So what if it’s Luc Besson, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones and whoever else – The Family really isn’t worth it. It’s supposed to be funny (I’m assuming) – it’s not really that funny, and I’m not just saying it’s not because it’s a ‘black/dark’ comedy. Try Eating Raoul instead. It’s easy to see how it was supposed to be very good and funny, but everything is just a little bit off all the time here.
Maybe the cleverness of Don Jon is not in the film itself?
It’s not as bad as some say, unfortunately it’s also not as good as some reviews say and many of us would have liked to have hoped for. If you have to watch a film by an actor turned director/Writer and casting himself in the lead role, I’d suggest Buffalo ’66, which on some levels may be a bit more simplistic, and on many levels, Joseph Gordon-Levitt may appear somewhat more likeable than Vincent Gallo, although probably not as Don Jon. But if I had to choose one of these two to watch again, I know which I’d watch and which I wouldn’t even if I didn’t really have a choice.
That said, don Jon isn’t complete waste of time and has it’s moments. Great cast, including Scarlett Johansson, who does an ok job, and so do the rest, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza maybe try to steal the show a little bit, and the caricaturistic or stereotypical nature of many of the characters is slightly annoying. The script appears to be written by the book with a decent structure and plot points and all; a few twists etc., but nothing amazing. Apart from being the first feature written and directed by a young guy who’s at least a decent actor and pretty good at a lot of things he does…
If you want to pick a Joseph Gordon-Levitt film, go for Looper, or better yet, 50/50, maybe even (500) Days of Summer. If it’s Scarlett Johansson you’re after, Lost in Translation is an obvious choice but there’s a few others to try before this one… For Julianne Moore, I’m not sure there’s much point trying to list all the films here that are better than this, but I liked The Kids Are All Right a lot.
Tim Burton seemed to have lost his edge a long time ago. And he also seems to always want the same two actors in his movies, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Both quite understandably, but a bit of variety never hurt anyone.
Now, I personally have never seen any of the original Dark Shadows, so I’m probably not going to point out anything very relevant to Dark Shadows.
I found Dark Shadows much weirder and off beat than I expected. It was probably much better than I thought it would be. In a way I thought of it
like another version of Edward Scissorhands. But let’s not compare with Edward Scissorhands, that one is a true classic film.
Johnny Depp is good, apart from his hairstyle, but maybe that’s to do with the original show, who knows. The rest of the cast were good too, but too many of them were somewhat wasted, too many of them, and so little time for character development or even screen time.
And then there’s Alice Cooper…
A clever little romantic comedy film this is I suppose. Possibly also John Malkovich‘ worst role to date.
Apart from a few things in the plot that make the movie a bit too silly, it’s somewhat entertaining.
And it’s not another Twilight, this one is watchable, especially the first half; after that it does lose it’s grip a little bit.
I’m not a big fan of Nicholas Hoult, or his hair style, but I guess I’m too old and not girly enough to like him like that.
Teresa Palmer is ok. John Malcovich even at his best is pretty odd.
It’s all a bit predictable, there’s a lot of voice over, there’s some questionable special effects,
but you’re not exactly expecting a masterpiece, are you, although Jonathan Levine did direct 50/50 before Warm Bodies,
and that one was pretty good.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.