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Drumski89
Reviews
Cloverfield (2008)
I've never been scared by a movie in my life... until Cloverfield.
This movie was very, very good. Yet many people seem to hate it. Let me explain why. This movie is not a corny Godzilla rip-off, with a crappy looking monster and an all star cast. No. Cloverfield is an intense, realistic, serious movie. The beginning lulls you into a feeling of false security, then when the monster inevitably attacks, it gets extremely intense, almost instantly. However, the beauty is in its immersion. Through the whole thing, you feel like you're there, and you may actually fear for your life at some parts. The camera work is brilliantly done, and it feels completely natural. Some say there is some allusion to 9/11 in this movie, and it offends them. But don't be fooled by those people. This movie's realism naturally leads parts of it to be similar to 9/11, but it's not a bad thing. Realism has been sorely lacking in movies lately, and it was refreshing to see, to be honest. Some critics dislike the characters and feel they're stupid, but they simply acted how any normal person would in the situation they were in. Perhaps you can forgive them for not being experts in monster-studies, and instead being scared and irrational. Indeed, if you aren't a monster scientist either, it's likely you'll be just as scared as they are. I know I was. In closing, Cloverfield is very realistic, raw, intense, dramatic, and exciting. I was gripping my seat for dear life during much of it, and I couldn't let go for several minutes after it ended. See this movie. No ifs, ands, or buts. See it. Just don't expect it to be corny and boring.
Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)
A delightfully ridiculous movie
Mr. Bean's Holdiay was a movie I really enjoyed. Mr. Bean was back in true form, and delivered an unexpectedly funny movie. Part of Mr. Bean's humor is when something is about to happen, you can see it from a mile away, and you yell at the screen "look out Mr. Bean!" or "He left it on the counter! Oh No!" or what have you. There is plenty of this,but there is also a great deal of irony and clever wordplay in it as well. It's a well rounded comedy movie, that will be funny to children and adults alike. I'm not really a big Mr. Bean fan, but I really liked this movie anyway, and I know that most people will too, if they give it a chance. I will definitely recommend this movie to my friends, and to anyone who reads this review.
Smokin' Aces (2006)
Good Action Movie
I thought it was a solid action movie, with some good unpredictability factors, with clever dialogue and good action scenes. However, it's a bit hard to follow and some of it needs to be explained if you miss even a few seconds of it. The movie started off well, and the standard showcasing of the hit-people was entertaining, especially the Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) portion. It progressed at a reasonable speed and when Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck) and his friend got wasted by the Tremors, I had to respect the fact that a star like Ben Affleck got killed early, it's not common to see that in a movie. The movie had a build up that didn't feel exactly right, as though there should have been more of it, but it seems to me that maybe it was cut for time reasons. Yet the ride up the elevators for all of the involved parties then seemed like it took too long to get to the top. It wasn't painfully long, but it could have had more lead up to the elevators, and less time in the elevators. The fighting scenes had good angles, and good realism in it, and the various fight segments all added well to the overall mayhem of the attempts on "Aces"'s (Jeremy Piven) life. The twist that Soot was there only to kill the people there with "Aces" rather "Aces" himself was a clever idea, and then adding that to the fact the main bad guy had been betrayed by the FBI years early made for some good plot twisting. It seemed like they had to try to explain the plot to you too much, the film repeatedly shows the same information on a number of people, as though the filmmakers thought you'd be too stupid to follow the plot. The only part that's really tough to understand is keeping track of who everyone is, and who's dead and who's alive and who's dead. That's what you need to really pay attention to, because if you blink you might not know how somebody got where they got to, or how somebody died, or if they're even really dead. The only other flaw of the movie is the fact that there's so many characters that seem interesting, but they really don't get very much time in individually. This also contributes to the confusion that I previously mentioned. It's also why you're never quite sure who everyone one is. The movie is entertaining and exciting with all the other qualities I mentioned too, so these problems are too small to ruin the movie. It's a good movie; it's rather similar to Quentin Tarantino Movies and to Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and although it's not quite as good as those movies, it's certainly worth seeing in theaters
When a Stranger Calls (2006)
This movie was not worth the zero i paid to see it.
This movie is not good. I couldn't believe how truly obvious the entire movie made itself. Most horror movies are a little obvious, and that's part of the fun of watching them, but this takes the cake, and not only does it take the cake, it eats it, and then throws it up all over your lap in the form of cliché after cliché. The whole cheating boyfriend bit was obviously there to add the cheating friend who comes over and gets killed. Not only did she die, it wasn't even cool. The babysitter character was an idiot, and so was the stranger. "I want your blood all over me" or whatever it was that he said was so bad, everyone else that watched it with me laughed hysterically for several minutes. He might as well have said "I want to have a tea party and ride a pony through the forest," because that would have sounded about as menacing. When the babysitter talked to people on the phone, everyone that was watching correctly identified who it would be every time, it was so poorly planned, whenever it seemed like a prank call should happen, right in the middle of the "suspense", bingo, it happened. At the end we were disappointed when the killer didn't get babysitter, and everyone else, for that matter. If you have a choice between this and any other movie ever made, watch the other movie!
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Very clever, an original idea
Every actor in this movie does a spectacular job. You're immersed in their world immediately, and at no time do you want to leave. All of the songs are good, and the soundtrack was worth buying too. Tom Hanks does a good performance, and I thought it was pretty cool that the actors actually learned how to play their instruments in this movie, and you can tell during theperformance scenes. The humorous parts were actually funny, and thesomber parts were realistic. The characters were original and memorable, especially Mr. White, played by Tom Hanks. The song "That Thing You Do!" is a great song, it has a very Beatles feel to it, as does the entire movie; it conjures up images of the Beatles' movie "Help". It's a shame it isn't recognized by the general public, but overall, a great movie.