Change Your Image
salted_peanut
Reviews
American Cousins (2003)
Reminds you why you fell in love with cinema in the first place.
Two American Mafiosi are forced to lay-low with nice-guy Scottish cousin Bobby after a job in Eastern Europe goes badly wrong. Then one of them takes a liking to Bobby's girl, the other clashes with a local hood, and Bobby finds his world collapsing round him...
This extremely likeable movie is in the tradition of "Local Hero", with the comedy emerging naturally from the interplay of sympathetic, fully-drawn characters rather than gags thrown randomly into a pre-fabricated mould.
The romantic entanglements are also nicely drawn and paced. These seem like real people here, with real flaws and real feelings.
Great performances from Scottish actors Gerald Lepkowski, Shirley Henderson and Russell Hunter, and the American Cousins of the title, Danny Nucci (Titanic), Dan Hedaya (The Hurricane, Mulholland Drive) and Vincent Pastore (The Sopranos) add Hollywood sparkle.
One of those movies which remind you why you fell in love with cinema in the first place.
As Good as It Gets (1997)
An intelligent, gutsy and entertaining movie.
As Good As It Gets proves that there is still life in the romantic comedy genre, and that intelligent, gutsy films with three-dimensional characters can also be light and entertaining. The script is excellent and the performances are wonderful. Helen Hunt in particular exudes that mixture of gutsiness and sexiness that makes her one of the stand-out actresses of her generation. This film clearly wasn't made with 14-year-old cinema-goers in mind, and doesn't that make a refreshing change?