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Reviews
Fall (2022)
Good attempt at an interesting story
You will legit get freaked out watching this. I love the original story. To my knowledge it hasn't been done before. This first attempt though falls short in some areas. I could ignore the little details about climbing that they didn't bother for accuracy, but the excessive eye candy was such a distraction to what the film was supposed to be about. Female climbers, no offense, are not dolled up, and God gives them extraordinary abilities but ignores physical assets. Yeah, not accurate physical representation of female climbers at all. Face wise though, they got it right as neither are knockouts. There's many other complaints but that's my biggest one---at least cast people who look the part. The girls are wonderful actors otherwise.
I'd love to see a remake of this with better execution.
Havoc (2005)
A wake up call
Does anyone really ever "wake up" from wake up calls? C'mon now. OK, so in this movie it's a bit exaggerated but then again not really. I grew up in East L.A. myself. Although I had never witnessed any gang violence, the fear of it was always in the air. In my youth I've heard late night gunshots at least once a month and never really knew what they were. Everybody had rod iron covering their windows.
These parties that you see in these types of movies rarely ever happen. Rich white kids party every single weekend. Poor minorities are too busy working 6am-10pm and fearing for their lives. They leave the lights on to deter robbers, not because they're having a party.
Now let's move onto Pacific Palisades. Do 90% of the white kids act black? Well, yeah, ever since Eminem and Dave Chappelle, everyone wants to be black and be funny. It's obnoxious but kids will be kids. It's not who they truly are. But then again, how well do YOU know yourself? They can either act black to fit in or have no friends. Just like how in the 70's everyone had to have bell bottoms and in the 80's everyone had to have a members only jacket.
ps. Anne Hathaway has beautiful breasts
The God Who Wasn't There (2005)
An unbeliever with something to prove
How ironic, is it not? This is a decent film with a narrow point of view. It takes a very condescending tone which is not the best way to get the message out. Basically Brian Flemming is on a mission--he wants to prove that Jesus Christ never existed and he won't listen to anyone who has anything different to say about it. His anger towards Christians is very apparent. In fact he hates Christians so much that he wants them to believe 100% in the bible. He even despises moderate Christians for having an open and evolved view of their faith. When he is faced to face with the man who runs his old school, instead of having an intelligent conversation where both parties open up and listen to each others viewpoints, he can only speak sarcastically with an agenda, completely ignoring the fact that the old man he speaks to is so open minded that he's starting to accept evolutionary concepts. Brian Flemming is very resentful towards Christianity and understandably so because this is a man whos brain requires absolute proof. Anything less will drive him insane and clearly has. The only person who made any lick of sense in this movie was Sam Harris.
Narc (2002)
Brilliant acting
I've never seen such great acting in a film. Honestly, a bigger star like Ton Cruise could not have pulled off either of these two main characters as well as Liotta and Patrick did. They did something rare, and that is that they acted without showing any ego. They were true to the film and were real.
The story was pretty good. A decent mystery, although there was some stuff lacking. For example, I didn't really care about the person that died and why they were looking for the killers. We had no prior knowledge of him, so it was very hard to connect with that. Unfortunately, the whole movie is about this cop that was killed.
The scenes with the women were good, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.
Other than the acting, the other great part about this movie is the realism of the scenes, as in their overagressiveness with suspects. We've seen it before, but not like this. It wasn't overdone and fake looking...basically it wasn't violent just to be violent or even just to be shocking.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Michae's Moore's best film
I had heard a lot of great things about this film. Initially, I thought it was a film about how guns do not cause violence. Unfortunately, that's exactly what most people think it is--an anti-gun film. That is hardly the case at all, especially with a title like "Bowling for Columbine". I wonder if these people were watching the same movie or were a victim of extreme wishful thinking.
The first 1/4 of the film kind of turned me off, because Moore came off as cocky, arrogant, and unintelligent. This is the setup. As I watched more and more, I started to realize that this was Michael coming into his own. Instead of the modest wit and humor we saw on TV Nation, we got a "harder" Michael Moore, one that was on a mission.
It is true that a lot of the movie is entertainment and much of it was used to easily prove his point. Even though he didn't go into as much detail as many want, he's not exactly qualified to do so, and he doesn't need to. It is our job as intelligent humans to find out the information on our own. We shouldn't limit ourselves to edited news coverage to make up our minds about something.
This is a wonderful film. I can see how Michael got an award.
Feardotcom (2002)
Well executed (no pun intended)
I thought this movie was great in that it was so creepy and freaky. It's rare to be able to pull it off, especially with such a horrible script. I think William Malone is a fantastic director...I wish he were filming the Resident Evil series. Now in this movie, the dialogue and acting were horrible, but hey, it's just a silly horror movie. However, the fact that it was so bad and they were still able to send chills down my spine, that's pretty impressive.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
The best war movie ever
I was very surprised with this movie. Going in, I had heard a lot of bad things, such as this movie was mainly a documentary, which lead me to believe that it would be boring. That was not so at all. I personally loved the way they shot and wrote it. The fact that there are no characters that really stand out makes the story much more interesting. Plus there were also no overused slow-mo gun drawing scenes that we've seen in other movies. Nothing fancy about this movie, it's told straight up, like how it should be.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
what a wonderful film
I was skeptical when I saw this movie. I honestly didn't believe I would like it after hearing so many bad things about it. The writing/dialogue was incredible. Tom Cruise has never been better. He was able to show much more range in this movie than he has in a long time. We're able to see why everyone thinks so highly of him as an actor. Cruz's acting was ok at first, and got better as the film went on. Diaz was pretty good as well. I'm unsure of why people can't figure out the ending of this film. It is completely obvious...I mean, this is no Muholland Falls where you have to keep guessing. The answers are right in front of you. It's more than intelligent and fascinating, it's very spiritual as well.
The Body (2001)
truely awful
I can't believe how bad this movie was. I can't believe the screenwriters could write such trash. Obviously they knew nothing about Christianity. They kept referring to Catholics as Christians. And they actually believe that finding the body of Christ would ruin all of Christianity? C'mon now, that is insane...that is something an ignorant non-believer would be so stupid to believe. And for the Father to do what he did without even questioning the questionable "proof?" How insane is that? People don't abandon their faiths from others jumping to conclusions. The sad part was that the mvoie wasn't even remotely entertaining. I've watched bad movies before, such as Starship Troopers, but that was somewhat entertaining. Everyone in this movie over-reacted to everything, especially about the Shroud of Turin. I'm so sorry that I rented this movie. I would like to get my money back. In fact, I'm going to Blockbuster right now and demand a refund. I wasted 1.5 hours of my life on this movie.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
unbelievable graphics
I was so amazed by this movie. It was simply incredible. This is something that has never been done before anywhere...never done in movies, never done in video games. The details on the faces...especially the old guy was so breathtaking. To me he was the most realistic character. Motion capture has its limitations, so I wasn't expected too much with fluid realistic movement from the characters, but was still extremely impressed with what I saw. The hair blowing in the wind, being able to see each strand of hair, the imperfections on their faces, their facial expressions, all were done so well. But what I was simply blown away with was the lighting that was incorporated into the movie. This is the single most important element in a movie, whether it's live action or animated. Lighting captures everything...angles, depth, mood, and of course, makes your actors/characters look better than they really do. To do this kind of lighting and then render it at 30 frames per second at such high resolution requires a lot of computing and graphics power. This movie deserves a 10 because it's done what nobody has ever done on any medium. I mean, you're not even going to see images as realistic as these in video/PC games for at least another 5-7 years. Square deserves a lot of credit...especially Square USA. ILM could learn a lot from these guys...they can't even make Yoda or Jabba look real! I know this is a very technical review, but that was the whole purpose of this movie...the plot had nothing to do with any of the Final Fantasy video games, but the plot had existed in Sakaguchi's mind for years.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Better than I expected
I put off seeing this movie because our actions towards Japan and Japanese-Americans were some of our lowest moments in history. Fortunately, this movie decided not to come anywhere near those events.
This movie had to be made, just like Titanic had to be made. And just like Titanic, the Hollywood producers wouldn't have allowed them to be made due to their insane budgets unless the movie appealed to a large audience, and the best way to do that is to include a love story.
Yes, the love stories were rushed and perhaps unnecessary, but that doesn't destroy the movie. I was surprised because I was on the brink of crying a few times.
The action sequences were the best. This was a very toned down Michael Bay movie, if you can believe that, because although there were a lot of effects, they didn't seem so unrealistic or overdone. It was just right.
I believe this may be the best war movie I've ever seen because it captured the emotions of the event so well, sort of the way Titanic captured the emotions, but not nearly as good...although perhaps better than the other war movies I've seen, and I've seen them all. It just killed me to see those Japanese planes keep bombing and bombing Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. military not being able to do anything about it. I kept wishing for the attacks to stop.
The one thing I wished they did a better job of was showing us more of who these Japanese pilots were. I give this film a 10 because I went in expecting a 5 and was simply blown away (excuse the pun). I think if Michael Bay keeps the effects toned down, do some lower budget films, and keep the camera a little more steady, people may start to take him more seriously and maybe appreciate the talent he has.
Rushmore (1998)
B O R I N G
I don't understand what was so great about this movie. What laughs, what wit? What the heck is so funny about a grownup driving over a kid's bike? The only part that ALMOST made me almost laugh (that's almost made me almost laugh) was the beginning when we found out he was one of the worst students. Other than that, I found no humor at all. I love funny movies, but this movie made no sense. Ok, so some kid has a crush on his teacher. So he does all this big stuff to get her attention. So what? What's so funny about that? I don't understand why people call this witty. A 10 year old can write this script. I had to force myself to smile only because of the fact that this movie was supposed to be so funny. Well, it was a waste of $3.50 to rent this movie. I'm glad I didn't pay $6 to see it in the theater.
Ngo si seoi (1998)
great battle scenes
Believe it or not, this Jackie Chan movie almost has a plot. There are three key fight scenes in this movie. Each one alone is worth the rental price, especially the last one. This movie is a must see, and the votes prove it.