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AHinMaine
Reviews
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005)
Underwhelming...
If I were trying to indoctrinate someone into Leonard Cohen, it wouldn't be through this bio piece.
The one performance with Leonard and U2 during the documentary bordered on campy. I'm left with a feeling that the actual signal-to-noise ratio of this work was sorely lacking and very undercooked.
There was quite a bit of discussion with Leonard about his life, mostly the events that people know about, answered a bit more in-depth. I found myself wishing for more discussion on the poetry of Leonard, more in depth info on his inspirations, where he learned his turns of phrase and metaphoric stylings.
This documentary is short bits of discussion with Leonard, long bits of music performed by people other than Leonard, punctuated with celebrities gushing and fawning over him.
Fallen (2006)
Strong enough for a show, but made for a movie...
I liked this movie. Obviously I'm not the only one who thought it seemed more a premiere of TV show. Tina's review of the movie clearly indicates that she thinks this is a new show. It watched like a premiere, it talked like a premiere, it acted like a premiere, and it ended like a premiere. Unfortunately, it's just a book made into a TV movie.
With the exception of Tom Skerritt, the acting was excellent. I've always love Tom's work, but his performance was very overdone and contrived in this movie. It did serve to contrast against the great performances by the other actors. Dialog that could have easily turned into groaning, eye-rolling diatribes by an unnecessarily wordy and preachy script was, instead, smart, funny, and well paced.
They could have gone crazy with the flaming swords and weapons, but subtle and creative foley artwork kept it from becoming some sort of Holy Light Saber battle. The only really annoying thing to me was the dog's voice! Scale it back a bit! I thought it would've been better if they touched it up a bit to sound as if it were more like he were hearing the dog's words in his head.
I hope the networks get enough positive feedback that this does eventually get developed into a regular show.
In the Bedroom (2001)
Excellent
I'm horribly biased on this one, so this is a clear 10/10 for me. Not only am I a Mainer, but I've known the extra Diane Hamlin (the lawyer's secretary) for years.
I have great admiration for simplicity in movies, especially those that are more about what the characters are experiencing. This movie had such a great balance of character and plot. It's unfortunate to read some of the previous user comments from people are so desensitized they need car chases, explosions, and gunfire to hold their attention.
This was an incredibly well done movie that was uncomplicated, treats people intelligently and ends well.
Ok, one gripe... why can't anyone get a Maine accent right?? It's fairly close to a Boston accent, mostly just slower and more "relaxed" for lack of a better word. The closest movie I've found with half-decent Maine accents was Storm of the Century. C'mon, lets get'n the cah 'n go have a beeyah Maynid...
American Flyers (1985)
not outstanding
Although this movie is definitely deserving of it's weak rating here, I still find myself enjoying it. Despite the lazy cinematography and tired "against-all-odds" plot that they didn't try to improve upon one single bit, it must be the cyclist in me that can't help but watch. (my bike is almost the exact same as that used by david grant).
The character building bordered on tedious and they had to throw in a short-prognosis-with-a-twist device to try to prop it up. And I'd still like to know what the point of "Randolph" was. Apparently just something to make his father appear like some over-the-top fitness guy... Kevin Costner, as usual, did his one trick.
Good Morning, Miami (2002)
laaaaame
What a bunch of garbage. It's like they took the tired, dead-horse, that is the ongoing Ross and Rachel saga on Friends and turned that single, tired plot into a sitcom. It has no substance beyond that, so you can expect rotten, predictable plots involving "near misses" and "close" calls and veiled innuendo. Since the show revolves around this, it's not like they'll ever actually hook up or there's no show. So, it will be a non-stop roller coaster ride with every episode ending in the weekly reason that they didn't hook up.
Don't waste your time...
Airwolf (1987)
Horrible
I was a die hard fan of the originally Airwolf while I was in my mid-teens, so I was definitely target audience at the time. Jan-Michael Vincent's brooding character was the stuff of legends for myself and my friends back then. The roar of Airwolf's engines was awe inspiring too us.
Then came the new Airwolf. Pure garbage. How finicky do you think a 15-16 year is about that sort of thing? We even thought David Hasselhoff was some sort of master thespian in Knight Rider for goodness sake. Some gratuitous helicopter scenes and some shooting would've probably at least kept our interest, maybe a plot or two that actually made us care about the characters even though we all knew that the show had jumped the shark... But no, they had to turn it into a trashy, soap-opera style drama with a bit of Airwolf thrown into the mix. Rubbish, I did NOT watch it more than a couple of times.
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Didn't let me down...
Don't let the naysayers fool you, this movie isn't as bad as they make it out to be.
"Jeepers, my laugh-rate-average-ratio in the first two was 0.05L/s but in this one it was only 0.04L/s so it's garbage!"
Anyway, it's well worth seeing. Most of the cameo's were hilarious and it's good to see some of those stars cast ego aside and make fun of themselves. As does Mike Myers, even blatantly spoofing the previous AP movies. The movie doesn't take itself seriously at all, thank goodness. Most of the gags that were brought back from the previous movies were only touched briefly, unless they were making fun of it and then it was a little more gratuitous.
Verne was hilarious throughout and got lots of screentime. Beyonce Knowles got plenty of screentime, but I thought Heather was better as the obligatory t&a sidechick. Seth Green got more screentime and he was funny again. (I still can't believe he does Chris' voice in Family Guy). I was disappoint ed in Mindy Sterling's screentime. She got some in the beginning and a little more in the submarine scenes and that's it. She was definitely underutilized.
The only thing I find myself wanting to do is watch it again and count the different names for the male anatomy! I thought I'd heard them all but I learned a couple of new ones that were great!
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Surprisingly funny
Actually, I purposefully didn't go see this at the theater because it looked so lame. Cheap Star Trek ripoff p***take was all that it appeared to be.
When I was finally able to watch it at home, I was totally impressed with the movie and disappointed I judged it so harshly. The humor had perfect rhythm. The acting was exemplary, egos were definitely checked at the door during filming of this picture. There was no Tool Time in Tim Allen's performance. Sigourney played the token busty blonde crewmember so perfectly. The writing/directing was so well-paced and devoid of incompetent plot devices, pretentiousness, not even so much as an uninteresting romantic encounter. About the only thing I might've changed is to give Tony Shalhoub more screen time. His scenes drew some of my biggest laughs!
I gave it a 9.
Kingpin (1996)
Funny stuff...
I can totally understand why some people would hate this movie. This is a particular, specific brand of humor that doesn't take itself seriously at all. It's rude and crude and generally scrapes the bottom of the barrel for laughs. To quote Heinlein, "People laugh because it hurts," the humor in this movie undeniably has a "victim" every time. Probably the only people who will enjoy this are those who don't take themselves too seriously, those who have a bit of a cruel streak, and those with a seriously seriously immature sense of humor. I gave it an 8. :)
The Dead Zone (2002)
Good show
I've enjoyed this so far. I was cringing anticipating trashy, shallow, sensationalist plots, but this has definitely not been the case. I'm a big fan of AMH and this hasn't let me down at all. I look forward to more episodes.
Crossroads (2002)
2homltingb
2 hours of my life I'll never get back...
If you haven't seen this and you need an example of the suck factor of this movie, I think the scene where she visits her mother is probably one of the greatest. She hasn't seen her mother since she was three. Her friends simply drop her off, don't even say good luck, no stress, no tense anticipation, nothing. B.S. just says to her friends as she marches up the sidewalk a casual "call me and tell me how the rehearsal goes."
So she goes and knocks on the door "it's me lucy, mom." Kim Cattrall does her best to make something out of a nothing scene. She acts stand-off-ish at best... and then simply says "we need to have a talk." Cut immediately to B.S. showing up at the hotel room with wet clothing. Her friends ask her how it went, she doesn't respond and goes to the bathroom. She acts sad for at least 6 whole seconds and then never again for the remainder of the movie acts like it's affected her in any way whatsoever...
How badly this movie sucked has absolutely nothing to do with B.S. IMHO.
Even a high-caliber actress like Natalie Portman couldn't have rescued this piece of garbage.
As for all the angry review posters here, chill out... It's understandable, but don't like a movie like this rent space in your head. It is SO not worth it...