Mud Muddy Waters

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Ozz

A very refreshing and enjoyable movie from Jeff Nichols. Mud makes you think, not to figure out any complicated puzzles, but it does have a bit more to say then Fast & Furious 6 for sure.

Matthew McConaughey or Reese Witherspoon are not really the main characters, even if they are the big names attached to the film. Instead Jeff Nichols, who’s not done that much before, has a couple of brilliant child/teenage boys, especially Tye Sheridan, in the main roles and they do great throughout.

The story is great, pace a bit slow at times, scenery and settings are good, and there’s a lot of Tom Sawyer in here… Great start for the summer really.

Mama

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Ozz

I keep waiting for a good horror movie but they’re really rare. One that I’ve liked in the past was Let the Right One In, haven’t seen the American remake just yet.

Mama is by Andrés Muschietti who’s not really done much before so I suppose this is a good start.

But despite a few good scares, some good acting and occasionally good effects, towards the end the story just doesn’t hold together and slowly drags to a surprisingly weak end. The girls do well though.

Tarantino unchained – Django with a silent D

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Ozz

IF it was just another western, it would’ve have been very entertaining evening out, but now that it’s a Tarantino flick, you’d hope there’d be a bit more to it than just a movie for the movie’s sake. Maybe Tarantino doesn’t have much left to say?

Let’s get all the bad things out of the way first. Not really a criticism, or anything much to do with the film itself or Tarantino, but despite being a decent actor, I never really liked Leonardo DiCaprio much. In Django Unchained, I don’t think he was the right choice for his role, he’s just not very credible. Annoying is closer to correct description. He doesn’t ruin the movie though, and I guess he has a large enough fan base to make it work for him and Django.

Christoph Waltz was amazing in Inglourious Basterds but here he just seems to have a very thin character who just uses the few things that he first became famous for. And it just becomes predictable, boring and annoying after a while in a fairly long movie like this.

Kerry Washington might have been good, but the role is rather brief. Samuel L. Jackson is good but he’s so over the top that again, it just gets annoying after a while. So most of the issues are probably due to Tarantino’s self-indulgent directing or writing. Even Jamie Foxx wasn’t his best usual self.

The story/plot/script isn’t anything special, any twists aren’t surprises in the least, not least because everything drags along fairly slowly. Tarantino likes to break the conventional structure of a movie sometimes, but here different sections appear a little bit disjointed, although change of scenery does reduce the boredom.

After all that complaining, I begin to think it’s waste of time, but in reality it was still entertaining. Cinematography was good, music was entertaining, and at best it had some witty one liners, good action, funny comedy.

One…Two…Three…Four… Seven Psychopaths

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Ozz

This is one of those that might stumble because they’re trying to be too clever. Martin McDonagh‘s earlier, In Bruges, is already relatively old is a bit unconventional type of comedy, so it might help to know that before seeing Seven Psychopaths. But even compared to In Bruges, it’s’ very silly and confusing. Colin Farrell is in this one as well, and so is Christopher Walken, who usually should be the sign of a watchable good movie. And Woody Harrelson, and Harry Dean Stanton , and Sam Rockwell.

Despite all the big stars, it’s a fairly low budget comedy that’s probably a bit too hard to follow (or maybe I was just too tired to concentrate enough), but you just might find it really really funny.

Looper loopholes…

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Ozz

When you do a movie about this type, you know there’s loads of people looking for loopholes of all sorts, or plotholes, or whatever you might call them. But in the end it doesn’t really matter that much. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is someone worth following, he’s a good actor and seems clever enough. Maybe this one wasn’t the best choice he could’ve made, but it was ok and he was really good. I for one got tired of trying to figure out how clever the movie itself was and decided it was entertaining enough. Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis, he seems to always look more or less like he’s escaped from yet another Die Hard movie. Then there’s Emily Blunt there as well, and one or two other big-ish names in smaller roles.

Silver Linings Playbook

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Ozz

I thought I went to see just another romcom. And I thought it was weird a romcom was nominated for so many (i.e. any) Academy Awards. And I didn’t think it would win the Oscar for best actress for Jennifer Lawrence. I also didn’t expect the movie to be exceptionally good. But I did really like it. And maybe it’s more drama than romance or comedy. But if I had to categorise, it’d still be a romcom, just a good one. Or how else do you explain Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker in it (not it being good, but a romcom)?

And Bradley Cooper was good too. Probably his best role so far. But I loved Jennifer Lawrence, whether it was an Oscar Academy Award worthy performance or not.

I suppose I would have been less doubtful had I known David O. Russell did The Fighter and Three Kings, although The Fighter was nothing like The Wrestler. In fact this was probably best movie by him that I’ve seen.

Side Effects of watching movies

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Ozz

This one is one of those predictable ones, including any surprises they contain. But it didn’t bother me one bit, it’s not very deep, but it’s enjoyable. There seems to be a message of some sorts in there, somewhere, but I could not be bothered to read too much into it.

This might be Steven Soderbergh‘s last, so that alone should be reason enough to watch this. And I don’t think there’s any real side effects to watching movies, so don’t worry.

Rooney Mara was ok, I’m yet to see the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remakes though. I doubt she’ll be as good as her Swedish original. Jude Law, who I usually can’t stand, was almost ok here, which is good. Catherine Zeta-Jones wasn’t very good and her role and her acting somewhat limited anyways. There’s Channing Tatum there somewhere too, but it’s really between Jude and Rooney most of the time.

Nothing especially memorable here though, just entertaining thriller. If you want something better, check out Traffic, Erin Brockovich, or one of the Oceans films, or maybe even a more recent, Contagion. Skip Haywire, that’s another one for the Waste of Time category, although I’ve found some disagree on that oddly enough. Side effects of being a film director?

flight of the academy award nominee Denzel Washington

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Ozz

He was never going to get it for this. And I don’t mean John Goodman of course. Denzel Washington is almost always a safe bet when it comes to entertainment, although I wish I didn’t see The Book of Eli which for some inexplicable reason has 6.8 rating on imbd. Sure enough, Denzel is ok in Flight and it’s entertaining enough a movie. Most would probably say it’s very American. To me it also appeared like he was going for an Oscar style performance in Flight.

I didn’t have high expectations, and I was expecting some over the top emotional acting, so I got just what I was looking for I suppose. John Goodman was a change of pace in the movie whenever he showed up, and one of the few funny moments, even if it was over the top too, and did not fit well in the rest of the movie. For some, Nadine Velazquez is probably the only thing they’ll remember from the movie.

Funny (or possibly not funny at all), the film is based on true story with somewhat different outcome. For me, definitely the the first quarter or third of the film was the best bit, as shallow as it might seem. But all of it was pretty unsurprising and the latter part of the movie didn’t really offer any major insights into the matters the movie was dealing with.

Then again there’s only a handful of directors that come up with this type of major American drama; if it’s not Spielberg, is has to be Robert Zemeckis.

Life of Pi Patel, without Tobey Maguire

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Ozz

Even good directors can get it wrong sometimes, but Ang Lee rarely does ( Hulk) and Life of Pi isn’t one of those mistakes. And despite what Christopher Doyle had to say about the cinematography or lack thereof regarding one of the Academy Awards that Life of Pi won (in http://sea.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/874483/christopher-doyle-interview-part-2-life-of-pi-oscar-is-an), it does look beautiful, cgi, 3d, visual effects, real life action, whatever you want to call it or know it to be. And to be fair, while maybe young, Claudio Miranda has worked on a few decent films in the past ( haven’t seen his latest, Oblivion, yet – I’m not a huge Tom Cruise fan, but I do think he can pull off a decent action or scifi movie anytime, with or without Morgan Freeman ).

Back to Life of Pi, I haven’t read the book, which was a blessing when watching the film. The cast are great, there’s not many famous actors (partly due animals not getting much recognition in that department), or have you heard of Suraj Sharma or Irrfan Khan before (please excuse my ignorance that aims to make someone prove me wrong)? Whether you know them or not, have to say they’re great in Life of Pi at least. There is someone called Gérard Depardieu in a smaller role though, that one might ring a bell to someone, was it a French or a Russian actor or something?

Beautiful, very emotional and moving story, well told, well shot (or created in post), well acted, one of the best in 2012, and deserved the Academy Awards – at least for Ang Lee, while the Visual Effects one as well wasn’t completely undeserved. About the Original Score one and the Cinematography Achievement we have to trust the Academy’s judgement I suppose.

I still probably like The Ice Storm Ang Lee’s best, but Life of Pi is really good.

mission impossible on holiday

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Ozz

I’m tempted to chuck this in the waste of time category and include some spoilers here… although the image above is already spoilerish. But who doesn’t know what happens in this movie in advance (pretty much all the way to the end).

Some amazing effects and ‘set design’ obviously, coupled with some heart-breaking acting performances (if you’re in the right state of mind for that kind of thing – which I unfortunately wasn’t on that day).

Expected something better from Juan Antonio Bayona, but I guess he didn’t have much to work with and had to concentrate on the visuals instead and try to get what he could from the actors, who under these circumstances were ok I suppose. None of them were particularly memorable, and Naomi Watts was at times a bit hard to watch, Ewan McGregor over the top at times; the kids were pretty good mostly though.

The main negative criticism really is to do with how the story deals with what actually happened, and considering this can really affect your opinion of this movie. Just so you know.

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Monthly Archives: May 2013