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Reviews
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
Three cheers for Marigold
I'm with the Brits on this one. Great movie, great story, great acting. As another wrote here, the acting is so good that no one character outshines another. Each mini-story stands on it's own and plays very well with each other.
As an American, I do try to support and enjoy US film making, but I'm losing patience with the scantily dressed actresses supposedly playing some serious role but falling far short on acting ability. Also at blame are some pretty poorly written scripts and/or direction. After watching Marigold, I immediately thought of the US movie Eat Pray Love. Marigold shines by showing what a quality production can do with what is essentially the same basic premise... the lives and interactions of people and how circumstances can shape them. Eat Pray Love: falls miserably flat, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: a total winner and well worth the watch.
Cheers to you Brits!
The Undefeated (2011)
I didn't know this was a political blog!
To start with, I thought this website (imdb) was about films, documentaries, and the occasional TV shows and series. I also assumed that the user reviews were of a critical nature of a given piece as it pertains to story, screenplay, acting, cinematography... you know the rest. But this film seems mostly reviewed as a function of the political beliefs of the reviewer. Substance be damned. It's similar to people that hate Woody Allen movies not because of his film work but because he's been accused of child molestation. I like many of his films, but I don't need to like him.
I would contrast this film to the film 'The Iron Lady', which got very high ratings. I reviewed it with poor ratings based on the lack of content, not because I like or dislike Margaret Thatcher. Like 'The Undefeated', I wanted to know more about Thatcher but, in this case, walked away with no clue as to her career in office, only an image of a pitiful old lady who couldn't possibly have lead Great Britain as she did. Thus, a negative rating based on a very poor story/screenplay.
I watched 'The Undefeated' to try to learn a bit more about someone who seems to always be slammed by the press but without much substance as to why. In this film, I got a lot of information which greatly helped me to understand where she came from, what she did, and how she has become so hated by the media. I won't elaborate on the media hate in that that's a political statement and as I've implied, this has no place in a review of a film based on the merits of production.
On a negative note, I didn't care for the choppy edits or the UTube-like fragments. I find that style distracting. I believe this is the director and editor(s) fault. What's funny though, is I've seen this type of cinema work before but the films weren't politically charged. The positive reviews liked this style and considered it as 'edgy' and 'street real'. At least one negative review of 'The Undefeated' judged the style as amateur. Go figure. I just don't like it in any case and judged accordingly.
Bottom line, if you want a pretty in depth documentary of Sarah Palin, watch this film. If you don't like what you've been told about her, why waste your time watching it?
The Iron Lady (2011)
What happened to the history of Margaret Thatcher?
I watched this movie out curiosity about Margaret Thatcher. Heard the name, never knew the story. Unfortunately, this movie doesn't appear to be interested in the whole story.
If one believes this movie, her time as Prime Minister was just a non-stop series of rioting in protest of her. Exactly why is not clear. I found out that she was the first (and I'm assuming the only) female British Prime Minister who was also the longest serving of the 20th century. She must have done something right... but not that I saw in this film.
Mostly what I saw was an old, likely senile Margaret Thatcher with scant flashbacks to earlier days that really did little to explain who she was or what she did. While watching this, I became more focused on why this plot wasn't adding up correctly.
Of course, my mistake was assuming this movie was somewhat historical, as opposed to what I could only take as a political hatchet job. After all, how would us Americans react to a movie about Ronald Reagan that detailed his fall to Alzheimer's disease while bouncing back to things he failed at while President?
Guess I'll need to buy her book to find out who she was.