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mugczar
Reviews
Match Point (2005)
Likable characters
I'm aghast at the number of reviews that talk about how the characters in this film are 'likable' and say for that reason, the audience should be clamoring for a happy ending.
The ONLY likable character in the film was Tom.
Chris is unscrupulous and maddening; Nola was clingy and couldn't act (or maybe that part was Scarlett Johansson's fault - her first role I haven't liked); and Chloe was cute but annoying ('TOM! TOM! WHERE ARE YOU!?').
Tom was good natured, fun, clever and smart.
And he got HIS happy ending.
Madagascar (2005)
penguins! (needed MORE)
it's been said before ... the penguins were the highlight of the movie. i had a feeling going in that might be the case, considering the fact that they were the highlight of the trailer as well.
what did surprise me was the fact that the part of the movie that took place in new york was just as dull as the part that took place in madagascar. i had read that the movie lost its steam in the second half; i felt that it never had any steam to begin with.
nothing innovative, nothing all that clever. some funny parts and some very funny parts, but too few and far between.
i don't regret going to see it ... worth it for those four psycho monochromatic birds.
Great Performances: Kurosawa (2000)
interesting facts, annoying editing
this dvd-ography strikes me as something of a "one-timer"; that is, once you've seen it, there's no reason to see it ever again. in fact, if you've seen more than a few kurosawa films, once might be too many.
but used as an introduction to the filmmaker, "kurosawa" is worth watching, if you can look past editing techniques adam low and david kitson must have believed were clever, since they were (over)used throughout the piece. the main offender was the use of black and white footage, shot to try to emulate the look of kurosawa's films. however, it takes more than just switching to "BW" on your handycam to pull that off.
the other one that really stuck out in a long, painful-to-watch kind of way, was at the end (spoiler?) at the site of kurosawa's grave, from which smoke emanates. the editor reversed a slow zoom out to give the effect of zooming in on smoke *returning* to the grave. it must have lasted five minutes.
again, if you can look past these and are wondering what the deal is with all the hype about kurosawa, this is a wonderful place to find out.