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tmojoman
Reviews
Save the Tiger (1973)
Wretchedly Boring
Jack Lemmon was one of the finest actors that had ever graced the screen. He could effortlessly switch from dramatic roles to comedic with ease, making most of his peers green with envy. While his performance in "Save The Tiger" is Oscar-worthy, I feel it was given to him as he had missed out on his other opportunities to win the award due to other, better roles that had preceded this current one.
This is also one of those pretentious movies that comes out to basically showcase the talent of the cast, or in this case, one particular member. It's too bad the screenwriter's output didn't match that of Lemmon's. Don't waste your time with this one.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
A Classic...? Really?
I finally saw this movie last night after I checked it out at my local library. This is a wonderful service of our state tax dollars, loading up on a bunch of DVD's that we all can check out for free. Anyways, I checked out this movie as it is called by most movie fan's as a classic and supposedly one of Gregory Peck's greatest roles, especially since he won an Academy Award for his performance. Without going into a lengthy review, I will say that I went in expecting a riveting, profound movie with excellent court scenes throughout most of the movie. While there is some genuinely interesting, thoughtfully written and superbly executed court drama going on, it couldn't have been more than 25 minutes of this two-hour movie. The remains of the time goes to the two children and what they get themselves into while Atticus is off at the courtroom. While that would have been perfectly fine for say, 30 minutes or so, it runs rampant at nearly 90 minutes of the movie. This was honestly astounding as I thought this was going to be a courtroom drama with minimal activity outside of it. This was hardly the case. Still, it is far from a bad movie, and the scenes with the children are entertaining in their simplicity of a time long since gone. And Peck, while a bit emotionally stunted (as usual), still does a very good job in his role (though I am interested in the quality of the other Oscar-nominated actors from that year because I don't see Peck's role as an Oscar winner, rather just Nomination-worthy.
6/10.
Cabin Fever (2002)
Just Beyond Awful
This movie is so bad I can't even imagine why I am wasting even a few sentences on a brief review. Just do yourself a favor and rent even Friday The 13th part 48 before you even start to enrage yourself by watching this junk. This is by far one of the worst movies you can ever hope (not) to see. Just utter garbage. And by that I mean not the sort of movie that's 'so bad you have to watch it once'. Uh uh. No way. Don't waste your time. The time you spend watching this movie would be better spent playing in traffic on a four-lane highway with a speed limit of 70MPH. Horrible s*&%.
DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Ninth Gate (1999)
A 6.6 Average...? Unbelievable!
Although I love this website for it's detailed evaluations of movies and its castmembers, directors, trivia, etc...there really does exist a large number of reviewers who make comments and post ratings who really do have NO idea of true genius movie-making. This would be a mild case when I see that Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate" gets an average vote of 6.6 from over 25,000 reviews. Granted, that is closer to a 7 than a 6, but COME ON. Are you kidding?! This is when garbage like "Batman Begins", "The Departed", and "The Matrix 2" all rank in the top 250 in all of the movie reviews on here. There really is a definite lack of genuine movie appreciation when a gem of a film like this only warrants a 6.6. Well, the only thing I can do is rate it a 10 and say a few words. The cinematography is mesmerizing, the acting is more than good, and the plot? A story about the power of obsession over a book that reportedly can conjure up Satan is more than enough to hook me! If you like movies that depend on quality screen writing with amazing cinematography and atmosphere rather than crutching off of computer generated special effects and explosions and a story that will rake in the 12 year-old popcorn-munching public, then do yourself a favor and watch "The Ninth Gate".
The Earthling (1980)
Awesome Acting From William Holden
This movie is a beautiful artistic statement, from the scenery of the Australian outback to the wonderful performances from William Holden and young Ricky Schroder. This really showed what was best about Holden's natural brilliance as an actor, the detail and emotion he conveys in his work was unparalleled in almost any other actor of his time or really, ever since.
The story is tragic, yet compelling, about a young boy stranded in the wilderness alone when his parents are killed in a auto accident. A lot is learned in this film in surviving with your own inner strength of body and mind, a concept that has basically fallen by the wayside in our day and age.
Fantastic movie that has unfortunately gone under the radar for too long and hopefully will get a resurgence very soon.
The Departed (2006)
Ridiculously Over-hyped
Martin Scorcese's "The Departed" won the Oscar for Best Picture last night (2/25/07). Simply by that large achievement my review will be posted here, just to get off my chest a few personal opinions of this film.
This film by large was applauded by virtually every critic that has a area to express a view for movies. While that alone will not be enough to get me excited about a movie (especially nowadays), I am a big fan of Scorcese's work, particularly "Raging Bull", which I believe to be the best film to have come out in the last 25 years. So to say that I was looking forward to "The Departed", with it's dream male cast of Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon (criminally overlooked for a Best Supporting Actor Nomination), Alec Baldwin, and Leonardo DiCaprio, would be a bit of an understatement.
To save some unnecessary details about the film (which, incidentally, if you look at any other reviews, you would have seen already), I will simply say that this film suffered from (largly):
Scatterbrained, attention-deficit disorder editing/screen writing, where the average scene seemed to be all of 14 seconds long, especially in the first 45 minutes...
Deriviative, plagiarized writing that Scorcese has done (much better) before. Gangster picture with violent, non-sensical action meaning nothing, and rapid-fire scenes with music loud and in your face (gee, haven't I heard that Rolling Stones song before?) Undeveloped, unlikeable lead character in DiCaprio. There is no substance to his character and doesn't receive on bit of concern from the audience-goer. Also, while he is a very capable actor, he is just still far too young looking to head a clearly very adult-natured film.
The only thing that saves this movie is the mildly-surprising ending and Matt Damon's unheralded work. He is truly a gifted actor and deserves more acclaim for his work.
4/10 rating.
Network (1976)
A Classic...
...if not simply for the acting.
Of all the movies I have had the privilege to see, none have had the absolute virtuosos acting performances that this movie contain within. Granted, the cast has one of the best ever assembled, but we all know of many films that have that going for them but never seem to deliver the final product. This is not the case with Network. This movie is the cinematic equivalent to a Dream Theater album by the Progressive Rock band. Just absolute perfection from the cast within.
The only black mark on this film was the incorrect placing by the film academy by placing Peter Finch's role in the category of Lead actor, when in actuality it was a supporting role. This in turn robbed the TRUE lead actor, William Holden, of his deserved award. A brilliant piece of cinema.
Batman Begins (2005)
Not Worth Even Watching Once
This has to be one of the more disappointing movies I've seen in a while. With such a top-notch cast of talent with names such as Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, and especially Gary Oldman, one could be expecting to see a high-quality piece of cinematic entertainment.
Unfortunately, this was far from the case.
I used to be an avid comic book collector in my youth, and while Batman was never one of my favorites, I looked past that and put that past to keep an open mind and let the movie speak for itself. It really was not well-spoken.
The plot, while unlikely, is totally non-cohesive and one finds themselves constantly laughing throughout and the nonsense they are watching. The characters are weakly written (especially Gary Oldman's pathetically boring 'Good-guy' cop) and the screenplay could have been conceived of by a 12 year-old C grade student. I only watched this because it was on sale after Thanksgiving for $4.88 on DVD and I can honestly say it wasn't even worth that.
If you are really in the mood for a good comic book movie, watch the first X-Men movie. You will be far less disappointed.
Kids (1995)
Kids
Brutally vivid and jarring account of a day/night period of a young girl given AIDS by a remorseless, soulless de-virginizing punk and her efforts to confront him. Stars a lot of up and coming young Hollywood actors, such as Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, and the late Justin Pierce. Unnerving and unforgettable. The realism of this film is haunting. Also, the sense of irony is particularly sad involving Sevigny's and Dawson characters in the doctors office. This would be when they are discussing how often they have had sex. Sevigny had had it only once but Dawson had multiple partners and never really used any restraint in her choice of a number of partners. This was made concretely disturbing when the viewer finds out that Dawson is negative, but Sevigny is positive for AIDS. Sadly ironic in it's nature. Completely a brutal film.