I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| No Country for Old Men - Is life just a flip of the coin? |
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Buy No Country for Old Men
Watch No Country for Old Men on Netflix
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (screenplay), Cormac McCarthy (novel)
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt
Rated: R
Plot:
A hunter stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong.
Verdict:
This is a phenomenal movie. The characters are clever, the story engrossing, and the dialog, while sparse, is perfect. It's based on the McCarthy book and he is master at crafting stories. Combine that with the Coen brothers and you get a spectacular movie.
Watch it.
Review:
This has a great opening with the creepy Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, who won Best Supporting Oscar for the role) getting pulled over by a police officer. His weapon of choice is a captive bolt pistol, which is a type of stun gun typically used on livestock.
The plot begins when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong in the desert. This happens by chance as he sees a bleeding dog and decides to investigate. I was surprised at how calm he was upon seeing the gruesome results of the shootout, but this is set in 1980, just a few years after Vietnam. Something I hadn't noticed in previous viewings is that the sheriff makes a reference that he and Moss had seen conflict.
The movie uses silence to great effect. It's based on Cormac McCarthy's book by the same name. McCarthy is an amazing author and his book The Road was also turned into a film by the same name. This movie is extremely faithful to the book, though many parts were cut to trim down the length.
McCarthy creates very smart characters. Moss predicts what's going to happen when he's caught up in the conflict, and despite knowing what will happen, he can't avoid it. So many movies have characters make stupid decisions that land them in trouble, but this has Moss make smart decisions, or at least the best decisions possible, to no avail.
The movie is heavy with tension and suspense and we get an insight into Anton Chigurgh and how blase he is when he's willing to kill someone over the flip of a coin. Chigurh ascribes it to chance, but he's the one in control of his actions.
Stumbling across the shootout doesn't land Moss in trouble, it's when he goes back to the scene "fixing to do something dumb" as he tells his wife. His conscious got him in trouble, and if he never went back he could have avoided the resulting conflict. Greed wasn't his downfall, it was being a nice guy or trying to make amends.
The movie doesn't hold your hand by explaining anything. You have to pay attention. When Chigurh searches Moss's trailer, he doesn't state well I guess they left. We see the trailer through his eyes and are expected to realize that.
The Coen brothers make amazing films from serious to comedic. They are immensely skilled and this movie may best showcase that. Every shot looks amazing.
The plot themes revolve around chance and being unable to stop what's coming. A confluence of events lands Moss in this predicament. It's by chance Chigurh found him. How much of destiny is chance and how much of it is actions one take? It's a little bit of both. You can't make a situation happen, but you can control what you do when the situation happens to you.
The shootout in this movie is low key but devastating. It's amazing how much the Coen brothers do without relying on over the top explosions and exposition. This is an action movie, but above and beyond anything I've seen. I can't help but mention Chigurgh's silenced shotgun. The props department fabricated the silencer as such a thing doesn't exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't be able to muffle the sound to such agree, but it's just cool. It's a great, yet brutal shoot out.
This movie won Oscars for best directing, adapted screenplay, and best picture.
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| Risen - A fresh take on a well tread story. |
Buy Risen
Written by: Kevin Reynolds and Paul Aiello (screenplay), Paul Aiello (story)
Directed by: Kevin Reynolds
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth, Cliff Curtis
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
A Roman tribune is tasked with finding the body of Jesus, rumored to have risen from the dead.
Verdict:
What would it take to make you a believer? The movie doesn't quite know or at least doesn't provide an answer, but it's fun historical fiction. It manages to tell a tried and true story in a new way without becoming too preachy.
It depends.
Review:
This is an adjacent story about Jesus as told by a Roman tribune. The movie uses the name Yeshua instead of Jesus, seemingly to distance itself from being overly religious.
The framing device is overwrought, book ending the main story with Clavicus relaying his experiences. I hate when movies use the "how we got here" trope. This adds nothing to the beginning, and it only serves to dumb down the ending by telling us exactly what we should have gotten from this movie.
Clavicus is tasked by Pontius Pilate to confirm the crucified Nazarene is dead, but Clavicus slowly realizes something is special about the Nazarene. Clavicus starts as a non-believer before becoming skeptical and then believing.
We know the Jesus story as it's been told many times, but this does a good job of making it fresh by not directly telling Jesus's story.
Clavicus doesn't believe, but has many questions when the body disappears from the tomb. He tracks down the disciples to determine who stole the body.
It's predictable in that we know Clavicus will become a believer, and the movie relies on that too heavily. The emotional impact of his journey never reaches the heights it should have. I do appreciate that the movie avoids becoming preachy with long monologues. It trusts the viewer to get the message instead of breaking it down and telling me what I should take from this. That is until the last scene which was unnecessary. We continue the very first scene of the movie which confirms Clavicus is a believer. That should have been done in the film proper, and it mostly was. I wasn't won over because Clavicus didn't seem won over. I'm just told he is or should be. What really won him over? I like the concept of this more than the execution
Set in 33 A.D., this reminded me of Gladiator (2000) (read my review), with the panoramic shots of the city, a Roman warrior, and the opening battle. Unfortunately the battle should have been more exciting. Perhaps it was a budget constraint, but even the logic of the army is faulty.
The sweeping shots of the city look great, and the production values make this ancient city believable.
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| Paddington -Would have been better animated. |
Buy Paddington
Written by: Paul King (written by), Hamish McColl and Paul King (screen story), Michael Bond (character "Paddington Bear")
Directed by: Paul King
Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman
Rated: PG
Plot:
A toy bear searches for a family.
Verdict:
This is a silly movie that ignores realism. If this was animated, it wouldn't be so noticeable. The rules of an animated world are different. With the right animation style this would even look cute, but this is just a lazy adaptation.
Skip it.
Review:
At some point this must have been planned to be fully animated. This would better fit the aesthetics of the book that inspired the movie, but for whatever reason this is live action with a CGI bear.
When Paddington arrives at the train station, no one bats an eye at a live talking bear. In a cartoon, I could accept that, but with live action that defies logic. I need an explanation as to why a live bear is common place. Despite being a children's movie, it still needs to provide explanations when reality diverges. Children aren't dumb.
Hugh Bonneville's line in the station when he sees Paddington is funny, "Keep your eyes averted. It's a bear. He might be selling something." It would have benefited from a better set up. Why would he assume a bear is a salesman rather than a property destroyer?
The movie mostly relies on Paddington's propensity to make any situation worse, usually to a mildly funny effect.
The bigger question may be why Nicole Kidman is in this movie. Didn't she used to be famous? She's the rather boring villain. This movie isn't bad, but there are kids' movies that are so much better. This feels like a lazy ploy to cash in on the highly regarded book. It's silly enough to entertain children, but even then it's incredibly easy to find a movie a child would like more, and this holds nothing for an adult.
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| Chasing Amy -The Kevin Smith version of a romance. |
Buy Chasing Amy
Watch Chasing Amy on Netflix
Written by: Kevin Smith
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee
Rated: R
Plot:
Comic book artist Holden falls for Alyssa, a fellow artist. There's just one problem.
Verdict:
This is crude, it is Kevin Smith after all, but it provides a unique take on the typical rom-com genre. The dialog sounds natural and despite the inherent humor, it captures the fears and feelings of inadequacy in relationships with great insight. Love leads to mistakes and poor decisions which can't always be overcome.
Watch it.
Review:
This is the typical story of a guy, Holden (Ben Afflek). falling for an unavailable girl Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). The twist is that Alyssa already has a girlfriend.
The movie is often crude but silly and real enough to be believable. Holden is just friends with Alyssa, but he wants more. The movie does the platonic relationship well. He's longing for a girl he can't have, and she's oblivious. They have a rhetoric filled discussion about what is sex. The dialog sounds natural, a silly conversation you know people have or wish they could have. As Holden's best friend Banky concludes, Alyssa just needs a good night with a man.
Like Billy Crystal said in When Harry Met Sally (1989), men and women can't just be friends, and this movie sets out to prove that point regardless of sexual orientation.
As strong as Holden's infatuation is, he can't overcome his fears about Alyssa's past sexual experiences. As Alyssa states, "Guys want to be Marco Polo, discovering virgin lands." It takes Holden a while to realize that his fears are linked to his feelings of inadequacy.
Holden's relationship with his best friend suffers too, and his solution to fix everything, while inane is a believable idea. When you're in love you don't think straight and often make the worst decision possible in the moment. The conclusion feels a little too Hollywood, but I liked that it wasn't a happy ending. It's bittersweet. It's a battle Holden braved and lived to tell about, even if it didn't pan out in the way he expected.
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| {REC} - Should have recorded less. |
Buy [REC]
Written by: Jaume Balagueró, Luiso Berdejo, Paco Plaza
Directed by: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Starring: Manuela Velasco , Ferran Terraza , Jorge Serrano-Yamam
Rated: R
Plot:
A television reporter, cameraman, and emergency workers find something terrifying in an apartment.
Verdict:
I was expecting a good horror movie. I was disappointed. I don't like found footage as the visuals are usually inferior. The cinematography could have been much better to increase tension. The potential fear was mitigated because I couldn't tell what was going on. The story isn't bad, but this feels like the low budget way to tell it.
Skip it.
Review:
I like horror movies for their ability to create a mood usually on an extremely low budget, though I don't like the propensity to sidestep reality.
This had potential, and while it's found footage with a plausible reason, the camera work is bad, bad even for found footage. It had potential to create great shots and bungled many opportunities. Even being hand held the framing could have been so much better.
Horror movies have to balance what they show with encouraging your imagination, but a bad image on screen doesn't encourage anything.
I watched this with subtitles. I never listen to a dubbed version because the inflection is never good. I tried the dub, but it was, of course, terrible. It always is.
This doesn't take long to jump off with an attack. This was one of the better scenes because it really developed the tension, but I couldn't help but think how much better it would be with better blocking and less shaking. With hand held style movies, it's difficult to get a good looking still. The visuals make this less scary, though it has plenty of blood as compensation.
After the first round of violence, this slows down way too much. The reporter does a round of interviews since no one can leave the building. Armed guards block the exits and the health inspector is involved. This would have been a good time for character development. Instead of slowing down just to fill time, show the reporter helping someone, just to make her character likable. Or make her mean, so we root against her at the end. Either option is better than what we got. Mostly she just asks the cameraman, Pablo, if he got the shot or if he saw what happened. Pablo is terrible at blocking shots, so the questions are probably justified.
This became a zombie movie, which was disappointing. Especially since 28 Days Later (2002) did this better. This could have been more mystery-horror than a tired trope.
The end, while tense, stretched credibility with an explanation that just seems like the writers couldn't come up with a good ending so just threw a few ideas into the script with the hopes that one might work.
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