Dell's Good, Bad & Ugly Movie Reviews

[dell71]

Rudo y Cursi
Directed by Carlos Cuaron
2009. Rated R, 102 minutes.
Cast:
Gael Garcia Bernal
Diego Luna
Guillerma Francella
Adriana Paz
Jessica Mas
Dolores Heredia​

Plot: Brothers Tato (Bernal) and Beto (Luna) are discovered when a soccer scout has car trouble and is stranded in their small town. The two move to Mexico City and both become national heroes as stars of thier respective teams. Then their problems start.

The Good: It's a quirky sports movie in that its not so much about the sport but about the other things the sport enables them to do and the problems that arise from those things. The two leads play their roles wonderfully. Diego Luna as Beto (nicknamed Rudo) is perfectly hot-headed. He aptly portrays a guy who is a bit slimy but still kind-hearted. Gael Garcia Bernal, one of my favorite actors, is once again brilliant. The two keep the movie fun. It's not quite an uproarious comedy but a light-hearted dramedy that's easy to get into with a great and bittersweet ending.

The Bad: Too many questions go unanswered. In particular, we wonder about the fate of Beto's marriage and relationship with his kids. Given what happens, its a pretty big question and needs answering. The fate of two peripheral characters is also left a bit up in the air. Since both of them are definitely bad guys by most definitions, we need to know what happens to them. Since we don't, their behaviors and actions seem to be condoned which is sad since they play into Mexican stereotypes.

The Ugly: How Beto gets hazed when he joins the team.

Recommendation: This is an entertaining ride with plenty of ups and downs as two brothers battle their demons, each other and themselves. However, as harsh as that sounds, this is no dark, brooding affair. It's light but builds nicely until we get to the appropriately heavy finale. Subtitleophobes beware: we're speaking Spanish.

The Opposite View: Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

What the Internet Says: 6.9/10 on imdb.com (1/1/10), 73% on rottentomatoes.com, 67/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 7.5/10​

 

[Buzzman]

did you go with a new style for the new year.

 

[Palooza]

Dell, the Hurt Locker comes out on DVD on Jan 12. Please see it ASAP.

 

[NAHSTE]

Just saw 500 Days of Summer. I really liked it. Have you seen it Dell?

 

[Fox1994]

I can't believe you've never heard of the Browns and the Super Bowl before, Maynard. Wow...

 

What was the Hurt Locker about again?

 

Was it about a guy who defuses bombs?

Edit:

 

Wow, that spoiler actually made sense to be a spoiler. Imagine that, using something for what it's for.

 

[dell71]

Archiving, is a little more time consuming than I thought it would be. If I don't finish it today, I'll have it up tomorrow.

And yes, I decided to switch up the look just a little for the new year.

 

[tigstah]

i watched there will be blood. I was very disapointed with this movie. I watched it over 2 nights and during the first half i thought it was an interesting movie. One of those slow moving plots where things are just happening randomly to maybe setup what this "evil oil man" was really about.

then i watched the 2nd half and realized that this movie had no real point. It was just a story about an oil man. He wasnt an "evil oil man" but more of a hardnose businessman who was kind of a dick towards certain people. The title of the movie and all of the intesnse horror film music would suggest that something grusome or shocking would happen during the course of this movie.....and while i was fooled thinking it was coming, it just never did. By the time somthing even close to offering a dramtic or shocking moment did come, i was totally annoyed with the muscial score and even more annoyed that i was suckered into watchng this movie, that i didnt care and was glad it was over

this movie ranks up there with the talented mr ripley in all time let downs for me

i agree. i couldnt see what the point was. nothing spectacular at all. bing bam boom....nothin.

 

[Maynard]

Just saw 500 Days of Summer. I really liked it. Have you seen it Dell?

oh man...i didnt like this movie at all. i thought it would be more like a guys chick flick....somthing like i love you man or knocked up or something. But it just didnt do it for me. All the flip flopping around in the timeline bugged me too

 

[Buzzman]

thought the flip flopping with the timeline was what made it great. Also the expectation vs reality scene was so amazing.

 

[BigHouseUSA]

oh man...i didnt like this movie at all. i thought it would be more like a guys chick flick....somthing like i love you man or knocked up or something. But it just didnt do it for me. All the flip flopping around in the timeline bugged me too

How could you relate either of those movies to 500 Days of Summer after watching the trailer?

 

[Tailback U]

maynard, how old are you?

 

[Fox1994]

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.

 

In a non-gay way?

 

I really don't know anymore. Haha.

 

[dell71]

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

All reviews are now archived on page 1 of this thread.

That is all,

Have a nice day.​

 

[Buzzman]

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.

 

[dell71]

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: 6/10​

 

[dell71]

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
​

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.

MY SCORE: -10/10​

EDIT: Sorry guys, put the wrong score on there originally.

 

[The Buddha]

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.

 

[dell71]

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.

Truthfully, the story itself is remarkable. It's the telling of that story that isn't.

 

[Maynard]

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

All reviews are now archived on page 1 of this thread.

That is all,

Have a nice day.​

nice....just a suggestion...placing your reviews in a word doc or something. You never know, if this place goes down and the info cant be retrieved. Thats would be alot of info to be lost....

 

[Senser81]

Dell, I looked through your archived list. Have you seen either Juno or the Public Enemies movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale?