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johnfrancisco1987
Reviews
L'appartement (1996)
Flawless
A lot has already been written about the film itself, so instead of adding to the noise I just want to say a few words on the two female actors.
It has to be a daunting prospect for any actress to star, in a sense, versus the spectacular Monica Bellucci, but Romane Bohringer pulls it off to sensational ends. A film starring Monica Bellucci where I fall in love with the other girl?? That's not supposed to happen.
It's been said a thousand times, but Monica Bellucci strikes the saddest figure in modern cinema. I have never before seen such innate sadness. She would not be out of place breaking Lon Chaney's heart.
Smokin' Aces (2006)
Enjoyable - but doesn't quite come together
It's becoming increasingly difficult to make a slick gangster film without being, perhaps unfairly, measured against Scorcese, Tarantino and the best of the best. And while this movie does cover a lot of familiar ground, it also manage to pull a surprise or two - who honestly saw Ben Affleck getting it so early on? - and is far superior than last year's mystifyingly highly rated "Lucky Number Slevin".
Perhaps the downfall of the movie is that it can't decide if it's a comedy (the Tremors etc) or a serious, slick, gangster movie with a twist. It ends up falling in that uncomfortable territory in the middle.
The dialogue was patchy, but did manage a few good one-liners. Overall the cast did a decent job with what they were given. Ryan Reynolds was excellent, as always. He again showed he deserves much better roles than he's thus far been given. Jason Bateman's cameo was by far the highlight of the movie.
Worth watching purely for Andy Garcia's attempt at a human accent. At least I think it was human.
The Life of David Gale (2003)
Enjoyable, but unsatisfying
Death Row movies, like hostage movies, always have a hard time with their endings. For a few minutes there I thought "The Life of David Gale" was bucking that trend - and then the end came. And came some more. Ultimately leading to a slightly confused message.
It seems Alan Parker tried a little too hard to show both sides of this very complex issue. Admirable in itself, but not conducive to good film making - at least in this instance. Perhaps if Parker had embraced his own anti-capital punishment stance he could have transferred the promising start, into a far more rounded ending.
One issue this film does successfully bring attention to: just why isn't Laura Linney a bigger name?
Walking Tall (2004)
Good Fun
Any movie based on the Buford Pusser story should know it's place. This movie knows it's a brainless action flick, doesn't pretend to be anything else, and manages to hit all the right notes.
Those watching to see the Rock do his thing won't be disappointed. Likewise, those tuning in for the comedy stylings of Johnny Knoxville will find what they're looking for.
No elaborate plot set-up needed here. Wind them up and let them go. Great action sequences. Some snappy one-liners. And most importantly, only 80 minutes long.
A really fun way to kill an hour and a bit.
Brick (2005)
Good film. Great casting.
I like this film.
I don't like it as much as a number of posters, but it works. The idea was a good one; the script works - they did a good job relying on a traditional film-noir story, and didn't get too clever; the dialogue on the whole is good - some gets a bit clumsy, and some is outstanding; the sets were good; the cinematography was fine.
Everything was good. Except the casting.
The casting was exceptional.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was outstanding in the lead role. Despite his excellent performance in 'Manic', and an even better smaller performance in 'Latter Days', I didn't expect a performance this good in this particular role. Turns out he can deadpan with the best of them. Those three roles alone make me think he has even better performances inside him for the future. His one bad habit is a tendency to mumble from time to time. Marlon Brando had that too though.
Lukas Haas was an inspired choice as "The Pin". He is famous for being in some of the worst movies of all time ('Material Girls', 'Alpha Dog', and the abysmal 'Darwin Awards' come to mind), but he nailed this one. This role would have been so easy to overplay, but he kept it simple.
In my opinion, Noah Fleiss stole most of the scenes he was in. Great job by him. I thought they were taking Nora Zehetner's character the wrong way a couple of times, but she brought it back well.
This film could easily have gone the way of irritatingly precocious, it was the casting that stopped it from doing so.
Gojô reisenki: Gojoe (2000)
Could Have Been 20 Minutes Long...
...because absolutely nothing happened in the middle 115 minutes. Not a thing.
It's a fairly tried and tested formula. Two protagonists, in some way linked, must meet at the end for the battle of all battles. However the formula works best when somewhere along the way you sympathise or empathise with at least one of the characters - often both at various times. It's not a complicated movie device at all, yet I found myself feeling nothing for any of the characters. I was clock watching from literally the 12th minute in. The final giant battle, like the rest of the fight scenes, was also a let down. Mundane doesn't do it justice.
The slight saving grace is some, and I emphasise some, excellent cinematography. However it gets lost among some truly awful and amateurish scenes - the big spinny one for example.
After Yume no ginga, and some of his excellent shorter works, I expected far more out of Ishii. His two most recent films didn't do anything to restore my faith either.
Just a big disappointment.
The Machinist (2004)
Disappointed. Again.
It's becoming more and more frequent that a split personality type mystery leaves me feeling cheated. Film-makers now need to realise that audiences can spot this device so easily now that the final 80% of most films is simply filler until the audience is shown to be right.
In it's defense, the Machinist never really attempts to keep up the pretense that it's trying to trick the viewer. From fairly early on it's apparent that not all is as it seems in Trevor's world and we are left to try and figure out exactly why. To be honest, we never stood a chance. And that's a bad thing.
Christian Bale has already proved himself one of the finest actors of his generation, showing his range in films as diverse as "All the Little Animals" and "American Psycho". Here he strikes a memorable figure, losing I don't know how much weight, and creates a character that at times is difficult to watch. He manages to produce a performance that is just vacant enough to be believable without ever slipping into parody. If only he could choose the right scripts.
Bale was good. There was a definite eerie quality about the film. Jennifer Jason Leigh was in it. Those are the good points.
We all know the bad points. And we all knew them before we watched it.
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
I wish I didn't have eyes
Maybe that's a bit harsh. This was a bog-standard formulaic horror flick. Even if you hadn't seen the original, from the first minute of the movie onwards you would know the storyline, recognise when the jump scenes would be, and to be blunt you'd have a pretty accurate idea of how the film was going to end.
That in itself is not necessarily a criticism. I knew full well what I was going to see. I wasn't expecting bucket loads of originality, but I was expecting something more than a few folk in masks going "arrrrgh" as they chase after a character.
If I didn't know better I would have assumed certain scenes were spoofs (shots of our hero from below with sky whizzing past; shots of our hero with baby in one hand and dog leash in other; the German shepherd saving the day; beating a mutant with a shotgun - that's what you use one for, right? - then dropping it right next to the mutant that we all 'believed' was dead; etc etc).
However, I must defend one aspect. I'm actually quite shocked to find so many people found the gore over the top, sick, twisted, or depraved. To me at least, it seemed particularly standard fare. Also, unless the UK showed the scene with something removed, which I doubt, the rape scene was fairly tame and inoffensive.
All in all there is nothing memorable about the Hills.
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Not as good as it thinks it is
It's a mystery to me how Mr McGuigan managed to take a top-notch cast and an interesting premise, and create a tedious, endlessly meandering, mish mash of a film.
Kingsley and Freeman gave solid performances considering the quality of dialogue they were given to work with. Bruce Willis did a decent Bruce Willis; Josh Hartnett played Josh Hartnett well; and Lucy Liu was stretched to play Lucy Liu.
The 'reveal' part of the film was the biggest let down. I understand many viewers like to have plot twists revealed and then explained, but this took babying the viewer to the extreme. Every minuscule detail was explained by way of flashback. I was half expecting to have it revealed that the characters were actually only actors, and nobody actually died in real life.
It's only saving grace was some stylish cinematography from the always reliable Peter Sova.
Disappointing.
The Unholy Three (1930)
Loved it - apart from the gorilla
Somehow the ape in the silent version was okay. It was kind of an off the wall movie all around, so an ape? Why not. However, the addition of sound made the ape look remarkably out of place. Perhaps like some other silent stars the switch to talkies found it out for lacking talent.
Thankfully the same cannot be said of Lon Chaney. His one talkie, and I think choosing to remake The Unholy Three was a sound decision. The scenes with Chaney and Earles, both as Echo and Tweedledee, and as Mrs O'Grady and her grandson, were the highlights for me. Rosie was a far more interesting character in this version, mainly down to the charismatic Lila Lee.
Watching Chaney disappear into the night on the back of a train was also surprisingly moving.
Not as good as the silent version, but I'm glad it was made.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Sweet in so many ways
(minor spoilers) I'm never a fan of suggesting others have missed the point of a movie, but people really have missed the point of this movie. It's not an uproarious comedy, it's simply the most uplifting, inspiring, feel-good movie I've seen in a long time. It's a movie, to quote Cletus, that "celebrates friendship at it's basest level and demonstrates the triumph of good people above overwhelming odds".
Napoleon, obviously, is a loser. What I found inspirational is the fact that other than two times in the entire movie, there was no sense that Napoleon realised it (Rex-kwan-do's "dress like peter pan here"; the 2nd "cya" to LaFawnduh and Kip). In one fleeting look away, and in one 'cya', Jon Heder beautifully betrayed Napoleon's self-delusion that he is one of the cool guys in life.
Uncle Rico longs to go back in time "knowing what he knows now". This movie made me realise that if I could go back in time knowing what I know now I'd rather be Napoleon, Deb, or Pedro, than Summer, Trish, or that Billy Idol fella whose name I can't remember.
This movie inspired me to one day give as pure, and as heartfelt a high-5 as Napoleon gives Deb in the very final shot of the movie.
Keep following your heat, Napoleon.