Take the Lead 2007

So, there are many movies out there that are just cheesy, typical, obvious, … commercial!!  The “C” word: Commercial!!!  That is one of the worst insults for a movie  The “C”-word movies are only good for one thing and that is to switch off the brain and kill time.

…

Which is exactly what I was wanting to do for a little while and “Take the Lead” was my randomly-chosen movie.

Sure enough, this movie is pretty obvious, predictable.  Some dude teaching unruly kids how to ballroom dance thus changing their lives…  BUT, there are some gems out there.  Like this scene:

Premonition

Sitting in my living room facing a huge amount of food. Like: a smoothie, a bowl of awesomely cooked beans (garlic and ginger, cayenne, fennel, turmeric…), a plate with cheese and spinach artichoke dip and chips, and another bowl with boiled veggies and couscous. These meals always start with “I’m going to cook less for myself today” then I just add a couple of details here and there and by the end…

So, faced with this feast I scan through http://www.watch-movies.net , randomly picking one out and falling on Premonition. This is a “horror/drama” starring Sandra Bullock and Nip/Tuck’s Dr. Troy (Julian McMahon) which revolves around these dreams which Bullock stars having.  Super vivid dreams in which she wakes up and is a few days in the future and her husband has been killed in a car crash.

Shocked, frightened, and confused she desperately tries to A: make sense of what the f is going on; B: find out what she can do to stop it from happening.  In the process she learns many things that challenge her love and her commitment in the relationship.  Overcoming everything she …  Ok, I’ll stop here, that’s about enough.

I felt the movie was well acted, I’d give it a C for acting; they pulled out some of the obvious cards on how to shock and scare the viewer, give it a B for shock and awe; the storyline is good – B; and especially the 5 minutes before the ending is an A++.

So, overall, this is an above-average American-audience-oriented movie and a below below average cinema-is-the-seventh-art-movie (in my opinion of course).  Just another something to dull the loving mind.

Enjoy.

Music Within (2007)

Just finished watching this little movie and I actually have time to write something about it too!  This blog has seen little activity recently as I have been doing 2.5million other things – I know many of you rely on this blog for food and shelter, so I apologize.

Music Within, directed by Steven Sawalich, is a true story!  A vietnam vet who returns having suffered severe ear-damage and campaigns for the equal rights of Americans with disabilities.  The main character, Richard Pimentel, is played by Ron Livingston who does a good job acting yet, in terms of acting, I was particularly impressed by the performance of Michael Sheen who portrays Ron’s best friend, Art, – someone living with cerebral palsy.

I found it was a simple movie, straight-forward, well-acted, quirky, uplifting and grounded, and informative too.  Like I tell my astronomy students: “An ‘A’ means excellent.  A ‘B’ is good.  You complete your work and you get a B.  Everything right, you get a B.  A B is a good grade to get, congratulations.  If you need an A then it needs to be excellent.”  I’d give it a B – 6/10.

Guisi (Silk) (2006)

So I was looking to watch Silk (2007) with Keira Knightley since I had just seen her in Atonement and my viewing brought me to Silk (2006), a Taiwanese movie, supposedly horror, which pleasantly surprised me.

The west has so many good actors and actresses who earn a shitload of money and everyone knows their name The east has brilliant, simple, actors and actresses whose performances are natural, unforced, in the role, and I have no idea how much they earn but definitely less than the overrated hollywood stars.

Having that part out of the way, the movie Silk (2006) directed and written by the world-renowned Taiwanese Chao-Bin Su (of no relation to Bin Laden, as far as I could find out) mixes anti-gravity, ghosts, cripples, love, comatose mothers, suicidal 13-year olds, and beautiful actresses to tell the story of a Japanese scientist on his quest to capture the energy of a child ghost… and much much more of course.

With 2 wins and 5 nominations Kar Yan Lam does an excellent performance in the girlfriend of the lead good-guy in that she barely speaks or acts or shows up in the movie at all but when she does her striking beauty would definitely earn her another win/nomination.

Chen Chang – the above-mentioned good-guy does a very convincing performance as does Yosuke Eguchi who plays the Japanese scientist. That is Yosuke with an accent on the “o” in case you are searching for him online.

The plot and the cinematography are the things that I like best about eastern movies and even though the cinematography isn’t up to par with other movies I have seen the plot certainly is and kept me guessing/thinking/in suspense the whole movie through.

I recommend this movie. Don’t be put off by the “horror” category since it has little horror to it (but it may pull out one or two scares).

Atonement

Debating movies with zeke (http://deadhours.wordpress.com/) has made me more aware of certain aspects of the movies I watch.

For example: the first thing I noticed about Atonement (2007) was the sound editing. Who would have thought?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming tells us that people are generally biased to either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic and I get the impression that society nowadays is swayed towards visual. Memories tend to be predominantly visual with kinesthetic coming in a close second (in my experience).

This to say that the auditory experience of this movie was good. Kinesthetically I didn’t get anything out of it, and visually a mid-range movie. Certainly there was a lot of work done in the visual aspect, with the costumes and high-class dresses typical of the 1940s but go watch Wong Kar Wai’s “In The Mood For Love” (2000) where the cinematographic experience is much better.

Aside from this there is the plot and the acting, and I guess both of those are good enough to make the movie stand out. Keira Knightley (nominated for oscar) is excellent as is her romantic counterpart James McAvoy (nominated for golden globe). Saoirse Ronan, who plays the young Briony, does a very good performance as does oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave (who could expect anything other than a great performance) portraying the old Briony. I wasn’t as convinced by the middle-aged Briony (Romola Garai) for some reason. And the plot, yet another war movie, was approached in yet another way, a fresh way and with great success.

Perhaps what I most appreciate about the movie lies in neither one of the aspects I broke it into but how well all the pieces are knitted together, masterfully by Joe Wright who already showed his abilities in Pride and Prejudice (2005).

Recommended.

Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of fleet street

God…. what a bad movie.

I watched this movie over 2 months ago and when I found out that it had been nominated for an Academy Award, a.k.a. The Oscars, (Johnny Depp for best performance by an actor in a leading role) I just had to write something about it.

Firstly, I don’t accept the excuses like “this is a Tim Burton movie”, or “you have to like Tim Burton to appreciate this movie”. It is true that movies have different genres but if we kept making up classifications for each director then there would be no standard of “good movie” or “bad movie”. Instead it would be “Coen brothers movie”, “Tim burton movie”, “Almodovar movie” etcetra etcetra. Directors do have their individual styles but something more than that is necessary to make a good movie.

Secondly, the lyrics to the songs are really trivial.  Perhaps that was totally intentional, he meant to make the characters say in song (and I have a real hard time calling it “song”!) exactly the same phrases two random people say to each other.

Thirdly, the plot is boring.  The movie felt slow and boring.

Thirdly, Johnny Depp plays a person with no-affect. He has the same expression the whole time. Ok, he is playing someone who is traumatized and it is true that such people can be challenged in terms of showing emotion… so he should have won the oscar for best traumatized-no-affect actor.

Tim Burton, director of some great movies such as Beetle Juice (1988), Batman (1989), who can forget Edward Scissorhands (1990), the animated The Night Before Christmas (1993), the funny Mars Attacks (1996), and the smart Big Fish (2003). Sweeney Todd sure contains his signature of noire, or gore, but lacks in terms of acting, in terms of plot, and in terms of the words that come out of their mouths.

The Mistress of Spices (2005)

The cinematography is just ok, the actors are ok/good, the plot is very good and the way they piece things together is good.

It is a pity because the plot really is, in my opinion, good – it has so much potential to be a great movie.  I think the main actress Aishwarya Rai (playing Tilo) is a very good actress but not allowed to express her full potential.  The performance of the main actor Dylan McDermott (playing Doug) really felt under par… and not only under par but also he made me cringe at how sleazy his hitting on Tilo was.

I had only seen McDermott in the series The Practice which has received many prizes and nominations (3 Golden Globes, 79 nominations) and his performances were fine (as in ok) there but not in this movie.  I felt he was just out of place.

Paul Mayeda Berges directs this movie which he and his wife Gurinder Chadha wrote.  Props to them for writing it in a semi-bollywood style, flare but grounded too.   They gave it a good go, it was entertaining, i’d give it a mediocre rating though, something around 5/10

Jumper (2008)

Yeah!  JUMPER!!!  I Highly recommend you don’t bother wasting your time with this movie.

Yeah, it consistently amazes me how an actor can be so great in one movie and then so … not-great in another movie.   In this case Hayden Christensen (not that I thought his performance in Star Wars was any good… but better than this at least… ok, not by much) and Samuel L. Jackson – who can forget him in Pulp Fiction?  Then again, Mr Jackson is starring in movies alllll the time (who can forget his monumental acting in Snakes on a Plane?!) so it is to be expected that most performances will be under par.

So, even though Jackson looks good with white hair, I wouldn’t bother with this ones!

King of California (1999)

Refreshing is the adjective that I find most suiting for this movie.

Michael Douglas (Charlie) is an excentric father whose clothes are still fresh from the insane asylum’s washing machine at the beginning of the movie. Returning to live with his daughter Evan Rachel Wood (Miranda) who has had to learn to be fully self-sustained, with no help from parents, no boyfriend (no friends), working at the big M, and only 16.

 

 

Refreshing in the plot – Miranda is very sweet and beautiful and any director would have thrown some romantic entanglement into the story but you won’t find that here, phew, let’s keep love out of this one, please, thank you.

Refreshing in the characters – Michael Douglas’ crazy and funny character Charlie brings a real cool breeze to the film (he looks especially awesome with a beard and hoodie)! Evan Rachel Wood doesn’t show a flaw as Miranda shows the explosive mix of frustration and love towards Charlie and then annoyance and excitement towards the

treasure-hunting plot that slowly unravels.

I also appreciated the cinematography. Nothing out-of-this-world but subtly beautiful (then again, the fact that it’s California may have helped here).

So I definitely give this one the approval and my recommendation. If you want to watch something funny, with good performances, light, and fresh then enjoy king of california!

Untraceable

Well, unimpressive probably sums it up for me. Different contraptions to kill people (getting a bit saturated of watching movies based on people killing people).

Things going for it: how they exploit the theme of how internetized much of the American society has become

I’d give it like… a 4/10.