Not films, but jewels. I’ve had great pleasure watching each and every one of these films. Most of them made me think about something I’d probably not otherwise. They opened my eyes. They changed me. Or, at the very least, they provided a heck of entertainment. I’ve watched most of these more than once. I have many of them on DVD or some other media. I probably want to watch them all again some time.
Random pick from a pile of movies with well-known actors – “Adaptation.“.
Directed by: Spike Jonze
Genres: Drama, Comedy
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Cara Seymour, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, Brian Cox, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jim Beaver, Judy Greer, Litefoot, Doug Jones, Jay Tavare, Stephen Tobolowsky, Roger Willie
IMDB raintg: 7.9
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]
I added “Danny the Dog” to my list of movies to watch because it was one of the most mentioned Jet Li movies. So I didn’t expect anything but a good action out of it when I pressed the playback button.
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon, Vincent Regan, Dylan Brown, Tamer Hassan, Michael Jenn, Phyllida Law, Carole Ann Wilson, Michael Ian Lambert, Jaclyn Lee, Puthirith Chou, Tony Theng, Owen Lay
IMDB raintg: 7.2
My rating: 8.5 [rate 8.5]
Continue reading Danny the Dog
“Sling Blade“. With this kind of title, R rating, and Billy Bob Thornton being in it, I was expecting a really nice action. I guess I didn’t check the genre beforehand.
Directed by: Billy Bob Thornton
Genres: Drama, Thriller
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter, Lucas Black, Natalie Canerday, James Hampton, Robert Duvall, Rick Dial, Brent Briscoe, Christy Ward, Sarah Boss, Kathy Sue Brown, Wendell Rafferty, Bruce Hampton
IMDB raintg: 8.0
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]
But the film was real good non-the-less. It is one of those films that can be easily spoiled by a trailer or a plot outline. A guy who killed his own mother is released from the mental hospital after spending most of his life in it. He is out in the open. And he is Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah.
Another spoiler? No problem. Not a single gun shot in the movie. He killed them all with the blade. One more? He called only one guy and that wasn’t on the screen. Because it’s not an action movie. In fact, I don’t even know why they put a thriller tag on it. It’s not.
It is an excellent drama. Interesting to note that Billy Bob Thornton wrote the screenplay, directed the film, and played the main role in it. And all of these were excellently done. It is indeed an excellent film with a great story and some really good acting. Particularly from Thornton.
This film could have been better with slighly more pace and a bit more work on the soundtrack. But that’s really nitpicking. The film is outstanding.
Olga and I went to the cinema today to see a long awaited “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“.
Directed by: Garth Jennings
Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Cast: Bill Bailey, Anna Chancellor, Warwick Davis, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Su Elliot, Martin Freeman, Stephen Fry, Richard Griffiths, Dominique Jackson, Simon Jones, Thomas Lennon, Mark Longhurst, Kelly Macdonald, John Malkovich
IMDB raintg: 6.8
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]
I really liked the film. It was much better than I expected. Actually, it was kind of difficult to expect anything, because the book seemed to me very unscreenable, so to speak. The book is one of those that I consider very hard to base a movie on. So, I was rather suspecious. But the film turned out to be great.
I don’t know though how difficult it was to find any sense for those who didn’t read the book.
First of all the Vogons. They were absolutely fantastic. They were even more disgusting than described in the book. Both Olga and I exclaimed a loud “Ewww, yuck!” when we saw the first one. That’s a compliment, by the way.
Secondly, I thought that the solution to the “second head” of Zaphod was great. It’d be kind of tough following a two headed guy with all the articulation and random stuff that he was supposed to do, but not having a second head would be unbooky. The way they went about it was creative, original and entertaining.
Thirdly, the whole planet building factory was unbelievable. It rocked. It was my favourite scene by far.
Fourthly, Marvin was something. Using the voice of Alan Rickman was the absolute genious thought.
Overall – the film was great. It is one of those film that keeps the audience glued to the screen. Mostly because the said audience has no slightest idea of what’s going to happen next. Even those few who read the original book. Not many movies do it these days. Eh, Hollywood…
Strongly recommended.
As some of you may remember, I had some really high expectations for “Sin City“. I went as far as forecasting it to be a movie of the year. Today I finally got a chance to see it. I spent close to one tenth of a second considering if I should wait for the local cinemas to catch up with the world or to watch a mild quality cinema screener that was in front of me.
Directed by: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
Cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Jaime King, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino
IMDB raintg: 8.3
My rating: 10.0 [rate 10.0]