Change Your Image
wtmjr
Reviews
Finding Forrester (2000)
promising, but then disappointing
Might be some spoilers...
A good premise, some solid acting by Sean Connery and Robert Brown in his debut. But the pacing is poor at some points, and some of the supporting characters are so contrived and one-sided that they really hurt the movie. Professor Crawford? Not a complex bone in his body.
Claire Spence's father? A racist businessman who lives for high school basketball and appreciates well-written prose? He simply didn't ring true.
And can any of us imagine our high school English classes sitting still for every member to read a 20-page assignment? (Note that I used a conjunction at the start of that sentence to emphasize it. You'll get it if you see the movie.)
And there are too many loose ends. I wanted Forrester to have a more interesting story -- why was he hiding inside his apartment all those years? Was he agrophobic or just depressed? Who is that guy in the BMW? I know he delivers stuff to Forrester, but why? I thought something was going to happen with Busta Rhymes, but nothing ever did.
Frankly my guess is that the problem was in editing, not in writing or directing, given that we've all seen what Gus Van Sant can do elsewhere. I liked the opening. There were a few good lines. But if it were a book, I'd have read as far as page 40 (and no further).
Three Kings (1999)
great movie, but overlooked
Very well executed, although it gets a little muddled in the end. I am intrigued by the breakdown of comments here -- roughly, the Americans love it and the foreigners hate it.
Great use of images -- the way you learn about the main characters' backstories is great, for example.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Not a word wasted
If you haven't seen this movie, skip down to the next comment, because a SPOILER follows. This movie has been aptly (and deservedly) praised by others, so I'll comment on just one thing. Watch "The Shawshank Redemption" two or three times and witness the superb foreshadowing, even just within the dialogue. Example: when Andy, appearing depressed, rambles to Red about what it would be like to be outside prison and in Mexico, Red brings him back to reality by telling him that the idea of ever leaving prison is "just a bunch of shitty pipe dreams." Then Andy actually escapes by crawling through a sewer pipe. Brilliant, just brilliant.