CannibalisticCouchPotato Reviews

The Lives of Others (2006)

A very well made movie!

[8/10 · 10 September 2007]

The writer director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck has done a very competent job on this movie, everything seems to work and there was nothing badly done to jar you out of the reality of the story. The acting is deeply believable, the settings and situations all work and there is no sense that any scene has been needlessly add to satisfy some commercial demand or that any scene has been left out or fudged because of budget limits or problems with shooting schedules.

This competence is important because this movie could easily lose the audience if it flubbed things even a little or at least it could have lost me. It didn't though, it held my attention and I became engrossed in the lives of these characters.

Simple scenes take on new meaning because of the way they are interlaced, those of the observer and the observed. You know these people are being watched because powerful people are looking for an excuse to hurt them for petty selfish reasons or advance their careers.

This movie is a masterpiece of competent film making, a simple story told with the utmost attention to detail.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)

Sisterhood of Trampy Pants

[6/10 · 30 January 2007]

Not all the story lines are so hot, but the one about the girl who stayed home and worked at a store a lot like Wal-Mart is good.

The "Suckumentary" (the word is from the movie not one I made up) she made is one of the special features on the DVD and it's worth watching as well.

Part of the reason that story line interests me is that I'm a fan of the movie "Tuck Everlasting" and Alexis Bledel who played the lead in "Tuck" is the lead in this story line.

you might just want to skip the rest of the movie or if you are watching with someone else take a nap and have them wake you when this storyline starts.

OK, the fact is I haven't watched the movie, this is in fact a review based on the opinions expressed by a friend, we are both very drunk and she insisted I write this. I very much want to make her happy so I'm writing this dumb review. She is hitting me now and telling me I better change this before I send it. OW!

The Zeros (2001)

It's good! it's bad! It's ugly! It's worth watching!

[8/10 · 15 September 2006]

This movie could use some work, but damn't! I liked it.

This might not be for everyone, but if there is someone in your past who you hardly, if ever, go a day without thinking of, though you may have not seen them in years or even decades and if there is someone for whom you sometimes get the mad urge to drop every thing so you can find them again, so that you can at least tell them how essential and sustaining just the memory of them is. You might also want to tell them how almost unbearable the memory of them sometimes is because they aren't in your life but you wouldn't, because that would be too much.

Yeah, this movie would just be for the people who know from personal experience what I'm saying in the proceeding sentences, but heck! Isn't that almost everyone? I loved the way the audio tapes were used to create humorous confusion and to efficiently explain a great deal and in the very end to such poignant effect. There were other clever devices used in the movie that I'll let you discover on your own.

Unlike most movies the ending works. For me, if it all pulls together in the end it's a good movie.

The name sort of sucks though.

Later,

Cannib'