Month: January 2005

Diary of a City Priest

Watched “Diary of a City Priest” on DVD. It is a good drama about a priest in the poor neighborhood’s chuch. He has been there for more than 20 years, serving and helping people and he got tired and started to have difficulties for his inspirations. Basically, he looks a lot like a man with a middle age crisis.

Film is slightly dramatic and slowly paced with some phylosophy to it. There is no intense or suspense. There is nothing you haven’t seen before. There is, simply, nothing special. David Morse did an excellent job with the priest. Photography couldn’t have been enjoyed fully, due to 4:3 ratio, but it looked like there are some really great shots in there. Music was very atmospherical and spiritual – nicely done.

I think I am a bit too young for this film. 6 out of 10.

Gen-X Cops

Watched “Gen-X Cops” on DVD. It is one of those cheap Hong Kong action films that make an average Chinese martial arts movie seem like a multimillion budget blockbuster.

Terrible story, terrible stunts, no martial arts, no acting what-so-ever, and missing sense of humour drop this film really hard down in my rating table. I am really surprised that it carries the name of Jackie Chan as executive producer.

This film really sucked. 2 out of 10.

Angels in America

You might be a little surprised by the fact that the amount of movie review posted in the last few days decreased dramatically. I assure that I haven’t stopped watching movies. Neither I have decreased the number of them. And neither I am going totally lazy with blogging. It’s just that I have been watching “Angels in America“.

You might be tricked by the “mini” sign at IMDB at first, but please don’t be. If you will check the duration field a bit lower on the page, you will find a magnificant number of 352 minutes, which is almost 6 hours. Yup. “Angels in America” is not exactly a movie. It is a 6-episode series (approximately 1 hour each) done by HBO. It is not a movie, but it is as close as the television program can get. It’s a film.

And not only it’s just a film, it’s really great one. It is one of the best films that I have seen in the last 10 years. Maybe even in my whole life…

This is a story about few people in New York City at the end of the 20th century. Some of them are homosexual. Some of them have AIDS. There are some angels and mormons around. There is a great drama going on.

Having said that this movie is one of the best I have seen, I can be a little bit more concrete:

  • It is one of the best dramas that I have ever seen.
  • It is one of the best films on religion and belief that I have ever seen.
  • It is one of the best films on homosexuality that I have ever seen.
  • It is one of the best films on AIDS that I have ever seen.
  • It is one of the best films on general philosophy that I have ever seen.

A really excellent story is supported by acting of such talants as Al Pacino andMeryl Streep. Outstanding performances were delivered by Justin Kirk, Ben Shenkman, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jeffrey Wright. Others did pretty good too.

There was some really amazing photography and unbelievable camera work. By the way, if anyone has seen this movie and can tell me how they could possibly do those mega super huge zooms, please do so. I have no idea at the moment.

Anyway, the film does score a pure, clean and hard 10 out of 10 in my book. The only complain that I have is a slightly longer pauses when the phylosophy kicks in. There are ideas and thoughts that not everyone of us think over that often. Feeding those at a speed of light is not a very good idea, since people in the audience get lost. Olga and I were both losing the grip several times by ideas provided by different characters in the same dialogue. Now is there anything wrong with that? Depatable, but it’s there.

I will for sure watch it at least once again to give more attention to details. I also would like to have it on DVD in my home collection. Now the question is why Hollywood is not making films like that?