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maynard, how old are you?
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Bought Inglourious Basterds two or three days ago. Watched it last night. Might be my new favorite movie. I mean, it's certainly up there with Pulp Fiction. God I love Quentin Tarantino.
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ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
All reviews are now archived on page 1 of this thread.
That is all,
Have a nice day.Comment
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With Inglourious Basterds, the tv trailers didnt do it justice. They amde it seem like it was an over the top constant war movie filled with action and it was the exact opposite. I went to the theatre with my sisters and I didnt really want to see it, but was completely blown away.Comment
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Defiance
Directed by Edward Zwick
2009. Rated R, 137 minutes.
Cast:
Daniel Craig
Liev Schreiber
Jamie Bell
Alexa Davalos
Allan Corduner
Iben Hjejle
Plot: Three Jewish brothers, the Bielskis (Craig, Schreiber and Bell), try to survive a harsh winter in the woods and fight Nazis during WWII despite traveling with an ever-growing number of other Jews. Based on a true story.
The Good: We feel the difficulties of keeping together a makeshift community through tremendous adversity and whose survival depends on unity. A series of power struggles punctuate the movie giving several actors their moment in the sun and firmly establish the resolve of our heroes. These scenes, along with the action scenes raise the tension right when we need it.
The Bad: The movie forgets the hard, fast rule of fact-based movies: don't rely on the viewers sense of history to provide context for your film. This is especially true of Holocaust movies where visual evidence of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, or at least their overwhelmingly menacing presence, are on full display. Here, they're only paid lip-service. We don't get a true Nazi villain, only a string of people who've done bad things but are hardly scary. A better written movie can get away with such things (see The Reader). In Defiance, the effect is the Bielskis and their clan are far less empathetic than they should be, rendering the whole thing a rather bland affair.
The Ugly: What happens to the Jew who joined the Russian army but tries to use the officers' latrine.
Recommendation: Though it's based on a true story, don't go in expecting the next Schindler's List. This is, more or less, the action-flick version of a Holocaust film. It gives us thrills, harrowing moments and the prerequisite romantic subplots. Still, it never really makes us care enough to elevate it to the status of a great film. After hundreds, possibly thousands of WWII movies have been made, it simply isn't enough to tell us "these are Jewish people and this is WWII" to involve us. We need a stronger movie. This one mistakes aggression for power and merely gives us more guns.
The Opposite View: Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
What the Internet Says: 7.3/10 on imdb.com (1/4/10), 56% on rottentomatoes.com, 58/100 on metacritic.com
MY SCORE: 6/10Comment
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The very strange life and times of Dawn Davenport (Divine). If you're at all familiar with John Waters, you know that the word bizarre only scratches the surface. His, is a truly demented world with warped sensibilities. After not getting what she wants for Christmas, 16 year old Dawn throws a tantrum, beats up her parents and leaves home for good. She has sex with the guy that picks her up while she's hitchhiking, literally on the side of the road, which begets a daughter she's forced to raise alone. She then embarks on a life of crime, has a stint as a stripper, marries her hair dresser and things really get out of hand when she tries to break into show business. Think about all these things and remember that Dawn is played by Waters' muse, 300 lb. female impersonator Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as Divine. To her, or his, credit if you didn't already know this, the illusion is maintained quite well, here and in a number of other John Waters' flicks. None of the acting is award show ready, or even fit for most B-movies but Divine is a force of nature that elevates the material to strangely mesmerizing levels. Waters' gift for shoving the proverbial envelope off the edge of a cliff to its bloody death has a charm all its own that also keeps you watching. You simply want to see what could possibly be next. And unlike many other movies of the era, Waters' films still have the power to shock and amaze. The passage of time has hardly dulled their edges. Combine that with the fact he shot on miniscule budgets and at that time was not quite competent in the technical aspects of filmmaking and you get something totally raw. He would go on to make more polished films such as Cry Baby, the original Hairspray and Serial Mom. I like to think of it this way: that creator of slightly perverse but palatable and often sweet goth, Tim Burton is like Dr. Jekyll and Waters' is Mr. Hyde, the id run amok. He's an inmate not content with merely running the asylum, he's hell-bent on burning it to the ground. Therefore, you don't enjoy this movie because it is good in the sense you would normally mean. You enjoy it because it is original, raunchy, appalling, told from a unique perspective (how Dawn is allowed to become a customer at the exclusive beauty salon is evidence of this), has a twisted sense of humor and is horribly made. Coincidentally, you may hate it for precisely the same reasons. This is why, for me, it's in the so-bad-it's-awesome hall of fame.
Female Trouble
Directed by John Waters
1974. Rated NC-17 (uncut version), 97 minutes.
Cast:
Divine
Mary Vivian Pierce
David Lochary
Mink Stole
Edith Massey
Cookie Mueller
MY SCORE: -10/10
EDIT: Sorry guys, put the wrong score on there originally.Last edited by dell71; 01-05-2010, 09:56 AM.Comment
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I really enjoyed Defiance, i thought the story itself was pretty awesome (jews hiding in the forest and surviving for 2-3 years) Ill have to watch again and look more into it.
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Dell, I looked through your archived list. Have you seen either Juno or the Public Enemies movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale?Comment
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Thanx.
Public Enemies is there, but to save you some time click here. (warning, there are actually 3 reviews in that post with PE being the last)
I have seen Juno. I liked it but wasn't blown away. I'll dig up the review I did on MM and have it up shortly.Comment
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And I meant shortly...
Juno
2007. Rated PG-13, 96 minutes.
Director: Jason Reitman. Starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman.
Plot: 16 year old Juno becomes pregnant and decides to give her baby up for adoption.
The Good: Ellen Page is a fabulous young actress and turns in another excellent performance. The girl can flat-out act and should have a long career with some Oscars in her future. It helps that her character is well written. She actually seems 16. She’s no fool, but thinks she’s way smarter and tougher than she actually is. Strangely, it’s the baby’s father (Cera) who draws the most sympathy. He just seems to have no say-so in anything that happens to him. Within the story, there are some laughs and the emotional roller-coaster of a pregnant teen is depicted well.
The Bad: It’s hard to get with because its ending is fairly depressing when you think about how the various situations are left but it’s played like everything is “happily ever after.†I imagine that’s done to preserve its thinly veiled anti-abortion stance. I don’t mind that it takes that stance, I just don’t think it really argues its own case that well. Aside from all that, I think Jennifer Garner was wasted here. She basically spends the entire movie vacillating between looking stern and crying.
The Ugly: For a dad with two daughters, like myself, it actually felt like a horror flick.
Recommendation: It’s a fairly solid dark-comedy elevated by the work of Ellen Page. Still, I’m not on the bandwagon labeling this one of 2007’s best. For me, it’s now the third movie of ’07 I was led to believe is simply amazing that I was sufficiently underwhelmed by. By the way, Superbad and Michael Clayton were the others.
The Opposite View: David Cornelius, eFilmcritic.com
What the Internet Says: 8.1/10 on imdb.com (#199 all-time, 5/29/08), 93% on rottentomatoes.com, 81/100 on metacritic.com
MY SCORE: 6.5/10Comment
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I didn't like Public Enemies. It wasn't a particularly memorable movie. Although other people thought the movie did a fantastic job of portraying Dillinger in a realistic manner, I thought Michael Mann bent over backwards to portray Dillinger as a sympathetic character (like when the cop beats up his girlfriend). There was no character development, I didn't find Dillinger or Purvis to be all that interesting. I did like the two "Texas Ranger" guys that were brought in to kill Dillinger, and I did like the Red Hamilton guy, but thats about it. It took me the entire movie to figure out who "Baby Face" actually was.Comment
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Can't really argue with you. Though I did like it, what you say is pretty spot-on. I don't know if you read the reviews of the other two Dillinger movies in the post with PE but only the first one really attempted any character development for its main star but that one didn't give us Purvis at all. The 1973 version focused more on action, gave us Purvis but made him & Dillinger out to basically be two cowboys squaring off against one another. This later version gave us a little more characterization but was definitely in love with Dillinger. In short, there's yet to be a great movie made about the man but I do believe we have 3 decent ones.Comment
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I liked Juno, but I agree that the ending was a little bit too upbeat...as if Juno giving her baby away was just an everyday obstacle like doing your math homework. "OK, solved that problem...lets move on."
You didn't comment on Jason Bateman in your review. He was my favorite character. Dealing with the insane wife, being 'given' one small room for your stuff. I loved his comment to Juno when he's holed up in his room..."So, is this life appealing to you?!" Its funny what we think would be awesome as teenagers often ends up being ridiculous when we are adults.Comment
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