Change Your Image
stan-71
Reviews
Life as We Know It (2010)
Standard Formula Rom-Com
There was surprisingly little of the baby in the movie. In fact I think almost every scene with the baby was in the trailer, certainly least all the funny ones. The rest of the movie is a standard "hate each other at the beginning" romantic comedy, the kind Ms. Heigl always seems to end up in. Do I need a spoiler tag to say, you can guess where it's going to end up?
There were definitely funny moments that weren't all in the trailer, so overall, it was a fun movie to watch. My wife was crying at the end so it succeeded on that front. The "neighbor" characters were a little grating, but the social worker character was my favorite. Overall, a decent enough 90 minutes of my life.
The Bucket List (2007)
Idea is memeriffic but execution is ho-hum
The idea, that you should have and attempt to complete a list of experiences before you die, is certainly catchy. However, just reading the back of the box, or this review, is all you need for that.
The execution in this movie is actually about a billionaire, who can afford to jet both of the main characters around the world on a whim. It doesn't seem relevant to the average person. And it focuses on the wrong kind of experiences. Theoretically, that is the message of the movie, but in practice it's mostly them jetting around.
For such a profound message, this movie seems to get too distracted with the kinds of happiness money can buy.
Zwartboek (2006)
Am I missing something?
The first 2/3rds of this movie were pretty good. During that period the movie sticks to what the back of the box says it is about. The lead actress does a good job of showing the conflicting emotions you might expect one to feel as a Jew working in a Nazi headquarters. It's tense, though-provoking, and enjoyable.
But then at some point the film veers off the road and wanders through some over-the-top territory. It's all too much to suspend disbelief any more. This person is good, no wait he's bad, no wait he's good, no wait he's bad! At that point who cares anymore? Some horrific events are depicted but I never got a feel for the motives of the perpetrators. I just couldn't stop thinking that the movie should have ended by now. It's like they were stacking up stuff and for a while, they had a really high story, but eventually they tried to stack too much and it all fell down.
Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
mediocre
Some movies are so bad they're good. This is not one of those movies, it's just bad.
Too many of the scenes that were funny are in the preview. What wasn't in the preview mostly wasn't very funny and seemed pointless. The preview showed a lot of scenes with them robbing places, but that was actually a fairly small part of the movie. The first 1/2 is about Jim being an annoying butt-kisser, losing his job and being desperate; there's a few scenes of them robbing places; and then the last third turns into a mediocre con plot that doesn't even make sense.
Also, I had trouble empathizing with the main characters because they were so unlikable. They make so many bad choices financially etc. that it seems like they made their own bed, so when they avoided lying in it by turning to crime I didn't feel like they were justified.
Not the worst movie I've ever seen but there are a lot of better movies to spend your time on.
Saw (2004)
A decent, disturbing movie
This movie was no masterpiece of acting, duologue, or plot. But it was quite effective at disturbing me, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterward. The sets in the movie are creepy, whether it's a poor guy's dumpy hole, a rich doctor's apartment, a hospital or a police station. The death scenes are disturbing and gave me a delightfully sick feeling in my stomach. The ending was a total surprise. Without giving anything away, I never saw it coming; that could be because (once I thought about it) it didn't make much sense, and was a pretty gaping plot hole, one of many; but the movie, IMHO, did it's job effectively: I was pretty scared and disturbed for a couple hours, and in fact for a while afterward (perhaps I will never get over it!)
The Gamers (2002)
I laughed so hard I cried
This movie is short and very low budget. But when I watched it for the first time, I spent almost the entire 48 minutes laughing so hard the tears were streaming down my face. I didn't laugh *quite* that hard the second time I saw it. Even today, months after the last time I saw it, thinking about a scene in the movie makes me laugh. Gamers are definitely the target audience, though you don't necessarily have to be a gamer to get it - my wife has played a grand total of one RPG session in her life, and she loved the movie too.
All in all, I would recommend this movie to anyone who has played an RPG at some point in their life, or has a sense of humor.
The Postman (1997)
A pretty good movie
I loved the overall plot of the movie. The dialog was a bit silly at times, and some of the scenes were very cheesy, but overall it was an enjoyable movie about likable characters doing very interesting things. Too bad the mule died though....