Category: Movies

I am a huge movies fan. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I don’t get much free time to enjoy watching movies. But when I do, I try to share my thoughts about the movies that I’ve seen. Movie reviews, celebrity news, trailers of upcoming flicks, etc – are all in this category.

Death Proof

Being a great Quentin Tarantino fan, I’ve been sinning a lot in the last couple of years.  I missed a few works of the Master.  One of the films which I failed to catch in the cinema is “Death Proof“.  Gladly, DVD rentals had a copy.

As I said, I am a bit fan of Tarantino’s movies, so there is no way at all that I can be objective or unbiased.  For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts about this particular movie:

  • Excellent!
  • Anyone who saw other Tarantino movies can recognize his writing and directing in this one.  All you need is about 18 seconds from the start of the film.
  • Outstanding soundtrack, as always.  Maybe even better than usual, since large part of the movie happens around a juke box. Film’s trivia page, among other things, has a list of all tracks.
  • Great dialogs.  Dialogs are one of Tarantino’s talents, and this film has plenty of them.  Practically non-stop talking.
  • Great cars!  If you like cars and car racing, this is not the film to miss.  It has some of the best car chases, car wrecks, and car engine sounds.
  • Great girls!  There are a few really hot babes in this movie, and even with no nudity at all, there are a few places where you’d like a bucket of ice just to chill you down a little bit.
  • Kurt Rassel did a great job.
  • Lots of visual pleasure.  I suddenly remembered that story about Robert Rodriguez doing soundtrack for Tarantino’s “Kill Bill vol.2” for $1 and then, later, Tarantino returning the favor by making one of the scenes in Rodriguez’ “Sin City”.  “Sin City” used a lot of digital technologies, while Tarantino is the Master of the actual film.  So, it seemed like after that story (if it was even true), Tarantino went a little deeper into experiments with film (as in media).  Scratches, noise, cuts, and other effects, which can be achieved digitally, look more authentic when done for real.

If I had to pick one thing that wasn’t perfect about this film, it would for sure be duration.  It was too damn short.  I could watch this film for hours and hours.  And just for that, I’ll rate it as 9 out of 10.

Gone Baby Gone

I just came back from the cinema, where I watched “Gone Baby Gone“, a movie about kidnapping, directed by Ben Affleck and starring his brother Casey Affleck, together with such well known names as Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

I was a bit worried that this film will be too dramatic with a lot of gory details of a kidnapping.  Kidnapping in this case is not just of any person, but of a kid, as in a little girl.  The film was indeed dramatic, but the kidnapping wasn’t the main part of the drama.  It was more about right and wrong, and how difficult sometimes it is to see the right choice, not to mention, to pick it.  A couple of times it was reaching so far that I had to ask myself which choice was the right one, and even then I had a few moments of hesitation.  Finally though I have to agree with the choices made and reasoned for by Casey Affleck’s character.

The directing of this film is interesting, it being Ben Affleck’s debut (he did some directing before, but two movies didn’t make it to the big screen, while the other one was a short movie).  I’d say he did pretty good.  He needs more practice and all, but it was better than many of those seasoned directors I’ve seen.  Two things were sticking out a tiny bit.  First, the lack of experience in drama.  There were a few places in the film which could have been done more dramatic.  Heavier.  Stronger.  If you know what I man.  Secondly, the film is based on a novel (read: book), and it is too obvious.  The book seems to be good, but it wasn’t processed enough to make a movie out of it.  This area needs a bit more work.  But as I said, overall it was pretty good.

As a whole, I enjoyed the film, and it gave me a few things to think about.  For that, I’ll give it a solid 7 out of 10.

Road to Perdition

I’ve seen “Road to Perdition” when it came to the movies.  A couple of years later I bought the DVD and saw it few more times.  But somehow it happened that I never described on this blog how beautiful this movie is.

It’s a piece of art.  Nothing more, nothing else.  It feels like nothing happened by itself in this movie.  Everything has its reason, and everything has been placed appropriately by the makers of this film.  The story, the acting, the directing, the sound and visuals – all of these work in harmony with each other.  And like any other talented piece of art, “Road to Perdition” can be watched over and over and over and again.

I  particularly enjoy the atmosphere of the 1930s.  Clothes, hats, cars, buildings – these all worked very well for the film.  It was also interesting to see how modern faces could be transformed into personalities of the past – Tom Hanks, Daniel Craig, and even Paul Newman, although he is a bit of a veteran.

Overall, a solid 9 out of 10.

The Process

“The Process” is an unwatchable piece of crap.  I can’t call it a film.  I can’t even call it a motion picture.  It’s just a piece of crap.  I only managed to watch the first 40 minutes and it was constantly getting worse with every second of the screen time.

Everything about it is bad.  Crappy story (which is very usual for martial arts movies), terrible acting, terrible martial arts, worst camera work ever, lights, sounds, directing… You name it – and it sucks in “The Process”.

Avoid at all costs.  1 out of 10. (0, if I can use zero).

The Pelican Brief

“The Pelican Brief” is one of the older movies (around 1993).  I guess, conspiracy fans and theorists would love it.  It is about yet another government conspiracy.  There seems to be some sort of conspiracy (coincidence? I think not!) in the cast for this film.  The director, Alan J. Pakula, did at least another film about conspiracy before – “All The President’s Men“, back in the 1970s, together with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.  Two leading actors in “The Pelican Brief” did conspiracy movies before too.  Denzel Washington played a part in “The Manchurian Candidate” and Julia Roberts played in “Conspiracy Theory“.

I, myself, am not a big fan of conspiracy movies unless they have plenty of action and surveillance technology.  “The Pelican Brief” didn’t have much in terms of technology and could use some more action.  Despite that, though, I have to say that it wasn’t too boring or anything.  I enjoyed it.  And, yes, both Denzel and Julia performed good and made them movie so much better.  Without them it would have been a total loss.

6.5 out of 10 (make it 7, if you need an integer).  Recommended, if you like conspiracy mysteries and scared Julia Roberts.