adorable-3 Reviews

Brokedown Palace (1999)

Good, but you'll want more..

[7/10 · 23 August 1999]

If you see the trailer once, you'll be sitting wishing the first half would go faster since you already know what's going to happen. It's that simple. After that, things blur by quickly and there's too many times when the movie doesn't focus on the friendship of the two, but instead on the many sub-characters and things-going-on. The ending comes, eventually, but more as a footnote than a defining moment.

It is a good movie that makes you dreamy and want to be there with the two (ala Titanic); unfortunately, that doesn't happen. If they trimmed the first part shorter, and let the emotional moments draw out as they should, I think it would have been a far better and memorable movie (ie. Awards night). Instead, moments you wished they'd follow longer are interrupted by cuts to side stories, and you never quite feel the story builds to the climactic ending as nicely as it should.

After you see it, you wonder many what-if's. What if they had done something differentely? What if you could go in and beam her out? What if they had tightened the focus of the movie a little more?

This is certainly a movie I'd recommend seeing at the theatre vs. video rental, but it leaves you wanting just a little more satisfaction after the ending.

I'd toss it into the same bunch as I Love You, I Love You Not and Polish Wedding, and I'd still feel like fast forwarding through parts like these others.

In any case, Claire does come forward with strong moments that carry the movie well; hopefully, she'll get a stronger script someday that'll let her true talents shine brightly and win awards.

She's really a good actress looking for an awesome movie, and in this and the others I've listed, I feel like she's trying on different clothes. Just a taste of what she'd be able to do in a great movie and brief look at her various acting talents.

Polish Wedding (1998)

An ordinary life, the polish way..

[6/10 · 23 August 1999]

Okay, so it's not an awesome movie, nor one I'd bother with in the movies, but as a rental, it's worth fast forwarding through the occasional slow and uninteresting parts to the funny lives of the people of this family.

Sure, nothing is like it seems ala the title, and it's quite funny to see how everyone's problem is aptly hidden from the other family members, only to be discovered by awkward accident later on.

Yet, despite the decent acting, one wonders after the movie was it worth it? Did it give you, the viewer, anything special to take with you? To inspire you? To give you comfort in the real world? Well, no. And that's fine, but one wishes it was a notch better and more refined so you could believe that only an ordinary life was not all that they were left with in the end.

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996)

An emotional movie worth buying..

[8/10 · 23 August 1999]

This is one of the movies I'd buy to keep in my collection. Not only does it have a strong cast that meshes well together, but the story lingers on the emotional moments long enough for you to savor them and to enjoy the effect of transporting you into their world.

It's not a sappy movie that's cliched, but rather one that deals with the emotions of letting go of the past and those left behind.

Claire does play this movie well, and if it were another actress in her shoes, it would have a much different flavor and feel. I'd say it's one of her better movies she's starred in after My So Called Life, and worth buying just for her alone. (I'd rate it above Claire's others like Polish Wedding, I Love You, I Love You Not, and Brokedown Palace.)

Overall, it's a well-balanced movie that delivers a surprise that's not expected by the bland title alone, and while not an awesome movie of the highest caliber, it is certainly a movie that deserves a viewing.

I Love You, I Love You Not (1996)

Slow, delivers the message suddenly

[6/10 · 23 August 1999]

Well, this is certainly a fast forward movie to be rented, with many parts that could be zapped past.

It does explore how one grows up and deals with the pains of youth, and surprisingly, it does end with a splash that isn't expected, yet makes sense in review the movie.

It's certainly worth seeing along with a field trip to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Southern California to understand the background of the story and to get a better grasp of the complexities of emotions that many have to deal with even today.

But it isn't a movie that is very deep nor giving. The viewer is left sitting there with the ending, and yet wondering why bother as the movie does deliver fully in engrossing the viewer and placing them into another world. It is a third person movie and you are that 3rd person -- a casual observer never to really enter.

A first draft, by a child, compared to Schindler's List.