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Reviews
One Winter Story (2006)
The ocean waves are moving. This one-act is not.
I have to disagree with the other reviewer. I got all the hype about a surfer overcoming the wave, a woman overcoming her social constraints, or perhaps a short film overcoming it's indie limitations. Unfortunately, this self-absorbed drivel like so many indie films, is more about nameless "artistic" filmmakers indulging in touting their personal interests to an irrelevant audience. What social bearing does someone's infatuation with surfing have for the rest of us? What significance does this film have in today's world of financial disaster? Only that not all of us can afford to spend our time peddling around on a surfboard. Or, for that matter, make a pointless movie about it.
The whole film just came across as self-absorbed and congratulatory. Yes, the first woman to ride such and such wave may have some historical significance - for example, in the Guinness Book of World Records. There were no exciting moments in this film, no instances of danger for example, where the audience must anticipate this woman's success.
Bottom Line: WHO CARES?!?
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
Best Star Wars installment ever
Well it seems we have taken a CARTOON INSTALLMENT for a television series and use it's inherently and understandably lower production standards as an excuse to exercise our intellectual snobbery and movie critique.
Sure, it was a shame that people had to pay standard rates to see it in theaters, but it is a promotion for a series that is going to be free on TV for the rest of the season.
That's actual Star Wars brought to us FREE on TV every week in the comfort of our homes.
"Oh, no, the productions values aren't up to my standards, and why is so and so not using a GREEN lightsaber?!?"
Well, my geekiness may not be on par with the rest of the Star Wars community, but I think the visual and audio are great for a TV show and that we've really come a long way, and appreciate being able to follow stories from the great franchise every week from the comfort of our own home.
Ahsoka Tano is awesome, the coolest character since Anakin himself (Luke was always a bit too cheesy for me), and her character adds an interesting new dimension to the Star Wars universe.
Anyone who speaks ill of this movie should be executed as an enemy of the Republic!
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Eagle Eye (2008)
Citizens: support the war on terror... or be labeled as haywire computer AI!
Well I guess this is designed as some kind of propaganda for our government, as the antagonist is a computer who is 'angry at the war in Iraq', and only through valor and courage are these brave American citizens able to save the President and the integrity of our great nation (yes you read that correctly).
If you put a turd from a big red elephant, and soaked it in some urine from a light blue donkey, and let it ferment in a Guantanamo Bay inmate's commissary bucket for a year, it still wouldn't stink as bad as this movie.
Let's see... originality. That's where this movie really shines. An artificially intelligent military defense system that goes haywire and turns against people. Why hasn't anyone thought of this kind of stuff before?
Realism... Despite the fact that electronic displays on subway trains and random street signs are NOT hooked up to any kind of computer network, they are remotely manipulated in this movie. It's got to be some kind of CONSPIRACY!
And I just loved being able to understand what the computer is thinking through absurd 'techno savvy' CGI with BIG labels such as 'SCANNING FOR TARGET PROFILE', or what it's doing through it's incessant voice announcements, even in front of it's adversary... step aside, THE MATRIX! This is how a computer vs. humanity / mysterious voice on a cell phone movie should be done.
Oh, and please don't censor my comment.
I'm a Republican.
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Love for Sale (2008)
Okay.
In regards to the foreclosure comment, granted this was not Star Wars or The Matrix, but it didn't really seem that low budget to me.
I don't think Mia would do a movie for $50,000.
Perhaps you just don't like black people in light of your black movie / budget comments, but if you weren't looking for a romantic African American comedy, you probably shouldn't have chosen to watch this movie.
I don't know if it was the "Love" reference in the title, the genre listing of "comedy", or the rich caricatures within the African American community portrayed that you didn't get, but I thought the movie did an alright job in what it was intended to do.
Although Melyssa Ford did an excellent job in the film, particularly during her emotional breakdown scene, I think this movie offers more to look at than just the women as you put it.
Lastly, I think it is exactly because the black film industry is not exactly overflowing with new releases, that efforts such as these should be lauded, without having to be compared to 90's movie clichés.
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The Wackness (2008)
This movie is based on a true story:
excerpt from Another Chance at Life - short essay and recapitulation, summer 2004
The pinnacle of wit, or "comedy at its finest" as my clique would say, was when my Minnesotan acquaintance made his sardonic Hollywood-inspired observation of the man that I was becoming. "The JOKERRRR!" , he would gush upon seeing me, grinning unabashedly. My completely lethargic academic performance and record setting unattendance would have gotten me kicked out, undoubtedly to my relief and transfer to a better suited school, had it not been for another cruel twist of fate: the principal, a fellow American, took an affinity to me, knew I was brilliant, and couldn't bring himself to do it. By that time it didn't matter anyway. I had been on the torture rack for too long, growing accustomed to it. I had become comfortably numb. I despondently went through the application process when the time came for college, ending up rejected from every one except two small college town universities. That I was finally free to return to the U.S. to attend brought no joy or enthusiasm; it was too late. I couldn't remember what those were.
In college I drifted aimlessly. Simultaneously making me happy, pot made me content, complacent... and docile. When the bantering of my peers fringed on humiliating, I put up with it. Party to this was my overwhelming desire for acceptance after so many years of isolation; gone the proud solitary rage. Burning away in smoke went the ambition, whether to excel academically; or to dominate my peers with testosterone laden aggression. My distinguishing single minded focus came to be motivated by fear instead. Creeping over me was the feeling that I would soon be expected to provide for myself, and college would not provide refuge; I no longer had a place in academics. I devised an utterly crackpot plan. I would return to New York and become a musician.
My father continued to send me a monthly stipend which I felt alright in taking, being a far lesser amount than what continuing college would have cost. Once again, I was Saving him Money, "doing my share", Aiding him in his ineffectuality.
I never made it as a musician. Instead, I met the ineffable Ms. H. Possessing a suicidal childhood and recently ejected by her cheating lover, who continued to come see her at the shanty (and illegal) room-for-rent house at our section of the Queens, New York Spanish barrio, she wasn't somebody I needed to get involved in. And instead of giving it to her and then letting her be the way she expected me to, I felt as if I had to beg and crawl for it. Because she finally afforded me the opportunity to lose my virginity at age 22. Needless to say, my schooling years past the fifth grade had left me with no idea of how to socialize with girls, date girls, or talk to, interact with, or form relationships with girls, let alone women, let alone slightly unstable ones. She turned me out. I married her within months. I felt she was my angel and I her savior. And I became consumed with pity at, like my parents, just how hard done her life had been. I felt grossly sexually in adequate at first, and unworthy of her. I became possessive. I hit her. We had a baby. The marriage was a disaster and within the year I crawled back to the sanctuary of my (dysfunctional) parent's pad overseas.
"So what have you been doing today?"
"Nothing"
"How was school?"
"Okay"
"What did you do?"
"Nothing"
My father had been so oblivious before. Now he seemed unable to find end to my faults, stressing that there was no room for me in the new 'parents only' apartment they had rented now that my sister was also starting college. Nagging me anxiously and suddenly affronted. "Get a job!" my father, who had inadvertently crushed every one of my aspirations, interests, and passions. "No more 'Buy me this'; 'loan me for that'; 'send me money'!" He had never bought me that computer; in fact, I had given him the one I had eventually bought so he could use it for his work when I had last left for the United States. "You need THERAPY." We commenced family counseling. "You're SICK; you need HELP." This referred to the possibility of inpatient treatment. At this, violence erupted from within me and I beat him freely for the first time. There was a frightening look in his eyes, cold and alien, when he would say these things, the way one regards and intruder in ones own home. Looking back, it is hardly surprising: I had become a financial liability.
Which is not to say that I wasn't putting exorbitant money in my pocket, yet, much as when I was doing so in high school, such was impertinent to a man who has his sights set on much loftier things than his space-occupying son.
read the full essay @ http://www.experienceproject.com/uw.php?e=265654
Hancock (2008)
Superhero sleeping on a bench... sounds painfully familiar!
The initial premise was very captivating and I felt that they could have done a lot more with it. A lot of the humor was rather generic and could have used some help. But what I found most disappointing was the way in which movie devolved into some kind of attempt at epic and biblical themes of angles, love, and our purpose in life; more than anything because unfortunately, this, too, was very generic in it's scripting and execution. I would have much rather preferred that the movie continue to play to our fascination and inspiration towards superheros, while playing off the interesting contrast that the misfit and antisocial behavior of the protagonist offered. Even movies with the generic angel / biblical mold such as Constantine and that Christopher Walken movie have been more exciting, with superhuman characters clashing for supremacy.
The public relations bit was cool; the love triangle was not.
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Bulworth (1998)
Great American Classic
Putting aside whether or not it was funny, or had a political message behind it, or whether it is more pertinent than ever in todays political climate and the upcoming 2008 elections... It is a classic tale of love, money, and the American struggle to get ahead at all costs.
The clinch for me, was the fact that the protagonist's motives were NOT motivated by any lofty political idealism or love of humanity, but entirely financial... And the unsurprising, yet nonetheless stunning, twist at the end will surely put this movie in it's rightful place in Hollywood history.
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