Reviews

OMG DO NOT MISS THIS MOVIE! If you are a fan of fantasy and a fan of OZ, then you will love this movie unless you are the kind of fan who has your nose in the air that all things must be static and perfectly representative of that which you adore so much.

This is NOT the story of Dorothy. It is the story of Oz, the wizard, told with many visual references to the format of the classic tale of Dorothy without deviating from the course of action Dorothy's tale will take years later. It is a prequel of how Oz came to be Oz, and how the good and wicked witches evolved - and well done.

This move deserves much more than the 6.7 it has so far, which matches the rating for Dwayne Johnson's (Wrestling's The Rock) movie Snitch, which was fun and all, and deserves a 6.5 give or take, but when compared to this movie I have to scratch my head. People are odd with their ratings these days. Perfect 10 or Perfect Zero and anything in between is trash? This Oz movie deserves a solid 8.0 It is not the classic but is a well done addition to the classic story, and, in my family, will become a new part of the Land of Oz saga, just as Alice in Wonderland also has a Looking Glass.

This was a fantastic fairy tale movie. How does Alice of Wonderland fall down a hole without getting smashed? How does a Beauty Sleep for a century? How does a teacup and candlestick sing while a beast who was once a prince dances with a beauty? There is no science here, it is the stuff of magic and imagination. So relax those furrowed brows which must find solid logic in all things and enjoy a love story set in one of the most extraordinary environments ever imagined...

The only thing I would have asked for was more, but you can't win for losing with that. Half the audience falls asleep over anything longer than 20 minutes and explanations bore them. The other half won't tolerate anything shorter than 120 minutes filled with an explanation for why the sky is blue.

This is a superb movie. It provides action, stirs compassion and wreaks frustration as we ride out the shock waves created by one small moment in the lives of two men previously unknown to one another. They are each on their way to what they perceive to be the most important event of their lives, the career of one, the family ties of the other. Their goals are disrupted, even destroyed, by the decision made in the moments of their initial meeting, which, we begin to realize, required the efforts of both men for that decision to have been made, and for all the ramifications which unfold with each new choice in their individual efforts to fix what has been broken.

Sometimes, who we become becomes bigger than who we really are. As an American who couldn't care less about the internal politics of another nation having plenty of our own around here, I was still incessantly exposed to the works of Margaret Thatcher. What I knew about Margaret Thatcher before going into this movie was that she was a Strong Woman and a Highly Controversial Figure who was Loved and Hated and accomplished a lot for her nation and at some deep opposition many times. Is this enough to know about someone?

Should this movie have been about her work? Many think so. But I am glad it was about the woman. The person forgotten. The humanity behind the historical figure. This movie gave me a glimpse into who she was, why she was, and, in my humble opinion, gracefully gave her a salute as a human woman more than any repetition of what can be found in any history book. If you want to know the heart behind the mind, this movie, and Meryl Streep's performance, will give you that.

The movie starts slow and stays slow. After 40 minutes of a painful attempt to keep giving it time, I shut it down. It is an anti-American, anti-Democracy, anti-Capitalism propaganda flick, and not even good at doing it. Although it is true corporate greed wants us fat, buying their bad foods, then buying their weight-loss drugs and programs like a roller coaster, the idea that they are behind making us think fat is beautiful is ridiculous. This is suggesting that attempts to help girls stop trying to be a size 0 and to accept a small amount of plumpness as a natural beauty is actually an evil attempt to keep girls fat. Women were plump long before fast foods and democracies. Go to any art museum to find out. Meantime, the movie is a boring attempt to make an idea that fits in one paragraph stretch into a whole movie. Don't waste your time, read real reports instead.

Not a typical horror or gore movie. Instead, this is a great pleading for why it is necessary to pay attention to your children, instead of ignoring the unpleasant things because they don't suit you. It's not one I would watch again, but it was definitely worth one trip into the minds of this family, the very kind of family we read about after some tragedy, and notice everyone says "They were such a good family. They seemed like such sweet children. Well, the older one was a little odd, but isn't any awkward girl just a little odd?"

This line is added to convince IMDb's review writing parameters that I have typed enough about this movie to satisfy everyone, including the fact that I was not privileged to see this at any kind of festival and have no obsession with following any particular directors, actors or producers outside of common knowledge.

People are too uneducated these days about scary movies, they think they should all be 'horror' movies. You'll see this 'disappointment' in a lot of reviews for this movie: Oh it was the worst horror movie ever, not scary enough, blah blah. But see,.. it's a Psycho Thriller.

It's about the mind. Not blood and gore, not melting flesh. It's about how horror comes to life around us - when it is real, when it is imagined, and when it's real because it has been imagined.

Good movie. Enjoy.

This sentence is here just because IMDb thinks reviews have to be longer than they need to be, and most reviewers agree, so they spend a lot of time telling you the same thing you just read in the movie description and how pleased they were to catch it at some film festival.

The people who think Tommy Lee Jones' character is abusive or think Streep is a wimp who likes being abused, and hate the movie they call "about an abusive marriage" aren't getting the point. They probably have some baggage they are carrying around themselves.

They see a grumpy man and a gentle wife and think "Abusive man! Abusive man! Castrate him! Do it now!" lol

If they had watched the movie, the visual movie, not just dialogue but motions and expressions and sounds, they would have learned that Streep is as much at fault for causing Tommy Lee Jones to be grumpy and unwilling to have sex as he is himself. This movie, with a light hand, demonstrates that still waters run deep and there are always two sides to every story.

Before you can explore, you have to want to. You think Tommy Lee Jones is the grumpy, selfish husband who doesn't give his wife what she needs, but you find it takes two to tango and she has a lot of fears to overcome of her own. Most of all, neither one of the ever talks to the other about what they need or want. Both are guilty. It's not a complicated story; it's about one thing: Making your marriage and sex life happy even after many years have passed.

Steve Carell portrays a sex therapist with his typical low-keyed, gracious humor. Streep's and Jones' characters know each other inside out, yet don't know the most important things. These characters don't waste a lot of time with dialogue, we know the drill. They are showing us, instead, the automatic motions we fall into when we don't know how to make our love a pleasure, and the struggle to break free of those patterns.

I laughed a lot with this one, and I can't recommend it for my mother because even without nudity, the scenes and discussions were graphic enough that she would turn it off in embarrassment.

Both Tommy and Meryl deliver comic relief time and again, making this a good lighthearted watch. Enjoy.

Do you care where I saw this? Do you care what I think about the director, the producers? Do you care how I feel about camera angles and if I've been a fan of the actors?

No? Good. Watch this movie. Clint Eastwood will make you laugh and he will make you squirm. So will the others. The surprise ending will be both right and wrong but the best ending possible. A tale of a tragic life that wasn't always tragic but bad things happen to all of us and sometimes we don't pull out of it the way everyone around us would prefer. Sometimes we just can't please them, and sometimes their displeasure makes the tragedy endure. Life can be mean. But the human spirit can be inspired by the oddest little things.

I was going to give this 9 out of 10 stars. Then I tried to think of explaining why it didn't get the 10th star. I couldn't come up with anything. So I corrected myself.

Enjoy.

HOW CAN A MOVIE RATED SO HIGHLY WITH AN AVERAGE OF OVER 7 STARS have so many hateful reviews? How? Because you are giving it LOTS of stars while HATING IT! Seriously, one person gave it EIGHT FREAKING STARS followed by a review of how much they couldn't stand the movie.

WHAT???????? I don't know if I want to see it or don't want to see it. YOU ALL SPEND TOO MUCH TIME TYPING LOTS OF WORDS NO ONE REALLY WANTS TO READ (I mean, really, do I CARE if when and where and with whom you saw a movie? Does your exposure to a sundance festival impress me? NO!) and you don't spend enough time paying attention to the CORRECT WAY TO STAR A MOVIE.

Argh.

I think it's really important for people who don't like a movie to rate it lower than five or six stars. Only miraculously wonderful movies are ever rated close to a 10 or a 9 or even an 8. Seven is considered exceptional and when I see a movie rated 5 or in this case, 6.1, I'm thinking it's going to be a good movie. Not exceptional. Not miraculously wonderful. Just good. So I don't understand how so many bad reviews here have rated it 5 stars. That means it is okay. Average. Medium. Six means it is above average, more than just okay, it is good. 7 is a solid great. 8 is fantastic. 9 is OMG don't die without seeing it and 10 is heaven.

With this in mind, I want to thank everyone for giving it enough stars to make me think it would be good. I hate reading the reviews, they are always far too wordy. Now, for my review: Don't waste your time. It doesn't deserve the stars everyone who hates it has given it.

People who expect movies to be clean mouthed, high brow humor should read who is in it and what it's about - and who wrote it - before seeing it. Ben Stiller is not known for highbrow family-oriented humor. His humor is Night at the Museum, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder. Also, the writers here include Seth Rogen. Seth's movies include Zack and Miri Make A Porno and The 40 Year Old Virgin. If you don't like a good guffaw over some fun, sometimes immature, comedy antics go to the highbrow humor you want. There is room for everything. I thoroughly enjoyed this silly movie about an oddball group of men saving their world from aliens.

It's good if you aren't wanting a hero Could have been worse, or better. Personally, it would have been better with a female lead who was actually heroic rather than careless. It was as if she refused to believe that it is the deadliest situation the world has ever faced, getting other people killed with her thoughtlessness, from disregarding safety procedures to running, screaming, through gates not warning the guard who unlocks them that his friend running behind her is now a zombie. While she pretends to care about other people and hating the group leader for making cold, mean decisions, she lets someone take blame for her actions, and doesn't mourn the results of what she did. she repeatedly fails to care about other people herself. I suppose it's an interesting comparison about human nature, but with these kinds of movies I prefer a little more winning and less fail.

Good for a low budget flick, it isn't just a hackem slashem, it gets you involved with the backgrounds of the characters, and a good feel for what it would be like to be subjected to this kind of imprisonment from a young age, and succeeds in getting you involved with the characters, all of them. The plot had very good twists, they just were a little slow coming, with the best twist at the end, don't blink or you miss it and the entire explanation. But I give it only a 6 because it was a little too slow moving and because they left out an important detail. It doesn't explain what happened to a particular female character and this is unacceptable. It is too easy to make assumptions, especially when no clues are given for those assumptions other than lack of them. Other than this, it is a good, but slow ride. Thumbs up for not trashing it up with cheesy nude shots, the victims are truly victims.

Excellent. Very well done with cast, direction and plot development. Sure, it's a thriller/horror flick and sure it's a typical story, there are no new stories only new ways to tell them. This is one which keeps your hands gripping the edge of your seat as everyone is one step ahead or behind of everyone else every moment. There isn't a tremendous amount of blood and gore, it's about two people being set up for use in an underground torture flick ring, there are no hundreds of other victims in front of the camera, so if you want that, it isn't here. Makes me want to look for hidden cameras in every motel room. IMDb requires minimum 10 lines per review so I'm adding this instead of stuff you wouldn't want to read anyway.

It was OK. It wasn't a deep thought provoking movie, and there wasn't a lot of gore and scary stuff for hardcore horror flicks, it's more of a thriller and not too badly done, just not memorable or worth paying hard bucks for. If you are looking for a deep discussion afterward, this wouldn't be the one to watch. I'd use it as a warmup during the lights on, gulping the beers or wine coolers, joking around, tossing pillows and chowing down on some messy snacks before the real movie starts time period. I'm not telling you what it's about because you already read that before scrolling down to the reviews. IMDb requires at least 10 lines for a review, so I am filling it in with this fact, since it would be stupid to fill it in with stuff you don't really want to read.

Thank you for the reviews, I've decided to go with what must have been the first of the 13 reviews listed here.. the one who wished their review would inspire others to answer her question: What the heck is the movie about? because it apparently never went anywhere. Unfortunately, I was only able to read a few more reviews and had to hang it up. I won't waste time telling you this is a movie about a man who takes his kids on a vacation in a cabin at Christmas, and that he is a widower, as so many others feel compelled to do. Because you already know this. When you read reviews to find out what a movie is about, it isn't to find out the stuff you just got through reading next to the movie title, it's to find out what it is REALLY about. So I gave up, I think the first reviewer was right, that's all there is. And everyone else just likes to hear themselves talk.

I don't know, all the reviews were so long, I moved on to a different movie. I figure if it's got that many people writing paragraphs of stuff, it's either really bad - or too "good" to be good. IMDb requires 10 lines for reviews. That's enough to say if you liked a movie, because this review exactly meets that requirement. As you can see, it forces me to type a lot more than you actually care to read. If I wanted your opinion about the history and reputations of the crew members and how every scene made you tingle all over, I'd be visiting you at a blog somewhere, instead of checking IMDb to see if a movie is good enough to download tonight.