU get acting lessons!..and YOU get acting lessons!..Aaaaaaaaaaaand YOUUUU get acting lessons!!!
Pretentious!!! Watching a child screaming "LOOK AT ME!", over and over is less pretentious than this film. There is no character development, at all, for any characters. There is so little story that massive amounts of the film time are wasted trying to impress us with the way over used special effects. Seriously, did we need a 10 minute transformation scene. Only one of the plot points is resolved and at the point in which it finally gets around to it, I just could not care anymore.
Boring.
Save yourself some agony, just watch the trailer and make up any story in your own head about what the movie is about and skip watching this garbage.
I'm keeping this one short because I have zero good things to say about this horrible movie.
A Wrinkle in Time is extremely unbalanced, strangely devoid of tension, and very scarreted about the tone. With powerful colors, bright parttersn and exuberant children, this new look from director Ava DuVernay's on this story squeezes through time and space, not knowing how to land any of it. Relying on room-wide music to provide the missing emotional connection and plastering huge plot holes this movie is one hot mess from the first to the third act. There's no saving grace in this movie, not even the acting of Hollywood top actors like Chris Pine, Reese Witherspoon or even critically acclaimed newcomers Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Every generation gets The Never-Ending Story they deserve, This is not that movie
2,4/10
Terrible. This is what happens when you try to follow the book too closely and not realize book to movie does not always work. The earliest Harry Potter films were awkward, the latter ones were excellent with great pacing and a logical flow. If you haven't read the book, please, read it for the superior experience.
They had an exceptional multifaceted diamond and they replicated a rhinestone Happy Meal toy - glitzy today, forgotten tomorrow. I couldn't be more disappointed with the producers, director and screenwriter of this movie. Full disclosure, my life has been enriched by the world of Madeleine L'Engle. I discovered her writings in college and quickly devoured as many of her novels as I could find. Even reading WRINKLE again, 35 years later in anticipation of the film, I was totally captivated by her world view, philosophy, theology, scientific brilliance and her grasp of the struggles of childhood, and, indeed the world. All that was sublime about her writings was stripped away in this production and replaced with mundane imitations. The quotes of Mrs. Who, drawn from the great minds of time, were replaced by post-modern or contemporary banality. The awesomeness of Mrs. Which was reduced to a Disney fairy godmother. The excentric muddle that was Mrs. Whatsit was stripped of her very essence. And, the exceptionalness of Charles Wallace and his special connection to his sister were totally lost in this film (and what possessed them to make him adopted?). Whole plot lines were abandoned and the story was transformed to something unrecognizable. The themes of character, right, perseverance, courage, faithfulness, faith and wisdom were cast aside for a weak new age drivel about self exceptance, which missed L'Engles point entirely about self-worth being built on finding our strengths in our weakness. That said (Ok, that ranted) you can't fault the actors. They gave good performances of what they were given. Storm Reid is an absolute jewel and I look forward to seeing more of her. Special effect were laudable, but the variety of worlds was lost. Few time have I given a film a worse rating - I give this a 2 (terrible) out of 10. Do your kids a favour - DON'T take them to this movie and ruin the experience of L'Engle's wolds. Instead, buy them the book(s), or better yet, read the book to them at bedtimes. That was how L'Engle wrote it, each chapter a bedtime read for her kids, aged 7, 10 and 12. [Family Adventure SciFi]
