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The Shadow Dancer (2005)
Wasted potential
It had great talent, great location, great cinematography but cursed with a writer/director who can't direct, and a star who can't act, Joshua Jackson.
I like Dawson's Creek, stylised though it was. I saw 'Timeouts' review of 'A Life in Theatre' , a two-man show, on stage in London with Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson. Stewart is a woke pain, but he can act, whereas Jackson just recited his lines, which is pretty much what he also did in this movie, which was a collection of scenes which could each have made for an intriguing trailer but once joined together did not make worthwhile watching.
Gravity (2013)
If you only ever watch one 3D movie, make it this one!
Absolutely and completely absorbing from the first moment. If you have seen the trailers, trust me, in 3D the whole of those scenes, not just the excerpts are pretty scary. I am not an astronaut, I have never been in zero gravity but it looked pretty authentic to me.
This is 3D the way it was meant to be employed and CGI used intelligently. The good 3D CGI movies are in the minority. The whole crew should be remembered for this movie and this movie should be the bench mark. It was not OTT, they got it exactly right.
Excellent acting by Sandra Bullock, very believable performance and I hope she gets an award for this. George Clooney's best acting role was The American but he was pretty good here even though he was typecast. Alfonso Cuarón Orozco, good job mate, I hope you get the Oscar!
The Newsroom (2012)
It could have been great, but it certainly wasn't.
I waited with expectation for Season 2 because I had enjoyed the first season so much. I have been a fan of Mr Sorkin's since the West Wing, despite his bad habit of using his programs to project 'The World views of Sorkin'. Another bad habit is dangling a storyline in front of us (The abduction of the Presidents daughter, 'Genoa' etc) only to toss it in the trash before the next episode is twenty minutes old. A great idea for a story is 1000 words, however, the realisation of that story is perhaps 100,000 words beyond Mr Sorkin's ability or attention span. Either way, I missed the last episode of Season 2 and I really could not care less.
The Guru (2002)
A good movie that Americans will just not get.
A fairly large proportion of this films detractors could not even find India on a map, and probably still believe the nation had a hand in Custer's massacre.
This is a light hearted musical comedy about Bollywood meeting America, and Bollywood is all about song, dance, bright costumes and boy meets girl. The ending is always happy.
If you've never seen a Bollywood movie then you need to explore new horizons, especially if you gave this a truly bad review because you are speaking from ignorance.
For those Indians who hate it and use words such as 'negative typecasting', please read the second paragraph again. This film is portraying B.O.L.L.Y.W.O.O.D. and Bollywood is part of Indian culture and presented to the world, by India, as such.
The Other Side of the Tracks (2008)
Student project?
A bad director can ruin a film despite the cast and crews best efforts.
The casting was good as regard the main characters but the hot lesbians, whilst pleasing to the eye did the film no favours. I suspected that they were a later addition to spice up what was a rather stilted, poorly directed and edited movie, but it just served to spoil the film further(and this is a straight guy speaking). Anyway, I gathered that this was filmed on a low budget, however the camera work was very good. I am no stranger to film sets so I tend to notice little things. The railway line location they were principally using was disused, obviously so with all the rust, weeds and fallen deadwood. A coat of oil on top of the rails would have covered the rust and given the impression of recent use. An hour weeding, clearing the fallen twigs and uncovering the sleepers would have completed the impression that it was still in use and not just a defunct line to some old sawmill. Brendan Fehr has let himself go since Roswell days. The baggy shirts don't disguise this unfortunately and he walks like someone out of shape too. What would a gorgeous girl like Amelia really find attractive in a back woods short order chef who is his own best customer? Chad Lindberg is not a bad actor but his part smacked of just one take being enough to satisfy Mr A.D. Calvo.
Remake it with a new scriptwriter, with roles for Natassia and Beatrice that contribute to the story. Send Brendan to the gym for three hours a day for a month, and don't let A.D. Calvo direct it again.