Month: July 2004

Today is a very strange day. Usually, there is nothing to watch on Friday evening. Today there were a number of movies. And not only those were just any movies – there were some good ones.

“The War” is the first one I saw today. Kevin Costner plays a father of Elijah Wood, who is more popular as Frodo Baggins in the Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy. The good part is that you actually get to appreciate Elijah before he became Frodo. The movie is 10 years and he is noticably younger then he is now. That helps. Because he is a kind of not bad actor. Actually, he was acting the most one can do of the not so well done screenplay.

The film altogether is rather dramatic but not without a happy end. 6.5 out of 10. Rather enjoyable view for a time when a sad movie is needed. :)

I watched “The Life of David Gale” on DVD today. It is by far the best movie of the recent pile. It is a drama about capital punishment with Kevin Spacey playing the main character. Lots of good acting by everyone, excellent directing, good soundtrack and overall very close to a perfect movie. :)

This movie got the thing I enjoy the most right – all the characters are complete. You picture clearly every person that is shown in the movie. Futher more, most of the characters are more complex then heroes from the comix animations. They do indeed look like a real people that have real lives and real problems. Few excellent tricks were used to accomplish these fullfillness. For example, pieces of paper with written feelings in a fast rotation… You have to see it to appreciate it.

I voted for a (strong) 9 out of 10 on IMDB.

Olga and I just came back from the movies where we saw “Spider-Man 2“. If you missed the hype and still planning to see it – don’t. There is nothing to it. All action from the movie you can get from the trailer. The story too. The rest of two hours was a bad soap opera. Not Mexican or Brasilian – those guys know how to make good soap operas. This one was bad.

Half of the film shows problematic life of Spider-Man where the guy has to live two lives – of Spider-Man and Peter Parker. No surprise his performance is poor in both of them. Then everything goes nuts for him – lost job, lost girlfriend, blah blah blah… Then he decides not to be a Spider-Man, but just Peter Parker. That doesn’t work out too well too. So he turns back into Spider-Man and everything is OK now. That’s it. On the background, so that everyone does wake up once in a while, there is a good guy, a professor, who was turned bad by the evil mechanical hands on his back with artificial intelligence. He is trying to build something the whole film, but fails and kills himself in the end. Boring.

In the end, you are given a clear idea that there will be a third part to this film. Another sequel. There is nothing left to show, but it will come anyway. Too bad. I think I’ll pass.

IMDB rating is going absolutely crazy about this film. I’ll go vote for 3 out 10. And I have a feeling I’m giving too much. Yuck.